[I created this toon and ship when the Bajoran Interceptor came out. Text below in italics is taken directly from the Fleet Operations Manual, or perhaps slightly edited to fit in the bio below. Many thanks to whoever wrote that excellent text that I gleefully stole for this. In addition, I further swiped liberally from another Bio that you'll see here in the forums, but at least I wrote that originally!]
For as long as he could remember, Jedde Zek wanted to go out into space someday. His father always had been telling him tales of the good old days, when he had been first mate on an old freighter and traveled about the stars. The things he had seen! The places he had been! It captured Jeda’s imagination right from the start. He was an inquisitive, natural explorer, like many Bajorans, and he had space in his blood. It was only a matter of how and when he would leave his homeworld, like his father had, and like many generations of the Zeks had done before.
Jedde’s generation came after the Occupation, and the Dominion War. Their parents were traumatized by both events, the caste system that they had lived under was now gone, and this new generation of Bajorans was the first to come after all of that. Then, when Bajor entered the Federation, it opened up a new realm of possibilities for Jedde and many other young Bajorans.
The most attractive option for many Bajorans who wanted to explore space, was to join Starfleet. Jedde was one of the fortunate ones whose high grades and hard work were enough to get him into Starfleet Academy as an officer candidate. His good fortune would certainly last, as we shall see.
When Jedde was admitted to the Academy, one of the first things he saw out the window, as he arrived at the Sol system and was being shuttled down to San Francisco, was a large, old warship. “That’s the U.S.S. Atlas,” said Alar Danno, one of the other arriving students, beaming with pride. “My grandfather served on her. She’s a great ship, one of the first Dreadnaughts. I hear they’re turning her into a ship museum! We should go, when we get a chance!”
And they soon did. While visiting the ship, they found out that not only was it to be a museum, but that interested Academy students could intern on the ship and learn hands-on skills. Jedde and Alar, now fast friends, applied for the extra-curricular activity and were accepted. Here they fell under the supervision of Franklin Maynard Zarco, who had recently retired from Starfleet as a Captain, and now was the museum curator, running the project along with several other recently retired officers.
Much of the training on the U.S.S. Atlas 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.
Jedde, Alar, and their friends spent many hours not only working at the ship, but exploring every nook and cranny of the old battlewagon. They did not get a lot of free time as their duties and studies at the Academy were very time consuming, but what little they had, in addition to their internships on the old vessel, was usually spent finding out more of its secrets. Those were happy times, when the universe seemed like such a magical place.
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 that the youngsters of Jedde’s generation had missed. 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. Jedde, Alar, and the rest of 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, including Alar and most of Jedde’s other friends. 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. 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. Jedde was breveted to Lieutenant, in an amount of time during which he normally still would not yet have graduated from the Academy as an Ensign.
At war’s end, Jedde Zek already had an exemplary combat record, including several decorations for wounds and bravery. He was initially assigned as an assault squad member when the first enemy boarding parties swarmed aboard the ATLAS, in her first battle with the dreaded Iconians. He always had done better in tactical drills, as opposed to the engineering work that Zarco and his staff specialized in, and this was soon reinforced by his real world performance in that role. A few skirmishes and several casualties later, he was an assault squad leader. Not too much later, he was breveted to Ensign, and then later once again as Lieutenant, when no other Tactical Lieutenants were left.
After the end of the conflict, his brevet to Lieutenant was confirmed, conditional upon his completion of the course credits required to graduate from the Academy. It took him less than a year to finish his studies, and then he was able to get posted back to the ATLAS as a very young, but tragically already very experienced, Lieutenant.
A few years have now passed, and Jedde Zek has moved on to serve on a few other ships and has increased in rank. He is now in his first sole command, of the ship U.S.S. JALANDA CITY, a Bajoran Interceptor supplied to Starfleet by his homeworld. It was named after the city on Bajor that he grew up in. Once the war was over and the fleets were being rebuilt, the Bajorans supplied several of these vessels, and Starfleet was lobbied to offer him the command at the behest of the political leadership from Bajor and Jalanda City, who were impressed by Jedde’s record. He had become somewhat of a local celebrity there due to his war record. When Starfleet offered him the position, he jumped at it, and has never looked back.
The U.S.S. JALANDA CITY is currently a part of the Federation 7th Fleet, also known as the “Lucky 7th.” After the Great Devastation, under Operation "Unified Assistance," the 7th Fleet began providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to many planets and star systems in the quadrant. About 40% of the galaxy’s population lives within the 7th Fleet Area of Responsibility. They have been given the sacred task and responsibility to rebuild the "Lucky 7th" to her former glory. Their Motto: “No man left behind.” Their Mission: “Our forces will help encourage dialogue, promote growth, and insure the free flow of trade.”
The role of the JALANDA CITY has primarily been anti piracy duty, although in the recent Tzenkethi conflicts, the ship usually covers planets against protomatter torpedoes, while larger vessels engage primary enemy fleet units. Once the torpedo threat is neutralized, the JALANDA CITY typically engages remaining lighter enemy units such as frigates and cruisers. Now that the Hur’q have emerged, the ship has so far survived the enemy swarms, due to her high firepower and maneuverability. It seems that Jedde Zek’s luck continues.
