<div class="floatleft">(https://i.stack.imgur.com/mVOSg.gif)<br/></div><strong>Stardate 2/0809.22</strong><br/>The sun crept over the horizon of Terra slowly, like a being freshly roused from its slumber, casting its early light upon the surface of the brilliant blue marble below. The city of San Francisco began to awaken itself, with traffic going from a steady trickle to a stream as thousands of people went about their daily work. This was especially true at the San Francisco Naval Yards as shift change occurred. Scattered throughout the numerous open bays were components under construction for the finishing yards overhead, along with hundreds of containers destined for the faintly glowing star above that was Starbase One.<br/><br/>Chief Petty Officer Willy Meson signed off on a container with a long sixteen digit tracking number, pressing his thumb to the screen to confirm it was loaded with the shipment destined for Starbase One. With that out of the way, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kara Yousell entered her authorization, and the automated shuttle lifted off, guided by the sophisticated computer systems of San Francisco Yard’s flight controller along a flight path up through the atmosphere. The automatic shuttle didn’t have any appreciation for the beauty as the Earth slowly fell away, the bright blue of the morning sky giving way to the darkness of space, or the slowly approaching glint of Starbase One as it grew larger in front of it.<br/><br/>Starbase One was one of Starfleet’s crowning achievements. A flattened sphere, the station was over 5 kilometers long at her widest point, ringed with six smaller spheres at over a kilometer wide each. Inside each sphere was a full starship repair yard, capable of holding even the largest proposed Starfleet vessels over the next century, along with two smaller vessels of the light cruiser variety or smaller. The station had an entire section dedicated to the largest arboretum in space, stretching over a kilometer across three decks and lined with restaurants for a true park experience without leaving the station. In addition to the numerous stores and trading hubs, there was also the vast bureaucracy of Starfleet and her many branches, holding over three thousand Starfleet personnel to handle the laborious task of getting starships, personnel, and resources spread throughout the enormous sphere of Federation influence.<br/><br/>Nestled inside one of the spheres for her final fitting out was a vessel that, upon first glance, didn’t appear too remarkable on her own. At 237 meters long, she was not the largest vessel produced by Starfleet, nor was she particularly heavy at 150,000 metric tons. What made her special was that she was the first of her class, the new Avenger series designed to take up patrol along some of Starfleet’s critical hotspots and free up other classes, such as the Constitution, to resume her original intended role as deep space explorers. As such, her cruising speed of warp 7 was respectable enough to get her to the fight, and her onboard systems were some of the most formidable packed onto a cruiser frame to date.<br/><br/>On board, it was a genuine madhouse of activity as station personnel mixed with starship personnel to finalize the installation of components that had either been on order when she underwent shakedown or just weren’t installed because they were unneeded, like the artwork and decorations for the ship’s 91 officers and 269 enlisted personnel. Her aft shuttle bays were open, forcefields keeping the atmosphere inside as the automated shuttle, freshly arrived from the San Francisco yards, arrived and moved through the barrier to land exactly as specified. Her bolts released, leaving the container behind as it turned around to begin its journey back to San Francisco for more cargo needed elsewhere. Eustin Collee, crewman 2nd class, slid his identification into the lock on the container and opened it to reveal pallets of food meant for the ship’s cargo bays. Using a pallet jack, he began unloading the container, scanning each pallet and identifying its final location before moving it. He was not alone, as he could easily spot a dozen other members of the crew conducting similar operations under the direction of a nervous looking Ensign patrolling the shuttlebay with his checklist, being watched over by a Chief Petty Officer 1st class.<br/><br/>The ship was nearing final completion. She had been checked and certified as being within specifications, her shakedown cruise had been a success, and she was scheduled to depart within the next two days. For her crew that had yet to completely arrive, Starbase One would be their last chance at liberty and freedom before they were confined to the<em>Avenger</em>for months on end as she travelled the hundreds of lightyears from Terra to her new station at Starbase Ten, located on the edge of the Triangle. Only the Captain would have their official orders, specially sealed inside the captain’s personal safe in his quarters that would only be opened by him once the ship was properly underway. What he chose to disclose to the crew would be at his discretion.<br/><br/>Soon, the adventure would begin.