After a few puff questions Lizzy hit him with another probing shot.

“…Is there any response going on that Federation citizens my like to hear about? I’m on a freighter about 7 light years from the Rhontaka system. The captain says there’s a Sheliac fleet massed on their side of the border nearby, and 6 Starfleet vessels on his sensors.” She was pushing it and she knew it, but she was hoping the young CO would give her and her viewers a little something about what was going on there. Hell, the freighter had all that shit right on sensors, no sense in hiding it now.

Alarm bells started going off in K’lev’s head; for someone who said she’d avoid asking about classified information, the true answer to that question was oddly classified, at least according to the dispatches he’d seen.  “Well,” he said in a measured tone, weighing each word carefully, “when something like this happens in a border area, everyone wants to be sure of what exactly happened.  That’s what we’re hoping to answer.”

“I see. So, just a few quick ones for my bio, where are you from Varyn. Where did you grow up?” Lizzy changed tack to keep him on the line, as she sensed the cliche deflection.

“I’m from Tyral IV originally; it’s a nice, smaller colony world.  Great food scene, I’ll tell you that!” He chuckled warmly, privately glad to be to a safer question.   “I’ve been meaning to go home and visit, actually; it’s been a while since I’ve been home.”

“How long?” Lizzy watched her metrics and number of viewers start to exponentially increase as many of her followers were calling their friends and telling them to tune in to the ‘cute captain’, as the comment thread would later dub K’lev.

“A couple of years now, actually; I’d meant to try and go visit last year, but,” his eyebrows rose briefly as a wry expression crossed his face, “well, I think we both remember how last year went.  And this year’s been pretty busy, too,” he finished, in a breathtaking display of understatement.

“Yeah, first the Klingons then the Borg, then the changleings and the Borg, the Vaadwaur…yeah am I forgetting one? But anyway, I know you’re super busy, I’m so thankful you took the time to chat with me today. I’ll ask you what I ask all my guests, to close out an interview with Starfleet officers. Whats one thing, we as citizens should we be talking right that that we aren’t as a society?” Lizzy just topped 250k viewers on the holocast stream, her most yet since leaving FNN over a year prior. Her Mcnizzits liked the fresh faced Orion Lt Cmdr, to be sure.

K’lev settled back in his chair.  “That’s a good question.  Hmmm…” he thought for a moment before leaning forward again.  “If I had to pick one thing, I would say we need to talk about how we want to move into the 25th century as we try to heal from everything that happened these last couple of years, as individuals and a society.  For my part, I’d like to see us reaffirm our commitments to each other, and to the larger galactic community as well, rather than retreating into isolation.”

The Mcnizzits in the comment section of the stream lost their minds. A plethora of all different kinds of multicultural emoji’s blazed across the screen. And the number of viewers kept growing. Nearly 300k now and counting. At this rate, the mild mannered CO might go vital within the hour once she posted it as a holo after the stream.

“Alright Captain. I just seen someone correct me in the comments down below here, I should refer to you as Captain, and not by your rank, my apologies all. But I’m sure you’re busy out there on the frontlines. So thank you for joining me today on this segment of Lizzy Live Captain K’lev. I’ll be back after a word from our sponsors at IDIC Supplements, you’re go to shop for all your Vulcan herbal supplements. K, byeeeee.” The come channel closed abruptly as K’lev realized he had just given a live interview on air.

K’lev sat back heavily, taking a moment to process what had just happened before sending a text message to Bong’s console, more private than the intercom or a combadge and a little less formal.  So, turns out that wasn’t just questions for later, but a live interview… it read.  How’d she know to contact us?

You might be fucked then sir. I hope you didn’t say anything sensitive. Also, I hope you made the obligatory ‘my comments do not represent that of my unit or Starfleet’ disclaimer statement. Respectfully.

Was the response he got from Bong less than 30 seconds later. K’lev gulped hard, then after a moment of staring blankly at his terminal he opened a channel to the Starbase 420 JAG, hoping to ask for forgiveness before the full weight of the Starfleet Judicial Branch came crashing down on his head.

Epilogue

Little miss Lizzy McNizzy was apprehended less then 1 day later, aboard the same freighter she had conducted the infamous and somewhat low key viral Holocast interview from. She would spent the two and half weeks in a holding cell on Starbase 420. Her agent and lawyer were eventually able to secure here release in return for a promise to not return to the Tholian border for atleast 2 years. She would also later take a plea deal in after being charged with conspiring to divulge classified information. She was eventually sentenced to time served.

After a few more months trying to make it on the independent media circuit and failing to gain any real traction since the viral video of LCdr K’levs interview was efficiently and effectively scrubbed from the holonets by Starfleet Intellgence, Lizzy returned to the Risa celebrity beat and ended up returning to FNN as their Senior Risian Correspondent.

Due to having the humility to admit his mistake right away and how quicky Ms McNizzy had been apprehended, the JAG officer at SB 420 let K’lev off easy. Since their was no sense in drawing any more attention to the border he simply and sternly advised him to brush up on regs before performing any more ‘impromptu media engagements live on the holonets.’