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“Try a little patience, Esperanza, they keep telling me it’s a virtue.”

“We’re politicians, ma’am-both patience and virtue tend to get in the way of the work.”

Nan chuckled. “The point is-it’s all because some rich woman who lived in a monarchy decided she wanted a place to walk. From that came this.”

“It’s my hope, ma’am, that we’ll do a little better than the Medicis. Or Marie Antoinette.”

“We can learn a lot from Marie Antoinette. For one thing, I’m coming around to the idea of bringing beheadings back. Did you know that during the French Revolution almost three thousand people were executed via guillotine on the very spot this building was constructed on? You think if we put Artrin on judiciary, he’ll support that?”

“Probably not, ma’am.”

“Too bad-still, it’d make the meetings go faster.”

“No doubt, ma’am. Is there anything else?”

Nan stared at her chief of staff. Though she saw a woman in her early fifties with olive skin and raven hair tied back in a severe ponytail, Nan couldn’t help but see her as an infant, born to Nan’s two best friends back on Cestus III, Victor and Nereida Piniero. Their daughter, named with the Spanish word meaning “hope,” had gone to Starfleet Academy, had had a distinguished career until the end of the Dominion War, then had resigned her commission and returned home. While there, she’d convinced Nan-who had been planetary governor for seven years and had had no ambition to be anything more than that-to run for president. That opportunity had come sooner than expected with Zife’s resignation, and Nan knew that she wouldn’t have stood a chance of even being seriously considered as a candidate, much less a winner, without Esperanza.

“Nah, that’ll do for now. Oh, I want Jorel to tell the press what we’re doing with Delta and Carrea. In fact, have him do it before we tell the ambassadors.”

“They’ll be pissed that we didn’t talk to them first.”

Nan shrugged. “They’re already pissed. Besides, I’ve found that if you eliminate the talking-to-them-first stage, the whole thing goes a lot faster.”

“Which explains some of your loopier decisions back on Cestus.”

Grinning, Nan said, “Yeah.”

“Thank you, Madam President.”

Esperanza left, and Nan hit the intercom that put her in touch with Sivak. The elderly Vulcan-he was over two hundred-had organized Nan’s affairs for the past three years on Cestus, and she often wondered how she’d managed to survive without him prior to that. Not as often, she thought with amusement, as Sivak himself wonders it.

“Sivak, what’s next?”

“As I informed you before your senior staff meeting, the next item on the agenda is your security briefing. Admiral Abrik, Captain Hostetler Richman, and Secretary Shostakova are waiting. Madam President, I once again would like to make my offer of several Vulcan techniques that enhance the memory- “

Nan let out a long sigh. “Shut up and send them in, in that order.”

“Very well, Madam President.”

Sometimes Nan also wondered how she managed not to kill Sivak.

The door opened to reveal an elderly Trill man in severe civilian clothing, an elegant young human woman wearing a Starfleet uniform-four gold pips and a gold collar indicating a captain in security-and a short, stout human woman from the high-gravity colony of Pangea dressed in the bulky one-piece outfit favored on that world. They were, respectively, Jas Abrik, a retired admiral who served as her security advisor; Captain Holly Hostetler Richman, the liaison to Starfleet Intelligence; and Raisa Shostakova, the secretary of defense.

Raisa and Holly approached the sofa, while Jas made a beeline for the chair next to the one modified for Z4’s use. Since this was a smaller gathering, Nan moved out from behind her desk, intending to sit in the chair opposite Jas.

As they came in, she said, “I’m an old woman with a weak heart, folks, so please don’t tell me that another major power in the quadrant has fallen.”

Holly smirked. “Not since the last one, ma’am.”

“That’s a relief.”

The two women sat on