USS Velociraptor

From Star Trek: Theurgy Wiki

The USS Velociraptor
Image © Paramount

The USS Velociraptor was a 24th century a heavily modified Steamrunner-class starship designed to serve as an Escort Carrier that was owned by the United Federation of Planets and was operated by Starfleet.

Leon Marquez served aboard the Velociraptor from 2368 until 2371, receiving a promotion from ensign to lieutenant (junior grade) aboard the Velociraptor in 2370. At the time it carried Danube-class runabouts that it used for combat purposes.

In 2369 the Velociraptor was assigned to the Bajoran Sector where it encountered its first noteworthy skirmish: Two Cardassian Galor-class cruisers, acting suspiciously and refusing hails in the Badlands. Upon being fired upon while at yellow alert, the two ships were found to be smuggling Bajoran laborers, and the USS Velociraptor disabled both vessels, pinging their location to their superiors, who 'would deal with the matter', per jurisdictional mandate.

In 2370 one of the Velociraptor’s crew, a Denobulan paramedic defected to the Maquis when the Federation signed the Federation-Cardassian Treaty in 2370 that created the Demilitarized Zone. The paramedic had been a friend of Marquez, who refused to defect to the Maquis despite his distrust of the Cardassians on principle.

In 2371, the USS Velociraptor participated in Starfleet’s “Operation Rodeo” that resulted in the capture of five Maquis raiders without a single loss of life. The USS Velociraptor would appear from warp, firing a harmless, but shield-dampening tetryon bombardment, to neutralizing the raider’s shields, allowing the ship’s security officers to beam in and arrest the renegades and confiscate their vessels with few casualties. After their capture, one raider was kept intact for study while the other five were scuttled.