"Politics & Change."

[FredM 0]

"Politics & Change"

Captain's Log

Stardate 0307.05

Captain Frederic Meve

 

 

      "Captain, you are highly mistaken if you believe this is a conversation. In fact, this request comes almost directly from the President of the Federation Council! Now whether you like it or not, this transfer is taking place. Make it work. D'runi out," and with that the terminal on the desk of Frederic Meve went dark. The Andorian leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, shifting his antenna back slightly and groaning. "I hate politics...I really do...," he said softly. Shaking his head, the Aegis CO stood and exited his ready room. Walking down the small corridor he entered the control tower from the left, glancing around for a moment.

 

      Upon entering, he had still half expected to see the nerve center of Aegis dark and cold. Yet, in the two weeks since the first Cardassians had returned to their homeworld, substantial progress had been made in getting the facility back on it's feet. Starfleet had a keen interest in getting the station operational again, since little was still known about the race which had apparently fooled the entire quadrant into thinking Cardassia Prime was going to explode. The large fleets might return. After all, they had only left because they assumed the station and perhaps a large fleet of Federation ships were in the area. It was enough to make the Captain contemplate taking up the game of poker he had heard so much about.

 

      Aegis herself was slowly returning to normal. With eighty percent of the station's critical systems again operational, the station had about half of it's normal population aboard. With around two hundred officers working around the clock, many had not yet heard Starfleet had decided to increase the station's population by an additional twenty-eight percent. In the end, there would be around four-hundred and fifty standard crew aboard. Plus civilians, diplomats and others, the station would have a regular population of around five hundred. While capable of holding a good thousand crew for extreme operations and more than three thousand the facility's maximum capacity, Meve welcomed the additions.

 

      However, has he had learned within the last week, the size of the persons under his command was not the only thing that was going to change. With still less than thirty percent of the population back at Cardassia, the government had raised serious complaints about the continued occupation force. This was something Meve had actually expected a long time ago. The resulting decisions had made the Andorian go from pleasure to absolute annoyance. Yet, regardless of his feelings, orders were indeed orders.

 

      The first part of the new mandate called for the termination of a ground based facility on Cardassia Prime. Since it had held the primary purpose of providing security forces and protection to visiting diplomats, the ground base that had been connected to Aegis would be transformed into a diplomatic center. Outside of no longer being a full military installation under the control of Starfleet, not much would really change.

 

      The second was a decision Frederic could comprehend and had himself partly petitioned for. Sky Harbor Aegis itself would be moved out of orbit from Cardassia Prime. Instead, the station would become a free floating installation between Cardassia II and Cardassia III. Centered in the system, this would sever two goals. First, it solved numerous political issues while also maintaining an Allied presence within the system. Second, the station's relocation would put it in better position to maintain the security of the area. Such a goal was what most Starbases held as their primary objection, in addition to being a port of call. However, when Aegis was brought online it was seen as a key part of the occupation and rebuilding forces on the planet.

 

      The last decision had been one Meve had learned about only minutes ago. It was a headache but one, as the Admiral had said, he was going to have to learn to deal with. Aegis itself had been a joint operation between the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Ferengi Alliance, Bajoran Government and several other smaller groups. The agreement had called for the sharing of technology in the station's construction and the sharing of officers assigned. As everyone had known when the venture was approved, it was probable the Federation would be the only ones with enough available manpower to successfully staff a facility such as Aegis long term. Yet, it was planned to have smaller contentions of Klingon, Romulan, Bajoran and Ferengi military aboard as working members of the crew. With only a few exceptions, this plan had never prospered.

 

      Instead, Aegis had seen the temporary assignment of a few non-Federation officials for short periods of time. These had ranged from a brief appearance of several Klingon officials to even the appointment of a Romulan as a department chief aboard the station for a short period of time. However, the assignments had been short-lived due to numerous political and practical reasons. In fact, outside of Ambassador Drankum, no other non-Starfleet official had been aboard Aegis for longer than a year.

 

      Now, the Cardassians were upset at a lack of representation. Apparently, complaints following their return to Cardassia Prime were so great, several Admirals had questioned the need to send in Marines to maintain order on the planet. Thus, final talks were underway to give some type of representation to the Cardassian government aboard the station. An Ambassador? An observer? Meve himself didn't know at this point but was growing more and more alarmed by the idea every second he thought about it.

 

      Shaking his head and shifting his antenna again, he tried to relieve the kink in his neck. Outside of the politics, progress aboard Aegis had been astounding. Though neither the first or second pylon's primary reactors had been brought online, all available auxiliary power sources were now running. This had prompted even several Starfleet engineers to remark about quality of Ferengi reactor designs. Defensive and offensive systems were now also online, though testing had not yet been possible.

 

      Perhaps the most important thing was the slow restoration of service to the station's Midway. With massive amounts of traffic returning to Cardassia, Aegis was again serving as a port for ships before their return. This had prompted Meve to realize that better arrangements were going to need to be developed for handling the five deck junction. While the concerns had nothing to do with Drankum's Bar, which the Ferengi's assistant had recently reopened, but everything to do with better screening of those boarding the station. It was something the Andorian would deal with after the move...which in itself was going to be interesting.

 

      At the moment, in the middle of seemingly nowhere, the Pandora's Box sat in a small dry-dock facility. Floating between Cardassia II and Cardassia III, the bridge of the ship was slowly getting renovated and the dry dock itself secured. The facility was scheduled to be a new external resource the station could use and thus had been put in orbit where Aegis would eventually end up.

 

      To perform the actual relocation of Aegis, now scheduled to occur within the next few days, Starfleet had sent out over twenty tugs. The engineers aboard had spent the last two days doing stress tests to see where tractors could be placed without causing severe stress. The move from Cardassian orbit to the station's new free floating location would take around an hour and hopefully would be a smooth ride.

 

      "A smooth ride?" Meve said to himself, "Nothing's been a smooth ride the last few months." Regardless, changes were coming and like them or not the Andorian Captain was going to have to deal with them.