The King and I

[Cdr Zareh 0]

Retirement never seemed to happen. You thought it was going to happen, you really did, but for whatever reason, the allure of the stars, of discovery, of command seemed to be a siren’s call and no matter how hard you tried to escape it, or how much you swore you were turning in the pips and command codes at the end of the mission – somehow you always seemed to end up reading the next mission briefing and planning for the unknown. At least, that was how it always seemed to happen for Alessandro Zareh.

 

Just a few brief months before, he’d been well into planning what to do with his retirement, basking in the alpine glory of his Lake Königssee home as the ship he’d mastered for nearly 15 years prepared to be decommissioned. That, of course, was when the Klingons decided to make things interesting. Georgetown, the shimmering, aging Constitution-class starship had been called into action to deliver Ambassador Curzon Dax to Qo’Nos to help avert a near coup.

 

In the process, the nearly four decade old ship had gotten banged up as she, along with the Columbia and the Challenger helped avert a major diplomatic crisis. Zareh thought that, at last, he would be able to retire; after all Starfleet wasn’t in the habit of making major repairs to 40-year-old starships that were now second-rate with the advent of the ‘Great Experiment,’ the Excelsior-class starship; and while he was sure that there would be another starship to bear the name Georgetown, possibly even one of the all-conquering Excelsior-classes¬, he wasn’t going to be commanding it. It was, fitting, he thought that Georgetown be retired now anyway. When she’d came on-line, back in the days of Kirk and Pike, there wasn’t a Klingon Neutral Zone, but not because of a commitment to peace. Now as she headed for retirement the Klingon Neutral Zone was something children would read about in history books.

 

Zareh had started packing up his office and quarters on the way home from Qo’Nos when his door chimed. It had been one of his newer bridge officers with a message from Starfleet Command. He thought perhaps it would be a well-wish from one of his friends in the admiralty. It wasn’t.

 

For someone on the way to retirement, he suddenly found himself with a very lovely and not so easy job – breaking in a new crew and a new starship. Starfleet apparently thought it a good idea to break in the newer crews and ships with old dogs, like himself.

 

The small pod making its way from Georgetown to Cepheus turned to dock with the brand new Constellation-class starship. From the passenger seat, Zareh felt a small pang as the glorious Constitution-class filled the view. An era was most certainly coming to an end. Yet there was still plenty of exploring left to do, and though it would be on a new starship, with an unproven crew, Zareh knew where his destiny lay – far among the stars.

 

He wouldn’t have much time to find out about the crew though, just before he’d left Georgetown in the capable hands of Commander Sarvek, who’d see her into dry-dock for mothballing, the orders had been cut for the newly christened and shook down crew. Cepheus would be sent to the Troyian-Elasian border to keep the peace between them as their conflict had been renewed. He’d read enough about them, and had enough experience with both to know that keeping them from poking each other’s eyes out was going to be about as much fun as keeping two five year olds from fighting over the same toy.

 

Apparently one Federation starship was already in the region, Challenger, delivering an Ambassador to help smooth relations with the always prickly Elasians who’d suddenly found themselves without a major trading partner in the Klingons. However, they’d be working only with the Elasians on the specifics of developing a trade relationship to hopefully bring the Elasians more towards the Federation instead of the Klingons or the Romulans.

 

Cepheus on the other hand, would be dealing with the Troyians directly and the Elasians less directly. The Troyians were, technically, not yet Federation members. They were protectorates who the Federation was tasked with keeping safe from foreign powers. Still, they maintained a great deal of autonomy and even their own military, which was now position itself opposite the Elasian military, which had been asserting itself in several areas now that the Klingons could no longer keep them in check either through trade relations or military force.

 

The Troyians, of course, claimed to be blameless in everything and were just taking all “necessary precautions” to keep themselves safe, but Zareh suspected that they were saber rattling, hoping the always aggressive Elasians would launch an attack first.

 

It would be his and the young, inexperienced crew of Cepheus’ job to make sure that didn’t happen. There was a human phrase that came to mind – something about a trial by fire?