Old Relics - Captain's Log Stardate 65383.5
Posted on Sat Oct 15th, 2011 @ 9:15pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne
||Mission: Old Relics, Day 01, 0745hrs hours
||USS Endeavour, Corridors
[ON]
Captain's log, stardate six-five-three eight-three point five. It has been just over four months since we left Mister Schniedt at Starbase 218. It has been some time since I have been able to relax - well, relatively - on a mission cruise. With the expansion of the 11th Fleet around Cestus III, the Tholian border and the Archanis Sector, Starfleet Command has decided that it is no longer so critical that the Endeavour remain near the more populated regions of this part of the galaxy to show the flag; there are now many more ships which are capable of performing this task as they go about their daily duties, like the Eagle, the Shiloh and the Washington. Therefore, we have been sent out to the very edges of Federation territory, in preparation for a bit of border patrol. But honestly, that phrase fails to do this assignment credit.
The nearest known inhabited star system - at least within the Federation's sphere of influence - is Beta Renner, where the Anticans and the Selay homeworlds are, and it is some seventy light-years distant. Federation ships rarely come out this far, and so even though we have a prescribed route to follow, we are practically on an exploration cruise; we don't really know what we'll find out here, or even if another species has started to claim sections of this space for their own. Honestly, I'm quite excited by the prospect. At the very least I hope that it proves worth the journey. There were relatively few incidents in the two hundred light-years between 218 and here, and many of the crew have become restless. Subspace communications take a lot longer to reach us out here, and we can't even beam messages straight to Earth or the core worlds where most of their homeworlds are; the entirety of the Tholian Assembly is in the way of that. I just hope that we will discover something that will get crew morale up; give them something to focus on. It's bad enough that I'm down to acting chiefs in most departments at present now; I'd rather not get back to starbase four months down the line with a crew that's ready to quit en masse.
Most of my senior officers were transferred to other vessels after we reached 218. It would seem some newly-promoted Admiral has requisitioned them for half a dozen different assignments, insisting that they want their new ship commanders under them to have the best crews. Unfortunately whenever Admirals go around pulling 'the best' people from one assignment for another, their old captain doesn't have much that we can do about it, other than try and find their replacement. We're scheduled for a rendezvous with a Starfleet ship in sector six-nine-eight-two before we reach the border zone for crew transfers to come aboard; I only hope that Starfleet has sent me some officers capable of taking on the senior staff positions that I need them to. I'll know more about them when we get in range to receive a passenger manifest off the ship that is bringing them to us. Hell, I don't even know which ship it is. I swear Starfleet is keeping more and more information to itself these days.
A pause, as the Captain stops to place his signature on the PADD of an ensign as he stepped through the turbolift door onto the bridge.
The rendezvous is in four hours. Hopefully I will find out who Starfleet is sending me before then. I hate to have new officers report in to me when I know nothing about them.
Computer, end log.
Talk about time difference. Talk about crew changes. Talk about the mission.
