Years of Doom: Wolf 359

The USS Unryu, was the most recent starship in the Akira family
 of Heavy cruisers and Thomas was as proud as he could be,
 by taking that ship into its shake down cruise. Wearing
 his new rank insignia, it was April 2265 when he ordered ¼ impulse
 and the ship gained the galaxy. He stopped shacking
 only when the ship's test drive ended a month later and the Unryu
 was the ship with the least bugs detected in its class thus
 taking only another month for it to reach full combat readiness.

Immediately Andrews was dispatched to possible "hot" spots of
 Federation territory to act as a dissuasive measure against eventual foes,
 but July brought with it the disaster. Thomas woke up
 as usual amid the familiar buzzing of the ship's impulse engines...
 truth be said, the Akiras are some of the most silent ships
 in the fleet with its warp nacelles well away from the main hull.
 The bridge crew was gloomy with the latest news concerning
 a terrible civilian disaster: The SS Oceanic had been
 destroyed with most of the passengers aboard and
 unfortunately for Andrews, his wife and two daughters were travelling
 in the ship at the moment and were not among the confirmed survivors...

He was devastated. Star Fleet did not clarify exactly what
 had happened to the liner and the captain did his best to
 find out the full story, but without success. This disaster
 would initiate the worse years of the man's life in a chain
 of events that conducted him to a hospital bed and total
 spiritual emptiness with only the letters of his friend
 Francesca to cheer him up. Days later, while on patrol near
 the Romulan Star Empire, cataloging several mysteriously
 obliterated outposts, a Romulan Bird of Prey invaded the
 Neutral Zone seeking exile. A D'Deridex and a D'Kazanak Warbirds
 decloaked and Adrews was forced to fight, disabling the smaller
 cruiser by forcing its Quantum Singularity to shut down.
 Having no gravity source nearby, the ship was unable
 to re-start its warp drive. Fortunately, two other Federation
 ships arrived and the battle was a virtual stand still
 and both parties went separate ways.

Not a year after the horrible Oceanic disaster, more alarming news
 arrived, concerning a Borg Cube that had penetrated
 Federation territory. This time, Andrews' intelligence
 skills were useless against a foe that had never been defeated
 and about which, there was only sparse information. The Unryu
 engaged maximum warp and headed for interception,
 together with other vessels of several classes and arriving at
 Wolf 359 on the first half of the battle, to testify the onslaught
 of the Federation's fleet. Not having time for any well
 thought action, Andrews followed the deeds of everyone else
 in the battle and made a frontal attack with all weapons blazing.
 Another ship did the same and crossed his path only to be
 obliterated. The Irish captain saw in woe as the big engineering
 hull of the titanic Galaxy class explorer gave in
 to the Borg's beams and began ripping apart.

There was nothing the Unryu could do. A photon salvo disengaged
 the enemy's tractor beam thus releasing the helpless Galaxy
 only to have it steer without control against the Akira
 class ship that made a last second evasive action. In the seconds
 that followed, the big ship desperately tried to detach the saucer
 section when the warp core breached and a wave of plasma
 took the lives of all 2000 men and women aboard. Thomas
 sank in his chair, fearing his beloved ship would suffer
 the same fate as all others... and effectively, its end drew
 nearer when an hour later, while doing a coordinated
 attack with five other ships' the Unryu's starboard nacelle
 was ripped apart and exploded with a feedback that
 disabled the cruiser's warp drive. There was only one way out,
 and that was to retreat before the ship would be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the swarm of attacking ships made it difficult
 to steer and Andrews was kept within the perimeter of the Borg
 for several more hours, taking blasts from both sides and being
 damaged by debris. With his bridge scorched and his first
 officer and pilot dead, Thomas took the helm and managed
 to avoid the adversary's tractor beam several times while still
 delivering some punches. Then it all happened... a small
 Saber class destroyer, brand new from the shipyards,
 made a brave but desperate attack at the gigantic cube only
 to be torn to pieces in milliseconds. Its hull was then sent
 spiraling towards the Unryu, hitting hit and bringing down
 all the shields the ship yet had while destroying the 
roll bar up to the left support extension and causing
 a warp core failure.

Andrews ordered immediate evacuation while ordering the ship's
 self destruction sequence and sending it in a collision
 course with the cyborg's space titan. In the last minute,
 he jumped inside an escape pod and ejected himself while thinking
 of the panicked crewmen he had left behind running in
 the burning corridors, screaming for their family... when
 the ship crashed and became a wave of energy and plasma,
 he knew it was all over and faded into unconsciousness.

When he woke up, he was aboard the USS Olympic, a name that
 brought him fowl memories but that was the hospital ship that
 had saved him... question remained if he wanted to be saved.
 For months he had to be healed from the extensive radiation
 burns he had suffered and the mental trauma he had also sustained.
 Meanwhile, from the border zone, more bad news arrived. It was 2267
 and the Federation had been forced to end
 the hostilities with the Cardassians, not before abandoning
 most of the border colonies. His dear friend Francesca, had
 been forced to leave her delightful restaurant behind and seemed
 to be involved with a underground group, called the Maquis.
 To the wounded man, it would look that those people
 had all the reasons in the universe to do what they were doing
 and Star Fleet had been a coward.

Worse, while in convalescence, he did his best to find the
 truth about the death of his family. In shock, he found that
 there had been a cover up... it would seem that Star Fleet
 had been testing a new device capable of rendering a ship invisible
 to sensors and carelessly tested it in a civilian zone.
 Then, when the Oceanic passed by at warp 7, she rammed
 the testbed and was tossed without control into an asteroid field,
 thus being completely destroyed. Due to the secrecy
 of the project, it had taken a week for help to arrive and
 someone at Star Fleet Command had made his best to cover it all up.
 Thomas felt betrayed.