Small Fleet Ain't It?

Posted on Wed Oct 8th, 2025 @ 6:51am by Rear Admiral Jacob Hawks SMH PMV & Captain Ellis Thornwel

1,089 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Assembling The Fleet
Location: Starbase Liberty
Timeline: Mission Day 11 @ 13:12, 2380-Present Day

((Starbase Liberty, Concourse, Docking Bay))

Rear Admiral Jacob Hawks SMH PMV. It had a nice ring to it. The cocksure, smart ass, bird of another feather had just been promoted to the ranks of the Admiralty, and he and his new ship had just arrived at Starbase 420, which was colloquially known as Starbase Liberty. The base was one of the first generation of Spacedock II class stations, and took its nickname from the fact that several star systems had declared their independance from the Tarlarians in the early 2340s and Starfleet has established the base with the standing orders to help ensure their newly won Liberty. In the following 3 decades all of those former Tarlarian colonies had joined the Federation.

Hawks was the CO of the newly activated USS Baddeck, one of 2 Akira class variants that were intended to serve as 'budget fleet carriers' and power projection assets that could also provide a credible deterrent and long range patrol/exploration across vast selection of space due to their significantly beefed up flight group, carrying nearly 70 fighters/small craft instead of the 40 aboard the standard Akiras. Outwardly the vessels looked very much like their older sister ships, being 30 metres longer, 20 metres wider, and 8 metres taller(due to an extra 2 decks). The only noticable difference between them was that the Baddeck and the Griffon looked thicker, with a stretched rear section of their saucer and less pronounced humps where the hull connected to the secondary hull and nacelle pylons.

Hawks walked out into the concourse and immediately recognized a familiar face.

"Ellis? They actually promoted you to Captain eh? Starfleet must really hard up for senior officers if they're willing to promote me to the Admiralty and give you your own command."

Captain Ellis Thornwel was exhausted. Mentally and physically. His previous task force, Omaha, was disbanded, but he still had to carry out his orders of transporting the Under Secretary of orbital affairs to a conference on space weapons on Vulcan, then run back to the Omaha operational theater to aid the USS Victory with... Whatever it was, transporting zoo animals to a fledgling colony that couldn't support them. All in the Midway, a ship riddled with metal fatigue and metal warping because of rushed repairs in the war.

He rested his head on a support beam on the concourse, trying to get some energy back. Starbase 420 was an impressive sight, something he hoped to explore with his wife & husband. Despite his exhaustion, his uniform was crisp, the pips on his neck showed he was a Captain... Then a familiar voice, something he hadn't heard in a long time.

His cholcaty eyes opened and scanned the jostling and bustle of the concourse. An admiral was approaching with the Rear Admiral pips; despite the age lines, he remembered the face. "Captain Jacob Hawks... Sorry, Rear Admiral." He strighted up and rushed to embrace his old war buddy. "Well, I've had the Midway since '73 and got 4 pips since the last push in the war. But look at you, an admiral now, so important."

Hawks realized that Ellis must have been promoted shortly after the last time they had seen eachother. During the final stages of the Klingon/Cardassian war, and the opening of the Dominion War Hawks had been in charge of a division of Starfleet Intel assigned to the border with the Cardassians and had been ferried as a passenger aboard the Midway a few times, and Ellis had even been responsible for inserting his team into the Badlands right before Sisko had mined the entrance to the wormhole.

"Not so important that they took my ship away though *chuckles*. I'll be heading up the local Task Force apparently. How's the Midway fairing these days?"

"Still a kitbash," He joked, a dinner Ellis hosted came to mind, where they got to know each other better. In war, you never know who you're going to see again. "No, it's seen better days. There's a list of problems, really. The hull is my concern; we've got metal fatigue and metal warping. My engineer, oh, Gary is dead, sadly." The former Chief who'd died in the early days, the longest chief engineer he had actually, it was like musical chairs in the department during the war. "My current engineer isn't as good as him. She's a very racist Vulcan, but... We try to keep her going." He said, shrugging his shoulders.

Hawks smiled and pulled out a padd. "I'll put you in priority queu for a quick overhaul if thats the casd. I wont have ships in my command being held together by duck tape.and bailing wire. One of the privileges of rank is being able to help grease the bureaucratic wheels sometimes. He finished putting in the requisition and sent it off to whomever it concerned.

The young Captain couldn't hide his smile. "Thank you, it's been hard to book it in, but I already know what they're going to recommend it be scuttled." It would be sad to see the Midway come to an end... Maybe it'd be time for him to leave the service, start a family, perhaps. "Oh, I got married! War bride, I married my old academy friend in '74 and my newest friend in '75... We were hoping to have a ceremony on Risa, but with the C-In-C rearranging fleets, who knows when we can set a date. Did you manage to find someone who makes you happy in the end?"

"Yeah, me and Jana got married about 3 years ago. She's the chief science officer on the Cosette. I should be seeing her here in a few days. They're heading out on a survey mission beyond Shelliak space for a few months. I'm looking forward to getting started here. Lets catch up for a drink after the briefing tonight though" Jake said as he saw someone he needed to speak with from his crew coming down the gangway from the Baddeck.

Ellis nodded, trying to put a face to Jana, though the Cosette ran bells, was it Cmdr Yohal, MD of Vulcan's ship? But the thought of drink was more pleasing; he needed to let some steam off. "Let's do that," He replied, "Let's see what his new class of Starbase has to offer."

"Excellent. See you at the briefing. Real happy I got some veteran COs out here." Hawks said he began to depart. Being a busy new Rear Admiral he had about 38 minutes worth of things he had to do in the next 27 minutes.

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