“I’m leaving all three of you in charge,” Sidda said as she looked over Orelia, Orin and Na’roq as they gathered in the Vondem Rose’s transporter bay. “Na’roq’s done a damn fine job in figuring out who’s a viable bounty in the Romulan states, so you’re to cross the border, arrive at Republic outpost 162, transfer the prisoners, then come right back. No funny business, no picking fights, no antagonising the Romulans either.”

Orin rose his hands to start signing when Orelia just covered them with a hand of her own, winked at the man, whom she was eye-level with, then stepped forward. “Yes mum,” she said, dripping with sarcasm. “No parties, keep the house clean, no using the car while you’re gone.”

She just stared at Orelia in confusion, the woman clearly having lost her mind and speaking in a foreign language. “What are you on about?”

“Terran movies when parents inevitably leave their kids at home unsupervised.” Orelia turned to look at Orin and Na’roq, who both were smiling and nodded their heads once. “We’ll be fine. We know what we’re doing, simple in and out. Anything goes wrong we cloak and slip the border nice and slow.”

“You know Kevak will rat you all out when I get back.”

“Never doubted it. Man’s unbribable,” Na’roq chipped in with a slight shudder as she said it. “It goes against the best Ferengi traditions.”

“He’s a Klingon,” she replied.

“That’s his problem,” Na’roq snapped back.

“Don’t worry, the Rose will still be in one piece when you get back. Then we can go deliver our Federation prisoners.” Orelia stepped forward and rested a hand on her left shoulder. “Don’t give Gaeda a hard time, will you? It’s his ship after all you’re riding on.”

“Keep my ship safe cousin.” With another round of farewells, she bid her crew goodbye and now found herself waiting for the rest of the party for this fun little escapade. Drunk discussions with her right-hand man, a complaint about that monstrosity that Klingons call a command chair, some fortuitous information and she’d awoke in the morning at her desk, face planted on a padd, with a series of half-written notes that made a certain amount of sense. And now here she was, with a duffle bag on the steps up to the transporter itself, pacing the room while she waited.

Her plan had entailed one of the twins coming along, for while the key part of the plan was to steal something for fun, there was no reason why some serious salvage couldn’t be done on the side as well. Whatever wasn’t bolted down or liable to actually get a Starfleet task force hunting them down was fair game she reckoned. Watching brother and sister play some quick Romulan kid’s game to decide who went resulted in T’Ael winning, making her the second person on the team.

And it should have stayed at two until Revin had heard that she had planned to take a berth on the Thorn to undertake a personal mission. She had made it rather clear she was not staying aboard the Rose, especially entering Romulan territory, if Sidda herself wasn’t aboard ship. Regrettably, that conversation had happened after a few physical combat lessons with Orin and combined with some more intimate knowledge Revin possessed had made it an entirely unfair fight.

Clearly, she was going to have to improve her own skills and rely less on just shooting all her problems.

So, a three-person team it was then. She still hadn’t revealed in its entirety to her team, just Gaeda who no doubt had slipped it to Lewis Chin, who was spending more and more time on the Martian Thorn. That man was no doubt revealing in the executive officer role he took up whenever aboard the bird-of-prey and Revin had suspicions he’d want to try and make it permanent before much longer, leaving her with Trid as the Rose’s senior helmsperson.

Lost in thought her pacing had stopped and she had failed to notice the transport bay doors open to admit anyone. Or the sound of another duffle bag being set down either. She was oblivious until Revin slipped her hands under her own arms and hugged her from behind. “There a reason you dyed your hair bright red?” The question was delivered between kisses to the neck.

“I felt like it,” she replied, tilting her head and just luxuriating in the tender moment before the door opened again behind them and the sound of things being dropped to the floor, a groan and subtle cursing ruined the moment.

Turning they faced the scene of T’Ael, with her own bag and two hard carry cases lying on the floor, sprawled amongst another crew member, a young human male, who she recalled was an engineering mate. Likely their transporter operator for this departure. With the help of Revin and herself, both were on their feet, bags and cases collected and ready to go. One case was simply T’Ael’s engineering go-bag, the other was brand new, save now for a series of slight scuffs. It was a metre long, and not terribly deep or tall either, hinged on one side and colour matched her signature purple.

T’Ael had even emblazoned the rose design on the top of the case. “Is it done?” she found herself asking, fingers hovering over the latches to open the case and view the contents, but halting, having promised herself she wouldn’t. The contents of this case after all were for someone else.

“Made out of a chunk of the Rose herself, sharpened to a mono-molecular edge. Used one of the outer hull plates that got damaged in the storm. Looking forward to making another actually. Think I might have a talent for it,” T’Ael bragged as she took the case away from Sidda and stepped onto the transporter padd. “Maybe Samuel, you can beam us over to the Thorn without bumping into anything?” The question to the human was a bit of a growl.

“Energize when ready Samuel,” she herself stated to the man, in a much nicer, friendly tone. Seconds later they found themselves in the far more cramped transporter alcove of the Martian Thorn. Before them was Gaeda and Lewis, both with boyish smiles on their faces.

“Welcome aboard ladies. Got a compartment set aside for you, all together,” Gaeda said, clearly relishing the chance to lord things over his friend and former captain. “Ready to go steal a chair?”

“Wait!” T’Ael exclaimed, bags and cases being dropped once more. “I thought this was a salvage mission. What’s this about a chair?”

She found herself spinning to look back at a confused engineer and fiancé. “T’Ael, we are going to steal parts. Plasma injectors, ODN relays, whatever fancy toys you can find and take. All from a Manticore-class heavy cruiser. Just while you and Revin are doing that, with…” she snapped her fingers a few times, then pointed to Lewis.

“Chalmers and Tavol,” he dutifully supplied.

“Right, Chalmers and Tavol, I’m going to go steal myself a chair. Trust me, stealing the chair, they’ll completely forget about whatever you take.”

“Steal a chair? Boss, we could make you a chair,” T’Ael said. “Please tell me you’re joking with me,” she said.

“Love, which ship are we stealing from?” Revin asked, changing the subject ever so slightly.

And with that, all she did was smile at her fellows from the Rose, turned and walked away with her duffle bag.

Gaeda chuckled, then stepped forward to receive a case from T’Ael, passing it to Lewis, then taking the other. “We are going after the Endeavour.”

“Providence Fleet Yards.”

Sidda stood at the front of the Martian Thorn’s bridge, a near duplicate of her old bridge aboard the now-gone Vondem Thorn. Nostalgia pulled at her only faintly as the luxurious space, increased functionality and much better lighting of the Rose’s bridge triumphed over such feelings for the past. Behind her on the viewscreen, inferior to what she had grown used to in just mere months, was an image of an old Federation K-class starbase.

“Resting place for ships old and new,” she announced and clicked the device in her hand, bringing up the last decent visual that the Rose’s computers had of the USS Endeavour. “A veritable smorgasbord of spare parts and salvage as far as the eye can see and we’re going to help ourselves to just a handful of bits and pieces from the Endeavour here.”

“Starfleet will have already stripped her of the sensitive equipment before putting her in a scrapyard,” T’Ael spoke up from the back.

“No doubt, but even the less critical components, at least in their eyes, will be a league above anything we have on the Thorn or Rose. After all, the Manticore-class was Starfleet’s fastest class at one point, so even the basics would have to have been of a higher quality than most.” She clicked once more, progressing the image on.

“Providence Decommissioning Fleet Yards and Surplus Depot is no longer the mothball yard it used to be, but it’s still a decommissioning yard, slowly filling up with relics like Miranda-class ships, but also houses ships bound for the scrappers, which is how our dear friend arrived there.” She pointed to the system schematic that had taken over the system, focused on the K-class station and surrounds.

“Ships are clustered into one of three scrap fleets, for logistical reasons likely. All of this is watched over by the station itself and from last records an ageing ship bound for the yard itself eventually, the USS Sumner Bay. This is again wrapped by a series of sensor platforms designed to stop people from doing just what we’re planning on doing.”

Gaeda chuckled from the captain’s chair. “Alright Boss, if it’s meant to stop us, what’s the clever plan for slipping in? The cloak isn’t going to cut it by itself. That intel is also a decade old and Starfleet has ways of seeing through cloaking devices, so they’ve likely got one of those tachyon detection grids lined up as well.”

“Now this,” Lewis spoke from the helm, directed to the rest of the Thorn’s motley bridge crew and those selected for the salvage operation itself, “is where the fun begins.”

“Meet the merchant vessel Denali, a bulk carrier out of Beta Antares and the largest ship in the Merrick Shipping Consortium’s fleet.” An absolutely staggering vessel appeared on screen and its design immediately screamed utilitarian civilian design. This wasn’t a vessel for speed or agility, but a ponderous, consistent and reliable pace. “She’s currently bound for Providence to collect materials to return to foundries and shipyards ravenous for them and we’re going to ride along as she gets waved through the security perimeter.”

“Okay, now it’s my turn,” Lewis said as he turned to face her with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking. Ride along? Sensors will make us out as some anomaly hovering off their hull and we’ll have that ship you mentioned on us in a hot minute.”

She simply smiled and perhaps the single worst computer animation ever rendered for a serious briefing sprung to life on the viewscreen. The artistic skill was on par with a child or a drunk person, or persons, doing work late at night. It showed a crudely drawn Denali and Thorn with the Thorn becoming somewhat transparent before landing on top of the Denali, the scales way off in the animation and not helped by a very bad cowboy hat descending from the top of the screen to rest on the front of the Thorn. The animation continued with the Denali approaching a line across the screen that the larger ship simply crossed, with its parasitic passenger crossing on its back, before both ships went their separate ways.

“Oh god, we did actually draw that,” Gaeda said before cracking into a light laugh, which spread to the bridge crew, including T’Ael and Lewis, the two who so far had expressed reservations with the grand plan. “Fuck that’s funny.”

“Okay, the hat sold me. We’re going to latch onto the hull directly then?” Lewis asked, though his tone hinted he hadn’t quite bought into the idea. “Where are we catching this whale then? Because I’m not trying some crazy-ass shenanigans to land this bird on a ship at warp speed.”

“I’m not that crazy Lewis. Yet,” she followed up with a wink to the helmsman. “We’ll catch them in the outer system when they drop to impulse. A big ship like this drops out of warp way earlier than others might so as not to risk their drives with system gravitational anomalies. They’ll take a day at impulse to close so plenty of time for us to sneak up on them and hitch a ride.”

“Okay, that gets us past the sensor net. Then we just have to find the Endeavour, beam aboard, steal what we want, beam out and get away without getting caught.” T’Ael stepped forward, uncrossing her arms. “But let me guess, complications?”

“Last people to manage to slip inside a decom yard like this that got caught was because they used transporters. So, they’re off the list,” Gaeda said as he indicated to Sidda to move to the next animation. Against crude in style. It showed the Endeavour, then the Thorn arriving and setting down on the hull before figures in EV suits appeared and started to scuttle around the hull, one of them triumphantly dancing around the top of the Endeavour after having produced a throne. “Find the Endeavour, land on her, take what we want, then we bug out. Keep comms to a minimum, no transporters unless we’re bugging out in the hurry.”

“And the security grid?” Lewish chimed in.

“Fuck it, we’re leaving at warp under cloak. They’ll know they had visitors, but not be able to determine who. We pick a direction, run for a bit, then reduce speed to mask our new warp trail and choose a new direction.” Sidda spoke up, a confident smile on her face. “Nice and easy.”

Faces turned to face others, heads nodded, the general tone in the air told her the plan was being accepted.

“I for one am proud to be part of this plan,” Gaeda said, tapping a button on his chair to bring the lights back up a touch and return the viewscreen to its forward-facing view. “Any objections?”

“Just one,” T’Ael said as she took another step forward to be easily seen by Gaeda and Sidda herself. “Never, ever, ever subject anyone ever again to your horrible drunk drawings. You both suck at it.”

“Never!” both captains announced in unison.

Not five minutes later, however, she found herself cornered in a corridor by Revin, her arms crossed and looking more concerned than anything, which naturally made herself concerned. “What’s up love?”

“EV?” the romulan woman asked.

“Well yes, we’ll need to in order to get what we want. The ship’s a hulk.”

Revin stepped forward, hands coming to rest on Sidda’s own upper arms. “You know you talk in your sleep.” It was said as a statement that brooked no rebuttal. “You’re terrified of spacewalks.”

She leaned forward to rest her forehead against her better-half’s own. “I’m afraid of floating in space. I’ll be walking on the hull of a ship the whole time. It’ll be fine.”

“Love,” Revin pleaded, trying to drag more out of her, she could tell.

“I’ll be fine sweetie. And besides, I’ll have you with me. I can face anything with you.”

They stood there for a moment, silent, before Revin collected her hands, then started walking backwards with a grin on her face. “In that case, you can come and face the galley with me.”

“Well, maybe not that…”

“Everyone just shut the fuck up,” Lewis said with clear frustration in his voice.

The bridge of the Martian Thorn wasn’t that big, but take it down to the minimum number of people required and it could feel downright empty. It was a delicate mix, which Revin found herself merely an observer in. What had prompted Lewis’s outburst was her fiancé merely whispering into one of Gaeda’s crewmember’s ears asking for an update.

With a glare from Gaeda, Sidda’s expression turned very sheepish before she slunk back over to where Revin was seated. Before a word could be uttered, Revin lifted a finger to her lips, then offered that hand for her love to hold once she sat down. She mouthed ‘love you’ to Sidda, punctuated with a smile, before nodding her head at the display behind her. She’d pulled up some useful information earlier and with the quiet ‘thank you’ from Sidda knew she’d done right by her.

“Two hundred meters,” Lewis announced. He had said landing the Thorn on the hull of a super-freighter wasn’t going to be difficult, but had revised his own estimate of either the task at hand or his own skill. The difficulty had arisen in the ship’s extremely large impulse engines and the exhaust they produced, or some such that went over her head. All she knew was that Lewis had asked for quiet while attempting this manoeuvre had his expletive ladened demand just now was his first.

“One hundred meters.” The Thorn rocked slightly as it continued to close. “Just the navigational deflectors interfacing,” Lewis informed. At this point, an alarm started to rise from Lewis’ own console, quickly silenced halfway through its first word.

“Twenty…fifteen…ten…five…”

She turned to grip the edge of the console she sat at properly with both hands, waiting for a jolt, a resounding clang, something to indicate they’d set down. Instead, there was a gentle little vibration that went through the ship. If she hadn’t clenched her eyes closed, feeling the ship through her hands and feet, she doubt she’d even have noticed it. And highly unlike anyone but an engineer in tune with their ship would either.

“Touch down.”

“Mr Chin,” Gaeda spoke as he stood and patted the man on the shoulder. “That was a thing of beauty.” Gaeda nodded as he looked down at the nav console, the spun on the rest of the bridge. “Secure the engines, ensure the cloak is working properly and someone make sure those clamps are damn well secure.”

As minutes passed, then hours, the only interruption to the drudgery of riding on the back of a slow freighter barely doing half impulse was the moment when an ageing Federation ship, the USS Sumner Bay, swung by the Denali, conducted a perfunctory scan of the ship then departed on its patrol once more. While the scan was done one could have heard a pin drop on the bridge as if the crew aboard being quiet would somehow help.

More hours passed and finally, boredom had won out as Revin found herself cycling through sensor readings, monitoring the passive sensors, self-teaching herself how to operate the Klingon computers of the Martian Thorn. She found a few settings that she kept flicking through before an idea hit her and attention fell complete on just one of the sensor readouts – ambient tachyon emissions.

“Shouldn’t that number be higher?” she asked, reaching over to tap Sidda on the arm, pointing at the reading.

“What should be higher love?” the Orion asked back, not looking up from something she was reading on a padd.

“The tachyon readings. If we’re near a tachyon sensor net, shouldn’t there be some scattering that would result in an increased count above background?”

“Stands to reason,” Sidda answered, still distracted.

“So why are the local readings standard galactic ambient then?”

“What are you talking about?” Sidda finally set her padd down and turned to look at Revin’s console, blinking a few times, confusion taking over her face. Seconds passed before she brought up the same exact readings on the console in front of her as well, then leaned over to kiss Revin’s cheek before jumping to her feet and going to whisper in Gaeda’s ear.

Soon enough both were standing behind her, Sidda’s hands coming to rest on her shoulders. “See Gaeda, no tachyon emissions. No active sensor emissions at all.”

“No security at all?” Gaeda’s tone conveyed his disbelief well enough. “That’s…just…”

“It’s a quiet backwater depot,” Sidda answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been shut down just to save on maintenance. After all, who’s going to steal from a depot this far inside Federation space? You’d have to be mad.”

“That’s not a sterling statement about your mental health you realise,” Gaeda countered.

“And yet you’re here as well.”

“Jesús,” the man muttered. “We’ll ride the Denali till we’re past the net anyway, just in case, but I’ve got to admit, I’m feeling a lot less worried about this madcap idea.” He looked the screen over once more then patted Revin’s shoulder lightly. “Nice work Revin.”

“Thank you,” she responded, then looked up, craning her head back, to smile at Sidda. “You can thank me later.”

“Oh, that’s for sure.” But for now, Sidda settled for planting a kiss on Revin’s forehead. “When did you learn how to operate a sensor system?”

“Just followed the prompts.” She tapped a few keys and brought up a series of system tooltips. “And I listen to everything. Hanging around people working, you learn a lot. And Orelia likes to show me how things work. Orin too.” Not that she’d ever want to manage a ship’s weapons in a battle, but she felt confident enough to at least fire a torpedo dead ahead.

“Well then clever girl, mind keeping an eye on sensors till we’re clear? I’ll go make some drinks for everyone.”

“Did I hear drinks?” Gaeda shouted from across the bridge. “Coffee, black, two sugars.”

“Same with milk,” another voice.

“Raktijino while you’re at it,” Lewis chipped in.

Revin smiled and chuckled. “Tea please, love. Honey if you find any, otherwise sugar will do.”

With a squeeze of her shoulders and then with a single raised finger directed to the rest of the bridge crew, Sidda departed.

It was hours later, and many cups of coffee or tea, that the Martian Thorn eventually detached from the hull of the Denali. Another wee jolt as navigational screens conflicted, then the bird-of-prey righted itself on thrusters alone before gliding off towards the nearest collection of wrecked starships.

“What’s that?” Gaeda asked with a pointed finger at the viewscreen and someone dutifully zoomed in on the offending object – a shuttlecraft making its way through the collection of ships which seemed to get denser as the field went on.

“Shuttle. Two life-signs, moving at a sedate pace, though with how dense those ships are packed as they go along, probably a bordering on a touch reckless,” Lewis commented.

“Well keep an eye out for them, but let’s orbit the field and see if we can’t find the Sidda’s prize for her.”

Two hours later on the bridge, the day drawing to a close for most and it was all punctuated with a single expletive from the helm.

“Shit.”

On the viewscreen the zoomed-in wreckage of a Manticore-class starship was visible, seemingly buried in a mass of other starships, as if Starfleet was protecting it from sight under the bodies of its brethren. The angle was so unique to see it that one would have to be inside the fleet yard to even see it. But the ships around it were dense enough to keep the Thorn from getting any closer.

“Well shit,” Gaeda followed up, then looked over to Revin. “You want to tell her, or should I?”

“Can we tell her in the morning?”

“I shall leave that decision with you Revin,” he said. “But everyone going on this crazy excursion should get some shuteye. Lewis, find us somewhere to park but where we can watch Endeavour will you?”

“On it.”

With the Endeavour where it was, their only choice would be to spacewalk. She’d only practised on the holodeck herself, to see if she could figure out Sidda’s confessed fear, but to no avail. It was calming to her, peaceful even. But the here and now was evident to her – find her fiancé, get her to sleep, because a night of her fretting wouldn’t do anyone any good.

The Void.

Fathomless abyss.

Inky black nothingness pinpricked with light.

Depths that sophonts the galaxy over wrapped themselves in starships and flung themselves through in defiance of the classical laws of physics.

In defiance of common bloody sense.

All she could see, feel, know was that moment when she knew she was dead, left floating in the void, all by herself. Wreckage was strewn around her, but no means to even reach out for any like a sailor desperate for driftwood. Her visor slowly fogging up, her brain fighting itself as one part wanted to hyperventilate, another was trying to steady her breathing, to stretch out what precious little air she did have. Alerts blaring in her ear with one dire prediction after another.

She was barely a teenager and was facing death by herself, floating in space.

Then a gentle bump broke Sidda’s reverie. Revin, sweet, glorious Revin, had put her visor against her own, her voice coming through but somewhat muffled.

“You sure you’re up for this love?”

A few steady breaths and the fog disappeared. She could see clearer now, brought back to reality. “They know I don’t like spacewalks; I can’t let them know I’m fucking afraid of them.” She suspected Gaeda knew but he’d never challenged her on it and no one else ever said anything. But she’d confided in Revin, like she did most things, but not the reason why.

“It’s a phobia, you’re allowed to have those.”

“No,” Revin countered with a smile, “I’m not. I’m a hardass pirate.”

“You’re not a pirate.”

“Am too.” She grinned at Revin, gave her a wink, then reached out to hug the other woman. “I’ll be fine once I’m inside the Endeavour.”

“Twenty minutes of free-floating.” Revin’s words cut right through the meagre mental defences she’d been trying to build, to hold on to, and her rapid breathing came back before Revin started to count, nice and slow. “One…and…two. One…and two…” This went on for eternity, or barely a few seconds, but the steady rhythm helped.

Then she felt something around her EV suit’s belt and looked down to see a safety line clipped to it, the reel on Revin’s suit. And another line between Revin and T’Ael, then on to Chalmers and Tavol. All of them were now clipped together, with a bundle of cargo nets for hauling a chair and whatever loot T’Ael could scrounge up.

“My idea. That way we all get there or we don’t.” Revin offered one last smile, then parted their private conversation just as T’Ael started to speak up over their comms

The power and range had been purposefully limited to reduce any chances of being detected but with all gathered on the outer hull of the USS Hollande, it was as crystal clear as normal. “Right, since somehow despite Chalmer’s here being ex-Starfleet, I’m the one with the most EV experience, the spacewalks are done on my orders,” T’Ael started, giving Sidda a defiant look as if asking for her captain to object.

No objection was forthcoming.

“Right, we’ve all got thruster packs, but they’re of the hull inspection variety, not the fighting space monsters kind. Do as I say, when I say, we’ll all get to the Endeavour in one piece.” The thruster packs were as varied as the EV suits they all sported but had all been seen to by the tender skills of T’Ael’s brother, their designated EV suit specialist. “No unclipping safety lines for any reason. If you think we’re going to hit something, you say so and we’ll adjust.”

A chorus of ‘yes ma’am’ rose up, save for herself, her own fears coming back, distracting her. It took an elbow to the side to get the same response out of her.

“You good to go Cap?” T’Ael asked.

“Yah, I’m good. Oh…the gift box?” she asked, rewarded with the case they’d brought aboard, though now with the rose logo purposefully scratched off the top of the purple case. Surely someone would be able to reconstruct it, but not with a simple casual look.

Setting the container down on the deck, she popped the latches on it to inspect the contents, to admire T’Ael’s handiwork. Sitting inside a hardened foam interior lay a sword nearly eighty centimetres in length, a scabbard the same purple as her own previous Vondem Rose. The blade itself was straight and polished to a near mirror shine, with a hint of a crossguard and leather-wrapped grip complimenting it. The metal itself was from the Rose’s own hull, which some scientist would likely be able to tell was ‘typical of Klingon metallurgy’.

The blade inspected, it was carefully sheathed and placed back in the case, next to it in their own holding spots were two bottles of her own choice. One bottle of Romulan ale, older than the vast majority of spacers today, was sourced from a distillery that only existed as part of an ever-expanding plasma front like so much of Romulus. The other bottle was of a Terran drink called tequila which she’d included since it was the divine liqueur that gave birth to this crazy scheme. She wasn’t sure if it was good or not, but Gaeda had insisted it was sufficiently above the top shelf he’d had to get a couple of ladders.

He may have been drunk at the time of swearing as to its quality.

Contents inspected, her vision purely focused downward at a task and the Hollande’s hull, it was time to close it all back up. Steady breaths, calming breaths, then she looked up.

She had a safety line. She had a thruster pack. She even had an emergency transponder and a ship with a transporter nearby. She wasn’t going to get left floating in space.

None of that helped.

Panic rose with the bile in the back of her throat, the only thing preventing her from being sick were the drugs she’d taken before stepping outside. Then a hand clamped down on her shoulder and her eyes shot straight to it, then to T’Ael.

“It’s okay boss, free-floating scares me too.”

If only she was scared.

This was a bad idea. The worst idea. What was she thinking?

“Right, everyone, boots off, let’s go,” T’Ael announced and before Sidda could raise a protest her hand was clasped by Revin’s own.

The mere act of holding someone else’s hand was infinitely better, more reassuring than a stupid safety line.

She could do this.

No, she couldn’t.

Revin didn’t give her a choice, reaching over to disengage her boots and pushing both of them off the hull gently.

“I know you are afraid love, but I know you’ve got it set to follow through. Trust me, I won’t let go.”

Floating in a pool. Or an oversized bath. Somewhere nice and safe and far less utterly hostile to orionoid life than the void of space. That was where Sidda had decided to cast herself after clenching her eyes shut and clamping her hand right on Revin’s. She’d lasted five minutes before her breathing and heart rate had garnered a polite warning from the suit’s monitors. Closing her eyes, repeating to herself she was somewhere else and holding on for dear life had at least got the annoying voice to shut up.

Eventually, she felt the tug of suit thrusters firing to decelerate and was forced to confront her reality or crash straight into the side of a ship she was here to rob in a rather undignified manner. That just wouldn’t do. Endeavour grew and grew until the beast was a wall, then a floor of duranium alloy hull plating that the entire team found themselves on, feet settling and sticking with the reassuring clink of magnetic contact pads.

“Alright,” T’Ael said after everyone was secure, “we’ve got two hours to grab everything we want, then we do all that again but in reverse and with a couple of tons of gear hopefully.”

Chalmers gave a slight chuckle for what it was worth, but Tavol gave nothing, the vulcan no doubt just accepting T’Ael’s statement as an obvious truth.

“Revin, Tavol, you’re with me. Chalmers, with the Boss.” There was no protest, which she expected from Revin at least. Instead, there was just a round of helmeted heads bobbing before all involved fell into line behind T’Ael as she marched towards the nearest airlock.

Dead systems and no power proved to be a minimal hindrance for T’Ael as she popped the airlock. But before all could make their way inside, a glistening light caught their attention.

Lazily heading in their direction, a searchlight on the nose of the shuttle was scanning wrecks with no apparent pattern as the craft headed towards the Endeavour and disappeared from view, their last sight of it was the craft banking, lining up on Endeavour’s shuttlebay.

“Well fuck,” T’Ael said.

*****

Lieutenants Jack Burke and Samuel Hare weren’t Starfleet’s finest and they knew it. But they were good at their job, so that had to account for something at least. They specialised in picking over the ships of the Providence Fleet yards for parts before their ultimate journey to the breakers. Knowing just where to find this or that and retrieving it on special order for ships nearby. They’d been given a shopping list of parts today and to make it snappy by their boss.

“Sammie old boy,” Jack had said looking over the list. “Today’s going to be an easy day. Commander Knox is going to be pleased with us, I tell you for free.”

“Why do you reckon that?” the other man asked back as he busied himself with the task of flying the shuttle out of the station’s shuttlebay. The shuttle was devoid of any interior furniture save for its seats, the basic nav console and plenty of hooks and clips for cargo nets, crates and the occasional pallet.

“Because the ship we’re looking for parts for is USS Manticore.” Jack offered the padd over, complete with the parts order and intended recipient. “And we just so happened to have taken in a Manticore-class ship recently remember?”

Just under an hour after that exchange and with some careful flying through the depot’s yards, Jack and Sam found themselves bringing their faithful little charge to rest inside the permanently opened shuttlebay of the former USS Endeavour, her name formally transferred to another ship. Both men had taken their time to suit up properly, checking each other’s suits and then running through a checklist to make sure they had everything.

“Right then Sammie, you want Engineering or the Bridge?”

“Engineering if you don’t mind. Less distance to travel.”

“Yes, but more to carry,” Jack said.

“Alas, that would be an issue if gravity was a concern. See you in a few hours buddy.”

And with that, both men left the shuttle bay, then went their separate ways, in search of their own bounty.

*****

Comm channels had been changed, powered down even further, so T’Ael had bid the boss and Chalmers on their way before leading her own towards Engineering. They’d lost contact with them within a minute as the bulk of the ship cut them off from each other. She didn’t know the layout of the ship, but an engineer’s sense accompanied by Starfleet’s dutiful labelling of doors and had led them to their destination in quick order.

She’d opted for more free-floating within the wreck, magboots off and pinballing through the ship in a few locations. If Starfleet, even sleepy depot Starfleet, was here, then they’d eventually get made. That meant the entire operation was on the clock and the good stuff they wanted might disappear at a moment’s notice.

Turns out recklessly throwing yourself through an unknown ship wasn’t a decent counter to someone who likely knew exactly where he was going, arrived closer to his destination and from the looks of it a small self-propelled cart with a battery for powering stubborn doors, something she and Tavol had more than their fair difficulty with.

“Qezh,” she cursed, spotting the lone engineer, assuming Starfleet hadn’t gone and recoloured their uniforms. He was in the middle of Engineering, his cart’s light illuminating the space somewhat haphazardly, but the light reflecting around to fight off the darkness.

The space was a desanctified temple as far as she was concerned, the beating heart of the starship long gone, all power bled from this magnificent beast and left to picked over. And here, in the middle of the space was someone going about what she had planned to do, but first. And from the looks of it for a bit as well, the cart was covered in components, crates on its side opened and housing smaller parts.

“What is he doing?” Tavol asked, his voice an irritating calm in a situation where she was trying to think and come up with a plan before all the good loot disappeared.

“He’s whistling,” Revin chipped in. All three were hiding behind a door, peering in to watch their query. Revin, bless the Princess’ soul, had opted that if gravity was offline, the ceiling was as respectable a floor as the floor itself and so T’Ael had to look up at the woman, who was looking at her, tapping the side of her helmet as close to her eyes as she could.

Artificial eyes had to be useful for something she supposed.

“It would appear he’s also removing the secondary plasma waveguides we were after,” Tavol then added, his attention had never left the man in the middle of the room.

“Qezh!” she again cursed. “Tavol, neck pinch him would you.”

“I regret to inform you chief that it’s somewhat ineffective through an EV suit. However, we may wish to do something sooner.” He pointed her attention slightly upward at a drifting Revin, who’s pushed off into the room.

She was slowly moving further above the eyeline, so hopefully out of notice of the engineer, when she found purchase on a piece of extrusion, either from damage or hasty salvage prior. Then pushed herself off of that to approach the cart while the engineer was looking inside an equipment cabinet.

“Shit shit shit…” T’Ael found herself muttering, but frozen in place, waiting to see what happened before either making a break or a rescue depending.

And that’s when she saw Revin lift something off the cart – a type 2 Federation phaser. A little, a lot, to be honest, newer than the ones in their inventory, but they had to be functionally the same, yes? She saw Revin adjust the settings on the phaser and then turn to point it at the engineer.

She held her fire.

Why did she hold her fire?

The engineer was under the gun, even if he didn’t know it. With the scene safe enough, she stepped forward with Tavol. They were halfway to Revin and the cart when the Engineer turned around, shock registered on his face, then he just hung limp as an orange beam smashed into him right in the centre of mass. He was anchored in place by his boots, but otherwise just hung there.

“Why’d you wait?” Tavol asked as they stepped up.

“Kevak said you should always shoot a man in the front if you can.”

Both she and Tavol stood there for a moment, shared a look of ‘okay’ between them and both shrugged. “Right. Okay. Shopping list. Grab what you can, load it on this cart, and we’ll take the lot.”

“Sounds logical,” Tavol offered. “Hopefully the Captain’s mission goes as smoothly as ours.”

The bridge of a Manticore-class starship was typically a well-lit and busy space, but for the former Endeavour it was the exact opposite. The only light was what Sidda and Chalmers brought with them on their suits, dead panels iced over with condensed atmosphere reflecting it slightly to give the space an eery gloom.

“Which consoles am I looking for again?” Chalmers had asked when they emerged from the turbolift shaft, his answer a shrug of Sidda’s shoulders. “I’ll just start looking then, shall I?”

“Good man,” she replied and floated her way across the bridge, grabbing the back of the centre seat as she approached and stopped her movement, swinging her feet around to finally come into contact with the deck plating.

“There you are,” she said quietly to herself. Experimentally she reached out to the control panel on the right arm, hoping for a modicum of life, but like the rest of the ship, the panel too was cold and dead.

The case she was carrying was carefully set down on the deck before she turned around and sat herself down in the chair, her hands coming to rest on the arms, crossing one leg over the other. Even with an EV suit on it was more comfortable than that brutal chair she’d suffered so long with. This was truly a good bad idea.

“Chalmers, keep an eye out for Starfleet, they could be coming up here,” she ordered over comms, then stood and walked towards a set of doors, carefully reading the Federation Standard for ‘Ready Room’ before going about forcing the door open.

She’d half expected a fully furnished office, maybe even Rourke waiting in ambush, but alas reality was a disappointment. The only things left behind were those bolted to the deck it seemed. A slow tour proceeded, gloved finger tracing across various surfaces before she stopped at the desk and looked down at it, its surface lightly frosted from the air that had condensed there as the ship had cooled.

A smirk came across her face as she reached out and wrote two words in the frost, chuckled to herself and then turned to leave, coming face to face with Chalmers who was pulling himself inside the ready room and behind the door.

“Lights coming up the turbolift shaft, no ours,” he whispered.

“Why are you whispering Chalmers? They can’t hear us unless we’re on open comms.”

“Because…” he started, then stopped.

Both of them reached up and turned off their suit lights, the room disappearing into near pitch-black as only starlight from a handful of windows lit the space. That and the steadily growing white light ascending the lift shaft.

“We’re toast,” Chalmers confided as both of them looked through the door.

“Not until he sees the carry case,” Sidda said, heaping bad news as her eyes settled on the purple case next to the captain’s chair.

A minute passed before the Starfleet officer emerged onto the bridge, his helmet lights passing over the bridge in a cursory manner before he settled on a bank of consoles and made his way there, completely missing the open the ready room door, the purple case, or even that another series of consoles had been opened up, parts lying on the door on a cargo net.

“Okay, it’s a vacuum and no gravity. Magboots off, hands only. Get to your stuff, grab it and get back down the lift shaft,” she ordered, eyes locked on the Starfleeter.

“What about you ma’am?”

“I’m getting my chair.” With that she pulled herself through the door over Chalmers’ head, coasting through the void and once more grabbing the top of the command chair. Carefully she pulled herself around towards the case and popped it open, pulling out the sword she’d had made for Rourke by way of an apology and a gift. Even in the gloom, the cutting edge was a thing of beauty as it emerged from the sheath.

“T’Ael, please please please be right about the mono-molecular edge,” she muttered, then brought herself almost to the floor level, finding the pedestal the chair was mounted on. Purchase points secured, she brought the sword swinging, cutting through the pedestal, releasing the chair and herself to float away towards the ceiling with a slight tumble.

“Crap!” she cursed, scrambling to try and position herself between chair and ceiling plates, to try and muffle the reverberation through the hull. The impact elicited only a small reaction as the engineer looked away from his work but kept his attention at deck level. Habit and gravity bias was a hard thing to shake.

She waited a full twenty seconds after he went back to his task before she left the chair and pushed back to the floor at a gentle pace. The sheath was put back in the case, itself secured to the floor with a very faint click of a magnet. Just enough to stop it from floating away and getting lost in the bridge space. The sword itself was given one last admiring look, then driven point-first into the de-chaired pedestal, enough to be obvious and attract attention.

That done she went for the chair and worked her way along the ceiling with the unwieldy thing, eventually disappearing into the turbolift shaft with it, offering a salute to the oblivious engineer as she left.

**********

“Burke to Hare, I’m just about done here,” Jack said after tapping his commbadge. He’d been reasonably lucky with his part of the list, the parts he’d been after all being in one place and all of them passing a field test. No need to scrounge around other bridge consoles, just need to update the paperwork and list Environmental Sciences as picked clean.

“Burke to Hare, you read?” he repeated when no response came forth.

“Sammie old boy, you there?” he followed up only after a moment.

Now he was getting concerned. Getting to his feet he turned around, a quick glance around the bridge as he made his way for the turbolift and a glint of light caught his attention. Mid stride he stopped, turning towards the captain’s chair and there was that light again.

It took a moment to recognise the chair was gone and, in its place, a sword had been left, its polished blade brilliant in his helmet light.

“I am in so much trouble…” he whispered to himself.

**********

As the access ramp finished closing on the Martian Thorn and the pressure light switched from red to green, helmet seals started to pop in near unison. Beneath the collected feet of all those present, the deck rumbled lightly as the ship pushed off the hulk of the USS Hollande.

“All good down there?” came Gaeda’s voice over the internal comms.

“Got what we wanted,” Sidda answered.

“And more,” T’Ael added, a happy grin all over her face. “So, so much more.”

“Good, because we’re leaving, so no going back.”

“I think,” Sidda said addressing those in the cargo bay, all now in the process of stripping EV suits off, “that I owe everyone here a drink.”

“You owe us a bar,” T’Ael snapped back.

“I’d go for a bar,” Chalmers added.

“I’d settle for a cup of tea,” Tavol added.

“You know what, for all of this, we’ll build a bar. Convert a cargo bay on the Rose?” The affirmative head nods settled the matter. “Until then, galley, drink. My orders.”

As the others all filed out, Sidda was left with Revin, who stood to block Sidda’s exit. “You didn’t seem as scared on the way back.”

“Adrenaline,” she replied.

“Uh-huh.” Revin stared at her for a few moments. “You need to talk to someone about your phobia.”

“No, I really don’t.” Her answer was cold but firm. “I already shot the man responsible.”

“Love…”

“Revin, I’m not going to talk to anyone about it. I understand it, I avoid it.” She knew it wasn’t a healthy position, but it was her position. “I want to celebrate,” she continued, tossing a look to the chair that was her prize, lying on the floor looking somewhat said for itself at present. “Then I want to celebrate,” she continued with a waggle of eyebrows as she stepped forward, wrapped an arm around Revin and pulled her close.

“Seriously?” asked Orelia as she took another picture of Sidda and her recent conquest.

“Yes,” replied Sidda. Both of their replies had echoed around the empty bridge of the Vondem Rose, devoid of all life save for the two of them.

“I get pictures like these for your fiancée, heck for the crew if you want to give a morale boost, but a Starfleet captain?” Orelia continued her line of inquiry.

“If any of the crew see these pictures,” Sidda said, a death glare on her face, “I will personally throw your atomised ashes out an airlock.”

In the time since they’d returned to the Vondem Rose, the original Klingon command chair had been removed and replaced, with little effort, by the much more comfortable command chair of the former USS Endeavour. The only modification that Sidda had made to the chair was surface level – a headrest cover in her trademark purple.

“Why not? Shouldn’t they know they’re fighting under someone as good looking as yourself? You’re going to deny the crew that, but send these to a Starfleet captain? Besides, we could choose the best of the images and do some nose art for the Rose.”

“Because I have to work with the crew every day,” Sidda replied. “These pictures are for Revin and for bragging and nothing more Orelia. I see one stencilled image of me anywhere and I will kill you dead.”

“Fine fine, make sure you never see the nose art.” Sidda’s glare once more was met only with Orelia sticking her tongue out, snapping a picture, then a cheeky smile. “So, tasteful risqué images with a sword made from his former starship sitting upon his chair. Are you trying to convince him to come and hunt us down?” Orelia asked over another couple of clicks of the imager.

“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. Heck, never know, might convince him to go pirate and join us.”

“If not you, then can always send him pictures of me,” Orelia replied.

**********

It was a few hours after the photoshoot with her cousin behind the camera and Sidda was lounging in her ready room. A far more ostentatious and grandiose place than it had even been when the ship had served in the KDF, but it was now hers and had to reflect that. A high-backed chair, the metal desk replaced with dark Vondem wood, a couch and a coffee table off to one side with the floor tastefully covered in sumptuous rugs and diaphanous drapes on the walls.

Change the window looking out into space for a view over a marketplace or a field somewhere and she could almost imagine she was back home on Vondem.

She’d dressed only in a light blue kimono, tying it off lightly, so to be presentable at least for any who arrived while she spent the morning reviewing paperwork, but also to give the air of bored comfort when her guest for the morning was brought up from the brig.

T’rev, of the house of Sh’rel of P’Jem, also known as The Last Pirate King, was tall, even for a Vulcan, and carried himself with the noble bearing Sidda had come to expect of Vulcans and Romulans, at least those in some position of power. Behind him were two security guards, far enough apart to prevent him from getting to both at once and both armed, weapons bearing on him.

He entered however as if he was an honoured guest and not a prisoner, stepping in, offering a bow and waiting until she waved at a chair, signed off the last detail on the padd in hand, then sat it down. “I have at least five different ways of dealing with you.”

“I can think of seven. I suspect however the differences are two options I still consider viable but which you no doubt have disregarded. You are unlikely to release me and let me be on my way and just as unlikely to waste an opportunity by releasing me into the vacuum,” T’rev said, his tone flat. “I see you also raided my wardrobe.”

She was confused, then looked down at her kimono and shook her head. “No. I bought this on Arken. Tailor there, a Romulan chap, lovely little shop on the riverfront.”

“Ah, that would explain it then. Gren’s source for the finest silks is one I was never able to ascertain myself.” He looked around the room, taking in details, then returned his attention to her. “No doubt you brought me here to inform me of your decision as well as indulge in an emotional display of power.”

“Not going to deny it, does feel good to have finally gotten the better of you.” She chuckled then relaxed in her own chair. “The Klingons and the Romulan Free State both made enticing offers really. The Star Empire was a bit more threatening, but their loss. And there’s a Ferengi Daimon who was willing to pay me in enough latnium to drown you in.”

“Ah, Daimon Lek of the Profit Prophet no doubt. Those all sound like suitably profitable options,” he acknowledged.

“Takes a lot less fluid to drown someone than people think.” She waited, his nod of acknowledgement her sign to continue. “But I’ve decided to take the offer that pays the least upfront but ultimately pays the best in the long term, or so I hope.”

“Ah, so the Federation then.” He nodded his head once. “Logical. You have been building a report with Starfleet I have been led to understand. Such that you could trade for a captain’s chair I noticed.”

“Oh, goddesses no, I stole that,” she exclaimed. “It’s one of the reasons I’m going to hand you over to Starfleet. An apology for raiding a depot yard.”

“You raided a depot yard?” he asked, something with the barest whiff of incredulousness on his voice. “For a chair?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“To show Starfleet I could. To rile up a particular captain with a harmless prank and ultimately show Starfleet I’m a source of chaotic good.” She smirked at him. “Long term I plan to retire and enjoy the perks of the greater galaxy, not have to hide away on some hidden space station, to which I’m also selling the coordinates too. Finder’s fee is going to be a nice cherry on top of all this.”

“They’ll always consider you a pirate. Always treat you with suspicion and disrespect for your past actions. And you’ll likely have earned enemies with your depot yard stunt.” T’rev’s head tilted slightly to one side. “But that was part of your plan, wasn’t it? You want to stay on the outside. To be a rebel. Your mother, she’s Starfleet, isn’t it?”

“And we’re done here,” Sidda said, a wave of her hand dismissing T’rev. “Back to your cell you.” Her attention went to the guards. “He gives you any trouble, stun his ass and drag him by his ankles back to his cell.”

“Ah, a sore spot I see,” T’rev said as he stood, offered another bow and turned. “Thank you for the insight, Captain Sadovu.” And with that, he departed.

She glared at the door for a few moments, half tempted to get to her feet, grab her disruptor, march down the hall and end the annoying Vulcan and just claim the dead bounty. But she’d been smart enough earlier to remove quick access to weapons just for this meeting.

A string of half-muttered curses in half a dozen different languages issued forth before she settled down at her desk with a fresh pot of tea, courtesy of the new replicators T’Ael and R’Tin were in the process of installing now that they had one to make parts with. They still needed to bulk out the library of patterns, but the finer resolution and technical capability of Federation replicators meant she could at least have a decent cup of tea.

A few sips and her mood improved, her attention returning to her computer and the images that Orelia had taken that morning. A dozen had been selected, reviewed a few times to make sure only the best had been chosen, then finally she reached out, with a smile on her face, to select the recipient and hit send.

**********

To: Matt Rourke, CO, USS Endeavour
From: Sidda Sadovu, CEO, Totally Legitimate Salvage Operations LLC; CO, SS Vondem Rose
Subject: Nose art?
Attachments: 12 holoimages, high resolution. 1 set of spatial coordinates. 24 hours of sensor logs.

!!Warning!! Attachments from outside entities should only be opened if you trust the sender.

Content:

• • T’rev, house Sh’rel of P’Jem aka The Last Pirate King – in my brig right now. Where should I drop him off?
  • Star of Galur – I hear it’s important to the Betazoids. Tracked courier is how it went missing last time. Let me know where to take it, I’m sure we can arrange something. It’s far too gaudy for my tastes. Makes a decent desk ornament though.
  • Location of The Last Pirate King’s redoubt – it’s a freebie, find attached. Sensor logs too of all the ships that were there at the time.
  • 2 dozen slavers and murderers – See, I can be a good citizen. I also understand they all have bounties too. Federation doesn’t have death penalties, so which penal colony do I drop these scumbags off at?

Please tell me the sword is still sharp?

What size hat are you?