First Duty Station: First Night, Second Chances

Posted on Fri Sep 4th, 2026 @ 3:36pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Commander Jörgen Leed

1,863 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Flashbacks and Side Quests
Location: Bajor
Timeline: 2371

[ON]

By the end of the reception, Jörgen had called the First Minister's cultural attaché "Prylar" twice, "Vedek" once, and, in a moment he would spend years trying to forget, "herre," despite the woman being neither ordained nor Danish male. She had corrected him three times with patience, though her face appeared pretty annoyed. The look of someone correcting a large, well-meaning dog. After the third correction, she'd simply stopped bothering, which was worse.

He left early. Told the duty officer he had reports to file, which was true in the sense that he did, eventually, have to file something, and stepped out into rain that had apparently been waiting for exactly this moment to start. Bajoran rain, he was discovering, had opinions. It didn't simply fall. It committed to a position and direction and then forcefully followed up. He stood under the transport shelter's insufficient overhang, replaying the night. He didn't notice the woman already standing there until she spoke.

"You look like a man who needs a drink."

He turned. Blinked away the water from his eyes. Her face was familiar but unplaceable. She grinned at him, as if enjoying Jörgen’s blank stare. When the connection happened, it startled him more than the rain had.

"Anna Reyes. Astrophysics. You sat behind me in Intro to Political Protocol and told me the professor was, and I'm quoting, 'confidently wrong about everything except the parts that don't matter.'"

"He was. Still is, probably, if he hasn't been struck by lightning yet, which frankly feels overdue." She looked delighted, in the specific way of someone finding a familiar object in an unfamiliar country. "Jörgen. The Dane who forgot my name during midterms and then apologized so extensively I eventually forgot to be annoyed about it."

"I remember the apology being shorter than that." Jörgen wiped the hair out of his eyes. Wondered if the rain had let up because it bothered him much less suddenly.

"It was not." She stepped closer under the shelter, which didn't so much block the rain as redirect it onto them at a more neck-directed angle. "What happened tonight? Did you get some bad news?"

He told her. All of it. More than he meant to say, but the smile on her face beckoned him to hear more. Repeating the herre landing was last, and worst. Anna didn't laugh, but something in her face suggested she was storing it away for later use.

“The title mix-ups aren’t the crisis you think it is,” Anna said. “They’re important, but they don’t expect foreigners to know much about them. Don’t blame yourself for not knowing their titles on day one. The Bajorans don't.”

“She looked like she gave me forgiveness with a dose of resentment.”

“You did refer to her as a ‘gentleman’.” Anna considered him with visible relish. “That's just funny. I’m allowed to say that because I wasn’t there, and I see no need to be offended on someone else’s behalf.”

“Comforting.”

“Not trying to comfort you. She might be personally upset, but the delegation isn’t offended.” Anna glanced sideways at him. “How many faces did you actually manage to get right tonight?”

“I was given a list of one hundred and twelve names that day. I memorized maybe sixty percent.” Jörgen tried to read Anna’s expression. He couldn’t decide if she was mocking him in his misery or teasing him. “I remembered about forty percent right.”

“Look, Bajor isn’t Earth. History, religion, and art here are ancient. After the Cardassian Occupation, people have been trying to understand and redefine huge sections of their history and mythology. I know of a large aquifer with three names depending on who you ask, and none of them agree on where the water's actually going.” Jörgen thought she sounded a little condescending, like a person explaining to their younger sibling that gravity did, in fact, still apply, even to him specifically. “You cannot just learn faces here as a diplomat. It’s not like studying for an Andorian vocabulary exam. Faces aren’t facts. They’re history, understanding, and relationships wearing a costume. You don’t memorize a face; you memorize a story about the face, and then the face just comes along for the ride.”

“That sounds like something a soothsayer would say if they had a graduate degree.”

“I contain multitudes. Most of them Bajoran, currently, since that's the job.” She glanced toward the dark, empty street where rain dimpled the hard surface. The transport still hadn't arrived. Anna apparently decided the rain and the wait had earned them a proper conversation. "Come on. My quarters are a few buildings over, and I have both tea and an actual roof.”

Jörgen should have said no. He had reports to file, theoretically, and it was his first night, and there was a version of this evening where a sensible young ensign went home, reviewed his notes, and slept badly alone, exactly as scheduled. Instead he found himself following her through the rain, which had, if anything, gotten more committed.

Her quarters were small, over-furnished with books, floor rugs, and dozens of plants, and smelled like something herbal and slightly burnt. Ann made tea without asking if he wanted any, and pulled up the same staff directory he’d spent the previous night failing to memorize, except she didn't test him on it. She nestled into a pile of pillows and blew steam from the top of the mug. Then she told him stories.

“This one,” she said, tapping a face, “is Vedek Tolar. He’ll ask you, within the first five minutes of meeting you, what the Prophets mean to Starfleet. This is not actually a question. It’s a trap disguised as hospitality, a Bajoran national sport. The correct answer is not an answer. It’s another question. Ask him what they mean to him. He’ll talk for twenty minutes and embrace you as a friend forever, and you won’t have had to say one thing about your own beliefs, which, frankly, seems like the diplomatic ideal.”

“That feels dishonest.” Jörgen wondered at how she could talk so breathlessly across different aspects of Bajor, and why she was wasting her night on him. And how to get her to toss her head again so the candlelight struck her eyes just right.

“It’s not dishonest, it’s architecture. You’re building a place he can be comfortable in. A connection between you that has meaning. Whether you personally believe in the Prophets is personal to you, and it is none of Vedek Tolar's business, no matter how charmingly he implies otherwise.” Anna tapped on another face. “This one's Vedek Tolar's aide, doesn't talk much, watches everything. She will decide within the first ten seconds whether you’re worth the effort, and she will not tell you which way she decided. Don’t try to win her over. You can’t. You can only not be an idiot in front of her, which, given tonight, I understand is a stretch goal.”

“You're very mean.”

“I’m teasing. Also, I'm right. Mean would be if I hadn’t also made you tea.” Anna refilled his cup without asking and settled back into her cushions. This time, her eyes met his for a few seconds, then slowly slipped aside, and beyond. Her voice softened. “Here's the actual thing nobody talks about: the Occupation that Bajorans won’t talk about to ‘outsiders.’ Often, they won’t talk directly to it with each other. This matters more than any of the names.

“During the Occupation, every single person on this list lost different things, in different ways, for different lengths of time, and they will never, ever agree on what it means that they survived. A lot of their current arguments and philosophies live in that space. That is not a wrinkle you can smooth out with good manners. It’s the whole terrain of living here. Plenty of diplomats come here, struggle, and leave without ever understanding this. Because they never understood it.”

“That's a lot to carry into a reception.”

“Welcome to your new job.” She said it lightly, but something under it wasn't light at all, and he filed that away with all the other things he had learned. “You'll get better at telling the difference between a real slight and a survivable one. Tonight was survivable.”

By the time the rain let up, the sky had grown gray. Jörgen hadn’t learned all the names on the list, but he had learned far more about a few dozen. About the Kai's formal role that hadn't been in any briefing packet, and the correct way to decline hasperat without insulting the person offering it. He had to land the words exactly right, or it became its own small diplomatic incident.

“Go home,” Anna said finally, standing, which was apparently how she ended conversations, by simply deciding they were over. “Sleep. Do not, under any circumstances, review the directory again. You’ll just scramble what you actually learned.”

“Will I see you again?”

“Probably. Bajor's a small posting and Starfleet's smaller than it thinks it is.” She held the door open.

“Why did you stop last night? Why spend all night telling me all this?” Jörgen realized she could have his job if she wanted it. She knew far more than he did about Bajor. More about his assignment. Anna cocked her head a little to the side, smiling at him.

“You are smart in so many ways,” she said. Then she leaned forward and lightly kissed him on the lips. “Try not to call anyone by a Danish title tonight. Low bar. Clear it.”

---

The next evening’s function was smaller, a working dinner with the Vedek's staff, and Jörgen arrived having slept exactly enough and having reviewed nothing, per instructions he’d found himself trusting more than his own fear of failing his first assignment. Swiftly he found himself standing before Vedek Tolar. Jörgen inclined his head a little.

“Vedek Tolar,” he said, leaning forward just slightly in anticipation mixed with a dash of anxiety, “what do the Prophets mean to you?”

Tolar's whole posture changed. Her eyes warmed, and she asked if they could sit and talk. The exact reaction Anna had promised, and Jörgen listened for fourteen minutes without needing to say one word. While the vedek’s aide watched him from across the room with an expression that gave away nothing, Jörgen did not try to win her over. He simply didn't make an idiot of himself, which felt, that night, like the most comfortable achievement available to him.

He wrote his report late, alone, and found himself, for the first time since arriving, not dreading tomorrow's list of names. Just curious what stories would come with them.

[OFF]

Commander Jörgen Leed
Executive Officer / Chief Diplomatic Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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