These are the Voyages of the U.S.S. K'uu-ch'ish. . .

It seems like I was doing this just last week.

Captain's Personal Log, Stardate 92827.72: It seems like I barely even got a chance to pin on my fourth pip, and already my senior staff and I are transferring to a new ship, the Cochise. It's beefier than the Crazy Horse, with a much larger crew and the latest weapon systems available. In addition, I have a new crew member, Cmdr Remei Castell, a liberated Borg who is a wizard at starship engineering. (Ginny isn't exactly happy about it, but that has nothing to do with Cmdr Castell's abilities.) Apparently, the task ahead is more hazardous and important than Starfleet had originally thought. On the other hand, I can't help wondering if the recent business with the Devidians and Section 31 may not also have something to do with my sudden promotion. In any event, after getting outfitted for anticipated contingencies, we'll be leaving Earth Spacedock yet again for Romulan territory, and from there, who knows?

Named after a great chief of the Chiricahua Apache in 19th century Arizona, the U.S.S. K'uu-ch'ish, NCC-93054, is a Patrol Escort, one of two escort variants available to Rear Admirals, Lower Half; this one an extra engineering console and ensign bridge position.

Plaque Dedication: "We will make peace; we will keep it faithfully. But let us go around free. . ."~~Chief K'uu-chi'ish. As with the namesakes of all Locke's Escort ships, K'uu-ch'ish (or Cochise) led his warrior band in hostilities against the encroaching United States.

As always, I spent way too much time with the various combinations before settling on what you see. I almost dumped the center pylon "wings," but kept them so as to display the Federation News Service logo. The Sagittarius/Virgo paint scheme keeps the vaguely warpaint look, while adding some "southwest" motives. As an escort, I felt the ship needed a darker appearance, making it harder to see in open space.

It took me a little over a week to level up through the Captain levels, partly from learning to use the Duty Officer System. Six of those levels were on Saturday, and the last on Sunday. Every time I completed a mission from "Spectres" (the Devidian episode), I got another level. Come to think of it, the only other story stuff I've done on Locke since returning to STO is the "Temporal Ambassador" mission left over from the Third Anniversary event, involving the crew of the Enterprise-C. I'll bet DTI just loves Locke's mission reports. After paupering myself to replace weapons and consoles still on hand from when Locke was a lieutenant commander, I took K'uu-ch'ish on a shakedown cruise into a Borg incursion daily. She handles pretty well, and seems to have plenty of firepower. But I did blow up a few times when I drew too much attention to myself.

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