The SS Albatross slid into its assigned docking bay only a few minutes later than expected. Impressive, Muninn thought, considering the sheer business of the spacelanes in the area. Traffic control must be a massive pain to organize for a station of this size and complexity.

As soon as the computer gave the all-clear, Muninn hoisted her luggage and exited her room, careful to leave it as clean as she had found it. Little actions like that, she found, bled back into the universe in surprising ways. Besides, the small ship’s crew were a friendly and overworked bunch. If she could make life easier on them, she was happy to do so. 

She departed the little ship through the access port a minute later, and got her first look at her new home. If the traffic outside the station had seemed hectic, it was nothing compared to the traffic inside. 

She knew from reading the starbase specifications that a Guardian-class usually held a compliment of a hundred-thousand or so souls, but as she left the docking bay she felt as if all hundred-thousand were standing on her head. The noise was like the background crash of the ocean on the San Francisco coast, with as much movement as driftwood in a storm. Yet, the cavernous ceiling above, stretched with walkways and ringed by two higher levels to accommodate the massive number of civilian docking bays, seemed to absorb the roar and dull it, giving Muninn the impression of being lost inside hollow mountain.

As she stood there in awe, she was buffeted by the flow of the crowd. Some “Excuse me’s” and a few “Watch where you’re going’s” were thrown her direction as she hauled her bag out of the flow of traffic. Normally, her height and muscle made her feel like the odd one out in a crowd, but here there were just too many people, from too many races, and all seemed to have somewhere they desperately needed to be. After the quiet atmosphere of the SS Albatross and the strict routine of the USS Hastings, it all came as a bit of a culture shock.

Away from the docking areas, over the heads of the majority of the crowd, she spotted what looked like a concourse with eateries and rest areas for harried travelers. She made toward this bastion with all good haste, trying not to slam into anyone coming the other direction.

Before taking more than a dozen steps, however, a loud baritone broke through the noise.

“Lieutenant! Lieutenant Musgrave?”

Muninn turned to see a big, round-bellied Bolian in the teal-shouldered uniform of medical or science, waving to her from the other side of a flow of outgoing traffic. She made her way over, and he smiled at her, his heavy blue face clearly matching the racial stereotype of friendly and outgoing.

“You, ah, are Lieutenant Musgrave, Junior-Grade?” he asked once she reached him.

“That’s me,” she said. “Reporting for temporary assignment to Bravo Station. Good lord…” two teenage girls crashed by her as she stood there, rushing off across the busy concourse. Muninn stared after them. “Is it always this busy here?”

“About to get moreso, I’m afraid. But this is a bit more hectic than normal, quite so. The situation with the peace talks has everyone on edge, and half the civilian docks are overloaded with this new wave of refugees. Romulan and Reman, mostly. Oh, forgive me…” he held out a large blue hand. “I’m Lish. Lieutenant Lish Dinalin.”

She shook his hand, matching his smile. “Well, it’s more than I’m used to, sir. But I’m sure I’ll settle in quickly.”

“Quite so! And good timing, too, counseling is always short-staffed even at the best of times, but with all these refugees coming in the stress could fracture a hull. You must be exhausted after the trip here, though?”

“Oh, it’s fine. She was a bit cramped, but I needed to read up on the posting anyway. Small places give me time to think.”

“Ha!” Lish chortled. “Small places make me claustrophobic. But you’ll appreciate the size of the officers’ quarters here, I’m sure. More than you’d get just about anywhere else, and private, too! Why don’t I show you there, and we can talk about your first day as we go?”

“Sure thing,” Muninn said, not disguising the relief she felt at not having to figure out where things were on her own. “Do you do this for all the new arrivals?” 

They started pushing their way toward the far side of the wide open docking area. A row of turbolift doors filled the brushed chrome wall ahead, constantly opening and closing with the ebb and flow of people coming and going.

“No, but I try to make time whenever possible.” Lish glanced at her and shrugged. “And we really have been short-staffed in counseling. We’ve got a few other full-timers, and two relatively new additions besides yourself, but we’re overworked. There’s been some talk of getting medical-track Academy students in to fulfill some of their mandatory clinic hours, but that requires supervision.”

“That’s right, there’s a whole Academy division in this system, isn’t there. I would have thought that counselors would be easy to come by.”

“Well, like I said, it’s a matter of supervision and proper training.” They weaved their way through the crowd, past a bawling child and her harried parents, and past a stall selling snacks from ten different worlds. Lish continued, unabated, “The Mellstoxx IIII academy is on a Betazoid colony, did you know? Well, there’s a bit of a gravitation toward the counseling and medical tracks as you’d expect, but we haven’t set up a proper integration with Starbase Bravo personnel. I’ve been speaking about this with everyone I can find who will listen for the last two years, but so far, I’ve been ignored! Can you believe that?”Muninn suppressed a chuckle. She found the Bolian proclivity toward oversharing mildly endearing, but knew that not everyone shared her opinion. It certainly seemed likely that, after a while, Lish might become one of those background noises that you sort of tuned out, if you weren’t already interested in what he was saying.

“Where are they going, then? The students, I mean.”

“Ships, mostly, for field training. But the Betazoids like keeping things planetside. One of their funny customs, I suppose. Or maybe it’s just some overzealous admin holding on to the reins. I cannot fathom anyone making a mistake like this through anything but deliberate means. After all, clinic hours have to be accrued somehow, and cadets are already aboard Bravo for work in other departments as a matter of mandatory training!”

“But not counseling?”

“No! Voluntary assignment requests only. I ah…” Lish glanced at her as they reached the turbolift area and waited for one of the lifts to clear. “…well, I was wondering if you might be interested in helping me with this little project. The other new arrivals I mentioned have already been pulled off on other assignments, or are dealing with triaging the refugees. All important, of course, but I feel that if we could just get a little more done with regard to getting a proper cadet rotation…”

“Sure, I’d be happy to help.” So, not an accident that he met me after all. Muninn silently wondered just how long Lish had been hoping to find someone to help out with his little project. Not that she minded overmuch, it seemed like a good way to get introduced to the station.

“Well!” Lish clapped his hands. His grin shone like a lighthouse beacon. “That will be fine, then! Of course, it’s all in the planning stages now, and this is just a side-assignment, I don’t know where the system will have you placed for normal duty hours, and then there’s the issue of clearing it past the Chief Medical Officer, she’s a bit of an iceberg, that one…”

They stepped into a just-emptied turbolift and the doors closed out the docking area with Lish still rattling away cheerfully all his plans and ideas in one incredibly unbroken patter.