Dust and Gold

The independent Romulan world of Rencaris becomes a crossroads for the political future of the Midgard Sector.

Dust and Gold – 1

The Round Table, USS Endeavour
January 2402

If one could strike gold on a mission of stellar surveys, studying the Mesea Storm was more like striking copper. Such were the metallic hues the swirling plasma storm cast through the windows of the Round Table, Endeavour’s officers’ lounge given a cheap gilding at this late hour.

Kharth’s hand hovered over a piece on the board. ‘Oh,’ she grunted. ‘That’s a silver piece.’ She reached for another. Hesitated. Made the move.

Caede didn’t pause before he moved his piece in response, pinning her back even more. ‘The lighting doesn’t cover the colours any more than it’ll spare your blushes.’

‘I’m not making excuses.’

‘You did last time. Poor refugee kid, hasn’t played a proper game of latrunculo since leaving Romulus. Like you couldn’t replicate a board for sixteen years.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ Kharth sneered. ‘We didn’t have a board at the refugee camp. And who was I going to play against in Starfleet?’

‘Don’t tell me officers wouldn’t fall over themselves to experience a taste of Romulan culture. Just to show off how open their horizons are.’ Caede’s flinty eyes flickered up from the board, waiting for her to make her next move. ‘Or did you want to avoid getting your ass kicked by some human from New York?’

‘No. If that happened I’d sell them the refugee sob story so they’d feel guilty.’ Caede laughed, and she moved, hoping he’d be distracted. But his response came immediately, pinning one of her pieces and forcing her to take it off the board. She made an annoyed sound. ‘I just suck at latrunculo.’

‘Then why are you playing?’

‘You suggested it! Both times! Thought I’d be sociable. I don’t care if you’re playing mind-games, wanting to judge if I’m Romulan enough, seeing how I cope in the face of adversity or whatever…’

‘Nah.’ Caede sipped his white-leaf tea. ‘I like winning, that’s all. Not as if there’s much else to keep either of us busy right now.’ His eyes fell on the windows, at the swirling maelstrom of the plasma storm that had been Endeavour’s home and all-consuming focus for days.

The Mesea Storm lay at the furthest reaches of the Midgard Sector, deep in unclaimed and uncharted space that had once been the borderlands of the Romulan Star Empire, and Starfleet had barely scratched the surface of its secrets. If the Star Empire ever knew them, the records were lost or never to be shared.

‘From a proper first contact to stellar surveying,’ Kharth grumbled, not looking at the window. She was sick of the view by now. ‘Starfleet life is never done.’

‘Beats endless patrols.’

‘We get those, too.’

‘Not on a ship like this.’

‘Yes, yes,’ spat Kharth. ‘I should be grateful, I’ve got so much, oh, but I’m not a proper Romulan because I suck at latrunculo and haven’t read Averin -’

‘I haven’t read Averin,’ Caede grunted. ‘And I’ve met lots of people who are bad at latrunculo. These are your issues, Kharth, not mine.’

Perhaps their exchange officer wasn’t trying to get under her skin, put her in a position to expose her insecurities. But he was managing it anyway. Wondering why she’d agreed to the game this late at night, and hoping for it to come to an end as quickly as possible, Kharth moved a piece, which he immediately took.

The universe was particularly unkind, because the interruption didn’t arrive until after he’d won the match. There was little warning – merely an intensifying of the rumbling of the deck, the creaking of the hull, and then a thudding impact. A lay-person might have mistaken it for weapons fire, the strike of an energy blast, but neither Kharth nor Caede were lay-people.

Besides, with Endeavour travelling with navigational deflectors on, charged and calibrated to weather the plasma storm, there was no phaser or disruptor strike that could immediately rock the ship.

Had they been on their feet, they might have been knocked over. As it was, their drinks went flying, along with the wretched latrunculo board and all of its pieces, and Kharth gripped the armrests tight, jaw clenched, as the ship shuddered and shook around them before the lights died.

There was only a beat as it subsided before emergency lights gleamed to life. They braced and stared at each other, wondering if it was over. Then the red alert klaxon went off.

Kharth smashed her combadge. ‘Kharth to bridge! Report!’

It was Lieutenant Lindgren who answered, the flight control officer running the graveyard command shift, her bid to clock more time in the big chair going more dramatically than she probably expected. Cool and collected, her poise belied the situation Kharth suspected they were in.

Sudden plasma discharge from the storm, Commander, bigger than any we’ve had so far. We took it on our shields but looks like it’s overloaded the main deflector dish and short-circuited a bunch of systems in the EPS relays.

Caede was already at the wall panel, hammering commands to get a damage report. His head snapped over to Kharth, eyes narrowing. ‘Hull breaches in main engineering. Emergency forcefields are kicking in.’

All over the ship, automated systems would be activating, directing people to where they needed to go. Captain Valance would be racing to the bridge. Commander Thawn to engineering. Kharth, meanwhile, knew she should be wherever she was needed most. And she was closer to engineering, not just than to the bridge, but than Thawn.

She shot to her feet. ‘Hold down the fort until the captain gets there, Lieutenant. We’re going to help Forrester in engineering.’

At this distance, they had no choice but to rush to the turbolifts and pray emergency power levels kept them functioning. Everyone else aboard was either already at their post, or hadn’t been awake and alert when the disaster struck. Heads were sticking out of doors as the two senior officers ran through the corridors, but they were the first to a lift.

They were also the first reinforcements in main engineering, bursting through the heavy doors to find it in a state of controlled chaos. At this time of night, young Lieutenant Forrester ran the engine room – though, Kharth thought wryly, Forrester was a veteran of Archanis and Deneb by now, her age less important than her experience of a dozen crises and battles.

Main engineering was a mess of emergency lights and klaxons, smoke billowing from the upper chambers where EPS conduits had overloaded, alerts flashing on a dozen screens. Forrester stood in the middle, commanding things like a very brusque conductor. Her eyes lit up when the doors opened, but her disappointment that they were not Chief Engineer Thawn was nearly palpable.

‘We’re what you get, Lieutenant. Put us to work,’ Kharth said, not wasting time asking for a report.

Forrester’s expression settled. ‘We’ve got hull breaches in this section and elsewhere on the ship. Emergency forcefields are holding, but I don’t want to rely on them. Commander – controls are over there for emergency bulkheads. Make sure nobody’s about to be trapped and seal up where you can to spare us power.’ She rounded on Caede, the more technically minded of the pair of Romulans. ‘Centurion, if you’d help with rerouting power from unstable conduits, me and my team can focus on making sure the containment on the warp core stays stable.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the pulsing, furious heart of the ship.

It was rare Kharth was given simple orders and simple tasks these days. Even in a crisis, there was something soothing about it. On the bridge, she’d have to balance a dozen duties, keep an eye on a whole situation. Here, she could walk three metres and have everything laid out before her. In the background, the shouts of Forrester and her team faded to a distant, irrelevant hum.

Forcefields sealed off hull breaches themselves, while emergency bulkheads sealed off whole sections, sacrificing everything – everyone – ahead of that point. They’d only come down automatically if power systems were desperately failing, if it was that or lose the ship, but otherwise no computer could determine how much of a section, material, lives could be sacrificed to salvage power. Kharth’s chest eased as she saw life-signs clear the endangered sections; Endeavour’s emergency systems had kicked in fast enough that they’d lost nobody, and would lose nobody, to the breaches. Deck by deck, her eyes ran across the breaches, bringing down emergency bulkheads where she could, as with each passing moment, Caede stabilised power flow to bypass damaged conduits.

When they’d arrived, a collapse in the power systems could have brought down the wrong emergency forcefields and decompressed a whole section. By the time the doors slid open to admit the frantic figure of Commander Thawn, they’d backed the ship away from the edge of the cliff she’d been teetering on.

To Kharth, the warp core had looked only subtly different. Upon arrival, Thawn took three steps into the heart of main engineering, looked at the pulsing of the warp core plasma, and swore in her native tongue.

‘Forrester! What do we have?’ she demanded, striding over to her young assistant.

‘The storm’s discharge has overloaded EPS conduits, and there’s been surges in plasma flow putting strain on the warp field coils,’ Forrester began to explain. ‘I’ve been stabilising containment -’

‘Throttle back the injection rate,’ Thawn cut her off. ‘Sixty percent. Cut it right down. We’ll have to reconfigure the entire conduit system.’

Kharth turned at this, aghast. ‘Sixty percent? That’s barely enough to crawl out of here – isn’t that a bit premature a damage assessment?’

‘Didn’t know you were an engineer, Commander,’ Thawn replied smoothly. ‘Thank you for your assistance. But I’ll take it from here.’ Without another look, she advanced past the XO, joining her engineers clustered around the warp core, and began her work as a surgeon trying to coax the ship’s very heart back to life.

Caede and Kharth stepped to the door, a little cowed at their dismissal despite themselves. Caede wore a deep frown. ‘You’re not an engineer,’ he conceded, ‘but you know this ship better than me. How bad’s that power cut?’

‘Depends,’ grumbled Kharth.

‘On?’

‘On if we want to move faster than warp five any time soon.’

Dust and Gold – 2

Sickbay, USS Endeavour
January 2402

‘Finally. What’s a guy gotta do to get your attention around here?’ Nate Beckett knew this came out more as a whine than a witticism, but was in too much pain to muster some discipline and salvage his dignity.

‘Have an emergent medical issue, or arrive before Sickbay must contend with seventeen more pressing injuries,’ came Doctor Starik’s smooth reply as the Vulcan finally stepped over to Beckett’s biobed, medical tricorder in hand.

‘Lieutenant Jain just hit his head,’ Beckett pointed out as Starik scanned him.

Starik did not look up. ‘Head injuries are considerably more dangerous than what appears – and remains – a posterior glenohumeral dislocation. Doubtless uncomfortable, but not life-threatening.’

‘You just gave Jain a painkiller and sent him on his way.’

‘I’m not at liberty to discuss Lieutenant Jain’s medical treatment.’

‘I saw you do it!’

‘I am aware. You protested at your alleged neglect the entire time.’ Starik snapped his tricorder shut and looked up. ‘You will not require surgery.’

Disguising his relief, Beckett stuck his nose in the air. ‘Imagine if I had. Then you’d be sorry for de-prioritising me.’

‘My protocol has been textbook,’ was Starik’s unimpressed reply, just as the doors slid open to admit Commander Thawn.

She looked around quickly, and Beckett tried to pretend the sight of her didn’t make him feel better as she hurried over. She looked more rumpled than he had when he’d last seen her, dashing off for main engineering, her cheeks smeared with soot. ‘Are you okay?’

She’d extended an arm, and he rocked away. ‘Nonono not the shoulder -’

‘Oh, I – I thought you’d been seen to!’ Thawn gasped, apologetic.

‘He was a low priority concern,’ said Starik, full of the quiet frustration that only Vulcans could harness so subtly.

‘See!’ Beckett looked triumphantly at him. ‘She thought you’d have me patched up by now.’

‘If Commander Thawn were truly worried, I anticipate she would have escorted you to Sickbay herself.’

Beckett worked his jaw. ‘…you don’t know she was there when I did this.’

‘You said you fell out of bed when the ship was struck.’ Starik looked him up and down, still resplendent in his pyjamas. ‘I extrapolated.’

‘It was an engineering emergency,’ Thawn protested. ‘I couldn’t detour up here, and he could walk.’

Starik’s eyes fell on her, appraising. ‘You had time to don your uniform.’

‘Yes, that was very hurtful,’ Beckett agreed, ‘and you’re very funny, but I’m still in a little pain here.’

‘Mn.’ Starik glanced between them. ‘Do I have permission to discuss your medical situation in front of the commander?’

Yes – get on with it, Starik, come on.’

‘Very well. Your injury caused a temporary compression of the axillary nerve, which ought to explain numbness and tingling. This will be resolved by treatment.’

‘Starik, I wish it were numb. For the love of God, put it back in and give me a painkiller.’

‘As you say,’ said Starik, and only too late did Beckett realise he maybe should have suggested an anaesthetic before, rather than after, as the Vulcan’s strong hands took a grip on his arm.

‘Hang on -’

It was not this instruction that made Starik stop, but the doors sliding open to admit, this time, Captain Valance and Commander Airex. Valance’s eyes swept across the room before they headed over, the captain’s gait brisk, focused. ‘Commander. Doctor.’

Thawn straightened, plainly guilty for being in Sickbay instead of at her post, but that just meant Starik assumed control of the situation.

‘Eighteen injured crewmembers reported to Sickbay, Captain. A further twenty-five injuries reported across the ship that have received treatment from the designated first-aider and proceeded to their duty stations. Those in Sickbay have been treated, and the other twenty-five will be instructed to report here once relieved. No serious casualties.’

‘Those in Sickbay are being treated,’ Beckett muttered resentfully.

Valance gave him the briefest of glances – she’d never known how to cope with his humour – before nodding to Starik. ‘Good. Commander Thawn?’

‘Sorry, Captain – the situation was stable in main engineering and I did leave Nate behind with a dislocated shoulder when I ran off to respond…’ Thawn’s voice trailed off as Valance’s eyebrows went up an inch. She cleared her throat. ‘No change. The warp core has been throttled down to sixty percent. I don’t want to raise it without repairing or replacing the compromised EPS conduits. Forrester is diagnosing the extent of the damage, I was just popping up here to -’

‘It’s fine, Commander,’ Valance said at last, raising a hand. Beckett could see she didn’t want to have to manage Thawn’s feelings. ‘You’ve saved me going down there myself.’

The doors slid open anew, this time to admit the rumpled figures of Kharth and Caede. The XO headed over, brow furrowed in consternation. ‘Everything alright, Captain?’ They’d plainly come looking for her.

Valance gave a small sigh. ‘We’re fine. I was checking in with the doctor and Commander Thawn.’

‘Sickbay,’ said Starik levelly, ‘is not a meeting room.’

‘My apologies, we’ll -’

‘I welcome the explanation on this occasion and I must see to Lieutenant Beckett. I simply ask you do not make a habit of this, Captain.’

Only a doctor, and a Vulcan to boot, could get away with telling off Valance like this, and Beckett made a small, pathetic noise. He’d have liked to pretend this was to distract from the tension, but that was a lie. ‘Can you work and be explained to, Starik?’

‘What happened?’ said Kharth as Starik put his hands on Beckett’s arm anew.

‘We couldn’t have foreseen it.’ Airex spoke at last. His hair was as wild as his eyes, which were bright and enthusiastic despite the calamity. ‘It’s because of the Borg.’

Thawn’s eyes widened. ‘It’s what?’

‘The Cube and the collapsed transwarp conduit last year,’ elaborated Valance, a little long-suffering. ‘Unsurprisingly, there are long-term implications for subspace.’

‘Underspace can’t have helped,’ grumbled Caede.

‘Quite,’ said Airex. ‘There are still pockets of unstable subspace caused by the transwarp conduit’s collapse across the sector, and, it seems, within the Mesea Storm. When Endeavour approached this pocket, our warp field interacted with the gravimetric fluctuation to cause a cascade effect, resulting in a highly concentrated plasma bolt being ejected from the storm. I couldn’t have begun to anticipate this manner of plasma-gravimetric interaction -’

‘Is he always like this when space tries to kill us?’ interrupted Caede, looking at Kharth, ‘or is he just covering for not seeing this coming?’

Airex scowled, but Beckett caught Kharth trying to smother a smile. ‘He’s always like this when space is trying to kill us,’ she said, and the hint of amused affection seemed to stun Airex out of offence.

‘Tearing everyone’s attention away from my terrible injury, which Starik will doubtless see to at once,’ said Beckett, ‘is this going to happen again?’

‘Remain still,’ Starik instructed. His hands had been on Beckett’s arm for some time without motion.

‘It might,’ Airex admitted. ‘Though remaining at low warp will reduce chances.’

‘Presumably, as we get the hell out of here for repairs,’ said Kharth.

Thawn made a small noise. ‘That’s the problem. We can leave the Storm, of course, but we’re a long way out from Gateway and these repairs are serious. I don’t recommend we go above Warp 5 outside of emergencies, Captain. That’s a month’s travel.’

Caede hesitated, working his jaw as if chewing on something he didn’t like. ‘We could make for Nemus Station,’ he said at last. ‘It’s on the Republic border, it’s closer.’

‘Do they have the facilities to oversee our repair?’ said Valance. ‘I know it provides such services to the Republic…’

‘Your EPS conduits aren’t that special,’ drawled Caede. ‘But Nemus prioritises Republic assets and needs. Which have been a lot more desperate than Starfleet. You’ll have to be convincing.’

Kharth raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You can’t be convincing?’

‘I’m just a Centurion.’

‘Nemus is still ten days away,’ said Thawn, who’d been hammering furiously on her PADD.

‘Son of a bitch!’ exclaimed Beckett – not at the journey, but because Starik had, without warning, manipulated his shoulder for a sudden, sharp, precise reduction of his injury. ‘You don’t give a man painkillers first, Doc?’

‘You explicitly directed on painkillers after,’ Starik reminded him, letting him go and straightening. ‘You -’ He looked at Beckett, then the others, then back. ‘Do I have your permission to discuss your medical -’

Yes!’

‘Then I will apply ten milligrams of anesthizine, as you seem in distress,’ said Starik, loading a hypospray.

Kharth gave Beckett a look. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I heroically -’

‘He fell out of bed,’ sighed Thawn.

‘And she left me there.’

‘It was an emergency!’

Vor,’ spat Caede. ‘Ten days crawling our way back through the sector with this. Why does this crew keep getting stranded?’

Starik pressed the hypospray to Beckett’s neck, and relief instantly flooded through him. With it came a dose of sudden, happy clarity, and he smirked because he had the opportunity to be smug.

‘Don’t worry, Centurion,’ he said. ‘I have a much better, and nearer, suggestion: Rencaris.’

Airex cocked his head. ‘Rencaris is a former Star Empire world, currently unaligned. Why would we go there?’

‘Because Rencaris wants to stay unaligned. Despite overtures from the Republic.’ Beckett inclined his head to Caede. ‘It’s a well-populated system with a heaving and balanced industry. Self-sufficient. They benefit from trade, but they don’t need aid. If they want to stay independent, and they don’t like the Republic, they need friends. We could be friendly.’

Caede scowled. ‘It’s ruled by a pack of reactionary authoritarians who want to build their own little Romulus-away-from-Romulus, who were heartbroken when Rator fell. If you help them, you undermine everything the Republic is trying to build in this sector.’

‘Calm down,’ drawled Kharth. ‘We’re talking about asking to berth up in their dockyard for a bit so we can do repairs somewhere safe. That’s not going to destroy the Republic’s credibility.’ She looked at Valance. ‘I think it’s a good idea, Captain.’

Valance’s eyes were on Beckett. ‘You think they’ll help us?’

He’d been gurning smugly, but sobered under her gaze. He nodded. ‘I think we can negotiate help. They were open to discussions around Underspace. Swiftsure did some work nearby clearing up the Borg mess. The best thing for a world like that to do in a region like this is be a place you can get what you need for a fair price, no matter who you are.’

‘It is,’ said Thawn quietly after consulting her PADD, ‘only three days away.’

Valance nodded. ‘Then it’s a good plan, Lieutenant. Commander Thawn, can you make us ready to get underway?’

‘I’ll want to finish appraising the state of our EPS conduits so we can make sure we’re bypassing all damage in the power network,’ said Thawn, ‘but I don’t anticipate that taking more than a few hours. I’ll head down now to oversee.’

‘Good. Airex, appraise the plasma discharge more, make sure we’re doing everything we can to not be hit again.’

‘I will. But I can’t stress the significance of this data, Captain. We still understand very little of the state of subspace in the sector. This could be critical for life going forward in the region.’

‘So we get to be the lightning rod,’ grunted Caede. ‘Don’t sound too excited.’

‘Better us,’ said Valance, ‘than someone less prepared. Patch us up. Then we go to ground. This latest run of exploration is over.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Beckett cheerfully, hopping to his feet. ‘Did I mention that no Starfleet officers have actually set foot on Rencaris soil or facilities before?’

Dust and Gold – 3

Captain's Ready Room, USS Endeavour
January 2402

Valance swore, breaking the quiet hum of her ready room. Over on the comfortable seating by the windows, Airex looked up from the PADDs he’d strewn across the coffee table, and she grimaced. ‘It goes from bad to worse,’ she explained with a sigh. ‘Thawn says that our power reserves and flow are heavily compromised. If we want to send word to Gateway of our condition, we’ll need to drop out of warp and reconfigure our systems to have enough juice. And at warp, our sensors will only be operating at about seventy percent.’

‘We can send a message once we’re out of the Storm,’ he said, voice quiet and reassuring. ‘It’ll still take some time for the transmission to arrive. The compromised sensors… I’ll do what I can. We only need to keep an eye out for trouble.’

‘I know.’ She swallowed the burst of frustration. ‘This could have been picked up earlier.’

Airex now put the PADD down, his eyes thoughtful. ‘We knew these systems would be compromised. I expect that Thawn didn’t know how much until she had a complete image of the damage. That assessment was always going to take time.’ He watched her a beat more, then leaned forwards. ‘Another, more experienced chief engineer, might have said something about it sooner, but it would have been a hypothesis with nothing firmed up. Or, more politely, a guess that would be corrected later.’

She had to smother her glare, this frustration from a completely different source. ‘Another chief engineer,’ she echoed. ‘That’s not what this is about.’

‘It’s about that you’ve not had enough sleep, and that we’re in a tight spot. Again.’

When Valance’s brow knotted, it was more thoughtful than irritated, this time. ‘I don’t mind the tight spot. I’m used to those. I want to make sure we’re not jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.’ She looked at his collection of PADDs. ‘Anything more on Rencaris?’

‘A little. Nothing noteworthy that Beckett didn’t cover.’ Airex slumped back, tossing a hand in the air. ‘The bad news is that I think Caede was right: this was practically the centre of local nobility, so to speak, for the Star Empire’s side of the Midgard Sector. Possibly their Alfheim, but with more sense of belonging to the core worlds.’

‘They don’t want unification, they don’t want the Republic’s concept of liberal democracy,’ she surmised. ‘But they’re not stupid enough to think the Empire’s coming back, and they’re… too far out from the Free State?’

He shrugged. ‘Or they think the Free State is the upstart child of the Tal Shiar. What data we’ve gathered over the last year suggests they have a small defence force from the remains of Rator’s navy, who didn’t want to go with either faction. The system’s rich in resources – minerals in an asteroid belt, a few useful gas giants – that they’ve got thriving industries around. Decent agriculture, but plenty of big cities. Orbital infrastructure. They still have the same governor from before the fall of Rator – Governor Vhiemm. He’s treated directly, or through his office, with what few interactions they’ve had with Starfleet.’ Airex shuffled through the PADDs. ‘And that’s… largely it.’

‘That’s it? That’s the sum of all of our knowledge of a star system less than thirty light-years from a major Federation starbase?’

‘By the time the Federation knew Rencaris existed, the Neutral Zone had been established,’ sighed Airex. ‘So we spent more than two hundred years with no idea about places even a stone’s throw over the border. And when Rator took over this region, they didn’t exactly welcome us. There’s a lot of our front door to explore out here, Karana.’

‘Maybe Beckett’s right,’ she sighed. ‘Maybe this is an opportunity. We have to hope they’re reasonable and know they’re better off with Starfleet as a friend. But they’re Romulans, and apparently traditionalist Romulans. They’re going to see we’re desperate, and then they’re going to try and take advantage.’

The door-chime sounded, and for a moment, Valance put on her mask of professionalism. That faded when the doors opened at her summons, and Kharth entered, shoulders hanging with weariness.

‘We’re out of the storm,’ she reported, her voice brusque but low. Her eyes fell on Airex. ‘Your recalibrations of our deflector shields to dissipate the plasma charge signature worked. At least, we didn’t get hit again.’

‘Hardly a data point, but a result I’ll take gladly, nonetheless.’ He lifted the steel coffee jug sat on the low table. ‘I brewed some of that Vega blend.’

‘Coffee at 0330? Don’t mind if I do.’

Valance watched as fatigue and familiarity washed away any of the usual wrong-footed tension between her two senior-most officers, with Kharth taking a mug off the small collection kept by the replicator, and Airex barely looking up from his notes as he poured, like he knew where she was without looking.

‘Rencaris,’ mused Kharth, glancing over his PADDs. ‘I didn’t say this in Sickbay, but Caede’s not wrong to be cautious. About the political implications, I mean.’

‘I know,’ Valance sighed, leaning back in the tall-backed, comfortable desk chair. She would not have treated herself to something this cushy, with faux-leather upholstery and thick stuffing she could sink into, but Rourke had never collected it after his departure. On a night like this, it was welcome. ‘We’ll have to weigh up our alliance with the Republic in any deal we broker with Rencaris.’

‘What are we offering them?’

Valance shrugged. ‘They’re hardly going to be paid off with some of our deuterium supplies. I was going to see what they say and negotiate from there.’

‘You need to come up with something. Or they’ll take it as an insult.’ Kharth’s expression flattened. ‘We need to, I suppose.’

‘Any chance they’ll like our fascinating scientific findings on how the Mesea Storm nearly blew us up?’ mused Airex facetiously.

‘The Storm isn’t new to them,’ she pointed out. ‘They know more about it than we do.’

‘Not necessarily since the subspace disruptions.’

‘Data is a good start,’ Kharth conceded. ‘We’ve almost certainly gone further into the former Star Empire territories than they have. Even our findings over the last few months – an update of their strategic and economic context – might be worth something to them.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Valance quietly, ‘I want to arm them a surviving branch of the Star Empire with information about a first contact we made.’

‘Other things, then. Survey results.’ She paused, brightening. ‘Survey results from inside the Neutral Zone. They might not want it. But it’s not an insulting offer. And it’s a start.’

Valance nodded. ‘Have Beckett put together a package, including a few choice samples.’

Kharth’s improved mood was short-lived. ‘He’s going to make a song and dance about classified data.’

‘He suggested Rencaris. Remind him of that.’

‘When did he fall in with the party line for Intel so much, anyway?’

Airex grimaced. ‘I’d say he’s just doing his job, keeping our information security in mind, but the division has a way of clouding your thinking like that. He has more interaction with an outside chain of command than anyone else on board. Even my dealings with Starfleet Science are mostly… well, academic.’

Valance glanced at Kharth. ‘What are the odds he gets his marching orders from his father?’

‘Admiral Beckett and I aren’t much on speaking terms anymore. I didn’t think Nate is, either, but if there’s one toy the admiral probably won’t give up so easily, it’s his son.’ Kharth shrugged.

Airex watched Valance, eyes narrowing. ‘What’re you thinking?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It didn’t matter much when we’ve spent the last few months outside of Federation space. If Rencaris gets politically complex, though, it’s going to be bad enough juggling our needs, Sector Command’s needs, and the Republic’s needs without someone even bigger getting involved.’

Kharth shook her head. ‘You’re doing that four-dimensional thinking that you reserve especially for finding trouble to worry about, Valance.’

‘I’m doing what?’

Airex snickered, but smothered his smile self-consciously as they both looked at him. ‘She’s, ah, right, Karana. I think we’ve got as solid a plan for Rencaris as we’ll get.’

Valance looked between them, eyes narrowing. If someone had told her a year ago that she’d be the captain of Endeavour being nagged by a command team of Airex and Kharth, she’d have laughed them out of the room. ‘In which case, we need to get there in one piece. What’s the mood out there?’ She nodded to the door, meaning not just the temperament aboard the bridge, but the ship.

‘Mostly?’ Kharth shrugged. ‘Sleep-deprived. Lindgren can see through the rest of the shift, though. I told the counsellor to go back to bed when he commed. So far as shipboard disasters go, this one’s more of an inconvenience than a trauma. He can tuck people in with warm milk in the morning.’

‘Sounds counter-productive,’ Airex said, but quietened down as his joke earned a tired, irritable look.

‘I want us all,’ said Valance carefully, ‘visibly clocking time with Counsellor Dhanesh when things like this happen.’

Kharth stared. ‘We blew a few EPS conduits, we hardly -’

‘This ship spent most of last year without a counsellor aboard. The crew went through Borg – twice – and got stranded on the other side of the galaxy. It’s been a quiet few months since the counsellor came aboard, but this is the first really bad thing to happen, and we’re going to set an example to the crew.’

Kharth looked like she’d been told to suck on a lemon, but then her lips twisted. ‘You gotta hate being captain sometimes, huh?’

Yes,’ Valance conceded irritably. ‘We have a few days to Rencaris. We’ll be licking our wounds all the way. Let’s set the right example to everyone.’ She stood, lifting her hands to her temples. ‘The good news is that it starts with sleeping.’

Dust and Gold – 4

USS Endeavour
January 2402

‘Replicators in your rooms out, too?’ was the grunt with which Caede greeted Lindgren when she came out of her quarters to find him headed for the turbolift.

‘Rosara’s memo says it’s the whole section.’ She forced a shrug. It was an inconvenience, but a reasonable measure for preserving power, and nobody needed Caede thinking everyone was grumbling about it. ‘It’s fine, we can go up.’

His frown only deepened, but with consternation, at least, not disapproval. ‘Thought people would breakfast in the Safe House.’

‘You didn’t read the memo, did you?’ Her voice went light, toying as they walked for the lift together.

‘It started with a deep explanation of the exact nature of the damage to the EPS conduits. I stopped reading.’

‘She could have prioritised her information better. But there was an addendum at the end from Counsellor Dhanesh.’

‘I definitely didn’t read that.’ Caede rolled his eyes as they boarded the turbolift. ‘Don’t know why you keep a therapist aboard.’

Lindgren bit her lip. Counsellor Dhanesh was not just a counselling psychiatrist, but a specialist in xeno and forensic psychology with diplomatic and anthropological experience. He’d come highly recommended by Greg Carraway, Endeavour’s last counsellor, before they’d left on this deep-space exploration mission. But she was leery of giving Caede any explanation that might downplay his duty to the crew’s mental health.

‘You’ll see,’ was all she said instead.

When they reached Deck 1, Caede looked like he’d head to the break room with hopes of grabbing breakfast there, but she bumped him with her shoulder to take a right turn into the conference room instead.

‘Good morning!’ boomed the cheerful voice of Counsellor Dhanesh from across the room. The main table had been pushed closer to the window, with most of the rest of the senior staff seated with plates of breakfast and steaming mugs of hot drinks, the air casual and full of idle chatter. The counsellor himself stood at the far end of the room at a new table laden with hotplates and platters, and stainless steel jugs of hot coffees, teas, and a jug of fresh juice. ‘Make your order and you’ll have breakfast in a jiffy.’

‘A jiffy…’ Caede stared.

‘It’s an omelette bar, Caede; try to not faint at the new Earth experience,’ Lindgren said in a gentle dig, elbowing him again before heading over. ‘Good morning, Counsellor; this looks great.’

Dhanesh’s bright smile was knowing, particularly as he saw Caede’s suspicious, curious look. ‘We’ve only got replicator power to a few essential stations, and I thought this would be more cheerful than everyone sadly ordering a bacon sandwich on their own. Help yourselves to hot drinks. How do you want your omelette, Elsa? The green peppers are fresh from hydroponics.’

‘Then how can I say no? Peppers and cheese it is.’

Dhanesh was a big guy, the sort of counsellor who integrated exercise into his therapies and adopted a holistic, body-and-mind approach to health. But with his ready smile, tidy beard, and easy manner, it gave him more the look of a bombastic father to young children – which he was – than an imposing build.

‘Coming right up. What about you, Centurion? I’ve got some spices here – arket and havrik. I picked them up at that stop at Vendarinor last month. Together they give the omelette a heck of a kick.’ He picked up a jar of Romulan spices, wafting it towards Caede.

‘I know what havrik smells like,’ Caede said bluntly, placing, Lindgren thought, a very subtle emphasis on the correct pronunciation – though were she not a linguist, she wouldn’t have noticed Dhanesh get it wrong. ‘I would not add it to eggs.’

‘Oh? Doctor Starik said it wasn’t unlike the Vulcan emina spices his people put in a scramble.’

There was a moment where Lindgren thought Caede was going to refuse breakfast, but he must have been too hungry to take a stand. He swallowed. ‘Egg and mushroom will be fine, Dhanesh.’

Lindgren wrinkled her nose. ‘You go sit. I’ll bring it over.’ Once he’d poured himself a mug of coffee and left, she looked back at Dhanesh, eyebrows raising. ‘Comparing Vulcan cooking to Romulan? That was rude, Counsellor.’

‘He was rude,’ said Dhanesh in a breezy tone as he whipped eggs. ‘Romulans put havrik in eggs. He saw I was doing something considerate and didn’t know how to respond appropriately, so he went on the attack. Everyone’s too polite when he does that.’

‘A crack about his heritage, though?’

‘It had to be something that would land. He’ll think twice next time, mark my words.’ Dhanesh handled the skillet with easy confidence, cooking the omelettes to perfection while only half-paying attention. Before Lindgren knew it, she had two plates in her hands. ‘Enjoy!’

‘You’ll cook yourself something now, right?’

‘Check your own oxygen first, Lieutenant.’ Dhanesh tapped his nose. ‘I ate before I started.’

Caede hadn’t sat, he’d gone to drink his coffee by the window. Taking the counsellor’s wisdom aboard quicker than she’d expected, she didn’t bring his plate over, but caught his eye, nodded to the table, and set it beside her as she pulled up a chair with Thawn, Beckett, and Kally.

‘…not enough. Tell her, Elsa.’ Beckett looked between Lindgren and Thawn, gesticulating with a forkful of egg. ‘She can’t run an engine room on four hours of sleep.’

‘I’m not pretending it’s sustainable,’ Thawn protested. She looked, for all of her boyfriend’s accusations, crisp and presentable, but Lindgren knew the ship would have to be exploding around them for her to not start her day picture-perfect. ‘But I need to monitor things as much as possible while we’re at warp. You got me here.’

‘Silly me,’ said Beckett with wry amusement. ‘A sociable breakfast or sleep; not both.’

‘Would you like us to make it to Rencaris in one piece -’

Lieutenant.’ Kally leaned towards Lindgren, eyes pleading, as Caede finally reached them and slumped into the seat beside her in a manner she felt not unlike a sulking teenager. ‘Please help me change the subject.’

‘You don’t want my relationship litigated over breakfast?’ said Beckett with an air of mock offence. ‘Alright, what about someone else’s – Elsa, how’s your fella?’

Vor,’ muttered Caede, stabbing his eggs.

‘Thanks, Nate,’ Lindgren groaned. ‘Mac isn’t my fella. We’ve been on a few dates. Then Endeavour shipped out.’

‘You’ve been writing,’ said Caede, not looking up from his food.

Kally’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, we’re too far out for a direct link. So it’s had to be letters? That’s kinda sweet and old-fashioned, isn’t it?’

Lindgren felt her cheeks colour and tried to hide it behind a gulp of coffee. She wasn’t used to this kind of interrogation – or used to feeling this kind of self-conscious about it. ‘It would be. Except Mac can’t tell me about half of the things he’s up to on the Blackbird.’

‘Oh no,’ said Beckett in mock-despair. ‘You’ll have to talk about feelings or daily life and not work, in long, contemplative letters where you have to wait maybe days for a response, building up a connection and anticipation. How horrid.’

‘Do Starfleet officers talk about anything other than their personal lives?’ butted in Caede. ‘We’re nearly dead in space, crawling out of a stellar phenomenon that tried to kill us, heading for a den of snakes. Is this really what’s most pressing?’

‘I agree,’ muttered Thawn.

‘We talk about life-or-death stuff all the time,’ Kally protested. ‘In a minute, the captain’s going to give us an update on how much of a mess we’re in, followed by a pep-talk about how we have to stick together and it’ll be hard, but with teamwork, we’ll pull through. I think Counsellor Dhanesh put this together so we could have a little social break.’

Thawn looked offended. ‘This is a more efficient use of energy -’

‘By, like, a percent,’ scoffed Beckett. ‘But Kally’s onto something.’ He continued waggling the forkful of food around illustratively. ‘Valance isn’t as good at pep-talks as Rourke. Anyone want to bet on which cliche she’ll use?’

‘Nate!’ Thawn’s offence was even deeper.

‘What do we win?’ said Lindgren suspiciously.

‘Fun!’ said Kally.

‘Uh… winner has everyone cover for them next time they want to skip out on one of Dhanesh’s group-bonding events?’

‘That’s not -’

‘Something about facing tougher challenges and coming out stronger,’ said Thawn, eyes lighting at the prospect of a free excuse.

Rosara!’ Lindgren gave her a look, unsure if she should be indignant on Valance’s behalf or impressed.

‘Um… “teamwork is our greatest asset,”’ ventured Kally.

‘“Together, we can face anything,”’ said Beckett smugly.

Caede scoffed, and Lindgren braced herself for him to dismiss their fun, only for him to say, ‘A metaphor about weathering the storm.’

They all went, ‘Ooh,’ in universal approval, then fell silent as Valance stood. It was almost as if prompted, though Lindgren was sure the captain hadn’t heard. She’d been sat at the head of the table in conversation with Airex and Starik, while Kharth, Logan and Dhanesh were a buffer between them. There was no way they wouldn’t have been rebuked if their Kharth had heard them, let alone Valance.

‘Good morning,’ said Valance, clearing her throat. ‘Thank you to Counsellor Dhanesh for organising this. We often get little time to stop and touch base in a crisis. But it’s important we do so.’

The officers at the more junior end of the table leaned forward, inadvertently on tenter-hooks with the new stakes of their CO’s speech. Valance opened her mouth to continue.

The red alert klaxon went off.

Bridge to Captain Valance!’ Lieutenant Qadir’s voice was tense, worried. ‘Klingon bird-of-prey decloaking off our port side! Sir, they’ve raised shields and have locked on weapons!’

The senior officers were on their feet in an instant, breakfast and bets all forgotten.

Klingons,’ Caede spat, tossing his napkin down. ‘This new storm is a lot uglier.’

Dust and Gold – 5

Bridge, USS Endeavour
January 2402

‘Bird-of-prey, designation IKS Morinar, B’rel class,’ Logan read from his readouts at tactical in a cool but firm voice. ‘Holding position fifteen thousand kilometres away. Their shields are raised, weapons charged and they’ve locked onto us.’

Going to red alert had immediately activated Endeavour’s defences, but a glance at the readouts on her armrest confirmed Valance’s fear: those were unreliable in their current condition. ‘Commander Thawn, get down to engineering,’ the captain instructed as she sat in the centre seat. ‘If this turns into a fight, you need to hold us in one piece.’

As Thawn left, Kharth leaned across from the XO’s chair. ‘Recommend we launch fighters.’

‘Get them in their cockpits,’ Valance agreed. ‘But I’m not escalating if we don’t have to. They could have opened fire right after decloaking.’ She glanced about the bridge, making sure her senior staff had assumed their posts. ‘Airex, do what you can to discern if there are any other cloaked ships out there.’

‘That would be difficult at the best of times,’ came his grumbling reply from Science, ‘but I’ll try.’

‘A B’rel shouldn’t be trying to pick a fight with us,’ said Valance. ‘Either they’re posturing, they know we’re wounded, or they have friends.’

‘Do you want me to hail them, Captain?’ asked Kally.

‘Not yet. Logan, lock weapons and arm torpedoes. Let’s make it clear we’re not about to roll over.’

‘Aye, Captain. Weapons locked.’

Valance took a deep breath. Grasped the armrests of the chair. Nodded. ‘Now we hail them.’

A moment later, the viewscreen came to life, showing the gloomy interior of a Klingon bird-of-prey, and the shadowed reaches of its bridge. A wiry Klingon woman sat in the command chair and leaned forward with a hint of a leer. ‘I draw my blade at you in the darkest reaches of the galaxy, Starfleet, and you want to chat?’

Valance tilted her chin up. ‘I’m Captain Valance of the starship Endeavour. I assumed a warrior who meant to use her blade would have swung by now. We’ve been on a mission of exploration; can we be of assistance?’

The Klingon captain had plainly not expected someone with her face, with her soft ridges. She sprang to her feet like a cat who’d been coiled comfortably in the chair but was suddenly restless. ‘I am Captain Ledera, warrior of the House of K’Var. Exploration seems to have gotten the better of your ship, Valance. I didn’t think staring at space would leave scars.

‘Then you aren’t staring at the right parts of space, Ledera.’ Valance stood, aware of the intricacies of matching Ledera’s energy and tone, aware that gestures of strength were both necessary but could be wilfully interpreted as a threat. ‘We were struck by a plasma discharge in the nearby Mesea Storm. We’re putting in at Rencaris for repairs. What brings you out here?’

You’re asking,’ said Ledera, hand resting on the knife sheathed at her belt, ‘if I’m here to kill you.’

Valance hesitated. Then she squared her shoulders. ‘You’re asking yourself that. Or you’d have struck. You wanted to see what you were dealing with – now you see. We’re not some wounded, unarmed surveyor.’

And why would I want such an easy target?’

‘Why do you want such a target at all? I didn’t know Toral had declared his captains should openly strike at the Federation. Or that the Khitomer Accords had been torn up.’

Do they extend out here? Perhaps on paper, but what is that, out in these hunting grounds? These testing grounds?

Valance paused again, looking Ledera over. She was a young warrior, Valance thought. Perhaps she had spotted the wounded Endeavour, been curious, and was still scoping out the opportunity. But young warriors in a place like this, far from any superiors or allies, were always eager for a chance to prove themselves. And the House of K’Var had proven their old friendship with Starfleet had soured – and their fondness for Endeavour herself all but evaporated.

There were superiors in the house, Valance thought grimly, who might shower a captain in glory for bringing back her scalp.

She straightened. ‘I have faced Romulan warlords, D’Ghor dogs, and Dominion soldiers, on my bridge and with my blade, Ledera. Neither I nor this ship should be considered a training opportunity -’

Bluster, mongrel. Your ship’s power levels are compromised; if you had to recharge your shields from one good volley, they would probably collapse,’ Ledera scoffed. ‘Perhaps I will leave you be. Or perhaps you may find out if you can bolster them with more bragging.’

Ledera had not only been posturing, Valance thought. She’d been buying time to scan Endeavour and take the full measure of her damage. It was one thing to watch from cloak while they moved at warp. Now, with Endeavour’s shields up, she could see how the damaged ship’s power levels fluctuated, how Thawn and Caede had to make compromises and adjustments to be battle-ready.

She was young, brash. But not necessarily stupid. Valance glanced back at Logan, her question silent, and she knew the answer even before Logan gave the faintest shake of the head.

This was not a fight they wanted.

If you have no more bluster,’ said Ledera, a slow, fanged smile playing across her lips, ‘then maybe I will spare you and your crew, mongrel. If you beg for your life and theirs.

Behind her, Valance heard Kharth mutter oaths in her native tongue. Were the involvement of a Romulan not liable to escalate matters even more violently, she suspected her XO would not have kept her choice words to herself.

Valance gave an irritated sigh. ‘Is that what it takes to distract a hunting trip? Small words to ease your ego?’

One way or another, you will be beaten here, mongrel,’ said Ledera with a shrug. ‘The question is only if you live to see defeat by bowing and scraping at the feet of a warrior, as is your place, or if your unearned pride makes you fight and die like a dog.

It was, on paper, an easy choice. Valance did not care about the opinion of a young, brash warrior. Nor did she think her bridge crew cared enough about the opinion of a young, brash warrior to care if their captain had to perform theatrics in front of one. To Starfleet officers, doing what Ledera asked was embarrassing for Ledera, not for her.

And still, any attempt at gathering words caught in Valance’s throat before she said, instead, ‘This is beneath you, Captain Ledera -’

Ledera snarled. ‘You think you can dictate my honour, mongrel –

Which was when Kharth launched herself to her feet, thundering, ‘Call her “mongrel” one more time, you ignorant brute -’

Perhaps it was the insult, perhaps the interruption. Perhaps it was Ledera realising she was in danger of losing the upper hand. Perhaps Kharth’s outburst made it clear that, with her pointed ears and eyebrows, she was not a Vulcan. Whichever way, Ledera’s fist slammed onto a control by her chair, and a heartbeat later, Endeavour shook under the impact of weapons fire.

‘Direct torpedo hit!’ Logan barked. ‘Shields down to forty percent!’

With one torpedo? My, my,’ said Ledera in a sing-song voice. ‘What’ll it be, mongrel?

Valance first rounded on Kharth. ‘Stand down, Commander.’ Her voice was low, firm. ‘If we’re not dying for my pride, we’re certainly not dying for yours.’

Kharth’s lip curled, but she nodded and stepped back. Rather than resume her seat, she moved behind the command chairs, and Valance could hear her prowling like a caged animal. That wasn’t the worst choice, Valance considered. If it looked like this hurt her people, then that would be more likely to placate Ledera.

Valance’s eyes went to Airex first. Her friend looked tense, almost as coiled and ready as Kharth, but, with a tight jaw, he gave the faintest of nods.

It was more bolstering than she’d expected. This was just words. Just theatre. He had her back. She drew a deep breath and turned back to the viewscreen. Somewhere, she heard another alert go off on Logan’s console, but blocked that out; he would report if something mattered. ‘Captain Ledera,’ she began in a crisp, collected, but low voice. ‘I’d be a fool to pretend you don’t have the upper hand. A second blast will bring down my shields. A third will breach my hull and kill my crew.’ She swallowed. ‘Please don’t do that.’

Ledera sank into her chair, chin raising a half-inch. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Mongrel?’

‘Because this crew -’

‘Because you can go to hell,’ came Kharth’s second interruption, and for a second Valance legitimately considered turning and back-handing her XO to stop Ledera from reacting to this further insult. But Kharth wasn’t stupid or that impulsive –

Then the viewscreen shook as the IKS Morinar was racked with weapons fire, and as Ledera’s head snapped around, Logan gave a triumphant report from Tactical.

‘Incoming starship, Captain! It’s the USS Scylla.’

‘We’re being hailed! Both of us!’ called Kally, relief flooding her voice as she pressed a finger to her ear.

The viewscreen split in half, the shadowed halls of the Morinar’s bridge shoved to one side for the other to be dominated by the blazing, alert bridge of the Manticore-class USS Scylla. Valance had never met Captain Borodin before, but the square-jawed, dark-eyed commander of the squadron’s dedicated tactical escort was one of the most welcome sights she’d ever seen.

Stand down, Morinar.’ Borodin’s voice was low, tight, and threatening. ‘I have a lock on you with all three forward torpedo launchers and can bring eight of my ten phaser arrays to bear. It would be wise to only pick a fight with damaged ships today.

Ledera’s lip curled in a snarl, but her eyes flickered across the screen to lock back on Valance. ‘You need to cry for help, mongrel -’

Lieutenant Oraix, open fire,’ came Borodin’s cool interruption. ‘One volley, all launchers, all arrays.

Valance tensed at that, watched as weapons fire racked the Morinar, as a torpedo seared through the shields and thudded into the hull. The Klingon bridge was awash with chaos, officers shouting in the background as Ledera rounded on her people, barking instructions.

‘Captain Borodin,’ said Valance, voice whip-sharp. ‘I think you’ve made your point. Do you need assistance, Captain Ledera?’

Ledera only spat oaths in Klingon before cutting the communication line, and a moment later, Logan was giving a fresh report from Tactical.

‘Bird-of-prey has come about and is leaving at maximum warp. Looks like their cloak’s been taken out.’

That was my intention,’ said Borodin, whose expression had not changed throughout this confrontation. ‘And to leave a mark they’ll remember.

‘That was some mark,’ said Valance, but let out a deep breath. ‘But I can’t pretend you don’t have excellent timing, Captain. I didn’t know you were this far out.’

We’ve been assisting with Republic border security for weeks and took the lead on a patrol where we spotted you limping on long-distance sensors. We came as quickly as we could. Can we be of any assistance?

‘Can you give us a whole new set of EPS conduits? Or, if the Empire’s warships are prowling out here… perhaps an escort,’ Valance sighed.

The former is no more in my engineers’ power than yours,’ conceded Borodin. ‘But the latter would be my honour, Captain. If the Empire thinks of Midgard as its hunting ground now, nobody should walk it alone.

Dust and Gold – 6

USS Scylla
January 2402

Endeavour was still measuring every micron of energy pumping into every replicator, so Captain Borodin hosted Valance aboard the Scylla. The last Endeavour had been a Manticore class, and she’d served aboard for four long years as XO. To walk the interior with its crisp metal bulkheads, shining fixtures, and steel blue carpets was like stepping back in time, and the pang she felt in her chest was unexpected. What she missed about those days was not the ship, that lean vessel made for combat her crew had tried to wield as a weapon of hope. It was the people – Captain MacCallister, the other senior officers – and the simplicity of those days that she missed. The similarities were still striking.

But that sense of familiarity passed quickly. Within seconds, in fact, as the light of the transporter faded around her to reveal the transporter room, and a larger reception than she expected: not only the transporter chief and a sturdy, grey-haired man in a red uniform and commander’s pips, but a pair of officers posted to frame the steps of the pad.

Before she’d taken a step forward, the transporter chief had tugged a bosun’s whistle from his uniform and blown a quick, reserved arrival piping. The officers snapped to attention at once.

‘Welcome aboard, Captain Valance,’ said the commander with a swift, formal salute that he, to her relief, did not hold in expectation that she return it. Starfleet had never adopted such protocol formally into its codes of conduct, but she’d known some crews practice it. ‘I’m Commander Solheim, XO. Let me show you to the captain.’

She nodded politely as he extended a hand towards the door. ‘Thank you, Commander.’ She had questions, but knew it was down to Borodin to explain just what had brought the Scylla this far out. They had not walked more than a few metres of corridor in silence before they passed two more junior officers, who snapped to attention at either bulkhead as they passed, and Valance couldn’t suppress a raised eyebrow.

‘Captain Borodin runs a tight ship.’

To her relief, a tight smile crossed Solheim’s lips. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d welcome the whistle, ma’am. It might be a bit old-fashioned, but Captain Borodin wanted to be sure you were welcomed with the respect you deserve as a fellow starship commander, even in this situation.’

Even when I needed rescuing, she thought wryly. ‘Captain Borodin only took command of the Scylla a few months ago. Have you served with him before?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I was his XO on the Vigilance. He brought much of the crew over with him.’

‘The Vigilance. She was a New Orleans, no? How are you finding a Manticore?’

‘Bigger. Faster. Tougher. She’s a tough piece of work, this girl. She’ll go toe-to-toe with anyone who wants to make trouble, and end it.’

‘I appreciated the manoeuvrability,’ Valance mused, ‘but found the forward-facing weapons profile affected my thinking. We had to face problems head-on.’ At his curious look, she shrugged. ‘The last Endeavour was a Manticore. We’re not so much made for slugging matches any more.’

His eyebrows went up as they stepped into the turbolift. ‘No, ma’am. But the new Endeavour’s a fine ship. Traditional.’

Valance didn’t know if that was code for soft, and didn’t much want to prejudge a seasoned officer being proud of his ship, supportive of his captain, and polite in conversation. Thankfully, the turbolift trip was brief, and soon enough Solheim had led her into the CO’s ready room.

If Valance thought her approach to decorating was minimalist, Captain Borodin’s was practically invisible. He kept the steel blue carpets and clean lines in gunmetal grey. The interior bulkhead had a large Starfleet crest etched into the metal, and a display shelf along another wall showed off models of ancient sea-going warships of Earth. The wall behind his desk, beside the tall window, had only a few frames hanging, which Valance at once recognised held records of the captain’s commendations.

The man himself stood from behind his desk the moment they arrived. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, strong-jawed, he looked younger in person. Valance wasn’t used to being the elder captain, though she knew he’d held the rank for longer, and she decided that this, and the greater prestige of her ship despite its condition, put them on equal footing.

Borodin seemed to think so, too, walking around the desk to extend his hand for a crisp shake. ‘Captain Valance. Welcome aboard.’

‘Thank you for the welcome, Captain, and the save.’

‘Of course. You’d do the same for me, I’m sure.’ He looked to Solheim. ‘That’ll be all, Commander. Check in with Oraix on his tracking of the Klingons.’ As the XO left, Borodin turned to the replicator. ‘I took the liberty of brewing a raktajino. I hope that isn’t crass, under the circumstances; I served alongside KDF ships on the Warspite back on Operation Gatecrash and acquired a taste for it.’

She’d been half-bracing for him to make some implication about her heritage, and this wrong-footed her. ‘Raktajino sounds great. Black, no sugar.’

‘As it should be.’ Borodin took up a stainless steel jug and poured into two hefty mugs bearing the Scylla’s crest. ‘Please, sit,’ he said, gesturing to the low seating by the window, rather than his desk, as he handed her one.

Her worry about an excess of formality was fading. ‘We were very lucky your patrol took you this far out, Captain,’ she said as they sat before the windows, the distant shape of Endeavour dimly visible as a brighter gleam among the stars.

‘That’s true,’ said Borodin without pride. ‘We left our Republic allies behind to race here at maximum warp. We’ve told them to hold position; there’s no telling how many of the House of K’Var are out there. I’ve not encountered this Ledera before, but it’s not our first run-in with her house.’

‘They’ve fallen in very firmly with Toral. The house used to be divided in its attitude to the Federation, but the hostile factions seem to have won. They’ve been escalating against the Republic?’

Borodin nodded, stone-faced. ‘Probing, for now. But setting their eyes firmly on the Republic, like the rest of the Empire.’ She hadn’t realised her expression gave anything away, but he cocked his head. ‘You’ve been out of Federation territory a while, Captain. Chancellor Toral’s all but declared war on the Republic. The border houses who want their territory are starting to act like it.’

Endeavour hadn’t been completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy, but Valance wondered how much Rourke had kept his thumb on her reports, making sure he didn’t include anything which would have her racing back. Her lips set. ‘They’re going to burn the Khitomer Accords at this rate.’

‘I expect that’s why Chancellor Toral hasn’t formally declared war.’

She shook her head. ‘To an extent. It’s not necessarily fear of escalation that keeps him in line. But there are houses who don’t want war with the Federation, and he’s not strong enough to defy them.’

‘Yet,’ said Borodin grimly.

‘Yet,’ she conceded. ‘K’Var’s been focusing more on this border?’ The local tactical issue was, while threatening, a preferable concern to the risk of war with the empire.

Borodin sighed with frustration as he nodded. ‘They’ve found clear passage to traverse the dorsal border of the Republic to this frontier, which they expect to be less well-defended than the direct border with the Empire. Commodore Rourke dispatched me to aid the Republic with border security this far out. Fleet Captain Faust has her division at Unroth and Nemus Station, building up defensive infrastructure.’

Valance glared out the window for a moment. ‘We’ll have to return to Gateway once we’re able. Report to Commodore Rourke and see how we can help.’

‘Admiral Morgan’s calling the shots in the sector,’ said Borodin carefully. ‘I expect the commodore dispatched the Scylla to mollify the admiral. He’s taken the Sirius out past Vadfall, chasing reports of a Romulan warlord. The admiral wanted the Sirius closer for defence.’ Again, she must have been poor at masking her expression, because Borodin gave a low chuckle. ‘I know. Command politics. Much better to be out here, getting our hands dirty.’ He paused, wincing. ‘Apologies, Captain. I’m sure you’ve not enjoyed the dirt you just got on you.’

‘Not much, but we lost nobody,’ said Valance. ‘I call that the good end to a bad day.’

‘You think you can secure the help you need at Rencaris?’

‘I don’t know. But I think that if the House of K’Var is out here, Rencaris will be involved in local politics more, one way or another. Now we have the best excuse for diplomatic outreach.’

‘Even if we’re on the back foot.’

‘I think the company of your ship, Captain, puts us in a stronger position.’ She shrugged. ‘It makes us look less desperate. We can go somewhere else, it’s just an inconvenience. It’s not a matter of survival.’

‘We should make sure,’ said Borodin carefully, ‘they don’t realise that the longer I’m with you, the longer the Republic patrols don’t have my help.’

She nodded, and her brow knotted finally as she was reminded of his tactical acumen. ‘You hit that bird-of-prey rather hard, Captain.’

Borodin’s expression didn’t change. ‘I did. They had deadly designs on a Starfleet ship.’

‘A volley of half your weapons would have made the same point.’

‘It would have demonstrated we could bloody them. It might not have demonstrated we would. There’s no benefit to walking softly with these people.’

Again, she braced for the implication he was lumping her in with Klingons, but he didn’t. There was, this time, no hint of the affection with which he’d spoken of his comrades on Operation Gatecrasher, liberating Federation space from the grips of the extremist Sovereignty of Kahless over a decade ago. Only a cold pragmatism.

‘The wrong hit, and we’d have been rescuing them or retrieving bodies,’ Valance pressed.

‘I disagree,’ sad Borodin. ‘I calculated the ordnance loadout carefully. You can disapprove of my desire to bloody them to make a point, Captain, but please don’t suggest I didn’t use exactly as much force as I chose to.’

Force doesn’t work like that, Valance thought but didn’t say. It gathers momentum fast. She inclined her head. ‘Then I’ll just thank you for the save.’

‘Even though we sent them packing,’ said Borodin, and for a moment she thought he was going to double-back and relitigate something he’d just asked her to stop litigating, ‘and politics of Rencaris aside, I want to make sure your ship is escorted and safe. I heard much of the comms chatter on our approach. You’ve made an enemy there.’

The thought that this brusque, formal man had heard her borderline begging for her crew’s lives did not make this meeting any more pleasant. ‘I’m sure she and I will have a chance to resolve our business.’

‘Not just you. Your crew. She came for them, too, coming for you like that.’ Borodin’s gaze was fixed, firm. ‘Your XO sees that.’

She wasn’t sure if he was accusing Kharth of speaking out of turn, suggesting she was dismissing her crew’s feelings, or reassuring her that she wasn’t alone in what had just happened. Before she could press, the door-chime sounded and Borodin looked up with a flash of irritation at the interruption as he gave his summons.

‘Apologies, Captain,’ said Commander Solheim once inside. ‘We’ve found something on our long-range scans.’

‘The Morinar?’

‘No, sir. Another Klingon ship. Vor’cha class.’ Solheim hesitated. ‘Sir, it’s at Rencaris.’

Borodin was on his feet. ‘Return Captain Valance to her ship at once – Captain, I apologise, but if the House of K’Var are assaulting Rencaris then we must lend aid -’

‘They’re not attacking, Captain.’ Solheim was more firm, sounding now like the older man bringing his commanding officer’s youthful exuberance in check. ‘They’re in orbit of the third planet. It looks like they’re… visiting.’

Borodin stopped, staring at his XO. ‘Visiting?’

Valance let out a slow breath, chest tight. ‘This won’t be a vacation. Or a scouting trip. There’s only one reason to send a Vor’cha for something like this: they’re negotiating. And they’re serious about it.’

‘Negotiating what?’ said Borodin.

‘That,’ said Valance more levelly, ‘is something we must find out when we get there. And complicate this party.’

Dust and Gold – 7

Bridge, USS Endeavour
January 2402

‘It would be best,’ said Valance to the image of Captain Borodin on Endeavour’s bridge viewscreen, ‘if you and the Scylla remained at a distance on our approach.’

I agree,’ conceded Borodin with visible reluctance, ‘but we’ll hold position. If Rencaris or the Klingons start anything…

‘We’ll withdraw,’ Valance said swiftly. ‘And you can cover our escape. We’ll signal if we need you, Scylla, and communicate once we’re safe. Endeavour out.’

‘Babysitting over,’ mused Beckett as the viewscreen died. He’d assumed the tertiary command seat, somewhat to her consternation, but he was still the closest thing they had to a local expert.

‘We probably owe Captain Borodin our lives,’ Valance reminded him curtly, then raised her voice. ‘Take us into the system, Lieutenant Lindgren. Ensign Kally, keep transmitting our greeting message.’ Kally had composed, in consultation with Beckett, a simple message to declare their peaceful intentions and desire to speak with the leadership of Rencaris, trying to open the door to negotiations succinctly without over-explaining.

Within minutes, they dropped out of warp at the periphery of the Rencaris system, the strained hum of Endeavour’s engines receding as they coasted in. Valance watched the image on the viewscreen still as the stars stopped streaming, but barely change, the outermost planet still no bigger than her thumb at this distance, but growing all the time.

Kally had a finger to her earpiece, the young officer’s expression perhaps the most intent Valance had seen it. ‘Picking up traffic from local ships, captain. There’s a lot of commercial activity.’

‘And patrols,’ said Logan, reading his tactical sensors. ‘Old ships, mostly – D-7s and Stormbirds. All with modified transponders of the former Star Empire, Romulan and Rator. Two are headed our way.’

Valance looked at Kally. ‘Do they have our message?’

‘They should do, Captain.’

Kharth had moved to stand at Logan’s shoulder. ‘They’ve got shields up but haven’t armed weapons,’ she said. ‘Flight pattern is for non-hostile engagement; they’re wary, but they’re not coming in hot.’

Valance had wondered if she should stop her XO and former Chief of Security from backseat driving her successor, but Kharth was still an astute observer of Romulan military matters. She nodded, just as Kally called out anew.

‘Comms from the patrol ship, Captain.’ She paused, finger at earpiece. ‘They’re offering to escort us further in. Governor Vhiemm would like to welcome us.’

Valance let out a slow, relieved breath. ‘Confirm our cooperation, Kally. Lindgren, follow their lead.’

Endeavour glided deeper into the Rencaris system, the crew watching on the viewscreen as the once-distant star blossomed into the heart of a bustling interstellar hub. Stations, freighters, and sleek transports crisscrossed the space between planets; even in the vastness of space, the star system boasted a steady hum of activity. A moderately sized defence platform orbited the sixth planet, a respectable shipyard the fifth, and within that ring of duranium, they could see the rest of the system’s life. Sleek habitats and settlements gleamed on the surfaces of worlds and moons, their infrastructure layered with industry and urban sprawl.

‘I’m getting comms not just in Romulan, but some of the local indigenous languages – and some further out, too,’ said Kally, keyed into the general communications chatter.

‘Some of these ships are from a ways out,’ mused Logan. ‘Few we know from Sot Thryfar, even Rho Detara. Some are IDing from Volantis, Chalthe…’

‘This is to the old Romulan factions what Alfheim is to the Federation,’ Kharth reminded him. ‘The edge of everything.’

‘The Vor’cha class is orbiting the third planet,’ Airex butted in, voice terse. ‘I’ve ID’d her as the IKS Suv’chu, part of the House of K’Var’s fleet.’

Beckett’s head snapped around at that. ‘That’s General Brok’tan’s ship. He’s the…’ He waved a hand illustratively as he sought the word. ‘Master-at-arms? Marshall? Of the house. The highest ranking military member who’s not part of the house itself.’

‘That could be worse,’ said Kharth, ‘seeing as we – well, Rourke – killed one of K’Var’s sons and now the brothers are out for our blood.’

Logan sucked his teeth. ‘He might have orders to bring in our heads.’

‘Torkath only attacked us back in the Empire to hurt Rourke; it’s only personal with Rourke,’ said Valance, rubbing her chin. ‘I wouldn’t expect a subordinate to automatically take up that fight. We should be careful, though.’

‘It’s a big deal if Brok’tan is here,’ Beckett said. ‘He’s the highest ranking member of the house to get involved in their campaign against the Romulans.’

‘Let’s hope that means he won’t compromise his mission just to please Torkath,’ said Kharth.

‘That does raise the question of what he’s doing.’ Valance frowned, but then Kally was interrupting again.

‘Sorry, Captain – we’re being hailed. It’s the office of Governor Vhiemm.’

Kharth looked over before Valance could reply. ‘You want to field this one, or should I?’

Valance shook her head. ‘There’s no telling if they’d distrust a Klingon in a Starfleet uniform or a Romulan in a Starfleet uniform more. I won’t overthink this.’

‘That’s a hell of a choice getting into Romulan politics,’ Kharth pointed out, but returned to her seat at Valance’s side anyway.

The captain nodded to Kally. ‘On screen.’

Vhiemm was a weathered Romulan man whose ridged forehead was somewhat at odds with his otherwise thin, delicate features. Behind him was his office, bathed in bright sunlight spilling from tall windows showing the distant vista of Rencaris’s capital city, walls adorned with intricate Romulan tapestries. He spoke in a voice slightly higher pitched than Valance had expected, almost melodic in his greeting. ‘Captain Valance, welcome to Rencaris. How may we assist Starfleet today?’

Valance straightened. ‘Thank you for the welcome, Governor, and for receiving us. As you may have been informed, my ship is badly damaged. We face a long journey back to Federation territory across this turbulent sector. I’m here to ask for shelter so we can conduct repairs.’

I’m delighted to hear Starfleet considers us friends enough to reach out in such troubled times,’ said Vhiemm, rather to her surprise. ‘You were right to make your way to Rencaris. I cannot offer you use of our shipyard facilities at this time, but your ship is welcome to enter orbit of our capital and conduct repairs in safety.

It took discipline to disguise her surprise at this immediate cooperation. ‘That would be gratefully received, Governor. In return, we can discuss sharing some of our findings of the further reaches of -’

Captain, what matters most is your ship getting to safe harbour.’ Vhiemm interrupted her with an airy wave of the hand. ‘We can discuss the details later, perhaps some way our shipyards might accommodate you. Rencaris is welcome to all those who would treat with us fairly. That includes you.’

‘Thank you,’ Valance said again, somewhat stunned.

I ask you to appraise your repairs and inform me once you have some idea of how long it will take, and we can discuss from there whether it is appropriate for you to call in further assistance from your people. My reports indicate there is another starship nearby?

‘The Scylla.’ For a moment, she considered obfuscating, but decided there was value to testing Vhiemm’s reaction. ‘They have business of their own to return to once we are safely harboured, but they escorted us here after we were targeted by a Klingon bird-of-prey.’

Vhiemm’s eyes did narrow at that. ‘Targeted.’

‘I assure you, Governor, in our condition I did not seek a fight, and your scans should make it plain that our damage came from the Mesea Storm, not Klingon weapons. I’ve no intention of starting trouble with your other guests.’

Yes, well. General Brok’tan is our guest. We will brook no external conflicts spilling into our territory.

‘Of course not.’

I expect you to make your people aware of this, should they come across any of the general’s warriors off-duty.’ Vhiemm did spot her flicker of confusion this time, and gave a thin smile. ‘Of course your crew are welcome to enjoy the sights of Rencaris while you are here. As I said, Captain. Rencaris is welcome to all those who would treat us fairly.

‘We’d… welcome the shore leave, Governor.’

Good.’ Vhiemm’s eyes flickered off-screen. ‘You will be given instructions by your escort about your orbital vector. Please give my security staff your full cooperation. Governor Vhiemm out.

Kharth was frowning deeply when the viewscreen died. ‘That went well.’

‘Really well,’ Valance agreed with shared suspicion.

‘He didn’t ask for anything,’ said Caede, turning in the chair, scowling. ‘He’s up to something, Captain.’

‘He said we’d negotiate later. Though that sounded like it’d only cost us if we want their facilities, or to bring in more personnel.’ Valance frowned and, despite herself, looked at Beckett. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘I’m not exactly an expert in Romulan negotiations,’ the intelligence officer admitted. ‘But it’s a pretty standard practice to make the first offer free, to get us in the door. Also, the Klingons being here might shift things. Maybe he doesn’t want to seem like he’s favouring the Empire, so doesn’t want to risk turning us away.’

‘I think he’s actually proud of Rencaris,’ mused Kharth. ‘He wants to show it off.’

‘He wants,’ said Caede roughly, ‘to come across as reasonable, when he’d rebuild the Star Empire in a second if he had his way.’

‘But he won’t get his way,’ said Kharth, a bit dismissive. ‘So he can be as munificent as he likes if it suits us.’

‘What I’m saying, Captain,’ the centurion pressed, eyes on Valance, ‘is that he’s not our friend. Even if he’s being nice.’

‘I’m aware of that, but thank you for the reminder,’ said Valance, trying to sound sincere. ‘It’s easy for us to get so relieved at a spot of good luck we don’t keep an eye out for danger. But let’s not borrow trouble, either.’ She stood and straightened her uniform. ‘Lindgren, find us a patch of sky we can call our own. Then let’s figure out how long we need to be here. Lieutenant Kally, signal the Scylla they can get back to their journeys. We’re going to put our trust in our host’s hospitality.’

Dust and Gold – 8

Captain's Ready Room, USS Endeavour
January 2402

Valance rubbed her temples as her yeoman swished through the holographic displays boasting the delights of Rencaris, bright pictures dominating the compact ready room.

‘…what about the Varal Moon Gardens?’ Ensign Hargreaves said, eyebrows raised like she was testing toys on a child and monitoring their reaction. ‘Botanical gardens, home to rare Romulan plants. Crafted landscape. You don’t get much of Romulan botany elsewhere. Or the Rilan Sky Temple, an aerostat over Rencaris IV, one of the gas giants, offering stunning -’

‘I told you to put some information together, Hargreaves,’ Valance snapped at the young officer. ‘Not get a job at the Rencaris Tourism Board.’ She reached to swipe over to the next offering, labelled the ‘Plasma Falls of Eridon,’ a favoured site for extreme sports, hikes, and scenic views. ‘Where did you find all of this?’

Hargreaves straightened her uniform self-consciously. ‘The, ah, Rencaris Tourism Board. I did consult some of our own scans and Kally’s comms records, trying to put together a more objective assessment of the system, but then Counsellor Dhanesh suggested-’

‘…that this was a chance for everyone to wind down? Say no more,’ Valance grumbled. ‘Let me guess, you want to go diving off the Plasma Falls.’

‘Actually, there’s a grav-racing circuit at Solathian…’

Valance was saved from managing the young ensign’s enthusiasm by the door-chime’s chirrup, and her brisk response summoned a suspicious-eyed Kharth.

‘Commander,’ Valance greeted her. ‘Come in. Hargreaves is suggesting twelve ways to die in Rencaris.’

Kharth gave Hargreaves a brief, assessing look, then shrugged at Valance. ‘I only need to suggest one, for you: walk a street in Rencaris.’

‘That’s a little paranoid. If the Suv’chu is here, and if they’ve had half the welcome we did, then I expect Klingon warriors are taking shore leave.’

And,’ said Hargreaves, swishing through a few more pictures on the holographic projection,  ‘Rencaris is close enough to the old Neutral Zone that they’ve a fairly well-established array of travellers from over the border. The capital city is quite diverse and hotspots like Kalaak’s Plaza are -’

‘Did you swallow a brochure?’ said Kharth.

‘Dhanesh wants us to take a break,’ sighed Valance, ‘so he asked her to make it all sound appealing.’

‘A break sounds great. For everyone who’s not you, me, or the engineers.’ Kharth shot Hargreaves another look. ‘Beat it, Ensign. Go take Kally BASE jumping off a flaming waterfall or something.’

‘Actually, now you’re here, Commander…’ Hargreaves fished about for her PADD. ‘Governor Vhiemm’s extended an invitation to Captain Valance and a nebulous number of guests to have dinner with him and his wife before attending a performance at the Old Ratorian Opera House in the capital. Day after tomorrrow.’

Valance gave Kharth a wry look. ‘Give me one excuse why my Romulan XO isn’t a perfect companion for this.’

Kharth narrowed her eyes. ‘Can’t your reporter girlfriend get here in 24 hours at maximum warp or something?’

‘She’s not my girlfriend –

‘That makes it sound worse and more desperate; what’s the show, Hargreaves?’

‘Uh…’ Hargreaves flicked through messages. ‘The Fall of D’taleth.

Valance had not expected Kharth’s reaction of a brief, smothered grimace. ‘Fine,’ said the XO.

‘We should wear civilian formalwear,’ said Valance, watching her more carefully. ‘Avoid drawing too much attention. And we’ll want a security officer.’

‘Logan can -’

‘I’m not putting Logan on security detail within ten feet of the head of state.’

Kharth stared at her for a moment. Then she turned to Hargreaves. ‘Again, Ensign: beat it.’

The two women were silent as the young officer grabbed her PADD and fairly flew out the door, leaving the projection of the delights of Rencaris shimmering in the air by the bulkhead. After a moment, Kharth let out a slow breath. ‘He’s a good officer -’

‘This is a diplomatic opportunity and there’s no need to add the complication of an xB. For his sake as much as the mission’s,’ said Valance levelly.

‘Don’t say it’s for his sake.’ Kharth scowled. ‘He wouldn’t thank you for stopping him from doing his job and saying it’s for his own good -’

‘You just suggested I’d get mobbed walking the street. It’s not unusual to pick a junior security officer for an assignment like this. I won’t lie to Logan, but I’ll ask him to choose someone else.’ Valance leaned back in her chair, and a quick wave of the hand made it clear the discussion was over. ‘What’s the word from Thawn?’

‘Without use of Rencaris’s facilities, this could be a two-week job,’ said Kharth, sucking her teeth.

‘We can discuss that tomorrow. Alternatively, Gateway has offered to send reinforcements. Swiftsure could be here in a day or so if they burn hot. They’ve got the industrial replicators and can secure parts from the station before they go.’

‘Do you think Vhiemm will welcome another Starfleet ship?’

‘Maybe not, but it might get us out of his hair sooner,’ Valance pointed out. ‘It’s another option to put on the table. I expect him to start dangling prices at dinner.’

‘Airex and Beckett have been putting together a few options on data packages to offer in trade.’

‘Good. Then we’re ready. I had word from Admiral Morgan; he’s indicated he’ll follow my lead on the negotiations.’

Kharth scowled. ‘You mean, he’ll let you take point and blame you if it goes badly, and swoop in and take credit if this is a success?’

Valance opened her mouth to chastise her XO for speaking ill of an admiral, but her heart wasn’t in it. In the end, she just said, ‘We’ll see,’ before looking up at her. ‘How’re you feeling?’

Feeling?’ Kharth made another face. ‘I don’t know. A bit hungry?’

‘I mean, how long has it been since you were somewhere like this? Romulan space that isn’t a desperate frontier, or an empire collapsing around our ears?’

‘Two and a half years? Since we raided Rator space to bust Rourke out of prison?’

Valance rolled her eyes. ‘Without someone trying to kill us.’

‘If you’re asking how I’m feeling about being around my people…’ Once, Valance thought, Kharth would have gone on the offensive to push the topic away. Now she shifted her feet and said, ‘Last time I went to the opera was with my parents. On Romulus. I was twelve. Didn’t really appreciate it very much. My…’ She cut herself off and shook her head. ‘It’s weird. But I’ve spent more of my life in the Federation than anywhere else, now. You probably spent more of your adult life around Klingons than I did around Romulans.’

‘That might be true,’ Valance allowed. ‘I only ask because Dhanesh will probably ask.’

Kharth set her hands on her hips. ‘There’s a lot of things I’ve disliked you for in the past,’ she said. ‘Asking Greg to recommend us a new counsellor might be the worst. How are you feeling about the Suv’chu?’

‘Like there’s a predator I can see out of the corner of my eye, sizing me up, trying to figure out if it should make the first move,’ said Valance, fidgeting with the stylus for her PADD. ‘Which reminds me. About the run-in with the Morinar, and Captain Ledera…’

‘I know.’ Kharth made a frustrated sound, but it didn’t seem dismissive. ‘I spoke out of turn. I should have kept my mouth shut. I just hate when these assholes get to act out and we’ve got to keep the high ground, but I put the crew in danger, I know…’

Valance’s lips twisted. ‘Yes. There is all of that. But what I was going to say was…’ She hesitated, plucking at air with her fingertips like seeking words, and tried to keep her voice light. ‘Thank you.’

‘Oh.’ Kharth blinked. Then she frowned and self-consciously shifted her feet. ‘Well. Yeah. Like I said. There’s a lot of things I’ve disliked you for. Ledera doesn’t get to shit on you after only knowing you for five minutes.’

‘Let’s try to be more diplomatic with Vhiemm and Brok’tan if it comes to it, though, yes?’ Valance stood, eager to move on after the uncommonly warm exchange. ‘And Dhanesh is right about some things: the crew deserve a break. Not to mention that we’re explorers, and we know so little about these people, these worlds. We can mix business with pleasure. Make sure everyone gets at least 24 hours off. Even Thawn and her team. If Airex wants to integrate some anthropological observations with downtime, so much the better.’

Kharth nodded. ‘Rest. Recuperate. Seize opportunities. No such thing as a real vacation for us, huh?’

‘Not out here,’ sighed Valance. ‘Let’s also try to politely scope out Rencaris’s shipyard facilities, see if they’re worth us buying access to -’

Kally to Valance.’ The young comms officer’s voice came crackling over the system, low but urgent. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but I’ve got a message here from General Brok’tan of the Suv’chu. He’s inviting you aboard. Lunch, apparently, uh, at 1300 hours.

Valance met Kharth’s gaze, guarded as she called, ‘Thank you, Kally,’ and cut the channel. ‘I suppose I’m popular.’

‘You’re bringing someone,’ said Kharth flatly. ‘If Brok’tan doesn’t like it, he doesn’t get lunch.’

‘Of course, but respectfully, Kharth, this one isn’t a visit for you -’

‘No. This is boarding a Klingon warship when we just got threatened by one of their buddies out there. It’s okay to make Brok’tan feel a bit uncomfortable.’ Kharth straightened. ‘Which means this time you are bringing Logan.’

Dust and Gold – 9

USS Endeavour
January 2402

When Raj Dhanesh had come aboard Endeavour some months ago, he hadn’t expected the first visitor to his office to be chief of security Jack Logan.

‘Thought I’d give you a warm welcome,’ the former Borg drone had drawled as he’d sauntered in before Dhanesh had finished deciding where to put his potted plants. ‘Considering most of the senior staff are probably busy drawing up plans how to best avoid you. I’m Jack Logan.’

‘You know how to make a fellow feel wanted,’ Dhanesh had mused in reply, giving Logan’s extended hand a firm shake. ‘Is everyone aboard that therapy-averse?’

‘I’d say no more than on any starship. Some of them are real bad at winding down and trying to relax or be happy, though.’ Logan wandered the half-unpacked office, eyes sweeping over the tentative choices in decor. ‘You’re gonna need to hook ‘em in if you want them to talk about their feelings.’

‘But not you.’ Dhanesh had watched this broad-shouldered, swaggering man with a suspicious air. ‘I don’t need to worry about you? In fact, I should worry about everyone else first, because you’re so clearly so well-adjusted?’

‘What? Oh, no.’ Logan waved a dismissive hand as he turned from a picture of a calming ocean that Dhanesh rather hated, but knew to be soothing. ‘Nah, this ain’t some gambit where I pretend to be the model patient, so you pay me less attention. I’m not gonna be your patient at all.’

Dhanesh had been sifting through a box of knick-knacks. It was good to make the office look personal, make him look and feel like a real person to his colleagues when they came to bear their souls to him. But professional boundaries still mattered, so which real version of Raj Dhanesh they all got mattered a great deal, and some of that was in which tiny sculpture he put where. ‘You’ve got my attention,’ he admitted.

‘I’m well-therapised. You probably saw my counsellors’ files; you could present it to the Sheliak as convincing documentation. My commission, especially my service in a senior role on a front-line starship, is dependent on my cooperation with clinical psychologists who’re absolute experts in my specific bag of trauma.’ Logan had leaned against the door-frame, arms folded across his chest, watching the counsellor. ‘So I talk with them regularly, remotely. Do my worksheets. Express my feelings. All that good stuff.’

‘Then why, if you’re such a cooperative patient, don’t you want to benefit from face-to-face sessions with a counsellor who sees you every week?’

‘Don’t get me wrong. If I need some emergency session ‘cos something bad happens – I’ll book in.’ Logan shrugged. ‘But my day-to-day needs? I’m sorted. I’ll go somewhere else, thanks.’

Dhanesh had reached for the console built into his desk to quickly but pointedly summon Logan’s files. ‘I guess I’ll have to have a word with… Commander Bainbridge about that. See if she has any concerns about what could be considered avoidance behaviour.’

‘Oh, it ain’t for my good, per se. This is for yours.’ Logan had given a slow, self-satisfied smirk as Dhanesh’s suspicious eyes fell on him. ‘You’re about to become the emotional guardian of one of the most stand-offish packs of over-achievers you ever met, and they’re not gonna want to let you. You’ll either be in conflict with them or know the truly screwed up shit they’re going through. You’re gonna need better boundaries than the old Neutral Zone. Except for with me. ‘Cos I’ll keep going to Bainbridge.’

‘You’re saying this like I should thank you.’

‘Dunno about that. Point is, you’re gonna have a lot of weird relationships. One thing you’re gonna need is a friend. One you don’t therapise, one you don’t need to keep some professional barriers up for. Someone you can blow off steam with. You play springball?’

‘Badly.’

‘Good, me too. See you tonight at seven on the court? We can grab a beer after.’

Which was how Raj Dhanesh became friends with Jack Logan.

He made sure to keep an eye on Logan’s records, checking that Commander Bainbridge of Starfleet Medical was satisfied with the progress and cooperation of a relatively high-ranked xB. With Endeavour in deep space for long weeks, too far out for instantaneous communication, Dhanesh reached out to Bainbridge himself to see if Logan’s primary carer wanted him to check in. But Logan proved as good as his word. Then again, most officers didn’t risk losing their job if they didn’t follow a counsellor’s instructions to the letter.

Springball became beers became regular games down the gym, or holodeck jaunts, or long evenings in the Safe House. It didn’t take a read of Logan’s file for Dhanesh to see the man’s aching need for constant companionship, to fill the silence the Collective had left within him. Then again, Dhanesh was fresh to a new assignment, finding his feet, himself cut off by Endeavour’s distance from real-time communication with his family. The arrangement worked. The friendship worked.

It meant that when, the day after their arrival at Rencaris, Logan flopped onto the bench in Endeavour’s gym between weights sets, puffing much more than expected at this stage into the workout, and began to complain, Dhanesh knew this was the bellyaching of a friend, not the expressing of feelings to a counsellor.

‘I’ve still gotta pick someone,’ Logan huffed, grabbing his water bottle. ‘For day after tomorrow.’

The emotions were clear. The context was not. Dhanesh set his weights down thoughtfully. ‘To do what?’

‘Escort duty. The opera. ‘Cos they can’t let me near a head of state, lookin’ like this.’ Logan was still catching his breath, and gave his own face, his own cortical implant, an agitated gesture.

‘Ah.’ Dhanesh handed Logan his water bottle. ‘Do you want advice on this professional decision?’ Or do you just want to get this off your chest?

‘It should be Qadir, right? Professional, capable. Not a Borg. Could be Griffin. Or I think a bit more out of the box and send someone like Beckett – it ain’t as if physical security will actually be needed, and the kid’s got good eyes…’

Dhanesh stayed silent. Logan drank deeply. His rest timer went off, and that cut the venting off for the period of another set of lifts. Dhanesh considered his options, and decided that being Logan’s friend didn’t mean he had to turn his professional instincts off.

‘Are you angry that you’re benched as chief of security because you’re a Borg? Or are you angry that you’re benched but Kharth is going?’ he said once Logan had put the weights down again.

He’d slightly misjudged it, and Logan put his dumbbells down with a bit of a clatter, his jaw tightening. ‘Can it be both?’ he said after glaring at the weights for a moment.

‘Sure can. I should rephrase, though. Are you legitimately worried for her safety, the captain’s safety? Struggling with the idea you’re not allowed to do your job? Or the idea there are social spaces they can go – she can go – that you can’t?’

‘Alright. Counsellor.’ Logan stood, lips twisting. ‘So there’s stuff to work on.’

‘Hey. I’m just asking questions,’ said Dhanesh with an amused shrug.

‘And maybe in all of this I should be thinkin’ harder about escorting the captain over to the Suv’chu, huh. Last time I escorted a senior officer to a Klingon meeting, guards pinned me to a wall while he got the hell beaten out of him.’

Dhanesh rolled his eyes. ‘That does make this sound a bit like deflection. Yeah.’

‘Or there’s just a lot goin’ on,’ Logan pointed out.

‘One step at a time. What do you need for the trip to the Suv’chu?’

‘To wrap Captain Valance in padding?’ Logan’s honest brow furrowed as followed the joke with a sincere ponder. Then he sucked his teeth and shook his head. ‘If they start to posture, if they start to throw their weight around, all training says you sometimes gotta be ready to meet Klingons on their own terms. Match strength for strength. If I hold back at the wrong moment, it looks like weakness and that hurts us.’

‘And…’ Dhanesh knew what the alternative was. He just wanted Logan to say it.

‘And if I push back at the wrong moment, they decide to see me as an outta control Borg and this makes things worse.’ Logan grimaced as he reached for his towel at last, wiping the back of his neck down.

He was never more obviously a former drone to Dhanesh than when they exercised. Physical competitions between them had been abandoned quickly, at Logan’s suggestion, because he was so clearly the stronger and faster. Down here in the gym, Dhanesh could only spot that superior strength if he stopped to note how heavy the weights were, how effortless it sometimes was. But in lightweight workout gear, he could see the nodes and implants marring Logan’s skin, marking his muscular arms and body.

To some extent, the trap Logan described would be performative, Klingons picking and choosing when they thought an opponent fighting back was impressive and worthy, and when they thought it meant they deserved death. But there were times Logan moved too fast, or lifted something too heavy, and some small part of Dhanesh’s hind brain screamed that there was a threat nearby.

‘Trust the captain,’ Dhanesh said in the end. ‘She knows the people involved, the culture. Let her set the pace. And tell her this before you go, so she knows when and why to give you orders.’

Logan frowned a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, she’s not gonna be weird about appearing weak or whatever. She’s sensible.’

‘And then, when this is over,’ Dhanesh continued more carefully, ‘maybe have a conversation with Saeihr about the opera. Because I don’t believe you’re fretting more about a mission you’re not going on than one you are going on. You’re fretting about her. Being seen in public with her, on a Romulan world, in Romulan culture.’

Logan laughed. It was sincere but bitter, self-effacing but also, somehow, relieved. Dhanesh had cut to the heart of things, and though that hurt, it was also liberating. ‘Damn, Raj,’ he said as he gathered himself. ‘Thought I said I weren’t gonna be your patient?’

‘Sorry, Jack.’ Dhanesh clapped him on the shoulder as they headed back for the changing rooms. ‘I’m your friend, not your counsellor, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less annoying.’

Dust and Gold – 10

USS Endeavour, Rencaris System
January 2402

‘We’ll keep a good enough sensor read on you at all times that if we need to beam you out, we can,’ said Kharth, walking in step with Valance on the way to Endeavour’s transporter room, Logan a beat behind them. ‘The first sign of trouble -’

‘They’ll raise their shields,’ Valance pointed out. ‘And then you’ll have to do some negotiating and try to get Rencaris on our side because we can’t either start or survive a fight in their territory. I’m not expecting a double-cross, Commander.’

‘That’s the point of a double-cross, Valance. You don’t expect it.’

‘This is a Klingon officer. A general,’ said Valance, chin tilting up an inch. ‘He’s here to engage the people of Rencaris in diplomatic negotiations. He doesn’t then invite another guest aboard his ship to kill them.’

‘I don’t -’

‘Keep an eye on us from the bridge if it makes you feel better. I think you’ll be very bored waiting, though.’ They entered the transporter room, and Valance gave Chief Zharek a brisk nod as she sprang onto the pad. ‘Get ready to beam us over, Chief.’

Thwarted, Kharth turned to Logan. ‘Remember that Klingons are liars,’ she told him bluntly, well aware Valance could hear her. ‘They’ll cling to honour until you get the better of them, at which point they’ll decide your methods were dishonourable, that you’re dishonourable, and so they don’t have to play by their made-up rules with you.’

‘All rules are made up,’ said Logan with a tight, wry smile. ‘But you’re makin’ a great case for why you’re not on this diplomatic trip to see Klingons, Commander.’ Behind Kharth, Valance smothered an audible guffaw, which kept her wrong-footed enough that she didn’t stop Logan when he reached to give her arm a quick squeeze. ‘We’ll be fine.’

She worked her jaw. ‘I know,’ she said, wondering if she should have expressed more concern for him directly, if he’d have welcomed that, if it would have been unprofessional. ‘Just keep this one safe from relying too heavily on honour from people trying to invade this region now it’s weakened.’

‘Commander.’ Valance’s voice was a little more impatient, and Kharth might have resented her interrupting the farewell if it weren’t so carefully impersonal. Logan joined Valance on the transporter pad, and with a quick nod from the captain, Zharek beamed them away.

Kharth stared at the space they’d been stood for a beat, then glanced to Zharek. ‘Stay at your post, Chief. You might be called into action.’

‘Yes. Commander.’

The clipped tones of Zharek’s voice stuck with Kharth as she headed back to the bridge. Their brief dalliance – one-night stand, really – had been years ago, but every now and then she thought she sensed a glimmer of resentment from the Andorian if her personal business ever reached the transporter room.

But this was likely something she wanted to bother her, so she didn’t have to think about Valance – and Logan – away on the Suv’chu. It didn’t help that the bridge was quiet when she arrived, Lieutenant Stevens surrendering the big chair to her with a hint of quiet resentment at sacrificing his effort to clock more command hours. With Endeavour but powered down in quiet orbit while repairs were ongoing, there was only a skeleton crew on the bridge, the heart of the ship humming rather than beating.

But on the viewscreen, she could see the solid lines of the Suv’chu, hovering like a buzzard above the skies of Rencaris III. Kharth checked her armrest panel, confirming they still had a read on Logan and Valance. All was still. Poised.

She tapped her armrest comms button. ‘Bridge to Engineering.’

A beat. ‘Thawn here.’ She sounded resentful of the interruption.

‘Anything to update?’

…are you expecting an update, Commander?’

‘Well, no, but I just got up here -’

I’m halfway through reprogramming these isolinear chips to better manage our EPS systems with the bypasses we’ve had to set up – I don’t have time to chat. Commander.

Thawn’s growing confidence as chief engineer was not always endearing. Kharth dimly missed the days when she’d have rather died than been rude to a superior. ‘Sounds like we could do with that help from Gateway, Commander.’

I – whatever the captain thinks is best, ma’am. Now, if you’ll excuse me – Thawn out.

Well played, Kharth thought irritably. She closed her eyes for a moment, slumping back in the chair. Only after a beat did a thought occur, and she sat up, and gave the computer a command.

Ten minutes later, the turbolift doors slid open, and Dav Airex’s eyebrows were raised when he heard the music wafting through the bridge. ‘We are letting standards slip, aren’t we,’ he said, voice dripping with wryness as he padded past her towards the science console. Before she could summon an indignant defence, he’d asked, ‘Tarvanen?’

‘I – yes,’ said Kharth, flustered. ‘The Fall of D’taleth. What’re you doing here?’

He smirked as he leaned over his console, tapping in commands but not sitting. ‘I’m the chief science officer. Do I need a reason?’ But he shook his head. ‘I’ve been talking to a director of the Rencaris Science Institute. There are some in-roads on collaboration with the data we secured on the Mesea Storm.’

‘You can’t hand that over,’ she said quickly. ‘We might need that in the negotiations with Vhiemm.’

‘Which is why I’m not giving them anything meaningful,’ said Airex, eyes twinkling as he looked up at her. ‘I’m just… dangling. Teasing. Enough that the director maybe wants what we have. Enough that maybe he reaches out to the governor so he asks us for what we have.’

‘That’s… really smart,’ Kharth admitted.

‘I know,’ he said without pride. ‘So I’m just running a quick analysis on some of this data before I send Director Talarin the preliminaries. Whet her appetite, so to speak.’ The computer processes begun, he turned to her, watching for a moment before his eyes rose to take in the bridge. She could tell he was listening to the music, though, the low crooning of the Romulan voice in this overture. ‘I love the way Tarvanen builds towards the crescendo, with the layering of instrumentation. You first get the percussion, then…’ He lifted a finger, poised, waiting, then smiled tightly as a new element entered the melody. ‘There it is. The brass. Like clockwork.’

Kharth shifted her weight. ‘I didn’t know you knew anything about Romulan opera,’ she admitted. ‘Who was that from? Isady? Lerin? Lerin struck me as the kind of asshole who’d learn foreign opera.’

He’d braced at the mention of Airex’s last host, the one who had destroyed their life together before ever they’d met, but gave a small, relieved smile at her comment. ‘A different asshole. Davir.’ He cleared his throat, stepping away from the science console as it chirruped away at its processes, and eased onto the XO’s chair beside her with a self-conscious air. ‘Over, ah, the last few months on the Cavalier.’

Back when they’d served together before. Back when they’d been together before. Kharth swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. ‘You…’

‘Heard you listening to – I think it was Dantrontre’s work, and I didn’t recognise it, and you kind of brushed me off when I asked, but I was curious.’ He didn’t look at her, drumming his fingers on the armrest, flushing a little. ‘I got a taste for it.’

She looked away, trying to keep her own body language casual, failing badly. ‘I needed a distraction. With Valance and Logan on the Suv’chu.’

It was his turn to shift his weight. ‘They’ll be fine. It’s not in the profile of Brok’tan to -’

‘I know. It’d be diplomatic madness. I don’t wish I were there. But I don’t like waiting. It’s the worst part of being XO – as Chief of Security, I was always in the thick of things…’

‘You will be later,’ he pointed out. ‘At the opera.’ At her surprised look, he shrugged. ‘Director Talarin mentioned it. I expect she’ll be there; it’s a big social event.’

Her eyebrows raised. ‘We should see about getting you in, then. Schmooze with Talarin, get her to gush at the governor about how important our data is, and you get to see the opera…’

It was like the air tingled as he smiled, the kind of quiet, self-conscious smile she associated with Dav, the man, not Airex, the parasite. ‘That would be delightful,’ he said softly. Behind him, the science console chirruped.

‘Is that your data?’ she asked, glancing past him.

‘Yes.’ Airex frowned, and didn’t move. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘Vega blend?’

‘What else?’ he said, standing. ‘We can wait for the diplomats to get back.’

Moments later, he was back in the chair beside her, passing her a steaming mug of coffee. The sweeping tones of the opera washed over them, a new hum to replace the silent heartbeat of the ship, and wordless, together, they waited.

It was the most comfortable Kharth had felt in a very long time.

Dust and Gold – 11

IKS Suv'chu, Rencaris System
January 2402

On a ship as mighty as the Suv’chu, they were not received in General Brok’tan’s quarters or office, but his private halls. That was the term for what on Endeavour would be Valance’s private dining room, a small space to host a half-dozen guests just off the Safe House lounge. On a Klingon warship, it was far more impressive, a mighty chamber where a score of warriors could sit with the general to eat, drink, talk, and sing. He himself could sit in state atop the mighty central chair and receive those who wanted to brief him, bring issues to him. Here, he was not merely a starship commander, a warrior. He was a lord.

General Brok’tan had cleared the room, so when the warriors who met Valance and Logan at the transporter had escorted them to the private halls, they waited at the door. That gave Valance some small comfort; that Brok’tan had no concerns about her bringing her guard with her, while he left hers outside, only reinforced the civility of the meeting. He either did not expect trouble or was not concerned by it.

The hall was shrouded, as she’d expect in a Klingon’s sanctum. Blazing braziers lining the wall cast everything in golden silhouettes, with Brok’tan himself a towering, brooding figure in his throne-like chair. The metallic twang of her footsteps as she approached felt incongruous; in a place like this, she expected the sound of stone, as if they were in the hallowed halls of an ancient household.

Rather than make her cross the distance like a supplicant, Brok’tan stood at her approach and stepped down to the deck. ‘Captain Valance. Daughter of the House of A’trok. You honour me with your visit.’ He was a large, husky figure, going soft around the middle and greying in the beard but still moving with power and confidence.

‘General Brok’tan. I thank you for your hospitality. This is my Chief of Security, Commander Logan.’

Brok’tan’s dark eyes dragged over the figure of Logan, a half-step behind and beside her. ‘Commander. Battle-scarred, I see.’ He extended a hand to the long table, where platters had been laid out. ‘Come, both of you. Sit. Eat.’

Valance gave Logan a pointed look as they approached the table. ‘Do it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Eating and drinking -’

‘Gives us rights and protection as guests; I know,’ came the quiet, confident drawl back. ‘Ain’t my first Klingon rodeo.’

They sat. Up close, Brok’tan’s chair was not so looming or so tall; up close, he could sit alongside those at his table, first among equals rather than towering and lordly. He enthusiastically pushed platters towards them, and Valance was dimly relieved to see a varied spread: gagh and targ meat, but an effort at food palatable to his guests. Even if it looked like plain-boiled rice and some fowl roasted in what smelled like spices more comfortable to a Klingon tongue.

As ever, she hesitated, torn as to whether reaching for the gagh would make her look performative. Logan spared her the challenge, grabbing a fistful which he shoved in his mouth without batting an eyelid, and Brok’tan laughed.

‘It’s fresh!’ he assured them with some delight. ‘I am not here to test if you can stomach it.’ As Valance settled on a leg of targ, Brok’tan served himself before planting his elbows on the table. ‘I see your ship is bloodied. But not, I am told, by your encounter with Captain Ledera or the Morinar.’

Kharth hadn’t been wrong about one thing, Valance thought ruefully. Klingons would insist themselves not duplicitous, but their standards of honour and respect could shift, the rules changing as it suited them. In this case, the question was how in how much she wanted to admit to her ship’s weakness, and how Brok’tan would perceive that.

‘My ship was damaged in the Mesea Storm,’ she said carefully. Simple truths were the best starting point. ‘As we approached Rencaris, looking for safe harbour to conduct repairs, we encountered the Morinar. She winged us, yes, but the USS Scylla winged her when they arrived.’

Brok’tan watched her for a moment, leaning back in his chair. ‘A simple exchange of blows,’ he surmised, lifting his hands. Then he sighed and shook his head. ‘I have seen the reports. You have my apologies, Captain. Ledera is young, hungry, eager to prove herself. It was beneath one of my warriors to strike at a weakened target for no reason.’

‘Should Starfleet and Klingon ships consider each other targets at all?’

Brok’tan scoffed, and she tensed. ‘What should and what is are not the same in these years,’ he said, but shook his head. ‘I have not come here to fight the Federation. And I have certainly not come here to prey on damaged ships. You, your crew, your vessels, are all safe from me and my warriors should our paths cross, Captain. I have made that abundantly clear to Ledera. And here, we are both under the hospitality of Rencaris, and I would never abuse that.’

He had given her assurances, she thought, while giving away nothing of his own intentions. ‘I am glad to hear it. I once counted the warriors of the House of K’Var as friends. Lord Torkath has done us great service before.’

‘The dispute between Lord Torkath and Commodore Rourke,’ said Brok’tan, more carefully, ‘is not our dispute, Captain. I knew Dakor since he was a child. Trained him. And yet, there are many warriors I once trained who are now dead. He sought battle and glory, and found both before his end. So the story goes, he and Rourke fought hand-to-hand, and Dakor was slain. Avenging him is not my duty, and even if it were, it has nothing to do with you, Captain Valance.’

‘We both have duties out here that are best not muddied by the personal affairs of Commodore Rourke and Lord Torkath,’ Valance agreed with a flash of relief. Brok’tan was keeping his cards close to his chest, but she thought she heard a certain air of disapproval in the mention of involving her and Endeavour. If Brok’tan was a man of honour and sense, he would likely not think well of Torkath’s attack on Endeavour in imperial territory, a strike whose sole purpose was to try to hurt Rourke and set him and Torkath on a collision course. Torkath was a man grieving – grieving the death of his brother, and the perceived betrayal of Rourke for killing Dakor. Brok’tan did not have to share that clouded judgement.

‘Indeed. That was why I wanted to speak with you, Captain: to give you these assurances. Ledera may have thought she would please Torkath by striking at you, or simply thought your ship and reputation made you a worthy target. I have put a stop to that. I and my warriors are not here to strike at Starfleet. You are not my enemy.’

‘Who is?’ Valance watched him intently. ‘Forgive me for being brazen, General. But you have scouts flying the area willing to strike at passing starships, and you come here in a mighty vessel. You come in honour, but also strength.’

Brok’tan didn’t hesitate, per se, but he did linger over his gagh. ‘Chancellor Toral has made it plain that it is time to turn our eye on our old enemy.’

‘The Star Empire? That doesn’t exist. Romulans? Then what brings you so civilly to Rencaris? Or is this merely scoping it out as a weak target?’

It was an intentionally provocative blow, and Valance did not have to study closely to see Brok’tan’s reaction. The general’s lip curled. ‘They are a brave people seeking their self-determination and we are here to ensure that…’

‘To make sure they don’t join the Republic. You’ll guarantee their independence?’ Valance cocked her head, watching him. ‘In exchange for, I assume, something along the lines of resupply for your ships as the House of K’Var makes a bid for this border of the Republic.’

Brok’tan’s expression was sliding towards a glower. ‘You have heard from Governor Vhiemm. He would have Rencaris be a friend to all who will treat with them well. We need be no different.’

‘Perhaps not. But Governor Vhiemm has not allowed Endeavour to use Rencaris’s dockyards or repair facilities. Not without negotiating a better price. Is the protection of the House of K’Var a price worthy of that access?’

‘As I say,’ said Brok’tan, slowly regaining some control over his frustration at how she had slipped a dagger between his defences, ‘Chancellor Toral has said we should turn to our old enemy. But that means you are not my enemy, Captain.’ He reached to a pitcher and filled her tankard, and Valance was relieved that the bloodwine was well watered down when she drank. ‘I fought alongside your grandsire in the Dominion War, you know. I hope he is well.’

‘You would likely know better than I,’ Valance admitted. ‘We do not talk often. I have heard little from my brother, so I assume no news is good news.’ She wondered if Brok’tan knew that her brother Gov’taj had marshalled ships of the House of A’trok in defence of Endeavour when Torkath, son of K’Var, had tried to kill them in the Empire months ago. But there was an opportunity here. ‘I hope your lord K’Var is in better health, also.’

Brok’tan straightened slowly. The ill health of K’Var himself, father of Torkath and Dakor and their siblings, was not widely known. Torkath had admitted it to Rourke before Dakor’s death, and intel had suggested the house was not undivided in its ambitions or organisation. ‘It has been some time since he and I last spoke,’ Brok’tan said after a moment’s consideration. ‘But I will pass on your wishes.’ He reached for another platter. ‘More gagh?’

The rest of the lunch passed swiftly. For a Klingon warrior, Brok’tan was quite adept at keeping conversations neutral, turning discussion to old campaigns that had nothing to do with the current political situation. Valance engaged politely, but kept her counsel with Logan until they had returned to the transporter room and beamed back aboard Endeavour.

‘A pact to guarantee Rencaris’s independence,’ Logan growled the moment he stepped down from the pad. ‘And in exchange, they get… what? A place to resupply so they can invade the Republic?’

‘Rencaris stands a lot to gain. And a lot to lose.’ Valance grimaced as she joined him. ‘No wonder these negotiations aren’t fast. It only really suits them if the Klingons are in the ascendance in the region.’

‘If they really hate the Republic, though… or fear the Republic…’

‘That might make Rencaris more rash, yes.’ She shook her head. ‘Brok’tan seems like he’ll treat with us fairly, at least.’

‘He were pissed when you wriggled his mission out of him. An’ pissed you knew about old man K’Var. I’d be careful trusting his word,’ said Logan, eyes narrowing.

‘You sound like Kharth. Besides, here at Rencaris -’

‘He can’t do anything against us openly. You caught that he shifted how he spoke to you, though, right? When he were wrong-footed, you were more Starfleet. When he liked you, you were more Klingon. Amazing what a Klingon warrior can justify if they don’t view their enemy as worthy of respect.’

Valance had noticed, on some level. She was always so uncomfortable with how Klingon she should act around other Klingons, though, that she hadn’t felt capable of taking advantage of it; had been too busy second-guessing herself and her behaviour. This was one reason she’d brought the astute Logan, who was a master at fading into the background on the rare occasions it suited him.

‘I’ve been told I over-think situations and borrow trouble,’ Valance said with a hint of wryness. ‘Let’s not assume Brok’tan is an enemy yet. For now, it suits him to be civil.’

‘We oughta keep it that way as long as we can.’

‘And in the meantime,’ she agreed, ‘find out exactly what this deal is they’re trying to make with Rencaris, and how close they are.’

Dust and Gold – 12

The Safe House, USS Endeavour
January 2402

‘So that’s another vote for the Solathian Race Grounds.’ Lindgren swiped her finger across the holographic display dominating the Safe House lounge to tally up her count. ‘Looking pretty decisive, then!’ She turned to the small assemblage of young, twenty-something officers and NCOs with a hint of triumph.

‘Damn it,’ swore Lieutenant Forrester at roughly the same time Chief Bekk gave a hiss of delight, his sharp Ferengi fangs bared.

‘What’re you complaining about?’ The floppy golden hair of Lieutenant Tyderian, Endeavour’s fighter squadron leader, swung as he turned to beam at Forrester. For her part, the grim-faced engineer seemed unmoved by his simple charm. ‘You’d love the Race Grounds.’

‘That’s the problem,’ drawled Zherul, the Orion paramedic.

‘There’s no way Thawn lets me take more than twelve hours off,’ Forrester confirmed.

Lindgren had thinned her lips, obviously not about to voice or join criticism of a fellow member of the senior staff to the junior officers present, but the response was a general grumble of outrage.

‘Surely not,’ blustered Tyderian, blue eyes bright with disbelief. It was a little like watching a puppy be told Christmas had been cancelled. ‘Counsellor Dhanesh says we should all see the sights, and Commander Airex wants us filling in reports.’

‘Yeah,’ said Zherul, smirking. ‘It’s our job to party. In the name of exploration, you understand.’

Forrester shrugged. ‘Not while the ship needs repairing.’

‘But if that happens,’ said Chief Bekk, his eyes narrowing, ‘then all our department heads will follow suit, right?’

‘You’re fine,’ Forrester told the quartermaster with an eyeroll. ‘No way Caede listens to Thawn.’

‘No, but Athaka will! Then other shift leaders might stop and think…’

‘Take it up with Thawn,’ said Forrester. ‘No way I get to feel dirt under my boots this week.’

All eyes turned, at last, to the inevitable. Nate Beckett, perched on the Safe House’s bar with a bottle of beer in hand, sighed. He took a moment for a long gulp of his drink, tasting the flavours, the fizz, then sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘And so you turn to me in your hour of need.’ He jumped off the counter with what he thought a swaggering air, though that was a hard thing to do. ‘To slay the dragon. The harpy.’

‘Your girlfriend,’ Lindgren pointed out in a moment of unhelpful feminine solidarity.

‘But yes,’ said Forrester, ‘please give her a good seeing-to, so she lets us take time off.’

‘Have no fear.’ Beckett set his hands on his hips in a heroic pose. ‘She’s never been able to resist my charm.’

‘That’s… outrageously untrue,’ said Bekk. ‘She used to throw you out of her office in Ops all the time –

‘You just figure out who else you’re bringing on this racing escapade,’ said Beckett, waving his finger at them all. ‘Who’ll make it cool. And I’ll make sure everyone can go.’

They’d been a persistent band over the years, this collective of young lieutenants and NCOs. They were the sort of officers for whom Endeavour had usually been their second assignment, somewhere they’d been sent once they’d cut their teeth and were now due a little responsibility. Some faces had come and gone over the years – Harkon now on Sirius, Tyderian now here running the Black Knights – but the core had remained, largely built around whoever Elsa Lindgren liked, or at least didn’t want to put up with the hassle of rejecting.

It had not escaped Beckett that they weren’t ensigns any more, the lower deckers at the whims of the truly powerful. Some of them were senior staff – and not second-string like Lindgren had been at Comms. Most of them were the very shift leaders and managers whose wrath they feared. Theoretically, they had the power to deny the iron rule of Rosara Thawn.

But she wasn’t really one of them anymore. Not Commander Thawn, who brunched with Airex and worked out once a week with Kharth. If they’d grown, she’d grown. Nobody had wanted to invoke her wrath when she was a fussy martinet, but now she was the ship’s master, much higher in the chain of command, much more respected. Her wrath wasn’t just annoying now. It was powerful.

‘Fine, whatever,’ said Rosara Thawn when he found her. Or rather, when he found her feet sticking out from under a console in main engineering, and had put the question of Forrester’s shore leave to her.

‘What?’ Beckett stared. He was going to be a hero, and he’d done nothing.

‘Counsellor Dhanesh’s memo said everyone should get a 24-hour shift off. So long as all my shift leaders don’t take their day off at the same time, it’s fine.’ Thawn wheeled out from under the console, her hair a red mane of wildness, face smudged with soot. ‘If Forrester’s sensible, I don’t see why she can’t go on the trip.’

‘Oh. Awesome!’

‘Of course,’ Thawn continued, leaning over to her toolkit, ‘I’ll have to cover her shift.’

There it is. ‘What?’

‘And I wasn’t going to have time for a full twenty-four hours off anyway.’ She looked up at him, gaze guarded. ‘You wanted to go to this race course?’

‘Well… yes. But you mean you’re not taking any time off?’

‘The ship is damaged, deep in the sector. We’re at the mercy of some Romulans we just met, and there’s a Klingon warship sharing our orbit. Why should the chief engineer take a break?’

‘Counsellor Dhanesh -’

‘I won’t work dangerous hours; I will follow all safety protocols perfectly appropriately. And when this is over, I can take a week off and spend it in a bath in the holodeck. Go, Nate. Have fun.’

His shoulders slumped. ‘No. I’ll save the day off until next week. Maybe then you’ll see a way out of this mess.’

She made a face. ‘Is this ship really going to fall apart if you take two days off?’

Beckett had to fight to swallow the indignation, though knew it was pointless. He could sense the immediate regret coming off her in waves, just as she had to sense that she’d insulted him. It was unclear which came first. ‘No, the Chief Intelligence Officer has nothing to do in a star system where Starfleet has never spent more than a few hours, at the edge of known space, in a volatile region, where we have Klingons doing God-knows-what -’

‘I’m sorry.’ Her regret sounded sincere, but so did her annoyance at him milking it. ‘I don’t think you’re slacking. And I’m sorry again, Nate, but I just don’t have time to get into it right now.’

He’d been very supportive of Thawn’s move to engineering, mostly because he wanted whatever made her happy. Had he known it would turn her into an even worse workaholic, he might have thought twice. He let the apologies wash over them both and left, sending a quick word up to the expedition team that they could holiday in peace. Almost at once, the reply on his PADD came from Lindgren, a simple question.

So no Rosara then. You still in?

Beckett was stood before the turbolift, staring at the query, when the doors slid open to show Doctor Starik in remarkably casual civilian garb: a very plain tunic with a thick, leather, belted robe thrown over it, lacking any of the adornments or simple embroidery he might normally wear.

‘You going somewhere fancy?’ said Beckett wryly, stepping in to join him.

‘On the contrary,’ said Starik, apparently missing the irony. ‘The capital city appears to be a diverse place where many people from different socio-economic backgrounds live in proximity -’

‘The clothes, Doc. You don’t normally dress like this.’

‘No. The city may be diverse. It would not be judicious, however, for my heritage to be immediately recognised. It is only sensible for me to pass for a local without further investigation.’

‘That makes sense,’ Beckett allowed as the turbolift began to whisk them away. ‘Going anywhere fun?’

‘I anticipate you would not deem the Rencaris Institute of History and Culture to meet that criteria, but it is the largest museum in the system with extensive exhibits on the colony…’

‘Are you kidding?’ Beckett rounded on him. ‘You know I was an A&A officer before I was in Intel?’

Starik tilted his head. ‘I did not. You are welcome to accompany me. I was going to ask Lieutenant Turak, as we should not travel alone…’

‘We can have Turak, Turak’s fine -’

‘Your company will suffice,’ said Starik, a little more quickly.

Beckett narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you not like Turak? You’re always spending time together.’

Starik paused. ‘Lieutenant Turak has not been receptive to my subtle indications that there might be more to conversation than his studies. Variety in companionship would be… welcome.’

‘Oh, you sassy boy, Starik. I knew you had a judgemental streak in you.’ Beckett clapped his hands together, thinking. He couldn’t take his day off if he wanted to wait for Rosara, but this trip could easily be logged as work hours, and would only take an afternoon. Perusing a museum was the perfect mixture of business and pleasure. ‘Let’s do it. Give me a minute to get changed, and I’ll be your chaperone. Don’t want you getting hate-crimed in the street, after all.’

‘Indeed,’ said Starik mildly.

Dust and Gold – 13

City of Vedrex, Rencaris III
January 2402

If Beckett looked up, he could barely see the tops of the spires of Rencaris’s capital city, Vedrex – but he could see the surveillance drones. Metres above their heads, they buzzed along streets heaving with the bustling population of this old Romulan colony and its myriad of visitors. Down the wide boulevards lined with high-end shops and cafés, or the narrow streets cutting from the shopping district to the museum district, wherever they went, they were watched. Everyone was watched.

‘The more things change, the more they stay the same,’ Beckett mused as they walked into the open, busy plaza before the Rencaris Institute of History and Culture. The fat sun of late afternoon struggled to peek between the city’s vast towers, but even if it reached the square, the looming statue of Rencaris’s founder at the centre of the plaza’s array of decorative fountains was enough to blot out the light.

‘You suspect a continuation of Tal Shiar social surveillance?’ asked Starik, unmoved as ever, somehow walking through the crowd like it was nothing when Beckett felt he had to jostle and elbow his way forward.

‘Not literally Tal Shiar surveillance. Or we’d feel the hand of the Free State shoved up Rencaris’s arse. But you don’t need Tal Shiar letter-headed paper, or even their playbook, to run an authoritarian surveillance state.’ Beckett kept his voice low but casual, a tone where nobody in a crowd would pick up on his words unless they were trying very hard. Rather than a full-on disguise, he wore a soft brown leather jacket and had crammed on a black baseball cap and stuffed his ears inside. It wouldn’t pass scrutiny, nor could he be accused of hiding, but at a glance, neither of them would draw attention in a sea of mostly Romulan faces.

But not exclusively Romulan. Particularly here, in the tourism-focused parts of the capital, visitors from a dozen species punctuated the crowd. Rencaris wanted the wider sector, the wider quadrant, to feel they could visit, do business, socialise. They just kept everyone under tight surveillance all the same.

The museum itself was a looming, impressive building of traditional Romulan architecture, its grey-green walls built with a local stone that looked akin to serpentine, to Beckett’s eye. Columns framed the entrance, intricately carved with figures he didn’t recognise and suspected had some local rather than wider cultural import. Large, arched windows gave glimpses into the vast halls beyond, but were too high from the ground to give him anything but a tease from the outside, and likely let sunlight spill through inside. A massive domed roof crowned the structure, softening the harshness of the building’s corners and giving it a sense of stoic grandeur.

Inside, they joined a thin queue of tourists winding through the vast atrium, built such that a hundred excitable voices didn’t echo and disorientate. Beckett took the lead, not wanting Starik to be betrayed by his Vulcan demeanour, even if a low cap earned him some suspicious glances from the ticket staff.

Still, Starik butted in halfway through the transaction, staring directly at Beckett. ‘We should acquire an audio guide.’

‘I’m pretty sure the interpretation panels at Rencaris’s premier museum will -’

‘You will assume you know things,’ Starik pressed on without missing a beat, ‘and speak. With an audio guide, that will not happen.’

‘Are you saying that with an audio guide, I won’t speak, or with an audio guide you won’t have to hear me?’

‘Only you can determine that outcome. Either way, I am sure to hear an accurate retelling.’

Beckett paid extra for the handheld device to give them an audio tour, gritting his teeth. Only once they were past the desk and heading deeper into the museum did he hiss, ‘I didn’t want to say anything there ‘cos I expect the audio guide to be even more explicit propaganda. So if you think I’m going to be less vocally critical with this thing trying to convince me about the glory of Romulus…’

‘Then so be it; you will have more evidence for your point. Remember that I am a graduate of the Vulcan Science Academy, however, and am well versed in the pertinent eras of history.’

‘Or the Vulcan propaganda version of the exodus,’ Beckett muttered.

Starik, of course, heard him. ‘The version rooted in the logical analysis of historical record -’

‘Written by who? And of course your social framework’s analysis of your history is gonna be sympathetic!’ Beckett threw his hands in the air. ‘STEM kids. You take one humanities module because it’s required and you think history’s just about memorising facts. That’s not scholarship.

They would prove to agree to disagree. Or, perhaps, to just disagree. The museum’s halls led them first through to a section on the Vulcan exodus, where the audio guide told a story of how an oppressive regime seized control of the planet, suppressing the rights of individuals to their thoughts and feelings until the flight of a large group of brave dissenters seeking freedom.

‘A clumsy misinterpretation,’ said Starik as he studied an intricate set of models of the exodus fleet. ‘The passions of our people were driving us to self-destruction.’

‘Sure,’ said Beckett, though his eyes were more on the models. ‘But what about if you were a resident of Vulcan and didn’t want to give up the right to feel your emotions and express them?’

‘There were no legal inhibitions or restrictions.’

‘Just societal pressure to never so much as laugh in public. Right?’

‘You presume this transition was not long and arduous for all of Vulcan society,’ said Starik, brow furrowing in thought. ‘All were provided with support.’

‘I’m sure that if it was difficult, you were helped. I’m saying, what if you didn’t want to live like that?’

‘The alternative was destruction.’

‘And yet, the Romulans built an empire that lasted two thousand years. And it wasn’t their passions that destroyed them. They became one of the greatest powers of the galaxy, while the Vulcans had to get subsumed by the Federation.’

‘There is no shame in collaboration, nor is geopolitical might the sole standard of -’ Starik stopped himself, the furrowed brow deepening. ‘You seek to provoke me. You are aware this is a wasteful endeavour, yes?’

‘I think I successfully provoked you.’ Beckett smirked. ‘But what I actually did was make a point. Your facts are based on your framework, your standard of success, of societal wants and needs.’ They’d continued to wander the halls now, passing a somewhat ramshackle set of exhibits about the exodus itself, which featured more information boards than actual artifacts. Through a set of double doors was the next section, with a large holographic display hovering overhead simply titled ‘The Founding of Rencaris.’

‘What’s not logical,’ Beckett said in a more conciliatory fashion, ‘is the song and dance they make about the exodus and the link to Rencaris’s history, when Rencaris wasn’t settled until a century after Romulus. And not by any of the remains of the exodus fleet.’

‘It is an effort to establish a sense of lineage,’ said Starik. ‘Nation-making requires such myths.’

‘Funny, your analysis is at its best when it’s cynical but not partisan.’ They paused at the doors to the section on the founding as a group of Romulan schoolchildren were marched up the corridor. Beckett knew better than to get in the way of a school trip, but let the droning of the audio guide wash over him as it tried to link specific ships of the exodus to the founding, and listened to the rather wild-haired teacher at the head of the group.

‘…and the founders uncovered a wilderness in this region, particularly this close to Klingon space,’ she was saying, even as she appeared to be checking and double-checking she had the right number of children in the group. ‘By settling Rencaris, our ancestors didn’t only secure the homes we live in today, but brought civilisation and order to a chaotic region…’

‘Impressive,’ mused Beckett as she led the children on ahead. ‘She can manage a pack of twelve-year-olds and spout colonial propaganda at the same time.’

‘A versatile skillset,’ agreed Starik, as always more receptive to dry wit than open humour. They gave the school trip a wide berth before following.

Once inside the next section, Beckett stopped before a tall display. Behind one glass case were the faded and tattered remains of an ancient tapestry; beside it, bright-coloured and intact, was a holographic representation of how it had originally looked.

‘There’s not a single picture of that thing here,’ he pointed out. ‘Contemporaneous, I mean.’

‘You think the completed image a falsehood?’

‘No, I mean – maybe. I’m just curious what they based it on.’ Beckett’s eyes swept from the text of the tapestry to the display board beside it. ‘It was made to commemorate the Imperial Senate’s decision to expand the borders this far. “The Walls of the World,” they called this sector.’

‘“The border of known space,” surely,’ corrected Starik.

‘No, see – huivaraen as a word isn’t just boundary, it’s got implications of protectiveness and support.’

‘Is walls the best analogy? Translation ought be more direct and literal, rather than imagining evocative implications that may not -’

‘Don’t make me move from historiography to translation,’ Beckett groaned. ‘The point is how this has shaped Rencaris’s identity. The edge of the empire. Barbarians beyond in the wilderness.’

Their advance became more meandering afterwards, the two men through the rather deifying exhibit about Rencaris’s heroic founder, Rhamanath, depicted in the museum as a visionary and pioneer. Beckett thought he sounded more like a bureaucrat appointed by a board of colonial affairs on Romulus.

Then again, most such figures probably were. Someone had probably convened a hiring panel somewhere for Jonathan Archer, after all.

‘They are a proud people,’ mused Starik as they progressed. ‘But these exhibits have changed. They are more recent, modern. They mention the supernova. It is curious.’

‘You thought they’d be more reflective?’ Beckett shook his head. ‘The myth changes. Once, it was belief in Romulus. Now, it’s belief in Rencaris. The walls of the world. But the barbarians aren’t just to the trailing border. They’re everywhere.’

Starik paused in front of a display showing the holographic image of Romulan ships in a pitched battle against Klingon vessels. ‘They were not only trailing. Once, rimward.’

‘Ooh.’ Beckett leaned in. ‘They’re always so cagey about the nature of the Klingon-Romulan conflicts of the late-twenty-third century…’

‘I had not known Klingon ships penetrated Romulan space this far,’ Starik admitted.

‘They probably took the same route the Suv’chu did,’ Beckett mused, reading. ‘The House of Konjah leading the attacks. Woah.’

‘Woah?’ It sounded, from Starik’s lips, like a computer trying to approximate the emotion.

‘The purpose was to devastate Rencaris’s shipyards to deny their frontier forces a fallback point for repairs. Over one hundred thousand dead as one of the orbital platforms fell to the surface.’

‘So say their records.’

Beckett blew out his cheeks as they read on. ‘And then the strike in retribution on the border world of Q’alah, Klingon territory. One-twenty thousand dead.’

‘It reads far more as the intentional inflicting of mass casualties. Including civilian,’ Starik pointed out. ‘Phrased in that same celebratory manner. Phrased also as if it is something of which the people of Rencaris should be proud.’

‘Hurt us, and we’ll hurt you worse,’ mused Beckett. ‘Not the worst principle to motivate a populace with their backs against the wall.’ He raised his hands at Starik’s look. ‘I’m talking as a pragmatic tactic! Not an admirable one!’

‘And yet we come here to find Rencaris considering some form of concord with a Klingon House. In defiance of their own kinfolk, and a government that has never inflicted atrocities upon them.’

‘Some might think the Federation abandoning Romulus was an atrocity,’ Beckett pointed out mildly. He glanced up at the tall doctor. ‘Was it logical for Vulcan to campaign in favour of that? Leaving their own kinfolk?’

‘We are not kin,’ said Starik with a bluntness that surprised Beckett. ‘Genetics are less significant than culture and values to bond people. This is why Vulcan made common cause with the Federation, and not the Star Empire.’

Beckett worked his jaw, and decided he didn’t want a blazing row with a Vulcan about the Romulan evacuation in the middle of Rencaris’s centre of historical remembrance. ‘Times change, I guess,’ he said, knowing it was a brush off, feeling a little guilty for not challenging Starik’s perspective. ‘Friends are foes, foes are friends.’ He nodded further down the halls. ‘Let’s see how else they turn things upside-down, huh?’

Dust and Gold – 14

Rencaris System
January 2402

‘What’re you doing here?’ Kharth looked suspicious as she opened the door to her quarters to see Logan standing there. That in itself wasn’t the problem, but he wore hard-wearing civilian clothing, the like of which she’d seen him in when they’d first met. He’d been undercover on the Romulan refugee world of Teros, after years out on the frontier on behalf of Starfleet Intelligence.

‘Can’t a guy drop by just ‘cos?’ He smirked. ‘Get changed. We’re going out.’

She rolled her eyes and waved him in. ‘Do I get a clue what to prep for?’ she asked, heading for her wardrobe.

‘I think you’ve got enough info already to make the right decision.’ He waited politely in the middle of the room, even the XO not granted a separate bedroom in their quarters on a ship as compact and utilitarian as Endeavour’s living conditions could be.

‘You’re annoying,’ she said, knowing to match his level of clothing, and pulled her uniform jacket off. ‘Anyone ever tell you that?’

‘You. Often.’ Logan gave a toothy grin.

‘You’re also in a good mood. I didn’t know it went that well on the Suv’chu.’

‘Klingons didn’t try to show off who’s bigger and meaner at each other. I didn’t have to fend off death threats against my captain. I’d say it’s a pretty good day.’

She hesitated as she pulled a canvas jacket to toss on the bed before pulling off her undershirt. ‘You’re feeling better about the opera,’ she surmised, deciding it was better to mention it than sit on it all evening.

‘Is what it is, ain’t it?’ Logan shrugged, hands in his pockets as he watched the window, with the gentle rolling hues of Rencaris III’s atmosphere below. She didn’t know if she liked the gentlemanly approach; he’d seen her naked countless times by now, and didn’t need to be coy. Even if she was just changing her shirt. ‘Saves me havin’ to listen to some opera.’

Kharth hid her expression by turning away to pull on her jacket. ‘Let’s have this surprise, then.’

They beamed down from the transporter room into fresh, cold air and a gathering dusk. Kharth drew a sharp breath at the sudden drop in temperature, and with it came the taste of smoke and spices on the air.

Before them rolled sprawling fields, the rays of the dying sun casting gold across tiered plots of crops punctuated by the shining specks of agricultural buildings and equipment. Turning showed their true destination: the bustling hub of a rural settlement of Rencaris III. Rather than some isolated village, this was a town, the streets wide enough for drones and transport skimmers to zip between fields and processing centres. But the sleek buildings lining the roads still bore dark stone facades adorned with intricate latticework, arched doorways and curved rooms framed by warm lighting, markers of traditional Romulan architecture.

‘Berinen is one of the central townships of this region,’ Logan explained in a low voice that still carried through the gloom. ‘Which has got a big enough agricultural network to feed a quarter of the system. An’ it’s the end of the harvest. Which means it’s time for…’

‘The Rihan-kholva festival,’ Kharth breathed. ‘Jack, what are we doing here?’

‘Relax, I did some reading.’ He’d put on a wide-brimmed hat before they’d beamed down, enough that his cortical implant wouldn’t be noticed at a mere glance. Now he stuck an arm out to her in a silly, self-aware manner, and she was too dumbstruck to do anything but take it. ‘Berinen’s big enough that their festival draws in all sorts of tourists. We ain’t intruding on nothin’. Thought it’d be nice.’

Indeed, on their approach to the town they were falling in with a growing trickle of visitors, mostly Romulan, many of whom woere clothes that set them apart from the locals. Kharth felt her back tensing, but Logan’s head was up, soaking in the lantern-lit streets, the hum of people, the distant sound of music and more voices.

‘Fascinating, ain’t it, how so many cultures do something like this? Back home, it ain’t like the end of the harvest really means much, but we still do something a bit like this. Though it does include racing transport skimmers, all painted up an’ decorated, bit of inter-farm pride ‘n all…’

Kharth said nothing, letting Logan’s nostalgic musings on how this reminded him of Kentucky wash over her. Approaching the town square meant approaching the thickest knot of the crowd and, in the centre, a towering bonfire. Only the locals approached its flickering flames, visitors kept at a distance by a barricade and lured there by the stalls the periphery. These burst with commemorative trinkets she thought might be a little tacky, but also sold fresh produce and served food for the evening: spiced meats and vegetables, roasted in open pits before being laid out on platters on the stalls. An elevated platform hovered in the distance, musicians playing haunting chimes and stringed instruments in a melody that kept an exuberant beat but an undercurrent that was eerie to her ears.

‘What’re the masks?’ Logan asked, leaning in and dropping his voice. He nodded to the locals in the centre, dancing before the fire, each wearing an ornate mask etched with unique geometric symbols and sleek metallic details.

‘Do you know what Rihan-kholva means?’ Kharth pressed, sharper than she intended, and tried to pass it off as needing to enunciate to be heard over the music. ‘It’s like “the lowering of the veil” or “the descent into shadows.” Winter is a time where you turn inward, to your closest community. The celebration’s about enjoying the connections of the wider community one last time, but also about shutting the door. The masks represent different families, communes.’

‘Oh.’ Logan’s lips thinned. ‘That’s a bit more sinister.’

She looked away, to the crowd. The Romulans near her were undoubtedly tourists, too, and likely from the city, with soft leather shoes and lapelled jackets that made even her look like she fit in better. Near the fire, a group of tourists stood in an entranced semicircle around a child in a rough-spun tunic she suspected wasn’t everyday wear for a local, watching her recite a lyrical poem about the land and the gathering dark. A parent stood over the girl, a hand on her shoulder occasionally tensing every time the child hesitated or faltered in her recitation, a rumbling undercurrent completely missed by the crowd too enchanted by local rustic custom.

‘I want some roast rhevet,’ Kharth said, turning on her heel to push through the crowd for the periphery. Logan had to walk swiftly to catch up as she approached a stall with a spit turning slow over an open flame, the vendor – a middle-aged Romulan with a glint in his eyes – caught her approach.

Rhevet,’ he offered, gesturing to the roasting meat, its skin crisped to a golden hue. ‘Fresh off the fire, as it has been for centuries – a true local delicacy -’

‘I could replicate that in the capital,’ Kharth spat before she could stop herself. ‘But I’ll have a cut.’

‘You’ve never tasted it prepared like this, I promise you.’ The vendor’s lips curled into a smile, unperturbed by her sharpness. He carved a thick slice, juices fizzing as they dropped into the flame, and handed it to her on a wooden platter. ‘Enjoy.’

Logan appeared at her shoulder and peered at a set of clay flasks. ‘What’s the drink?’

‘Only the finest gellhek,’ the vendor said, already pouring a glass.

‘It’s like whiskey,’ sighed Kharth. ‘You’ll enjoy it.’

He did, smacking his lips when he had a savouring sip once they’d walked away from the stall. ‘Smoky. Feels like home. Except for the masks an’ all.’

‘Enjoying your authentic Romulan experience?’ This time, she couldn’t fight the sharp edge to her voice, and he couldn’t miss it. In the centre of the square, around the fire, drummers were beating a steady thud to dictate the pace of the masked dancers.

Logan’s brow knitted. ‘I just thought this would be nice. How long’s it been since you were around your people doin’ something normal?’

‘Normal? As opposed to “being miserable on a refugee world?”’

‘Uh. Yeah?’

Kharth ripped off a mouthful of rhevet. It was annoyingly delicious. ‘What, you thought I needed help from you to reconnect with my roots?’

He held the beaker, stunned. The thud of the drums soared behind them, and there was a cheer from the crowd, the dancers likely making more impressive moves for the audience. ‘I thought we’d – hold on. Why’re you pissed at this?’

‘I grew up on Romulus. In the city. This is like me taking you to, I don’t know, a founding festival on fucking Archer IV and thinking it resonates with you!’

‘I didn’t think it were gonna resonate! I thought we’d have a night off!’

The thud of the music and the hum of the crowd were enough to smother their fight, but enough to smother her. For all her words, the smell of the spices and cooking filled her nostrils, just as they might have on a street market on Romulus. The music had the rustic edges, but it was played with real instruments by people who spent a lifetime sharpening their craft, with an aching care she hadn’t heard in a lifetime. She would never have danced before a bonfire in the masks, but they had hung from the walls at home, etched with markings of her family. It was all so close and yet too far. Light-years away, decades away, lifetimes away, and filling her head and senses all the same.

‘It’s… it’s just fake,’ Kharth said, shaking her head as she looked away.

‘It’s performative,’ Logan agreed. ‘We don’t race skimmers everyday in Winchester, but that don’t mean it don’t mean a lot to us to blow off steam an’ be proud of what we got.’ His gaze softened, and he stepped in. ‘It’s okay for this to feel a bit weird, you know? Being back on a Romulan world -’

She stepped back. ‘If you think this is so great, enjoy the rhevet.’ She shoved the platter in his hands as she went to push past him. ‘I’ll see you back aboard.’

A part of her expected him to stop her, to come after her. But he’d always let her set the beat, be the drummer in their dance dictating tempo and intensity just as much as the musicians at the heart of this performance. So she was free to push through the crowd, free to storm away from the thudding music and roaring firelight and cheers and shouts, performance and tradition swirling and blending together.

At the edge of the square, she passed the same local parent and child she’d seen near the fire, the parent now scolding the girl in a hissing, low turn for mistakes in her poetry recital.

‘…people come a long way for this… embarrass us in front of the city…

A long way. A long way to travel and feel connected to one’s roots, to an older Romulan tradition, to perform being Romulan at a time when being Romulan was harder and harder to define by what you did. Kharth didn’t linger, storming down the streets, heading for the outskirts of the town so she could beam out.

She didn’t have a performance in her anyway.

Dust and Gold – 15

Rencaris System
January 2402

‘Again, you sure you don’t want me here for this?’

Valance adjusted her uniform collar as she double-checked her reflection in the ready room mirror, which also meant she didn’t have to look at Kharth. ‘I want to get a better read on Vhiemm before I decide if it’s right for you to meet.’

‘To decide if he thinks I’m the right kind of Romulan?’

The sneer was unexpected. Valance turned. ‘I’m surprised you want to walk into a meeting room to talk diplomatic negotiations with staid old men. You’d normally jump at the chance to escape that.’

For a moment, she thought Kharth was going to fight her. Then she shrugged. ‘You’re right. You bringing Airex?’

‘And Beckett.’

‘Remember, just like I told you about the Klingons: Romulans are liars, too. They just know they’re liars.’

It helped. It just wasn’t reassuring.

Neither was Beckett when Valance reached the transporter room to find him and Airex waiting there, the young intelligence officer holding up a PADD they were both watching, faces serious.

Beckett flipped it to show a news report playing on the screen. ‘Picked up this on Rencaris state media this morning.’

‘They arrested a university lecturer,’ said Airex, jaw rather tight, ‘for interrupting a public event Vhiemm held on “international cooperation.” This man – Sullis…’

‘“Disrupted the proceedings with inflammatory rhetoric that witnesses say was clearly influenced by foreign agitators,”’ Beckett recited crisply. ‘No idea what the guy actually said.’

Valance watched the news report for a beat as it showed Sullis – a youthful, rather bookish Romulan – being led away from crowds by security officers in the severe black uniforms of Rencaris law enforcement. His head was held high, but the image cut away quickly to faces of those apparently assembled at Vhiemm’s event, looking disapproving.

‘Foreign agitators,’ she repeated. ‘Are we about to be hit for this?’

‘Not unless it suits them,’ mused Beckett.

On the PADD, the newsreader for Rencaris state media carried on. ‘Senior Procurator Sevik praised the swift response of security forces, saying: ‘This incident demonstrates the ongoing attempts by outside influences to undermine our cultural sovereignty. The accused had a history of disrespecting our values and way of life, which culminated in this outburst. This serves as a reminder of why our careful preservation of Romulan tradition is more vital than ever.

‘If you see seditious behaviour,’ Beckett carried on, having clearly watched this before, ‘report it to your nearest inquisitor of un-Romulan affairs, where you will be presented with a boot to lick, yadda yadda.’ He switched off the PADD and tucked it under his arm. ‘Thought you might want to be prepared, Captain. I’ve already seen life down in the streets. Even in the nicer bits of Vedrex, you’re watched. Even in a tourism hotspot, you take the story the state gives you, or you have a bad day.’

‘We knew we were dealing with a “traditionalist” regime, and that means strict, illiberal rule,’ Airex sighed. ‘Whatever we give them in these negotiations, we can’t risk legitimising this government.’

‘Agreed,’ said Valance carefully, ‘but legitimise it to whom? We can’t control the flow of information internally. Just our presence, our meeting with Vhiemm, can be turned into a suggestion the Federation approves of this leadership. Externally, we have to avoid angering our Republic allies. But make no mistake: we’re not in charge of the narrative here on Rencaris, and we shouldn’t try to be.’ She pursed her lips. ‘The opera might be a step too far. Perhaps we take this meeting as a chance to cancel.’

Airex looked ponderous but Beckett shook his head. ‘Don’t close that door. We have days, Captain. And right now if we upset them, we drive them into the arms of the Klingon Empire. The Republic is going to like that even less than us appeasing a totalitarian regime.’

‘What about my opinion on appeasing a totalitarian regime?’ said Valance, but it was borderline rhetorical. They were all professionals, and they all knew the stakes. She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Let’s see what Vhiemm wants of us.’

The only thing she could say for the pomp and circumstance of arriving in the governor’s offices in the capital of Vedrex on Rencaris III was that it wasn’t completely public. It was still a demonstration of strength as they were escorted by guards in a ceremonial uniform Valance could tell was still highly functional, barely restricting their movements, through to the atrium. The complex itself was built in the manner of ancient statehouses of Romulus, though Beckett leaned over to mumble as they walked the halls.

‘Much less design on the stonework,’ he noted. ‘That kind of detail in a place like this should tell a history. I don’t think it’s as old as the colony itself, and it’s like a copy, a mimicry -’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant. I get the picture,’ Valance said with quiet sharpness. The last thing she needed was for Beckett’s observations to be overheard.

He wasn’t wrong, though, with the atrium itself ringing hollow as an artificial heart. Here, those ceremonial guards ran scrupulous security screenings of officials entering the building, even the ones who seemed to have some rank. Large screens on the walls showed broadcasts of recent official events, with one mentioning a ‘cultural education programme’ that Valance thought sounded suspiciously mandatory. Eyes were on them, but only an aide to the governor approached to show them through the severe halls and chambers to the meeting room.

The aide swept them through administrative wings and past more ceremonial guards to finally reach a set of high double doors that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an ancient Romulan fortress. The doors swung open at their approach to reveal Governor Vhiemm’s office, all angles and shadows that spoke more of imperial power than bureaucratic efficiency. Vhiemm himself rose from behind the broad meeting table as they entered, and Valance caught a glance of something on his computer display before he deactivated it she thought might be reports on Klingon ship movements. Or more likely, given everything else they’d seen, another piece of carefully curated propaganda. The doors closed behind them with a soft but final click.

‘I trust you’re finding our orbital lanes adequate for your repairs, Captain?’ Vhiemm sat back down with the easy confidence of a man who knew his position was stronger. ‘It’s the least we could offer a Federation starship in distress.’

‘Your hospitality is appreciated.’ Valance stayed standing until Vhiemm gestured to the arrangement of high-backed chairs before the conference table, and sat with Airex and Beckett flanking her. ‘Though I would like to discuss access to your shipyard facilities. We’d be on our way much faster with proper dock resources.’

‘Ah.’ Vhiemm’s smile thinned. ‘That would be a significant step up from our previous agreement of mere safe harbour. Such cooperation would need to be appropriately compensated.’

‘The Federation is prepared to discuss fair terms.’

‘Excellent.’ Like she’d put meat before a bird of prey, he leaned forward. ‘The Federation’s formal recognition of Rencaris as the legitimate successor state to the Romulan Empire’s holdings in this sector would be worth a great deal.’

Beckett gave a low whistle. ‘That’d make for some interesting chats with the Romulan Republic.’ Valance had been halfway to glaring at him, but he spoke with the right amount of levity, getting the point across with a succinctness she couldn’t.

Vhiemm still furrowed his brow. ‘The Republic abandoned their claim to legitimacy when they chose to remake themselves. We have maintained our traditions, our heritage -’

‘Governor.’ Valance tilted her chin up, tone measured but firm. ‘You know that what you’re suggesting would be impossible without severely damaging the Federation’s relationship with the Republic. More than that, if your goal is recognition of Rencaris’s legitimacy, antagonising one of the major powers in this sector would be counterproductive.’

Vhiemm’s expression hardened, but he sat back in a way which made Valance suspect he’d known this was too outrageous a demand in the first instance.

‘Speaking of the local area,’ Airex interjected smoothly, shifting the topic along so Vhiemm didn’t need to offer a graceful dismount, ‘our preliminary analysis of the Mesea Storm’s recent increased volatility has yielded some fascinating results.’

At this, Vhiemm waved a dismissive hand. ‘Our scientists have studied the storm for centuries, though I’m sure comparing methodologies would be… illuminating.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Airex mildly. ‘When there’s time.’

Vhiemm drummed his fingers on the conference table for a moment. ‘If recognition is too high a price, perhaps something more… cultural. Your officers’ presence at the opera is appreciated, but a broader programme of public appearances – tours of our heritage sites, meetings with our educational institutions – would demonstrate the Federation’s respect for our sovereignty.’

‘Cultural exchanges.’ For a moment, Valance thought of the news report Beckett had shown her. Then she gave a slow nod. ‘With some parameters. We cannot make political statements about Rencaris’s governance or relationships with other powers.’

‘Of course not.’ Vhiemm smiled. ‘Merely showing the Federation’s interest in our civilisation would be enough.’

‘In return for full access to your shipyard facilities?’

He gave a gentle scoff. ‘In return for your safe harbour. We can discuss the shipyard facilities another day. A fair trade for now, don’t you say?’

Valance sighed. ‘Provided we maintain those parameters. Cultural exchange only.’

‘Your reputation for directness is well-earned, Captain. I look forward to discussing this further at the opera house.’

‘Assuming we don’t bore the captain to death with five hours of Romulan opera first,’ said Beckett as they all stood.

Vhiemm actually laughed. ‘Lieutenant, I assure you – no one has ever been bored by The Fall of D’taleth. Traumatised, perhaps…’

Valance forced herself to give a smile, implying more amusement than she felt. The opera itself felt like a long way away, and far, far less pressing than the news report flooding out about how Governor Vhiemm and his administration ran Rencaris.

And how much she could work with such governance, publicly be seen cooperating with such governance, before she was complicit with its claims of legitimacy.