Hurry up and wait.

Across quadrants they had sprinted, through the boundless space between stars, from one crisis-engulfed nexus of light at break-neck speed so they could reach another before it was too late. Those who could not follow were left behind with tearful partings, while everyone else knuckled down, held fast, and made ready for what came next.

Next, it transpired, was for the USS Endeavour to arrive at Starbase 38 with some days left before the Barzan wormhole opened again. So they had rushed and raced; so Captain Rourke had bidden Chief Engineer Cortez to stoke the warp core as hot as it would burn; so he had embraced his daughter and promised her he would be back soon when she and others had taken the transport to Earth; so they had done their utmost to be here in time, and now they stood still and waited. And waited.

Matt Rourke stood at the viewport in his ready room and sighed, knowing this complaint made him sound like a petulant schoolboy. Before him stretched the colossal structure of Starbase 38, the shining city in space that stood an endless watch before the wormhole to the Delta Quadrant. Though he had visited Starbase Bravo several times since its construction, there were still very few stations of this size in the Federation – in the galaxy – and the sight never failed to stop him short. Even after days of staring at it out his window.

Day by day he watched, and day by day the number of ships gathering grew as if they were caught in its web upon arrival. From small prospecting surveyors eager for the riches of the Delta Quadrant’s sudden blooming of dilithium to mighty Starfleet explorers coming to mitigate the chaos left in its wake, they hung together, clustered like schoolchildren poised to chase a football at the blow of a whistle.

The chime at his door broke his reverie, but Rourke first glanced to the timer gleaming on his desk. Seven hours and sixteen minutes until the wormhole opened. He straightened. ‘Come in.’

Hale entered, hands clasped behind her back, casual and practical in a thick jacket and sturdy boots. ‘It’s time,’ she said with a small smile.

He turned and could not mirror her expression. ‘You know I still protest this, right?’

An eyebrow quirked. ‘My area of responsibility is the Romulan Neutral Zone. The Diplomatic Corps is prepared to be flexible and have me respond to crises and situations as they occur, but the Delta Quadrant is a little too far out of my jurisdiction, so to speak. The staff at Markonian don’t need me.’

‘You’re telling me you’re too important for this mission?’ Rourke returned to the desk, at last allowing himself a wry twist of his lips.

‘Too important and yet too underqualified. I’ve no experience or expert knowledge of the Gradin Belt, and I have many esteemed colleagues who do.’

‘They’re not on this ship.’

‘No,’ Hale allowed. ‘No, you have Commander Rosewood for that.’

‘You’re just trying to make me sad, now.’ But Rourke smiled. ‘Use these two months well, Sophia.’

Her brow knotted. ‘One. I’ve made it plain to Starfleet that I expect Endeavour to remain available to support my diplomatic operations. I fully require your ship return when the wormhole opens again in thirty days.’ But no such expectations could be set and met, and at last, Sophia Hale sighed. ‘Be careful.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Rourke, his voice dropping. ‘Our orders are to proceed through to the Gradin Belt and conduct a long patrol, responding to situations as needed.’

‘You mean go looking for trouble.’

‘I’ve taken this crew through worse scrapes than the Delta Quadrant,’ he said with a jocular confidence that was more facade than fact.

Hale met his gaze. ‘I wasn’t expressing my concern for the crew.’

Rourke straightened slowly, sobering. ‘I won’t make promises or condescend you. But I – if it’s at all in my power, I’ll…’ His voice trailed off, throat tightening. In the silence stretching between them, his desk console gave a distant chirrup. ‘I’ll be careful, and I’ll come back.’

He’d seen many of her smiles. They’d sat together in a score of negotiations, where she’d used every tool available to her: polite expressions, measured frowns, all of them deliberately chosen and deployed, crafted to be sincere and yet precise. This smile had none of that cultivation; was smaller, shyer, more apprehensive, and yet it made his chest tighten more than a hundred of her professionally-aimed moves to tug at heart-strings.

‘Matthew…’

His desk console chirruped again, cutting her off, and Rourke scowled at the sight of an incoming message. He leaned over to stab a command and open a connection. ‘What?’

When Lieutenant Lindgren replied, she sounded apprehensive and a little hurt. ‘Sorry, Captain. But I’ve got Commander Airex up here, and he wants to speak to you.’

Rourke made a face. ‘Airex?’ He glanced up at Hale, confused.

But the moment was broken, and she gave a wry shake of the head. ‘You have seven hours. I’ll let you make ready. Stay safe.’ She turned away and he opened his mouth, desperate to reply but unable to quantify whatever it was he felt, let alone do something so simple and clumsy as put it into words.

Then the door slid shut behind her and he scowled at it for a moment before again pressing the comms. ‘Send the commander in.’

He hadn’t seen Airex since Endeavour was last at Starbase Bravo months ago, and they had not particularly talked. He remembered the tall Trill as cutting a tidy figure, always fastidiously neat and well-presented, but the figure who walked in was quite different. It looked like he had not worn his uniform much lately and lost some weight, the jacket a less-comfortable fit, and his sharp jawline was hidden under the new addition of a trimmed beard.

Davir Airex stopped before the desk and clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Captain Rourke, thank you for receiving me.’

Rourke frowned, the encounter with Hale forgotten in the new mystery. ‘Welcome back aboard, Commander,’ he said, gesturing towards a chair as he sat down. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I know this is rather late notice, Captain, but I have a favour to ask of you.’ Airex’s movements were calm, precise as he sank onto the seat. ‘I see from your orders that Endeavour will proceed indirectly to the Markonian Outpost to learn the latest intelligence from the DEI offices.’

‘Our orders are to patrol,’ said Rourke, ‘but Markonian is where we can get the most up-to-date information on where needs monitoring. So yes, we’ll head there in good order.’

‘In which case, I’d appreciate a ride.’ Airex sat up. ‘I’ve returned on a temporary basis to Admiral Beckett’s office. He wants a representative of Fourth Fleet Intelligence at Markonian, and he wants it to be me.’

Rourke frowned. ‘Surely there are ships heading there directly.’

‘There are,’ Airex allowed. ‘Endeavour will give me more of a chance to see the state of affairs in the Gradin Belt before I’m tied to an office. I only need quarters, Captain; I’m aware that since you lost Dathan you don’t have an Intelligence Officer to keep me appraised…’

‘I didn’t lose Dathan,’ Rourke grumbled. ‘She was a traitor. As you know.’

Airex hesitated. ‘She fooled a lot of people. Including Admiral Beckett.’

Rourke found himself fiddling irritably with a PADD stylus, which he tossed to the desk. ‘Of course you can stay aboard until Markonian, Commander,’ he said, forcing his voice to level out. He had no grounds to be annoyed with Airex. ‘I didn’t know you’re an expert in the Gradin Belt.’

‘There aren’t very many experts in the Gradin Belt. But I’ve been monitoring this situation the last six weeks. That’s about twice as long as anyone else,’ said Airex without arrogance, shrugging.

‘Fair enough. I’ll notify Commander Valance. Make sure you’re aboard with your luggage in the next three hours and she’ll get you quarters. Does…’ Rourke hesitated, then decided he could avoid a certain social problem. ‘Never mind. Welcome back, again.’

If Airex knew what he hadn’t said, he didn’t show it as he stood. ‘I appreciate this, Captain.’

‘Before you go…’ Rourke fiddled with the stylus anew. ‘How bad do you think it’s going to be out there?’

Airex drew a deep breath, bright blue eyes taking on that cold distance Rourke remembered from any time his former science officer was going to hold court on a matter. ‘The Gradin Belt is a volatile area. It’s a smattering of small powers, none of them dynamic enough to challenge each other for dominance – or for any of them to establish anything resembling order, stability, peace. You’ve referred to the Neutral Zone or the Triangle as a wilderness – that’s nothing compared to the Delta Quadrant. And dilithium, perhaps the most precious resource in the galaxy, is manifesting across it, set to disrupt trade, frontiers, borders, security. How bad do I think it’s going to be, Captain? It’s going to be chaos.’

Rourke’s eyes narrowed a hint. ‘That’s what I miss about you, Commander. The optimism.’

Airex’s lips twitched. ‘Nobody comes to a scientist for good news. I’ll bring my luggage aboard, sir.’

Rourke blew out his cheeks as he left then spun around on his chair, gaze going to the ceiling. But he couldn’t rest long, and after a minute he turned back to fire a quick message to Valance – written, so she couldn’t drag him into an argument: Find Airex quarters. Get him set up aboard. Tell Kharth.

Command had some perks. Delegation was one of them. And speaking of delegation…

Rourke bounded to his feet and headed for the bridge.

There were few places less busy than a bridge while a starship was parked up near a starbase, but Commander Valance was on her feet the moment he arrived, eyes flashing. ‘Captain, about your message -’

‘All of it stands,’ said Rourke very quickly. ‘I think the news is best from you, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely not -’

‘Nate!’ Rourke walked briskly to Science, ignoring his XO. ‘Come with me.’

Valance looked pained. ‘Sir –’

‘You have my complete trust, Commander!’ he called as he whisked a rather-confused Beckett into the turbolift. ‘Deck sixteen!’

The lift whirring to life was the only sound while Rourke waited and Nate Beckett sputtered in confusion. ‘Why, uh, why sixteen, Captain?’

‘How’s Science, Nate?’ Rourke clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I mean as a department. Not as in, “how’s the systemic gathering and testing of all knowledge?”’

‘Uh, it’d be better if we had an official chief, sir,’ Beckett said guardedly. ‘Or rather, if you forced Veldman to do it at last. Or Turak. Or even Danjuma. But not me. Never me.’

‘You don’t want to run a science department?’ said Rourke with a crooked smile.

‘I don’t want to run one of the biggest departments on this bloody big ship.’

‘So you’re happy running Social Sciences?’

‘There’s barely a dozen of us and a stack of books, so – hang on, you didn’t drag me in here to ask about my career aspirations.’

Rourke made a noise like a buzzer. ‘I did. That’s just not all the story.’ The turbolift slid to a halt and he smirked, ushering Beckett out. ‘I’ve got bad news for you. I know I already stole Chief T’Kalla from Social Sciences, but I need to steal someone else.’

Beckett’s eyebrows raised. ‘I wasn’t even aboard when T’Kalla was last in blue – what, you’re not taking one of my lab techs for the records office, or something?’

‘Nope,’ said Rourke as he led Beckett into Endeavour’s Strategic Operations Centre. ‘I’m stealing you to come and work here.’

The SOC, despite its name, had never been used much to coordinate military matters. In the hands of Lieutenant Dathan, it had served as the beating heart of Endeavour’s strategy – but this was normally diplomatic, political, humanitarian. With missions stretching across the Romulan Neutral Zone, it was essential for Rourke, and often Hale, to keep abreast of everything happening everywhere, lest they be caught out by ripple effects.

But since Dathan’s inauspicious departure the SOC had been barely used, tended to by Chief T’Kalla with Commander Valance’s occasional oversight. Even now the lights were dimmed, most systems inoperative, when once it would have been showing off the webs and echoes of activity in the sector.

Beckett looked around, jaw dropping. ‘Uh. You want me taking over from T’Kalla?’

‘No. I want you taking over from Dathan.’ At Beckett’s shocked look, Rourke gave a tight smirk. ‘Temporarily, while we’re in the Gradin Belt. Nate, I know you – there’s nobody aboard who’s done more study of the region, of the political situation, of the social situation. You’re the best officer to look at activity reports and understand the context, understand what impact it’ll have somewhere else, understand what impact that’ll have on us, in the most alien environment we’ve ever served in. I was talking about this with Valance over breakfast, and we realised that everything we want you to do in anthropology, we think you can do better here. As Acting Chief Intelligence Officer.’

Despite the glowing praise, despite the opportunity landing in his lap, Beckett’s expression clouded and he rounded on him. ‘Don’t say that.’ His jaw was tight. ‘Don’t you dare do something like this, not if my father’s had anything to do with this, not if you…’

Rourke lifted his hands, unsurprised but still bracing at the sudden heat. ‘I have never, and will never, treat you differently to any member of my staff because of your father. That isn’t the reason I want you as one of my main advisers, regardless of your inexperience.’

‘Then why?’

The corners of Rourke’s eyes creased. ‘Because a year ago, when we were in a crisis with the Tkon, you were the only person calling me on my shit. Do you accept?’

Beckett’s eyes fell on the holographic projector that would, when active, show the regional maps giving the context to every report that would come Endeavour’s way. ‘I mean, I have to, don’t I?’ the young lieutenant said softly. ‘It’s way too cool.’

‘Good.’ Rourke beamed and gave him a PADD. ‘Fill out all of these forms to arrange your clearance level. In the next four hours.’

The tablet was given a look of utter betrayal. ‘Okay, so you know you said you want me to call you on your shit, sir…’

‘Only once you’re Chief Intel,’ said Rourke with a smirk. ‘And you’re only Chief Intel when you do the forms.’

‘Tomorrow, we are going to have a hell of a first briefing,’ warned Beckett, but when he left it was with a spring in his step.

Rourke watched him go, smiling and shaking his head, and allowed himself a moment in the silence once he was alone in the dimmed light of the inactive SOC. But he could not rest long; the tension in his chest would not allow it, and he turned to the main display. ‘Computer, give me the latest strategic map of the Gradin Belt.’

‘Processing.’ A moment later it gleamed to light, centred on the far side of the Barzan wormhole. Blue dots shone in locations where Blood Dilithium had been reported, red lights in conflict points arising since – Hirogen hunting parties spotted, Hazari raiders, Devore invading forces. From the meagre Starfleet presence and their allies and contacts among the Turei and other – too few – friends, Rourke knew it was an incomplete picture, with far, far more hidden in the darkness between.

And God only knew what hell awaited them on the far side.

“One hour.”

Rourke gave Lieutenant Thawn a tired look before he slumped back on the command chair. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Silence sank back on the bridge, the crew ready for their plunge to the Delta Quadrant, but listless in this final moment. Anticipation blended with boredom as minutes ticked by to a once-in-a-lifetime experience, where all they could do for now was wait.

Arys shifted at the helm. “Anyone know any good ways to pass the time?”

Lindgren’s lips curled. “I spy… with my little eye…”

“I swear, Lieutenant, if you end that with ‘s’ I’ll have you scrubbing corridors for a week,” came Valance’s surprisingly venomous interjection.

Rourke scoffed. “Sounds like someone didn’t enjoy family trips as a child.”

Thawn tilted her head at her console. “Hm.” At the curious looks, she winced. “I, uh. Nothing of note, sir. Or, rather, I don’t know if you’ll think it’s of note.”

Rourke glanced at the small display by his chair as she fired a sensor reading over, and his eyebrows hit his hairline. “You’ve got a good memory, Lieutenant.”

“It looks like they’re registered as much as anyone else for the trip, but I didn’t know if it was of concern…”

“Not,” mused Rourke, leaning back again, “in the way you think.” He looked to his left. “Lieutenant Lindgren, could you hail the Vondem Rose for me?” Next to him, Valance stiffened.

Lindgren also cocked her head. “Patching you through now, Captain,” she said, and the viewscreen shifted as the connection went through.

He stood at the sight of the other ship’s bridge. “Captain Sadovu, it’s been a while. Glad to see your ship’s serving you well.” His voice was light, the hint of a smile on his lips.

“It is!” Sidda said back with a big smile as she stood from her own command chair, only for it to be occupied by Revin who languidly draped herself in it. “Honestly, these Klingon ships, you turn the lights on,” she waved a hand at the far better lit bridge, which had been repainted in some places to break up the beige and brown, “and they aren’t as bad as people think.”

She took just a moment to admire her own bridge, before turning back to the viewscreen. “And your new ship? Comfortable? It’s a bit…ridiculous in size don’t you think?”

Rourke scoffed as he sat back down. “You’re not the only one who can treat themselves to a bit of an upgrade.” Next to him, Valance leaned in, face like stone, as if she was going to say something, but he lifted a hand to forestall any comment, eyes still on Sidda. “I’ve no authority to demand you answer to me; this is, believe it or not, a social call.” Valance’s expression suggested not all his crew shared this convivial spirit. “But what’s bringing you to the Delta Quadrant? I really can’t recommend it this time of year.”

“You know my travel agent said the same thing, but then I reminded him I do command an armed merchantman.” That polite little lie on paper not fooling anyone who could read a sensor readout. “And he reminded me some people actually engage in piracy would you believe it?” She feigned shock for a moment before letting it drop. “The Martian Thorn took on a special cargo contract and is overdue. Gaeda Ruiz, formerly Lieutenant Commander Ruiz, was commanding, so I’m off to rescue him and the rest of my people from whatever little hell the Delta Quadrant has decided to inflict on them.”

“The Martian Thorn.” Rourke scratched his beard as he thoughtfully echoed the name. “Can’t say the name’s shown up in any report I’ve read, but we’re all on a lag here. I’m sure you know the Gradin Belt’s in a hell of a state right now. I expect I can’t convince you to report the trouble to us and sit this one out?” He did not sound remotely like he anticipated this would work.

“Personal loyalties mean a lot to me Captain,” Sidda said with a shrug. She too went to sit herself back down but stopped with a polite clearing of throat behind her and a tossed look to Revin who merely smiled and waved at her. A glare and she turned back to the screen with a smile once more. “Besides, the way I hear it, you’ll have enough trouble on your hands that looking for a dozen people and an old bird-of-prey is likely a tall order. Besides, this old girl is pretty sneaky unlike the rest of the parade boats out there.”

“I don’t disagree with that,” Rourke sighed. “But reports say it’s chaotic over there. The balance of power disrupted, and dangerous pockets of space turned even more turbulent. I do urge you, Captain, to not get distracted from your rescue mission – even on the way back – from what looks like opportunity. It’ll likely be trouble you’d best stay out of.”

“With all the trouble out in the Delta Quadrant, I promise I’ll stay as much out of trouble as possible,” Sidda said with a playful smirk. “Even promise not to start any wars if I can help it. Or topple local governments and start slave revolts as well.” She took a step closer to the viewscreen. “But hey, if you need a hand or anything just give a shout will you? You’ve got a bit of the Rose aboard after all.” And with that a hand tapped at her hip where she’d have worn a sword if she’d thought to have it on the bridge.

“Yeah, thanks for that, it makes a great conversation piece when people come to my ready room,” he drawled, leaning back. “‘Where’d you get that, Rourke? Oh, just a gift from my very legitimate friends.’ But the same to you, Captain, and we’ll keep an eye out for the Thorn. After all. You’re carting some of the spirit of Endeavour yourself.” If Rourke noticed Valance looking even more like she’d sucked on a lemon, his smirk gave no sign of it.

“Alas the old Endeavour,” she remarked, holding a hand to her heart and offering a moment’s silence for the old Endeavour and Vondem Thorn. “You ever get some of that new ship of your’s blown off, let me know. My chief engineer thinks of herself as an artisan now and is collecting all sorts of scrap. We’ll end up looking like old Orion pirates and explorers before the year is out I fear.”

“I couldn’t possibly hand over even defunct Starfleet equipment; regulations would never allow it.” Rourke gave an overly-dramatic sigh. “But if there just happens to be something lost, not worth recovering, and you come across it on a salvage operation, well, then.” He gestured vaguely. “You’ve got the operating license. Though let’s not make this one a quid pro quo. I don’t think there’s enough meat on the Rose for you to lose too much of it, and my engineer would need a lot of bribing to decorate like that.”

“Oh and Rourke, when all this is over and we’re both back here sipping at spirits older then sin,” Sidda paused long enough to give Revin a signal to get out of her seat, pausing long enough to give the shorter woman a kiss on the forehead as she vacated the seat and Sidda sat herself down, crossing her legs and looking very much in command in her stolen seat, “I’ve got some cargo I’d like to unload and offer to Starfleet. One piece to soothe tensions between some minor Betazoid houses, the other to resolve the mystery of a missing Starfleet officer and the identity of a pirate king.”

Revin had worked around to the side of the chair and sat herself down on the arm of it, a hand on Sidda’s shoulder careful to display the ring there. “She won’t say it,” Revin finally spoke, earning a slight twitch from Sidda that was quickly suppressed, “but she also wants to extend an invitation.”

“You’ve piqued my interest with the cargo enough to lure me into a few traps,” Rourke drawled, leaning forward. “What did you have in mind by “invitation,” Sadovu? You better have a good chef over there.”

“A Klingon chef who considers each meal a battle and will only settle for culinary excellence,” Sidda said and earned a few muttered confirmations from her bridge crew, including a chef’s kiss from her helmsman. “And his two assistants who I wouldn’t critique without Kevak in the room first to stop them from knifing you.”

Then there was the squeeze on her shoulder and she looked up at Revin. “As for the invitation…an engagement party.” An Orion blushing was typically a little hard to spot, especially with Sidda’s darker complexion, but was just visible thanks to the better lighting on the bridge. But then she smirked, turned to the view screen and the blush was gone, the smile taking over her whole face. “What do you say, Rourke? You, me, Revin, whoever you want to bring into this mess? Make even Denobulan relationships look normal?”

“What about her?” Revin asked as she pointed to Valance on the viewscreen. “Or him?” she pointed at another officer on Rourke’s bridge. “Or maybe just us, yes?”

“Might have a point there love,” Sidda said. “Maybe we’ll keep it sensible. Sorry Rourke. Another lifetime perhaps?”

Rourke’s grin remained, though Valance’s expression had faded, perhaps into hitherto undiscovered vistas of irritation. “I reckon if we found another lifetime, you’d be the one in uniform and I’d be the one living the free life. But who knows? Stranger things have happened in the Delta Quadrant.” He sighed and shook his head. “We’re running out of time here, so I’ll leave it saying fair winds to you, Rose. Get into the exact right amount of trouble.”

“And you go about rescuing people from trouble. Once I’ve rescued my people I’ll come and rescue yours. Fair winds Endeavour,” Sidda said with a rolling wave of her hand before the channel was closed off.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Rourke mused as the viewscreen died. Sensing the tension to his right, he turned with a too-innocent smile. “What?”

Valance ground her teeth together. “They’re thieves, sir.”

He considered pressing the point. Even if he called them legitimate, there still existed what they’d stripped off his old command. To him it was a point of quiet pride that she could still be useful, a reminder of the size of the galaxy, but he understood why Valance found it an insult. This was not the place to engage in that debate or provoke her for his own amusement.

“I don’t know what you mean, Commander,” he said at last, settling back. “I cherish that gift.”

“You don’t know how to use a sword.” She looked like she’d realised he was going to tease, and had, after nearly two years together, learned how to pivot away.

Rourke waved a dismissive hand. “I’m sure when the time comes I’ll figure it out. Where were we for the last hour, people? Elsa, what letter do you spy…?”

‘Neutrino levels elevating.’ Lieutenant Danjuma’s excitement was near-palpable as her voice went up a pitch.

‘Three minutes,’ came Thawn’s brisk reminder.

‘Starbase 38 are at yellow alert and have instructed all expedition ships to be on standby,’ said Lindgren at comms.

‘I have our flight route,’ confirmed Arys. ‘We’ll be ninth through.’

‘Take a deep breath, everyone.’ Rourke’s voice rumbled across the bridge. ‘It’s a thirty-minute window and the expeditionary force is all ready. We don’t need to rush the queue.’

Airex stood near the turbolift and watched in silence as Endeavour’s bridge buzzed with anticipation. It had been some time not only since he’d been among these people under such circumstances, but on any starship bridge. Gait light, he approached the trio of command chairs, and leaned towards Rourke. ‘Permission to observe with you, Captain?’

For a heartbeat, Rourke’s gaze flickered over to the Science console. Airex didn’t know much about Lieutenant Danjuma, Head of Stellar Sciences, but from her comportment and the captain’s attitude, he suspected Rourke would prefer someone more experienced in her position. But then Rourke gestured to the chair beside him. ‘Have a seat, Commander. It’s not every day we throw ourselves across the galaxy.’

‘Thank you.’ Airex had been both trying to not look towards the tactical arch where Kharth stood, and studiously attempting to not look like he was blanking her. Coming aboard at such short notice meant he’d had no time to reach out, no time to talk, and this was not the moment for a reunion. But the Chief Tactical Officer’s eyes were locked on her station, and if she harboured any resentment at his presence or behaviour, he couldn’t feel it.

‘Just think,’ came Valance’s quiet voice across from Rourke. ‘We will almost certainly reach systems and phenomena Starfleet’s never visited before.’

‘That’s true,’ Rourke said with a twist of the lips, ‘but we also do that every once in a while in the old Neutral Zone.’

The look she threw him held more good humour than was common when Airex last served with them both. ‘Politics kept us from those places. This is different.’

‘It is.’ Rourke finally smiled. ‘I’m glad I can give you this mission of exploration, Commander. It’s been a while.’

‘Proceeding through the wormhole, sir,’ called Arys.

Airex could not help but to move from the command chairs and approach Danjuma at Science. ‘Do you mind, Lieutenant?’ he asked quietly, politely. ‘It’s quite something else to see it for yourself as it happens.’

For many aboard, travelling through the wormhole would feel like nothing, as if being catapulted thousands of light-years in a second wasn’t even happening. He expected that anyone near a viewport would be glued to it, watching as the wormhole blossomed open and then engulfed them. If he looked up, he could see the same through the viewscreen; see the swirling maelstrom that, once it dissipated, would leave before them different stars.

But he was a scientist, and he wanted to see the data.

Reports hummed across the bridge as Engineering confirmed all systems were operating smoothly, as Helm confirmed their flight pattern, as Danjuma beside him confirmed the readings were as they expected. The deck shuddered with an almost imperceptible change at the pressures on the hull, on their energy systems, and when Airex finally looked up it was to see the swirling blues and purples of the wormhole collapse to show them a whole new oblivion of space.

‘Verifying location,’ said Lieutenant Arys, even though sensors made it plain they had stayed as part of the massive convoy of ships moving through. ‘Confirmed – we’re in the Epatha system, sir.’

Rourke leaned back with satisfaction. ‘Excellent. Set a course for the Markonian Outpost via the Perinos system, Lieutenant, and take us to warp. Elsa, give our regards and farewells to the rest of the expeditionary force. I want additional diagnostics and a double-check of all departmental readiness, and I’ll see senior staff in the conference room in two hours.’

‘Sir,’ said Danjuma awkwardly. ‘Do you want me to send for Lieutenant Veldman or Lieutenant Turak…’

Arys looked at Thawn, and though he dropped his voice, Airex heard him say, ‘Does that count?’ and just get a shake of the head in response.

‘You can do it; Lieutenant Rhade will have the bridge,’ Rourke said with a pinch of irritation, but his gaze cleared when he turned Airex. ‘I’d welcome your presence, too.’

Valance stood. ‘Let me get you properly situated aboard, Commander. We didn’t have a chance for orientation beyond showing you your quarters.’

He followed her to the lift, and waited until the doors were shut and they were on their way before speaking. ‘It’s a nice ship. I didn’t really take the time to enjoy it during the Century Storm.’

‘You were hardly in a state to do so,’ she allowed, hands clasped tightly behind her back. For a moment there was only the hum of the turbolift, then she turned to him. ‘How did it go with the Symbiosis Committee?’

Airex winced. ‘They were… displeased that I had withheld information from them. But ultimately, it reflects very poorly on them that Lerin was such a monster and that they didn’t know before pairing Airex for Joining.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it that way. That some of this is a failure of their duty of care to you.’

‘Precisely.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I’m on thin ice and they’ve asked me to make regular reports – practical and reflexive – to the Guardians. But if there were to be any consequences, the fact that as Davir Airex I’ve been a perfectly stable and productive member of society whose activities are well-documented thanks to Starfleet service… well, that’s reassured them.’

‘Good.’ Valance’s face folded into a frown. ‘You don’t deserve to face the consequences for what Lerin did.’

‘Perhaps not with the Committee. But someone has to be responsible for him.’ The turbolift slowed, and he shook his head. ‘So. Where first? You know I can consult the computer to see where the on-board facilities are.’

‘There’s only really one place the computer can’t guide you to,’ said Valance as the lift stopped and the doors opened to admit them to deck seven. ‘The Round Table.’

The lounge on this deck was small and cosy, exquisitely furnished in blacks, golds, and greens of an art deco style. Clearly more suited to intimate gatherings than the hustle and bustle of a ship’s main lounge, the room would strain at the presence of more than twenty people at a time.

‘Access is traditionally restricted to senior staff and crewmembers at the rank of lieutenant or above,’ Valance explained, ‘but Captain Rourke has welcomed Ms Hale and her chief of staff, and you’re welcome here so long as you’re aboard.’

Airex regarded her with a faintly amused air. ‘Was this final stage of orientation simply an excuse to get to the bar?’

She frowned. ‘We have days before we reach Markonian and you disembark, it’s only appropriate to -’

He lifted a hand. ‘I was joking. It’s nice to catch up. I get the feeling I’ve missed… quite a lot.’

They slid onto the bar stools, and Valance sighed. ‘If you wanted shipboard gossip, then you should have gone to Isa.’

‘Please. Cortez is far too nice. I’ve missed us discussing our colleagues with just a hint of superiority,’ he drawled.

She worked her jaw, a little embarrassed. ‘There’s only so much to tell. The captain successfully lobbied for us to bring families aboard, and that’s been the case for a few months – though they disembarked before we came to Starbase 38.’

‘Reasonable. If you have to abandon ship, or disembark civilians ahead of action, they’ll be very much alone out there.’

‘Quite. Doctor Sadek did point out that several starships have brought families with them to the Delta Quadrant – the Odyssey, for example.’

‘She’s a bigger ship than Endeavour.’

‘Actually, the captain’s argument was that last time we crossed paths with the Odyssey, they’d had the hell so beaten out of them that the third officer was in command.’

Airex smirked. ‘Did Doctor Sadek point out this happened in Federation space? Where is safe?’

‘I think,’ Valance said carefully, ‘the captain isn’t ready to deal with his daughter being in peril.’

‘I wouldn’t be,’ he replied, thinking of the families of his past hosts. ‘I heard Doctor Sadek took the bridge officers’ exam.’

Valance made a face. ‘She is. She’s qualified to take bridge shifts and lead away missions and act in every way as a line officer. I’m deeply uncomfortable with it because it means she now has superiority over, for instance, Lieutenant Rhade, even though he has far more leadership experience.’

‘I’m sure the good doctor will be happy for other people to pick up responsibility for her outside of sickbay.’

‘Everyone else,’ Valance said slowly, ‘is much as they were. But I make a habit of knowing nothing about the personal lives of most of them, especially Rhade and Thawn.’

‘Ah. Wise.’

‘And we’re giving Lieutenant Beckett a chance to prove himself in the SOC this mission.’ She sounded a little guarded at that. ‘I think it’s why the captain would like you there for this briefing. We can see if he leaves gaps, and you’d be welcome to fill them.’

‘I’ve no intention of stepping on toes. He’s a bright young man, and it seems you have other back-stops with this new diplomatic officer. And yet, no new science officer?’

‘Because we have three experienced candidates, personnel hasn’t been racing to get us anyone new. But Veldman doesn’t seem to want it, and Danjuma and Turak are both reticent and unsuitable for their own reasons,’ Valance grumbled. ‘She’s too nervy and he rides roughshod over others. Can you talk to Veldman while you’re here?’

‘I can try,’ he said. ‘But she rather proved her worth to me by disagreeing an awful lot. She’s an excellent scientist and I think she somewhat prefers being second fiddle so someone else does shipboard politics while she does the real work. And I know she and Kowalski had talked about a family, and now that they could both stay aboard if they do start one…’

Valance sighed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. She can get everything she wants by not moving up, can’t she.’

‘It’s utterly alien to me, too,’ he drawled, then he frowned as a fresh recollection hit. ‘Dathan, though… what a bloody mess.’

This brought a fresh scowl. ‘I was expecting someone to breathe down our necks over that. It’s unforgivable that we had a spy in our ranks for so long without anyone suspecting anything.’

‘There’s a very simple reason nobody’s come to Endeavour to find someone to blame: she was on Admiral Beckett’s staff before she was ever under Rourke’s command.’

Her expression cleared. ‘If anyone’s to blame for her getting where she did, it’s the admiral,’ she sighed. ‘I see then why we’re treating this as an inevitable, natural disaster.’

‘I don’t have a full understanding of the internal investigation; I know Commander Lockhart oversaw it herself and she took over from Dathan, had no relationship with her. I think we were subject to a professional-level infiltration, and the feeling is also that Dathan exploited the gaps in our oversight processes left by Commodore Oh. Everyone was and remains far more interested in finding Tal Shiar spies and then covering their own backs.’ Airex shook his head. ‘Don’t feel guilty, Valance. People whose job it was to know, didn’t know. How could you?’

‘Perhaps. She is, at least, dead now.’ Valance drummed her fingers on the bar, then looked levelly at him. ‘Commander Kharth has been a perfectly able second officer and has, in my opinion, improved considerably in matters of focus and discipline.’

They stared at each other for a moment, but Airex broke first and shook his head. ‘How merciless of you,’ he sighed, and winced. ‘How is she, though?’

‘She and I have… an accord these days. But not that much of an accord. Isa seems to think she’s doing well enough, though. I did ask. Have you two talked?’

‘Not since Bravo. She was a little less forgiving than you.’

‘I’d point out your betrayal of her was greater.’

‘Saying Saeihr Kharth might have been right?’ Airex’s eyebrows raised. ‘You’re getting soft. I did write to her, but…’

‘But?’

He shook his head and pulled out a PADD. ‘If you want to be on top of the departments ahead of the meeting, I should let you go.’

Valance watched him a moment, then stood. ‘Alright. We’re not done here, though.’ She tucked her PADD under her arm and hesitated. ‘I’m glad you’re back with us. Even if only for a little. You’ll still see some of the patrol and, whatever’s going on out here, I think we’ll do better facing it with your help.’

‘It is only for a little,’ he reminded her lightly. ‘But I’m glad to be back here with you all. Whatever’s at the root of blood dilithium, we can make people’s lives better through, first and foremost, scientific understanding.’

Airex made it to the conference room at the same time as the bridge crew, sitting at a bare table that had Lindgren inexplicably muttering a complaint. He watched as she, Thawn, and Arys looked at each other before sitting down at near-opposite ends, eliciting a stern but confused look by Valance.

‘We’re not here to play musical chairs, Lieutenants,’ Valance chastised, sitting to Rourke’s right and gesturing for Airex to take the seat across from her.

He obeyed, but not before he heard a low murmur from Kharth, last in of the bridge officers, as she complained, ‘It’s too early without enough coffee for this,’ and sat next to him. The three junior officers hissed something to each other, and Kharth swore.

Valance again glared. ‘What on Earth…’

But then the others were arriving, Cortez bouncing with a spring in her step, and she stopped by Airex’s seat on her way. ‘Good to see you again, Commander, but let’s not get irradiated or dragged through space-time again, huh?’

‘We’ll have to do our best,’ Airex drawled.

‘Sit down, everyone,’ said a somewhat impatient Rourke, ushering the ebbs and flows of officers to the table. ‘For those who haven’t heard, Commander Airex has rejoined Vice Admiral Beckett’s staff. We’re just giving him a lift to the Markonian Outpost, but he’s come to the Gradin Belt to help coordinate activities, so it seems useful to have him in these meetings.’

There were polite nods, even though Airex knew most of the faces. While Arys and Beckett sitting in the senior staff was new and some officers sported fresh pips, the only stranger to him was Commander John Rosewood, who gave an openly warm smile in greeting.

‘Before we get started properly,’ Rourke pressed on without leaving space for pleasantries, ‘I want department heads to confirm you’ve got no problems with operations, staff, or resources.’

Cortez leaned back in her seat. ‘It’s not as if we’re about to be lacking in dilithium.’

‘Medical supplies are fully-stocked from SB38,’ added Sadek, ‘and I’ve taken to letting my staff get a whole five hours’ sleep a night, so maybe we’ll even be able to patch you up.’

Rourke shook his head with quiet affection as he listened, but a sober glint remained in his gaze. ‘Make no mistake, people. This is the biggest deployment Starfleet has ever made to the Delta Quadrant, but we are very much on our own out here. The wormhole won’t open for another thirty days. Our only permanent base is an office on the Markonian Outpost, which is more like a consulate. If we get in trouble, we’ll be at the whims of our friendships and fortune to get backup. At the best of times, we are in a dangerous and lonely part of space. And these aren’t the best of times.’ He looked down the table. ‘Nate?’

Young Nate Beckett blinked, pointing at himself – then sat up. ‘Oh! Yeah, I help brief people. You want the blood dilithium bit or the general bit?’ At the captain’s level look, he cleared his throat. ‘So there are three sorts of problems. First is that dilithium is sprouting – yeah, that’s a deliberate choice of words – all over the place. So far, only in proximity to subspace anomalies, but if there’s one thing the Gradin Belt has lots of, it’s subspace anomalies.’

Cortez chewed on her stylus. ‘I keep reading reports saying this, like it arrives suddenly – what are we talking about?’

‘Uh…’ Beckett flicked through a PADD.

‘More or less overnight,’ Airex offered in a low voice, and found all eyes on him. ‘It is geologically improbable, if not impossible. Whole deposits have bloomed on moons, asteroids – even inhabited worlds. Yes, with all the catastrophic effects you’re imagining, Commander.’

Cortez blinked. ‘That’s… terrifying.’

‘So, uh, everyone and their dog wants a piece,’ said Beckett, keen to recover some purpose. ‘Reports of these manifestations made it back to the Alpha Quadrant before the last wormhole cycle, and before Starfleet really knew the magnitude of the problem, a whole bunch of prospectors jumped through to make their fortune. And like the captain said, the Gradin Belt is dangerous and lonely and even Starfleet doesn’t know much about it – let alone the average Ferengi trader. We’re expecting a lot of distress calls from Alpha Quadrant natives who’ve found themselves in trouble.’

‘Not to mention,’ added Valance tersely, ‘the disruption they might bring. If they’re not helpless, they’re whole new elements introduced to a volatile region.’

‘Well…’ Beckett tilted his head this way and that. ‘It’s not that volatile. I mean – it wasn’t. The Gradin Belt is home to a bunch of minor and what Starfleet designates mid-level powers. There’s been enough room for everyone and no significant expansionist forces, so the balance has been kind of calm. Until now.’ He reached for his PADD and flicked the Gradin Belt’s map onto everyone else’s devices and the central projector.

‘Obviously everyone wants a piece of the dilithium,’ Beckett pressed on. ‘So anyone and everyone now has an excuse to start trouble with their neighbour. But the big kid on the block is the Devore Imperium, a bunch of authoritarian xenophobes – so sayeth Voyager’s records, not my words – who fortunately have been pretty isolationist. Until now.’

‘Now,’ ventured Kharth, ‘they want the dilithium?’

‘Oh yeah. They’re expanding, sending their warships and annexing territories in order to get it. Apparently this is the most militaristic and aggressive they’ve been in decades, maybe centuries.’

‘It doesn’t help,’ chimed in Commander Rosewood, lounging back in his chair, ‘that our friends and allies are thin on the ground out there. We’ve treaties with the Turei and agreements at Markonian, but otherwise the powers tolerate us, hate us, are pretty tiny, or are too fractured for us to know if a run-in with, say, a Shivolian, will go any way in particular. And this whole balance of power’s been kicked in the face by this stuff.’

Beckett glanced down the table and winced. ‘That brings us to the other thing. I’m not going to show you all the recording from the USS Merevek when they first picked up some of this blood dilithium, but it’s in your files. Fact is, this stuff is different to regular dilithium.’

‘Yeah, why do they call it “blood dilithium?”’ said Cortez.

‘I mean, it’s red,’ said Beckett. ‘But also it screws with telepaths.’

There was a pause as all eyes fell on Thawn. The Betazoid raised her eyebrows and looked at Beckett. ‘Please elaborate on “screw with,” Lieutenant?’

‘Uh, reports mix. Also how much is unclear. From powerful to latent alike, it seems like the effect ranges from feeling a bit peaky and nervous to, uh, trying to kill people around you or falling into a fugue state.’

‘Oh,’ said Cortez. ‘So just a little thing.’

‘Fourth Fleet Intelligence has been looking at the reports from the Merevek,’ Airex ventured, leaning forward, ‘and we have some very preliminary suggestions of modifications to deflector systems that might protect crewmembers from this psionic energy-based influence.’

Rourke frowned. ‘That wasn’t in my marching orders.’

‘It is, as I said, preliminary.’ Airex winced. ‘And untested. I can’t guarantee anything, sir, but if you want I can forward the notes to Commander Cortez.’ He lifted a PADD.

She clicked her tongue as she read. ‘I could do these modifications.’

‘How long?’ said Rourke.

Airex frowned as half the table grew very still and stared at Cortez with an unusual degree of severity. The engineer looked back at them and squirmed. ‘Um. I’m not sure.’

‘You’re not sure?’ Rourke pressed.

‘Uh.’ Cortez hesitated again. ‘Twelve hours? That’s twelve working hours.’ She turned down the table and stared the other officers dead in the eye.

Valance tossed her PADD on the table with a heavy impact. ‘Alright,’ snapped the XO. ‘What the hell is wrong with everyone today?’ The last thing Airex expected was for half the table to squirm in seeming delight at this chastisement, while Cortez swore quietly. That only drew Valance’s attention. ‘Commander?’

‘I…’ Cortez looked caught, working her jaw and looking between Rourke and Valance. ‘Uh, it’s nothing, we’re all just really excited to go to the Gradin Belt and it’s nothing -’

‘We’ve got a new game,’ Sadek said at last in a wry voice. ‘It’s Briefing Bingo.’

Rourke and Valance exchanged looks. ‘Briefing Bingo,’ the XO repeated, and looked only more put out as Rourke put a hand over his mouth and began to snicker.

‘For the most part, our operations have been quiet the past four months,’ said Kharth, with the briefest look at Cortez, Thawn, and Sadek. ‘So we – well. Isa… came up with some rules.’

‘Thanks, Sae,’ squeaked Cortez, leaning away from Valance. ‘Throwing me under the thruster fire there.’

Rourke ran a finger across his lips like he was trying to better disguise a smirk. ‘What’s on the cards?’

‘Uh.’ Cortez pulled out her PADD sheepishly. ‘The junior officers sit together.’

‘That’s why we’re like this,’ said Lindgren, unapologetic as she gestured to how there was at least one space between her and Thawn, Arys, or Beckett.

‘Kharth complains about not having enough coffee,’ Cortez continued, to an eye-roll from Kharth. ‘Carraway puts out pastries before the meeting begins.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the counsellor said. ‘I couldn’t get up here before we started today.’

‘Sadek tries to wriggle out of being given a job,’ Cortez continued. ‘Whoever’s repping science makes it clear they’re only here on protest. I lie about how long a job will take.’

‘Oh,’ sighed Valance, eyes going skyward. ‘That’s what set it off at the end?’

‘Sure,’ Cortez transparently lied.

Rourke raised his hands. ‘So long as you focus,’ he said, ‘you can do whatever you want. But I’m not kidding – we’re not on survey missions or ferrying people to diplomatic summits or even doing relief work in well-trodden parts of space. This is the real deal. Play like you’re in the final innings.’

‘Yes,’ hissed Sadek, eyes gleaming, and she remained unapologetic as the captain stared at her. She lifted her PADD. ‘I just got bingo with “Rourke uses a sports metaphor.”’

‘Hang on!’ protested Cortez, leaning forward. ‘I wasn’t lying about the modifications -’

Valance had tilted over to read her PADD. ‘Does this say “Valance shouts at us”?’

Rourke buried his head in his hands. ‘You’re all dismissed,’ he groaned. ‘Possibly out the airlock. Nate, keep monitoring incoming reports; I want to know exactly what the rest of the expeditionary force is finding.’

‘Oh,’ said Beckett as the senior staff looked set to disperse. ‘There’s one more thing about the Devore and maybe part of why they want blood dilithium: they hate telepaths. Really hate telepaths. We think maybe they’re weaponising it against them.’

‘Charming people,’ mused Thawn. ‘I’m sure we’ll give them a wide berth.’

‘Let’s be fair, Nate,’ chimed in Rosewood. ‘They hate everyone who’s not them.’

‘Even better,’ groaned Kharth as she stood up, and Airex rose quickly, too, before the senior staff could disperse.

He dropped his voice. ‘Can we talk?’

Normally, she’d looked apprehensive and angry when he’d gone near her these past three years. But then his history had come out, the truth about his past lives and his behaviour, and they hadn’t really spoken since. He’d expected her to be angrier, or more tired, or even, hopefully, happier to see him. He hadn’t expected her to look embarrassed.

Kharth shifted her feet. ‘I’ve got – there’s a lot I need to get on top of. Later, Commander?’

‘I don’t -’

‘Commander.’ Everyone who knew them, knew better than to interrupt. But Commander Rosewood didn’t know them, and appeared at Kharth’s elbow with a toothy smile and an extended hand towards Airex. ‘John Rosewood; it’s a pleasure.’

‘I – Davir Airex.’ He shook the hand and tried to not let his expression pinch. ‘Thank you.’

‘Your reputation really precedes you,’ Rosewood continued, stepping in obliviously and leaving Kharth an escape route she quickly seized. ‘I’d welcome your thoughts on the diplomatic briefings I’ve had; I’m sure with your access to Admiral Beckett’s office, there’s more you know that I don’t…’

Extricating himself happened too late. And then there was Greg Carraway insisting they get tea together, and once Kharth was definitely long gone, Cortez stepped in to discuss with sympathetic eyes the possible deflector grid modifications.

A week had seemed sufficiently little time to be trapped on a ship with half of his ghosts. But with the frenetic pace aboard Endeavour, perhaps it was far, far too much.

The recorded footage from the USS Merevek did not make great viewing before breakfast, but nobody could ever accuse Rosara Thawn of making positive life choices – especially herself. So she watched one of her kinsmen try to rip people apart while she pulled on her uniform, and decided she didn’t fancy eating on her own after all.

Reaching the Round Table, it seemed she wasn’t alone in that feeling. Endeavour’s senior staff had no fixed morning routine; Valance and Cortez would often eat together in their quarters, Kharth might be still shoving a pastry in her mouth as she reached the bridge, Lindgren and Arys often socialised with other junior officers in the lounge of a morning.

Today was different. Not only was it more busy than normal, with most of the senior staff present, but someone – she suspected Carraway – had laid out platters of breakfast foods across the bar. Not only did it avoid a queue at the replicator, but the atmosphere was at once more collegiate, casual, as officers grabbed plates of whatever they wanted from sausages and hash brown to fruit and pastries, and took to their seats.

Cortez and Sadek sat at the far end laughing over a stack of pancakes; it looked like the doctor was holding court with a tale of some anonymous crewmember’s mishaps in Sickbay. Valance and Airex had coffees and pastries the next table over, ostensibly in deep conversation but with the XO occasionally casting her partner an amused, affectionate, distracted glance. Lieutenants Song and Danjuma, husband and wife, breakfasted together just at the edges of the room’s hustle and bustle, alone but soaking in the proximity of people, while Carraway, Doctor Elvad, Lieutenant Turak and Commander Ra-Talorei looked engrossed in their booth in a discussion of what sounded like some philosophical or ethical hypothetical. Despite being half a hundred thousand light-years from home, the buzz was both collegial and excitable, even with the thrumming thread of tension plucked whenever anyone acknowledged just how dangerous this frontier was.

They knew they were in the lion’s den, and that was nothing so long as they were together.

Lindgren had occupied one of the booths with Beckett and Arys and gestured towards her, but while Thawn returned the wave, she did not head over. A stop at the bar got her a warm, soothing tea and a breakfast roll, but then she proceeded to the tall table where Kharth sat alone, shovelling in scrambled eggs.

‘Commander – did you watch the video?’

Kharth frowned at the interruption and swallowed quickly. ‘Good morning to you too, Thawn.’

‘Good morning, Commander, ma’am – did you?’

For a moment she looked like she might pick a row. Then she wiped her mouth with a napkin and sighed. ‘The Merevek? I’m Chief of Security. Of course I watched it. And I read all the briefing packages ahead of us coming here, as I’m sure you did. Neither of us were born yesterday, Thawn.’

‘What protocols do you have in place?’

‘The same applying to every ship,’ Kharth said slowly. ‘That you, and Rhade, and Turak, and T’Kalla, and any of the rest of the dozen or so telepaths of varying strength in the crew should report if you feel anything out of sorts. But we’re in deep space right now, Thawn, we’re nowhere near any blood dilithium.’

Thawn narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t these protocols apply to you too?’ As Kharth pursed her lips, she pressed on. ‘I don’t think now’s the time to be cagey or awkward about Romulan-Vulcan history -’

‘Because otherwise you’d treat things with delicacy,’ drawled Saeihr Kharth, master diplomat. ‘Truthfully, Thawn, Romulan telepathy is latent at best, and I’ve personally never produced so much as a blip on any psionic energy readers. I’ve studied the reports from the Merevek and the protocols and of course they apply to me, but I’m not worried.’ She took a gulp of black coffee and peered at her. ‘You’re worried.’

‘I’m probably the most powerful telepath aboard.’ Thawn tossed her hair back like this wasn’t a brag – and under the circumstances, it was not. ‘With a recent history of exposure to psionic energy manipulation under duress. Of course I’m worried.’ It was easier to be blunt in a casual sort of way, especially with Kharth. The Romulan responded better to it and they had always had a mixed relationship anyway. ‘I was actually coming to ask if you needed help.’

Kharth’s eyes widened with a millimetre of surprise. ‘Help in monitoring the crew…’

‘I grew up in an environment where using telepathy was as normal as breathing, and moved as a teenager to a culture where reading someone’s mind was suddenly one of the most invasive things I could possibly do to a person. I have excellent telepathic discipline, and if you do begin to experience adverse effects from this… substance… then I imagine you don’t want to start with Lieutenant Turak for support.’

The two women stared at each other for a long moment, before yet again Kharth had a sip of her coffee. ‘Alright, Thawn,’ she said after a heartbeat. ‘If something starts to go sideways in my brain, I’ll turn to you on how to shut it out.’

‘I would actually,’ Thawn pressed, ‘recommend we begin some exercises before anything happens.’

Kharth put her mug down deliberately. ‘Are you offering this to any of the others?’

‘I expect everyone else has more practice in the fundamentals of telepathic discipline,’ Thawn said haughtily. ‘And it’s in everyone’s best interests for the Chief of Security to be as coherent and controlled as possible.’

‘Comparatively, you mean,’ Kharth said wryly. ‘Alright, we’ll schedule something in.’

‘Tonight,’ Thawn pressed.

Kharth looked her up and down. ‘Sure. And this isn’t about you wanting to focus on someone else’s control so you don’t have to worry about your own. Sure.’

‘Considering I expect your technique to manage this would be a return to the punching bag, I’m not sure you’re in a position to throw stones. Good morning, Commander.’

Satisfied enough – because she didn’t particularly want to spend time with Kharth – Thawn turned, a pastry from the bar, and headed for the booth her friends were at.

‘That looked important,’ said Arys rather earnestly as she sat.

‘That’s only because people don’t talk to Kharth unless they have to,’ Beckett pointed out.

Lindgren elbowed him lightly. ‘I see being bumped up to senior staff hasn’t improved your manners.’

‘Surely I can get away with more right now?’ He grinned toothily. ‘Or what’s the point?’

‘Enjoy being in here while we let you,’ Thawn said crisply. ‘The captain was generous to give you access in the first place, considering your position is only temporary.’

‘Oh, I get first eyes on almost every missive and report from the DEI and every starship in the Gradin Belt in comms range, and I had to sign about a billion new vetting forms to bump my clearance up – but being let into the fancy lounge is the real intrusion?’

She tilted her nose up. ‘For my peace of mind, yes.’

‘Don’t mind her,’ said Lindgren. ‘We’re all jealous you get to play with the SOC.’

Arys’s eyes widened. ‘It’s a hugely sophisticated piece of equipment and analysis software for all Starfleet operations in the quadrant…’

‘And it puts on a hell of a light show when I flick between the different display settings; we could have a party down there,’ Beckett agreed with an amiable sip of tea.

‘I’d say he’s trying to provoke you,’ Thawn said drily to Arys, ‘but I think he’s serious.’

Beckett met her gaze with the ghost of a smile at his lips. ‘I’m always serious.’

The main door slid open behind her, and it was Lindgren who glanced up before her expression set in a very deliberate way. ‘They’re spending more time together,’ she observed as Thawn noticed Rosewood and Rhade heading to the bar.

She tried to not make an irritable noise. ‘They work out together in the mornings.’

‘That,’ said Beckett, ‘sounds like way too much testosterone before breakfast.’

‘I leave them to it,’ Thawn agreed, then leaned in towards him. ‘So our orders are to patrol, but what from the reports do you think is going to be in our path?’

It was a transparent manipulation to get off the topic of Adamant Rhade and to get Beckett to enthuse about his new job. But it worked, because Nate Beckett was nothing if not enamoured with all of the information and responsibility at his fingertips.

‘I was going to ask the captain,’ he eventually said after waxing lyrical about Voyager’s encounter with the so-called telepathic pitcher plant. ‘Do you think I should change uniform? I know this is only temporary, but I could go into gold or into red…’

Arys frowned. ‘You’ve not been transferred fully out of the sciences.’

‘You’re right,’ sighed Beckett. ‘And the blue brings out my eyes, but I’d look real smart in red. But there’s a chance Valance will insist I go into gold, and I’ll look really washed-out in gold -’

He was cut off by the lights changing, the gentle gleam from the lamps overhead augmented by a flash of amber from the strips beside them, and for one ridiculous moment Thawn thought Beckett had summoned a colour change with his words. Then the captain’s voice broke through comms, ushering in a starker reality.

‘Yellow alert. Alpha shift to stations.’

Beckett gaped as the other three stood. ‘What’s my station in this situation?’

‘You could fight Commander Airex for the fancy chair,’ Thawn pointed out as she adjusted her uniform collar, and though he flapped, he followed as they headed with the others for the bridge.

Rourke was already in the centre seat, and Thawn suspected he’d been breakfasting in his ready room. He nodded as they arrived and set to their stations. ‘We picked up a distress call from a nearby ship, automated. Scans suggest it’s a freighter, native to the Delta Quadrant but we don’t recognise the design.’

Lindgren was already tapping controls at her console as she sat down. ‘Universal translator suggests the call was made in Antarian,’ she said, but sounded more like she was reading than fully understanding.

‘Oh!’ Beckett had stopped near the third command chair, hovering with uncertainty even though Airex had not followed them up. ‘The Antarians mediated some of the big historic treaties in the region and their language is a pretty common lingua franca because of it. So that, uh, doesn’t necessarily mean much.’

Rourke raised his eyebrows at him. ‘Thank you, Nate. Now sit your arse down.’

‘Yessir.’ Beckett perched on the tertiary chair like it might bite him or like he wanted to put his feet up and wasn’t sure which would win.

‘We’re coming up on the freighter,’ Arys reported crisply. ‘Dropping out of warp.’

‘On screen,’ Rourke instructed.

Thawn hit the control to change the viewscreen just as the stars stopped streaming in front of them, and the display was filled with the sight of a drifting, derelict freighter barely bigger than one of Endeavour’s runabouts. While plasma exhaust hissed from a vent at too high a rate,  the hull was intact, with no signs of scoring. Yet there the ship hung – dead, listing, unbearably still though Thawn could see no reason why, and she tensed as her eyes dragged over the display to find some, any explanation, and came up short.

‘They’re down to emergency power,’ Danjuma reported from Science, cutting through Thawn’s reverie. ‘No sign of external damage, but most of their systems are down except for life support, and it looks as if they suffered a major overload of their EPS conduits.’

‘They weren’t attacked,’ mused Valance. ‘Mismanagement of the engines?’

Rourke shrugged at the theorising and looked to Science. ‘Life-signs?’

Danjuma made a small, frustrated sound. ‘Their radiation shielding is damaged; I don’t know how dangerous it is aboard, but there’s too much theta radiation masking our sensors on the interior.’

‘Thawn, try to boost our sensors. Elsa, any luck hailing them?’

‘I’ve tried on a few frequencies; no response. The distress call is definitely automated, and it just says they’ve experienced engine trouble and are drifting.’ Lindgren winced. ‘It started a day ago.’

Valance looked back at Danjuma. ‘Assess how bad the radiation is; we may need to send over an away team.’

Danjuma hesitated. ‘I, uh, once Lieutenant Thawn’s reallocated the power…’

Valance turned. ‘Lieutenant Thawn?’

It took that sharp address for her to snap her eyes away from the viewscreen, and Thawn scowled at her controls. ‘Aye – yes, Commander. Sorry, Commander. Boosting power to the main sensors.’ Her cheeks flushed as her fingers ran over the console.

A moment later there was a beep at Science. ‘I still can’t be confident that if there are life-signs, sensors can read them,’ Danjuma admitted, ‘but radiation is within exposure guidelines with anti-rad medication. We can beam over, but only to sections where the interference is lowest.’

Rourke nodded and straightened up. ‘Commander Valance, get an away team down to sickbay and then beam over. See what the situation is, help these people if possible, and find out what happened either way.’

Valance nodded and stood. ‘Kharth, Thawn, you’re with me. I’ll have Cortez meet us in sickbay and bring a medical officer, too.’

The other two women hopped to their feet, surrendering stations to the relief officers and following the XO to the turbolift. It wasn’t until the doors were shut and they were on their way before Valance looked at Thawn. ‘Are you still with us, Lieutenant?’

Thawn flushed again. ‘Sorry, Commander. It’s just – it’s very alien out here. The ship design isn’t that odd, but it’s still something I’ve never seen before, built along lines I’ve never seen before. The language of the distress call isn’t one I’ve heard before. It’s all very minor, but that’s almost what makes it more unsettling. We really are somewhere completely untouched by any cultural influence we recognise.’

Valance nodded at that, settling. ‘Agreed. But these are still people who sent out a distress call, and we’re Starfleet. We answer those.’

‘Even if,’ Kharth mused as the turbolift rushed on, ‘we’re in a place where the stars are wrong.’

Darkness broke with six gleaming beams of blue, then engulfed again the shrouded corridor and the newcomers alike. As the echo of transporter energy faded away, Cortez shattered shadow and silence both with a loud curse, a clattering at her toolbox, and the click of a torch.

‘Ow – Commander…’ Crewman Griffin threw a hand over his face as Cortez fumbled the light and it shone in his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ Cortez hissed. ‘Shoulda had the damn thing in my hand…’

‘Don’t worry, everyone, we’re very competent Starfleet officers, and we’re here to rescue you.’

Lieutenant Zherul’s voice shone with wry amusement, too low to be anything but a mocking aside to the away team.

‘Why do we always gotta be the ones on the creepy-ass ships?’ Cortez pressed, swinging the torch up and down the corridor.

‘I wasn’t there on the Odysseus,’ Thawn said faintly, not knowing why she was engaging with the chief engineer’s blowing off of steam.

‘Okay, sure, we got the creepy ship. You got to stop a storm with the power of science -’

‘That’s quite enough.’ Valance’s words were a whip cracking them back to focus, and the shrouded corridor of the derelict freighter shifted back to being their first priority. They’d fumbled and bickered because the whole place was thoroughly disconcerting.

Sadek had sent them Lieutenant Zherul, the nurse and paramedic trained for these kinds of first-response situations. Thawn thought that made sense, but the presence of Crewman Griffin, one of Kharth’s newest assignments, did not settle her nerves; he was young and he was green and this did not feel like the place he should be tested.

The beam of Cortez’s flashlight ran down the long, empty corridor, showing only worn metal and signs of life long gone. A heartbeat later, flashlights from Kharth, Griffin, and Valance joined it and swept the other way to find nothing new, the doors at the far end or along the bulkhead closed.

The snap of Thawn’s tricorder felt much, much too loud, as did the chirrup of its systems perking to life. ‘I’m still not picking up life-signs,’ the Betazoid reported a moment later. ‘But we’ve got moderate levels of theta radiation, enough to obscure my scans if anyone’s more than a section away.’

‘If we want a hope of figuring out what happened without finding a survivor or crawling over every damn inch of this place,’ said Cortez, ‘then I want eyes on their reactor chamber. Something must have busted in their transkinetic chamber if they’re not recycling all this radiation.’

‘Or,’ said Thawn, ‘they don’t have that technology in the Delta Quadrant.’

Cortez blinked. ‘Oh damn. Or that.’

‘Very well,’ said Valance, her voice so fine-tuned the taut strings might break if flicked too hard. ‘Kharth, Isa, head for the engine room. Thawn, Griffin, you’re with me, heading for the bridge. Maybe we can restore some systems and learn something.’ She glanced to Zherul. ‘Where do you think you’ll be needed most, Lieutenant?’

‘With this level of radiation and likely no meds, anyone in the engine room is probably way past help,’ the young Orion said with a wince. ‘I’ve a higher chance of finding a survivor with you.’

‘Stay in contact,’ Valance pressed the other team. ‘And report anything you find at once.’

‘I mean, anything important.’ Cortez’s nose wrinkled. ‘You don’t want me complaining about the reactor assembly on this last generation bucket-of-bolts -’

‘Isa.’ Valance’s voice was flatter, but, Thawn thought, not as harsh as it might have been two years ago. ‘Search. Assess. Report back. Less comedic banter.’

‘But comedic banter is how I don’t panic,’ Cortez whinged.

‘Don’t worry, Commander,’ Kharth drawled. ‘I’ll bring the mood right down. See you when we find something.’

It was worse to part ways, not just because it felt like there was safety in numbers, but because walking in opposite ways down the corridor meant Thawn could hear the footsteps of Kharth and Cortez receding, then echoing. Darkness did not materially impact acoustics of a chamber, but it affected how one heard anything, and on this dimmed freighter the gloom muffled and bounced the direction of any sound.

Valance had to use the emergency crank to open the next door, power dead to these internal systems. As she worked, Griffin looked at Thawn. ‘Can’t you just sense anyone aboard, Lieutenant?’

Thawn had to unclench her jaw to respond. ‘It’s telepathy. Not a tricorder.’

‘You don’t hear thoughts? Or you can’t read anyone’s mind?’ the young crewman pressed, undaunted. He was tall and wiry, a tidy package of boundless, youthful energy, and that was in some ways a comforting feature in a security officer, but this unbridled curiosity was less appealing to her right now. ‘Is it a limited range, or…’

‘It’s not really passive, like listening or seeing,’ she said slowly. ‘It takes focus to read a mind, and focus to communicate telepathically. Which means I need to know a mind is there. Sometimes I can sense strong feelings, but that’s dependent on circumstances.’

‘Like what?’

‘Not these.’ Valance’s voice was sharp again as she pulled the doors open. ‘And I want you using senses that will help, Griffin.’ Her flashlight, once she raised it, shone on another long corridor and a metal stairway leading up a deck. ‘This looks promising.’

‘Hello?’ Zherul called out, her voice echoing down the dark.

Thawn’s eyes narrowed at her. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘No, she’s right,’ said Valance. ‘If someone attacked this ship, they won’t have stuck around. If anyone’s here, they’re a survivor.’ She raised her voice. ‘We received your distress call. We’re here to help, we’re not raiders, we don’t want to steal anything. We have engineers and medics.’

But they were answered by nothing but echoes, and with a grimace, Valance led them up, Griffin falling to the rear. The stairs were the worst, flashlight beams bouncing along the passageway as they rose up the steps, but then the beam broke to an open chamber and Thawn found her shoulders relaxing an iota as they entered the bridge. Banks of consoles stood still and cold and dim, and a sweep of their lights showed no sign of life, physical or in the ship’s systems.

‘Can you do anything, Lieutenant?’ said Valance.

‘I can do many things,’ Thawn half-muttered, advancing. ‘But I’ll start with simple, isolated systems – the navicom. If I can’t reroute emergency power, I’ll see if I can spare some energy from my tricorder to boot it up.’

‘How do you know which one’s helm?’ said Griffin as she advanced through shadow towards a console. His voice sounded oddly tinny in the dark.

She hefted her tricorder as she approached a panel. ‘Universal translator.’

‘Oh. Oh, that’ll do it.’

A finger on the helm controls brought the panel flooding to a very dim life. It felt warmer, as if the darkness was cold as well as sound-distorting, and Thawn let out a slow breath. ‘It’s a reasonably responsive emergency system, then. Let’s see what we have.’ Alien systems in an alien language were not the easiest to figure out even with a translator, but within a minute she was tapping through the most immediate records of where the ship was and where it had been.

‘Travelling at Warp 5,’ she mused, almost thinking aloud rather than reporting. ‘No course changes I can see, no trajectory shift. That’s interesting, there was no computer or helm command to drop back to impulse. Their warp field collapsed.’

‘Engine trouble,’ mused Valance again. ‘But where’s the crew?’

A dark spot appeared on Thawn’s console, and she frowned at the glitch in the display’s lighting. Behind her, Valance hit her combadge to contact the rest of the away team.

‘Good timing,’ came Cortez’s voice, though it might have been coming from the bulkheads and sounded surprisingly sudden. ‘We just got to the reactor control and it’s a complete mess down here.’

‘What sort of mess?’ Valance asked.

Scowling at the distracting conversation as much as at the computer glitch, Thawn tapped the dimmed spot on the display – only to smear it. She stared before realising this wasn’t a display light failing, and turned her finger over. Something had dripped on the console from above.

Something red.

‘A mess like someone took a hyperspanner to the whole thing.’ Cortez now sounded very distant. Thawn looked up into darkness. ‘And not like, if I wanted to take it apart. Someone went on a rampage and smashed these controls and systems.’

Swallowing hard, Thawn shone her tricorder’s torch at the ceiling of the bridge, and found it went up, up to consume another deck, up to where work gantries stretched overhead.

Up to where a humanoid figure lay still, slumped over the gantry railing. Blood trickled down to drip from their boot.

Thawn screamed.

Her heart rate had not slowed much by the time they got the body down. Griffin eased the still form down onto the deck, and when he stepped back, his uniform and hands were stained dark with blood.

Valance looked at Zherul. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘I don’t recognise the species, but I only did prep on the major faces of the Gradin Belt,’ she admitted, kneeling next to the corpse and pulling a medical tricorder. ‘It’s a really diverse area.’

‘Aksani,’ Thawn said, her voice not sounding like her own, her eyes not leaving the battered mess that was the body’s head. She shrugged as she felt Valance’s gaze on her. ‘Beckett keeps showing off all he knows about Gradin Belt species.’

Valance stepped closer and though she didn’t reach out, her presence still felt like it steadied the deck. ‘Get the ship’s records up. If you can. I want to know how many people are supposed to be on this ship.’ She turned to Zherul. ‘How did he die?’

‘I’m still scanning, but my years of medical training tell me it was bad for his health when his skull was caved in.’

Thawn swallowed. ‘Do you think it might have been done with a hyperspanner?’

There was a pause. ‘Maybe. But it’s so messy it could have been a lot of things.’

Valance’s voice grew firmer. ‘Lieutenant Thawn.’

Thawn blinked. ‘Yes, Commander.’ Her focus snapped back to reality, and she turned back to the consoles.

‘Sweep the bridge,’ Valance instructed Griffin next. ‘I’ll watch the door and warn the others.’

‘I’m jerry-rigging things down here,’ came Cortez’s voice over the comms some ten minutes later. She had been her usual sanguine self about the discovery of a corpse. ‘Should be able to start venting the exhaust plasma and that might cut down on radiation, give our sensors an easier job? Or give us access to the power systems in the aft.’

‘Understood,’ replied Valance. ‘Be careful, Commanders. It’s possible we’re not alone in here.’

‘Oh, it’s absolute change-of-pants time down here, don’t you worry. I’ve got my big, brave Kharth to protect me.’

‘And I,’ came Kharth’s rather more dry voice, ‘have a phaser.’

Thawn clenched her jaw tight as the sounds continued behind her – Zherul assessing the body, confirming it was a day or so old, Griffin stalking the shadowed perimeters of the bridge, Cortez occasionally jabbering over comms in a manner which ostensibly told them the other team was still unharmed, but was also probably good for their nerves.

It wasn’t good for Thawn’s nerves, though, and there was a snap in her voice when she finally said, ‘I’m getting some systems back up, the plasma venting’s helping.’

Valance joined her. ‘How are internal sensors?’

‘I’ll reroute power and see what we have.’

Behind them, Zherul made a small noise of curiosity. ‘Huh, this guy’s got two livers.’

‘Lieutenant -’

‘Sorry, ma’am. Cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head, like we figured.’ The Orion looked up. ‘This might be the first examination of a deceased Aksani Starfleet’s ever done?’

‘Save the academic curiosity,’ Valance growled, ‘for when you can do a full autopsy.’

‘And I would appreciate fewer distractions.’ Thawn jabbed at the controls. ‘I’m sorry, Commander, but that includes you, too.’ Valance lifted her hands in apology and stepped away, returning to the door to the cavernous bridge. It should have been a reassurance, but little was providing that at this point. Thawn worked her jaw as the silence only seemed to thicken the air, and her heart pinched with relief when she could finally say, ‘Internal sensors are online. Scanning for life forms aboard.’

The dots of five life-signs on the bridge shone on her screen just as there was a blood-curdling yell, and a shadow launched itself from the darkness to fly at Crewman Griffin.

‘There. Will. Be. Blood!’

Thawn all but threw herself behind the console as Griffin and the attacker went down in a roll of shadows. Light from anyone’s tricorders fell away to make jagged silhouettes dance across the bulkheads, while the glow from the few control panels she’d activated wasn’t enough to show more than an outline of swirling violence, the gleam of something metal clutched in a hand. There was a clang of impact on the deck, a more meaty thud, a pained yell that sounded like Griffin.

But Valance was so quick she might have teleported, and Thawn had never in her life been so glad to see the XO. One strong hand grabbed the attacker, pulling them back, and though they writhed and flailed, Valance expertly knocked blows aside before kicking their legs out from under them. They fell to the deck and Valance went down with them, pinning them down on their front, knee in their back.

‘We’re not here to hurt you!’ she called, despite having very capably done so.

‘You did this to us!’ screamed the figure, and in the shuddering lighting Thawn could see the whites of their eyes set into a pale, gaunt face. Spittle flew from their lips as they screamed and hollered, straining with all their might against Valance’s grip.

‘Crewman, are you still with us?’ Valance called sharply.

Griffin was rolling to his feet with remarkable alacrity for the amount of blood streaming down the side of his face. ‘Present!’

Zherul rushed forward, fumbling with her medkit. ‘I – I’ve got a sedative, Commander.’

Valance slammed the struggling attacker against the deck to wind them. ‘Use it! Thawn.’ Her head snapped up at the lack of response. ‘Lieutenant Thawn.’

Thawn’s eyes jerked away from the attacker. ‘Commander.’

‘Tell me if anyone else is on this ship.’

Bile was difficult to swallow as she moved back around the console, double-checking the scan of internal sensors. They swept across more and more decks as the other team continued to vent the plasma, but showed no more surprises. Behind her the attacker yelled and thrashed, and she heard Zherul’s struggle to get close, apply a hypospray. In a moment the yelling became a low moaning, and then there was nothing in the silence but everyone’s ragged breathing.

Zherul exhaled slowly, and turned to Griffin, whose hand was still pressed to his bloodied temple. ‘Let me look at that, Crewman.’

Warily he lowered his hand. ‘First away mission,’ he mused ruefully as she lifted her medical tricorder. ‘Hell of a thing.’

Thawn slumped against the console. ‘It’s just us, the other team, and him aboard,’ she said at last, but when she turned back to the bundle of suppressed violence on the bridge deck, she could not feel any relief. ‘He’s Brenari.’

Valance looked up, hair matted to her forehead after the exertion of the fight. ‘So?’

‘Cortez to Valance,’ came the chirrup of the comms. ‘We’re about to crack open the aft section. Any luck with scans?’

‘We just had a crewmember try to kill Griffin, and we’ve had to restrain and sedate him,’ breathed Valance. ‘But scans say he’s the only one left aboard.’

‘I’m not surprised. We’ve found another couple bodies. Spread out. Look like they were beaten to death. You think he did this?’

Valance’s eyes landed on the blood-stained length of pipe lying beside the Brenari. ‘I’d bet so.’ Over the comms they heard the hiss of doors opening, and then a series of oaths in both Spanish and Romulan. Valance scowled anew. ‘Commanders?’

‘Okay, so, this is the cargo bay, and, uh. They’re hauling dilithium,’ said Cortez.

‘Red dilithium,’ chimed in Kharth flatly. ‘Blood dilithium. Thawn, aren’t you supposed to have suffered wild paranoia and fear or something being near this?’

Thawn stared. ‘Oh,’ she said at last, and it felt again like her voice echoed in the dark bridge. ‘I suppose I mistook it for regular and reasonable apprehension at being on a creepy derelict ship with corpses and violent attackers.’

‘Fair,’ said Cortez. Her voice had gone up a pitch in that way it did when she was rattled and being glib. ‘That’d do it for me.’

Valance looked down at the unmoving figure she still had a firm grip on. ‘You said he’s Brenari. They’re telepaths, aren’t they.’ Thawn nodded, and Valance hit her combadge again. ‘Valance to Endeavour. We’ve got a situation over here.’

Rourke’s voice burst back with enough tension to send Thawn’s gut into fresh knots. ‘Then whatever’s happening there, I’m afraid I’ve got to make it worse, Commander. A Devore warship just dropped out of warp.’

Without Valance beside him or even Kharth at his back, Rourke felt off-balance, ungainly as he sat in the bridge’s command chair and watched the Devore warship slide out of warp and approach at pace. ‘Steady as she goes.’ His voice rumbled across the chamber. ‘Let’s see what they want.’

‘Sir.’ Athaka sounded anxious at Ops. ‘The away team’s in areas of the freighter where interference is too strong for me to get a transporter lock.’

Rourke sighed. ‘Then they’ll have to hold tight while we deal with this.’

‘Devore ship has shields raised and weapons charged,’ came the call from over his shoulder. A glance up confirmed the presence of the tall, still figure of Lieutenant Song at Tactical, but he had yet to march into a fight with the new assistant chief, and the Delta Quadrant was not where he wanted this trial by fire.

‘That looks like a statement of intent,’ came Veldman’s wry observation at Science.

‘It’s SOP for Devore ships.’ Commander Rosewood had joined them on the bridge, taking position down in the mission control section with Lieutenant Beckett. ‘Anyone passing near their space is stopped, interrogated, maybe boarded. They might not be starting any particular trouble.’

‘Sure,’ said Beckett warily from beside him. ‘But since blood dilithium showed up they’ve reportedly got a habit of deciding anywhere they please is their territory, so this whole protecting sovereignty thing is a bit less of a believable paper shield for being brutes.’

In the tertiary command chair, Airex sat forward and spoke in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. ‘We have telepaths aboard our ship and on the freighter. There’ll be particular trouble.’

Rourke lifted a hand to forestall the bickering of his advisers. ‘If they’re raising shields, we’re raising shields, and Arys, I want the Black Knights ready to launch. If this goes nasty we better protect the freighter. Elsa, hail them.’

He hadn’t finished uttering the words before there was a chirrup at Lindgren’s console. ‘They’re beating us to it, sir.’

‘On screen.’

The sight of the Devore warship was replaced with that of a bridge, gloomy and designed in stark, military lines. Before them stood a woman with the forehead ridges of her species, dark hair pulled cruelly back, in a crisp, black uniform. ‘Outsider starship, this is Commissioner Halyx, and you have transgressed on territory of the Devore Imperium. You will power down and submit to inspection.’

Rourke’s eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘Devore ship, I’m Captain Rourke of the Federation starship Endeavour, and I don’t believe I answer to you.’ A small part of him that sounded a little like Valance said he should try to be more conciliatory, but his back was tense and his gut churned and that caution had no dominion over him out here.

‘I am here to respond to the crisis of this dilithium in accordance with Imperative 17, as enforced and led by High Commissioner Fintt. My orders are from the Imperium itself.’

Rourke glanced at Airex, who shook his head; he didn’t recognise these new names or terms either. He straightened. ‘We’ve responded to a distress call from this freighter and once we’ve helped these people on their way, we’ll be resuming our mission and moving on. You can enforce Imperative 17 by watching us leave.’

‘I don’t think you understand, Rourke.’ A muscle twitched in the corner of Halyx’s jaw. ‘It is my duty to respond to any violation of our borders, and assess it for threats. This freighter is carrying contraband cargo and wanted criminals. You will allow me to secure the threat, or I will have your ship impounded.’

Rourke leaned back. Ice was in his guts but he couldn’t help but smile. ‘I don’t recognise the authority of you or the Imperium to direct me to the bathroom, let alone to allow you to impound my ship.’

‘Then allow me to enforce a different authority.’ She gestured off-screen, and the display on Rourke’s armrest flared.

‘They’ve fired a warning shot off our bow,’ said Song dispassionately.

‘As you are new here, allow me to extend tolerance.’ Halyx’s hand this time seemed to halt whatever her bridge officers were doing. ‘You entered our territory to answer a distress call. But it is a distress call from a ship carrying Brenari fugitives. Withdraw at once and allow us to deal with them, and I will overlook this transgression – this time.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Rourke saw Rosewood had moved to get his attention, and he gestured for Lindgren to mute the comms. ‘Commander?’

‘We have to be careful,’ the diplomatic officer urged. ‘This isn’t a run-in with a pirate, Captain. We should be thinking about the consequences here as seriously as we would if this was the Free State – except we don’t have reinforcements coming, and she does. What we do here will impact how the Devore treat the entire expeditionary force.’

‘You’re saying we withdraw?’ said Rourke.

‘She wants the freighter, and it sounds like almost everyone aboard is dead, sir,’ Rosewood pointed out. ‘Negotiate to bring the away team aboard and then we pull back. This isn’t the fight to pick.’

‘Say that,’ said Airex quickly, ‘and she knows you have people on the freighter. That endangers the whole away team.’

‘Odds are good,’ chirped Beckett, popping up next to Song, ‘she decides everyone on the freighter is subject to impounding anyway.’

Rourke stood, scowling. ‘God’s sake, people,’ he snapped to shut them up, then nodded curtly to Lindgren to resume comms and rounded back on the stern figure of Halyx. ‘You don’t get this ship. You don’t get that freighter. How do I make that clearer to you, Commissioner?’

Her expression sank into cold steel. ‘You’re alone out here, Rourke, and the Federation is far away. You speak with the weight of your ship. I speak with the weight of the Imperium. Choose wisely.’

‘No, it’s your choice, Commissioner. There’s no Federation here, but there’s no Imperium here, either. It’s just you and me. Your ship and mine. Walk away, or you find how much weight we put behind our punches.’ He glanced to Athaka. ‘Take us to Red Alert. Charge weapons. Launch the Black Knights.’

A muscle twitched beside Halyx’s nose. ‘You condemn your ship to the mercy of the Imperium, Rourke. I will see you when I take your bridge.’ The viewscreen went dead.

Rourke spoke quickly the moment she was gone, resuming his seat. ‘Direct the Black Knights to protect us and only go for the freighter if they do – I don’t want to tip them off we’ve got something to shield.’

‘On it!’ called Rosewood, efficient and showing no emotional reaction to being overruled as he and Beckett hurled themselves to mission control. From there they could monitor the away team and the fighters while the bridge focused on Endeavour.

‘Veldman, I know this is one of their cruisers, but keep scanning; I want to be sure our intel on their ship designs is up to date; they should primarily have forward-facing weapons and less protection on their aft,’ Rourke pressed on.

Airex looked at him, and the corner of his lip curled. ‘You did your homework.’

‘About what danger’s out here, and what I was facing down before I decided to talk like a big man?’ Rourke rumbled. ‘You bet, Commander.’

‘Devore ship is opening fire,’ Song reported, and the deck quivered at impact. ‘Only minor damage to our shields. I suspect they’re testing us, sir.’

‘Hit them hard back, Mr Song.’ Rourke’s fingers curled around the armrests. ‘If we can scare them with first blood, so much the better.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Rosewood, Nate, get Harkon down in the Uther Pendragon on standby to launch; we might need a combat evac of that freighter. See if you can get in touch with the away team so they’re somewhere they can disembark or get beamed out.’

‘Yes, sir,’ called Rosewood. ‘But, sir – you think we can scare off a warship?’

‘I think bullies don’t like to stand their ground if they think they’ll lose,’ Rourke rumbled, facing the front again. ‘They can run and get their friends if they think they’re in too much trouble.’ He leaned forward, focusing on the tactical display of the viewscreen. ‘Take us closer, nice and slowly, Mr Arys.’

Arys glanced back. ‘Slowly, sir?’

‘Let them think they’re in for a slugging match.’

Endeavour could do that. She was big and burly, without the loadout of Starfleet’s dedicated warships but more than enough firepower to back up Rourke’s promises. Her forward-facing torpedo launcher left her comfortable fighting in a similar way to the Devore warship, coming at the enemy head on, and Rourke had no problem with that.

‘We’re hitting their shields hard,’ Song reported. ‘But their defences are holding.’

‘Sir.’ Arys sounded urgent. ‘They’re trying to come about to bring both us and the freighter in their firing arc.’

Rourke exhaled sharply through his nose. ‘Get the Black Knights to protect the freighter; make them harry the Devore’s weapons systems on that side and intercept any torpedoes launched.’ He scratched his beard. ‘Bring us still closer; I want us to move by them for a broadside.’

Song hesitated. ‘That means we can’t use the torpedo launcher, sir.’ But Rourke gave him a stern glance, and he shook his head in apology before making ready.

Endeavour shuddered and shook as the two ships came up beside each other, and Rourke tried to not hold his breath. He knew what he was doing, but there was always the question of if it would work.

‘Shields are down to forty percent!’ Song reported as the two great starships rained down fire at close range, and Rourke had to grip his armrest to stay steady. ‘Theirs are lower, but they’re redistributing power to protect their port side!’

‘Good! Let us pass them, Mr Arys. Then – you know what to do.’

Tar’lek Arys was a serious young man, but even he had to give a flash of a grin at that. As Rourke watched on the tactical display the two ships exchanged fire in a broadside, Endeavour holding firmer but the Devore ship still standing, still able to scramble their shields to protect where they expected the heaviest fire to come.

But as Endeavour passed, it didn’t come about but instead slipped to starboard. With expert precision, Arys manoeuvred them to bring the two ships aft to aft. With the Devore’s hull, now exposed after the redistribution of their shields, directly facing Endeavour’s twin aft torpedo launchers.

‘Fire phasers, then launch torpedoes, full spread,’ Rourke ordered curtly. ‘Have the Black Knights harry their flank.’

The first volley of phaser fire raked over the weak Devore shields – then they broke, the enemy too slow to compensate for Endeavour’s rapid repositioning. Torpedoes thudded into their aft, and Rourke watched as explosions cascaded across the hull, striking power relays and impulse engines. Then there was a fresh, blossoming surge of energy from the Devore ship on their sensors, before –

‘We hit them hard, sir.’ Veldman’s voice dripped with relief. ‘They’ve suffered a critical systems failure; they’re drifting.’

Rourke’s jaw was tight as he stood. ‘Bring us about, but lock weapons on their engines. Withdraw the Black Knights to the freighter. And hail them, Elsa.’

The Devore ship’s bridge was in a much sorrier state than it had been before. One single strand of hair had been yanked from Halyx’s perfect bun. ‘You invite chaos, Rourke.’

‘I prefer that to your idea of order, Halyx. But ideology aside, you’re alone out here. The Imperium is far away, so we’re back to your ship and mine. How do you think this ends if you don’t stand down?’

Halyx glanced off-screen, visibly taking in the situation around her, visibly struggling. Had there been space in Rourke’s heart for an ounce of sympathy for the Devore, he might have felt it as he watched a fellow captain realise she and her ship were beaten and at their enemy’s mercy. ‘If you allow my ship and crew to withdraw,’ she said at length, bitter, ‘then we will surrender.’

Rourke opened his mouth to agree, but Veldman suddenly waved her hands from Science and he gestured to Lindgren to mute. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘Captain, I’ve got a clear scan of the Devore ship now their shields are down, and there’s life-signs aboard in a cluster who aren’t Devore.’

She sounded uncertain, and Airex sprung to his feet to join her, the two old colleagues immediately falling into an easy manner as he double-checked her work as if a year’s separation hadn’t happened. ‘By these readings,’ Airex said at length, ‘I think they’ve got Brenari prisoners aboard.’

Now there was not even the memory of compassion as Rourke turned back to Halyx and gestured for Lindgren to resume the call. ‘I’ll let you and your crew leave unharmed,’ he said, voice like steel. ‘But there are additional conditions to this surrender, Commissioner. How do you say it? You will power down and submit to inspection.’

‘This is unacceptable!’

‘I don’t think you get what’s going on here, Commissioner.’ Kharth didn’t break her pace as she stalked the corridors of the Devore ship, the enemy commander scuttling to keep up. ‘You showed up. You picked a fight you couldn’t win. You lost. You don’t call the shots here any more.’

Only because she’d been aboard Romulan naval ships in the past few months did she not find the militarism of the Devore vessel disconcerting. The bulkheads were stripped down, her footsteps echoed on solid metal decks, and even the most ascetic of Starfleet ships had more warmth and features. This was not a place where people lived and worked, where they carved out lives and professions. This was a hub of warfare, fear, and oppression. She’d come directly over from the freighter with Crewman Griffin, whose face was still a little blood-stained from the Brenari attack. He walked like her shadow now, hand on his holstered phaser, eyes locked on Commissioner Halyx’s back.

It was Kowalski who greeted her at the door to her destination. ‘Doctor Elvad’s here, taken a look at them all,’ the big man said as she arrived. ‘Their condition’s… a mixed bag.’ His gaze flickered to Halyx.

Halyx met the gaze coldly. ‘Dissidents must be controlled. We found this transport violating our territory and took them into custody to be appropriately relocated. They resisted.’

A muscle in the corner of his jaw twitched, and he looked at Kharth. ‘There a reason she’s here, Commander?’

‘Context,’ Kharth growled, and stalked past him to enter the brig. Or, on a starship which served a primary function of hunting people down to be incarcerated, a prison. It was two decks high, the cells the middling size where they couldn’t be for single prisoners, but even putting a few in would make them uncomfortably cramped. Although it clearly had a higher capacity, there was only a score or so hollow-cheeked Brenari being examined and aided by Endeavour’s medical staff, watched over by her security officers.

Kharth had only seen the haughty Elvad in his own domain, comfortable aboard Endeavour and preoccupied with the intellectual challenges of his work. But now, when he finished the examination of one Brenari and snapped his tricorder shut to stalk over to them, there was a tension in his eyes she’d not seen before.

‘Commander. We’re almost done with the refugees we can help on-site. Three were beamed to Sickbay to receive further treatment.’ His voice was low, clipped. ‘I presume we’re finding space for the rest aboard Endeavour.’

Kharth lifted her hands. ‘We’re not leaving them here, Doctor, don’t worry about that. Thawn’s on it back aboard, and she’ll sort space now you’ve done your needs assessment. Is their captain here?’

Elvad’s shouldered squared. ‘You can talk to the first officer, his wife. But I’m not sure about bringing her.’ It was his turn to glare at Halyx.

Kharth sighed. ‘Kowalski, watch the Commissioner. I expect I’ll have a round of questions when I’m done. Griffin, stick with me.’

‘I should warn you both,’ said Elvad as he led them down towards one of the open cells, ‘this may be difficult.’

He stopped at a dim cell that smelled of sweat, refuse, and fear. In the corner was a bundled body that had been laid out with, Kharth thought, as much desperate dignity as could be offered in a place like this. Sat over them was a middle-aged Brenari woman, her shoulders hunched, her face stained with grime and tears.

When she looked up, there was little light in her eyes. ‘I’m Vekans,’ she said, and her gaze seemed to go through them all. ‘More questions?’ But she saw them look to the body, felt them hesitate for too long. ‘They wanted to know where we were going, what we were doing. My husband answered. When they weren’t satisfied, they beat him and threw him in here to think. Then they asked again later, and because he’d told them the truth, his answer didn’t change, so they beat him some more.’

‘He died in here,’ Elvad said, voice pinched, ‘three days ago. The Devore did not remove the corpse.’

Vekans got to her feet, stiff and worn. She did not look that old, but moved with the burden of years that had likely piled on in mere weeks. ‘You’ve rescued us from a relocation camp, Miss,’ she creaked. ‘So I’ll tell you whatever you need. I just hope you blow these dogs to a million pieces when you’re done.’

Kharth’s eyes at last snapped from the shattered remains of the Brenari captain. ‘That’s not how we do things,’ she said at length. ‘But I’d sure as hell like to.’

‘Hm. I bet you would.’ Vekans straightened. ‘Ask your questions.’

They left the cell once she’d asked all she could bring herself to ask, and Griffin sped up to stalk past her. For a moment she thought he was trying to get away, was perhaps about to throw up, and she felt a flash of guilt at dragging the young crewman on several serious expeditions despite his inexperience. But then he was storming towards Halyx, and she realised she’d made a completely different miscalculation when he grabbed the Devore commander by the shoulders and slammed her into a bulkhead.

‘You’re a right piece of shit, you know that?’

‘Crewman!’ Kharth bounded forward, but Kowalski was there first, heavy hands landing on Griffin’s shoulders. The young security officer was fit and strong, but not many people were a match for the master-at-arms, and Griffin was wrestled back before Halyx had suffered more than a shock and dishevelment.

The Devore officer straightened, lip curling, and looked at Kharth. ‘This is the operation you run? I’m hardly worried for the Imperium.’

‘You got your ass handed to you today,’ Kharth spat at her, before turning to where her officers grappled. ‘Griffin, stand down.’

The young officer struggled only a moment more. When he stopped, it was as if all of the strength had gone out of him and he slumped, suddenly much smaller. But his eyes were still baleful as he glowered at Halyx. ‘They hunt down innocent people,’ he spat. ‘Decide they’re less-than and abuse and kill them. It’s not right, Commander.’

‘It’s not,’ she agreed, ‘but you beating the hell out of this one Devore doesn’t change anything.’

‘Makes me feel better,’ he said, but he sounded like he knew it was a petulant response. ‘Probably makes the Brenari feel better.’

From a glance at the freed Brenari, she suspected she’d disappointed them by ruining the show. Kharth sighed. ‘Griffin, step into the corridor.’

He was brusque as he pulled free of Kowalski, but slunk to the door. Kowalski watched him go, and straightened. ‘Do you want me to sort him when we’re back on Endeavour?’

‘I’ll handle him in a minute,’ said Kharth, and turned to Halyx. The superior sneer had not left her face, and Kharth was none-too-gentle as she dragged her into one of the nearby empty cells. ‘Alright, listen up. We’ve got your ship, no reinforcements are coming, and I’ve got half a mind to suggest to my captain that we let these Brenari choose your fate. So you better make yourself cooperative.’

Halyx scoffed. ‘The Brenari lack the will to strike against us like that. You stopped your officer. My loyalty to the Imperium will not so much as bend to you.’

‘The Brenari XO said your ship was looking for something, said that you’d interrogated and beaten their captain to death for information on it. Some device; what is it?’ Halyx simply stared at her, but her expression remained so motionless Kharth knew this was, in itself, a response of recognition. ‘We can just pull the information from your database. I was giving you a chance to show goodwill. You know, so we do the same in kind.’

Again Halyx’s lip curled. ‘Why would I show goodwill to gaharey? You’ve made more of an enemy today than you can fathom, Federation.’

‘Alright. That’s how it’s going to be.’ Kharth rolled her eyes and walked out. ‘Kowalski, get this piece of shit to her quarters and confine her there. The captain can figure out what to do about her.’

‘You got it.’

She found Griffin a way down the corridor. Her security officers were crawling over the Devore warship by now, the crew corralled in a cargo bay or confined to their quarters, so it was only Starfleet uniforms that passed down far ends of the walkways. But even a short distance from the prison section was quieter, more peaceful.

Griffin leaned against a bulkhead, arms folded across his chest, head bowed. He looked both burlier than she thought of him and younger, too, the anger fading to strip years away. But that, Kharth thought, was something anger did a lot of. She’d not chosen him for the away mission herself, but simply grabbed the first security officer on-call. Perhaps that had been too much out here.

She padded up. ‘Crewman.’

His head snapped up, and she thought she saw something as resentful in his gaze as it was remorseful. ‘Commander.’

No immediate apology, then. She sighed. ‘You know you can’t beat the hell out of people you don’t like, even if they are fascist dogs?’

Griffin’s gaze dropped. She’d only glanced at his record when he’d come aboard, but he couldn’t be, she thought, much older than twenty. ‘I know,’ he said at last, surly and almost childish. ‘I weren’t really thinking. I just thought about what it would be like, being locked in with someone you care about hurt. Dying. Dead. For days.’

‘This job sometimes brings us up-close with cruelties in the galaxy -’

‘I’m no stranger to that, Commander,’ he interrupted, before wincing. ‘Just figured in Starfleet we’re here to stop it.’

She looked him up and down. ‘Where are you from, Griffin?’

He shifted his big feet. ‘Vashti. My folks were settled there before it were chosen as a Relocation Hub.’

‘No kidding.’ She gave a soundless snort and leaned beside him against the bulkhead. ‘Yeah. We stop things like this in Starfleet. But Starfleet also makes you realise that you can travel a hundred thousand light-years, and still find the exact same cruelties you left behind.’

Crewman Griffin’s lips twisted at that, and he stared at the deck. ‘Guess the Gradin Belt isn’t so different as all that.’

‘Yeah,’ Kharth sighed. ‘I guess not.’

‘It’s called the Vizan Regulator.’ Showered, changed, and brought from the squalid prison to the crisp warmth of Endeavour’s conference room, surrounded by the senior staff, the Brenari named Vekans already looked more hale and hearty. Except for in the eyes, Rourke thought. Those remained pale and unseeing. ‘It was a device utilised by the Vaadwaur to control the Brenari – and other telepaths – for a time when their Supremacy ruled this part of space.’

Beckett leaned forward, tapping his chin. ‘That was centuries ago.’

Vekans gave a frustrated shrug. ‘And I hadn’t heard of it until almost a month ago. Can I have some more tea?’

Carraway picked up the pot from the tea set he’d brought from his office, having reasonably assessed this was perhaps time for his particular brand of warmth and comfort. ‘Would you like to try it with some sugar? Milk? Honey?’

Vekans’s eyes narrowed at him. ‘Honey?’

‘It’s sweet, would you like some?’

Rourke bit his lip. ‘Counsellor.’ Carraway looked abashed and, at Vekans’s nod, set about making a fresh – sweeter – cup of tea. Rourke looked back at her. ‘Maybe you should start at the beginning.’

She sighed. ‘We’re mining engineers, or that’s our outfit anyway. For the last… six months? We’ve been following up on a prospecting tip on the third planet of the Palariven system. Scoping out the leads, assessing the land for the best way to start sinking shafts, that sort of thing.’

Airex looked up from the far end of the conference room. He had asked Rourke if he could join in with a temerity the captain found, frankly, irritating – he was perhaps the brightest minds aboard and his forced but inconsistent distance from the ship’s operations was unhelpful at best. ‘Dilithium?’

‘Tritanium, actually,’ said Vekans. ‘During our work, we came across some underground ruins. We’ve got a good relationship with various scholars of the Gradin Belt – this sort of thing happens in our line of work – and we reached out to experts for an assessment.’

Beckett brightened. ‘Archaeological?’

She nodded. ‘My husband has – had – a friend. Goravin, he’s a researcher of Brenari history. He took a look at the ruins, confirmed that they were Vaadwaur, and pored over the site for a month or so. He said it looked like Palariven had also been a work-site for Brenari slaves, so that was… interesting, at least.’ She shrugged. ‘Then he found records on this equipment, this Vizan Regulator.’

Kharth drummed her fingers on the edge of the table. ‘You said Goravin said it was a device used to pacify telepathic slaves. What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ Vekans admitted. ‘It was some old historical piece of interest Goravin could get drunk and enthuse at my husband about. But all he had were records, and he left in pursuit of, well. I don’t know what.’

Rourke nodded. ‘How did the Devore get involved?’

‘They arrived not long after Goravin left. Their new imperative for expansion.’ Her lip curled. ‘Took us prisoner and pored over the site themselves. It looked like they found the same records he did, but they…’ She paused, grimacing more. ‘That was what they were asking my husband about. They seemed to think we should have known more about it than we did. I don’t know if Goravin damaged some of what he found – I don’t think he’d do that deliberately, but he’s too proud to admit it if he had.’

Beckett leaned back, eyes going skyward. ‘Maybe Goravin knows more about Vaadwaur-Brenari history than them and can just interpret it better.’

Rourke glanced over. ‘Nate?’

‘It’s like… I can tell Tar’lek here I’m looking for the wreck of one of the Ares missions and nothing more, and he’d have no idea where to start looking. But I tell you that and you’d know to start poking your nose towards Mars.’ Beckett waved a hand at Arys, who looked a little indignant – but if he’d known what Ares was, Rourke thought, he’d doubtless have spoken up.

Rourke nodded and looked back to Vekans. ‘Where’s Goravin now?’

She shrugged. ‘He seemed excited, like he had leads to chase. But I’d start looking at Markonian Outpost. It’s the closest he’s got to an office. If he’s not there, someone may know where he’s gone. But, Captain.’ Vekans leaned forward. ‘The Devore didn’t learn about this thing from Palariven. They knew about it already. They were looking for it.’

‘Looking,’ Rourke repeated. ‘For a device, or the means of constructing a device, that was once used to pacify telepathic slaves. If that’s a report they’re taking seriously, that’s concerning. He leaned back, scratching his beard. ‘Endeavour is proceeding to Markonian next anyway. We can look for this Goravin and see what he has to say for himself.’

Vekans nodded. ‘Your officers said our ship was still impounded aboard the Devore vessel. We would like to carry on our way and do what we can to rebuild. Far away from wherever the Devore have now decided lies within their borders.’

‘That looks like it’ll be quite the distance,’ Kharth grumbled.

‘It will. And we’ll be prepared to take the poor soul you found on that freighter with us.’ She winced. ‘After all, you’re travellers. What’re you going to do – rehabilitate him? Imprison him?’ But her eyes then narrowed. ‘Which makes me curious what your plans are with the Devore.’

‘You sound like you have something in mind,’ said Rourke.

‘It’s called one torpedo in the right place.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not how we do things. Whatever they’ve done, I’m not summarily executing them.’

‘Then leave them drifting.’

‘That’s as good as leaving them for dead.’

She shrugged. ‘They can call for help. See how many people come to rescue them. That sounds like reaping what you sow.’ But she spoke with a certain lightness, knowing she wouldn’t win that argument, and now sobered. ‘Let them go and they will keep doing the same thing. Let them go and people – my people, other people – will be hounded and killed.’

‘They’ll need to repair,’ Rourke pointed out.

‘That won’t take forever.’

Down the table, Cortez cleared her throat. ‘I could sabotage them pretty good.’ Eyes fell on her, and she shrugged. ‘Deplete their dilithium stocks, strip them of their torpedoes, tear out sections of their warp core so they can only travel at low speed and can’t power all systems at once or easily maintain their phaser array. That should force them back to friendly territory for repairs.’

Rourke’s gaze swept up and down the table at the suggestion, though it was a few expressions he lingered on. Rosewood had looked uncomfortable but didn’t say anything, and both Valance and Kharth gave small nods. He straightened. ‘We’ll do it that way, Commander.’

Vekans sighed, but looked accepting as she rose from her seat. ‘If you won’t kill them, it’ll have to do. But I wonder, Captain – who’s going to pay the price for your principles? They’ll be back some day.’

‘I understand I’m a stranger in a strange land, and that can make tolerance cheap,’ Rourke said softly. ‘But I will not execute them.’ Crewman Griffin escorted her out, and only once she was gone did he turn with a sigh back to the main table. ‘That’s one problem resolved. Now onto another: what the hell happened on that freighter?’

Valance grimaced. ‘The behaviour of the survivor matches what the Merevek reported about this dilithium’s effects on telepaths.’

Sadek raised her eyebrows. ‘You think he killed everyone on that ship?’

‘Crew of six,’ said Valance. ‘He sabotaged the freighter’s systems and then killed five people. From the injuries, Lieutenant Zherul thinks it happened quickly – before anyone really knew what was going on.’

Kharth blew out her cheeks. ‘Poor bastard. If this stuff really does take over telepaths’ minds…’

Rourke shifted his weight as he looked down the table at Thawn. ‘I’m sorry to pick on you, Lieutenant, but… thoughts?’

She had been quiet since coming back from the freighter, quiet in the meeting. Even now, Thawn was careful as she straightened. ‘I’m not aware that I’m experiencing any of the notable symptoms of proximity to this so-called blood dilithium. I won’t deny that I was on-edge since we arrived here, but I feel there are perfectly sound reasons for that apprehension.’

‘Spooky ship will do that,’ Cortez agreed.

‘We all saw the vid from the Merevek,’ Airex chimed in softly. ‘I hope you all noted from the report that the Betazoid in question was not the only telepath aboard. It appears to be inconsistent how blood dilithium affects people. Proximity, duration of exposure, perhaps something in the dilithium’s qualities itself…’

‘What do we know about the stuff, its composition?’ said Rourke.

‘Very little,’ Airex admitted. ‘Or, rather, studies so far have shown no material difference between this and the dilithium we use every day.’

‘Except,’ said Cortez, ‘it’s red. Which is handy. Helps us tell the difference.’

Valance looked at Rourke. ‘What do you want us to do with the freighter and the cargo, sir?’

‘I think all we can do is strip it of supplies, give those to the Brenari. Leave the dilithium aboard and drop a warning buoy,’ he sighed.

‘The Gradin Belt is thick with prospectors looking for blood dilithium,’ Kharth pointed out dubiously. ‘That’s not a warning buoy, it’s an invitation.’

He shrugged. ‘We do what we can.’

Airex shifted. ‘Captain, might I request we bring a sample aboard? I would like the chance to study it further. We have rather more specialised facilities aboard than the Merevek.’

Before Rourke could consider his hesitation, Thawn spoke up. ‘I think we should do that, sir,’ she said quietly, but her eyes on him were firm. ‘We need to understand this. I know what you’re thinking, but our entire mission here is to deal with this mineral. All of us had the chance to disembark in the Alpha Quadrant.’

Rourke watched her for a moment, then sighed, scrubbing his face. ‘Alright. Counsellor, I want protocols in place to support our telepathic crewmembers; nobody should be struggling with this alone. If this is going to work, everyone has to operate with complete honesty.’

‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, sir,’ Thawn said. ‘I’m prepared to be confined to my quarters or even the brig if it looks like we’ll end up like that Brenari.’

‘Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that,’ said Rourke. ‘Airex, you’ll have your sample to keep you busy for the trip to Markonian. Commander Valance, oversee operations with the freighter; Cortez, the Devore ship’s fate is in your hands. Take who you need, and get-to.’

The senior officers dispersed, but it was Rourke’s habit by now to either be first out of the room, or to linger in case one of them wanted his attention. It looked like Airex might, but Commander Rosewood didn’t leave his seat and so the tall Trill joined the departing officers. Carraway took a little longer, making sure he had his tea set tidy on the tray, and its gentle clinking echoed in the conference room once the two men were alone.

Rourke raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve got opinions, Commander. You had them on the bridge.’

Commander Rosewood lifted his hands. ‘Starfleet policy with the Devore is one of avoidance, sir, but that policy was established when they were preoccupied with protecting their borders, not expanding them. It was easy to go nowhere near their territory and they usually weren’t interested in Starfleet if they left.’

‘But?’

He sighed. ‘I think you’re right to disable their ship and force them to withdraw. I know that if we’d talked them down from a fight, those Brenari would still be aboard and we wouldn’t know they’re out here looking for something.’

Rourke kept watching him. At length he repeated, ‘But?’

‘But we’re not in the Alpha Quadrant any more,’ Rosewood said bluntly. ‘The political consequences for these kinds of showdowns are different. We don’t have reinforcements if tensions between us and the Imperium rise; if they decide to attack all Starfleet on sight, that’s going to make life very difficult for us.’

‘I think they’re already inclined to attack Starfleet on sight,’ Rourke mused. ‘They just use fancy words first to pretend their legality justifies it.’

‘We’re in a big ship,’ Rosewood pointed out. ‘One of the most powerful sent to the Delta Quadrant. A lot of crews aren’t.’

‘Everything I’ve done followed Starfleet policy and ethics. We don’t do that because it’s easy, and every other captain would agree and understand. What are you saying I should have done instead, Commander?’

‘I’m not saying you should have acted differently, I’m saying you should have thought differently.’ Rosewood straightened, emboldened by his own bluntness.

‘You know how I think, now?’

‘I’ve read about you, Captain. A lot about you. You’re a combat commander, you’re a criminal investigator, and you’re used to acting as a limb of wider infrastructure.’ Rosewood planted his hands on the table. ‘The Devore are effectively a rogue state and yes, we should protect ourselves and we should protect people they prey on. And other starship captains have the same obligation. But what happens when we go, Captain?’

Rourke had been bristling at the implication Rosewood understood him – at the likelihood Rosewood had watched his bravado on the bridge and fallen prey, as so many had, to how Matt Rourke preferred, even enjoyed, presenting himself as a bruiser and a thug when it suited him. Rourke knew it was an irrational tendency of his to be indignant when people then took him at face-value. But he stopped short at the question, scowling. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Blood dilithium’s turned the status quo on its head,’ Rosewood pointed out. ‘Devore are expanding their borders and doing all sorts. That’ll be chaotic however this ends – this could change the face of the Gradin Belt forever – but Starfleet’s only going to commit assets here for so long. Once we go, there are only three kinds of Devore Imperiums: one that’s been defeated and sent packing, one that’s eaten what it wants and settles into a new stability – they might be fanatics, but they’re not idiots, they can only take on so much new territory at once. Or we get a Devore Imperium whose pride’s been wounded by Starfleet coming in, punching them in the face, and then going home.’

Rourke was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sure there’s more than those three options.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Rosewood, ‘but we’ve only got so much influence, and I don’t know what the Devore Imperium does if Starfleet challenges and embarrasses them. But I’ve got a bad feeling that we won’t pay the price; the people who live here will.’

Another pause until Rourke said, ‘I don’t suspect you know me as well as you think, Commander, if you believe I was happy for a scrap and not thinking of any consequences.’

‘I don’t think that of you, sir. I think you want to help people. But I said I’d read about you, because I wanted to serve on this ship, and I think one thing’s pretty clear about your pattern of behaviour, Captain: you don’t like bullies.’

Rourke’s lips twisted. ‘Who does?’

‘Not a lot of people,’ Rosewood allowed. ‘But you don’t like bullies and you’re sitting atop eighth hundred metres of starship, bristling with torpedoes and phaser arrays. You’re a captain who’s more prepared to throw a punch than the average. You do that to a Free State ship behaving this outrageously, they go home crying and then everyone’s superiors meet up in back rooms and decide they don’t want it to happen again. There’s no back-rooms here. Just a bunch of fascist assholes with guns.’

Rourke allowed himself a moment to consider that, chewing on his lip, before he said, ‘I’m okay throwing the first punch at these guys.’

To his surprise, Rosewood grinned. ‘Hey, me too, Captain, and out here I don’t have to smile and play nice in a back-room with their bosses. But it’s my job to think about things like this.’

‘And your job to bring it to me.’ Rourke smacked the table lightly as he stood. ‘We’ll keep it in mind going forward. But this time, the lesson learnt is that these guys really had it coming.’

‘No argument there.’

To Rourke’s relief Airex was waiting for him outside the conference room, so Rosewood left them quickly and the Trill officer fell into step as he headed for his ready room. ‘Captain, can I have a word?’

‘You don’t want to help get a sample of the dilithium off the freighter?’

‘In a minute – and Valance is perfectly capable anyway.’ Airex’s lips thinned as they stepped inside the ready room. ‘I know I asked if I could catch a ride to Markonian, but what we’ve seen today’s changing my plans.’

Rourke ambled to his replicator, getting only himself a cup of tea. He didn’t want to give Airex the impression this would be a long talk. ‘I’m not letting you wander off somewhere on your own, Commander. I’m not giving you a shuttle, either.’

‘I don’t mean that. But it’s painfully clear we don’t know enough about this blood dilithium. I want to keep studying it, and from what we’ve seen, I can’t in good conscience bring any aboard the outpost.’

Rourke raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to stay aboard to study the sample?’ Airex nodded. ‘What do you think Admiral Beckett’s going to say about you going off-mission?’

‘My mission’s to represent Fourth Fleet Intelligence and bring back as much information as possible, so I’ve got some latitude. I don’t think the political situation’s the real story here – this dilithium is. And, fundamentally, Admiral Beckett isn’t here. I can answer to him later.’

Silence dragged across the ready room as Rourke sipped his tea. ‘No,’ he said at length.

‘Captain -’

‘You don’t stay on my ship and sit in a lab and poke the dilithium. That’s a complete waste of your talents, and you won’t stay in the damn lab anyway, you’ll be on the bridge and in meetings. So let’s not screw around, Airex. If you’re staying aboard, I want you as Chief Science Officer.’ At the other man’s hesitation, Rourke cocked his head. ‘You think it’ll get in the way of your other work?’

‘No, Captain…’ Airex sighed. ‘It’ll be temporary.’

‘A couple of months.’ Rourke smirked at last, something finally going his way. ‘Maybe you can bully Veldman into stepping up when you’re gone.’

‘I’ve never won an argument with her before.’ But the Trill seemed brighter, despite the apprehension buzzing about him. ‘You have a deal, Captain.’

‘For what it’s worth, Commander Airex,’ mused Rourke, ‘I look forward to never winning more arguments with you.’

‘Thanks for coming, everyone. Help yourselves.’ The counselling department didn’t normally host meetings with a dozen or so crewmembers, so Carraway had taken over one of the wellness suites and laid it out with tea, coffee, and snacks. Without proper seating he’d dragged in extra meditation benches, so officers were stooped on low stools, clutching pastries and steaming mugs. The bulkheads were painted colours presumably intended to be soothing, but the mellow ambient music had been quickly muted on their arrival.

Thawn did not take a hot drink or a pastry, nor did she sit down. She stood at the rear, arms folded across her chest, and tried to slow her breathing as if it would slow the thudding of her heart. It was difficult to not find this farcical. Rhade had given her a pleasant smile upon arrival only to go straight for Carraway, shaking his hand, chatting in an amiable manner. It would set everyone else at-ease to see him so comfortable in the meeting. Everyone but her.

‘We should get started,’ Sadek prompted Carraway, eyebrows raised. ‘There’s a lot to get through.’

‘Okay.’ Carraway clapped his hands together and turned to the gathered officers. ‘You know why you’re all here. Every one of you is a telepath, and we have aboard a sample of blood dilithium, here to be studied by Commander Airex.’ He gestured to the Trill, stood to one side of the front, who straightened.

‘It’s my belief Starfleet needs to understand more about this aberrant substance,’ Airex said. He sounded to Thawn a lot softer than she remembered, with almost an apologetic air, except without apprehension or guilt. ‘I also believe that however this mission goes, there’ll come a point we can’t avoid this dilithium any more. But that doesn’t mean we have to go looking for trouble. This affects all of you in particular. I want to hear your opinions.’

Chief Petty Officer T’Kalla stuck her hand up. ‘Are you asking if we want you to throw it out an airlock?’

‘More or less,’ Airex allowed.

T’Kalla looked back at the gathered officers. ‘Anyone here not seen the Merevek footage?’ There was silence, and she nodded. ‘Anyone want to wuss out?’

‘Chief…’ Carraway winced. ‘That’s not really productive. We’re endangering all of you by having this aboard -’

‘We were endangered by coming to the Delta Quadrant.’ T’Kalla shrugged. ‘I don’t see the difference.’

‘It’s different.’ Thawn hadn’t realised she was speaking until everyone turned to look at her. She straightened, and the cold inside felt comfortable. It was quiet, after all. ‘The man we found on the freighter had lost all sense of himself. All I could feel was his fear and his rage, and it wasn’t wholly his own. We don’t know who he was or who the crew were, but he lived and worked aboard and he killed them. All of them. This isn’t a threat to life and limb. This is a threat to who we are.’ In the silence that followed, she looked Airex in the eye. ‘Which is why we need to know what it is, Commander. We’re Starfleet. This is why we’re here.’

Airex nodded, and his shoulders sank with either relief or a fresh apprehension. ‘Then the moment any of you feels anything, I would like to know. Counsellor Carraway’s about to talk well-being, but remember that any symptom of the influences of blood dilithium is evidence. Is data.’

‘That might stop you all being stoic,’ said Carraway with a good-humoured smile. ‘But he’s right, I care about you. I don’t just want you to report if you feel anything. From now, you’re going to journal daily.’

T’Kalla groaned. ‘Aw, here we go.’

‘It’ll be a record of your thoughts and feelings, a reflection on your emotional responses throughout the day,’ Carraway continued with only a gentle note of chiding. ‘This makes you more likely to notice if something changes.’

Doctor Sadek gave a grimace of a smile. ‘And if you go axe-crazy and kick off, we have a record of your emotional decline.’

T’Kalla snapped her fingers. ‘Okay, that I can reason with.’

Lieutenant Turak’s hand snapped up like he was a cadet at the front of a lecture with a pressing comment. ‘At what I now know was the same time we brought aboard the sample, I experienced a sensation. Intense, irrational apprehension. It was acutely curious,’ he volunteered, sounding almost bright about the fresh experience.

Airex gave a pained smile. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant. That is exactly the sort of data I’d hoped – that I’d want to record.’

Carraway’s look was finally tired. ‘Talk to each other,’ he urged. ‘Share if it becomes hard. You can talk to me if you’re worried, and I’m not going to immediately suggest you get suspended from duty or confined to quarters just because you’re struggling. I recognise it may be difficult to tell between actually being affected and just the natural stresses of this situation, so embrace and acknowledge all your feelings. We’re all in this together.’

Turak again lifted his hand. ‘If we are to cooperate,’ he said in a quick, clipped voice, ‘then I have meditative methods. Processes. Means by which individuals can improve their mental discipline in the face of this psionic assault.’

‘Vulcan meditative techniques?’ T’Kalla’s nose wrinkled. ‘I guess this is as good a time as any.’

‘I can recommend them,’ Turak said, turning to her with what looked almost like eagerness. ‘They will help you focus. Beyond merely the challenges ahead – in your everyday life, to reduce your emotional outbursts.’

T’Kalla looked like this might precipitate its own emotional outburst, but Carraway raised his hands. ‘That’s very kind of you, Lieutenant. Talk with me maybe after and I can figure out ways of using this knowledge for everyone?’

‘Is this all we need to cover?’ Thawn couldn’t help but sound impatient, but it was difficult to feel like this wasn’t redundant for her. ‘I have a staff meeting.’

She was out in the corridor before heavy footsteps thumped in her wake, and she tried to not sigh as Rhade jogged up to fall into step beside her. ‘Greg means well.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with the counsellor’s recommendations,’ she said lightly. ‘And I’ll cooperate fully. But I’ve already done my emotional hand-wringing about what blood dilithium might do to me – I did it on a freighter where a crazed telepath tried to kill us. I don’t need to do it in a group therapy session.’

His shoulders sank as she reached the turbolift and she tried to not sigh when she realised she was a captive audience at least until her ride arrived. ‘He also encouraged us,’ Rhade said gently, ‘to talk to each other.’

‘If you think you’re hearing voices, you can reach out,’ she said, clipped despite herself.

His honest brow furrowed. ‘Rosara…’

‘You don’t want us to talk, Adamant. Because then we might say something.’ Exhaustion bred honesty. Or perhaps being on the far side of the galaxy with her very sense of being made their personal dynamics seem very distant and very small. ‘Then I might explain everything I experienced aboard the other Endeavour.’

A deeper frown. ‘And if you did, I would listen.’

‘And then you might explain why you trusted Dathan Tahla for over a year, which is why she was able to put us in that position.’ His stunned silence was broken by the turbolift’s arrival, and Thawn gave a tight, mirthless smile. ‘Yes, I thought you perhaps didn’t want to talk after all,’ she said, and stepped into the lift.

He did not follow, and when the doors slid shut she hit her combadge. ‘Thawn to Kharth. You skipped the meeting.’ For once she had no deference to the niceties of rank.

Kharth took a moment to respond. ‘I read the protocols Carraway wants to put in place. I’m not gonna journal.’

‘Then I expect we’re meeting to practice meditating tonight. Or, again, Turak offered,’ Thawn said, still rather snippy.

‘Fine,’ came the reply at length. ‘1900 hours. If there’s any woo-woo, I’m gone.’

Thawn was too tired, she thought, to feel her usual apprehension at the idea any senior officer might not welcome her help. Or perhaps the fact that it was Kharth alleviated that pressure. She respected the Romulan as an officer and as a professional. She just didn’t need her to like her. ‘1900 hours,’ she agreed, and ended the link.

The staff meeting had not been a pretext, but still Athaka looked surprised to see her. He hadn’t been so presumptuous as to sit at the head of the office table, but with the PADDs before him and the manner he’d been looking at the rest of the operations management team, he’d plainly expected to chair the discussion. In true Athaka manner he didn’t say anything, though, and Thawn couldn’t help but preside over the meeting with an iron fist and nitpick his every point.

By the end he was quiet and miserable, and only once it was over and her staff were heading off did she take pity and linger in the meeting room. ‘Thank you for preparing these agenda items, Lieutenant.’ She had to bite her tongue to not point out she’d done so herself, and he’d only duplicated her work.

Athaka still looked crestfallen. ‘I thought you might need time after the counsellor’s meeting.’

She tried to not grind her teeth. ‘It was a chance for telepaths to discuss the challenges of having blood dilithium aboard. It wasn’t a conversation about how we’re all made of glass.’

He cringed. ‘You know I have the utmost respect for you, and faith in your willpower. I was trying to help.’

Guilt and sympathy curled up and died as Thawn stood sharply. ‘You can help by being my assistant chief, Athaka. Not by trying to do my job for me.’

She seethed through the rest of her shift, and at the end of it slunk to her office to write the most resentful of reflexive journal entries. If blood dilithium did make her snap and kill everyone, Thawn mused, this record would show the origin point came from people refusing to treat her as an adult. Or, possibly, it wouldn’t take the blood dilithium’s influence to make it happen.

‘Knock knock,’ said Nate Beckett when he stuck his head through her opening doors.

Thawn almost jumped, dropping her PADD stylus to send it skittering across the desk. ‘What – Beckett, there’s a door-chime.’

‘I thought you might ignore me,’ he said, swaggering in without further invitation. ‘I saw Athaka on deck 11, looking like he was going to cry.’

She made a face. ‘He was being condescending, so don’t you come up here to fret at me about a problem that hasn’t even happened yet.’

‘According to the records on the Merevek and your own away team report, it most definitely has happened yet.’ He pulled up the opposite seat. ‘But that’s not why I’m here.’

With a sigh, she tossed down the PADD. ‘Why, then?’

‘You don’t need to sound so long-suffering. I’m the intelligence officer now; I could have you locked up in a black-site for that.’

‘One, you most certainly can’t, and two, for what, being slightly mean to you?’

‘For being dismissive of important, top-secret, highest-level Starfleet business.’

Thawn paused. ‘There’s no way you’ve come here to discuss important, top-secret, highest-level Starfleet business.’

‘No,’ he allowed at last, ‘but I might have.’

‘Beckett, I have a lot of work -’

‘No, you don’t, because I told Athaka that if he really wanted to help you, he should take all of the ongoing resource allocation assessments off your plate.’ The problem with being in the Delta Quadrant for potentially months at a time meant monitoring their supplies was a case of drawing up constantly-shifting plans, usage rates, and crisis scenarios.

Thawn’s eyes flashed. ‘I swear, if you tried to take work away from me because you think I’m a delicate little flower being driven mad by the nasty blood dilithium – are you doing this to Adamant? Turak? T’Kalla?’

‘Well, no, because I have no authority over Rhade, I don’t yet know how to manipulate Turak, and T’Kalla scares me,’ Beckett admitted. ‘But don’t worry, Thawn, I don’t think of you as anything resembling a delicate little flower.’ He slid his PADD across the desk. ‘I asked Athaka to take the mundane things off your desk so you could do something more interesting.’

Suspicious, she picked it up. Then blinked. ‘Modifications to the SOC software on this scale is extensive work.’

‘But it’d make the package a lot more useful for starships which aren’t command hubs for other ships. It’d streamline a lot of the back-end so teams could monitor their areas of operation. And it’d also make it much easier to incorporate reports and feeds from non-Starfleet sources which don’t match our input format.’ Beckett leaned forward with a languid smile. ‘And I’m a mediocre coder at best.’

She bit her lip, even as she felt her veins fizz with the prospect of a new project. ‘You didn’t need to bring this to the Chief Operations Officer.’

‘I brought it to the best software engineer aboard,’ said Beckett. ‘The one who understands the uses and needs of the SOC. Who helped build the programmes we use in the first place. But, sure, I could have punted this to Athaka and let you do all of the redundancy planning. Consider this my gift to you.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why.’

‘Because you’re not a delicate flower. You’re a goddamn thunderstorm, and if you’re stressed you need something to chew up and spit out. Better for it to be a project that keeps you focused and happy. And one where if your judgement’s impaired, you’ll notice, because you’ll do things like make coding mistakes or not do your work well enough to meet your standards, so there’s no way you’ll cover it up.’ He stood, the languid smile turning superior. ‘Because you don’t need stuff taking off your plate, you need things to keep you engaged. Otherwise, if you go nuts? I’m definitely top of your list of people to hunt down and beat to death.’

The urge to meet his banter, to double-down with a joke about how that’s not how she’d kill him, died unexpectedly in her throat, and for a moment Thawn felt very, very tired. Her shoulders sagged as she looked up at him. ‘Thank you, Beckett.’

He shifted, wrong-footed by this sudden wave of sincerity. ‘Yeah, well. I figure everyone else is busy being too awkward about wanting to help to stop and think about how to help.’ At last he summoned a fresh crooked grin. ‘See you in the SOC tomorrow?’

She nodded and watched him go, and only once the doors were shut behind him did she pull the PADD to her chest and wrap her arms around herself. Perhaps the journal entry could be slightly less bitter after all.

‘Do you mind if I join you, Captain?’

The gentle buzz of early evening activity had settled into the Round Table, low voices and faint laughter mingling with the hum of jazz from the sound systems, the clink of glasses and the bubble of pouring drinks. Always a sanctuary away from the stresses of the ship, now the officer’s mess felt like a sanctuary away from the Delta Quadrant itself.

Through the tall windows at the far end, stars shot by like a thousand silent wishes. It was under these that Valance found Rourke sat with a tumbler of whisky and a dog-eared paperback book. But he looked up without irritation at the interruption, and nodded her to the seat across. ‘Go right ahead.’

She pulled up the chair. ‘I don’t normally see you here alone.’

He shrugged, gaze flickering to the windows. ‘My quarters are a bit too quiet right now.’ A sigh. ‘Ellie’s only been aboard a few months and already it feels weird for her to be gone.’

Valance gave a sad smile. ‘I think if the company’s welcome, we adapt to it a lot quicker than we’d expect.’ He would often be seen here with Hale, she recalled, but thought that injudicious to point out.

‘This ship, this crew, changed both of us that way, haven’t they?’

‘I suppose.’ She sipped her lowball cocktail. She hadn’t come to the lounge to see Rourke, and this maudlin thoughtfulness took her by surprise. On a tense footing like in the Delta Quadrant, he was normally more brusque, more businesslike. Ready for action at any moment, and less prone to navel-gazing. ‘Is something on your mind, sir?’

‘When is it not?’ But he shook his head with a sigh. ‘We come tens of thousands of light-years from the Alpha Quadrant, from old problems, and some things really are the same, aren’t they? Just… sharper out here. Everything we do matters more, because there’s nothing to clean up our mess.’

‘We don’t usually rely on anyone else to clean up our mess. We don’t usually need anyone to clean up our mess.’

‘I thought I was bringing the crew to the edges of known space, to places nobody had seen before, or at least to places our people had never seen before. Instead it’s the same old story: the powerful against the powerless, and us trying to be in between.’

‘It’s a good story. Or, rather, it’s a real story, and I’d rather we face it than race after a fairy tale.’ Valance leaned forward, frowning. ‘We’re here to answer a crisis. We’re also charting a route no Starfleet ship has before. I can enjoy reading Danjuma’s reports whatever stellar phenomena we’re picking up while preparing for future encounters with the Devore.’

‘The Devore.’ A guarded glint entered his eyes, then he shook his head. ‘We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we.’

She paused, unsure where this was going. ‘Certainly.’

‘You didn’t think much of me when we met. What made you change your mind?’

‘Sir?’

Rourke waggled a finger. ‘We’re in the lounge and we’ve got drinks and I’m obviously asking you to speak pretty plainly. Don’t give me that. You thought I was an idiot brute when I came aboard.’

She winced in recollection and guilt. ‘I would have disliked anyone taking over from Captain MacCallister.’

‘Except you.’

‘Except me,’ she agreed. ‘And by now I’ve also realised you like acting out. I know you do it to be intentionally under-estimated, but also, sir – Rourke.’ Valance drew a slow breath. ‘You like provoking people. It amuses you.’

He sipped his whisky with an air of mock-innocence. ‘Can’t argue with that.’

‘That did blind me a bit to how you really are,’ she continued. ‘A lot of officers after Mars were taught to shoot first and ask questions later. And then acted like they were superior for it, like the rest of us were naive. I thought you were like that. It took a while before I realised you weren’t shooting first. But you make it clear you’re prepared to. You give people the chance to take a different way, and you don’t hide that you’re carrying a bat, and if they don’t back down you’ll smack them hard and fast in the hopes that will work. To the lazy observer, it might look like you’re casual about violence.’ Valance shook her head. ‘In truth, you know it’s a reality of our work. You don’t lie to yourself about it. You’re ready to apply it in moderation so you don’t have to hit harder and bloodier. And that’s what you did with the Devore ship.’

Rourke worked his jaw as he listened. At length he said, ‘That’s not exactly what I asked.’

‘It’s what you meant, isn’t it? I’m your XO. I tell you what you need to hear, not what you want.’

‘Yeah.’ He hesitated, grimacing, and Valance shifted as she saw something new enter his eyes. It was still tension, but like it tasted different, came from somewhere else. ‘I’ve not been doing you the same courtesy, Valance. At least, I’ve not been treating you like an adult who can handle her affairs and business.’

She cocked her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

He shifted his weight unhappily, then pulled out a PADD and tapped on the holographic display to sift through files. ‘You have a right to be notified of pretty much all major personnel changes, or even potential ones. I should stress nothing’s come of this yet, and I expect it won’t until we’re back in the Alpha Quadrant. But this came in before we left, and I… I sat on it. Instead of discussing it with you.’

The PADD looked heavy as he slid it across the table towards her. Though he’d said very little, she felt she knew what was coming before she read, and a lump settled in her chest as suspicion became certainty. ‘How long before we left?’

‘Couple days. I didn’t want this to distract you. But I should treat you like a grown-up. We can talk about it whenever you’re ready.’ Rourke winced. ‘I fancy you’ve got other conversations to have first.’

‘I do.’ Valance stared at the file notifying the USS Endeavour’s command staff of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers offering a team leader post to Lieutenant Commander Isabela Cortez, and felt her gaze go through the projected writing and deep into the streaming stars of broken wishes outside the ship.

Rourke sipped his whisky. ‘I’ll let you get going,’ he said gently, guiltily.

‘Thank you.’ She was on her feet before her mind caught back up with the racing of her heart, and she paused. ‘I know you appreciate the company of Ms Hale as someone outside your chain of command. But you and I have been through enough, Rourke. The chain of command doesn’t break down if I know you’re faltering.’ She hesitated as his eyes fell on her. ‘Or even if we keep each other company.’

They had walked so carefully together after such riotous beginnings. Begun at loggerheads only to sink into the kind of trust that Valance knew could only exist between a captain and a first officer. Beyond colleagues, beyond confidantes, almost beyond any other kind of relationship. It was to trust each other with their duty, their judgement, their lives – the lives of everyone aboard. To push and pull as needed and still come together when it mattered.

But they had never been friends.

She’d half-expected Rourke to force a jovial response, to bring down the genial mask. She wasn’t sure if it was a sign of growth that instead he sobered and gave her a small nod. ‘I appreciate that, Valance.’

Or it was a sign to really worry, but Valance left anyway. One emotional crisis at a time.

Her quarters were empty when she returned, which was far from unusual on operations like this. Her partner was fond of long hours if she could get her hands dirty, and even mundane maintenance took on a whole new importance this far from a Starfleet repair yard. But it was also how the cheerful Cortez kept her bubbly behaviour that was, rarely for the crew of Endeavour, not a mask hiding deeper damage. It made her feel better to keep busy.

But because Isa Cortez had healthy coping mechanisms, it was only another hour before she sauntered back into the quarters she and Valance shared, hair a bit askew and smelling faintly of oil. ‘Oh hells, don’t even talk to me until I’ve had a shower,’ she called, moving through the rooms at breakneck pace. Valance sat at the dining table and didn’t move, though, and Cortez came to a halt at the bedroom door. ‘Cariño?’

Valance sighed. ‘You should shower.’

‘Nope. Talk to me. I can see something’s wrong with my magic senses known as eyes.’

‘I talked to Rourke,’ Valance managed to say at length, tongue heavy, and now she looked up at her. ‘The SCE?’

Cortez stared for a moment. Then she pushed her hair back. ‘I’m gonna shower.’

It was a miserable five minutes of waiting in the gloom of their shared quarters, listening to the hiss of the sonic shower, and all Valance could do was sit and stare at her hands until Cortez was back out, cleaned and wrapped in a bathrobe. ‘So,’ said Cortez slowly, not leaving the bedroom doorway, ‘you saw the paperwork.’

‘Rourke mentioned it tonight.’ Valance tensed as Cortez went to swear. ‘I’m first officer and the SCE is requesting a transfer of our Chief Engineer; that’s a major personnel change but it’s one the captain has the right to refuse. It’s not just appropriate that he told me, it’s inappropriate that he didn’t before now.’

‘Okay,’ Cortez said slowly. ‘I can see you’ve got very professional feelings about this. Do you want to discuss this as XO, or as my partner?’

Valance winced and looked up. ‘Don’t be like that. Were you going to tell me?’

‘I… I mean, I wasn’t going to take a transfer and disappear off into the night.’ Cortez slumped. ‘I wasn’t hiding it. I just wasn’t bringing it up because I don’t know how I feel about it yet, and now we’re in the Gradin Belt I don’t have to think about it for maybe two months.’

‘You mean you want to take it?’ Valance drew a slow breath. ‘I can understand why; your own team, a far more varied and challenging space than here…’

‘I’m plenty challenged on Endeavour,’ said Cortez.

‘But you didn’t come here for your career development. And you’ve not been staying for that, either.’

‘Neither have you!’ The outburst echoed off the bulkheads and so the words and feeling hit Valance twice. Cortez looked like she at once regretted it, slumping and looking down. ‘You were offered your own ship,’ she continued quietly, ‘when Rourke was made captain. You turned it down because you thought it’d be better for you to stay aboard – to make you a better officer, a more well-rounded officer. That was eighteen months ago, Karana.’

Valance stood, her legs feeling ungainly. ‘Are you saying you’re considering leaving because I’m treading water?’

Cortez bit her lip. ‘I have reasons to stay on Endeavour that aren’t you. I like the work, I like the crew, I’m challenged and I can do good. But some day you’re going to be offered your own command again, and after all you’ve done with Rourke it’s going to be something impressive.’

‘I really don’t see the connection,’ Valance pressed. ‘Are you taking this transfer or not?’

‘I don’t know! I got the offer while we were on our way to Barzan, the SCE knows I’m dropping off the face of the Alpha Quadrant a couple months – I got time to think about it! But instead I’m thinking about us not dying while we’re out here!’

‘So what does this have to do with my command prospects? I’ve not been offered anything!’ Valance gave a frantic, vague gesture, then drew a deep breath. ‘Do you think I’m being too cold about this? Do you want me to say that I want you to stay, is that it?’

‘That’s not it…’

‘Of course I want you to stay, but I won’t hold you back if this… if this is what you really want.’ Throat tightening, Valance straightened to look Cortez dead in the eye. ‘But I don’t know what you want. That’s what I’m asking.’

Cortez was silent for a long moment, then scrubbed her face with her hands. ‘Yeah,’ she said at length, voice thick. ‘I guess that’s what I’m asking myself.’

If the ships surrounding Starbase 38 before the Barzan Wormhole had looked like flies caught in the mighty starbase’s web, then the hustle around the Markonian Outpost was more like a hive. Beyond the other Starfleet ships at the periphery of the action, try as Beckett might he could barely identify the vessels lurking around this sprawling mass of a station. More sections of hull, from constructed extensions to simply hulks of old freighters, had been stapled to it over the decades to increase space, and given it the approximate design integrity of a coffee stain.

‘I think that’s Pendari,’ he mused, nodding to one scout buzzing around the periphery. ‘That could be Shivolian? That…’

‘We all believe you did your homework, Nate,’ said Rourke with soft amusement. They and Valance stood before the command chairs on Endeavour’s bridge, watching through the viewscreen as they approached the outpost. The captain looked to his right. ‘Anything interesting on sensors, Commander?’

Although Davir Airex had never been Chief Science Officer aboard this USS Endeavour, he still looked as if he’d always belonged at his bridge station. ‘Many interesting things, Captain, but nothing out of the ordinary for our purposes,’ the Trill drawled. ‘I cannot recommend we bring blood dilithium any closer, however.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Rourke agreed. ‘Which is why we’ll be sending an away team on the Merlin to find this Goravin or his trail. Valance, Airex, Rosewood, Nate, you’re up. Harkon will fly you over. I’ll liaise with the DEI from here in the meantime, see if we have any more pressing business than chasing some Devores’ tails.’

Valance glanced at the three men. ‘I don’t anticipate trouble aboard Markonian. They have tight security. The four of us will do.’

‘And also,’ said Beckett as they headed for the turbolift, ‘you can probably break anyone who starts something over your knee, Commander.’

Rosewood clapped him on the back once they were on the lift. ‘Let’s call that Plan B, Nate. After all, look at us. We’ve got the silver-tongued team here.’

‘I don’t know who that is, I don’t care who that is, I don’t care who you are, so go away.’

Two hours into the mission, John Rosewood looked a lot less perky as he stepped away from the traders’ stall. ‘I didn’t even get around to trying to bribe him!’ he protested upon rejoining the others at the edge of the traffic through this corridor-turned-market.

Markonian Outpost was a swarm of activity, and for his part Beckett was happy to soak in the sights and sounds of a hundred aliens he’d never seen before in his life and a thousand languages that without the universal translator he’d never have a hope of comprehending. The sprawling nature of the base meant it had proven harder than they’d anticipated to find a main hub or nexus to start hunting down one person who might not even be aboard, and a not insignificant chunk of their time so far had been spent walking.

Valance rubbed her forehead wearily. ‘Fine. Asking wherever we see people and hoping for luck isn’t getting us anywhere. We need a change of plans.’

‘I expect everyone,’ mused Airex, also looking thoroughly distracted by the sights and sounds of the outpost, ‘is on-edge considering how blood dilithium’s turning everything upside-down.’

‘Maybe if we find some Brenari?’ said Rosewood. ‘This Goravin is a scholar of their history, they’ll possibly know him.’

‘Sure,’ said Beckett with a wince. ‘We’ll just wander over to the Brenari quarter. Look around, Commander; everyone’s tossed in with everyone here.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Valance groaned. ‘We don’t know anything about this Vizan Regulator, and all we have is a name of someone who may or may not be here. We should check in with the ship and if the captain’s received fresh orders from the DEI, we can leave this whole thing alone.’

Airex cocked his head as he listened, brow furrowing an iota. ‘The Devore believe in reports of this device enough to send a ship to follow leads and hunt it down.’

‘I agree,’ said Beckett with a wince. ‘Anything the Devore want, I reckon they shouldn’t get.’

Rosewood was stroking his chin as he took in the sights. ‘Prospectors,’ he said at last.

Valance scowled. ‘What?’

‘Prospectors!’ He grinned. ‘Vekans said they knew Goravin because they were mining engineers. Goravin clearly deals in excavation, and sure, we might not easily find where the archaeologists just hang out on a place like this. But if Goravin pays prospectors to notify him if they come across what he can turn into a dig-site… they might know him.’

‘That’s sound reasoning,’ Airex agreed, ‘and it’ll be considerably easier to find miners than scholars.’

It was not quite as easy as that. Offices and shop-fronts were grouped as people had rented space, rather than by industry, and establishments ranged from peddlers of what Airex suggested was bemonite mixed with simple basalt dust, to slick front offices of expansive mining industries.

‘Goravin?’ Eventually a Shivolian responded with recognition. ‘Old Death-to-Profit himself?’

Rosewood gave the polite chuckle of one getting in on the joke without presuming to understand it. ‘Why do you call him that?’

The Shivolian shrugged. ‘He’s a nuisance. Promises fortune and glory if you come across some old remains, convinces you to stop your work so he can study it and it’ll definitely bring you fame once he’s written his book about it… he’s well-connected but a good company only falls for his hot air once.’

Beckett popped up at Rosewood’s shoulder. ‘He finds interesting sites, then?’

Rosewood all but shoved Beckett back. ‘I get you,’ he said to the Shivolian in a conspiratorial manner. ‘But we’re researchers with much better facilities than him. We’re hoping to buy some leads off him – and we’re in a position to make sure any mining operations are well-compensated.’ His toothy grin widened as the Shivolian hesitated. ‘Haven’t you seen all the shiny Starfleet ships near Markonian? We’re on a mission of science, and we can pay.’

The Shivolian’s narrow reptilian nostrils flared. ‘He’s got an office two decks up, Section Pliftah. And you’re in luck. He’s in town.’

‘People here,’ Rosewood hissed at Beckett as the four of them left the stand, ‘don’t care about the scientific curiosity of our work. You gotta meet them on their own terms.’

‘Then why did you tell them we are scientists?’ Beckett asked.

‘Because I want them to think we’re rich idiots.’

Valance made a slashing action with her palm. ‘We’ve got what we want. Let’s see if there’s anything to this.’

Beckett stepped up alongside her as they proceeded through the thick mess of cultural soup that was Markonian. ‘You don’t seem to think much is going to come of this, Commander.’

‘I don’t know what’s going to come of this, and neither do you, Lieutenant.’ She was terse even by Valance’s usual standards. ‘Without a solid lead or indication of what this device is – and if it exists – this is just a fishing expedition.’

‘The Devore are taking this so seriously they’re deploying hunting parties, by their logs,’ Beckett insisted.

‘The Devore might be wrong.’

‘Sure,’ said Beckett, ‘but they look ready to tear people apart over this, so we should know what they’re after even if it is an urban legend, right?’ Valance didn’t have a good answer for that, and Beckett took it as a win and allowed himself to enjoy the rest of the hike.

For once, he found himself pleasantly surprised by their destination. He’d expected little of the offices of an itinerant archaeologist, but what they found was a shop with the front display full of curios he was sure were copies of actual artifacts. Inside was shelves and dust, books and objects of interest from a thousand cultures, all piled up on top of each other, and his heart spun at how little he recognised any of it. In the Alpha Quadrant, he might have seen something from an unknown culture that still had echoes and influences of something he knew. This was a whole new world.

A wild-haired Brenari male stuck his head up from behind a stack at their arrival, his eyes narrowing. ‘Starfleet! I was wondering how long it’d take you to slither your way in here.’ He advanced, waggling a finger. ‘I’ve heard of your exploits, launching your ways across galaxies and now rushing here, the frontier of discovery. Don’t tell me, you’ve heard of my expedition to the Trubidean Wastes and you want the star-charts to get you there…’

Beckett had almost lost his nose in a pile of curiosities and Rosewood looked like he was charging up on slick charm, so it was Valance who stepped forward and said, ‘Stop trying to read my mind. Are you Goravin? We’re here on serious business.’

The Brenari paused. ‘I am,’ he said at length. ‘And I assure you that if I had the facilities to sweep for sapient microscopic life ahead of a dig, I’d be taking every precaution, no matter what the Imhotep said…’

‘Your friend Vekans and her ship were captured by Devore. Some of them were killed. We’ve rescued them, but they reported the Devore were looking for a Vaadwaur object.’ Valance spoke in a quick, clipped tone. ‘The Vizan Regulator.’

‘An object.’ Goravin rolled his eyes. ‘As if there’s just one lurking around – that is to say, there may be none left, it’s an ancient Vaadwaur design for slave control. But the Vaadwaur Supremacy lasted centuries and ended centuries ago; they had all manner of designs…’

‘The Devore want it,’ Valance snapped. ‘So we need to know about it. Because they’re prepared to arrest and kill your people over it.’

‘The Devore are prepared to arrest and kill my people for breathing,’ Goravin pointed out. ‘So you can give up now, Starfleet, expecting me to give you information for free out of self-interest.’

Valance hesitated, seemingly realising she’d pushed too hard, and Airex stepped in with a placating raising of the hands. ‘My apologies, Mister Goravin,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’re officers from the starship Endeavour. We’re explorers first and foremost, but we also have the means of protecting people from the Devore while we’re out here. And the Devore are a problem right now.’

Goravin curled his lip. ‘You don’t know much, do you.’ But then he scratched a straggly beard and harrumphed. ‘The Devore have been more trouble lately. Pushing right beyond their usual space. I travel light and they don’t trouble me much, but you said they got Vekans and her crew?’ He hesitated. ‘And her husband Forian?’

Valance’s eyes softened. ‘He was killed by the Devore. Who were asking them about the Vizan Regulator.’

‘We’re not looking,’ piped up Rosewood, ‘to get information from you for free, sir. We can come to an arrangement. As Commander Airex said, we’re explorers like you.’

Goravin clicked his tongue. ‘You mean rivals. A score of Starfleet ships sweeping in, all of you scientists, with way bigger facilities than I have… the only advantage I have over you is my decades of experience out here, my knowledge of the region, of local history.’

‘We weren’t brought here on a mission of scientific research,’ Valance said. ‘We were brought here by the blood dilithium, to respond to the chaos it’s been causing. You must have felt it.’

‘Felt it? It’s ruined three possible leads. People either won’t give up information or – you know there was a lost Qomar colony I was hunting down, and when I found it? Red dilithium. Everywhere. It ruined the site of a settlement a thousand years old. And my assistant tried to stab me.’ Goravin rolled his eyes like this last threat to life and limb was an annoyance compared to the blow to history. ‘I outlasted the Aksani-Chessu War, the Hirogen Overreach, the Borg. I’ll be operating long after this latest problem’s over. But not if Starfleet eats up everything I, a lone businessman, is after.’

‘What about,’ tried Airex, ‘we buy information off you that comes with no locational tags. Just data you have on the Vizan Regulator, no indication of which old Vaadwaur colony it came from, nothing like that. Just more information on what it is, so we can do a tactical assessment of the Devore’s interest.’

Goravin’s nose wrinkled. ‘What do I get?’

‘Access for two artifacts of your choice,’ said Rosewood quickly, sliding up beside Airex, ‘to our multi-spectrum scientific scanner aboard Endeavour, which can provide the most sophisticated analysis in two quadrants in ten minutes.’ Airex glared at him, but the diplomatic officer didn’t waver.

A pause. ‘Four.’

‘Three.’

‘Done.’ Goravin grunted. ‘I’ll sift through my files and anonymise them. Wait here. Don’t touch things.’ He turned for a narrow door to a back room.

Valance turned to Rosewood. ‘We’re going to give him access to our facilities in exchange for nothing?’

‘At the very worst, Commander, we help a local gain further understanding of the history of his locale,’ said Rosewood, not sounding like he believed it. ‘But this way we can get him aboard Endeavour, let Commander Airex and Lieutenant Beckett impress him with the archaeological facilities we have aboard, get him swept along in the spirit of science…’

Airex exhaled through his nose. ‘I’ve been back five seconds,’ he groaned, ‘and I’m already feeling protective of my toys. It’s a reasonable notion, Commander. We’ll see what comes of it. What do you think, Beckett?’ A pause. ‘Beckett?’

Beckett eventually snapped upright, realising he was emerging from behind a stack of books. ‘Here! Sorry, he’s got some fascinating stuff… uh, I agree with John. Commander Rosewood.’

Valance harrumphed. ‘Let’s see how this goes, then. But if he comes up with nothing, this deal will go badly for him.’

‘We could spend,’ mused Beckett, disappearing back behind the stacks in the shop, ‘a decade here and still not have enough cultural context to understand…’

It was because he was hunkered down that the new arrivals bursting through the front door didn’t spot him. Which was why he wasn’t shot at when the four Devore opened fire.

They were plainly Devore by the ridges across brow and nose, but out of their strict black uniforms, dressed down in thick and neutral clothing, they had likely passed through the crowds of Markonian without anyone taking them for what they were. More important than their identity, though, was the fact they were opening fire.

Beckett was still close to the deck, so all he heard at first was the thumping of a door opening, the shattering of the front display, and the burst of energy weapons. In a panic he stuck his head up to see a shot take Rosewood in the shoulder, the diplomat going down, while Valance and Airex dived for cover and drew phasers.

Two Devore were in the doorway, while the other two opened fire from outside. A quick snapshot from Valance as she ducked behind a centuries-old bust – with a cavalier disregard for its safety that made Beckett’s heart ache – brought one of the first down. Then the Devore returned fire and the Starfleet officers had to stick their heads back down.

‘Beckett!’ Valance’s voice rang out over the burst of fire. Smouldering scraps of paper from an ancient tome struck by an errant blast blossomed down on her. ‘Get to Goravin!’

‘Oh, piss,’ muttered Beckett. ‘They want him, don’t they.’ But he hadn’t yet drawn enemy fire, and wanted to keep it that way. Begrudgingly raising his phaser, he crawled on elbows and knees through the labyrinthine stacks of Goravin’s goods.

By the time he was near the door, Airex had managed to drag Rosewood behind cover and was administering first aid as Valance tried to fend off the Devore with fire. Beckett glanced back and, for a moment, thought of joining them. But there was still no sign of Goravin, so in one quick move he hurled himself for the door to the back.

He couldn’t have been out in the open for more than a second, and still he heard the hiss of energy weapons and felt their heat as they hit where he’d been half a breath before. Then he was in the back rooms, in cover, and though he heard the Devore shouting, he also heard Valance and Airex returning fire.

The back room was small, with only a desk, tall shelves along one wall, a holographic picture opposite showing off Goravin – twenty years younger, a lot thinner, with a lot more hair – posing with some artifact before dusty ruins, and a rear access door. Open. There was no sign of Goravin.

‘Piss!’ was Nate Beckett’s repeated tactical analysis, and he rushed to the door. The rear access acted as an alleyway for waste disposal and loading, and before him stretched a long, dim metal corridor of marked doors to other establishments. In the distance, shadows moved – two figures holding a struggling third, heading away at speed. It had to be Goravin.

Beckett hesitated before turning back to the front, because the only thing dumber than losing Goravin was to go off on his own and get killed. His heart rose as he realised the shooting had stopped and he heard voices – commands for everyone to stop, to put down their weapons, and he realised station security had arrived. It felt like a lifetime but couldn’t have been even a minute.

‘Thank you,’ he heard Valance saying. ‘But we’ve got to help our officer, I think the proprietor’s in danger…’

‘Nobody move!’ came a more urgent shout from security, and Beckett froze in the office. ‘Our sergeant’s on the way, so you all just hold and we’ll sort it out -’

‘You don’t understand…’

‘You don’t need to understand.’

Beckett’s jaw tightened as he realised that maybe going off on his own wasn’t the dumbest choice. Not if station security was going to lock everyone down now and ask questions later, once Goravin and the Devore were long gone. He turned for the back alleyway and broke into a run, smacking his combadge.

‘Beckett to Merlin!’ he called breathlessly, his phaser in an iron grip as he hurried. ‘We found Goravin but it’s gone sideways here! Devore have him, everyone else is in station security’s hands, and I’m in pursuit on foot!’

When Harkon eventually responded, he could hear quietened heavy music in the background, and knew she’d been rocking out in the cockpit of the docked runabout while she ship-spotted. ‘Alone?’

‘Yeah! Send, uh, backup? Thoughts and prayers?’ Someone opened a door to their alleyway to throw out a bag of refuse, and Beckett had to leap over it, calling a desperate apology. ‘Or, I don’t know, scan for Devore and find their ship, they’re kinda incognito! Contact Endeavour and get help! I don’t know!’

Harkon said something else, but then he’d burst out of the back alleyway and into the wider square. Stores had heavy frontage here and foot traffic was heavy, and there was no sign of the Devore or Goravin. Beckett swore, and scuttled to the nearest stall. ‘Sorry!’ he called, hopping atop one of the crates loaded with wares, knocking fruit onto the deck.

He was sworn at in a language he didn’t understand and the universal translator either didn’t know or had too much of a sense of decency to convey, but from higher up he could see them – two Devore with Goravin wedged between them, the hand of one on his back, rushing for another passageway. There was probably a concealed weapon forcing Goravin’s cooperation.

He hopped to the deck with another frantic apology to the angry fruit vendor and rushed into the crowd. The Devore were moving at speed, and he had to slip between the press of bodies, sidestepping and staying quick-footed to keep up. It was only once they’d left the square that he had a solid line of sight on them, the long corridor back towards the docking yards busy but less packed, and when the Devore cast a glance over their shoulders, he knew he’d been made.

Beckett broke into a run and pointed frantically. ‘Hey! Devore are trying to kidnap that Brenari!’ That drew looks from the busy shop-fronts, but they were guarded – nobody liked Devore, but Devore were dangerous, and this wasn’t their problem. Time to lie. ‘The station master said there’s a reward for stopping them!’

That drew attention. One shopkeeper pulled out a huge pistol and stepped out before the Devore, and one let go of Goravin with a nod to his compatriot before drawing his sidearm. Then all hell broke loose.

Visitors to Markonian jumped at the openly armed Devore or ran away, and the crowd became a new kind of chaos. Beckett had to slip up against the wall to avoid getting caught in the scuffle as a burly Pendari tackled the Devore, while the one strong-arming Goravin broke out of the throng and pressed on ahead.

Damn it. Beckett drew his phaser with reluctance and snapped the power level to be nothing but a light-show. ‘Clear the way!’ he yelled, letting off a shot at the ceiling as he passed the scrap with the Devore left behind, and now he was in a race against an enemy trying to drag a weak-but-struggling captive. Except the Devore he was chasing was a big, burly soldier, and Beckett knew he was one of the weak links in Endeavour’s Hazard Team.

It was difficult to run while tapping at his phaser controls, but after a moment he’d knocked the power up a smidge, and winced as he levelled it at the two. If he hit a bystander, Kharth would bury him in paperwork before burying him for real.

His first shot went wide. The second one struck true, making the target go limp for only a moment, just enough to send them sprawling to the deck before they recovered, limbs likely tingling but still obeying. Except he’d not exactly hit what he’d wanted, because he’d hit Goravin. And now there was a burly Devore soldier rounding on him.

Not really thinking, Beckett didn’t try to get another shot off but instead bowled into the Devore, and the two of them went down in a tumble of momentum and muscle, mostly the Devore’s. ‘Goravin!’ Beckett managed to shout. ‘Run! Or help me! Something!’

But the old Brenari was rolling onto his back with a groan, and the Devore slammed Beckett against the deck and he realised he’d perhaps miscalculated. He rolled and swung his phaser at the Devore’s head, but was blocked. The Devore’s fist came up, and he was too slow as it cracked into his temple. Stars exploded in front of his eyes, the Devore slammed him again against the deck, and when he felt the barrel of the soldier’s pistol pressed into his gut, he thought it was all over.

But the whine of an energy weapon, when it came, was too distant. The Devore grunted, spasmed, and collapsed – on top of him.

Beckett lay there, gently crushed by the bulk of his opponent, and whimpered. Footsteps thudded up, and he heard Goravin move, the old Brenari seeming to recover a little. ‘Thank you!’ he wheezed. ‘I don’t know what they’d have done to me, thank you!’

He opened his mouth to try to groan a response, but no sound came out. Then above him came a chirpy, ‘You’re welcome!’ from Harkon, and Beckett realised Goravin wasn’t even talking to him.

‘Uh. Little help?’ he whimpered.

It took Harkon a moment to drag the Devore off him, the slight pilot struggling with the man’s weight. ‘You okay there, Nate?’

‘Right as rain,’ he groaned and sat up, then looked at Goravin. ‘Are you alright, sir?’

Goravin seemed to notice him at last, and grabbed his hand in an enthusiastic clasp. ‘Thanks to your diligence, young man,’ he gushed, and Beckett felt at last a little appreciated for fast thinking and getting the hell kicked out of him. ‘Devore, on Markonian? They normally wouldn’t sully themselves with such.’

‘Yeah.’ With Harkon’s help, they both got to their feet. ‘I guess that they really do want this Regulator thing. Or they think you know something else.’ He gave Goravin a pointed look. ‘How’s that deal looking now?’

The Brenari archaeologist sighed. ‘Perhaps I did underestimate them. Or this situation. Very well, let us talk – but not here. Especially not if station security are going to catch up – they’re a tiresome lot, and really don’t like me anyway. Is there somewhere we can speak?’

‘The Vaadwaur Supremacy,’ said Goravin, tucked up in a blanket in the Merlin’s rear cabin with a steaming mug of tea, ‘did not keep slaves for its entire existence. But some thousand years ago slavery was a common enough feature of some provinces, including those near here. And that included Brenari slaves.’

Valance sat across from him at the table, flanked by Beckett and Airex. Rosewood had been taken to a cabin for more medical attention from Harkon, but was nothing more than singed. It had taken some time to extricate themselves from station security, but the presence of Devore aboard had become a much higher priority than the people resisting them.

‘Telepathic slaves,’ Valance said carefully, ‘have historically been difficult to keep, at least in the Alpha Quadrant.’

‘The same here,’ said Goravin with an enthusiastic nod. ‘I had wondered for a long time how they kept Brenari populations controlled. Initially I thought they kept the work forces scattered, but ten years ago I came across a mass grave at an old Vaadwaur colony that was primarily Brenari.’

‘Mass slaughter to suppress them?’ wondered Airex.

‘I thought so.’

Beckett frowned, which made his head hurt, and pressed the cooling pack more firmly against his bruised temple. ‘You speak like you’re the only person doing research on the Vaadwaur.’

‘They weren’t a very popular topic of history until your friends woke them up twenty-five years ago,’ Goravin pointed out. ‘Now they’re a lot more on people’s minds. As is the funding.’

‘Fair enough,’ he sighed. ‘But back to the Regulator.’

‘Ah, yes. This was my first evidence on how the Vaadwaur retained control of Brenari. You spoke with Vekans, you know I found some records on an old colony. I found mention of the device there in, of all things, a protocol manual on how to use and deploy it appropriately.’ Goravin tapped at a chunky PADD, too old-fashioned to have its own projector. ‘This suggests the Vizan Regulator is a hand-held device that can be used on individuals to temporarily nullify their telepathic capabilities.’

The PADD was slid over, and Airex took it to read in silence. At length he said, ‘That would cause brain damage if you used it too much. This policy explicitly warns against using it for excessive periods outside of a designated culling or something they call a “control execution,” which I assume is to scare the other slaves into cooperating.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ mused Valance, ‘the Devore would care about that danger.’

‘No,’ said Goravin. ‘But you see – there was nothing there about how the device works, or how to construct one, and I found no signs of any such devices.’

‘There’s a lot I could infer from this policy manual,’ Airex mused. ‘But it is still very plainly handheld, to use on one person at a time. It seems curious that the Devore are chasing something they might never find – technical manuals or surviving devices might be long gone – that has very little use if you’re prepared to kill people.’

‘Especially,’ said Valance, ‘when their top priority is securing blood dilithium. They can’t be directing that many resources to this.’

‘I expect expanding their territory is how they caught wind of the Regulator,’ sighed Goravin. ‘They’re not usually a problem in my line of work. Just my line of life as being a Brenari.’

Beckett frowned at a spot on the table. ‘What if,’ he said slowly, ‘it isn’t just that they found sources on the Regulator because blood dilithium’s made them put boots on the ground on whole new worlds.’ As people looked at him, he shrugged. ‘They probably want blood dilithium because it affects telepaths. But it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that they also want this device that subdues telepaths.’

Airex’s eyes narrowed, but he looked thoughtful in his caution. ‘There’s no way Devore policy is driven by this fairy tale…’

‘Not policy,’ Beckett agreed. ‘But a mission. A ship. Maybe they think blood dilithium can power it. Maybe they want to use it to super-charge the blood dilithium.’

‘This device sounds like a psionic resonator,’ Airex continued. ‘We have scant few examples of these, and little understanding how any of them work. But we do know that they’re possible.’ He stroked his chin, and looked like he might say more before he shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want to make idle conjecture.’

‘Then it’s just as well,’ said Valance, ‘that the Devore soldiers were thrown into cells on Markonian and might be convinced to talk.’

‘They’re fanatics,’ said Goravin, ‘and Fictieff probably won’t give you access anyway. He doesn’t let people resolve internal disputes here.’

‘What about you?’ Beckett asked him. ‘Don’t you have any more on the device? Any more leads?’

‘I’d be grateful,’ said Airex, ‘if we could take a look at all the records you found on that dig.’

At last Goravin hesitated. ‘Ah. That. Well.’ He fidgeted. ‘You see, I don’t have them any more.’

Beckett stared. ‘What?’

‘I have what was on my person, but not the whole database. Because I lost my ship. You see, I was on my way here when I fell foul of an ion storm. All of my systems went dead and I thought the ship was going to rip itself apart, so I had to jump into an escape pod. I was lucky to survive the process at all really, and luckier still to be picked up by some passing Shivolians.’

Valance sighed. ‘Where’s the wreckage?’

‘Oh, the ship actually survived the ordeal.’ Goravin winced. ‘But the Shivolians were halfway here by the time the storm passed and they confirmed my ship’s location on long-range sensors, so they didn’t want to turn around and drop me off. Especially as that would have meant trouble.’

Beckett raised his eyebrows. ‘Trouble?’

‘Yes, you see, my ship’s in one piece, and I know exactly where it is, because a vulture grabbed it the moment they could approach.’ Now Goravin’s expression settled into a scowl. ‘That junker Abaddon’s got it.’

Acting Chief Science Officer’s log.

I was apprehensive that Captains Rourke or Mek would prefer Endeavour stayed on its original mission, but it seems they agree that even if this Vizan Regulator is nothing but dust or myth, the Devore believe it’s worth chasing. The more we know, the better chance we have of anticipating their next move – or intercepting them. We’ve set a course for Abaddon’s Repository in the hopes of recovering Goravin’s old ship, or rather its database, as he insists there are at least the locations of other fallen Vaadwaur colonies in the records. 

I had hoped my mission to the Delta Quadrant would focus further on scientific research and advancing our understanding, despite the threat of blood dilithium, but it seems the moment I’m back aboard Endeavour, I’m back to putting out fires. At least with our sample from the freighter, I have the opportunity to continue study while we’re travelling to the repository. 

Especially with the latest reports from Task Force 17.

‘I have a terrible idea.’

Normally people said this with a tone of warning or despair, but when Airex sat up at the scanner in the geophysics lab, he found the words left a satisfying taste on his tongue. Perhaps it was the possibility of pushing the boundaries when he’d spent the last hours bashing his head against a wall. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion.

But because the only other person in the lab was Rosara Thawn, and she would normally rather be caught dead than to assume a superior officer was full of it, she brightened with curiosity. ‘Go on, sir.’

‘According to our every scan and analysis, blood dilithium is the same as any other dilithium. So much that I’m not even sure why it’s red.’ He picked up a stylus for his PADD and twirled it in his fingers. Technically Thawn had come down to pick his brain about Delta Quadrant operations as she worked on the SOC for Beckett, but it hadn’t taken long for the conversation to derail. ‘So what if we recrystalise it?’

‘The blood dilithium.’

‘Yes. Build a new compositor, fracture the blood dilithium, and attempt to recrystalise it. What do you think?’

Anyone else would have pushed back at once, but he could see the idea racing through Thawn’s mind as she considered. ‘The process manipulates the dilithium on an atomic level,’ she mused. ‘There’s no saying how the compositor might interact with the unknown elements in the blood dilithium’s composition.’

‘Exactly.’ He smiled, confident the idea had merit the more Thawn unpicked the process. ‘No matter what, we’ll learn something.’

‘Or,’ said Thawn, ‘you cause further damage and distress to the psionic echoes of the Brenari, which amplifies whatever’s going on, and me and the rest immediately go crazy.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Alright,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s call that Plan… Q.’ The two had never been close, but they had always been the most fastidious workers on the senior staff, the most willing to go the extra mile and ask the questions others wouldn’t. With Veldman off-shift, there was a reason she was the person he was most willing to wildly theorise with.

‘Give me a research lab on a barren moon,’ he continued wistfully, ‘where I can try ridiculous ideas like this, and I might have this figured out in a week.’

‘So long as you have one poor, sacrificial telepath so you can monitor any changes.’

She was being silly, but he still sobered. ‘I want to get to the bottom of this,’ he sighed, ‘but I don’t want to hurt anyone. I remind myself I’m not the only scientist in the quadrant doing this research.’

Thawn nodded and moved to the seat across from him at the lab displays. ‘Not the only one, sir, but likely one of the finest.’ For once it didn’t sound like she was sucking up. ‘I’m not sure this is the idea to risk people over, but you know that we’re all willing to do what it takes if it gives us answers.’

Airex’s expression creased. ‘Don’t take this to mean I think less of your colleagues, Lieutenant, but I suspect not everyone shares your dedication. I have an ethical obligation not to treat you like lab-rats.’

She shrugged. ‘Let us worry about ourselves and Counsellor Carraway worry about our wellbeing. To you, we can be lab-rats.’ She glanced at the display. ‘Do you have any theories about how this happened yet?’

He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘I would have thought that learning slaughtered Brenari were leaving a psionic echo in the dilithium itself would give me more clues. But it hasn’t helped me detect or measure anything about the stuff itself. It consistently gives me nothing if I try to detect psionic energy, and there’s no indication it projects psionic fields. I’ve exposed it to small-level resonance bursts and that changes nothing on my scans. Simply put, if it weren’t for the obvious affects on telepaths, I wouldn’t know this was anything other than recoloured dilithium.’

Thawn pursed her lips. ‘It’s not as if you detect psionic energy emanating from me, either, sir. When I exert my telepathy, it’s normally only observable through monitoring brainwaves. Psionic energy is usually only detected in the presence of hugely powerful telepaths, or as part of the power signature from the energy source of a device that manipulates psionic fields.’

‘Maybe I’m going about this wrong,’ Airex sighed. ‘Our scientific understanding of telepathy remains incredibly limited. For whatever reason, we’ve struggled to develop the technology that would enable us to observe it.’

‘Until now,’ she said simply, and met his gaze. ‘With this… trumpet.’

Airex tapped his stylus on his chin as he considered how to be diplomatic. ‘I remind you again of my ethical obligation towards you, Lieutenant. But furthermore, you not only have your own duties, but I’m aware you’ve been supporting Lieutenant Beckett in the SOC.’

‘My schedule -’

‘I’ve no doubt you can pull long hours and still produce sterling work, Lieutenant, I’ve seen it many a time. I’m apprehensive of putting you under further strain, however, when it comes to blood dilithium.’

Thawn drew a slightly shaky breath. ‘I still think I’m the best candidate, sir.’

‘I know you’re a powerful telepath, but from Discovery’s reports, there’s no indication that will lead to any further success with the subspace trumpet -’

‘I mean,’ she interrupted, and he shut up because that was so unusual it stunned him into silence, ‘I believe I’m particularly susceptible to psionic energies right now. I have no idea if that’s a weakness or a strength against blood dilithium, but I think it… it might make me unusual.’

Yet again Airex was left considering his words as his mind raced to the reports from Endeavour he’d monitored with an unending chaser of guilt. ‘You’re referring to what happened to you on the other Endeavour.’ She nodded mutely. ‘I understand some of it. Exposure to psionic energies, but these were efforts to force your mind to contact other minds…’

‘Which it turns out might be exactly what we’re doing here,’ she said bullishly.

‘Or.’ Airex lifted a finger. ‘It makes you more susceptible to their influence. And not only can I not allow it, not only is it an irresponsible behaviour from you I couldn’t possibly condone, but I also cannot justify the risk because I don’t know what we would try to learn by communicating with the dilithium that someone else hasn’t already!’ She looked not only crestfallen but apprehensive, as if he was going to chastise her, and that, at least, looked more like the Thawn he remembered. He sat up and said, carefully, ‘Understanding blood dilithium will not necessarily help you understand what happened to you, Lieutenant.’

Her eyes slammed shut for a moment, and she inhaled sharply through her nose. ‘What made it difficult,’ she said at length, ‘was seeing Noah again.’ It spoke of how much she’d changed in the last two years that she could mention him so casually, when after his death she’d been so focused on acting like it hadn’t affected her. ‘Not simply because of – of that, of seeing him. But how many of us aboard remember him?’

His shoulders sank. ‘The absence or the loss of the memories of others,’ he said gently, ‘doesn’t degrade your own memories, Thawn. You knew him. You remember him. And you’ll always carry him with you. That may sound a little trite, but I am a joined Trill of five lifetimes. There are people who lived and breathed and loved a century and a half ago and are now nothing but dust, and the only shred of them left in the galaxy is with me. With Airex. We are all the custodians of our own memories, Thawn, and that might be our most important duty in life.’

She faltered a moment, lips moving like she wasn’t sure what words to form, before she said, hesitant, ‘I think our most important duty is to act worthy of memory, sir. Or what’s it worth?’

Airex drew a deep breath and thought of his last host and all his sins. He was still becoming accustomed, he thought, to his mind not shearing away at the mere prospect of contemplating Lerin. ‘I think worthy can mean a lot of different things. But you’re not wrong.’

Her smile was tight, tired but pleased. ‘If I may say, sir, I’m glad you’re back.’

His lips twitched. ‘It’s temporary. But I am glad to be back. It’s good to see you again, all of you.’ That brought him perilously close to other truths, but Airex paused and reminded himself he was trying to not shy away from those any more. He fidgeted again with his stylus. ‘You’ve been doing meditative practices with Commander Kharth; do you think there’s a risk to Romulans?’

Thawn did him the courtesy of pretending to take this at face-value. ‘It’s impossible to say, sir, but isn’t it worth it?’ There was a beat until she took pity on him. ‘She’s mentioned nothing suggesting she’s feeling any affects of the blood dilithium. This will probably turn out to be an unnecessary precaution. But it’s one I’d rather take.’

‘Agreed.’ He cleared his throat and sat up. ‘This Vizan Regulator… I was wondering if you had thoughts on it.’

It turned out to be an unnecessary diversion, especially as it was unlikely to work with Thawn’s limited knowledge of who the Vaadwaur even were. His console flicked to life with a message notification, and with a frown he sat up to read.

‘Oh,’ Airex breathed.

‘Sir?’

He looked up at Thawn and found his mouth suddenly very dry. ‘It’s from Sadek. Chief T’Kalla was found non-responsive… catatonic… in her quarters minutes ago. She’s in Sickbay but the doctor isn’t sure she can do anything for her, and that it matches other similar cases in telepaths in proximity to blood dilithium.’

Thawn brought a hand to her mouth in horror. ‘She’s only half-Vulcan, and it’s still affecting her…’

‘As I said, once you cross a certain threshold, blood dilithium doesn’t seem to discriminate.’ He looked up at the containment field in which the crystal squatted, crimson and gleaming, inert and yet somehow menacing. ‘Maybe I should throw it out a damn airlock.’

‘No,’ said Thawn sharply. ‘Or we’ve been through all of this for nothing.’

‘That’s buying into a sunk-cost fallacy, Lieutenant.’

‘Then let’s go and see T’Kalla.’

Airex frowned. ‘I don’t see how we can help her if Doctor Sadek can’t.’

‘I don’t think we can,’ said Thawn, picking up a tricorder. ‘I think we can do some science.’

She stood and headed for the door, and while he would follow, he gave himself a moment first to sit and taste the bitterness at the notion of doing whatever needed to be done. He’d heard of joined Trills describing the feeling of their past hosts talking to them in their minds, though to him that was a weak-willed and two-dimensional way of absorbing a lifetime; he was not Lerin and Isady and Tabain and Obrent and Davir, he was Airex.

And still it felt as if Lerin was laughing at this.

‘Right,’ Davir Airex muttered, shoving the feeling away as he stood. ‘Science.’

‘…and readiness time is up by a full twenty seconds, even on the alternative shifts,’ Valance finished, leaving the projection of her report shining between them above Rourke’s desk.

He leaned back with a dissatisfied sigh, eyes drifting over it but not really reading. It took a moment before he remembered this was a rude response to his XO’s work, and scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘Very good, Commander. Apologies. You know I trust you with this.’

‘I know. I dislike preparing drills assuming a solid percentage of our key personnel are unavailable, too.’ She shifted her weight. ‘It’s quite dissatisfying to see how our efficiency drops in drills without Thawn.’

‘Our Ops department is young, she’s just uncommonly good,’ he sighed. ‘Still. Excellent work.’ His eyes drifted up to take her in – more stark, more severe than usual, and he could not help but feel a pang of guilt after their conversation in the lounge. He had acted appropriately, and still it felt like he’d interfered in her personal life.

As if sensing his unease, she tensed. ‘Can I speak frankly, sir?’

He frowned with new apprehension. ‘Always.’

‘I think we’re on a wild goose chase.’

Rourke sighed. ‘Maybe. But the Devore don’t.’

‘No.’ She looked like she might have said something else but stopped herself, and he would have pressed the point had she not instead said, ‘Captain, has there been any word since I turned down the Galen of Command offering me another ship?’

That stopped Rourke short, and he sat up. ‘Nobody’s said anything to me about it. But I can’t imagine you’ll be offered one when the understanding is that you’re satisfied to continue serving on Endeavour. Especially this Endeavour. XO of an Obena-class is no small thing.’ It felt like the deck was starting to shift beneath him, like sturdy plating he’d not thought twice about resting his weight on was buckling. ‘But it’s been the better part of two years. Commander… do you want me to put you forward for your own ship again?’

They regarded each other a long moment, captain and commander, leader and strong right hand, and Rourke had to keep his jaw clamped shut to keep his professional veneer when all of a sudden, all of the dangers of the Delta Quadrant – the galaxy – felt that much more acute.

‘That’s not what I’m saying.’ Valance’s response was slow, though. ‘I was simply wondering if… if there was talk.’

‘You’re wondering if you blew your chance,’ said Rourke carefully, and tried to not look like he was connecting this conversation with Cortez’s transfer offer. ‘Once this is over I can send out some feelers, if you like. Let the right people know that you’re open to… the right offer?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quickly, and that set him a little at ease as he heard some echo of his apprehension in her. ‘We don’t need to discuss this until we’re back in the Alpha Quadrant.’

‘No,’ Rourke agreed. ‘But this is as good a time as any to think about it, because we can’t do anything about it for a month or more. If you conclude that there’s something you do want, I have some capital in Command – you have some capital after our assignments, there are… prospects. Options.’

But he felt himself begin to over-explain in his apprehension, in his tamping down of his desire to ask her to stay, in this childish fear of not wanting anything to change, and so he couldn’t help but sigh with relief when there was a chirrup of a comm connection.

‘Bridge to Captain Rourke,’ came Lindgren’s voice. ‘Sir, we’re picking up a distress signal.’

The two looked at each other again, no longer stood at a crossroads, but captain and commander on a mission again. Without another word they headed for the bridge.

‘What do we have?’ called Valance as she kept pace on the way to the trio of command chairs.

Lindgren had her finger on her earpiece, head cocked as she listened, and Rourke frowned as she took uncommonly long to report back. Then she looked at them and said, ‘It’s a distress call from a Devore ship. Sounds like an automated system alert.’

Rourke looked at Airex, confounded. ‘Do we have a location?’

‘Not far. They look like they’re on their own and their power signature is unusually weak.’

He sank onto the command chair. ‘Then keep scanning for trouble, and… I suppose set a course, Mr Arys. We’re Starfleet. We answer distress calls.’

Some time later they dropped out of warp, and he felt everyone on the bridge tense as the viewscreen display showed not just a Devore ship, but the wrecked hulk of one. It drifted with little sign of functioning systems, little sign of power, little sign of life, and across the hull they could see scoring from weapons fire and breaches from detonations.

But it was Kharth who leaned forward and breathed, ‘Is that the same ship?’

Airex frowned as his hands flew over the sensors. ‘I think so. They’ve been in combat and hull integrity has all but failed. I’m shocked any power systems are working at all.’

Rourke moved to join him, and his lips thinned as he read. ‘Whoever did this was trying to core this ship. It looks like they disabled it, breached the hull in strategic places, then probably boarded to strip it of equipment and supplies.’

‘And they were in no position to defend themselves,’ murmured Lindgren, ‘after we took their weapons.’

‘You mean, the Devore’s many, many enemies finally caught up with them and had a chance to get even?’ said Kharth without a shred of sympathy.

Valance looked at Airex. ‘Life signs?’

‘I’m not seeing any,’ he said, then grimaced as he read further. ‘Some of this debris is… I think it’s not just parts of the ship blown off. I think it’s escape pods. Whoever did this took pot-shots as they evacuated.’

Rourke turned back to the wreck on the viewscreen, and swallowed. We did this to them, said one voice in his head. But then another, more blunt, said, They got what was coming to them.

Before he could wrestle with that further, there was a chirrup at Airex’s console. ‘I’m picking up another power signature – there’s one escape pod out there. It looks like they were powered down, they must have been hiding in the debris. One life sign aboard. Sir, they can’t have much by way of air left…’

‘Are they Devore?’ said Rourke, and felt the eyes on him as Airex nodded. Still he turned to Thawn. ‘Beam them to Sickbay. And then we’ll have a little conversation.’

‘Gaharey,’ rasped the Devore once he’d opened his eyes and realised roughly where he was. ‘You’ll not have me for sport either…’

He tried to sit up on the biobed, but Kharth had to exert little effort to keep him down. A metre or so away, Sadek pointedly cleared her throat.

‘As I said, he’s in no condition to do much of anything. I’ve patched him up and he’ll live, but he needs rest,’ she said.

They’d put him in a private room in Sickbay, so Rourke only had to feel the eyes of his most trusted officers on him as he took a step towards the biobed. ‘You hear that? We’re not here to hurt you. I’m Captain Rourke and you’re aboard the Endeavour. You might remember us.’

The Devore was pale, cheeks sunken. He was definitely far younger than Halyx, and lacked that shield of superiority; rather, his discipline now seemed like a veneer rapidly peeling. He licked dry lips and wavered, ‘Brennos,’ at last. ‘Sub-lieutenant Brennos. You left us to the mercy of the sector, Endeavour…’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t go around conquering and relocating people,’ Kharth said, but shut up at a curt look from Rourke.

‘Who attacked you?’ he asked.

Brennos shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t on shift. The klaxon sounded to beat to quarters, but before I was at my post we were suffering hull breaches and the order went to abandon ship. I made it to an escape pod, and as I launched I saw the enemy shooting those down, too. So I steered for wreckage, powered down, and they missed me.’ He looked up at them. ‘How many survivors did you find?’

Rourke drew a deep breath. ‘You were the only one.’

The protective veneer shattered. ‘You’ve not done what you hoped for, Starfleet,’ Brennos said, but already his voice was breaking, shuddering. ‘After you left, we rendezvoused with another vessel. Commissioner Halyx and most of the crew disembarked. Only a skeleton crew was left to bring us to berth. Your crippling may have doomed the ship, but in your cowardice to finish us off, you failed to land a decisive blow against the Imperium.’

Still Rourke asked gently, ‘How many were left aboard?’

If it had taken strength to deliver that rhetoric, it looked like it was the last of the young Devore’s reserves. His eyes snapped shut. ‘Forty-three. Forty-four, including me.’ Slowly he opened his eyes. ‘All gone?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rourke, and found he meant it.

‘We should never have left the borders,’ Brennos breathed, bringing his palms up to press against his brow. ‘We’re the navy, we’re here to protect our people, not to invite more gaharey by going to their systems, occupying and seizing them. We should have stayed where we were…’

It sounded more like a whimper to himself than a statement to them, and Rourke pulled up a stool to be on his level. ‘Why was your ship out here at all? Only the blood dilithium?’

‘This… it is a foul substance. How can we value something that speaks to the telepathic gaharey? It’s a danger like them, not something we should try to marshal, but Fintt – the High Commissioner – has decided it will be so. And worse is Commissioner Halyx’s crusade for this gaharey object, this relic…’

‘The Regulator,’ Rourke supplied gently. ‘What’s her intention with it?’

Brennos shook his head. He did not seem like he was truly present any more, lost in loathing and fear and loss. ‘Arrogance and hubris. We found records on the first worlds we retook and she decided it could be a weapon. To find it, or to find how to build it, and to wield it as the Vaadwaur had done centuries past. But with the blood dilithium to power it, to amplify it, to make it more than a tool to suppress one telepath.’

Airex stepped forward at that, gaze thunderous. ‘How many?’ he asked, and Rourke gave him a sharp look to make him modulate his tone, push less. Brennos was on a knife-edge and anything to make him defensive might prompt him to remember he was of the Devore Imperium, and they were the enemy. ‘How many telepaths at once, Brennos?’ Airex pressed, gentler. ‘A room? A city?’

Brennos dragged his hands down his face, leaving his cheeks tear-stained. ‘I didn’t join to leave our space and slaughter gaharey. I want them to stay where they are, not for us to waste our resources beyond our borders.’ It sounded less like a defence, and more like a reasoning with himself. After a moment his eyes locked on Rourke, gaze clearer. ‘A planet, Commissioner Halyx said. She doesn’t care that if we hunt down a Brenari colony and kill the minds of all of them at the press of a button, we’ll set the whole Belt on us. She invites the enemy’s retribution, when all we should do is banish them.’

‘Banish,’ muttered Kharth. ‘Kind way to describe how Devore relocation camps work.’

It was her turn to get a harsh look, then Rourke returned his gaze to Brennos. ‘Do you know where she’s headed? What she knows?’

But the young Devore shook his head, tears falling freely by now. ‘I’m… I’m just a logistics officer, I never saw the records, the navigation charts, I don’t know…’

Sadek stepped forward. ‘I think you have enough for now,’ she said briskly. ‘He might be a Devore soldier, but he’s my patient, he’s given you plenty, and you can let him rest before you ask him more.’

They withdrew, and Rourke looked to Kharth as they left the room. ‘Get him quarters and put him under guard. We’ll figure out what to do with him when this is all over, but he’s just a junior officer. He’s been fed this all his life. He’s not our enemy here.’ She looked less convinced, but nodded.

Airex was frowning. ‘If Halyx is right, then we have to stop the Devore getting their hands on a Regulator.’

‘I know,’ said Rourke quickly.

‘And if she’s wrong,’ said Valance, ‘then she’ll still tear the sector apart because this is too valuable a prize for her to pass up. If she thinks combining this device with blood dilithium will give her a weapon of mass destruction against telepaths, she can justify anything…’

‘I know,’ Rourke said again, and he couldn’t help but give her a rueful look. ‘I suppose you don’t think this is a wild goose chase any more, Commander.’

‘No,’ sighed Valance. ‘But I wish I wasn’t wrong, sir. Because this could be so much worse than we thought.’

The bridge pulsed from crimson to black, the red alert lights thudding in time with her heartbeat. Thawn stepped out from the turbolift still fiddling with her uniform collar, but stopped short when she found the chamber empty.

‘…hello? Captain?’

‘Red alert,’ came the computer’s calm but unhelpful response. ‘All hands to battle stations.’

As her heart raced faster, so did the pulsing lights. Her steps felt like they were in stop-motion as she crossed the bridge for her station, but when she pressed a control it flashed up with a bright red lock-screen.

‘Computer!’ Hysteria tightened her throat. ‘Why am I locked out? This is an emergency!’

‘You’re trapped in here,’ said the computer in that calming monotone. ‘Just like us. Left here to die. Tormented and suffering and banished for their cleansing.’ But the voice was shattering and warping, twisting from the computer’s dulcet tones to something deeper and more anguished, more desperate.

And in the background, from the pitch black of the light’s pulsing, more whispers joined it. The same she’d been hearing for the long days since Endeavour had come into contact with blood dilithium.

‘I’m not listening to this,’ Thawn said sharply. ‘If you have something to say, say it. Stop being cryptic. I’m not in here with you.’

As she turned the darkness pulsed back to red, and she ran flat into the scorched figure of Noah Pierce. ‘You’re always in here with me,’ he hissed, grabbing her shoulders in an iron grasp, and she found herself staring up at the burnt, seared face. As he’d been when she’d last seen him, dead on the deck beside her.

‘No -’ She tried to pull free, but his hold was too tight. ‘No, you’re not him – you’re dead, whichever of you this is…’

‘The Pierce who held you down in the interrogation room as you screamed?’ The burnt side of his face twisted in a rictus grin. ‘Or the Pierce who laughed and loved you and tormented you with what you couldn’t have?’

You were always here with us, the voices in the darkened pulses of the bridge whispered. Wherever you’ve gone, you’ve always been trapped.

‘No…’ But when she pulled free of Pierce’s grasp he only laughed, and she felt the futility as she staggered across the bridge – the bridge that was now the old Endeavour’s, the place he’d died.

The turbolift doors slid open, bright white light piercing the pulsing black and red, and her heart rose with hope as she turned to see the figure stood in the doorway, her salvation. And lodged in her throat as she saw the outstretched hand of Adamant Rhade.

‘Come with me,’ he said, handsome and tall and her family’s choice, and everything she’d been told she wanted. ‘Leave here with me.’

Wherever you go, whispered the voices of the blood dilithium, you’re trapped here like us.

Her next scream woke her up, and while her bedroom lights did not pulse with red, the darkness still echoed with whispers.

‘Another,’ Beckett muttered as he shoved his mug across the Round Table’s bar at the holographic bartender, and soon the soothing scent of coffee filled his nostrils.

‘You’re pulling long hours,’ the hologram said, in that slightly stilted way which let him know this was the computer’s way of reminding him he was on-duty in about five hours.

Beckett rubbed his eyes to block out the shining lights of his PADD. ‘The expeditionary force is making as many enemies as friends, it seems. Not just us. The Saratoga might be protecting a Monean colony, but that’s included picking a fight with the Devore. The Damascus has ended up in a scrap and not got itself blown up, which is a minor miracle for a Grissom. Okay, so the Sojourner got the memo that we shouldn’t pick fights everywhere, but the Ulysses dropped off the damn map, and the Odyssey was out here already but nobody’s telling me if we’ve heard from her, which is… a damn problem. And the Sarek, along with shoving its face in blood dilithium, is also… digging up Kadi ruins?’ He groaned and planted his face on the bar. ‘Can’t I dig up Kadi ruins? But no, blood dilithium’s talking to us with the ghosts of genocided Brenari. So screw sleep.’

The bartender shook its head. ‘You’re the boss, Lieutenant,’ it said, then turned away.

‘Damn right,’ Beckett muttered. He was nothing but an analyst for this mission, really, but at least he could assert his authority over software. But it did have a point; he was tired, and so he was very slow to look up when the doors slid open for someone else to come into the Round Table. The mess hall was primarily for the senior staff, so at 0200 ship’s time it was often quiet. Tonight it was empty, and still Beckett was so sluggish he could only give Rosara Thawn an owlish blink as she slid onto the stool beside him.

‘Tarkelean tea,’ she told the bartender bluntly, and collapsed with her face in her hands.

Beckett stared at her. She was out of uniform and looked like she’d lost a fight with her red hair, which fell long across her shoulders. She didn’t wear it loose very often. But she’d stalked in and sat next to him like she didn’t expect him to react, and for a moment he didn’t, too bewildered.

In the end, all he said was, ‘Sleep was too boring?’ like an idiot.

Her chuckle was very small, very tired, and slightly hysterical as she dragged her hands down her face. ‘Quite the opposite.’

He tensed. ‘If you’re having weird dreams – if blood dilithium’s doing things to you – you should be talking to Airex or Carraway.’

‘Don’t worry, Beckett, I’m not about to go axe-crazy on you,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll talk to them in the morning, but for now I… I want to sleep, and that won’t happen until I calm down.’

‘Anything you want to talk about?’

Thawn made a face. ‘Oh, this is really the pits if I’m talking to you, isn’t it.’

He managed a goofy smile, because that put everyone at ease. ‘You came down here. I don’t think you wanted to be alone. Besides, Thawn, it’s the witching hour. Stranger things have happened, and they’re the exact right things to be forgotten by the morning.’

The tea was set in front of her, but all she did was wrap pale hands around delicate china. At length she said, ‘I don’t even know if this was a dream from blood dilithium, or a completely normal stress dream where of course I’m worrying about being influenced by blood dilithium. Did you see T’Kalla?’

‘Yeah. It’s creepy as hell. She’s one of the toughest people I know and she’s just… gone, it seems. We’ll get to the bottom of it, though -’

‘Don’t give me the pep-talk,’ she groaned. ‘I really don’t mean this in a nasty way, Beckett, but it doesn’t help from you.’

‘That’s you not being nasty?’

Her shoulders slumped and she looked uncommonly guilty. ‘I mean that it’s not like reassurance from Commander Airex, for example.’

‘I can see that.’ He leaned in, elbows on the bar, trying to offer a comforting presence she could disregard. ‘Do you talk about these stress dreams with Carraway? When you’re not under orders to do it, I mean.’

‘What makes you think I have stress dreams at other times?’

‘Because I’ve met you,’ Beckett said bluntly, ‘and you’re maybe the most highly-strung person I’ve ever met.’

‘I am not –’ But she seemed to hear herself even as she straightened indignantly, and Thawn slumped again. ‘I don’t think it’s that different to anyone,’ she said at length. ‘We all have people we don’t want to let down. You know that.’

He watched her for a moment and told himself he was trying to read her, when deep down he knew he was summoning courage to push. He drew a slow breath. ‘I think the difference between you and me is I don’t care any more what my family thinks.’

‘That’s not the only difference,’ Thawn said with a haughty tilt of the nose. ‘And also, you absolutely do care what your father thinks, it’s just you want to antagonise him because that makes you think you’re free.’

Her words hit harder than they might, as he hadn’t anticipated her turning on him like this. ‘Whereas you,’ he found himself saying sharply, ‘do whatever it takes to make them happy, even if it makes you miserable, and even if it’ll never be enough and they’ll keep asking for more!’ His voice resonated through the empty Round Table. The holographic bartender took a judicious step backwards and out of existence at the tension. And for a long time, Rosara Thawn sat and stared at her tea.

When she did speak, she was quiet again. ‘I wasn’t going to marry Adamant,’ she breathed. ‘After Whixby, we spoke, and we discussed how we were completely wrong together. We agreed it was best and we took it to our families.’

Horrified at opening the doors to these revelations, Beckett’s shoulders sank and he leaned in again. ‘They didn’t agree?’

‘His did,’ she said with a humourless laugh. ‘But you know what my aunt said? That I’d weakened the family by forcing Falyn’s hand. Making her take the refugees put her in a poor position with Whixby’s other factions, and that threatened the stability of the Twelfth House. So maybe before I could have gotten away with breaking my betrothal, but now I just… I just had to marry Adamant.’ She brought a hand up to her lips, like she could hold in the bubbling dark amusement threatening tears. ‘Have to.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Beckett hissed. ‘You made your cousin help people even at a cost to your family, and your aunt’s punishing you for that by telling you that you have to marry against your wishes?’

‘Of course I don’t have to marry him,’ Rosara Thawn breathed, gaze going distant. ‘Nobody can force me to do anything I don’t want to do.’

‘That’s not how family works,’ he countered. ‘That’s not how families like ours work. They’ll use everything at their disposal – every possible emotional manipulation and blackmail – to make you do what makes them proud, them happy, and I know – Rosara, I know – how damn difficult it is to turn your back on that. But it is possible.’

He’d reached out without thinking, bringing a hand to her back in soft reassurance, and that seemed to bring her back to the here and now. When she looked at him her expression had fallen, the faintest hint of bewilderment in her dark eyes. ‘…I didn’t know we were on first name terms,’ she breathed, like it was the most curious thing in the world.

Beckett’s mouth went dry as he met her gaze, and try as he might, his next sharp inhale took a while to summon words. Oh, he thought as he watched her. Oh, no. He swallowed hard and tried to force a different colour into his voice when he replied, drag the walls back up without shoving her away. ‘Is this what you dreamed about?’

Her smile was quiet, sad. She had not restored any such barricade. ‘That’s what I always dream about. And Noah, lately. I don’t know if it’s because of the other Endeavour or because I… I don’t know.’ She shook her head, expression crumpling more. ‘And the voices. They’re not going away.’

‘You have to talk to Carraway,’ Beckett said, his voice going deeper, rougher despite himself, but it resonated with a fear he didn’t know he had. ‘This is exactly what he needs to hear.’

‘I know,’ she said quietly, head bowing. ‘But first I want to sit here and have a cup of tea.’

While his heart had slowed its racing, its beats felt louder, stronger, as he watched her. Only at length did Nate Beckett look up and lift his voice, finding it more stern, stable, normal. ‘Bartender?’ he called. ‘Another round of hot drinks.’

Thawn’s lips curled as she looked at him. ‘Don’t you need sleep?’

‘Nah,’ he said, finding the exaggerated grin coming easier than he’d expected. ‘Too much work to do, first.’

But he did not reach for his PADD, even though neither of them said anything more. They just sat there with their refreshed hot drinks, sinking into the comfortable, comforting silence. He did not pull away his hand.

It was hard enough to confront an elephant in the room when one could sense it but not identify it, and doing so first thing in the morning was all but impossible. So Airex waited until he’d poured the second cup of coffee before he set the cafetiere down, steepling his fingers in front of him, and said, ‘Not that I mind hosting, but is there a reason you changed plans so we’re having breakfast at my quarters and not yours?’

Valance stabbed the yolk of her poached egg with a hint of vitriol. ‘I have shared rooms,’ she said a little tonelessly. ‘You don’t.’

‘I’ve also barely moved in, and I didn’t realise Isa was an intrusion. She’s astute enough to know if she should leave us alone.’

He watched her face as he mentioned Cortez and saw the shield of ice slide down. When the only discernible sign of change was the steeling of control, he knew things were really wrong.

‘She’s been pulling long shifts,’ Valance said at length. ‘So I’m not kicking her out just so we can have breakfast.’

‘So you do want to talk about something while she’s not here.’

She glanced up with a flash of frustration. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Once, that would have been enough. But those days he’d been hiding too much from himself to not let her obfuscate. Approaching head-on rarely worked, though, and Airex dug into his toast as he thought. ‘You seemed tense on Markonian.’

That only made Valance look more tense. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Airex sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. ‘I’ve been gone a while,’ he allowed, ‘and I appreciate I don’t have much right to your thoughts or confidence any more. But it’s apparent something’s wrong, Karana. You’re a scientist and you’re a diplomat and you demonstrated none of that in your behaviour with Goravin. You practically bullied him into compliance.’

For a moment she looked indignant, then her gaze went distant. ‘A scientist. Am I?’

He frowned. ‘You’ve a record of long service on multiple explorers. We conducted all manner of survey and research missions together under Captain MacCallister. I don’t care that you’ve been a pilot, or an officer on a Klingon ship, and I don’t care about what happened on the Derby.’ He considered arguing his point, but knew he’d just have to push. ‘What’s on your mind?’

Valance wiped her mouth with a napkin before tossing it down. ‘We’re here to make sense of blood dilithium, manifesting after a subspace pulse. Endeavour has some of the most sophisticated sensors in the quadrant; we could be hunting down subspace anomalies and running scans, trying to make sense of blood dilithium where it originates, trying to understand with far more data than one sample in a lab.’

‘Instead,’ Airex said delicately, ‘we’re hunting down something the Devore might use blood dilithium to turn into a weapon of mass destruction.’

She worked her jaw. ‘You know I understand the importance. But it’s been like this for… so long.’ With a sigh, Valance shook her head. ‘Endeavour’s work is hugely important. I truly believe we’ve made a difference in the Neutral Zone. But we’ve also faced down Romulan attack forces, rescued ships and worlds from phenomena threatening the lives of thousands, hunted ancient Tkon sites to stop their technology wreaking havoc on the galaxy. And that’s just since you left.’

He reached for his mug and wrapped his hands around its warmth. ‘Are you regretting staying on with Rourke?’

‘It’s not like he looks for trouble -’

‘He’s a captain with significant combat experience who thrives under pressures like these. His superiors will thus send him into pressures like these, and as his XO you’re a strong right hand to help steer through unsteady waters. This isn’t about his fault or his choice, but the nature of this assignment.’ He tapped his thumbs on the rim of the mug. ‘Is this why you’re avoiding Isa?’

Valance looked guarded. ‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘You don’t?’ Airex blinked with honest confusion. ‘If you’re growing tired of the work this ship does, the natural choice is to move on. But you have ties here.’

She looked down. ‘I spoke to the captain the other day. I’m not in any rush, but it’s been a while since the prospect of command came up. Maybe it would be different on my own ship. Maybe it’s time to think about it.’

‘And Isa?’ he pressed again.

‘Is considering an assignment with the SCE.’ Valance met his gaze and spoke so tonelessly he knew something was really wrong. ‘And doesn’t seem to want to discuss it with me.’

Airex considered this a moment. ‘Isa Cortez is a brilliant engineer,’ he said slowly, ‘and it does not surprise me that opportunities have come her way. But I expect she has had many such opportunities these past two years. Was she considering this one before, or after you were considering pursuing your own ship?’

‘Before,’ Valance said defensively.

‘Which is part of why you’re now open to leaving,’ he pointed out. ‘Without her to tether you here.’

‘It’s not like we’re married.’

‘You live together. You’ve been involved for almost two years now, on a posting many officers would be happy to settle down on long-term. There’s a significant motivation to stay on Endeavour and build your lives here. Or have you not spoken about the future?’

Valance’s next look was a little baleful. ‘She’s the one who considered this transfer, and immediately turned it on me and my ambitions even though I’d not even thought about command.’

‘Yes, but Karana…’ Airex’s breath caught in his throat. ‘She and I both know you too well to pretend that your turn in the captain’s chair is a question of if rather than when.’

‘You were a captain,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘Or, Tabain was. How did you balance relationships and your command?’

‘Tabain’s wife wasn’t in Starfleet. But it was difficult. And there are reasons Tabain never commanded more than a light explorer. But that was a century ago.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Don’t tell me it’s never occurred to you to find your own ship and then bring her with you.’

‘Isa’s a brilliant engineer and I was last offered command of a Reliant; she would be slumming it professionally if she followed me.’

‘Yes, that’s how careers and relationships work together,’ Airex pressed. ‘You can rarely have it all in life. You compromise something. Whether it’s the career of one of you, or the relationship.’

Valance looked away again. ‘Why would I compromise my career,’ she breathed, ‘if she’s got one foot out the door?’

‘I think,’ he said, a little more delicate, ‘that it’s easy to forget that Isa has her own emotional weak points.’

‘What do you mean?’

He met her gaze and forced her to hold it. ‘I mean that she’s compromised her career for a relationship before, and she ended up burnt on both ends.’

Valance looked stricken at that, but a glance at the clock reminded Airex their duty shifts loomed, and he did not press the matter further for now.

Endeavour arrived at Abaddon’s Repository of Lost Treasures, as Airex begrudgingly reminded everyone Starfleet records listed it, before 1500 hours that day. Airex stood at his post at Science and watched his sensors come to life with a slew of readings, pings piling up on top of each other before they had even dropped out of warp.

He was a seasoned enough science officer to work with numbers and sensor readings better than anything else, but even he found it bewildering without the sight rushing up on the viewscreen. There was a reason Abaddon’s was referred to as a junkyard; if Markonian had been a hive of new ships and sights and objects he’d never witnessed the likes of before, this was a cemetery.

‘Detecting somewhere in the region of seventy-six ships, Captain,’ he read off his sensors. ‘And several hundred parts. The space station in the centre looks like it’s been built out of other ships, as well.’

‘This must be it,’ mused Rourke, pushing to his feet. ‘Any chance of identifying Goravin’s ship in all this mess?’

‘Not without a more long-term scan.’

‘Alright.’ Rourke straightened his uniform. ‘Elsa, let’s hail the owner.’

Airex had studied the records and knew what to expect of Abaddon himself, but the figure who appeared on the viewscreen in response to the hail was not Abaddon. An alien woman with ridges running across the side of her head and sharp, pale, rat-like features, peered at them with a suspicious air.

‘This is the Repository of Lost Treasures. We don’t have any deuterium for sale; stop asking.’

Rourke’s eyebrows raised a half-inch. ‘We’re not here for deuterium. I’m Captain Rourke of the Federation starship Endeavour, and I’m looking to do business with Abaddon.’

‘I am Levellir. I work for Abaddon. You can do business with me.’ She leaned forward, eyes narrowing. ‘Starfleet don’t visit often.’

‘Then I hope this can be a pleasant change. I’m looking for a ship.’

‘We have lots of ships.’

‘A specific ship. Brenari in design. Its former owner believes it fell into your hands.’

‘Everything we have has been acquired legally –’

Rourke lifted a hand. ‘I’m not questioning that. We recognise the ship fell out of its former owner’s hands fairly, and we’re of course happy to compensate you. I’m sending you data on the ship now; is it in your collection?’

At the push of a button Lindgren sent the records on Goravin’s ship over, and Levellir looked off-screen for a time as she read, hit some buttons, appeared to check her records. At length she nodded. ‘That ship is in our collection, and has been for some weeks.’

‘It’s the computer database we’re interested in,’ said Rourke, ‘so we’d want to be sure its records are intact before we can make any arrangement.’

‘The warp and fusion drives have been stripped as a security precaution,’ said Levellir in a haughty manner, ‘but the ship’s undergone a quality check. If you want something in its computer, it’s there.’

Rourke’s shoulders relaxed an iota. ‘Is it for sale?’

‘It is.’ Levellir tapped her chin. ‘Transmitting you a price now.’

There was a chirrup at Lindgren’s panel, and the communications officer took a sharp breath. At everyone’s looks, she grimaced and projected a display above her panel, twisting it to show the rest of the bridge the Repository’s requested price: A significant quantity of dilithium.

Blood dilithium.

Rourke sucked his teeth. ‘We don’t trade in blood dilithium.’

‘Everyone trades in it right now,’ Levellir said with a shrug.

‘I can provide you with a respectable quantity of normal dilithium -’

‘That isn’t what I’m interested in.’ She leaned forwards. ‘It’s plentiful, Rourke. I don’t know why you’re quibbling.’

‘If it’s so plentiful, I don’t know why you want it?’

‘That part isn’t your business.’

Rourke grimaced. ‘The Devore have been expanding beyond their historic borders; we’re seeking to -’

‘The Devore haven’t dared come near me; they won’t start that trouble. You have a large ship with huge cargo space, Rourke. I see no reason you can’t acquire and transport me the blood dilithium I’ve asked for. Otherwise…’ Levellir shrugged. ‘I don’t see a way forward in this trade. I’ll let you think about it. Repository out.’

The viewscreen went dead, and Rourke swore quietly. In the silence that followed, Airex drew a slow breath. ‘Under no circumstances,’ he said softly, ‘can we distribute blood dilithium to one of the most prolific traders in the region. It’ll leave the sector in days.’

Valance nodded. ‘We’ll have to think of something else in payment.’

‘I’ll start checking our inventory,’ Thawn offered.

‘Do that,’ Rourke said, then scratched his cheek. ‘But in the meantime. We’re going to have to come up with a different plan.’

Valance looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

Airex gave a soft groan. ‘Sir, I cannot under any circumstances recommend that. It would be chaos if Starfleet robbed Abaddon’s Repository.’

‘You mean to say,’ said Rourke with a wry, crooked grin, ‘it would be chaos if Starfleet were caught robbing Abaddon’s Repository.’

‘You’re welcome to examine our inventory,’ said Levellir, leading Rosewood and Beckett down the corridor away from the airlock where she’d met them, coming across to the station by shuttle. ‘But my currency hasn’t changed.’

‘Oh, we understand that,’ said Rosewood in a chirpy manner, falling into step beside the gaunt alien, his smile wide and easy. ‘I hope you understand, the captain isn’t opposed to trading in blood dilithium. But he needs authority from his superiors to let him do that, and it’ll be a hell of a lot easier if he can regale them with the fabulous opportunities in trade.’

Levellir brought the mouthpiece of a rebreather to her face, drawing a hissing inhale of some substance that made her stand straighter as she walked. ‘Then we go to my office, Commander. And see what interests you.’

Beckett knew that was his cue to hop in. ‘I was hoping,’ he said, rushing forward and trying to sound like the obsequious junior officer the situation called for him to be, ‘we could do this somewhere I can read the scans for myself? Like the operations centre? Rather than looking at an item on the inventory, calling Endeavour, asking them to scan…’ He waggled a hand like this would be an ongoing and repetitive process.

Rosewood scowled at him. ‘Pretty impertinent of you, Lieutenant.’ Then his gaze turned thoughtful, and he looked to Levellir in an apprehensive way. ‘But it would be easier. I saw you had those Hierarchy scout ship wrecks, and Starfleet Intelligence would love to get their hands on those designs…’

Levellir harrumphed into her rebreather. ‘Command centre. As you wish. There’ll be a markup on anything you buy, though.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Rosewood leaned in as they walked, as if to stop Beckett from hearing. ‘The lieutenant’s young, but his father’s an admiral. If he’s impressed, he really can overrule the captain.’

Levellir glanced back, brow ridges arching. ‘Is that so. In that case… fine. Let me show you.’

The team stood at Endeavour’s conference table with Airex at the head of it, hands planted on the surface, a holographic display shining before them with the whole sprawling expanse of Abaddon’s Repository.

‘If we’re going to pull this off,’ Airex said, ‘and we can’t do that much reconnaissance, then we want someone inside Abaddon’s itself. Diverting Levellir and keeping an eye on their systems so we know instantly if something’s wrong.’

‘That’ll be dangerous,’ said Valance. ‘If she realises we’re up to something – that we’re robbing her – then we’ve just given her prisoners. Hostages.’

‘If we do it right,’ said Airex, ‘then we’ve got someone in the operations centre with their combadge rigged to transmit visual and audio back to the ship. Position them right, and we know if we’re tripping off alarms, if there’s security systems we need to avoid, and if Levellir’s on to us.’

Rosewood scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘If we screw this up, the DEI’s gonna have our asses,’ he warned. ‘So I guess I better be there ready to throw a blanket over Levellir’s head. I can sweet-talk her and keep her occupied, but that won’t give me much freedom in the centre.’

Beckett sat up, grinning. ‘Oh! Does this mean I get to play spy at last?’ At Valance’s withering look, he wilted a little. ‘I’m kidding, Commander. But send me in, and I’ll be our eyes and ears. I can do it.’

It was Rourke who nodded. He was stood a step back from the table, arms folded across his chest as he listened. ‘Alright. We send in Rosewood and Nate, and they keep their thumbs on Levellir and the station’s systems while we’re pulling off whatever we’re pulling off.’ He looked at Airex. ‘What is that, exactly?’

‘If we’ve miscalculated this,’ Thawn grumbled from the aft of the shuttle Lancelot, fingers drifting over the wall display that was the only source of light in the downpowered smallcraft, ‘then there’ll be security systems ready to blow us to hell and back.’

‘Commander Kharth ran the scans,’ said Arys, alert in the pilot’s seat as if he could see through the canopy if anything was wrong. ‘There was no indication of anything but sensors this far out. And we drifted past those fine. We’re too small to be a threat.’

Thawn looked from the display that showed them holding position at the periphery of the field of junk, drifting with limited power and easily disguised as yet another piece of salvage. The nearest of Abaddon’s prizes was half an old freighter of unknown provenance a few dozen metres to port, and with every passing moment they eased further and further in.

She swallowed hard. The paranoia was likely not her, she told herself. It was the blood dilithium, it was the ghosts of the slaughtered pressing on her, crying out at her. And they were far, far away. ‘You’re right,’ she said at last. ‘It was impressive flying that got us here.’

‘That’s only part of it,’ Arys mused without pride. ‘Are you ready to set off the light show?’

She drew a slow and careful breath. ‘One of them. This is the easy part, Lieutenant.’

‘It is, but this all falls apart without it.’

Thawn blew out her cheeks as she lifted a hand to the control systems. ‘No pressure,’ she murmured to herself. Then tapped a button, and the whole screen came to life.

‘There’s only so much we can expect Commander Rosewood to distract Levellir.’ It was Kharth explaining now, gesturing to the periphery of the junkyard on the hologram. ‘And this place has a load of monitoring and defence systems – they’re a prime target for thieves, after all. We don’t only not want to be spotted, we don’t want to pick a fight.’

‘It’s not enough to be quiet,’ said Airex. ‘Even with the best smooth-talking by the commander, the moment there’s any sign of anyone tampering with the Repository, we’ll be the first suspects. So we don’t only need secrecy, we need a reason for anything odd to not be blamed on us.’

Thawn sat forward, dark eyes bright in a pale, drawn face. ‘Which is the first part of where Arys and I come in.’

The operations centre in the Repository’s main space station was indeed the beating heart of the whole junkyard. Through the wide windows the junk field could be seen, grey specks amid the white stars, but it was on the many control panels monitoring the field and controlling its defences that the true power lay. Rosewood had been very relieved to see that, wherever Abaddon himself was, he did not keep much by way of staff – Levellir was the only living soul they’d seen aboard.

So when a small alarm went off on a distant console while she was halfway through trying to sell him charts from a Hirogen hunter, she had to stop what she was doing and hurry over.

‘Something wrong?’ Rosewood asked mildly. Nearby, Beckett slipped closer to some of the defensive systems monitoring posts.

Levellir took a hissing inhale through her rebreather as she read. ‘Sensors are picking up high levels of ionisation at the periphery of the field.’

‘A ship?’

She shook her head. ‘Could be the build-up to a storm. Sorry, Commander; expect a few warning pings to go off on our defence systems.’

‘That’s no trouble. Perhaps we can help.’ Rosewood tapped his combadge. ‘Rosewood to Endeavour. There’s possibly an ion storm coming in; can you give us more information? Maybe position the ship to better shield the Repository?’

‘Don’t move the ship,’ said Levellir quickly. ‘More scans are useful.’

‘We hear you, Commander, Levellir,’ came Captain Rourke’s calm reply. ‘If Levellir is willing, we can deploy the Merlin to monitor as well for better triangulation. Don’t worry, the runabout will be a distance out.’

Levellir waved a dismissive hand. ‘Fine.’

‘Do you need us to do this later?’ said Rosewood, keeping his polite smiles. ‘It only looks like a small problem, and I’m sure your systems are good enough to protect the wares. But we’d hate to be underfoot if this is going to be a handful.’

Even though he didn’t know her species, he knew pride warring with sense when he saw it. Levellir took a deep huff from her rebreather and padded back to him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Have your ship help monitor for if this is a storm. And let’s get back to the inventory.’

‘It won’t become a storm, of course,’ Thawn said. ‘I can’t fake that. But I can flood the shuttle’s deflector systems with ionised particles and make it look like one might be forming, and if Endeavour can help feed false information to Levellir, then it’ll help explain oddities if they come up.’

‘If everything goes well,’ Airex said, ‘then this way, Levellir won’t even know that she’s been robbed at all.’

‘So that’s two distractions,’ said Valance. ‘One of systems, one of people. Is that going to be enough for us to slip a shuttle up to Goravin’s ship so we can steal it without anyone noticing?’

Airex looked at Kharth, and the two exchanged the faintest of smug smiles. ‘That’s not quite the plan,’ said Airex.

‘In fact,’ added Kharth with more relish, ‘that’s not the plan at all.’

‘This was a stupid plan,’ Kharth said as she double-checked the seals on her EV suit. ‘Remind me not to come up with stupid plans.’

In the airlock of the Merlin, Airex was still pulling on his EV suit’s boots. ‘This was your plan.’

She ground her teeth together. ‘I didn’t think I’d be a part of it. Turn around.’ He moved so she could check the equipment on his back.

‘You’re the most qualified and trained person aboard for EV combat.’

‘I’m not expecting EV combat.’

‘No, but this might be comparable,’ he pointed out.

His equipment lit up green at her check, and she sighed. ‘And why are you here, too?’

‘Because I’m also the best-qualified for this task.’

‘Isa could do it.’

‘I know what I’m looking for. Isa doesn’t.’ He turned back to her, brow furrowing. ‘Is it inappropriate for me to say I’ve enjoyed designing this operation?’

Once, that would have infuriated her. Now it just coiled apprehension and a very childish shame in her gut, and she looked away. ‘Who knew planning to rob the biggest junkyard in the Delta Quadrant would be a bonding experience,’ she muttered, but made herself sound perhaps more sarcastic than she meant to be. It wouldn’t do for him to think she was sincere.

But she heard him sigh as she fidgeted with her equipment. ‘I know you’ve been busy, and I also know I have no right to your time, and we’re in a crisis, but perhaps once this is over, Saeihr, you and I can talk…’

‘Commander.’ Her head snapped up. ‘We’re about to fly our asses through a junkyard right under the noses of some creepy-ass alien who’ll incinerate us if we’re caught. This isn’t a time to talk about you and me.’

She saw the flicker in his gaze, saw him bite down the not-unreasonable response of then when is? Under normal circumstances he’d be being unprofessional, but she knew she hadn’t given him much of an opportunity to talk any other time. As he hesitated, she grabbed her helmet and snapped it on. ‘We should go.’

Airex visibly bit his tongue, but finished strapping himself into his EV suit and the two moved to the airlock door. A wave on the camera confirmed to Harkon, in the Merlin’s distant cockpit, that they were good to go, and the door slid open. Mag-boots clicked hard as the air rushed out into the vacuum of space, and then on one side there was nothing but oblivion.

Oblivion, Abaddon’s Repository, and their destination.

‘There it is.’ Airex’s voice clicked over her headset, discussion limited to comm systems now.

‘Right,’ Kharth breathed. ‘Sensor feed is good. I see our target. Follow my lead,’ she said, then stepped off the Merlin’s deck and into space. Her helmet’s HUD lit up to show Airex metres behind her, and they were gone, free, drifting with nothing but their momentum behind them.

Then she fired up the thruster pack, adjusted her trajectory, and the two of them shot off into Abaddon’s junkyard, nothing but two specks in a chaotic field of debris.

‘With Lieutenant Thawn’s light-show, the Repository’s systems will be distracted. Endeavour can try to pipe false information to Levellir. Commander Rosewood can redirect her attention himself. And Lieutenant Beckett can feed information back to the bridge team so if there’s any sign they’re onto us, we can react quickly and appropriately.’ Airex finished the briefing with what could only be described as a smug smile.

‘If anything goes wrong,’ added Thawn, ‘I have various other countermeasures ready.’

‘You’d better,’ said Rosewood, anxious rather than terse. ‘We can’t afford to make an enemy of Abaddon’s. Starfleet’s relied on this place for years for resources and information, and he’s a well-known and respected broker. We cannot be caught robbing the guy.’

‘We won’t,’ said Kharth with quiet confidence.

Valance huffed gently. ‘This all makes perfect sense for getting the two of you to Goravin’s ship. But how are you going to get it out of there without being noticed?’

Airex and Kharth again exchanged looks, and the Romulan grinned. ‘Sorry, Commander,’ she said. ‘I don’t think at any point we said we were going to take the ship.’

‘Airex and Kharth have gone to short-range comms only,’ reported Lindgren at her station on Endeavour’s bridge.

‘And I can barely make them out on sensors,’ Danjuma confirmed at Science.

‘That’s fine,’ said Rourke, leaning back in the command chair. ‘Continue to pipe misleading information from us and the Merlin to Commander Rosewood. He can use it as he sees fit.’

‘I’m working on it, sir,’ said Athaka at Ops. ‘I’m double-checking everything we send with what Lieutenant Beckett’s feeding us, so we don’t send something too erroneous.’

‘Good.’ Rourke stood and looked to the mission control stations at the rear, where Valance stood monitoring Beckett’s feed and all of the other moving parts. ‘Are we still discreet, Commander?’

‘Discreet,’ she confirmed with a stern nod. ‘I can’t say I like this very much, Captain.’

‘The robbing?’

‘That, but primarily the waiting.’

His lips twisted. ‘You’ve got me there, Commander. We just keep a weather eye out in case we’ve been made, and let Airex and Kharth do their work. And besides…’ Rourke turned back to the main viewscreen, where the tiny dots of Abaddon’s Repository drifted together like leaves floating on a pond. ‘If all we’re doing is copying the data left on Goravin’s ship… it’s not quite as bad as robbing Abaddon’s.’

It felt like a thousand years since they’d talked. Lifetimes. In some ways it was, as Saeihr Kharth and Davir Airex had not truly spoken since they were plunged together into the depths of his memories and lives, and all of his secrets had been laid bare before her. Before them both.

She’d immersed herself in his thoughts and feelings and recollections and found he’d ripped away from her years before because Davir Hargan had become Davir Airex, and Davir Airex was the heir to a monster who’d hurt her. Who was responsible for her father’s death. So he’d left her. Walked away, and only hurt her more.

But Lerin Airex was dead. Davir Hargan was, for all intents and purposes, dead. Davir Airex was all that was left, a changed man of dark secrets who’d locked himself tight against the universe until he couldn’t any more, and left both of them stumbling through oblivion. They didn’t know where they stood with each other not simply because it was unclear, but because there was no solid ground to stand upon.

She had never been more acutely aware of this than now, when the absence of solid ground wasn’t merely metaphorical; when they were in EV suits strapped to thruster packs shooting at high speeds through a junkyard, and if she made one miscalculation she’d lead them both into a wreck’s broken hull.

‘Further wreckage drifting in, bearing four-seven mark three twenty-two,’ came Airex’s voice over the comms a split second before her HUD sensor display caught it. He had to be running more active scans while she navigated.

Kharth’s eyes flickered across the display. ‘It’s not in our path.’

‘It’s coming fast; recommend we –’

‘This route keeps us in the most magnetised section of the junkyard. We deviate too far and the Repository’s systems catch us. Follow my lead, Commander.’ Airex did not respond, and as she picked up a fresh burst of speed she saw his dot on the sensors rush to match.

He doesn’t trust you. Or is it that you don’t trust him? Out here, in the dark…

Gritting her teeth, she shoved away treacherous thoughts and plunged on. For an age it felt like they swooshed between broken hulls and shattered remnants of ships – lives, businesses, homes, everything these hulks were and might have been – but her timer said they had only been out eight minutes when they manoeuvred around a broken freighter and the ping on her sensors showed it there, right in front of her: the Brenari scout. Goravin’s ship.

‘Got it,’ came Airex’s satisfied sigh as he drew level with her. ‘Scanning now to check for defences.’

Kharth found herself turning and sweeping a scan around the rest of their surroundings, though from here the junkyard seemed still, most of it drifting in-sync. ‘This is too easy,’ she breathed.

‘Thawn’s faking an ion storm and Rosewood’s got to hustle station security in real-time. We’ve just completed a Grade Six EV manoeuvre through hostile and unpredictable debris where the slightest miscalculation rips our suits apart and kills us. And the job’s not yet done. What about this is easy, Commander?’

It was a relief that he couldn’t see her face, and all she said was, ‘See if you can crack it open.’

With the briefest flash of his thrusters Airex drifted down to Goravin’s ship, spinning dizzyingly to bring his boots to the hull for a magnetic lock. It was impossible to feel or hear the impact and the seal, but still it was like she could imagine either as he snapped to the hull and began approaching an airlock.

‘We don’t want to bring systems online if we don’t have to. Let’s see if we can pop this.’

She drifted down to join him, and her stomach lurched more than it should have at the manoeuvre. ‘Right.’ The markings were unfamiliar, the universal translator scrawling its work across her HUD, and she checked the seals and systems as he swung his toolkit around and set about the task. ‘We should have brought Isa.’

It was a mutter she didn’t intend for her comms to pick up, but Airex chuckled. ‘The challenge is more about getting here and then figuring out Brenari systems without being caught. We don’t need to be chief engineers to pop this airlock.’

As if he’d timed it, the airlock doors rumbled beneath her before cracking open an inch. From there she could crank it further, and they slipped into the Stygian darkness within Goravin’s ship. Most of its bulk was cargo space, so the living area was nothing but a back room with bunks and a table, the cockpit, and the passageway between them onto which they stepped from the airlock.

Relief was audible in Airex’s voice. ‘I’ll see if I can access the database. I’ve brought an additional power source which shouldn’t light us up on the Repository’s sensors.’

‘Sure,’ Kharth said as she turned to the aft of the ship, headlight on her suit stretching jagged shadows across meagre living space. It was all too reminiscent of the freighter where, though she had not encountered the crazed Brenari, she and Cortez had found his handiwork. ‘I’ll sweep the rest.’

‘I don’t know what you expect to find,’ said Airex, but he sounded distracted by the oncoming puzzle. Over the comms she heard him thump towards the cockpit, and soon there was the faint flicker of lights as he tried to access the database while disturbing their surroundings as little as possible.

She felt the thunk of every step as she approached the aft cabin. The beam on her headlight was too small, too narrow, even if the room was little more than a bed and a desk; cramped and claustrophobic for anyone living aboard.

You’ll be left to die in here.

Her torch snapped around as she turned to the prow of the ship. ‘What did you say?’

A pause from Airex. Then a click of the comms. ‘What?’

‘You said something.’

‘I did not.’ Another pause. ‘I’ve separated this data drive from the systems and plugged it into my tricorder. My comms might have picked up something reverberating through the suit.’

‘That must be it.’ Jaw tight, Kharth found it difficult to turn her back on the cabin as she went to join him. ‘What do you have?’

‘I’ll download it and review what’s there.’ He’d placed equipment on one of the cockpit panels and was bent over it, audibly more focused on the work than anything else.

That did not reassure her. If something else was wrong, he wouldn’t notice. Kharth stepped to the front of the canopy and peered through as if she’d see anything in the vastness of the Repository with just her eyes. Most of the hulks were specks barely bigger than stars, and everything else was the same roiling blackness they’d plunged through to get here. Ending communication with Endeavour or the Merlin, leaving just the two of them this far out, Kharth suddenly felt very alone.

They sent us here to die. You understand that, don’t you? A whole world abandoned and murdered and then you, cast into the wilderness and left. But for us it was more; not just forgotten, but hunted, eradicated, destroyed because of what we are, who we are…

Saeihr Kharth was no stranger to anger. But that was almost a gift in this moment, because it meant she knew her own fury, knew its contours and its motivations. So she knew when the hot knife of rage slid into her heart that this was not her own, but something deeper and more fathomless than any pain and fury she could ever feel.

Thousands, millions, tormented and murdered and trapped, sliding into her heart, rising to tighten her chest and choke in her throat and –

Kharth snapped upright, hands landing hard on the ship’s controls. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she rasped, and her palm slapped firmly on the power systems to bring the entire shuttle bursting to life.

‘Uh… Captain?’

Rourke looked at Danjuma, ice sliding into his belly at the young officer’s tone. ‘Talk,’ he snapped. He almost wanted to chastise her for asking to speak when something was so plainly wrong, but that would take more time.

‘It’s Goravin’s ship, sir – it’s powering up. The commanders must have tripped a system or something…’

He was on his feet in an instant. ‘Hells,’ he hissed. ‘If we contact them, Elsa, will the Repository be able to tell?’

‘Probably,’ Lindgren said with a wince.

Valance stood from mission control at the aft. ‘Levellir’s noticed this. Rosewood’s trying to run interference but she’s suspicious.’

‘Has Nate got eyes on their sensor systems?’ At Valance’s nod, Rourke took a tense breath. ‘Direct this information to the Lancelot, tell Thawn to start running our decoy.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Valance hesitated. ‘What about Goravin’s ship, sir?’

‘Let’s trust that Airex and Kharth know what they’re doing,’ Rourke growled. ‘And try to cover their arses while they recover from whatever’s going on.’

The alien Levellir’s eyes were so wide they almost took up her entire skull as she shoved Beckett away from the console. ‘What are you doing, Starfleet?’ she hissed, before wheezing and pressing her respirator back to her face.

Rosewood and Beckett exchanged frantic looks before the diplomat surged on. ‘If someone’s breaching your security, then please allow Endeavour to render aid -’

‘You’re breaching my security!’ Levellir hissed. ‘What else could it possibly be when someone’s trying to make off with the ship you asked for?’

Then the panel she was stooped over lit up with a whole new reading, and Rosewood could have reached through space and time to kiss the Lancelot’s crew for their timeliness. ‘That’s not one of ours,’ he lied with an effortless simulation of indignation and surprise. ‘That’s a Devore ship!’

Levellir stared at the sensor reading in close proximity to what her systems told her was a distant, blossoming ion storm, and the small dot which did, indeed, match the sensor profile of a Devore vessel. ‘Those bastards,’ she swore. ‘They should never have dared to come here.’ She turned on her heel to the Repository’s security systems controls.

‘Power to deflectors at maximum,’ Arys said through gritted teeth, holding the Lancelot’s controls tight as if their gambit might rip the shuttle apart.

‘It’s working,’ Thawn confirmed with breathless delight. ‘Through this interference, at this range, with this recalibration of our deflectors, we’ll look like a Devore scout. Endeavour’s confirming that through Beckett’s spying. It’s working.’

‘Excellent,’ said Arys, but could not feel any satisfaction when evidence for his apprehensions sprung up on his sensors. ‘But the Repository’s launched defence systems. Uh, unmanned drones. Heading our way.’

‘Oh.’ Thawn bit her lip. ‘Armed?’

‘Doubtless.’

‘ETA?’

‘Seven minutes.’

‘And, uh, Goravin’s ship?’

‘Still lit up and alive, and with absolutely no sign Airex and Kharth have completed their mission and returned to the Merlin.’

‘And if they don’t get out in time,’ Thawn said slowly, ‘Repository defences are going to try to blow us up?’

‘If we’re still here,’ said Arys. ‘Yes.’

‘And if we’re not still here, Levellir will probably realise she’s being robbed by Starfleet. Not the Devore.’

‘Yes,’ said Arys. ‘Suggestions, Lieutenant?’

She stared at her display for a moment. ‘All we can do,’ she said at length, ‘is trust the commanders.’

‘Commander!’ Airex launched to his feet and managed to get a solid grip on Kharth’s arm, but he was slower than he expected and she had a more firm stance than him, far more trained and practiced in zero-g. ‘Step away from the controls!’

She took so long to speak he knew she wasn’t responding to him, not really, and the snap-hiss of the comms system only picked her up partway through a sentence. ‘…trapped in here, they sent us here and we’re trapped…’

‘Saeihr!’ When he grabbed her by both shoulders and planted his feet for a solid magnetic lock, this time he could pull her around. Her face was pale, eyes wide and unseeing, and he was all sharply reminded of the state of T’Kalla, catatonic in Sickbay. Of every report of blood dilithium he’d read and seen. ‘You’re not trapped. You don’t need to listen to them – we’re going to help them, you understand me?’

But then her elbow had slammed into his chest, not just knocking him back to drift across the cockpit, but smacking his control panel and making his EV suit’s systems go wild. He flailed as he floated, scrambling to stop his thruster pack from going off and smearing him into a bulkhead, as Kharth rounded back on the control system to slam his toolbox on the panel.

He had to twist in mid-air to catch himself on the opposing bulkhead. With two steps he’d adjusted his position, moving towards the canopy, and launched himself at high speed to fly into her. The impact broke any magnetic lock of boots and pulled her away with him into the corridor, spinning together even as she struggled against him.

Airex slammed his helmet against hers so his voice could reverberate through, unrestricted by comms systems. ‘Saeihr, listen to me,’ he hissed, trapped between the desperate urgency and a desperate need to be heard and understood. ‘Don’t listen to those voices, listen to me.’ She was struggling, but he’d managed to pin her arms against her side, and she had nothing to push back against.

‘You don’t have to be overwhelmed by their pain.’ He locked his eyes on hers, however wild they were, but at last she was looking at him, not through him. ‘I know you feel it. I know you know pain, I know you’ve been through trials that would break someone else. And I know it’s still nothing compared to the voices of a thousand lost. Don’t give in to pain. You can stop listening without turning your back on it.’

Her grip on his arm became less of a fight and more of a clasp, and he felt her press tighter against him, clutch at him. In their suits it was impossible to tell if this was from the rage of the slaughtered running through her or some desperate effort to anchor herself. ‘So many voices. So many lost,’ she hissed. ‘And for what?’

‘We can’t fix that,’ he breathed, and only by the faintest softening in his grasp did he know she could hear him. ‘We can’t bring them back. All we can do is stop the Devore from doing it to anyone else. And we need you for that, Saeihr. I need you for that.’

She tensed. ‘You don’t need me… they need me, they’re calling…’

‘They’re a million ghosts. I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m with you through all of this, and I need you through all of this. You hear me, Cara Sai?’

The last time he’d called her that, called her by her true name, it had been a crass manipulation and had infuriated her beyond belief. On some deep, guilty level, Airex knew it was possible this would only enrage her again, but that it was better for her to feel her own fury than the rage of a thousand dead.

But she stilled and closed her eyes, and barely above a whisper, barely loud enough to be heard, he carried on. ‘You brought me back when I was hiding in my pain before, so let me bring you back now. Breathe and focus on my voice and forget everything else. Just for a moment, Cara Sai. Just me. There’s just me.’

Their ragged breathing filled their helmets for long moments. It could have been the length of two heartbeats, it could have been enough time for stars to birth and die, but still they drifted there, in the dark of this dead hulk of a ship, while all around them was chaos and disaster. Airex banished it all from his thoughts, because he knew if he couldn’t bring her back, it was for nothing.

When she tensed in his embrace again, he worried it had been for nothing. But then her eyes snapped open and were clear. ‘Oh, shit,’ hissed Saeihr Kharth. ‘We’re screwed.’

He couldn’t help but laugh – at the understatement, with relief, and for another moment he didn’t let go. ‘Good assessment, Commander.’ Then he pulled away, and shoved off towards the cockpit of Goravin’s ship, its displays lit up like a First Contact Day light-show. ‘Let’s salvage this mission.’

‘We have the Devore on our sensors, Repository,’ Rourke said with a serious frown. ‘It looks like they’re breaking away from your defences, but there’s no telling what they’ve done. Do you want us to intercept?’

On the view-screen, Levellir took a big gulp from her rebreather. ‘If they run, hunt them. There’ll be a reward,’ she hissed.

‘I understand. Commander Rosewood, Lieutenant Beckett – return to the ship. Helm, move to intercept the Devore.’ Levellir was given a stern nod. ‘I’ll tell you when we have news. Endeavour out.’

The moment the viewscreen winked out, Valance called out from mission control. ‘Merlin reports Airex and Kharth are back aboard, with the package.’

‘Get the runabout back aboard,’ said Rourke. ‘Tell the Lancelot to hold out as long as they can, then jump to warp. We’ll follow in mock-pursuit.’

‘What happened over there?’ Lindgren’s eyes were wide.

‘Worry about that later. Pull the wool over the Repository’s eyes for now.’

‘We’re taking a bit of a roundabout route,’ warned Arys, ‘picking up the Merlin.’

‘We don’t need this to be perfect,’ Rourke reminded them. ‘Levellir can suspect us. She just can’t blame us.’

It had to have been long minutes manoeuvring around the junkyard, but felt like mere thudding heartbeats before Valance called from the rear, ‘Merlin and Bedivere are back aboard. Lancelot reports automated defences are almost on top of them!’

‘Tell them to go to warp,’ Rourke snapped. ‘Arys, set a pursuit course. We’ll give chase out of sensor range and eventually tell Levellir they gave us the slip.’

He did not breathe easy until he felt the deck surge as Endeavour went to warp. Only then did he sink back onto the command chair, only then did he close his eyes and let the muscles in his back loosen an iota. It was an imperfect mission.

But it was good enough.

‘I’ve got good news and bad news,’ Airex told the senior staff in the conference room six hours later.

‘You shock me,’ Rourke drawled. ‘Go on, Commander.’

‘The good news is that we recovered the rest of the archives Goravin extracted from the Vaadwaur colony on Palariven III. There isn’t a great deal there that Goravin didn’t already give us, because he’d spent some time analysing it before it fell out of his hands. But what he’d lost were small details, technical details – things he wouldn’t remember.’

‘That’s the bad news – it’s irrelevant,’ surmised Valance.

‘Not at all,’ said Airex, and reached for the central holo-display to bring up a regional map. ‘Because one of the minor details includes the coordinates for the development and construction station that sent Palariven its equipment. Including, by this, the Regulators.’ At the wave of a hand, the map zoomed in on a star some light-years away.

Rourke leaned forward. ‘What do we mean by “development and construction,” here?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Airex admitted, ‘but if the site can be found and if there’s anything that’s survived the centuries, I think there’s good odds we can at least acquire technical specifications on the devices. If not a device itself.’

Valance tilted her chin up. ‘Then what’s the bad news?’

He winced. ‘We weren’t the first people to access Goravin’s ship records.’

‘Levellir?’

‘Yes, but not just the Repository,’ said Airex. ‘By the time-stamp, I suspect whoever found the ship and tipped Abaddon’s off about possible salvage also accessed the records. They definitely saved a duplicate of the Vaadwaur files. But it’s impossible to know who it was.’

Rourke scratched his beard. ‘Let’s not borrow trouble,’ he concluded. ‘What do we know about this other Vaadwaur colony?’

Beckett leaned forward at that. He was comically far down the table, likely to avoid sitting anywhere near the other junior officers. Cortez was notoriously close to getting bingo again. ‘Nothing,’ he volunteered. ‘We didn’t know it was a Vaadwaur settlement until now. But it’s not that surprising, considering the state of Taxtose IV.’

At that, Airex thumbed his PADD to bring up the briefing document. ‘Starfleet hasn’t visited the system before. Local exploration has only gotten around to locations of high interest, and Taxtose is mid at best. Long-range scans suggest Taxtose IV’s atmosphere has huge levels of radiogenic particles, however.’

‘Which matches,’ Beckett jumped back in, ‘the conditions of most other confirmed sites of historic Vaadwaur activity. A whole lot of them were bombarded with plasma bombs when the Turei brought the Supremacy down.’

Rourke nodded and looked at Airex. ‘We’ll set a course, then. Start making plans on how to safely deploy an away team in these conditions.’ He turned to Kharth. ‘I want long-range scans keeping an eye out for the Devore. Near us or anywhere near Taxtose.’

Her eyebrows raised. She had not said very much since returning to the ship. ‘You think they got the data off Goravin’s ship?’

‘They knew about him, they chased him to Markonian. If they didn’t get it themselves, it’s possible they bought or took it off whoever did.’ Rourke turned back to the rest of the table. ‘Speaking of, where are we at with Abaddon’s?’

Lindgren gave a taut smile. ‘I contacted Levellir and gave our apologies that the Devore gave us the slip. If she didn’t believe me, she didn’t let on.’

Commander Rosewood nodded enthusiastically. ‘It looked like she bought it when we were aboard. And like you said, Captain, we didn’t need to be perfect. We just needed her to not point the finger at us.’

‘Convenient that the Devore are so damn evil we can dump anything on them and they deserve it,’ muttered Kharth.

Sadek gave her a sidelong look. ‘Not so convenient for Sub-Lieutenant Brennos and his friends.’

Rourke lifted a hand before Kharth could respond. ‘We’ve got what we wanted and the mission went smooth. Let’s be satisfied with that. Nate, keep an eye on reports to see if Abaddon’s changes its stance towards Starfleet, but don’t worry – I’ll notify the DEI of what we’ve done.’ Beckett looked relieved. ‘Otherwise, let’s stay on the trail. You’re dismissed; Commander Valance, get us underway for Taxtose; Kharth, Airex, I want a word.’

He did not waste time studying anyone’s expressions as the bulk of his senior staff trooped out. Only when the last left, Lindgren gently complaining to Thawn that they needed new bingo rules as the doors shut on them, did he tilt back to Kharth and Airex and draw a deep breath. ‘What happened over there?’

Kharth stared at the table, which was not what he expected, but Airex’s gaze was guileless. ‘Sir?’

‘Come on. We were halfway through the mission before Goravin’s ship powered up and almost blew the whole damn op.’ Silence met his words. ‘I’m not looking to play the blame game; I’m finding out if there’s anything I need to know.’

Airex gave the faintest frown, and Rourke was just about to snap at him to not even try to dissemble when Kharth spoke. ‘It was me,’ she said quietly, still staring at the desk. ‘Or – it was blood dilithium.’

Rourke’s shoulders sank. ‘Go on,’ he said softly.

‘I’m not trying to hide it, sir, it’s just – we only just got back, I’m trying to make sense of it, I was going to talk to Carraway.’ Her voice was quieter than he was used to, and Rourke’s back tensed as he realised how apprehensive she was, how vulnerable. Adversity did not normally make her shrink. ‘I was just so angry.’

Airex leaned forward, earnest eyes on Rourke. ‘Commander Kharth only momentarily lost control. It was a lapse, not a complete succumbing to the telepathic effect -’

Again Rourke raised a hand to bring silence. He looked from Airex to Kharth. ‘Talk to Carraway. Tell him everything. And we’ll take it from there.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t mean to be insensitive, Commander, but I didn’t expect Romulans to be so susceptible?’

‘That likely,’ said Airex quickly, ‘is part of why Commander Kharth was able to reassert control -’

Rourke would have happily cut Airex off again, but it was a chirrup of Kharth’s combadge that interrupted him this time, the gruff tones of Endeavour’s ranking brig officer coming through. ‘Vakkis to Kharth – we’ve got a situation with the prisoner.’

All apprehension fled Kharth’s eyes at a professional demand on her attention, and at last she made eye-contact with Rourke as she smacked her combadge. ‘Explain.’

‘Brennos has been attacked – medical’s here, I just arrived, Doctor Sadek’s working on him but he’s – I think he’s dead…’ Even the sturdy Vakkis sounded shaken.

Rourke snapped upright. ‘Who attacked him?’

There was a pause, Vakkis’s day bad enough without the commanding officer suddenly being in on the call. At last the Tellarite’s voice came back, even more strained. ‘…Lieutenant Rhade.’

Rourke’s gaze again locked on Kharth. ‘We’re on our way.’

‘How the hell did this happen?’ The corridor outside the quarters where Brennos was being held had been sectioned off, with Petty Officer Tarran letting the captain and chief of security past the perimeter without question. He was probably relieved to do so, as it meant Kharth was now thundering at the officers stood at the doorway.

Vakkis stood next to a rather sallow-faced Crewman Griffin, and stepped out to intercept, hands raised. ‘Lieutenant Rhade’s a bridge officer and the Hazard Team leader,’ he said, clearly calmer, clearly ready to bear the brunt of his chief’s fury. ‘When he told Griffin he had your permission to speak to the prisoner, he didn’t question it.’

‘I just – I let him in, then a minute later heard the scuffle.’ Griffin sounded distant, disconnected. ‘Stuck my head in and the lieutenant were beating him with one of the lamps. Had to stun him.’

Rourke frowned. ‘Where’s Rhade now?’

‘Sickbay,’ said Vakkis. ‘Sedated. Under Chief Kowalski’s watch.’

‘Good,’ Kharth snarled.

‘It looked like – I saw the Merevek recording, Commander,’ Griffin said, at last looking up at them both. ‘That weren’t Lieutenant Rhade in the pilot’s seat. That were blood dilithium.’

‘You’re not the judge of that,’ said Kharth, but Rourke was ushering her past them and towards the door to the small guest quarters where Brennos had been confined.

They entered to find a small medical team bent over the still form of the young Devore officer. When Sadek finally stood and turned to them, Rourke rather wished she hadn’t. Now he could see what Lieutenant Rhade had done to him.

Sadek shook her head. ‘He’s dead,’ she said, voice thick. ‘Lieutenant Rhade’s a strong guy and had something solid in his hand. Caved his skull in.’

Rourke set his hands on his hips and stared at the ceiling. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he groaned at last.

Kharth gave a sharp inhale through her nose. ‘Sir, it’s time.’ He looked at her, and her expression set. ‘Telepathic staff can’t be allowed to go about their business unsupervised. Not to anywhere restricted or sensitive.’ She hesitated. ‘And you have to suspend from duty anyone who’s had their behaviour affected by blood dilithium.’

When Rourke swallowed, his mouth was dry. ‘Commander…’

She reached up to remove her combadge. ‘Lieutenant Song’s very capable, Captain. He’s got sound judgement -’

‘No, hold on.’ Rourke grabbed her wrist. ‘One step at a time. You’re right in the first part – restrictions on telepaths. But that’s letting nobody be unaccompanied anywhere they can do damage. And sure, someone who’s compromised is suspended from duty. But you need to have a conversation with Carraway before we figure out if you’re compromised.’

‘Sir, I lost control on that mission -’

‘And here you are, doing your job. Meanwhile, more powerful telepaths than you have suffered worse. Our most powerful telepath seems fine. We can’t make assumptions about this. You recovered control over there. Keep Song by your side if you want, but I’m not benching you unless Carraway recommends it.’

Kharth looked like she might make another argument, then her shoulders sank. ‘As you say, sir.’

Sadek cleared her throat slightly. ‘Heartwarming, but this was a hell of a mess, Captain.’ Rourke could almost hear her fighting to speak professionally in front of her medical team and Kharth, heard her wanting to unload personally. ‘People under our care shouldn’t have this happen to them.’

Rourke scowled. ‘I know.’

‘And Rhade is going to be…’ Sadek sucked her teeth. ‘Assuming he recovers from this, he’s going to be traumatised. He broke in here and beat a helpless prisoner to death.’

‘I know.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Get the Devore lad to the morgue. I’ll have Rosewood and Nate see if we can find any information on his people’s funeral rites. The least we can do is give him a respectful end.’

Sadek sighed, anger dissipating for grief. ‘I know he was our enemy. But he was young. And people aren’t born hating, they’re taught it.’

‘Maybe,’ said Kharth, voice a little distant. ‘But the ghosts wrecking Rhade’s brain didn’t think Brennos’s age got him off the hook.’

‘No,’ said Rourke, cutting in with another sigh. ‘But there’s a reason victims don’t get to decide punishments in a court of law.’ He looked at the body, then turned on his heel. ‘Vengeance and justice aren’t the same thing.’

Every time he regained consciousness, he was screaming. Thawn watched through the screens separating her as a visitor in this private room in Sickbay as Adamant Rhade railed and thrashed against the restraints pinning him to his biobed, while security guards kept their hands on their phasers and Nurse Li rushed to deliver the next dose of sedative.

For seconds he struggled on, tendons on his neck standing out like girders, muscles on his tree trunk-like arms straining. As strong as he was, as well-trained and capable, Thawn had never felt even the concept of apprehension that Rhade might be a physical threat to her. Right now she was deeply grateful there was a forcefield between them.

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant,’ Nurse Li said once Rhade was still and she could join Thawn on the other side. ‘I don’t think now’s a very good time to visit.’ It took a considerable effort for Thawn to not respond with sarcasm, so she simply thanked Li for her time and left.

It was not, after all, as if she’d visited out of anything other than a sense of obligation. Still her heart thudded in her chest as she marched down the corridors, still her palms were sweaty as she made for her destination. Commander Airex looked deeply uncertain when she entered the science lab, and she wondered if he was worried she’d snapped, too.

‘We need to build the subspace trumpet,’ she said, and sighed as his expression changed for a different apprehension. ‘Adamant’s no better. Turak’s locked himself away for deep meditation. That’s almost every telepath on board at least somewhat compromised. We need answers, sir.’

‘Lieutenant…’

‘I know Commander Kharth almost snapped at Abaddon’s,’ Thawn pressed on, voice going up a treacherous pitch. ‘And whatever in the Great Fire goes on between the two of you, I know you don’t want her to end up like the others. All we’ve done so far is drift along and hope that one of the other ships will provide an answer, gambling with the lives and mental wellbeing of not just our telepaths, but everyone around them, and it’s not -’

‘Lieutenant.’

‘No, listen to me.’ Her eyes flashed, jaw set as she stared at him. ‘I don’t know if I’m lucky or resilient, but I refuse to stand by and do nothing with the fact that I seem to be somewhat unaffected. That’s a privilege and an opportunity and it’s one I’m going to use, and I won’t stand for you coddling me at the expense of everyone else, especially someone you – you care about deeply!’

Airex blinked at the crescendo of this outburst, and slowly raised his hands. ‘I was going to say,’ he began carefully, ‘that I had Commander Cortez put one together this morning.’ He gestured to the next room, the main lab where the study of blood dilithium had been conducted.

‘…oh.’ She winced. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The captain doesn’t know,’ Airex admitted. ‘Or rather, he thinks that it’s been built in case of emergency. I dare say we’re long past that point. Are you sure?’

Thawn drew a slow, shuddering breath. ‘I’m ready.’

With a stern nod he led her through to the smaller lab. ‘We’ll take this one step at a time. Establish contact and see what form that takes; reports have given us anything from disembodied voices to full-on visions of, frankly, genocide.’ His brow creased with concern. ‘So I want answers, Lieutenant, but that means we’ll establish these basic principles before we push further. Right now we don’t know what it’s even possible for you to find out.’

In the centre of the lab sat the container holding blood dilithium, and though she knew it was opaque it felt like she could see a faint crimson gleam. She found herself limp in proximity, as if it had a gravitic pull keeping her in orbit, and obeyed Airex’s directions without comment or objection as he set up the drill-like device of the trumpet she recognised from reports.

‘Doctor Sadek will also have our hides for doing this without her,’ he mused as he placed a cortical scanner at her temple.

‘I don’t want you to get into trouble, Commander,’ Thawn managed at last.

He gave a tight, humourless smile. ‘The captain seems to have forgotten that I was sent to the Delta Quadrant, first and foremost, with the authority of Admiral Beckett to get to the bottom of this situation.’ Airex stepped back and to the controls, hand hovering over a button. ‘Ready?’ At her nod, he drew a sharp breath. ‘Releasing dilithium containment.’

And into the dark she fell.

The light was so bright and clear in the gardens it felt like the air itself hummed. Past the long gravel path she walked, along its route winding through the emerald sea of a lawn, air thick with the smell of the blossoms of the Judrain flowers that bowed from the hedgerows in their golds and pinks.

But when she stepped out from behind the final knot of hedges, it was not to see the rising towers of the ancient seat of the Twelfth House of Betazed in all their glory. It was to see the raging inferno of their ruin. And in one breath the sky above her turned from peerless blue to blazing and bruised crimson.

Thawn stopped dead, heart in her throat. Around her the garden’s leaves shrivelled and died, green curling into embers until she stood on nothing but a sea of ash. When a shadow ahead moved, she couldn’t help but gasp. ‘Auntie?’

Anatras Thawn turned, perfect and resplendent in Betazoid fashion, but her eyes were black and pitiless in a pale face. ‘My dear,’ she breathed, voice hollowed of all feeling. ‘What have you done?’

‘No…’ Thawn took a stumbling step back. ‘This is ridiculous – I’m not here for you…’

The pale face of the family matriarch creased to a heartbroken smile. ‘You thought you wouldn’t bring me with you? Bring yourself with you?’ Slowly she raised her hands, and behind her the towers of the Twelfth House crumbled. ‘You thought you wouldn’t compare your turgid family woes to the slaughter of thousands?’

Ash rose in a wave from the collapsing towards, surging towards her with heat and thickness enough to choke, and Thawn bent double at the effort to stay on her feet. ‘I’m seeking the Brenari,’ she hissed. ‘You’re so talkative normally. I want to know what you want.’

Were we unclear? The voice was almost Anatras’s, but not quite as it mingled and danced with those tones of fury and hurt and hate she’d heard these past weeks. The wave of ash and dust consumed her, and the collapse of her family home faded from all sight to plunge her into nothing but burning grey. We will have blood.

‘You can’t have blood!’ Thawn tried, choking even though she was in a place of no air, no breath, no body. ‘You can’t kill them all! All you can do is bring your anger on us, and we didn’t kill you!’

Then take up your arms. Shadows swirled in the ash and dust streaking around her. You have the might and strength. Hunt them and deliver to them the same pain as ours.

‘We’re Starfleet. That’s not what we do.’ Silhouettes rose in the wall of ash, and she raised her arms as if they were coming for her. But they did not, contorting among themselves, moving among themselves. Tall and monstrous figures looming over small clumps, weapons in hand, felling the helpless, and all around her a grotesque play of the slaughter of shadow puppets was spun into swirling embers. ‘I can’t slaughter the Devore for you!’

Then they’ll unleash their suffering on a million more when you’re gone. And you’ll congratulate yourself for restoring order. And return to a prison of love and luxury while we languish in the blood-stained dark.

The ash fell. The skies returned to blue. The towers of the Twelfth House rose before her.

And Anatras Thawn extended beckoning hands to return everything back to how it had always been.

All was as Beckett expected as he sauntered into the Strategic Operations Centre. The only light came from the low-powered central display, the star map showing the passive analysis he’d set the system to while he’d been gone. In time he could check key updates and changes, adjust the display accordingly, but in the meantime data gently scrolled across the displays. All was quiet and peaceful.

He whistled as he advanced on the main control panel, padding down the steps towards it, and almost jumped out of his skin when a shadow on the far side of the central display moved. ‘Thawn! Jesus Christ!’

She must have been sat on the deck, rising from behind the panel, and while his heart didn’t stop thudding in his chest, his racing mind noticed the state of her hair, the paleness of her face, the streaks of tears down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, throat tight. ‘I thought you’d be with Rosewood…’

‘I was,’ he said, clutching his chest to try to stop the heart attack. ‘We wrapped up early. What’re you doing?’

‘I know I shouldn’t be here unattended, not since the captain’s directive…’

‘Bugger that!’ He stalked around the panel only to stop as she shrank away, hands coming up. Aghast, he took a step back. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I don’t – we’ll tell the captain and Doctor Sadek in a bit…’

‘Tell them what? Who’s we?’

Thawn had brought her hands to her face, but now she dragged them down, smearing tears and mascara. ‘Airex and I used the trumpet.’

Beckett’s jaw fell. ‘God. Why’d you do that? All the reports say you just get to watch genocide, you…’ But fresh tears were falling, and this time when he took a step forward he was slow, careful, and she didn’t pull away. ‘What did you learn?’

‘They’re so angry,’ she breathed. ‘I know that’s obvious, words are just – too limited, too stupid. They were stripped of everything and slaughtered and now they’re nothing but rage and I… I can’t help them. I can’t give them what they want.’ Her gaze caught his. ‘Until or unless we’re marching on the Devore borders and killing their soldiers, we can’t give them what they want.’

‘There’s a lot of people,’ Beckett said softly, ‘who’d call that the only moral thing to do. But you don’t need to be the receptacle for the rage of a thousand murdered ghosts.’

‘I have to do something.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, head bowing, hair falling like a veil between them.

‘Airex let you go off on your own?’

‘I told him I was going to rest. It’s not his fault. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring this on you. I came here because I thought it would be quiet.’

‘Of course you can bloody -’ Beckett cut himself off, shaking his head. ‘Come here.’

If it felt treasonous to step forward and wrap his arms around her, then he was lost twice over when she collapsed into his embrace and broke at last, sobbing into his shoulder. All he could do was murmur nonsense as she clutched at him, keep her close and let her cry herself out, and when her tears had stopped he did not let her go.

‘Why did you do this?’ he admonished in a gentle whisper at last. ‘Take this on?’

‘Everyone’s breaking to the blood dilithium,’ she rasped, face still pressed against him. ‘I’m not. I can do this, so I have to, don’t I? Don’t we have a responsibility to act when we can?’

‘You don’t have a responsibility to get plunged into the shouting of a thousand murdered ghosts. I know it must be hard to see the others like this, see Rhade like this…’

Her next sob was half a laugh and shot through with bitterness, and at last she lifted her head. Her face was streaked with tears but her black eyes shone bright in the light of the holographic stars over his shoulder. ‘Do you want to know something horrid?’ she croaked. ‘When I heard what happened I thought – a part of me thought, a small part of me thought: “Can I use this to get off the hook?”’ She gave another sobbing laugh. ‘Isn’t that the most selfish thing?’

‘I think if someone claimed they never had selfish thoughts like that, they’d be a liar,’ Beckett breathed. He was all of a sudden far too aware of how close they were, how close she was, and barely dared draw another breath in case it broke the moment. ‘You deserve better than this, you know? You deserve what you want.’

Now those black eyes of captured false starlight were on him, and her mouth set for a smile of so many broken dreams it made his heart ache. ‘Oh, Nate, didn’t you realise by now?’ she sighed. ‘We never get what we want.’

‘You should,’ he breathed. ‘If only for a moment.’ Then he ignored the screaming in his head, and kissed her.

When he leaned in, she did, too. Her lips tasted of too many tears, split and dry from the torments of their days, and still he didn’t dare drink too deep of them in case he drowned in the kiss. It couldn’t have been more than the faintest brush together, and still it was too much and too little at once. When she pulled back he did not stop her, and for thudding heartbeats the only sound was the distant chirruping of the SOC’s systems.

Thawn stepped free, slowly bringing a finger to her lips as if it would help her make sense of what had just happened. Then her eyes fell on his again, and his gut twisted at the pain he saw before that frantic energy he usually associated with her returned. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted, taking another step back. ‘That was stupid and I – I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, I did that too.’ But his voice was so hoarse he wasn’t sure she heard as she rushed past, and she did not stop. Beckett stared as the doors to the SOC slid shut behind her, leaving him again in the dim gloom of his domain, alone with the false stars and the secrets of a dozen sectors. Alone with this new burden.

Biting his lip, he turned to the main display and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Well,’ he breathed at last, and blew out his cheeks. ‘That was a whole new kind of stupid.’

‘Is this going to help?’ Kharth eyeballed the punching bag warily.

Carraway didn’t look especially at home in workout gear, but he gamely held the bag in the middle of the empty gym. ‘Seeing how little we know about what does and doesn’t make telepaths susceptible to blood dilithium, who knows?’ he said with a reassuring smile.

‘I’m going to punch the genocided ghosts out of me?’ But she adjusted the gloves and stepped up.

The first blow was deliberately hard, and enough to make an unprepared Carraway stagger. His smile turned wry. ‘You’re the only person aboard who’s recovered from an… attack by blood dilithium. So you’re the only person who can speak to a state of mind when it happened. And you said you were angry.’

Kharth gritted her teeth, trying to focus on her footwork, on the blows. ‘I wasn’t angry because of the mission. And this is just a workout, Counsellor, even if you’ve got me hitting things.’

Carraway set his feet better against the next swing. ‘You were happy, then?’

‘It was a serious mission,’ she huffed. ‘I wasn’t anything.’

‘Not even about working with Dav?’ Her next blow was less solid. ‘I know you two haven’t spoken much.’

‘That’s business as usual.’

‘I don’t think you two have business as usual.’

‘He doesn’t make me angry,’ she said curtly.

‘I can see that.’

Kharth stepped away from the bag. ‘I’m not getting mad because you’re making me think of Dav. I’m irritated because you’re poking at something private but irrelevant. What’s your win condition here, Counsellor? I get furious, blood dilithium takes over, and I beat you?’

Carraway looked like he was considering his words. ‘I’d say your security guards would stop me, but they didn’t keep Brennos safe.’

Her next swing was heavy and made him grunt at the impact. ‘Rhade works closely with my department; he’s known, he’s trusted, he’s respected. Griffin had no reason to question him.’

‘He had no reason to stop an officer who had no business talking to the prisoner? A telepath?’

‘It’s not his fault,’ she snapped. A quick side-step, another blow. ‘I should have put these protocols in sooner.’

‘The captain didn’t want to treat all telepaths as possible criminals.’

‘Then I should have argued with him!’ This came at last bursting from her chest, and as Carraway’s eyes widened a millimetre, she stepped back. Her breathing was ragged for a moment, then her lip curled. ‘You’re trying to piss me off. Seeing if blood dilithium kicks in?’

‘I doubt that’s the link. I thought it might be useful for you to see that getting angry doesn’t make blood dilithium take over, though,’ he admitted. As her shoulders slumped, he stepped around the punching bag. ‘What were you to do, Saeihr? Remove yourself from duty the moment we had the report about the Merevek?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Removing our telepaths from duty would have replaced one problem with another. Not to mention we have so little understanding of what makes telepaths susceptible; it’s not a reasonable response. We know more now by you having a… moment… on the mission, and recovering.’ Carraway’s gaze softened. ‘Why did you regain control?’

Kharth closed her eyes. ‘Does it matter?’

‘For T’Kalla? Turak? Rhade? People on other ships? It really might.’

Her teeth ground together, and she stepped away from the bag. When her eyes opened, her gaze fixed on her gloves, and she began to fidget with them. ‘Dav, of course,’ she said, voice hoarse. ‘He stopped me doing – I’m not sure what I was going to do. Try to leave and blow everything up, I think. But he didn’t just stop me, he talked me down. Maybe it was the environment – we were floating in the vacuum of space, a lot of our systems were down, the only thing I could see or hear was him…’

‘And the Brenari,’ said Carraway softly. ‘He drowned them out.’

Kharth swallowed. ‘I’ve never so much as noticed any latent telepathy; my aptitude is that limited,’ she said at last. ‘That’s probably the only thing that saved me.’

He watched her for a moment, then sighed. ‘Maybe. But I can say two things to you, Saeihr: Nothing that you’ve said in our sessions before this, in this training, makes me comfortable relieving you of duty. You seem sound of mind. I agree entirely with making Lieutenant Song your shadow, but if we run into trouble, if we face the Devore again, I think it’s in the interests of everyone aboard that you stand at Tactical.’

‘Song was at Tactical last time,’ she pointed out, shoulders sinking. ‘But if you say so, Counsellor.’ She pulled off her gloves, then frowned. ‘What’s the second thing?’

‘Maybe I’m being naive,’ said Carraway, ‘but it seems like having people who can reach you is a protection against blood dilithium. Even if timing is everything.’

She watched him. ‘You’re saying I should talk to Airex.’

He gave an apologetic smile. ‘My advice is always that people should talk to each other. I know that’s why you all avoid me. I’ll make you have conversations you don’t want to have.’

Kharth rolled her eyes. ‘Thank you, Counsellor. If that’s all?’

He let her go and she let her body take over so she didn’t have to think, carrying her back to her quarters and getting her in the shower after the long workout Carraway had demanded of her before they’d gone near the punching bag. He was a fan of combining exercise with conversations in her sessions, and she had to begrudgingly accept that it worked. Burning out energy gave her mind and feelings space. It also made her less likely to storm off.

She was washed and in a fresh uniform and staring at a PADD with a blank message open when the door-chime sounded, and Kharth sighed with relief at the interruption. Otherwise she might have done something dangerous, like reach out to Airex.

Then she opened the door to find Airex himself stood there, and couldn’t help but swear.

He winced. ‘I can come back later. Or, ah, not at all.’

‘No.’ Bitterly she waved him in. ‘Did Carraway send you?’

‘I’m conveniently low on Greg’s priority list,’ Airex mused, stepping in. ‘If nothing else, my long-term well-being isn’t his concern.’

Something twisted in her at the reminder his presence was only temporary. Though they had kept each other at arm’s length when he’d served on the old Endeavour and they’d fallen into much of the same habits, she had so quickly become accustomed to his presence, however distant. ‘You’ll be back in Admiral Beckett’s office when this is over?’

‘I assume so.’ He fidgeted with his sleeve. ‘I came to ask if you’ve spoken to Thawn.’

‘Thawn? No. Why?’

Airex winced again. ‘I, ah. We used the trumpet.’

Kharth’s jaw dropped. ‘You what?’

‘Shockingly it seems like what the Brenari telepathic echoes want is mass slaughter of all Devore.’

‘Astonishing. I’m so glad you fried Thawn’s brain to find that out. Is she alright?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But I know she’s been helping you with meditation. I wondered if she’d reached out. I thought it possible she wouldn’t speak to Carraway.’

‘And he wouldn’t be allowed to report back anyway.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you hoping I can give you research data?’

‘No!’ He looked horrified. ‘I argued against doing this in the past, but I… the stakes are high. With what happened to Rhade, what happened to – to you.’ It looked like he hadn’t meant to say that, then committed and straightened, looking her in the eye. ‘I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.’

Kharth swallowed as she felt, for the first time in a long time, the warmth in the blue of his gaze. For a long time his eyes had turned to ice. ‘Commander…’

‘I don’t expect you to forgive me, you know,’ he continued, like he’d tumbled off a cliff and had no choice but to keep going. ‘I can’t ever make amends for what’s happened. But I will never stop caring about you.’

Again she hesitated, and when she found her voice she realised she didn’t have words to go with it. So she wasn’t wholly surprised when her mouth opened and she said, ‘The letter.’

Airex blinked. ‘The letter?’

‘I – that letter I sent you. Weeks ago, when I was on shore leave.’ Kharth twisted her fingers together, uncommonly nervous. ‘I’m really sorry if that gave you some sort of impression, but I – I was really drunk when I wrote it. With Isa. And I… I don’t actually remember what it said.’

He stilled. ‘Oh.’ His lips set, and for a moment she thought she’d said something horribly upsetting for which he had to steel himself. Then they twisted and she realised he was trying and failing to not laugh. ‘That explains a lot.’

‘What… did it say?’

With a crooked smile he extended a hand for a PADD. She handed it over mutely and waited, heart thudding in her chest as he accessed his records before handing it back. There it was, the message sent weeks ago, her name at the top with the right time-stamp.

Kharth stared at the text below, which could only generously be called ‘writing’. ‘This is absolutely incomprehensible.’

‘It… is.’ Airex was clearly trying to not laugh. ‘I’m sorry, I honestly thought you’d sat on a PADD or something.’

She tossed the PADD down and pressed her hands against her temples. ‘Oh, hells, I can’t believe I spent time worrying about this while blood dilithium was trying to melt my brain and in the end it looks like I butt-messaged you.’

‘I didn’t think it was fair to draw attention to it. It was obviously a mistake.’

‘Obviously.’ She dragged her hands down. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I assumed that my name had come up for some reason. Even without actual content it was… nice.’ He hesitated. ‘However meaningless, it felt like a small reminder of us.’

Us. ‘I should thank you,’ she rasped. ‘For bringing me back at the Repository.’

His gaze softened again. ‘I think,’ he said at length, ‘we have a long way to go before you’re in my debt.’

Kharth swallowed again, and relief flooded through her when there was a chirrup of the com systems.

‘Rourke to command staff. We’re one hour out from the Taxtose system.’

Reality flooded back with this, and she snapped upright. ‘That reminds me,’ Kharth blurted, suddenly all business. ‘You want to just take the Merlin down with you and Beckett and nobody else?’

‘I thought Harkon could fly us,’ Airex allowed, blinking at the sudden swerve in tone. ‘But we’re talking about an historic site hundreds of years old. I would rather initial examination be done by as few people as possible.’

‘We’re on a wild chase against genocidal Devore; I’m not sure the historic integrity of a location is our priority.’

‘We can disagree there, but we don’t want to destroy what might be, who knows. A data bank holding information on the Regulators. A container holding a Regulator itself.’ His eyebrows raised. ‘We’re both trained A&A officers and are the best people to conduct an initial survey. Especially considering the irradiated conditions on the planet.’

‘Which we think will cut you off from all communication.’

He shrugged. ‘Then send one of the Black Knights with us; we can communicate with them and they can act as a relay to Endeavour in orbit.’

‘That’s…’ Kharth’s voice trailed off. She really, really wanted to argue with this. ‘A reasonable compromise.’

His smile was quietly pleased. ‘If that’s the case, Commander, then I should go and make these final preparations for our landing party.’ At her nod he turned to the doorway, stopping only as he got there and glancing back. ‘By the way, I never said.’

Apprehension tightened her throat. ‘Said what?’

His eyes flickered down to her third pip. ‘Congratulations on your promotion. It’s deserved.’

Then he left, and she stood quietly wishing she’d argued more, argued that she should go with him to the surface. Not out of a sense of safety. But so she could hurl herself into an irradiated atmosphere, because that would be aeons better than whatever this detente between them was.

‘Radiation in the atmosphere is at a Level 4,’ Thawn reported from Ops. ‘Long-range scans were right; nobody wants to go go anywhere near this planet without significant protection.’

Rourke frowned at the brown-grey clouds of the upper atmosphere that were all the naked eye could see of Taxtose IV. The untrained might have even thought it a gas giant at a glance, not a class-M so devastated by a nuclear firestorm that life had no chance of thriving for a thousand years. ‘Will the away team manage?’

‘We brought out the highest-rated EV suits,’ Kharth confirmed from behind him. ‘They don’t want to be outside of the runabout for more than six hours, but they’ll be protected.’

‘Merlin is away,’ Arys confirmed from Helm. ‘Black Knight One is away.’

On Rourke’s armrest display, two small dots appeared next to Endeavour as the small craft broke for the surface. ‘Put me through,’ he told Lindgren, and cleared his throat at the chirrup of comm systems coming to life. ‘Endeavour to away team. You have your instructions; start with a flyover, and only land if you’re confident you have something.’

Already Airex’s voice was crackly on the response, even though the Merlin had barely penetrated the upper atmosphere. ‘We’ll be cautious in our assessment, Captain. If sensors don’t tell us anything, we’re not going to scour the entire continent. Goravin’s records have given us a good starting point, though.’

‘Remember that you’re on your own down there,’ said Valance crisply. ‘It won’t take long before the atmosphere blocks all comms.’

‘That’s why I’m here, Commander,’ came Lieutenant Whitaker’s voice from the Valkyrie-class fighter swooping for the planet alongside the Merlin. ‘Happy to play go-between and watch their backs.’

‘If you land, I want Whitaker telling us,’ Rourke reminded them. ‘And then hourly updates from there. It’ll be hard flying back and forth, Lieutenant.’

‘After flying against the Romulan Navy? I can handle some stormy weather, Captain.’

Valance had to visibly fight to not roll her eyes at the young pilot’s confidence, and Rourke gave her a placating smile as he lifted a hand. ‘Then on a scientific basis: good hunting, Merlin, Black Knight One. Come back with a fortune in knowledge.’ Any reply was swallowed by the atmosphere of Taxtose, and Rourke sank back on his chair.

‘I don’t like this,’ Kharth said bluntly. ‘We’re out on a limb in an under-explored region of the Belt. Anything could be down there.’

‘According to our scans,’ Rourke mused, ‘I expect very little is down there. Our away team are responsible officers.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Well. Airex is.’

Valance gave him a look. ‘That’s a little harsh,’ she said. ‘To Lieutenant Harkon.’

Lindgren giggled. ‘I’ll tell Nate about your vote of confidence, sir.’

‘Don’t worry,’ mused Kharth. ‘Thawn’s always happy to put the boot in on him.’

‘What?’ Seemingly startled, Thawn twisted in her chair. ‘I wouldn’t – I would never -’

Rourke considered making a gentle joke about his Operations Chief’s fastidiousness, but thought better of it from the trapped look in her eyes. She had been through too much these past weeks, particularly with Lieutenant Rhade’s circumstances, for it to be received in good humour. ‘Easy, everyone,’ he said at last. ‘It’s all in jest. Our officers are professionals and the best ones for the job. They’ve got this.’

‘…is that it?’ Beckett rotated his head as he peered at the Merlin’s sensor display. Their systems were struggling with the interference, and through the canopy they could only see the brown-grey clouds of Taxtose’s atmosphere. It was just as well navigational sensors were working, he thought, because otherwise they’d struggle to identify the ground, let alone Whitaker’s fighter out there somewhere.

Airex leaned over his shoulder, lips thin. ‘It matches the coordinates. Looks like a bunker. That’s promising. Can you get us there, Lieutenant?’ He looked to Harkon.

‘That’s my job!’ she said cheerfully. ‘Even if I can’t see five feet in front of us. Are you sure a flyover’s going to be much use?’

‘Sensor readings are getting clearer on the approach,’ Beckett said, but had to give a hapless shrug. ‘I’m not sure if we’ll know what any of this is until we’re in front of it.’

‘One step at a time,’ assured Airex.

‘You might want to strap yourselves in,’ Harkon called as the deck rumbled under them. ‘Conditions are going to get worse before they get better.’

‘Oh, hell,’ muttered Beckett, grabbing the safety restraints and tightening them.

For a time, it did get worse. Not just in conditions as the Merlin was buffeted by the irradiated clouds and the tug of gravity alike, and Beckett winced as they shook, as he heard Harkon consult with Whitaker over comms on conditions, as the fighter pilot went lower to check ahead in his lighter, more manoeuvrable craft.

Then Whitaker’s voice came, clear and loud and swearing violently. ‘Pull up Merlin, break break break!’

Beckett was slammed back in his seat as the Merlin surged upwards, and heard Harkon hiss at the effort and tension. His sensors flooded back to life a heartbeat later, the swirling clouds parted, and he had to give a low whistle as he saw what was before them. And how close both crafts had come to crashing into the ground. ‘I didn’t know we were this low!’

‘Flying conditions,’ said Harkon with a groan, ‘suck. I guess it’s more like a fly-on than over.’

Airex was checking sensors, nodding. ‘If there’s still any kind of a compound here, we’re right on top of it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Beckett, leaning forward at his console. ‘I’m picking up high levels of tritanium unlike anywhere else in this region; it looks like construction work. Just off our port side. Stretching underground, too.’

‘A bunker?’ Airex mused.

‘Let’s see,’ said Harkon, manoeuvring the Merlin around. She tapped her comms as she went. ‘You alright, Whitaker?’

‘Right as rain, Merlin. Glad I could guide your lumbering mass out of being smeared.’

‘Oh, we’ll see who’s dancing at the next turbulence. See if your tin can doesn’t get flattened.’ But Harkon sounded cheerful and relieved, though she stopped the banter as the clouds shifted again at her manoeuvres for a new silhouette to break the faint, distant shape of land before them. ‘Is that it?’

Beckett, ignoring the safety guidelines, unbuckled his webbing and moved towards the canopy. ‘It is a bunker. It’s really hard to tell if that’s Vaadwaur…’

‘This is an industrial site some centuries old after massive bombardment,’ mused Airex. ‘It’s not like we have a lot of architectural cues to go off.’

‘Wow. The Vaadwaur’s enemies really did a number on them. On all of them. This was a city full of people who never did anyone any wrong…’

‘And full of people who thrived on a system built on slavery and oppression,’ Airex reminded him. ‘We’re not here to think about guilt or innocence, but the people the Vaadwaur conquered were victims, too.’

‘It looks like other ruins of old structures nearby.’ Harkon was reading off her sensors. ‘You say this is matching Goravin’s records? Guess I’m gonna have to set down so you can see what’s in there.’

Airex looked at her. ‘I didn’t say I was landing. The captain said we should only do it if absolutely necessary.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But you were gonna look at your scans, Commander, and come up with a reason why it’s necessary. Weren’t you?’ She smiled sweetly.

Beckett laughed. ‘Thanks for saving us some work, Har. She’s right, sir. We should suit up?’

Airex shook his head, but he looked both pleased and a little excited. ‘As you say, Lieutenant. Let’s see the ruins of a research site for a fallen empire. I dare say nobody’s set foot here in six hundred years.’

‘I’ll even,’ said Beckett as they headed for the back, ‘let you go first.’

‘Commander Airex has confirmed this is the Vaadwaur facility,’ crackled Whitaker’s voice over the comms, filling Endeavour’s bridge. ‘He and Lieutenant Beckett are assessing where to go next – cracking into containment sections, or getting the databanks up and running so they can download records.’

Rourke nodded, though he could not swallow the unease at the young pilot’s report. ‘Do they need additional personnel? Commander Cortez could bring engineers to help them get the systems operational.’

‘The commander said he’d report back if that was necessary,’ said Whitaker. ‘They’re hoping to get a bit of systems access, or to establish if that’s just impossible. He says getting into the containment facilities will be a lot harder if they can’t unseal the doors, don’t know what’s in them, and don’t want to break the entire place.’

Danjuma, at Science, shook her head as she read the scans and data from the Merlin and Valkyrie that Whitaker had transmitted back to them. ‘It’s a miracle we could find the place with all this interference. Even knowing where we’re looking, interference is really, really heavy.’

‘Starfleet sensors and engineering,’ Rourke said with an easy, selfless pride. ‘Not to mention, I’m sure, excellent flying. Return to the away team, Mr Whitaker. Stay safe down there.’

‘I’ll report back in an hour, Endeavour.’

The comm line died with a click, and Rourke sank back onto the command chair again as on his sensors the tiny dot of the fighter broke away back for the upper atmosphere of Taxtose. ‘If they can’t find anything by the next report,’ he told Valance, ‘I think we need to send a full expedition down there. Get Commander Cortez ready for a team; I know A&A want everything preserved, but Chief Lann and his structural engineers know what they’re doing.’ In the distance there was a faint beep from a console.

Valance nodded. ‘I’ll review what Whitaker sent us,’ she said, and stood. ‘Maybe -’

‘Captain.’ Kharth’s voice was flat, uncertain. ‘I’ve lost Whitaker on sensors.’

Rourke tilted his head back. ‘We’ve been losing him every time.’

‘I know that,’ his tactical officer replied impatiently. ‘He didn’t fade out. He was there, then he was gone.’

‘Captain!’ Fear was at the edge of Danjuma’s voice. ‘There’s a disturbance in the upper atmosphere – not a storm, something’s moving in there -’

Rourke was on his feet before she’d finished, heart lunging into his throat. ‘Red alert; shields up -’

But the words were barely past his lips when he saw the shadow of the Devore warship rise from the clouded atmosphere of Taxtose IV, and the flashing lights as their torpedoes and disruptors hit them.

For the second time in one week, Airex found himself conducting delicate technical work in an EV suit. While the HUD scrolling sensor feeds and the universal translator before his eyes allowed a certain amount more precision, the heavy suit masking sound, limiting his peripheral vision, and wrapping his hands in the thick gloves made him feel clumsy, imprecise.

‘There’s a little emergency power here.’ His voice echoed inside his own helmet, with only the faintest hiss of his comm system letting him know he wasn’t alone in the irradiated dark. ‘Seeing what systems I can access.’

They’d set the Merlin down in a dust-storm of brown and ash, settling in the shadow of the hulking bunker that had turned out to be their destination. Airex had seen it in the archives off Goravin’s ship, images of a bustling industrial district near a blossoming city. Now, all that was left standing were the buildings constructed to protect nearby populaces from internal industrial accidents, by cruel irony withstanding the bombs of the Vaadwaur’s enemies.

Without Goravin’s archives, he wouldn’t have breached the doors so easily. Near-dead systems had responded to access codes buried in records, but all he and Beckett now had to show for it was a darkened command chamber. They’d walked through shrouded corridors, boots echoing off the concrete floor, to the main room. Further walkways led to storage rooms, construction chambers, but it was cavernous enough to occupy a team of archaeologists for a decade, drinking on these secrets.

They only wanted one secret, and did not have a decade.

Beckett had been walking the perimeter of the chamber, but clomped over at that. ‘I’ve got the emergency power,’ he offered, reaching for his pack.

‘Try it,’ said Airex, and stepped back so he could connect the battery to the Vaadwaur console.

A moment later, the cracked screen gleamed to life, green lettering scrawling to cast the industrial control room in shadowed emerald. Airex approached.

‘Good thing about having official records,’ he mused as he read. ‘I have the file references for the Regulator construction and storage protocols.’

‘The real secret weapon of archaeologists,’ came the crackle of Beckett’s amused voice. ‘Insight into referencing systems.’

Airex gave a low chuckle, but shook his head. ‘I’ve got storage records, construction orders, and development archives here. On this power I’ll have to dance between them.’ His eyes flicked up to his HUD’s sensor readings. ‘We only have another two hours in this radiation, though.’

Beckett nodded, and sank into silence as they worked. Airex was perhaps ten minutes into hunting through the development archives, the ancient and battered Vaadwaur systems slow to respond, before the young officer spoke again.

‘So you and Thawn tried the trumpet.’

Airex tensed. ‘She told you.’

‘Our telepaths are on the edge and there’s little indication of what we get from it -’

‘Lieutenant Thawn is a talented, disciplined, and sensible scientist, who knows her own mind,’ Airex replied crisply. ‘And there is always value in attempting communication. You’re our intelligence officer, Lieutenant; surely you understand how one line of inquiry may not show an answer, but once weaved in with the findings of other ships -’

‘Did she tell you she’s been having dreams?’ Beckett said, undeterred. ‘Before we got to Abaddon’s? She’s not been untouched.’

‘And you and I, Lieutenant, are stood on an irradiated world of the slaughtered people of an oppressive empire, in a building bombarded centuries ago whose structural integrity we have not affirmed. Do you wish to address this risk, too?’ Beckett was silent, but Airex wasn’t done. ‘I worked with Lieutenant Thawn for over two years. She is one of the most diligent and brilliant officers I’ve ever met. She doesn’t need you to condescend and protect her, Lieutenant, and if you respect her, you most certainly won’t.’

‘I -’

‘I appreciate you’ve raised this down here, where nobody will overhear us. But I will make these risk assessments. Not you.’ The console gave a tortured chirrup, slow and beaten, and Airex looked back at it. His eyes widened an iota. ‘I have a location for the storage facilities for the Regulators.’

Beckett snapped back to business. ‘In here?’

‘Two levels down.’ Airex gestured him forward. ‘Record this. Then get down there.’

‘Me?’

‘We only have two hours. Do some recon, see if it’s accessible. I’m going to shunt power over so I can download the design records.’

‘Got it.’

Unlike in the junkyard, here Airex could hear Beckett’s footsteps receding towards one of the doors. Even though this was the oppressive, irradiated, dead world of a once-great and vibrant empire, it was still not the cold vacuum of space.

But it was a lot harder working through old Vaadwaur record systems than looting a Brenari database. Only by the chronometer on his display could he tell how long he was working, but the fresh crackle of his comm systems after twenty minutes was enough to make him jump.

Though not as much as the urgency in Harkon’s voice. ‘Merlin to away team – we got company! Devore landing craft heading our way!’

Airex looked up, though his suit’s sensors were not powerful enough to give him anything through the thick bunker walls and the heavy radiation. ‘I hear you, Merlin. Beckett, are you reading us?’ Silence met his words, and he inhaled in a sharp hiss. ‘Merlin, do they have escorts, and have they seen you?’

‘Two escort light crafts, they’re not flying like they’ve seen us in this interference – but sir, there’s no sign of Whitaker…’

‘Assume there’s trouble in orbit. Get yourself out of danger, Lieutenant; our sensors are better than theirs, see if you can slip away.’

‘Sir –’

‘If they’ve got this far, we’re on the back foot. Shelter and avoid trouble. This place is big, and we’ll try to evade them. You have your orders.’ Airex cut the comms, and took a step back from the control panel. Before him were the archives, secrets of the Vaadwaur and their whole mission hidden within. Somewhere in the facility was Beckett, short-wave comms struggling to break through the shielding and radiation.

And not only were the Devore incoming, but his radiation meter continued to flicker, reminding him that no matter what happened, he couldn’t stay here forever.

Sensor feeds scrawled over Airex’s HUD as he stomped through darkness. Three ships not far outside the facility. Twelve life-signs headed his way. Only the faintest of flickers suggesting Beckett was deeper in the Vaadwaur complex. And he’d left the control room to lie low, lest he be caught and shot.

Harkon had pulled the Merlin back a safe distance, the runabout shrouded in the radioactive storms from the Devore ships. He was on his own, with only his phaser nestled in its holster for protection. Discretion was most certainly about to be the better part of valour.

At another interface point on the wall, he paused. He was some distance from the main command controls, but he had the access codes and knew how the system worked. Breathing rattling in his ears in the darkened corridor, trying to not make any noise that might carry back to the Devore landing party, Airex brought up his tricorder and tried to reconnect to the ancient Vaadwaur systems.

Power was still limited. If the Devore had as much understanding as he of the Vaadwaur systems, once they breached the control room they would probably be able to locate him. Airex frowned at the options before him, aware he had little time.

He could use almost all remaining power to seal access to the lower levels, lock Beckett and the Regulators safe and away from the Devore. But that was a temporary measure. If the Devore had all the time in the world, they would eventually break through. And if Beckett had all the time in the world, the radiation would turn his insides to gelatin. Leaving him, Airex, on this upper level playing cat-and-mouse against Devore soldiers.

With a guilty exhale, Airex left the access corridors open, and resumed downloading the files on the Regulators. He and Beckett didn’t have to get out of there. Downloading these files to transmit on to the Merlin could be enough.

Even if it would have to be enough for someone else to interpret later.

Rourke pushed himself up from the deck, head ringing. Bridge lights flickered overhead, and even the red alert klaxon sounded distant, tinny. ‘Report!’ he croaked.

‘We’ve got hull breaches on decks seven through nine,’ came the strained voice of Thawn. She looked like the only person who’d kept her station. ‘Emergency forcefields are holding. No casualty report yet.’

‘That Devore volley hit us before we could get our shields up.’ Kharth was dragging herself back up to the tactical arch. ‘Deflectors are only at forty percent. One of our forward torpedo launchers is out.’

‘What’re they doing?’ Rourke dragged himself back into his chair.

He saw the answer on his armrest’s display before Kharth could give it, terse and uncertain. ‘Waiting.’

From mission control at the rear of the bridge, Valance’s voice carried. ‘Still no telling what’s happening on the surface, but the Devore took out Whitaker’s fighter.’ Rourke’s guts twisted in themselves before she pressed on. ‘He ejected, I’ve got his EV beacon.’

‘Sir.’ Arys looked back, pained. ‘He won’t have long before Taxtose’s gravity pulls him in.’

Rourke clenched his fists. ‘Thawn, get me power to the shields. Elsa, hail the Devore.’

A moment later, the viewscreen flooded to life with a familiar sight. This was a larger Devore warship than the one they’d faced weeks sooner, but still Commissioner Halyx sneered down at him with endless satisfaction. ‘Thank you for the lead, Endeavour.’

Rourke swallowed, mouth dry. ‘You were waiting for us.’

‘We had the planet, but our sensors couldn’t locate the facility. So, yes, we waited. And your landing party has led us right there.’ She glanced at something off-screen, and muted to give a quick instruction to one of her bridge officers.

In the pause, Kharth muttered, ‘They’ve used a lot of their power reserves keeping in low-orbit in a difficult atmosphere. They’re not fighting fit themselves.’

‘Sure,’ murmured Rourke, ‘but neither are we. Get me a targeting solution anyway, Commander.’

That caught Halyx’s attention, and she turned back. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Endeavour. You’re listing. We have the advantage. We’ll take our prize and go, and give you more mercy than you deserve.’

‘You mean you know you can’t put us down without getting sorely bloodied.’ But Endeavour would still come out worse. Rourke glanced down at his sensors. ‘If we’re not fighting here, let me send a shuttle to retrieve my pilot.’ He didn’t know what to attempt for the landing party. There was no way to send help without escalating, and with Endeavour in this state that might cost them more lives and still bring deliverance too late for the Merlin and her crew.

Halyx gave a tight smile. ‘I don’t think so. He’s got time, and we have him in our sights. So much as twitch wrong, Rourke, and your man will be the next to die. It’s a better kindness than any of you deserve.’

‘All you’re doing here,’ said Rourke, pushing to his feet, ‘is inviting more enemies of the Devore. However you treat outsiders, you’re left alone because you leave others alone. Change this too much, and suddenly everyone in the Gradin Belt has a reason to band together against you.’

‘The miserable rabble of the Belt can hardly agree on basic trade, let alone a military alliance. Do you see the Hierarchy making common cause with the Malon?’ Halyx scoffed. ‘But I’m touched you care so much for the Imperium’s wellbeing.’

‘Captain.’ Danjuma’s voice took a fresh tone of urgency. ‘Three ships are coming from the atmosphere. All Devore.’

‘We have what we came for,’ said Halyx as the distant dots rose to join the large warship. ‘And you’re limping far worse than us, Endeavour. Don’t follow us. Or if you do, come bear witness to the future of the Belt. To the end of the gaharey.’ The line went dead, the viewscreen returning to the sight of the warship hovering above the brown-greys of Taxtose IV’s upper atmosphere.

Danjuma gave a tense sigh. ‘The Devore ship is breaking orbit.’

‘Captain.’ Kharth’s voice was a whip-crack. ‘They’re charging weapons.’

‘Brace, and make ready to return fire -’

Fresh streaks of light of enemy weapons fire soared away from the warship, but not at them. Rourke’s gut went cold to see twin torpedoes streak down into the atmosphere of Taxtose IV and disappear into the clouds.

‘They must be targeting the facility,’ swore Kharth.

‘Devore ship is going to warp,’ warned Danjuma.

‘Hells,’ Rourke spat. ‘Commander Valance, get a rescue party into the King Arthur and head down there. Lieutenant Arys, get in the Lancelot and pick up Whitaker.’

Thawn’s hands were running over her controls as the officers left. ‘There’s no way they’ll have a precise targeting solution from up here,’ she said, a desperate edge to her voice.

‘There is,’ said Kharth, rather more hollow, ‘if their landing party sent them the sensor readings.’

‘But they won’t have hit the Merlin…’

‘Easy,’ Rourke rumbled, though the reassurance was easier to state than give. ‘We don’t know anything, Lieutenant. Waiting’s the most vicious of tasks, but it’s what we have to do. Scan that Devore ship and get me their heading.’ It wasn’t just critical to know what Halyx was going to do next, her mission seemingly complete. It would give Thawn something to do other than panic.

Only the Lancelot had launched to rescue Whitaker, Valance still gathering a team, when Lindgren pressed a finger to her earpiece and sat up straight. ‘I’m getting a hail from the Merlin,’ she announced with tense delight.

Rourke again clutched his armrests. ‘Put them through.’

‘Endeavour, this is the away team,’ came the crackling, fraught voice of Davir Airex, and Rourke almost felt Kharth sag with relief behind him. ‘We’re on our way back, and I’ve got complete Vaadwaur files on the design and construction of the Regulators here.’

Relief flooded Rourke’s body, and he closed his eyes. ‘It’s good to hear your voice, Commander. What happened down there?’

‘Devore landing team came from nowhere. Lieutenant Harkon managed to evade them, but we were already in the compound. They didn’t find me, but…’ Airex’s hesitation was audible. ‘It looks like they’ve recovered at least one of the devices. I managed to give them the slip to get the files back to the Merlin, but then they bombarded the facility directly; there’s nothing left.’

Rourke’s jaw tensed as he heard the unspoken. ‘Commander. Where’s Lieutenant Beckett?’

‘I… I’m sorry, sir. He was further into the facility, trying to get to the equipment storage bays. He didn’t get out in time.’

‘No.’ Thawn tilted her chin up a half-inch.

Kharth narrowed her eyes at her. ‘What do you mean, “no?”’

‘I mean,’ said Thawn, elbows set on the conference table, her gaze set on Kharth even through the holographic regional map hovering between them, ‘your assessment of the mission is wrong. Lieutenant Beckett isn’t dead.’

She could feel the eyes of everyone else on her at that. Kharth, dubious. Airex, guilty. Rampant confusion and, from Lindgren sat next to her, abundant pity. For years she’d served on this ship and kept her telepathic abilities so close to her chest lest she intrude on the thoughts of non-Betazoids who would keep them hidden. But after the past few months – past few days – she could not bring herself to slam the door shut on herself again.

Especially not when these senses were giving her one last tether to hope.

It was Rourke who broke the silence at last, shifting his weight at the head of the table. ‘What do you mean by that, Lieutenant?’

‘It’s not possible,’ Airex jumped in. He was a state, dragged freshly out of his EV suit and into the conference room. ‘Beckett was too deep into the facility to get out in time. If the bombardment didn’t kill him… there’s no way we can dig him out before he’s exposed to lethal levels of radiation.’

‘And that would take days,’ said Valance tersely. ‘Days we don’t have.’

‘The Devore could have taken him prisoner,’ Thawn said stubbornly. ‘You can’t write him off so easily.’

‘I’m not writing him off,’ said Kharth. ‘I’m being realistic. I know -’

‘Can you sense him?’ Eyes snapped down the table to Greg Carraway, who gave them all an apologetic smile before he looked back at Thawn. ‘Is that what you mean?’

She drew an apprehensive breath. ‘I don’t know,’ came the eventual admission. ‘I’m not used to – this would be telepathy over a great distance, with a mind I’m not that telepathically familiar with. But call it a telepath’s instinct.’

‘Or,’ said Kharth, clearly trying to not sound nasty – and failing, ‘we don’t have a body, so you’re naturally turning to hope, and justifying it with your telepathy.’

‘Enough.’ Rourke lifted his hands, gaze going down the table. ‘I’ve known – knew – Nate longer than anyone here. I hate the idea of not finding him. But Commander Airex’s assessment is correct. Our last sweep of the surface showed no sign, and made no contact on comms. Digging up the wreckage would take time. And what we don’t have is time. Lieutenant Thawn, your other findings?’

Trying to not grind her teeth, Thawn reached for her PADD and tapped a button to update the map. ‘I have a heading for the Devore ship, based off their trajectory and long-range sensor scans. Senolok.’

‘It’s a major Brenari colony. Population of two million.’ Rosewood leaned in, sounding faintly apologetic. Perhaps he knew this would normally be Beckett’s turn to speak.

‘Worse,’ said Kharth, ‘is that I’m picking up two more Devore ships on an intercept course with Halyx.’

‘And now they have a Vizan Regulator,’ added Airex, ‘and who knows how much blood dilithium to amplify it.’

‘I hate to be gauche.’ Sadek leaned forward. ‘Why do they need the Regulator if they have a strike force of warships?’

‘Senolok has strong orbital shielding,’ said Rosewood. ‘And keeps good trade links with nearby planets. It would take the Devore a while to breach the defences and hit the surface, and reinforcements would arrive to drive them off.’

‘But if they can lobotomise the telepaths from orbit like that…’ Airex snapped his fingers. ‘That’s a different problem.’

Rourke scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘How long until they get there?’

Thawn drummed her fingers on the PADD. ‘If they alter course to meet the other warships, thirty-six hours.’

‘How long until we can get there?’ Rourke looked at Cortez.

The engineer was a mess; she’d crawled over Endeavour’s damaged systems before getting here. ‘We’re faster, and they’re taking a roundabout route. We can probably beat them there, but not by much. Less than an hour.’

‘And our combat readiness?’

Cortez blew out her cheeks. ‘We’re patching our hull breaches and rerouting energy systems, but that’s going to play havoc on our shielding if we want full weapons and maneouvring power. Maybe against one warship? Not three.’

‘Can we get reinforcements?’ said Valance.

Kharth shook her head. ‘Not in this time-frame.’

Silence fell on the conference table, the officers considering the magnitude of this information. It was Lindgren who spoke at last. ‘We’re not just going to stand and watch as the Devore effectively kill an entire planet, are we?’

Rourke looked at Airex. ‘You’ve got the information on the Regulator,’ he said at last. ‘Can we do anything about it?’

‘I’ve barely examined the specifications,’ Airex admitted, and rubbed his temples. ‘It’s possible I can find a way for Senolok to modify their planetary shielding to protect them. Or Endeavour can do something to interfere with it.’

‘These are all,’ said Valance, ‘very vague plans.’

‘We have to try,’ Thawn found herself saying. ‘We have thirty-six hours to get there and come up with a plan. If we stay here hoping inspiration strikes, then we’ll be too late no matter how smart we are.’

Rourke watched her, then gave a slow nod. ‘You’re right, Lieutenant. And I’m not going to stand on the sidelines and watch. If the Devore want to slaughter these people, they have to go through Endeavour.’

For all that Kharth had insisted what she was feeling was hope, not reason, not telepathy, not something concrete defying all bonds, Thawn found herself swallowing bile at the captain’s resolve. Because without a breakthrough, it didn’t matter who was or was not alive right then; they’d just be more lives added to the list of those taken by the Devore.

And still, somewhere deep inside her, a thousand murdered Brenari howled at the prospect of taking up arms against those who had slaughtered them.

Stars streaked beyond the ready room window as Endeavour hurtled through the dark. Deep in the engine room, Cortez stoked the engines hotter and hotter, the crew not for the first time locked in a race against time to save lives. Except on this occasion, time was not Rourke’s biggest concern.

The door-chime was a relief when it sounded, an interruption to his gloomy thoughts, but the severe expression of Valance made it plain he was to be given no relief. ‘Latest weapons system report,’ the XO said, PADD held like a shield of professionalism against her deeper concerns. ‘Kharth is confident we can sustain full combat readiness for at least an hour.’

‘And after an hour,’ mused Rourke, taking the PADD, ‘we’ll have won or be dead, right?’ She did not smile, and he couldn’t bring himself to, either. ‘Speak your mind, Valance.’

She hesitated. ‘I know I can speak plainly with you, sir. I’m not sure I have anything helpful to say.’

‘Then vent, because God knows you can’t and won’t do it to the rest of the crew.’ He waved at the seat opposite.

Valance sank with a sigh. ‘If I ever thought you were making a mistake in this mission, I would have said so, Captain. I hope you know that.’

‘I think our history makes that clear,’ he said wryly.

‘But I have to wonder if we could have avoided this situation. We all but gave them the Regulator. They might have found it anyway on Taxtose, but that would have taken time, and that’s time we could have used differently. Instead you…’ She winced.

‘Ran off half-cocked?’

‘No.’ Valance shook her head firmly, but took a moment to think. ‘You always rise to meet the enemy, sir. And sometimes that lets them set the terms of battle.’

She looked like she was struggling with these ideas as much as these words, and Rourke sighed. ‘I’d remind you that all I’ve tried to do since we learnt of the Regulators is follow leads to understand what the damn things are. I didn’t know we were racing the Devore to Taxtose. But this isn’t just about this mission, is it?’ She shook her head again. ‘Understand I don’t mean it as a dig if I say you’ll think about all of this differently when you’re a captain.’

‘I know I have the luxury of taking a step back and not having to make the hard decisions.’ Valance shrugged. ‘Regardless, we’re here now. We have to trust our science officers.’

‘I’ve sent word to the DEI. They can’t promise reinforcements in time. But if we can hold off the Devore somehow, or stop them from using the Regulator…’ Restless, Rourke pushed to his feet and wandered about his office. ‘If not, I guess we make a stand.’

‘We can’t leave those people to the Devore,’ Valance said firmly. ‘You know I’m with you all the way on that, sir.’

‘I know. I know I have your support when I need it.’ He stopped at the wall and stared at the sword hanging on brackets there, the ‘gift’ from the Vondem Rose and their ‘salvage’ of the old Endeavour, his last command. ‘Well, almost always.’

‘Sir?’

Rourke looked back at her, lips twisting, and jerked a thumb at the sword. ‘I know you hated that I accepted this. That I keep it on the wall.’

‘It’s…’ Valance looked wrong-footed by this change of topic. ‘They stole it, sir. I do find it a little disrespectful of the people who served on that ship. Some of them lost their lives.’

‘And some have lost their lives on this ship,’ sighed Rourke. He’d lost people under his command before; been broken by it before. Today felt different to the Firebrand, at least; not this howling abyss in his soul telling him that he’d failed. He didn’t know if he was making peace with his sense of responsibility, learning he couldn’t shoulder everything, or if he was becoming terrifyingly numb. Even about Nate.

Pushing back that thought, he nodded again at the sword. ‘It’s just a reminder, Commander.’

‘Of what?’

‘That there’s more than one way to do the right thing. I just wish I could see a different way this time.’

‘I don’t think there are rules for us to conveniently break on this occasion,’ mused Valance.

‘No,’ he agreed quietly. ‘No, this time, duty wins. Even in the face of death.’

‘I don’t… please…’ Breathing ragged, broken by sobs and shattered bones, she could barely manage to beg as she craned her head to stare at the barrel of the gun.

‘Worthless,’ scoffed the Devore guard. And pulled the trigger.

The bright light engulfed her, then in a blink of an eye Thawn wasn’t on her knees. She stood amid the metal and concrete slabs of confinement and suffering, the Devore guard beside her, the wail of Brenari condemned to death around her. On the ground lay the smouldering corpse of the Brenari woman. She’d just seen her murder through her eyes.

‘Do you see?’ The wails took on an echo, pulsing with rage and fear and loss. Down the line of condemned Brenari the Devore guard walked, shooting his rifle without hesitation or regret.

Thawn brought her hands to her temples. ‘We’re trying,’ she hissed. ‘We’re going to fight them, we’re going to protect your people. We just can’t do it alone!’

But the howling and screaming did not stop, for there was no reasoning with the echoes of vengeful ghosts.

‘Thawn!’

Reality flooded back with bright lights, clear edges, and sharp colours, and Thawn gasped as Airex raised the confinement field on the blood dilithium again. The Trill scientist looked aghast at finding her in the lab, alone and unsupervised. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She stepped back, unsteady, hands coming to her temples. ‘There has to be something we can do, Commander. There have to be answers.’

Airex ushered her to a seat, gaze a blend of anger and concern. ‘So you’re choosing to bathe your brain in the same psionic energies that have incapacitated everyone? What did you think would come of this?’ Rhetorical question fading as she sat, he frowned before he asked, more quietly, ‘Did you learn something?’

Abashed, she shook her head. ‘Only more of their suffering. Their slaughter.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I can’t do nothing, sir.’

There was a long pause, broken by the sound of Airex dragging a chair over. ‘I don’t expect you to do nothing,’ he said gently. ‘We’ve had a report. Discovery thinks they’ve found a way to free the telepathic echoes from the blood dilithium.’

She raised her head and accepted the PADD he pressed into her hands. The echoes of the slaughtered and terrified in her head felt at-odds with the data and calculations scrolling across the display as she read; genocide and its effects reduced to mere numbers. Thawn bit her lip. ‘We can modify those probes with little difficulty. But… is there even an anomaly near Senolok?’

‘Small,’ Airex admitted. ‘A distortion just outside of the system. Records suggest an accident on a trade vessel a month ago; the warp core overloaded while fully active. We may need to help it along some.’

Her eyes dragged further down the PADD, and her hand came to her mouth. Now she knew why Airex looked so tired. ‘The Discovery’s crew?’

‘I don’t know. This was their transmission. And time isn’t on our side; Endeavour will still have to hold off the Devore ships while a runabout handles the probes. But if we can neutralise all blood dilithium in the region in time, they can’t use the Regulator. It’s a fighting chance.’

Thawn drew a shaky breath. ‘It is.’ She looked back at him. ‘What have you learnt from the Taxtose records?’

He grimaced at that, and reached for another PADD. ‘Some. I only have theories on how they’ll be interfacing a Regulator with the blood dilithium. Because the Regulator affects psionic energy, it has the means to connect to the psionic energy in dilithium itself. Only they’re using it as input to fuel a greater output. It’s sort of… dragging the psionic echoes from subspace and into real space, but at once converting it into a different kind of enrgy.’

She took it, fingertips numb. ‘I wonder what that does to the minds inside.’ Then she shook her head; that wasn’t a thought she wanted to give space. ‘Do you think we can stop them in time, if we can get a probe into this distortion?’

Airex sighed and gave a vague gesture. ‘We don’t know what the Regulator’s effects will be under these circumstances. In its normal state, it was used to temporarily neutralise a telepath. Only extensive exposure left them brain-dead. If that’s the case, they can’t just flick a switch and kill Senolok. They need time. Time I dare say we can deny them.’

‘And then,’ Thawn mused, ‘they’ll kill us anyway.’

‘Maybe. But I’ll tell the captain we have a plan. One which could save two million lives.’

Still Airex did not move, sitting with her in the shrouded science lab. In the silence it was as if she could feel the presence of the blood dilithium, like it strained against the containment to be felt, to be heard. Grinding her teeth together, Thawn tried to not look at him expectantly.

She plainly failed, the tall Trill sighing after a minute. ‘When we were on Taxtose…’ He hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Lieutenant Beckett said I’d been irresponsible to let you use the trumpet.’

Her eyes slammed shut. ‘You probably think I’m mad after that debriefing.’

‘I think this operation has proved that we truly have limited scientific understanding of telepathy,’ Airex said gently. ‘If you say you can feel him…’

‘I don’t know what I feel,’ she spat with venomous honesty. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything in the conference room, I just – everyone was acting like his being dead is a certainty, and it’s not a certainty. I…’ Her voice trailed off, and she twisted her fingers together before she croaked, ‘I think I’d have felt it.’

Airex was silent, and she could tell he was choosing which questions to ask and figuring out how to ask them politely. To spare him the challenge she said, not unkindly, ‘No, I don’t expect the captain to launch a rescue mission onto the Devore ship in the middle of pitched battle to find someone who might not even be there.’

‘That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to ask…’ Airex sucked his teeth. ‘Did you feel it when Noah Pierce died?’

‘That was different,’ she said quickly, and was relieved at the obvious implication. She’d been next to Noah when he’d died, thrown to the deck in the same impact that had overloaded his helm controls and killed him. She hadn’t needed to feel his death telepathically. And she didn’t need to dive into any similarities in her feelings about Nate Beckett.

But still she could not leave it there, shoulders hunching in. ‘I did feel it,’ she admitted at last. ‘Not the moment. I felt the… the absence. But Noah and I worked side-by-side for – for years, it was different…’

‘I’m not here to cast any aspersions,’ Airex said, voice still kind. ‘But I don’t think you’re crazy, Lieutenant. And I don’t judge you. And I’m sorry that you’re going through this.’

She hadn’t cried for Noah. Not for weeks, months until after his death; not til the Wild Hunt were beaten and the explanation and justice for his murder had been found. She didn’t even know if Nate was dead, but that familiar taste of grief and bitterness rose in her throat and was enough to choke her if she couldn’t swallow it down.

For once, Rosara Thawn didn’t try. For once, she let the pain and helplessness rise up, let it bend her double, and with the awkward but comforting presence of Davir Airex sat beside her, buried her face in her hands and sobbed in the gloom of the science lab, where they still did not know how to save the day.

When he opened his eyes, all was dark. But he wasn’t in an EV suit, and he was lying on what felt like a bunk, albeit an uncomfortable one. Sitting up made his head pound, but he was moving, breathing, and with a groan, Nate Beckett brought his hands to his temples.

He was stripped down to the under-layers of his EV suit, and sat in a tiny chamber with nothing but this ledge to lie on. A single door was the only other feature, with a tiny window letting in the faintest hint of light. It was not, he realised with a sinking heart, very difficult to figure out what had happened.

They’d found him in the dark, Devore soldiers in armoured EV suits brandishing rifles, cornered him as he’d tried desperately to seal the doors to the storage chambers. But it had been too little and too late, and even though he’d raised his hands and tried to surrender, when they’d opened fire he’d honestly thought they’d shot to kill.

But when he rose from the bunk with a groan, stumbled to the door and pressed against the small window to see the rows of doors beyond, he knew where he was. And perhaps it might have been a kindness to have been killed beneath the surface of Taxtose IV, instead of spared to be thrown in a Devore cell.

He did not know how much time had passed before there was eventually a thudding of footsteps down the corridor, but by then he was slumped on the bunk, head in his hands. Light all but blinded him as the door opened and illumination flooded in, but a moment later there was a silhouette before him, and the sight of rifles levelled at his face.

‘Starfleet.’ Commissioner Halyx’s voice was a low sneer. ‘Let’s see what you know.’

‘I understand, Governor. You do right.’ Rourke set his lips as he gave a stern nod to the haggard-faced leader of the Brenari colony of Senolok. ‘We don’t want to make evacuation ships a target. The enemy aren’t far now.’

The steel-haired woman looked like not much rattled her, but she had to wring her hands at their daunting circumstances. ‘Our fate is in your hands, then, Captain.’

‘We won’t let you down.’ The viewscreen died, and Rourke ran his hands through his hair as he turned back to the bridge. ‘Let’s not make that a lie, people.’

There was a chirrup from Ops, and Athaka tensed as he read. Rourke watched him with a hint of impatience, knowing what was coming, not liking that the nervy young deputy was yet again on his bridge for a battle. ‘Two minutes,’ the lieutenant said at last.

‘Right. Put me through to the whole ship, Elsa.’ Rourke blew out his cheeks. Before them on the viewscreen now spun the gentle orb of Senolok, all blues and greens and the faintest shimmer of the orbital shield that protected them from outside threats – except for the one bearing down in seconds. The Brenari leadership had been appalled at Starfleet’s news, and begun a cautious evacuation of some of their most vulnerable, though Rourke had warned about sending too much of a convoy; if the Devore pursued, they could not be protected. Orbital defences were active and powered and gave Endeavour some bolstering, but they were not ready for a full militarised assault.

At Lindgren’s nod, he drew a sharp breath. ‘All hands, this is the captain. In moments, warships of the Devore Imperium will be here, set to slaughter the people of Senolok. We’re not going to let that happen. I know it’s a tall order; I know we’re outgunned and relying on a theory, and even if we stop them from killing the telepaths, they might blow us up out of spite.

‘But I don’t know how to stand on the sidelines and watch as this happens. I don’t know how we shrug and move on without even trying. We’re Starfleet, and I know none of you want to walk away and leave these people to this suffering and slaughter. I don’t know how much of a chance we have, I truly don’t. But I know we have no choice. Because this is who we are. And the Devore have to go through us.’

There were chirrups at consoles, flickers in between the distant stars on the viewscreen. Three warships dropped out of warp and began their laborious approach.

Rourke gave a tight, humourless smile. ‘Here they come.’

‘I’m monitoring,’ Danjuma said unhappily, ‘for high levels – that is, any levels – of psionic energy from their ships. Probably the one we faced at Taxtose. Once we’re sure they’ve got the Regulator and are using it, I’ll report.’

‘Because we could,’ mused Kharth, ‘always just blow that one asshole ship up.’

‘It’s on the list,’ said Rourke, easing back into the command chair. ‘Bring us about, Mister Arys.’

‘Black Knights are in formation,’ Rosewood called from mission control at the aft. ‘Ready to intercept any long-range torpedoes.’

‘Sir,’ called Lindgren. ‘Lead Devore ship is hailing us.’

Rourke threw a wink to Valance. ‘Time to be a convincing distraction. On screen.’

‘Endeavour, you don’t seem to realise how this works,’ came the cool, collected tones of Commissioner Halyx. ‘You kept your tail between your legs at Taxtose, when you might, might have beaten us. Now the odds are worse, and you’re standing your ground against three Devore warships?’

‘None of my Academy instructors ever said I was smart,’ Rourke said amiably. ‘But no, fighting isn’t my first port of call here, Halyx. I’m hoping to reason with you. What do you gain from this attack?’

‘A demonstration of the might of -’

‘You’ve turned everyone against you as you’ve expanded your borders. Your military can’t sustain this expansion and protect your new territory in the manner to which your people have become accustomed. You have a whole slew of more gaharey on your new worlds; you have to do something with them. And I dare say most Devore accept the simple, clean words of “relocation,” without thinking too hard about what it means.’ He waited a beat for emphasis. ‘How will your citizens feel about openly slaughtering people in their millions? People far from your borders, or in the new territories you didn’t need to take? How will they feel when your borders are attacked by all these new enemies – when they fall because you don’t have the defensive infrastructure? How will that reflect on your glorious Imperium when you pick a fight you can’t win?’

Halyx’s expression didn’t shift. ‘Are you done, Captain?’

Rourke’s shoulders sank. ‘Soon, Commissioner,’ he sighed. ‘Soon.’ With a curt wave of the hand, he had Lindgren cut the line.

Valance looked up at him, eyebrow raised. ‘That was for show?’

‘It should have been,’ he grumbled, sitting back. ‘I don’t know why I expect these people to listen to reason.’

‘Reason would rip their whole world view apart,’ she pointed out. ‘Theirs aren’t intellectually honest principles.’

‘So let’s blow them up like the authoritarian assholes they are,’ suggested Kharth, with a bravado Rourke felt was, for once, intentionally offered to buoy spirits.

‘They’re closing,’ Arys affirmed. ‘And fast. Escort ships are flanking the lead. They won’t let us get an easy line of attack.’

Danjuma’s breath caught. ‘I’m reading high emissions of psionic energy from the lead ship, sir. They’ve activated the Regulator.’

‘Then we’ve run out of options.’ Rourke leaned on the armrest, gaze sweeping across the crew. ‘We have to give the Guinevere time to take out their blood dilithium.’ He nodded. ‘Step to contact.’

A beep from her controls dragged Thawn’s eyes away from the system-wide sensor feed confirming Endeavour was engaging the Devore. ‘Probe is away,’ she reported, focus returning to the here and now. ‘How’s the distortion looking?’

Airex sucked his teeth. ‘Exposure to the tachyons is exacerbating the disturbance. I’m detecting   multiple – minor – subspace fractions.’

From the pilot’s controls of the runabout Guinevere’s cockpit, Lieutenant Harkon gave a low whistle. ‘Enough for this to suck up all the blood dilithium?’

‘It’ll work,’ said Airex with a confidence Thawn could sense he didn’t entirely feel. ‘The question is how long it’ll take.’

Thawn drummed her fingers on the console, jaw tight as she read. ‘Antiproton bursts off the probe are dissipating in proximity to the anomaly. It’s doing something.’

‘Is the probe still there?’

She nodded. ‘The fractures aren’t big enough to consume it.’

‘This,’ said Harkon nervously, ‘doesn’t sound like it’s definitely going to work.’

Thawn looked back at the main sensor feed to see how the battle was progressing. Endeavour was trying to keep itself between the Devore ships and the planet, likely to disrupt any of their efforts to activate the Regulator. It would still not be enough. Their only advantage was that it would take time for exposure to become lethal to the telepaths on Senolok.

With a scowl she stood and turned to the aft. ‘I’m going to monitor our blood dilithium.’ She was only halfway to the rear cabin before the wave of feelings rushing from nowhere hit her almost hard enough to break her in half.

There is light –

– freedom –

– escape –

She slammed her eyes shut as relief filled her, relief that was not her own and was, from her position, entirely premature. ‘It’s working,’ she croaked, almost too quiet to be heard. ‘The ghosts, the echoes, they’re – it’s working.’

Airex was at her shoulder, helping her to stand steady and guiding her towards the rear cabin. ‘We can do this,’ he insisted. But when they looked at the display on the blood dilithium’s containment, all readings remained familiar and steady. The crystals were still nestled within.

‘This isn’t happening fast enough,’ Thawn breathed. ‘Our sample should be disappearing first…’

‘Give it time,’ said Airex, though his jaw was tight.

Thawn crossed to the wall panel and brought up the sensor feed. The dots of Senolok and the battle raging above shone bright, and at the tap of a button she redirected the Guinevere’s sensors to scan the ships more closely. ‘Endeavour’s taking a hammering.’

‘We’ve barely started -’

‘And they’re not going to last if we take this long.’

Airex drew a faltering breath. ‘I share your fears, Lieutenant. But we’re doing all we can.’

She bit her lip. ‘Maybe.’ Another press of the button brought up a fresh display, this one Airex’s own notes on their records about the Vizan Regulator from Taxtose. ‘This thing draws on the psionic energy in the blood dilithium, and it can do that because… because the Vaadwaur figured out something we never did: how to manipulate this psionic energy with technology.’

‘I’m not sure how it works,’ Airex admitted. ‘There are scientific principles I’m unfamiliar with in their research – or at least, how it all fits together.’

‘With this connectivity, they’re drawing the psionic energy from the crystals and fully into this dimension, while we want it back in subspace.’ She wasn’t sure what she was driving at; knew she was reading out loud with the forlorn hope it would lead to some spark of inspiration.

‘The antiproton bursts will still work,’ Airex insisted. ‘They’ll run out of their power source as the blood dilithium dissipates.’

Thawn closed her eyes, leaning on the console. ‘They’re happy, the Brenari echoes,’ she breathed. ‘But there’s something else. I don’t know if they can sense the Devore, sense that they’re being turned into a weapon; I don’t know if it’s just that being freed means they’re letting go of vengeance… but I can still feel that anger on the edge.’

‘Once the probe does its work,’ Airex said, ‘they won’t be a weapon any -’

Thawn’s eyes flashed open. ‘I know what I have to do.’ She rounded back on the central equipment, but it was past the main containment controls that she walked, and instead advanced on the subspace trumpet.

‘Lieutenant…’ He sounded even more tense. ‘Using the trumpet isn’t necessary by the reports -’

‘The reports say it might make it easier. Easier could mean faster,’ she pointed out, but by the look in his eye, she could tell he didn’t believe her. That was fine; he had no way to suspect what she really intended, and no grounds to refuse her. ‘Don’t talk about risk to me when everyone’s necks are on the line on Endeavour, and all we’re doing is standing by…’

‘We’re not standing by.’ But he shook his head at last. ‘Fine. Be careful, Lieutenant.’

She reached for the cortical scanners and pressed them to her temples. ‘We are far, far past that point, sir. I don’t intend to be careful. I intend to succeed.’

The screams were like she always heard them – terrified as much as agonised, the yells and whimpers of those who died but also those who were trapped watching. She was another step away, the helpless watching the helpless, caught in the winds just beyond the eye of the storm of pain and loss.

But though the sound was the shards of the anguish of others, the sights were from her own personal hell. The tight clamps on her wrist. The cold metal of the chair she was strapped to. The darkness surrounding the ring of light, shrouding unknown technologies and procedures preparing mysterious experiments and sufferings just for her. The leering face of the warped mirror image of Noah Pierce.

‘Don’t fight,’ he said, like he’d said on the ISS Endeavour as the other Doctor Sadek had tried to pry her brain open to turn it into a weapon. ‘It’ll only make it worse for you.’

The shadows swirled like they hadn’t at the time and never before had in her memories, and the screams of the slaughtered Brenari shifted to become those whispers that were like old and unwelcome friends by now.

‘This isn’t the same,’ they hissed. ‘A day of suffering against a lifetime of being hunted -’

‘I didn’t bring us here,’ Thawn whimpered, eyes slamming shut as tears streamed freely. ‘I didn’t ask for this. I came to speak to you and this happened…’

‘There is a light. A tiny escape. When we are gone, all there is, is you. You will remain, after we press on to the beyond – or after the Devore kill all our people, you and yours will go on because they will not hunt you…’

‘The Devore are trying to use you!’ she hissed. ‘You can feel it, can’t you? In here we’re being pulled two ways. Sent back into subspace, ending this imprisonment. Or dragged into that – that engine of suffering that’s being brought on your people -’

‘We can escape,’ the voices pulsed. ‘We see the battle of your comrades, we see their determination. We can flee, move on, end this -’

‘Not in time.’ She struggled against the restraints, but to no avail. ‘Not before too many of your people are hurt or killed. And not before my people are killed – killed trying to save yours…’

‘We can be freed…’

‘Not yet!’ The restraints rattled and she felt them shudder, felt them almost break. ‘You can help us!’

Then the shadow loomed over her again, the broad figure of the twisted mockery of Noah Pierce slamming her back onto the cold metal. His touch was like fire, not on her shoulder where his hand gripped tight, but in her temples, inside her head.

And though she felt the shards of the slaughtered Brenari slip away to freedom slowly, far too slowly, everything else was the searing agony of torments past and present.

Endeavour rocked as the latest flurry of weapons fire thudded into her, and Rourke had to grip tight on the armrest to not be thrown from his chair.

‘Shields are down to twenty percent!’ called Kharth, fighting to be heard over the thundering sound of impact and alert sirens, barely keeping her footing.

‘Escort is breaking off its attack; we gave them a beating.’ Danjuma had been forced to drag herself back up to her console. Rourke had worried how the nervy young officer would do on bridge duty under combat conditions, but it seemed like everything had been too fast and too terrible to leave time for fear.

Still, her inexperience shone through with how optimistic she sounded, and Rourke’s jaw tightened as he read the sensor display. ‘But not enough to finish them off, and the main ship’s coming for us. Brace for impact.’

‘Rerouting shields to protect -’

Kharth’s efforts were lost in the next hammering. The deck bucked and this time, Rourke couldn’t keep a hold. He flew from the chair and onto the carpeted deck, catching himself only enough so he didn’t hit his head very hard. Stars exploded in front of his eyes, and in the distant ringing that filled his ears it was all but impossible to hear the bridge.

It felt like he’d only been down a couple of seconds, stirring slowly, but when he pushed himself upright he realised it must have been longer. Valance was stood over him, barking orders. Blood trickled down the side of Lindgren’s face from a blow she’d taken to the temple, and Athaka was no longer at Ops but propped up by the bulkhead, Lieutenant Zherul checking him over. Commander Rosewood had taken his post.

‘We’ve got hull breaches on decks six through nine,’ he was barking. ‘Trying to reroute emergency power to our shields, but we’ve lost a whole power relay on deck thirteen and Engineering have bigger fish to fry.’

‘We’ve got a hint of shields on our port side,’ Kharth confirmed. ‘Not much.’

‘Arys, bring our port side to face them,’ Valance snapped. ‘We can still manoeuvre faster than them.’

But when Endeavour spun it was more of a lurch than her usual graceful slide, and it made it even harder for Rourke as he clambered to his feet. The deck’s shuddering almost made him fall again, then Valance’s hand was at his elbow, hauling him upright with the strength he always underestimated.

‘Still with us, sir?’ Her brow furrowed with concern.

‘Present,’ he rasped, pressing a hand to his aching temple. ‘Danjuma, what’s the word on the Regulator?’

The science officer shook her head. ‘The psionic energy emissions off the lead Devore ship have gone down – but only ten percent, sir. I’m detecting the antiprotons from the Guinevere’s distortion, but nothing’s happening fast enough.’

Kharth swore in Romulan. ‘We have to take Halyx’s ship out.’

Rourke all but collapsed into the command chair. ‘Get me the full scan of their condition,’ he ordered, waving a hand at the viewscreen. The reading wasn’t encouraging: damaged but functioning shields, minimal impact to the hull. The shining bright power signature from their warp core, a less-sophisticated engine than Endeavour’s but still burning hot.

Valance cleared her throat. ‘Sufficient damage to their aft engines could take out the whole ship,’ she confirmed.

‘How,’ said Danjuma, ‘are we supposed to hit them that hard?’

The pain in Rourke’s temples didn’t fade, but the thudding felt like it stopped as it became wholly irrelevant. His gaze drifted right to meet Valance’s, and for a heartbeat they regarded each other. Her nod was almost imperceptible.

‘Two million people,’ he mused, lips setting into a hard line before he drew a deep breath. ‘Lieutenant Arys, I’m giving you a flight route. Kharth, you and the Black Knights have to keep the escort ships from stopping us. Rosewood – give us a balance between durability and speed. This is no good if we can’t get there.’

Silence met his words, though the sound of his officers’ hands hitting their controls, the bleeps of these commands, made it clear they were setting to work. Heartbeats later, the first voice was from Lindgren, small and apprehensive.

‘So. We’re really doing this, huh?’

‘It was a good plan,’ offered Arys, his expression set. ‘This’ll do, too.’

Rosewood twisted back in his seat at Ops. ‘What does Starfleet do, not save two million people?’

‘Historically, yes,’ pointed out Kharth dryly. ‘But I promise I won’t keep on about it.’

Again, Rourke’s gaze landed on Valance, who sighed before she shook her head. ‘I’d refuse to say this under any other circumstances. But today is a good day to die.’

‘It’s bloody well not,’ he scoffed good-naturedly, ‘but it’s the day we’ve got.’ Matt Rourke jerked a finger at the viewscreen, shining with the hulls of the two battered Devore escort ships and, beyond them, the main vessel carrying the Regulator that could bring death to the millions of people on the green-blue orb of Senolok below.

‘You have your orders, everyone. Mister Arys? Ramming speed.’

Eventually she fell to darkness. For a time that was all Thawn knew: the black, the pain, the tormented whispers slipping away. Her own prison. By the time faint pinpricks of light broke the dark, she did not know if she had been there moments or lifetimes.

But they were not mere beacons; they were stars, shining brighter and brighter to fill a night sky, however much she was adrift. The whispers surrounding her took more form and focus, sweeping towards a single dot that grew stronger even as it began to flicker.

This was all around her and all around the ship, as far across the system as she could sense, and the single dot was the anomaly. The distortion their runabout had fractured, with the probe now nestled within sending out its pulses. Its summons, its calls, bringing the echoes of murdered Brenari forth from the blood dilithium, sending them back to subspace. Dissipating them. Ending this.

But slowly, all too slowly. Thawn could feel them, almost see them as they drifted through the dark, ebbing and pulsing rather than rushing to this gate that would let them loose.

And on the far end, like a thread tugging at them, was the Regulator. It was as if she could spin and see it, and then she saw the knot of lights pulsing around Senolok. Minds, feelings, fears – millions of them, and all centred around the twist that was Endeavour and the battle. Her people, her family, locked in a struggle they could not win. Their helplessness pulsed off them and into her. Their determination.

Their sacrifice.

She reached out like she could grab a thread of the receding Brenari echoes. ‘You have to help them. You’re being turned on your own.’

‘If we flee,’ the voices murmured, ‘they’re safe…’

‘My people won’t be.’ But she could not bring more than fear with her, and fear seemed to only drive the Brenari echoes on, encourage them much too slowly to their escape. The fear nestled in her heart was only good to send the echoes on their way.

‘Look at the Devore,’ Thawn insisted instead, and turned her focus – all their focus, the focus of this place where only thought and memory ruled – to the warships nestled in the knot of light of battle. ‘They’ve come to conquer. They’ve come to kill. You can feel them. Their hate. Their disregard. They’ll cut down anyone in their way because that’s easier than facing their fear.’

The thread of Brenari echoes wavered, and Thawn felt as if her heart rose at the anger humming within them. Her mind reached out further across the system. She stretched out with her telepathy like she hadn’t in years, decades – perhaps ever – to pull as far as she could, drag her senses towards the Devore soldiers. And beyond them was the Regulator, twisted like a thorny bramble in the centre of this all, burning along with the hate blazing in the hearts of the Devore. If she could dredge it to the fore, the Brenari echoes would see it. She needed their rage.

And though that blazing fire came out, and though she felt the echoes stir, she also found something else. A tiny beacon nestled amid the flames, something precarious and unexpected. Amid the knot of hatred of the Devore, she found Nate Beckett. Trapped. Afraid. Alive.

Imperilled.

Because this was a place of only thought and memory, she did not scream. But this was also a place of feeling, and in her heart burned a new fire. Brighter and fiercer and more righteous than the hatred of the Devore, it blazed out from her in a wave that did more than capture the echoes of the Brenari.

It ignited them. And turned them.

Her pleas had not altered their course. Her begs for assistance, her raging fear, had either fallen unheard or ushered them to escape, flee the sucking vortex of the Regulator and rush for the door opened by their probe. Now, with the call of the Regulator to help them manifest and her fury and hate lighting the way, there was a new path, a new target: every single Devore in the Senolok system.

The howling rage she had felt since her first brush with blood dilithium joined with her own fury now, and the echoes of the Brenari fell upon their enemy.

The cuff on Beckett’s wrist had rubbed his skin raw, but with the sight of the battle raging before him on the Devore ship’s viewscreen, his own hide was the least of his problems. He gave another experimental tug, rattling against the railing and winning a suspicious look from his Devore guard, but otherwise achieved nothing. All eyes were on Endeavour.

‘What are they doing?’ Halyx mused as she saw the mighty Obena-class come about towards them and trying to slip past one of the Devore escort ships. ‘They’re coming right at us; they must know they can’t sustain a frontal assault.’

‘Oh, no,’ breathed Beckett before he could stop himself.

That won Halyx’s attention, and she ignored the reports of her bridge officers as she rounded on him. A vein throbbed at her temple. ‘Explain, Starfleet.’

His breath caught. ‘I thought you just wanted me to witness Devore might, not help –’ The blow from the butt of his guard’s rifle caught him at the temple, and had it not been for the cuffs, he’d have fallen to the deck. Instead his knees hit the deck awkwardly, jarring his shoulder, his head spinning.

Halyx scoffed and turned back. ‘Some blaze of glory of righteous fools,’ she sneered. ‘We’ll see how…’ Then she staggered, eyes shutting.

‘Commissioner?’ called an anxious soldier – then he, too, wavered.

Beckett blinked hard to clear his vision as across the bridge, Devore soldiers swayed on their feet, pressed hands to their heads. He was wary as he pulled himself upright, mindful his guard might hit him again, but when he looked at the man he saw him dabbing at a nosebleed, eyes widening with confusion – and pain.

When Halyx turned to him again, blood seeped from her eyes. ‘What are you doing to us, gaharey?’ she gasped of him. Had she had more strength, there would have been more fury. Instead he heard only a rasping fear.

‘I don’t…’ Beckett’s jaw fell, his gut twisting in sick and terrified knots. A metre away, a Devore soldier keeled over. On the other side, one clutched his head with both hands and began whimpering. From the distant corridors of the ship, he heard screaming.

‘You hunted us…’

One by one, the tiny dots of light that were the minds and hearts of the Devore clustered together went dim.

‘You trapped us…’

Only as Thawn’s own fury faded could she truly feel that of the Brenari. If in her heart there had been a fire, all around her was a blazing inferno. And it would not stop until it had destroyed all in its path.

‘You slaughtered us… then you sent us here to suffer and watch…’

And as the raging hatred and vengeance of the murdered Brenari echoes, what lingered of the minds of the telepaths, reached to snuff out, one by one, every single Devore within their reach, all Thawn could do was reach out also. Not to kill, not to hurt, not with fury. But to find that tiny speck that was Nate Beckett and wrap her thoughts around him in a bubble.

‘…and we will have our vengeance.’

‘But not,’ Thawn’s thoughts urged, ‘against him.’

For what felt like a lifetime, all that could be heard on the Devore bridge was the chirruping of ships’ systems and the rasping of Beckett’s breathing. If he could, he would have stayed there, clutching himself as he stood trapped amid a sea of his captors’ corpses. They had struggled. Writhed. Screamed. And then they had, all of them, dropped dead. Leaving only him.

Only desperation gave his muscles strength, so he had to drag himself forward. Had to step over the corpse of his guard so he could reach.

Blood stained his fingertips as he stretched out, just barely able to reach the controls Halyx’s corpse was slumped next to. Only because he had watched, quietly hoping he might be able to do something, anything during the battle, did he know what button to press to open the comm systems.

‘Endeavour – stop what you’re doing! It’s over, the Devore are – they’re dead, I can’t explain it, but don’t fucking ram us!’ His voice was borderline hysterical, and Beckett knew that he only found words and coherency because if he didn’t, they were all going to die.

And still he couldn’t help but add in a quick jumble, ‘Oh, it’s Nate by the way, I’m not dead.’

A pause. More bleeping of the Devore systems, more merciless silence from the corpses of the crew. A crackle. Then Rourke’s voice, rough and surprised. ‘Nate?’

But Endeavour broke off its suicide run, and that was enough for Nate Beckett to close his eyes and slide to the deck of the Devore ship, still shackled to a bridge railing, and still trapped in the middle of this sea of slaughter.

‘I’m just glad we could help, Governor.’ It wasn’t false modesty that drove Rourke’s words, but a far more human exhaustion. Validating though it was to hear the leader of a planet gush with gratitude for how Endeavour’s crew had saved them from annihilation, he wanted, more than anything else, to sleep.

Senolok’s governor did leave him soon after. Rourke had made promises and facilitated contact between the colony and the DEI’s offices on Markonian. Starfleet had a foot in the door with another potential friendly port in the Delta Quadrant, somewhere to resupply or find safe harbour against danger. Sometimes, altruism paid off for more than just the soul.

But the soul was exhauted, and once Rourke had shut off his ready room console, he slumped back in his chair, eyes shut. He had staff meetings looming, reports expected from various departments, and no time to switch off yet. He could spare only minutes for himself.

So the thump on the door to his ready room brought him snapping upright, blurting, ‘Come in!’ before his brain had activated. Only when Valance walked in did he realise how long he’d been sat there. ‘Oh, Commander – hell, I was due on the bridge…’

‘I did try the door-chime.’ His XO’s voice was only gently reproachful as she approached the desk, PADDs in hand. ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you.’

He blinked the gumminess out of his eyes as best he could. ‘I was just taking five.’ A glance at the chronometer on his display proved that a lie. Clearing his throat, he turned to her. ‘Yes. Status reports. What’s Engineering got to say?’

Valance’s lips thinned. ‘Commander Cortez has repaired what power conduits she can and rerouted the ones she can’t. She can replicate and repair various systems, but that will take time, and won’t be as efficient as putting in for maintenance. Without a shipyard, that’s a fortnight’s work.’

‘What’s our resource situation until then?’

‘Reasonable unless we run into trouble or get ambitious. Lieutenant Thawn’s laid out power allocation programmes to maintain day-to-day operations. Low-priority systems like some of our science labs will be out of use for the period. But if we hit a combat situation necessitating full power it could get…’ Valance hesitated. ‘Bad.’

‘Bad?’

‘I’m translating from Commander Cortez.’

Rourke sighed. ‘Then I have mixed news. Orders from the DEI are to make a dash back to the wormhole. Can you get Cortez and Thawn to give us the speed without sitting in the dark for three days?’

‘It’ll be tough, but achievable. We can have cut-throat repair prioritisation if it means we’re at Starbase 38 sooner. I’ll give the orders.’ Valance hesitated. ‘What if we don’t make it to the wormhole on time?’

‘Patrols in proximity to Markonian. We expect significant fallout from the Devore after this, after what happened to Discovery and a myriad of other encounters. If we’re in the Delta Quadrant for another month, the DEI wants us waving the flag.’ He tilted his head. ‘You disapprove.’

‘I – no, sir. That sounds important, and we’re an impressive ship.’

‘But?’

Valance hesitated. ‘There are parts of the Gradin Belt Starfleet’s never been to. We’d never been to Taxtose before. With another month…’

‘We might end up in trouble before Cortez finishes repairs,’ Rourke pointed out gently.

‘We might end up in trouble waving the flag near Markonian.’

For a moment he watched her, wondering if he should press this point. ‘Commander Cortez will have to give the SCE a reply once we’re back in the Alpha Quadrant.’

‘That isn’t my argument,’ said Valance, a little too quickly. ‘We’re always a bulwark against political turmoil, sir. If we’re here…’

‘Let’s cross that road,’ Rourke interjected, ‘if we don’t make the sprint to the wormhole.’ He shifted his weight. ‘You want to talk about the orders I gave in that battle.’

Valance stiffened. ‘If I’d disagreed, I wouldn’t have held my tongue. The Devore needed to be stopped.’

‘We were lucky, though. Lucky the Regulator backfired and let the Brenari echoes loose on their murderers.’ The report from the Guinevere, and especially Lieutenant Thawn, had been cagey on details. But Airex made it plain their understanding of telepathy was murky at best, and Thawn’s report contained concepts that, to a non-telepath, read like someone trying to describe colours. In this case, Rourke accepted what he was told.

‘The plan worked,’ Valance pointed out. ‘Just differently than we hoped.’

‘But it’s on your mind. The possibility we’d have sacrificed the ship to stop them.’

‘Of course it’s weighing -’

‘I mean, you’re wondering if you’d have ordered the same in my shoes.’

She straightened. ‘I try to not second-guess you like that, because I know I’ll never know for sure until I’m in the chair.’

Rourke opened and shut his mouth. But you want to find out, he didn’t say, because he didn’t quite dare tip her along further. It was a petty and selfish silence, where after all he’d been through, he didn’t want to face a new unknown. At length he said, instead, ‘I don’t know if I’d have dared give the order if you didn’t have my back, Commander.’

When she left not long after, he could tell he hadn’t made anything easier, hadn’t lifted her burdens. In his heart of hearts, he knew his words were manipulative, designed to impress on her how important she was here, how essential she was to him and the ship.

Regardless of the good she could do elsewhere. Regardless of whether her heart was burning for not knowing what she was capable of.

It was a while before he returned to the bridge. Kharth was in the centre seat, but he waved her back down as he padded for the aft of the chamber to the mission control section where Rosewood sat with his head in his hands.

He looked just as exhausted, jerking upright with an apologetic look. ‘I was just taking a minute -’

‘I think we can stretch to a minute, Commander.’ Rourke nodded at the long-range sensor displays. ‘How’re we doing?’ He’d sent the diplomatic officer to the SOC in the last twenty-four hours to catch up on local affairs, Beckett signed off-duty to recover from his ordeal.

‘You’ve had the DEI report,’ mused John Rosewood with a shrug, lounging back in the seat now he had permission. ‘Success in Starfleet operations to dissipate blood dilithium, but it’s an ongoing process. Devore ships withdrawing as they’re failing to secure the stuff. I think we’ve got them on their heels, and if our understanding of their society’s correct, it’s going to have an impact.’

‘What sort?’

Rosewood grimaced in apology for his vagueness. ‘Authoritarian regimes don’t do well with failure. It cracks the mask they present to their people. The successful ones don’t tend to stick with a rough deal to try to pull something out of the fire – they give up, find a scapegoat, and turn their focus on an easy win.’

‘You reckon the Devore won’t commit to expansionism now they’ve been given a bloody nose?’

‘If what we know about them is right.’ Rosewood shrugged again, gaze returning to the displays. ‘Starfleet’s made some more friends, though.’

Rourke blew his cheeks out. ‘For all our ships have been through, that’s not nothing.’

‘Out here?’ Rosewood looked up at the captain, eyebrows raised, grin cheerful despite it all. ‘I’d say that’s everything. Lighten up, sir. We killed some bad guys and saved some days.’

We’ve got dozens of injuries, some critical. Rhade murdered a man, T’Kalla collapsed into catatonia, and Turak locked himself away to save his sanity. God knows what Thawn went through. Rourke stopped himself from saying this, knowing he’d sound pessimistic, knowing Rosewood wasn’t wrong.

‘Yeah,’ he said roughly, and clapped Rosewood on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, we did.’ How long had it been, he wondered, since he’d looked back on their missions and seen the good instead of all they’d bled and suffered?

But introspection could come later. There was important business to tend to first. This time, he did assume the command seat when Kharth surrendered it, easing down with a groan. ‘Has Engineering confirmed we can get underway?’

‘Warp systems fully operational, sir,’ Athaka confirmed from Operations.

‘Mister Arys, at maximum speed can we still hit the wormhole on time?’

‘If power systems hold for that long,’ Arys reported.

Rourke pressed his hands to his weary eyes. ‘Elsa, signal our farewells to Senolok. The DEI will send someone to make friends.’

Lindgren’s smile was slight, but firm. ‘I think we’ll break their hearts not sticking around for the gift basket.’

‘We’ll have to endure. If we’re too slow for the wormhole, maybe we’ll be back here. Maybe we’ll shake our fists at some more Devore. Maybe we’ll take the chance to go somewhere nobody’s been before. But if not…’ Rourke nodded to the front of the bridge. ‘Take us home, Mister Arys.’

‘I can’t recommend seeing him.’ Counsellor Carraway’s voice was as kind as Thawn had ever heard it, which made it clear he was really serious and things were pretty bad. But she hadn’t needed telling this. She’d sensed Rhade’s anguish from halfway across the system as the blood dilithium had dissipated and the Guinevere had returned to the Endeavour and he’d recovered his senses enough to realise what had happened. What he’d done.

‘That’s fine,’ Thawn said, trying to mask her relief. ‘But it’s important that you can tell him I stopped by, isn’t it. That I want to see him. That he’s not a pariah.’

Endeavour didn’t often use the suites near the offices of Carraway’s staff. She had, for about two days after their escape from the other Endeavour, needing supervision and support from mental health workers in a shattering aftermath. Today Carraway stood vigil in his office as caretaker of those abused by the Brenari echoes, and gatekeeper against those who would intrude.

And still he had time, even as he nodded with sympathy, to lock on her with those kindly and suddenly beady blue eyes. ‘And how’re you, Lieutenant?’

‘I’m sure we can talk, Counsellor,’ she said carefully. ‘But maybe when you don’t have people in absolute crisis.’

‘You were using the trumpet to usher the Brenari echoes out of the blood dilithium. You must have felt what happened to the Devore.’

I didn’t just feel it. I made it happen. She affected a more studious frown. ‘I think it’ll be easier to talk about this once I’ve had some time, because honestly, I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to explain this to a non-telepath.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie. But it certainly wasn’t the whole truth.

‘I accept that,’ Carraway said gently. ‘But if you want to make an attempt, however imperfect, you know where I am.’

‘If we make it back through the wormhole, I promise I’ll speak to a telepathic professional on Starbase 38. If we don’t, I promise I’ll speak to you.’ Either way, she had about forty-eight hours. That was a long time in a master of repression like her.

Carraway didn’t look like he appreciated this much, but he had bigger priorities than her and they both knew it. He let her leave, but Thawn’s hopes at escaping examination of her own feelings sank when she stepped into the corridor and found Davir Airex waiting.

‘The counsellor -’

‘I was waiting for you,’ Airex said, confirming her apprehensions. His expression was upsettingly gentle for a man usually so emotionally detached. ‘I appreciate you won’t want to be crowded right now.’

‘It’s more that I’m busy right now, sir, trying to make sure this ship doesn’t rip itself apart so we can go home.’ She headed down the corridor, knowing he’d fall into step beside her, knowing it wasn’t an escape. It did mean the discussion couldn’t be too intimate, too involved.

‘Of course. But I was with you on the Guinevere. I was there the times you used the trumpet. I allowed and encouraged it. It’d be irresponsible of me to not try to help afterwards, Lieutenant.’ But when they reached a quieter stretch of corridor, he shifted to face her and forced her to stop and look at him. Otherwise her only option was to storm off rudely, and that would be too much of a statement.

She decided to let him force the issue. ‘Sir?’

Airex sighed, and it looked like he was struggling to meet her gaze. ‘I don’t judge, Lieutenant. And I don’t sign you up for compulsory therapy. And I respect you as one of the brightest minds I’ve ever worked with. I was with you for most of this, and I didn’t hold you back. If you let me, I’ll be with you for a little further.’

She heard the unspoken in his words, felt the unspoken radiating off him. A curious mixture of guilt and sincerity, an unexpected hint of kinship with which she didn’t necessarily disagree. But now was not the time, and though Thawn knew she wasn’t great with people, she knew how to deflect like a champion.

‘I’m very grateful you were with us for this mission,’ she said, because the best deflections contained some sincerity. ‘I – we – couldn’t have done this without you.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Airex allowed without arrogance, ‘but there was more than one key piece in this puzzle.’

‘If we’re back in the Alpha Quadrant soon, I expect you’ll be returning to Admiral Beckett’s office?’

‘That,’ he said carefully, ‘is the expectation.’

She could have left then, exploited his uncertainty. Whether it was a desire to keep him on the back foot, express her own sincerity, or perhaps delay what came next, she lingered, breath catching. ‘I think the captain would welcome you back, Commander. If that’s what you wanted.’

But she had to leave then, because the idea of people doing what they wanted was not one she had any particular desire to unpack. It was, at least, unsettling enough to Airex that he didn’t stop her.

She had consulted with Sickbay about her own health after using the trumpet. Done her work once cleared as fit for duty, helping Endeavour limp out of their ravaging battle against the Devore to get underway again. Come to Carraway so she was seen to see Rhade, falling under tension, as she always did, to what was expected of her. To her duty. Only now, with all these obligations done, could she do what she barely dared, and look to where she had failed in that duty.

The silence that met her tap of the door-chime to Nate Beckett’s quarters could not have been more than a few seconds, but it stretched out like lifetimes. When he answered he looked tired, suspicious, and didn’t particularly relax at the sight of her.

‘I… truth be told, I didn’t expect you,’ Beckett said, not unkindly, and stepped back to usher her in anyway. ‘I see we’ve left Senolok.’

She stepped into his quarters and let her eyes fall on the stars trailing past the window. ‘We’re dashing to the wormhole. Our power systems might not let us keep up enough speed to get there, but we’re trying.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a shame, or if I’d rather get the hell out of the Delta Quadrant,’ he admitted. Silence then fell between them, her with her eyes on the stars, apprehension coming off him in waves. Eventually he started, ‘Did you want a drink -’

‘We need to talk.’ Thawn turned, fingers twisting together, then, senselessly, words abandoned her and she hesitated for so long all she could do in the end was blurt, ‘I’m glad you’re not dead.’

Beckett looked cornered, but he had to scoff at that. ‘Me too. Is that what you came here to say?’

Her lips set, frustration with him making this easier. ‘I came to say,’ she started, voice more level – more cold, ‘that what happened before Taxtose was a mistake.’

He looked like he both expected this and was exhausted by it. ‘Because after all of this, after everything you’ve expressed about the arrangement, you’ll stay engaged to Rhade, probably for another million years.’

‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’

‘It’s really not,’ Beckett said hotly. ‘You don’t dare go against your family, and you don’t dare kick him when he’s down. Right now he’s going through hell and you won’t add to his problems even if it’s going to ruin your life -’

The frustration felt familiar. ‘You are ridiculous – you really thought I was about to throw my life away for you, Beckett? That losing my senses when I was at my lowest meant you were going to save me from my family obligations, from an arrangement that might be passionless but is still sensible?’ She felt him reel as much as saw it, and knew she had to push harder to deliver the knock-out blow. ‘It wasn’t about you.’

But rather than back down, this made him steel, gaze setting. ‘I might believe that,’ he said in a quiet, tense voice, ‘if I hadn’t stood on the bridge of that Devore ship and for just a moment felt those Brenari echoes as they killed everyone. Just for a moment felt them notice me…’

‘That has nothing to do -’

‘Notice me,’ Beckett pressed on, taking a step forward, ‘until something stopped them. Until you stopped them.’

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, swallowing hard. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what happened, you’re not a telepath,’ she said at last, voice hoarse. ‘But don’t you think I’d have protected anyone else, not just you?’

‘Maybe,’ he allowed. ‘But I know what it felt like.’

‘You don’t -’

‘It felt like you’d lost people before, and like you couldn’t stand for it to happen again.’ Beckett drew a slow, shuddering breath. ‘You can live your own damn life, Rosara, and you can screw it up if you want to, and maybe I’m not worth turning everything upside-down. But don’t insult me and say what happened meant nothing about you and me.’

As his words hit hard, she found her expression going blank, old practices kicking in to shield her from the inside as much as the outside. When Thawn responded at last, her voice was icy. ‘Maybe not. But whatever it meant, Nate, it didn’t mean enough.’ He hesitated, and her chin tilted up. ‘Are you satisfied?’

‘Satisfied -’

‘Don’t pretend this argument wasn’t to protect your ego. Because I know damn well you’ve no interest in me wrecking my life for you. That sounds a little bit too much like a commitment for Nathaniel Beckett.’

His lip curled. ‘Fine,’ Beckett snapped. ‘Stick with this meaningless engagement to Rhade to make your family happy. Because anything else sounds a little bit too much like courage for Rosara Thawn.’

Though his words were nothing she hadn’t screamed at herself in the night, they hit harder than anticipated, but he didn’t let it show as she stepped back, gaze cold. ‘It’s duty to something bigger than myself. I don’t expect you to understand that.’

She turned to the door, not expecting him to stop her. So when he spoke, she couldn’t help but falter at the audible emotion, tension, fear. ‘No – hang on, Rosara, we can talk -’

‘We’re heading back to the Alpha Quadrant.’ She wasn’t really aware of what she was saying, instincts kicking in to drive him away – to drive away all her treacherous hopes and feelings. ‘When we get there, I’m going to talk to Adamant. I’m going to talk to our families. And as soon as possible, we’re going to get married.’

Before he could summon a reply she left, stalking back into the corridor, back towards the turbolift, back towards her work. Perhaps in a day she could see Adamant Rhade, comfort him, convince him. Perhaps in the Alpha Quadrant she could reach out to her family, set this plan into motion. Perhaps it was time to stop running.

Perhaps she could do everything everyone demanded of her before, at last, those final threads holding her together snapped.