Daystrom Conference Centre
0900 Hours

Hindi ran a hand across her face, lingering over her tired eyes. They'd all been summoned to the Daystrom Centre in the dead of night because some xenolinguistics cadet at the Academy had stumbled on a transmission from the Klingons. If it was true, it meant that something capable of royally kicking the Klingons' asses was floating around in space, and Captain Mahipo was admittedly a little conflicted over that. On the one hand, the idea of anyone wielding that kind of power was all kinds of terrifying; but on the other hand, it was pretty hard not to root for the guy who took out forty-seven battlecruisers while escaping from the most despicable prison facility in the known galaxy.

About time the Klingons got a little comeuppance, she mused to herself.

Of course, this wasn't the kind of event that Starfleet could casually ignore, especially since the translation of the message - again, the work of cadets, so perhaps best taken with a grain of salt - credited the Romulans as being responsible. The Federation had contacted them through diplomatic channels and the Romulans had completely denied any knowledge of the ship or it's technology, which was really odd for them. Romulans pretty much lived in a permanent state of superiority complex; if they were responsible for a ship that formidable, there's no way they'd be able to resist bragging about it. That led credence to the theory that this was a ruse: a ploy to trick Starfleet into withdrawing forces from the Laurentian system.

A ruse was a decidedly dishonourable tactic, and the Klingons were supposedly all about honour; but these days the Empire seemed to be stretching the definition somewhat. For the last twenty-five years their activities in the Borderland had become increasingly more aggressive, and more recently they'd resorted to annexation and conquest to reinforce disputed regions. The Federation knew about the conquest of at least two worlds, and were it not for Starfleet intervention at Axanar seven years ago and at Laurent right now, there'd be two more worlds firmly in the iron grip of the Klingon Empire.

Right now though, no matter how compelling the Klingon deceit assumption might be, it was still very much that: an assumption. Starfleet was a scientific organisation at it's core, and even their tactical decisions needed to be built on facts and evidence. When those were absent, the only course of events was to prepare for every eventuality; or at least, as many as was realistically possible. If the Romulans, or the Klingons, or whoever it was did try and make some sort of move, they needed to be ready; and if they couldn't rely on ships from Laurent, they'd have to find them elsewhere. Luckily for Starfleet, there was already the best part of a dozen ships sitting around in Earth orbit not doing anything: but unfortunately those ships were half empty, waiting to replenish their crews from this year's class of cadets due to graduate in a month or so. Those skeleton crews weren't enough to take those ships into battle, so here they were: Captains, first officers, and a handful of instructors, working out which cadets to send where in the unlikely event that a worst case scenario ever occurred.

It had taken half the night, and they were still juggling. If it weren't for the fatigue, it probably would have been vaguely interesting - or fascinating, as the damned Vulcan instructor opposite kept saying. The over-abundance of cadets in some fields of study versus the surprising lack in others probably said a lot about the way the public viewed Starfleet, and people's motivations for enlistment. There was no shortage for less academically rigorous roles like security officers and yeoman; but while the Academy had an excess of science officers who wouldn't be much use if a space battle broke out, they had an alarming shortage of engineers. It was a sad truth, Hindi realised, but perhaps nearly two centuries since Zephram Cochrane's first warp flight, the scientific marvel that was faster than light propulsion had become so common place that no one found it impressive any more.

The Captain spared a glance for her first officer: her new first officer, lumped in with the instructors across the table because his starship role was hypothetical. She'd seen the conflict dancing across his face as they'd discussed filling out the helm and navigation roles, so anxious to contribute and do his part, and yet too modest to shoehorn his way in as a candidate. When the Vulcan Instructor had suggested the seventeen-year-old whiz kid for a role on the Enterprise - a fraction of Érinthe's age, and with absolutely none of his experience - it must have been a low blow, but to the Commander's credit he just sat there and took it; accepted the role he had because that's what Starfleet required of him.

She thought back to the application letter he'd sent; thought back to the responses he'd given when she'd asked why he wanted to remain a first officer, rather than accepting the command that Starfleet had offered. There was a fine line between modesty and doubt, and in truth she wasn't yet sure which side of the line he fell on: but give her a few years, and Hindi was convinced that she'd have trained him out of those bad habits and he'd have the kind of confidence and ego that any good Starfleet Captain needed.

"Captain Mahipo?" the Vulcan's voice pressed, snapping Hindi away from her thoughts.

"Hmm?" she responded, her eyebrows climbing in question.

A flicker of something that almost seemed like frustration swept across the Vulcan's face. "We were discussing communications officer candidates. I believe Cadet Uhura would be a logical choice to serve aboard the Farragut."

Hindi's eyes swept across the personnel file on her screen, the same one she'd been staring at when her eyes had begun to glaze over. "You identify her as one of your top students," she countered, a questioning frown thrown quickly in the Vulcan's direction. "Surely someone with her qualifications should be on the Enterprise? If anything happens, the Enterprise is likely to be our command ship, and I'm sure that Chris -"

She caught herself mid-way through the overly-familiar address, and allowed herself to spend another moment pondering over where her former Captain could possibly be; it wasn't like him to miss important briefings like this, and if he'd found an excuse to avoid this sort of thing she fully intended to interrogate it out of him for her own use.

"- Captain Pike," she corrected, "Would appreciate all of the communications officers and coordination staff that he can get."

It was possible that Hindi had imagined or projected the Vulcan's earlier frustration, but there was no questioning that glimmer of emotion. It was too subtle to identify whether it was surprise, panic, or something else; but clearly there was much more going on than this Commander Spock was freely admitting. That was all kinds of saucy and intriguing, and Hindi made a mental note to indulge her curiosity the next chance she got.

"The Enterprise is a new ship," Spock offered, "And she is largely untested in the field. In the event that she suffered some sort of malfunction or systems failure, it would be logical to ensure that there are redundancies elsewhere in the fleet."

Logical. Hindi hated that word, and the Vulcans' obsession with it; but while she didn't buy his story, she couldn't fault his reasoning. Her gaze flicked to Commodore Hudson, the flag officer given the unenviable job of chairing this little cadet auction. Talia shot her a questioning look; Hindi countered with a shrug. "The Commander's logic is sound," she admitted, conceding the point.

"Alright then," Talia added, taking charge of the conversation again. "Lieutenant Uhura will be assigned to the Farragut. Next on our list, we have -" She glanced at her records, squinted a little, carefully working her way around the unfamiliar word sounds. "- Cadet Thaitla K'perr..."