PART I

Despite the ends she had to tie up, Doctor Arona Illysa was delighted to be taking shore leave. Well, more accurately, delighted to see Li Jaden again. She grabbed one last PADD and started to walk out of her office.

Just then, the door to sickbay opened, admitting Chief Engineer Lucia Guitarrez, two security officers, and one of the station's engineers.

Arona sighed in frustration. "What now?"

The junior medical officer rushed over. "Don't worry about it Doc, I'll take care of it."

The Doctor scowled. "That's not necessary Quinn."

Arona helped Guitarrez over to a bio-bed. "Lie down."

"I'm all right, Doctor," the Engineer protested irately.

"Commander, I'm not in the mood for this. Now lie down and let begin my examination or I'll sedate you." Arona glared at Guitarrez to reinforce her warning.

Guitarrez reluctantly complied. Arona began her scans.

"You have a bruised rib and a sprained wrist." Arona looked Guitarrez in the eye. "Do I have to guess about what happened?" She grabbed a device off a nearby cart and began running it over Guitarrez's abdomen.

"Umm, Commander Guitarrez slugged one of DS9's engineering team, Doc," offered one of the security guards.

"Thank you, Ensign. You two can leave."

The security officers looked at each other, shrugged, and walked out the door.

Guitarrez started to sit up; stopped by the pain in her abdomen. "I want that marecon kept out of my engine room."

Arona shook her head. "Stay still. This works a lot better if you aren't leaping off the bio-bed to attack crewmen."

Guitarrez stopped and looked directly at the doctor. "He was ripping apart the primary plasmadyne relay looking for some non-existent malfunction!" She scoffed.

The Doctor moved the device to Guitarrez's wrist. "Lucia, relax--"

"I just repaired that system a week ago! It took twelve hours to restore!" Guitarrez growled, "I'm serious--"

"How long has it been since your last shore leave?" asked Arona, halting Guitarrez's outburst.

"What?" demanded Guitarrez. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Arona frowned. "You're tired, irritable, and overworked. You need a vacation."

"Illysa, I have far too much to do to leave Phantom, especially not with these puñetas mucking up my engine room."

"Lucia--"

"No, Illysa, I don't need a vacation," declared Guitarrez.

Arona frowned again. "Then you leave me no choice. I'm relieving you of duty and placing you off the duty roster until you have at least two weeks' shore leave under your belt."

"But--"

"That's an order, Commander. Effective immediately."

Guitarrez sighed dejectedly. "Can I at least--"

"Immediately, Lucia," interrupted Arona. "Your officers know what their duties are." She finished up on Guitarrez's wrist. "There. Now go start planning your vacation."

Guitarrez sat up slowly. "Well I have been meaning to visit the theoretical propulsion division at the Daystrom Institute--"

"That's not going to cut it," replied Arona. "By vacation I mean sand, surf, and sun. Something fun, something relaxing."

Guitarrez groaned and got off the bio-bed. "Fine..."

"On your way, then."

Guitarrez trudged out the door just as Nurse Quinn Maccan finished healing his patient. The Technician lingered a few moments before finally exiting sickbay himself.

Arona picked up her things and turned to Quinn. "Remember to have Teague monitor the Alveara Slime Molds every eight hours--if I come back and find out she's ruined another one of my experiments..."

"Take it easy, Doc," said Maccan, trying to quell yet another of Arona's little tirades, "Don't worry about a thing, I've got it all under control."

"Quinn, every time you say that something goes wrong."

"Does not."

"Something always goes inexplicably wrong on this ship," reiterated Arona, pointing towards the sickbay door, "And I'm telling you--"

"Doc, just go and enjoy your vacation," interrupted Maccan, "I know what needs to be done here." He pushed her towards the Sickbay door.

Arona abruptly halted the advance to leave. "One last thing."

Maccan sighed in defeat. "Don't you need to pack yet?"

Arona smirked at her assistant. "Quinn--"

"Go!" He finally succeeded in pushing Arona out of the Sickbay. Maccan turned around and sighed.

Ensign Nancy Teague entered Sickbay from Med Lab 1. "Is she finally gone?"

"For your sake, you better hope so," Maccan answered, "She is going to kill you when she finds out you already ruined her experiment."

Commander Dade Rojc hesitantly entered his quarters and walked to the closet, where he pulled out a small carrying case.

Dade stopped and stared into the closet. He had known of the upcoming conference on DS9 for the past three weeks--yet he had made no effort to prepare in advance.

Rojc shook his head, admitting to himself that Melina was indeed correct--he just didn't like diplomatic conferences. In fact, he really didn't care for diplomacy period. He found the Zaldan interpretation of this particular 'courtesy' to be quite agreeable with his own philosophies. (Basically just another form of "annoying dishonesty".)

Granted, Dade recognized diplomacy's place and importance, but it was a duty he felt would be better handled by someone else. Hell, diplomacy had been one of the reasons he hadn't pursued command, regardless of the fact he was qualified and ready for his own ship years ago.

Dade frowned. Introspection just had to come at the most inopportune times; he didn't have time for this now. He sighed and tossed his dress uniform into the open case--damn thing looked more like a waiter's uniform than that of a Starfleet officer. Rojc grabbed a few more clothes and other miscellaneous items and deposited them into the case.

The door to the quarters opened, and through them stepped Commander T'Senishra, Dade's wife. "Dade, you are delaying our departure."

Rojc blinked. "You came all the way down here to tell me that?"

"That and to scold you for waiting until the last minute to pack," she replied stoically.

"Yeah, well, good-bye to you too," muttered Rojc, closing the case. He picked up the luggage and trudged towards the door.

T'Senishra abruptly stopped her husband and bent his head down to kiss. If Dade had been surprised by the act, he didn't make it obvious.

The kiss lasted for several tender moments before T'Senishra backed away. "I'll see you in a couple of weeks."

Dade's face broke into a grin. "And what happened to Vulcan emotional control?"

"I was merely testing you to see how you would react," T'Senishra responded seriously. She held the facade for a few moments longer before grinning herself. "It was not a...total loss."

Dade moved to kiss T'Senishra again, but was stopped short. "You and I know full well we don't have time for that now; the Captain would prefer to get underway sometime today."

"All right." Dade gave his wife a peck on the cheek. "I'll call you tonight."

Elsewhere on the USS Phantom, Lieutenant Melina Iv'Oor sat comfortably leaning back in the chair in the main security office. While Rojc and Nicot were away, she was in charge of security. I still don't understand how Dade gets the most comfortable furniture, Melina thought to herself as she yawned. A moment later, her legs were resting comfortably on the top of the desk.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?"

Melina looked up at the door to find Rojc and Lieutenant Commander Nicot staring soberly at her. She clamored to stand at attention, but the sudden motion instead caused the chair to roll out from underneath her; she hit the floor with an unintelligible noise. She started to rise.

"Dade, I--" Iv'Oor glanced at Rojc who still had a serious look on his face; Nicot was of course chuckling. She turned back to Rojc, "Nicot redecorates the office when you leave him in charge, I hope you know!"

Nicot stopped grinning and glared at Iv'Oor.

Rojc grinned and slowly shook his head. "So this is the kind of stuff that goes on while I'm gone. Should have known."

Melina chuckled nervously. "Forget something?"

Dade nodded and stepped up to his desk. "My briefing."

Iv'Oor fumbled through the pile of PADDs on the desk. Finally she found the correct one and handed it to Rojc. "You really do have too many PADDs."

Rojc smirked and took the PADD. "Thanks." He started towards the door; Iv'Oor breathed a sigh of relief.

"By the way, Melina," Rojc stopped and turned around. "Since you have so much lounging time, I figure it could be better put to use. Teams Gamma and Psi are getting a little sloppy, make sure you double their training schedule."

"I don't think Gamma's the problem--Xi needs the most work," Nicot added.

Rojc shrugged. "Fine. Double up their training too."

"All three!?" Lieutenant Melina Iv'Oor groaned.

"You are Chief of Security while I'm gone--it's your job." Rojc smiled at her. "I'll be back in a couple of weeks. All my furniture better still be here."