His Majesty Requests By Allyson M.W. Dyar, Kurt F Roithinger and Chris Wallace * * * His Most Gracious Imperial Majesty Hakon Ja'Fadey, Regent of Galena, Requests Your Presence at the Spring Gala Nerson Palace, Galena * * * "Report?" Captain Kyle Argent all but sighed. He was anticipating bad news and unfortunately, he wasn't going to be disappointed this afternoon. "Latest losses in grids forty-three to forty-eight, Red Omega sector," Lieutenant Jefferson El Safeer reported in his normal cool and professional demeanor, "are now approaching five million tons. We had another convoy come under attack yesterday and--" Kyle began to rub his temples. Uneasy rests the burden of command especially when you are the Station's Commander, he mused before interrupting his Chief of Staff. "What about our doubling the fighter patrols in that area?" "Well, Captain..." Jefferson continued uneasily, "we've now lost fully nine Shadowhawks and thirteen Nighthawks in that sector -- which is nearly…" Kyle grimaced. "…four times the loss or kill ratio for the entire station in a whole year of peacetime operations," he completed the sentence. He had come to loathe these weekly planning meetings of the Station Command Branch. Peacetime seemed to have gradually been displaced by an acute state of undeclared war. And it was still entirely unclear just who the hell had decided to make war on the people trading through the Obsidian System and Nexus Space. With its central location at the intersection of nearly a dozen interstellar trade routes in and about the Klingon-Federation border, the station had always seen a fair amount of traffic. "How does our commerce stand?" Kyle asked in a detached tone of voice. The Station Dockmaster carefully consulted his datapadd before issuing even further bad news. "Shipping has dropped off eight… then twelve... then seventeen percent in the last three months..." Space Station Nexus Years: Year 2, 2339 Kyle didn't bother listening to the rest as he sat back to consider the bottom line. The net effect was the loss of nearly one-quarter of their regular freight shipments. In turn, the Galenan economy had taken a turn for the worse, surrendering much of the goodwill towards Starfleet in general, and new interest in the station in particular, something that his initiatives had carefully cultivated. The situation was altogether intolerable, he angrily concluded. He had requisitioned a task force of ships to be assigned to Nexus for the expressed purpose of hunting down whoever was out there and eliminating them once and for all. But in the wake of his most recent exploit, he had obviously made some new enemies in very high places -- ones who would never say so in as many words, but who could easily see to it that any of his requests be... "lost." The Fighter Corps Chief of Staff had warned him about this and he had opted to ignore Cordell's warnings. Look at the last time they tried to harm me, Kyle had smugly tossed at him, and look at what happened to them! But at this rate, if ruining his career was what they were out to accomplish, then at this juncture, they seemed to be succeeding. Kyle reluctantly turned his attention back to the planning meeting. It droned on for another two and a half hours, covering almost every aspect of station life -- from necessary repairs, new tenants, and inevitable complaints right up to procurement orders for new fighters to replace the ones lost in action. When Kyle finally returned to his office, it was nearly 1800. He wanted nothing more then to just go home and have a quiet dinner with his wife. But there were yet more reports to read, to file, to reject, to… He didn't even want to open his "current" folder and instead, opted to search his recent message traffic: Invoice, Advertisement, Advertisement, Receipt… and a note from Starfleet Operations. Hullo! That was definitely something out of the ordinary. Kyle proceeded to key in his usual authorization codes and at last, the message decrypted. TO: CPT K. D. ARGENT, CO, SS NEXUS, OBSIDIAN SYSTEM In accordance with your request filed SD 44267.14, be advised that Starfleet Task Force Gamma 154 departed Sol at SD 44418.06. Expected Arrival in Obsidian -- SD 44437.67. ADM R. L. PETTY, SF OPS, SAN FRANCISCO, SOL He read the contents over twice before it finally sunk in -- he had gotten his task force! And 44437.67 -- he paused to double check the calendar and it was His Majesty Request * Page 2 Space Station Nexus Years: Year 2, 2339 indeed the day after tomorrow in the morning. Luckily, there were no convoys leaving for another week or so. The task force was arriving just in the nick of time. He sent a copy of the decrypt to his Station Ops people and shut his terminal down. After giving it some extra thought, he felt that a good meal and rest would be far better to the continued welfare of this station than processing a few dozen extra reports. * * * "Doctor Argent, Captain Argent!" Melonie Howard greeted the couple as they walked into the Nexalodeon. "It has been a while, hasn't it Melonie," Arcadia acknowledged. Melonie nodded then quickly led them to their usual table in the corner of the restaurant. "Glad to have you back." Melonie watched her customers take their seats. She paused then looked to Arcadia. "You heard that Angel quit." Arcadia gave her a grim nod. "Yes, I did. I imagine being the object of a poisoning would have that effect on one." "Do you know where she went?" Kyle asked. Melonie shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Captain. She came back to work for a week. Suddenly, she just handed in her notice and took the next transliner out of here. She didn't even ask for references." "Poor kid was probably scared silly," Arcadia considered then looked up to Melonie. "Since Angel was our regular server, I take it you've found a replacement for us?" "I did and I'll send her over in a few moments." Arcadia turned to her husband and found him actually smiling. "Seems that rank does have its privileges." Still pleased with the news of the impending arrival of Gamma 154, Kyle was content to give in to the exhilaration that came with being able to ask for and receive a handful of starships to deal with life's niggly problems. He demonstrated his enthusiasm by overtly agreeing with his wife. "Yes, it does!" he replied, beaming at her. His Majesty Request * Page 3 Space Station Nexus Years: Year 2, 2339 Arcadia eyed him suspiciously. "Speaking of privileges…" Despite his good mood, Kyle instinctively sensed trouble ahead, and indulged her with a simple, "Yes?" "The Galenan Spring Gala is in a few weeks. If we went, we would be the first Command Staff to actually attend in a long time and…" Kyle groaned audibly. He had purposely avoided the subject. He was simply not interested in prancing about some fancy ball in his dress uniform during a time of crisis. The picture such an action would paint was entirely at odds with the image he personally sought to project. And yet… with the imminent arrival of the task force, things would be likely be different around here. Perhaps a CO who was unfazed by the very real threat of danger would be just the ticket… Kyle looked over to Arcadia who returned his gaze in such a fashion that it was clear to him that she would not, as usual, pursue the issue any further having said her piece on the subject. Kyle felt a pang of guilt and decided that he'd been a most disagreeable husband these last few weeks. A penance was most definitely in order. "Fine." "Fine?" Arcadia echoed. "Yes, we'll go. I'll have Ms. Marlowe send out the RSVP tomorrow." She beamed at him. "You are a good man, Kyle Argent." "Oh... and why is that?" he replied, giving her a boyish grin. "Most of the previous Station Commanders just sent their junior officers," Arcadia grinned in return. "Besides, I only had to look pitiful for a few moments." Kyle arched his eyebrow at his wife. "I take it you really want to go?" "I wouldn't miss this for the world. Perhaps the Regent will show me his gardens." Kyle couldn't help but give his wife a warm smile. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Besides, he knows how much you love roses. I imagine he'd enjoy giving a private tour to a fellow rose gardener." His Majesty Request * Page 4 Space Station Nexus Years: Year 2, 2339 Before Arcadia could respond, their new server arrived. "Good Evening, Captain Argent, Doctor Argent. I'm Teri and Ms. Howard asked me to be your waitress tonight." The Argents acknowledged their new server and gave her their order. "I'll be right back," Teri replied before she dashed off to get their drinks. "If nothing else," Arcadia continued, "I've never seen invitations like this. This is about as official an invitation I've ever seen." The invitation -- if one can call it an "invitation" since any meeting with the Regent of Galena wasn't optional -- was a very ornate and elaborate piece of artwork. It was hand lettered using gold-foil ink on parchment paper, each invitation personally addressed. "I hope we don't have to actually hand them over," Kyle murmured. "No love, there's a separate and considerable smaller card that I suspect we have to take with us.