It smelled here. Not the kind of smell that made her want to turn around and book a ticket on the first transport out, but a noticeable odor all the same. Like a cross between the ozonated smell of deuterium, mixed with the flatulence of a few dozen different sentient species. The area was crowded, but not packed like she had seen on some of the larger stations on her trip.

She was standing in the reception ring of the station about midway down the mushroom shaped bases stem, from what she could gather. She peered through the windows along the top of the long hallway of one of the spokes of the Docking Wheel. Everything looked relatively modern, but then again she could only see a few shops and restaurants from where she was standing.

The station was apparently 110 years old, 30 years beyond than her designed lifespan, and had just recently gone through a modernization to keep her in service for at least another decade, or so she had read on her three and a half week journey. Apparently a big new Federation Colonial, Support and Stabilization Mission was about to being any time now. She had no idea what the fuck that even was, but she knew it probably meant action, and action got views.

Lizzy McNizzy had left her job at the Rimward Report a month prior and not on the most pleasant terms. Apparently her holo-content had been considered too edge for the Editor to allow her any airtime on their weekly show. After boarding the USS Higbee on Earth, she had learned that the outfit had actually closed down.

But now, her weekly stream and holo-cast was signed to a major Ferengi Media Conglomerate, and her views had continued to steadily rise. She remained a notionally independent as a journalist and reporter, so she had recently secured a freelance contract to cover the events going on in the Hodian Belt for a leisure and style holo-magazine called the Tumbling Asteroid.

With buzzwords like, lawless, pirates, adversaries, illegal mining, wild hinterlands, and Latinum Fields being bandied about, it sounded spicy. She knew and her followers wanted to see what was going on out there at the ‘bottom of the galaxy’, as she had coined the term in her last stream.

For now though, she had to find her accommodations, which were apparently in something called the Arboretum.

“Hey. Are you Lizzy McNizzy?” A passing Starfleet officer asked.

“Yep. You caught me, just don’t tell anyone until the show comes out on Thursday alright, it’s supposed to be a secret.” She gave the young Xindi-Arboreal female a warm smile.

“I’ve been a fan of yours for like a year, back when you got arrested on the Tholian border. You’re a hero to a lot of us.”

Lizzy looked at the collar of the blueshirted officer. One full pip, and a hollow one. Usually she didn’t consider anyone with less than two full pips as a potential source, but then again, out here she very well could be talking to the head science person or the top doctor, or the only doctor for all she knew.

“Oh cool, thanks, yeah that was a real fun time right up until the 3-week stay in a holding cell on Starbase 420.”  Lizzy laughed in hindsight, she got a juicy story, but she had also drawn the ire of the powers that be.

“Hey, are you busy right now? I just got here and I’m looking for this hotel called the Blue Sky Resort, apparently it’s in the Arboretum, like is it a garden or what?” the redhaired firebrand asked.

“First time on a Watchtower class station?” The Lt JG replied.

“Caught me again. Oh wait, no, I had a 2-hour layover at Starbase 191 to switch transports a few years back. So what is it?”

“Come on, I got time on my break, I can show you.” the Xindi officer laughed.

“So tell me, what’s going on with this whole Romulan Senate thing? You said last week that it’s starting to look like the Praetor had been replaced by a changeling.”

Lizzy chuckled and went through her supposed reasoning on why she thought that as the two made off towards the central turbolift roundabout.

She had always dabbled in what many referred to as conspiracy theories on her shows, but in her audience’s eyes she had always brought the ‘receipts’. In this case, it was actually all very circumstantial, however logically or persuasive she had layed it all out on the stream.

In reality, for her streams, and weekly cast she just knew what would sell, and what would get views. That was her goal, and now that she had signed with Dork and Sons Media Group, it was her job. Her show was classified as entertainment for a reason, and she would never tell her fans and followers that she was all about the ‘tapbait’. But she didn’t mind admitting to herself that it was true.

Her real work was done on stories like this one, and her monthly column for Star Crossed. But if she was ever going to have ‘Kirk your credits’, her weekly streams and casts were where it was going to come from, not writing some award winning expose. Like one of her recent guests has said, ‘just because we’re in a post scarcity society, doesn’t mean we’re in a no scarcity society’.

Lizzy decided to look up her new friend after she got settled in the boutique 30-room hotel and edge of a rise along the perimeter of the fake skied but otherwise lovely garden/village. Though the bank of lights over which the the fake sunlight traverse was clearly visible across the roof, the little green village area with a ‘town parish’ style clustering of buildings in the middle that was surrounded by a large greenspace with ponds, paths and paddocks(with actual animals). There was also two decks worth of ‘apartments’ that ringed the edge of area. Her hotel was in s bank of them and owned by some rich family with old pre-Federstion money.

Lizzy eyes widened when the Starfleet bio of a one Lt JG Vumma Tacas popped onto her padd. Turns out, she wasn’t the head science person, but she was the Head of Astrometrics, and the wily journalist recalled another source had mentioned something about a brand new sensor dish or something that the station used to spy on the Romulan homeworld before she had left Earth.

“That’s why she asked about the Romulans Praetor thing. Kirk yeah, baby. Vumma girl, you got yourself a new best friend.” She said out loud and she stood up from her little love seat in the corner of her hotel room. That was a source she wanted to cultivate and start farming immediately.