Observe and Honor

          Atlantis departed drydock precisely to the minute when Captain Greene said she would, and as she slipped past the duranium framework and illumination lights of the superstructure and eased her way out into open space above Earth Major Edison sat in his guest quarters and gazed out the window as the intricate, rust-hued metalwork of the dock slowly crept past the ship and the curvature of Earth gradually slipped away before his eyes. One lone Starfleet inspection pod zoomed past Atlantis to escape being caught in the starship's path of departure, the viewport of the small craft coming so close to the hull of the NX-05 that Balthazar could swear he could make out the pilot's face as he deftly maneuvered the tiny nosecone-shaped bullet away from a potential collision with one of the largest and most advanced starships in the fleet.

          Edison glanced down at his mission orders, programmed onto a small padd emblazoned with the respective insignia of not only the Military Assault Command Operations Division but also the United Earth Ministry for Defense and Starfleet Command. Multiple organizations and more brass than you'd find in an old world orchestra had signed off on this assignment, and apparently a lot of very important people with a substantial amount of fruit salad on their chests thought that this Romulan beacon was so important that not only were he and his MACOs considered both the right men and women for the job and expendable but also the officers and crew of one of the most advanced and powerful spaceships ever built by human hands. He thought the commitment of more than a hundred men and women to the destruction of one mechanical device that could probably fit inside one of the smaller cargo holds of Atlantis with space left over was a waste of both men and materiel. Had he been permitted to attend the meetings tasked with planning the mission and been given a vote he'd have completely killed the idea and gone with a more...direct approach guaranteed to strike at the Romulans themselves. Whomever or whatever they really were.

          But he was a soldier. A soldier who once faced down the frightening spatial anomalies of the Delphic Expanse and remained stoic as the very laws of time and space themselves seemed to be bent before his eyes and the gray bulkheads of Enterprise twisted and distorted into unsettling shapes out of a nightmare or drug-addled hallucination. If they did encounter anything living or of a profoundly disturbing nature in the void of space near the Romulan frontier and that unnamed force posed a mortal threat to Atlantis and all aboard who better for Captain Greene and Commander Frederick to have at their disposal than some of the heroes of the Expanse?

           Almost as quickly as he could no longer see Earth nor the planet's distinctive blue-green glow he felt the deckplates underneath his feet momentarily shudder as the great starship jumped to warp, the stars outside his window becoming multicolored streaks of light as Atlantis left normal space and entered the mysterious realm of subspace that was first encountered by the great Zefram Cochrane almost a century ago. They were now traveling at velocities far in excess of the speed of light, and if Atlantis were anything like her older sister ship Enterprise those velocities would soon approach Warp 5. Even the previously incredible and unheard-of Warp Factor 6 with the most recent engine modifications that had been made to the five NX-class starships currently in service. For all the unpleasant aspects of Starfleet and behavioral traits and tendencies of both the service and its officers and personnel that he either didn't understand or outright disliked, he couldn't find fault with most of the technology employed aboard its vessels. A Warp 5 engine is something every Earth starship no matter how big or small - Starfleet or military - should have. The faster and more heavily-armed all our ships are, the better chances we'll have of not only winning this war but winning it much sooner and sustaining fewer deaths and other casualties on our side.

       His thoughts on the state of the cosmos were interrupted by the electronic chime of the doorbell to his quarters. Somebody had come to see him. I hope it's not that windbag Frederick, Edison silently wished to himself. Greene's a pain in the ass but at least he's not the smug and obnoxious shitstorm that his first officer seems to relish being. "Yes! Enter!"

          The door slid to the side, revealing Private Cantoran with an apologetic expression across his mustachioed face. "I'm sorry to bother you, Major, but if you're not busy and can spare a few minutes I'd really like to talk to you."

          Edison waved his left index finger, summoning the young Private inside. "Come on in, Alex. Just sitting here and watching the ship go to warp, that's all. What can I do for you, son?"

          Cantoran walked in and sat down on the empty, padded chair next to his CO. "It's the mission and this ship, sir."

           Balthazar narrowed his eyes and harrumphed, reclining ever slightly into his own chair and folding his hands across his chest. "Go on."

          "Don't get me wrong, Major, I understand that Starfleet has its place in the defense and security of this planet and after the Xindi Crisis the service has proven its value to humanity, but...this starship. And these officers. Captain Greene acts like he can barely stand us, and his first officer is an even bigger asshole. We're supposed to work with these people to complete this mission and end the war and we can't even get along with them. Who knows how long we're gonna be on this ship?"

       "Until the mission is completed, Private. When it's over, we come home. End of story. If it takes a few days, it takes a few days. If we're out there for several weeks until we find this damned beacon then those are the orders."

          "But Greene. And Frederick. Those two would have been drummed out of MACO training the first week if not the first day! None of our officers would tolerate their attitudes. They have no respect for the military code and discipline and think we're along just for the muscle and because most Starfleet officers can't handle any sidearm bigger than a phase pistol."

          "You didn't serve on Enterprise in the Expanse, son. Jonathan Archer proved that some of these Starfleet officers are just as tough as a MACO in their own ways. The crew of that ship saved humanity. Without a commanding officer like that, Earth wouldn't be here today. Greene's not Archer. But he doesn't have to be. He just needs to let us do our jobs and get us home. Nobody's asking you to invite him or his first officer to your wedding. Get a grip and focus on what we're here to do."

         Private Cantoran's eyerolls were a sight that frequently made Edison chuckle and out loud. Alex had a way of displaying frustration and indignance that was not only amusing but one of the funniest things one could see during training exercises on the California coast or in a formal unit inspection. Two hundred years ago he'd have been regarded as the unit troublemaker and the soldier who got everybody else in his barracks reprimanded for being an incorrigible smartass. Today, in the MACOs, it was a refreshing thing to see a man for whom the rigid physical and psychological training of the organization hadn't reduced him to a humorless and bland shell of his former self. Too many men and women during his career were inducted into the service and appeared to leave their old senses of humor as well as irony back home or inside a personal effects locker.