Lieutenant Teydra Nireth hurried away from the turbolift cluster that served as the waypoint for both staff and visiting freighter crews looking to visit the station’s Flight Operations Center. On any given day, the corridors leading to Flight Ops’ many offices were packed with bodies, everyone shuffling along from place to place in a steady flow of activity. Teydra’s purpose for being on the Flight Ops level was as far from business as one could get, but that just made it all the more worthwhile… at least according to the Trill.

The deck that housed the majority of the spaces used by Flight Ops sat right up against the large internal docking port that rested in the center of the large ‘dome’ that made up the majority of the station’s superstructure. It was a massive space; 400 meters deep, 225 meters wide, and rising nearly 100 meters high, or just under 22 standard decks. The control center, where the station’s Dockmaster presided over the most critical of traffic related duties, jutted out into the bay and featured a large transparent aluminum window that allowed those in the compartment to look out and down the entire expanse of the bay.

Nireth practically skipped through the slow opening door leading into Hanger Control, Lieutenant Vahna Drae standing just behind one of the forward-most control consoles. Her hands were balled into loose fists against her waist, and her voice was raised to its usual volume whenever she was barking out instructions for thick-headed freighter captains to follow.

“Tell the New Calabasas that it has about five more minutes to sit in my hanger before we unmoor it ourselves and throw it out the hanger doors with a tractor beam. They’ve been loaded for a half hour already, and I need that dock,” Vahna called out, scowling at the offending freighter.

Her eyes glided below it to another freighter, “The Blue Sable has been sitting in that same spot for two weeks… has no one figured out what their engine issue is?”

“Her Captain says they’re waiting on a part to come up from the planet. Says they can’t be replicated, have to be manufactured because of how intricate some of the circuitry is. I already contacted the factory they placed the order with, they’re half-way done with it and should have it up to us in two days,” one of the many officers sitting around the room answered.

The Orion rolled her eyes but let it go, ready to move on to her next victim before Teydra’s voice threw her off her rhythm.

“Vahna, you’ll never guess what just happened,” the Trill said, pulling out a stool from beneath an adjacent console and sitting down.

“Tey…” Drae cast the woman a sharp look “I’m a little busy. Can the gossip wait until my shift’s over?”

“If this was just idle chatter, sure. But I promise you, you’re going to want to hear it now,” Nireth said with a smirk.

“Alright, fine. What’s this oh so important ‘not gossip’ you have to tell me?” Vahna said, turning around to rest the back of her legs against the console with arms now folded just beneath her chest.

“I don’t know if you heard about Governor Wakefield’s little visit or not,” Nireth said with an almost conspiratory tone, “But our favorite disruptor of the peace just tried to ambush our new CO.”

“Nope, hadn’t heard that… but now you’ve got my attention,” the Orion said, leaning just a little closer, her earlier irritation greatly diminished.

“Well, the Governor decided that she’d just ‘stop by’ like she used to do with our old Captain. Commander Reid and I had beat her to Commander Novak’s office by about five minutes and were in the middle of briefing her on our esteemed politician’s little quirks when she showed up at the door,” Teydra explained.

“Showed up at the door, not through the door?” Vahna asked, honing in on her friend’s particular phrasing.

“I knew you’d spot that,” the Trill giggled softly, “Yep. At the door. From what I gathered from Reid, our new CO has been keeping the office door closed. He couldn’t tell me whether that’s just a short-term choice to give her room to breathe while she’s getting acclimated, or if that’s how she’s going to run things from now on.”

“Skip the irrelevant stuff, I only care about the meat here,” Drae waved a hand in a circular motion toward the Trill.

“Fine,” Nireth gave the Orion a playful pout before continuing the story, “So there’s Governor Wakefield with the poor Ensign who had to walk her up and stall her, getting lambasted by the woman about why the door is closed. And Commander Novak just sits at her desk and watches her flail around. She, no joke, made that woman stand outside until she was ready for her to come in.”

“You’re joking,” Vahna frowned, taking her friend’s words as fantasy.

“I was standing in the room when it happened. Novak said she was making her wait until she was ready to receive her. Called her visit an interruption in the day, even,” Teydra said in an insistent tone.

Drae let out a low whistle, “Damn… she had that woman clocked from the word go.”

“Right?” Nireth nodded, “So after making the Governor stand outside her office for at least a solid minute while Reid and I fixed our faces, Wakefield comes sauntering in like she owns the place, pretending she doesn’t know exactly who’s taken over.”

“Oh yeah, the long, exaggerated rank routine,” Vahna frowned, remembering her own experience in that regard.

“Yeah, except Novak sidestepped it so fast and hard that none of us saw it coming. Girl, she didn’t even get out of her chair! Just stared a hole in Wakefield like her eyes could shoot phaser beams!” the Trill laughed as she recounted the opening salvo of the meeting.

“Okay, now that is cold-blooded… I really need to meet this chick,” Drae said with a look of profound respect.

“I’m sure you will eventually. But getting back to my story,” Teydra said, shifting on the stool, “The Governor starts her usual platitudes that always lead to sneaking in business she doesn’t think we’re ready to talk about to blindside us into agreeing to something, right? Well, not only does our new CO cut her off in mid-sentence, she basically tells her to kick rocks and stop pestering people about it… it being ‘Foundation Day’ in this case, and tells her that if she can’t come up with a way to participate in, and I quote, ‘a meaningful manner’, we aren’t doing it at all. And this was after Wakefield tried that emotional blackmail schtick of hers.”

“And what was Reid doing during all this?” Vahna asked, not wanting to accept the absurdity of it all at face value.

“Doing the same thing I was,” Nireth admitted, “Standing stock still hoping we didn’t end up on the wrong end of the war of words being carried out right in front of us. But that isn’t even the best part.”

“There’s more?” the Orion muttered in disbelief.

“Right after Novak shut the Governor down about ‘Foundation Day’, she basically tells her that she’s wasted enough of her time and to get out of her office. Granted, she didn’t say it like that… but anyone with a braincell in their skull knew that’s what she meant.”

“And Wakefield didn’t kick up a fuss?” Vahna couldn’t help but ask.

Teydra smirked, “Novak framed it in a way that the Governor could pretend she hadn’t been run out of the room, but she sure as hell knew that’s what happened.”

“That’s… that’s a lot,” Vahna said, sagging backward a little, “I would’ve said you were full of it if you hadn’t told me you were standing in the room and watched it go down. That’s crazy…”

“Oh, believe me when I say I’d have said the same thing if I heard the story from someone else. I certainly didn’t have ‘Wakefield gets put in her place’ on the list of things I thought our new Commander was going to accomplish in the first week,” Nireth chuckled.

“Screw the first week, she did it in a day. Has anyone started planning the victory party for this?” the Orion asked teasingly.

Teydra started to laugh before her expression sobered, “You know… that might not be a bad idea… I’ll talk to Reid and Holv about it. Might be a good morale booster for the staff.”

“You know I was joking, right, Tey?” Vahna asked, her heart sinking in her stomach at the thought of her friend taking such an obvious jest so seriously.

“I’ll send you a message later with any details if they firm up,” the Trill said, leaping off the stool and heading for the door.

“Teydra! It was a joke! Seriously, don’t do it!” Drae called out, her words never reaching her friend as she disappeared into the corridor.