As Fleet Captain Gérard Devreux stepped onto the observation deck, his eyes fell on the woman standing alone under wide sweeping windows. She looked small against the starscape, yet to him, she had always been larger than life. “I thought I might find you here.”
Fleet Admiral Allison Reyes did not turn, her eyes fixed on the stars beyond. “You know I’m not much for sleep.” It was a bit past midnight, and save for the graveyard shift, the rest of the crew were tucked quietly in bed, a return to Archanis Station hardly the sort of event to keep anyone from slumber. Except her. They’d just emerged from warp in silence, no pomp or circumstance, just an uneventful return to the Gorion system after a journey beyond the folds of reality itself, but that they’d made it back at all, and with all of them in tow, she felt a quiet sense of relief.
“Oh, that much I know,” Fleet Captain Devreux chuckled. In all the years they’d served together, he’d never known her to sleep more than a few hours a night. Allison Reyes was a busybody, and she always found something to be doing. “I will say, though, you’ve become one far more for quiet contemplation than ever I recall. I see you up here now more than ever.” In the good old days, the admiral was always on the bridge or out with the away team, always at the center of the action, but now she left most of that to him and Commodore Larsen.
“Yes, well maybe I am finally slowing down,” Fleet Admiral Reyes smirked as she turned to him. “You know, age and all of that.” As much as she wanted to deny it, she couldn’t. Even she could not avoid the passage of time, and she was almost sixty now.
Fleet Captain Devreux eyed her skeptically. “It’s not just age, Allison.”
“No, I suppose you’re right,” Fleet Admiral Reyes frowned. He knew her too well. “It’s what’s gone by with those years.”
“Yes, and some have been more difficult than the others,” Fleet Captain Devreux suggested as he thought back over their time together. “Aboard the Khonsu, we were explorers in the unknown, but here… this…” He looked out at the stars, stars that looked more foreign than of the many far-off places they’d traveled. “These last few have been something different altogether.”
“You should be proud though. You’ve met the moment every step of the way,” Fleet Admiral Reyes offered. “I still remember the young explorer you were when we first met, the only officer in all of Starfleet to have avoided every war of the 24th century… but look at you now.”
Fleet Captain Devreux looked down at his hands, hands now calloused. “Yes, look at me now.” The carefree feeling he used to have as they traipsed through nebulae, dug through ruins, and made first contacts felt so distant now, but this wasn’t just about him. “Look at you too, Allison.”
She didn’t reply. The late nineties, as depressing as they’d been at a macro level, had been rather kind to the pair as they wandered the stars beyond known space, ignoring the problems of home. But all of that had changed with the call from Admiral Archer that’d brought them back, and then everything that’d followed from the corruption purge and the Osiris Initiative to the Lost Fleet, the Borg, the Vaadwaur, and everything in between.
“It’s not like it used to be,” Fleet Captain Devreux acknowledged. “Even in the most dire times, you’d give a bold call to action and then commit us to the fight, no matter the consequences.” He could still remember her on the bridge, right after the fight for their lives over Nasera, as she readied herself to go join the melee planetside, not an ounce of hesitation in her voice, neither for herself nor those she was committing to the fight. “Now, though, I see a hesitance in you… a fear, almost, of what the consequences may be.”
“A recognition,” Fleet Admiral Reyes corrected, discomforted by his choice of words. But he was right, she knew, and it wasn’t even Nasera, Ciatar, or Sol that’d done it. It was the nightfall, and the bodies she’d laid to rest when light came again. “We are stewards of a messy galaxy, Gérard, and I’m still trying to figure out what exactly that means.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for that tomorrow,” Fleet Captain Devreux suggested. She really looked like she needed some rest. “And on our next assignment.” He handed her the PADD tucked under his arm. “New orders from Command.”
Fleet Admiral Reyes quickly skimmed it. She didn’t look happy. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all,” Fleet Captain Devreux smirked. He’d already known exactly how she was going to react. “We’re going on vacation.”
She looked back out at the stars. “What did I just say about stewardship?”
“Stewards need rest too, Allison,” Fleet Captain Devreux replied. “And you cannot deny you are among those who deserve it… who need it… the most.”
Fleet Admiral Reyes did not look pleased with his characterization. She didn’t need it. She could just push through, just as she always had.
“Look at it this way,” Fleet Captain Devreux added. “Even if you don’t think you need it, the crew needs it. I see them every day. They’re tired. This will be good for them.”
“But what of our readiness posture?” Fleet Admiral Reyes asked. “We cannot all stand down.”
“Already have that worked out,” Fleet Captain Devreux smiled. He’d anticipated her response and had already sorted it with the others. “From squadron and sector resources, the Diligent and the Lincoln will function as the alert division while the rest of us stand down.”
“I can’t ask that of Vox and Cayde,” Fleet Admiral Reyes replied. It wasn’t her way to ask of others what she would not do herself. “I’m happy to stay behind.”
Fleet Captain Devreux shook his head. “No, both Dorian and Cassidy were quite insistent you would not be staying with them.” He chose to leave out the bit where Kragor had offered to send a group of Qo’noS’s best to kidnap her for the vacation, and when Ambassador Drake had promised them all amnesty if it came to that.
Fleet Admiral Reyes glared at him, but his expression did not waiver. He was, as much as she did not like it, doing his job as her executive officer, and it probably was for the best so she let it go. “When do we depart?”
“We’ll have a three days at port, enough for resupply, and then we turn for Colludia by week’s end to make it in time for the festivities,” Fleet Captain Devreux explained. “The Kennedy, Ch’Tang and Palisades will join us, as will the rest of the squadron save for the Diligent.”
“Very well,” Fleet Admiral Reyes relented, recognizing he would not be talked out of this and supposing there couldn’t really be too much harm in it. But he didn’t turn to leave, and so she asked, “Is there something else?”
“Yes, in fact,” Fleet Captain Devreux said as he reached over and queued up another item on the PADD. “You’re being summoned to Archanis at 0800 tomorrow.”
“Summoned?” Fleet Admiral Reyes asked, noting the curious choice of words as she looked back down at the PADD. Given her rank and standing, it was not often anyone summoned her for anything, but sure enough, it was a formal summons by order of Fleet Command itself with no details whatsoever besides a name. “Curious…”
