Looking in the mirror was always a hit or miss for Lieutenant Commander Deriad Leis. Being a joined Trill, he was used to his own face, as he’d been looking at it in the mirror for the better part of three decades. For the past six years though, he had also been the host of the Leis symbiont. Being the fourth host, there were three other faces buried deeply in the symbiont’s encoded memory, so occasionally (and especially when first waking up) he expected another face in the mirror. On more than a few occasions, it had caused him to drop his morning tea to the deck, and run late to his shift due to the cleanup process. 

Mercifully, this was not one of those mornings. His face was patently his own, and the one he expected to see, his uniform was freshly cleaned and pristine, and his pips were attached in their correct position on his collar. He looked every bit the eager young First Officer that he was, and despite the rampant anxiety running through him, his face was a confident one. 

Deriad had hoped he’d get a posting where his quarters were located off the Bridge, like on some Nova and Rhode Island class ships. No such luck on the Siren, but he was only down on deck 2, so luckily the turbolift ride was a short one. As he stepped out onto the Bridge, the officer sitting in the command seat stood quickly, but he waved a dismissive gesture at her with a bright smile before she could say anything. 

“Just passing through to the conference room, Ensign,” he said. “As you were.” 

As the doors to the Siren’s conference room swished open, Deriad realized he was only the second of the senior staff to arrive, and hadn’t needed to rush through his morning routine nearly as fast as he had. An older human man in a gold uniform was standing near the replicator, dragging through the conference room’s main data screen, appearing to look through the ship’s Master Systems Display. The man looked up as Deriad approached the replicator and commanded, “Tarkalean tea, no sweetener.” 

“That’s gonna be bitter as shit,” the older man chuckled. 

“Yeah probably,” Deriad responded with a dry laugh of his own. “But it soothes the nerves, and I don’t seem to really enjoy sweet things the past few years. Plus, bitterness is stimulating.” 

“I think there’s going to be enough stimulation in the first staff meeting that we’ll likely get through it, but I get it.” Turning to face the Trill and extending his hand, the older man continued, “Jon Batchelder, Chief Engineer. By your pips and colors, I’m guessing you’re Commander Leis, the new First Officer.” 

Deriad shook the man’s hand with a friendly smile, and replied, “Deriad Leis. Good to meet you, Commander Batchelder.” 

“Likewise, sir.” 

Sir, from a man probably twice my age. That’s going to take some getting used to…

“Can’t take your eyes off of engineering while you’re away?” Deriad asked, taking a sip of his tea. 

“Too many things left to finish. I’ve got some folks down there aligning the dilithium matrix, flushing the bussard collectors, and replacing burnt out isolinear chips. This meeting’s an important one, we need to all meet each other. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t endless work to do right before we take off into the wild unknown.” 

“Sure, that makes sense,” Deriad responded. “Anything I can help with?” 

Jon turned to the young Trill with a soft grin, and replied, “I think the engineering team can handle it, but the offer’s appreciated, sir. Might take you up on it someday when I’ve got a breach or something to deal with.” 

The two stood in a few moments of comfortable silence before the doors whisked open again, and the remainder of the senior staff poured through the door. 

“Take your seats,” Captain Nushif ordered. “We’ve got a bit to get through, and a tight schedule on departure.” Taking a sip from her own hot mug and sitting at the head of the conference table she continued, “I’m Nushif Ejoma, the new Commanding Officer. My understanding is that all of us are new aboard the Siren, so I figured we should take this chance to both meet each other and wrap our heads around the mission. I’m not going to ask everyone to do the obnoxious ‘tell me about yourself’ here. We’re all of us competent officers, and likely read up on each other. Let’s just put some faces to names, and we can get started.” 

“Deriad Leis, First Officer,” The Trill announced, with a nod. 

“Jon Batchelder, Engineer. Probably won’t see much of me unless you come down there, but good to meet you all.” A young human woman cleared her throat and announced “Tabitha Gutierrez, Science. Tabby is fine.” 

“T’Vel, Doctor,” the Vulcan next to her added. 

“Danver Plaze,” the young Betazoid officer in red stated. “Helmsman. The Captain and I know each other from our former posting. Yes I did ask to be transferred with her. Yes the rumors of me mouthing off to an Admiral are true, and no I will not be answering questions about it.” 

“Okaaaay. Hi, Raeira Onaa,” the Betazoid woman in yellow said after a pregnant pause to make sure Plaze was done. “Security, and fresh from the Academy.” 

“Mandy Greystone,” the last officer at the table stated plainly. “I’m not part of your senior staff, just your mission specialist. Given how long it’ll be until we put off at another starbase, I imagine I’ll be with you all for a time, so Captain Nushif asked me to join this meeting.” 

“Good,” Nushif sighed. “A few bits of housekeeping before we get started. I know both Lieutenant Plaze and Commander Batchelder from prior postings. The rest of you are fresh faces. I guarantee you I’ll get your names and ranks wrong. Correct me. Every time. I’ll never get them right otherwise. The same goes if you’re with me and you hear me call any other member of the crew by the wrong name. Correct me immediately, right there and in front of them.” 

“Second,” she continued, “You can call me Captain, ma’am, sir, or anything you’d like. I will take offense to none of it. I was on a first name basis with most of the Ride’s senior staff, and that is the type of command style I’d like to encourage. The Siren is a small ship, and we’re a small crew. We should make an attempt to be friendly, or respectful at bare minimum. I’ll leave it to each of you to figure out what that looks like for yourselves and your departments, as well as how you’d like to be addressed by me or any of the rest of the crew.” 

She stood and made her way to the data screen, pulling up a map of local space. “This is the Thomar Expanse. It’s a relatively narrow corridor of space between Breen and Cardassian space. Beyond it is Ultima Thule they tell me, and beyond that is…well it’s unknown by and large. Where we’re going first is the Kelsis system, about halfway-ish from here and the end of the Expanse.” 

She zoomed the map in to show a planet with three moons and a thin system of rings. “Kelsis Three is M Class, three moons, and a bunch of other interesting things that scientists care about. What we care about is that there is a Borg homing beacon coming from that general vicinity, and that we aren’t the only organization who knows about it.” 

Seeing grimaces at the mention of the Borg from her younger officers, she continued, “I want to make it abundantly clear, our job is to prevent anyone from getting access to this beacon. To my mind, anyone includes Starfleet as well.” “Nothing good can come from leaving a Borg beacon active,” Batchelder quipped. “We oughta do everything we can to shut it down and get rid of it.” 

Pausing for a moment, Nushif responded, “That’s my intent. We’re not the biggest ship in the AO, but we have legs and teeth. We can get there quickly, assess the situation, and prevent anyone else from getting their hands on it. By force if necessary.” 

“Is it not worth the time to study the Beacon,” T’Vel asked, “in order to assess the possibility of discovering a means to more easily shut down the others appearing across the galaxy?” 

“Nah,” Gutierrez responded. “ Commander Batchelder’s right. There’s nothing we can learn from Borg tech that we haven’t already, and after Frontier Day, the risk is too high.” 

“She’s right,” Greystone added. “My team and I were studying and dismantling a heavily damaged Sphere that no one in their right mind thought would ever be a threat. We were abjectly wrong, and it cost half of them their lives. I’m happy to use my knowledge and expertise on the subject to help you shut this beacon down and any others we come across.” 

“Good,” Nushif responded with a firm nod. “Anything else?” 

“Captain, do we think we’ll come across any drones?” Onaa asked. 

“Unlikely,” Nushif responded. “I’ve not heard reports of any drones thus far, and news about the Borg travels pretty fast. If we do encounter any…we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. For now, the job is to make sure the tech stays out of the hands of everyone.” 

The Betazoid woman nodded and sighed in relief. 

“It’s…looks like 0800,” Nushif commented. “We’re departing Starbase 47 in an hour. I’d like you all to finalize anything your department needs and get it transferred in the next hour. This is a priority mission, people. Let’s make the best of it. Dismissed.”