Admiral Leonard H. McCoy: Some time after the retirement of the Enterprise-A, Leonard McCoy achieve the rank of Admiral within the Starfleet Medical Services. He was described as a exceptional man by junior officers. In 2364 he performed an inspection tour of the new Galaxy-class Enterprise-D. At 137 years of age he is enjoying a quiet retirement.

Leonard McCoy first appeared in Star Trek’s “The Corbomite Maneuver” as well as the first six Star Trek movies. He was only promoted to Admiral after Star Trek VI. He was likely already retired by the time he did his inspection tour in “Encounter at Farpoint.”

Captain John Harriman: First captain of the Excelsior-class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B. Fresh out of drydock, the Enterprise was rushed into service after the unexpected decommissioning of her predecessor, the Enterprise-A. Captains James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott and Commander Pavel Chekov were in attendance at the official launch. The ceremony turned into a rescue mission when they were the only ship in range of a distress call send by two civilian vessels carrying El-Aurian refugees. They were woefully ill-equipped to mount a rescue operation, where both civilian ships were caught in an energy ribbon. The ship lacked a tractor beams, torpedoes or even a medical staff. Harriman was also overly cautious in his rescue approach. Despite this they were able to beam off 47 refugees out of about 300 total before they themselves were snared in the energy ribbon. Scotty came up with the idea to discharge a resonance burst from the main deflector dish but this could only be accomplished directly from deflector control. Harriman volunteered himself to make the necessary adjustments but Kirk overruled him. Kirk successfully made the changes, the resonance burst freed them, but not before a tendril from the ribbon slashed across the forward sections that included deflector controls. Kirk was presumed killed in the incident. The Enterprise returned to Spacedock for repairs and discharged the refugees. 

John Harriman appeared in Star Trek: Generations. 

Colonel West: Starfleet officer, officially working in Fleet Operations’ Specials Ops division. Part of the scret cabal of Starfleet Officers, Romulans and Klingons working to keep tensions high between the major powers. Briefed the Federation President on Operation Retrieve, a rescue mission aimed at taking the captured Captain Kirk and McCoy off Rura Penthe. The President declined to pursue this operation for fear of risking a full scale war with the Klingons. At Camp Kithomer, West had disguised himself as a Klingon and was ready to assassinate the Federation President hoping to spark that war. He was thwarted when Captain Scott burst into his perch and shot him. He fell to his death and his human visage was revealed. Later accounts would redact West’s involvement in the assassination attempt.

Colonel West Appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Director’s Cut only. The director’s cut has only been released on VHS and DVD. Operation Retrieve is omitted from the standard as is the reveal that the Klingon Assassin is West. West was played by DS9 regular Rene Auberjonois.

Fleet Admiral William Smillie: Starfleet Commander-in-Chief in 2293 during the Praxis Explosion and assassination of the Klingon Chancellor. With Captain Spock and Ambassador Sarek, directed overtures to Chancellor Gorkon after the explosion of Praxis, their key energy facility at the time. With the fallout of that explosion Smillie saw an opportunity to end the aggressive stance both races had maintained and sent Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to escort Gorkon for an historic meeting on Earth. After the assassination of Gorkon seemingly at the hands of Kirk and the Enterprise and the subsequent arrest of Kirk and Dr. McCoy Smillie brought forward to the Federation President a daring rescue mission (name Operation Retrieve) to get Kirk off of Rura Penthe, but the President did not want to risk a war over Kirk and McCoy. Smillie attended the Kithomer Conference, and discovered that the Klingon “assassin” that had been killed there was in fact Colonel West of Starfleet.

Admiral Smillie appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. His last name is from the novelization by J.M. Dillard. The events surrounding Operation Retrieve come from the Director’s Cut.

Captain Hikaru Sulu: Captain, U.S.S. Excelsior. Took command around 2290, his first captaincy. On the return trip from cataloguing gaseous anomalies they were caught in the energy wave that came from the explosion of Praxis. Klingon High Command declined their offer of assistance and forwarded the information to Starfleet Command. During the Klingon trial of Captain Kirk, Sulu sent to the Enterprise that they were on standby to assist. Sulu and Excelsior attempted a rescue mission on their own by going thru the Azure Nebula but were warned off by Koloth, who was waiting there. They were able to surprise and disable his ship but three other Klingon ships attacked them, forcing them to retreat.  Repairs were made and the raced towards Kithomer when the Enterprise (which had recovered Kirk and McCoy) was engaged with a prototype Bird-of-Prey, their combined firepower destroying it. Sulu personally beamed down to arrest Admiral Cartwright who was part of a Federation-Klingon-Romulan cabal to keep a war footing on between the two first powers. 

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Lt. Sulu first appeared in Where No Man Has Gone Before, as head of the astrosciences department, before switching to senior helmsman  in The Corbomite Maneuver. By The Motion Picture he was a Lt. Cmdr, and full Commander by The Wrath of Khan. He was helmsman for both the Enterprise and Enterprise-A. He’d been Captain of the Excelsior for 3 years by the time The Undiscovered Country rolled around. 

The novels have Pavel Chekov as his Executive Officer in 2298. Excelsior was reported missing in 2308 and the surviving crew - including Sulu were rescued in 2319 by Captain Demora Sulu and the Enterprise-B. He officially retired afterwards.