USS Cape Breton

Shipgirl AI of USS Cape Breton, a specialist shipgirl dedicated to mobile repairs and search-and-rescue duties in support of a large fleet. She is named ultimately in honour of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, but she is directly named after the second HMCS Cape Breton, which was a converted Beachy Head-class repair ship from the Second World War; post-war, the ship (which was constructed in Canada) was given to the Royal Canadian Navy and renamed; the name itself was used during the war by a River-class frigate (who would have been named HMCS Sydney after the largest city on the island, but there was an HMAS Sydney active at the time, so name had to be changed), which gave Cape Breton the unique honour of having inherited actual battle honours from a previous ship of the name-line. Ironically, the second HMCS Cape Breton would wind up on the PACIFIC coast based out of CFB Esquimalt on Vancouver Island in 1958, which is where she remained for the rest of her career. After decommissioning in 1964, she was used as a stationary repair facility until 1993 and would eventually be sunk as a diving site off Nanaimo in 2001. The name would carry on in the Royal Canadian Navy in Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Breton, which is the primary ship repair and mainenance unit for the Pacific Fleet. Trust me, her sister Cape Scott was in a similar situation. In the universe of Star Trek, the first USS Cape Breton would be launched under Project Fort in 2330, using a modified Hauck-class tender/mobile drydock. For the first couple of years, she would apprentice under the SI of USS Vestal, the synthetic "soul" of a series of utility support ships that has been active since 2250 (her images appears on Jebu's profile page here). Once able to stand on her own two feet metaphorically, Breton ("Bretty" to friends) would be almost all over the Federation, not only helping her sister Port Weller girls but also many other starships, even those of foreign powers such as the Klingons. With the usual mixture of an engineer's lack of tolerance for any sort of tomfoolery combined with the normal Canadian politeness/passive-aggressive nature, she won fans from all over. Cape Breton would pay off in 2361, getting her second hull two years later as one of the Fabrux-class tenders, that built by Port Weller's new facilities over the planet Phäeton. She would be one of the second-level responders to the Wolf 359 disaster in 2367, helping her sempai Vestal (still working in her Hauck-class hull) deal with the gristly salvage of so many ships and so many wrecked bodies. It was Breton who convinced Vestal to switch up to a Fabrux, though this one was built by San Francisco Fleet Yards as Port Weller's slipways were full of Sabre-class minelayer frigates at the time. In this hull, Breton would see service in the Dominion War, actively participating in some fleet actions, including the infamous "Hockey Night in the Confederacy" raid on Breen territory in 2375 launched in response to the second Battle of Chin'toka. Post-war, the ship would carry on for another seven years before the hull proved structurally unsound, so it was paid off. Next came a Saavik-class tender, which was built by Port Weller's working partners at by S'Lek Varen Systems on Vulcan in their first foray in constructing a whole starship in lieu of providing warp drive engines. A quite successful ship, the third Cape Breton would carry on for sixteen years until a meteor strike would wreck the hull so badly, it was declared a constructive write-off. This would put Breton at the Big Lodge Starworks over Oskotim Wick awaiting her new hull when Frontier Day happened; fortunately, the homeworld of the Amishk was too far away from Jack Crusher's possessive signals and Breton's hosts were able to catch and kill the two Changelings who had tried to infiltrate the site. A year later, the fourth USS Cape Breton would commission as an Horizon-class science ship converted to support the Corps of Engineers. Breton the shipgirl is a mixture of lab rat and field mechanic in nature. Unlike Vestal (who has a fetish for nun-like habits), Breton dresses as a scientist with a handy smock in operations gold when she's in uniform. She's good friends with Montgomery Scott and Geordi La Forge; Breton was able to sneak in some hull parts to La Forge's special project to rebuild the hull of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D at the Fleet Museum at Athan Prime.