Admiral Jeffrey Pike, hero of the Kelvan War, sat behind his desk several hundred miles above the surface of the Earth. Slowly beneath him, the blue-and-white-swirled globe turned, the terminator slowly advancing, bringing the day once again to the billions living there. The floor-to-ceiling windows afforded him an unparalleled view, both of his home planet below and its giant moon above, and beyond that the imponderable universe.
Yet Pike sat pondering the imponderable. Ever since his mission aboard the Ronin to head off the Kelvan invasion of the Milky Way, his office down in San Francisco -- spacious and luxuriously appointed though it was -- had seemed claustrophobic and unlivable. This office inside Starfleet's Orbital Office Complex, though small and Spartan by comparison, nevertheless had one property the other one lacked -- it was in space! Pike spent as much time here as he could.
Not for the first time, he wished he'd never given up command of the USS Knight to take up the job of Chief of Operations of the then-fledgling Deep Range Fleet. He caught himself in a wistful sigh, and forced himself to snap out of his funk. Big events were afoot, and he had no time for such foolish self-indulgences.
His finger was millimeters from pressing the intercom button to the outer office to check whether or not his next appointment had arrived yet, when his assistant, Yeoman Jamie Piper, came through the door with an armload of PADDs. "Ah, there you are, Jamie," he said, and wondered for the hundredth time how she always seemed to know exactly when he wanted her. "Has Hunter arrived yet?"
"No, Admiral," replied the prim, pretty Piper, stacking the PADDs in Pike's 'in'-basket.
"He's late," groused Pike. "He should have been here ten minutes ago."
"Eleven minutes, 45 seconds," she automatically corrected, without looking at the clock. She and Pike had worked together for many years, so she was allowed to contradict the Admiral without fear of retribution. "Shall I track him down for you, sir?"
"Yes, do that. Thank you Piper."
"You're welcome, Admiral," she replied, and flitted out of the office as quickly as she had appeared.
He's in one of his 'I-wish-I-never-left-the-Knight' moods again, she thought to herself. Heaven help Commodore Hunter...
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