Star Trek Asalooq Episode One: Arrival With Fanfares

Chapter 4 - Back to Business, pt. 1

Lieutenant Lillian Kristiansen left the runabout, thanking her young, Bajoran pilot, and cast a look around at the bustle of Deep Space Nine. Pretty interesting, really – officers and civilians from all kinds of species, busy with any number of different tasks. Add to that the station's illustrious history and it would have been worthwhile spending a couple of days here just to explore. Not that her schedule allowed it. She had gotten her orders pretty much last minute – typical, she thought; Starfleet was either too disorganised these days to do things properly or simply didn't care if they made things difficult for her – and figured she barely had time to settle into her quarters before things got serious. Well, at least she should manage quite easily to be on time for the meeting. Her briefing papers said the captain had scheduled it for 2000.

For a moment, she wondered what the captain would be like. At the moment, she didn't know much about him except for his name and that he was an older guy, possibly close to retirement or a quiet desk job. What that meant for the way he would approach this mission, she didn't know, nor did she have any clues about his personality.

On the other hand, it was easy enough to guess what he would think of her. They had made sure of that. One glance at her file and people thought they knew who they were dealing with. It still made her helplessly angry. Did you ever get used to that sort of thing? She didn't know – didn't really want to know, because as much as she hated the feeling of hurt, of anger, accepting what had happened seemed suspiciously like giving up.

"Stop brooding," she told herself. Taking another look at the directions, she quickly made her way towards the U.S.S. Stanislav Y. Petrov. When she entered the ship, it felt like homecoming. She wasn't sure if she ought to feel like that, but she did. Those months of killing time with "qualification projects", de-briefings and unimportant desk jobs had felt so pointless, and they had given her too much time to think. Besides, she had missed being in space.

Her quarters were pretty close to the bridge. They were small and far from luxurious. That, too, felt comfortingly familiar – her first ship, the U.S.S. Aquarius, had been a Defiant, too, assigned to various, mostly military missions close to Starbase XXVI. Those had been easier times in a way, despite the challenging missions and the learning curve. She pushed the thought aside.

According to her records, her roommate was going to be the Chief Engineer, a Lieutenant Commander some years her senior by the name of Jeroen Roosevelt. Human, she guessed from the name. He was out and about, so she'd meet him later, but he had obviously been to their shared quarters already since she could see some of his things neatly packed away. Well, she was in no hurry. There would be enough time to meet everyone. Usually, she would have looked forward to it. But knowing the kind of things that were said about her, she secretly dreaded it.

What was it about this day that made her thoughts go back to her past all the time? She really should stop that. She wouldn't have thought it, but as much of a relief as it was to finally have a proper assignment again – even if it was probably a frustrating and stupid one, chosen to either humiliate disgraced crew members or get them out of the way – it was scary, too. Would she even be able to handle it? All the new people who would think the worst of her. And the missions...

Briskly, she started to unpack, trying to keep herself busy. Afterwards, she went to the little bathroom to freshen up a bit, and by then it was almost time for the meeting. Lillian could see some of the younger officers already waiting nervously as she arrived. She gave an encouraging smile to a pretty, black-haired young Ensign who looked positively terrified and kept adjusting her already-immaculate golden uniform. Secretly, though, Lillian felt slightly jealous. Those youngsters, at least, had a chance to make a good impression. In her case, she guessed that neither arriving half an hour early with a whole stack of PADDs prepared, looking like a recruitment photo, nor sauntering in late and drunk, greeting everyone in Klingon, would have made much of a difference. It always came back to her file. Apparently, though, word had not gotten around to the younger officers. Otherwise, they wouldn't have reacted in such a friendly and respectful way...