Transfer of Authority

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2026 @ 12:39pm by Lieutenant Darik Moreau
Edited on on Tue Mar 10th, 2026 @ 12:39pm

1,172 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Ghost Starship
Location: USS Meridian
Timeline: [Backpost, set two weeks before Ghost Starship]

2400, USS Meridan

Lieutenant Darik Moreau was alone in the Intelligence office when the transfer orders arrived, which in itself was a small mercy. In the low, indirect light of the room, he seemed at first glance almost carved into shadow, lean and long-limbed in the dark uniform jacket he had long since stopped noticing on his own body, even if he had always had to alter the cut to accommodate his neck. He stood with one hand braced lightly against the edge of the desk, the other resting near a cooling mug of tea, his posture composed without quite relaxing into ease. The Cardassian inheritance in his face was clear enough to read even in profile: the central brow crest, the ridging at the temples and neck, the angular structure that made his expressions look sharper than they were. But there was something softened through it too, something human in the line of the mouth, the shape of his jaw, in the blue eyes that gave more away than he preferred when they caught on a thought too quickly.

His hair, dark brown and near-black in this light, was tied back at the nape of his neck in the same neat low tail he had worn for years. It lent him an air of control that was not entirely false, though anyone who knew him well would have recognised the smaller truth beneath it. Darik liked order best when he had made it himself. And also, getting your hair cut was an annoyance. With this, he could cut it himself if he wanted to.

The PADD on the desk gave a second, more pointed notification, as if it was reminding the man that he was here for a purpose. He glanced down at it, expression settling into that familiar look of faint, private disapproval he wore for delayed reports, avoidable incompetence, and now, apparently, career advancement. “Well…” he said, to the empty room, voice low and dry. “That is never a promising start.” He picked up the PADD at last.

The office was quiet around him, wrapped in the subdued hum of the Meridian at cruise. One wall display still held a half-collapsed tactical projection from the briefing earlier that evening, pale lines hanging in the dark like something unfinished. A stack of annotated reports sat to one side of the desk, loaded onto individual PADDs, exact and orderly despite the long shift. Beyond the bulkhead, the ship moved with its familiar life, a rhythm he had learned well enough by now to read almost without thinking. The vibration underfoot. The distant footfall in the corridor. The soft mechanical thrum of systems behaving exactly as they should.

On the screen, the transfer header opened in clean official text: Chief Intelligence Officer. USS Missouri.

Darik read the line once. Then again, as if repetition might improve it. His face did not alter much, but something in him went quieter, almost with confusion. The posting was good. Better than good. The Missouri was the sort of ship officers wanted on their record if they had any ambition worth naming, and the role itself was no small vote of confidence. Someone had read his service file and decided that he was ready to step into it.

Under other circumstances, perhaps he might have enjoyed the clean satisfaction of that.

Instead, his thumb remained still against the edge of the PADD while his eyes lifted, not to the stars beyond the viewport, but to the office around him. He knew this room. He knew which console paused just long enough to be irritating before accepting a voice command. He knew where Ensign Hale stood when she was uncertain whether she was interrupting, and which lieutenants from Tactical would call Intelligence with a question already half-answered because they wanted confirmation more than insight. He knew the shape of this posting now, the habits and rhythms of it, the points where his own work crossed so often with Security and the Marines that whole conversations no longer needed speaking aloud.

He had built something here. Not comfort. He was not foolish enough to use that word. But he had built familiarity. Professional trust. A version of himself that entered most rooms before old assumptions did.

And that had taken time, and effort. And a lot of awkward conversations over drinks he didn’t enjoy, and a lot of biting back a reply when something was on the edge of being prickly. But he had made friends. Colleagues. And was seen as more than just…

Darik lowered the PADD slightly, his gaze catching for a moment on his own reflection in the darkened edge of the wall display. The face that looked back at him was one he had long since made peace with, though not always with the responses it invited. Cardassian enough to draw the eye. Human enough for people to sometimes forget. For most of his life, he had met new rooms under the weight of that first impression, watched people place him before they knew a single thing worth knowing.

The Missouri would know his record.

That was not the same thing.

He exhaled once through his nose and looked back to the orders.

Reporting date. Transfer authority. Departmental handover. The language was immaculate and impersonal, as though moving a life from one ship to another were an administrative tidiness rather than a severing. He had never been sentimental about transfers, but neither had he mistaken them for simplicity. There was always the same quiet violence in it. New corridors. New faces. New silences after he spoke while people decided what, precisely, they were hearing.

Perhaps the Missouri would be different. Perhaps his reputation would arrive before he did. He had earned enough, by now, to let that possibility stand.

And yet he knew the shape of that first week on a new ship like the back of his hand. Reporting to a Captain who may or may not have served in the war, who would look at his face and see an old enemy. Of the first medical, where some comment on how interesting it was to see how human and Cardassian physiology had merged. What was sensitive, what was not. How much pain or punishment he could take. And then the first trip to the mess, or first encounter where someone tried too hard to be nice.

It was exhausting. And yet…here he was.

Because the truth was he couldn’t turn it down. If he did, no other opportunity would come his way. He let out a breath, slowy…closing his eyes. He breathed through the tension, through the ache in his jaw from holding tension there. Darik opened his eyes, gave a small smile. Not for the situation, or the posting.

But because what else could you do but to smile?

Post by:

Lieutenant Darik Moreau
To be the Chief Intelligence Officer on the USS Missouri

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