The USS Ocracoke, NCC-252-B, was decommissioned nearly a hundred years before it ever enjoyed the presence of a captain. A Daedalus-class vessel capable of warp travel- at warp factor 6.8 on its best day- it sat in drydock without a captain in pristine condition, waiting for its day. Third after the Ocracoke-A and the first Ocracoke- “Coke Classic,” to those who most fondly remember it- the Ocracoke-B served at times as a spare laboratory, an additional brig, long-term furniture storage, and occasionally as a movie theater. But almost never as a starship beyond its few inaugural laps around the Alpha Quadrant.

Not until 2362. Stardate 39248.1.

A lone betazoid crept through an unlit hallway, breathing through grit teeth and keeping her back against the cool metal wall. She inched along, ever conscious of the automatic lights. She followed a pinprick of light in the distance, squinting, waiting for the signal. Steady white, move along the wall. Blinking, stop. A fellow agent had eyes on the drydock and was guiding her along, bit by painstaking bit. Stealing a Federation starship took patience, planning, and- as she was finding out firsthand- swallowing a great deal of anxiety.

As a bead of sweat crept down her forehead, she once again paused to ask if this was worth it. She’d gone through the academy, once upon a time. The Kobayashi Maru, pilot training, martial arts- she even played in the marching band. French horn. She thought its French qualities would remind her of Betazed, but in the end, she mostly found herself hating the fact that it had a spit valve.

How long had she stood there grimacing at the memory of spit valves and feathered hats? The light stopped blinking and she moved again. The Ocracoke’s bulbous hull rose into the dim blue-white light at the end of the maintenance hall, an inverse moon cutting a black curve through all she could see.

And in the middle of that darkness, her light blinked again. She stopped. So close. As soon as the coast was clear, she could sprint for it and finally climb aboard.

Somewhere in the lower decks, an old Klingon chuckled and tapped his finger against the lighting override. He lived for the suspense. Sure, there was great honor to be won in playing the pirate, kicking down doors, taking the ship and spiraling off across the cosmos- but this was different. This was a gift, that he had the great pleasure of giving- as well as a little bit of mud in the eye of Starfleet. Someone had to knock those humans down a peg, keep their operations from feeling so pristine.

He flattened his palm against the override and the light in the room steadied. His young accomplice would arrive any minute.

“Last chance to back out,” he murmured wryly into a combadge. It was an ovular, brassy thing. Old, like the Ocracoke. Like him. It crackled nearly as much, too. Only a frustrated “shh!” came back through, barely distinct from the static.

A moment later, a thin light spread across the floor of the cargo bay, followed by the dull slam of a magnetic door pulling itself back together.

“Varug,” the betazoid hissed into the dusty piles of furniture, “You can stop playing with the lights now.”

“Playing with the lights?” A rough voice replied, amused. “Come now, I think you can spare an old warrior a little more credit than that, keeping you from walking into trouble.” Varug stepped out of the shadows, holding his arms out wide. He was still a broad, stout, leathery thing, squat among the typically towering Klingons but just as imposing in his traditional slate-and-spikes battle armor.

Now it was the betazoid’s turn to laugh. She shook her head and clapped her arms firmly around Varug’s midsection, squeezing him in a hug.

“Ah, there’s my girl. Out of the brig, out of your little… what do the Federators call ‘em? Pips? No more funny buttons. About to take the helm of a proper ship like you were always s’posed to. I couldn’t be more proud, Tadexi.”

Only Varug got to call her that. She pat his back before stepping away and smoothing out her uniform. Starfleet issue, sort of. As she settled into her new role as Captain Dex, she might make some modifications to make it her own. But for now, cuffed sleeves and no emblems of rank would have to do.

“Anyone aboard?” she asked, eying the turbolift.

“What’s the expression those earthers like? Oeh- hah, nobody here but us chickens.”

Dex squinted and gave Varug a long, patient look, lips drawn wide and taut.

“Checked it myself, stem to stern. Ship’s full of more garbage than your average scow, but she’ll fly, and nobody’ll stop you.”

“Any word on a crew?”

“Can’t promise you a freshly-blooded cadre of glistening warriors, no, but we’ll be making a few stops. Found us a scientist who can finish the retrofits they started, might squeeze another notch or two of warp out of your new ship. After him, well… we’ve got a book of names to flip through, don’t we? Favors you can call in?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh yes. Enough to get a senior staff going, I think. We’ll all be pulling double shifts for a while, but there are worse things.”

Varug nodded and held his arm out, inviting Dex to take the lead. He watched her with a steady grin, his thoughts drifting easily back and forth between disbelief and pride. Seemed like only yesterday he was standing atop a rock, bat’leth in one hand, tiny swaddled betazoid baby tucked into the other armpit, howling and swinging at hungry targs, bathing them both in sprays of thick, dark blood.

He would’ve raised her as his own, but the war was heating up, and he’d have to tangle with those haughty Federators instead. But he kept watch, often as he could, in private moments where he could slip a signal under some radio burst and see how the child was doing.

Cruel fate that she’d join Starfleet Academy of all things, but all the more amusing when she broke with them and called him to this mission.

He shook his head and blinked when she called his name again.

“You’re my navigator, Varug. Promise me you won’t drift off at the helm?”

He joined her in the turbolift, stiffening up his posture and huffing.

“Could take you anywhere in the quadrant with my eyes closed,” he mumbled.

“Keep ‘em open, old man.” Dex laughed and gave him a nudge in the ribs. “I trust you. –Bridge.”

The Ocracoke’s bridge was a mess. More furniture piled up, toppled stacks of paperwork, loose trash-

“Is this…” Dex crouched down and picked up a small, reflective disc. “What is this?” She flipped it over to reveal a colorful label. “It’s from Earth. Electric Light Orchestra… some kind of computer program?”

“No time for that,” Varug replied, gripping a computer console for balance and shoving his boot through a pile of debris in the seat. “Besides, I like Boston better.” He settled in and set his hands on the console.

“Computer.” There was a long, dusty pause, followed by the creaky chirp of a weary Starfleet computer rising to the occasion. “Authorize launch access, code Gaskill-Alpha-Six-Six.”

Another chirp came- again after a delay. “This vessel has been decommissioned. Secondary and tertiary subroutines are locked. Primary and parade protocols online.”

Dex and Varug exchanged a look. “Computer. Unlock secondary and tertiary subroutines. Gaskill-Alpha-Six-Six.”

“Cannot comply. Service record data for Captain Mark Gaskill is corrupted. Overrides no longer accepted.”

Varug frowned, but Dex looked up at the ceiling and set her hands on her hips.

“Can the data on Captain Gaskill be restored, computer?”

Chirp. “Manual restoration required.”

“Bah, blast it all. Ought to be a manual override somewhere, oughtn’t there? Perhaps a throttle? A key, maybe?”

Dex pat Varug on the shoulder and shook her head. “Don’t worry. But I know you don’t like to see me lying, so cover your ears for this next part.”

Nothing in here looks like I could pull a chip out of it, Dex thought, walking past her mentor and touring the bridge. She ran her fingers across the consoles- a mix of early LCARS touchscreens and honest-to-goodness toggles and buttons. Was the ship that old?

She’d done her homework. She knew it was exactly that old. And that meant it was easier to fool- as long as you knew how to talk to it.

She walked her fingers across a console and brought up the ship’s crew manifest, unchanged from its first compliment. Captain Mark Gaskill. Commander Brooke Calhoun. Lt. Cmdr. Hank Hosta. They’d lived their whole lives, moved from ship to ship, left the Ocracoke behind.

“Computer. Command authorization Calhoun-Alpha-uh…” She squinted at Commander Calhoun’s record, looking for numbers that stood out. As long as she didn’t get locked out, she could pick and prod until something clicked, just like raking an old-fashioned lock. “…Four-One?”

“Unable to comply.”

She squinted at the record and ran a hand back through her thick black hair, once again adopting that wide, flat expression of patient displeasure.

This lady was so BORING, she found herself thinking, swiping through Calhoun’s record. Lots of silver medals, lots of perfectly adequate reviews, no particularly exciting talents…

Wait, how many awards for photography?

“Computer. Command Authorization Calhoun-Alpha-Two-Nine.”

“Access granted.”

“Unlock secondary and tertiary subroutines, and light up the damn navigation console. Varug- you ready?”

The old Klingon let out laugh of relief, followed by a triumphant roar as he leaned on the navigation console and laid in a course. “Grab onto something!” he called out. “The docking clamps are part of the station computer, not ours!”

Dex threw herself into the captain’s chair and gripped the armrests. They felt… extremely right. Her eyes leveled with the broad, curved viewscreen across the front of the bridge and she cringed as the ship angrily and suddenly buckled against its clamps.

“Reverse impulse,” Varug said, nodding. “S’bound to be like picking a splinter. Station’ll be sore after… but better off without us, ha!” His fingers slid up the glass pane of the console and the engines whined, a pair of ancient reactors powering up deep in engineering.

“Activate parade protocols,” Dex eventually said. “Nobody here but us chickens. May as well have engineering run itself.” The computer chirped acknowledgment and the lights on deck grew warm and inviting- and in the same moment, the ship bucked angrily against its docking clamps and suddenly ripped free of them, scattering debris all over the dimly-lit yard. Station workers rushed out to see the commotion, but other than sounding an alarm were powerless to stop a Daedalus-class starship from twisting its way free and backing out into open space. A thin membrane of atmosphere briefly caught fire before resetting itself, clogging the docks with smoke as the Ocracoke made its escape.

“So,” Varug remarked, pivoting the ship around as tightly as he could before leaning into full impulse, “Captain Calhoun, is it now? You think that name’ll stick?”

“Long enough for us to get our scientist. First thing he’s doing is making this old tub say my name loud and clear.”

“Oh, aye. Captain Tadexi Darro, that’s suiting, I think.”

“Maybe if I were still wearing the pips. But for our needs… I think Captain Dex will work just fine.”