The lab was a disaster.

The suite of offices, set aside for the We Are Starfleet project, looked as if it had been the site of a stymied rebellion.  Likely, it had been.  Any furniture that wasn’t fused to the deck of Brahms Station had been scattered across the compartment on Frontier Day.  The conference table and its complement of chairs were laying on their sides in the reception area.  Even the double doors into the conference room were laying on the deck, off their tracks.  PADDS and holo-frames were littered about just as thoughtlessly; a hologram of someone’s pet dog was fizzing in and out of existence.

Commander Jeovanni silently crouched to the deck and he tapped a contact on the translucent holo-frame, allowing the damaged holo-projection to finally rest.

“I hope they found whatever they were looking for,” a figure in the doorway stood, propped up against the frame and arms folded across her chest as she shook her head in anger. “You sure there’s no one else that could be doing this? I hear cleanup crews are doing a bang-up job elsewhere on the station,” the Andorian woman asked, looking down at the crouched figure.

Without looking up from his task, Jeovanni scooped up the small translucent hexagon and a metallic pen that had a pink ribbon attached to it.  He pushed aside a chair and poked through the littered objects that had been abandoned beneath it.

“Now that my team have been released from the Borg’s mind-control transmission,” Jeovanni said, “I hoped to rescue any personal mementos before the cleanup crews got here.  I wouldn’t want a DOT to assume because a treasured item has taken damage that means it’s refuse now.”

“Oh, that’s completely possible,” the Andorian smirked, pushing herself off of the door frame and helping to pick up a few small trinkets beneath a desk.

“Honestly, this feels like a metaphor for the work I do…” Jeovanni absently remarked.  Tilting his head back, Jeovanni considered the Andorian who had joined him at his task.  He said, “You look familiar.  Why do you look so familiar, captain?”

“I’ve been asked to participate in a study over here,” Tharia told as she made it back to her feet and placed the small items on the desk’s surface. “Tharia sh’Elas,” she smiled, offering a hand to the occupier of the office.

Rising to his full height, Jeovanni shook her proffered hand between both of his own and he remarked, “You’re from drydock twenty-two, yes!  Now I remember!”

He nodded vaguely at the suite of rooms around them, saying, “I’m Kalab Jeovanni.  I lead the project here when the Borg aren’t trying to assimilate the entire fleet yards.  I can’t deny: an existential crisis makes it troublesome to focus.  Counselor Voss has been volunteering some research to the project and she suggested you might be in a prime position to help me with my dilemma.”

“Yeah, about that…” Tharia shifted uneasily and reached up to scratch her left temple. “I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly here of my own volition. I’m here as part of my rehabilitation in order to return to the field.”

Jeovanni nodded at that admission, narrowing his eyes at Tharia, and he blinked a couple of times until he could think of what to say with that.

“Since you’re being so honest with me,” Jeovanni said in a conspiratorial tone that he likely hadn’t earned with the Andorian he’d only just met.  He asked, “Have you ever asked yourself: what’s the point of Starfleet?”

“More than I would care to remember,” the Andorian smirked, unknowingly being drawn straight into the mind games as she pulled up a seat and slumped into it. “More and more in recent years. Back in the seventies, it felt like the universe couldn’t get any more dangerous, but then the eighties came, and we had the attack on Mars, the Romulan supernova, and Starfleet withdrew from the galaxy,” she told wistfully, hands clasped together in her lap.

“Then twenty-four-hundred came and the galaxy simply said ‘Here, hold my blood wine…’” she smirked, shaking her head as she thought about all the dangerous events of the last two years. The Century Storm. The Blood Dilithium crisis. The Borg. The Changelings. The Dominion. The early 2400’s had excelled themselves.

“You see,” Jeovanni said in childish excitement; “Counselor Voss was right!  You’re exactly who I’ve been looking for.”