Mission 1.8: Cubed

[Constance Lafayette]

Next Song

In 2393 an unnamed Intrepid class was commissioned to bolster the forces lost in the conflict with the Klingons. She was built on a modest frame in Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. She wasn't the largest, the best armed, or the most prestigious ship in the fleet but the people who would inhabit her hull would go down in legend as having done amazing things. We often forget about the magic that occurs between people, the little legends that are built everyday on the backs of mundane events.

In 2394 the ship was christened the "USS Athena" and her command was temporarily given to Commander Joseph Reinhart and a skeleton crew for transport to Starbase Columbus. Her registration, brightly displayed on her hull, was "NCC-31415"- an auspicious number. It was the approximation of the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and bode well for such a science-focused ship. Her brief flight there was uneventful and upon arrival a relatively inexperienced Captain, one only promoted to the position due to outbreak of the Klingon war, who had only served as the Captain of a small Nova class by the name of Constance Lafayette was assigned as her Commanding Officer. Lafayette, the Athena, and an old sawbones named Luke Stafford were placed at the disposal of the 10th Fleet, within Task Group Alpha.

However, something amazing happened. This small, unassuming ship made waves. Waves the galaxy wouldn't soon forget. It burned a hole in the universe. Despite what she appeared to be she faced the universe like she was the biggest, baddest, ship in the fleet. She did what no one could- she was the impossible little ship that did impossibly big things.

In the Nyrelix System the crew made first contact with the Curians- a race of energy being everyone else had mistaken as data. On Epsilon Indi they broke all the rules and saved a planet from toxic inebriation. In the Bildergusten Cluster they saved a living planet by performing emergency surgery on it with that brave little ship. It faced down the better armed USS Tuscon and broke the back of Section 31 by righting a long obscured war crime with their courage. The Athena bested her own dark side when the Mirror Universe attacked. The little ship, burning so bright now as it offered itself in one final gesture of defiance of its size, saved Earth when all thought it lost. Her crew found an impossibly way to destroy an invincible meteor. Then, again, she broke all the rules by reclaiming her XO, now James Carter, from the dead by matching wits with a Q.

Now, as Constance watched her ship burn like the star she always knew it was she shuttered. The time she'd served on it was the best of her career- in no small part thanks to the ship itself. The thing about small ships was, the thing everyone overlooked about them was, they were small. That meant bumping into your Chief Engineer or your Councillor in the turbolift. It means your Ready Room was something special because it was the one place on the ship that you never had to run into someone else. It mean that the galley was the only place with enough open space for a boarding crew to beam in. It meant your friends were never more than a bulkhead away. Never having a moment to yourself... and deep down she liked that.

Constance shut her eyes tight and tears, real tears, came from them. She tried to shut out the horrible noise she could not hear of her beloved Athena making the ultimate sacrifice on her behalf.

"This..."
She said watching the little impossible ship got to fight on their behalf for one last time,

"Above all else."
She recited painfully to herself.

"To thine own self be true."
It was an oath.

And then she was gone. In a flash and a contained explosion that would have surely roasted her own escape pod.

"We will. I promise... thank you."