"Go, then." The shift leader overheard Kaya Som's combadge where they were working on routine restarts of station stabilizers. The job was going to take multiple shifts to finish, so there was no hurry to keep the Commander waiting. Besides, it wasn't every day, or ever that senior command had business with a crewman.

=/\= "On my way" =/\=

Kaya pulled herself out from the access panel and checked for oily smudges on her hands and face before heading down to the Commander's office. On the way, she tried not to speculate, tried not to make her stomach turn. She couldn't think of anything she'd done wrong, and if this was about the fighter project it would have come down through the chain of command. She had yet to distinguish herself here, either. So all things considered, she'd just have to hear it from Eastman.

She chimed herself into the office, far more spacious than any room on a starship. She took a stance a bit back from the desk and held her hands behind her back.

Command made her uncomfortable. It was probably the part of Starfleet she liked the least, being sorted and never really sure who you could trust behind a Starfleet smile.

"Commander. You called me?"

Here we go.

All readings quickly indicated Kaya wasn't about to get a dressing down. Eastman was all but smiling, she wasn't going to have to stand in front of the massive desk, and even an offer from the replicator.

"Yes, thank you," Kaya replied and went to the big table. She couldn't help run her hand over it. Real wood, looked like, hardly standard to the ramshackle space station.

It didn't matter if Kaya wanted water or not, she'd found more often than not accepting what was offered was how you made friends in uncomfortable situations. "And that'd be great."

Kaya sat down and tried two or three positions before she settled, one leg crossed under her and hands in her lap. As casual as the encounter seemed so far, Kaya didn't have any inklings about what she and the Commander had to talk about for any length of time so she reckoned the characterization a euphemism for, 'I talk, you listen.'

She took a breath in and out her nose and watched the Commander. Then she asked, "what's this about?"

Kaya went grey. She broke eye contact with Eastman and set her jaw into a frown. It took her a moment force her shoulders to relax and find a voice that didn't involve shouting and spite.

"Good," she said firmly, looking back at Eastman. "Don't know what else there is to say about it."

That was a lie, one of those white lies you told to keep from, as the humans said, 'going off'. After a few proper drinks around friends, Kaya had plenty to say about Ensign Nivak and the Centaur and the absolute barge-fire of a mediation process.

She ought to be happy to hear Nivak was finally getting his, but she didn't.

Kaya leaned back and wiped her hands down her face. She was steeling herself against the anxiety of it. It was blindsiding. She'd thought it was over and that she'd never have to think about that time again. That was the thing with being ship's crew: you could move on. Change ships, change friends, change everything.

But he'd followed her. Even if it was for what most would call a good reason, that he was finally getting what he deserved, all Kaya wanted now was to be left alone.

"I don't want to start anything," she said. But she also knew it had already begun. Maybe she could fight it, but really? On Kaya's best day? She did want to start things.

She leaned forward and laced her fingers on the table, cracking her knuckles. She let out a hissing breath.

"I mean, that's Nirak. That's what he does. He's why I left the Centaur. It was constant for months. I got on his bad side, said I shouldn't and he was rotating my shifts."

It was against protocol to assign shifts that compromised the specific sleep requirements of crew, whatever their species.

"I filed a complaint for that and for all the times he'd just lay in on people. But, I don't know. He kissed the right arses."

She ought to correct herself, using that language to command, but she didn't.

Kaya sniffed. She understood and appreciated Eastman's kindness and patience, but Kaya bristled against the tenderness. Trill culture embraced the feeling of being of two minds, valued the reconciliation of what could be conflicting states of mind. She didn't have to justify to herself that she was both relieved and angry, both wanting to be heard but rejecting understanding.

"It's fine," Kaya said. Then added, "thank you."

The contrast between Nirak and Eastman was cavernous. It was worth acknowledging.

"My complaint was not handled to my satisfaction," Kaya proceeded with more control.

"My team didn't back me up. I was transferred off the team and eventually managed a transfer off the ship."

Kaya didn't know what would have been in her file about the transfer, only that it would be clear it was requested. She looked at her hands.

"Whatever they're saying he did, he did it."

Eastman had earned some benefit of the doubt in Kaya's short time on the Mac, but Kaya had to believe that Eastman knew the amount of trust that needed to built for an 'open door' to used. Kaya nodded, though. It was one of those things you said over and over until it was true.

Kaya waited and watched. A smile tugged at the corner of her stoic expression, a part of her wanting to put the commander at at ease. Eastman was making every effort.

'It's not your job to be their friend,' Kaya heard the voice of her old friend in her head, crackling through a bad subspace connection. Pallagaster had been the one rooting against her entry to Starfleet. A lot of reasons to mistrust had Pallagaster. 'Don't give them anything.'

It was easier when no one had a face, when it was just names over the comm.

Kaya sat up a little straighter and took a drink from the water.

"All right."

Now that they'd begun, Kaya knew that she wasn't speaking so much to the commander rather than the Federation courts. It was likely a recording of her answers could be played in an open proceeding, that it would be easy enough for the eyes on the other side of the holorecorder to be Nirak's.

Kaya settled into that firey part of her stomach and lifted her chin.

"I was assigned to Ensign Nirak's team when I came aboard the Centaur in, uh, 2379. I was a part of that team for eight months."

She paused and then fully stopped. She'd learned in her very short career the important to answer only what was asked.