Always Something

[Cptn Corizon 0]

The last shards of light from the primary star in the Avalon system began dying out as night enveloped the side of the planet that Camelot Station and the colony that it orbited in synch with. Looking up from his desk on the seventh deck of the “A-ring,” Misha Abronvonvich sighed deeply, was it night already? From the corner of his eye he noticed the bright ball of gas that appeared to be a moon, but was in fact the second half of the Trojan pair that made up the center of the system, Tintagel.

 

It had been a busy day by any standards, even those on a frontier station orbiting in the middle of two war zones far from Federation space, and Abronvonvich had spent the better part of the day putting out brush fire after brush fire in between working on the latest fleet deployments that would be made for the nearly one-hundred starships at his command. If he’d been that busy, he mused, he wondered how busy the station commander had been.

 

Abronvonvich was intimately familiar with how busy that sort of a job could be, after all he’d spent roughly twenty-years doing it and it wasn’t something he particularly wanted to take back up, either. Granted he didn’t want this job, or the Admiral pips he wore on his collar either. Sighing he glanced to the ship deployments again; what he really wanted was to be the Captain of one of them, out on the edge of forever exploring the hereto unknowns.

 

Recalling his first assignment on such a ship, Abronvonvich wondered exactly how he’d ended up being a crusty paper pusher behind a plush desk. He’d once been a wet behind the ears ensign, still smelling of the academy when he’d got his first posting on a deep space ship, the USS Norfolk. That seemed ages ago.

 

Once dark-brown hair had turned snowy white, his deep blue eyes were set into his face with wrinkles surrounding them like folds in a messy bed. He’d been through three wars, earned just about every medal an officer could earn (all of them tucked in a forgotten drawer in his quarters), seen aliens of every shape and size, but somehow the allure of space stilled beckoned at him like the siren’s call. Smiling for what seemed the first time all day, he remembered that his sense of duty and desire to be on the edges of space were what convinced him to take his current posting.

 

The chime at his door interrupted his train of thought. Returning to his work, he glanced to the door before keying in another series of commands. “Come,” he said.

 

He’d fully expected his yeoman, Lt. Commander Deigo Sands, to come striding in telling him to go home, instead he was met by the strident tones of a Romulan voice. “Admiral,” the shrill voice said. “This is entirely, entirely unacceptable.”

 

Taking in the figure of the Commander of the Romulan Garrison to Camelot Station, Khre’Riov Jaelin t'Leaii, Abronvonvich closed the screen he was working on and leaned back into the stiff, thinly padded, black chair. “Khre’Riov,” he said, hoping he pronounced that correctly. “There’s always something unacceptable in this quadrant, but what in particular has your green-blood boiling this time.”

 

If the remark phased Laeii, it wasn’t apparent. The woman carried herself with the air of someone who’d clawed her way to her position without any help (likely because she had) and stood with the firmness of three-thousand-year-old Sakuna tree from Jabon VI. Her dark eyes danced with flames and she narrowed their fiery glare on her quandary. “I can’t believe you’re even attempting to feign ignorance,” she snapped. “The Federation is impossible. Why we continue to even support this mission…”

 

Holding up both hands in a gesture of surrender Abronvonvich chose his words carefully. “Khre’Riov, perhaps I could possibly explain whatever it is that we’ve done to offend you if you’d get to the part where you tell me what we’ve done.”

 

Muting her glare and opting for a scowl, the Romulan produced what her people called an Isolinear Storage Device (or PADD in Federation lingo) and placed nearly on the humans lap. “That,” she exclaimed.

 

Half-afraid to even look at the contents for feat that it could be any number of myriad projects that the Federation was running that the Romulans could take exception to, particularly one involving a certain canine and his crew, he let out a mental sigh of relief when he read over the contents of the device and didn’t see any mention of the Union or her mission.

 

Trying hard to neither show his relief or be indignant, he replied after a few moments of reading. “This is what has you so upset?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“We did inform your government.”

 

“Yes… but you also told our government that it would be some time before you acted.”

 

Abronvonvich shrugged. “What can I say, Admiral? Our time table moved up.”

 

Huffing the Romulan commander began pacing. “That’s not acceptable, Admiral.”

 

“Well,” he said. “Your Ambassadors here and on Earth are free to lodge complaints but don’t look at me. I am only doing what I am told, and even then this isn’t entirely in my purview…”

 

She stopped and turned to face him, but instead of the furious glares she’d been shooting in volleys, it was a lifted brow that met his eyes. “Starfleet builds a new station in the Gamma Quadrant and the Quadrant Sector Commander is only partially…”

 

H e held up a hand. “Starbase Lyonesse is under my overall command, but I wasn’t the one who accelerated its construction. Starfleet Command did that.”

 

“But why?”

 

When he didn’t respond as quickly as he would have liked, the Romulan pressed harder. “We had given our agreement to the proposal, but only under the condition of the timeframe originally quoted…”

 

“I appreciate that, I do, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

 

She lifted her brow. The expression had been lost somewhere in translation. Seeing that, Abronvonvich added, “Like I said before, I appreciate your sentiment and can understand it, but I think your Ambassadors can better address your concerns. “

 

Clearly she still hadn’t gotten the response she wanted. “Admiral,” she said. “I am sure you know why they’re moving the time-table up on the station construction at the terminus of the wormhole.”

 

“Yes,” he admitted, “but so do you.”

 

Exasperated Leaii exhaled deeply. “I can see that coming here was a waste of yours and my own time, Admiral. I will forward my concerns to you government through the proper channels.”

 

Resisting the urge to smile widely, the Russian-born Admiral nodded. “Sorry I can’t be of more help, but you know how it is. We’re just doing our jobs.”

 

Leaii returned the nod, and forced a small smile onto her olive-green face. “Yes. Admiral, I am aware. In the future, I look forward to perhaps more notice when the Federation decides to change its timetable.”

 

Fighting the smirk forming at either side of his face he nodded again. “I will make a concerted effort to do that Khre’Riov.”

 

Only mildly mollified she bowed her head slightly. “Hann’yyo. If you will excuse me, I have pressing matters to attend too.”

 

“Of course.”

 

As the door closed behind the Leaii, Abronvonvich smiled widely. He’d actually expected her to swing by at some point when she got the news about Lyonesse, that it had taken her nearly forty hours since the transmission over coded frequency of the orders confirming the expedition of the construction to arrive at his office pleased him.

 

“At least they don’t have our codes cracked as well as they’d like us to believe,” he mused and pulled up the fleet deployments again.

 

He wasn’t entirely sure when he was actually going to get dinner, he was sure, however, that things on his desk were going to get more complicated when Starfleet brought a second station in the quadrant online. He frowned at the thought and wondered if he could find away to slow down the construction without getting himself into a courts-martial.