Star Trek: Red Dawn

Chapter 1

Stardate 5714.6

Starbase 23

Codename: "Olympus".

Captain Bridgette St. Claire of the USS Challenger greeted her old friend and fellow classmate Alexis Brasnov with a warm hug of her own—while her First Officer from the newly admitted T'Lev star system—looked on.

"Hey girlfriend!" She said in an instant. "Where the hell have you been to lately? Still fighting the damned Romulans again for the tenth time this year alone?"

"Survey mission into uncharted space." The other woman said. "I was tag-teaming with Captain Yellen of the Hornet. But things went awry after that. And that's all I can say for the moment—until later."

Alexis grinned. "Girl...I know all about your Section 31 mission ops."

"And how would you know?" Bridgette said with sudden suspicion. "Who have you been talking to lately?"

"Commodore Hudson." She said at length. "He comm'd me last Thursday after you returned from your mission with some serious hull damage along your port quarter. He said the Hornet had to tractor you back here after an extra week at low warp."

"Yep." Bridgette said with clear embarrassment on her part. "Nineteen dead on top of that."

"...and a fried starboard warp engine don't forget." Bridgette said with a quiet sigh. "I'm going to have a long talk with Ralph about how to keep secrets away from you, Captain."

"Moi?"

"Yes. You have one of the biggest mouths in the Fleet."

Alexis smiled broadly. "It's because I followed in Travis's footsteps."

"Travis Welsh? Admiral Travis Welsh? Former commander of the Potemkin during the Draxon War in 2261? Now in charge of the newly built Starbase 41 at the H'dar Neutral Zone?"

"The one and the same. The one and the same. Turns out...he owed me a few favors. So I called a couple in on credit."

Bridgette pointed to a brand-new Federation-class dreadnought parked in its docking berth: The USS Raven. (NCC-2171.)

"Nobody I know gets that lucky and gets assigned a dreadnought class right off the bat, Lexi. Weren't you supposed to captaining a Wolverine-class frigate instead?"

"Yeah, but I got bumped up the list of candidates when Captain Dee Harris dropped out of the top spot and then Captain Erik Paulson got reassigned to Starfleet Headquarters. That just left me and my spartan service record to convince the Admiralty I was the right person for the job."

"Nothing in the ways of being the first woman in Fleet history to captain a dreadnought after a full twelve hour interview and cross-examination process?"

Alexis shrugged. "Nope. There are other qualified women serving in various Fleet capacities. You for one...a Section 31 brat to the core. Captaining a Valkyrie subclass slated for a refit in the next year or so when the Mark II Constitution space frame officially gets approved by Starfleet R&D."

Bridgette blushed a bit in response to her former classmate's question.

"Okay. You have me there. We're both special and unique at the same time." She said in light defense of herself. "But that is besides the point. You have a new crew to look after? Me, I have to deal with Ronald's arias again."

"The man's taken up singing lessons?" Alexis said with a chuckle of her own.

"Starbase 34 last year—yeah. Caught me completely off guard when he was serenading both me and Yeoman Jackie Robbins on stage. Never took him for a crooner before."