“You don’t always notice social cues, do you?” Elbon asked her.  The curl to one side of his lips suggested the question was in jest.  Not only was he looking right at her, he jabbed in her direction with a strip of dried asnor, using the dehydrated fish snack as a pointer.

From where she was padding into the concert hall from a service doorway, Nova made the active decision to accept his challenge without a flinch.  She refused to demure or hang back in the doorframe.  Nova approached where Captain Elbon Jakkelb was standing behind the sole podium on the stage.  He was backlit by the diagnostic test pattern of the viewscreen behind him.  Being so tall for a Bajoran, Elbon’s figure could have felt imposing if the composition of his limbs weren’t so lanky.

“You don’t know me well enough to make that assumption yet, sir,” Nova asserted.  “I may not always respond to social cues in kind, but I notice them.  I always notice.”

Nova watched Elbon for a reaction, but she received none.  His head was turned, and his gaze narrowed on the rows of theatre seating filling most of the space.  He took a bite of his asnor and chewed in a laboured manner.

Relieving the tension of a duty unmet, Nova reported, “Another plenary speaker has withdrawn from the conference.  Doctor Itevol from Dalaria University has sent her regrets.  I’ve made arrangements for you to beam down to the Romulan Formal Academy, where you and their chair can discuss–“

Gesturing to the empty rows of seats with another strip of asnor, Elbon interjected, “Lieutenant DeVoglaer, can you please sit in that chair over there?  Fourth row; seventh seat over.”

Nova questioned the order with a perplexed, “Sir?” which was punctuated by a raised eyebrow.  Despite her question, she was already walking toward the fourth row.

Brushing his palm down one side of the podium, Elbon touched an LCARS contact, which caused the clunking sound of a magnetic lock releasing.  Using both hands, Elbon took hold of the podium and slid it two paces to his right.

Elbon squinted at Nova.  “I read this old, declassified report by Starfleet Intelligence.  They had a theory about Romulan academics who spoke at a Federation conference: they posited the speakers were always decoys, while the true authors watched from the audience and communicated with subtle hand signs and micro-expressions.”

“So you’re modifying the eye-lines?” Nova presumed as she sat in the seat where she had been ordered.  “You believed the report then?”

Elbon blinked at her.  He finished eating his strip of asnor, and then his eyebrows rose on his forehead.

“Did you speak with her?  Doctor Itevol?” Elbon asked with a new urgency.  “Did you reassure her that Starfleet will guarantee her safety in Romulan Republic space?”

Nova cleared her throat.  “If you’ll allow my presumption, captain, I think she felt more unsafe aboard a Starfleet ship than on the surface of D’cl’vangram Four.  She made artful allusions to Farpoint and Frontier Day in her missive.”

Dropping his hands on the podium, Elbon groaned out a sigh.

“And we thought Federation academics would refuse to attend when they found out the Formal Academy doesn’t have replicators or sonic showers,” he said.

The piercing sound of a high-pitched whine emerged from overhead. At first, it nearly resembled the gentle music of a sonic shower, but then it was joined by a racketing vibration and mechanical shrieking noise.

Sneering at the overhead, Elbon took another bite of asnor and crossed his arms over his chest.

“The other thing you said.  About social cues,” Nova said.  She had to raise her voice to ensure Elbon could hear her over the racket in the Jefferies tube above them.  “I think I did completely miss what you said on the bridge, because I approved maintenance in here while you’re studying subtle eyelines.”

“What are they doing?” Elbon asked in a deadpan.

“Repairing the holo-projectors,” Nova answered simply.

Elbon cleared his throat.

“We don’t have any holo-projectors,” he said.

Nova answered back with, “Surprise?”

Elbon rounded the podium and stepped down from the stage. “You understand the systems of an Ambassador-class better than most, Nova. That’s why I recruited you. I oversaw the refit closely myself. No matter what we built into her veins, the Ascension’s electro-plasma system could not withstand any holo-projectors.”

Nova shrugged.  “Draia wanted to impress you, sir.”

With all the pathetic fallacy of a tragedy, the hall went dark. The overhead lights blinked out in an instant, and the only illumination came from light strips around the frame of the viewscreen and the two exit aisles between the rows of seats.

Elbon quickly said, “Nova, I don’t mean to state the obvious, but we can’t host a conference here without lights.”

It was the classic heartbreak.  Elbon sounded disappointed rather than angry.

A disembodied voice spoke from Elbon’s combadge: “Bridge to Captain Elbon, we’re receiving a distress call from Romulan Outpost Isneih Sei.“

“Put it on screen,” Elbon said.  Waggling a finger at Nova in the dark, he added, “Be it your PADD or the viewscreen, I need it now.”

With a PADD in hand, it took little rerouting of EPS conduits to activate the viewscreen, regardless of what the engineering team had done in the back of the house. The viewscreen lit up to show a Romulan scrambling across an empty control tower. His hands were moving frantically over controls outside the visual sensor range.

“–requesting immediate assistance!” the Romulan said.  “We are under attack.  I repeat, we are under–“

Visible through the viewport behind the Romulan, the murky green hull of a warship corkscrewed closer to the outpost.  There was hardly time to understand why Klingons would be openly hostile to the Romulan Republic; there was hardly time to determine any assistance to offer from light years upon light years away.  The Klingon bird-of-prey’s fore torpedo launcher flared with explosions of green light.  The fate of the outpost wasn’t even captured by the sensor logs.  Almost instantly, the transmission cut out.