Easiiwro Eekoedireng was one of those high-ranking officers who just could not stand to be sat behind a desk at Starfleet Headquarters, or the Academy, "pen pushing and shuffling papers", as they used to call it on twentieth century Earth, preferring instead to be sat at the desk in his ready room. Growing up he had read about how Admiral Kirk had been demoted to the permanent rank of Captain by the Federation bureaucrats and how Kirk had been perfectly happy with that arrangement, since it meant that he could keep exploring space aboard his beloved Enterprise. It was a romantic notion, but one Easiiwro understood from the moment he left Earth Spacedock on his first mission in command, and which he embodied by insisting he was called Captain by his Bridge Officers and crew, despite his currently conferred rank as a Rear Admiral in the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet.
He leant back, casually, in the large chair at his desk in his ready room. His long, bluish-white fingers danced across the display of the PADD that lay flat on his crooked knee, as he reviewed the current mission briefing, the crew assignments of the day and an up-to-date ship's manifest. His large, dark eyes darted across the screen, taking in the information that was displayed. Today's data seemed more brief than usual, taking him just thirty-five minutes to read through, instead of the usual fifty-or-so. He signed off on all of the official communications, put the PADD into sleep mode, laid it down on the desk in front of him and got up out of his chair.
He walked over to the nearest window, peering into the blackness of space, to see what wonders of the galaxy lay out there, this morning. Sometimes it was a nebula, sometimes a planet and its moon, but today, as most days, it was the thin, short lines of yellow and white and blue and red of stars, zipping by, as the starship sped through space at high warp.
Like all who had spent even the briefest time on a Federation starship – even those who were not a seasoned Starfleet engineer, like he was – he could feel the humming of the warp-core through the deck-plates and the soles of his boots, feeling a constant, gentle, barely perceptible massage of the thick soles of his Etririan feet any time he was stood up. Even now, after all these years, he wondered just how those species within Starfleet whose soles of the feet – or their physiological equivalent – were more sensitive than his managed to not be distracted by the constant tickle that he imagined that they received.
As he stood there, contemplating this, he realized that the frequency of the vibrations was now higher than usual; certainly higher than they had been when he had sat down to make his daily review. There was urgency within the waves now, as if they themselves were carrying the ship at warp, like the waves of the Pacific Ocean on Earth carrying surfers, as he had often seen during shore leave spent on the beaches of Hawaii and California. Such a high frequency from the warp-core usually meant the ship was rushing to aid a fellow Starfleet captain whose existence was in imminent danger from one of Starfleet's current crop of enemies: Voth, Undine, Borg…
This time, however, it was rushing Easiiwro to his ancestral home world of Etriri and the urgency was not some great crisis that was in need of aversion but the sheer distance of the planet from the Sol system and Starfleet headquarters. Nevertheless, he felt the need to check. He leant on the frame at the edge of the window, reached for the nearby wall-mounted communications console and hit the transmit button.
"Eekoedireng to Engineering."
"Engineering. Commander Angir here, Captain."
Like all of Easiiwro's Bridge Officers, Angir held the rank of Commander. Easiiwro felt that it not only afforded each officer the ability to train up as many skills as possible to their maximum level, but it also meant that the officers could move more easily between the similar stations, no matter what ship he had decided they were using. The issuing of the crewman's name was a procedural formality, especially so in this instance, as Easiiwro had known instantly who he was talking to as he recognized his Ferengi accent.
"Morning, Angir."
"Morning, Easiiwro."
Easiiwro smiled. Like many Starfleet Captains and their most trusted Bridge Officers, he and Angir had known each other since their days as Cadets at the Academy, yet he still mispronounced his name as Easy-row instead of Ees-raw. Thankfully his last name gave no such problems, as Eekoedireng was pronounced as it was spelled, Ee-coh-duh-reng.
"What is our speed?"
"We crossed into the Beta Ursae sector seven minutes ago, so it is nine-point-nine all the way from here on out, as ordered," Angir responded.
"Ah. I'm glad this trip is giving us the opportunity to "blow the cobwebs" from the old girl. I felt the increase in the warp-core's vibrations in the floor; it feels like the same frequency when we're heading for combat. I hope that will not be the case this time."
"As do I, Captain, but I assure you that whilst she has been in dry dock for a long while now, she is ready and able, should it come to that."
"I'm sure she is. Thank you, Angir. Eekoedireng out."
He left the Ready Room and walked down the short corridor to the Bridge and took his place in the Captain's Chair, anxiously studying the viewscreen for any signs of the planet Etriri, his ancestral home, despite the fact that they had only just entered the Beta Ursae sector, in which was located Bajor, his adopted home. Maybe adopted was the wrong term, after all he had been born there, long after his parents had arrived and had settled into Bajoran life.
For this trip, Easiiwro was using one of his older acquisitions, the U.S.S. Starbreaker-F, a retrofitted Ambassador–class support cruiser, obtained from the Starfleet shipyard after a successful mission that saw him entering an alternate timeline universe, where he helped free the U.S.S. Enterprise-C. Since the end of the Dominion War, Starfleet had found itself in a new phase in its existence where it was not uncommon for a ranked officer – known colloquially throughout Starfleet as "Captain", irrespective of rank – to own a small fleet of starships of their own, supported by a Senior Staff that very rarely changed in composition and Easiiwro was no exception. His small fleet of ships ranged from an old Oberth–class science ship, through to a Vorgon Ryn'Kodan–class Carrier.
The distance that he and his crew would be travelling meant that this would be a good opportunity to give the starship a bit of a shakedown, after months in dry dock. Although it wasn't his favorite vessel, he liked the starship well enough, as it made him feel close to the famous Enterprise Captains that he had read about either as a child or at the Academy, as the U.S.S. Enterprise-C was one of the original Ambassador–class starships. It was a tentative connection, but it made him feel more part of Starfleet even more so than graduating the Academy had.
Like all cruisers, its handling was a little sluggish, even by Federation cruiser standards, but for what cruisers lacked in maneuverability they made up for in battle readiness. The Starbreaker-F did lack a little in how it was equipped compared to some starships that were flying around the galaxy, and Easiiwro would be the first to admit it, but as a Captain whose temperament was more of an explorer than grinder – "grinder" being the term used for those Captains who spent the free time they had outside of official Starfleet missions working at attaining the wealth required in order to make various upgrades to their starships' equipment – it would take a long time before he could run around the galaxy, wiping out Borg cubes with one barrage from a ship's beam arrays, as some Captains seemed to be able to do. The "plug and play" functionality of the current starship equipment meant that many of his ships shared the same equipment for their various set ups – or "loadouts", in the current vernacular – with a few subtle changes to their consoles, and all were armed with the best combination for the ship of the selection of Mark XII beam arrays he owned.