AU: To Boldly Go (open!)

[Leonard Collins]

Captain Leonard Collins, the recently promoted Commanding Officer of the Starfleet vessel of the USS Defiant, stepped onto the bridge, hands at his side comfortably. The crew was fantastic - there were few skirmishes, as far as he could tell, and followed orders well. The crew had taken a major blow after a shore leave excursion gone wrong, but they seemed to be recovering well, for the most part... Leonard, too, had some friends die - including his own husband. The Captain was the first to be killed, and if it hadn't been for Leo's quick thinking, many more would have joined the late Captain. For his heroism, Starfleet insisted on promoting the Second Officer and Chief Science Officer to a command position - the Captain. The First Officer, too, had perished in the battle. Although he wasn't fully recovered himself, he continued to push on, for the crew of the Defiant. They were his family.

He sat down in the Captain's chair that he'd dreamed of sitting in, ever since he'd been a young boy. Leo had always looked to the stars, dreaming of joining Starfleet, and boldly going where no man had gone before. Command had given him orders to travel to the Cestus system to assist a starbase down there in need of repairs - and he'd just been informed of it about twenty minutes prior to now. "Navigator-" he didn't know the young Ensign's name yet - "Set a course to the Cestus system." He heard an acknowledgement.

He heard footsteps from someone coming onto the bridge - Leo recognized the person as his First Officer. He'd promoted them for their leadership potential, and for the loyalty that they'd shown to him. "Number One," he greeted them with a small smile. "We're off to the Cestus system, to Cestus V, Command just informed me, Commander...." he trailed.

[Vincent Meian]

"Meian, sir," the first mate informed him. The second-in-command settled into parade rest by the left hand of the Captain, standing directly beside his own chair for a moment before taking a seat as well. This was actually specifically done so that neither he nor the Captain were in any discomfort during the conversation - Vincent was, after all, a very tall man.

Prior to the ship's assault that had wiped out much of the previous command, Vincent was the second-in-command for the Chief Tactical Officer and had been preparing for his own commander's retirement (given that the man had been even older than him - a feat, considering that few non-officers remained on starships past forty). He received an unexpected promotion when said officer had been badly wounded in the conflict, though by a stroke of luck and the miracle of modern medicine the elderly man had not died. Vincent, having had more than enough battle training prior to that day, had managed to hold his own with a small security team and join up with Collins to win the day. Since then, the man seemed to trust him implicitly, even going so far as to making him the First Officer.

It was certainly a strange set of circumstances, but the Terran-born would not complain.

Considering the dual role that the forty-three year old now held (rather unexpectedly), he focused his honey colored gaze on the Captain. He had also been privy to the call from Starfleet. "Do you believe Command expects trouble, Captain?" he asked, his low voice soft enough to only be heard by the ranking officer. "This is not a science vessel - sending a battle cruiser for space station repairs is out of the ordinary. We are not the Enterprise."

[Katya Jennings]

Ensign Katya Jennings was still fairly new to the Defiant. It was her first assignment after graduating from Starfleet Academy, and she'd recently been put at the helm. Like the rest of the crew, the skirmish had affected her. She was a bundle of nerves for numerous reasons.

She had a lot of respect for the new Captain. Katya considered him family, as she did most of the surviving crew. Life on a Starship brought people close. She had no reason not to respect or trust him. With a nod, and an "Aye, sir", Katya plotted the course for the Cestus system. Her gaze remained either on the view-screen or the helm's controls.