“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay behind?” Captain Alleyne asked.

“Not necessary,” Ambassador Drake assured her. “It’s important you join the others.”

“It’s only a camping trip, sir,” Captain Alleyne reminded him. “I don’t have to go.” It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy camping, but she saw the critical importance of what the ambassador was organizing, and she wanted to be there by his side. “The fleet’s secondment program is one of the most consequential initiatives…”

“Yes, it is,” Ambassador Drake agreed. It’s why he had decided, after seeing the Romulan and Klingon ship in orbit, to host this event. It would be an opportunity to explore how the program was working, and how it wasn’t. “But we’ll manage without you.”

Captain Alleyne looked almost insulted at his refusal.

“It’s not that your voice would not be valuable at the table, Ria,” Ambassador Drake offered, noting how her face fell. He always valued her voice, and that wasn’t what this was about. “It’s just that it’s more important for you to go to Colludia V.” And then, with a smile, he added, “Plus, I hear the auroras are beautiful from the northern tundra.”

Still, she looked skeptical. How yurts and campfires trumped a diplomatic banquet for the assets on secondment to the Fourth Fleet was beyond her.

“Ria, look,” Ambassador Drake shared. “Relationships, not just in diplomacy, but in command, they are everything. I’ll be retired soon, but you are early in your career. It’ll be those captains and commanders, the ones you’ll share those moments with, that will have your back for years to come.” He was only here because of the relationships he had formed over the years. “That’s why it’s important for you to go.”

“But sir…” Captain Alleyne began to say. She wasn’t the sort to worry about her career, not when there were still wounds to patch in the galactic fabric itself.

But Ambassador Drake raised his hand to stop her. “Sometimes it’s okay to do something for yourself, dear. You go join them, and we’ll hold down the fort.” He had no concerns about the team’s ability to execute on this relatively simple gathering without her. “If I really must, consider it an order from an admiral.”

That caused her to pause. While sure, Michael Drake wore the pips of an admiral, he almost never flexed it. He led the Archanis Diplomatic Mission with gravitas, but when it came to matters of command, he played quiet advisor. In a way, though, that’s what she knew he was doing here too, telling her to do what he thought best for her, whether or not she agreed. “Very well, sir.”

Ambassador Drake watched her go. Once a refugee, he knew Ria Alleyne’s heart to be truer than most, dedicating her life to a fight for those less fortunate, prioritizing a difference over climbing the career ladder, but he wanted to see her go far. The galaxy would be better for it.

“You’d think you were ordering her to scrub the waste reclamators or something,” Ensign Ortega noted, having watched the whole exchange awkwardly from her desk in the corner of the large suite that served as home for the Archanis Diplomatic Mission aboard the Kennedy.

“Ria’s motives are pure,” Ambassador Drake replied as he looked over at the young diplomatic attaché. “But what she and many other young idealistic officers do not understand is that your career and the impact you can have are not mutually exclusive. If anything, it’s quite the opposite.” He was proof to that.

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Ensign Ortega admitted. She had joined Starfleet with dreams of becoming an ambassador like him someday, but if she was honest with herself, she’d never given much thought to how she’d get from where she was today to someday being head of mission herself.

“Something for you to consider too, Maya,” Ambassador Drake suggested knowingly. She was an excellent attaché, but off the clock, he knew she kept to herself, preferring quiet study to the more social activities where those critical bonds were formed that carried you forward.

“I appreciate that, sir,” Ensign Ortega nodded. “I really do.” Michael Drake was a lot more to her than just a boss. He was a mentor, someone who invested in her. While many of her peers had taken postings as staff officers on Starfleet’s great exploratory cruisers, she had no regrets with her choice. Even though she didn’t hold a glamorous title, and even though they rarely transited beyond the Federation’s borders, this assignment had given her an inside look at the machinery of diplomacy and command.

“Now, though, we must not disappoint Captain Alleyne,” Ambassador Drake chuckled as he pivoted to business. “How are preparations coming along for the event?”

“Invites have been accepted by the Amar, Ch’Tang and Fek’lhr from the KDF, and to the D’taret, Decius, Sutian, T’Seran and Terix from the Republic,” Ensign Ortega reported as she ran down the list on her PADD.

The imbalance was obvious to the ambassador at once. “A bit heavier on the ale than the bloodwine, eh?”

“We still have a few more out not yet responded to,” Ensign Ortega offered nervously, taking his observation a bit more personally than he meant it. “But it’s also just who’s present.”

“Relax, Maya,” Ambassador Drake smiled. “It’s all good… probably better for our food stocks anyways. One Klingon can eat for a dozen Romulans.”

She gave a light smile.

“And drink for them, too,” he added. Sharing a table with the Klingons was always a hoot.

“Yes, well…” Ensign Ortega replied, uncertain how to respond to that and instead deciding to just continue with her update. “Appetizers will be served on the observation deck, and then the lounge is being repurposed for the banquet. Lieutenant Commander Lawton is coordinating the preparations of both spaces.”

“Is Maddy going to be joining us for the event too?” Ambassador Drake inquired. Lieutenant Commander Madison Lawton, the Kennedy‘s counselor, was a xenopsychologist with a soft voice and a sharp mind, and he’d come to appreciate her presence on their missions together.

“I can invite her, if you would like,” Ensign Ortega offered.

“Please do,” Ambassador Drake nodded. “I think she’ll enjoy herself.”

“Understood,” Ensign Ortega nodded as she made herself a note to update the seating chart. “On the Starfleet side, it’ll be our mission staff, plus Lieutenant Commander Lawton now, and then Fleet Admiral Reyes is sending four representatives from the Polaris.”

“Who’s she sending?” Ambassador Drake inquired, not thinking much of it.

Ensign Ortega looked down at her PADD. None of the names were particularly familiar to her. “One is Dr. Sally Stirling, Research Lead for ASTRA’s Cultural and Sociological Unit.”

“Sally’s a good egg,” Ambassador Drake agreed with the choice. Maybe a bit of a bookworm, but one of the most knowledgeable xenohistorians he’d ever met. She might even teach the Klingons and Romulans a bit about their own history before the night was up.

“Then there’s Lieutenant Sena t’Velir,” Ensign Ortega continued. “A xenotechnologist with ASTRA, but I’d presume it’s more on account of the fact she’s Romulan herself.”

“Yes, probably a welcome opportunity to be among her old comrades,” Ambassador Drake nodded innocuously, although there was a part of him that wondered if Fleet Admiral Reyes was playing at something more. Although it was not listed on her commissioning paperwork, he was well aware of Sena’s prior affiliation with the Tal’Shiar, as well as that she’d quietly earned a place for herself within Reyes’ circle of trust after her time on the Serenity.

“The last two are Lieutenant Emilia Balan and Chief Petty Officer Ayala Shafir,” Ensign Ortega finished. “The lieutenant is listed as a cultural affairs officer, and the chief is…” She did a double take. “A staff researcher in computational systems. That last one seems a bit odd, I’ll say.”

“You sure about that?” Ambassador Drake asked, raising an eyebrow. He knew of the chief, and the ensign had met her too. “She was there on Archanis, one of the people Reyes sent to retake it.”

A hint of recognition washed over the young attaché, but then something else too, a darkness as she recalled those desperate moments. “Oh, I remember her now… she was the one that led the team that retook the computer core.” It had been her and three civilians from the Lucre, that Vulcan with the sniper rifle, the burly tank of a man and the moody lady with blue hair, and they had done anything but diplomacy down there. “Why would the admiral send someone like that?”

“Because Miss Shafir is quite good at not standing out,” Ambassador Drake noted. “And because Allison, it appears, is not quite ready to fully trust this whole arrangement just yet.”

For a moment, they both sat with that thought, and then Ensign Ortega asked quietly, “How about you, sir?”

“How about me, what?” Ambassador Drake inquired.

“Are you ready to trust this whole arrangement?” Ensign Ortega elaborated.

“I’m ready to believe it could,” Ambassador Drake replied pensively. “But I’m too old and have seen too much to consider it a guarantee. There is quite a history between our three powers, and a lot left unresolved.”

Ensign Ortega looked visibly uncomfortable at that thought.

“But that’s why we do what we do,” Ambassador Drake added with a smile. “We will be gracious hosts and extend the warmest of welcomes to our guests because if this program is successful, it may be a step towards an era of greater cooperation and a more stable peace between our peoples. And we will all be better for that.”