COBRA Baroness class Battlecruiser

The first COBRA/Klingon War (2142 to 2146) pressed the fledgling COBRA state to it's limits. A more civilian oriented colony would not have survived, nor one which was not so dedicated towards rapid population expansion via industrial means. Even then victory was achieved primarily because the Klingon's underestimated their target and the fact that they were occupied elsewhere at the time and COBRA's casualties were heavy. COBRA focused most of their efforts on putting as many ships together as quickly as they could and mostly stuck with existing designs. Even so, COBRA lagged in numerous fields. When they were outfitted with antimatter torpedoes COBRA ships the gulf in firepower was not too great and fightercraft were something that evened the odds, but Klingon Ships were faster at warp and their shields gave them a major durability advantage. As such some resources were set aside to build spacecraft capable of going toe to toe with Klingon Starships.

This project faced considerable setbacks due both to quotas and design revisions. The best that could be achieved in 2142 was quite different to what could be achieved in 2144 nor what could be achieved 2146. The Second Battle of Cobra Prime was costly but did leave some usable salvage. In particular several nacelles were left mostly intact as well as several more that had intact systems. These were taken apart for analysis and lead to several breakthroughs in Warp Coil design. Salvage and scans also proved invaluable for COBRA engineers to put together the DEM-1 Shield Generator, which was added to several Adder class Cruisers and Razorback class Destroyers starting in 2145. In technical terms the DEM-1 was a major breakthrough. In practical terms while it did provide some additional protection to the ship the system was a notorious maintenance hog, required a lot of power, took some time to raise to full strength, glowed like a beacon to sensors and had lackluster resilience. An upscaled version (the DEM-2) was designed for the new heavy Capital Ship, which was laid down in march of 2146 and was only 18% complete when the peace treaty was signed. Though this would be deleted from the final design due to an unexpected development.

The Romulans took notice of the COBRA/Klingon War as it resulted in a reallocation of resources. As such a Cruiser was dispatched to study this new power in 2145 with a team of analysts and Tal Shiar agents to monitor developments. After some time observing and after a set of reports were sent to Romulus a decision was made. After a set of communiques were relayed between COBRA and the Romulan ship (in a very circumspect way using audio and text only) a deal was brokered in 2147: in which COBRA provided an Mark-IV Stellar Stiletto fighter and information relating to pilot training in exchange for a working shield generator and technical information. The exchange happened in Deep Space and involved both craft jettisoning a payload towards the other and collecting it. This shield generator would be studied, analyzed and used in conjunction with information from the DEM-1 and 2 to created the much more effective DEM-3 Shield Generator, the final component of the Battlecruiser CSN Baroness which was launched in 2148.

Named for the famous founder of the DeCobray Dynasty the Baroness class Battlecruiser was 257 meters long and weighed in at 275,000 tonnes. She had a crew of 400 personnel as well as a complement of 50 Void Vipers and 600 B.A.T.s in storage. Her armament included four heavy particle beam cannon turrets (using improved capacitor and cooling systems to have a rate of fire 25% faster than those on an Adder class Cruiser), twelve medium particle beam cannon turrets and on it's aft section and 14 torpedo tubes (with a reserve of 288 torpedoes). For parasites the standard load was eight Mark-IV Stellar Stiletto fighters, three S-6 Nightdragon assault shuttles and two unmanned B.A.T. Box boarding craft, though this could be shuffled about if needed. She had a top warp speed of 134 C (Warp 5.1) and a cruising speed of 96 C (Warp 4.5). In addition to shields, this was the first COBRA ship to be outfitted with Transporters rated for organic life. In general terms the Baroness was designed to be a jack of all trades, able to perform well in a variety of circumstances even at the expense of being the master of one.

In general the Baroness class was a quantum leap forward for the Cobra Space Navy as their first ship able to go toe to toe with capital ships of the other established powers of the time in a fight. As soon as she had completed her shakedown cruise the Forth Commander ordered the construction of three more such ships (the Destro, the Storm Shadow and the Zartan) on top of other such naval programs. From the Bridge of the Baroness the Forth Commander toured her domain and oversaw the invasion of Tyron-III in 2150. She also had the distinction of formally reestablishing contact between COBRA and Earth in July of 2151 when she met up with the Enterprise (NX-01) and escorted her to Cobra Prime. Despite some pressure by sections of the admiralty to destroy the United Earth Ship, the Forth Commander entertained Captain Archer aboard Coatl Station and made overtures of peace. While progress had been made towards establishing a space based military COBRA's force projection capacity was limited and could not sustain a war of conquest against earth. The incident would latter cause a stir on earth and would (among other things) lead to a force of MACOs being assigned to Enterprise a few months latter. The arrival of a Vulcan Diplomatic Mission followed shortly after in 2152, who's impression on the human splinter group was less than charitable from their militaristic culture to their use of genetic engineering to create offshoot species such as the aquatic Morays to the Zero G optimized Yard Apes.