Captain Lethor sat at his desk inside his ready room aboard the U.S.S. Almirante which was currently docked at Earth Spacedock. The Almirante was a classic design of Federation Starships, refitted from the 23rd Century Constitution Class it was now considered a 25th Century Exeter Class. With a crew of 350 and a length of about 300 meters it was a fine ship. Although dated no matter what modifications were made, the pressing times and circumstances of the galaxy urged for every available ship to be pressed into service. Hundreds of ships from the Mothball fleet had been recommissioned. The Almirante being one of them. Lethor looked out of the transparent aluminum windows of his ready room at the buzz of worker bee craft and shuttles that moved around spacedock. He walked across the room to the window and looked out to the berth next to his ship, A new starship was being built. Apparently a new model designed to be a battlecruiser made for war, his mind drifted someday i'll command a ship like that he thought. He was brought back from his daydreaming by the chirp of his combadge. "Bridge to Captain Lethor" Lethor tapped his combadge "Go Ahead" The voice of his Andorian first officer Tersi filled the room "sir you have an incoming message from Admiral Quinn" Lethor began to walk over to his desk "Alright commander i'll take it in here." He sat down in his chair and tapped a button on his desk, the screen lifted from the desk as the starfleet emblem with the words incoming transmission flashed across the screen. Once the screen reached an angle of 145 degrees it stopped and the image switched to that of Admiral Jorel Quinn in his office at Spacedock. "Captain Lethor, its quite an honor to finally meet you." the Admiral said with enthusiasm. "The honor is all mine" replied Lethor. "Captain as much as i would like to continue to get to know ourselves better, i have a mission for you. There is a bolian freighter, The Azula that makes weekly runs here to spacedock. Never late and never absent, it was supposed to arrive yesterday. As you can imagine it did not, im assigning the Almirante to go find out what happened to her. Her last known position was 2 light years from Wolf 359, take your ship see what happened and report back. Quinn out"
Lethor stayed sitting at his desk for a second processing the information before getting up and walking to the bridge. The doors whisked open and he walked to the center seat. Tarsi stood up and turned to face him, "All systems are checked and ready, Fuel levels are nominal, all crew is onboard and the last of the civilian workers are exiting the ship." Lethor nodded "Thank you commander, get the ship underway we will depart in approximately half an hour, we just got our first assignment. Looks like the trial runs will have to wait." Lethor smiled and sat in the center seat as his first officer barked orders around the bridge "Get me the dockmaster, prepare to release all moorings. Initialize thruster power and wait my command." "Almirante this is control tower" came a voice over the speakers "Control tower this is Almirante, requesting permission to depart." replied Tarsi as she sat next to the captain. "Permission to depart granted 30 seconds for mooring retraction, 1 minute for space doors."replied the control tower "Roger all moorings retracted departure at 1 minute from your mark." Tarsi turned to Lethor, "All systems go captain." Lethor acknowledged her with a slight nod as he awaited to be released from the docking bay, outside the huge steel docking clamps that connected to the saucer section of the ship released. Tractor beams that held the ship in place deactivated, the ship sank a couple of meters before her thrusters activated and caught her drop. "Alright ensign, take us out. Full thrusters." ordered Lethor. The ensign at the helm tapped in a few commands into her console, and slid her fingers up across a small screen and the ship began to move forward. Accelerating with every second the ship made its way down the "Runway" to the space doors which opened allowing a spectacular view of the northern pole of Earth. "Space Doors cleared captain." said Tarsi. Lethor tapped his console before looking at the viewscreen, "Helm set a course for Wolf 359 maximum warp" He leaned forward "Engage." He smiled as the stars on the screen began to distort and then stretched as the ship was propelled at warp speed. Lethor stood up and headed out of the bridge "Number one you have the bridge, i'll be in my ready room."
**Captains Log Stardate 94146.29: With our newly fitted ship and crew, the Almirante has received its first assignment. We are tasked with finding a missing cargo freighter that was last seen near Wolf 359. The freighter dubbed S.S. Azula is well known through the sector and her disappearance has stirred a lot of questions, especially with the state of affairs the Federation currently finds itself in. I can only hope we find the ship and her crew alive and well. End Log"