Captain’s Log, Stardate 79316.2,

Constellation Squadron has re-grouped in orbit of Rakosa Five, safeguarded by the Fourth Fleet’s Oydssey Squadron. While our paths have occasionally crossed through our work for the Delta Exploration Initiative, the last updates from Odyssey placed them far coreward of the Nacene Reach. Commodore McCallister’s commands have now been retrofitted with quantum slipstream drives and they are outrunning Vaadwaur woes of their own.

I’ve reached a tentative ceasefire among the Kazon, fueled by the attack on them from Underspace; the Pralor Automated Personnel Units, with their growing suspicions that a foreign power destroyed their reconnaissance units to infect them with false intelligence; and the Trabe, because of their desire for Starfleet protection. With the impressive heavy-explorer might of Odyssey Squadron at my back, they have all agreed to convene in neutral territory.

Odyssey shepherds fleets of Vidiian, Talaxians, and Haakonians who have also suffered attacks from the Vaadwaur Supremacy. Leveraging Odyssey’s trade agreements with the Rakosans, we’ve taken up residence in Dockspire Waystation 17 to mediate with each of the Nacene Reach powers, to understand more about the Vaadwaur and to seek their aid in repelling them for good.

“My grandfather told folktales of the Vaadwaur,” said Governor Solrem Vesht. She pronounced the word ‘Vaadwaur’ experimentally, as if she were more accustomed to reading it than saying it aloud.

“Go on,” Captain Taes encouraged, sitting to Solrem’s left around the conference table. “You’d be amazed at what can be learned from an oral history, even after centuries have passed.”

Gripping the lapels of her vest, Solrem dropped her gaze to the mirrored tabletop. Taes opened her perceptions widely and still couldn’t discern if Solrem was reluctant to waste time talking about folktales or if the visit to her grandfather’s memory was too vulnerable a space to share with outsiders. Rounding out the table were Solrem’s attachés from the Trabe carrier; Taes could only imagine how strong Solrem needed to look in front of them.

Sitting across from Taes at the table were Counselor Turro and the Romulan scientist Flavia. Turro’s open expressions and gentle eyes were usually powerful tools for making space for patients, including Taes herself. Meanwhile, Flavia was still performing as the emotionless Vulcan medical officer, V’Lin, wearing a Starfleet jacket over her favourite jumpsuit. As much as Taes disagreed with Flavia’s methods, Solrem had been deferring to Flavia’s interpretations during their negotiations so far. Flavia had done well to ingratiate herself aboard Solrem’s vessel days earlier.

“Generations before my grandfather’s time,” Solrem said unsteadily, “the Trabe were said to have exchanged supplies and technologies with the Vaadwaur. Their technology was light-years ahead of ours.  My people thought it was practically magic.” And she chuckled at that. She took long pauses between the expression of each discreet thought.

A sneer marred Turro’s open expression. Taes worked all the harder to nod and show appreciation for Solrem’s storytelling. She breathed out a soft, “ha,” when Solrem laughed.

Solrem swallowed hard, starting to blink more rapidly.

“In exchange,” she said, “the Vaadwaur demanded abundant natural resources. Far greater than our industry could keep pace. I believed that exchange was the impetus for overmining the homeworld. We couldn’t live without the technological advances once they had been incorporated into everyday lives.” –She shrugged modestly– “Or so the tales go.”

A tingling passed over Taes’s fingertips, and the sensation flowed into goosebumps up one arm. Her empathic senses caused her breathing to shallow, and a sense of panic in her mirrored a bone-deep feeling of horror from Turro. His brow furrowed, and his eyes darkened, as if she could see storm clouds raging behind his irises.

In Taes’s first formal negotiation as a captain, she leaned into her righteousness with Kecene of the Velorum Remans. Every one of Taes’s condescending lectures had unwittingly put members of her crew at greater risk. And this time, the entire Federation was at stake.  Entire quadrants.

Pivoting, Taes said, “I’d like to request a recess. We must check in with our starship.”

Flavia nodded robotically at Solrem and said, “You have been very brave, governor.”

At Solrem’s agreeable nod, Taes excused herself, inviting Flavia and Turro to join her in the hallway. She had chosen Turro to join her negotiation team for the young Bajoran’s insights and his particular way of analysing circumstances. In this moment, though, it felt like he could be more unpredictable than Flavia. She recognised it was only a feeling, but she could afford no mistakes in pulling together a delicate web of cooperation across the Nacene Reach.

Although Turro demonstrated enough sense to wait until they were alone in a dead-end passageway, he evidently misread Taes’s intent.

“Can you believe that, captain?” Turro asked, incensed. If Taes thought his brows had been furrowed before, those furrows looked carved into stone now. “She expects us to think the Trabe’s oppression of the Kazon is the fault of the Vaadwaur. That kind of self-deceit, that kind of accountability-absent rhetoric, is poison to a community. It’s a Dal’Rock.”

Making brief eye contact with Flavia, Taes nodded in the direction of Constellation’s backroom lounge. Although Flavia took the hint and meandered off in that direction, Taes didn’t entirely wait until Flavia was out of earshot. There wasn’t time to wait.

“Lieutenant, I didn’t pull you aside to discuss the Trabe. I want to talk about you,” she told Turro in her formal timbre. “The counseling team speaks very highly of how well you’ve offered new direction without invalidating anything they had already built. I haven’t told you that enough. You’re a brilliant psychiatrist treating Starfleet patients through the nastiest wounds we’ve suffered since the attack on Mars.”

“Thank you, captain,” he said. Turro tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest, seemingly anticipating what would come next.

“This isn’t a compliment, lieutenant,” Taes said. “You’re serving aboard an explorer now. By definition, new life and civilisations aren’t going to be like us. Can you handle that?”

Turro’s arms wrapped around his chest more tightly. “What we’re talking about isn’t an arms-length exchange of acknowledgement and information. You’re proposing we work with the Trabe after what they’ve done to the Kazon, knowing full well they would enslave them again if they had the necessary force.”

“Can you handle that, lieutenant?”

“Can you, captain?”