((Blythe, Bridge))

On the bridge, the XO, LCdr Wong was busy reviewing the plan for the next leg of their mission. It was a routine delivery and installation of 2 new geothermal turbines for an underwater research base on Geyrus 6. The crew was starting to show some signs of fatigue, but that was to be expected considering they were running at about half strength.

Lt. Vaughn Ingram, the pilot they had rescued, had become a valuable addition, and after consulting with the Captain, Wong handed off the role of Chief Tactical Officer to the ‘Zombie’. The zombie rumors had simply stemmed from the fact that he was nearly clinically dead when he had been beamed aboard, and Doc Patron had somehow fully revived the half frozen man within minutes.

At this point in their mission, most of the cargo bays were near empty. They were scheduled to put into SB400 in about a week and be loaded up to the gills again. That would begin the second half of their 2 month long deployment that would see them chart a weaving course back to SBB, with another half dozen stops. During that time they would complete various construction projects, deliveries of equipment, shuttling dignitaries, a second contact and the like.

Vaughn, the bearded ginger jock spoke up from the tactical station “Sir, we have a long range subspace communique coming in from SF command, its flagged for the Captain… and it might just make his day” He smiled as he read the text only communique that was not encrypted and not urgent. Vaughn then sent a copy of the message to Wongs padd.

“Sent it to your padd sir.” Ingram was still smiling as he went back to his duties.

Wong read:

From: SF Command

To: CO, USS Blythe, Personnel, AdminSec, Records, TF86 Command, 4th Fleet Admin…

Re: Promotion Confirmation

Message body:

Greetings Commander Tyler,

You have hereby had your promotion to the permanent rank of Captain confirmed. Your status as the Acting CO has been rescinded and you are now the assigned CO of the USS Blythe. Congratulations Captain Tyler.

Sincerely,

RAdm Chal’Kath, CoS, Startfleet Personnel Dept

“Haha, I believe you’re right Lt. Forward the message to the Captain right away, its about time they make him change his uniform colour, am I right Ingram?” Wong chided Lt. Ingram, as he was wearing the red and serving at tactical as they spoke.

“Indeed, with 3 of us senior redshirts on the bridge from now on, there’ll be nothing to stop us sir.”

((Captains Quarters, USS Blythe))

Commander, and soon to realize he was Captain Tyler was still quite busy reading the ‘memo’ he had recieved from his cetacean officers. The memo itself was literally a laundry list of complaints from countless cetacean officers from all of the different advanced sentient cetacean species, spreading back nearly 100 years. The cetacean species that Starfleet used to assist its vessel in navigating safely at warp, especially high warp speed, felt as though they were treated as second class citizens. Many of the complaints were trivial and seemingly frivolous, but others were more concerning.

Though, as he kept reading, now on page 579, he was starting to see an alarming pattern develope. In his opinion, the cetacean officers were being marginalized, and treated in a cold and callous manner by many senior officers, and they were having reasonable requests denied or ignored. Routinely.

For instance for nearly 20 years, Starfleet had access to headset technology that would allow cetacean officers to more fully integrate in Starfleets operations and crews, but it took until about 5 years prior for the technology to be made available to cetacean officers en masse. And only after they had threatened to mutiny across an entire fleet, which would have halted about 200 ships dead in their tracks.

Then there was the issue of mobility. This was one of the more reprehensible and needless burdens that Starfleet had stripped aquatic species with. For nearly 18 years Starfleet had functional flipper mounted repulsors that would have allowed cetacean the ability to move freely about the ship for up to 8 hours(the length of a standard duty shift funny enough, Tyler had noted).

Just then a message came in on his padd, and he smiled and chortled to himself as he read it. Apparently in appreciation for him not causing an interstellar incident, and not having the ship destroyed under his watch, Command had confirmed his promotion to the rank of Captain.

It didnt change his fiixation on the issue of “cetacean rights”, but it did provide a pleasant respite for a few moments if nothing else. Though is had been implied in the promotion message, it wasn’t explicitly noted that Tyler should start wearing a red uniform now that he was no longer a Science officer serving as the Acting CO. He was the official Captain.

‘But really Fred, what does that message change in the grand scheme….your still a science officer who just so happens to be assigned to command a ship now’ he thought to himself. His string of logic was contrary to how most starfleet officers would view then situation, hut then again m, that didnt make his perspective wrong, just less common.

After another moment Tyler made a few decisions that would alter the course of his career, and in the long view of history would actually help indirectly spark what historians would later refer to as the beginnings of the ‘Cetacean Englightment’.

Tyler replicated himself a new pip, and attached it to the collar of his BLUE uniform, grabbed a few padds amd made his was down to engineering to speak with Lt. Tesa about another little cetacean side project.