Her first staff meeting had been uneventful, her tactical systems analysis had been relatively uneventful, and her appreciation for Commander McQueen's insight had grown considerably. Now, exhausted, Tw'eak returned to her quarters. While not exactly spacious, they were sufficient to the task of being an office and bedroom. She settled into the chair at the far end of the 'U'-shaped room from the doorway to the bedroom, and looked out a window at the world the station orbited. Breshar I, she reminded herself. A million light-years from anything actually interesting.

For reasons Tw'eak couldn't account for, she felt herself to be on the verge of uncontrollable tears. Emotional outbursts were all too typically Andorian, but this had never been Tw'eak's style. She thought about why her emotions were welling up inside of her, and realized that this was the first time in nearly a year that she hadn't been thrust into one fight after having just concluded another. She thought of what she had been a part of in that time. She had faced Reman resistance fighters, Jem'Hadar warriors, Tal Shiar operatives, Orion pirates, Hirogen hunters, Klingon warriors, Nausicaan raiders, Lethean assassins, Cardassian soldiers, and of course, the Borg. In the process, she had lost her ship, her tactical officer, her chief engineer, countless 'redshirts', pilots and other personnel, and been hurt or wounded herself a number of times. She had never really taken the time to process her feelings, never given herself time to mourn, to heal, to recover.

It felt a bit silly, if she was honest with herself. To have such a depth of feeling, to be incapable of doing anything but curling up in a chair, to not want to have to go back to her real life for a while... it was the opposite of everything she had hoped to achieve in her career. It was the opposite of what she expected from herself. She tried to snap herself to a sort of parade rest in her mind, tried to draw herself up and pull it together, but it wouldn't come. She directed her antennae around to be sure she was alone in the room, and sat for what felt like an age, awash in sorrow for herself, unable to concentrate, just sadly sitting alone.

For once, the door did not chime. Her commbadge was not nearly drained of power for having been tapped so often. She unbuttoned her jacket, leaned back in the chair, and made no effort to keep the tears from tumbling down her face. It had been so long since she had been alone with herself, been truly by herself like this, that she had forgotten how it felt. She had been carrying herself in a way that was unnatural, that was unlike what she felt. First it had been following orders and handling the True Way forces, those Cardassian and Alpha-Quadrant Jem'Hadar units which remained loyal to a Cardassia they had helped destroy. She had doubted her judgment on several occasions, as the True Way forces had caused casualties and deaths. The Bonaventure's patrols thereafter had seen them tangle with numerous adversaries, always in a defensive role, making her question whether the war was worth fighting. Then she had been injured against the Hirogen, and been forced to walk around as though dislocated joints and surgery were no real impediment. And now she had been reassigned someplace where she had a minimal interest in being, minimal confidence in her ability to do well serving, and minimal chance of getting away.

She felt captive to her uniform. She felt guilty for not being proud to serve in Starfleet any longer - if she was honest with herself, she hadn't felt that way in years. She felt lost. She looked up and out of the window and wondered to herself about her sister, about Va'kel Shon, about her last surviving brother. Were they alive? Was Dashii safely aboard ship someplace? Had Shon and his vessel survived the fight against the Elachi? Would any of them see Andoria again? Maybe that was what bothered her - she felt very, very far from home.

She got out of the chair and went to the desk in the room. She initiated the interface and the screen appeared showing subspace communications connections. The only ones available were to Earth Spacedock or to Outpost Quebec Alpha. Security restrictions must have been put in place. There was very little to do. Sitting for a moment, Tw'eak considered her options. The chair is not one of them, she told herself. The work of the overall design review had not yet really begun. The idea of wandering around in casual wear or just generally being among her officers or the station crew was also not acceptable. Perhaps just a quick shower and an early time to bed? It seemed odd to her that no one had come to see how she was doing. T'uni should have wandered through by now. Aurora might have had a problem. What about Octavia's date with that astrophysicist? And why hadn't Zed come to check up on her condition lately?

There was a sort of bitter feeling of abandonment in her throat, so Tw'eak decided to let it win. "Computer, set lock on exterior door and dim ambient lights to thirty percent." The computer complied and Tw'eak found her change of clothes in her kit and pulled herself into bed. Like the one on Earth Spacedock, it was comfortable, not unreasonably so, and quite a bit larger than the one she had slept on aboard the Bonaventure. She felt herself starting to slip into sleep, and wanted to, but for a strange sensation her antennae were detecting in the room. A poorly-shielded EPS conduit? she wondered. Maybe an overactive species of plant she would have to have moved out.

"It's a little early for bed," she heard someone say to her.

Tw'eak sat up. "Computer, lights!" Before her, sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, was a man clad in a black suit made of fabric that almost looked fluid. She looked around for a weapon. "Who the hell are you?"

"Calm down, Tw'eak. We're on the same side."

Sliding herself out of bed, Tw'eak took a fighting stance.

"You're not in any condition for that. And if I wanted you dead I could arrange it easily. Just sit down."

"You better start talking first."

"Not until you're willing to listen." He ran a finger across his lips, as if to shush Tw'eak up.

"You're from Section 31, aren't you?"

The agent nodded.

"Then you know how I'm likely to answer you, whatever you want."

"Let's make a deal, then. I'll spare you the 'ends justify the means' speech, and you spare me the 'what's wrong can't be what's right' speech. We're not going to see eye to eye on the why, so let's get to the matter at hand, shall we?"

"Which is?"

"What you don't know about this project. The Avenger class starship design doesn't exist yet - not really. The plans, as you know them, are actually not the real plans at all, but extensive modifications of a particular set of originals."

"Plans get re-designed all the time - why does it matter to me who's responsible for this design?"

"Well, that's the trick. You see, what you haven't been told, and must now know, is that one of our... freelance agents went forward in time - another good little soldier, like yourself. He sought a piece of technology which would safeguard the Federation. The original Avenger plans are what he came back with, along with a... well, never mind that. The difficult part about this is that, in that timeline, the design for this starship was introduced too late in the conflict. 'If only,' they said. We are their 'if only'."

"So where's the problem?"

"All that our agent could come back with were plans and a couple of components. One of those components forms the basis of the onboard weapons system you know as the variable auto-targeting armament."

One of several potential weapons for use on the Avenger, Tw'eak remembered the variable auto-targeting armament - equal parts torpedo and drone attack spacecraft - and nodded. "I wondered why that was unlike anything I had ever seen before."

"It, too, gets introduced too late into the conflict. But to put it mildly, making their design meet the needs of our point in the timeline will prove difficult. Add to that the involvement of the Orion spies, and we can bet before long that the Klingons will institute a crash-building program on a ship that's built to match the Avenger."

"So time is of the essence, then," Tw'eak quipped.

"It's more than just time which is of the essence. Based on what we've learned from our agent, the coming months and years are going to sorely try the Federation's will to resist. With enemies on all fronts posturing aggressively, it will become necessary for all of its military and scientific assets to be devoted to meeting those threats full-on. This starship will be one of the ways in which we go about doing that. The plans provided to Starfleet can be modified, despite the advances in technology which we can't easily duplicate, and the availability of starships like these may make all the difference."

Tw'eak looked unimpressed. "Nothing I haven't heard before. We used to talk the same way about the Sovereign class."

"And the Akira class, and before that, generations ago, the Constitution class. I know. But what we need is someone on the inside, who can advise us what we can do to help this project come to fruition."

Tw'eak tilted her head. "You mean Section 31 wants me as an advisor, too?"

"I don't see why that should alarm you. It takes a special kind of person to do what we do, people who have the best interests of the Federation at heart and who view preservation as having a greater priority than principle."

"And you think I'm one of those people?"

"You turned in your own commanding officer on the Repulse, you... you defied orders and pursued the Reman assault force that tried to hit Starbase 114... you didn't seem to think twice about ordering your ship into harm's way on numerous occasions, even when understaffed or partially damaged... yeah, I'd say you're our perfect candidate."

"But your organization- I don't agree with your principles. Do you even have any principles?"

"We search out and identify potential dangers to the Federation. And then we take whatever steps are necessary to protect the Federation."

"And 'whatever steps are necessary' involves what, exactly?"

"I thought we weren't going to have this conversation."

Tw'eak smiled, laying across the bed. "Well, you're the specialist, why don't you tell me?"

"I'm not from Temporal Mechanics."

"That's not what I meant. You seem to think I'm the right person to oversee this whole project."

"Of course you are. That's why we arranged for you to be assigned to it." The agent nodded, then gestured to himself. "My being here is the next step."

Tw'eak straightened out, still leaning on one elbow, her antennae angled outwards. "You arranged-?"

"Is it not obvious? The Federation needs this project to succeed. Its survival is jeopardized if it does not. " The agent stood up. "If you knew how many lives we'll save, I think you'd feel a lot better about being here - and you'd be willing to bend the rules and work with us in order to make this project a reality. In time you'll come to agree with me. Or else we'll all have something to cry about." He walked out the doorway of Tw'eak's bedroom, into the adjacent sitting area, and as he left, he said, "I look forward to working with you."

Tw'eak remained as she was for a moment. The faint sensation her antennae had detected before had faded, and as she crossed into the next room, which was empty, she realized he had just walked away into nothingness. "Neat trick," she said, then went back to bed and considered her next move carefully.

"Unbelievable," Octavia said. Tw'eak had just finished reviewing her discussion with the agent from Section 31 with her and T'uni the next morning.

"I agree," T'uni added. "Perhaps this is a symptom of combat fatigue or a variety of-"

"Combat fatigue? Are you serious?"

"In order to avoid the suspicion that you are somehow avoiding combat duty, you are embellishing the significance of this project-"

"Oh, come on!"

"-by utilizing myths and theoretical conspiracy organizations in order to enhance its intrinsic value, and thus repress your very characteristic need to... 'lead from the front', shall we say?"

"But this project is important. Admiral Quinn said so himself!"

"It would be illogical for him to post us to any assignment without offering an appeal to emotion, both as motivation and as a means of identifying our ambitions with the assignment's."

Octavia jumped in. "She's right. He wouldn't tell us 'this is a pointless task so do your best', would he? It would destroy consensus and-"

"But I'm telling you, there was a guy, here, from Section 31, telling me that this project IS that important! I can accept, admittedly, that I'm asking you for a lot here, but you've got to believe me."

"I do not doubt that you believe what you are telling us," T'uni responded.

"That's not exactly a vote of confidence, is it?"

"Rest assured, I am attempting to consider what you have said as factually true."

"But it is true, T'uni! Look, scan the compartment. Get a tricorder and scan it. I detected some form of electromagnetic resonance while he was here, a sort of energy field. Surely there must be some trace of it which a tricoder can detect!"

Octavia looked around the room. "I can if you would like, but if what you're saying is true, and accepting it's not logical... chances are the traces have either broken down or are undetectable by Federation equipment."

"It would be illogical for Starfleet to design equipment with a specific 'blind spot' towards certain frequencies and emissions."

"Accept that it's not logical. Or that it's not a design flaw, it's a limitation that they're exploiting."

"It would therefore follow that our adversaries would exploit this same limitation to its logical use."

"Unless they don't know it's there either," Tw'eak mused.

Octavia shook her head. "I don't think so. I think it's more likely that the technology he used to come and go is simply beyond anything we could understand." She took a step into the bedroom, then stepped quickly back out. "I'm sorry, Admiral, I was trying to use my Borg implants. No disrespect was intended."

"It's fine. Do you have anything?"

"There is a resonant tachyon signature, but it's extremely faint. In essence, it's as though I can tell you where he was sitting." She pointed to a chair. "And where he left the premises." She walked over to a space just on the other side of the room divider, and held her arms out roughly a metre apart, palms towards each other. She then looked over her shoulder at Tw'eak.

"So that confirms it, then."

"I am uncertain that the evidence will be sufficient." T'uni looked at Tw'eak. "Even were it sufficient, I highly doubt that anyone in the command structure of this particular project would look kindly upon the intervention of Section 31."

"But they're not offering to intervene. They want to help."

"I don't think their help is going to be worth the trouble, Admiral. Even if we assume that they do want this project to succeed, why would they not have intervened earlier, when there were spies?"

"They didn't know about the spies. Maybe your work changed the timeline, T'uni. We'll never know."

"I highly doubt that my involvement in intelligence-gathering was responsible for a temporal event."

"I don't want to get into that - but from what I know of Section 31, they aren't a time-traveling agency. The remarks this agent made to me are consistent with that - he didn't say anything about going forward in time on a regular basis. They had someone who did, but it wasn't their choice to send them. It would make sense, admit it, that if someone presented them with this evidence, they would want to act upon it."

"And by using this information to modify the present," Octavia continued, "they safeguard the Federation from that future."

"Working in the past to prevent a darker tomorrow." Tw'eak nodded. "Sounds a lot like Section 31."

"But would that mean the support they're offering would be in the present as well?"

"They may have access to technology and other resources we don't, but honestly? Do we dare accept it from them?"

T'uni seemed surprisingly flustered, for a Vulcan. "It would be incumbent upon anyone who has contact with rogue agencies such as Section 31 to report their involvement immediately to Starfleet Security in order to avoid suspicion of collusion with such agencies."

"You're right," Tw'eak admitted, raising a hand. "But based on what I've heard of Hawkins, he's as newly-minted in this admiral's uniform as I am. They said they wanted me on this project for some reason, but this is the first contact I've ever had with them."

"Maybe they've been in touch with Hawkins too," Octavia suggested.

"Maybe. I don't know why they would, though. He's just providing security, he's not actually involved in the program."

"That we know of."

"There is another alternative," T'uni offered. "I had the opportunity to review several of the lists of those involved in the Orion spy ring. Only on rare occasions were members of that group in high ranks - typically in places like this one, where isolation and distance from the Federation made higher rank favourable to their operations. More often than not, the infiltrators were of relatively low rank, frequently marked out for advancement."

"You're saying Section 31 might be playing the same game?"

"It would follow that their involvement with you stems from a lack of adequate response from their operative in the lower ranks."

"Or they're using that lower-ranked operative to monitor you," Octavia suggested. "But how do we know who they are?"

"We don't. That's the hard part. We don't know if these people are friend or foe, we don't know who's working with them, and unlike with that spy ring, we can't act against them. They'll probably know what we intend before we act upon it anyway, so there's little point in going against them just because of what we think they represent." Tw'eak took a breath. "I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they work with us, and if they follow my lead instead of taking initiative on their own, they could be an asset."

Octavia nodded, but T'uni merely looked at Tw'eak skeptically.

"You're about to remind me how many times I just said 'if', aren't you."

"Quite. I cannot understand why you are so hesitant to discuss the matter with Rear Admiral Hawkins."

"I get the sense he's in over his head."

"He is a capable officer, as you are. He will proceed as all officers do - he will do his best within the regulations."

"And where those get in the way, there's always Section 31."

T'uni arched an eyebrow. "Regardless, it is our intention to remain within the regulations. As such, Admiral Hawkins needs to be informed."

"If I go into his office and start into my story, with nothing more than the word of one of my officers, even if it is you, Octavia, to back me up... who's to say he'll take me any more at my word than you both did?"

A brief silent moment followed as the three officers considered. "Perhaps you need to take another strategy," Octavia said after a moment.

The station security office was a small, confined series of rooms linking the brig to the main corridor outside. A shielding perimeter was in place which inhibited transporter activity and a series of consoles regulated that inhibitor, along with the function of various brig services such as food replication and perimeter force field activity. On the opposite side of this room, along one wall, were a pair of desks, each strewn with padds. The other wall housed a small armory of phaser rifles and hand phasers. At the far desk sat Rear Admiral Neil Hawkins, working away on a report for Starfleet Security, cross-referencing from a handheld padd on occasion. He rubbed the short hairs of his bearded chin and watched as the door opened to admit Tw'eak, and suppressed a sigh at yet another interruption.

Tw'eak neither simply strolled in nor walked with purpose as she entered. Her visit, after all, was a friendly one, a mere point of courtesy towards a fellow admiral. She knew he would regard her presence with suspicion. It was sort of an expectation of working in security that he would be suspicious, after all, but she was well-attuned to leading questions and interrogative approaches. After all, she had a ship's counselor who could turn an Orion against her own best interests. But while every room on the station felt a little too mild, and humid, for an Andorian, she could feel the tension in the small office as though it were a stifling heat wave. Hawkins appeared intensely busy.

"Hello," Tw'eak said as she approached. "Looks like a bad time."

"Admiral," Hawkins acknowledged, barely looking up. "Anything I can help you with?"

"Just came by to see how your operation works, see how things are going." She smiled, lowering her eyes slightly. "It's not often I get to talk on the same level with someone I serve alongside. I hope you don't mind the intrusion."

"Not at all. I know just what you mean." Hawkins put down his padd. "Until I came on duty here everyone was either above me or below me. A project like this, with so many people at fairly equal rank working on the same thing, and it was nice for once to be able to be social without worrying about who's in what table of organization."

"I know what you mean. One of the things I really miss about serving as a lieutenant or a lieutenant commander, especially on big Sovereign class ships like the ones I spent most of my career on, was that there were so many people - different species, different careers, different lives - and you could socialize. Not so being the captain."

"Security works the same way. Officially you're not supposed to be on good terms with anyone." Hawkins shook his head. "The way things have gone, I wish I hadn't been." He smiled falsely and said, "I suppose I have you to thank for that."

"Indirectly. My ship's counselor, to be precise." Tw'eak smiled, sensing an opening. "I suppose that's the reason why they brought me in on this project, since one of my crew found it out."

Hawkins' smile disappeared. "And made me look like a complete fool. My commanding officer, the man I knew as Admiral Brandt, an Orion. And here it is my job to protect Starfleet against that kind of thing."

"Was that the reason for the welcoming party we got?"

"You could say that, yeah."

"Y'know," Tw'eak lied, "I was informed, as part of all this, when the news broke, that the infiltration had taken place all over Starfleet, at some pretty high level security institutions - penal institutions, research institutions, even Starfleet Command. The Orions had people everywhere. And nobody picked up on it, not even the telepaths." It wasn't strictly true - the locations were picked from her memory at random as places with high security, although the rest was pretty much accurate.

"But what we're doing here is my responsibility. And I should've done a better job."

"Why? Who would you have reported it to, exactly?"

"I read about you, y'know. In your personnel file. It's standard procedure. But you were promoted to command after it turned out your captain on the - what ship was it, Renown? Reliant?"

"Repulse," Tw'eak corrected.

"Repulse. Right. But you knew. How did you tell?"

"It was a number of things. But my commanding officer was replaced by an Undine that killed him. There was a before-and-after involved. I could tell he was acting differently, was more aggressive, took more risks, wasn't as available to talk. Plus, I had a couple of other ways of knowing something was different." Tw'eak pointed up towards her antennae. "But if I hadn't served alongside him in combat, hadn't gotten used to sensing his particular location in the thick of a fight and knowing where he was when I opened fire, that sort of thing... I had a huge advantage in having served as his first officer for so long." She extended a hand loosely towards the ceiling. "And, well... I was lucky."

"Lucky?" Hawkins snorted. "I didn't think Andorians believed in luck."

"We do, and we don't. We prefer to think of it as having the favour of the Infinite. I certainly have, on my share of occasions. Mostly the ones where I didn't come back dead."

Hawkins nodded. "You've had some close calls. I had to tell my guy to take your blood from the left arm, for example."

"How much did you read? Let me see what's in that security file."

"Sure." Hawkins picked up a loose padd, activated it, and pulled up the file. He handed it to Tw'eak. "Most of what's in there is straight out of the Starfleet archive. There's a few notes about personality and known acquaintances, but not much else."

Tw'eak looked up. "Are my eyes really blue?"

"You're welcome to amend anything that seems to be out of order. But... I suppose you've got every right to be in charge."

"I'm not. Currie's the head of this whole project, which makes sense. He's an engineer." Tw'eak sensed another opening. "And better for it. I really don't know why they promoted me."

"You can't be serious. You're supposed to receive the Pike Medal in a month or so. You're the only living person I've ever met who can say that. If anyone deserves a promotion, it's you."

"What about you?"

Hawkins looked at Tw'eak, frustrated. "What about me," he repeated. "What about me? I feel like I borrowed my father's jacket and... and I'm playing pretend."

"Was your father an admiral?"

"No, he wasn't, it's just a figure of speech. I'm a poor candidate for this rank. I mean, I've never held a command."

"Not all admirals do. There are admirals in the sciences, for example, whose rank is a Starfleet necessity that they rarely use."

"I guess I just... I've only served on two starships, and on both my job was to keep them safe. I never even saw the bridge most of the time. I think I went up there twice - once to escort a diplomat and once to bid farewell to the captain when I transferred out."

"You're upset because you never held a command before?"

"I'm not upset," Hawkins denied. "I'm just... I don't know why they need me here when they have you and your officers present. You and your people have accomplished so much more than I have."

"None of my officers are security. One was, at one point, but she's confined to a grav-chair for the next little while." Tw'eak smiled. "It's better, really, that they have someone who has more experience securing stationary assets rather than starships in this position. Especially someone who's served on Utopia Planitia and at Deep Space Nine. This place must seem so quiet, by comparison."

Hawkins looked up, surprised. "You looked up my file?"

"Well," Tw'eak quipped, "most of what's in there is straight out of the Starfleet archive..." She smiled at Hawkins. "Besides which, I have a vested interest, as you do, in getting to know the officers I'll be serving with for the duration of my time here. And fortunately for you, I'm not an Orion posing as an Andorian, so I won't use that intel against you."

"Okay, then," Hawkins said, returning her smile.

"And you can relax a bit. Starfleet didn't put me here as a threat to your position or anything like that." She leaned in slightly. "I'm here because Section 31 wants me to be."

Hawkins burst into laughter. "Oh, you're- you can't be-"

Tw'eak grinned wryly. "Well, they wanted the best, right?"

"That's- my God, that's funny!" Hawkins continued to laugh. Tw'eak took that as a fairly clear sign. "Section 31. Seriously. Wow. Okay, then." Hawkins straightened up the padds on the desk after his knee struck the side of it as he laughed. "You're- I never met an Andorian with such a sense of humour before."

"Well, it gets me places, what can I say." Tw'eak let her smirk persist for a minute. "But don't let it get to you. You're a good officer, and Starfleet's depending on you. When this ship's ready for production, the Federation will be depending upon them, and their crews - but that'll never happen without you, Hawkins."

"Well, or you for that matter."

"I can do what I need to do inside because you're standing the post, watching outside. Don't forget that, okay?"

"Okay. I just... I've never admitted it to anyone but I feel everyone on this station knows I screwed up, knows I missed the chance to ...God, I don't even know what damage they've done to this project." Hawkins bowed his shoulders and shook his head. "I guess I've just been overcompensating lately."

"People see that. They don't see it as your fault. When things went wrong, every time I was in command, when I lost people or when we failed to protect someone, or whatever... the result was always the same. Nobody blamed me - at least, nobody could have blamed me as much as I blamed myself. But all of them looked to me, not with fear of my reproaching them... but for hope of a second chance, next time."

Hawkins looked up. "This is my second chance, is what you're saying?"

"Not quite. You get the chances you get. Some of them you do well with, others... well. It's not enough to be good, to be talented, to be capable, efficient. You also have to see your chances, take them as they come, and hope the Infinite favours you."

"I like that. I gotta tell you, I feel a lot better having you around."

Tw'eak smiled. "If you want, I can talk to T'uni. I know she's not officially in a counselor's role, but I could always see if she would be willing."

"No thanks. We've got a station counselor, I'm okay. It's just a lot to handle, all this responsibility." Hawkins waved a hand over so many padds on his desk. "God."

"If there's one thing you learn on a starship, other than everyone else's job around you, it's that there's always too much responsibility for any one person, of any species, to handle effectively. That's why we depend upon each other, and encourage others to depend upon us."

"That's what this is, then."

Tw'eak considered it for a moment. "Maybe. I really did want to see how your operation works. There might be some aspect of it where I can be of assistance."

"All right. I'm sorry it's a bit of a mess down here. Admiral Stannen at Starfleet Security is a bit... typically Vulcan about the level of detail he expects in reports. I've been trying to get this done for a week."

"That explains everything. Remind me to tell you a few stories about serving under Admiral T'Nae, sometime."

"Well, might as well start at the outer perimeter. We have a series of listening posts and relays throughout the Breshar system, which I'm hoping someone told you you're in. Yes? No."

Tw'eak looked away, smiling enigmatically. "I figured it was."

"Oh." Hawkins looked flustered. "Um..."

"I'll report you to security for that." She looked Hawkins in the eye. "Go on."

"Uh... right. The probes. They're in roughly a spherical pattern. They can detect anything uncloaked moving into or out of the system. If we pick up any unexpected traffic..."

As Hawkins worked through his briefing, explaining the finer details of the systems and scheduling, Tw'eak listened attentively, offered a few suggestions, and made more small talk with Hawkins. She gleaned new insight into both the situation around and aboard the station, and gained an appreciation for the work Hawkins did, encouraging him as best she could and helping him regain confidence in his own approach to the job. She had lost count of the number of times using someone else as a second set of antennae had helped her in her career, and for Hawkins, she hoped she would be able to provide exactly that in the time ahead. By the time Hawkins talked her through the details of the station's design, she had completely forgotten the reason she had initially come to see him, and was instead simply glad to be in conversation with an officer of ambition and mindset, towards project and career alike, so similar to her own.