26th Fleet

The 26th Fleet is a mobile fleet that was created in early 2378. Its primary goal is to endeavour in one of Starfleet's primary roles: Exploration, after the Dominion War and the conflict with the Remans have been overcome. The fleet mostly consists of newly built starships, only some minor remains of older units, which have been annihilated due to significant losses. The fleet's flagship is the USS Justice and her commanding officer is Vice Admiral Melissa Vasquez. Second in command is the Vulcan Kiarak, whose rank is Rear Admiral. Overall the fleet consists of 24 ships of different classes.

Operation
The fleet has 10 ships at its disposal which are dedicated for scientific mission, i.e. three explorer vessels and seven exploratory cruisers. The most prominent scientific missions are usually assigned to these ships, especially those in unknown, remote regions. Once first data is collected smaller ships continue long term surveys. The most recent addition to the fleet is USS Pegasus.

Two Akira-Class ships are supporting in scientific missions, especially in natural hazard zones like ion storm regions. Additionally they act as military reinforcements. The remaining cruisers also serve research purposes, but usually more specialized and they also act as diplomatic ships, on less representative missions.

Two heavy frigates of the Steamrunner-Class serve along with the lighter cruisers as fast response units, which can answer emergency situation (e.g. pirate attacks) and act as police force to hunt e.g. smugglers. They further escort transports.

One medical ship, which sometimes also receives scientific missions, as well as three transports of the Deneva-Class, which mostly resupply the fleet, are in support role.

Besides the ships, the fleet also has two bases: Starbase 512 (Captain Kelleras Scire, Kaldan, m) at the inner rim of the Federation as well as Outpost 311 (Cmdr. Elra-Inyo, Grazerite, f) in the Kelaris System. Both serve as staging ground for regrouping the fleet. They also support research duties with planning and organizations as well as supply lab infrastructure for further research.