"Legends & Questions"

[FredM 0]

"Legends & Questions"

Captain's Personal Log

Stardate 0406.18

 

 

Fred Michaels sat in his ready room taking a sip of the purple colored beverage before him. Even though he had been attempting to consume the liquid for the better part of thirty minutes, thus far only about half of the glass was empty. Truth be told, his mind was elsewhere. Despite what most thought, his concerns were not with the seeming breakdown in protocol aboard the away team. Many of the officers who had been sent over were new to the Reaent and Fred was certain most had simply experienced jitters. If it occurred again he would begin to raise his own set of concerns, but the Captain was confident Aidan had adequately dealt with the situation. No, his mind lay somewhere else...somewhere so far but also so near.

 

The Reaent sat in the Saurian Station Scrapyard, one of the oldest such facilities within all of the Federation. Established in the mid twenty-third century, it was home to some of the most ancient remains of starships who's day had gone by. This was so much the case that often the teams assigned to the Starfleet Fleet Museum would send teams here to locate parts for systems which had failed on ships who had tourists instead of a crew. Certainly replacement parts could be replicated, but as any engineer knew, replicated components weren't always the most reliable...especially in ships who had not been constructed with them in mind.

 

In the midst of the investigation to determine why the Bolarius research station had been destroyed, his ship had come upon another mystery. Another vessel interred here was showing signs of life, signs that should not have been there. To locate a ship that had sensor jamming equipment aboard, transporter scramblers in several critical locations and had seemingly been repaired by unknown forces was intrigue enough. But to the Captain of the Reaent, the mission had taken on a whole new meaning.

 

The ship they had come upon had been the U.S.S. Stephen Hawking, a vessel Michaels' was certain most members of the crew were completely unfamiliar with. It wasn't exactly all that surprising. From a historical standpoint, the ship had simply been one of several Starfleet had retrofitted several years before the start of the Dominion War. In fact, the procedure for such upgrades had been one of the cornerstones of the Ambassador Class refit who had become the Reaent over half a decade later. But to Fred Michaels, the Hawking was more...much more.

 

In the eyes of this former engineer, the Stephen Hawking was a ship of legends. It had been around the time of his promotion to Lieutenant when he had first heard of the ship. A Constellation Class Heavy Cruiser, it was unique that Starfleet would assign such an antiquated vessel on deep space exploratory assignments. That teaser had sparked an interest in Fred, one which had continued throughout most of his career. The service record of this grand vessel was an astonishing one, her reputation within the fleet had been nothing less. In fact, when Michaels' had first been promoted to Executive Officer on the Valkyrie he had sought to hold a command style a fraction has good as those he had heard about on the Stephen Hawking.

 

The NCC-102545 was the ship of miniature heroes to the Captain of the Reaent, something many would find corny given their supposed uneventful cruise together. Yet, to him, this had been the place where Vice-Admiral Alpha 1045 had reigned as Captain and Commander Johnny Bravo had been his exec. Here such legends as Kevla, Zoma, Lorca, and Usqho had started and in some places finished their careers. There had also been two other legends aboard that fateful ship, two Fred himself would get to know personally. Both had served as the ship's Chief Engineer, one originally the subordinate of the other. Yet when Michaels' had found himself in charge of the engineering division on the Valkyrie, he was under the jurisdiction of Captain Ann Stewart and Commander Len Shelby. An honor and pleasure he still had a difficult time finding the words to describe even though so many years had passed.

 

Now, Captain Michaels found himself standing in front of the window in his office looking at the darkened hull of a personal legend. When sending the first away team aboard, he had resisted the urge to try and board the vessel himself. Such was of course not in the regulation books, not to mention they were indeed not on a sight seeing trip. Yet, whether or not the crew of the Reaent realized it or not, in their Captain's eye the mission had taken on a completely new meaning.

 

Fred chucked at the thought and shook his head. "One would think I was a Cadet still in training," he said to the empty room. He had always wished he could have found a way to get an assignment aboard the Stephen Hawking during her years within the fleet, to serve amongst individuals he saw as role models and legends. His wish had come true, though now all the heroes were gone.

 

The Hawking herself had been brought out of active service only four years prior. The ship itself was still listed in the Starfleet database as being capable of emergency service, though records had suggested such an emergency reactivation would require upwards of a month of catastrophic repairs. Yet now, here, the ship sat in almost pristine external condition. Records had shown the ship was practically untouched since her movement into the yard, not even scheduled for a major strip down for another several years. Truth of the matter was, there wasn't a great demand for Constellation Class parts anymore. At the moment, only perhaps a dozen or so ships of the hundred year old design were still in active service. Almost all of those had been part of the major refit program nine years earlier.

 

What was going on aboard the Hawking? What relationship did it have to the destruction of the Olympic? They were important questions that, for the moment, no one could answer.