Callen Varro sat hunched over his desk on Deep Space 17, the hum of the station’s systems filling the background as he scanned through a stack of reports. His eyes flicked from one screen to the next, the bright glow of the PADDs casting a soft light on his face. A steaming mug of tea sat to the side, the steam curling upward in lazy tendrils. He grabbed it without thinking, lifting it to his lips and taking a sip.

The taste hit him like a slap—sharp, bitter, and far too floral. He recoiled, his face twisting as he immediately spat the contents back into the mug. The flavour clung to his tongue, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in disgust.

Earl Grey had never been his drink of choice. These little experiments were as close as he got to adventure anymore, ever since he’d taken this desk job. Yet here he was—another failed attempt added to the growing list of small mistakes. Callen muttered under his breath, pushing his chair back with a soft squeak. He didn’t hesitate, walking straight to the replicator and tossing the mug with the lukewarm tea into the waste chute.

“Raktajino, hot,” he said, the words more of a command than a request.

A moment later, a steaming mug of dark, rich coffee appeared in the replicator’s slot, the strong scent of roasted beans filling the air. Callen grinned, his hand closing around the warm handle, the heat sinking into his skin. He returned to his desk, taking a seat with a sigh of satisfaction as he cradled the mug. He flipped through the next PADD in the pile, eyes quickly scanning the report.

But then, his gaze flicked back to the screen, something in the report not sitting quite right. His fingers hovered over the PADD, before he put it down with a soft tap. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the wall for a moment, lost in thought.

The decision came quickly. His fingers moved to the console, inputting the commands that would open a subspace channel to Deep Space 47. The screen blinked to life, a faint chirp filling the silence as the connection was established. He leaned forward, waiting for the other side to pick up.

The perpetually bedraggled face of Varen Wyll appeared on the screen, thin-rimmed glasses balanced precariously on the end of his nose, whilst a mane of black hair arrayed in an awkward halo. Behind him the green glow of the Rolor nebula slipped in through the wide office windows that blessed the station he called home, its dull light casting the artworks on the wall in a ghoulish light.

“Callen, I swear if you’ve pissed off the Kreetassan Ambassador again I refuse to help you practice that convoluted ritual. I warned you that inviting him to a barbeque would not go down well,” Varen laid down the padd in his hand onto the desk with a sigh before easing back into his chair.

“That looks suspiciously like a Raktajino. I thought we were trying new things?” A playful smile extended across his face, cutting a channel through his dark beard.

A smirk crept across Callen’s face as he leaned back in his chair, Varen’s mention of a “ritual” bouncing around in his head. His shoulders shook slightly with suppressed laughter, but he kept his voice steady as he spoke. “Hey, Wyll. What can I say? As an Arizonan, I’ve always had a thing for a good T-bone steak. Simple, satisfying. But for your peace of mind, I’ll let you know this was just me trying something new. Earl Grey, though?”

He gave a small shake of his head. “Not for me. Tomorrow’s another chance to get it right. Until then, I’ll stick to something I know won’t let me down—my Klingon brew.”

He lifted the steaming mug, letting the bold, earthy aroma wash over him as he took a slow sip. Setting the mug back down with a soft clink, he glanced at the monitor, his expression shifting slightly. His smirk gave way to a more intent look as he leaned forward.

“But enough about me,” he said, his voice steady. “How about you, Captain? How are things out in the Thomar Expanse? Settling in alright?”

“Oh you know, Cardassians to the south, Tzenkethi to the north and the Breen are still spying over the garden fence. It wouldn’t be a day ending in ‘y’ in the expanse if we weren’t being accused of crossing into someone’s territory. It almost makes me miss the days when my only worries were wine pairings.”

He tapped a pile of padds that balanced precariously on the edge of his deck, its haphazard assembly worryingly unbalanced. In the background several more piles of sleeping padds were visible in the shadows, forming a small colonnade of status reports that ran along the sideboard.

“Plus, a seemingly neverending number of oddities.”

Varen unclipped the clasp of his uniform allowing it to fall away to the side before wafting himself with a nearby ornate fan, the illustrations of two great furred beasts leaping back and forth in the dim shadows of the office.

“Just to top it off, a faulty environmental cluster has set the base’s ambient temperature three degrees higher than standard and now we can’t turn it down. I feel like a Denevan steamed pudding.” He continued to waft the fan in great slow movements, the two creatures on its face leaping back and forth. “Theo is still out there squeezing through Jefferies tubes looking for the culprit.”

Callen leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing slightly as he listened, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. Varen’s words carried the same theatrical edge that Callen remembered so well—a voice that could spin chaos into calm, command attention, and turn the tide of a room with a well-placed pause. The memory of Varen standing in the middle of a heated diplomatic standoff, unshaken, words flowing like a perfectly crafted script, flashed through Callen’s mind.

The faint hum of the subspace channel filled the pause between them, and Callen’s smirk deepened, the glint in his eye sharpening as he leaned forward slightly. “Hmm,” he said, letting the word hang, his tone deliberate, almost teasing. “I see. So that explains a lot, actually.”

“Don’t tell me that there’s been a new memo from command about standard operating procedures. I managed to spill my coffee on the way back from Beans’d It and it wrecked my padd. There wasn’t something important in there was there?” Varen’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his counterpart in Task Force Seventeen was known for his wry sense of humour and they’d played plenty of pranks on one another before as fresh-faced young officers. Hopefully this time it wouldn’t end in a diplomatic scuffle over the fish course.

“Well,” Callen said, leaning back in his chair, his fingers tapping idly on the edge of his desk. He tilted his head slightly, his gaze steady on the screen. “I was just wondering why Task Force 17’s explorations seem to have stalled.” His tone was casual, but the faint flicker in his eyes hinted at the undercurrent of amusement he worked hard to mask. He let the pause linger, his smirk threatening to surface.

“But,” he continued, his voice taking on a mock air of contemplation, “I suppose our famed Pathfinders—the mighty ‘Gladiators’—must have more critical tasks on their plates. Alternate routes into the Gamma Quadrant?” He shrugged lightly, leaning back further. “Not nearly as important, I’m sure.”

Callen’s lips pressed into a thin line, his expression otherwise unreadable, though his eyes glinted with mischief. A beat later, he leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly as if sharing a profound truth.

“I mean, it’s obvious,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Every Task Force CO knows the most important thing is sending their right-hand man—or woman—into the Jeffries tubes to deal with a room temperature problem. That’s real leadership right there.”

His face remained neutral, his tone steady, but the way his fingers tapped against the desk and the slight quirk of his brow hinted at the game he was playing.

Varen’s eyebrows lifted by inches, their bushy form compressing his forehead as his eyes widened.

“I didn’t realise that our intrepid explorers were at such a loss for things to do! I must have missed that memo about all those surveyed systems at the edge of the blue.” Varen tipped his head apologetically, before leaning forward towards the screen, his hunched shoulders causing his glasses to slip down his nose like a wizened storekeeper from a children’s story.

“So it’s the unknown you want? A little taste of the unexpected? To dabble with the unexplained?”

He quickly spun in his seat, his hands hovering over the stacks of padds like a divining card reader. A long humm of indecision slipped from his unseen lips as he passed his palms over the litany of status reports, before sliding a large grey slate from the pile with an overt flourish.

“We might just have the thing for you!” he cried out, offering up the padd towards the screen. “Fresh off the press.”

On Callen’s screen, a sequence of mission reports began scrolling alongside the Bajoran captain’s feed. A litany of new opportunities, all reaching out from the recently reactivated K-74 into the unknown beyond the previously inaccessible Gorn/Klingon border.

“Beware though, it’s not for the faint of heart,” Varen tilted his head in theatrical concern. “Here be dragons…”

Callen leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk, his eyes narrowing as he studied the screen. His lips twitched, caught between a smirk and a frown, as his brow furrowed. He tilted his head slightly, letting the moment stretch before finally speaking.

“Are you okay, Wyll the Dragon Tamer?” he asked, his voice carrying a teasing edge.

Varen sighed as he fell back into the worn cushions of his desk chair, a long breath of relief easing from his wide chest. His shoulders fell slack as a flash of weariness danced across his face, the sudden shadowed bags beneath his eyes carrying a green tinge.

“A little charred round the edges from that last encounter with the Syndicate, but we’re getting better with the fire extinguishers. You?”

“I’m okay, honestly,” Callen said, waving a hand at the stack of PADDs on his desk. His lips curved into a faint smile, though his eyes flicked toward the pile with a trace of something else—restlessness, maybe. “A little too okay,” he added, letting out a soft chuckle. “I could use more dragons in my life. Definitely fewer PADDs.”

He paused, picking up his mug and staring into the dark liquid for a moment before setting it down again. His fingers tapped absently on the desk as he glanced at the screen. “It’s not bad,” he said after a beat, his voice quieter now. “But this?” He gestured at his surroundings, the stark walls of the office, the steady hum of the station. “It’s… different.”

A shadow of a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he leaned back in his chair. “It’s a long way from glitter and glamour. The thrill of the chase. The kind of adventure that kept you up all night because you didn’t want it to end.” His voice trailed off, leaving the words to linger in the space between them. For a moment, he sat still, then gave a small shrug and smiled again, the light in his eyes dimmed but still present.

A thousand lightyears away an old friend caught the minute dimming, a brief symptom of a greater yearning felt across the Federation. With a wry smile, he tilted his head in playful thought.

“Adventure? Well, let me see what my dragon slayers can muster up.”