At the end of a long and satisfying career in Starfleet, Captain Zarco retired in 2409. He wanted to remain somewhat active in retirement, and an opportunity soon fell into his lap. The U.S.S. ATLAS, one of the original 23rd century dreadnoughts, had long been serving as a training vessel for Starfleet cadets. Zarco had served on it himself as a cadet, and had a great knowledge of and love for that ship since that first posting.
Now, the ATLAS was being converted into a museum ship, which would be staffed by contractor personnel, mostly but not exclusively former Star Fleet retirees like himself. Zarco was able to get the posting through his contacts in Star Fleet, and jumped at the opportunity.
As time went on, Zarco settled into his new role as a museum curator with enthusiasm, but his life experiences as a Chief Engineer of a starship, and later the Captain of one, influenced how he ran the museum. He proposed that Star Fleet could not only run a great museum ship, but that the ship could be a recruitment and training tool. The proposal was accepted, and Zarco was authorized to recruit promising candidates not yet admitted into Starfleet Academy, but who had the ambition to become officer candidates. The program was a success, with the student interns achieving a much higher rate of acceptance into the Academy than those who were not part of what became known as, "Zarco's Pre-School."
Much of the training was Engineering-centric, since that was Zarco's passion, and also because much of what could be done hands-on with the old ship had to do with repair and maintenance of the aging ship systems. With time, more and more funding became available due to the results of the program, and Zarco and his eager students used the funding to gradually upgrade and replace most of the ship systems, one by one, to fairly current Starfleet standards.
Then came the Iconian War, and worlds burned. There was no safe place, and there were enormous casualties. Everyone knew someone that had perished. The emergency was so dire, that the U.S.S. ATLAS was reactivated. Zarco and his staff were reinstated into Starfleet at their former ranks. There followed an intense whirlwind of activity, while Zarco and his staff and students frantically worked with those drydock workers who could be spared from repairs on surviving ships, to install weapons in the old dreadnought. Fortunately it was near the end of a school year, and the student interns had been working with Zarco and his staff for more than nine months already. All of the museum staff were former Starfleet officers, all veterans of many battles. They made good time, and completed the job in a respectable three weeks, working around the clock. The ATLAS launched from drydock, headed once again to war.
There followed many triumphs, and terrible tragedies. The young interns shipped out with the ATLAS to the last person. No one wanted to be left behind, considering the crisis, and their love for the old ship. There were many parents who disagreed, but the emergency was so awful that normal rules did not apply. In the battles to come, a large number of the trainees were lost. Due to the terrible losses Starfleet suffered at this time, Zarco himself gained the promotion to Admiral that he had never been able to achieve before in his previous career. The ship survived the many battles, due to the solid leadership that Zarco and his cadre of old hands provided, the solid old school dreadnought construction of the ship, and the fanatical morale of the student trainees, who were often too inexperienced to know how much danger they were really in.
At war’s end, those who survived were all admitted into Starfleet Academy, and some later returned as Ensigns to the ATLAS, which was once again serving as a training ship. Although it is technically a training vessel, and still staffed by Zarco and many of the old museum staff, it is still doing front-line service in a continually troubled part of the galaxy, while Starfleet rebuilds from the huge losses of the recent conflict.
This image of the ship was taken during its shakedown cruise in 2273, just before leaving Earth orbit.
USS ATLAS on maneuvers at DS9 in 2418, during the unfortunate incident in which her Captain, Franklin Maynard Zarco, was fined 350,000cr for exceeding the station speed limit within docking radius.
