Chapter 4: Starship Lexington

The last thing he heard was the whine of the transporter beam as it began to disassemble the molecules in his body and transmit, or "beam", those particles from the East Coast, of what had been the Unites States of America, to it’s West Coast. A trip of many hour or even days duration in centuries past was completed in a matter of seconds. Another whine and he was in the transporter room at Starfleet HQ. He was hit with a momentary wave of nausea and disorientation has his body was reconstituted. By the time he stepped off the pad it had passed.

"Good morning, Captain. I am Admiral Jackson’s aide Lt. Michael Evans. The Admiral is expecting you. Right this way sir."

"Thank you. Lead the way Lieutenant."

They strode through the halls of Starfleet HQ. The richly paneled walls were decorated with paintings, murals and models of starships past interspersed with portraits of Starfleet’s finest. Among many Masters saw were several renderings representing the various incarnations of the USS Enterprise, the "Great Experiment" the original USS Excelsior and the Phoenix, earth’s first warp capable space ship; which lead to humanities first contact with an alien race. Among the portraits were James T. Kirk, Christopher Pike, Jonathan Archer, Robert April and Zefram Cochrane. Further down he came across a bronze plaque bearing the names of the starships lost to the Borg at the Battle of Wolf 359 and then upon the portraits of Will Decker and Benjamin Sisko; each bearing the somber yet hopeful inscription of Missing in Action. Starfleet HQ was part operations center, part museum and part shrine.