Untouchable
Yet it seems that even flipping off the President wasn't enough to halt Blackjack's meteoric rise. Later that year, Blackjack replaced the late J.P Hanson as head of Starfleet Tactical, and thanks to the innovations he'd pushed through, a promotion to Vice Admiral with the new post.
"Untouchable," recalls Tom Paris when asked to describe Blackjack's tenure as head of Tactical, "Nothing could stop Blackjack. Even my dad said if he'd been anyone else, Starfleet would have tossed him on his ass. But he backed up the bravado by being right. Just look at the ships he built. Blackjack sounds like he might have been breaking all the rules and getting lucky, and I guess that's true in a certain sense."
"But that's not the impression I ever got from him. He was charismatic as hell, and I hope you understand where I'm coming from when I say that, because Captain Janeway is pretty charismatic herself. But Blackjack, he inspired people. He always knew just what to say to get the best out of everyone."
Among other notable achievements, Blackjack followed in Hanson's footsteps and pushed Utopia Planetia into adopting Hanson's protégé's, Elizabeth Shelby, plans to create an entirely new Tactical Fleet for Starfleet.
While the exact "war fleet" that Task Force Shelby called for never materialized, Blackjack was responsible for taking the best elements of the plan and making them into a reality, resulting the in Defiant, Akira, Steamrunner, Sabre, Norway and Sovereign class starships that would define Starfleet in the years up to, and during, the Dominion War.
"I really couldn't have done it without him," Shelby admits when talking about her Task Force, "J.P got me to the door, but it was Blackjack that carried me inside. When half the Admiralty had laughed my task force out the door, and the other half had called us a collection of war-hungry maniacs trying to pervert the fleet into something wicked and dangerous, Blackjack was the only man to give me the time of day."
I asked her to explain what she meant by that, and Shelby put a bright smile on her face. "He let me pitch my ideas to him. He sat down at his desk and watched our entire presentation. And when it was over, he got up and shook my hand, saying 'Commander Shelby, I can appreciate the work you put into that. You'll have my decision on Monday morning.' And two days later, Blackjack went to the board and told them he was using my plan, mentioned by name, to move forward with his new tactical fleet. And he used his authority as head of Tactical to make sure no one could stop him. It was… validating."
The picture was being painted in my mind as I learned more about Blackjack Ashcroft's rise to power. He was a man with drive, a man who would bluster through anything in front of him to get his way.
But he wasn't a bull set loose in a China shop. He backed up his bravado with results. He was an Admiral who expected the best out of the officers beneath him. And in exchange, he went to bat for those he believed in. This was a man, dear leader, for whom success is rewarded, but the cost of failure is catastrophic.
"A lot of us would say at the board meetings that there was no better friend to have than Blackjack, and that there was no worse enemy," Owen Paris recalls, "And I was an enemy. I'm not one to back down from a fight, and certainly Starfleet must be ready to fight at a moment's notice. But Blackjack was a man for whom there was nothing but the fight."
"He and he alone made Tactical into a beast for the fleet. And the beast fed upon Science, Exploration and R&D, Science and Exploration were my responsibilities. So, every procurement meeting, every planning session for policy and strategy, it usually came down to me and him shouting across the table at one another."
Out of a morbid curiosity, I asked Owen who would win these fights. His response wasn't exactly what I was expecting to hear, but I'll credit Owen with having an almost prophetic sense of insight.
"That should be obvious. Which of us is dead after being indicted for high treason?"
─•~:~•─
