In the swirling seas of the Paulson Nebula, the runabout Prospero rode the waves of purples and blues with gentle purpose. Currents of gases and eddies of dust swirled through the achingly vast stretch of clouds, light-years across, that sheltered and hid clusters of stars, phenomena, secrets. But while the exterior of the Prospero was still and quiet, the hull humming with energy as the crew ran their scans at low impulse speeds, the calm belied the thundering inside.

‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot -’

Gaps in Lieutenant Murray’s talent were compensated for with enthusiasm as the mission leader thudded into the cockpit, singing at the top of his lungs. His colleagues exchanged glances before looking at him quizzically, and did not respond when Murray waved an encouraging hand.

‘Come on – and never brought to mind?’ The hand dropped in the silence that met him. ‘None of you are any fun.’

Lieutenant T’Saren turned back to the pilot’s controls with the faintest hint of a sarcastic Vulcan head-tilt. ‘That is correct, Lieutenant. More pertinently, I do not know the song.’

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Ensign Valverde at the science station. ‘I’m from Alpha Centauri.’

Murray gave Valverde a betrayed look. ‘Et tu?’ He was a stocky man in his late thirties, bristly dark hair in full retreat for some years now. With his relatively junior rank for his age, he knew he looked like the bus driver for routine operations that he was, and had long ago made peace with his simple way of life. ‘It’s the end of the year, people. End of the century.’

‘And we’re detecting high-energy distortion waves in the survey region,’ said Valverde.

Murray snapped his fingers. ‘Good. Sensor upgrades should tell us a lot more about this stellar nursery. That’s the kind of reading we want.’ Despite his enthusiasm, he sat down at the operations station. ‘Take us in for a closer look, T’Saren. We can park up a few million kilometres away and run our scans.’ But as the deck shuddered under him when T’Saren fired up their impulse engines, he still thumped a beat on the edge of the console and kept humming his song.

Valverde turned in her chair. ‘Nothing ruins your festive cheer, huh, Lieutenant?’

‘Kid, we got sent on a survey mission into our own front yard, when back on Bravo they’re probably having the mother of all end-of-year parties on every deck. I made my peace about seeing out the century with you two the moment I got the orders.’ Murray shrugged. ‘Way I figure, I could sulk this entire trip, or I can make this an occasion to remember.’

‘Your determination to be optimistic in the face of adversity remains admirable, Lieutenant,’ said T’Saren.

‘Is it? Or is it… illogical?’ Murray smirked at T’Saren. Beside him, Valverde got to her feet and headed for the replicator.

‘On the contrary, your logic is impeccable. You recognise what you cannot change and adapt your plans and expectations appropriately. Of course we cannot have a celebration on this runabout that is comparable to the festivities on Bravo. And so you make all reasonable adjustments.’ T’Saren hesitated a heartbeat. ‘Then you sing.’

They had known each other for ten years, pilot and runabout specialist of Starbase Bravo – new and old. By now, Murray knew when he was getting the closest thing to a Vulcan joke. ‘Just for you, T’Saren, I sing. For auld lang syne, my dear -’

‘Here.’ Valverde had returned, clutching three glass bottles of something fizzy. ‘We can’t drink on duty, so this is the next best thing. Ginger ale.’

‘And you said they don’t have fun on Alpha Centauri.’

‘I said they don’t have obscure Scottish folk songs on Alpha Centauri,’ she corrected, handing a bottle to T’Saren. ‘Five minutes left on the clock.’

Murray took a swig of ginger ale. ‘To the distortion wave?’

She looked at him. ‘To the new century.’

‘We are within short-range sensor distance now, in fact,’ said T’Saren.

‘Watch the hitherto unseen astronomical data come in. What a great light-show for the countdown.’ Murray sounded cheerful as he raised his bottle.

Valverde leaned over the back of her chair to expand the sensor feed display, casting the runabout cockpit in flickers of white and orange of the scrolling data. They were silent for long moments, watching, drinking, relaxing.

‘It’s kind of nice,’ she mused at length. ‘This light-years-wide phenomenon right on our doorstep, home to colonies and mining facilities and research centres for decades or centuries, and it still has some secrets for us.’

‘Secrets buried in decimal points of no interest to the average person,’ said Murray with a smirk. ‘But secrets.’

T’Saren turned in her chair, again tilting her head at him. ‘And yet you often request missions to the Paulson Nebula.’

‘I’m a details fella. I like the decimal points.’

Valverde smirked, then glanced at her display. ‘Three minutes.’

‘For auld lang syne, my dear…’

But over the dulcet tones of Murray’s enthusiastic singing, a chirrup came from T’Saren’s console. She turned back with that faintest of Vulcan frowns. ‘Curious.’

‘For auld lang syne – come on, T’Saren, let it wait a couple minutes.’

‘It is simply that we are detecting an unexpected level of tetryon radiation in proximity to the distortion.’ T’Saren paused. ‘I will record it for later review.’

‘There you are. See if we -’ Then came the next chirrup from Murray’s own station, the comms panel lighting up, and he turned with an aggravated sound. ‘Could the universe let it rest?’

He turned and read in silence, but when behind him Valverde said, ‘Two minutes,’ the words washed over him.

Murray cleared his throat, suddenly serious. ‘It’s a general distress call from the science station Gamma-7, point-two of a light-year out. An ion storm’s come up on them suddenly and it’s probably too strong for their shields.’

Valverde straightened. ‘Do they need evac? Can we evac?’

‘The Swale has responded; they can give more help than us. We get to sit tight,’ said Murray, and bit his lip. ‘Weird, though. Storm this strong, we should have seen it coming.’

Behind him, T’Saren brought up the long-range sensor display to encompass the surrounding region, including the science station, the Swale, and the ion storm itself. ‘Based on the storm’s trajectory and intensity, according to any logical point of formation, we should have detected it ourselves on our approach.’

Valverde slid back behind the controls at the science console. ‘Checking our sensor records; I’ll start to filter them for the usual nebula interference. Sometimes we can’t see beyond our own noses in this place. Maybe we picked it up somewhere else and it, I don’t know, changed trajectory?’

‘That would be highly irregular,’ T’Saren pointed out.

But Valverde didn’t reply. By now, Murray knew the difference between the young science officer’s silences of intense thought, and silences of speechlessness. This was the latter. ‘Kid?’

Valverde cleared her throat. ‘Here,’ she said at length. ‘It originated here.’

‘Impossible,’ said T’Saren. ‘If this was the formation point, based on its current speed it could not have achieved these levels of intensity that quickly.’

‘I know you’re going to say I’m misinterpreting the data because of the nebula’s interference, but I’m not,’ said Valverde tersely. ‘It formed here in a matter of hours, then it began to drift.’

Murray’s jaw tightened. Getting a clear sensor read in the Paulson Nebula was like studying in the dark sometimes; you had to squint and focus and grab every speck of light for anything to make sense. It made everything unreliable, in his experience – except for people. ‘Hold on,’ he said, in case everyone would calm down and start making more sense. ‘You’re saying that an ion storm formed in this region, started drifting, and reached dangerous levels of intensity before we could even detect it on our approach?’

Valverde gave a slow, solemn nod. ‘And if the Swale can’t evacuate or protect Gamma-7, it’s going to rip that station apart and kill everyone on board in the next thirty minutes.’

Another chime went off on her console, and Murray jumped at the prospect of more bad news. But it wasn’t a sensor alert. It was the countdown, midnight striking with a chirpy little alarm bell from Valverde’s timer. For long, thudding seconds, the tinny sound heralding the end of the century and the brand new year was the only noise in the suddenly-cramped cockpit.

We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet for days of auld lang syne.

Lieutenant Murray sat up and straightened his uniform as Ensign Valverde sheepishly shut the alarm off. ‘Valverde, go through our sensor records for a clean read on the entire life history of that ion storm. I want to know what its grandmother liked for breakfast. T’Saren – let’s take a look at that tetryon radiation and those distortion waves I told you to bench five seconds ago.’

They turned back to their consoles. On his comms display, the Swale confirmed they were ten minutes out from Gamma-7. They would be cutting it tight.

Murray drained the bottle of ginger ale and set it on the side. Then he got to work.

Happy new year.

Ambassador’s Log, Stardate 2401.8. The Endeavour has just returned to Qo’noS from their investigation of the last confirmed location of Chancellor Martok’s ship before its disappearance. I remained here with Commodore Rourke, trying to keep tempers from fraying in the Klingon High Council. But these divides go deep. I fear Martok sat on a powderkeg for decades, muffling his people’s fury and ambition without dousing it. Now he is gone – if he is gone – it’s unclear what comes next for the Empire. More than that, it’s unclear what will come of the Khitomer Accords, and the Empire’s friendship with the Federation.

‘…no signs that anyone had even boarded the escape pod.’ Captain Valance’s voice echoed around the shrouded Great Hall, her tone clipped, crisp, and professional even as the bearer of the only thing worse than bad news: no news. Her ship had ventured forth from Qo’noS with the most powerful sensor suite in the empire, trying to uncover the fate of Chancellor Martok and his ship. Instead, they had returned with more questions.

Councillor Koloth, son of Koloth, one of the only steady heads in the crowded meeting chamber of the High Council and one of the only people Ambassador Sophia Hale had been able to count on, drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. He was still positioned to the left of the vacant chair of the chancellor, left empty these long days. At length, he stood and straightened his armour’s over-robe.

‘Was there any indication of the conditions of the Rotarran when the escape pod was launched?’ he asked.

If Hale hadn’t known better, she wouldn’t have seen the minuscule adjustment of Valance’s stance.

‘We were unable to ascertain that,’ the half-Klingon Starfleet captain said coolly.

Beside Hale, Commodore Rourke gave a low scoff. ‘We should tell them,’ he muttered to her. ‘Klingon officers interrupted our investigation, attacked our ship -’

‘Not here,’ Hale breathed, silencing him. They stood on a knife edge. Launching accusations at what was feasibly a few discontented renegades with an axe to grind against Starfleet risked disrupting the whole affair. Though Hale was not sure what would constitute a worse disruption than the mysterious and sudden disappearance of Chancellor Martok, and the feeding frenzy the High Council threatened to fall into now they could smell blood in the water.

Koloth was stroking his beard. He looked thoughtful, but Hale knew he was stalling for time. They had both hoped that Endeavour’s investigation would show something. At length, the sturdy Klingon straightened, his gaze sweeping around the High Council. ‘The fact that our friends and allies uncovered more on a closer inspection means there is still much we do not understand,’ he said, his voice rumbling about the chamber. He extended a hand towards Valance. ‘I thank Captain Karana, daughter of Jodmang, for her vigilance and service to the Empire -’

The next scoff did not come from Rourke, loud enough to echo, loud enough to set a rumble through the chamber and force Koloth to fall silent. Hale tried not to brace as another councillor rose to their feet, smooth like a blade through water and yet with enough strength to command the hall’s attention with merely a sound.

‘That’s enough, Koloth.’ Lady L’kor of the House of Mo’Kai spoke in a low voice that nevertheless carried. Rather than challenging, she sounded dismissing, and still that was enough for her to control the chamber. She stepped forward, before the ring of chairs and onlookers, into the centre beside Valance. ‘Starfleet has inserted itself where it does not belong. We do not need to turn to dogs and mongrels to resolve our affairs.’

Hale’s eyes flickered to Valance. I need you to be both. Klingon and Starfleet, she’d told Endeavour’s captain before they’d ventured to Imperial space. The right move was for Valance to stand her ground, answer the insult sharply, demonstrate she was a warrior who needed to be listened to. It was the clearest move for the Federation to maintain a foothold in the situation; Hale could see that, bright as day, and yet Valance merely stiffened, shaking her head with a faint disagreement that achieved nothing.

‘Martok is gone,’ L’kor continued, unimpeded in her dismissal of Starfleet. ‘All we are doing now is picking over his bones to see if they will give us wisdom. You are refusing to acknowledge this unwelcome truth, Koloth. You call it caution; I call it a failure of courage.’

Koloth tensed. ‘What we do here, L’kor, will determine the Empire’s next steps. I will not be foolhardy.’

‘Chancellor Martok set forth for Borath on his ship. Chancellor Martok’s ship never arrived. Nobody can find any sign of Martok, his ship, or his crew. We have investigated. Starfleet has investigated. There is nothing more to find. We must accept this uncertainty.’ L’kor opened her hands, eyes lighting with a wry but, Hale thought, sincerely tired amusement. ‘Or are there too many in here who will doubt my words to hear that? Shall I tell you our blood runs red, and you will question that, too?’

‘You have opposed Martok for years,’ said Koloth. ‘Undermined his rule. Forgive me, L’kor, if yours is not the first voice I would listen to when our chancellor is in danger.’

‘No,’ L’kor sighed. ‘Your Federation friends would hate it if you listened to me.’ She turned to the Federation delegation. In the exchange, Valance had slid back to the side, flanking the other side of Hale. The diplomat could have smacked the captain for ceding ground, but the moment had passed.

L’kor’s eyes fell on Rourke. ‘Tell me, Commodore, how many official complaints has the Federation levelled at me and my House?’

‘Officially?’ Rourke’s jaw was tight. ‘Even that’s a high number, Lady L’kor. Your House has been accused of multiple acts of espionage, sabotage, theft, murder-’

‘But none of them substantiated in this hall,’ said L’kor airily. She turned back to the rest of the High Council. ‘Martok is gone, and we -’

‘And we must have justice.’

The new voice thundered about the hall. Hale had not been aware L’kor could be shocked into silence, but it happened when the doors opened, and a tall, broad Klingon in battered and worn armour stalked in. His kur’leth was sheathed on his back, but in his hand, he brandished a series of PADDs just as tightly and readily as he would any blade.

Koloth’s brow furrowed at the sight of the dishevelled warrior. ‘Toral.’

Toral, son of Duras, stormed to the centre of the chamber. ‘I demand the Council’s eyes and ears. Because Lady L’kor is correct in some matters: our chancellor is gone, and we must accept that. But we must also answer it.’

L’kor turned towards him with a dismissive look, though Hale could see the guarded tension about her. ‘You left in such haste days ago, Toral. Did you find anything? Or did you merely wish to perform as the man of action while wiser heads sought to achieve?’

‘What did you achieve? Talking in circles,’ retorted Toral. He turned to the rest of the chamber, holding his PADDs aloft. ‘You all know me. You know how I hunted the House of D’Ghor to extinction, wiped out a stain on the Empire’s honour. Destroyed a threat that has hounded our people and our name for years while others were weak and inactive. You know I am a man of action, not merely words. So I ask you to listen to me now.’

Hale’s back clenched like iron. ‘We’re about to get hit,’ she murmured.

But there was nothing to do. No interruption of Toral, who had done all these deeds and used them to restore his family’s honour; who had leveraged his successes to become a member of the High Council. They had not the influence or power to dislodge him, and she had nothing but her instincts telling her they should interfere.

‘There is another threat in our midst. We have known this for years,’ said Toral, voice booming about the chamber. ‘Who has undermined us. Our chancellor. Our empire. Our alliances. Made us look oath-breakers in the eyes of the galaxy, or else weak. A snake in these halls. You heard it moments ago: the accusations that Lady L’kor and her House have spied and slaughtered, not just in the Federation, but in the Empire!’

To her credit, L’kor did not flinch. ‘And moments ago, I reminded you all that none of these have been proven.’

Toral tossed one PADD to the floor, where it landed like a whip-crack. ‘The testimony and evidence of Captain Chor’kel, son of Kariok, on your role in the bombings at Klach d’kel Brakt!’ Another was thrown down beside it, his voice as sharp as the impact. ‘The evidence gathered at Khitomer, identifying members of your House as responsible for the attack in ‘94, as assembled by Councillor Vormar!’

L’kor’s lip curled as she looked at the PADDs. ‘Old accusations,’ she sneered. ‘Ones which have nothing to do with Martok’s disappearance. Ones I have answered with steel.’

‘Against Chor’kel’s steel,’ Toral agreed. ‘Vormar’s steel. Not mine.’

In an instant, L’kor was like a cat who had been challenged; her back arched, her hand poised on the hilt of her blade. ‘Is that an accusation, whelp? You came so far in such a short time. Restored a house of dogs. Would you see it fall to nothing?’

‘Enough!’ Koloth tried to yell, but the hum and buzz of the Great Hall was too high, now, the councillors looking on with too much eagerness.

Toral drew his kur’leth slowly. ‘I name you murderer. Spy. Traitor. A snake in our midst. The thorn in our side for years, L’kor. And I charge you with the murder of Martok.’ He spat on the ground.

Hale looked sharply at Valance. ‘There’s no way to stop this, is there?’

Valance shook her head. ‘Not with words like that.’

And before Hale had any bright ideas, the Great Hall rang out with the sound of steel on steel as L’kor drew her sword and the blades of the two warriors met.

L’kor had seen off every challenger for years, used her network of spies and skills in subterfuge to obfuscate all accusations enough that she could demand trial by combat. One of the best fighters in the Empire, that had been enough to see off the first few accusations. Others had then thought twice before bringing anything to bear, so her iniquity had gone an open secret for years.

Hale had never seen so much as a recording of Toral fighting. She’d assumed the stories that he had killed D’Ghor himself in single combat were inflated, used to build this myth of the exiled warrior returned to restore his family’s honour. That was perhaps true, but now she saw Toral match L’kor’s steel, even her inexpert eye knew that the stories were at least plausible.

She ducked back from the crowd, away from Valance and Rourke, and for a moment she wasn’t a Federation ambassador, but a woman much smaller than the towering Klingons who could slip through the proceedings to make it to Koloth’s side.

‘This is chaos,’ she hissed at her old friend.

He was still on his feet and planted a hand on her shoulder. This was, she knew, his indication to onlookers that he welcomed her up here, near the chancellor’s seat, at his side. ‘It’s his right as a councillor,’ Koloth reminded her.

‘He has no evidence about Martok,’ Hale murmured. ‘Or he’d have said it.’

‘He has evidence about L’kor’s past misdeeds.’

‘Which she’s answered. Can he even relitigate those?’ Even for Klingons, matters had to be put to bed once they were answered.

‘He’s not,’ said Koloth, brow furrowed. ‘He’s using those to show she is untrustworthy.’

He’s using those, Hale realised with a sinking heart, to justify blaming her for Martok’s disappearance, even if he doesn’t have a shred of evidence. And nobody here is going to come to L’kor’s defence if she needs it.

‘This isn’t going to help us get to the truth,’ Hale said to Koloth after a heartbeat.

‘My friend.’ Koloth looked at her, his smile more of a grimace. ‘This hall has not been a place of truth in many a year.’

A cheer erupted from the crowd. One councillor leapt up, blocking Hale’s view, and though she heard a gurgle, the impact of a body, the hiss of shock from the onlookers, she did not know if this was victory, defeat, or just a telling blow. Koloth’s grip on her shoulder tightened, there was a beat of silence, and then one lone voice among the councillors struck up – then another, then another.

‘Toral! Toral! Toral!’

The Klingon blocking her view moved. Before her lay the gasping, dying form of Lady L’kor, head of the House of Mo’Kai. Blade dripping with her blood, Toral stood over her. His chest heaved as he shut his eyes, inhaled sharply through his nose, breathed the scent and taste of the moment. When he spoke, his voice was not loud, but it was enough to silence them all, each of them hanging onto his every word.

‘A snake is dead, and for years, we let her writhe among us, lie among us. Martok was our chancellor. He saw us to victory in war, yes. But there was also much he did not see. Enemies he would not face. Weaknesses he allowed to fester.’

It was incredible, Hale thought distantly, how quickly Martok had evaporated into the past tense.

Toral opened his eyes and turned to take in the crowd. As he did, more droplets of L’kor’s blood hit the ancient stonework underfoot. ‘He talked of harnessing the Klingon heart. Turning it to something greater. But all he did was smother it. One snake is dead – where is the next? Will we ignore it as it slithers its way amidst us, as Martok ignored L’kor? Or will we take action? Choke its lies before it can utter them? Stamp out its venom?’

He spoke as if his words could summon a storm. The loud chanting had stopped, but now the gathered councillors took up his name anew; not in yells, but low, rhythmic. Feet stamped on the stone floors in a steady beat, a low rumble of Toral, Toral, Toral, like black clouds gathering on the horizon. As Hale looked around, she saw not only the weaker-willed or more blood-thirsty of the High Council enthralled by the victorious warrior, but Konjah, the warlord; Korath, the shipbuilder; powerful, influential councillors.

‘We defeated the greatest force the galaxy has ever seen, and then we spent a quarter of a century chasing our tails! Our oldest foe dealt itself a mortal blow, and instead of seizing the opportunity for glorious battle, we muzzled ourselves! Jumped at shadows within, and let others leash us! No more!’ When Toral turned to level his dripping blade at the empty chair at the heart of the gathering, a vice had already tightened around Hale’s throat.

‘Martok is dead. I have slain his murderer. I assume the chancellorship.’

‘Toral! Toral! Toral!’

Any dissenting voices, any silent apprehension, any cautious murmurings were lost in the thunder of acclaim that met Toral’s proclamation. But when he took a step towards the chancellor’s seat, Koloth blocked his way.

‘You cannot simply claim it,’ Koloth rumbled, his response enough to hush the raging crowd. ‘There has been no Rite of Succession -’

‘There is no other challenger!’ Toral sneered.

‘We should appoint an Arbiter!’

‘Who? You? Who could not stir himself against Mo’Kai, the D’Ghor, the Romulans when they were weak, but could always find forces to help the Federation?’ Toral pointed his accusing blade past him, and suddenly Hale found herself the unwitting centre of attention. ‘Or should we let your Federation friends decide the chancellorship? Again?’

Hale fought to find her voice and knew she could not stop this storm. ‘The Rite of Succession would give time to understand what happened to Martok -’

‘We know what happened to Martok! L’kor killed him!’ Toral looked back among the gathered councillors, then back at Koloth. ‘Do you want to be the only one standing against me, Koloth?’

This was not the whole High Council. A disappeared chancellor was enough to boil pockets of discontent across the empire to the point of eruption. Many councillors had rushed back to their territories, making sure Martok’s fall was not followed by total chaos. But there was still, Hale suspected, a majority of all councillors stood here chanting Toral’s name. Koloth seemed to have made the same calculation, but though he stepped back, his lip curled.

‘You are not my chancellor.’

For a moment, Hale thought it would come to blows. But Koloth turned aside quickly, and Toral did not move against him. Slaying the hated L’kor on spurious grounds was one thing. A political operator as canny as Toral had to know that navigating the opposition of the powerful and popular Koloth required a more deft touch.

‘You’ll rethink that in time,’ called Toral as Koloth stepped towards the door. ‘There will be glory for my followers.’

‘Glory!’ Koloth scoffed over his shoulder. ‘Petty troubles!’

‘Glory,’ repeated Toral, ‘through battle. Through conquest. Through fresh territories brought to heel, brought under the banner of the Empire.’ That stopped Koloth short, and Toral stepped to the chancellor’s seat, sword still in hand.

‘As soon as oaths of fealty have been sworn,’ the new chancellor said, gaze sweeping over the council, ‘we will assemble the fleets. The time has come to invade the Romulans.’

In the fuss, Rourke had moved to Hale’s side, but he was too slow to stop her when she stepped forward into the new rush of cheers and yells, into the centre of the circle, and faced the new chancellor. Toral had turned Koloth’s snub aside with a promise of greater grandeur, and it might have been wise to stay silent. But she was the Federation’s diplomatic representative to Qo’noS, and she had a job to do.

‘Toral, son of Duras,’ she said, and somehow her voice carried over the baying. She kept her voice as respectful as she could without using the title chancellor. ‘It is my duty to restate the Federation’s firm commitment to our allies, the Romulan Republic. We will not permit the infringement of their sovereignty or territory.’

‘Permit?’ sneered Toral, rounding on her. She was distantly aware of Rourke stepping up behind her and wished he hadn’t. Gone was the time to handle this like a Klingon. She would handle this like the ambassador she was.

She had chosen her words intentionally and did not need to belabour or explain them. ‘It is evident the High Council has many matters to attend to,’ Hale continued, ‘and we will be here to support our friends, the Klingon Empire, as we have done for many decades. But our treaty commitments are clear.’

His lip curled. ‘Then you have a choice, Ambassador. Bring that to your masters. Stay out of our way – or witness first-hand the conquering might of the Klingon Empire, as you have not seen it for a hundred years!’ He gave a sharp wave before easing onto the seat of the chancellor. Around him, the cheers and jeers of the council continued. ‘Until then, you are dismissed from these chambers.’

Hale gave a stiff, formal nod. ‘Thank you, Toral,’ she said, and still did not use his title.

Rourke and Valance were on either side of her as they headed for the doors. In the archway ahead, they could see Koloth stood waiting for them.

‘We have to leave,’ said Valance in a hushed but certain voice, ‘before someone decides to make him very happy and tries to kill us.’

‘Yeah,’ grumbled Rourke. ‘Because the last thing this situation needs is for the timetable on that declaration of war to be moved up.’

After three days of sifting through the wreckage of Outpost C-91, Arcturus had only managed to glean a few scant facts about its destruction: there had been a massive ultritium explosion from within the station, presumably delivered aboard an unscheduled freighter. No one from station operations had survived, and the handful of people they’d rescued were still in shock—one security officer had remembered a bomb alert being declared before the explosion, and that was it. Until they were able to modify the main deflector to clear ionizing radiation, it was days of slow and dangerous work recovering bodies and hunting for clues. Even with transporters and tractor beams functioning better now, the crew remained frustrated and exhausted. Being so close to Cardassian territory was also draining: the former Demilitarized Zone had never escaped its reputation for lawlessness.

“Admiral, ultritium has many legitimate uses, including asteroid mining. I still can’t conclude that this was an attack,” Fleet Captain Michael Lancaster protested to Admiral Liam Dahlgren’s scowling face on his ready room viewscreen. “We can’t rule out a catastrophic industrial accident.”

“I understand that, Captain, but I have half of Starfleet Command banging down my door to authorize sending in an entire fleet to secure the region. I’m running out of ways of stalling them until you conclude your investigation,” Dahlgren replied. “I need you to work faster.”

“I… Yes, Admiral,” Lancaster said.

“Get it done. Dahlgren Out,” the admiral ordered before the transmission ended.

Lancaster looked down and saw that he’d managed to leave nail marks in the leather armrest of his desk chair from how hard he’d been squeezing it. He’d never been so caught between the discontent of his own crew and of Starfleet Command. After attempting to breathe for a few moments, he stood up and strode out onto the bridge. The instruments pulsing softly were the loudest sounds—there was little conversation as the officers focused on their work. Like all Odyssey-class starships, Arcturus was an elite unit, and Lancaster had picked his crew personally; over the past 30 months, they’d grown together as a highly-trained exploratory and defensive force, but this mission responding to a mass casualty event had drained them all.

“Please tell me you have something,” the fleet captain said as he approached his first officer.

“I guess that answers how your call went,” Captain Alesser quipped. The Ardanan man stood up and gestured towards the communications station, prompting Lancaster to follow him to look over Lieutenant Belvedere’s shoulder. “A salvage team was able to find a sub-processor from the station’s short-range communications array. It’s just as badly damaged as the other computers we’ve found, but we believe we’ve been able to isolate a partial transponder signal from just before the explosion.”

Leaning in to examine the mass of frequencies and data on the screen, Lancaster felt his heart leap. It was their first real lead on connecting the survivor’s claim of a “freighter” to any hard evidence. He could see that there wasn’t enough information to make a complete ID, though. “NAT-6654[][][]” was all that came up.

“Can we get anything else from the buffer or cross-reference with the other computer equipment we’ve recovered to get the other three digits?” Lancaster asked. “That’s a Federation registry number, which points to some sort of accident.”

“I don’t believe we’ll find those digits anywhere, sir,” Belvedere replied. “While the transponder signal is partial, it’s a complete record. This is what the station received. It’s flagged as a malfunctioning transponder,” he explained.

“Standard protocol would be to bring the vessel in under guard to evaluate the risk,” Alesser said. “Malfunctions like that happen all the time on older vessels. It would be a good way of getting something past the station’s shields.”

“This transponder should have also pinged local subspace relay networks and border monitoring buoys,” Lancaster said. “Check everything in the sector.”

Belvedere pulled up the records while Lancaster and Alesser watched. The lieutenant put the partial registry code into the database, and a list of entries was created.

“Based on these records, there was an identical partial transponder hit from the subspace relay station in the Pullock system five days ago. It’s about a parsec away,” Belvedere said. “There’s also a warp signature on file,” he added.

“That’s not a Federation warp signature. It’s Cardassian,” Alesser said. He pointed to the readout. “You can tell from the variations in the mid-frequencies.”

Pullock was a name that Lancaster recognized: Pullock V was the site of the first Bajoran strike outside of their home system during the Occupation. A former Cardassian colony, it had been in Federation space for nearly 30 years now.

“A Cardassian ship using a Federation transponder to infiltrate a Starfleet facility…,” Lancaster said, trailing off as he thought about the implications. He stepped back towards the center of the bridge. “I want all salvage teams looking for even a scrap of Cardassian technology in the debris field. It’s our highest priority,” he ordered.

Before Lancaster could sit in the command seat, Lieutenant Belvedere spoke up again.

“Sir, I am receiving a general distress call from Pullock V. They say that they’re under attack by Federation vessels,” Belvedere said.

“Hail them.”

“There’s no response, sir. It’s the same message on a loop.”

“If they can spoof our transponders, this might be the first battle in an invasion,” Alesser suggested. “A false flag.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Pullock V is still predominantly a Cardassian colony. It’s not a logical target,” Lancaster replied. “But the Cardassians aren’t always logical. I want all of our small craft back on the ship. Helm, plot a course for Pullock V and prepare to engage at maximum warp,” he ordered.

Lancaster paced in front of his chair while their shuttles and runabouts returned to the bay. He knew that he should inform Fourth Fleet Command, but without a good picture of what they were running into, he was hesitant to do something that would prove a full-scale fleet response.

“Mr. Belvedere, send a message to Admiral Dahlgren detailing our findings,” Lancaster finally ordered.

“All craft are aboard,” Bowens reported from operations.

“Course plotted,” Marshall added.

“Red alert. Engage!”

The alert klaxons began to sound as Arcturus pulled away from the debris field and then jumped to warp. It was a two-hour journey, even at maximum speed, but Lancaster remained on the bridge to monitor the situation. No further progress could be made with the salvaged computers they’d located, so they had to put one mystery on hold for another, though Lancaster knew that the Pullock system must be the key to understanding both.

“Captain, I am picking up substantial energy readings over the colony. There’s definitely a battle in progress,” Bowens reported when they were just a few minutes from coming out of warp. “I can’t get anything more specific out of the sensors at this range.”

“That’s odd. With energy readings this high, we should be able to make out something,” Lancaster replied, looking at the sensor readings from the console in his chair.

“Now arriving in the Pullock system,” the helmsman reported.

The viewscreen was immediately filled with an image of a massive starship—clearly Cardassian in design but made of a steel-gray material Lancaster hadn’t seen before. It had the typical ankh shape of Cardassian warships, but it was massive. The ship was being swarmed by Federation ships, easily identifiable as Raven and Phoenix-type ships, along with a handful of older Ju’Day-type couriers. They were lobbing torpedoes at the larger ship but it was returning fire with powerful strikes.

“I want us nose to nose with that ship,” Lancaster ordered. “Attention Cardassian vessel, this is Fleet Captain Michael Lancaster of the United Federation of Planets. Call off your attack and withdraw from Federation space immediately.”

A reply came almost immediately, and the face of a Cardassian woman appeared on the screen.

“This is Gul Rayel of the Cardassian Union. We are responding to this colony’s distress call. Your ships attacked us,” she replied. “What Federation trickery is this?”

Before Lancaster could react, Arcturus rocked. He could see from the tactical display in his armrest that the flotilla of small vessels was firing on them as well.

“Sir, I am picking up another transmission, on all channels,” Belvedere said.

“Show is on split-screen,” Lancaster ordered.

Next to Gul Rayel’s image, there was an image of something that to Lancaster looked like a red leaf. Maybe it was supposed to be a sunrise. Whatever its symbolism, he recognized it as the insignia of the Maquis. While the Maquis hadn’t existed since the organization was wiped out by the Dominion, their tactics were well-known even to officers of Lancaster’s generation. It was now clear that the former Demilitarized Zone was slipping back to the chaos of the early 2370s.

“This is the New Maquis. All Cardassian and Federation forces must leave the Neutral Zone. We condemn the Cardassians for their continuing oppression, and we condemn Starfleet’s inability to protect even its own facilities,” the broadcast began. “For months, the True Way has been murdering and kidnapping citizens on every world in this region. A few days ago, they succeeded in destroying a Starfleet facility, which we can confirm with the evidence we are transmitting now. The Demilitarized Zone does not need you here. Leave, or die.”

The transmission ended, and Lancaster slumped back in his chair slightly. Gul Rayel was still on the screen, and the Starfleet captain had a difficult time imagining his Cardassian colleague responding to that threat with any other than maximum firepower. There, on the edge of the Federation, Arcturus was staring down the Cardassians’ newest, largest starship while the New Maquis were lobbing potshots—and they still had no idea who to believe or what really happened to Outpost C-91.