Like an arrow arching to its target, the Phoenix fell upon the Romulan ship. One moment they’d dropped from warp; the next they tumbled through the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, weapons blazing to rain down on their foe.

‘The Andorian ship’s warp drive is offline,’ called West, voice ringing across the bridge over the low hum of activity.

‘Tak, tell them to get their asses behind us.’ Lopez didn’t sound worried, pointing finger turning from Communications to Tactical. ‘Helena, how’re our guests?’

Black’s smile was tight, but satisfied. ‘They weren’t ready for us. That’s a direct hit to their aft torpedo launcher; it’s out of action.’

‘Guess they gotta face us head-on, or run real fast. Stay on their tail, Antar. We can chew ‘em up all we like from there.’

‘Thanks for explaining, boss; thought I’d take us for a ride through their firing arc,’ Ensign Antar said with her usual sullen wryness. On the viewscreen, the exosphere swirled gold and bronze clouds before them as she brought the Phoenix around to focus on the distant dot of the Romulan ship.

‘I’m a tactical genius like that,’ said Lopez, matching her without missing a beat. ‘I don’t want these assholes getting away.’

West looked across the bridge to Black. ‘Sending you targeting telemetry, Commander; if you hit their manoeuvring thrusters, they’ll have a hell of a time getting through the atmosphere.’

Lopez gave a low chuckle of satisfaction as she watched the Phoenix’s weapons fire rake across the Romulan heavy scout. ‘Sorry, Rommies. There are no more back doors into human territory. We’re changing all the locks.’

‘Direct hit,’ Black reported with audible satisfaction. ‘They’re trying to exit the gravity well, but they’re not moving fast.’

‘Stay on them,’ said Lopez. ‘It’d be a real shame if the Romulans sent another raider into our turf and they vanished without a trace.’

‘Again,’ Black said.

‘Commander,’ West said to Black, ‘if you detonate a torpedo twenty metres above their dorsal hull, the shockwave in this atmosphere should push them further into the gas giant.’

Takahashi glanced up from Comms. ‘Are we rationing our torpedoes now, and trying to use the laws of physics to help us rack up kills?’

‘We’re not made of resources,’ Lopez mused, and nodded at Black. ‘Do it.’

A moment later, West gave a low hiss of satisfaction. ‘Good shooting; they’re sluggish in the air now.’

‘I know,’ Black said with simple confidence. ‘I’ve got them.’

Lopez clenched a fist with jubilation as the the shots from the Phoenix soared out, and seconds later the viewscreen lit up with the explosions raking the Romulan ship. It split in two, both chunks falling deeper into the gravity well of the gas giant, and soon enough disappeared from sight. ‘They look toasted.’

‘Like a bagel,’ Black agreed.

‘Their systems are dead, I’m losing them on sensors – they’re done,’ West confirmed.

Lopez looked around from the command chair. ‘Good job, everyone. They screwed around again, and they paid the price.’

But amid the ripple of satisfaction washing through the bridge, Takahashi pressed a finger to his earpiece and raised his voice. ‘Before we pat ourselves on the back too hard, the Andorian ship’s asking for assistance so they don’t drift and get crushed, too.’

‘Bring us about, Antar,’ called Lopez, like this was another day at the office. ‘Helena, ready the grappling hook.’

They had not gone far from the ship whose distress call had summoned them to this uninhabited gas giant at the edges of what had become, over the last few months, the Vega theatre. Starfleet’s foothold on the region had only solidified, Earth’s forces establishing a perimeter guard and driving the Romulans out of a sector they had previously breached with impunity. Now even a passing Andorian ship could call for help and have the Phoenix, the most powerful ship in the area, respond in time.

It was simple work to latch on to the ship, stop it from sinking deeper into the gas giant, and bring it out of the gravity well as Phoenix slid back to the heart of the system. Commander West’s study of the sensors showed no sign of further Romulan forces, either lying in wait or coming as reinforcements, and so with a sigh Lopez gave the order to end tactical alert.

‘This Andorian captain’s grateful for our assistance,’ Takahashi reported, with an amused edge suggesting he was being diplomatic about an Andorian’s comportment. ‘But his ship’s taken some damage and he’s going to need repairs or a ride out of here.’

‘We can be good Samaritans,’ said Lopez. ‘Bring us in to dock, have Hawthorne send some people over. Does he need medical attention?’ Takahashi shrugged. ‘It can’t hurt. Notify the doc and invite him for a checkup.’

Black made a low noise of curiosity as Takahashi did as bidden, but shook her head as Lopez looked at her. ‘No – it’s nothing much. His ship’s quite well-armed, a decent little scout, but it’s not Andorian military and obviously wasn’t much of a match for the Romulans. I thought this was a freighter originally, but it’s much too small; a one-man crew sort of deal.’

‘Did we rescue a pirate?’ Lopez couldn’t help but sound delighted at such a novel prospect. ‘I’m going to have to go to Sickbay to see this guy for myself, aren’t I.’

Black raised an eyebrow. ‘If you think we should, Captain.’

Lopez hopped to her feet, chuckling. ‘Subtle, Helena. We’ve just rescued him, he’s one Andorian, and he’s about to be sitting in the middle of the ship. If I need a bodyguard for this meeting, something’s gone horribly wrong.’

‘Indulge me.’

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. ‘Alright. Let’s see what this guy’s about. You have the bridge, Commander West; make sure the coast is clear and see what Hawthorne has to say about the ship. We’ll head back to Vega once we know if this is catch-and-release or if we’re giving him a ride.’

Black followed her into the lift, but waited until the doors slid shut before she gave a gentle snort of amusement. ‘You’re in a good mood.’

‘We won a fight. Another one. Handily,’ Lopez pointed out as the lift hummed to life.

‘We keep doing that. I thought you’d be used to it by now.’

‘I love winning. I love winning even more when people expect me to lose.’ She shrugged. ‘Starfleet counted us out from the beginning and sent us to Vega because it was a backwater they didn’t want to waste their best on. Instead we’ve found the Romulans trying to flank us and thwarted them at every turn. Since we got here, they’ve tried smacking civilians, smacking us through allies, smacking us with as big a fighting force as they could spare on this border. It’s been six months since we got here, and all they’ve learnt is how to waste a lot of resources.’

Black chuckled, shaking her head. ‘Good to see you’re not letting it go to your head.’

‘Arrogance is when you think better of yourself than you should. We should be pleased with ourselves. And sure, if it upsets starched shirts on Earth, so much the better.’ The doors slid open, and Lopez gave a cocky smile. ‘Let’s see who we rescued.’

They found a wiry Andorian sat on a bed when they arrived in Sickbay,  grumbling as Doctor Kayode tended to a bloody gash oozing dark blue across a brow. His keen eyes lit up as the two women entered, and a hand gently but firmly pushed Kayode to one side. ‘You’re the captain? Your doctor’s acting like a bump to the head will kill me.’

‘I am not,’ Kayode said with a faint squeak of indignation. ‘But I should check out head wounds. And you’re here, and you’re a guest -’

‘If the man wants to be stoic about it, let him,’ said Lopez with amusement, and looked the Andorian up and down. ‘I’m Captain Lopez of the Phoenix NX-08, Earth Starfleet.’

‘Tharan. Captain of my own business, and a lot of luck for you showing up when you did.’ Tharan got to his feet and, after a moment’s hesitation, stuck out a hand like he’d remembered this was how he talked to humans. He wore a well-fitting jumpsuit with thick protective panelling across the chest and his right arm, but there was no insignia or particular colour scheme. ‘Thanks for your timing.’

‘I pride myself on being where I need to be, when I need to be.’ Lopez shook the hand and tried to not wince at the grip. ‘I’ve got engineers looking at your ship now. If it’s a complete mess, we’re happy to give you a ride back to Vega and offer you a better repair job there.’

‘Appreciate that,’ Tharan said. ‘The Romulans are getting bold. I’d thought you’d pushed them out of the sector by now.’

‘We’re working on it.’ She cocked her head. ‘What brings you to the edge of UEC space, anyway?’

He lifted his hands defensively. ‘I’m not shoving my antennae in your borders, Starfleet, easy. I’m a ship for hire; I go where I’m paid.’ He hesitated. ‘My government sent me to take a look at Romulan activity and report back. You know, without any military markings on my ship the empire might take as Andorian forces getting officially involved again.’

‘You could have asked,’ Black mused.

‘I could,’ Tharan agreed. ‘But for now I was just looking. Then that Romulan ship got the drop on me. It had been plain sailing until then. And if I asked you for help, you’d have wanted something in return.’

Lopez raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe. Considering Starfleet’s successful border defence over these few months has provided a handy buffer for Andoria, we might have assumed you’d be in the business of being grateful.’

‘We’re not ungrateful.’ He hesitated, then scratched his temple. ‘You’ve saved my neck, Captain, no question. My ship took a hammering and I’d appreciate that lift back to Vega.’

She cocked her head. ‘You’re talking like you’re about to make it worth my while.’

‘Like I said, I’ve been sticking my antennae in these parts for a bit. My ship is light and fast and good at avoiding notice; Romulans seem to be looking most for engine emissions that match Earth design and I’ve been overlooked a few times. And it’s been getting easier as you’ve pushed them back, and back, and back.’ Tharan straightened, and his light eyes met Lopez’s gaze. There was a beat as he considered, then he gave a white, shining, hunter’s smile. ‘Do you want to finish them off in this sector for good?’

The Phoenix had used the long months since her arrival at Vega well. What had started as a simple patrol to let the crew familiarise themselves with their new ship and keep them all out of trouble had found the Romulans trying to breach UEC borders along a human backwater. When they had thwarted the Romulans’ offensive, the enemy had tried again and again, and humanity’s only choice had been to start bolstering the defences – permanently.

One of those defences was the expansion of Vega’s orbital weapons emplacements. What had once been an improvised arrangement of strapping phase cannons to weather satellites had expanded, and been particularly bolstered with the arrival of the Vostok and the Freedom, both ships packed with the material and manpower to develop this infrastructure. No more was Vega protected by such ad hoc arrangements but permanent facilities in orbit, at the periphery of the system, at key defence points, bristling with firepower to provide a warm welcome.

The most significant of these facilities had once been the orbital traffic management platform. Now it had been expanded to become a small but impressive station, even if it was largely made of scrounged material, with hulks strapped on to provide power and space. Its official designation was Vega-1, but everyone, from the Starfleet task group now permanently assigned to the sector to the militia who now resembled a passable fighting force, called it the Rookery.

Nominally the Rookery was under the authority of the governor of Vega, who handed the day-to-day to the militia, but its biggest meeting rooms and management facilities had fallen into the hands of Starfleet. Lopez had long ago spared staff – in her case, Lieutenant Shepherd and Ensign Corrigan – to run the improvised strategic operations office of the Rookery, as had the skippers of the Vostok and the Dragonfly.

It was with those skippers, Commander West, and Lieutenant Shepherd that Lopez met now in the cramped, dim-lit strategic operations centre. The main pool-table display dominated the room, shining now with their most up-to-date strategic map of the Vega theatre.

Captain Nwadike was a large, broad-shouldered man, deep-voiced and sombre in comportment and not particularly deferential to Lopez’s position as CO of the most powerful ship in the theatre, perhaps out of – in Lopez’s view – over-confidence in the capabilities of his own Intrepid-class Dragonfly. ‘A resupply station.’

‘It explains why they’ve been able to keep throwing ships out here; they’ve got the infrastructure to repair, resupply, and maintain task groups in the whole area.’ Lopez ran a finger along the display to expand it, the view narrowing in on an area just beyond the fuzzy blue aura that represented Starfleet’s nominal control. ‘Fighting in Vega isn’t easy for the Romulans; they’ve got a long way to go, especially if they don’t want to be intercepted by UEC forces on the spinward border.’ She gestured a vague loop, suggesting incoming Romulan ships would need to approach on a coreward curve to reach Vega undetected. ‘This is good news.’

Commander Yang of the Vostok, the youngest and least experienced of the ship captains of Vega, made a face. ‘A Romulan hive in our back yard is good news?’

‘It means their resources aren’t the bottomless pit we keep worrying; they’re not in Vega because they’re magic, they’re in Vega because they’ve got a nearby foothold.’ Lopez looked up at her two colleagues. ‘We need to take this out.’

‘The supply depot,’ said Nwandike gently, ‘that we know about from an Andorian mercenary.’

‘I don’t think he’s a mercenary.’ West had been hanging back, arms folded across his chest. He’d known and worked with Nwadike and Yang before, and his presence in these meetings had been suggested by Admiral Gardner. But no matter how much he knew Starfleet Command expected him to oversee Lopez and act as a backstop, he had taken great pains over the last few months to never contradict her in public. Even though he shared Nwadike’s apprehension, he could at least butt in with a constructive opinion.

‘He said he was hired by his government to come out here,’ Nwadike pointed out.

‘He would. He wanted to seem legitimate enough for us to take his information seriously, but I’ve studied his ship, its equipment, him. I think he’s Andorian Imperial Intelligence.’ West shrugged. ‘I’ve met some of them before, and he is way too-well equipped for a one-man merc show.’

Lopez gave him a slightly indignant look, clearly wrong-footed by this news, but she turned to her colleagues with a brazen grin like it was all part of the plan. ‘Is that trustworthy enough for you?’

‘An Andorian intelligence officer directing us to a Romulan resupply base so we take the brunt of this fighting and the Empire continues to not?’ mused Yang. ‘Not really.’

‘There’s no reason for the Andorians to send forces out here,’ said Lopez. ‘I don’t love them shoving their thumbs up their asses this war neither, but this looks to me like they’ve sent a spy who’s scouted out the region and is bringing us a prime opportunity we’ve not had for months. We keep bloodying Romulan noses and sending them packing, and they keep bouncing back. Now we know why!’

Nwadike clicked his tongue. ‘Let’s look at this location.’

West stepped in there, as the officer who had conducted the initial analysis of Tharan’s information. ‘The resupply base is located in orbit of the fourth planet in the Gliese 47 system; that star’s a magnetar, and its magnetic fields mean we’ve never had success scanning it with long-range sensors.’

Yang frowned. ‘The Romulans must have some pretty impressive magnetic shielding to keep supplies, people, a base that close to a magnetar.’

‘According to Tharan, the base uses manoeuvring thrusters to permanently keep on the dark side of the gas giant. That provides a significant amount of protection, on top of whatever equipment they have,’ West pressed on. ‘I wouldn’t suggest living there, but if they rotate staff in and out – or simply don’t care, I guess – they can keep their people and their ships around the supply base for months at a time.’

‘The good news,’ said Lopez, ‘is that just as our sensors don’t easily pierce the magnetic field of Gliese 47, they can’t have very good early-warning systems. Even if they stick patrol ships out there, we might spot them.’

‘Alright,’ said Nwadike, guarded. ‘So we have the location and some of the nature of this supply base. What’re its defences? How many ships are around it?’

West grimaced. ‘We don’t have a complete picture. Tharan slipped into the system, picked up the Romulan presence, and jumped away again before he could be spotted; he stumbled on the area by complete luck. But it does look like the base has armaments and there were at least two ships in the area.’

‘When he was there,’ Lopez said quickly. ‘It’s a supply base, it’ll have ships coming and going.’

Nwadike looked at her. ‘You want to launch a strike.’

‘You’re damn right I do,’ she said, straightening. ‘Wars are won on supply lines. This is the Romulan nest by our front door. We take this out, they can’t keep nipping at our heels across our borders. I’m sick of playing defence, or cat and mouse. For the first time in months, we can take the fight to them.’ She pointed at the display. ‘With our four ships, we can -’

‘We have no real idea what we’ll be up against there,’ Nwadike reminded her.

‘And the Freedom is still on long patrol,’ said Yang. ‘Not to mention that in less than two weeks, the Buran is here.’

Lopez blew out her cheeks. ‘Alright,’ she said at last. ‘Reconnaissance. We take most of our forces out, stick our noses somewhere with purpose, and maybe that’ll draw Romulan attention away. Then someone hops in proximity to Gliese 47 and takes a looksie.’

‘Good idea,’ said Nwadike. ‘The Dragonfly can -’

‘Only the Phoenix has sensors powerful enough to pierce the magnetic field and keep a decent distance,’ Lopez cut him off. ‘The sixth planet is a class-I; with the planet’s own magnetic field as strong as it is, that should disrupt the scans of anyone trying to detect us. We can do recon at our leisure.’ She lifted her hands at the guarded gazes of Nwadike and Yang. ‘Then by the time I report back, the Buran will be here, and we can use our intel to do a sudden strike, all five ships. Take out this supply base, and we win the Vega theatre.’

Nwadike straightened and looked at Shepherd. ‘Lieutenant, can you show us the latest intel on Romulan ship movements?’

Shepherd slipped from the shadows to advance on the central display. ‘I received a data packet from the Freedom this morning,’ she said, and tapped a few commands to overlay the intel on the examination of the Gliese 47 vicinity. ‘We have very few confirmed hits of Romulan ships, but a series of potentials.’

He looked down at the information, and scratched his chin. ‘If we reach out to Commander Khaldun about this cluster of activity here,’ he said, gesturing to a spot, ‘and see if we can confirm any Romulan presence, then I can take the Dragonfly to join him and we can start some trouble. Maybe let Phoenix slip in the back door.’

Yang looked reluctant, but nodded. ‘Vostok can hold down the fort here at Vega.’

Lopez clapped her hands together with delight. ‘It’s a master plan.’

Nwadike’s dark eyes snapped up to meet hers. ‘We should be careful of information from what we only think is an Andorian intelligence operative, acquired under less-than-ideal circumstances.’

‘Really? I was thinking of waltzing in and forcing a billion Romulan ships to dance with me.’ She took a step back, and looked to Shepherd. ‘You and Corrigan are back on Phoenix, kids. I need all hands on deck for this, and you’ve got the best strategic eye now for if something changes.’

A nervous glint re-entered Shepherd’s gaze. She had, West thought, been quite happy being starbase-bound, able to turn her excellent knowledge of astrophysics to assess the unknowns and gaps in strategic affairs. It was fewer degrees outside of her comfort zone than being on the bridge of a starship in battle. But she nodded. ‘I’ll, ah, wrap up here and arrange the handover to Lieutenant Zikaultsky.’

West gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder as he went to follow Lopez out. ‘I’ll see you aboard,’ he said softly, gave polite nods to Nwadike and Yang, and left the room with his captain.

They were halfway down the corridor before Lopez sighed. ‘Go on.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know what you didn’t say in there, but there’s something. Only fair I let you get it off your chest after you played good boy in front of other people, so everyone thinks we’re one big happy family. I’d hate for you to keep feelings inside until you die.’

West bit his lip, frustrated at the suggestion he kept up appearances for anyone’s sake but hers and the mission’s. ‘You don’t want to just do recon.’

‘I do not,’ said Lopez. ‘But Nwadike won’t budge on this. For someone who considers himself oh-so-serious, he is the most conservative, gutless captain I’ve met in a while.’

‘We don’t know what the situation is at Gliese 47.’

‘I know. Which is why we should ask Tharan to come with us; he’s the only person who’s been near that magnatar, he managed to get close and slip away undetected. It’s the least he can do for us saving his ass.’

‘I’ll ask,’ he said, trying to smother uncertainty. ‘He seemed pretty keen for us to take a chunk out of the Rommies.’

‘With him as a guide, we can get close enough to take a look at the base. And we’ll see what opportunities arise.’

West’s chest tightened. ‘We can’t tell the others we’re just going to do recon, then get there and decide it’s actually time to launch an assault.’

‘If we’re lucky and Nwadike and Khaldun successfully draw away a bunch of Romulan forces by going looking for trouble, it might be the best chance we get to blow this supply base off the map,’ she pointed out. ‘Sure, we could wait for the Buran and go in force, but five ships rocking up to that system will be spotted a mile away. Sometimes you’ve got to be a bit tricksy.’ At his expression, she waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m not saying we’re going to do it. I just want a look, West. I swear.’

The most damning thing, West thought as he followed his captain back towards the docking port to return to the Phoenix, was that he believed Lopez meant it. He just didn’t believe, by now, that she wouldn’t be like a dog chasing a car if she smelled opportunity or glory – or, most importantly, the chance to prove her detractors wrong. Whatever the cost.

They didn’t have to go far from Eagle Falls to feel like they’d stepped off the edge of civilisation. In a very real way, they had; Vega was the most distant human colony, and simply walking away from the planet’s biggest settlement and into the woodland wilderness was not far from stepping into the part of the map that read ‘here be dragons.’

But there were no dragons. There were also, Takahashi was beginning to suspect as he peered at the fast-running waters of the river, no fish.

‘What on Earth do you mean?’ Hawthorne said, indignant as he reeled in his line. ‘Of course we’re not going to catch any fish.’

Takahashi had been woken up after a night shift by Hawthorne hammering on the door to his quarters, already in galoshes and prepped with tackle. They had been on the first shuttle down to surface that afternoon, only the Phoenix’s second day back at Vega, and headed at once into the wilds. There was a chill to the air in the rugged, rocky woodlands near Eagle Falls, and Takahashi had shivered until Hawthorne loaned him a spare scarf.

‘We don’t have proper bait for the fish in and around Vega. The local ecosystem’s already been disrupted by human colonisation; there are quite clear restrictions on how we can and can’t interact with it,’ Hawthorne pressed on, as if being challenged after an hour of sitting by a river achieving nothing was outrageous.

Takahashi stared at his float bobbing up and down above the rushing water at the end of the line he’d so diligently cast once Hawthorne had explain how. ‘Then what the hell are we doing out here, Theo?’

Hawthorne set his rod down, and reached over for the solid case he’d carried all the way from the Phoenix. ‘We have been on long patrol for three weeks. That’s three weeks away from the duly grateful populace of Vega, whose collective arses we have shielded from the insidious Romulans for coming up on six months now. Instead we’ve been in deep space, crawling on top of each other, listening to West and Lopez fight like cats and dogs, listening to poor Black trying to make them behave, while Antar takes chunks out of everyone and Stavros pretends MACOs are useful and the good doctor hums to themself so they don’t go insane. Being out here isn’t about fishing.’

‘What is it about, then?’

Hawthorne opened the case and tossed Takahashi one of the cans of beer that was, it turned out, all that was inside. ‘Getting some fresh air far, far away from anyone else.’

‘People say you’re a very smart man,’ mused Takahashi. ‘Not me, you understand, but at times like this I get an idea what they’re talking about.’

‘You’re all generosity, Tak.’ They cracked open their cans and took deep swigs. Hawthorne sighed. ‘This beer is truly awful.’

‘Absolute horse piss.’

‘Tell tales of our heroics to that charming little micro-brewery back in town. Maybe they’ll give us a sponsorship deal.’

‘I thought you called their ales gnat’s piss?’

Hawthorne took another gulp of beer and shrugged. ‘It’s progress.’

Takahashi leaned back against his pack. Sitting next to a rushing river on rocks under the fat sun of a late afternoon, the sounds of the waters and the nearby forest racing about him, was not that bad after all, even with the chill in the air. He reeled in his line and put his rod down on the rocks. ‘If we’re not fishing, what do we do?’

‘Sit. Drink. And under no circumstances do we talk about the amount of combat we’ve been faced with day after day for months on end.’

Another mouthful of beer was gulped. ‘It’s hard to believe,’ Takahashi sighed, ‘that you’re not a medical doctor.’

* *

Antar barely looked up as Corrigan and Shepherd stepped into the command centre, her eyes on the sector map before her. ‘You’re back,’ she grunted.

Shepherd hesitated at the Chief Helm Officer’s gruff tones. ‘Captain Lopez requested we return for the upcoming mission -’

‘I got the memo, Lieutenant. It’s not complicated.’ Antar turned away from the map and waved an irritable hand. ‘You’re going to explain to me how to fly in the gravitational pull of a magnetar like I’m fresh out of flight school.’

‘I…’ Another hesitation. ‘I was asked to make sure the Helm department was ready for the upcoming challenges, yes.’

‘Keep impulse speeds low, continue to navigate relative to the nearest stellar body because our instruments can’t always be trusted, make sure we’re well clear of the star before we go to warp.’ Antar folded her arms across her chest. ‘Child’s play.’

Shepherd cleared her throat anxiously. ‘Starfleet ships have never operated in this proximity to a magnetar quite like Gliese 47,’ she said slowly. ‘Science will have to consistently calibrate and recalibrate our navigational sensors because, yes, the magnetic fields will likely disrupt them -’

‘That’ll be your job at the back of the bridge, right?’

‘I, yes…’

‘And I don’t need to know what you’re doing,’ said Antar slowly, as if Shepherd were simple. ‘Just that you’re doing it. You will be doing it, right?’

Corrigan had stayed near the door, but now he shifted his feet. ‘Come on, Boss, she’s just doing what the skipper asked.’

‘No points for sucking up to either of us, kid,’ Antar grunted. ‘Is there anything I really need to know from you, Shepherd, or are you just going to ramble about bits of your job like they matter to me?’

At last, Shepherd straightened with a hint of indignation. ‘You do remember I outrank you, yes, Ensign?’ It was not a reminder that held much authority.

‘Yeah, ‘cos this ship cares a whole lot about decorum.’ Antar rolled her eyes, then headed for the door. She batted Corrigan on the arm as she got there. ‘Brief Jacky Boy here on what he has to do if we need him to hop in a shuttle. Recon my ass; the skipper’s going to have us doing something hella stupid before brunch.’

Shepherd wrung her hands together as Antar left, her nervy glance turning to Corrigan. ‘Is she always like that?’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Uh. Yeah. Nobody ever told me exactly why she got busted down from lieutenant to ensign, but it ain’t rocket science, is it?’

‘I suppose not.’ She bit her lip. ‘I had forgotten what it was like on this ship.’

‘Spoilt by working on the Rookery with real officers?’

But there was more of a barb of defensiveness to his voice than he’d intended, and she winced. ‘That’s not what I mean. The Rookery’s been nice because I’m used to collating information like this from a research platform with, yes, like-minded colleagues. I don’t mean anything against the Phoenix to say I don’t have many like-minded colleagues, because I know I’m a lab worker and you’re…’

‘We’re all sorts of rough round the edges, is what you mean.’

Another wince. ‘We’re an ill-fitting crew for an ill-fitting mission. I know I don’t fit in my way.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry if I offended Antar, and I’m sorry if she takes it out on you.’

Corrigan shrugged. ‘I reckon Antar was born offended.’ But she still looked a bit mournful, and he headed to the display she’d been working at. ‘Come on. Talk me through what it’s gonna take at Gliese 47. She might be hot shit who’s flown through everything an’ still never found a civil tongue for her head, but flying through a brand-new stellar phenomenon in a pinch ain’t my idea of a good time.’

* *

‘What did you do?’

Major Stavros winced as she entered Sickbay, not because she was in pain, but because Doctor Kayode sounded truly indignant at the sight of her stumbling in as she tried to support the weight of burly Lieutenant McCabe. ‘If I say “training accident”…’

‘Then you have to fill in all the paperwork, Major.’ Kayode clicked her tongue in a chiding manner, and ushered them both in. ‘Get him on a bed.’

‘I slipped,’ McCabe said. ‘It was nothing.’

‘Yes,’ said Stavros, dragging her deputy over. ‘He absolutely slipped, and Staff Sergeant Banda absolutely did not brain him with a baton.’

Kayode sighed as they moved about Sickbay, and rolled an instruments trolley to the bed McCabe sank onto. ‘Everyone has either been up to their necks in violence and combat the last few months,’ they groaned, ‘or they’ve been so eager for violence and combat that they’ve had to make trouble.’

‘We’ve not seen action since the Starsaber,’ McCabe complained, letting Kayode pull his hand away from the side of his head to examine the wound that had come from an ill-placed blow. ‘We’ve got to stay fighting fit.’

‘I’m sure that hurting each other in melee training is exactly how you’re going to rout the Romulans next.’ Kayode picked up their medical tricorder, checking the young lieutenant’s readings, attentive despite their plain irritation.

Stavros folded her arms across her chest and tried to not grind her teeth. ‘When we’re needed, Doctor – when this ship’s boarded, when we need to land in enemy territory – we’ll be ready, and you’ll be grateful for that.’

‘I’m grateful for everyone who contributes exactly as much as they can,’ said Kayode softly, setting the tricorder down and picking up a small light to check McCabe’s eyes and reactions. ‘I’m especially grateful when everyone comes back from fighting alive.’ Their gaze flickered briefly to Stavros. ‘I know how training helps with that.’

Stavros had been so accustomed to justifying her work and entire purpose aboard that she wasn’t sure what to do with Kayode’s reassuring tone of voice. Her shoulders sagged. ‘It’s best when we don’t smack each other about,’ she accepted.

‘My concern is not that you’re training, Major,’ said Kayode softly, picking up the autosuture. ‘My concern is that you and your whole unit have been on standby for so long – which I understand is stressful – that you may not be managing that frustration, and that it may be coming out in training.’ They set to work on McCabe’s wound, the burly lieutenant wincing only a little. ‘Have you considered, in addition to training, blowing off steam?’

Stavros’s brow furrowed. ‘My soldiers are professionals.’

‘Your soldiers are, according to the mutterings aboard this ship, professional door-guards to airlocks that are never breached. I don’t believe that, and I think those in charge on this ship don’t believe it, but that’s what you have to hear. It’s a lot to deal with, watching and waiting as the ship fights.’ Kayode stuck their tongue out the corner of their mouth as they worked. ‘It’s not a failure of professionalism to need to take care of your feelings as much as your edge in combat.’

Stavros made sure she didn’t look at McCabe, made sure her expression was level. ‘Any recommendations, Doctor?’

‘I don’t know what MACOs would find relaxing,’ Kayode accepted. Then they lowered the suture, and beamed at McCabe. ‘There. You’re perfect.’

He returned the grin despite himself. ‘All good, Doc?’

‘I’m satisfied by your neurological responses. I do prescribe not returning to a training yard where Sergeant Banda might continue to work out his frustrations, however.’

‘Thanks, Doc.’ Stavros sighed as she helped McCabe to his feet, and looked her young deputy up and down. ‘What do you think, Lieutenant. Dumb shooting competition on the surface before we race back out to be glorified door-guards in the black?’

McCabe’s grin remained intact. ‘You know how to show the boys a good time, Major.’

Black had always had a lot of time for Lieutenant Shepherd. Most of the fish out of water on Phoenix were screw-ups on their last chance, like Antar, or they didn’t care that they didn’t fit the Starfleet mould, like Hawthorne. Shepherd had more in common with the chief engineer, a scientific researcher more accustomed to lab work than starship service, but she lacked the older man’s shield of sheer self-confidence.

She had not been sent to the Rookery for her own comfort, but Black had hoped it would help her find her feet in the more militarised environment of front-line Starfleet. Somehow it seemed to have done the opposite, the science officer now set to cringe through the entire briefing in the command centre.

‘…and I know you probably know this, ma’am, but if we hit trouble, you’ll do best to program your torpedo targeting telemetry manually…’

At last, Black raised a hand. ‘I do know this. It doesn’t mean it’s not useful to hear it from you. What’s going on, Lieutenant?’

‘I – nothing, I just…’

‘Because I asked you to advise me on how the Armoury can prepare for this mission. Combat in stellar phenomena isn’t my forte, and Commander West has plenty of other business to tend to.’ As Shepherd hesitated, Black’s lips thinned. ‘You don’t feel like you can brief us on combat matters after you’ve spent the last few months mostly on the Rookery.’

Lieutenant Shepherd winced. ‘I wouldn’t put it like that, ma’am.’

‘You understand you weren’t shuffled off there out of the way. You had the best skillset for dealing with the intelligence coming in and spitting out analysis, even if you’re not a strategist by training.’

‘I don’t…’

‘You remember the war only started about eighteen months ago, and before then nobody in Starfleet had a clue about interstellar warfare, nobody in the UEC? Not really? We’re all learning. You’re not the scientist explaining points of intellectual curiosity to soldiers. We’re outmanned and outgunned; it’s going to take our scientists to find every edge if we’re to win this.’

Shepherd sagged, guilty and mollified at once. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I just had a bit of an unpleasant run-in with Antar…’

‘Everyone’s run-ins with Antar are unpleasant. Don’t let her get to you. Lieutenant.’ The reminder of her rank was gentle, and Black knew that it wouldn’t necessarily muzzle their truculent pilot. But it could remind Shepherd that she had better standing than the least-diplomatic member of the senior staff. At last, Black gave a twist of a smile. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but after the way you’ve gone toe-to-toe with Tak, I didn’t think you’d be cowed by Antar.’

Shepherd twisted her fingers together. ‘Lieutenant Takahashi is – he’s different.’ After a beat, she drew an uncertain breath. ‘You and Captain Lopez really do trust him, don’t you?’

It was a request for reassurance, not a challenge, and still it made Black’s gut twirl. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard -’

‘I did an internship with Matsuuro Solutions during my doctorate,’ Shepherd said awkwardly. ‘In 2151. I heard a lot about what happened, and I knew some of the people on the Slingshot Program, and… and I was surprised he was back in uniform when I came aboard.

Black stared at her for a moment, and all she could summon with the cold tension of the past twisting inside her was a somewhat empty, ‘Oh.’

To her enormous relief, that was when the doors slid open for Commander West to lead the Andorian Tharan in. ‘Commander, Lieutenant.’ If the big science officer had picked up on the tension in the silence, he didn’t let on. ‘Our guest’s agreed to help us clear some of the smudges of the map.’

No longer sat on a Sickbay bed after being tossed about in his tin-can of a ship, Tharan looked all the more like the intelligence officer Black suspected he was. His gaze sweeping across the command centre was cool and assessing, antennae twitching as he took in the sights. Had they not been allies – had Black not suspected the Phoenix needed all the help they could get – she would have been more apprehensive of bringing a foreign citizen into the room.

Instead, she stepped forward with her hand flat against her breastbone, a gesture of polite greeting among Andorians she’d picked up on her time on Earth. ‘Mister Tharan, thank you again for your assistance. We weren’t introduced last week; I’m Commander Black, Chief Armoury Officer.’

Tharan returned the gesture with only the slightest flicker of surprise that she’d done it at all, and gave a respectful nod. ‘Commander. I take it I owe my life in no small part to your marksmanship, then?’

‘It was a group effort.’ Black stepped back and gestured to her colleague. ‘This is Lieutenant Shepherd, Second Science Officer, particle physicist, and our strategic analyst for the Vega theatre.’

Tharan tilted his head at that. ‘Scientists are strategists in Starfleet?’

‘I’m… learning,’ Shepherd stumbled, and despite having seen Black make a different gesture, stuck her hand out towards Tharan out of panicked habit.

The tightest of smiles tugged at his lips, and he shook her hand with a simple, firm grip. ‘That was no judgement, Lieutenant. Strategists who consider themselves above analysts tend to be blinkered, in my experience. They rely too heavily on past glories or elevate their gut instincts above data.’

‘I like data,’ Shepherd blundered, then turned a little red. ‘That is, I’m applying my training to new areas, and I’ve spent the last few months taking point – with advisors and experts from our other ships – on strategic analysis of the Vega theatre. I’d be delighted by any input you have about the area in general -’

‘And Gliese 47 in particular,’ West reminded her gently, nudging back on-topic. ‘We’ve got a few days before we get near the system, so it’d be good if you two can compare notes. I’m going to borrow Commander Black a moment.’

Black raised her eyebrows, but followed West out into the corridor. The command centre had felt like a cocoon cut off from the hustle and bustle of the ship, but out here she was more aware of the hum of the deck underfoot as they thundered between the stars at warp, of the tension bristling through the bulkheads from everyone making ready for what came next.

Not least because they really weren’t sure what that was.

West didn’t stop in the corridor, taking her further down the section to the nearest of his science labs. It looked like he had checked it was empty ahead of time, and the knot in Black’s chest tightened at this. This was business.

‘I hope,’ the big man rumbled once the door slid shut and they were alone, ‘you understand and respect by now that I’m not here to undermine Lopez.’

Black drew a level breath and tried to sound diplomatic as she said, ‘What’s bothering you, sir?’

‘Tell me that all she’s going to do is sneak us close to this resupply depot, watch, and leave so we can come back with a bigger force.’

It did not sound like he wanted reassurance. It sounded like he was testing her. Black sighed. ‘You know the captain. If there’s an opportunity, she’ll try to seize it. Do you think she’d be wrong to?’

‘If the resupply depot appears under-defended -’

‘Then we have an opening. What if the Romulans catch wind of our presence and go for us? Or they wait until we leave, reinforce, and when we return the place is too tough for the task group? We don’t know until we get there, sir.’

West worked his jaw. ‘She’s reassured the other captains that she’ll only do recon.’

‘You know as well as I do that Captain Lopez values results over whatever promises she’s made to other ship captains or even Starfleet Command. It’s served us well out here so far.’ Black tilted her head. ‘Did you want you and me to come to her as a united front?’

‘No, I wanted your opinion, because if you ask she doesn’t act like you’re trying to undermine her. I have been trying for the last few months to play ball, but if I do anything but agree with her, she gets all… prickly.’

‘The problem with Nat Lopez being proved right a couple of times,’ she sighed, ‘is that she does get a bit insufferable, yes. I’ll talk to her.’

‘Thanks, Commander.’

Black paused a moment. ‘For what it’s worth, I think she’s trusting you more. I think you’ve done a good job throwing facts at her, not opinions, and that’s making her more likely to listen when you do have an opinion.’

West gave a faint smile. ‘It only took six months.’

‘That’s a long time for us to be out here.’ She looked him up and down. ‘You get a lot of mail still from your family?’

It was a surefire way to get Sawyer West to relax, his troubled smile shifting for a proud grin. ‘Every week like clockwork. Penny’s actually getting into the science behind the anomalies; she used to hate math, but when we had that ion storm in November, I think she hated not understanding why it was such a big problem for our systems?’

Black laughed. ‘Daughters hate being condescended by fathers. She’s probably figuring it out now so you can’t hold it over her at the dinner table.’

‘Are you kidding, I’m signing her up to space camp next summer. She doesn’t get a choice. And the moment she gets in competition with another kid…’ He snapped his fingers. ‘She’ll be in pilot’s training before you know it.’ Now he sobered, watching her. ‘Much from your folks?’

‘Dad isn’t the fuzzy letters kind,’ she sighed. ‘He can’t help himself from littering it with complaints about Lopez.’

West winced. ‘I’m not trying to give you hell about the captain in stereo.’

‘No, you’re right. At the least, it’s best if the captain is speaking her mind to us. Sometimes she likes to drop surprises and then pull rank if we don’t like being blindsided. I’ll go see her.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure Shepherd hasn’t imploded around Tharan, or something.’

Black found Lopez in her ready room, her usual domain once the Phoenix was out of orbit of Vega. Back at their temporary home base she was often on the Rookery, or down on the planet, usually currying favour with Governor Qadir, whom she had eating out of her hand these days. But now they had a mission which wasn’t ‘patrol until trouble found them,’ the source of bone-crunching tension for weeks.

To her relief, Lopez had coffee. She’d put up an extra display panel in the ready room so she could more effectively move between information sources, the captain always happiest in her scheming if she had data as physically tangible as possible to be toyed with, poked, and explored. ‘Helena, I thought Shepherd was taking you to school?’

‘She did.’ Black slid into the chair opposite. ‘Now Tharan’s down there taking her to school. And West. So I’ll probably have new calibrations by the time they’re finished. He’s very good.’

‘Tharan? I don’t know if I trust him fully, but I trust him to not sell us out to Romulans, you know? I’ll take it. What’s up?’

Black hesitated, then decided to be direct. ‘Are you planning on taking a shot at the depot if you see an opening?’

Lopez’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did West talk to you?’

‘It didn’t take Sawyer West to put this concern in my head.’

‘Nice evasion.’ Lopez shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? If there’s an opening, why shouldn’t we take it? Just because Nwadike, who’ll be light-years away, wouldn’t approve? We’ve done pretty well the last few months dealing with the situation in front of us and not asking for permission.’

‘I know you prefer to beg forgiveness, but that’s not an ideal way to foster trust with a whole task group.’

‘Hey!’ Lopez made a face. ‘I never beg forgiveness if I was right.’

Black chuckled and shook her head. ‘Just keep us in the loop, alright? Even West. I hope you’ve not been too prickly to realise he really has been making an effort.’

‘He has.’ Lopez slumped in her chair and took a grumpy sip of coffee. ‘He’s like a disappointed dad who wants to let me make my own mistakes, but he’s been trying. I thought he was gonna be a pain in my ass with Nwadike and the others, but I guess he knows he’d be sowing discord in the task group.’

‘Has it occurred to you that we’ve had a really good few months and he wants to be a good XO? That he is a good XO?’ Black tilted her head. ‘Some of the crew don’t respond to his approach, and unfortunately a whole bunch of those are the senior staff. But most of our junior officers aren’t weird screw-ups, they’re inexperienced, and Commander West makes them feel better about themselves and about this ship. They like that he’s respectable. He makes them feel respectable. And that’s about his work with them, more than his reputation.’

Lopez made a face. ‘Did you come here to tell me I should pat West on the head more?’

‘No, I came to point out that he can have concerns, and that doesn’t mean he wildly distrusts you or is about to stab you in the back.’ Black rubbed the back of her neck. ‘There’s something else. You’re not going to like this bit.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Nat, who’s third officer?’

Lopez’s frown went even more indignant. ‘Damned if I know. If you, me, and West are all incapable of assuming command, that sounds like it’s probably not my problem any more.’

‘It’s Tak,’ Black said levelly. ‘It has to be Tak, because it’s definitely not Hawthorne, and then you get into a bunch of junior lieutenants and Antar. So why are you letting Tak screw around and act like he’s nothing but our mascot?’

‘Do you know how much cheating and lying I had to do to everyone, including Tak, to get him aboard? I don’t want to scare him off with something like responsibility.’

‘You give West hell for trying to adjust to this ship, to your way of command, to our unorthodox crew. You give him hell if he questions you in public, you give him hell if he speaks his mind in private, and then you act like you just want people to be honest with you and not stand on ceremony. West has played ball, West has played your game, and it’s still not enough. Tak acts indignant at the idea we have to blow up enemy ships, acts like he’s here to do nothing but sit on the comms and put out the good word, when he’s one of the most experienced officers we have, and you put up with him because, what? Because he’s Tak?’

Now Lopez’s gaze was low, guarded. ‘I know you and Tak have a… complicated history…’

‘It’s not complicated. He screwed up. Worse, he doesn’t think he screwed up – he did what suited him, and it doesn’t matter it messed up his career because he didn’t want it. He left the rest of us to clean up his mess. He left me to clean up his mess.’ Black found her heart was thudding in her chest more indignantly than she’d expected, and she shook her head. ‘This isn’t about me. This is about everyone giving Tak a free pass.’

Lopez looked away, then sighed. ‘After this mission,’ she said, and lifted a hand as Black went to object. ‘You’re right, I might want us to jump this resupply base. I might have to lean on the chain of command to get something unexpected done. I don’t think adding Tak to the chain of command, making him feel like he’s expected to be responsible if things go sour, is going to help. Will he back me up? Will he push back out of principle? I’ve no damn idea.’

Black sighed, and got to her feet. ‘Alright,’ she said, not very happy about it. ‘Because I know you say it’ll be a really bad day if you, me, or West aren’t in a position to assume command. But it’ll be a worse day if everyone looks to Tak and Tak dives under a desk.’

‘That does sound like how he’d handle it,’ Lopez mused. ‘Fine. Be responsible, Helena. Be fair about West and fair about Tak and point out all these sensible management things.’ She looked a hair’s breadth from sticking her tongue out in principle. ‘Now let me get back to figuring out how I can do something really wild with this magnetar to ruin the Rommies’ day.’

Black smirked as she shook her head. ‘You don’t settle just for going in and bashing in their faces, do you, Nat?’

‘You know me,’ said Lopez, eyes returning to her displays as Black headed for the doors out. ‘I like to do everything with style.’

‘Fly into the gravitic pull of a magnetar, Theo.’ Hawthorne scowled as he watched the readings scroll in on the main control panel of the warp core, high atop the walkway. ‘Compensate for the massive electromagnetic radiation emissions affecting our antimatter flow, Theo. Brace for when the magnetar spaghettis our atoms, Theo.’

‘Talking to yourself again, Theo?’ Lieutenant Carvalho stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking up with a grin. ‘You know ships have done this before, right?’

‘If you’re going to tell me how wonderful the Columbia was, Maria, and that Charles Tucker dealt with a magnetar’s magnetic field by spitting out his chewing gum to use on improvised repairs…’

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ she deadpanned, clambering up to join him. ‘It’s a trick he learnt from working on boats in the Florida Keys.’

Hawthorne glared at the warp core pulsing before him. ‘I went to school,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘for twenty-five years –’

‘Doesn’t that make you the dupe in this scenario?’

‘I didn’t want to be the Chief Engineer of the NX-01,’ he said primly, tapping at the controls to bring up further data feeds.

‘From what I hear, you didn’t want to be Chief Engineer of the NX-08.’

‘It’s war. Nobody gets what they want.’ Hawthorne’s nose wrinkled. ‘Ugh, I sounded like a MACO, hefting my rifle and grunting how it’s terribly important I know sixteen ways to kill people with a toothpick as my moral duty to humanity. I meant that R&D in my area has all but dried up, and it was either this or something decidedly more boring.’

‘I don’t understand,’ mused Carvalho, leaning on the railing, ‘how you can dedicate your life to developing technology to take us to the stars, and have no interest in going yourself.’

‘It’s not that I had no interest. There are reasons I stayed on Earth. I had… obligations,’ he said after a moment’s careful selection of words.

She watched him quietly. ‘Family?’

He clicked his tongue and did not look at her. ‘I could hardly take care of my siblings if I was orbiting Sirius in a tin can.’

‘And now they’re older, you’re out here,’ she extrapolated.

He gave a rough shrug. ‘That’s hardly all. If I’d signed up for starship service when I joined, I’d have been in the engine room of a Daedalus, coaxing the most out of last-generation equipment and having to jump and salute and cavort around in uniform before anyone even thought of giving me a post on something state-of-the-art. From my lab, I saw everything that came in from Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger. All the data, all the new technology encountered, all of the practical improvements in the field. Maybe I couldn’t be out there with them, but from my lab, I had far more impact on the progress of humanity than being just another wrench-monkey in an engine room.’

Carvalho gave a gentle whistle. ‘And you’d deny having the soul of a poet, Theo.’

‘I have the pragmatism of a scientist.’ Something blatted at him from the console, and he sighed. ‘It looks like we’ll be dropping out of warp soon. Lopez wants me on the bridge so I can give hands-on advice if our systems start to encounter difficulty, which means I’ll probably have to do ten rounds with West as he thinks he knows better than me. Hold down the fort here?’

‘I’ll manage in your absence,’ she drawled. ‘If something goes wrong, I’ll just think: “What would Trip Tucker do?”’

‘If I come back and you’re frying a catfish on the warp core, you’re fired,’ he said, and left.

Hawthorne did not care much for the bridge. He was happier than most with Lopez’s lax approach to Starfleet decorum and discipline; so long as everyone did their job, the captain was generally happy, and ceremony was something she thought got in the way. But the bridge was where he was endlessly reminded they were at war, not on a mission of exploration or scientific discovery. There was always a tension to the air, a sense of awareness of danger, while in his engine room it didn’t make much difference if their threat was enemy fire or a stellar phenomenon; either way, his job was to keep the ship flying.

The Andorian Tharan was there, and Hawthorne slid up beside the tall alien, giving him a curious, assessing look. ‘Are these the cheap seats?’ he murmured, then hesitated. ‘…that’s where -’

‘I understand both the concept of theatre and context cues, Lieutenant,’ Tharan said drily.

‘Dropping out of warp now,’ called Antar before Hawthorne could summon a retort. ‘We’re on the far side of 47-VI so we can measure our approach.’

‘First priority – aside from not getting ripped apart – is making sure there are no Rommie ships out there,’ Lopez called, leaning back in the command chair. ‘Tak, what’s the comms situation like?’

‘Hell of a lot of interference is what it’s like,’ said Takahashi. ‘No telling if the Romulans have made modifications to chat across the system, but I’m not picking up any signals, at least. None of which means a thing.’

‘I want you to be ready,’ said Lopez, ‘to disrupt enemy comms if we run into someone. Our biggest priority is not being spotted.’

‘Slowing to impulse,’ came Antar’s warning, and Hawthorne felt the difference in the shuddering of the ship between sub-light speeds under normal circumstances and sub-light speeds as the Phoenix groaned and shifted at the pull of Gliese 47.

He moved to a panel beside West, and brought up a quick systems display for his own satisfaction. ‘Calibrations to hull polarisation and energy systems modifications are holding, Captain. It’ll get worse the further in we go.’

‘I’m not picking up any friends on sensors,’ said Black. ‘I’m confident we can slip into a spot near 47-VI and nobody’s going to see us.’

‘Any sign of the supply depot?’ Lopez looked at West.

‘There’s a lot of interference,’ he admitted. ‘Get us hidden and I’ll work on boosting our sensors.’

‘It’s about specific readings,’ said Tharan, going to join him and making the section around Science somewhat crowded, Hawthorne thought. ‘Boost your power to focus on the specific energy emissions of Romulan propulsion systems.’

Hawthorne tapped his chin. ‘There’ll also be fluctuations in the radiation levels around the gas giant if there’s a Romulan station blocking them.’

‘I know,’ said West a little peevishly, and had Hawthorne liked him more he’d have cared about telling the XO how to do his job. ‘But that’s going to be very minor and I’m still working on seeing more than five inches in front of our noses.’

A little later, Antar reported they were in position. Hawthorne shamelessly loomed over West’s shoulder as he worked, and found both he and Tharan were wells of useful suggestions on how the science officer could be more efficient.

‘You’ve got to compensate for the magnetic field’s disruption to the lateral sensor array as well as the primary,’ Hawthorne pointed out. ‘They can work in conjunction to filter out interference.’

‘Keep monitoring background radiation levels,’ Tharan agreed. ‘Then you can set a standard to -’

‘Mister Tharan, how about you go help Commander Black with the weapons calibrations?’ West said testily.

Black looked up from Tactical, lightly amused. ‘I’m confident I can blow the face off anything which comes at us. My calibrations are fine.’

With a look of betrayal, West moved on to Hawthorne. ‘Then, Lieutenant, perhaps you should help Takahashi with Comms?’

Takahashi tilted his head, pressing a finger to his earpiece. ‘I’m picking up some signals, actually. They match Romulan technology, short-range comms in the vicinity of the gas giant, but the power’s boosted to all hell for them to even talk to each other.’

‘Which means,’ mused Lopez, ‘that the base out there has friends. Can you see any more, Tak?’

‘I’m struggling to get this much.’

‘Good news,’ said Black, ‘is if we’re having this much trouble spotting them, they’re going to have a hell of a time spotting us if they don’t know to look.’

Tharan moved away from West and towards Lopez. ‘I was closer when I picked up my readings of the depot. But your ship is considerably larger than mine; they would doubtless see you at that distance.’

Black looked at him. ‘We could send you and your ship back out there.’ They had kept Tharan’s small craft docked with Phoenix, an extra arrow in their quiver of options.

He winced. ‘We could, but your sensors are more powerful than mine. If I could have conducted a full tactical analysis of this depot, I would.’

‘All I need is time,’ said West. ‘There are a multitude of options.’

‘Every second we sit here,’ said Black with a grimace, ‘is a second the Romulans might find us. If I were them, I’d have a patrol checking out blind spots in the system in case of someone doing exactly what we’re doing.’

Hawthorne sighed. ‘It’s time for us to test the upgrades I installed on our probes, isn’t it.’ Everyone fell silent to stare at him, and he shrugged. ‘I didn’t think it would be our first choice, because we won’t be able to remotely control the probes through the magnetic field. But we can send one on an orbit of this Class-I and retrieve the sensor data when it comes back.’

West gave him a somewhat resentful look. ‘That’s not a massive improvement on the issue of distance.’

‘Then we move it closer,’ Hawthorne said simply. ‘It has thrusters.’

‘Whose energy emissions might be picked up by the Romulans,’ said Black.

But West’s expression was shifting as he contemplated this. ‘Only if it’s entirely moving under its own power, out and back. What if we use the gravity of the fifth planet? Program a course to head out there, do an orbit of the fifth planet, kick in thrusters only enough to then break orbit and send itself on a return trip. That’ll keep power emissions to a minimum, and the probe isn’t very big.’

Hawthorne nodded approvingly. West was a meathead, but Hawthorne knew good ideas when he heard them. ‘It’s still safest for it to not transmit its sensor readings back; we’ll pick them up once it returns. So if something goes wrong, we won’t have any idea if it’s the Romulans or our error.’

‘I think if it’s Romulans,’ said Black, ‘we’ll know pretty quickly.’

Lopez was nodding, brow furrowing. ‘How long will this take?’

Hawthorne tutted as he ran some quick maths. ‘Off the top of my head? About four hours for the round trip.’

‘I’m working out the best course now,’ said West, attentive at his station, and Hawthorne watched as he plotted a route to bring the probe as close as possible to the supply depot with the minimal use of its own propulsion systems.

Lopez looked at Hawthorne. ‘You’re confident your probe upgrades will give us decent sensor data of the dark side of the gas giant?’

Hawthorne looked her in the eye. ‘Entirely confident, Captain,’ he lied.

Four and a half hours later, the probe had been sent and there was still no sign of anything.

‘We should stick our noses out,’ Antar said for the umpteenth time. ‘See if we can see it.’

‘And risk showing ourselves to whatever’s out there?’ West shook his head. ‘We need a new plan.’

Hawthorne ground his teeth together. ‘We’re still within the margin of error for the probe to return.’ It was an increasingly generous margin of error, and he saw Takahashi giving him a cautious look. He shook his head a mere inch. This was not the time for his friend to make a pointed joke.

Lopez drummed her fingers on the armrest. At length, she said, ‘Antar, prep a shuttle. West, you and the ensign can do a quick, low-powered orbit of 47-VI, see if you can spot the probe, see how good your sensor readings are. We should have started small.’

‘First time in your life you ever said that,’ Takahashi mumbled, apparently incapable of fully restraining himself.

Lopez cast him a glare of unusual impatience, and even Takahashi looked taken aback. ‘We’re here to get answers, and today’s not the day for half-measures.’

Hawthorne spotted Tharan frown, the Andorian clearly surprised by the irreverent manner of Phoenix’s bridge, and for the first time in his life Hawthorne was relieved when West spoke.

‘Picking something up.’ His voice was urgent, tense, and Hawthorne saw Black’s hands ready at her controls. But a moment later he brightened. ‘It’s the probe! It’s coming back on the expected course.’

Hawthorne tried to look like he’d intended this all along. ‘See? All within the margin of error.’

Lopez blew her cheeks out, and slumped in the command chair. ‘Bring it in.’

Minutes later, West was leaning over the incoming data feed, and Hawthorne again didn’t resist the urge to lean over his shoulder. At length, the XO said, ‘This could be worse.’

‘I’ll take that premise,’ said Lopez. ‘What do we have?’

He tapped a few quick commands, and the tactical map of the system blipped up on the viewscreen, showing the planets of Gliese-47, the neutron star itself, their location, and what had previously been a large, fuzzy green circle of the approximate location of the supply depot. Now it was a smaller bright green dot, with three even littler near it.

Tharan gave an approving nod. ‘That’s it.’

‘It looks like the base itself has been constructed out of hulks of various transport ships, a little like how we set up facilities around Vega,’ West said. ‘That gives it enormous storage capabilities. So it has a large number of weapons emplacements. On the other hand, those emplacements aren’t always going to be versatile – by design they’re reliant on what direction the ships are facing – and all of them being active at once would be an enormous power hog it looks like the Romulans aren’t doing.’

Hawthorne clicked his tongue. ‘It’s possible they could power up in a pinch, though. And particularly possible they could power quite a sophisticated deflector system with decent coverage. It’s not a long-term sustainable option, but it doesn’t need to be.’

‘That’s a tough nut to crack,’ said Black, ‘but not by any means impossible for Phoenix. What are the other three readings?’

‘That’s the bad news: scout ships, like we ran into when we rescued Tharan.’ West shrugged. ‘But between the Phoenix, the Freedom, the Dragonfly, and the Vostok, it’d be child’s play to deal with all of this. Especially if we get the Buran.’

Lopez scratched her chin. ‘Sure,’ she said after a beat.

But before she could press on, Black tapped a command, and moved the sensor display through a different time-stamp of the probe’s readings. ‘What’s happening here?’ The ships looked to have been on a standard combat air patrol near the depot itself, but for a short time one of them took an abrupt detour towards the periphery of the system.

West frowned. ‘That’s odd. It does coincide with when our probe was at its closest point, and at its most exposed. They might have spotted it.’

Lopez made a face. ‘If they spotted it, they’d be all over us by now. They might have picked something up but dismissed it as debris. The probe was on minimal power at that point.’

West didn’t look convinced, but he hunkered down over the controls. ‘Regardless, we have a pretty decent read of the depot’s configuration. Obviously the forces surrounding it could rotate or change, but I think that Phoenix alone could take the depot. We wouldn’t need that many reinforcements to bust this whole site.’

Hawthorne thought this sounded perfectly acceptable, but when Black spoke, there was an edge to her voice that he hadn’t anticipated, a furrow to her brow as she looked at Lopez. ‘Do we return to Vega, Captain, report in to the task group?’

Nat Lopez leaned back in her command chair, still scratching her chin, and gave a slow, languid smirk. ‘Nah,’ she said at last. ‘Not yet.’

West had stared at the display on the briefing table at the rear of the bridge for twenty minutes, and it still wasn’t giving him the answers he wanted. But that didn’t seem about to stop Lopez, who clapped her hands and looked at the gathered senior staff with a manic glint in her eye.

‘Alright, people. We’re back in the crunch time. No ideas are bad ideas. How do we beat three scouts and a small station?’

Black wore an unusually terse frown, arms folded across her chest. ‘I wouldn’t be confident we could take all three ships in a straight fight. I cannot recommend we engage them and the depot.’

‘Thanks, Helena,’ said Lopez, the edge in her voice audible. ‘I was planning on waltzing straight in for a slugging match and die before you said that.’

‘Oh, boy,’ sighed Takahashi. ‘It’s that time again, is it?’

She gave him a look. ‘Something on your mind, Tak?’

He lifted his hands. ‘No, Cap, no, it’ll work out. You’ll shove us in a confined space to fight like cats and dogs, and then we’ll spit out gold.’

Normally, Lopez would have taken Takahashi’s wryness in stride, but she looked away from him as if he hadn’t spoken. West frowned and stepped forward. ‘What can we do,’ he said, looking to Antar and Hawthorne, ‘to mask our presence as much as possible?’

Antar shrugged. ‘Power emissions are our big give-away, but the moment we’re fighting fit and in someone’s face, we’re lit up brighter than a carnival on anyone’s sensors. They’d have to be a long way away to not spot us in a firefight.’

Hawthorne nodded. ‘I’m sure we could do a lot to get the drop on the Romulans, and that could give us an edge. But with their present dispersal, the moment we engaged one, the others – and the station – would be able to see us.’

West grimaced. ‘What about hitting them at range? We acquire the targeting telemetry from one of our probes and we can rain down torpedoes on these scouts, taking them out before they can form up.’

‘Potentially taking them out,’ said Black, shaking her head. ‘The probe would transmit us the data, then we’d have to extrapolate a targeting solution taking into account the delay of the transmission and from the distance the torpedo has to travel. There’s no margin of error and it would take pinpoint precision to at least incapacitate multiple scouts in quick succession. Especially as they’ll start evading the moment they detect incoming torpedoes, so we’d only get one good salvo anyway.’

Antar scoffed. ‘What’re we talking about? Our probes can’t even transmit back to us anyway.’

Takahashi gave a low laugh. ‘This is going well.’

Lopez cast him a curt look. ‘We’re still at “no idea is a stupid idea,” Tak.’

‘Magic the Romulans away? That seems to be where we’re heading.’ He waved a dismissive hand at the display. ‘They’re guards. They’re not going to get bored and wander off.’

Black looked pained as she leaned forwards. ‘I agree with Lieutenant Takahashi. We don’t have the means of dividing these forces, the flexibility to exploit these conditions. We can return later with a bigger task group.’

‘When there might be more Romulan ships?’ said Lopez.

‘I don’t know,’ said Takahashi airily. ‘There might be none. Anything could happen.’

Lopez shook her head. ‘We’re close. We’re one good idea away from cracking this wide open. I’m not turning around and leaving just because this is a bit tough.’ She jerked her finger around the table at her five senior staff. ‘Keep working on this. We’re not giving up yet.’

West frowned as she turned on her heel and stalked back to the ready room, but stayed silent as Black looked at him. ‘Respectfully, sir,’ she said, quiet and tense, ‘we can’t make something happen out of nothing.’

‘You heard the captain,’ he found himself saying. ‘We’ve only been at this for twenty minutes. Take a break, get some coffee, kick some ideas around. Come back in an hour. We leave only if we’ve tried to think of everything.’

Takahashi clicked his fingers. ‘We challenge them, one scout at a time, to a dance competition -’

West had grown accustomed to ignoring Takahashi. He didn’t like the man or his manner, but Lopez had long been protective of him, and even Black gave him the time of day or at least gently manage him. He had been prepared to turn and leave, but now Black who rounded on him.

‘Tak, shut up unless you have something helpful to say,’ she said, before stomping for the turbolift.

Takahashi blinked. ‘Well, she -’

‘You’re all dismissed,’ West blurted. ‘Like I said. Coffee. Eat. Kick ideas. Back in an hour.’

They slipped off, Hawthorne and Takahashi exchanging glances, Antar bolting in Black’s wake. West turned to the bridge and nodded to Dynevor, who moved from Tactical to take the command seat, holding down the fort while the senior staff sorted themselves out.

And while West tried to sort his captain out.

She was pacing in her ready room when he came in, stalking as if trying to wear a hole in the carpet. He opened his mouth, intending to discuss Takahashi, but the moment the door shut, Lopez snapped, ‘I can’t believe Helena.’

West blinked. ‘What?’

‘She doesn’t have to like this mission, but we are far from running out of options, and she doesn’t have to be so negative in front of the senior staff. It discourages them. Or it encourages them to oppose this plan.’ She stopped and glared at him. ‘It encourages you to tell me I’m wrong.’

He stopped, brow furrowing, and this time he didn’t fight the spark of indignation. ‘I don’t know what meeting you were in, Lopez, but I was throwing out ideas and pushing people to think how we’re going to crack what might be, frankly, not possible.’

‘Oh, there it is.’ She rolled her eyes.

‘There what is?’ He took another step forward. ‘I’ve spent the past six months playing ball. I’ve backed your hare-brained schemes. I’ve backed you to Command. I’ve backed you to the other captains.’

‘I’ve backed me by getting results, West. We slipped past the Decius and rescued Vega, we drove a wedge between the Empire and the Enolians, we beat every Rommie force they sent at us -’

‘And all the time you’ve pissed people off, and don’t say that doesn’t matter; you’re the one who told me that pretending Starfleet doesn’t play politics is asking to get played by politics. I’ve helped you get results and I’ve helped you look respectable doing it, so don’t come at me.’

She stopped, glaring out the window. They could not see the neutron star from here, but a hint of its gleam still crept across the metal panelling of the bulkhead. ‘You don’t want to do this strike.’

‘I sure as hell don’t; I think Black’s right. But out there it’s her job to say that, as Chief Armoury Officer. Out there it’s my job to help plan. It’s only in here, where nobody’s listening, that I tell you I think you’re pushing a bad idea for the wrong reasons.’ He folded his arms across his chest, and braced for the response.

Indeed, Lopez gave a frustrated sigh. ‘You’re going to psychoanalyse me, too?’

‘You’re worried that if we hit this with the Dragonfly and especially with the Buran, then Sharpe or Nwadike get the credit. Not just for the supply depot, but for finishing off the whole Vega theatre if we’re really successful.’

‘They will,’ said Lopez. ‘In Command’s eyes, anyway, and then we get sent off to do something else irrelevant and Sharpe and Nwadike get all the glory.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Is that a good enough reason to risk the lives of everyone on this ship?’

‘They’ve been risking their lives for the last six months. They deserve credit for that. This isn’t just about me. You should want that for them. I know you’re going to come out of this smelling like roses no matter what – if I do well, you get credit, if I don’t do great, then nobody ever expected more of me and you tried your best.’ She looked him in the eye, chin tilting up. ‘Or are you afraid that if I screw up too badly, it’ll scratch your rep?’

After six months of working with Lopez, West knew how good she was at getting under people’s skin. But knowing what she was doing didn’t stop it from working, and for a long moment, all he could think of was the PADD that lived under his mattress. The PADD from Admiral Black that empowered him, if necessary, to remove Lopez from command and take over the Phoenix. The PADD he’d hoped he would never have to use, but the more indignant and egotistical she seemed, the more tempting it became.

Instead, he drew a sharp breath and said, ‘I couldn’t possibly be disagreeing with you because I care about the crew -’

‘You think I don’t? You think I’m about to sling us into danger because my ego’s too big? There’s a reason I’m making them come up with a plan, West, instead of ordering we charge in and damn the consequences.’

‘Every moment we’re here,’ he said in a low, taut voice, ‘is a moment the Romulans might expand their patrol, maybe investigate if they caught wind of the probe…’

‘If they caught wind of the probe, we’d know it by now,’ Lopez snapped. ‘And I hear you. I hear you don’t like this, even though I’ve decided on nothing yet except for not giving up.’

‘You’ve decided,’ West retorted, ‘to ignore your agreement with Nwadike and Yang to investigate and come back…’

‘I don’t answer to Nwadike and Yang! If anything, they answer to me! Does it really not matter how many victories I win or how much Vega would be fucked without me, I still have to listen to other people because Command likes them more? And again, I’m not charging in there, West! Will you listen to the me that’s actually talking, instead of the me that’s in your head?’

‘I could say the same to you!’

Silence rang out through the ready room as they stared at each other, the wiry captain and the broad-shouldered science officer. And after long, thudding heartbeats, Lopez took a step back and laughed. West stared at her, but the laughter continued until Lopez was bracing her hand on her desk, and then he couldn’t help but laugh too, even though he wasn’t sure what was funny.

At length, Lopez drew a deep breath and tried to sober. ‘Aren’t we a pair.’

‘Worst set I’ve seen,’ West chuckled.

‘Black told me I needed to stop riding your ass. That you’ve been playing ball.’ She grimaced. ‘She’s not wrong.’

‘There’s one more way I play ball,’ said West, looking at her. ‘I tell Command, hand on heart, that we’ve been – that you’ve been – doing a good job out there. I know you want to prove them right on your own terms, I know you want to prove them right with a dose of spite, and I get it. But like you said: pretending politics aren’t a thing is just asking to be politically out-manoeuvred.’

Lopez scrubbed her face with her hands. ‘You really don’t want to do this strike.’

‘I don’t. I think it’s risky, whatever we come up with. I think we come back with a big-ass task group so we can not only smash this depot, we can smash all their defences, wipe it off the map so badly and quickly the Rommies don’t ever know for sure what happened to them. But.’ West tilted his head towards her, catching her gaze. ‘You want to wait an hour for the team to come up with ideas. We give them an hour.’

She grimaced. ‘When did you get all shiny and trusting?’

‘When we first met, you asked me what the difference is between a captain and a first officer. I thought you were trying to find a way to tell me that it was my job to shut up and listen to you and not piss you off.’

‘It is,’ Lopez drawled.

‘But I’ve seen how you work the crew, how you give them space to be brilliant and – and weird, truth be told. That’s the job of a captain, isn’t it? Your first duty is to the crew.’ West straightened. ‘I don’t like this mission. I think we should play it safe. I do think you’re, if not blinded, then influenced by your fear that Command will take your hard work and throw you in the trash anyway. But if your first duty as the captain is to your crew, then my first duty as the first officer is to you. To back you up. To protect you.’

Lopez watched him, open astonishment on her face. Then she swallowed. ‘Actually,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I was just trying to tell you that you should shut up and listen to me.’ But she stepped forward and stuck out a hand towards him, and he was reminded how she’d done that months ago, after thwarting the Enolians and backstabbing Command, and he wasn’t sure he trusted her a whole lot more since then but he had a job to do. ‘I hear you, West. I just disagree. Let’s take out this supply depot, then you and me come back to Earth as big damn heroes.’

I’ll settle, thought West, for coming back to Earth and upsetting my daughter with all the math about magnetars. But he gave a show of a disgruntled sigh, because he knew that was what Lopez wanted, and shook her hand.

‘As you say, Captain. Let’s win the Vega campaign.’

‘Tak!’

The office for Communications wasn’t very big, because neither was the department. But Takahashi had hoped he could come in here to get away from the others, and now he realised all he’d done was create a space where he could be cornered as Black burst in.

‘Come on, in, Helena. Sit down. Have some tea. Throw it in my face.’ He gave a big wave of the hand.

She set her hands on her hips. ‘What were you pulling back there in the meeting?’

‘Me?’ He made a face. ‘I wasn’t pulling anything.’

‘The captain wanted ideas and you were making jokes.’

‘The captain wanted ideas and you were just naysaying,’ he pointed out. ‘Also, have we met?’

‘Normally you’re lightening the mood. Relieving tension. When did you stop bothering to care if you were helping or hurting?’

He’d been apprehensive when she came in. Now he was just confused, getting to his feet to look her in the eye. ‘Why are you mad at me about that meeting? You’re the one who doesn’t want to hit the depot.’

Black ground her teeth together. ‘Hawthorne is an ideas guy, but he’s not a decisions guy. Antar isn’t going to sway anyone. West doesn’t call the captain out in public.’

‘So why aren’t you yelling at any of them?’

‘Because Nat listens to you, because the others listen to you, and all you’ve been doing is tossing it away to make bad jokes!’

Takahashi tilted his head. ‘Are you mad at me because I didn’t agree with you?’

‘I’m mad at you because you pretend like you don’t have an opinion, and you do have an opinion.’

‘Do I, now.’ Despite the tension in him, he gave a sunny smile. ‘Carry on, I really want to know what I think.’

‘You don’t like the idea of this attack. You don’t like the risk of it. And you don’t like coming up with inventive ways to kill people.’

‘If that’s so, I’m hardly going to be reassured by waiting on another four starships so we can kill people boringly but efficiently.’

‘Damn it, Tak!’ Black snapped. ‘How come you’re only ready to act like you care about things when it screws other people over?’

That wasn’t the accusation he’d expected. Takahashi frowned. ‘Now, now, Helena. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.’

Her expression tensed, anger coiling like a spring. ‘I know you didn’t want to come back. But it’s been six months. Isn’t it about time you accepted you’re in a uniform, on a war-front, on a warship? You’re not Nat’s sidekick, you’re senior staff.’

Takahashi made a noise like a computer error notification. ‘That’s not it; that’s not what you’re really mad about.’

Black took a step forward. ‘Alright, then, Tak; show some responsibility. What am I mad about?’ Their gazes locked, and now he hesitated. She shook her head. ‘At least if you can’t even say it, maybe you do feel bad about it.’

‘About what?’

‘About hanging everyone else out to dry on Kruger six years ago!’

It was safer, Takahashi thought, to give an exaggeratedly goofy shrug at that. Maybe Black would kill him, but she wouldn’t get to the heart of things. ‘You don’t think I hung everyone else out to dry. You think I hung you out to dry.’

‘I don’t -’

‘You think I was selfish and didn’t think about consequences, and you blame me. You blame me for doing what you know was the right thing, and you’re ignoring that I threw my career away over it, and lost a hell of a lot of other things by doing what I did -’

‘We could have brought in the Matsuuro foreman, we could have sent people to prison, but you chose to kick off instead and the people really responsible got away -’

‘- you have to paint me as this irresponsible jackass who torpedoed your career, because otherwise you have to accept your father’s a sack of shit who used Kruger as an excuse to control you.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘How about,’ said Black in a low, careful voice, ‘we don’t trade barbs about family.’

He paused. Then he clicked his tongue. ‘Fair enough. But you’re still chewing me out about today because you’re mad at me about things that happened half a decade ago.’

‘I’m chewing you out because you pretend to be above it all, outside of it all, until it suits you. You don’t get your hands dirty with politics or the shipboard chain of command or the sticky choices unless you want to. And I am sick of you being opt-in and opt-out, especially when you could have had my back in there!’ Black jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘And maybe, maybe Nat would have listened if both of us told her this was a bad idea.’

‘You know as well as I do that Nat listens only when she goddamn wants to listen,’ he pointed out. ‘But you’re not going to go yell at Nat, are you?’

‘Stop trying to wriggle this conversation -’

‘I made dumb jokes around that table because everyone was at each other’s throats. And I didn’t come up with bright ideas because I didn’t have any bright ideas. You might have noticed that I’m better at smoke and mirrors and misdirection than I am a master damned strategist.’

‘Then how about you listen to me,’ said Black, ‘and back me up? Take some responsibility as a major part of senior staff?’

He made a dismissive noise. ‘I’m the Communications Officer. I’m basically the tea boy -’

‘You are the third officer of this starship, Lieutenant Takahashi; you are a Starfleet officer with a decade’s experience in the uniform and more time clocked on these frontiers than anyone bar Nat herself. And I am sick and tired of you drawing our attention away from this with jokes to -’

Inspiration came at odd times. Sometimes it was from something irrelevant connecting dots once a million miles apart. Sometimes it was from somebody else pointing out a link, even without realising it.

Sometimes inspiration came because, ironically, Takahashi needed another distraction.

‘That’s it,’ he snapped, hands coming up to forestall Black’s outrage. ‘We draw their attention away.’

She stopped. ‘Visibility might be really terrible in this system. But I don’t think we have the resources on this one ship to give those scouts a non-existent target that’ll draw them away from the station.’

‘You’re right,’ said Takahashi, moving around Black to head for the door. ‘But we don’t only have one ship, do we?’

‘This better work,’ Lopez heard West mumble as she passed his station on her way to the command chair four hours later.

‘It’ll work,’ said keen-eared Takahashi, with all the confidence she knew he couldn’t be feeling.

‘Tharan wouldn’t have agreed otherwise,’ chipped in Black from across the bridge, and Lopez glanced between them a moment. She’d not been oblivious to the tension in the meeting, but then they’d come to her together, and while she didn’t think the problem was fixed, they’d put the issue aside for the moment. That suited her to the ground. She could babysit her crew’s feelings once they’d won.

‘How’s our sensor feed from Tharan’s ship coming?’ said Lopez, easing onto her chair and gripping the armrests.

‘It’s good and clear,’ said Takahashi. ‘The transmission’s smooth and there’s very little lag.’

‘Let’s just hope,’ said West, ‘that him transmitting to us so openly doesn’t make the Romulans pick him up.’

‘They’ll know he’s talking to someone, but that’s part of the point,’ said Takahashi. ‘Theo’s confident that this will only make the plan more convincing.’

Lopez tilted in her chair to give her XO a toothy grin. ‘We’re being supportive, remember?’ The good-natured eye-roll she received in response as West settled down was, she thought, progress.

‘Tharan’s in position,’ Black reported as her console blatted at her. ‘Expect him to power-up fully in the next minute, but we’ll be relying on his sensor feed to tell us if this is working.’

Lopez nodded, hands curling for a tight grip around the armrest. It had taken a few hours for Hawthorne and his engineers to help Tharan do some quick modifications to his ship’s systems. Anything to maximise power output, alter the deflector profile, the engine emissions. None of it would be long-term sustainable, and none of it would survive a serious and up-close inspection. But they didn’t need it to.

All they needed was for Tharan’s ship, under the fog of war of Gliese-47 and the interference of its powerful magnetic field, to look on Romulan sensors like an Andorian warship four times it size.

She leaned forward an inch, and felt the blood hum in her veins as she said, ‘Tactical alert.’

The lights shifted, the low alert klaxon sounded, and all officers on the bridge shifted like sprinters ready to race, settling the dirt underfoot for the surest footing. What felt like only moments later, but could have been minutes, Black finally said, ‘Tharan’s powered up fully, and he’s getting deeper into the system.’

He was only at the periphery, on the far side of 47-IV to the Phoenix and her hiding spot behind the sixth planet. There was a lot of ground to cover on his approach, and that was the point.

‘What are the Romulans doing?’ Lopez asked after thudding beats of silence.

‘They’ve noticed him,’ West confirmed. ‘The three scouts are coming together.’

‘Come on,’ Takahashi murmured. ‘Send two at him, send two, you don’t want him getting away and spreading the intel…’

Lopez barely dared breathe in the next bout of silence. But West’s announcement came like a whip-crack of victory as he punched the air and said, ‘They’re going! Captain, two scouts are peeling away and heading for Tharan’s ship!’

Her hand snapped up. ‘Easy does it! We let them get too far out to come back in time before we go in. Then it’s all guns blazing to mess up that depot before we have scouts crawling all over us.’

‘I’ve plotted our course and best time to move,’ said Antar. ‘This way we’ll be spotted only when they’re more than halfway to Tharan.’

This was another wait, which was theoretically good, because the longer it took the scouts to cross the system, the longer it would take them to get back when they realised that Tharan was a trick and the real danger was chewing up their insides. Lopez got to her feet, restless, and moved to watch the dots on West’s display travel across the system, the green blips of the enemy scouts closing on the tiny blue blip of Tharan’s ship. ‘Go, you bastards,’ she hissed. ‘Run.’

‘Ready to go,’ came Antar’s eventual report, and Lopez fair flew back to the command chair.

She jerked her finger forward. ‘Let’s roll.’

Moving at top speed through the gravitic field was enough to make the Phoenix shudder, but they were ready for that. They were ready for the way their sensor feeds blipped and shifted, unreliable even with Tharan’s transmissions, more data streaming in on the approach as if they were parting curtains to peer through bright, blinding sunshine – the view clear before them, but still hard to see. They were ready for the wait, they were ready for the journey, and they were ready for the end.

‘The last scout’s seen us,’ barked Black. ‘It’s coming around to face us.’

‘Don’t get distracted. I want us hitting that base with torpedoes the moment we’re in range; worry about the scout only once it’s in our face, and then I want us going right through it.’

‘The two scouts chasing Tharan have come about,’ said West. ‘They’ve realised they’re being duped.’

‘Huh,’ said Takahashi, pressing a finger to his earpiece. ‘It sounds like Tharan is… heading for them?’

Black winced. ‘If they haven’t realised he’s faking it, he might be able to tie them up for… minutes?’

‘I’ll take minutes,’ said Lopez. ‘I’ll take seconds. It’s his call.’

Antar sucked on her teeth. ‘This scout is coming right at our face.’

‘It’s going to try to intercept our torpedoes,’ said Black. ‘If I open fire with phase cannons from this distance it won’t hurt much, but it’ll either force them to evade or the impact on their deflectors might blunt their sensors.’

‘Go for it.’ Lopez watched through the viewscreen as phase cannon fire streamed towards the distant streaking dot of the lone scout left to defend its base, and nodded with satisfaction as it juked away from Black’s fire. ‘Take out that station, Helena.’

‘It’ll take more than one salvo, but I’m on it,’ said Black. ‘Opening fire.’

As Lopez watched, the torpedoes streaked away from the Phoenix and then past the scout, bearing down on the Frankenstein’s monster of a supply depot. But then her gaze flickered back to the scout. ‘Okay, that’s one salvo on the station. Let’s swat this bug so we can do the rest.’

‘On it,’ said Antar. ‘They don’t want to play chicken now we’ve got shots off, but I’ll get right in their face whether they like it or not.’

‘Excellent,’ said Lopez. ‘Helena, go to mess with their sensors or their engines; we don’t have to do a lot to make them irrelevant to this -’

‘What the…’ Black didn’t speak very loudly. But the confusion in her voice was enough to cut Lopez off, and she had a bewildered expression when Lopez looked over. ‘Something took out our torpedoes before they hit the station.’

West leaned forward. ‘Do they have point defences?’

‘No, it wasn’t from the…’ Black stopped, eyes widening as she read her display. ‘Oh, shit. Evasive action!’

Even when she didn’t know what was coming, Antar was a quick-witted enough pilot to send the Phoenix into a wild spin, breaking off the attack run on the scout and pirouetting through space. Which was why only some of the first salvo of torpedoes from the Romulan warbird hit them.

The impact rocked the ship, and Lopez had to grip her armrest hard to keep her seat. ‘Report! What the hell is going on?’

‘There’s another Romulan ship!’ yelled West, also clutching the Science console. ‘It was behind one of the moons where our sensors couldn’t see it, it took out our torpedoes and now it’s coming for us!’

‘Captain.’ Black’s taut, horrified tone remained. ‘We know that ship. That’s the Decius.’

The Decius, that had pinned them in place so they couldn’t get to Vega, that had almost killed them when they were merely weeks out of spacedock. The Decius, that was bigger than them and a serious challenge in a head-to-head match, only this time it wasn’t alone. The Decius, that had clearly been lying in wait for them.

Lopez’s stomach dropped out. ‘Get that scout,’ she decided without thinking. ‘We need that thing gone before we can worry about a warbird.’ And the defences of the depot, which we’re almost in range of.

Behind her, West swore. ‘Tharan’s ship is coming about – Captain, he’s bugging out and those scouts are returning for us.’

I can’t blame him, she thought, but shook her head. ‘They’re still minutes out.’

‘Captain, we should consider -’

‘Pulling back while that scout’s there to race up our tails and slow us down isn’t possible. Kill it first, then we see where we are.’ But as Lopez watched, the scout continued to pirouette as wildly as Antar had, clearly knowing that all it had to do was to buy time and stay out of their weapons fire. The Decius was streaming towards them, not close enough to be its fullest threat, but every second they weren’t killing the scout was a second they were begging to get pinned.

Lopez was on her feet, moving to Antar’s shoulder. ‘This guy thinks he’s at a party, so step on his damn toes some time this century, Antar.’

‘Gee, Captain, I didn’t think of that!’ the Helm Officer hissed. ‘I’m trying, but -’

‘Helena, shoot the damn scout!’

Black’s hands thudded into her controls, and Phoenix shifted at the fresh burst of weapons fire that careened outward – hit the scout – and sent it spinning, not taken out fully but seriously limping after a direct hit. Black looked almost surprised at herself. ‘Huh. Will that do?’

West gave a low laugh. ‘Nice shooting -’

Then the next salvo from the Decius hit them, and everything went wrong.

Lopez felt the Phoenix shriek around them as the impact thudded past their defences, into their hull – through the hull. Like a wounded animal reeling in pain, the Phoenix lurched, and she was sent flying to the deck. Alarm klaxons went off, there was the sparking hiss of consoles overloading and exploding, and her head hit metal.

Stars exploded in front of her eyes, and for a moment, everything slowed. The lights flickered, and around her were cries of pain, the hissing of damaged metal, of overloading systems. If this was not a mortal blow, they were still bleeding badly.

But she knew everything had not slowed; that this was a seductive pull of injury, and she dug deep to harness that coursing adrenaline. Lopez pushed herself onto her hands and knees, and the world swam back in time to bring Black’s voice racing to the forefront as she ran through damage reports: hull breaches, weapons failures, massive loss of hull polarisation. But it all lurched together, words blending as Lopez grabbed the armrest and hauled herself upright, gaze sweeping across the darkened, devastated bridge.

Antar was only just back in her seat, blood running down the side of her head. Takahashi had pushed away from his console which now smoked before him, his uniform charred, and he was leaning over another display to reroute his controls. West was –

Not at his post, the Science console empty, and she thought she saw the big man stirring on the deck. Lopez grimaced towards the aft of the bridge, and waved a hand at the figure there. ‘Shepherd! Help the Commander!’

Then she sat again, head fizzing with the mix of pain and adrenaline. ‘Where’s that damn warbird?’

‘Getting closer all the time,’ said Antar. ‘One of our port manoeuvring thrusters is out; we do not want to let them get on top of us.’

‘I’ve lost a torpedo launcher,’ said Black through gritted teeth.

‘Captain…’

But Shepherd’s voice was low and meek and Lopez missed it as her head spun. ‘What about those other two scouts?’

‘Still making for us as best as I can tell,’ said Black.

‘Captain.’

‘Can we get another shot at the depot?’ said Lopez with a wince.

Black shook her head. ‘Not with the state of my launchers.’

‘Captain!’ Now Shepherd’s voice was heard, loud but with an edge of hysteria, and Lopez turned with some impatience to see the young officer leaning against the Science console, hair wild, expression crumpled. ‘Commander West is dead.’

If someone had told Lopez that they’d just been hit again and lost oxygen, she would have believed them. It took a moment before she swallowed the rising bile, and when she spoke it was still like she didn’t have enough air. ‘Lieutenant Shepherd.’ Her voice came out faint. ‘Take your post at Science. Where are those two scouts?’

‘On – on the approach,’ Shepherd faltered, wiping her face as she sank into the seat, then she managed to press on. ‘Four minutes out.’

Lopez looked over at Black, who wore an unreadable expression, then at Takahashi. His jaw was tight, and he gave the slightest shake of the head.

She swallowed again and looked to Antar. ‘Ensign, get us the hell out of here.’

Phoenix lurched as Antar obeyed, and Black clicked her tongue with disapproval as her readings came in. ‘The Decius is pursuing us.’

‘Cap.’ Takahashi’s voice sounded thick. ‘Cap, he’s hailing us.’

Lopez’s lip curled. ‘Put him through.’

‘Hello again, Phoenix,’ came the voice she recognised, the voice of Commander Sekarth of the warbird Decius. ‘My people have a saying: learn from those who fooled you. Your distraction was clever, but when I spotted your probe… I’m sorry, but you’ve become predictable. I waited, and then here you were.’

Lopez jerked a finger agitatedly at Antar to convey acceleration, and leaned on the armrest. ‘Commander, great to hear from you again,’ she said, the irreverent tone coming easily to smother the rising panic. ‘But that’s maybe the rudest thing you could possibly say to me -’

‘My ship is on your aft and my allies will be on you in minutes. Out of respect for your achievements, if you surrender now, I will make sure you and your crew are spared for internment.’

She swallowed. ‘Listen, that’s a tempting offer, but I’m going to have to ask what exactly you mean by “internment”…’

‘It means a slave camp, and this isn’t a negotiation – or, rather, this isn’t an opportunity for you to stall and try to get some distance. Do I have your surrender? Yes or no will do.’

Lopez looked around the bridge again, at the grim faces, at the tear-stained cheeks of Shepherd and the bloodied temple of Antar, and her fingers curled around the armrest as her heart tried to beat so hard it might rise into her throat and choke her. She swallowed again. ‘Commander Sekarth, with all of the authority imbued in me by Starfleet Command and the United Earth Commonwealth: get fucked.’ She swept her hand through the air to make Takahashi cut the comms, and looked to her Helm Officer. ‘Let’s run.’

Takahashi let out a shaking breath as the Phoenix shuddered on the acceleration, limping badly even without the interference and strains of the star Gliese-47. ‘We really better not die here,’ he said, voice quaking. ‘Your final transmission can’t be something that painfully unoriginal.’

It was early morning, and he was warm in his bed, comfortable in that state of semi-consciousness, all the world a cocoon of darkness and thought. Soon he would have to act, but for the moment he could rest, stay cosy, reflect, even if the alarm was about to go off.

Then it went off, and Hawthorne was jerked into full consciousness as he realised that wasn’t his morning alarm, that was an emergency klaxon, and he was lying flat on the deck of Main Engineering. His left arm screamed as he put weight on it, and it was with wheezing difficulty that he rolled to his knees and took in the sight around him.

Darkness. Smoke. The stirring and still bodies of his engineers. The main console of the warp core, that thundering heart of the whole ship, blazing with a warning that had to be connected to the klaxon roaring in his ears. Even with the world slow to rush back to Hawthorne’s clarity, he was an engineer in his bones, had built half the systems in his ship, and he knew what had happened.

Coolant leak.

He staggered to his feet, and waved his good arm towards the main doors. ‘Out! Everyone out!’

Petty Officer Radetsky came staggering out of the smoke, and had to clutch at Hawthorne to not fall. ‘Sir, we don’t have long…’

‘I know,’ said Hawthorne. ‘Go, go.’ He fell back with him, limping to the main doors and the communications panel there. He jabbed at a command. ‘Bridge, this is Main Engineering.’ Only silence met him for a long moment, and with a soaking gasp of air that almost made him cough, he jabbed again. ‘Bridge!’

It was Takahashi who answered, not Lopez. ‘Theo, how bad is it down there?’

Hawthorne paused to wave more stumbling engineers out. ‘I have about twenty seconds before Main Engineering floods with coolant, so I’ve got to seal us off and vent this compartment. You better not get us hit again.’

Takahashi paused for far too long. ‘…we’re working on it.’

‘Oh,’ said Hawthorne, realisation sinking in. ‘We’re completely buggered, aren’t we?’

‘We’ll be totally screwed if you can’t restore control of Main Engineering. Good luck.’

‘And to you,’ said Hawthorne, and cut the comm feed. He could hear all the hidden messages: Goodbye. You’re on your own.

He ducked out through the main doors of engineering and looked up and down the row of sputtering, injured, bloodied engineers. Some had helped others out, some had dragged others out, and when he looked back towards the warp core, he could barely see its silhouette through the smoke. Hawthorne reached out and grabbed Radetsky. ‘Is that everyone?’

Radetsky shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t know.’

He had about ten seconds before he was going to have to seal that door. Hawthorne looked back into Main Engineering and lifted a hand to the control of the emergency blast doors –

– and horror rose in him as he saw a figure dragging themselves through the smoke along one of the railings towards the door. A figure he recognised.

‘Maria!’ Hawthorne leaned around the door-frame, as if getting inches closer would bring her metres nearer. ‘Get over here!’

Lieutenant Maria Carvalho leaned heavily on the railing, and looked up. And just as he knew there was no way she’d make it to him in time, he saw her face clearly through the smoke, and saw the sheer terror in her eyes. ‘Help me,’ she said, or might have said; her lips formed words he couldn’t hear, but he knew she wasn’t giving him permission to leave her to die.

Hawthorne took a step back and hit the control panel next to the arch to bring the heavy emergency doors thudding down so he could vent the whole chamber. And watched her through the screen as he did just that.

* *

Lopez swore as the next bout of weapons fire from the Decius thudded into them, and another emergency klaxon sounded. ‘Somebody switch them off, I know we’re fucked.’

‘Main Engineering is venting,’ said Takahashi.

‘Oh good.’ The sing-song voice of indifferent panic was back. ‘At least then Hawthorne can get back up close to the warp core before it overloads and kills us all.’

Black gave a hiss of frustration. ‘My targeting feed is so bad, I can’t get a good torpedo lock on the Decius, and they’re just eating our aft phase cannon fire.’

‘The two scouts are two minutes out!’ came Shepherd’s high-pitched warning.

‘I can run or I can dodge right now,’ said Antar tersely. ‘I can’t do both at once, so somebody get protection on our asses.’

Lopez drew a slow breath. ‘If anyone has any really wild ideas, now’s a great time.’

Takahashi gestured a bit wildly. ‘I could… try to flood their comms with a whole bunch of their own useless data and see if it disrupts the coordination between the three ships?’

‘They don’t need three ships to kill us,’ said Black.

‘What I need,’ said Antar, ‘is about ten seconds of breathing room and a certainty we can get to warp safely.’

‘Theo didn’t say we couldn’t go to warp, I just think if anything goes wrong, we need another four minutes before he can get back into engineering and do anything about it,’ said Takahashi with a wince.

‘Oh no, something going wrong at warp?’ said Lopez. ‘That’d be terrible.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Okay, here’s how we slice this: Antar, you’re going to have us lose a bit of ground while, Helena, you try to stop us from dying if we let the Decius get right up close.’

‘I… don’t know how I’m going to do that,’ Black admitted.

‘It’s that or we die tired. Shepherd, I need you to calculate how much warp plasma we can vent and still go to warp. We’re going to limp, and then let it all loose in the Decius’s face and run.’ Lopez turned in her chair to stare at the rather numbed science officer, clearly out of her depth by her sudden field promotion. Lopez was trying to not think about the fact that Sawyer West’s corpse was right next to her. ‘Shepherd.’

Shepherd shook her head quickly. ‘Yes, Captain. All the warp plasma we can spare.’

‘If this goes wrong,’ said Black, fingers flying across her controls, ‘All we’re doing is opening ourselves up for a quick death.’

‘Better than a slow one,’ Lopez growled. ‘Do or die time; everyone ready?’

‘To do? Yes. To die?’ Antar shrugged. ‘Might as well.’

‘Alright, slow on my mark -’

‘Nat!’ Takahashi sat bolt upright. ‘I’m getting something on comms!’

‘If it’s Sekarth tell him to go f-’

‘Captain, we’ve got Starfleet ships dropping out of warp!’ Shepherd sounded as disbelieving as Lopez felt. ‘The Dragonfly, the…’

‘The Buran,’ breathed Takahashi. ‘Captain Sharpe’s hailing us.’

‘On screen!’

The Buran had been finished and launched not long before the Phoenix, and under far more auspicious circumstances. To see her bridge on the viewscreen was like Phoenix was her dark reflection; though she was at tactical alert, her bulkheads and consoles gleamed, clean and intact. Captain Sharpe was a stocky women, square-jawed and gruff of voice. ‘Looks like you’re in a pickle, Lopez.’

‘You want to trade pleasantries, or you want to save my ass, Sharpe?’

Sharpe looked over her shoulder. ‘Shoot that warbird, would you, Commander?’ Then her eyes snapped back to Lopez. ‘Keep running, Phoenix. We’ll cover your escape.’

‘This supply depot -’

‘You’ve screwed the pooch too badly on that for today; let’s get through this without losing one of our best ships and we can fuss about the Rommies’ hiding space another time. Buran out.’

Black cleared her throat after a moment. ‘The Buran is engaging the Decius, with the Dragonfly providing supporting fire.’

‘What’re those scouts doing?’ said Lopez, jaw tight.

‘They’re…’ Shepherd took a moment to find her voice. ‘They’re breaking off.’

‘So’s the Decius!’ called Black. ‘They’re falling back to the depot.’

Lopez sank back onto the command chair with exhausted relief, but before she could begin to rest, Takahashi spoke again.

‘We’re being hailed.’

‘Tell Sharpe that we’re running -’

‘It’s the Decius.’

She sat up, and now she thought she might throw up. ‘Put it through.’

‘You’re very lucky, Phoenix.’

Lopez stared at the blank screen, the Romulans never transmitting through visual. ‘Going to crow at me, Sekarth?’

‘No. No, I think we’re even now.’ His voice was low and thoughtful, and there was a pause. ‘You fought cleverly. You fought bravely. You fought well. Grieve for your dead however you humans do it. I’ll see you on the battlefield another time, Lopez.’

The signal went dead, and Antar made a low noise of disgust. ‘They actually dipped their wings a moment there.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ Lopez hissed. ‘Can we go to warp? Set us a course for Vega, at whatever pace we can get, in formation with Buran and Dragonfly.’ With a groan, she pushed herself off the command chair. ‘Helena, end tactical alert, and get me a damage assessment.’ She hesitated as she looked to her left. ‘Tak, I… I need a full casualty report.’

She didn’t linger as he nodded, limping as she moved towards the aft of the bridge. There was no specific wound, but everything ached, and she didn’t think it was mere physical ailment that had her movement stiff, pained as she reached the side of the science console and met the gaze of young Chloe Shepherd.

They did not say anything, and Lopez stepped around the controls to take a knee beside West’s body. Shepherd had rolled him over when she went to his side, and it must have been momentum that had once made Lopez think he was stirring, because he was very plainly dead, the side of his face a charred mess from where one of his control panels had detonated at him, his eyes blank and unseeing.

He would need moving, but for the moment, as the bridge of the Phoenix settled into the drained aftermath of the brutal beating they had taken, slinking away from defeat, all she could do was put her hand on the lapel of the uniform jumpsuit of the body of Sawyer West.

‘…oh.’

‘Our foray only caught the attention of two scouts. At that point, Commander Khaldun and I realised we were not drawing enough, if any, enemy presence away from Gliese-47, and suspected the Romulans were up to something.’ Captain Nwadike’s voice was low and measured as he stood by the display in the Buran’s ready room, hands clasped behind his back as he regarded Lopez with a level gaze. ‘I sent the Freedom back to Vega to reinforce the Vostok, in case of threat to the colony. We were fortunate that the Buran was in the region ahead of schedule.’

Lopez’s gaze flickered across the desk to Captain Sharpe of the Buran, whose aide had brought them steaming mugs of piping-hot tea. Without asking, Sharpe had put more milk and sugar than Lopez might, but here and now the sweetness was comforting. It sank with the heat into her bones and found some response inside her when nothing else did. ‘My lucky day,’ Lopez said tonelessly.

‘Thank my Chief Engineer,’ Sharpe said with a curt shrug. ‘She managed to get us underway from Alpha Centauri couple days early, then eke a few microns of a warp factor out of the core. Right good lass.’ She sipped the tea. ‘Oh, and your Andorian mate. When we caught up with Dragonfly we went on to Gliese-47, but hung about a ways out; couldn’t tell through sensors if you was in trouble or having a grand old time, then he shows up. Moment he spots us he raised the alarm.’

‘Gift baskets all round, then,’ said Lopez.

Nwadike scowled. ‘What were you thinking, Lopez? You said you’d do recon -’

‘I don’t answer to you, Nwadike,’ she snarled at last. ‘You don’t have operational command of the Vega theatre, I do. I saw the situation at 47 and I decided to take it out -’

‘You knew you were half-blind in that system and you overlooked the risks,’ he pressed. ‘If you were to take chances it should have been to scan further and bring back actionable intelligence. Instead you almost lost your ship and Commander West is dead.’

‘Four of my crew are dead, but don’t pretend you give a damn about them, Nwadike, when you can use the loss of the golden boy against me – and he was my XO -’ She’d risen to her feet, turned to face him. It was easier to be angry, easier to be outraged at Nwadike, because that meant she didn’t have to hear him, hear the voice in her head echoing his words.

‘Shut it, both of you,’ sighed Sharpe with enough vigour to silence them. ‘I’ve no interest in bickering about what should have been done, and she’s right about one thing, Nwadike; she don’t answer to you.’ She looked at Lopez, and her eyes narrowed. ‘She answers to me.’

Lopez turned, throat tightening. ‘You don’t have -’

‘I’m in the only other NX this far out and about, and I’ve got seniority on you, love. Admiral Black made it right clear I’m to assume command and assess how to end the Vega theatre. You can check the paperwork if you like.’

Lopez’s fist clenched. ‘I have been out here,’ she growled, ‘for six months protecting this region, and Black just gives you operational command?’ It would have happened before the Buran left, before this botched operation was a gleam in her eye, and yet Admiral Black now had every justification he needed.

Sharpe sipped her tea, then looked to Nwadike. ‘Give us a minute, would you?’ The other captain glanced between them, gave a stern nod, and left. The hum of the Buran’s impulse engines, faint as it was, was suddenly the loudest thing in the room as the two women stared at each other. At length, Sharpe sighed. ‘You can get your knickers in a twist when you’ve not just fucked right up, Lopez.’

‘I hadn’t when Black -’

‘I don’t give a toss for politics and you know it. But now I have to un-bugger the Vega situation. Maybe you were too bold, maybe Nwadike’s a big girl’s blouse and you just got played by a sneaky enemy. But it is what it is.’

Lopez opened her mouth to argue, but it was then the wave of exhaustion came at her. The three ships had fled from Gliese-47 at the Dragonfly’s top speed, stopping only after a four-hour sprint while her crew patched Phoenix’s holes with duct-tape and gumption. With Nwadike as her judging shadow the moment she’d come aboard the Buran, Lopez had still been in combat mode, still ready to manage everything and keep her ship flying.

With Nwadike gone, the strings felt like they were coming untethered. She sank onto the chair and buried her face in her hands. ‘He’s not being too cautious. He was right.’ For all her judgement of the man, she’d worked with him these past months. He was patient and he was slow, but he’d time and again given the enemy space to make mistakes he’d then pounce on. They were perhaps not the best pair of captains to set together, Nwadike a consummate planner and Lopez a professional improviser, but as adrenaline fizzed out of her veins, she didn’t have the fight in her to blame him any more.

‘You need to get your ship to a drydock, Captain,’ Sharpe said, quiet in a way Lopez suspected was gentle by her standards. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if Command summon you back to Earth for all that. The old girls are finished or almost finished with their Columbia refits, so you and me are done holding down the fort as the biggest ships in the fleet for a while. The front line can spare you. Your ship needs repairs. Your crew needs downtime.’ She hesitated. ‘You’ve got bodies to return.’

Lopez dragged her hands down her face. ‘Yeah,’ she grunted. ‘You and Nwadike get to uproot this supply base. That’ll end the Romulan threat on this front.’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘Secrecy was its big defence. It might be long gone before we come back. Maybe for good. Could be that you won the Vega theatre even if you lost this battle.’

Lopez looked up, gaze bleary. ‘Enjoy the credit. It’ll go to you.’

‘Were we in this for the credit?’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Lopez rumbled. ‘You don’t get your mistakes pounced on and your successes overlooked.’

Sharpe’s lip curled. ‘You’ve had a right hammering from Romulans and politicians, Lopez, don’t get me wrong. But don’t give me that. You’re the captain of one of Starfleet’s biggest and baddest ships, and that comes with it a bloody responsibility. I’m doing you a favour of reserving my judgement about that battle, ‘cos nobody’s seen the full analysis. But I’ve half a mind to point out you’re acting like a right brat who throws a tantrum when she don’t get the attention she wants.’

Lopez arched an eyebrow. ‘Only half a mind?’

Sharpe put her tea mug down with a clunk. ‘You pissed around with Nwadike and the others. That’s bad business when you’re on a war front together; you should have told him even if it were a fight. But you had a lot of success these past months and then you let it go to your head. One ship don’t win this war, Lopez. This is about the bloody future of bloody humanity and for someone with a reputation for being a renegade, you’re right bothered about what them on Earth think, aren’t you?’

Working her jaw, Lopez glared at the deck for a moment. Then she pushed to her feet with a sigh. ‘I’ll steer the Phoenix back towards the core worlds,’ she said, voice emptying again. ‘Admiral Black can decide what happens next.’

Sharpe grimaced, and gave a sad shake of the head. ‘Sorry this happened, Lopez. Even if it turns out you did screw up, my second officer says you’re not a bloody idiot. Nwadike was always second-biggest, he always had the Phoenix next to him as big muscle. You didn’t have a bigger fish to fall back on. Not a lot of people in the galaxy understand what that’s like, do they?’

You at least have Command behind you, Lopez thought, unable to smother resentment even if she’d just been vouched for. She’d worked with Sharpe’s second officer, Leonov, years back; they’d been to flight school together. Leonov’s approval didn’t feel much like comfort back then. After all, she didn’t know how badly Lopez had screwed up.

‘Yeah,’ Lopez grunted instead, then turned away. ‘Enjoy Vega. Left the gate wide open for you to save the day.’

The Buran and the Phoenix were docked, so Lopez took the back door out of the ready room, avoiding any eyes of the Buran’s bridge crew, and managed to slip her way through the corridors to return to her ship. A quick call to her bridge had Takahashi overseeing the Phoenix disengaging, limping away from the other Starfleet vessels, and crawling to a low warp.

If Hawthorne couldn’t get them back up to top speed, it was going to be a much, much longer return journey.

Sickbay had quietened down to a low buzz when Lopez got there, minor cuts and bruises patched up and crew sent on their way. Others rested on biobeds, recovering but resting now the danger had passed, and all that it took with Starfleet’s marvellous medicine was to let technology do its work once their lives had been saved. But she could feel the eyes of the visitors on her, a mixture of reassured by her presence or concerned by it, confused, angry. She didn’t meet their gazes.

Lopez had never before seen Kayode’s aura of cheerful calm so much as fragment, but today it had vanished. The doctor looked smaller as they emerged from behind their screen, and from the bleary look in their eyes, she thought they might have been crying at some point in the last few hours.

‘I would assume you’re alright if you’re upright, Captain,’ Kayode said in a quiet voice as they approached. ‘But do tell me if you took a smack somewhere.’

I took a lot of smacks. But Lopez knew better than to be too miserable or too jocular when someone, especially a civilian, looked to be hanging on by a thread. ‘Don’t worry about me, Doc,’ she mumbled. Her gaze flickered about. ‘Where are they?’

There was a knot in Kayode’s brow, and they sighed. ‘The morgue.’ They jerked their head to a side door. ‘Commander Black’s in there already.’

It had taken Doctor Kayode’s expert assessment to pronounce the four crewmembers formally dead, even if there had been no mistaking the condition of Sawyer West, and especially the two engineers trapped inside when Lieutenant Hawthorne had been forced to seal the main chamber, condemned by either the flooding coolant or its venting. Ensign Strayce had been a different case, taking a blow to the head as the ship lurched in combat, and too far gone by the time his colleagues dragged him down to Sickbay. Kayode had reportedly worked on him for a while before he had been pronounced brain-dead.

Perhaps it would have been a relief to get away from the eyes in Sickbay and into the morgue, but finding Helena Black in there was no escape. She sat on a stool before the open drawer on which lay the still body of Sawyer West, and did not look up when Lopez entered. The door slid shut, and the two sank into gloom.

Only after long moments did Lopez clear her throat and speak. ‘We’re heading back for the core worlds. I’ll contact Command, let them know the full of it. Sharpe reckons we’ll be summoned back to Earth.’

‘We need Starbase 1, if not San Francisco Fleet Yards,’ Black said, toneless. ‘And I’m sure HQ will have something to say about this.’

Lopez’s mouth went dry. ‘We spent six months keeping Vega safe when nobody saw the Rommies coming here -’

‘You didn’t see them coming here.’ Black’s voice was quiet. ‘We were sent here and got lucky. You’ve farmed that ever since. Besides, months of good work doesn’t extinguish a disaster like this.’

‘We were out-witted -’

‘We went into a situation half-blind because your ego couldn’t stand to wait and share a victory.’ At last Black looked up, bright eyes cold. ‘You’ve always been like this, haven’t you? I thought the Sojourner might have changed you.’

‘The Sojourner –’

‘Didn’t need to be out of position at the Battle of Sol. You keep trying these high-risk stunts, and because you pull them off nine times out of ten, you forget that on the tenth you get a lot of people killed.’

Lopez shifted her feet. ‘It’s war.’

‘You did it when we weren’t at war,’ Black pointed out. ‘You did it on the Constellation all the time, except Captain Drake kept you in-check. War’s a worse time for you to act like this, because when it goes wrong it goes really wrong.’

‘Helena, I get you’re upset -’

‘I’m not… upset.’ Black frowned. Sawyer West’s body lay between them on the drawer, his face cleaned up by Kayode but his uniform still singed. He had always been such a tall, broad figure, and grown larger with his presence. Now he lay there, and Lopez had never thought he could possibly be so small while still filling the room. ‘We didn’t want to do this attack.’

Lopez made a face. ‘He came to me after you were a tight knot in that briefing room, he backed me up.’

‘Because he knew if he disagreed with you, you’d just double-down and shut him out!’ The cold in Black’s gaze shifted for indignation. ‘You don’t just try to pull stupid stunts, Nat, you try to pull stupid stunts and you don’t listen! West didn’t want to do the attack, I didn’t want to do the attack! Tak didn’t want to do the attack -’

‘Tak came up with the diversion in the first place -’

‘Tak came up with the diversion because I was yelling at him and he wanted to make me go away,’ Black said with exhausted awareness. ‘You know what he’s like if there’s a plan he can sink his teeth into. None of us wanted this, and you forced the issue. What’s it going to take for you to listen to someone who doesn’t already agree with you?’

Lopez clicked her tongue and looked down. ‘Okay,’ she said at length. ‘I was just coming down here to see West. But you’re upset.’

‘And you’re not?’ Black shot to her feet. ‘I’ve backed you, Nat, I’ve vouched for you and I’ve defended you and I’ve pretty much hung the rest of my career on you, and you’re going to keep brushing me aside?’

‘Your father’s an admiral; I think your precious career can survive me just fine. I didn’t come here to argue.’ Lopez was not accustomed to sounding like the reasonable, unemotional one. But here it gave her an easy escape route, positioning Black as irrational so she didn’t have to answer her accusations.

Black settled, hands on her hips before she looked away and sighed. ‘Fine. I hope you came down here to look at his body and think about how you’re going to explain this to his wife and children.’

The sickly cold that had slithered inside her the moment Shepherd announced West’s death writhed. ‘I’ll do my damn job, Commander. You should, too.’

Black straightened at that, not in any way mollified. ‘Of course. Ma’am.’ And she snapped off a salute with military precision. It was, perhaps, the second-worst thing she could have done, or so Lopez thought as Black strode past her and exited.

Because the worst thing she could have done was this: leave her alone in the morgue with the bodies of the junior crewmembers she’d let down and the still figure of Commander Sawyer West, who would have agreed with every word Helena Black had just said, and to whose family Lopez was going to have to explain herself.