Jutting out from the crest of Gateway Station, nestled among sensor and communications spires, the view from the modular towers at the apex of the starbase was nothing short of spectacular. A slanted window reaching upward and outward let the station tumble down before the viewer, the bustling hub at the heart of the Midgard Sector a shining beacon of light and life. Further below, vast enough to make demands of the view but not so mighty it blocked out the oblivion of deep space above and beyond, the greens and sapphires of the planet Alfheim rolled gently.

Captain Valance had not been up here before. In the months since the USS Endeavour had been posted to the Midgard Sector, she had reported to the station commander, whose offices oversaw the operations centre in the heart of Gateway. But in the years since Starfleet’s downturn had been rescinded, the Federation turning its eye again to the wider galaxy, Midgard had shifted from a neglected frontier to a borderland worthy of investment and attention. A mere station commander had been enough – until now. Now, more infrastructure was needed, and offices that had lain dormant and unused since the starbase had been positioned deep behind the Klingon-Federation border as a hub along major spacelanes were being reopened. Which meant Valance was not stood at the door to a station commander’s office. She was sat in the comfortable anteroom, waiting on an admiral.

It was considerably more comfortable and well-appointed. The plush carpet underfoot was fresh, and the browns and bronzes of the bulkheads kept the metals warm. Potted plants in the corners gave a pop of colour and life. The staffer had even offered her a raktajino as she waited. Valance quietly resented liking raktajino so much; it was difficult to know if she was being offered it because someone had done their homework on her tastes, or if she, a half-Klingon officer, was being profiled. She’d turned it down, regardless. Walking into an office with a half-finished drink in hand did not project the sort of first impression she cultivated.

‘Captain?’ The staffer looked up from her desk console, steely gaze impassive. ‘The admiral will see you know.’

The far doors opened at her approach, beckoning her inside the new beating heart of the Midgard Sector. The carpet underfoot was, if anything, more plush.

Vice Admiral Owen Morgan, Commander, Midgard Sector, rose from behind the large, mahogany desk, the ornate crafting and carving along the edges and legs both detailed and imperfect enough to suggest it had been shaped by mortal hands, not technology. ‘Captain Valance, it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you.’

He was in many ways an unremarkable man, average in height and build, his wavy and gently tousled brown hair slashed with silver. Expressive blue eyes sat above a rather pointed nose, high cheekbones, and well-groomed salt-and-pepper beard. But he approached with a smile Valance couldn’t help but find disarming, and a handshake that was firm enough to establish a presence, brisk enough to establish a connection, and light enough that it suggested he wasn’t trying to linger over the whole thing.

‘Admiral, sir. Thank you for receiving me.’

‘Receiving you? I asked for you, didn’t I?’ He glanced her over. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

‘I -’

‘Storrins!’ Morgan called just before the doors slid shut; in a flash, his aide was there. Valance had hardly seen her walk. ‘Storrins, that raktajino – you take it black, no sugar, yes, Captain? – for Captain Valance. Post-haste.’

Before she knew it, Valance was sat across from Morgan at his desk, a raktajino in hand. Storrins had not merely replicated a drink, but brought in a steaming porcelain cup and saucer with delicate gold trim.

Vice Admiral Morgan leaned back in the overstuffed, burgundy leather armchair behind his desk, bracketed by its brass nailhead trim. ‘Welcome back to Gateway Station, Captain. It’s been quite a month for you.’ He spoke in a soft voice, though she suspected he would rarely struggle to be heard.

‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry we couldn’t return in time to join the squadron heading rimward. Meetings with the Elkari were at a delicate point.’

‘I quite understand. As did Commodore Rourke. Though between you and me, I think he was rather disappointed you couldn’t head out with him.’ Morgan sipped from his own teacup.

‘I’d imagine so, sir; Endeavour’s a useful ship in any formation.’

‘Endeavour’s wasted in any formation,’ the admiral mused. ‘You’ve a multi-mission vessel that can handle almost anything the galaxy can throw at it on its own; that’s such a coup for you as almost your first command, such a fresh captain, not even forty yet.’

‘I…’ Valance hesitated, unsure if he was calling her inexperienced, unsure if he was criticising her for her desire to mobilise with the squadron. In the end, she settled for, ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I know Captain MacCallister thought very highly of you; we served together as junior officers, did you know?’

Leonidas MacCallister, former captain of Endeavour’s predecessor, had never so much as mentioned serving alongside a member of the admiralty. He had routinely – gently, as was his way – passed comment on knowing admirals who were more interested in keeping life quiet for the Core Worlds than pushing to make life easier for those in the galaxy’s more shadowy corners.

Morgan was carrying on, seeming unfazed by her diplomatic silence. ‘He spoke very highly of you, last we talked. And it’s no wonder Commodore Rourke counts on you so. But nevermind. Sirius has the Redemption and the Ranger with her. More than enough to shore up the Republic in whatever they’ll be coming across.’

‘Perhaps.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Endeavour could catch up…’

‘Oh. No. I have a mission for you.’ Morgan reached out to press a button on his desk, and a holographic image sprang up between them, emerging from a projector built in to the edge of the mahogany desk. A picture of a sun, an asteroid belt, and a space station facility hovered in the air.

Valance frowned. ‘Scarix?’

‘Facility Director Selwyn Dyke sent a message to Gateway this morning, an urgent one requesting help. Their sensors have detected the buildup of a solar flare in the star, HD 168746-Gamma.’ Morgan had to read the display to confirm the star name, brow furrowed as he observed. ‘They need our help weathering it.’

‘What kind of help?’

‘We expect intense radiation the station will need shielding against, a coronal mass ejection sending charged particles into the asteroid belt that will, again, need shielding against, possible geomagnetic storms. The usual challenges.’

‘Surely a facility of the size and capacity of Scarix is built with sufficient shielding to protect it.’

‘Not against a flare of the magnitude they expect. They won’t get through it without aid.’ Morgan’s voice was gently chiding.

Valance peered at the display and frowned. ‘Between the workforce, support staff, and civilians, Scarix has got, what, fifteen thousand people on the various facilities? With Endeavour and the Swiftsure, we could evacuate.’

‘An evacuation would protect the people, not the facilities themselves.’

‘Those facilities are dotted across the entire belt, across most of the system -’

‘And they don’t want to lose what they’ve built to a cosmic event.’

Valance looked from the holo-display to Admiral Morgan’s even, gentle expression. ‘Sir, the Scarix Facility – HD 168746-Gamma – isn’t in Federation space.’

‘No,’ Morgan allowed, ‘but Dyke Industries are a Federation company. And one of the biggest producers of boromite in the quadrant. With Scarix one of their biggest sources.’

Valance bit down on the myriad of rebuttals she could offer. At length, she said, ‘I’m not sure this needs both ships.’

‘You’re right, Captain. I didn’t mention the Swiftsure. She’s continuing border defence infrastructure development within Federation territory. You’ll be taking Endeavour out. The flare’s expected in about ten days.’

There was a pause as Valance ran her thumb along her jawline, trying to not fidget to betray her frustration. ‘Sir, we still have a lot of work we can do with the Elkari on Rencaris -’

‘They won’t join the Republic any time soon. The Republic don’t want them to, Captain; that’s another border they’d have to expand to accommodate. They would have done so for access to Underspace, but that’s gone, now. There’s no carrot. It’s good for you to build up relations with the Elkari; heaven knows friends that far out might be useful. But you’ve not secured so much as a resupply agreement.’

‘I could, with more time. And our study of the Mesea Storm was making progress. I came back for the deployment to the Republic -’

‘Commodore Rourke will do without you, Captain, and neither diplomatic overtures to the Elkari nor study of the Mesea Storm are time-sensitive. Captain Dashell and the Liberty are continuing their studies of Koperion. The Swiftsure is needed for the border defences, Independence is providing escort in case our friends in the Synnef Nebula decide to interfere. I can spare the Tempest for patrol support in case the likes of the Syndicate decide to take an interest in Scarix in its hour of need, but, simply put, Captain, Federation citizens need you.’

You mean, the economic interests that Scarix represents need us. Valance knew better than to raise that point with a brand-new sector commander, however. She straightened. ‘Then of course we’ll help, Admiral.’

Morgan softened. ‘I know this isn’t the sort of work you’re used to. We all have to humble ourselves from time to time, though, Captain. If you need more support, however, I’m happy to spare the SCE Team.’

Valance was careful to keep her expression measured. ‘I’m sure Commander Thawn is up to the task, but this is a massive engineering project. Thank you, sir.’

As if reading her mind anyway, he pressed on to say, ‘And I think it would be good if you invited Ms Rivera. No doubt something like this would be of interest to her.’

The PR from a journalist of a Starfleet ship on an errand of mercy for a frontier industrial facility could definitely be helpful. It didn’t make Valance resent the suggestion any less. She didn’t show that, either, merely nodding and saying, ‘Yes, sir.’

When she emerged from the admiral’s office soon after, she was left with the contrasting sense of having been lectured and humbled by a slightly passive aggressive but deeply amiable family dog. The fine china teacup was left on Storrins’s desk as she walked, somewhat dumbstruck, for the corridor. Once out of the aide’s earshot, she hit her combadge.

‘Valance to Kharth. Change of plans on resupply before heading rimward; I’m sending you a mission profile and supply list now. Get Caede and Thawn on it on the double.’

Any reply from her XO was overlooked as the turbolift doors opened and into the corridor stepped the burly figure of the station commander. Valance stopped mid-step; she had not dealt with Fleet Captain Lionel Jericho as much as many in the squadron, or even many aboard Endeavour. But it was not much of an exaggeration to suggest that he’d ruined her life.

So long as she took no credit for that herself.

She’d assumed him surly and officious, and was surprised when he glanced past her to the doors to the admiral’s offices, and gave her a wry smile. ‘Your turn to be tipped upside-down by him, huh?’

‘I… don’t know what you mean, sir.’

‘Relax, Valance.’ Jericho sauntered over. ‘I know you’ve only been back a minute. Things changed while you were gone. But you’ll learn fast enough to push back against Morgan. He might be all kindness and charm, but the man hates nothing more than the idea of upsetting someone. It’s just nobody tends to speak their mind to an admiral.’

Valance’s eyebrows went up. ‘And you do, sir?’

‘I’m a little bit too disgraced to go and do anything like that,’ Jericho mused. ‘But so long as I’m helping out the good Federation citizens here, he pays me no mind. You’re the problem.’

‘Problem?’

‘Yeah. Taking a big, impressive ship anywhere but Federation space.’ He tutted, then sighed and shook his head. ‘I know. Officers like me and you were made for more action than that. You got Scarix?’

Jericho was openly criticising the sector commander, talking to her in a comradely fashion that befit their rank but not their shared experiences. She let implication do more talking than her words when she said, ‘I was surprised we didn’t send the Swiftsure.’

‘Nah. She’s got to put up walls against the shadows so people at home feel safe – not because the walls will do anything, but they make people feel better. You get to venture into the night.’ He looked past her to the door beyond. ‘I shouldn’t keep him waiting. Good hunting out there, Valance. And don’t get too dismissive of Scarix, neither.’

‘I know, sir; it’s important work to -’

‘No, no. You don’t need lecturing on that. I mean, you’re still stepping back into the shadow.’

‘We’ve hardly had any reports of activity from the Three Lost Crows, or the Syndicate, or the Rebirth,’ she pointed out.

‘For sure, Midgard politics are sending you out there, not threats from beyond. And that’s the problem,’ Jericho said, before going to walk past her, towards the office of Vice Admiral Morgan, Commander, Midgard Sector. ‘Don’t forget that the worst things in the dark are usually things we’ve brought with us.

Bean Me Up was the café on Gateway’s Arcade most favoured by Starfleet officers first thing in the morning, and was wholly too brightly lit, colourful, and cheerful for Valance to enjoy it at 0700 hours. She still preferred to go there with Rivera for the morning’s first cup of coffee than to linger in Rivera’s quarters on the station for breakfast. That felt like its own kind of statement.

‘Did you tell Morgan that I’m not his stenographer?’ Rivera said as they slid onto stools at one of the café’s tall tables. ‘That he’s not my boss, and he doesn’t get to assign me stories?’

‘I neglected to speak that way to the commander of Midgard Sector operations.’ Valance blew on her raktajino before she had a sip. Despite herself, her eyes darted to the café doors every time there was movement, as if someone would catch them in the act of being seen together. But they’d been seen together for weeks so far.

‘I’m here as the correspondent on this border. I’m here to report the news. Not write a puff-piece for Starfleet’s latest PR stunt to prove they’re not prioritising Romulan refugees over Federation citizens.’

‘It’s a solar flare threatening one of the biggest facilities in the sector,’ Valance reminded her. ‘Thousands of lives and billions of tonnes of equipment are at stake. Not to mention an operation harvesting more boromite than three sectors put together.’

‘You think it’s a stunt to send Endeavour, though.’ Rivera’s gaze went beady as she watched her, and Valance tensed. They were still navigating their boundaries, figuring out the lines between working together as journalist and officer, and… whatever everything else was. The nebulous nature of ‘everything else’ didn’t make the boundaries between professional and informal more firm, both of them routinely running to work to keep the personal at bay whenever it suited. ‘Send Constantinople, send Asger –’

‘That’s two ships who can cover more ground. Endeavour can do the job alone.’ They were due to depart at 0900 hours, after taking the night to load up on the vast supplies that would be necessary to pull off a relief operation of this scale. That was another advantage her ship had over the two older vessels: they could use this time to prepare, and then hit a far higher top speed to reach Scarix within a matter of hours, not days. Valance fiddled with the sachets of sugar, even though she didn’t want sweetener in her coffee. ‘You’re right. Morgan can’t assign you. You don’t have to come.’

‘And miss a relief effort at the sector’s biggest humanitarian crisis?’ Rivera said, stricken. ‘No, I’m mad on principle.’

‘Some might say the Teros refugee sanctuary is the sector’s biggest humanitarian crisis.’

‘Some might call that old news that’s being fixed. And don’t come at me with that.’ Rivera managed to tilt her nose in the air in a superior fashion and sup her cappuccino all at once. ‘I’ve been writing about conditions of under-funded frontiers for the last fifteen years, while Starfleet was busy shoving their fingers in their ears pretending those borderlands didn’t exist.’

‘Oh yeah? And what did that change?’ Valance swallowed a mouthful of coffee as she heard her own rebuttal, sobering. ‘Sorry. That was too far. You’re right – I don’t want this assignment. Off the record.’

She watched as Rivera’s expression shifted obviously through insult at Valance’s jibe, to wry amusement at the immediate dismount. ‘I think by now you can safely assume that “off the record” is the default.’

Can I? Speaking that question, however, opened up other doors. Like discussions about the nature of their increasingly regular hook-ups. And morning coffees, and dinners. If Rivera had any other job, Valance suspected they would both be calling this ‘dating.’ As it stood, it was convenient for them both to leave it unlabelled for as long as possible.

Valance set her coffee cup down with a sigh. ‘Endeavour was designed and built for deep-space exploration, but even when we’ve left Federation space, more often than not we’ve been dealing with one political crisis or another.’

‘Isn’t that just the nature of any modern ship in Starfleet?’ Rivera pointed out. ‘Either you’ve been jealously guarding Federation territory, or over-correcting for years of neglecting frontiers.’

‘And I want to do good. I want to help people. I didn’t join Starfleet to immediately leave the Federation, I joined Starfleet to make the Federation better. And that would be fine if I were in command of the Redemption, or the Swiftsure, or even the Tempest. But people see Endeavour, and they expect…’

‘A bit of boldly going?’ Rivera’s lips twitched. ‘I don’t know if anyone outside of Starfleet has such a romantic view. Or, I guess, the romantic view is of that ship showing up and making things better. Not that ship disappearing out of sight as quickly as possible. It’s not easy, though, being a symbol.’

Valance frowned. It was what she’d been saying, she realised, but Rivera put it into simple terms that made it more daunting, rather than more manageable. ‘My ship’s a symbol,’ she said at length. ‘I’m just here.’

‘Absolutely no such thing, but don’t worry, I’ll be ethical on this assignment,’ said Rivera, tone going lighter. ‘I promise I won’t make you the story. There are four hundred and ninety-nine other people on board to talk about.’

For a moment, the image of Kharth in front of a camera transmitting to the whole Federation flashed in front of Valance’s eyes. Years of practice at emotional repression kicked in fast, but that meant she couldn’t avoid the other pressing thought. She put the sweetener packet back in the dispensary on the table, and looked up to meet Rivera’s eyes. ‘What does your editor say?’

Rivera’s eyebrows raised a millimetre. ‘Ken thinks this story’s great.’

‘You know what I’m asking.’

‘My story on you is over, Handsome.’ She cupped her hands around her cappuccino, eyes twinkling as she sipped. ‘Until I have to publish a substantive word about you, I don’t see any reason to say anything else to Ken. Why, what did Morgan say? Or Rourke?’

Valance coughed as raktajino tried to go down the wrong way. ‘Point made,’ she choked, thumping her chest. Rivera had won that round of playing chicken with defining their Situation.

Then another thought occurred, and no talents at repression could banish this clear and present danger. Valance set her mug down and cleared her throat. ‘There’s one more thing,’ she croaked. ‘We’re bringing the SCE with us.’

‘That sounds like a good…’ The moment the penny dropped was nearly palpable. Rivera’s lips set for a moment. Then she gave an airy smile. ‘I look forward to meeting Commander Cortez properly. Who knows? Maybe she’s the story.’ Before Valance could protest, she’d finished her cappuccino and set it down. ‘Hey, we should get going. You’re going to want to inspect things before departure.’

Valance watched her for a moment, reluctantly draining her coffee and getting to her feet. Rivera was right; she did need to make sure everything was shipshape before they set off.

Increasingly, however, she feared she’d have to worry about the state of her personal life on this mission, not just her ship.

Despite herself, Isa Cortez’s heart sank a little as she passed through the airlock to board Endeavour and found Saeihr Kharth waiting for her. ‘Yeah,’ she said, louder than she meant, ‘that’s probably the more diplomatic welcome wagon.’

Kharth winced, but, mindful that they weren’t alone, kept her decorum as Cortez and her team of engineers filtered through the docking collar and into the cargo bay. ‘Commander Cortez, I’m here to welcome your team aboard… again.’ The efforts at decorum only went so far, and she shrugged. ‘I figure you all know the drill.’

‘It’s like a second home for us,’ said Chief Lann, another veteran of Endeavour who’d left with Cortez, his voice gruff but wry. ‘Like we never left.’

Kharth gave a vague gesture to the young officer to her left. ‘This is Ensign Hargreaves; she’s got all the details for your rooms and the planned deployment. We’re setting off in thirty minutes; our ETA at Scarix is four hours.’

Cortez gave a low whistle. ‘Oh, we’re hitting emergency speeds. Got it.’ She turned to the young Hargreaves, eyebrows raising. ‘Hey, you’re new.’

Hargreaves had to be fresh out of the Academy, though there was a cynicism to her polite enthusiasm. Odds were good that welcoming engineers aboard was not the kind of posting she’d dreamt of in her dormroom. ‘Commander Cortez, welcome aboard. I’m happy to situate yourself and your team -’

‘Worry about the team, kid. I’ve forgotten more about how this ship works than you’ll ever know.’ Cortez kept a smile to banish any sting from her words and stepped to one side with Kharth as Hargreaves addressed the rest of the SCE Unit. She could situate them while everyone else got to work. ‘So this one looks bad but manageable, right?’

Kharth glanced about the cargo bay, making sure nobody was listening in before she dropped her voice. ‘Valance would clearly prefer we were doing something a bit more exciting than helping out opportunistic miners. It’s work, and if we screw it up, people die. But it shouldn’t be beyond us. I’m a bit surprised they sent you.’

‘Tell me Thawn isn’t gonna be insecure about me riding shotgun.’

‘Isa, friends don’t lie to each other like that.’

Cortez gave a wry snort and glanced over her shoulder at Hargreaves, leading the SCE team out. Lann caught her eye and gave a cheery wink. ‘The kid’s new.’

‘Valance’s new yeoman. Bright young prospect, here to learn direct from the captain.’

‘The new Arys, huh.’

‘Less of a stick up her ass, which also means she speaks out of turn more,’ Kharth grumbled. She looked back at her. ‘You been okay?’

‘Sure. Admiral Fluffy has pulled us back to beef up logistics for the colonies, instead of making ourselves useful over the border.’ Cortez hesitated. ‘Karana’s right to be put out by this. You guys were out by Rencaris a while. She and Rourke are gonna have their work cut out for them convincing Morgan that they need to do anything but coddle Federation citizens.’

‘That sounds like politics,’ said Kharth dismissively, leading them out of the cargo bay. Around them, operations officers put the final touches on stowing and securing the equipment and material Endeavour had brought aboard from Gateway for their mission, equipment that would help them prepare Scarix to weather the upcoming solar flare. ‘I specifically told Valance I don’t do politics.’

‘Whatever you say, Commander, first officer of the squadron’s most valuable single asset.’

‘The Sirius –’

‘Is a cruise-liner. On average, Endeavour is the best ship to send for any problem that’s has even a handful of variables.’

‘Yeah, well. Hopefully, this is just engineering problems for you and Thawn to fight over.’

‘And handling scared people, and you bet your ass Scarix management will want to stop mining and ore processing operations as little as possible, as late as possible. Which is the kind of direct responsibility that, I don’t know, a ship’s XO might have to deal with while the captain worries about the big picture?’

‘That’s me,’ said Kharth wryly. ‘The people-person.’ They stopped as they reached the turbolift and, in the pause, Kharth shifted her weight with obvious discomfort. ‘Hey, you should know – this probably wasn’t in your orders…’

They boarded the turbolift, heading for Kharth’s office. Cortez narrowed her eyes at her friend’s awkwardness. ‘Oh, God, what’s happened with you and Airex?’

‘What? Nothing – what?’

‘Oh, I just – you act weird, it usually means that Airex showed one single feeling or…’

‘There’s nothing going on with me and Airex. Right now. Any more.’ Kharth made a face, but this derailing broke her struggle, at least, and she blurted, ‘Rivera’s coming with. Doing coverage of the Scarix mission. Transparent PR bid from command so the core worlds can be told how much we kiss babies, if they’re Federation babies.’

The twist in Cortez’s gut was sudden, as if the turbolift had dropped them ten decks in an instant. She grimaced at the sealed doors. ‘Right. Huh. Is there… you and Karana don’t exactly gossip…’

‘We don’t,’ Kharth allowed. Then she paused. ‘Kally does. I caught her telling Hargreaves she heard Rivera in the background of a call to Valance, first thing in the morning, when we got back here.’

‘Great.’ Cortez paused. ‘I don’t know why I said “great.” I mean “fine.”’

‘Is it fine? That doesn’t sound fine -’

‘I ended it, Sae. I don’t get to be pissy that she’s moving on. If this is moving on. I mean – is this even legal?’

Kharth blinked. ‘I think you mean ethical.’

‘Whatever – shouldn’t we report this?’

‘Do you actually think Karana Valance is leaking stories to her journalist hook-up?’ Kharth clearly couldn’t believe she was the one defending Valance today. ‘And do you care if Olivia Rivera’s being a shit journalist because she’s compromised? Also, who are we reporting this to?’

‘When I said “we,” I was really thinking “you”…’ Cortez’s shoulders sank. ‘You’re right. I’m being ridiculous. And this is fine, really. If this is a waste of Endeavour’s resources, a waste of the SCE Unit’s time, let’s get some good PR on this so we can use it when we really need to do some good. Rivera being here can help with that.’

The turbolift slowed, and the doors opened. Kharth didn’t move for a beat, watching her. ‘You sure you’re okay about this?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ It’s only as if the ex with the emotional accessibility of a goldfish has apparently moved on five seconds after I killed our relationship for good. Cortez stepped into the corridor. ‘I appreciate the warning. But speaking of exes and Airex and all that – how’s Jack?’

Kharth rolled her eyes so hard she might have fallen over, transparently seeing through the change in topic, but unable to counter Cortez’s heavy volley of a diversion. ‘Logan’s fine.’

‘You call him “Logan”? Tres romantique. We should get drinks. Together, the three of us. Maybe some others.’

For a moment, Kharth looked like she’d argue. When she said, ‘Alright. When we get a free night,’ before heading down the corridor towards her office, it was enough to take the wind out of Cortez’s sails, even though she’d technically won.

It was difficult to feel victorious when she could see the hint of appeasement. Of pity. Here she was, aboard her old ship, with her ex and her ex’s new whatever, and her friend Kharth didn’t want her to spend an evening alone stewing over it.

Despite herself, Cortez ground her teeth together as they reached the door to Kharth’s office. ‘Right. Good. Let’s look at the project plans, I guess? Make sure we don’t put a foot wrong with this thing in front of the damned press.’

The broad overview of a briefing to the whole senior staff hadn’t taken long – solar flare due at Scarix. Shield the facility. Manage the personnel. Thawn had stayed silent when Valance explained matters, letting her focus on the wider picture, the broad strokes. The time for detail came later, when she, Cortez, and Caede were all sat around the main holoprojector in StratOps, the display shifting and expanding at the command of Airex. Elsewhere, Kharth would be marshalling Logan, Winters, and Kally for discussions on how to oversee Scarix’s population. That took thoughtfulness, nuance – emotions.

Here, they could sink into science, and not worry about anything so inconvenient and unpredictable as people.

‘Scarix reported unusual and heightened solar activity in HD 168746-Gamma approximately two weeks ago,’ Airex was saying, the holo-display zoomed in on the sun itself, data scrolling along beside it. ‘Increases in sunspot activity and coronal mass ejections. It took them three days before they reported this back to Gateway.’

Cortez made a low grumble. ‘Three days? Bunch of cowboys.’

‘Maybe,’ said Caede in a flat voice, ‘they didn’t want to constantly go running to the Federation.’

‘Except they had to, in the end, and CMEs are often precursors to solar flares.’ Cortez shook her head. ‘Nah. This is some corner-cutting bull. Either the equipment was inadequate, the staff were inadequate, or management hoped this was a problem that’d go away.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Airex, sounding like it wasn’t fine but able to cut off the complaints. ‘Gateway’s science department took the data, and our predictive models have projected the occurrence of the flare within plenty of time for us to act. The models indicate it’ll reach peak intensity in about ten days, with the trajectory likely to be in proximity to the central Scarix facilities.’

Thawn looked up from the PADD where she’d been frantically scribbling notes with a stylus. Some were on what Airex was saying. Most of this was looking ahead. ‘How close?’

‘The main mining facilities aren’t going to be engulfed,’ Airex assured her. ‘Our main concerns are the radiation output; massive amounts of x-rays and ultraviolet radiation impacting the facility effectively instantaneously after the flare occurs.’

Cortez sucked her teeth. ‘What about charged particles? Especially in the asteroid field?’

‘We could see dislodged debris from the field,’ Airex agreed, ‘at worst, micro-meteor storms from the asteroids, geomagnetic storms from the particle emissions. I can’t make a prediction on that with the information I have. Studying HD 168746-Gamma when we get there to better model what to expect will be my top priority.’

‘Agreed on all but one point.’ Cortez waggled a PADD. ‘We can’t keep calling the thing “HD 168746-Gamma.”’

Caede rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for – just call it “the sun.” Or “the Scarix sun.”’

‘And give Dyke Logistics the satisfaction that they’ve named a system just because they moved in?’ Cortez looked scandalised. ‘I know Command wants us to bend over backwards for this bunch of prospectors who ran over the border before Starfleet could clear the way, but they don’t get to dictate star charts on the principle of “finders keepers.”’

Thawn had found herself chewing the bottom of her stylus. ‘One could argue that’s the entire principle of galactic exploration.’

‘I think we can call it “the sun,”’ said Airex, raising his voice a few decibels like a schoolteacher who wanted to make it very clear he wasn’t yelling, but could. ‘Considering it’s the only bloody sun we’ll be dealing with. Regardless. Ten days until this flare occurs, unleashing massive radiation and possible danger from debris and geomagnetic disruption.’

‘I’m looking at what we’ve got from the Scarix Facility’s systems,’ said Thawn, eager to also get back to work. ‘Is there a reason their shielding isn’t going to be enough?’

‘Remember the “cowboys” bit?’ said Cortez.

‘I don’t know,’ said Airex. ‘Maybe a misjudgement of the intensity of local solar activity – which, yes, as Commander Cortez points out, could be a result of poor survey work ahead of construction.’

‘Hey.’ Cortez sounded indignant. ‘You don’t have to sound so long-suffering. I do outrank you, now.’

Airex looked briefly scandalised by this point. Then his eyes narrowed as he clearly remembered what working with Cortez was right. ‘My apologies, sir,’ he said in a clipped tone bearing only a light seasoning of teasing sarcasm. ‘I surrender the floor on all briefing and management operations to you, Commander.’

She gave a wicked grin. ‘Nah, I’m delegating it. I’m just the backup singer to this act, anyway. Speaking of which…’ She turned in her chair towards Thawn. ‘You’re up. Commander.’

Thawn tried to not flush as she stood up. The idea of briefing Airex and especially Cortez on the tasks ahead was more than daunting; it was embarrassing. PADD held tightly, she advanced on the main display as Airex surrendered the controls for the projector.

‘There’s a lot we don’t know,’ she began awkwardly. ‘Scarix say they’ve shared the facility’s schematics, but these look incomplete to me. There’s also often inconsistencies between what’s in the designs and what’s on the ground at a place like this. So when we arrive, step one is a full assessment of the facility and its equipment. I’ll be overseeing that with my engineers.

‘Meanwhile,’ she continued, still faltering, ‘we’ll need to construct portable shield generators and power sources. It looks likely that some parts of the facility will need the generators, and others might have the equipment but not the power infrastructure. Can I ask you to take point on that, Commander Cortez, with Centurion Caede’s help?’

Caede grunted. ‘I’ll be everywhere with helping people who’ve been self-sufficient for five years but you bet are about to be in so much distress they need all our blankets,’ he grumbled. ‘But yeah, material and equipment for the SCE.’

‘I know where to find things,’ said Cortez, waving an airy hand. ‘Don’t you worry about me. Sounds good, Thawn, but one suggestion.’

Thawn braced. Cortez had seniority on her in rank, experience, and expertise. On no level did she expect her role to remain supporting for very long, and certainly not in practice. ‘Of course, Commander.’

‘Take Chief Lann with you. I’ve the engineering department roster; you’re still missing a few specialists since I stole him, and, ah, Frontier Day. There’s nobody better at structural engineering.’

She’d tried to replenish her department’s ranks. Seasoned specialists were hard to come by in a post-Frontier Day Starfleet; any engineer worth anything was being shoved into a management position across the fleet. Still, Thawn swallowed the sting of guilt at this implied mistake. ‘Thank you, Commander.’

‘If that’s all…’ Caede was already on his feet. ‘I’ve got briefing two to be at.’

Cortez watched him all but run out of the room. ‘He’s an odd duck.’

‘Good at his job,’ mused Airex, ‘but he’s not had a test like this before.’

Cortez made a dismissive sound. ‘We need to be on this but it’s not an “all hands on deck” disaster. Ten days is plenty of time to prep Scarix.’

‘Assuming our information’s correct. Speaking of which…’ Airex straightened his jacket. ‘I’m going back to the bridge. Every extra second we spend scanning HD-1… the star… prepares us better. I’ll see you when we get there.’

Thawn took her time stacking her PADDs as Airex left, so she didn’t have to look at Cortez. She’d hoped the other engineer would go, but there was no sound of the door opening again, and moments later, Cortez cleared her throat.

‘I didn’t get around to saying, after Underspace. Congratulations.’ Cortez sounded unusually awkward, and was rolling her sleeves up as Thawn raised her head, a self-conscious fidget to appear casual. ‘On making CEO.’

‘Oh.’ Thawn felt stupid as she blinked. ‘Thank you, Commander. I know it’s not a path anyone really expected…’

‘No, but it makes sense, right? You’ve got a better eye for detail and a better understanding of Endeavour’s capabilities than maybe anyone. Now you’re just using it differently.’

‘I know I don’t have your technical expertise. Lieutenant Forrester’s been incredibly useful…’

‘Forrester thinks she knows best about everything,’ said Cortez, relaxing as she waved a dismissive hand. ‘You keep her happy by giving her one thing where she gets to feel special, then she falls into place.’

For you, maybe. It was much easier to question Thawn’s credentials than Cortez’s, though. ‘Thanks for the advice.’ Thawn straightened. ‘I’m glad you’ll be here for this mission.’

Cortez’s brow furrowed. ‘You’d be fine without me.’

‘Somebody obviously doesn’t think so.’

‘Hey.’ The frown deepened. ‘I’m here for political reasons. Don’t think Vice Admiral Morgan looked at your personnel file and said, “hey, fuck that Commander Thawn, she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” He probably doesn’t know you exist.’

That wasn’t as reassuring as it had probably been meant. Thawn’s forced smile was thus rather wan. ‘I need to get back to studying these schematics.’

Cortez looked like she might say something else. Then nodded. ‘Right. Yeah. Guess I’ll get down to the cargo bays for turning it into a factory floor? ETA’s only a few hours. We better hit the ground running on this.’

‘…and she just wants me getting the new personnel squared away,’ grumbled Ensign Nia Hargreaves as she grabbed a cup of coffee from the replicator in the deck one break room. A small mess hall, it was cramped and inauspicious and without windows, but sufficed for taking breaks during a shift. It was also the place to grab a cup of coffee before a shift if you were as anxious about being on time as Ensign Kallavasu.

‘The captain’s trusting you with key responsibilities,’ Kally protested as Hargreaves pulled up the chair opposite. ‘That’s good, right? It could be worse, you could be just processing paperwork.’

‘Or stuck as a relief bridge officer, waiting for something interesting to happen somewhere else so someone more important than me could check it out and I get their post,’ Hargreaves conceded. Ensign Osman, the relief flight control officer on duty, gave her a filthy look from across the break room. Hargreaves ignored him, while Kally gave a cheery, apologetic smile.

‘See! And we’re about to go do some important work; you never know what she’ll entrust you with.’

Hargreaves made a face. ‘Important work? Kally, this is the baby-kissing of Starfleet politics.’

‘But… people are in danger.’

‘Swiftsure could have dealt with this. They’re sending Endeavour to wave the flag, just so they can show off they sent a Connie-Three to the job. This is all because Scarix is owned by Dyke Logistics, and Amadeus Dyke has dinners with the right people on Earth.’ Hargreaves leaned back with all the world-weary cynicism of a freshly-graduated ensign who’d decided they already understood how the galaxy worked.

Kally bit her lip. She’d always been a little in awe of Hargreaves, going back to their time at the Academy together; she was bold and forthright and always at the centre of things, where Kally was, at best, thoughtlessly fearless and keen to support others. And Hargreaves’s father was a decorated captain, and she’d grown up on starships, the archetypal Starfleet brat.

‘I thought,’ Kally said at length, ‘that nothing should be beneath us? Nobody’s too little for us to help?’

‘Workers for a rich Federation corporation aren’t the little guy. You’ve done cool things since getting posted here, Kally – faced off against Borg, been on the other side of the galaxy! Don’t pretend that this is worthwhile.’

‘It’s all worthwhile,’ said Kally in a small voice. ‘It’s all important.’

They were saved from a petulant falling-out by the alert siren going. Endeavour was about to drop out of warp.

Kally had her post to assume at Comms on the bridge, while Hargreaves sank into the background near the doors to the conference room, on hand in case Captain Valance needed something. Kally watched Hargreaves give the command chair to the captain’s left a quietly hopeful look as senior officers trooped in, only for the hope to be snuffed out when Lieutenant Beckett arrived to claim it with a rather louche air.

The viewscreen filled with the sight of the HD 168746-Gamma system the moment Endeavour dropped out of warp. Lieutenant Lindgren had brought them as close to the Scarix Facility as could be safely done, and the view of the blazing sun was punctuated with the black spots of the asteroids that boasted the system’s wealth. It was for this asteroid field that Dyke Logistics had lunged across the Federation border into unclaimed space as quickly as possible.

As Kally watched, her console display filled up with detected communication signals. Most were automated systems of the vast enterprise of the Scarix Facility’s equipment, stretched across the asteroid fields and many of the system’s moons, in constant communication. Others were local messages on an internal system, formal and informal discussions between staff and inhabitants of the sprawling facility. Then came the one she’d been waiting for: a hail from the Command Hub of Scarix Facility’s central station on Asteroid Eirene. At Valance’s nod, she put it through.

The ruddy face of Selwyn Dyke and his opulent office filled the screen. ‘Captain Valance! We were wondering when you were going to arrive,’ he boomed. Even with a view of only his upper half, Kally could see he wore a perfectly tailored and expensive shirt, but with a loose collar and rolled-up sleeves to evoke a workmanlike air.

Valance did not stand, remaining perfectly poised in the command chair. ‘Mister Dyke. We spent twelve hours to take on equipment, material, and personnel, and left Gateway this morning. I assure you, my ship is prepared to deal with this flare and protect your facilities.’

‘Good to hear, good to hear. My foreman is standing by to direct your engineers on where they can help –’

Kally watched as expression shifted all over the bridge. Lindgren looked appalled, Airex looked wryly amused, while Kharth scowled openly. Valance’s expression, of course, didn’t change. ‘You misunderstand me, Mister Dyke. The protection of Scarix is a Starfleet operation. My XO and Chief Engineer will beam over to Eirene shortly, along with other key officers. They’ll assess the task ahead and draw up a work plan.’

‘We provided you with all information -’

‘A solar flare of this magnitude should have been detected sooner. It makes me concerned for the efficacy of your facility’s equipment. We want everyone to be safe, Mister Dyke. But don’t worry – Starfleet’s here. Have your foreman meet my officers in ten minutes. Endeavour out.’

Kally always felt a little bad hanging up on people when Valance wanted to make a point. Dyke had seemed superior, but she’d seen the desperation around his eyes.

Commander Kharth, however, was chuckling as she stood. ‘Laying down the law from the start, Captain?’

‘I meant what I said,’ said Valance. ‘The flare should have been reported sooner. Someone dropped the ball here, and until I know what the problem is, we’ll be running the show. Don’t ride roughshod over these people – they live and work here, and many of them will know Scarix far, far better than we ever could.’

‘I know the difference between a prick of an administrator and the people on the ground,’ Kharth said with a reassuring, if slightly dismissive, wave of the hand. ‘Thawn’s gonna meet me in the transporter room. Logan, Caede, you’re with me, too.’ There was a beat, then Kharth turned to her left. ‘Kally, you’re up.’

Against all logic, Kally’s reaction – after a nervous swallow – was to give a guilty glance towards Hargreaves. ‘Me?’ she squeaked. ‘Uh, you think you’ll need a linguist, Commander?’

‘No. I think someone who likes people more than the rest of us should be there to help us play nice. No offence, Logan.’

‘I like people,’ said the ex-Borg in an airy voice as he surrendered Tactical to Lieutenant Qadir. ‘People just got problems with me.’

Somewhere in all the hubbub, Olivia Rivera had slid onto the bridge. She stepped up now, looking at Kharth. ‘Mind if I ride shotgun, Commander?’

Kharth’s expression soured. ‘So long as you stay out of my way and I don’t read headlines about how mean a Romulan was to some poor Federation citizens exercising their right to manifest destiny.’

‘Of course not. I’d write something much more pithy.’

Kharth gave Valance a resentful look before she assented. Again, Kally found herself looking to Hargreaves; she’d not meant to be overheard by the XO when she’d been unable to keep the discovery of Olivia Rivera in the captain’s quarters first thing in the morning to herself. But the rumour clearly had legs now, and Kally just hoped Captain Valance didn’t trace it to her.

Hargreaves caught her as she went to join the burgeoning away team at the turbolift. ‘Remember, Kally. This might be baby-kissing,’ she said, voice low, ‘but it’s still politics.’

Kally’s expression creased as she looked up at her friend. ‘We’re helping people.’

‘Bet you the first round of drinks that nobody else in that facility works in an office as nice as Dyke’s.’

We don’t work in an office as nice as the captain’s, Kally thought, and wondered if that was treacherous as she hurried to the lift. But that wasn’t the point. The captain was right to be concerned about Scarix’s systems not detecting the blossoming flare sooner. If they’d cut corners there, where else was suffering from lack of investment?

‘Don’t worry, Ensign,’ said Kharth as the turbolift whisked the five of them away from the bridge. ‘You won’t have to do all the people-ing on this expedition. After all, you’ve got us: two Romulans, an ex-Borg, a journo, and, you know. Thawn.’

Kally worked her jaw for a moment. ‘You’re there to save their lives and their whole operation. That’s what really matters. I know some of us here might think the job’s a little below our qualifications – you’ve done cool and impressive things, galaxy-changing things, and this is just some shielding on a mining facility. Doesn’t that make those people, most of whom won’t be Selwyn Dyke, won’t be like Selwyn Dyke, really, really lucky to have you coming to save them?’ She resisted the urge to stare at the door or fidget with her sleeve, instead looking up at Commander Kharth, gaze and expression open.

Kharth gave her the awkward look everyone did when they didn’t know how to handle positive emotions being calmly expressed in front of them. Kally gave her a small, reassuring smile, like this might help her engage better.

The response was inevitable, but not unwelcome, as Kharth gave a gentle scoff – but it was accepting, deflecting, and not dismissing. ‘Hell, Ensign. You’re just proving I was right to bring you along.’

At the back of the lift, Rivera’s laugh was lighter. ‘Is it always such a love-in before an away mission?’ she asked, soft in her wryness.

‘Only when Kally’s here,’ said Logan, grinning. ‘She likes to look on the bright side of situations.’

‘Not situations. You can’t count on situations to do or be anything, really,’ said Kally, beaming as the lift swished along. ‘I look on the bright side of people, because you can count on them.’

The ‘foreman’ at Scarix was, in truth, the General Manager. Ji Ye-Seul was a sullen, sharp-faced woman, who greeted the Starfleet away team like they were a professional inconvenience and not saviours come to meet them.

‘I don’t know why you needed a whole party,’ she grumbled the moment introductions were done in the Command Hub’s main transporter room. ‘Get some engineers to juice our shielding and we’re golden.’

‘That’s exactly what we’re going to -’

‘We’re here to help,’ Kharth said, speaking over Thawn, a lot sharper than the engineer sounded like she was about to be. ‘That means more than just slapping some generators on your hull. We have to make sure you’ve got the right resources here for your crew and inhabitants.’

‘You mean,’ said Ji, ‘you’ve got to meddle. Like Starfleet do.’

Kharth wasn’t unsympathetic to this resistance. The possibility that Scarix had been lax in acting on a cosmological phenomenon that could have killed everyone in the system did not, however, give her much patience. ‘There’s about fifteen thousand people in Scarix. We want to be sure everyone’s safe.’

Grumpy though Ji was, the woman was clearly not fool enough to reject Starfleet aid when they were otherwise facing a catastrophe alone. Nor did she have the authority to override Selwyn Dyke, even if the man himself didn’t seem like he was going to dirty his hands with the practicalities of keeping his facility intact.

Kharth had served on enough border cutters and frontier outposts to know how corporations did business outside of the Federation. Dyke Logistics might have been registered on Sol, and were formally subject to the Federation’s business practices and standards, but out here, there was nobody to keep an eye on them. Even crews of ships sent by Gateway had rarely set foot on Scarix, the facility close enough for missions to sweep out and return home with little need for resupply, but far enough that nobody came by without a reason.

The facilities on Asteroid Eirene were carved into the rock and then plated with what what felt, rattling underneath her boots, like the cheapest materials going. It smelled like it, too, the cleaning chemicals and even paint enough to sting the nostrils as Ji led them through the warren of corridors and control stations. All the way, Thawn asked questions – where did people aboard live, what were the biggest population clusters. After a few minutes of it, Ji cast an accusing look towards Kharth.

‘Your engineer seems awfully concerned about the people on Scarix.’

‘I’m not,’ blurted Thawn before Kharth could cut her off, then flushed at the implication. ‘That is, until Commander Airex finishes his scans, it’s difficult to predict what physical shielding will be needed against the flare. What’s more predictable are the radiation emissions. I need to know population levels and distribution for the most efficient rad-shielding setup.’

Ji grunted. ‘Evacuating personnel to one section of the station will make it easier, won’t it? We only have to shield that section.’

‘Absolutely -’

‘We’ll want the processing stations shielded too, then,’ said Ji with a firm nod. ‘I don’t expect we can continue mining during those conditions. But we can keep up ore processing. Give those rad-shielding so the workers don’t miss any shifts.’

Kharth cast a glance at Logan, but before she could butt in, Rivera had spoken, voice innocent in a way Kharth didn’t trust at all.

‘Are the support personnel all housed on Eirene? Administrators, custodians, all that?’

‘Everyone’s housed on Eirene,’ Ji explained. ‘And if you don’t work on a mining platform or ore processing station, you work here, too. Most people are here.’

Kharth forced her voice to sound calm and casual when she piped up. ‘Ms Ji, can you give Commander Thawn the support she needs for the assessment and inspection? If the rest of the job is managing everyone on Scarix to make sure they’re cooperative, then we can take that off your hands. Ensign Kally, if you stay with the commander and work on an information package we can release to the personnel here. Just so people know what’s happening and what’s going to be expected of them.’

Thawn looked suspicious. ‘And you, Commander?’

‘If Ms Ji points us toward the various shift leaders, we can start working up evacuation procedures with them. Keep our protocols as close to Scarix’s own.’ Kharth gave Ji a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Sounds good?’ Ji nodded impassively; Kharth wasn’t sure what she would have liked.

Rivera shared an unconvincing smile, giving the impression she was mocking the whole charade. ‘I’ll stick with Commander Thawn and Ms Ji for now, then. Get the lay of the land.’

If Kharth could open telepathic communication with Thawn, she’d have silently screamed at her to not give the journalist so much as an inch. Kally was a risk, too, far too likely to be trusting and open with someone who’d exploit any weakness she could see. But it gave her what she wanted, at least – freedom to move without anyone looking over her shoulder.

The various shift leaders were a little more welcoming than Ji; less territorial, less suspicious. Kharth didn’t assume this meant they liked Starfleet. It was more likely that they hadn’t been on the frontier long enough for Starfleet to let them down.

‘Yeah, we’ve got about twelve hundred people housed on this level,’ one of the supervisors was explaining to her an hour later as they tromped through a residential section of Eirene. ‘Total capacity is about two thousand.’

‘Two thousand.’ Kharth looked up at Logan. ‘Think that’d make this a decent place to huddle once the storm starts?’

There were several options of where they could cluster the residents of Scarix and shield and reinforce, none of them so massive or comfortable to make the decision clear-cut. But it was not a particularly complicated issue. She’d expected more engagement from Logan than a grunt and a shrug.

‘Whatever you think’s best, Commander.’

When Kharth tore her confused gaze from him, the shift supervisor was looking less welcoming. ‘You’re not going to put us on your ship itself, are you?’

‘We can shelter up to eight thousand people aboard, but it’s a squeeze,’ said Kharth, brow furrowing with consternation. ‘And it’s best if we can shield you against these problems yourselves. But yes, if there’s overflow, we can put people on Endeavour.’

The supervisor gave Logan a careful look, then his eyes snapped back to Kharth. ‘Let’s see about getting this section suitable as an evacuation point, then.’

It was, again, not complex. But the shift supervisor remained cagey even as he cooperated, and Kharth found herself doing the bulk of the discussion and decision-making. It was long hours later before they were done, released into the belly of Eirene’s main station, adrift if only for a moment amidst a crowd of workers and their families still trudging along even though an apocalypse could fall on them in days. Dyke Logistics didn’t miss a deadline just because the sun was trying to kill them all.

For a moment, Kharth thought about saving any rebuke for Logan until they were back on Endeavour. But his expression stayed closed, his eyes fixed on the decks, and in the end she grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him to a distribution corridor a few sections away from the main residential foyer they’d ended up in.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ She’d meant it to sound a lot more concerned than it came out, but in the end, the words spilt from her lips like an admonishment once they were alone.

Logan’s blank expression sank into a frown. ‘Commander?’

‘Don’t give me that. You drop protocol at the first excuse. I bring you along to help manage these people and instead I’ve got to hold up three sides of a conversation?’

‘Yeah,’ said Logan tonelessly. ‘That guy really didn’t want to talk to me, did he.’

‘I don’t…’ It was like blinking brought clarity to her vision. Showed her the things she’d overlooked for so long – stopped seeing a long time ago. Her heart sank. ‘I probably shouldn’t have brought you here.’

‘You need my expertise on the security protocols, I’m your guy.’ He’d softened, but it was like a wilting, not an opening. ‘But I don’t got the kind of face that’ll put these people at ease.’

She’d been so used to Logan, for so long, being a presence on Endeavour that could calm even the most twisted tensions. A quick word, an easy smile, and everyone was set at ease. But that was on her ship, where everyone knew him. That was back home, where the crew didn’t bat an eyelid any more at a man with a Borg implant on his face.

‘Vor,’ Kharth breathed. ‘That was thoughtless of me.’

‘I could have said. I guess I forget, sometimes.’ His brow furrowed at last. ‘Nah, I don’t forget. Hope, maybe. Hope I can walk down a new street and not get them looks.’

‘There’s going to be a lot to do monitoring smallcraft movement across the system. I expect we’d normally put Lindgren on it. You two could swap.’

The frown deepened. It was like the offer of pulling him from the painful situation gave an indignant resilience, and Logan straightened. ‘Where do you need your Chief of Security?’

‘I don’t -’

‘This is me. This ain’t gonna change. You gonna bench me whenever we meet new people? Hide me?’ She shook her head. ‘Didn’t think so. Maybe I can’t put folks here at ease with my face. I can still keep ‘em safe. Might change their minds. Might not. You’re right. I’ve been sittin’ an’ stewin’ an’ not working enough.’

Kharth hesitated. ‘Winning hearts and minds here isn’t irrelevant.’

‘But it ain’t as important as keeping ‘em safe. No doubt Elsa could be charming. She don’t know how to sheepdog fifteen thousand people like I do. Besides.’ He cast a glance back down the dingy corridor towards the lobby they’d left behind. ‘I ain’t the only one getting odd looks.’

She bit her lip. ‘You spotted them, huh.’

‘We shouldn’t be surprised. Loads of Romulans in these parts need steady work. Hell, I bet Dyke picked up a whole shipment of workers off Teros.’

‘I recognise a few of them.’ There weren’t many, but the Romulans on Scarix had clearly clustered together. Perhaps they were now somewhere safe and stable, somewhere they could work and get food and shelter. But there were plenty of tales of refugees taking bad deals because the alternative was starvation and death, and nothing aboard Scarix had given her much faith. ‘Most people from home think I’m a sell-out.’

‘An’ most people everywhere think I’m a murder machine. So how about we save their lives anyway, even if it don’t change a thing? Except they’ll be able to keep on thinkin’ ill of us, ‘stead of thinking nothing at all.’

Kharth swallowed, looking up at him. His eyes had cleared, and guilt twisted in her. He was, in part, being strong because she’d been weak. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, she thought. She should have been there for him. But it was working anyway, and he wasn’t wrong, and they were still in the middle of a job.

She just knew that later, when they were safe and sound aboard Endeavour, she wouldn’t bring it up. She’d run from this issue, ignore it until it eventually became a problem that choked one or both of them. Because to act sooner might split them apart quicker, if she fumbled it. She didn’t trust herself to not fumble it.

‘Like the old man says,’ Kharth breathed after a beat, ‘let’s go save the day.’

She still allowed herself a quick squeeze of his arm. A fleeting, light brush with intimacy, a split second’s relief that brought a searing warmth and comfort and strength she almost resented as they stepped away, back into the buzz and hubbub of Eirene. She shouldn’t get used to it.

After all. It wouldn’t last.

Chief Science Officer’s Log, Stardate 2401.11. While Commanders Kharth and Thawn take point on our operations aboard the Scarix Facility and its platforms, it falls to me to study HD 168746-Gamma in the hope we can learn more about the upcoming flare. With the assistance of Commander Cortez and her SCE Team, we’ve deployed a series of probes into solar orbit to run scans of the sun while Endeavour is needed closer to the facility. The results are proving concerning.

‘I’ll be damned,’ muttered Cortez, stepping away from the holographic display hovering in mid-air in Endeavour’s astrophysics lab. ‘That’s the remains of a siphon, alright.’

‘I’d hoped I was wrong.’ Airex stroked his chin. ‘Your sensor network picked up the wreckage in the outer layers. Its orbit’s decayed. Another few months and it’d fall to layers hot enough to finally burn it up.’

‘And it’s definitely a Dyke Logistics piece of tech.’ Cortez reached for the control panel to zoom in on a section. ‘Look, the magnetic containment coil is still operating. That’s the same frequency modulation pattern you get on other devices in the system. But this is…’

‘Closer to the sun. Siphoning coronal plasma, or it was. The star’s magnetic field lines are sorely misaligned.

‘Are you confident there’s a link between this and the flare?’

‘About as confident as I can be at this stage.’ Airex’s jaw was tight.

‘If that’s the case,’ sighed Cortez, ‘I’m surprised something like this didn’t happen sooner.’

‘What if it did?’ His hand swept through the holographic display to move through the feeds. ‘This siphon’s relatively intact. And I’ve got to accommodate for drift as the orbits have decayed. But there are gaps in the sort of deployment of a siphoning network you’d expect. These must have been fired into action some five years ago, not long after Dyke Logistics got here? And have been out of operation for three or four.’

Her eyebrows hit her hairline. ‘You think that not only have Dyke Logistics messed up the sun enough to cause a solar flare, but that this isn’t the first?’

‘I think the siphoning four years ago caused significant stellar disruption,’ said Airex, knowing he had to be careful, had to be right, with this kind of accusation. ‘I think that forced them to stop mining coronal plasma, either by causing too much damage to the infrastructure or they realised the risk. But they’ve done nothing about the long-term effects, so now… here we are.’

‘But there’s nothing in their reports from four years ago about stellar activity like this.’

‘We’re not in Federation space,’ Airex pointed out. ‘Dyke Logistics have to follow various regulations if they want to trade in the Federation – employment standards, safety standards. And yes, that should include robust enough record-keeping for something like this to be flagged. But without regular inspections or even foot-traffic through the system…’

‘Wow. They think they can just do what they want out here, huh.’

‘This also means,’ he continued, wincing, ‘that this flare is even more unpredictable. None of the models we were working from anticipated this kind of misalignment in the magnetic field.’

‘So everything we’re expecting about the flare,’ said Cortez quietly, ‘could be wrong. Nature, intensity…’

‘Timetable.’ Airex tapped his combadge. ‘Airex to Valance. I need to see you in twenty minutes, Captain.’

‘Understood, Commander. Report to my ready room then.’

Cortez made a face. ‘In twenty minutes?’

He was already tapping commands into the control panel. ‘Right now, all I have is a warning that our predictions are wrong. I need to rerun some models – even though we don’t have a full idea of the damage to the magnetic field, that’ll take more scans – to better gauge how wrong we are. That’ll take a while.’

‘I guess that running one model based on this incomplete data is better than predictions based on this being naturally occurring.’ She rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I hate this waiting part of the job.’

‘That’s because you’re a practical creature, Commander.’ He didn’t look up from the control panel. ‘It means your current job suits you.’

‘What, helping you poke and prod a stellar phenomenon?’

He smirked. ‘SCE. Being a roaming problem-solver.’

But a silence met his words, and he realised he’d unwittingly stumbled into something. At length, Cortez said, ‘You know, when Perrek left Endeavour, Rourke asked if I’d want to come back.’

Airex took a moment as calculations scrolled across his screen. He could leave these computations to their own devices. That meant he couldn’t avoid this discussion. He cleared his throat. ‘I hope your reasons for staying away weren’t just personal.’

‘No, I – I do like the job.’ The hesitation was audible. ‘That was part of the problem with Karana. She assumed I’d want to come back to Endeavour. But I’m happy where I am.’

He turned, arms folding across his chest. ‘If you didn’t have doubts, you wouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘I could be happy either way, with either job, you know? The SCE gives me freedom. Variety. I’m much more my own boss.’

‘While Endeavour is one of the most sophisticated ships in the fleet, a dream for any engineer. And I’m sure you like your team, but…’ He paused, drumming his fingers on the console as he considered what she needed him to say. Once, he’d have brushed this off. With most people aboard, he’d have brushed this off. ‘You have the right to want your own career and path respected,’ he said carefully, at length. ‘But all relationships require compromise. You think Karana only wanted you to compromise?’

‘I get that I can compromise easier than her,’ Cortez sighed. ‘Engineers can do different things. What’s she supposed to do, come be a starship captain in the SCE team?’

‘You need to remember that Karana isn’t…’ Another pause. Airex’s eyes went to the ceiling as he considered his phrasing. ‘Karana doesn’t have any idea how to be in a serious relationship. You might, sincerely, have been her most long-term commitment. Remember how difficult it was just dating her? Then she learnt how to be with you. Building a life with someone is hard. It takes honesty. Acceptance. Awareness of yourself, awareness of them. And, yes, sacrifice. That’s not always equal. She’s finally achieved the dream of her career, a job she could stay in for twenty years.’

Cortez’s lips twisted. ‘You’re saying she’s right to act like her job is more important than mine?’

‘I’m saying it’s not surprising she sees your position as more flexible than hers. Is that why you two argued months ago? Why you left again?’

‘It seemed a lot more important at the time,’ she sighed. ‘Before you were all presumed dead, I mean.’

‘It is important,’ said Airex after a moment’s consideration. ‘Because building a life with someone also takes respect. But you remember how it takes communication, too?’

Cortez hesitated – then her expression twisted. ‘I don’t know why I brought this up like this needs hammering out. She’s already moved on.’

Something loosened in Airex’s chest. It wasn’t entirely comfortable. ‘You know about that, huh.’ Valance had not so much as whispered a word to him about her dalliance with Rivera. The notion that news had spread anyway left him a little hurt. But it did mean he wasn’t sitting on a secret.

‘She’s not as subtle as she thinks she is.’ Cortez’s gaze dropped.

‘No,’ Airex allowed, ‘but if this was something serious, she’d keep the secret better.’

‘She’s screwing around with a journalist. There’s a lot of reasons to keep this quiet. It’s a risky move, professionally and personally, and she’s doing it anyway. Not to mention, if this isn’t serious, then it’s a casual fling. Does any of that sound like Karana Valance to you?’

‘You have a point.’ To Airex’s relief, there was a ping from the console, and he looked back at the display. ‘These calculations are wrapping up. I should get them to her.’

Cortez’s expression twisted. ‘Yeah. I’ll pass on reporting in. I can stay down here and keep on studying this wreckage. It might be useful.’

Which wreckage? Airex mused to himself as he left. Because we’ve got technological debris and our shattered personal lives both down here.

‘I just got off the comms with Amadeus Dyke.’ Even the holographic projection of Vice Admiral Morgan, hovering above Valance’s desk, dripped with trepidation. ‘He’s not impressed.’

Valance wasn’t impressed, either. But she tightened her jaw and tried to not let it show. ‘I’d thought something like this would go to an agency for industrial standards.’

‘It’s only appropriate to inform Dyke Logistics of something so critical to one of their operations. I thought we could cut to the heart of the matter quickly.’

A day ago, Valance had sent Airex’s findings back to Gateway. She hadn’t expected to hear back, hadn’t expected the political consequences to impact her mission. Scarix Facility had been over-zealous in their initial mining, hadn’t taken enough care upon arriving at the system, and could potentially become architects of their own downfall. But that was a long-term problem. Or she’d expected it to be, before Vice Admiral Morgan had called her back.

‘I’m glad Mister Dyke is taking it seriously, then,’ Valance said after a beat. ‘There have to be serious holes in his company’s procedures, or at least at Scarix, for something like this to -’

‘You misunderstand, Captain. You’ve barely arrived at Scarix, and your science team has leapt to a conclusion based off the briefest of scans. Amadeus Dyke isn’t the only one unimpressed; I am. I thought you’d be more circumspect before flagging this issue.’

Valance fought to keep her expression steady again. ‘Sir?’ She knew what Morgan was saying, felt it in the sinking in her chest, in the echoed warning of what Jericho had told her back on Gateway. She just wanted him to say it.

‘You’re not here to cast aspersions on one of our most enterprising industrial undertakings in the sector, Captain. You’re here to save lives.’

‘So you’re not forwarding this to industrial standards?’

‘Of course I will. I’m not insisting you’re wrong, Captain, please understand that. But I do think you’ve jumped the gun on this. Focus on protection against the flare, not its origins. That won’t do any good. Remember your mission, Captain. Gateway out.’

Airex was still in the ready room, leaning against the bulkhead with his arms folded across his chest. He looked rather less shocked than she felt. ‘Politicians,’ he drawled.

‘We… they… Scarix did this, caused this, breaching all manner of procedures…’ Valance couldn’t help but sputter as she gestured at the space where Morgan’s projection had been. ‘I suppose I should be grateful he’s passing this onto the standards agency?’

‘After warning Amadeus Dyke,’ Airex pointed out, straightening up. ‘Who can probably make sure this whole issue disappears. They probably played golf together or something back on Earth.’

Valance was not naive. She believed in the Federation’s highest values, but she was aware of the pragmatism that was necessary to enact them, the strong hand Starfleet needed to pursue its mandate. But there were still areas her expertise and experience were lacking, and she was aware of those waters lapping at her feet. She looked up at Airex. ‘The more important Midgard gets, the more this is going to happen.’

‘We’ve got industrial interests, scientific interests, and now the Klingons mean this sector’s more important both strategically and for our relationship with the Republic,’ he mused. ‘Yes. Core World politics are going to start to eke in here. Because what happens here might now affect them.’

She rubbed her temple. ‘I wasn’t ready for this with a Starfleet Admiral out here. Not on the frontier.’

‘This Starfleet admiral hasn’t been anywhere. He’s a bureaucrat. A politician.’ Airex shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. I know his type.’

‘Oh good,’ said Valance, sardonic before she could stop herself. ‘Now we can know what he’s doing even as we’re powerless to stop it.’

‘I’m powerless to stop it,’ Airex allowed. ‘A humble science officer like me. You? Rourke? You’re not powerless. You’ll just have to stay two steps ahead.’

‘When did it get like this again? Fighting our own side as much as anyone else?’

‘When you became the captain of one of the most important ships in the fleet. When you became one of the most important officers in the squadron. It’s always been like this, Karana. You just don’t feel it when you’re the XO of a backwater gunboat.’ His lips twisted wryly.

She didn’t miss those days. There’d been a simplicity to them, for certain, but looking back on that life felt like slipping a blindfold over her head. There was too much work to do for her to want to return to such limitations. ‘Now I get to fight an admiral.’

‘A man like Morgan won’t wield his influence bluntly. Note how he insisted you might not be wrong, you just went about it wrong? He can’t risk being exposed if someone does tell the universe that, well, I’m right. Which I am.’

‘He is right about one thing. We still have to focus on saving Scarix.’

‘We are focused.’ Airex pulled out a PADD and slid it across her desk. ‘Thawn and Kharth are on top of things in the facility. And this information about the flare isn’t just for the long-term. I’ve been brainstorming with Cortez. We’ve been mapping the sun’s magnetic field lines and identifying where’s most prone to instability. We think there’s a way to realign and repair them.’

She picked up and read quickly, grateful for her background in astrophysics whenever Airex was setting off on a project like this. ‘We’d need Endeavour’s deflector array.’

‘Probably,’ he admitted, ‘though I’ve been working on alternatives.’

‘This could reduce the physical emissions of the flare by over fifty percent. It’s worth the investment of resources.’ She looked up. ‘Get me a full model. Good work.’

He nodded, but didn’t leave. She watched as a shoulder slumped, as his fingertips on the desk drummed a quick, hesitant beat. ‘Is someone going to tell the universe about this?’

Valance blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not advocating any course of action. We don’t need to rush. But… there’s a chance this gets swept under the rug. If someone acted on this…’

‘How would we possibly…’ Her throat tightened as realisation sank in. ‘You’re suggesting we leak this to Rivera.’

‘No.’ The speed of his insistence was telling. His denial was not necessarily a lie, but perhaps giving voice to the idea, making it real, made him want to dismiss it. ‘I’m not sure what I was suggesting.’

‘Because I’m not going down that road.’

‘I…’ Airex hesitated again. ‘I think you should be aware of that road if we find ourselves in this kind of contest with Morgan.’

‘Fighting fire with fire gets everyone burnt.’

‘Respectfully, Karana, that’s an idiom. I’m taking about the practicalities of politics.’ His gaze dropped. ‘I know you two are… involved…’

Irritation sparked in her gut. ‘And in what world, Dav, do I, a Starfleet captain, leak my disagreements about my superior officers to a journalist with whom I’m involved?’

‘I think a Starfleet captain trying to win political battles might, yes, benefit from a friendly journalist,’ said Airex, stiffening in response. ‘I don’t know how involved you two are.’

He’d been cagey throughout this, offering political advice but dancing about the point. Airex wanted to help, and had the expertise on Core World affairs to do so. More than perhaps anyone in the squadron save Sophia Hale or John Rosewood. He probably wasn’t coy about that.

She slowed her breathing. ‘Are you frustrated because I’m not taking your advice, or frustrated because I haven’t talked to you about Olivia?’

Now his gaze dropped, sheepish. ‘You don’t have to talk to me about anything.’

‘I didn’t plan to make this a huge secret, Dav. I just… we started… and there are implications. I didn’t want to tell anyone until I knew there was something to tell. Until I know there’s something to tell.’

‘Telling makes it real,’ he allowed. ‘And you owe me nothing.’

‘That’s not true.’ One of the less endearing things about the truth of Airex’s previous host coming out was that it made Dav sometimes cringingly apologetic for existing. It was a phase of his growing emotional accessibility she was not enjoying. ‘Friends tell each other things.’

‘I know you’ve been lonely. I know you’ve found the job lonely. And I can’t imagine losing all of us helped any of that.’

‘And maybe I’m less lonely if I talk to my best friend.’ It was her turn to be sheepish. Valance sighed, leaning back in the chair. ‘I like her. There are massive implications. I don’t know if I like her enough to face them.’

Airex sucked his teeth. ‘This has been going on for a few weeks. Screwing around ends eventually. One way or another.’

‘And we can talk about that,’ said Valance, a little haughtily, ‘just as soon as you talk about how it makes you feel to see Logan and Kharth together.’

‘Okay. Fine. Save Scarix. Then we get beers. This whole “being in touch with our feelings” phase of life is a lot more hard work than I thought it would be.’

‘Greg would be proud.’

Airex scoffed and said something affectionately abusive about Endeavour’s former counsellor that would probably land him with six weeks of appointments in passive aggressive retaliation if Carraway ever learnt about it. She let him go on that, feeling the walls between them a little softened, at the expense of the stability of walls she’d been carefully putting up inside herself.

She pulled the PADD of Airex’s suggested responses to the solar disruption closer, knowing she’d have to read it properly to truly grasp the science underpinning his reasoning. And so long as she was reading that, she didn’t have to look at the report of how Scarix were architects of their own downfall, a report that could cause all manner of good – or chaos, depending on perspective – in the right hands. Or the wrong ones.