“Give me one good reason you couldn’t have taken command?” The Calistoga’s second officer thrust his chin forward to emphasize his point towards the older woman across from him. “You have years of experience.”

“I never took my command practicals.” Lt. Commander Dwasina Roix replied as calmly and as factually as if she was stating the replicator was fixed.

Lt. Commander Jason Ibanez gaped and goggled at her for a few moments longer than was attractive before he picked his jaw up and set his expression to one of consternation. “How?” his hands twitched behind him as he paced, ready to fly loose, contained only by force of will. “You served with Misty for years. She would have ensured you passed.”

Dwasina regarded her companion from a sitting position, calm and composed unlike her counterpart. “I didn’t want to.”

“What?!” Now his hand did fly free, gesticulating wildly in front of him like a pair of seagulls that had gotten into a fermented stash of tourist leftovers. “What do you mean you didn’t want to?”

“I didn’t want to be in command.” she shrugged mildly.

Jason offered a soundless laugh and then had to catch his breath. “You are in command!  You are a command officer!  You’re our executive officer and have been for years!”

“Yes.” She gave a patient, almost exasperated sigh. “And this is exactly where I want to stay. I have no wish to rise higher in the command tree. I am happy here.”

He opened his mouth, and words almost came out. And then, very slowly, he closed it and flopped into a nearby chair in the senior staff briefing room. The room where they were set to meet their new commanding officer in less than one hour. The sigh he gave was matched by the hissing release of air from the thick cushion of the chair he had thrown himself into, giving a heavily melodramatic aura to his resignation.

“You’ve been acting Commanding Officer since Misty retired. I don’t see why you can’t stay in command.”

She leaned forward, her tone turning softer. “Jason… Jace… I can manage to be in command for thirteen days in dry-dock. I can manage this crew, manage away teams, research, find answers, get resources allocated, all of the stuff I have done and done well for years. But you know I’m not a tactician. I’m not martially minded. I know myself, I won’t be able to make some of the decisions that need to be made if we get into a fight. And because we work as a team, I’ve never had to.”

Jason would like to counterpoint that. No one got to being an executive officer by having no skills in tactics or combat. But for a moment he wondered if there wasn’t something else behind Dwasina’s words that he wasn’t aware of. Certainly not every commanding officer was a great tactician or combat trained. But they had security officers and tactical officers they could rely upon. So, despite all odds, he kept his mouth shut.

“If our first mission was something purely diplomatic or purely scientific, I might have pushed back harder.  But you saw the reports. Vaadwaur. Moving through the underspace. Even though our mission has a diplomatic goal, there is a very good chance that we will see opposition if not hostility aimed at the Calistoga… and if that happens Jace…” finally her voice faltered, “I don’t want to be the one responsible for getting us all killed.”

“So we let an Andorian Marine get us all killed?” Jason thrust a hand out as if he was serving his own head on a platter.

She shook her head gently. “One, there are no Marines in Starfleet. Two, he’s got far more experience in dangerous situations than I do, and far more experience in the Captain’s chair.”

The science officer huffed. “He was a member of the Andorian Imperial Guard and his Starfleet record lists him on several hazard teams.  That’s about as disgustingly military as you can get and still wear a Starfleet uniform.”

“So you read his dossier.” She surmised. “Did you glean anything useful from the information?”

“No, I stopped reading after that.”

Dwasina clicked her tongue in a tutting manner. “Failing to complete your research, very unbecoming of a science officer…”

That hit a nerve and Jason squirmed, clenching his teeth together. “Why, what did I miss?”

“Graduated as a medical officer, minor in xeno-diplomatic studies and his Hazard Team appointment was as a SARS lead.”

Jason narrowed his eyes, unwilling to give up the preconception he had formulated so easily. “Forgive my ignorance, but what is a SARS?”

“Search and Rescue Specialist.”

Jason folded his arms across his chest. “Ok, fine. I will be nice and give him a chance. But if the very first thing he does if we get into a conflict is to go out guns blazing, I’m staging a mutiny.” he considered this and then unfolded his arms just long enough to stab a finger at her, “And you had better be with me.”

Dwasina pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. “Rings help me, there is not enough Raktajino in the galaxy to get me through today…”