Change of Orders
Posted on Mon Oct 12th, 2026 @ 1:29am by Lieutenant Commander Jasad Yuvek & Lieutenant JG Aika Thompson 'Arcadia'
2,403 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Kintsugi
Location: Starbase 43
[Starbase 43 — Lieutenant Commander Yuvek's Quarters]
A week into shoreleave and Lieutenant Commander Yuvek had finally remembered what it felt like to have nowhere to be.
He'd settled into a rhythm that suited him — mornings reviewing Hebitian historical texts he'd been meaning to return to for months, afternoons in the holosuite running Cardassian architectural simulations from the pre-occupation period, evenings with whatever the station's food service offered that wasn't replicated under time pressure. His ribs had stopped complaining at him. He'd slept eight consecutive hours twice. He was, by any reasonable measure, beginning to recover from an engagement that had sheared a significant portion of the Tokyo's saucer section off and introduced him to the sensation of killing a Herald with a dagger in his own hand.
He had plans for the next week. Modest ones. But plans.
Which was why the intrusive chime from the quarters' comm unit arriving at 0830 was unwelcomed The comm chimed with the persistence of something that wasn't going to stop until acknowledged.
Lieutenant Commander Yuvek set down his text, looked at the terminal for several moments contemplating whether he really wanted to answer it. He realized that if he ignored it, the person or persons would just keep on calling until an armed escort came knocking on his door. Reluctantly, he accepted the call.
The face on the screen belonged to a Yeoman with the neat appearance of someone who worked in an administrative office and knew it. Her expression carried the particular brand of professional pleasantness that station admin personnel developed — courteous, efficient, and just slightly impervious to pushback.
"Lieutenant Commander Yuvek. Good morning, sir. Commander Calloway requests your presence in his office at your earliest convenience."
Lieutenant Commander Yuvek cocked an eyebrow as he looked back at the screen. "Why?" he asked directly in a less than conversational tone.
The Yeoman's expression didn't shift. "Commander Calloway's office, sir. At your earliest convenience." She replied, as if not hearing his question.
"That didn't answer the question." He said with a hint of aggravation in his tone.
"No, sir," the Yeoman agreed pleasantly. "It didn't."
A beat of awkward silence passed between the two before the Cardassian finally responded.
"Understood," Lieutenant Commander Yuvek said. "Tell the Commander I'm on my way." he relented.
"Very good, sir. Have a pleasant morning." with that, the channel closed.
[Starbase 43 — Lieutenant JG Thompson's Quarters]
The same Yeoman's face that had appeared on Yuvek's comm unit appeared again, but this time on the wall of Lieutenant junior grade Aika Thompson.
"It's for you!" her roommate Vyse called out.
Aika was finishing getting dressed just outside of the comm unit's visual range. She finished affixing her rank pips and came into view. "This is Lieutenant Thompson."
"Lieutenant Thompson. Good morning, Commander Calloway requests your presence in his office at your earliest convenience."
"Understood," she said.
With a nod, the Yeoman closed the channel.
"Wonder what this is about," she said.
"Could be anything," Vyse told her. "But you've not done anything wrong lately, so it's probably good?"
"What do you mean 'lately'?" she teased. "I should go though. My earliest convenience is now. Can you tell Snowflake where I am?"
He nodded, and off she went.
[Starbase 43 — Outside Commander Calloway's Office]
The Yeoman from the comm call was at her station outside Calloway's office when LCDR Yuvek arrived. She glanced up just long enough to confirm who he was.
"Commander Calloway is finishing up. He'll be with you shortly, sir." She gestured to the row of seats along the wall. "If you'd like to wait."
LCdr Yuvek looked at the seats. Then at the closed door. Then back at the Yeoman.
On the Tokyo, if someone called you to a meeting, the meeting started when you arrived. Time on a frontline vessel wasn't something you left people sitting in a corridor with. Jasad had grown accustomed to urgency. Something was either handled or it wasn't, simply sitting around and waiting just wasn't a thing.
He sat anyway. Because this was a starbase and starbases apparently operated differently.
The door into the office reception area opened again to admit Aika. The familiar Yeoman was at a desk and looked up at her.
"Commander Calloway is finishing up. He'll be with you shortly, sir." She gestured to the row of seats along the wall. "If you'd like to wait."
I feel like she's said that a few times in her life, Aika thought wryly. "Yes of course." She saw another familiar face already in the waiting area. "Commander Yuvek."
Jasad looked up at the sound of her voice, and the tension in his shoulders eased slightly — a familiar face was a familiar face, rank aside.
"Lieutenant." He gave her a short nod, gesturing loosely to the empty seat beside him. "So they got you too."
A pause, his eyes flicking to the closed door and back. "I don't suppose Calloway told you what this was about, before he 'requested your presence at your earliest convenience.'" The last part came out with a faint, dry mimicry of the Yeoman's phrasing.
The door to Calloway's inner office slid open, and the Yeoman gestured them both through with the same brisk efficiency she'd shown at the desk. "Commander Calloway will see you now."
LCDR Yuvek rose first, waiting half a step for Aika before following her in. Calloway's office was as tidy as its reputation suggested — nothing out of place, nothing extraneous. But it was the far wall that drew the eye. The viewscreen was active, and on it, waiting with the stillness of someone accustomed to being on the other end of a delay rather than the cause of one, was a Cardassian officer in the dark operational tunic of Defense Force field command.
Calloway stood as they entered. "Lieutenant Commander Yuvek. Lieutenant Thompson. Thank you for coming on short notice." He gestured to the two chairs positioned facing the desk — and, by extension, the screen. "Please, sit."
Jasad's eyes went to the insignia on the screen before he sat, cataloguing it out of old habit. Legate. Whatever this was, it wasn't administrative.
On the screen, the Cardassian officer inclined his head, unhurried. "Legate Maren Sarket. Cardassian Defense Force, Office of External Military Cooperation." His eyes moved between them, confirming faces against a file he'd clearly already read. "Lieutenant Commander. Lieutenant."
“Legate,” Aika said, politely nodding her head.
Calloway took it from there, folding his hands on the desk with the brisk economy of a man delivering information rather than opinion. "Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant — you're both being placed on temporary assignment to Cardassia Prime, effective in forty-eight hours."
Jasad felt Aika go very slightly still beside him — not surprise exactly, more the recalibration of someone whose shore leave had just evaporated.
"There's a joint evaluation underway," Commander Calloway continued, "of a Cardassian defense program incorporating Starfleet adaptive flight control technology. The program has hit difficulties." He glanced at Jasad. "Lieutenant Commander, you've been selected for your familiarity with both Starfleet and Cardassian flight and maneuverability systems — and, frankly, for your fluency with Cardassia itself. The evaluation team needs someone who can bridge the engineering and the culture, not just fly a console."
He turned to Aika. "Lieutenant, you're along for a different reason. The evaluation needs an assessment of the program's performance under combat stress in actual fighter craft — not simulation. Your record, particularly the Iconian engagement, makes you the obvious choice there."
“Opposing force?” Aika asked as confirmation. “I can do that.”
Jasad absorbed the words carefully, turning them over even as his expression held. Bridge the engineering and the culture. That was the kind of phrase someone used when the real reason was inconvenient to say plainly.
"Has Captain Aisaka approved this—"
"This assignment," Sarket cut in, before Calloway could answer, "comes from above Captain Aisaka's authorization level. She has been informed. That is the extent of what's required." The interruption was smooth, unhurried, delivered without any particular heat — which somehow made it land harder than if he'd raised his voice.
He continued before the other Cardassian could press further. "The program in question is not a minor one, Lieutenant Commander. Cardassia's defense doctrine has historically relied on maneuverability doctrine that predates the Dominion War. This evaluation determines whether Starfleet adaptive flight control architecture can be integrated into our next generation of defense platforms — a decision with implications well beyond one testing facility. I would not have made this call personally if the matter were trivial."
"Starfleet already has officers with greater AFCS expertise than I do — Utopia Planitia, Daystrom Station, people who wrote half the specifications this program is presumably adapting. I'm just a ship pilot on shoreleave -- why me?" He asked incredulously.
There was a pause on the screen — not long, but noticeable. Sarket's jaw tightened, just slightly, the practiced stillness of his expression cracking enough to let slight aggravation show through.
"Because paper qualifications are not the same as combat application, Lieutenant Commander, and this evaluation requires the latter." A beat, the Legate's eyes flicking, deliberately, to the Starfleet insignia on Yuvek's collar before returning to his face, colder now. "I don't often find myself having to explain my decisions, especially to Cardassians of lesser experience. Perhaps that uniform of yours has encouraged the habit of treating orders as if they are the beginning of a negotiation." he said with barely disgusted annoyance.
“Sir,” Aika said, cutting in. “Our apologies. If we question orders, it’s to better understand them and improve our performances, not to undermine them.” She nodded to Mr. Yuvek. “What is available for my use for the OpFor assignment?”
Jasad let the interruption land without visible reaction, and was actually grateful for it. He knew that he was one sentence away from saying something that would have made the next several weeks considerably more complicated.
Cardassians of lesser experience... The phrase settled somewhere quiet and familiar inside of Jasad. It was like a dull recognition of something he'd encountered many times before. A Cardassian who looked at the Federation uniform and concluded that whatever Jasad had chosen to become, it was something less than what he should have been.
Legate Sarket's expression shifted fractionally at Aika's interjection — not warmth exactly, but the specific recalibration of someone who had been handed a more manageable conversation than the one they'd been having and was willing to take it.
"A reasonable clarification, Lieutenant." The edge in his voice didn't disappear entirely but pulled back to something more professional. "Your role in the evaluation will be operational assessment of the Shevok-class fighter under combat stress parameters. You will have access to two fully equipped test aircraft, a dedicated ground crew, and full telemetry support from Dal Yuvek's engineering team."
"Dal Yuvek?" Jasad asked suddenly and in the middle of the Legate's sentence.
Commander Calloway leaned forward slightly, folding his hands on the desk with the manner of someone providing context rather than breaking news. "For clarity — Dal Bretav Yuvek is the lead engineer on the Shevok program." He glanced briefly at Aika before continuing. "He is also Lieutenant Commander Yuvek's brother."
She quickly checked Jasad's face for a reaction, keeping hers passive as she hadn't noticed one.
"I am aware of the relationship." Legate Sarket said with a tone that carried no particular sensitivity about it. "Dal Yuvek requested Jasad specifically. We considered the familial connection and determined it was not a disqualifying factor." A brief pause. "In fact, it was considered an asset. The two of you share a working language — technically and otherwise — that will accelerate the evaluation timeline."
His eyes stayed on LCDR Yuvek. "I trust this will not present a difficulty." he said with a tone that obviously was a statement and not a question.
He shifted his attention to Aika before either of them could respond. "Lieutenant Thompson. You have flown against Herald fighters in active combat. In your assessment, what is the single greatest tactical disadvantage our current fighter platforms present against Herald opposition?"
"Maneuverability, sir," she answered without hesitation. "The Herald starfighter is uncrewed and maneuvers by manipulating gravity rather than through thrust vectoring, and being uncrewed it does not need to factor pilot survival into its doctrine. Individually they're fragile enough that a hit means a kill, but that's no help if we can't hit them. So we need to either improve maneuverability on our platforms, improve guidance or tracking on our weapons, or slow them down. Or ideally all three."
“Good.” Sarket’s gaze moved across both of them one final time, the look of an officer closing a file. “The Shevok program has already cost the Defense Force more time than it can spare. I expect your evaluation to be thorough, and I expect it to be prompt. Commander Calloway will see to the particulars.”
He did not wait for acknowledgment. The viewscreen went dark, and the Cardassian Union’s seal held in the center of it for a moment before fading to the standard Starfleet blue.
The silence that followed had the quality of a room exhaling. Calloway let it run for a few seconds, then straightened a datapadd on his desk that was already perfectly aligned.
“Well.” He looked between them. “I won’t pretend that was the most comfortable briefing I’ve hosted.” He didn’t elaborate, and neither officer invited him to. “The particulars, then. A Starfleet transport, *USS Talon*, will be docked at Pylon Four. You depart at 0700 hours, forty-eight hours from now. It will be a direct run to Cardassia Prime, with no stops, and the transit should take roughly two days.”
"Any questions?" The Starfleet Commander asked.
"No, sir," Aika answered promptly.
LCDR Yuvek stood, filed Pylon Four and 0700 away, and nodded to Calloway. “Thank you for your time, Commander.”
Legate Sarket’s commentary about Cardassian officers and their *habits* wasn’t worth the energy it would take to respond to. He’d been dealing with variations of that same attitude since the first day he put on a Starfleet uniform.
What bothered him more was *why* out of all the Cardassians he could call to help with this, did his brother Bretav call him? He guess he'd figure it out over the next few days.
LCDR Jasad Yuvek
Chief Helmsman, USS Tokyo
LTJG Aika "Arcadia" Thompson
Fighter Pilot, USS Tokyo
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