T'Pran

Even to a Vulcan, there was something about seeing one's ship from a distance that was... pride-inspiring. Perhaps it wasn't always so. Perhaps a full-blooded Vulcan would have taken no amount of pleasure from the sight of the Columbia docked at Camelot Station. But even after a decade had come and gone, T'Pran still found herself... almost... inspired. A decade saw Columbia rise (or perhaps that was fall) from exploratory and research vessel to battlecraft during the Dominion War. She'd been there from beginning to end -- and every painful step of the way. The Sovereign-class had seen long, hard years, and Starfleet had decided to reward her with quiet assignments, far from the heat of battle. T'Pran they'd promoted and tossed behind a desk, something she'd quietly referred to as her "retirement". It hadn't lasted long, and soon admiral and ship were reunited. Along with seemingly constant refits and upgrades, the reintroduction of their old leader was clearly meant as some solace to the crew. Current case in point. Several weeks before, during "routine exploration", they'd been informed that they'd be getting the Iowa type-rebuild. The only unusual bit regarding the orders, frankly, was the location. Usually Columbia took her R&R and did repairs at Deep Space Nine. Her crew had welcomed the novelty of Camelot, but the rear admiral wasn't the sort to take change with their grains of salt. Everyone knew that the Gamma quadrant was a tinderbox. There was nothing else that came close to its unbridled strife and the sheer proportion of uncharted space (unless you counted Delta, which was hardly accessible. Starfleet wasn't sending ships for rebuild to Camelot unless there was a good reason. There likely was. If rumors were to be trusted, it could have been anything from the overgrown arachnids or vampires or energy-suckers that called the quadrant home. T'Pran simply hoped that they'd be out of the area before the next fire was lighted. With the "luck" she seemed to have, it'd be a miracle if her ship wasn't the one that ended up in flames.