Location:   USS Montgomery, Ten Forward

Extra Notes: This history of the USS Montgomery under the command of Jeff Field was told by CE Murri Kep to new CO Jacob Delmaron shortly before Delmaron defected and tried to attack the Crag.  It covers the Cursed Ship's horrors up through the end of the Crag War. 

Posted By: Lt. Cmdr. Murri Kep (CE)

"Well," Kep began.  "Our first mission should have tipped me off that something was wrong on this ship.  We were in Fleet Three at the time, the first Trafalgar in that part of space.  No sooner had we left Starbase 117, however, we discovered that the ambassador we were supposed to be escorting was in fact the infamous Maquis leader Filitov."

Delmaron and Megik gasped.

"Yes, him.  Well, he and several other Maquis spies seised control of the ship and beamed most of the crew down to the planetoid Zeta III.  Fortunately, they couldn't transport the entire crew at once, so when I noticed my engineers disappearing, I jammed the transporter controls in Engineering.  I was able to free Captain Field and the Ops officer, the only other crew left on board, but when we tried to retake the bridge we were driven back.  We also tried to use GORBI, who had just been activated, to lockout computer control, but when we beamed to the bridge, thinking we had filled it with anesthazine, we discovered that one of the Maquis was none other than the Admiral of Starbase 117, who had arrived aboard a stolen science vessel just in time to pull rank on the computer's security systems.  Don't worry, I've since fixed that problem, Captian."

Delmaron breathed a sigh of relief.

"Anyway, just before we were taken to the brig, Field (Actually, my post, but I credited his character with it) signaled one of the Maquis, who I found out later was a Starfleet counter spy, and as soon as we were in the turbolift the bridge blew up, taking Filitov with it.  The brave soul had sacrificed himself to keep the ship out of Maquis hands."

Kep paused a moment to wrestly a lively racht worm into his mouth.

"By this point, however, we were already in the Badlands, and what did we find in Engineering but a Changeling, which had been hiding as a dustball on the warp core.  Don't ask me how it got there.  I don't know.  Anyway, we were able to capture it just before the Jem'Hadar arrived, who agreed to escort us out of the Badlands in exchange for the Founder's release.  They escorted us out, but onto the wrong side of the border.  We found ourselves facing a pair of Cardassian warships.  Fortunately for us, they weren't prepared for the power that a Trafalgar carries and we were able to beat them back and run.  We picked up the crew at Zeta III and returned to Starbase 117 to have a new bridge put on."

"Our next mission I'm surprised we survived, although it turned out to be Starfleet's first contact with the Crag.  Intel had found a Borg colony on a forest moon not far from the Federation, and the Monty was ordered to destroy it, single-handedly.  If I ever find the Admiral who came up with that idea I'm going to kill him.  As soon as we arrived, we discovered that the Borg were being attacked, and beaten, it seemed, by some sort of small, furry teddy bears.  We later learned that these were Crag, but that came later.  Anyway, we were ambushed by a Borg cube, and forced to crash land, upside down, on the moon's surface.  As we were trying to figure out how to get out of that one, several hundred ships arrived, also Crag we later learned, and began to pummel both the Borg and the moon.  They were being persued by a Klingon cruiser, which was able to help us get back into orbit by pulling us with its tractor beam while we fired our weapons at the surface, which made sense since we were upside down.  As we beat a hasty retreat, the Crag finished destroying the planet.  Literally.  I'll never forget that sight.  Hundreds of ships firing some weapon at the moon, and the moon slowly disintegrating.  Finally, it simply blew up.  By the time we got back to the Federation, the Romulans had contacted Starfleet about the Crag and the war was on."

Kep paused for dramatic effect.

"Since we were the only Federation ship to ever engage the Crag, we were assigned as the flagship of the new War Fleet, which later became Fleet Four.  Our first mission in the war was to search for the Aurora-class USS Concorde (at the time an NPC ship), which had lost contact with Fleet Command some days earlier.  We found it, alright.  Minus half the saucer section, but we found it.  Commander Torres, Lt. Cmdr. Zukk, and I beamed over, where we found that it had been attcked by the Crag and the entire crew killed.  We even found a Crag corpse, which gave Dr. Humphreys no end of pleasure dissecting."

Kep grinned and shot a glance at the Doctor at the other end of the room.

"Well, while we were busy there, the Monty was called away to try and save the USS Boston, which was under attack by a Crag squadron.  It wasn't a nice fight.  The Monty was nearly destroyed, and lost another bridge to a Crag phaser blast.  Meanwhile, with the help of the Klingon Crusier Twilight's Hammer we were able to get the Concorde warp capable and even get a phaser working.  We and the Klingons snuck into the battle scene and drove the Crag off, just in time to recieve word from Deep Space 19, then the Fleet Four command center, that they were under attack by the Crag and were loosing, while the command crew had left on the USS Independence to chase down a Crag blockade runner on its way to Vulcan.  The Monty, Concorde, and Twilight's Hammer raced back to DS19, but too late to help.  DS19 was overrun and captured, and we rondez-voused with the gathering fleet, as well as the CCS Crouge, a Crag ship that the USS Alliance, my brother-in-law's ship, had captured at Iggy X."

"Brother-in-law?" Delmaron asked.

"Yep, Captain Bligh is my brother-in-law.  Don't ask how, it's an even longer story than this one.  Anyway, I decided that the Concorde was simply not salvageable, so with Commodore Field's permission I used it to ram DS19 and destroy it.  At least the Crag didn't get their hands on it.  I was beamed off by the USS Pork and returned to the Montgomery, just as the fleet moved its headquarters to Deep Space 20 at Iggy V.  Yet another of my brother-in-law's successes.  We had a new bridge installed, again, and this time were given a whole task force for our next mission."

Kep sighed.

"But that didn't make it any easier.  Remember that Admiral at Command who sent us after that Borg colony?  Well this time he gave us a Task Force of six ships and told us to take out the Crag's primary installation, which was guarded by at least four hundred heavy crusiers and two thousand of those little Crag ships.  I swear in packs those things are deadly.  The approach vector Command ordered us in on also sent us into a defensive mine field, to boot. Before we knew it, we had lost two ships, most of our fighters, and we had to eject our warp core.  Communication was knocked out, so my staff and I took control of Auxiluary Control and fired the Subspace Shockwave Generator module which we had installed for that mission at the heart of the Crag force.  It made an opening large enough for us to slip through and retreat.  You know, we seem to do a lot of that on this ship."

Kep thought about that for a moment.  It was a disturbing thought.  Finally he shook himself back to reality.

"Anyway, while being towed back to DS20 we were attacked again by the Crag.  Apparently they wanted to take out the flagship while it was vulnerable.  Our escort was driven off, and we were borded and Engineering and the bridge taken.  Several officers and I regrouped in Sickbay and managed to rescue Commadore Field and a few Nameless Ensigns from the bridge before moving to Auxiluary Control.  This is when we lost our third bridge, this time at my order, to keep it out of Crag hands.  Before we could send for help, however, we were attacked in Aux. Control and Commodore Field was taken prisioner.  We later learned that he was taken to the Rolchana, the Star of Death that the Overlords were using to control the Crag.  The Alliance was able to save him before destroying the Rolchana, but frankly I haven't seen him since he was taken prisioner."

Kep sighed.

"Anyway, since at the time we had no XO I took command, just in time for the Rolchana to be distroyed and the Crag to be freed, ending the war.  The Normandy arrived and towed us the rest of the way back to DS20, where we had another bridge installed, this one our fourth, and you two arrived.  And the chaos continues..."

Kep ended his tale with a sweep of his hand.

"Now do you see why so many of the crew call this the 'Cursed Ship?'"  Kep smiled.

--Lt. Cmdr. Murri Kep, CE