Anderson made his way down the corridors of Starbase 86 with his head held high. He knew damn well that most of the people on the station didn’t actually know who he was – yet – or what position he held – yet – but he was proud of it anyway. He turned down the corridors toward the offices he and his CO would occupy. He adjusted the collar on his uniform one last time before stepping into the antechamber of Captain Takato’s office and smiling at the yeoman.

“Captain Keith Anderson, TFXO for 86, to see Captain Takato,” he said, liking how those words came out of his mouth.

“Captain Takato had not yet arrived. I had received the information that her transport ship had docked, and she was making her way to the office as we spoke,” the woman spoke formally. “Please take a…” The woman turned her head to the hallway, and a Captain walked quickly to them. “I believe your appointment is here…”

Slowing down, Takato looked at her assistant briefly and then back at Anderson. “Follow me.” Without a moment for her assistant to reply, Takato entered the office. “Take a seat. I had not had the chance to settle back in,” Takato placed her PADDs on the table. “Brief introduction, my name is Captain Ryoko Takato, the Task Force Commanding Officer of Task Force 86. I would love to offer you a drink, but we are straight to business.”

Anderson gave a grin and a shrug to the Yeoman as he stepped into her office behind the TFCO. He took the offered seat and smiled at the woman across from him. “Not a problem, ma’am! I was getting here myself,” he explained. “What do we have, Captain?”

She took a seat and looked at the desk that was vaguely familiar to her. “The whole situation of the Lost Fleet, the Changeling plot, not to forget the Borg.” Takato paused briefly and sighed. “Task Force 86 has quite a mission to accomplish, and we are tasked to focus most of our forces on the Deneb region.” Leaning back in her chair, she continued, “I got myself briefed on the way from Deep Space 47 to hear about everything related to the task force affairs. We can send ships to border defense and patrols for vulnerable colonies, as they were easy prey for pirates right now.”

Anderson nodded, “Understood, ma’am. With the Breen poking out our borders, it will be a lot of work for CO’s to keep all the colonies safe,” He said. “Have we started looking at improved patrol routes?” He asked.

Tapping her finger on the desk, Takato knew the topic would rise. She slowly nodded. “The Breen are a wild card, taking advantage of our weakened state. We have some reports of raids from the Breen on the outer colonies. It’s ad hoc changes to our patrols to adapt to the Breen movement. So sending ships to these colonies would be a godsend as we hit the mark on protecting the region and boosting morale with those colonists who felt abandoned by us during the Lost Fleet invasion.”

“Do we already have the new patrol routes mapped?” Anderson asked.

Shaking her head, she said, “It’s difficult to adapt to their random movement, but the latest data is helping,” Takato shrugged. “If Starfleet were not a mess right now after that whole Changeling affair… we would have had this under control.” Takato leaned back in her chair. “But we will manage.” She nodded to herself and looked back at Anderson. “We have to…. USS Resolute did its job protecting Arriana. But even after USS Alita best efforts at Sevury the Dominion managed to get enormous amounts of natural resources.” Takato shrugged at that last part “Starfleet Corps of Engineers have their hands full of that one. It still amazes me that Starfleet reinstated Reese-Riggs and gave him a command.” She mutters that Starfleet must be desperate to get a man with his reputation back. Takato shoves the PADD to Anderson. “Our task force has some great assets that performed outstandingly during the crises we endured.”

“Absolutely,” He explained. “I was reading over the mission briefings on the way over from the Asger and was impressed by what I saw.” Anderson took a look at the PADD and checked over the info there. “You know… With Reese-Riggs in the fold now as the new Captain of the USS Resolute… If we assign him and USS Manticore to patrol sector Alpha-9, shift USS Alita and USS Lafayette into Beta-6… No matter where the Breen comes in, we’d have a pretty good line. We’d need to modify some deployments as we figure out their movements more, but it might be a start,” He offered, tapping in his suggestions on the PADD and sliding it back to his CO.

“What do you think, Captain?”

Rubbing her left temple slowly, letting it sink in the suggested information, “I agree that this is the most efficient way to protect our borders. I will look into the ship listing of our task force and who else we can send. Commodore Cromwell was already begging not to be set behind a desk, so good news for him that we send the USS Lafayette back out again.”  Takato nodded. “The efforts of USS Los Angeles and USS Jaxartes work in the field by doing those patrols during the invasion was highly valuable, so I hope we can count on them also. Sadly, we have the USS Mariner operating in Delta Quadrant, but I got my hands on the USS Tokyo and sent them to the borders for more in-depth exploration.”

“That sounds like a good stack of ships and CO’s,” Anderson said with a smile. “We should be in good shape.”

She gave a soft smile. “As I stated in a briefing with Rear Admiral Grayson, we are stretched thin, understaffed on ships due to recent battles and mostly new crew. So…” Takato looked at Anderson “We will do our part to show our people that we are there with them. Get the USS Majestic ready for launch. We are heading out to the borders. We will head to Arriana and use the ship as the operational center to coordinate the patrols and new information.”

“Yes, ma’am! Will do!” Anderson replied with a salute. “Looking forward to working together,” he said before turning and leaving the office.

As Anderson left the office, Takato sank back in her chair, taking a brief second to rest and taking a deep breath. “From exploration back to protecting our borders… this job never gets old” she told herself. Takato tapped the console on her desk. “Petty Officer, send out word to the USS Majestic to prepare for departure within 3 hours.”

“Understood, Captain” came a brief reply.