Providence Fleet Yards
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Providence Fleet Yards, officially Providence Decommissioning Fleet Yards and Surplus Depot or Deep Space Station K-3, is a strategically unimportant and relatively forgotten afterthought within Federation territory. In orbit of Pollux IV, Providence now serves as a mothball and boneyard facility where ships that are long past their effective operational ability are brought to be stripped of anything useful.
Bold Beginnings
In 2267, the crew of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk encountered a being known as Apollo on Pollux IV, which was at the time the frontier of Federation territory. This being claimed to be the last of the Olympian deities worshipped by the ancient Greek culture. At the end of what would be known as "The Apollo Incident", Apollo disappeared, leaving Pollux IV a beautifully pristine uninhabited world.
Several months after the incident construction began on Deep Space Station K-3. Originally designed as a civilian trading post, K-3 was built with many areas specifically designed for the comfort of its various residents. It was considered one of the finest starbases of its class during its heyday, despite being in a relatively volatile area of space. Only a few minor skirmishes were ever fought within the Pollux system, which gave Pollux IV the reputation of being a "paradise planet". K-3, similarly, earned the reputation of being a thrilling, but luxurious place to visit on the Klingon Frontier.
Decline
With the signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293, K3 eventually fell into disuse, to the point that it was all but abandoned by 2310. Only a few of the shadier traders were left living on or doing any type of business on K3. Starfleet decided to step in, and acquire the base before it could become a thriving black market community in the Federation’s own backyard. In 2313, Starfleet moved in, and evicted the remaining squatters and traders.
Starfleet Command intended to use the base as a repair and refit facility. They quickly learned that too much of the base had been abandoned for too long to have any functional use in that regard. Instead, engineers quickly sealed off the parts of the base that were too dilapidated to repair in quick order, and Providence was classed as a “Naval Reserve Storage Facility.” Effectively, it would be a place to store older ships in mothballs (should the situation arise that they were needed to be reactivated,) to make room for their newer, more advanced counterparts. A small caretaker group was assigned to Providence, consisting only of one officer and 9 enlisted crew, mostly engineers.
Providence, which was once a thriving center of trade, had been reduced to a backwater outpost, along the fringes of the Federation’s unimportant border with the Klingons. Only a few decks of the central station core were habitable, and one pod was left functional for housing and the occasional visiting crew.
A Renewed Purpose
Conditions stayed this way until 2387, with news of the Hobus Incident leaving the galaxy in awe and shock. The mighty Romulan Star Empire had lost the majority of its centralized government, as well as both of its homeworlds, in one fell swoop.
The Federation began to send as many ships into Romulan space as possible to provide aid and assistance to all affected by the Hobus Incident. The Klingons began to use the Romulans’ weakened state to make incursions across their shared border, attacking several border worlds. The Federation, shocked and appalled by the behavior of the Klingon Empire, sided with the Romulan Star Empire, and began talks with the Klingon Empire to attempt to stop the border attacks.
Much as they did during the Dominion War when they attacked the war-ravaged Cardassian Empire, the Klingons’ relations with the Federation became severely strained by the perceived castigation of their actions. Uncertain of the Klingons’ intentions, Starfleet began looking into its assets along the shared border with the Klingon Empire. In lieu of this, for a short period of time in 2387, Providence served as the headquarters of Task Force 86.
While Providence no longer serves as a mothball yards, the Federation was loathe to simply dismiss their assets within the mothball fleet stationed there. In 2387, as more and more ships were needed to patrol the Klingon/Federation border, Providence served as more of a "re-commissioning" yard than the opposite. Many of the ships that were formally deemed "unfit for service" were re-activated and deployed directly from the reserve fleet stationed at Providence as a stop gap measure to keep an eye on the Klingon, Gorn, Tholian, and Orion governments.