For Queen and Consortium

[Camile Saccard]

The sleek shuttle departed as soon as it's passenger disembarked. A bag slung over her shoulder, Camile Saccard watched the craft - branded with the gold and blue fan of House Alastor - shrinking into the blackness of space, towards the Beta Cruiser Papillon. There had been no fond, emotional farewell. The pilot had gained departure clearance in advance of their landing, as if she couldn't bear for the Hapan vessel to touch Jovan Station for any longer than absolutely necessary.

Squaring her shoulders, Camile turned her back to the stars and started towards her rendezvous point, where she would meet the Alliance official tasked with coordinating her new assignment. Billions of loyal soldiers, thousands of starships, hundreds of Battle Dragons, and she was going to crew aboard... an Alliance frigate. Should she consider this an honour? As if serving under males like Varon Farani aboard the Arbitrator hadn't been difficult enough. Ten years of service in Her Majesty's Royal Navy had earned her second-command aboard a vessel that wasn't even lead by a Hapan.

Emerging from the docking bay, she passed a scruntising look up and down the length of walkway before her. Crowded with creatures from a variety of species, many dressed in what she could only call slovenly attire with absolutely... hideous features. This was no Hapes.

Camile held a hand up to the first humanoid who crossed her path.

"You. Where can I find Vansen Tyree?"

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Preita'rrou Kiimiti Taassaurra was a woman being pulled in too many directions at once. Lieutenant Gradoona often used the human slang for the term - scraping too little butter over too much toast. Kiimiti had no idea what butter or toast were, but she'd glommed onto the alien saying because it made her sound well-traveled. But the reality of being in a world with too much toast and not enough butter was a lot less fun than talking about it.

First, there were the H'raaaul. Their tramp freighter had puttered around the station for an hour, waiting for the station to tend to their docking clearance. The problem was that the galactic translation matrix used by the Imperial databank could only be so precise. So they could certainly understand mainline continental H'raaaulese, but the regional patois of the southern islands used by the ship's crew was giving the computer a fit.

Next to be scraped on the toast came the cypher report. Jovan station recorded terrabytes of encrypted Imperial chatter per day from eavesdropping relays parked mere hundreds of meters from the border. Jovan's comms department did little beyond transmitting all that data straight on to Bothawui for the Bothans to sift through. If the cyphers broke the code, they usually had a day's worth of free Imperial chatter to exploit at best. It wasn't the high-end commo normally reserved for HoloNet transmission, but even scavenging for crumbs could prove useful enough to devote a good slice of the Spy Net to the job. Today though? Not so much. The SigInt report contained, among other things, a 0.75 terrabyte log where an Imperial Moff had sent a message to all sector commands, and a Lieutenant had selected the Reply All option to respond with "Okay thanks." If one were a masochist and had a week's worth of free time, they could read the hundreds of thousands of messages that followed telling everyone not to hit Reply All. And all of this, Kiimiti had to report to senior command, because this is what the Bothan SpyNet's hard work had gotten them, and the cypher likely wouldn't last long enough for much else.

So Preita'rrou Taassaurra literally juggled these things for her daily business among a dozen other tasks, each represented by a separate flimsi or pad held in her grasp.

So the sudden call-out by a newly arrived officer caught the junior officer off guard, and she had to mentally re-sort her to-do list.

"Vanssen?"

A harried ear-flick betrayed Kiimiti's off-guard state as she looked to the impeccably-dressed officer. She was used to humans and the other forrda of the Alliance wearing duty uniforms a degree more homely than the Cizeri Trade Navy's dapper red decor, but this woman was dressed as smartly as she'd seen any Cizerack officer on parade. The only thing to distinguish, biology aside, was the brilliant shade of azure instead of garnet. Was this one of the Alliance's Grand Admirals that she had no clue about? Kiimiti felt well and truly ambushed, being called out by Important People without any time to prepare.

"Rrou'a!? W-w-wait, do jyou m-m-m-m..."

The sudden fraying of nerves did nothing to soothe the Preita'rrou's stutter, which was manageable at most times but could cause a conversational hard reset at the worst of them. She squeezed her eyes shut as she concentrated on taming her rebellious speech.

"...m-mean Admjirral T-T-Tjyrree?"

[Camile Saccard]

An alien, of course. One of the... felines that she had heard about, who had formed an integral part of the Alliance. By all accounts, the creatures shared some of the Consortium's beliefs about the superiority of women. Camile looked the female over not with distaste, but with irritation.

"Yes, Admiral Vansen Tyree," she repeated, enunciating each syllable. In truth, her Basic accent was far from flawless - the Hapan people had only reluctantly begun to learn the common tongue a matter of generations ago and spoke it in their own accent, lilting the edges of some vowels and dragging out others. Still, her pronunciation was faultless by comparison to the mangling the feline had just uttered. Thank ereneda she hadn't attempted to speak to the Queen's tongue.

"Take me to him."

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Well that was easy enough, considering it was the direction that she was going anyway to deliver the SigInt report.

"Ya ve, rrou'a."

The words passed her lips before she could even correct them. Maybe the sight of epaulets and high collars just put her into Cizeri by default. Kiimiti grimaced.

"Ss-ssorrjy. Thjiss wajy."

The Preita'rrou escorted Captain Saccard along the outer concourse, heading to the nearest lift. They stepped inside, the single door of the tube sliding closed over the curved aperture.

"Command l-level."

The lift began it's feathered ascent, which the Preita'rrou knew would terminate in a few seconds, followed by a transition to a horizontal path that carried the car along the radial causeway that lead to the station's interior.

There was a lot of silence to sit through. Kiimiti stole a glance at the smartly-dressed human, quickly averting her eyes as she stood awkwardly to one side.

A lot of awkward silence.

[Camile Saccard]

Camile stood with square shoulders and hands crossed at the small of her back.

The silence was wonderful, disturbed only by the sound of the lift re-orientating to its new path and the distant hum of engines.

In this, at least, the station seemed to have been well designed. By the Imperials, apparently. Her summons to the Jovan Station had included details of how the asset had been commandeered from the self-aggrandizing Galactic Empire and subsequently hauled across the stars. Quite a feat, she thought, willing to concede that much.

A voice broke the silence, artificial and speaking in the clipped accent of the stations' creators: "Now arriving at command level."

The door slid open and, after a beat, Camile turned her head a fraction, looking expectantly at her escort.

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

They continued walking, passing through the command deck on the circuitous path that would take them to the conference room for the joint commands briefing. Kiimiti desperately wanted to fill the void time with something to say, but the woman held as chilly and aloof an expression as any Galleon captain. Goddess, even K'ohta'rrou Meorrrei seemed cozy by comparison.

"What b-b-brranch of sserrvjice arre jy-jyou jin?"

She tried a smile but it was insecure and more like a grimace.

"jI haven't sseen a h-h-h-h..."

Kiimi closed her eyes as she tried to work around the stalled word on her tongue. Eventually she gave up and tried a rephrase.

"jI haven't ss-sseen an Alljiance unjif-f-forrm ljike that beforre."

[Camile Saccard]

"This isn't an Alliance uniform," she replied, curtly.

Anyone with eyes who had spent any time around the Alliance would be able to tell that. Perhaps someone without eyes had designed the Alliance outfits. That would have explained the lurid orange.

"It is the uniform of Her Majesty's Royal Navy, the pride of the Consortium."

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Of course, how could she be so obtuse! The accent was an obvious give-away. Well maybe not obvious since this was the first Hapan she'd met who wasn't a linguistics professor at Uni. But yeah, those soft r sounds, and the way she held onto her o's and u's.

Kiimi's face went from nervous and careful to a flash of excitement.

"Oh! Zettajin bonjeu, M-madellé t'ennjienne!"

She'd never had a chance to speak Hapan in a practical setting, and hearing it after a few years of disuse made her realize how rusty her declensions were, nevermind her own treacle-thick accent and speech problems. But it was still enough to stick the landing on salutations without her having to crack open a book for a brush-up.

Kiimi's smile dimmed a little. This was only interesting to one woman here, and the actual Hapan wasn't her.

[Camile Saccard]

Camile looked sideways at Kiimi with just a hint of bemusement. A look came over her, an approximation of a tight-lipped smile.

"Very good."

It was the first time she had heard a foreigner attempt the Queen's speech. A large part of her wanted to a critique of the greeting, which in the strictest sense should have only been used in informal circumstances, but better judgement told Camile that was a path of no return.

"Will it be much longer, to reach the Admiral?"

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

"Oh, n-n-no rrou'a. W-we'rre at the conferrence rroom n-n-now."

Kiimi indicated to the double sliding door ahead, flanked by two armored Jaanni'saari. Each nodded to the two officers, standing aside to let them pass. The Preita'rrou was relieved that she'd actually be going in with the Hapan officer, rather than orbiting at the threshold awkwardly. She wondered exactly what a Hapan would bring to the joint commands meeting.

[Vansen Tyree]

Coming here in person had been a mistake.

He had his reasons, of course: reasons that still held merit and value. He knew that the new Hapan arrival would create situations needing his physical presence to smooth over; but damn if he didn't miss the opportunity to mute the bickering, and rely on ADAR's transcripts to see him through. As a hologram, his rolled eye was harder to perceive; his mumbled words of frustration could be censored from transmission. Here in person, he found himself forced to clamp his jaw firmly closed to thwart any scathing responses he might otherwise fire off at the Bothan Captain who was in the midsts of protesting the heinous slight against his people of having to wait fifteen gorram minutes longer than expected because the station's terrorist-crippled docking arms weren't all functioning at full capacity again.

There were other reasons to lament being here as well; a phantom pain in his gut reminded him of just how badly his last visit to Jovan Station had gone. He'd quietly asked ADAR to arrange for quarters in a different section of the station this time. Perhaps it was cowardly to want to avoid the corridors where he'd almost met his end; but to hell with that kind of thinking. He was Admiral kriffing Tyree, and anyone who offered even a single judgemental glance in his direction was welcome to vacate his presence through the nearest airlock.

Of course, there were positives to being here as well; ones that Vansen hadn't fully admitted to even himself. He felt his eyes drawn in the direction of Captain Quez and Commander Luka, wondering if they would be remaining in dock long enough for him to steal a few moments with one of their crew. Or perhaps he wouldn't, time would tell; these were uncharted waters after all.

His gaze shifted, jumping between the various officers of Jovan Joint Command; some there in the flesh, some in holographic form. Captain s'Ilancy seemed to notice his roaming gaze; Vansen jumped to the next object of attention before she had the opportunity to smirk in his direction.

A few moments later, a shining beacon of liberation pierced it's way through the conference room's doors, enshrouded within a painfully Hapan-looking uniform. Vansen's fingers snapped, and a silencing hand was extended in the Bothan's direction, cutting off his tirade of complaint in mid flow. "Captain Saccard," Vansen said, a little louder than he perhaps needed to, making it clear that everyone should desist with their talking and pay attention to the room's newest arrival. "Your timing is perfect."

Vansen rounded his gaze on the Bothan, something alarmingly like glee glinting away at the back of his eye. "Captain Tras'emi here feels deeply inconvenienced that the repair efforts to Jovan Station haven't advanced quickly enough for his liking. If you'd be so kind, Miss Saccard, please pick an orifice for the Captain to stick his petty bitching in, so we can actually get on with discussing matters of actual importance."

[Camile Saccard]

The room stilled to silence at the Admiral's salutation. All eyes were on her. Vansen Tyree appeared to have only one eye with which to regard her. Camile wondered whether it was a combat wound, or a birth defect. The former would have brought an end to his military career, she thought idly, while the latter could have cost him his life.

Her gaze moved smoothly to the target of the Admiral's irritation, Captain Tras'emi. Another... creature, this one with more than a passing resemblance to the rat-monkeys of Shedu Maad. Right down to the angry little face wreathed in fur. One thin, blonde eyebrow lifting almost imperceptibly, Captain Saccard returned her attention to Vansen.

"I am not familiar with the... orifices of your captain, Admiral."

[Vansen Tyree]

It lasted exactly seven seconds, the contemplative silence as Vansen studied the features of Camile Saccard. It was Vansen's fault that she was here; at least, indirectly. He had asked the High Admiral of the Hapan Royal Navy to contribute an officer to the joint operations here on Jovan Station, half-expecting that Ta'din Farani would send her own son - he was, after all, already tarnished by his frequent missions beyond the borders of the Consortium. To Admiral Tyree's surprise, Farani had instead selected someone who she described as one of her most promising: not a convenient choice, but rather a committed one. Vansen did not doubt that there were ulterior motivations that he could not perceive, but it spoke to a level of cooperation that came as a breath of fresh air from the Hapans. Perhaps their was hope for a united Alliance after all.

The Admiral's scrutiny came to an end as a soft chuckle escaped from his throat. "That's probably for the best, Captain."

Vansen couldn't help but notice the reactions of others; the questioning glance between Commander Luka and Captain Quez, the almost imperceptible quirk of one of Commander Inirial's immaculately groomed eyebrows. Laughter and a jovial mood went against everything that the Admiral had worked so hard to cultivate in his persona over the decades; but where had it left him? A lonely life filled with nothing but salt and grit, stinging it's way into every wound that life tried to inflict. Spend enough time being trodden on by fate and misfortune though, and eventually all that salt crushed into a fine powder, and life didn't chafe quite so much any more. They became salt water and sand, all the ingredients for a beach; Vansen had been able to find enjoyment in such things, once upon a time.

"Welcome to Jovan Station, Captain," Vansen completed, with a gesture towards a seat that had been left vacant between the K'ohta'rrou and Commander Inirial. "Please, have a seat."

[Camile Saccard]

In the Chume's Royal Navy, officers stood at their posts and conducted all of their meetings and briefings on their feet. If they were always on their feet, they were always ready, at a moment's notice, to leap to the defense of Queen and Consortium. There was also the matter of their uniform, with it's stiff tail-coat, which had not been designed to allow the greatest, if any, comfort while sitting.

Nonetheless, if Camile found the act of sitting uncomfortable, she did not show it. She took the offered seat and sitting upright, with not so much of a hint of a slouch, she considered the room. There was an... almost equal division between both genders in the room. Could she take some consolation from that? Apparently not. It had been unsettling enough to stand with Commodore Belargic or Farani. There was an old Hapan saying: Never let a man become so deluded as to believe that he is the intellectual equal of a woman. It only leads him to evil. Now, here she was, in the company of men who she was supposed to consider not only her equal, but her superior.

"So," she began, trying to wrest her mind away from the paradoxical nature of her situation. "I have come to take command of one of your Alliance vessels."

Her grasp of Basic was... basic at times, particularly when it came to the subtleties of the language, though it was light-years ahead of many of her contemporaries, who spoken the Hapan tongue exclusively.

[Adonis Inirial]

A moment of time seemed to freeze into stasis as Adonis' mind processed the situation that had presented itself. Potential facial expressions cycled by as he considered the responses that could be made. There was confusion at the Hapan's statement, so matter-of-factly presented in the midst of a meeting that was clearly about other matters. Perhaps it was logical when you factored in cultural differences; perhaps the Captain simply didn't think anything of significance could possibly be happening in a room that contained so many men.

Deductive reasoning took hold next, connecting the dots like plots on a hypernav chart. The miscommunication was obvious: she believed she was here to command an Alliance vessel. Not an illogical assumption all things considered. Adonis knew as much about Camile Saccard as was possible for a man of the Alliance: as much as Hapes' paranoid redactions would allow to be gleaned from her personnel file, and a few extra flickers of fact and hearsay courtesy of Alliance Intelligence and the Bothan Spynet. Saccard was undeniably due for a command, if her years of service were anything to go by; and given her recent subordinate status to a male commanding officer - the Hapan High Admiral's son, no less - the Royal Navy surely owed her one by now.

Instead she was here: an unwitting lab nuna in a fledgeling political experiment. Adonis almost felt sorry for her. That proximate sentiment softened his tone considerably: far less of the charm and ego than it might typically have contained, though still enough of an edge to gently insist that his input be heeded.

"This is an operations briefing, ma'am." A little feign of respect; Alliance ranks didn't necessarily equate to Hapan or Cizerack ones in linear ways, but best to err on the side of deference with these matriarch races. "Perhaps the circumstances of your new assignment would be best discussed in a more private, later -"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Captain Quez leaned back in his seat slightly as the Hapan woman got directly to the point. Blue eyes briefly commiserated in silence by shifting to Commander Luka at his left. Neither of them dwelled long before they returned to the stranger in the room. Not much there. The Hapan had an aloof face that Cirrsseeto had seen more than a few times among his own people. For lack of a proper cue, he glanced at the ever-glowering expression on Admiral Tyree's face.

At any rate, Cirrsseeto had no idea what Captain Saccard was talking about. Of all the ships domiciled at Jovan Station, none of them had a command vacancy that he knew of.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen held up a hand to silence the intelligence officer, though the softer-than-usual glance thrown in his direction conveyed a hint of gratitude toward Adonis' efforts. The boy - despite his age, Vansen couldn't quite bring himself to think of the man who had once called him uncle as anything but a boy - had a good head on his shoulders, for strategy and for politics. He perhaps wasn't the most diplomatic, not with the amount of swagger in that lopsided smile and Alderaani accent, but he was a hell of a lot closer to it than Vansen was, and would ever be.

The alien joviality that had graced Vansen's features before had faded, but the resting expression that replaced it was far less gruff than it might have once been. If anything it was tired, and the frown was frustrated: two states that summed up Vansen's feelings towards situations such as this almost perfectly. This new circumstance, this state of things that the galaxy and the Alliance had settled into, was far beyond anything Vansen had ever been equipped for. Back in the days of the Republic, back before the Clone Wars when a Judicial uniform hung from his shoulders, and a starfighter cockpit nestled beneath his ass, Vansen had been too disinterested to care about command, diplomacy, and politics. When authority had finally been thrust into his hands, the Clone Wars and then the Empire had made such things largely obsolete, and so Vansen had been forged into the kind of officer and commander that circumstances had required him to be: which was a kind of officer and commander utterly unsuited for situations such as these. Camile Saccard and the situation that surrounded her was equal parts delicate and messy, and Vansen had neither the patience nor the mindset for such things. What he achieved was entirely borrowed: inspiration drawn and stolen from better people than he.

For this though, Vansen's sources of inspiration ranged from useless to distasteful. The situation was simple: conversations had occurred at the upper levels of command. It had been decided - by the people who decide such things - that the Alliance needed to start finding ways to place Hapan officers aboard Alliance ships; and eventually, visa versa. The fear was that if the Alliance military was allowed to remain secular, it would be too easy for the Alliance to become divided along those secular lines. Initiatives like Jovan Station and Task Force 42 were excellent first steps to begin mesh taping the military together, but for those lines and divides to become as blurred as possible, specific individuals - and eventually fully integrated crews - were the only logical path.

In principle, Vansen had no objections: there was wisdom there, and for the most part he agreed with it. Officer exchanges between the Alliance and the Cizerack Trade Fleet had already been occurring, and thus far the results ranged from neutral to positive. Even when it came to the specific candidate that the Minister of Defense had elected, Vansen had no complaints: Camile Saccard was experienced, decorated; and frankly, the Hapans were so xenophobic about contaminating their officers with exposure to the rest of the Alliance that there wasn't exactly a large pool of already "infected" Hapans to choose from.

The destination though, that was where the Minister's orders chafed against Vansen's sensibilities like the burrs of a feline penis; mostly because the people getting screwed here were the ones who absolutely did not deserve it. Politics succeeded by finding the path of least resistance, and by placing the weight of inconvenience upon those who would complain about it the least. In this instance, that meant the Novgorod. That meant Captain Quez and Commander Luka. That meant taking the ship in Vansen's command that had proven most effective, the crew that had proven itself most resourceful and reliable, and throwing them to the wolves for some political socio-experiment.

Perhaps Vansen's misgivings were misplaced. Perhaps Camile Saccard would gracefully accept her role, and become an invaluable member of the Novgorod crew. The fact that she had simply assumed she was here to assume command, though? That was not exactly an inspiring start.

"It seems you have misunderstood the nature of your assignment, Captain."

Vansen kept his tone calm, filtering out the usual gruffness that he would usually subject upon an officer in this circumstance; they were used to it, exposed to it, and they knew not to be a little bitch about it. Force knows how a lady Hapan would react; and there were far too many dubious and unwise experiments going on here for Vansen to chance it.

"You have been assigned to the Jovan Joint Command as the Hapan Navy's representative here, and you will indeed have some degree of operational authority over any Hapan assets that are deployed to Jovan's area of operation. However -"

Vansen drew in a breath through his nose and breathed it out slowly, taking a moment to consider the datapad in front of him before his gaze found it's way back to Saccard, via a quick glance at Captain Quez.

"Alliance High Command is currently not comfortable placing a non-Alliance officer in command of an Alliance-operated vessel. Joint operations are uncharted waters for all of us, currently, and with our respective peoples still reluctant to fully share information, you are something of an unproven quantity. There would be equal reluctance if the Alliance wished to place a Mon Calamari woman in command of a Hapan Battle Dragon, so I'm sure you can appreciate and empathise with the complexity here."

Another moment was spent adjusting his datapad; to discourage himself from doing so again, Vansen reached his arms past it, interlacing his fingers atop the table in front of him. Allowing the Hapan a moment to contemplate what he had just said, he chose his next few words with the utmost care, veiling his own disagreement behind a clear indication of exactly who was to blame.

"The Minister of Defense has requested and advised your assignment to the crew of the Alliance Frigate Novgorod. It is his belief that, since Captain Quez himself represents a duality of Alliance and Cizerack, and since the crew itself is especially diverse, you should find it a relatively easy crew to integrate with."

[Camile Saccard]

Camile listened in silence, regarding the Admiral with a direct, level stare for the entire time that he spoke. She did not move, did not fidget, barely even blinked as she listened to his words. Decorum dictated as much. It was unseemly to display dissatisfaction openly, outside of the confines of ones private residence. It was important that she retained her composure, in spite of feeling like she was receiving a verbal slap to the face. It was only the very slight flex in the muscles of her jaw that betrayed any hint of an emotional response.

This was not a promotion - Mists, it wasn't even a level horizontal shift. Someone in the Admiralty was clearly enjoying a joke at her expense, and Camile was almost certain she knew who. Varon Farani would be standing on the bridge of a Hapan warship somewhere in the Cluster, smirking to himself.

As for the notion that she should find a diverse crew easier to integrate with – Camile pushed her shoulders back a fraction, squaring what was already perfectly square to begin with. She did not want a crew comprised of the many dozens of species that the Alliance represented, any more than she wanted to serve aboard a Battle Dragon crewed by males. The less diverse the crew was, the better.

“I see – I am to act as the second to this Quez, then?” she asked, blue eyes shifting to the faces of the males gathered around the table.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Feeling a bit like a ball being kicked between two competitors, Cirrsseeto glanced from Saccard, to Tyree, and then to Commander Luka. He had a distinct feeling that, once again, Alliance Command had determined that his ship was running too well, and were hell-bent on him regressing to the mean.

"That would be me." Cirr chimed in, sitting forward in his seat slightly after a slight clearing of his throat. Nothing good was in this situation, but unfortunately all he could do was endure it for now. He needed to talk to Vansen alone. He needed to talk to Commander Luka. He knew neither of those would change the reality, so he'd also need to come to grips with the Hapan in the room.

[Vansen Tyree]

"That is -"

A reasonable assumption. Not something the Minister of Defense gave any consideration. The mess I have been left with. Damn Oruo'rel. Damn that meddling canine bastard. Vansen wasn't sure which of the four of them - Saccard, Quez, Luka, or himself - was the intended target of his ire, but they were all suffering from it. Or worse, perhaps the meddlesome ex-General genuinely thought this was the best course of action. Perhaps this was the kind of stunt he pulled back in his SpecForce days. Vansen hated it. The crew of a starship was a precious equilibrium, not something you could disrupt on a whim as some shallow, showy political gesture.

"- ultimately up to Captain Quez."

It felt like an almost cowardly solution, but it was the best - the only - option that Vansen had. He could have stepped in himself, shouldered the decision personally, and decreed exactly what roles and responsibilities he felt was correct; but the Novgorod deserved better than that. They'd suffered enough from external input already. This was a crew that Quez and his second - someone Vansen had already helped puppeteer into position - had built with their own two hands. Almost no one aboard had been directly assigned: Quez and Luka had begged, borrowed, and stolen the personnel and supplies they'd needed to get the ship functional again, after her run-in with the Ssi-Ruuk. That was the winning formula that seemed responsibke for their successes; Alliance High Command's interference now was just a way to steal a sliver of credit.

"Alliance vessels do not operate the way that Hapan ships do. Your tactical experience is undeniably valuable, but there are other responsibilities of an Alliance XO that may lie outside your experience. I'm sure there is some sort of happy median that will maximise all of your skills; but as far as I'm concerned, only a Captain knows what's best for his ship."

Vansen felt his shoulders' desire to sag, and fought against it, once again glancing down at his datapad, his monocular gaze sweeping across the agenda before him. "There's nothing here that can't wait until tomorrow's briefing," he announced to the assembled officers. "Perhaps it's for the best if we end here for the day. You're all dismissed."

[Camile Saccard]

Camile rose at the Admiral's words, acknowledging his command with an incline of her head. Her gaze lingered on him. Male, with one eye missing, the deformity marring what was already an unattractive face. He was fortunate to have been born outside of the Cluster; had he been Hapan born, Vansen Tyree would almost certainly have been dead - and yet here he was, in a position of authority in the largest known fleet in the Galaxy.

Before the room could be fully vacated, Saccard looked to her new commanding officer, the latest in a parade of affronts. He, at least, seemed to have no interest in attempting to converse in the Hapan tongue.

"Captain," she approached Quez, waiting until a few of the other briefing attendees had either filed out of the room or knotted together, to discuss unknown matters.

"A moment. I would like to inspect our vessel."

[Jaden Luka]

The exchange of information had happened so fast that Jaden was already slowly finding his feet before things started to process. Jaden had sat across a table or a briefing room from Vansen Tyree enough times to pick up on the subtle tells in his expression, particularly that special brand of I'm pissed off, but not at you, and I can't really bitch about it out loud scowl that had made a showing pretty much any time back in the old Wheel days when the Jedi had decided they wanted to do something strategically stupid.

This time it was politics though, not Jedi: that much even Jaden could piece together. Part of him wondered if recommending Vansen Tyree as the Admiral charged with protecting a planet full of petty bureaucrats and sanctimonious Senators was some kind of failed joke that the people involved were too embarrassed to bail out on; how Tyree had lasted this long without proton bombing Bothawui from orbit to shut them all up was a mystery.

Another time's mystery, though. Now there were more pressing concerns; concerns that activated Jaden's autopilot. Without so much as a thought, Jaden found himself defensively poised at Cirrsseeto's side, arms folded defensively across his chest, eyes locked sternly on the nasty case of Herpes Consortium the bigwigs on Bothawui had apparently decided to infect them with. I would like to inspect our vessel, his inner monologue echoed, sarcasm layered liberally on top of the woman's words. Who the blazes did she think she was, strutting up to her new Captain without so much as a hello, and with the gall to presume she had the right to inspect anything. With any luck, Captain Quez would nominate Tink to show her around. An hour or so with Commander Crankypants would serve her right.

"What was your name again?" Jaden said before Cirrsseeto had an opportunity to speak, his mind too caught up in contemplating this would-be usurper to worry about protocol or politeness. Sure, becoming the Novgorod's executive officer hadn't exactly been his first choice, but he was here now, and he was settled; some pompus tart from frilly coat land didn't get to step in and smush him back down the ladder without him at least getting a shot or two in. "I know the Admiral mentioned it earlier, but you didn't seem important enough for me to bother paying attention at the time."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

It was happening too fast. Cirrsseeto needed to talk to Admiral Tyree about this insanity, but the old man seemed to realize that talk was incoming, and was working to adjourn the meeting and get out of the blast radius. And then Commander Luka and the Hapan woman lodged him in a quagmire. Saccard, with her blunt roughshod question. Luka, opting for more indirect offense.

I'm going to have to sort these two out came the realistic appraisal of the situation. Cirrsseeto dreaded that inevitability.

"Captajin Saccarrd, thjis jis mjy executjive, Commander Jaden Luka."

He placed a hand at Jaden's shoulder.

"He would be happy to gjive you a tourr of Novgorrod."

Blue eyes cast sidelong at Jaden with an implicit he'd better be happy note shared between the two. It was there and gone for a moment, and Cirrsseeto regarded his new officer with neutrality again.

"You must excuse me. jI have busjiness wjith Admjirral Tyree."

Before he could fully excuse himself from the two, Cirrsseeto's hand moved down to Jaden's upper arm, pulling him just slightly beyond earshot, so that he could share a word privately with his second.

"jI rrealjize we'rre both jin an uncomforrtable sjituatjion, Jaden. jI need you to handle jit ljike a prrofessjional."

Which meant, under no uncertain terms, Cirrsseeto wasn't going to tolerate any more shots across the bow. This was going to end before it began.

[Jaden Luka]

Like a professional.

Jaden's jaw clenched a little at that. He knew what Cirrsseeto meant: he wanted Jaden to be diplomatic; wanted him to play nice. But the accusation that he was being unprofessional? His skin bristled in reaction.

No sir, his subconscious urged him to counter. I'm being a gorram fighter pilot.

And that was the heart of the problem, wasn't it? The hypocrisy that lurked underneath. Jaden was here because of his service record in the Starfighter Corps. His experience and his status with Rogue Squadron was what put him on the right scopes for a command position. His quick thinking and adaptability, his squadron-like camaraderie with the crew, was what made him such an effective XO on a ship as small, close-knit, and overlapping as the Novgorod. Being a pilot was why he was here; but there was no tolerance of the rough with the smooth. Stop it, was the instruction being given. You're not being Navy enough.

Once again, Jaden felt the acute sting of being here, the reluctant tug away from the cockpit and squadron life, where everything was so much simpler. Maybe that was what this was all about. Maybe Command had decided that Jaden's appointment was a mistake, and now Admiral Tyree was manoeuvring a potential replacement into position. Maybe that was for the best; maybe a return to a simpler status was just what the Doctor - or perhaps even the Captain - had secretly ordered. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise, not really: after all, hadn't this been Jaden's secret doubt all along? Wasn't the concern that nagged at the back of his mind, the sleep-disrupting notion that he buried under layers of swagger and self deception, his secret fear that this was all some elaborate mistake that someone would one day come along to correct?

Jaden's posture straightened, every hint of his usual charm and optimism draining his face into a stoic mask - one that even Admiral Tyree would have been proud of.

"Aye, sir," he replied, with a curt nod to his Captain.

Professional. Right. Prepare yourself to exit gracefully.

[Camile Saccard]

To Camile's mild surprise, Captain Quez was quite well-mannered. The same could not be said for his executive officer, however. Her eyes flicked up and down the length of Jaden Luka, lingering for a moment on the scruff that spread over his jaw like an unruly moss.

“Commander. Lead the way.”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Pushing onward past his XO, Cirrsseeto moved through the adjourning meeting, brushing past Commander Akiena and a few other joint commanders.

"Admjirral. Admjirral Tyrree."

He knew Vansen heard him. He wasn't going to let the Admiral go without a moment of one-on-one.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen didn't flee. He wanted to; wanted this to be someone else's problem, wanted the blame and the conversations to land in the lap of those who deserved to be on the receiving end of it. It was the absolute worst part of military service. Some said it was the life-or-death decisions, the make-or-break calls, or all the times when your morality got placed up on that dusty shelf in the back of your mind, out of the way until the job gets done. But that wasn't it, not for Vansen Tyree. For him, the worst part was finding himself as the middle link in a chain: neither the initiator of a decision, nor the one bearing the repercussions of it; just the conduit through which bureaucratic delegation flowed. Asking something of your subordinates on your own behalf, because of your own decisions? That was something you learned to live with. You learned to cope with the guilt that came from that: bundled it up and wore the weight of it across your heart beneath the medals that they pinned on you for making tough choices. But this was a different guilt, displaced and disconnected, one stirred together with a hint of anger, and a seasoning of sympathy. It was the kind of situation that made a man feel powerless, and that was a sensation that Vansen could not abide.

He gave a not do Commander Inirial, dismissing the intelligence officer, trusting him to subtly usher the rest of the meeting away so that he and Cirrsseeto could be afforded an iota of privacy. For a moment, Vansen allowed himself to try and contemplate the minds of those who'd chosen Captain Quez of all people to benefit from the gracious presence of a Hapan officer aboard his ship. He couldn't quite stave off the notion that there was something personal involved: not directed towards the Captain, of course, but rather his mother. A collateral reprisal from those who couldn't inconvenience Senator Meorrrei directly, perhaps; or an opportunity to prime the Senator's son for failure and undue scrutiny, political sabotage in the making. It made his skin crawl, to think that he could be so easily dragged into those kinds of games. But this is what you get when the Minister of Defense plays by Bothan rules, he quietly mused - a thought that he kept firmly to himself.

"The orders come from Bothawui," Vansen pre-empted, cutting straight to the heart of the matter as Cirrsseeto approached. "I'm just the intensely reluctant messenger."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Where to even begin. Cirrsseeto drew in a breath, then mentally reined in his voice to a volume for discretion. He was hot under the collar, but the last thing he needed was to show it.

"Admjirral, jI've got enough crrew shorrtages forr the junjiorr enljisteds. jI've pulled everry earr that jI thought would ljisten about that. What jI have, among otherr thjings, jis a capable XO. What am jI supposed to do wjith thjis Saccarrd woman? She's a squarre peg."