USS Chawla
17 November 2401
0530

Meadow noticed the burly human male the yellow tunic, standing outside of her ready room. He was leaning against the wall reading something on a PADD and looked like he had been there for more than a couple minutes.

Lieutenant Commander Altizer noticed the red tunic’d human female as she exited the turbo lifts at the end of the hallway. As she approached he stopped leaning against the wall and tapped on the PADD to bookmark where he was at. “Excuse me, ma’am, Commander Bearsong?”
“Yes”, noticing the pips on his collar “Commander. How can I help you?” As she walked into her ready room.
“Lieutenant Commander Altizer, Ma’am.” As he stood at the door.
Meadow looked at him with a sideways glance. “You can come in commander, I promise I won’t bite,” she said with a smile.
He walked in and stopped a few paces in front of her desk, looking around he noticed that the office was devoid of anything, blank walls and empty shelves plus it had that smell of something clean and new.
Meadow noticed him looking around and noticed the raised eyebrow. “The ship was just refurbished, she was part of the frontiers day incident. The captain and I took command roughly ten hours ago. This is my first time here.” As she took a seat behind the desk. “So how can I help you, Commander?”
“Ma’am, this is in concern of the message you received from Captain Liam, should have been a few weeks ago now.”
She looked at the man standing in front of her desk with a raised eyebrow. “Captain Liam of the diplomatic security force? Been a while since I heard that name.”
“Yes, ma’am”
She started to type on the desk’s console scrolling through messages, and she found the message, “Ok, what do we have here.” her lips moved as she read, looked up at the commander then back down at the message. “Oh, ohhhhhhh. I see.” as she looked back up at the commander. “At the time I wasn’t able to do anything in regards to the message, but now…” she let the statement hang in the air for a moment. “Can you talk and walk, Commander?”As
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Can’t everyone?”
She flashed a smile, as she got up from her desk picked up the PADD, and opened a file she had sent to it. “You’d be surprised. Well, let’s go.” as she headed out of the office.
“Where to?” as he followed her.
“To see the Captain, of course.”

A few minutes later they exited the turbo lift onto the bridge, the first thing that the Commander noticed was the emptiness, then the darkened consoles and displays. “Uhhh, ma’am. Where’s the crew?”
“You noticed that, huh.” she said with a chuckle “We expect the first ones to report onboard sometime today, or so Bravo operations tell us.” She held up the PADD in her hand as they made their way to the captain’s ready room door. “Wait here, Commander.”
“Yes, Ma’am”

“Aryanna, do we have a couple of minutes?” Meadow asked as she entered and heard the door close behind her. Placing her PADD on the captain’s desk beside the steaming cup of coffee she took a seat in one of the armchairs and watched the captain finish braiding her hair into a single neat braid.
“We have till I finish this coffee, I have some questions for a certain lieutenant we have sweating it out in security.” she took another sip of her coffee.
“Well, I think I may be able to end our security concerns plus gain us our Chief Tactical Officer.”
Aryanna raised an eyebrow as she picked up the PADD recently placed on her desk.
“An old acquaintance from my diplomatic corp days is calling in one of his favors, though I probably could wipe the slate clean with this one.”
Aryanna let out a low whistle “You not joking, banned from four stations with arrest on sight order on three of them. But you can’t deny his record or his training.” She took another sip of coffee as she continued to read. “He had an interesting upbringing…”
“To say the least, who lives like that anymore? And his parents were both Star Fleet so it’s not like they had to. Did you read his education records?”
“Just getting to that, top 10 percent of his academy class. Top of the security group, to be expected I guess given his upbringing and who his parents are, oh that’s interesting top of the operations group too. That’s an interesting mix. Huh, got his degree in Systems Science.” she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes for a brief moment.
“Is he here?”
“Just on the other side of the door.”
“Well, bring him in.”

Meadow went to the door, and let it open. “Commander, you’re up.”
She turned and went back to the chair she had just left as Lieutenant Commander Altizer entered the ready room.
He noticed the Captain, a trill, sitting behind her desk, PADD in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. As he entered she motioned to the other chair with her cup of coffee.

“You’re in quite the pickle aren’t you Commander?”
“That’s one way of putting it, ma’am.”
“From what I have read, it’s the only way of putting it.” she looked over at Meadow, who nodded in agreement. Putting the PADD down and sitting forward in her chair she directed her gaze fully on the commander.
“Ever been to the Thomar Expanse, commander?”
“Not that I can recollect.”
“Any issues with the Cardasians, the Breen, Bajor, DS9, the Tzenkethi?”
“Ma’am?”
“Meaning there’s no reason why we would have to end this interview now.”
“No ma’am, though I do know a few folks in the Cardassian security agency. Let’s call them more like acquaintances. I wouldn’t invite them over for dinner but I would go to the local bar for a few drinks, if you know what I mean.”
Aryanna chuckled. “Yes, I think I do. I have a few of those myself.” She took another long sip of coffee, while looking at the PADD, closed her eyes for a few moments, nodded to herself, and slid the PADD back toward Meadow. “Ok, so here’s the issue as I see it, we have a Quid Pro Quo situation. You need a place to disappear, and we need bridge officers, more importantly, I need a Chief of Tactical/ Security and a Chief of Operations. Either of which I think you could fill based on your experience, skills, and education.”
The commander pulled out his PADD, typed something on it, and read over what came up for a moment.” Five hundred crew, four shuttle bays, enhanced systems that are derived from Borg technology.” he looked at Meadow and then towards the captain, holding eye contact for a brief moment. “Can I bring my own deputies?”
Aryanna leaned forward in her chair and looked at Meadow who gave a slight shrug in reply to the captain’s unasked question. “I would hazard a guess that they are in the same situation as you are?”
“One is ma’am, the other is someone whom I went to the academy with and have on several occasions used their services in a few situations.”
Aryanna nodded. “Send your recommendations to the XO, if they pass her records and dossier review then we have no problem with that. I plan to leave as soon as we can, hopefully within the next week, so if they can’t meet us here before then tell them to make their way to DS9.”
“Yes ma’am”
“So commander, how should I fill out these orders? Am I looking at my new Chief of Tactical/Security or my new Chief of Operations?
“Both ma’am, it’s been my experience that sometimes the best way to disappear, “ doing the air quotes when he said the word “disappear” ” is to stay busy. So ya, both.”
Aryanna looked at him with a raised eyebrow and let out a chuckle. “Well ok then. Welcome aboard the Chawla, commander. I’ll have your orders in the system by this afternoon if not sooner. So let’s get down to business, shall we? Your first job, besides getting your departments staffed and set up, is to build me a hazard team. I’ll send you the latest intel on the expanse, I think you’ll be able to figure out what I want when you read it.”
He nodded as a simple reply. “And the second?”
Aryanna stood and straightened her tunic. “That concerns a little incident we had this morning.”
Meadow stood as she knew what was next on the captain’s agenda. “Wouldn’t exactly call it little, captain. I mean you almost shot him.”
Commander Altizer stood and looked between the two women trying to tell if they were joking or not. “I guess walk and talk?” as the three of them left the captain’s ready room.