January 24th, 2381 A.D.
2215 hours

Galaxy-Class Exploration Cruiser,
U.S.S. Excalibur NCC-26517-A

Making his way through the corridors of the ship, Captain Calhoun encountered only a few members of his crew, mostly security officers stationed at various intersections, due to the Yellow Alert.

As he passed the small groups of phaser-toting crewmen, they hardly even blinked at their captains state of 'undress': shirtless, blood-stained and tattered breeches, and a single scabbard slung across his back, currently storing the Danteri longsword he'd taken off of the corpse of one of the first man he ever killed, a Danteri Captain, and one of Xenex's former enslavers.

The Captain's preferences when it came to 'exercising' were well known aboard Excalibur, and aboard this particular vessel, it was hardly the oddest thing they'd seen.

Calhoun chuckled to himself, reflecting on how aboard any other ship in the Fleet, he'd be sharply reprimanded, or possibly court-martialed. Especially for his habit of completely disabling the Holodeck's safety protocols, an act that was not just discouraged, but openly forbidden by Starfleet regulations.

Finally approaching a turbolift, he stepped in, and waited for the door to close before announcing his desired destination in two short, terse words. "Main Bridge"

At his command, the lift hummed into motion, rising through the network of shafts crisscrossing throughout the Excalibur's ovoid Primary Hull, swiftly rising to the uppermost level of the ship; Deck 1, the Main Bridge. The nerve center of the entire vessel. And one of the single most important locations aboard, with equal importance to Main Engineering, the Excalibur's throbbing heart of Matter, Antimatter, and Dilithium Crystal.

As the lift doors opened, Calhoun swiftly stepped out onto the upper level of the Bridge, just behind the Tactical Station, at which Lieutenant Zak Kebron stood as an imposing wall of brick (quite literally, as his species are composed of a substance with a rock-like hardness).

As he stepped around Zak's left side towards the lower level of the bridge, one of the younger Officers at an ancillary station, one Lieutenant JG Ronni Beth, (who had yet to realize that regulation is rarely, if ever, followed to the letter aboard Excalibur) jumped out of his seat and called; "Captain on the Bridge!!" And was shocked and more than just a little horrified when he was only person to actually jump to attention.

"Settle down Lieutenant Beth, it's just the Captain, it's not anyone TOO important" this snarky comment came from the 'middle-aged' (I use middle-age loosely because she's over 4000 years old) civilian women sitting at one of the two forward-most consoles on the Bridge. Morgan Primus, the immortal/unkillable mother of Lt. Robin Lefler, who had taken over for her daughter after Robin had married the former Thallonian Empire's Ambassador, Si Cwan.

"I resent that comment Morgan, as true as it probably is." Calhoun said, feigning a miffed tone of voice at the barely veiled insult. "Burgy, patch Starfleet's message to the display in my Ready Room please, I'll view it in there."

"I've already had it piped over to your terminal Mac." The Hermat First Officer replied casually, not even looking up from the PADD s/he was reading.

"Alrighty then, hold down the fort here, you have the Conn Burgy" as he said this, the Captain was already striding down the leftmost access ramp between the Fore and Aft sections of the Bridge, walking towards the corridor branching off of the port side of the Bridge, next to the Main Viewer. This particular corridor led to the Captain's Ready Room, a spacious, well decorated, and peaceful chamber that the Ship's current Commanding Officer uses as an Office, a private meeting area, and a place to rest and recuperate between shifts.

Stepping into the darkly lit chamber, Mackenzie Calhoun sidestepped around the bare desk, simultaneously unbuckling the strap that held his scabbard to his back. Seating himself with a slightly pained grunt (a memento from his interrupted training session) the Xenexian ex-warlord reached out with one hand and roughly rapped two knuckles against the transparisteel screen of his desk mounted terminal, bringing up the blue backdropped stars and golden laurel wreath of the United Federation of Planets' insignia. Tapping the screen again, Calhoun swiftly maneuvered through the various screens of the subspace communications program, bringing up the encrypted message from Starfleet's Command...

NEXT TIME!: Bad News^60,000!