A New Beginning...

In those days he was angry at the lack of attitude of his UFP
 concerning the border colonies, even that justified by
 the weak position they occupied after the Borg incident. Angry
 with the attitude of deserting the colonists,  Thomas
 took a leave of absence and returned to his lands near the Shannon
 river and at the same time took over the family's company
 delegation in the sector. Those were short lived moments.
 It was 2269 and Francesca's husband had been killed in an ambush...
 something had to be done and the ex-captain asked
 to resume duty, convinced that maybe he could force
 some actions. Further more, Andrews sold two of the company's
 armed escorts to Maquis rebels disguised as businessmen,
 before being given the command of the USS Cherokee, a Nebula
 class explorer and heading off to the DMZ. Even disappointed
 with his dear Star Fleet, Thomas was forced to swallow his anger
 if he wanted to make a difference...

His tour lasted four years and was extremely active. In one major
 incident, he intercepted two Cardassian cruisers violating
 the DMZ and engaged them with disastrous results for the enemy,
 since both ships perished. Several provocations
 were inserted into the ship's logs since the Cardassians
 kept on challenging the Cherokee into violating the DMZ,
 which he did not... finally, the year of 72 brought with it the
 Changeling panic and incidents with the Klingon and Cardassians
 broke out and once again Andrews was at the forefront.
 After some distinguished actions, he was eventually promoted
 to Commodore and given a combat squadron with the Cherokee,
 a Miranda class cruiser and two brand new Saber class light cruisers.

In 2273, the pack of ships penetrated Cardassian territory
 undetected and thanks to Thomas' offensive intelligence
 skills they reached a shipyard and bombarded it into submission.
 Immediately after that, the commodore intercepted a
 convoy escorted by some Hideki attack ships and a Galor and while
 he chased away the bigger ship and the attack fighters,
 the cruisers obliterated all six merchantmen in the convoy. Not yet
 happy, the fleet hijacked a communications
 relay station and auto-destroyed it but unfortunately
 soon thereafter, an enemy fleet arrived and damaged two
 of the cruisers having Andrews decided to pull back for repairs.

When he arrived at the Federation outpost, he found he was accused
 of cooperating with the Maquis because the Maquis identities
 of the people to whom Andrews had sold the armed escorts
, had been found. At that point, the UFP didn't have to keep
 on chasing the Maquis to prevent their actions from re-fusing
 the war with Cardassia, since other factors would take care
 of that. Still, for the Federation's fake moralists,
 Thomas had helped people that at the time were outlaws and that
 could not happen. He was once again betrayed by
 the Star Fleet Command...

To Thomas, that was the second treason after the Oceanic incident
 and before the investigation would proceed, he asked to be
 passed to the reserve, which he did. Meanwhile,
 an Excelsior class cruiser was rotting in a shipyard.

When Star Fleet decided to upgrade the Excelsior ships in active
 service, it had ordered two prototypes, one of which,
 to Andrews Space Hardware. After the Lakota had been delivered
 and engaged in combat, it was decided that further funding
 should be used for less extensive upgrades and Andrews'
 company's prototype was canceled. Thomas found with a great
 sense of Dejavu, he found the prototype to be the saucer section
 of the USS Warspite, disabled at Wolf 359 and subsequently
 deactivated, and the Engineering hull of the old USS Repulse.
 He forced his younger brother to proceed with the ship's
 construction for it to become the flagship of the
 company's armed escorts.

Unfortunately, while he waited, the Maquis were slaughtered by
 the Dominion/Cardassian forces, thus putting an end to the
 battle of the colonists. Andrews felt a rage like he had never
 felt before now that it seemed that those people had died
 as terrorists instead of rightful freedom fighters and decided
 to re-take the fight in his hands. He had served
 in intelligence gathering for years, fought against pirates,
 fought together with civilian militia and as such, he was ideal
 to battle with the maquis. Nobody in that quadrant
 knew more about guerrilla tactics.

Being so, he accessed every person he knew at central
 intelligence and began searching for scattered Maquis. He
 then consulted men that had served with him aboard the Unryu,
 the Cherokee, Warspite, Southampton, Sovereign and Oberon, always
 searching for sympathizers. Francesca di Napoli aided him
 in finding other people, until the new ship was ready and
 a whole network of Maquis teams had been placed around the
 combat arena, this time, not as inexperienced rebels or soldiers
 of fortune, but an organized force that in Andrews' mind,
 can one day retake the border colonies and become
 a full right federation.

Christened The Guardian, the completely overhauled Excelsior
 received the motto "one minute before we die, we will still fight"
 and set sail to show the Cardassians and Dominion invaders
 that the quest for freedom was yet to end...