| Battle of Unity Starbase | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Part of Rakelli Conflict | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date: | Late 2384 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Location: | Unity One Starbase | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Result: | Federation | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Unity Starbase was an engagement between the United Federation of Planets and the Rakelli. The battle is widely seen as the beginning of the series of incidents between the station's crew and the pirates. (Star Trek: Unity: "New Order, Part One", "New Order, Part Two")
Prelude[]
The single Borg cube that had come away from the Borg Elimination Incident intact had hidden in the Azure Nebula. The Borg Collective (who needed to regain their power) ordered a drone to take over the role of the Rakelli emperor so that they could control their weak but expanding civilization, and turn it against the Alliance. After two months of preparation, the Rakelli were ready to make their first move against the Alliance. The newly built Unity One Starbase had just been completed. This posed a problem for the Rakelli, because the station's advanced anti-cloak sensor array could detect their pirate operations throughout the Klingon Empire. The Rakelli decided on the covert approach to begin with. They packed a freighter with photon explosives, planning to dock with the station and then self-destruct. However, this did not work because a Klingon Bird of Prey, the IKS Di'tang, intercepted and eliminated the freighter. Next, the Rakelli sent two captured Federation Saber-class starships, the USS Goodall and the USS Bartram, to gain the station's trust and then ram into it. This failed because the Saber class starships were small compared to Unity One Starbase, and only cause six percent damage to the station's superstructure. Tired of this covert approach, the Rakelli Emperor sent Commander Jimb'a on a Rakelli light cruiser and two Rakelli frigates to the station, demanding that the sensor array be deactivated.
The station's commander, Captain Puto, stalled for time by telling Jimb'a that the sensors needed time to be deactivated. Jimb'a gave him thirty minutes.
The battle[]
After the time had passed with no sign of the sensor array being powered down, Commander Jimb'a decided to open fire on Unity One Starbase. This was not, however before several squads of Alliance fighters had launched and attacked the two Rakelli frigates. With Unity's shields down to launch the fighters, the Rakelli light cruiser scored a direct hit to the core of the station causing heavy damage to the superstructure. After the fighters had destroyed one of the frigates, they moved onto the second, while the USS Hawk engaged the Rakelli light cruiser and provided defensive fire for the fighters. With both the Hawk's and Unity's full phaser fire overloading the light cruiser's shields, Commander Jimb'a ordered the cruiser to warp, while a missile salvo finished the second Rakelli frigate.
Aftermath[]
While damage to Unity One Starbase was extensive, Alliance engineers worked around the clock to repair it and the station was operational again within a week. When the Rakelli cruiser returned to base, Jimb'a was sentenced to death for failing his mission, but escaped to the protective custody of the Alliance.
Evaluation[]
The battle was bloody and each side sustained heavy damage, but overall victory lied with the Federation, who after capturing several Rakelli in escape pods, discovered useful data on the Rakelli to use against them.