Captain Samuel Kelly stared absentmindedly into his morning cup of coffee, the stack of data pads on his left armrest growing by the minute.
Around him, the bridge lazily came alive as first watch trickled in and took their stations. It was a familiar, comfortable routine. Despite the informal atmosphere around the ship, the crew knew their roles. Kelly knew that when it came down to it, they could be depended on.
Still, it burned a little when his helmsman showed up fifteen minutes late.
Mondays.
“Walt,” he said in a vaguely disapproving tone. “Turbolifts give you any trouble on the way in?”
“Sorry,” Lieutenant Walter Marvez said sheepishly. “You know, I just can’t get going in the morning and …”
The captain sighed. He knew why his helmsman was dragging. It had been a late night - Chief Blackmon’s going away party had been one for the ages. Real alcohol was hard to come by in space … most of the night had been a blur.
Still, Kelly had managed to make it to work on time, hangover and all.
“Save it Walt,” Kelly said. “Just try and show up on time every once in a while, huh? You’re making me look bad.”
“Sure thing, Sam. Sorry.”
“That’s ‘Captain’ on the bridge, Walt.”
Kelly sighed, then laughed. He hated being the bad guy, but as Stella had told him right before he took command of the Hornet ten months ago: “Sometimes you gotta pay the costs to be the boss.”
He knew he had to get to work soon, but allowed himself a moment of silent respite. It would be a busy day ahead - duty schedules and cargo manifests to approve, and judging by the stack of pads that had now overflowed onto his lap, about a million other things.
Paperwork. How perfectly mundane.
Sometimes Kelly actually missed the war.
---
The Hornet was not exactly the latest in technology and starship design.
Starfleet had pulled her out of mothballs a year into the Dominion War. She was part of a 30-ship fleet that had been stored away at Rega IV - mostly Miranda and Constitution-class vessels, replaced by bigger, stronger, faster ships.
The Hornet was an oddity in Starfleet - a Philadelphia-class frigate. Only five had ever been built. She even had her original registry number. All the other ships from Rega had been recommissioned as new vessels before being put back into service - the Sitak, the Majestic, the Nautilus.
Not Kelly‘s ship. In a fleet full of five-digit registry numbers, the U.S.S. Hornet proudly wore NCC-2155.
She was unmistakably part of the Constitution design lineage. Sure, the Hornet’s silhouette was maybe not quite as elegant as James T. Kirk’s Enterprise, but the first time he saw the her, Sam had immediately fallen in love with her compact, no-nonsense design.
The primary hull was topped by a single warp nacelle, with a short interconnecting pylon housing the torpedo launcher. A small shuttle bay slung underneath the impulse engines on the aft side, and that was it.
The shape of her pearlescent white saucer was still iconic in the Federation, long after Kirk‘s last command had ended.
You can take your Galaxies and Nebulas and stuff them in a sack, Kelly had thought as he looked at his new command from the viewport at Starbase 348. This is what I want.
As it should be 
