Captian Paul Aike had served aboard the USS Falcon since he had entered Starfleet. He was one of the few senior officers who had spent his whole career on one ship, working from the lower levels right up to CO. He’d been through the refit, he’d been through the Dominion War. He’d been through it all. As such he liked to walk the corridors and visit old haunts, like the shuttle bay where he had gotten his start in the fleet unloading cargo in the Operations department.

He nodded to the crew on duty but did not disturb them. They nodded back, used to the ship’s commanding officer down in the depths with them. He’d working in engineering, and operations, and even had flown a shuttlecraft or two.

Aike did not have a captain’s yacht, instead, he used the fleet of shuttles when he needed to go somewhere. The Falcon was a workhorse not a show pony like the Selene who headed their division. He’d put in his hours, either piloting or riding in the back of these shuttles over the years. He rubbed his hand across the surface of the Andor, the main runabout the crew used. He remembered when it was new and exciting, a new type of craft. Now while the Falcon had gotten a facelift to the Excelsior-II model, the Andor had not. Still, he remembered it, the pilot’s seat. He’d crashed in it once, back when he was a lieutenant.

Way back when.

He smiled to himself, knowing nostalgia was its own danger. He had the future to focus on, and memories of the past, no matter how warm and inviting or how exciting, were to be left behind.

Captain Aike adjusted his uniform and headed back towards the bridge.