Launched in 2363, the fourth USS Lex­ing­ton has had a mod­er­ately dis­tin­guished career devoted to bor­der patrol and stel­lar car­to­graphy sur­veys, although she did see action in some of the later battles of the Car­das­si­an Wars. Academy sci­ence cadets tra­di­tion­ally see Lex­ing­ton as a “plum assign­ment”; her mis­sions to date have provided a wide vari­ety of research oppor­tun­it­ies without the dangers exper­i­enced on some oth­er ves­sels. Hav­ing spent most of her ser­vice to date on the rim­ward edge of the Fed­er­a­tion, she has now been attached to Vice Admir­al Heber­t’s “Spe­cial Task Force” on its far side.