USS Lakota (NCC-42768)



The USS Lakota (NCC-42768) was an Excelsior-class explorer in service during the 24th century.

History
In 2372, the Lakota docked at Deep Space 9 in order to transport Captain Benjamin Sisko and Constable Odo to Earth to confer with Starfleet Command over security concerns regarding the Dominion. While the Lakota was orbiting Earth she received a brief refit and placed under the command of [[Erika Benteen]. A few days later, when Earth's power-grid failed and Earth feared a Dominion invasion, the Lakota's transporters were used to place Starfleet troops on Earth.

When the grid failure was revealed to be part of a plot by Admiral James Leyton to declare martial law on Earth, Leyton ordered the Lakota to intercept the USS Defiant to stop it reaching Earth with vital evidence against Leyton. After a brief battle, the Lakota stood down and escorted the Defiant to Earth. Following the incident, Captain Benteen was removed from command and demoted.

In 2373, the Lakota travelled to a Maquis asteroid in the Terikof Belt to transport the remaining Maquis members to new planets.

The Lakota was destroyed during the Dominion War. When Geordi La Forge, was looking to replace a cracked injector aboard the USS Enterprise-E, his friend Whis, chief engineer of the USS Nautilus, suggested contacting Ranzz from the USS Bartlet, as the secondary hull and at least one nacelle from the Lakota were reported to have still been intact and the Bartlet had recently collected a lot of debris in the area where the Lakota had been destroyed. Ranzz promised to ask his captain to return to the wreck to pick up the remaining injectors and send one to La Forge.

Nidani Ledrah had served on the Lakota prior to the USS Titan.

Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline created by Wesley Crusher in which the Maquis never existed, Chakotay did not resign his Starfleet commission and was serving as the first officer of the Lakota in 2373.

Online timeline
In the 25th century, the USS Lakota was still active by 2409 and commanded by Captain James Allen. In the same year, the ship met up with a Starfleet vessel in Romulan space to transfer over a captured Starfleet officer caught selling secrets to the Romulan Star Empire. Unbeknownst to the ship the prisoner was being transferred from, the defector had been an agent of Section 31.

Not long after, the vessel joined a battle group to combat an Undine fleet in Draylon system.