USS Wasp
More actions
"I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor."
- Horatio Nelson
USS Wasp (NCC-74209) is a Defiant-class Federation starship currently assigned to the Fourth Fleet's Task Force 47. She is currently under the command of Lieutenant Commander Song So-mi.
Construction and Commissioning
In the early 2370s, Starfleet was in something of a crisis. The Dominion had stepped onto the galactic stage with an explosive entrance, tensions with the Cardassians (and, for a while, the Klingons) were on the rise, and the Federation was wary of a return of the Borg. However, in early 2371, the crew of Deep Space 9 fixed most of the flaws with the prototype USS Defiant, and the vessel performed well enough that Starfleet rapidly ordered the design into production with their modifications.
Hull number 74209 was constructed by 40 Eridani A Fleet Yards as, sequentially, the first of a batch of six. However, the small size of the vessels meant all six were worked on simultaneously. She was christened as USS Wasp shortly after being laid down in late 2371, launched in September 2372, and commissioned on April 18th, 2373, as the third of the six ships to enter service. She was constructed alongside sister ships Valiant (NCC-74210), Bennington (NCC-74211), Kumari (NCC-74212), Hotspur (NCC-74213), and Escapade (NCC-74214). Together, these six ships were to form Escort Wing 3.
Dominion War
None of the six ships were finished their shakedown cruises, and some still fitting out, when the Battle of Sector 001 was fought. Shortly after, Valiant was pulled out of the wing to serve as a training ship, and her spot was filled by a ship from another yard, Parramatta (NCC-74238). The start of the Dominion War threw Starfleet's organization into temporary disarray, and thus only Wasp and Bennington participated in the Battle of Torros III, an early victory. However, this also came with their first loss- though not intended to operate with the Seventh Fleet, Escapade was drawn into the Battle of Tyra and lost.
By early 2374, the five ships were consolidated and Escapade replaced with Maverick (NCC-74286). Kumari was lost during a raid on a Dominion comms buoy, severely damaged by Jem'Hadar fighters; her crew was taken off by Wasp and then the hulk was scuttled. By the time of Operation Return, she was replaced by Zeus (NCC-74302). The mission to retake Deep Space Nine caused heavy casualties but was ultimately a success- however, Parramatta and Hotspur were lost and Maverick forced to head home for repairs.
Wasp, Bennington, and Zeus soldiered on, participating in the First Battle of Chin'toka without loss. However, a stroke of luck masquerading as misfortune struck Wasp shortly after. She was part of an ad-hoc unit scraped up to chase down the Romulan-hijacked USS Prometheus, and was accidentally hit by friendly fire from the experimental escort during the engagement. While the torpedo failed to get through both the shields and the ablative armor entirely, the concussive force crushed Wasp's underside, buckling the hull inwards, destroying her shuttles in their bay, and causing four casualties. While Wasp was under repairs, the Second Battle of Chin'toka was fought, destroying not only the original Defiant but also Bennington and Zeus. With Valiant also having been lost in 2374, this left Wasp as the sole survivor of the original Escort Wing 3, which was dissolved.
Wasp and Maverick did serve together one last time, at the Battle of Cardassia. Wasp's bow was crumpled after she slammed into debris from another starship, but both ultimately survived. She spent the rest of 2375 and early 2376 undergoing repairs and an overhaul.
Post-War Service
Wasp spent the next few years of her life on quiet patrols on the frontier, the only particularly unique aspect of her being her independent nature- always assigned with her own crew, never as a starbase support ship, though she did occasionally cover for others while under repair or refit. Wasp racked up an impressive record as an antipiracy and convoy escort vessel, but also put the Defiant-class's science capabilities to the test in 2381, as a scout ship penetrating deep into nebulae where less robust ships struggled to go.
In 2384, she was part of Kathryn Janeway's fleet which intercepted the wayward USS Protostar, and was infected with a virus that turned the entire fleet on itself. Wasp and her sister Defiant fought a brief but fierce engagement, but surprisingly caused little damage to each other before said virus was wiped from their systems. As one of the few ships still fully operational, Wasp shepherded the more damaged vessels back to spacedock, and then she herself was slotted into a yard for a full systems scrub and some minor repairs.
Her repairs were finished just in time for the Attack on Mars to commence- Wasp was still in-system and thus one of the first responders, but being so badly outnumbered meant she and whatever ships could be scrambled were relegated to evacuation and escort duties. As Starfleet turned back in on itself, the 15-year-old escort was called back into the yards in 2388 for a comprehensive refit and overhaul- increasing her automation, improving her living conditions, and upgrading her scientific and medical capabilities (as much as possible) to expand her mission profiles from purely combat to something approaching a usable multirole vessel.
The veteran little ship returned to her duties in 2390, and nothing more of note occurred- with the Federation withdrawn to its own borders, Wasp was simply a border patrol vessel doing customs inspections and occasionally shuttling larger ships from one starbase to another. However, her luck held out one more time- Wasp was not present for Frontier Day 2401, as she was undergoing her mid-life overhaul and inspection at Anaxes Fleet Yards.
Her planned upgrades to take the Fleet Formation protocol were cancelled before they were ever installed, and thus Wasp spent much of 2401 to early 2402 running from one end of the Federation to another, filling gaps in Starfleet's line and racking up an impressive operational tempo under Lieutenant Commander Song So-Mi, who took charge in February 2402. This increased operational rate required another, though shorter, overhaul after the end of the Vaadwaur crisis, and in October 2402 Wasp was finally, permanently, assigned to the Fourth Fleet's Task Force 47.