Nova Squadron

Nova Squadron was an elite flight team at Starfleet Academy. Each cadet flew a single-pilot spacecraft performing various formations and maneuvers as a demonstration of flight prowess and ability. Its late 2360s incarnation fell from grace in 2368 when squad leader Nick Locarno manipulated his teammates into illegally attempting a Kolvoord Starburst and subsequently scapegoating one of their own for a fatal training accident, but a new incarnation existed by 2384.
== 2368 Nova Squadron ==
In 2368, Nova Squadron consisted of Cadet First Class Nicholas Locarno, Cadet Second Class Jean Hajar, Cadet Second Class Sito Jaxa, Cadet Third Class Wesley Crusher, and Cadet Joshua Albert. It was this team which won the Rigel Cup.
Shortly before commencement that year (on Stardate 45703), the Nova Squadron flight team suffered an accidental collision on the Academy Flight Range, near Saturn's moon of Titan; they had been practicing maneuvers for their upcoming graduation ceremony. Cadet Albert was killed in the crash; while the other four team members successfully activated their emergency transporters to escape their doomed ships.
Upon investigation, it was determined that Nova Squadron – despite claiming to have done a Yeager loop – was in fact attempting an unauthorized Kolvoord Starburst, a dangerous maneuver long prohibited by the Academy. The maneuver was banned due to a similar accident that occurred in the 2260s involving another group of five cadets, all of whom died in the mishap. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard surmised, Cadet Locarno, wanting to wow the graduation ceremony attendants out of a narcissistic desire to "graduate as a living legend", had pressured his teammates into performing the maneuver, and, in the wake of the catastrophic outcome, was pressuring his surviving teammates into covering up the truth and blaming Cadet Albert alone for the accident. Cadets Albert and Crusher had vocalized their unease at attempting the maneuver, the former noting that it was "banned for a reason" and the latter realizing the amount of training they needed to achieve the stunt was not feasible, but Locarno dismissed their concerns and appealed to Crusher's desire to impress Picard. When said discovery was made, the board of inquiry came close to expelling all four surviving cadets … until Locarno made an impassioned plea to assume full responsibility for the mishap and cover-up. Sure enough, he alone was expelled. The three remaining cadets were issued a formal reprimand: their flight privileges were revoked, their service records were permanently tainted, and their academic credits for that year were canceled. (; )
==== Legacy ====
Two years after the incident, Sito – now an ensign aboard the – was killed on a mission in Cardassian space. Beckett Mariner, a younger cadet who had idolized Sito and become acquainted with Nova Squadron as a result, was devastated when she learned of Sito's death, and the loss, combined with her subsequent service in the Dominion War almost right out of the Academy, caused severe survivor guilt that drove her to intentionally stall her career at the rank of ensign, leading to recurring demotions to the point where she was in danger of facing a court martial. This lasted until 2381, when Commander Jack Ransom recognized what she was doing and intervened, and Ma'ah later forced her to realize that Sito would not have approved of her decision. (; )
The same year, Crusher's attitude and academic performance deteriorated as a result of him losing faith in Starfleet. He ultimately resigned in solidarity with the inhabitants of Dorvan V, who were facing relocation due to the Federation-Cardassian Treaty placing the religiously significant planet in Cardassian space, and joined the Traveler. ()
Another elite cadet unit, Red Squad, was created in the 2370s, and unfortunately experienced a similar but more catastrophic fall from grace after the Dominion War's outbreak stranded them in Dominion-occupied territory under the command of Tim Watters. Watters proved to have similar character flaws to Locarno, and his disastrous orders ended up causing the deaths of all but one of the squad, himself included, and costing the Federation Alliance intelligence on a supposed weakness in Jem'Hadar fighters. ()
In 2384, after meeting Wesley Crusher, Rok-Tahk mentioned him being a member of Nova Squadron as one of Wesley's accomplishments. ()
Following his expulsion, Locarno became a civilian pilot for hire operating from New Axton. Over time, he began to blame the Academy itself for the accident, rationalizing that the faculty did not allow Nova Squadron to sufficiently practice a maneuver they should never have been attempting in the first place. This prevented him from learning from his mistake and caused him to become bitter over his expulsion. In 2381, he began bribing lower deckers on non-Federation ships to mutiny against their captains and join the new Nova Fleet, named after the original Nova Squadron. Having not learned from the consequences of his attempt at the maneuver, he utilized imagery of the Kolvoord Starburst as Nova Fleet's emblem, displaying it on his jacket and painting it on the stolen ships.
However, Locarno's controlling tendencies reared their head when Mariner, fresh off coming to terms with Sito's death, refused to cooperate and fled with a Genesis Device on the , and the rest of Nova Fleet abandoned him when he pursued Mariner into an ion storm and the managed to breach his supposedly indestructible trynar shield. Mariner activated the Genesis Device just before Locarno boarded the Passaro, and Locarno, unaware that completing the deactivation was locked behind a paywall, stubbornly insisted that he could deactivate the device, resulting in his death when he was caught in the explosion. ()
=== Fates ===
* Nick Locarno – expelled for the above described incident; died when he got himself caught in a Genesis Device detonation ()
* Joshua Albert – deceased due to the above described incident ()
* The remaining members - given a formal reprimand, flight privileges revoked, forced to repeat a year since their academic credits were voided, shunned on campus for the incident.
** Jean Hajar – active
** Wesley Crusher – resigned from Starfleet to join The Traveler. ()
** Sito Jaxa – deceased (KIA) when the Cardassian military destroyed her ship ()
== 2384 Nova Squadron ==
Another Nova Squadron roster was active in the mid-2380s. In 2384 it included Maj'el, , and Grom. ()
Nova Squadron later got into a scuffle with the former crew of the onboard the , resulting in it accidentally launching early with Dal R'El, Jankom Pog, Zero and Maj'el onboard. Zeph, Grom, Rok-Tahk and Murf were left behind. ()
After the return of the Infinity from the future, Maj'el sat with her squadron mates and ignored her new friend Zero, something that she felt guilty about. ()
After realizing that something was wrong with the former Protostar crew, Maj'el and Nova Squadron played a game of parrises squares with them on the holodeck, secretly observed by Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Commander Tysess and The Doctor. The Protostar crew won with their atypical behavior during the game confirming that there was in fact something wrong with them. ()
Maj'el later joined Commander Tysess in an away mission to the time ziggurat, remaining behind when the first officer beamed back to the ship. Zeph and Grom were being fitted with temporal stabilizers by The Doctor when the Loom swarmed the ship, but they both managed to avoid being erased by the creatures thanks to The Doctor distracting the creature in order to buy them time to escape. Rather than returning to Voyager and Nova Squadron, Maj'el chose to accompany the Protostar crew in the search for the missing ship at the behest of Wesley Crusher, himself a former member of Nova Squadron. ()
After recovering the temporally-displaced Protostar, Maj'el invited Dal to train with Nova Squadron, although the other squadron members were dubious of his skills. ()
When the Rev-1 attacked Voyager, Nova Squadron was launched to help mount a defense as the ship's weapons were down, but Grom was injured in an explosion so Chakotay convinced Maj'el and Zeph to allow Dal to act as her replacement. Under the leadership of Maj'el and flying Mark II Nova Flyers redesigned by Tom Paris, Nova Squadron performed the Boothby Supernova, a move that no one had ever successfully done before, to destroy the enemy ship with its own weapon. Dal's flying earned him praise from Zeph while his unorthodox tactics helped Nova Squadron adapt to the Vau N'Akat drones' tactics during the battle which anticipated the more by-the-book maneuvers utilized by Maj'el and Zeph. ()
Maj'el later resigned from Nova Squadron so that she could accompany Dal, Rok, Jankom, Gwyn, Murf, and Zero on a mission to Solum, one that could only be non-Starfleet personnel only, citing how Wesley Crusher – himself a former member of Nova Squadron – had said that the group needed to stick together. She later joined the others aboard the rather than returning to Nova Squadron. ()
== Appendices ==
=== Apocrypha ===
The TOS movie-era novel Elusive Salvation indicates that Nova Squadron existed from the earliest days of Starfleet Academy. Its members included Midshipman and 84 other cadets assigned to the . According to the novel, many elite Starfleet officers were Nova Squadron alumni.
According to her biography in Star Trek: Starship Creator, was a member of Nova Squadron prior to her graduation in 2371.
=== External link ===
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de:Nova-Staffel
it:Squadriglia Nova
Category:Military units
Category:Starfleet Academy