((Blythe Bridge))

It was the delta shift aboard the Blythe, and it just so happened to be a Friday. Though the situation was tense along this border patrol, the dolphin second officer had kept up with his traditional ‘casual fridays’ as it related to uniforms. As he had for the previous 4 weeks, Mee IH specifically sent out a memo to all those on duty for the Delta shift that friday, informing them that the theme for the week. This week it was Hawaiian Luau attire.

So with that, tie dyed shirts, cargo shorts, lays and sun hats were all the rage. Everyone on bridge duty that day was taking part except the curmudgeon and eternal jerk Chief Ford.

The chief had been assigned to a duty shift at the ops station as he was qualified and they were still short on staff. But that didn’t mean he had to take part in the foolish and unprofessional display of merriment. Most on the crew by now knew what a selfish conceited ass he was and just ignored him. The crews morale actually rose whenever Ford was around just because he was so universally reviled. 

The second officer had a decided to use his flipper mounted repulsors to float around the bridge for that shift and feel like an actual humanoid second officer today. He even went so far as to sit in the Captains chair. Yes, the racistly designed chair that made it nearly impossible for a full grown dolphin to sit in comfortably, that chair, the Captains chair. Mee IH was determined to not let the speciesist chair designers win. He was going to sit in that chair, and be uncomfortable as f#$% and show them and his fellow humanoid crewmates that he was willing to endure being uncomfortably wedged into the chair for the good of his fellow cetaceans. No one on the crew couldn’t fault his intentions then. And infact, most aboard were coming to really enjoy Mee IHs fresh takes and bubbly positive attitude, though his eclectic personality still rubbed some the wrong way. The skinny dipping had helped though.

Currently he had his tail flipper flopping freely in front of the chair and one of his side flippers wrapped around the backrest of the big chair for added support. He was slanted sideways and had his spine bent at a very uncomfortable angle. But he didn’t mind it, after all he had the hopes and dreams of his entire species, no, his entire clade of species riding on his back. He was the first cetacean to get this opportunity, and he’d be damned if he’d fail his people.

((Ingrams Quarters))

(DREAM SCENE, from 10 years prior)

They were too big to not be given names in the opinion of the bean counters back at R&D. Yet they were also too big to be called fighters in the eyes of those same been counters, so they just called them Heavy Fighters AND gave them in true idiotic military fashion. But the 3 new Baron class Heavy Fighters on this mission were performing well so far. They had completed their mission of escorting a convoy of freighters filled with Ferengi tulaberry wine to Karremma. A flight of runabouts would escort the freighters home to free up the Barons to head back the wormhole and home to DS99. They had more important things to do then escort empty freighters back to the wormhole.

But LCdr Ingram also thought the new heavy fighters were just the next small incremental step forward for the mere mortals he served alongside. He was in charge of the squadron of 9 of the vessels that had been deployed to DS99 as a part of their initial roll out to the fleet. Being a high priority region, DS99 was one of 6 different strategic bases that had received a squadron of the new birds. Vaughn had come along on the mission because he thought it would give him a chance to really break in the new engines on the vessels.

Though over a dozen descendants of Apollo and Carolyn Palomas had joined Starfleet at some point, most retained a somewhat smug sense of superiority. In Vaughn’s case, this was mostly internalized but he often played pranks and made jokes or references that reminded folks he was technically a demi-god. He wasn’t nasty or condescending about it, but he also never let an opportunity to show off pass him by.

Ingram thought because he has seen the same incremental upgrades performed throughout his entire career, better and more effective advancement could be made if they wanted to. One thing Herc’s(his callsign) critics couldn’t say was that he was a bad pilot. He had spent most of his nearly 40 year starfleet career flying small craft of all shapes, sizes, makes and models. Flying at breakneck speeds was just his jam…well, that and sweeping as many ladies off their feet as he could in his long lived lifespan.

He had been made a Commander and demoted to Lt Commander 3 times in the past 2 decades, always because they had tried to promote him out of the cockpit.

“Sir, I’m picking up a…space station sir…no record of it at all…I have it on long range sensors now. It might be that group of pirates that we heard about who might be setting up a base near here” Chief Deplidis said from the ops console in the 4 person cockpit.

“Altering course to intercept…lets go see what they’re up to.” Vaughn ‘Herc’ Ingram said from the Pilot station.

As they approached the seemingly lifeless station Ingram had the small group spread out to cover each other. As they got close and Ingram was about to order one of his wingman to move in for a closer, the station suddenly sprang to life and began firing its wide array of weapon systems at them.

On that day Ingram lost 14 of the 18 people under his command and 2 of the 3 ships he was in command of. Their was no court martial or repremand, in fact he had even beem given a decoration for his ‘courage’ in the aftermath. The award was a hollow horrific reminder of his failure that day, nothing more, nothing less.

(End dream scene)

Ingram woke with a start, covered in sweat and filled with a sense of unrelenting guilt. It was a frequent recurring dream he had come to learn to live with. As he checked his time piece, he sighed noting he had to be on duty in an hour anyway. As he had done countless times before, he shook off the dream, stretched and got up to begin his day.