“How did you come to the decision to pull your team from the embassy?”

“Science Officer Ohtani was monitoring the area around the embassy with focused sensor scans,” said Kirby.  “When she saw about twenty B’Qali soldiers moving in, I had no choice but to recall the team.”

“And the conversation you were supposed to have with Ambassador Tucker?” said the Admiral.

“Jack, who we later learned was Jalak the leader of the Ym’ruxin, never contacted us, we concluded they knew we were there and cancelled the meeting.  I had to protect my people,” said Kirby.

“What happened next?”

“The situation was bad, but was made worse when the Federation contacted us and said they weren’t recognizing the Ym’ruxin as the official government,” said Kirby.

“You didn’t expect that they would, did you?”

“Of course not.” Kirby paused.  “The Ym’ruxin confiscated all the independent ships and freighters in orbit and began using them to forcibly remove all non-B’Qali.  I got tired of doing nothing, so I sent a general comm telling Jalak if he didn’t let us have the ambassador and the embassy personnel, I would take military action.”

The admiral wrinkled his nose.

“After being ignored again, we fired on an unmanned weapons depot.  That got their attention and a few hours later, we got our people back.”

The admiral chuckled.  “Questionable legally, but you did get them back safely.”

“I felt like I was letting down everyone,” said Kirby.  “We still needed to discover who was behind the attacks.”

“What did you do?”

“We stopped and detained every ship that left B’Qal.  It took time, but we were able to ferret out agents working for a faction of the Orion Syndicate.  It was surprisingly easy to get them to talk,” said Kirby.  He handed the admiral a PADD.  “This is everything we learned.”

“Captain, I get the feeling you think you did a poor job.  I can assure you that you and your people got the job done.”

“Not a poor job, sir, but we could have done better,” said Kirby.

“Everyone made it out alive and we know who is behind it.  Now we can get to work on a solution.  You and your crew take a few days and enjoy some time off here at the Devron base.”

“Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir.” said Kirby.

The admiral nodded and got up to leave, so Kirby stood as well.

“You really did get the job done,” said the Admiral.

“Yes, sir.”  When Kirby was alone in the small lounge, he went to the window and watched the activity outside.  He had no idea what would happen next, but at least he and his people were no longer a delivery service for humanitarian aid.  They were beginning to make a real difference and that felt good.