In the stormy harbor of Bildad 4, there rests a memorial to one of the most heroic emergency landings of a starship ever recorded.
On Stardate 46982.1, the U.S.S. Wilberforce under the command of Captain Cray Anders experienced a power surge and subsequent power failure, which steered the ship into the Bildad System and dropped it out of warp into low orbit of the Federation world of Bildad 4. In the post-crash investigation, the source was determined to be an as-yet undiscovered, and naturally occurring graviton geyser, surging from subspace.
At the time, Captain Anders had no idea what had hit them.
"Report!" he barked as the ship listed wildly.
"We're caught in the planet's pull, Sir!" Lt. Parib replied. "And we're dead in the water!"
Captain Anders could feel gravity beginning to drag the Galaxy class starship into the atmosphere. He ordered the entire crew into the Saucer section for emergency separation. However, without power, the Saucer separation would be impossible.
With only a few minutes remaining before the ship would break up in the atmosphere, Captain Anders ordered photon grenades be set at maximum yield and placed on all the saucer latching mechanisms - timed to detonate as the atmospheric stress on the saucer reached critical. All but one of the explosives succeeded in blasting the latches away, but this proved enough.
As the Saucer pivoted up, the drag stresses tore it free from the Drive section and it somersaulted without inertial dampeners, squeezing everyone in the forward sections to the floor and everyone aft of the center of mass to the ceiling. After this death defying act, the Saucer stabilized out into its low-drag aspect through the atmosphere.
Now, all the crew could do was ride their wreck of a ship down through the atmosphere. The Drive section incinerated ahead of them and veered off in an unstable trajectory, but not before one of the warp nacelles tore apart and struck their starboard quarter, scraping a hull breach along deck 6. This shock seemed to jolt the ship's systems and Lt. Crawley managed to get emergency power online briefly. As the viewscreen popped on, Captain Anders gasped. They were headed for Vermillion Harbor - a large bay on the fifth continent.
"Can you give me thrusters?" Anders barked. Ensign Cadish shook herself from the sight in the screen.
"We have enough power for one burst, Sir!" She cried over the sounds of the ship's death knell.
"Wait until my signal," Anders bellowed. The tall triangular skyscrapers of the commercial center of Bildad rose to meet them like deadly stalactites.
"6....5..." Anders muttered - his best estimation of the Kilometers left to impact, "4...NOW!" The RCA thrusters shuddered alive and the ship banked up from vertical in a 9g turn, causing everyone to pass out as the blood left their brains, but the maneuver succeeded in leveling the ship and it roared over the downtown district, showering debris on the buildings below. They clipped the spire of the tallest buildings as they left land and thundered out over the bay.
Captain Anders regained consciousness just in time to see the water slowly rising to meet them. The sight was strangely serene and it seemed to last minutes, but finally, the inevitable came and the saucer made contact, skipping up briefly once from the water, then twice - each time a little longer until finally, with a gut-wrenching roar, the Saucer plowed into the waves. Anders was flung toward the forward consoles and broke his left arm, but without giving his injury a second thought, he managed to get to his feet as the ship rocked to a rest.
"Everyone to the upper escape pods!" he ordered. From shore, the ship looked like a mythical whale breaching or an artificial island forming in the Bay, which suddenly shed small bursts of light that flared up and arched towards the beach, landing many of the families safely in the functioning escape pods. The remaining crew crawled out of the Saucer through the empty escape pod recesses and climbed onto the ship's upper hull.
Captain Anders searched the decks below until everyone still breathing was accounted for before stepping out into the salty air of Vermillion Bay. In the distance, he could see the emergency craft approaching, even as he felt the Saucer shuddering beneath him and slowly listing from water filling the back of the ship through the holes in the latching mechanisms. By the time the emergency craft arrived and began evacuating the crew, the Saucer had pivoted up into the air, pointing back to the stars from whence it came.
During the subsequent investigation, the graviton geyser was discovered and named in the ship's honor - "Wilberforce Shoal" - and research into its nature revealed a greater understanding of subspace dynamics.
Of the ship's 989 crew, 98 did not make it - a high price to pay for the knowledge. Captain Anders was awarded the Federation Citation of Honor, and it was decided that rather than attempt to salvage the ship, it would be left in the harbor as a memorial to those who had died.
A tritanium statue of Captain Anders was placed on the lip of the forward deck, reaching out toward the shore to commemorate his outstanding command of a tragic situation. Captain Anders retired shortly afterwards, but every year, on the anniversary of the crash, he met many of the survivors back on Bildad 4, where they would shuttle out to the wreck in the rain and fog to remember their friends and family who had died.
