There were words on her tongue. Namely, I hear you loud and clear, but they were never uttered to the person that needed to hear them and now she was sitting in front of her screen showing the UFP symbol. “Well… shit,” Mathis muttered as she spun her desk chair to face the handsome visage of her long-time aide.

“That could have gone better,” a man sitting off to her left said. He’d been there the whole time, but well out of the view of the others on screen. “But, it also could have gone worse.”

Jeanette tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. “What’s your take on the whole situation?”

Dashiel ‘Dash’ Jones sat back in his seat and regarded Mathis intensely for a moment. “Hyrushi is hard to read, though Dasca is a lot more expressive. Either way I could tell they weren’t thrilled with certain aspects of the whole matter. Captain Dasca looked like she wanted to reach into the screen at the end. Remind me not to piss her off in person.”

She sighed. “I feel like I missed something important, or rather we aren’t privy to something that should be abundantly clear. I will apologize in private when I get the chance.”

“I only remember her briefly from that one banquet after she first joined the Corps and we never chatted beyond being introduced. What should I know about her, beyond being a former Starfleet Captain?” Dash said.

“Dasca’s a wildcard. What you see is what you get, but she can be unexpected, take actions you don’t see coming. She’s not one to hold back when she feels something is amiss, as you just witnessed, and she’s an empath and touch telepath, so be honest with her. Anything else is pointless. Same with Hyrushi. He’s empathic as well. And he has a similar sort of psyc and diplomatic background as Dasca. So we’re going to have to let them take the lead here, more often than not. They’ve made that clear and I’m okay with that.”

Jones had worked with Mathis for eight years now and had had plenty of experience as an aide prior. “I definitely feel like we need to tread cautiously, though Ambassador Kek seemed to have made a reasonable impression.”

She nodded and smiled. “He’s hard not to like. But he’s one individual and it will be hard for people to equate him with previous actions.” Mathis sighed.

“I’ll get you some more coffee. You’re going to need it,” Dash said, grabbing their cups and moving out of the office and into the living area of the VIP quarters and recycling their cups and ordering a fresh one for Mathis.

Also stepping into the space from a door on the other side was Jeanette and Ren’s fifteen year old son. “Morning, Jessie,” he said with a smile.
“Heya Dash. You look like you two have been working for awhile now. A little early isn’t it?” the teen said, glancing at his mother in her office.
Jones grinned. “Diplomacy doesn’t care about the time.”
Jessie snorted. “Well you have fun with that,” he said as he made his way over and poked his head into his mom’s office. “I’m off to math tutoring.”
Jeanette gave him a warm smile. “Alright. See you later. And we will need to start packing.”
“So we’re going?”
She nodded. “Yep. And hey, they have a school there too, if you’re interested in doing something different. Make some friends?”
Jessie gave her an uncertain frown. “Maybe. I’ll think about it okay?”
Jeanette nodded. “Okay.”
Jessie left and Dash reentered with their coffees. “Alright, so aside from sending over the Vren files. What else do you need me to do?”

She sighed and gazed out of the window, watching small ships move about the asteroid the Starbase was built into. “I hate uprooting him, but this does seem to be a potentially long-term assignment. Ren’s supportive and we both think the colony will be a unique experience, but…” Raising a teenager could be difficult even at the best of times. She couldn’t help but worry.

“Jessie’s a good kid,” Dashiel said. “He knows how this all works and I think once we all get settled he’ll be open to it. You all just have to give it a chance.”

Jeanette looked back at him with a grateful expression. “What would I do without you?”

“Flail and spin about in circles?” She laughed openly and feigned a long-suffering sigh. “I’m going to go take care of my growing to-do list and I’ll check back in later. Call me if you need me,” Dash said and simply left the office and her quarters, coming and going as easily as he always did.

Mathis looked back out the window and honestly couldn’t wait to get to Oed. This asteroid, while interesting, was sort of depressing and it didn’t help her feel less on edge about this new assignment and her likely uncertian welcome on the colony. Knowing that she needed to dig harder to figure out where her approach went wrong, Jeanette turned back to her screen and got to work.

~Ambassador Mathis & Dash Jones, Diplomatic Attaché