Yuulik was circling her at a leisurely pace, searching for any gap in her defences through which she could strike.  Frankly, It was the same way Captain Taes started most of her days.  

On this morning, Sootrah Yuulik raised her hands to strike with her palms rather than her wicked tongue.  She reported to Deep Space 17’s gymnasium dressed for the job she clearly wanted: taking down Taes.  With her two strips of brown hair tightly braided back, Yuulik wore a Starfleet wresting singlet that was nearly identical to the one Taes was wearing too, except Yuulik’s was highlighted in science teal while Taes’ was decorated with stripes of command crimson.  Slightly crouched in athletic stances, they circled one another in one of the gymnasium’s private wrestling rings, each one poised with outstretched arms, grasping at the air between them.

“How did you know?” Taes asked her.  As much as Taes’ intonation was conspiratorial –like she was asking Yuulik to let her in on a secret– she knew Yuulik well enough to layer a hint of reverence in her tone too.  That would get her talking.  “What was the moment you realised the clay on Tenope was sentient?”

At first blush, Yuulik sneered at Taes’ small talk.  Taes could imagine Yuulik was smart enough to recognise it as a distraction tactic.  All the same, Yuulik didn’t lose her stride and she responded right away.  “What else could it have been?  Ghosts?” Yuulik replied sardonically.  Over-sharing too many details as always, Yuulik went on, “The locals requested our help because the walls were talking to them.  Our survey was quick to identify it wasn’t happening in the houses made from plasteel.  Dolan assumed it must have been a temporal phenomenon: the houses built in a certain time period may have absorbed cosmic radiation that–“

“I’m not too proud to admit,” Taes interjected, as she continued to shuffle her spiral around Yuulik, “I was prepared for us to leave orbit not long after you shared Dolan’s theory.  The Dvorak‘s utility stores were worryingly low after our weeks of aid to Kunhri Three and ch’Couvae.  We couldn’t delay our resupply on Deep Space Seventeen for much longer.”

Yuulik snickered at that first thing Taes said.  “You still have a sweet spot for Ensign D–“

Before she could finish the thought, Yuulik took a swing to grab the back of Taes’ bald head.  Taes ducked beneath Yuulik’s arm and she snapped her own arm behind Yuulik’s neck, pulling her in close for a choke hold.  Emphasizing her original question, Taes asked, “When.  Did.  You.  Know?”

“I didn’t know.  I never knew!” Yuulik snarled back at Taes, as she shrugged away from Taes’ arm.  “Not even when I told the governor it was the yellow clay.  I didn’t really know then, okay?  I considered all the data, everything including the tricorder malfunctions and interview transcription errors.  I could see the voices were only coming from the walls of yellow houses, made from yellow bricks, made from yellow clay.  The only reason those houses were older was because they had stopped producing bricks from that clay.”

Taes didn’t notice at what point she had started paying more attention to Yuulik’s words, rather than her body, until Yuulik wrapped an arm behind Taes’ neck and dropped Taes face first into the wrestling mat.  On her knees, Taes managed to catch herself before her face connected with the mat.  Taes tried to reel away from Yuulik in a roll, causing Yuulik to stumble and fall, but she wouldn’t release Taes from her clutches.  Even splayed against the mat, Yuulik walked her feet clockwise around the ring to move her own body behind Taes and snared one of her legs with one of her own.

“I don’t know how I do half of what I do,” Yuulik spat out, as she wrapped one arm around Taes’ abdomen and hooked her other arm around Taes’ right elbow.  “It’s like I was genetically engineered to be a science officer.  …Ew, but not literally.”

On her hands and knees, Taes scrabbled to escape Yuulik, and even as Taes managed to cross the mat, Yuulik followed her, holding on desperately.  Yuulik threw her full body weight against Taes, pinning her down to the mat.  Trying another gambit, Taes grunted, “I thought… it might be time… to remove the word acting… from your title.”

“Chief Science Officer Yuulik has a musical beauty to the way it sounds,” Yuulik said in agreement.

At that, Taes could feel Yuulik’s grip loosening, even if only by a couple of newtons of force.  Taes swung her own body, rolling onto her back, sandwiching Yuulik between her body and the mat.  Despite the violence of the move, Yuulik never lost her grip on Taes’ elbow and abdomen.  “I never told you,” Taes grunted out, as she pinned Yuulik to the floor.  “Every time Consul Kecene displayed mild excitement about the seaweed farms,” Taes remarked, “it was one of your ideas.”

Yuulik struggled beneath Taes, clearly searching for some new leverage.  “It hurt me that you didn’t make me chief officially,” Yuulik admitted through gritted teeth, “when you promoted me to full lieutenant.”

Taes managed to intensify her roll, finally escaping Yuulik’s grasp.  The two of them scrambled to their feet and found themselves back where they started: circling each other, looking for weaknesses.

“I told you,” Taes emphatically said, “You were due the promotion in rank.  And I’m sorry, I still wasn’t ready to trust you with the entire science department.  It’s practically half the crew on a science ship like Dvorak.”

Scoffing and shaking her head, Yuulik asked, “What about now?  Are you ready to trust me?”

Breathing out a sigh, Taes said, “Tell me this: why are you here?  I’ve granted the entire crew extended shore leave.  After everything our mission to Kunhri put us through, you could all use a taste of home, or at least pampering, before we head back into the Typhon Frontier.  Our mission of exploration could take us out of Federation space for a year, maybe two.  Why haven’t you scattered like the rest of the crew?”

“Where would I go?” Yuulik said through what sounded like a bitter laugh to Taes’ ears.  Yuulik started to say something else, starting with, “You–“, but the computer interrupted with a chirp from the comms.

“Commodore Ekwueme to Captain Taes,” the third voice entered the room.  “I would welcome your company in observation lounge eight.”

Taes rolled her head back, groaning in annoyance at the overhead, before she opened the comm channel in response.  “Taes here,” she said, “I’ll join you presently, sir.”  Once the comms chirped off, Taes pointed a finger at Yuulik, and she promised, “To be continued.”  And then she sighed again, saying, “I need find a uniform…”

Fidgeting with her combadge, Taes hesitated outside observation lounge number eight.  Hanging back, beyond the range of the doors’ sensors, Taes repositioned the combadge on her uniform, ensuring the arrowhead was pointing in the precisely correct direction.  She recognised this, in herself, as another delaying tactic.  Had Taes been born hundreds of years earlier, she might have taken a smoke break to kill some time, and keep her hands busy, and disassociate from the matter at hand.

Taes had met with Commodore Uzoma Ekwueme, some weeks earlier, at the captains’ briefing aboard the USS Temeraire.  As commander of the  Fourth Fleet Expeditionary Group, Ekwueme had ordered USS Dvorak to proceed to Kunhri III, in romulan space, and assist the reman provisional government with establishing a system of agriculture and food distribution.  While the Dvorak‘s ecologists and anthropologists had been successful in deploying an agricultural infrastructure that would best suit the remans, it had come at a cost.  A romulan plot to discredit the Federation’s reputation had led to the death of several remans, as well as Dvorak‘s chief science officer.  Taes’ inexperience as a diplomat had resulted in the Dvorak being banished from the Kunhri system.  It was only through a judicious mix of negotiation, and mild subterfuge, that Taes had persuaded the provisional government, and their Consul of Vitality Kecene, to embrace Dvorak‘s vision for food security and, potentially, agricultural industry.

Taking a deep breath, Taes supposed she had been waiting for a meeting like this.  She had been waiting for a hard conversation about the death of her science chief.  Or, worse, Ekwueme had received updates from Kunhri III and Taes could imagine all the myriad ways their farming systems could have failed by now.  Unable to bear the anticipation any longer, Taes folded her hands behind her back and she strode towards the doors into the lounge.  As the doors parted for Taes, she found Commodore Uzoma Ekwueme waiting for her.  At first glance, Ekwueme tilted his head at her, but his expression was as inscrutable as ever.  Taes simply took that as a challenge to maintain her own mask of placid aloofness.  Along with Ekwueme was Captain Andreus Kohl, the executive officer of the fourth fleet’s deep space operations, Task Force 17, of which Dvorak was assigned.  Taes offered greetings to them both and they replied in kind.

For all of Taes’ fears of her ego and her heart, a vaguely maternal instinct washed over her.  Her first thought, in the moment, was for her crew and her ship.  “You can tell me, commodore,” Taes said, “has something gone wrong with Dvorak‘s repairs and resupply?”  

Through the floor-to-ceiling viewports, Taes became distracted from her own question by a Sutherland-class starship, darkened without running lights, which was docked to the exterior of the Conopus-class starbase.  That starship hadn’t been present when Captain Taes had brought the USS Dvorak limping home; Taes supposed she must have arrived recently.  Section by section, the starship’s running lights began to flare on, showcasing the wide oval of the saucer section, adorned with the black band around the upper rim of the saucer that had come into fashion with the newest generation of starships.  The Sutherland-class research cruiser was configured much like the Nebula-class heavy cruiser before her: with a sizeable secondary hull clutched close to the underside of the saucer, underslung warp nacelles, and a triangular mission module protruding from the secondary hull, which eclipsed the aft of the saucer section.

The running lights on the forward section of the saucer came alive, lighting up the name of this Sutherland-class starship: USS Sarek.  NCC-91806.

Commodore Ekwueme fixed Taes with an amused, if challenging, gaze.  He told her, “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Captain Taes.  We haven’t invited you here to discuss the Dvorak at all.” 

August 2400

The week Captain Taes took command of USS Sarek

“Don’t go,” Elbon whispered.

Reaching out in the dark, Elbon Jakkelb rolled onto his side in the bed.  He searched for Kellin using the pads of his fingertips.  He felt a weight on the mattress shift.  Elbon was reluctant to sit up –reluctant to move out of his half-dreaming state– because the buttery softness of the vacation resort’s bedsheets felt unlike anything he’d experienced before, even in the fully-automated luxury of Starfleet.  His palm found Kellin Rayco’s thigh, where Kellin was sitting at the foot of the bed.  Judging by the fabric, Elbon was dismayed to feel that Kellin had gotten dressed in the dark.

“You said we’re going for a hike later,” Elbon said, his words mumbled through his dreamy fog.  “You don’t need to work out.”  He squeezed Kellin’s thickly muscled leg to make his point.

Kellin whispered back, “I go to the gym on Dvorak without you every day.”  Elbon only heard good-natured humour in Kellin’s words; he sounded genuinely surprised by Elbon’s concern.  Still, Elbon took notice of Kellin’s choice of words too.  Kellin leaned back and he kissed Elbon on the shoulder.  “Go back to sleep,” Kellin added.

Elbon leaned into Kellin, wrapping his arms around the strongly-built Trill’s midsection.  “Give me five minutes,” Elbon said, pleading lightly, “and I’ll come with.”  For all his promise of a romantic couple’s workout, Elbon clung to Kellin to keep himself upright.  The weight of Kellin was the only tether holding Elbon to wakefulness.

“Don’t worry so much,” Kellin replied.  Elbon could easily imagine Kellin sticking his tongue out at him in the dark.  “I promise there are no Remans vacationing on Argelius,” Kellin teased.

That assumption made Elbon tense up.  He hoped Kellin couldn’t feel his arms and shoulders stiffen.  This was the first time Kellin had made mention about the timing of Elbon’s invitation to him.  After serving together aboard Dvorak for months, Elbon had invited his estranged husband, Kellin, on vacation mere moments after Kellin had been released from his imprisonment on Kunhri III.  Kellin had been arrested, briefly, and accused of murdering several Reman youths.  Upon a review of the evidence –and some mild bribery from Captain Taes– the Remans had released Kellin and Elbon had been waiting for him.  Elbon had showered Kellin with more affection in a minute than he had in all the time they’d served together.  Between kisses, Elbon had promised Kellin an intimate shore leave to recover.  “I’d miss you,” Elbon said, “even in my dreams.”  They both had a lot to recover from.

“I thought,” Kellin said bashfully, “you’d get bored of my face by now.  Or I’d need a breather from you taking everything too seriously.”  Kellin relaxed his posture, his body melting against Elbon.  “It hasn’t happened.  I promise.”

Speaking in his full voice, Elbon said, “I’d rather be around you than not.”

“It’s effortless.  You know how to make me feel calm,” Kellin replied warmly.  After a pause, Kellin asked, “Why isn’t it this easy on Dvorak?”

“Do we have to psychoanalyze this?” Elbon asked.

“Isn’t that why we came here?” Kellin retorted.

Elbon sank back onto the mattress and he pulled the luxurious sheets over his skin.  He didn’t respond.  Kellin finished tugging his shoes on.

Kellin was leading Elbon along a narrow walking trail between a cluster of molten-looking mushrooms that were the size of panthers.  The pair were traversing through a place of uncommon beauty on Argelius II, known as Lodine Thicket.  The earth was coated in brown moss and wide, flat mushrooms that look like cooling molten rock. Growing up to just above Kellin’s 195 centimetres were stumpy, orange mushrooms that grew wider at the base than at the tip, and they were flowering with fronds that looked like dripping goop. Growing even taller than both men were massive green pitcher plants and baffling white mushroom-trees that looked terribly like spinal cords, to Kellin’s eyes, with segmented discs and sacs piling all the way up.  The thicket scared Kellin when they’d first entered it, and yet now he craved it all the more.

For some time now, Kellin had been sharing a long-winded story about how it felt like there was a rock in one of his hiking boots, and yet whenever he took it off, he could find nothing inside.  Tilting his head in Elbon’s direction, Kellin softened his features and  he slouched, in hopes of avoiding a defensive reaction from Elbon. Kellin further furrowed his brows and widened his blue eyes, in his most intentional puppy-dog expression.  

Out of the blue, Kellin remarked, “I do miss you, you know.”

Elbon didn’t react at first, didn’t respond right away.  Much like Kellin, he was wearing a Starfleet athletic tank top and short-shorts from the 2380s.  It was the only choice for the heat in his region of the planet.  Elbon’s first response was only to pick at the fabric of his tank top at the shoulders, untwisting it where it had curled.  Continuing in his stride, Elbon replied, “You don’t need to miss me, you know.”  There was something appeasing in his tone of voice, but there was also something condescending too.  “We live on the same deck.”

“I’ve tried,” Kellin said, a little diffidently.  He shrugged one shoulder at Elbon, but he couldn’t hold eye-contact with him for long.  While increasing the pace of his stride, Kellin said, “After I was body-swapped with Yuulik, I asked for your advice a few times.  The experience made me question some things… literally seeing myself from the exterior.  But walking a couple of decks to the orchestra pit lounge was too far for you…”

Elbon breathed out a huff through his nose.  “I’m sorry about that.  I am,” he said.  He spoke quietly, with defeat in his tone.  “I told you then, it was… stressful learning how to work with Taes, at first.  I was spiraling in my own head at the time.” –Elbon chuckled slightly– “And you only get introspective late, when I’m already sleeping.  Just because I said no, just because I hurt you, that doesn’t mean you give up.”

Trudging onward, Kellin said, “It makes logical sense when you say it like that…” and he trailed off as if he had been check-mated.  After another six steps, Kellin shook his head and he added, “I guess it feels so much like rejection in the moment.  It can be hard to shake off.”

The path they had been hiking came to an abrupt end.  Elbon turned around to face Kellin, to look right at him.  As if he had pathetic fallacy on his side, Elbon raised his voice to be heard above the crashing sound of water.  The path had led them to a cliff’s edge, across the way from a majestic waterfall.  “Okay, okay, I haven’t been the most available,” Elbon said, “but keeping score isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“It has to mean something, doesn’t it?” Kellin asked helplessly.  He threw his arms open wide.  “We breathe the same air every day and you can never find many words for me.  We’ve run out of anything to talk about.  Isn’t that… resignation?”

Shaking his head at Kellin vigorously, Elbon closed the physical distance between them.  He took hold of Kellin by the shoulders and he tilted his head up to look Kellin right in the eyes.  “You’re not the cause of my introversion,” Elbon insisted.  “You might be a victim of it, but it’s not about you.”

Wincing at Elbon, Kellin asked, “Then what is it?”  His eyebrows raised and the tension in his shoulders relaxed at Elbon’s touch.  Speaking softer now, with Elbon so close, Kellin admitted, “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.  Like I don’t remember you right.”

Elbon didn’t say anything.  He raised a hand to brush the back of his fingers down Kellin’s jawline, luxuriating in Kellin’s strawberry-blond beard.  “You know me,” Elbon said and he kissed Kellin.  Kellin didn’t hesitate to kiss him back.  After breathing in sharply, Elbon breathed out a single, delighted, “hah,” between Kellin’s lips.  “I haven’t heard you make that sound since–“

But Kellin interrupted him.  “That wasn’t me.”

Through the thicket, Kellin could hear a sniffing and snorting sound that escalated into a bellowing roar. It sounded like a bugle crying through jagged teeth. Between the trees, he spotted a mass of flesh skittering towards them. It was the size of a rhinoceros. The thing had seven legs protruding from its tubular body, and it spiraled to alternate between club-like elephant feet and scorpion-stinger feet. Its flesh was mostly transparent, which allowed its insides to visibly glow with the neon spiderweb that may have been its nervous or digestive systems. The thing trampled through mushrooms and trees of all sizes, trampled towards the men who had been making such disagreeable argument noises.

Elbon was the first to react.  “By the prophets, just shoot it,” he demanded.

Kellin didn’t look at him when he responded. He kept his eyes on the massive creature, watched the way it moved. “I didn’t bring a phaser on our date,” Kellin shouted back.

Elbon was already crouched to the ground, pulling a type-one phaser out of his boot.  It didn’t take Elbon much longer to jump back up to his full height and aim his phaser at the beast barrelling towards them.  A heartbeat later, Elbon dropped the phaser.  “Nope,” Elbon said emphatically.  And then he turned around and he sprinted to the cliff’s edge. Without looking back, he dove off the cliff, leaving Kellin behind. 

2375

“—they remain sequestered to this day,” Ranjen Ganjhel said briskly.  Her mien surreptitious, Ganjhel glanced back over her shoulder, peering into the darkened hallway.  After another moment, she appeared satisfied by their privacy in the laundry room.  “The Vedek Assembly remains divided on when the time will come to elect a new kai.”

Her words elicited a grimace that brought pain to Ranjen Elbon Jakkelb’s face.  Earnestly, Elbon asked, “Our Eminence left no writings, not one clue to her whereabouts?”  Ganjhel returned Elbon’s gaze with a flash of truculence behind her eyes.  

Elbon clutched, more tightly, a pile of purple robes to his abdomen.  These robes were the same as the oversized vestments Ganjhel and Elbon both wore, as ranjen in the Bajoran faith.  While the layered robes hugged Ganhel’s form in a regal fashion, Elbon felt swallowed up by the frock.  Looking down at himself, tall and gangly, he felt like a child playing dress-up.

By the time Elbon looked up again, Ganjhel replied with a negative shake of her head.  Elbon mouthed a silent “thank you” to Ganjhel, but no sound came out.  Only when Ganjhel turned to walk away did Elbon find his voice again.  Breathlessly, he asked, “And what of the Emissary?”

With her back to Elbon, Ganjhel remarked, “The rumours have spread… Vedek Tusyem gave a sermon this morning… metaphorically implying the Emissary has taken rest in the Celestial Temple.”

Ganjhel had gone by the time the pile of robes fell from Elbon’s grasp.  For the first time in his nearly quarter-century of life, Elbon felt utterly hollowed out, like Ganjhel had taken his guts with her.  It wasn’t a simple absence.  He had grown up knowing want.  Elbon knew hunger more than he knew satiation.  He was intimate with feeling like he was lacking something, but this was a deeper horror.  This was loss.  Once, he had hold of something, and in a blink it was gone.

Elbon began to paw at his own chest, scrabbling for the hooks and the loops that held his robe together.  He felt no recognition of the wailing noise that escaped him; it may have been a cry, but it may have been a laugh.  He tore the robe from his body and he discarded it thoughtlessly.

Moving like a sleepwalker, Elbon lurched to swing open a closet door.  He dove into the donation bin, tossing aside articles of clothing that had been donated for the orphans.  He felt moved by the hand of the Prophets; his body was not his own and he submitted to their will.  Grasping a garb between both of his fists, Elbon pulled out an archaic Starfleet uniform jacket.  He recognized it by its maroon colour and the white epaulet, even though the arrowhead insignia were long gone.  This, Elbon recognised, was the vestment the Emissary.  Without thinking, Elbon slung the jacket over his bare shoulders, warming himself in the Emissary’s embrace.

April 2398

The week Elbon and Kellin were first married

“Have you decided?” Elbon Jakkelb asked, breaking the comfortable silence between them.  Under the desert sun, Elbon’s skin was glowing and his posture was loose.  He didn’t appear the slightest bit winded by the uphill trek.  Kellin hadn’t known Elbon for long, but he could see a furrow of concern in Elbon’s brow –right above the Bajoran’s nose ridges– and a smirk of something else at the corner of his lips.

“Hmm?” Kellin Rayco intoned back.  His conscious mind had gone away to some other plane of existence.  He couldn’t recall for how long they had been hiking through the H’erat desert in silence.  Rather, Kellin’s attentions had been tied up in his senses, appreciating the arid landscape and the dramatic rock formations that created jagged hills all around them.  He had also been appreciating the landscapes of Elbon’s firm body too.   Dumbfounded Kellin asked, “Decided what?”

“How you’re going to tell your mother you got married on a whim?” Elbon impishly said.  There was a wild fire behind his blue eyes and his smirk erupted into a full smile.  Kellin had already shared with Elbon how anxious he felt about telling his parents about their impulsive decision, and Elbon had already shared with Kellin how much the chaos of it all appealed to him.  Elbon couldn’t quite know what it felt like, Kellin supposed, because Elbon had lost his entire family in childhood.  At least, that was Kellin’s current understanding.  Thus far, Elbon had deftly deflected any of Kellin’s inquiries about the details.

At the mention of their marriage, Kellin took hold of Elbon’s wrist and he planted a kiss on the betrothal bracelet he wore.  Kellin had picked out that bracelet from the Risian resort’s gift shop exactly four days after he had met Elbon on Risa, exactly four minutes before they had run into the wedding chapel, and exactly four days before they had arrived on Bajor to begin their impromptu honeymoon.  His shoulders softening, Kellin literally pouted when he said, “She’s going to be heartbroken that she missed it.”

“She loves you,” Elbon said emphatically.  Kellin wondered how Elbon could know that –having never met her– and yet he loved the way Elbon sounded so certain.  “She has to understand you’re your own man,” Elbon said and Kellin returned that statement with a dubious expression.  Elbon laughed, and he added, “…Worst case, I can marry us again.”

The sky was unforgivingly cloudless and the sun was high overhead, giving the white sands a blinding quality. Kellin reached up to adjust the cream-coloured cloak of his desert uniform, tugging on it to provide more protection for his eyes.  Kellin asked, “Is that a responsibility of diplomatic officers I don’t know about?”

Even though Elbon was close enough that their elbows brushed together as they walked, he was forced to squint to look at Kellin directly.  “No,” Elbon said, “I’m a ranjen.”

“…What?” was all Kellin could think to say, dumbfounded again.

“Before I joined Starfleet, I served the Prophets as a ranjen,” Elbon answered.  Elbon displayed no outward signs of discomfort at the superheated air, the brightness, nor the uneven terrain of the rocky dessert.  The sheen of perspiration on his skin was appealingly dewy.  He might as well have been strolling through a meadow on a spring morning.

Kellin, by comparison, felt as if he were drenched with his own sweat. Despite the miracle materials that made up his hot weather uniform, the fabric was sticking to him in warm, wet patches. Even worse, what little of his skin was exposed to the sun felt as if it were reddened and swelling with sunburn.  Worse, the spots along his hairline that marked him as Trill were starting to itch.  Following his first thought, Kellin asked, “What made you quit the Vedek Assembly?”

“We don’t have to do that,” Elbon replied easily.  Figurative clouds passed over his eyes, masking the open, jovial mien Kellin had observed in Elbon all morning.  “The past is behind us.  There’s no benefit in examining every crevice of every day behind us.  What matters is now, right now, and building a future together, right?”

“Yeah,” Kellin said unsteadily.  “…I guess so.”

“What about security officers,” Elbon asked, quick to return to the earlier conversation, “can they conduct marriages, if we’re going to perform a second service for your family?”

Chuckling, Kellin replied with a, “No, that hasn’t been in my training.”

Shaking his head as if he were overcome by a realisation, Elbon asked, “What do you actually do on the USS Uzaveh?”

Kellin nodded at that question, also recognising that they had never spoken at length about their day jobs.  Their duty to Starfleet had been the last thing they had wanted to talk about on Risa… when they had been in a mood to talk at all.  “I maintain the crew’s sovereignty,” Kellin said, echoing something a mentor had said to him, in a childish attempt to sound intelligent to Elbon.  “And I defend the crew’s safety.”

“No, I know,” Elbon said, bobbing his head from side to side.  “I took that class in bridge officer training too, but what do you do?  How do you spend your days?”

“I serve bridge duty, most shifts,” answered Kellin. Although the answer had come quickly, he couldn’t hide the distraction in his tone. He retrieved the tricorder from his pocket and tried to make sense of the map on the display.  “Ugh,” he breathed out in frustration, while he waved the tricorder one way, and then the other.  After an excited, “Wait,” Kellin took hold of Elbon by the shoulder.  When Kellin turned to walk in a new direction, he pulled Elbon along with him.

Following the new path of travel obediently, Elbon put his trust in Kellin, even though they were venturing around Elbon’s planet of origin.  Responding to what Kellin had said, Elbon asked, “And that’s enough for you? Monitoring ship status; maintaining weapon systems… You find that fulfilling?”

Kellin shook his head, but it was to say, “I don’t understa–” Looking up from his tricorder again, Kellin could see it now. From a distance, he could see the abandoned H’erat settlement at the base of the largest rocky outcropping.  That jagged hill was encircled by the ancient H’erat aqueduct; in its hand-crafted beauty, the aqueduct looked like a crown from this distance.  “Ah,” Kellin said, “There it is.”

“–Bajorans have lived here for centuries.  The design and construction of this aqueduct has become a thing of legend to the quadrant at large.  Many families of H’erat could trace their lineage back to the time of the aqueduct’s inception,” Elegy said, sounding haunted.  They had hiked into the abandoned town, meandering between small homes and places of business or worship.  Elegy put a hand on what must have been a window, or maybe a door, into one such half-collapsed structure.  “By the Prophet’s will, they even survived the occupation, but in the past decade… everybody left.  One by one, the community dispersed and started anew elsewhere.”

Kellin put a hand on Elbon’s waist as he stepped around him, before venturing into the damaged structure on his own. “A ruin,” Kellin remarked.  Venturing further inside, Kellin asked, “What can cause a community to just up and leave like that?  Especially in a time of rebuilding and rebirth on Bajor?  It’s not as if they were young and hopeful, taking on more than they could manage.  Like you said, they had survived in this harsh climate for centuries…”

“Maybe someone made a minuscule mistake and their life got harder, and then someone else made a minuscule mistake and their life got harder,” Elbon said, thinking aloud, “until people started to walk away, one by one.  And then that was it.  There was a crack through the foundation of this beautiful dream.  So few of them remained, and no one wanted to admit their mistakes, but their resiliency had been shaken.  Every little huge mistake that followed took them careering even faster to ruin.”

“Mmm,” was all Kellin said in response. Elbon stood watching Kellin explore the empty home.

They had retreated from the scorching sun. Having found an abounded home that was intact enough to provide some shade, Elbon had sat himself down in what might have been a kitchen, once.  He’d taken off most of his uniform and laid it out to dry.  He’d leaned back against the tall segment of wall and Kellin had laid across Elbon’s lap. Making himself comfortable, Kellin had rested his head against Elbon’s chest, and even in the heat, they managed a light doze.

But then Elbon was patting Kellin’s left flank. “Promise me,” Elbon whispered. “Don’t let me reduce you to a ruin. If you ever feel like you can’t be you. Like you’re losing your you. Don’t let it be for me. Leave me before you let that happen. Promise me.”

Kellin offered no indication if he were awake or asleep and, in time, Elbon drifted off again.

By the time the annular confinement beam released him, Commodore Uzoma Ekwueme finished his sentence, “–and this is the USS Sarek.”  His imposing figure appeared from a pillar of light, as the transporter materialised him at the aft of the Sarek‘s bridge.  Captain Andreus Kohl flanked him to the left and Captain Taes flanked him on the right.  The trio, in their command-red Starfleet uniforms, were boxed in by two massive freestanding LCARS consoles.  Protruding from the deck at an angle perpendicular to the viewscreen, the double-sided LCARS consoles were the size of master system displays.  The holographic viewscreen itself was a transparent viewport, of the style that had come back into fashion in recent years.  From the Sarek‘s docking station, the bulk of Deep Space 17 filled the starship’s forward view.

Unbidden, Taes took a step closer to the viewport.  After commanding a fifty-year-old starship, Taes had to squint at the gleaming shine of Sarek‘s modern bridge design.  The floors and bulkheads were furnished in reflective copper, brushed bronze and deep maroon, rather than the pink carpets and wood grain aboard the starship she called home.  A triad of command chairs were stationed on a raised platform, encircled by a silver arch.  Aside from the flight control station closest to the viewscreen, the bulk of the LCARS workstations were grouped to the port and starboard of the command chair.  From both groupings protruded a U-shaped conference table with LCARS panels set into every surface, offering two pairs of workstations facing one another, and further workstations set into the bulkheads

“The Sarek is one of our new Sutherland-class research cruisers, newly launched,” Commodore Ekwueme said by way of introduction.  Although Taes was listening to him, she had already wandered away to inspect the bank of science consoles grouped on the starboard side of the bridge.  She tapped at the nearest LCARS panel to scroll through the menu option of sensors.  Ekwueme continued to say, “Across forty-five decks, the Sarek is home to a crew of nine-hundred, a configurable mission pod, yottaFLOPS of bio-neural computing power, and large-scale scientific instruments you could only find aboard a starbase five years ago.  By far, the Sutherland-class are our largest science vessels in service.  While she can defend herself, the Sarek is lightly armed: her missions will not be on the frontline of exploration into the Typhon Frontier.  She will, however, closely follow those explorers to relish deeply in the scientific analysis that comes with second contact.”

Having hunched herself over a science console for too long, Taes stretched her back and unceremoniously dropped herself into the nearest chair.  She toggled through screens on the interface panel, investigating each of the claims Ekwueme had made.

Languidly following Taes to the science hub, Captain Kohl chimed in to say, “After the fall of the Romulan Star Empire and the loss of the Artifact, the Romulan Free State has made diplomatic overtures to the Federation once again.”  As Task Force Executive Officer, Kohl added, “Given our strategic position between RFS space and the Typhon Expanse, Task Force Seventeen has begun missions of cooperation with scientists from the Romulan Free State.  A team of visiting Romulan scientists have already boarded our flagship, USS Discovery.  Between the sheer size of the USS Sarek, and its ability to maintain long-term independent missions in every scientific discipline, we have invited a team of seventy five scientists from the Romulan Free State to join the crew of the Sarek.  Permanently.”

Taes’ aloof bearing shattered and the word permanently got a reaction out of her.  The Deltan spun her chair to face Kohl and Ekwueme, her eyes wide.  She retained enough self-control to stare at them without her mouth hanging agape.  “Permanently meaning… months?  Maybe years?” Taes asked, fighting to hide the incredulity in her timbre.  “Aboard a Starfleet starship?”

With a dramatic flourish, Kohl spread his arms wide and he declared, “It’s Starfleet’s next Great Experiment!”  The capitalisation of Great and Experiment could be easily heard in his pronouncement.  Ekwueme stepped around Kohl with a dubious raised eyebrow in the direction of the Argelian’s boisterous bearing.  Ekwueme’s pace was ponderous and his hands remained folded behind his back.  Guilelessly, Kohl continued, “We have developed extensive security protocols.  For both sides!  The Romulans have requested a dedicated computer core that Starfleet cannot access while they remain aboard.”

Ekwueme padded close to the dedication plaque, set into a bulkhead.  He ran a single finger over the metallic plate.  Reading aloud the dedication quote by the legendary Ambassador Sarek himself, Ekwueme intoned, “What greater source of peace exists than our ability to love our enemy?”  Ekwueme looked right at Taes and she saw him waiting until he held her gaze in return.  He said, “The USS Sarek is not only a mobile research platform.  She is a mission of diplomacy in all of the meaningful small moments that matter.  Can we share meals and recreation with the Romulans?  What happens if there’s a queue for the holodecks or competition over the lateral sensor array?  This mission will be to discover how we still come together for our joint mission of exploration.”

Feeling humbled, Taes said softly, “Like the Cardassian refugees being welcomed on Nivoch…” referring to the newly-established Deltan colony on her homeworld.  Taes rose to her feet.  As she began to pad towards Commodore Ekwueme, he waved a hand to guide her on a tour through the engineering and operations hub of consoles on the other side of the bridge.

“Fourth Fleet Command was impressed by your second-contact missions in the Typhon Frontier,” Ekwueme told Taes.  “A few were even amazed by your work with the Remans in the Kunhri System.  Word from First Consul J’mek assures Starfleet that the algae farms are thriving.  Kunhri’s food scarcity is on track to be eliminated by the end of the year.  You made mistakes, Taes.  Mistakes you’ll never make again, I expect.  The situation got away from you, and then you demonstrated resiliency, kindness, and a spark of brilliance.  We can’t ask for much more from our starship captains.  I know when the USS Sarek completed her shakedown cruise, you were the first captain I considered for command, Captain Taes.”

Ekwueme’s snaking tour around the bridge had deposited Taes at the foot of the command platform, looking up at the captain’s chair.  “I…” Taes started to say, but every other word in Federation Standard escaped her in that moment.  Her cheeks felt flush and she took a deep breath.

Perhaps impatiently, Ekwueme interjected, “The Sarek has been staffed with fresh Academy graduates and junior officers who have grown frustrated aboard Deep Space Seventeen.  You can hand-pick whomever you need from USS  Dvorak.”  For a heartbeat, Ekwueme’s eyes cut to Kohl.  Ekwueme didn’t smirk, exactly, but there was a lightness to his bearing, when he said, “The Great Experiment needs the best and the brightest.”  As soon as those words came out, his serious mien returned and his impatient gaze bore into Taes again.  “Otherwise, the crew of Dvorak will need to continue without you.”

“We even,” Kohl eagerly added, “installed the archaeology and anthropology mission pod,” –he waved a hand at Taes– “for one of Starfleet’s foremost experts in the discipline.”

Aside from the gentle breathing of the life support systems and the LCARS telltales chiming gently from the control panels, a new sound punctuated the quiet of the main bridge.  Turbolift doors hissed open and military boots rapped against the metal deck plates.  Looking over Taes’s shoulder, Ekwueme raised a hand.  He gestured at the woman who had stepped off the turbolift, beckoning her to join them.  “I believe you already know the Sarek‘s Romulan liaison officer,” Ekwueme said as a matter of simple fact.  “She will serve on the senior staff with authority over the science department, but no authority over starship operations.  Captain Taes, let me reacquaint you with Doctor Flavia of the Romulan Free State.”

The Romulan woman presented herself as a slight presence, as she came face-to-face with Taes.  Flavia was easily six inches shorter than Taes.  In her unflattering jumpsuit, her stature was relatively round in comparison to Taes’ military hard-edges.  Despite the nonthreatening posture, Flavia came at Taes with a killer grin and knives behind her eyes.  “Captain Taes, it’s my deep pleasure to finally meet you in person,” Flavia promised.

Taes scoffed in Flavia’s face.  In a snap of movement, Taes turned her head to boggle at Ekwueme.  “Her?  Commodore,” Taes spat out, “Respectfully, I can’t be expected to trust her.  She tried to destroy my credibility: everything I built across my entire Starfleet career.”

Flavia offered a sheepish shrug to Commodore Ekwueme and it made her dark ponytail bounce.  She flashed an apologetic frown at the man and then she flashed her killer grin at Taes again.  “Shaming you did get me promoted,” Flavia admitted.

“You lied and it backed me into a corner,” Taes grit the words out at Flavia defensively.  She could feel her face getting hot again, but it was for all the wrong reasons.  “Starfleet handed over every Romulan artifact in our possession to the Free State, regardless of their respective points of origin or cultural importance to the other Romulan factions.”

“And that was one of the first bricks,” Ekwueme said flatly, blinking at Taes impassively, “in the foundation of trust between the Federation and the Free State.  That trust made joint efforts like the Artifact possible.  Our friends in the Free State government have insisted that Doctor Flavia is their preeminent archaeologist.  Doctor Flavia is their only candidate for the Sarek‘s mission.”

“Think of the story!” Kohl added emphatically.  “If Captain Taes can forgive Doctor Flavia for that ion storm of media ridicule… if Taes and Flavia can build trust…  Anyone in the Federation can build trust with anyone in the Free State.  …Isn’t that what Starfleet is all about?”

Taes breathed out a “tt” between a clenched jaw.  Ignoring Kohl and Flavia, Taes turned her eyes on Commodore Ekwueme like he was the only one in the room.  “Commodore, If I refuse the Sarek, will I remain in command of the USS Dvorak?” Taes asked sternly.

He nodded.  A little too quickly, Ekwueme replied, “Yes.”  He hesitated longer before he said, “The USS Sarek and Flavia’s science team will be offered to another captain.”

“And if I say no,” Taes asked, her voice cracking, “will I ever be offered another research heavy cruiser?”

Ekwueme raised an eyebrow at that question.  “I don’t know.”

Taes nodded slowly.  “I don’t know either.”

August 2400

The week Captain Taes took command of USS Sarek

“Do we have to do this now?” Elbon Jakkelb groaned, from where he was laid out on a biobed in the resort’s infirmary.  The wiry Bajoran was only remotely capable of sitting up because of the angle of the biobed.  Even through the analgesic, he could feel one side of his face was swollen with bruising, and he didn’t want to see what was happening to his limbs within the surgical support frame.  Even by 25th century medical standards, the resort’s Bolian doctor had told him his fractured bones and torn tendons would take some time to properly mend.  Apparently, now wasn’t precisely that time. Elbon asked again, “Do we have to do this right now?”

“Of course we’re discussing this now,” Kellin Rayco shot back.  His voice had trailed up to an impetuous whinge, but the look in his eyes was one Elbon recognised.  The intensity behind Kellin’s grey-blue eyes showed all the characteristics of a believer.  He wasn’t about to be denied.  Sitting uncomfortably in a patient gown that was hardly large enough for his frame, Kellin looked as much the worse for wear as Elbon did. Although Kellin only had one leg encased in a restorative brace, most every patch of exposed skin on his body was marred with bruises and bloody scratch-marks. Standing behind Kellin’s chair was the Bolian doctor, Tods, who was silently tending to Kellin’s wounds with a dermal regenerator.  Shaking his head, Kellin asked, “How could you do that, Jakkelb?”

“Jumping into a waterfall?” Elbon said, dismissively clarifying Kellin’s question.  Through an incredulous cringe, Elbon said, “I’m alive.  Calm down.  Believe me, I’ve done far more foolish things, being chased by Federation security–“

Kellin’s brow creased at that.  “Federation security?”

Sputtering at his slip of the tongue, Elbon asserted, “I meant Cardassian.  It’s not the end of the–“

“That’s not what I mean.  You’re getting me twisted,” Kellin spat out.  He tried to swing his arms wide for emphasis, but his body tensed up and he visibly winced in pain.  After dropping his arms to his sides, Kellin took a breath and then he asked, “How could you leave me to die?”

Elbon scoffed.  Without another moment’s hesitation, Elbon said, “Honey, you’re the coward,” with utter conviction.  It was only once Elbon heard that word hanging in the air between them — heard it echoing in his mind– that he sighed.  He lowered his chin to his chest.  He regretted hurling that word at Kellin, but now it had been said.  Softly, Elbon said, “I don’t mean you were afraid of the wild beast that was chasing us.  That’s your duty.  Your duty is you.  You didn’t come after me, but you won’t leave me either.  Rather than divorce me, you left me to die.”

Kellin blinked at Elbon three times and then all he could say was, “…What?”

“Who stands their ground?  Who stays to fight a wild beast they’ve never studied, or tracked, or even heard of before?” Elbon asked. His intonation was far more mellow than it had been, not nearly as acidic.  “Yes, I ran. Yes, I dove off a cliff to escape from that creature. I assumed you would follow me.” Elbon laughed at that, but the damage to his lungs made it a wet and mirthless sound. “That was my mistake. I have years of experience to tell me that you never follow my lead.”

In an amenable tone, Doctor Tods looked up from the dermal regenerator, to say, “Again, the Temtibi Resort apologises for what you’ve experienced.  Our concierge is new and didn’t understand it was mating season in the Lodine Thicket…”

Kellin paid Doctor Tods no mind.  “I’m sorry,” Kellin said to Elbon, although he didn’t sound particularly apologetic.  With a distrustful edge, Kellin asked, “What makes you say I’m incapable of following you?”

Elbon didn’t have to cast about for an answer to that. “Because it’s factually true,” Elbon answered at once.  “We were talking about this in the thicket, weren’t we?”

“I’m sorry!” Kellin said again, this time with a sarcastic point to it.  “I don’t do my best listening when I’m fighting for my life.”

“When I jumped off a cliff, you didn’t follow me. You let a monster cut you to shreds rather than trust in my judgement,” Elbon said accusingly. The words sputtered out of him in breathless incredulity. “We talked about this. When you make plans without me and I don’t comply, you say I’m a selfish boar who won’t prioritize our marriage.  But the USS Dvorak has been my home for a decade.  Before Taes, Captain Sefton would have done anything for me.  He would have made space for you in the Dvorak security team if that’s what you really wanted.  You never asked for that.  You wanted shore leaves and glamorous dinners, but you didn’t want my real life.  You wanted to find your own way…”

Kellin’s posture had crumpled in his hover-chair, looking for all the world like a chastised child.  He wouldn’t meet Elbon’s eyes.  Tilting his gaze to the overhead, Kellin said, “Computer, drop the privacy screen.”  The holographic privacy barrier evaporated.  Kellin’s expression turned pinched — his lips thinned into a narrow line and his eyebrows came together. “Commander Elbon should rest before his next surgery. I suspect his analgesic dosage is too low.”  Kellin looked back over his shoulder to give his next instruction to the Bolian doctor. “Take me back to my biobed,” he said.  In no time, a nurse appeared by his side to push Kellin away.

Slumping back on his biobed, Elbon knew better than to stop Kellin from leaving if he wanted to leave.  He sighed wearily and then he leveled his eyes on Doctor Tods. There was no fire behind his eyes, no pain. His gaze was vacant.

“What do you say, doctor?” Elbon asked impassively. “What’s your diagnosis on the health of my marriage?”

“Time,” Tods was quick to say.  “I prescribe listening and time and laughter if you can.  Give him time.”

“Time,” Elbon said gravely. The word felt heavy coming out of his mouth, but that was probably his lung injury too. When he laughed again, it certainly felt heavy and crackling in his lungs. “Time’s what got us in this mess…”

Two servers, dressed in identical asymmetrical jumpsuits, approached the table from opposite ends of the lounge, carrying white bowls between their hands.  Down to the cadence of their stride, every movement was precisely mirrored between them.  Unlike the reflective metallics in most of the crew areas aboard the USS Sarek, the Greyson Lounge had been designed with a distinctly Vulcan aesthetic.  The bulkheads were adorned with woodgrain and burnt umber and the tables were topped in stone.  The overhead lighting was low, given the starlight shining in from the floor-to-ceiling viewports and the holographic candles on every table.  Without disturbing that illusion of an open flame at one table in particular, the two servers proffered each of their white bowls to Sootrah Yuulik and to Taes.  In unison, the servers said, “Pardon my reach.”

The bowl had hardly kissed the tabletop when Yuulik dragged her spoon through the broth and scooped up a chunk of unrecognisable vegetable matter.  She slurped at the broth, luxuriating as every tastebud on her tongue came alive.  Taste was an Arcadian’s strongest sensory organ and the soup certainly tasted better than it looked.  After slurping up another spoonful, Yuulik leaned into the table and dropped her spoon back into the bowl.  “Now tell me, captain,” Yuulik asked, unable to contain the question any longer, “exactly how many laboratories will I command on board this floating science city?”  Yuulik swung and arm out –almost striking a passing server– to indicate the USS Sarek at large.

Sitting opposite Yuulik at the small table, Taes was still considering her soup.  Yuulik had observed Taes use this type of stalling tactic before.  Taes pressed an open palm against one side of the bowl and she probed the soup with the very tip of her spoon.  The way the leaves and vegetables had been artistically shaved and placed in the broth, the bowl appeared to be a diorama of the swamps on Kunhri III.  After taking her own first taste of the broth, and then the foam on the side, Taes raised her chin to rest her gaze on Yuulik.  Taes’ well-practiced Deltan expression of placid pleasure gave way to a smirk that spoke of baser delights.  “I don’t know,” Taes answered, shaking her bald head.  “I lost track somewhere after the zoology lab and the reproductive medicine lab.”

“With that many labs,” Yuulik excitedly said, “I’ll have the right to name one after myself.”  Yuulik shook her shoulders, shimmying in her seat, as a little dance of celebration.  “The Memorial Sootrah Yuulik Stellar Cartography has an austere ring to it, don’t you think?”

Taes had been silently sipping at spoonful of broth and then she sputtered on it suddenly.  Raising an eyebrow at Yuulik, Taes asked, “Doesn’t ‘memorial‘ mean you’ll be dead?”

“Once I have a command of my own, you’ll need something to remember me by,” Yuulik declared, steamrolling through Taes’ suggestion that Yuulik had misspoke.  “A memorial can be any monument to preserve remembrance.  By definition, it does not require the feature to be dead.”  –Yuulik slurped up another spoonful of broth– “There won’t be a Memorial Flavia Library.  I know that as truth.”

After chewing on a couple of crunchy vegetables in the broth, Taes’ gaze lingered on the soup.  She didn’t look up when she said, “Maybe there will be, if it meant Flavia was dead…”

That brought forth a squawking laugh from Yuulik, drawing the eyes of most others in the lounge.  Taes sat with her quietly, visibly biting her lower lip, until Yuulik expelled her entire laugh and the attention of the other diners returned to their own meals.  Speaking softly at first, Taes said to Yuulik, “I’ve told you the story of why I left my position as a science director to pursue command school.  It’s the same story I told in my application to training command, and to other science officers I’ve worked to inspire.  I’ve told the story so many times, I’m starting to remember the story more than I remember what really happened.  Flavia happened.  Ultimately, that’s when I decided.”

As the servers returned to their table, Taes smiled at them tightly and she nodded at their offer to take the empty bowls.  The servers offered a plate of steaming hot bread and compressed fruit cubes until the next course.  Only after they departed did Taes continue: “I had already stated my intentions to pursue the command track; I had started the advanced operational and bridge training,” –Taes winced, momentarily leaning in– “But I knew I could still quit.  I knew I could gracefully back out and pursue further advancement in the sciences.  It wasn’t until the Romulan Free State made those accusations about Starfleet paying the Orion Syndicate for ancient Romulan artifacts… It wasn’t until Flavia appeared on all those FNN interviews accusing me and my department on Starbase Three-Ten… That’s when I decided.  That’s when I knew I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a researcher.  Starship command would have to be my consolation prize.”  Her lips pursing into a quirk of a smile, Taes appeared to take amusement at the ironies in that final statement.

Yuulik held her breath.  A data point pinged in her emotional intelligence.  She intellectually recognised that Taes was showing vulnerability to her and that this was meaningful to Taes, but that data point was so quiet in Yuulik’s head compared to her voracious desire for gossip.  “Did you know?” Yuulik hungrily asked. “When you obtained the artifacts from the Lebaxairt Collection, did you know they had obtained the artifacts from a cover for the Orion Syndicate?”

Her intonation measured, Taes firmly said, “I didn’t know.”

Shaking her head slightly, Yuulik retorted, “But did you suspect…?”

Taes blinked at Yuulik and she took a deep breath.  “When the tables were turned, did you know?”

Condescendingly, Yuulik said, “I wasn’t even there.”

“Back when we worked together for the first time on the Nestus,” Taes said, “before we had conducted a single interview, did you knowingly allow me to issue the wrong ethnographic survey templates?”  There was nothing but sing-song curiosity in the timbre of Taes’ voice, but her dark brown eyes were ablaze with intensity.  The ember of that question looked to have been hiding deep within Taes for no small amount of time.

“I knew,” Yuulik answered without hesitation.  She tossed it off with the same ease as a coffee order to replicator.  “I assumed if you failed in your mission, I would be offered command of the USS Nestus,” Yuulik said.  She cleared her throat and she spoke with some regret when she said, “I may not be the most respected as a Starfleet officer, but I am a serious researcher.”

“Not an imposter in a red shirt,” Taes said, echoing too many conversations between them prior.  Taes sat back in her chair and she took a pained breath.  “Yuulik, after you tried to hoard all that data on New Tenar, I reviewed your previous mission on Haven.  Did you know I found another one?  I found another interview you never logged into the data you submitted to Starbase 72.”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Yuulik said, more sharply now.  She shook her head at Taes.  “It was background research about colony disasters.  Nothing to do with the refugees we were interviewing.  Counselor Weld interviewed a retired Starfleet officer who had investigated a Federation colony on the DMZ that had been massacred, shortly after the accords with the Cardassians had been signed.  This retired officer discovered evidence of a Cardassian plot to attack other colonies along the DMZ.  One of those colonies was Nivoch.  I did it for you!”

“That’s horrifying,” Taes remarked, in reference to a decades-old plot to destroy her home colony, but she didn’t sound horrified.  She sounded perturbed.  “But I don’t understand what it has to do with anything.  Why were you investigating Nivoch?”

“How can you not know?” Yuulik answered the question with a staccato question of her own.  “Nivoch’s ecosystem collapsed; its infrastructure failed.  How can you blindly live with this horrible thing –that never happens in the heart of the Federation– without knowing exactly why it happened?”

Taes shrugged demonstrably and she said, “What does the why get me?  All the clues in the quadrant will only give me probabilities.  I can never know exactly what happened, not for a fact.”

“When we were in the Kunhri system,” Yuulik continued urgently, “The USS Odyssey investigated a planet that suffered ecological collapse, much like Nivoch, and their research discovered the collapse was caused by subspace bursts in the planet’s orbit.  If the Cardassians were able to create similar bursts in the orbit of Nivoch–“

“Stop it,” Taes said.  She didn’t raise her voice but she said the words with finality.  “Stop your research into Nivoch.”

“But I’m doing it for you,” Yuulik said, incensed.

“Then stop it for me,” Taes said.  “Stop as a favour to me.”

March 2400

The week Captain Taes took command of USS Dvorak

Yuulik shouted, “No,” but she was laughing so hard it came out sounding like a vaguely ‘naw’ sound.

Elbon overlapped her with a peal of laughter that was practically a scream.

After downing the rest of her aperitif, Yuulik shouted, “No,” again.  The sound lasted less than a second, because she was breathless with laughter.

Kellin interjected a, “Wait now,” catching his own breath after a low chuckle.  

Elbon took another swig of synthale but he laughed into the glass, which sent the bubbly liquid pouring down the sides of his face and pooling on his uniform jacket.

“No,” Yuulik said, all the more insistently.  “This is happening!”

“Wait,” Kellin countered.  “This is dumb.”

“No!” Yuulik shrieked.  “You’re dumb!”

Frustration burned through Kellin’s chest in that way only his father could normally make him feel.  More than anything in life, Kellin yearned to respond to Yuulik with a clever riposte, but his mind was lost in a fog.  His hearing was muddled; Kellin was losing track of who was saying what; the synthehol in his bloodstream was making it harder for him to differentiate between the three of them, cackling all over the furniture in Elbon Jakkelb’s living room.

Of note were a couple of firsts.

Firstly first: this had been the first night Elbon Jakkelb had invited Kellin Rayco to his quarters aboard Dvorak, ever since Kellin had been assigned to the ship.  This was largely notable, because Kellin was Elbon’s estranged husband.  Kellin had expected to be invited to these quarters from day one, but the invite never came.  Lesser so, this was notable, because at the same time Elbon invited Kellin to his quarters, he had invited Yuulik to his quarters too.  Kellin pondered if, perhaps, Elbon was as confused as Kellin himself was feeling.

Secondly first: Kellin and Sootrah Yuulik had been body-swapped that morning in an archaeological weird science accident.  Kellin’s life-energy inhabited the Arcadian body of Yuulik and Yuulik’s life-energy inhabited the Trill body of Kellin.  While Kellin was curled up, alone, on an oversized sofa, Yuulik was lumbering around the compartment on Kellin’s long legs.  Elbon, meanwhile, was draped over his desk chair.  Even while Elbon was dripping in synthale –and his greasy hair was longer than what was fashionable this year– Kellin couldn’t think of many who exuded such effortless, sensual energy than Elbon Jakkelb.  Between the scruff on Elbon’s sharp jawline and the pleasing fit of Elbon’s stained uniform, it physically pained Kellin not to be touching him right that second, but Kellin couldn’t abide touching Elbon with Yuulik’s hand.

“This is happening!” Yuulik said again.  “We can’t waste this unique opportunity for scientific observation!  I’m going to therapeutically role-play with Elbon, as Kellin, if that’s what it takes to single-handedly save this marriage.”

Kellin crossed his arms over his chest and he frowned at Yuulik in pointed disapproval.  He had confided in Taes about his marriage to Elbon, but he hadn’t told Yuulik.  Kellin was left to wonder if Taes was close enough with Yuulik to tell her about their estranged marriage, or if Elbon had told Yuulik himself.  All the same, Kellin couldn’t look away, seeing his own body through new eyes, stepping closer to where Elbon was sitting.

“I don’t imagine,” Elbon said dubiously, “this will have much therapeutic value in your current state.”  He cocked an eyebrow at Yuulik as he shrugged off his soiled uniform jacket, leaving him in his uniform’s sleeveless, turtleneck undershirt.

Visibly getting into character as Kellin, Yuulik affected her most vapid facial expression and began flexing Kellin’s muscular arms at her own reflection in the viewports.  “Go on!” Yuulik insisted.

She didn’t have to ask again.  Cocking his head in Yuulik’s direction, Elbon squinted at her, and he asked, “What ever happened to Emem?  That flight controller from ‘Seventy-Two you were dating?”

Before she’d even begun, Yuulik broke character to make eyes at Kellin, questioningly.  “I don’t think I know the answer to that one,” she said in an oddly accusatory manner.  “Nune says you don’t talk about him anymore…”

Although Kellin received the words, he didn’t recognise the body language displayed by Elbon or Yuulik.  Yuulik’s Arcadian vision wasn’t sharp enough to identify the types of micro-expressions Kellin would normally look for.  His stomach churned with the knowledge there was something left unsaid in the room, but Kellin couldn’t quite detect it.  Struggling for the right words, Kellin said, “I don’t– I don’t track every minute of my day.  We all need jazz cat time sometimes.”  He shook his head, “We never made a vow of monogamy.”

Elbon shook his head from side to side.  “I’m not asking for monogamy,” he said through a frown.  He angled his gaze in Yuulik’s direction, while she looked so much like Kellin.  “Honesty is what I ask.  What happened with Emem, are you still together?”

“Duh,” Yuulik intoned in her affectation of a Trill accent.  She whipped her face to the side, bouncing the mess of blond curls atop her head.  “He got bored of me and my two-syllable vocabulary,” she said.  Nodding at Elbon, Yuulik asked, “Why don’t you take me to nice places?  I see Kellin– I mean you leave me alone in the Orchestra Pit most nights.”

Clearing his throat, Elbon folded his arms over his chest.  Even to this day, Kellin found his eyes wandering to watch the way it made the musculature of Elbon’s arms pop.  After clearing his throat again, Elbon tucked his chin down to cast a serious gaze at Yuulik.  “I’m nearly fifty,” he said.  It came out sounding like an academy professor’s lecture.  “My alarm is set for oh-four-hundred hours to work out and read the gamma shift reports.  I’m normally in bed by twenty-hundred hours.”  Far more affectionately, Elbon added, “I can’t keep up with you.”  And then in an undertone, he said, “Who knows how you put up with me?”

“Haven’t you heard of caffeine, man?” Yuulik rhetorically asked Elbon.  Her Trill accent had started to wander into Betazoid territory.  Kellin could see less and less of himself in Yuulik’s portrayal, and that was oddly comforting.  Some part of him had remained afraid that inhabiting Yuulik’s body would slowly transform his sense of self into Yuulik herself.  Yuulik concluded with, “The computer can tell you all about it!”

Hearing a break in the role-play, Kellin interjected with a question for Elbon: “Why did you quit the Vedek Assembly?  I asked you on our honeymoon and you told me to ask you another time, when you were ready…”

Yuulik snorted at Kellin and she shot back, “Yuulik wouldn’t care to know about any of that.”

Despite Yuulik’s protestations, Elbon was looking at Kellin, looking right at him.  “Ask me again, another time,” Elbon said gently.  He couldn’t meet Kellin’s eyes after that and he didn’t look at Yuulik-in-Kellin’s-body either.  “Whatever happened to Emem?” Elbon asked for a third time and he raised his eyes to look at Yuulik.

Closing the distance between herself and Elbon, Yuulik fluttered her eyelashes at him, and she said, “He didn’t look like you…”  Yuulik took hold of Elbon’s bare shoulders and she leaned in for a kiss.  Elbon swerved out of Yuulik’s clutches and he literally screamed.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Elbon shouted.

“Do not be disturbed,” remarked Nelli, that is to say Doctor Pimpinellifolia, in an approximation of a stage whisper.  The sentient-flora Phylosian had trot obstreperously into the suite.  That sound of their four leafy trunks clomping against the tiled floor had roused Leander Nune from an ephemeral doze.  

Nune shuffled against the sofa to prop himself into an upright position.  He tilted his head to regard Nelli, but his eyelids felt heavy almost immediately.  The amber light of the setting sun and the sweet sea air of the Monagas Peninsula entered through the open windows and filled the suite with deliciousness, just like the sticky syrup in a plump oskoid.

Nelli said, “Tonight you would be better served to treasure the dinner buffet without this one.”  The vocoder that translated their communication into humanoid speech continued its paradoxical dance of melodic monotone.  Nune had promised to toy with the settings on the device early in their shore leave together but hadn’t yet found the time.  As they spoke, Pimpinellifolia crept towards their own bedroom on much lighter steps than their entrance, almost silently.  They said, “Your pruning has accentuated your sexual virility.  You will have many dining partners tonight.”

Bracing his palms against the sofa cushions and straightening his back, Nune blinked hard to fight away any lingering fatigue.  Curious about how to interpret his own ‘pruning’, Nune adjusted the collar of his unbuttoned shirt and he tested the knot holding his maroon sarong together.  He ran a hand through his dark hair, in case Nelli was speaking of his grooming, if not his style of dress or his physique.  Still, his attention returned to Nelli’s offer to excuse themself from their dining plans.

“Nelli, we talked about this,” he said, his vowels round and uplifting in encouragement.  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed if you don’t eat at the table.  I enjoy your company regardless.”

Nelli hesitated in their gait across the suite.  Four of their arm-like vines folded diffidently behind the backside of their torso.  

“Your company is enriching too,” Nelli said, speaking more slowly than before.  “Your invitation for recreation away from the USS Dvorak is appreciated.  I find myself…” —Nelli paused and their eye-stalks twitched, before continuing— “depleted… thus, require rest.”

Watching over Nelli with even more attention, Nune shifted the angle where he was sitting and squared his shoulders.  Nelli’s Phylosian biology meant they were largely immune to Nune’s Betazoid telepathy, leaving their intentions a mystery to him.  Even so, his own intuition took notice of a shift in Nelli’s energy.

Nune asked, “I thought you said you had a fun day at the beach, visiting with Kerry Dawson?”

Nelli’s protrusion that was located where a humanoid head would be, even if it looked more like an oversized tarna-bulb, bobbed from side to side when they answered.

“Yes.”

The timbre of Nelli’s mechanically-produced voice sounded deeper than before.

“The sunlight proved nourishing,” Nelli explained.  “Kerry and I analyzed the tidal patterns of the water at three different time periods…”  

Nelli trailed off and Nune allowed for a silence between them.  The rest of Nelli’s articulating vines folded behind their torso and their eye-stalks pointed down at the floor.

“I don’t remember you seeming this tired on Kunhri Three,” Nune said.  Although they’d served on the same starship for over six months, they hadn’t developed much of a friendship.  The intention of this shore leave was to address that and Nune couldn’t abide secrets in any form of new, developing relationship.  

Nune asked, “Without all of that refinery pollution, Risa must be a paradise, no?”

Nelli’s eye-stalks swivelled to point in Nune’s direction.  “After weeks aboard Dvorak, the mining pits of Kunhri were rejuvenating, if bracing.  There was… too little water in the deserts and no sun in the swamps, but life thrived in every enviro—“  Nelli’s entire posture changed; they stiffened.  “Nothing thrives on Risa.”

“Huh?” Nune asked, his dark eyebrows creeping up his forehead.  Shaking his head at Nelli, Nune was plainly baffled by Nelli’s closing statement.  “Nelli, Risa is definitive perfection.  By design,” he said like it was a matter of fact.

“Risa offers judgement,” Nelli said simply.

Nune squinted at Nelli in reaction to that statement.  “All that we have is yours,” he said, echoing the motto of every staff member at the Sheltered Arms resort.  Probing for more, Nune asked, “Was somebody rude to you?  Is there an invasive weed on the staff?”

Nelli’s vocoder spat out the feedback noise of an error message.  Nune had heard that sound enough times, given the context clues, he was starting to think of it as a sigh.  “The weather control system is too aggressive. I can feel it in my waters,” Nelli said.  “The matrix urges even me to bend to its will.  The air lacks both humidity and dryness; the grass and sand are chemically induced to attractive colours.  None of this would be permitted on Phylos.”  

“Nelli…” Nune soberly said.  “When was the last time you went home?”

At that question, Nelli’s eye-stalks twirled in the particular way that happened when Nelli was doing math in their head.  

“Before Starfleet Academy?  The mission to earth was diplomatic in nature.  We had only packed for a couple of months, but then I never left?  I never went home again.  Phylos is an aching beauty.  Green skies and green hills on every horizon.  We have constructed our technological society, as you have, but the natural world is welcome within ours.  We have balance.  Risa creates harsh boundaries.”

“Why didn’t you go back?” Nune asked.

“There has been no time,” Nelli said, a little too quickly.  “I was starving for understanding of humanoid life.  This one never expected to be accepted by your Starfleet Academy.  It was too pretty a petal to ignore.  Each assignment: the hospital aboard Starbase 72, USS Dvorak, have proven terribly alien and still irresistible.  It astounds me how greatly my perspectives have changed.”

Despite every encouraging thing Nelli said about the past years of their life, Nune felt himself tense up at his own selfishness.  Risa had been his desire for this shore leave and when he had invited Nelli to join him at the last minute, he had never even considered asking them where they truly wanted to go.  “I’m– I’m sorry.  We should have vacationed on your home world…”

“No,” Nelli said. “That’s not–“

“Maybe,” Nune said. “There could be time.  There could still be time–“

“No, it’s too far,” Nelli said.

Snatching up a PADD from an end table, Nune tapped on its interface to access a star chart.  He began to plot theoretical courses from Risa to Phylos and from Phylos to Deep Space 17.  

“You deserve the comfort of home,” Nune said emphatically.  “You’ve had a hard time of it with the body swap and the Kunhri mission was grueling.  We couldn’t have seeded those algae farms without you.  I can promise you: Captain Taes will understand if you need more time to visit home.  Our mission into the Typhon Frontier will only take us farther away.”

There was a greater intensity to Nelli’s vocoder-produced voice when they said, “I could not impose!”  Reverting to their usual monotone, Nelli said, “When Ensign Dolan did not join you as planned, your invitation to this one was most gracious.  Dolan’s decision not to join you is puzzling.  You fit together.  You enjoy the way each other smells.  On Phylos, there is no separation between one and one’s community.  We work together, we live together, we love together.”

Nune started to say, “Dolan and I… we’re not…” but he shook his head.  He chose not to take the bait of Nelli’s diversion.  “Back on Phylos, do you have somebody you love?”

That question elicited a trill of a laugh from Nelli.  Nune had never heard them laugh before.  Nelli said, “Not in the binary way you understand love.  We give our whole love to others through the way we work, through our manner of photosynthesis, through our song.  Your style of pair-bonding is not the common way of love.”

“Nelli, you’re clearly homesick,” Nune said.  “So what are you avoiding on Phylos?”

Trotting to the window, Nelli said, “Maybe this one has become too alien to Phylos.  Starfleet has changed the way I think; you starships change the way I thrive.  What would I do without community embrace?  What if Phylos expects me to change as harshly as Risa expects me to change here?  I don’t think I could…”

“That would scare me,” Nune said in a very small voice.  “I don’t know how to answer any of that.”

Having grown up amid the gorgeous greenery of Iscandar City, Nune could recognise in himself at least a shadow of what Nelli felt.  Their lives aboard a starship could be isolating on the best days.  A life encased in duranium contrasted all the more harshly against a childhood with one’s feet in soil and lakes and grass.  As Nune reflected on Nelli’s displeasure with their Risian resort, it occurred to him that a planet was a very large place indeed.

Eventually, Nune said, “Forget dinner.  Come with me?”

Not very long later –and yet half a world away– the thrusters for the runabout August screamed through a thunderstorm.  Under Leander Nune’s ministrations within the cockpit, the runabout circled a lonely island and then touched down for a landing.

“Sensors confirm,” Nune said to Nelli, who sat in the co-pilot’s chair, “there’s a hole in the weather control system, where the grids don’t quite meet in this corner of the world.  Most Risians would call this scary island.  There’s no chemicals in the water, no energy fields in the air.”

Nelli didn’t say anything to that.  One of their articulate vines tapped an LCARS panel that opened the exterior hatch.  Like a prisoner granted a rightful pardon, Nelli jaunted across the cockpit and jumped out into the rainstorm.  “Join me!” Nelli shouted back and they were already swinging their vines through the falling hail and raindrops and hopping from trunk to trunk.  Not very much longer, Nune joined them in their dance, as the alien waters drenched them to the skin and their exuberance was lit by lightning. 

As soon as the turbolift doors opened to the bridge, the sight through the forward viewport was easily the most eye-catching.  The running lights on the hull of Deep Space 17 flashed far brighter than any LCARS panel.  With USS Sarek docked at the starbase, her bridge was otherwise motionless and empty, except for a short figure sitting in the captain’s chair.  

Taes didn’t see her sitting there because of the dramatic height of the chair itself.  It was only when Taes shifted her weight from one foot to the other that she caught a glimpse of a high ponytail.  Taes looked to the overhead in the turbolift car and she began to count the seconds that passed.  If she held back out of the range of the turbolift door sensors, Taes supposed it couldn’t be much longer until the doors whispered shut and whisked her away from her.

“They told me you’d be up for the challenge,” Flavia said flatly from her perch on the captain’s chair.  The Romulan scientist didn’t turn around.

Taes held her breath.

“Pity,” Flavia added.  Despite the choice of word, she said it with musical amusement.

Taes took a deep breath.

“You’re awfully cavalier about this ‘great experiment’,” Taes said pointedly.  The way she said that last phrase, she gave it all the same import and heft that Captain Andreus Kohl had used in his pitch to Taes.  Setting her shoulders back, Taes marched onto the bridge.

Swiveling in her chair, Flavia peeked out from behind the backrest of the captain’s chair.  Fixing Taes with a flat smile and furrowed brow of incredulity, Flavia asked, “Why aren’t you?”

Striding across the bridge at a slow pace, Taes consciously received that question.  It hadn’t been what she was expecting and so it provoked thought.  Taes only made it as far as the first freestanding LCARS console and then she paused.  She reached a hand out to the flatscreen console and braced her palm against its cool surface.

“The weight of this mission is… heavy,” Taes said.  Her throat went dry before she said the last word.  Thinking about it –deeply reflecting– brought the threat of tears to her eyes.  

Taes explained, “Your team of scientists aren’t simply passengers on this ship.  I’ve been challenged to truly immerse you in this crew.”  –Taes’ breath caught in her throat– “This crew of nine hundred beings.  A year ago I was responsible for twenty lives.  Dvorak is a family of two hundred.  This is practically a city in space.  Nine hundred lives.”

Rising from the captain’s chair, Flavia said, “One of them mine.”  She sounded delighted by that fact.

“If anything happened,” Taes said, “even to you…”  Taes could really feel it now.  The weight of this decision brought incipient tears to the corners of her eyes.

Through a snarl of disgust, Flavia asked, “What is this?”  She shook her head at Taes, her eyes narrowing.  Flavia tugged at the front of her orange jumpsuit, smoothing out the lines.  Flavia took one step at a time, descending the stairs from the command platform.  She held Taes’ eye-contact hostage with every step.

“You’re Starfleet.  You do exploration,” Flavia said, chiding Taes.  “It’s good for your soul, don’t they say?”

Taes didn’t answer that.  She didn’t even move to close the distance to Flavia.  Taes held her ground at the aft mission ops console.

Using her bubbly voice, despite dagger eyes, Flavia asked Taes, “Why so dour?”

Taes didn’t answer that.  It sounded too much like a trap.  Seemingly unbidden, Taes was reminded of a parable her departed parents had told her about the first Ferengi merchants who had come to Delta IV.

Flavia cocked her head to the left.  Continuing her question with the context of her own Romulan experience, Flavia said, “Your homeworld didn’t burn.”

Taes still didn’t answer that.

“Oh yeah,” Flavia said, the words coming out of her like a pleasurable sigh of relief.  She blinked once and she looked Taes dead in the eyes.  “Your people all froze…”

Scoffing, Taes spat back, “How can I be expected to ever trust you?”

Flavia shrugged off that question as she stepped off the final stair.  Her boots came to rest on the main deck.  

“How can you trust yourself?” Flavia replied off-handedly.  “We’re the same, you and I.  Curious for knowledge but hungry for status.  In Romulan culture, one’s freedoms are tied to status.  After I secured all of your Romulan artefacts for the Free State, my status in the science ministry made a material change to my quality of life.  Given your Federation utopia: what’s your excuse?”

Taes dropped her hands to her sides.  Shaking her head slowly, Taes asked, “Even if you believe all the things you say about me now, all the things you said about me then in the press.  Why did you choose the supernova option?”  –For all the compassion in her timbre, Taes knowingly chose the cruelest metaphor for what she was asking– “You made a show of discrediting me publicly.  Why didn’t you ever talk to me?  Directly.”

Flavia narrowed her eyes on Taes again and she took three steps closer.

“Is that what it will take?” Flavia asked.  “Do you need me to promise to only slide my knife between your rib cage and never in your back?”

“It’s a start,” Taes said.  Her eyebrows raised on her forehead and she nodded twice.

Taes asked, “Do you want to be here?  You always said Starfleet disgusts you?”

An uncomfortable titter of a laugh slipped out of Flavia.  She took two more tiny steps closer to Taes.  “Why does everyone keep joining the Federation?” Flavia asked back, rhetorically.  “You’re the winning side.”

Flavia cupped her hand beside her mouth, play-acting like she was telling Taes a secret.  In a stage whisper, Flavia said, “That’s my secret mission.  You’re my experiment, Taes.  You represent the Federation and you keep winning.  I humiliated you and you abandoned your research and somehow they offered you all of this, like a reward.  If I can learn how you all keep winning, I can learn how to take it from you.”

Taes winced at Flavia and she took a step back.  “Why are you telling me this?”

Shrugging her shoulders forward, Flavia retorted, “You’ll call me a liar no matter what I say.”

“You’re so much more than this caricature,” Taes said.

Flavia laughed.  “Prove it.”

An LCARS alert chimed out from one of the consoles in the horseshoe-shaped engineering hub.  Taes raised an eyebrow at the sound.  It wasn’t one of the computer’s most distressed alerts, but she hadn’t expected the main computer to request manual intervention while the Sarek was sleeping at a starbase.  Before Taes could investigate, the turbolift doors hissed open and Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik came scurrying onto the bridge like an overactive child.  Although Yuulik went running for the beeping operations console, her eyes darted in Taes’ direction.  Taes thought she saw a look of panicked recognition reflect back at her from Yuulik.

“Sorry, captain,” Yuulik spat out breathlessly.  “I’ve been trying to max out the lateral sensor array all morning.  Stellar Cartography is running every long-range sensor from the magneton scanner to the gamma ray telescope at sector seven-three-two in the Typhon Expanse, while Astrometrics is constructing a mathematical model of a proto-nebula based on gravimetric readings in sector seven-nine-five.”

Yuulik’s body collided with the operations console at full speed.  She bounced back with no visible reaction from her.  Swinging her arms at the interface panel, Yuulik hurriedly poked at it, solving the power distribution conflict the computer had discovered.

“I love your hair like that,” Flavia said to Yuulik, as she settled herself in a chair at another of the engineering consoles.  Yuulik was largely bald except for two strips of chestnut brown hair; she had it styled in diagonal mohawks, almost like fins.

“Thank you,” Yuulik said.  Shaking her head, Yuulik sounded confused, like she was sounding out a foreign language.  She eyed Flavia suspiciously, flinching for a cutting follow-up, but Flavia only smiled.

“Your ponytail is cute too,” Yuulik said stiffly.  “But look at this!  We’ve got four laboratories competing for the same sensor array and it’s not taking away any capacity from the navigational sensors.  On Dvorak, we can hardly keep the lights on when we run the quasar telescope.”

Yuulik slapped a hand against the LCARS housing and she locked her eyes on Taes.  Expectantly, Yuulik asked, “We’re moving in, right?”

“…Yes,” Taes said softly.  “Yes, we are.”

Flavia reached a hand out to Taes, offering a Federation handshake in a show of diplomacy.  Taes didn’t reciprocate right away.  

“I humbly accept the position as your new chief science officer,” Flavia said.

Dumbfounded, Yuulik interjected, “What?”

Taes welcome Flavia’s hand and she gave it a shake.  Almost immediately, Flavia let out a scoff of a laugh.  Flavia snorted, “Don’t kill me like your last two.”

Impassively, Taes withdrew her hand.  To Yuulik, Taes explained, “Flavia is the USS Sarek’s Romulan liaison officer.  To demonstrate our ability to cooperate and collaborate, Sarek’s liaison officer is also her chief science officer.” –Taes squinted at Flavia, recalling the commodore’s words– “She will have authority over both the Romulan and Starfleet science departments, but will command no authority over the starship’s operational chain of command.”

Taes pivoted her head in Yuulik’s direction and she smiled at her faintly.  “Meet your new boss.  Flavia.  The one with the cute ponytail.”

“What?!?” Yuulik asked again. 

“Am I in the right compartment?” Commander Elbon Jakkelb asked to anybody and nobody in particular.  He squeezed the PADD in his hand more tightly.  

The captain’s ready room aboard USS Sarek was easily four times as wide as Taes’ ready room back on USS Dvorak.  Even with that extra space, the compartment felt crowded with six other officers in gold and crimson-shouldered uniforms making renovations.  Unlike the rest of the ship, there were entire bulkheads and deck plates missing from this compartment.  It may have been imagined, but the exposed Jeffries tubes and maintenance hatchways seemed to give the compartment that new starship smell all over again.  At first, Elbon was surprised that engineers were still in the process of constructing the ready room, but he was all the more surprised when he noticed the engineers were taking the desk and deck plates out of the ready room.

Only as Elbon stepped further into the compartment did he see Captain Taes herself was one of the officers loosening a wall plate with a sonic driver.  She glanced back over her shoulder and made eye contact with him at the same time.  Straightening her posture to her full height, Taes handed her tool over to the engineer beside her.  Once her hands were free, she turned to approach Elbon.

“Commander Elbon,” Taes said, “I see you’ve accepted my invitation.”  She tilted her head to the right.  “Please excuse the disruption while I redecorate.”

Elbon felt his chest rising up as he said, “I never imagined you would be walking away from the USS Dvorak so soon.”  It wasn’t until that moment that Elbon noticed a sting of rejection in his core.  He had practically grown up on Dvorak.  That ship represented the vast majority of his Starfleet career.

“I had no desire to leave her,” Taes said.  “I could have imagined Dvorak becoming my home.  This mission aboard the USS Sarek, it’s a rare thing.  Diplomacy through science.  They need me here.”

“They do,” Elbon said, feeling less defensive.  He nodded at Taes and then he took a jump-step to the left, avoiding a couple of engineers carrying the desk into the corridor.

Taes followed Elbon’s lead.  “I had hoped you would join me,” she said through a wistful wince. “But this is good, this is better.  I have it on good authority you’re the Task Force’s first choice to become the USS Dvorak‘s captain.”

His face scrunching up in a puzzled expression, Elbon said, “Taes, I’m here.  I’m right here.  I didn’t join Starfleet for the glory.  I serve my duty to help where I can.  Given this mission with the Romulans, I’m going to be needed.  You’re going to need me.  You can’t run a starship this size like you ran a mid-starship or a starbase science department.”

As critical as Elbon’s words may have been, Taes’ eyes lit up like winter sunrise at his decision.  Almost as soon as her pleased expression came, clouds cast shade over her eyes.  Taes cleared her throat.

“Kellin has accepted my offer to serve as Sarek‘s Chief Security Officer,” Taes said.  “I plan to name him as my second officer…”  She trailed off, letting implications hang between them, given the stated goal of Elbon’s shore leave.

Elbon proffered his PADD to Taes.  “Kellin and I are no longer married.  We eloped the week we met but never lived as a married couple.  We, uh, didn’t know how to start now.”

Taes asked, “Will that make it harder for you to work with him aboard Sarek?”

Elbon shrugged.  “Kellin and I are divorced.  But we’re going to try dating each other.  For the first time.”

Looking up from her menu PADD, Sootrah Yuulik caught sight of security boy, Kellin Rayco, plodding into the Sarek‘s Grayson Lounge on his comically long legs.  The aimless meandering between tables reminded Yuulik of the similarly haphazard way Kellin would construct sentences when speaking.   She took an awfully long second to assess if he had seen her yet.  Deciding that she hadn’t caught his eye, Yuulik buried her face in her PADD.  Seated in a banquette, Yuulik angled her body away from the lounge, facing a viewport instead.

For all her efforts to render herself inconspicuous, Kellin sat at Yuulik’s banquette.  He sighed when he sat down; it sounded like the noise her seventy-two-year-old father would make when resting his weary legs.  Kellin didn’t say anything.  He just sat there and he breathed.

“This is weird,” Yuulik said.

“Please don’t say anything,” Kellin replied.  “I just want to sit here.”

“Okay,” Yuulik said.  Forfeiting the banquette, Yuulik rose to her feet and tossed her PADD on the table between them.  She shifted her weight and rose a foot to walk away.

“I only said,” Kellin interjected, “don’t say anything.  You can sit here too.”

Yuulik boggled at him and he didn’t say anything more.  He didn’t look at her.  Kellin just stared into the middle distance.

“Okay,” Yuulik said.  She sat down again and she reclaimed her menu PADD.  Kellin still didn’t look at her, but he smiled faintly.  Having inhabited Kellin’s body for a couple of days, Yuulik easily recognised that smile wasn’t any of the ones that came naturally to Kellin.

Yuulik didn’t say anything more.  She looked to her PADD and she considered her order.

A symphony of voices and alert chimes welcomed Captain Taes’ arrival.  Not only were there officers positioned at every console around the bridge, but it also sounded like half of them were in contact with their teams all over the USS Sarek.  When Taes had been lost in her indecision regarding the offer to take command, the empty ship had offered her little more than funereal beauty.  Now that it was fully staffed with junior officers on their first tour, scientists from the Romulan Free State, and her hand-picked senior staff from the USS Dvorak, the bridge felt like the first day of an interiority festival.

With a lightness in her step, Taes moved with intention to the tactical console, mounted on the arch that encircled the command platform.  Seated at tactical was Lieutenant Kellin Rayco, Chief Security Officer.  Normally, he towered over Taes, but at this moment, he was hunched over his console, clearly fascinated by diagnostic results.

“Lieutenant Rayco,” Taes said, “Contact Deep Space 17’s control tower and request permission to depart.”

“Aye, captain,” Kellin replied.

Kellin shot Taes an excited look as if she were serving him supper an hour early.  Taes didn’t slow down.  She patted Kellin on the shoulder as she walked on by towards the engineering hub.

“Lieutenant Nune,” Taes said to her chief engineer, “clear all moorings and lines to the starbase.”

Seated at one of the aft-facing consoles at engineering, Lieutenant Leander Nune looked up at Taes.  She thought she saw something unfathomable behind his eyes as black as pitch, and it thrilled Taes every time.  Taes didn’t slow down.  She looked ahead and she descended the ramp to the flight control well.

“Aye, captain,” Nune said.

“We have permission to depart, captain,” Kellin reported.

“All moorings and lines have been cleared,” Nune added soon after.

Taes walked the strip of deck between the flight control console and the forward viewport as if it were a runway.  Lieutenant Junior Grade Annikafiore Szerda was seated upright at the CONN, her uniform adorned with the anti-grav exoframe that allowed her Elaysian physiology a full range of motion in M-class standard gravity.  She saluted the captain.

“Lieutenant Szerda,” Taes said to her chief flight control officer, “Take us out at one-quarter impulse.”

“One quarter impulse, captain,” Szerda replied as she swiped her hands over the LCARS panel.

As Taes moved to ascend the ramp to the science hub, Ensign Cellar Door approached Taes at speed.  The exocomp yeoman revved up his anti-grav feet and spiralled through the air across Taes’ path of travel.  From his micro-replicator nose, Cellar had replicated a small claw attachment, with which he proffered a PADD to Taes.

“I hate to sour your vibe, captain,” Ensign Cellar Door said, “However, the commodore says these signatures cannot wait.”

“Far be it from me to make the commodore wait,” Taes replied.  She snatched the PADD out of Cellar’s claw.  Taes didn’t slow down.  She ducked beneath where the exocomp was levitating and she finished her stride up the ramp.  Taes had signed the blinking documents by the time she reached the science hub.

“Our mission,” Taes said to Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik, assistant chief science officer, “is to return to the colony on Tenope and mediate between the colonists and the sentient clay you found native to the planet.”

Deferring to her Chief Science Officer, Flavia, Taes said, “Before we can begin, your team will need to devise a reliable method of communication with the clay.”

“Yes, captain,” Flavia and Yuulik both said, but Yuulik screamed the words louder.

Waiting for Taes on the command platform, Commander Elbon Jakkelb sat in the executive officer’s chair, while Chief Medical Officer Pimpinellifolia was seated at the mission specialist chair for this momentous occasion.  Taes ascended the stairs to take her own seat: the captain’s chair.

Taes said, “CONN, set course for the planet Tenope, warp six.”  –Although she gave the order to Szerda, Taes’ gaze had shifted to the Romulan, Doctor Flavia–  “If Starfleet can learn to live and work among the Romulan Free State, those colonists can find common ground with sentient clay…”

Through the viewport, Deep Space 17 looked as if it were floating out of view, as the Sarek turned towards open space and the Typhon Expanse.

“Let’s find out,” Taes said.

A moment later, the Sarek lurched into warp, filling the viewport with a kaleidoscope of streaming stars and unknowable adventure.

Lieutenant Leander Nune held his breath. 

Nune gripped the edge of the bridge’s engineering console to steady himself.  He softened his attention enough to monitor three different diagnostic panels at the same time.  Each of them told him every warp propulsion system was operating at peak efficiency, as one would expect aboard a brand-new starship.  Still, Nune couldn’t trust it.  Back on the aging USS Dvorak, even when all of her diagnostics were in the green, the superstructure would rumble for a fraction of a second when she shifted between warp speeds.  As her chief engineer, that was mortifying.  From his seat on the bridge, Nune planted his boots on the deck, tightened his core and squeezed the edge of the console’s housing.  He used every part of his body to listen for stray vibrations.

“We’re dropping out of warp,” reported Annikafiore Szerda from the flight control console.

As the warp engines came to rest, Nune was pleased to notice he could feel nothing.  No vibrations.  The inertial damping systems had made the transition out of warp speed smoother than a ride in a turbolift.  Nune glanced up from his LCARS panels to watch the streaking stars on the transparent viewscreen spiral into a look at a single star system.  A star system on fire.

Szerda said, “We’ve arrived in sector Typhon 323, just outside the” –her breath caught in her throat as she looked up from the CONN– “Fincycle System.”

A mass of pink and blue coruscating radiation swirled beyond the USS Sarek, visible through the viewscreen.  The distortion effects were ephemeral, a cluster-flow of radiation fog fading in and out of existence.  In other moments, the radiation looked far more tangible, like sugar shards being spun up in a drum.

Up on the executive officer’s chair, Elbon Jakkelb asked, “What am I looking at?”

“It’s like fireworks,” Kellin Rayco intoned from the tactical console behind Elbon.

Moving towards the glow through the viewscreen, Captain Taes descended the stairs from the command platform.  She turned her head to the science hub on the left.  Her Romulan chief science officer, Flavia, was already watching Taes.  With an expectant mien, Taes raised an eyebrow at Flavia.

“On screen,” Taes said.

A holographic projection of the Fincycle system unfolded across the viewscreen.  The entire star system looked like it was on fire. Five lifeless planets orbited the Fincycle sun and from this angle, the radiation fog that circled the sun looked like a mass of overlapping fireworks.  The night the Dominion was driven away from their occupation of Betazed, Nune recalled, the skies had been filled with ordnance-turned-fireworks.  Even the skies that night hadn’t been ablaze with the same furor as the Fincycle system.

“This entire star system is falling into a subspace rift,” Flavia reported.  She spoke in her formal timbre.  The death of these celestial bodies did not appear to move her.  “What we’re seeing is tetryon radiation and high-energy distortion waves being expelled by the rift.  From this distance, I cannot assess the rift’s subspace mechani–“

Sitting with Flavia at the science hub, Yuulik sputtered out an urgent interruption: “We can approach no closer to the subspace rift, captain!  Our engines would only further the subspace instability in this system.  The rift could expand or implode!”

Flavia emphatically swung her head in Yuulik’s direction.  The snap of movement was so sudden, her dark ponytail slapped the side of her neck.  Flavia pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at Yuulik.

“Thank you, lieutenant,” Flavia said with the barest hints of disdain.  “That was why I recommended we stop at these coordinates and no others.”

Taes interjected, “Have you located the source of the spectral phase pulse you detected on long-range sensors?”

Flavia shot a look at Yuulik.

Yuulik visibly grit her jaw in response.  She huffed out a breath and she tapped at her LCARS console a couple of times.  Yuulik opened her mouth, as if she were going to reply, and then she tapped her console a couple more times.  Finally, she looked to Captain Taes and said, “…No, captain.”

Taes began to pace from side to side.  “Captain Andreus Kohl,” Taes said, referring to Task Force 17’s deputy commander, “has been on the hunt for a spectral phase pulse, crisscrossing the Typhon Expanse for weeks.  The latest reports tell me Kohl abandoned the mission and reassigned Discovery to more fruitful exploration for their own Romulan Free State guests.  If Kohl couldn’t locate the phase pulse for weeks, how did our long-range sensors pick it up through all of that subspace distortion?”

“Silence!” Flavia shouted at the bridge crew.  All conversation across every bridge station hushed immediately.  In a sardonic undertone, Flavia added, “So noisy.  I can hardly think.”

Through it all, Flavia never looked away from the holographic LCARS panel hovering over her console. She scrolled through two nearly-identical waveforms and then instructed the computer to compare them as an overlay.

Captain Taes glanced down at a monitor panel on the armrest of her captain’s chair.  She waited all of thirty seconds before she said anything.  She granted Flavia a moment of silence and then she crossed her left leg over her right knee.

“Did you get it?” Taes asked.

“Yes,” Flavia hissed, elongating that final ‘s’ sound.  “This was the second spectral phase pulse we’ve recorded in five days of surveying the Fincycle system.  In fact… the intensity was far greater than any of the previous ones on record.  Our probe confirmed it to be a subspace phase pulse and something else.  Captain Taes, the phase pulse never originated in the Typhon Expanse.  We’re detecting it through the subspace rift.”

A holographic pane projected on half the viewscreen, displaying a sensor composite of the spectral phase pulse on a loop.  Leander Nune cringed at the throbbing, spectral nature of the subspace pulse.

“That’s the most hideous thing I’ve seen in nature,” Nune remarked.

From the science hub, Sootrah Yuulik reported, “Those frequencies we detected across the lower subspace spectrum suggest this rift opens into an interfold layer of subspace.  The interfold is unstable and collapsing.  I don’t think our probe can withstand much more of these shearing pressures.”

Critically, Flavia started to say, “If we were using a Romulan probe–“

“The interfold layer is connecting this subspace rift in the Typhon Expanse to another subspace rift on the other side of the galaxy,” Yuulik said resolutely. “Flavia’s right.  The subspace phase pulses have been on the other side of the other subspace rift this entire time.”

Flavia threw her head back and laughed.  “Your tiny little ships in Task Force Seventeen have been chasing after a sensor echo, bounced around the Typhon Expanse by this rift’s subspace distortion waves.”

Taes didn’t offer a moment of silence before she asked, “Then where is it?  Where does the subspace phase pulse originate?”

Sitting across from each other at the bridge’s science hub, Yuulik squinted at Flavia and Flavia raised an eyebrow at Yuulik.  Neither answered immediately.  Flavia licked her lips.  Yuulik bobbed her head from side to side.  They both returned their gazes to the sensor readings between them.

“We’ve been detecting strange radiation signatures and brief fragments of transmissions through the interfold layer…” Yuulik answered without answering.

“It’s in the Delta Quadrant,” Flavia asserted.  She squinted and then she clarified, “The subspace phase pulse is originating… somewhere in the Gradin Belt.”

Taes cleared her throat and she regarded her executive officer.  “Elbon,” she said, “Notify Captain Kohl.  He can coordinate with the Delta Exploration Initiative to–“

An alarm trilled from the tactical console behind Taes.  Kellin Rayco tapped at the interface and a surprised scoff escaped his throat.  His eyes snapped in the direction of Doctor Flavia.  If his eyes could have shot phaser beams, he sure looked like he would have done so.

“Rayco?” Taes prompted, while she plainly observed Kellin’s distraction.

Kellin blinked and then he reported, “We’re receiving a distress call from the USS Jaxartes.  They’re under attack by a Romulan starship.”

Taes patted at Elbon’s arm.  Lowering her voice, Taes said, “Contact Captain Kohl right away.  We need to know more about the Jaxartes’ mission.”

Meandering, as if she were walking down the garden path, Flavia rose to her feet so she could descend the ramp into the flight control well.  As Flavia reached the base of the command platform, she looked up at the exchange between Taes, Elbon and Kellin.  She folded her hands behind her back.

In a saccharine timbre, Flavia shared, “Starfleet ordered the Jaxartes to escort a Romulan Free State science ship through Federation space and into the Typhon Frontier.”

“And now they decided to betray the Jaxartes?” Kellin asked, plainly incensed.

Flavia shrugged with her palms up.  “Don’t ask me,” Flavia said.  “I’ll never tell.”

“Lieutenant Szerda, set an intercept course with the USS Jaxartes.  Maximum warp,” Taes ordered, sweeping a hand at the viewscreen.  “Let’s find out!”

USS Sarek will return in

Double-edge Knife