“… Official reports from the newly formed Romulan Free State continue their patriotic tone today as Ambassador Rala Nerak announced 6 more outlying outposts had thrown off the shackles of the dying Empire and are now waving the flag of the fledgling galactic power. A spokesman for the Romulan Republic has continued to decry these claims of free association citing the continued influence of the Tal Shiar in the politics of the Free State whilst a representative for Starfleet has indicated that whilst there is nothing to suggest political coercion in these colonies they remain vigilant. The Klingon Empire has refused to comment at this time. In other news…”

A quick press of the panel silenced the ephemeral voice of current affairs.

“I think that’s quite enough of that don’t you Theo?” David sighed, throwing a glance across the room the empty desk across the room. His lab mate had been absent for almost a week and still David found himself talking to him habitually, not that Theo had answered much when he had been present but it was surprising how quickly David had grown accustomed to his presence. The last few months aboard Bravo had been a difficult adjustment period and he had struggled to make new friends, 5 years amongst Vulcans temper your social skills, and whilst Theo hadn’t been the proverbial chatty cathy they had created a familiarity that had made David feel less alone. His sudden absence a result of instructions from Starfleet Operations had come as a surprise to Theo as much as they had to David. Seconded to an off-base mission at the Romulan border with immediate effect Theo had only enough time to explain his current experiment to his lab mate (an interesting review of changes to stellar drift following the Hobus incident) and was off to pack a bag. David didn’t envy him in the slightest, the thought of going anywhere near the Romulan border in the current climate sounded like an excellent way to pick up one of those scars the security boys were always so proud of showing off. Why anyone would want a lowly astrophysics scientist when Starfleet had a plethora of heroic captains, desperate for the next adventure was beyond him anyway.

A small chirp emitted from the console across the room.

“Ah, that time again is it Theo?” David smiled, grabbing his coffee as he quietly groaned with effort up from his seat. Theo’s research involved compiling new sensor scans of particular regions every 24 hours, the computer would track changes in stellar arrangement and present the information for review, the chirp meant that the recent set of scans were up.

Crossing to the opposite desk he mindlessly entered a quick set of commands to compile and present relevant transitions, then without thinking he began to enter a command to archive the date for Theo to review on his return. Till in the corner of his eye he noticed a small blinking green light, not normally present on the console’s stellar map, quiet and unobtrusive but unusual.

His hand hovered over the shortcut, “it’s probably nothing” he thought to himself, “a rogue body passing through a system unexpectedly.” But the blinking called to something in the back of David’s mind. The same something that had driven him into this career, curiosity. “At least i’m not a cat.” he muttered to himself as he pressed a different command and transferred the data to the holo table in the centre of the room.

A small red sun erupted from the centre of the table and began to be circled by 2 planetoids, each with a satellite moon, at the outer edge of the system a small cluster of asteroid debris, no doubt the sad remnants of a failed outer planetoid. Nothing particularly interesting to see here.

“Computer, please identify this system.”

“System R-97882, Valorum Sector, local designation Di’Van. Disputed territory previously controlled by the Romulan Star Empire.” The familiar voice said.

“And please explain why this system is of interest.”

“Records indicate this system contains 3 orbiting planetoids.”

“Probably an old record.” David muttered to himself. Accurate star charts of Romulan space were hard to come by even before the area had become a chaotic mess of factions, claiming, and renaming systems as their political allegiance changed. Making a mental note to tell Theo to update Starfleet Cartography he made a motion to dismiss the research until a nagging feeling caught his hand above the panel. Curiosity. Theo had been scanning these systems consistently for weeks, why now had the computer noticed the missing planetoid now?

“Computer please show side by side comparison of last report with the third planetoid with this current scan. Include date stamps.” His hand still hovered over the console, it was probably nothing but his inner cat was eager to know the truth. Within seconds the table had shifted to present the two scans, and there on the left was indeed the third planetoid, a lonely rock at the edge of the system; barely atmospheric and devoid of worth outside of its mineral value. It wasn’t the planetary analysis that made David take a sharp intake of breath. It was the time stamp, only 24 hours previous. Overnight an entire planet had ceased to be. To the right, an almost identical image, only where there had been a planet, a group of asteroids floated.

“Computer, compare composition of the asteroid cluster to that of the 3rd planetoid. Include mineral composition, relative mass and density information.”

“Processing” A single calm word began what felt like an eternity of waiting, as line after line of data began scrawling across the screen. Lists of elements began stacking up until it began to become clear that the cluster of rocks was originally the small, lonely planetoid. “Data indicates a 92% similarity.” The calm voice noted, completely unaware of the gravity of the statement.

“Computer, display electromagnetic scan.” David asked, something had shattered a planet into a hundred pieces, it had to leave a trace. His curiosity continued to push him to discovery.

The screen filled with a plethora of colours. Microwave and ultraviolet radiation arced around the system, the red sun’s distinct signature; radio and infrared signals pulsed through the planets, beginning their million year journey into the darkest reaches of space and there, surrounding the remains of Di’Van 3 was something unexpected. Something so unusual that David placed his coffee down on the desk; a large black void surrounding the remains of the planetoid, several thousand kilometres across it was focused at the heart of the cluster.

With a whisper “Computer, please identify the anomaly.”

“Anomaly is consistent with a subspace tear. Surrounding energy signature indicates the presence of an isolytic explosion.”

David’s coffee had barely hit the floor by the time the doors to the lab swished open with their familiar ease, as they closed they masked the furious foot falls of the Ensign as he ran down the corridor.

Silence fell upon the lab as the console lit up. One little green light, then two, then three little green lights, each one a warning to an absent watcher.

“…Kobol Alpha. Kobol Beta. Dynax. Train 5335. Cepal… Cepal…”

David glanced over his shoulder toward his large Bolian minder, who was amid muted whispers with a dark haired Orion woman by the only door to the room, their quiet mutterings distracting his memory. The giant blue bulk was leaning over the small keypad that would give David his escape from this dull grey cell of a room; painfully absent of any colour save the turquoise and emerald heads locked in collusion over in the corner. His only solace lay in the small block of transparent aluminium slotted between the bulkheads, barely bigger than a padd it granted him at least a small window onto the cosmos; a window he had gravitated toward in the third hour of his unexpected incarceration. There he had begun to name the stars, a meditative practice his supervisor Tolan had encouraged him to use during his time with the Vulcan science expedition. The young Ensign hadn’t realised just how noisy the world (or even his own mind) was when he was younger and the sudden stoic silence of a Vulcan starship flying through the vast emptiness of interstellar space had caused David to exhibit a great deal of anxious energy, sometimes to his physical detriment. Thankfully, rather than pass it off as a Human fault, his mentor had taught David to focus his energy into learning and meditation.

“Look to the stars David. Those bright little lights will be a constant for you, name them and know them. Only then will you be able to understand them better.” he had said as he guided fragile young human to the observation deck. “Channel your energy to the mastery of this moment and it will give a path to the next.” As the hyperventilating boy began to list off the stars his breathing slowed, his twitchiness ceased and his shoulders relaxed. To this day David is sure he heard Tolan smile.

So, here in this drab, oppressive and worryingly empty room David had begun to name the stars through his little window, to channel his energy into what he knew. He knew that when he woke up this morning he hadn’t expected to discover evidence of Isolytic explosions in the Di’van system, at the heart of disputed Romulan territory. He knew that when he had reported this to his superior he had been quickly whisked away by a security officer to these lower decks. He knew a holding room when he saw one. He knew that despite the teal colouring of their uniforms his roommates were most definitely not science officers. Finally, he knew that despite their muted conference both of the officers in the corner were maintaining a steady watch on them, like two heads of the hydra, ready to strike.

“Hydra. That’s it. Cepalhydra.” he muttered, slowly returning his head to the window. Behind him a swish of familiar doors sounded ominously muted.

“Mr. Mitchell. I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting, I trust you haven’t been too uncomfortable?” a voice spoke from behind. Slick, practiced, untrustworthy. It flowed with ease across the room and bounced with a juxtaposing politeness against David’s ears, almost deafening after straining to eavesdrop on his multicoloured guardians. He looked round the room with feigned comfort.

“Oh yes. Plushy.” he remarked as his eyes took in the newest entrant. Tall and skinny with oiled back white-blonde hair, his face was chiselled as if from stone. Long sharp lines edged his face down to a pointed chin as if he had been cut out of paper, every edge seemed capable of cutting glass or slicing skin. Bright blue eyes sat lightly in their sockets, perched atop a thin bird like nose and threadbare lips, like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point, they seemed twisted and clamped shut even at rest. Like the other two he wore the traditional teal of the sciences department and 3 pips graced his neck, two gold, one black; Lieutenant Commander.

“Maybe a little more respect, David.” he silently scolded himself.

“Excellent” the man said, “we aim to please.” His lips and practiced smile barely parting despite a voice that cut through the air, almost as sharp as his cheekbones.

“My name is Lt. Commander Maine. You’ve already met Specialists Ole and Hermira.” he motioned to the Bolian and then the Orion. Both of whom David now saw had a small square of metal where their pips would be. Hermira, the Orion he could buy as a science specialist, but the giant brute of a Bolian looked like he would struggle to spell string theory, let alone explain it.

Clearly his eye lingered a little too long as the Bolian uttered “Chemistry.” in a firm but rehearsed way. “Explosive Chemistry”. His smile widened into a grin as he glanced at the woman, revealing a large scar that spanned across his cheek and down to his chin. David had not noticed it at first due to the mottled pattern of his skin but it was old and deep, long ago healed. She turned to return his smile, revealing a large blotch of scar tissue across her neck and cheek. Faint, and difficult to distinguish against her dark green skin but David was taught to spot the needle in the haystack and he had seen healed burn patients before.

LtCom Maine didn’t flinch. “We represent a group of people tasked with monitoring and managing dangerous anomalies.”

“I don’t remember ever hearing of a Science Council department that locked people away so they could manage… anomalies.” David interrupted, his tongue tripped on the last word as his mind caught him, could he the anomaly? He hadn’t thought that he was the one in danger.

“I never said the Science Council. It’s all above board I assure you” Maine said, waiving his hands dismissively. “But the blue shoulders mean we don’t make anyone nervous whilst we work.” his head tilting in mock camaraderie. “This morning you brought to your supervisor’s attention evidence of an isolytic explosion within Romulan space. You presented to her a theory that for some reason an isolytic explosion had occurred on the third planet causing its destruction. You noted the most likely cause was an energy or weapons test gone wrong.”

David sat silently, he had indeed hypothesised that it could be a failed weapons test. No-one this side of the galaxy was stupid enough to use isolytic reactions as an energy source, the most logical explanation was someone trying to create isoltyic weapons which either failed and destroyed the experiment or more worryingly succeeded and was being test fired.

“That’s what Theo believed as well.” Maine said, his hands offering a padd toward David.

Taking the padd in hand, David was silent as he began scrolling through the notes, all in Theo’s voice, outlining a series of similar cases in surrounding uninhabited systems. Starting with comets and asteroids, then small moons and then a few weeks ago up to a small planetoid. Di’van was the 7th clear incident of a stellar body disappearing overnight, leaving evidence of isolytic subspace weapons. He read the log entries and reports whilst Maine watched silently.

Eventually David licked his lips and spoke. “Somethings not right. Subspace tears are attracted to warp drives, that’s the danger. They race across space towards the nearest subspace field, ripping open space behind them. All these explosions seem static and contained.”

“Theo also said that.” Maine said, his thin lips and shallow eyes betraying nothing.

“I don’t understand. What does this have to do with Theo. Or me for that matter.” David sighed, even his Vulcan taught patience was beginning to wear thin with this cut-out man who reeked of secret police, spies and deeds better left in the dark. “We find things, we report things and then captains go off and solve things.”

“That’s not entirely true David. There are plenty of us who do the groundwork so they can look good. For every hero there’s hundreds of unnamed people moving in the background. Theo was one of those people, working hard to discover a dangerous threat, one that he took us the call to stop. And like Theo, by discovering this you’ve accidently become part of a trusted few.” Maine paused, but not long enough for David to block his ears defensively. “A rogue group has managed to secure what appears to be a Tal Shiar experiment to produce controlled Isolytic weaponry. When the Hobus incident occurred the Tal Shiar and now the Romulan Free State lost track of a great deal of things. Unfortunately being the Tal Shiar rather than simply lossing a ship or a stock of torpedoes they seem to have lost a large lab filled with everything you could need to make subspace weapons.”

David’s jaw felt like it was about to fall into his lap as his mind took a step ahead of Maine’s bony lips.

“Theo was dispatched with a small team of my colleagues to investigate and secure the possible threat. It seemed like a good way to add an expert and manage the flow of classified information.” Maine paused, for a second a pained expression passed across his face. “We lost contact with them when they entered the system.”

“Dead?” David quietly muttered.

“Unknown. But you will get the chance to find out.” Maine sighed “I need a new physicist and you already know top secret information. Welcome to Theta Squad Mr. Mitchell.” Maine offerd out a slim, sleek, cold hand. When David didn’t pick it up he continued, “we leave within the hour from India 4-2. Until then Ole will be staying with you. To keep you safe.” Maine didn’t even hang around for an answer and was gone through the same silent door, followed by the Orion. Leaving David alone, with just a silent Bolian and his anxiety to keep him company, his body felt like it was about to burst, questions raced through his mind and his leg twitched with the desperate energy to run.

With a small shudder he turned back to the window and began his routine.

“…Kobol Alpha. Kobol Beta. Dynax. Train 5335. Theo… oh Theo…”

Maine looked to a casual viewer like an old mercenary. Sprawled on the large sofa that spanned the window side in Nestus’s aft facing observation lounge, now wearing olive fatigues combined with sturdy boots and trousers with one too many pockets, he could easily be mistaken for roving pair of hands for hire. He was rummaging in the pockets of a short leather jacket as David silently entered the lounge, still dressed in the ruffled blue uniform he had been wearing when Maine and his team had whisked him away from Starbase Bravo, save for his combadge which had been removed during the transfer.

“Have you ever…” Maine paused, looking up towards the door. “Have you ever put something somewhere safe and completely forgotten where it is.” He returned to his rummaging.

“No. Not really.” David replied, sharp annoyance tingling at the tip of his tongue. He’d been on this boat for days and no-one had given him a real reason, the most he had got was out of the giant Bolian who had released him from his cell of a room. The blue giant had shoved a padd in his hand with a schematic of the ship and a list of what authorisations he now had to the computer. Limited replicator access, limited library access, limited information and as David would discover after replicating a fresh uniform limited was the operative word. He only had basic replicator access, which didn’t surprise him, but his access to the ship’s library was aggressively locked down. When he asked why he was here the Bolian had chuckled and simply said “Maine picked you.”

“It seems you’ve also forgotten about me.” David hissed. “Makes for a bad jailor who forgets his prisoners.” It was a cheap shot but David was on edge and his mother always said he could be petty when cornered.

“I’m not your jailor David.” Maine said without looking up, his focus now switching to a small pack that lay under the coat. “Would you expect to walk onto someone’s ship and just be able to have access to everything?”

“I wouldn’t expect to be locked in a room until I was summoned.” David spat.

“You were never locked in your room.” Maine said, his head tilting slightly to the side. “Did you never try the door?”

In truth, David had not tried the door. And as he felt his face flush with embarrassment he turned toward the window, hoping to obscure his features from Maine. He had assumed in his sullen mood that he was indeed a prisoner, replete with locked cell door and aloof jailor.

“We assumed you were getting acclimated, or were just wildly antisocial.” Maine continued. “It’s a small ship, I just assumed you’d go wandering eventually.” A sharp smile spread across his face. “I expected you to be more inquisitive.” He returned to fumbling in the bag.

As the colour of his features slid faster down the hill toward true beetroot David admonished himself, “Obviously I should’ve tried the door. What person doesn’t think to even try the door?”

As silence settled into the room, punctuated only by the untellable mutterings of Maine, David stared out the large transparent steel windows at the starfield Nestus left in its wake. Unobstructed by nacelles or overhanging hulls the view could easily carry you away like a speck of dust in the wind and as he unconsciously moved over to take a seat at the end of the sofa he felt the sting of his heat of his embarrassment ebb away.

“We’re not the bogy man-David.” Maine muttered quietly but clearly into the depths of his bag. “I know people think there are all the secret little groups running around.” He paused, contemplatively. “And sometimes there are.” He seemed to shudder, minutely, almost unnoticeable, but David was used to seeing tiny changes in the normal. “We’re fully above board, sanctioned and under instruction by Starfleet Operations. I even have to file paperwork.” Maine offered a smile, different than the one David had seen originally at Starbase Bravo, this one seemed smaller, it didn’t stretch his cheeks into a ghastly visage, it seemed more honest, less performative.

“Then why did you pressgang me onto your ship.” David hissed, his ire had fallen somewhat in his embarrassment but he felt the fire stoked at Maine’s attempt at friendliness. The man had stolen him away from his home and more importantly from his work, packaged him aboard this dingy of a starship and was now trying to befriend him. “That’s how they get you, you’ll break more rules for a friend.” He quietly thought to himself, almost fearful that Maine might be spying on his mind.

“It wasn’t a pressgang.” Maine sighed, his form falling back into the firm burgundy cushions of the sofa. “I had a mission, I required a field specialist. You were already aware of the situation, you have the relevant skills and at the risk of offending you…” he paused, and held up his hands in honesty “weren’t so vital to the running of Starbase Bravo that you would be missed.” He paused again, the palpable silence waiting for one of them to push first. In the end Maine gave a great shove. “Base commander and admiralty agreed so you were transferred.”

“Without consultation?” David spat, he could push too.

“It’s the military, what do you expect?” Maine retorted, he wasn’t falling over that easily.

“Starfleet isn’t a military.” David said, his tone almost convincing. It’s hard to push a pillar of certainty.

“They gave you a uniform, sent you to their training camp, gave you a billet. Taught you to say yes sir, no sir. To trust orders and rank. They made you a soldier David, maybe one with really big and noble dreams but a soldier anyway. They taught you to fight and taught you to trust them and they taught you that sometimes people die in service to the dream.” For a moment David thought he saw the flash of anger, like a black hole off in deep space, more noticeable by its absence then its presence. Maybe Maine wasn’t pushing, maybe he was pulling.

David sat silently for a moment. “I’m a scientist.” He whispered quietly, science would be his anchor as it always had been.

“Do you think the scientists were spared Wolf 359, or the Dominion War.  Do you think the blue of their uniform gave them any more protection?” Maine spoke to the air. It was a well rehearsed speech, spoken many times to empty mirrors and silent audiences of unmoved imaginary admirals.

It took a moment before David realised he was looking in his direction. “No.” David muttered quietly, even his steadfast foundation of science was not enough to stand against what was clearly a tempest in Maine. It was a similar argument he had heard from his parents when he had first suggested joining up.

“No. Those little metal dots on your collar tell me you are a soldier of Starfleet. Whatever colour you might be wearing.” Maine sighed, another shudder, though not of anger. “Starfleet, whose mandate is to protect the Federation and everyone in it.” Stifling the rising fire in his throat he put his hands in his pockets and almost instantly withdrew his right hand with a hissing of his lips. “Stupid thing.” he spat as he fished something out of his pocket.

“We’re all just soldiers David, we go where we’re told, do what we’re told and hope that it’s for something worthwhile. I believe in strange new worlds and 5 year missions and going where no-one has gone before.” His eye twinkled for a second. “I really do, but unfortunately when you put that badge on, you made a choice to take the risk of that soldier’s life.” His right hand extended, open palm. Within it sat a small golden Delta. “I need your help David. I need you to choose.”