A medical officer leaned on the upper promenade railing, forearms resting on it and fingers interlaced, as he looked out at the main deck below.

Nancy nearly passed him by, but there was something about the attitude, body language, that made her look again. She’d seen a Dr. Sorenson listed for the medical panel, but the name was hardly uncommon around several regions on earth and various colonies, but as she paused and got a better look at his features, she realized it really was the Dr. Sorenson she knew. Or had known – it had been nearly a decade since the post-Hobus medical relief effort, after all. Still, she grinned as she headed toward him. “Dr. Sorenson! Who stuffed you into a Starfleet uniform?”

Martin looked up, surprised by a voice from the past, but broke into a smile at petite spitfire of a doctor advancing toward him. “Dr. Gable! How did you manage to stay in one?”

She laughed, taking the hand that had risen automatically in greeting. “God alone knows.” She rolled her eyes upward. “When things went to baktag with the Empire collapsing they needed people who could understand what Romulans meant rather than just what the UT translated, and by some miracle I held back on cussing out anymore admirals, so I stayed on. Guess it became habit,” she concluded with a shrug, and a smile as she looked him up and down. “But you, Mr. Pacifist Civilian, not only in uniform but wearing Commander’s pips already. That Minnesota nice must play well with Command,” she teased.

“Eh, not that well.” He ducked his head. “I mostly got bumped up in line with my CO, and I expect Commander is a terminal rank. I don’t know if you heard about Paenope VI…”

Nancy’s mouth twisted. “That colony that got ‘lost’ during the Dominion War?”

“Yeah… We were the ones who found it. Terrible conditions…” he shook his head, mouth creasing in a frown at the memory, “…unfortunately, there was also a hidden terrorist cell. But when I got a recall order, well, there was a child begging help for her mother, and I couldn’t -“

“Good for you!” She clapped his arm, giving a firm nod.

He was taken aback – in the best possible way. A smile broke across his face. Yoshi had understood his position and limited the fallout to the degree he was able, and most of the other medical officers had understood and supported him, but it had been far from universal, and no one had voiced approval. Certainly not whole-hearted approval. It warmed him, far more than he ever imagined it might. Granted, given Gable’s history, he should maybe not take too much validation from that, but it meant a lot, nonetheless. “Thank you.” His smile went a little lopsided. “Command didn’t share your sentiment,” he chuckled at a small snort from her, “I know, no surprise, eh? But it’s all worked out now.”

And that was enough said about it. “Anyway, I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, switching topics. “Last I heard, you were stationed on Aeon.”

Her brows lifted. “You keeping tabs on the post-Hobus club?”

“No, I ran into the Counselor, Nikedoros, on Haumea colony about a year ago,” he explained, adding with a small grin, “and she’s keeping tabs.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Nancy chuckled. “I miss her – for someone who was usually all zen and serenity, she understood there was a place for righteous anger. You know, she was on Aeon with me for a while.”

“So she said,” he affirmed with a nod. “Seems like Haumea attracted a couple Aeon crew. There was another who knew you…” Martin paused trying to recall the name; he’d only conferred with him briefly, “…tall, blonde, bit of an accent…”

Nancy cocked a brow at him. “You realize you’re describing yourself?”

“Okay, fair,” Martin laughed. “He was Scandinavian, so there’s probably some resemblance in the very distant cousin sense. But he was half a head taller, and probably could’ve modeled for a Thor holovid. Not personality-wise, though – he was actually very kind and helpful.”

Thor…. if Thor was an overgrown pacifist boy scout. Her own slightly snarky description of the man rose in her mind. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Arnason.”

He snapped his fingers “Lt. Arnason, yes.” Then he noticed Gable’s body language. “Is there a problem with him?”

“He’s supposed to be at the embassy on Dosad.” Recovering. How living on a planet full of adrenaline-junkie felinoids was supposed to help with that, she wasn’t sure, but Tango’s Marine unit seemed to have more or less adopted him and Dosadi tended to sleep in pile, so maybe being surrounded by highly protective sentient mountain lions would at least help with the nightmares. She’d hoped they’d also keep an eye on him. Not that there was much hope of anyone keeping that boy from finding his way back into trouble… “What was he doing on Haumea?”

“Ah. As I understand it, the ship with supplies and new personnel had crashed. They lost nearly the entire medical department, and right before an onslaught of severe cold and winter storms.” He frowned, thinking of the wreckage still visible even under the deep snow when Vesta had arrived. “The colony CO was a doctor, but handling medical and command in the middle of a crisis…” Martin shook his head, thinking of his own recent brush with that in a far less pressing situation. “Anyway, the colony is remote enough it’s not so far from Dosadi space, so Arnason showed up to help and wound up assigned temporary duty as Acting CMO.”

“Typical. But I suppose Nikedoros signed off on it, and he certainly has the cold weather experience,” she remarked. Besides, it was temporary duty and Gunnar was an NP. Starfleet would want a doctor in charge, so how long could that take.  He was probably already back on Dosad.

There had to be a story as to why he’d need Nikedoros’ approval, but Martin didn’t feel right prying. “Anyway, that was a while ago, when did you leave Aeon?”

“About a year ago – some idiot bureaucrat thought I’d be good for a post on the border that was a political tinderbox.” She frowned. “You can imagine how well that turned out.”

About as well as one of Nolan’s high power experiments… he thought, but said, “Not well, eh?”

Nancy smirked. “Still good at understatement, I see. Basically, they realized I don’t play nice with specie-ists and had put me elsewhere, so I’m here to transfer onto the Tanjura. She’s one of those new ships that’s mostly holograms, so I guess they figure that’s safe.”

“Congratulations. One of the new Inquiry class.” Martin nodded, and suppressed a cringe. He hoped the spaceframe problems had been a one-off from joining sections built at different yards, but a medbay loaded with holograms had not been a good experience. “I was on the shakedown for the Nelson. I’ll just say, if you run into an avian species, check their ocular system for magnetic field sensitive cryptochromes. We wound up answering a distress call, and probably causing more distress – near as I can tell, the holograms must have looked like eldritch horrors. I wound up sleeping on the biobed beside them since I was the only non-holographic medic.”

“Ask for organic nurses, got it.” Nancy nodded. “I guess you’ll be attending the holo-tech panel, if only to bring that up.”

“I will indeed. And I plan to attend the one on QAI as well. The holograms having minimal personalities was …creepy, but the one EMH that had one…” he grimaced, “…even the old Mark I’s had a better bedside manner.”

She lifted a sardonic brow. “You’re really making me look forward to this shiny new ship…”

“Sorry.” He ducked his head apologetically, but then looked up with sly grin. “We did pretty quickly ‘retrain’ that one, so I’m sure you can teach them all to fear you soon enough.”

“Darn right,” Nancy laughed. “I may have to show to that QAI session just so they don’t mistake you for the model personality profile. Starfleet doctors aren’t supposed to be all nice and polite. We’re dealing with a bunch of Type A personalities who won’t come in for anything short of bleeding out and need a good hard dose of tough love.”

Martin chuckled a sudden mental image of Gable dragging Jack into medbay by an ear like with an irritated schoolmarm, ‘You come along, young man’… “I’ll admit, there are times I’ve fantasized about sending a couple EMHs to retrieve certain folks.  But only fantasized, of course,” he added quickly.

“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re too nice to even inconvenience a hologram. Let me tell you, if anyone gets difficult about showing up for annual exams, I won’t be bothered at all by using holograms for to fetch them. In fact, they should be grateful to get a hologram because that will be a lot easier than if I have to go hunt them down in person.”

“I do not doubt it.” He really didn’t, on either point. He’d seen her cow Romulan guards twice her size. “As long as it’s not an emergency, I prefer a softer approach. But if you ever need a break from the shiny new ship, I’d be glad to have you drop by Vesta.” He flashed a grin. “Especially around annual physicals.”