The doors to the turbolift slide open. Ranma stands up and looks over to the doors. Well, I'll be a son of a - Ryouga Hibiki! Ranma was happy to see his old friend, well; he considered them friends, even though Ryouga considered them mortal enemies.

Ryouga walked onto the bridge and looked at Ranma.

"Ranma Saotome. So you're the Captain here?" Ryouga asked.

Ranma nods. Shampoo slides close to Ranma. "Shampoo Ranma's number one."

Ranma growls. Not quite as loud as Ryouga though. Oh great. Thought Ranma. Here comes the 'how dare you treat Akane that way you <insert dirty name of the week here>'

Ranma was surprised when Ryouga just shook his head.

"Ensign Ryouga Hibiki, Helm Officer." Ryouga turned around and took his seat at the helm.

Ranma was frightened. Space was big. Getting lost in space could be very unhealthy. Just ask that Will Robinson fellow. Ranma almost smiled as he envisioned Mousee-Duck flapping his wings screaming Danger Ranma Saotome! Danger!

As Ranma sat down he became more and more relieved that the computer did a majority of the steering, and the operations officer could override just about anything else. Maybe all would be well.

 "Well. What say we ditch this popsicle stand and get to the Finden system?"

Ranma was greeted with a "Sure" from Mousse, a more enthusiastic "Let's Rock" from Commander Aino, Ryouga just groaned, and Shampoo, well, she was standing. Ranma assumed she wanted to guide the ship out of the space dock. Ranma grinned at her.

"Commander Shampoo. Would you do the honors of guiding us out of here?"

Shampoo brightly grinned. "Ok. Shampoo the boss now, Ryouga. Forward thrusters, 300 KPH. Go."

The engines began to hum. Ranma loved that sound. It made him feel at peace. It made him have a reason to live. It made him happy.

THUMP! KLANG! CRASH!

Thump? Klang? CRASH?! That's not good. Of course, when is Thump, Klang, Crash ever good? Ranma took a good look at the viewscreen. They were still in the space dock. He looked at Shampoo. Shampoo was not happy.

"STUPID BOY! SHAMPOO SAY FORWARD! FORWARD!"

 "SORRY!!" Ryouga yelled back.

"Captain?"

"Yes, Mousse?" Ranma responded.

"The Captain of the USS Parkway Point McDonald's wants us to exchange insurance information with him."

Ranma scowled. He had just gotten the parking ticket from when he parked in the handicap space at seven-11-thousand a few months ago.

"Send the information. And Ryouga, please be more careful. Forward is the arrow pointing, well, forward."

Ryouga mumbled what kind of sounded like a "Yes I know" under his breath. The ship finally started to move forward. Ranma sat back down.

Shampoo steps up closer behind Ryouga to make sure if he hit the wrong button again, she could fix it before the damaged anything else. "Ok. Mousse. Get permission to depart." The amazon ordered.

Mousse stood up perfectly straight, gliding his fingers across his panel. "YES! Shampoo my love!"

"SHAMPOO NO LOVE YOU MOUSSE! Shampoo Commander. Mousse Lt. Mousse not call Shampoo, Shampoo."

That should have hurt mousse, but the years and years of rejection have made that man a brick wall. He just goes with the flow.

"Yes, Commander lover!"

Ranma quickly hopped up and snatched the phaser that Shampoo was drawing. He then sat back down.

Mousse grinned. "Permission granted! Space doors opening!"

Shampoo turned to the viewscreen. "Ryouga. Increase speed to 500 KPH. Once clear of big doors, set course 1-2-3 mark 2-0-9. Warp six"

"Yes ma'am." Ryouga complied. Ranma looked somewhat worried still. There was not that much extra room for the ship to get through the doors safely. But, all he has to do is keep her even and keep her going straight and - We're high. Ranma stood right up. Shampoo screamed.

"TOO HIGH! GO DOWN GO DOWN!" Shampoo screamed.

The ship was not going to clear the top of the doors. As a matter of fact, the ship was going to completely miss the doors by about 100 meters too high!

"RYOUGA! Z MINUS 350 METERS! NOW!!!" Ranma screamed.

Ryouga was frantically hitting buttons. Random button-pushing on a trillion-dollar starship is another thing that should be on the 'bad idea' list.

The ship started to do barrel rolls. Shampoo decided to scream again and hit the deck.

"SHIT! FULL STOP! HIT THE BREAKS!" Ranma screamed.

Ryouga hit a button. He then said "Oops."

Ranma's jaw hit the deck now. "Oops?"

The Sisko had turned completely upward and was flying at 800 KPH towards the roof of the space dock.

Ranma ran over to Mina's console. "AINO!! TAKE HELM! STOP US!!"

Mina started running her hands over her panel. Ryouga's went blank, and the helm configuration popped up on hers. She began to hit buttons, trying to stop the ship.

Mousse picked this time to freak out. "10 SECONDS TO COLLISION WITH THE ROOF OF THE SPACE DOCK!" Mousse began to run in circles, losing his glasses in the process.

"MOUSSE! SHIELDS UP!" Ranma yelled, the tension in his voice. He was rarely scared, but at this moment, he was scared shitless.

Mousse ran to his panel and hit a few buttons. A familiar sound was heard, but it was not the sound of the shields.

Outside from the front of the ship, a red glowing sphere flew towards the roof. Ranma knew what it was. He turned to Mousse.

"Did you just -"

"Fire a torpedo? Yes."

"Aw swell."

"Captain," Mina whimpered. "I shut down the engines, but we have too much forward motion. Even with reverse thrusters at full, we're going to collide!"

It was at this time the torpedo hit the roof of the space dock, blowing a hole in it. The ship managed to float right through this new exit, and safely into open space.

Ranma could only just stare at the screen. All the stars seemed to look like his ass being kicked by Rear-Admiral Happosai. The COM panel behind him beeped. Mousse, who had found his glasses, answered it.

"Captain, Rear-Admiral Happosai for you. He doesn't sound happy." Mousse sniveled.

Suddenly Happosai's face appeared on the viewer.

"DOESN'T SOUND HAPPY IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT!" The short man bellowed. "DON'T YOU MORONS KNOW HOW TO USE THE DOOR?"

Ranma looked up at the admiral. "Sorry?"

This is another term Ranma had learned usually does more bad than good. This time, it seemed to make Happosai's face change from the beet red it was, to a mixture of beet red and really pissed off blue.

"SORRY? YOU BETTER BE! THE NEW ROOF IS COMING OUT OF ALL YOUR PAYCHECKS! NOW GET TO FINDEN NOW!" The screen returned to stars. Ranma walked over to Shampoo and helped her up. Shampoo was still in shock, so she didn't even think of glomping onto Ranma.

"Well, Number One. You heard him. Set a course to the Finden system. Warp eight this time. And also, call a staff meeting of all the senior staff in the conference room in ten minutes."

Shampoo only had the ability to nod at Ranma, as he walked into his ready room to cry. There goes the Lexus!

Akane had just made herself comfortable in her office chair again. The jostling of the ship had knocked her on her ass several times. She finally decided she would just stay on the floor till everything was better. It finally stopped. She sat back in her chair propped her feet up and then the chirp. She hated the chirp.

Of course, they weren't polite enough to use the comm badges to contact her. They used the ships comm. system. Which of course was on the other side of sickbay.

"The chairs here may be comfortable, but the designers need to have a mental evaluation," Akane grumbled out loud to herself. A couple of medical techs threw a look her way, but she dismissed it. Just because she talked to herself doesn't mean she was crazy.

"Does it?" She asked no one.

It pissed her off to no end when she found out it was Shampoo on the other end of the communication. Then she found out she would have to trek all the way up to the bridge for a conference.

"No, they can't put the conference room in a more central location, can they?!" She growled. She noticed the techs checking her out again.

"AS YOU WERE!" She screamed. The techs ran to a different part of sickbay.

Akane just starts to walk out of sickbay when her door slides open. A young blonde girl with really odd hair walks, no hobbles in. She's bawling up a storm. Akane rushes right over to her and helps her up onto an exam table.

"Are you OK?" Akane asks the girl.

"WAAAAAAAA! I think not! I think I broke my epidermal!" The poor slob of a girl cries. Akane has no idea what the girl is talking about, but it works out okay because the girl doesn't have any clue either.

Akane grabs her tricorder and scans the girl. It appears she sprained her ankle. She sure is making a big deal out of it.

It's about this time Akane notices the pips on her collar.

"Lt. Commander?!" Akane gasps out loud. What kind of Lt. Commander is this kind of a cry baby?

"Yes?" The girl responded between sobs.

"What's your name?" Akane walked over to a cabinet, hoping to find the sprain-fixer-thingamajig.

"Serena. Serena Tsukino."

"Well, Commander, you have a sprained ankle. No biggie, easy to fix. I think." Akane walked back over. She found some device that looked like it should work, so she decided to try it. She ran the device over Serena's bad ankle. She then checked it with the tricorder. It worked. The ankle was good as new.

"Serena. Tell me how you did this."

"Well Doc, I was in engineering and when the ship shifted real hard earlier, I fell down and, well, you know the rest."

Akane was confused now.

"What were you doing in engineering? That place is very dangerous."

Serena giggles. "That's what I keep telling them, but they said since I am Chief Engineer, I need to spend a majority of my workday down there."

Akane collapses. "YOU!? You're the Chief Engineer?"

"Yup. Funny isn't it?"

Sure. In sadistic whips and chains sort of way.

"Yeah." Akane tried to chuckle. "I guess you need to go to that staff meeting too then, huh?"

"Yeah." Serena grins. "Do you want to walk up there together?"

"Yeah!" Akane nods.

Serena goes to hop off the exam table but ends up on her face.

"WAAAAAAA!!"

Farther down in the saucer section of the ship was the ship's councilor's office. The young lady who got that job was busy unpacking, and it took Shampoo a couple of tries to get her attention.

This kid was pissed. Seems to be a recurring theme with this crew. She had finally gotten the picture of her Grandpa to hang straight when BOOM! The whole damn ship shook, not only knocking it crooked but right off the wall. She decided that she wasn't going to get to that meeting until she got the picture set up again.

After a few seconds of fidgeting with it, she got it going. She smiled. The first time she has smiled since she was transferred off of the moon colony. She didn't want this assignment, but she wanted to move up the ranks. Right now she held the rank of Lt. Commander, but she wanted to be a captain. But, that's everyone in Starfleet's goal. And as anyone will tell you, you won't become a captain sitting behind a desk.

The last thing she needed to do was put her name plaque on her desk. It's a special name plaque. It was given to her by an old friend of hers, that she hasn't seen for years. The plaque had her name inscribed, and a rose painted on it as well.

Well, now that that's done, time to get to the bridge. She walked out of her office, and the door hissed shut behind her.

"Damn that hiss!" She murmured. She hated that hiss more than just about anything. Even the automatic doors at Wal-Mart in the freakin' 20th century were quiet!

As she walked down the hallway towards the turbolift, she couldn't help but notice that there were some very handsome men on this ship. Even though she had no interest in being here she did have to acknowledge that it could do wonders for her love life. There were times when she didn't worry about those kinds of things, but it was different now. After he reportedly died at the hands of Mad Cow infected Big Mac, she stopped looking for men. She thought that the whole universe had it out for her. It was bad enough that he was DESTINED to be with someone else but just as they started to have some problems he died. Why did everything bad happen to her?

It was lucky for her though her grandpa had her apply at Starfleet Academy. While she was at the academy she met lots of men. But no one warned her about San Francisco. All the men were gay. Even the Vulcan ones! But they did teach her a few things about herself, including dealing with her bisexuality.

Eventually, she arrived at a turbolift. She had the distinct problem of always talking the longest route to turbolifts. She hated meetings, so she was never in a hurry to get to them.

The girl hit the call button and frustratedly taps her foot while she waits. She also hated waiting for a turbolift. For something called 'turbo', they sure as hell didn't move very fast. Lucky for her she doesn't have to wait long. Before she knew it the doors slid open. She nearly passed out when she saw who was in it.

"Serena?"

Serena turned away from Akane and looked at the girl. Her eyes widened and teared up. She hadn't seen this old friend in years.

"RAYE!" Serena embraced Raye in a tight hug. Raye returned the hug. Even though the two of them didn't get along that well, they were still very good friends. When the group of five split up, they figured they would never meet again.

Raye and Serena walked back into the turbolift. The doors hissed shut and the lift continued on its trip to the bridge. Serena turned to Akane.

"Akane, this is Raye Hino. A very good friend of mine."

Akane and Raye shook hands. "Nice to meet you, Raye. I am the ship’s CMO. What do you do?"

Raye smiled. "I'm the ship’s counselor."

"Oh! So you are headed in the same direction as Serena and I!"

Raye nodded. "It would appear that way. Serena, what on Earth are you doing here? And what are you doing wearing Lt. Commander pips?"

Serena giggled. "I'm the ship's Chief Engineer."

A look of doom came over Raye. "Wow, Serena. Someone must dislike the people on this ship."

Serena started the waterworks. "I haven't seen you in years and you're still mean to me! WAAAAAAAAA!"

Raye put her hand on Serena's shoulder. "Serena, you know I am just kidding." Raye turns towards the front of the lift car. "Sort of."

The lift came to a stop. The doors hissed open. The group stepped out onto the bridge. Akane looked around. "Where's Ranma?"

Shampoo walked up to Akane. "Ranma in ready room. Shampoo in charge. What you want?"

"We're here for the meeting you called." Akane fumed.

"Go to conference room. We be in shortly." Shampoo walked down the ramp and back into the Captain's chair.

"Well, Akane. I see you two are good friends." Raye mused.

Akane just let out a half chuckle half grunt as she led the others into the conference room.

Akane, Serena, and Raye were in a conversation of their own when Ranma, Shampoo, Mousse, Mina, and Ryouga walked into the room. Raye and Serena gleefully stood up and ran to Mina when they saw her.

"Mina! Long time!" Raye said!

"I've missed you, Mina!" Serena added.

Mina smiled. "And I missed you, my friends."

Ranma just stood there grinning. "I see you are all aquatinted! This will save us some time. Let's all be seated and get this over with. For those of you who don't know me, I am Captain Ranma Saotome. I will go around the table, so, to my left is our XO, Commander Shampoo.

"Next to her is our Chief of Security, and Tactical Officer, Lt. Mousse.

"Next is our - " Ranma has to pause and try and figure out the logic behind this one. "- our Chief Helm Officer, Ensign Ryouga Hibiki."

"Nice steering out of the space dock, Ensign." Raye scorned.

"Be nice, counselor." Ranma shot at her.

"Yes sir."

Ryouga just stuck his tongue out at Raye.

"Ensign!" Ranma spat.

"What?!" Ryouga whimpered, trying his best to sound innocent.

"Next to Ryouga is our Chief Medical Officer, Akane Tendo. As long as you don't let her make your chicken soup, you'll be OK." Ranma ducks a flying tricorder.

"Over here to my right is Lt. Commander Mina Aino. She's our Operations Officer and Chief Science Officer. Next to her is Lt. Commander Raye Hino. Raye is the ship's counselor. If you have any problems, I am sure she would be more than happy to help you out."

Raye, without being seen, shoots a 'yeah thanks a lot' look at Ranma.

"And last, but certainly not least, next to Miss Hino is Lt. Commander Serena Tsukino. She is our Chief Engineer."

Ranma paused for a few seconds, allowing everyone to throw a 'nice to meet you' nod at each other. He then continued.

"I think this will be one of the best crews Starfleet has ever assembled. I also think that with a lot of hard work, we can achieve things that no other ship has ever achieved. The Sisko is the most advanced ship ever built by the Federation. We should be very careful not to scratch her up." Ranma rolled his eyes toward Ryouga. "Anymore."

Raye leans over to Mina. "Yeah. New record. Ship to have the fastest warp core breach out of space dock." Mina just gives her the 'be nice' look.

"There will be a reception for you all in ten-forward at 18:00. I look forward to seeing you all there. First, let's take care of some business. Commander Aino, what's our ETA to Finden?"

Mina punches something up on her computer. "Twelve hours, Seven minutes sir."

"Good." Ranma grinned. "Time for some work, and some play. Dismissed all. Oh, Miss Hino, if you could, when you're not with a patient, please be on the bridge? In case we run into anyone where I could use your insight."

Raye nods. "Yes, captain." She rolls her eyes. Good thing I'm booked.

"Thank you." Ranma smiles as Raye walks off.

Ranma walks over to the observation windows. He gazes out at the stars flying by. He never understood how that if they are going faster than the speed of light you could see the stars to each side and behind the ship, but he wasn't worried about things like that. It was pretty.

Akane walks up next to him. "You really think this is one of the best crews?"

Ranma turns to Akane, then back to the stars. "No. We're screwed."

Akane turns to Ranma. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, one, my XO won't keep her hands - uh - " Ranma notices how Akane is looking at him. "hands off my computer. My CMO has no medical experience."

"Hey," Akane interjects. "I cured a sprained ankle today."

"Well, I'm proud of you. But we will have more than sprained ankles if this report is true."

"What report?" She asked.

"I got a report from Starfleet Command a little while ago. The Kuno activity in the outer region is increasing. That's why they are sending us to Finden. The Federation doesn't give a damn about the ships. They're annoying, sure, but not something to send its most armed ship too."

"Oh, I see."

"My Chief Engineer has had more on-the-job accidents than the entire explosives team, the dangerous situations team and the on-purpose accidents team had combined!"

"She was the one with the sprained ankle."

"Figures. Our counselor has been reprimanded for being mean to the patients. My weapons officer is blind and my helmsman is an idiot!"

"What about Commander Aino?"

"She's a good officer, but she's never been in combat before. She’d be perfect if all we were up to was charting nebulas."

"Oh. Seems your Dad wasn't happy with you."

"It would seem not."

Akane sighed. "Well, come on down to ten-forward. Have a few drinks. It'll make you feel better."

Ranma laughed. "That's all this ship needs, a drunk Captain. Can you imagine that? A drunk captain."

Akane starts to walk away. "18:00. I will be expecting you."

Ranma sighs an acknowledgment. The doors hiss shut behind Akane. Ranma closes his eyes and just continues to stand, facing the stars as they whisk by.