Alpha quadrant
U.S.S. James T. Kirk

Admiral Kathryn Janeway glanced around the deck one conference room with a vague expression of amusement on her face. Senior officers were slowly filtering into the room, still so new to the ship and each other that instead of making small talk or gossiping about the events in the Officer's Mess, they were making introductions. Some nodded to her, sitting away from the table against one of the side walls, but most either didn't notice the Fleet Admiral, or chose to ignore her presence.

Captain Harry Kim was standing behind his chair, facing the viewport out to space, his posture and mannerisms an almost exact duplicate of her own from her days as a captain. She smiled warily at that; even more than thirty years after Voyager returned to the Alpha quadrant, she was still seeing the ways that mission had impacted her officers.

The similarities between this briefing and the ones on Voyager ended with the captain's posture. Turning her gaze away from her former Ops officer to the rest of the senior staff, she mused at the differences between this group and her former staff. Near the end of their journey, her closest advisors consisted of two lieutenant commanders, two lieutenants junior grade, an ensign, a hologram with no rank, and a smattering of civilians. There was nobody in the conference room aboard the Kirk with a rank lower than lieutenant commander; three wore the four pips of captain. It's a different playing field these days, Janeway mused.

As the last chair became occupied, Kim turned from the viewport toward his officers. He didn't take his seat at the head of table, choosing instead to remain standing, leaning slightly over the table on his hands. It was another posture Janeway often adopted during tense briefings, and she again had to fight the urge to grin at it. "Welcome to the Kirk," he finally said with a sardonic smile. "This isn't quite what I had in mind for our first briefing. We'll all get the chance to introduce ourselves and get to know each other later, but for right now, I'm going to get down to business." He tapped a few controls at his station on the table, the only controls on its surface. Instantly, the large wall monitor on the other side of the table became active, displaying a tactical chart. In the center was a green Starfleet insignia, representing the Kirk. Along the entire right side of the screen was a series of red Nygleian symbols. "About two hours ago, we detected a Nygleian armada point seven light years away from our position. We were able to go to cloak, and I don't believe we've been detected." He tapped a few more controls, and an astrometrics chart overlade the tactical display. "We believe they're headed here, Zeva V, 2.4 light-years away. The only thing we can't figure out is why. Climactically, it seems to be ideal for them—the average temperature is a few degrees cooler than Earth, with atmospheric oxygen content around seventeen percent, which by our data seems to be as close to the conditions on Nygleia as can be found in the Federation. However, it's on the wrong side of the Federation." He expanded the astrometrics display into a rough starchart of the Alpha and Beta quadrants. "Nygleian space is on the opposite side of the Beta quadrant, near the boarder of the Delta quadrant. The Zeva system is near the opposite border of the Federation. The planet holds no tactical advantage and doesn't have any resources that aren't found on a thousand planets between here and Nygleian space."

"What about its people?" Lt. Commander Boston Toth asked. "Could there be any draw to the Zevians?"

"I don't see what," Dr. Mallard said, her fair forehead wrinkled in concentration. "They live an average of sixty years, average male weight and height is fifty kilos and 165 centimeters—definitely not ideal for manual labor. The centers for independent thought in their brains are rather small compared to most other humanoids, which means they're unusually trainable and tend to offer little resistance to outside forces. However, if an easily conquerable species were what they desired, the Zevians wouldn't be my first choice—the Mizar system is a few light-years closer to Nygleian space than Zeva, Mizarians never offer resistance, and they're vastly intelligent. Not that I'm suggesting Mizar as an alternative to the Nygleians," she was quick to say to Commander Noe. Turning back to the group, she concluded, "There are a dozen other Federation species, all closer to Nygleia, which would be more ideal for Nygleian conquer than the Zevians."

"Whatever the reasons, this is where the Nygleians have chosen to go," Kim interjected, "which means this is where we need to go." He gave an ironic smile and turned to Captain Brad Lopez. "What do you say, Captain? Is OFA's newest fleet ready for a test drive?"

"We're ready, Captain," Lopez replied, frowning slightly. "From what we've seen of Nygleian tactics lately, however, a ground unit might be better suited. It's too bad they couldn't wait a few weeks for us to get the Bajorans first."

"We'll be sure to let them know how inconvenient they're being," Kim replied. "But I think you're right. We should be ready for a ground invasion and casualties." He turned to Dr. Mallard. "How many physicians do we have with field medical training?"

"All of our flight surgeons," Mallard replied without pause. "It's part of their training. Maybe five or ten of the staff physicians are field trained as well."

He nodded. "Keep three flight surgeons on board, send the rest down, as well as all staff physicians with field training. We'll take them down in a runabout as soon we arrive."

"No," Dr. Mallard protested. "No physician will be leaving this ship until the Nygleians are done dropping their bombs or whatever it they're going to be doing. I'm not sending my people into danger."

Kim frowned. "With all due respect, Doctor, these are Starfleet officers—"

"Dead doctors don't do anybody any good," Mallard said bluntly.

He nodded slowly. "Very well. We'll send them down once the field is clear. In the meantime, Commander Nash, send a message to the Bajorans, appraise them of the situation and let them know we'll be there for the ground unit as soon as we can. Commander Toth, Captain Lopez, I want you to look over the political and geographical data on Zeva V. We're going to need several potential landing sites for both medical personnel and emergency landings for the fliers. Ideally, the medical teams should set up near or in existing hospitals. We may not be able to come up with a site until after we see what the Nygleians do to the infrastructure, but it's not a bad idea to come up with some possibilities." He paused, looking around the room. "Is there anything else?"

"There is one other thing, sir," the ship's first officer, Commander Ed Nash, said, nodding toward Admiral Janeway. "Admiral, I can arrange a runabout from Starbase 621 to come pick you up and take you to Klaestron IV."

Janeway raised her eyebrows. "That won't be necessary, Commander, but thank you."

"Admiral, we are talking about flying directly into a combat zone. It's likely to be dangerous."

"I don't doubt it," Janeway replied dryly. "But I did not get the reputation of being the captain who brought down the Borg by hiding under my desk every time things got a little scary. I'm just fine here." She smiled thinly. "Besides, it will be nice to see this little experiment in military science in action. Do you mind, Harry?"

"I think a little Kathryn Janeway is just what this mission needed," he joked. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like, Admiral." Turning to his flight controller, he asked, "Time to Zeva V?"

"Six hours at maximum warp," Lt. Commander Aline Jorda replied. She paused, then added, "The Nygleian armada will be there in five and a half."

"Then we're going to have to be ready for some damage control," Kim declared. "Continue to monitor the armada; I want to know of any changes as they occur. Let's get to work. We don't want to disappoint the admiral, now do we? Dismissed."