The tunnel of stars spinning on the viewscreen appeared to shatter apart when the Romulan warbird dove out of warp speed.  The swirling glow was replaced by a sensor image of the warbird’s present location.

Rising from her throne, Commander Cokitha took slow and measured steps toward the hologram.  The dim illumination on the bridge signalled that the Romulan Free State vessel under her command had remained cloaked with invisibility.  Dominating the viewscreen was the image of a sickly moon, growing larger as the warbird Vishatha entered its orbit.  Cokitha could identify only subtle contrasts between the moon’s green waters and grey land masses. She reached a hand out to the hologram, causing the image of the moon to distort over the contours of her fingers.  After listening for computerised chirps from the control panels behind her, she cocked her head to the left.

Without looking at any of her subordinates, Cokitha demanded, “Precisely where is the source of the distress beacon?”

Centurion Tahlee cleared his throat.  He shifted his weight from one boot to the other, where he stood behind a freestanding sensor console.  Tahlee kept his eyes on the down, studying the sensor feedback.

“A-hem, there is no sign of the distress beacon, nor any transmissions from the moon’s surface, commander,” Tahlee replied, in cautious and clipped tones.  “However, these are the coordinates we received in the mess–“

Cokitha rapped the heel of her boot against the deck twice.

“Continue your scans,” Cokitha ordered in a tone so condescending she wouldn’t have even attempted it on her four-year-old child.  She nodded at the viewscreen.  “The message.  Again.”

The stellar bodies on the viewscreen flashed out and were instantly replaced by a video distress call Cokitha understood to have been sent from that moon, only days or weeks earlier.  The video recording showed a Romulan woman of indeterminate age leaning against a rock formation in an underground cavern.  Framed by a frizzy nebula of dark hair, the Romulan’s heart-shaped face filled the screen, but it was her dark brown eyes that captured Cokitha’s attention.  Those eyes smouldered with a dark desire.

“To all Romulan vessels within the range of my voice, I order you to converge upon the encoded coordinates for star system DQ-358.  This is Science Minister Flavia ir-Llantrisant and I’ve led an archaeological team of five to their ruination,” said the recording of Flavia.  

She spoke emphatically, even a little breathlessly.  At times, subspace interference crackled a digital trill through her prolonged vowels.  At no point did the archaeological team of five become visible behind Flavia throughout the distress call.

Flavia declared, “We have been marooned here by the USS Sarek!  The Federation calls this moon Burleigh Minor and we’ve been stranded in a cave system beneath her skin.  The great Captain Taes judged our quest for knowledge to be immoral.  Unacceptable.  She has abandoned us, buried alive!”

Wincing slightly, Flavia’s eye-line drifted as she looked at something beyond the visual sensor-range of her communicator.  Flavia’s enunciation thus far has been reminiscent of how Cokitha had seen Flavia proselytise from the USS Sarek’s bridge, some three months earlier.  As she went on, Flavia spoke more quickly, emphasizing her words with greater urgency.

“There was a cave-in two days ago,” said the recording of Flavia.  “Three members of my landing party were injured.  I don’t know if the cave-in was caused by tectonic instability or if Starfleet continued their mining, despite our presence in the caves.  We lost our escape route to the surface and one of the deflector units that protected us from the solar radiation was destroyed.  If anyone can hear me now, it’s only because I stacked all of the adaptive amplifiers from a set of transporter pattern enhancers and spooled them into my communicator with every copper-yttrium 2153 hardline from the enhancers.”

Flavia smirked tragically.  “…Otherwise, I’m only amusing myself as my own dramaturge.“

Continuing, Flavia said, “Although this moon can nearly support life, there is no life to be found.  We have scanned the cavern system for organic sources of sustenance, but there is no substantive flora, animals or arthropods.  The only living beings to walk these cursed lands before us also came here aboard starships.“

“We find ourselves in subzero temperatures at night.  Our sensors tell us there are no vermin on this moon and yet we can hear movement in the dark, beyond our encampment.  We’ve been forced to tear apart the buried, alien starship we were excavating for study.  Its hull has proven valuable as a shelter when it grows cold.  If we heat the rocks with our disruptors, we can just about keep the interior warm enough to sleep.  Of course, the power cells in our disruptors can’t last more than a few days.“

“To survive, we pulled the bio-neural gel packs from the trans-sonic drills Starfleet abandoned when they left us here.  We boiled the bio-neural gel for hydration and protein.  It tasted like fermented lehe’jhme.”

All at once, the jagged edge of distress in Flavia’s voice went away.  The age lines at the corners of her eyes smoothed away.  She took a deep breath.  Flavia appeared calm, looking directly into her communicator’s visual sensor.  Suddenly, her expression became poised.

“Our tricorders have located a source of water precisely four kilometres away from our current encampment,” Flavia said, enunciating her words very carefully.  “That is well beyond the reach of our deflector units.  If we receive no aid, we may have to risk the solar radiation in search of the water.  If you’re hearing this, our lives depend on your very kindness.  Please.  Set course for our coordinates and rescue us with all haste.”

When the recorded distress call ended, Flavia’s composed expression flashed off the viewscreen.  An exterior view of the moon returned to the holographic display and Cokitha turned her back to it.

To her centurion, Cokitha asked, “What life signs can you detect on the surface of the moon?”

Tahlee tightened his jaw as he looked down upon his sensor interface.  He tapped at the input contacts on the panel and he tapped them again.  He looked up, looking Cokitha in the eyes.  He swallowed hard before he spoke.

Warily, Tahlee said, “None, commander.” 

Captain’s Log, Stardate 77842.5,

 

When my crew remotely observed a subspace phase pulse in the Delta Quadrant, I thought it little more than a space oddity.  For not the last time, my instincts were wrong.

 

Starfleet’s Delta Exploration Initiative recorded that subspace phase pulse across fourteen sectors of the Gradin Belt.  Dilithium crystals have spontaneously bloomed on planetoids and asteroids located near subspace anomalies in those same sectors.  The DEI weren’t the only ones to take notice.  All of the delta quadrant’s space-faring powers, and freebooters alike, have descended on those sectors to mine these new sources of dilithium.  They’re not alone, as merchants and miners from the Alpha and Beta Quadrant joined them when the Barzan wormhole last opened a month ago.

 

The USS Merevek has determined this dilithium is chemically identical to the ones we use in our warp drive systems, except for the crystals’ blood red colour.  Unexpectedly, the USS Merevek has also reported their telepathic crew members react to the blood dilithium with a range of intruding emotions, from as little as a sense of foreboding to outright aggressive outbursts.

 

After joining the Fourth Fleet at Guardian Station and travelling through the Barzan wormhole, the USS Sarek has been assigned to conduct research on the blood dilithium.  Because my own empathic abilities may eventually prove me a liability, the Sarek has been assigned to task force seventeen’s staging post in the Delta Quadrant: Starfleet’s operations centre in the Markonian Outpost.  As Starfleet is only renting the space from the Kinbori and Shivolian governments, the outpost has limited laboratory facilities available to us. The Sarek will serve as task force seventeen’s mobile research platform, studying the blood dilithium, its origins and the effect it’s having on telepaths.

 

As with all telepathic members of my crew, I have begun wearing a neurocortical monitor at all times to allow sickbay to monitor my vital signs.  I will be voluntarily sequestered to sickbay or the brig if my behaviour becomes… uncontrollable.  I can only guess at how I’ll respond once Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik returns to the Sarek with some of the first crystals of blood dilithium that have been collected by Starfleet.

A hush had fallen over the interior of the type-12 shuttlecraft, Ohalovaya.  From her vantage point in the pilot’s seat, Ensign T’Kaal could see all manner of shuttle comings and goings in the Markonian Outpost’s landing bay.  T’Kaal touched the communications monitor on her control panel.  It bleeped back at her softly.  When she saw there were still no new transmissions awaiting her, she continued her wait in silence.

The silence was broken.  T’Kaal could hear Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik shifting uncomfortably in the co-pilot’s chair.  The Arcadian pushed back against her seat and she quickly tugged at the high collar of her uniform.  In the months Yuulik had served as T’Kaal’s assistant chief science officer, T’Kaal had come to anticipate that would mean Yuulik was experiencing an emotion she wished to impose upon others.  Alternatively, twenty-one percent of the time, that shuffling only meant Yuulik was experiencing indigestion.

“You don’t get promotion points for coming on the courier mission,” Yuulik said.  “You could have stayed behind.”

T’Kaal maintained her gaze on the communication monitor.  She supposed Yuulik was clumsily attempting to convey that she was not overly impressed with T’Kaal’s performance as a science officer and also that she was concerned for T’Kaal’s safety.

Affecting her most naturally Vulcan timbre, T’Kaal pointedly asked, “Lieutenant, are you positing I should have stayed behind on the USS Sarek or on Deep Space Seventeen?”

Before setting course for the Barzan wormhole, Captain Taes had invited any crew members with all manner of telepathic abilities to stay behind on DS17 while the Sarek would be studying the dangerous blood dilithium in the delta quadrant.  T’Kaal was not aware of any crew who had accepted Taes’ offer.  In fact, Taes had restrained from making it an order for any of them.

“Either,” Yuulik said.  “Both.  You saw that sensor recording from the Merevek crew.  Blood dilithium can perfectly regulate matter/antimatter reactions, and yet it perfectly dysregulates telepaths.”

T’Kaal met Yuulik’s eyes because she knew Yuulik would require that to understand T’Kaal was confident about what she was about to say.

“Your concern is unnecessary,” T’Kaal said.  “I have studied every report from the USS Merevek and I have spoken with one of their Vulcan crew members.  Based on my learnings, I am now prepared.”  T’Kaal also touched the neurocortical monitor affixed to her neck, a small silver disc below her pointed right ear.

Yuulik scoffed.  The movement knocked her bulbous head back.  “How can you possibly,” Yuulik spat, “prepare for telepathic intrusion by an inanimate object?”

“Meditation,” T’Kaal said.  Having long ago committed to hiding no secrets, she added, “A crystal can say nothing crueller, nor more disturbing, than my parents have done.”

Yuulik’s facial muscles moved in a way that T’Kaal assumed was intended to communicate emotional concern.

“What if meditation isn’t enough?” Yuulik asked.

As the matter of fact it was, T’Kaal said, “You have permission to stun me and relieve me of duty if it comes to that.  I must admit, I am curious.  Would you take pleasure from that, lieutenant?”

When Yuulik’s facial muscles moved again, T’Kaal did not recognise their arrangement nor their deeper meaning.

“No,” Yuulik replied.

“A lie?” T’Kaal asked immediately.

Yuulik chuckled.  “Crushing my competitors is only satisfying when my weapon is brilliance and logic.”

“Even logic has its limits,” T’Kaal said. Not her meditations nor her lifelong commitments to logic could hide the sardonic edge to her tone.

From behind them, the shuttle’s hatch wheezed open.  The captain’s exocomp yeoman, Ensign Cellar Door, hovered in through the hatchway soon after.  The small synth used a low-power tractor beam projector on his nose to carry a courier case into the shuttlecraft.

Yuulik spun out of her chair and stalked into the aft compartment to meet the floating exocomp.  Reaching for the bulkhead, Yuulik folded down a bench and then patted its flat surface.

“You have it?” Yuulik asked.  The higher pitch of her voice was suggestive of anxious excitement.

Before Cellar could answer, Yuulik tugged the courier case from the pull of Cellar’s tractor beam.  She slammed the case down on the bench and she clawed at the locking mechanisms with her painted nails.  As the case unlocked, Yuulik popped open its lid to reveal a large blood dilithium crystal inside.

“Lieutenant Yuulik, Task Force Commander Mek requested I remind you that discovering the nature of this dilithium is critical to the future of the Gradin Belt and its trillions of inhabitants,” Cellar reported.  T’Kaal thought she heard the synth affecting a deeper grumble to his voice while he repeated Captain Mek’s message.  “We have severely limited amounts of blood dilithium available for study, so the faster you learn, the more lives we can save.”

“Does he…” Yuulik stutteringly asked, “Does he think I’m going to break it?”

T’Kaal watched as Yuulik’s shoulders caved forward and her upper spine took on a hunched curve.  In the months T’Kaal had worked with Yuulik, this reaction of Yuulik’s was a new one.  T’Kaal had only taken notice of such a diminutive posture from Yuulik after Captain Taes had named the Romulan, Flavia, as Chief Science Officer instead of Yuulik.

The lights on Cellar’s exterior casing flickered.  “He did not say that, lieutenant,” Cellar replied quite literally.

T’Kaal suggested, “You may consider meditation for yourself, lieutenant.  You would not want an inanimate object to cause you any distress.”

Yuulik’s fish-like eyes narrowed at T’Kaal in an expression she had read about in literature; she supposed it would have been likened to a glare.

“Observations, ensign,” Yuulik ordered.  “Report.  Do you… feel anything from the blood dilithium?”

Even though Yuulik delivered her request in a timbre T’Kaal supposed was intended to sound demeaning, she quickly back-pedalled away from T’Kaal.  Yuulik’s cringing posture returned, as if Yuulik was expecting T’Kaal to lose control of her emotions and backhand her across the face.

T’Kaal said, “I feel nothing.”

Yuulik retorted, “Don’t lie to me.”

As the heavy doors to the holodeck heaved apart, the noise of overlapping conversations wafted into the corridor, along with atmospheric up-tempo music.  There was something vaguely familiar about the melody.  He recalled Kellin begging him to listen to this song and others produced by the same Trill trance artists.  Overtop it all, a red alert klaxon was singing out in the holodeck, but the pitch and the tempo had been modified to complement the music.

The brushed copper deck plates and bleeding-edge technology of the USS Sarek quickly faded into memory with each step Commander Elbon Jakkelb took into the holodeck.  What Elbon found inside were glossy white bulkheads, high ceilings and dramatic architectural angles.  The holodeck program was practically a memory itself: Elbon found himself in the brig of a Constitution-class starship of the 2260s.  As Sarek‘s executive officer, Elbon had chosen to dress the part in thigh-hugging black trousers and a green wraparound tunic.  The wrap had a particularly deep V to show off just how many mornings he still spent in the gym.  The Bajoran had even adorned himself with the traditional earring that was worn on the Bajor of this era, with wooden accents threaded through the metal chains.

Elbon squinted through the flare of the flashing red alert lights. Feeling disoriented, disconnected, he hardly recognised half the crew members who were dancing or talking in small groupings.  Elbon thought he spotted most of the senior staff in their period uniforms; even their Romulan Liaison Officer Flavia was dressed in a blue mini-dress that was common for Starfleet science officers of that time period.  Given the number of red shirts milling about, he supposed many of the others were junior security officers who reported to Kellin Rayco.  As executive officer to a crew of nine hundred, there were plenty of names and faces Elbon still needed to learn.

Searching deeper in the brig deck, Elbon offered polite nods to anyone who looked his way.  He kept those interactions brief by maintaining a grim demeanour and never slowing his pace.  He didn’t want to invite conversation until he found the man of the hour for himself.  Of course, if Elbon was going to find Kellin  anywhere, he was going to find Kellin dancing in the middle of five athletic security officers, and Leander Nune too.  Kellin was head and shoulders taller than the others and the way that crimson tunic hugged his shoulders, he looked like he had the strength to open the Celestial Temple with his bare hands.  Kellin’s eyes were closed and he swayed with the music as if the entire universe had fallen away for him.

Elbon’s eyes remained open.  He was not oblivious to the number of times Nune’s flailing hands swept across Kellin’s chest and thighs.  Six.  The number was six.  Watching it all, Elbon prayed to the Prophets for the strength to tamp down any embers of jealousy he felt in his chest.  Most importantly, Elbon and Kellin were divorced now, after all.  But that wasn’t the only ember.  Nune had the perfect complexion of a young man born in utopia.  Where Elbon’s face told the tale of years he’d spent climbing life uphill, Nune was still blessed with the flush of youth.  The only thing that looked out of place between Nune’s dark eyes and dark beard was the neurocortical monitor affixed to his neck, keeping watch over the way his Betazoid paracortex was responding to the blood dilithium being studied in the main science lab for the past few days.

Stepping into the holding cell where Kellin was dancing with the others, Elbon could smell a musk of sweat in the air.  He stood waiting for Kellin to take notice of him.  With his arms folded behind his back, Elbon suspected he looked like a sole guard tower, unmoved by the wind, in a forest full of swaying trees.  He cleared his throat and he leaned closer to Kellin.

“May I cut in?” Elbon asked.

Kellin opened his eyes.  The blissed-out expression on his face was replaced with an easy smile.  Elbon felt a hand grip his arm.  At first, he hoped it was Kellin’s, but he quickly noticed the angle was wrong.

Suddenly, Elbon was being tugged out of the cell by that strange hand.  He spun around to find the hand belonged to Captain Taes.  Playing along with the other party guests, Taes was dressed in a gold command tunic with exaggerated shoulder pads that looked painfully fashionable on her.  Like Nune, Taes also wore a neurocortical monitor on her neck, just beneath her right ear.  For the captain especially, someone in sickbay was monitoring her vital signs at all times, at this very moment.  There was still so much they didn’t know about blood dilithium and its impact on telepaths and empaths.

“You’re late!” Taes hissed at him.

“I’m sorry!” Elbon replied.

“Do you have it?” Taes asked seriously.

With a little sleight of hand, Elbon revealed the small jewelry box, clutched in the palm of his left hand.  Without warning, he tossed it at Taes and she snatched it out of the air.  The tension that was visible in Taes’ shoulders melted away and she fixed Elbon with a knowing smirk.

“May the Prophets forgive us if we’re wrong for this,” Taes said.  

Taes popped an eyebrow at Elbon and then she pivoted on her heel.  She marched to the free-standing guard console and then she tapped a couple of commands on the jewel button interface.  The red alert lights and klaxons went out and, not long after, the music faded to silence.  The overhead lighting rose in intensity.  Captain Taes struck a regal posture, folding her hands behind her back.  She waited until she held the eyes of her crew.  When she spoke, her voice was amplified through the brig’s comms system.

“It’s no secret every one of you has come here tonight to celebrate Lieutenant Kellin Rayco,” Taes declared.  “Aboard Starbase Seventy-Two, I met Kellin as a precocious young lieutenant, who believed he had learned everything he needed to know about security in the junior ranks.  Kellin was the one who convinced me my science teams were at risk without a permanent security presence in the crew.  Flying around the Demilitarized Zone in the USS Nestus, Kellin not only kept my crew safe, but he was also a deft hand at herding my A&A officers like the squawking najfrons they were.”

One such archaeology and anthropology officer, Sootrah Yuulik, interjected shoutily, “More like he followed the captain around like a baby najfron, am I right?”

Elbon looked around to see where Yuulik was lurking, but all he saw was Kellin laughing at the silly jab.

Glowing with delight, Taes ignored Yuulik when she continued: “Later, as my chief security officer aboard USS Dvorak, Kellin demonstrated he could lead a security department without being a drill sergeant.  His officers strive for excellence because Kellin’s example and empowerment had earned their loyalty.  Serving on my crew, Kellin discovered there were still more security challenges he had to learn.  …Such as when your captain lands in the wrong body, or when your captain steals the captain’s yacht to disobey fleet orders.  All the classics.”

Those references to past adventures didn’t quite get the raucous laughter that Taes had hoped for.  She was so accustomed to leading scientists, Elbon suspected she hadn’t spent enough of her command training on bettering her comedic timing.

“And now,” Taes concluded, “In your first months as the USS Sarek‘s chief security officer, and my second officer too, you’ve demonstrated that you really have learned everything the junior ranks are going to teach you.  Kellin Rayco, it is my honour to promote you to the rank of lieutenant commander with all the rights and privileges thereto.  I couldn’t be prouder of you!”

As Kellin closed the distance between himself and Taes, Taes fumbled with the jewellery box.  She hardly managed to pinch the hollow rank pip from out of the box when Kellin engulfed her in a bear hug and kissed her forehead.

Yuulik sounded impatient at the cathartic moment between Kellin and Taes, when she started chanting, “Speech!  Speech!  Speech!”

Not long after, Kellin stepped back from Taes and rolled his shoulders back.  He turned to stand beside Taes at the console, looking out at the crowd.  When Elbon felt Kellin’s gaze fall upon him, it seemed he held Kellin’s eyes longer than the others.

Kellin opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by a boatswain’s whistle sounding out from the communication nodes overhead.

“Bridge to Captain Taes,” said Lieutenant Jurij’s disembodied voice over the Sarek’s comm system, “you have an incoming transmission from Task Force 17’s Deputy Commander, Captain Kohl.  New orders.“

Elbon watched a pained wince cross Taes’ features.  This was Kellin’s special day and Taes had confided in Elbon how much it meant to her.  He saw her hesitate, as she rolled her bald head back and sighed through her nose.  She left poor Jurij waiting for a few heartbeats too long.  A second later, Elbon saw that familiar resolute expression harden in Taes’ eyes.

“On my way,” Taes said.  After closing the comm channel, Taes ordered, “Computer: arch.”

The holodeck’s arch coalesced over the hatchway out of the brig deck.  Without looking back, Taes marched towards the doors, which opened wide as Taes approached.  

“Senior staff,” Taes said, “You’re with me.”

Kellin’s first step towards the holodeck’s exit was an excited skip.  As out of place as it looked mixed in with the rank stripes on his cuffs, Kellin pinned the new pip to the collar of his red tunic.  Elbon could predict the sentimental value the pip held already because of the hard work it represented, and because it was Taes who had granted it to him.  Elbon quickened his pace to come shoulder-to-shoulder with Kellin, as they approached the open doorway.  Elbon looked at Kellin and Kellin looked back at him.

“I’m proud of you too, bunny,” Elbon whispered and he kissed Kellin on the lips.

Elbon saw Taes watching him, waiting for him, in the corridor.  She raised a questioning eyebrow at Elbon, which brought Elbon to a halt.  He received her questioning expression.  Elbon felt plummeting dread in the pit of of stomach, worrying if he had crossed a line by kissing his very own ex-husband.  As Elbon trailed behind Kellin, Leander Nune brushed past him, cutting into the corridor first.  Elbon felt the momentary impact like a body check: the Betazoid engineer was compact in frame, but Nune was more than solid enough.

“Lieutenant?” Elbon asked.  That single word conveyed his open-ended question about Leander Nune’s conduct.

Leander Nune’s response was similarly concise.  He shrugged at Elbon and he offered an apologetic frown.  There was an emptiness behind his dark eyes, though, as if he couldn’t possibly imagine why Elbon had had a problem with being shoved.

Excitedly, Nune explained, “New orders!”

Dressed in her anachronistic gold uniform from Kellin’s promotion party, Captain Taes sat herself in her command chair on the bridge.  She fixed her posture, poised herself.  That included gripping the armrests to prevent her hands from fidgeting with nervous energy.

Scant days earlier, Task Force 17 Command had ordered the USS Sarek to fill the role of a Starfleet research facility, remaining within the relative safety of the Markonian Outpost.  The Sutherland-class starship had more than enough shielding to protect herself, but she wasn’t nimble or well-armed enough to be a credible tactical threat to the many risks of the Delta Quadrant.  Moreover, the Sarek was populated with a diverse crew –less than five percent of them human– which meant a higher proportion of them possessed telepathic abilities in one way or another, including Taes herself.  Although, to date, there had been no test case on blood dilithium’s influence on other Deltans.

Taes couldn’t imagine what had changed so quickly to result in her crew being given new orders.  She glanced back over her shoulder to see the comforting presence of Lieutenant Commander Kellin Rayco taking over the tactical console from Lieutenant Jurij.  She shared a proud smile with him.  His smile was bashful in return.

“Lieutenant Commander Rayco,” Taes said, relishing in the way his new rank sounded, “Put the transmission on screen.”

The sprawling tendrils of the Markonian space station, where the USS Sarek was docked, were clearly visible through the transparent viewscreen.  Upon Kellin opening the subspace communications channel, a translucent hologram of Captain Andreus Kohl, from the chest up, was overlayed atop the viewscreen.  From the activity Taes could see over Kohl’s shoulders, it was apparent the task force deputy was contacting Taes from Starfleet’s makeshift command centre aboard the outpost.

“Captain Taes,” Kohl said, “I promised you full access to the blood dilithium we cart back to the Markonian Outpost.  You were supposed to be my favourite research laboratory.  Certainly, you’re the largest in our task force!  It’s become apparent, though, the Gradin Belt is a sprawling theatre and our task forces are spreading thing.  I’ve discovered your crew’s specialist expertise is required elsewhere.“

Kohl grasped at a holographic LCARS pane just out of view and then he tossed the data at the communication interface.  The subspace transmission of Kohl narrowed, sharing the Sarek‘s viewscreen with a sensor image of one paraticular star system in the Gradin Belt.

Kohl explained the sensor data, by saying, “A DEI scout has located blood dilithium in the Burleigh system.  The crystals have bloomed deep into the crust of the second moon orbiting the fourth planet.  Diplomats in the Turei Alliance tell us the system is unaligned and unremarkable.  Burleigh Minor’s atmosphere is M-class, barely, and our scouts have confirmed the entire system is uninhabited.“

“The solar radiation in the Burleigh system makes it entirely unsuitable for colonization,” reported Doctor Flavia from where she had settled herself at a console in the science hub.  She tapped a holographic LCARS interface, filtering the sensor data through several analytical algorithms.  

Upon further consideration, Flavia said, “The radiation wouldn’t be immediately fatal, but it will lead to long-term illness in most humanoid species.”

Seated at the mission specialist chair to the captain’s left, Chief Medical Officer Pimpinellifolia immediately interjected, “I will prepare anti-radiation inoculations for the crew.”

“Any away teams will need portable deflector units,” added Leander Nune at the engineering hub, upon assessing the sensor data on the Burleigh system. “Probably transporter pattern enhancers too.”

“The USS Palm Springs has taken similar precautions,” Kohl said in agreement.  “They were first assigned to begin mining the blood dilithium, but their mining equipment has taken damage.  This pocket of blood dilithium has bloomed beneath the buried remains of a civilization.  They’ve found chunks of what may be habitats or starship hulls, along with humanoid remains.  I’m assigning you to learn more about this lost civilization and to ensure the remains of any sentient beings are treated respectfully.  Your crew is vast and complex, especially with our scientific guests from the Romulan Free State.  Please continue to study your blood dilithium crystals, and their health effects, while you’re at it.“

Taes nodded at Kohl’s image.  “We’ll depart immediately, captain.”

“Be safe and be brilliant, captain,” Kohl said.

As soon as Kohl’s image vanished from the viewscreen, Taes began giving orders, “Operations, clear all moorings and lines to the outpost.  Lieutenant Szerda, please set course for–“

Nune interrupted to say, “Captain, any away teams will need portable deflector units.  Probably transporter pattern enhancers too.”

“Yes, lieutenant,” Taes said.  Caught off-guard by Nune repeating his earlier recommendation, Taes wasn’t successful in hiding the annoyance in her intonation.  She squinted at him and she cleared her throat.

“Agreed,” Taes added.  “Ready your supplies and begin replicating anything you need.  Operations will ensure you have first priority.”

“No, captain, you don’t understand,” Nune said firmly.  He raised his voice on the don’t, plainly emphasizing his point.  From his aft-facing console, he had a direct eye-line to the captain and his dark eyes were locked on Taes like tractor beams.  

“We need pattern enhancers,” Nune went on.  “Desperately.  As deep in the moon as they’ll be mining, I can’t guarantee a signal lock!”

Taes’ voice quivered, when she said, “Yes, lieutenant, I promise I understand.”  She frowned at him more deeply.  Nune had always been quick to passion, but she had never seen this edge of mania in his eyes.  

“Please, captain!” Nune shouted now.  He slapped his console with his palms three times. “You have to listen to me!”

Over Taes’ shoulder, Kellin consolingly said, “Babe, we’re listening.”

“Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaase!” Nune screamed.  “Please, your lives will depend on it.  We need those deflectors!  Please!”

Doctor Pimpinellifolia pressed a hypospray into Nune’s neck.  Taes hadn’t even noticed Pimpinellifolia getting out of their seat and creeping down the stairs to the engineering hub.  A moment later, Nune collapsed forward, losing consciousness. Slumped against his console, Taes could see the neurocortical monitor on his neck flashing wildly in alarm.

The science department had been studying blood dilithium aboard the Sarek for only a few days, and Nune had reported no ill feelings other than a wisp of dread.  Taes could hardly hypothesise what had changed so drastically for the Betazoid that Nune’s vague dread had escalated into an outburst of inconsolable panic like that.

“I will transport him to sickbay,” Pimpinellifolia offered.  The Phylosian medical officer lay four of their prehensile vines across Nune’s shoulders while using another vine to scan him with a medical tricorder.

“Lieutenant Szerda,” Taes said, loud enough to be heard across the bridge, “Set course for Burleigh system.  Warp seven.”

“Course laid in,” Annikafiore Szerda confirmed from flight control.  Once she plotted in the coordinates in the helm, she looked back over her shoulder to nod at Taes.

Taes watched as Lieutenants Nune and Pimpinellifolia dematerialised in their site-to-site transport to sickbay.  Taes closed her eyes.  She took a breath.  Given her own in-born Deltan empathy, she pondered how long it would take before Pimpinellifolia was calmly telling Commander Elbon that they would drag Taes away to sickbay too.

Taes opened her eyes.  

“Let’s find out,” Taes announced and the Sarek jumped to warp.

Captain’s Log, Stardate 77869.9

 

Given Captain Mek’s reports of a Devore Imperium warship in this sector, I… begrudgingly agreed with Commander Elbon’s recommendation that I remain aboard the Sarek while the away team conducts their first survey of Burleigh Minor.  By all accounts, the Devore are expanding their borders aggressively to secure blood dilithium reefs for themselves.

 

Given the relative safety of scientific study, this was my first mission as captain when I did not join the away team personally.

 

I hate it.

 

Commander Elbon took the opportunity to stretch his legs.  He did offer his personal assurance that all safety equipment has been installed appropriately.  The away team has completed their initial survey of the dig site and I’m beaming down for myself to consider their preliminary reports and decide on a strategy for how to resume mining of the blood dilithium.

Coming from the bright lights and reflective surfaces of the USS Sarek, there was something alluring to Captain Taes about walking into the dark of the caverns beneath Burleigh Minor.  Stepping out from a ring of pattern enhancer rods, Taes’ boots crunched across the rocky terrain.  This ramiform cave system of irregular passages and large rooms was like a hundred other caves Taes had visited throughout her Starfleet career.  She wouldn’t have liked to admit it out loud, but these caves felt more like home to her than her home colony of Nivoch or the Sarek both.

The passageway she crossed opened up into a particularly deep cave gallery and it looked to be where the crew from the California-class USS Palm Springs had set their mining intentions.  The gallery was circled in deflector units, to ward off solar radiation, and portable work lights.  An array of trans-sonic drills had been moved to one side of the cavern to make way for the Sarek‘s away team to begin their archaeological assessment with scanners only.  Captain Taes had been afforded the final word on when digging would begin: either by the Sarek‘s archaeologists or by the Palm Springs‘ operations miners.

Taes slowly padded towards a gathering of science officers –Flavia, Yuulik and T’Kaal– and Doctor Nelli.  Nelli waved one of the ten vines from their mid-section at Taes.  This appeared to be a new human-like behaviour being exhibited by the flora-based Phylosian.  Nelli’s leafy body was only vaguely humanoid in shape and when Taes had first started working with them, Nelli didn’t even reliably look at a person with their eye stalks while talking to them.  

Using another vine, Nelli held out their tricorder and it projected a holographic image of a skeleton.  As with most Starfleet technology, the sensor-generated image was intentionally antiseptic, with a cool blue glow rather than its visceral colour or texture.  The skeleton, presumably buried beneath their own feet, appeared far more humanoid in nature than Nelli.

“Captain, direct your attention to these findings if you will,” Nelli said.  The intonation from her vocoder device was largely monotone as always.  “Our initial survey has identified at least five bodies in different locations across the cave system.  Genetic sequence comparator scans confirm the skeletal remains were from the Kadi species.  The time of death was… mayhap three hundred years ago?”

“Are you fecking kidding me?” interjected Captain Tommoso.  Stomping towards Taes and Nelli, the Gallamite captain of the Palm Springs was an imposing figure even before he started shouting.  His barrel chest was hardly contained in his red-shouldered Starfleet uniform, and his massive Gallamite skull was transparent enough to reveal every throbbing blood vessel in his head –not to mention his brain– as he began to exert himself.

“Our trans-sonic drills are all repaired,” Tommoso declared.  “We’re equipped to continue mining and you lot want to talk about bones?!?”

In unison, Commanders Elbon Jakkelb and Kellin Rayco snapped their attention in Tommoso’s direction, with eyebrows raised and jaws set.  Elbon fell into a quickstep behind Tommosso, demonstrating his well-worn practice at following in Taes’ footsteps as her executive officer.  Kellin, meanwhile, snaked a different path across the cave to subtly use his body as a barricade between Tommoso and Taes.  Kellin pretended to show a report on a PADD to Taes, likely as a facade for interposing himself between them.

With none of Elbon or Kellin’s tact, Flavia jammed her fists on the hips of her hunter-green jumpsuit.  The Romulan Free State scientist sneered at Tommoso and she held her ground.  As he came closer, his height meant Flavia had to crane her neck to look up at him.  That awkward posture only made her expression sourer.

“So noisy, labourer,” Flavia spat at Tommoso.  “You need to listen for once in your wasted life.  You might actually learn something, even if only by accident.”

Tommoso sputtered wordlessly at the temerity of Taes’ Romulan chief science officer.

Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik didn’t give Tommoso an inch of time or space to continue his incensed tirade.  She waggled an accusatory finger through the holographic skeleton projected by Nelli’s tricorder.

“You’ve made an error, Nelli,” Yuulik said with the absolute conviction Taes would have expected to hear from the Kadi’s Supreme Abbott.  “We found not one remnant of the Kadi’s ceremonial textiles, nor one broken basin from an ablutionary fountain.  We would expect to find one or the other in every Kadi abode.”

Yuulik stretched out her arm to wave the translucent display of her own tricorder a couple of centimetres away from Nelli’s eye stalks.

“Alas, lieutenant,” Nelli intoned, “the error is rooted in you.  The computer’s analysis only anticipated a seven percent margin of error.  The remains are Kadi.”

“Tell her, ensign,” Yuulik ordered.

A couple of paces behind Yuulik, Ensign T’Kaal visibly winced at Yuulik’s words.  If Taes wasn’t mistaken, the very pitch of Yuulik’s voice was causing T’Kaal to grind her teeth.  It wasn’t the first time, or the hundredth time, Taes had witnessed a headache caused by Yuulik, but Taes had never before seen such a visceral reaction from the even-tempered Vulcan science officer.

T’Kaal responded by saying, “We identified scrap from a space-faring vessel, buried deep.  Our metallurgical analysis identified a match in our library computer database.  It’s Hirogen.”  T’Kaal’s timbre was entirely formal, demonstrating none of the micro-expressions of discomfort that momentarily flashed on her face.

“We think there’s Hirogen armour down there too,” Flavia said, kicking at the ground with the heel of her boot.  Fixing Captain Tommoso with a glare of naked disdain, Flavia added, “The remains of a Hirogen strike ship is what busted your precious drill, captain.”

“Could the Kadi have been trophies?” Taes asked, speaking her first thought out loud.  “They were prey a Hirogen pack hunted for sport and brought back here as part of a collection?”

Flavia shook her head at Taes.  “Tsk, tsk, tsk, captain.  Objects in space are meaningless.  The context they’re found in tells us the most.  Besides, the object that’s absent matters as much as what’s there.”

Taes shot Flavia her finest impersonation of a bored expression.  She raised a hand to chest level and made a circular gesture in the air with her wrist.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Taes said flatly.  “What am I missing?”

“Tell her, doctor,” Flavia prompted, sounding troublingly similar to Yuulik.

Nelli advised, “We found no indication of Hirogen remains at this site.”

Taes took a sharp intake of breath.  She crossed her arms over her abdomen and hugged herself tightly because it was going to hurt to say what she knew to be true.

“You’re right, Flavia,” Taes said.  “We have to be mindful of how we conceptualise the alterity” –Taes looked to Captain Tommoso and she said it more simply– “the otherness of the Kadi.  In all of Starfleet’s interactions with the Holy Goddess Mother’s Great Kadi State, their people have presented as deeply spiritual followers of total abstinence.  However, that doesn’t have to mean they were the Hirogen’s prey.  Maybe the Kadi hunted the Hirogen three hundred years ago?”

“Oh no,” Yuulik said, her bulbous eyes going wider at Taes.  “I know that look.  You’re about to tell us to stop.”

“She wouldn’t dare,” Flavia retorted.

Taes was already staring at Elbon.  While Taes had been an archaeologist on and off throughout her career, Elbon had served as a diplomatic officer before joining Taes’ crew.  Elbon nodded at Taes begrudgingly.

“We’re not the proprietors of the Kadi’s past,” Elbon explained.  “Not even Starfleet’s noble curiosity gives us that right.”

Taes continued, “If we’re going to excavate a site of cultural heritage value to the Kadi, we need Kadi representatives on-site to review our plans and offer recommendations on mitigation strategies.  We can’t dig up the remains and we can’t disturb the remains to dig up the dilithium.”

Flavia threw her hands in the air in a gesture of futile frustration.  She groaned melodramatically and pressed her palms to her forehead. 

And then Flavia said, “More condescending Starfleet moral relativism.  All the beings in the universe are dirty youths compared to the pillars of virtue you are, huh?”

“Starfleet’s diplomatic relations with the Kadi,” Taes said, “has presented us with a culture that places strict restrictions on how the Kadi are exposed to medical procedures or stimuli that inflame the senses.  They very well may have strong wishes about how the bodies of their dead are to be handled.”

Captain Tommoso didn’t wait this time.  “Do you understand what you’re proposing, captain?”

“I do,” Taes said.

“I intend to file an objection to Captain Mek,” Tommoso said, referring to their task force commander.

“Please do,” Taes said.

“We need to dig up more of this blood dilithium,” Tommosso affirmed.  “We need more scientific eyes on the stuff.  If we don’t study it, we’ll never understand why it’s such a threat to the well-being of telepaths.  If we’re not careful, by next year, half the starships in the galaxy could be fuelled by blood dilithium that undermines every telepathic species.  Captain, if you won’t approve me mining here, then we have to move on.  This close to chaotic space, there are dozens more planetoids, maybe hundreds more–“

“We can’t leave,” Taes insisted quietly.  “We have to protect this excavation site and the Kadi remains from others who may come for the dilithium.”

Growling with frustration, Tomosso said, “We have members of both our crews who are in danger if we remain in orbit of a blood dilithium reef.  Yourself especially.”

“I am aware,” Taes said; “Thank you.”

Tomosso blinked hard at Taes.  The flicker of movement was almost indistinguishable given his transparent skin and skull.  “You’re… aware?”

Taes stood taller and she said, “You’re permitted to return to your ship, captain.  I don’t want to keep you from your objection.”

Tomosso didn’t say anything else before requesting a beam up to the USS Palm Springs.  As if inspired by the storm off, Flavia tapped her own combadge and requested to be beamed up alone to the USS Sarek.  Kellin started to protest Flavia leaving in the middle of a senior staff briefing, but Taes shushed him to let her go.  It was only after Flavia dematerialised that Taes continued.

“Starfleet has never had much in the way of a dialogue with the Hirogen, much less diplomatic relations,” Taes said, “but we need to transport a representative of the Kadi to this dig site as swiftly as we can.”

Elbon breathed out a discouraging, “Huh.”  He said, “There were reports of a group of humans being expelled from the Kadi homeworld over a month ago.  The Holy College of Abbotts may not respond kindly to the Federation wanting to dig up Kadi graves.”

“Captain James McCallister of the USS Odyssey,” Taes countered, “passed through the Kadi homeworld on a goodwill mission recently; he dined with the Kadi’s Supreme Abbott.  Starfleet is on good terms with the Kadi State.”

Elbon appeared to feed on Taes’ encouragement, nodding more hopefully at each statement.

“I’ve negotiated these types of agreements a dozen times,” Elbon said.  “I’ll take the Orion-class runabout… What’s it called…?”

“Kalev,” Kellin chimed in.  

“At the Kalev‘s top speed,” Elbon assessed, “I can get to the Kadi homeworld and back in a matter of days.  Maybe a week.”

“I object,” Kellin said, far more firmly than Taes expected.  She supposed Kellin was trying his lieutenant commander’s pips out for size.  “You can’t defend yourself from a Devore warship in a runabout. They’re not only hunting for blood dilithium; they’re detaining passing ships and inspecting them for telepaths and then kidnapping them!”

“There was another report this morning,” Taes said soberly.  “The USS Ulysses has missed two subspace check-ins with the Markonian Outpost.  They’ve gone missing.  Kellin’s right, the safety of the Kadi’s ambassador must be paramount.”

“See?” Kellin said to Elbon.  He didn’t sound self-satisfied by the captain’s agreement like Yuulik might; he sounded protective.  “You’re not going anywhere in a runabout.”

Taes nodded briskly at Elbon herself.  “Take the Sarek‘s stardrive section instead.”

“The what?” Kellin asked.

“Captain Tommoso was right about one thing,” Taes said intently.  “The blood dilithium is our mission: we need to understand where it comes from and how to make it safe to use in warp cores.  I’ll separate the saucer section and remain in orbit of Burleigh Minor with the archaeological site.  Elbon will command the stardrive section to parley with the Kadi so we can reach an agreement on how to mine the blood dilithium.”

“Wicked!” Yuulik interjected.  “I want the mission pod.”

“It’s so funny you say that–” Kellin was saying.

“Excuse me, captain,” Ensign Cellar Door bleated out.

Elbon Jakkelb said nothing.  He simply watched and waited until he caught Taes’ eye.  He was carrying a luggage case and he worked at untangling the strap where it had twisted on his shoulder.

Standing at the foot of the command platform, Elbon found himself competing for Taes’ attention between her work-son Kellin and her fastidious yeoman Cellar.  He knew this wasn’t a labour he was going to win.  Looking up at the trio of command chairs, Elbon felt an odd pang of mixed emotions.  Watching Taes sitting with Kellin in Elbon’s usual seat, Kellin looked completely comfortable there.  Natural.  Beautiful even.  Kellin had recently taken to slicking his curly hair back, as if that would make him look more serious as second officer.  It looked terrible, and yet it looked good on him.  Kellin’s whole body shook when he laughed at one of Taes’ humorous asides.  And yet, in that moment, Elbon was struck by the stray thought that this could be the last time he ever looked upon the bridge of the USS Sarek.  The Devore Imperium was no idle threat.  

Elbon might have feared this to be his own blood dilithium-induced paranoia –if the Bajoran hadn’t failed all of his ESP tests at Starfleet Academy– which meant he had to chalk it up to homegrown paranoia instead.  Reports from the USS Mackenzie had crossed his desk about Devore intruders boarding their ship, testing Starfleet’s security and making an attempt to seize control of the starship for their own uses.

The excomp floating by Elbon’s shoulder buzzed closer to the command platform.  Cellar said, “Engineering reports the saucer section’s warp core has completed the power-up sequence.  Warp core is considered to be at idle and they’re continuing to raise engine pressure.”

“Thank you, ensign,” Taes responded.

Kellin was the first to make eye contact with Elbon.  He smiled shyly but he didn’t look away.  Elbon always managed to feel twenty years younger when Kellin looked at him like that.

With good-humoured bravado, Elbon said, “Don’t get too comfortable in my seat.”

Almost immediately, Kellin jumped up from the executive officer’s chair.

“Oh!” Elbon blurted out, worried he had hurt Kellin’s feelings.  “I didn’t mean now.”

“I don’t know,” Kellin said slyly, descending the stairs to join Elbon.  “Don’t you ever want to captain a starship of your own some day?”

Meandering slowly, Elbon followed the ramp that would take him to the aft turbolift.  Kellin chose to walk with him, shoulder to shoulder.  Kellin only stepped aside briefly when Yuulik barged between them on a shortcut to the bridge’s science hub.

“I led my own flock in Hedrikspool as a Ranjen,” Elbon said, after pondering Kellin’s question for a spell.  “Command isn’t what lured me to Starfleet.”

“I always felt you were that type,” Kellin said, tauntingly.  “Not in it for the duty, you’re here for the adventure.  But it’s a different kind of adventure out there.”  –He poked Elbon in the chest twice–  “Take care of yourself.”

“It’s not your job to worry about me anymore,” Elbon said softly.

Kellin just looked back at Elbon with big eyes.  Elbon could safely bet that Kellin was too scared for Elbon’s safety to say anything but also too scared to admit it.

“It’s diplomacy, Kel,” Elbon said.  “I put people at their ease.  This is what I do.  The Kadi homeworld is so safe, they’ll let me take home a souvenir for my cabin on Bajor.”

Elbon stepped away from Kellin to press the call button for the turbolift.  Then, he said, “Now you keep watch over the captain for me while I’m gone.  It’s your turn.  I’m counting on you.”

Double doors slid apart as a turbolift car arrived for Elbon.  Elbon leaned in close to kiss Kellin on the cheek and Kellin grabbed Elbon’s wrist.  Elbon put a hand on the side of Kellin’s face and he briefly clutched at Kellin’s earlobe, appreciating the strength of his pagh.  As soon as Elbon stepped away, and entered the turoblift, he turned back to wink at Kellin.  In that short time, Flavia had inserted herself at Kellin’s side.

Far too loudly, Flavia declared, “Goodbye!  Fly safely in your oddly shaped half-ship!”

Elbon winced at her and he said, “Thank you.”  With more gusto, he ordered the turbolift to take him to the “Secondary bridge.”

Elbon took notice as Flavia tugged at the sleeve of Kellin’s uniform jacket.  Kellin looked at her with a puzzled expression and she tugged at his sleeve again.

“I need to tell you something,” Flavia said.

Kellin hunched down to Flavia’s height and she cupped a hand over Kellin’s ear and she whispered something.

Then the turbolift doors closed and whisked Elbon to the stardrive’s bridge.

Assistant Chief Science Officer’s Log, Stardate 77874.9

 

Lieutenant Leander Nune has been remanded to the brig since his moment of weakness on the bridge.  Despite the intensity of his blood dilithium reaction, Nune has been cooperating with the science department by describing his experiences.  In order to continue our research, the blood dilithium we collected from Task Force 17 command, and the USS Palm Springs’ first dig, has been divided between both hulls when the USS Sarek completed its saucer separation operation.  We have positioned the crystals in a single location, behind a containment field, all the way in the mission pod’s top deck.

 

Nune remains under constant observation, of course. The recordings show he spoke aloud in his sleep last night.  He reports having no memory of this, nor the content of his dreams.  I don’t believe him.  He always used to talk about his dreams at our morning briefing buffets.  Last night, Nune was mumbling, and I can’t be sure of the exact words, but he spoke of breaking his bonds and using those same chains to choke his captors.

 

The counsellors think he’s reacting to being held in the brig for no crime.  I don’t believe them.  There was something familiar about the words he chose.  One of the phrases was word-perfect from Trill mythology, from a forgotten god called Najiannaa that was caged within another god, the size of a solar system.  The night before that, Nune paraphrased a melody from a fifth-tier Kadi deity who was held in bondage, but who liked it.

 

I’m not aware of Nune having an interest in mythology.  Kellin tells me there are no LCARS records of Nune accessing mythology files.  …What would make Nune say those things?

“How are you feeling, Leander?” Yuulik asked gently.

Padding into the brig’s control centre, Yuulik approached the cell where Leander Nune was being held.  The lights had been dimmed since Nune complained about the brightness.  She held her gaze on Nune through the hexagonal energy pattern of the forcefield enclosing him within his cell.

Nune’s appearance had always been too scrawny for Yuulik’s Arcadian sensibilities; there was simply nothing about him that could be considered sexually appealing.  More than that, his areas of expertise –mechanical engineering and emotional intelligence– were of no threat to her own.  While Nune had taken part in Kellin’s investigation of Yuulik during their earliest days about the USS Dvorak, Nune had also been the first member of the senior staff to accept her as she was.  He rarely ever snapped back at her defensively.  In adopting her objective lens to perform her duties as Assistant Chief Science Officer, Yuulik tamped down her genuine affection for Nune.  She felt as fondly for him as she might for her parent’s pet caninecorn.

Finding Nune situated in the corner of his cell, Yuulik thought he looked frailer than ever.  He had surrounded himself with a mosaic of overlapping holo-LCARS panels.  Watching the movement of his eyes and his hands, she thought Nune lacked the coordination to toggle between them smoothly.  Yuulik suspected he simply forgot that half of them were still open.  Doctor Nelli had prescribed him a mild sedative and Yuulik could see it with her own eyes, from his slouched posture and the way his eyes blinked out of sequence with each other.

“Are you comfortable?” Yuulik asked in show of concern.  “Can I get you anything?”

Distantly, Nune said, “Fine.  I’m fine.”

Yuulik tilted her head to one side, taking note that Nune didn’t look at her when she spoke.  She looked away from Nune.  Checking Dolan’s notes on her PADD, Yuulik considered her next question and then she regarded Nune again.

“Have you experienced any distressing feelings from the blood dilithium since your last interview with Ensign Dolan?” Yuulik asked.

“I don’t think so?” Nune answered and he sounded more confused by the answer than the question.  He looked up at the overhead and he dropped his hands to his sides.  His left eye blinked and then his right eye.

“There’s no difference,” Nune said, “between what feelings are mine and what feelings are… dilithium?  When I slipped into Kecene drag to lecture Taes on the bridge, it felt right.  I never believed there was anything wrong with protecting our crew.  Maybe I still don’t.”

Yuulik moved to stand at Nune’s cell, a mere decimetre away from the forcefield.  She folded her arms, and her PADD, behind her back.

“Before coming to the Delta Quadrant,” Yuulik asked, “have you ever detected emotions or impressions from dilithium before?”  Play-acting as if this were a perfectly reasonable question, Yuulik qualified, “Even after a double shift with too much caffeine?”

“Never,” Nune said.  His expression became strained at Yuulik’s question.  He took two steps towards her.  When he was about to walk through his holographic LCARS panels, the computer floated them to either side of him.  Once there was nothing between the two of them but the forcefield, Nune fixed Yuulik with a haggard gaze.

Nune said, “Dilithium isn’t sentient.  Maybe I was never affected by the blood dilithium?  Those videos from the Merevek crew gave me nightmares the night we came through the wormhole.  I was already shaken.  Could my reaction have been psychosomatic?  Maybe I don’t have to be–“

“Hmm,” Yuulik intoned and she raised her index finger.  Pointing a fingernail at his LCARS panels, Yuulik asked, “What are you working on?”

“They won’t let me access the propulsion systems,” Nune said.  For the word ‘propulsion’, and ‘propulsion’ only, he shouted it at the brig’s sole guard.  “So I’m trying to design a subspace trumpet.  Our sensors can find no trace of telepathic transmissions coming from the blood diliti–“

Yuulik cut him off again.  “I have no sensors that can detect the telepathic transmissions that come from your brain’s paracortex either.”  Her response was simultaneously defensive and intrigued, and she knew it.  “Hmm.”

Reaching back, Nune plucked three of the holographic LCARS frames out of the air and he slapped them in a row in front of his face where Yuulik could plainly see them.  Nune cringed abruptly.  His gaze darted to the hatchway out of the brig, but only for the length of a blink.  With his attention returned to Yuulik, Nune pointed to the relevant research and prototyping on each display.

Nune said, “I’m looking for a method for our communication transceivers to generate… something like the phase pulse or distortion waves that bloomed the blood dilithium in the first place.  We don’t know enough about how spatial anomalies could possibly bloom dilithium, but maybe a similar subspace frequency could amplify the transmissions coming from the dilithium.”

“Leander,” Yuulik said.  Her disgust was blatant in the way she said his name and the way she jumped back from the forcefield.  Yuulik narrowed her eyes at Nune as she went on.

“You want to amplify the feelings of dilithium dread?” Yuulik asked.  “We’re supposed to be researching a way to dampen it.”

Nune sneered at Yuulik, but, no, he didn’t.  Watching his eyes intently, Yuulik was certain that Nune was sneering over her shoulder.  She looked over her shoulder but there was only an empty cell behind her.

“Yes, yes, yes, we’ll get to that,” Nune said to Yuulik.  He spoke to her like she was a cadet failing a class.  It was a timbre she was well-practiced in using herself.  “We can’t silence the blood dilithium’s voice until we can hear it.  That means the first thing we need to do is make it louder.  We need to know what the dilithium wants and then maybe we can shut it up.  Lieutenant, can you give one to me?  Can you bring me a shard of blood dilithium?”

Yuulik frowned tightly.  “I don’t trust that to be safe.”

“Sootrah, you’re too comfortable studying bones,” Nune accused.  “It’s time for you to save real lives and now you’re a coward?  If I can’t be in engineering then put me to use.”

Nune beat his fist against his own chest twice.

“Observe the effect of blood dilithium on me!” Nune demanded.

“I think,” Yuulik said in a brittle tone, “It’s too close to you already.”

Spreading his arms out wide, Nune spun in a circle, like a dancer on a stage.  He offered Yuulik a dramatic bow and then he straighten up in a military posture.

“If you’re all going to stare at me,” Nune snapped, “then let’s put on a show!”

“All?” Yuulik asked back.  “Who all?”

“Who?” Nune echoed her Arcadian accent disparagingly.  “Your friends!  You brought the entire science department from the USS Palm Springs to gawk at me!”

Yuulik took another step back.  She could see in Nune’s dark eyes that he really meant what he said.

Sympathetically, Yuulik said slowly, “Leander, we’re alone here except for the guard.”

“No!” Nune blurt out.  “No that can’t be right.” –And he blinked at Yuulik, blinked at the guard– “I saw them, no, no, but I felt them.  I guess– I never saw them, but I could hear them.  Can’t you hear them?”

Yuulik lifted her PADD to document whatever he said next.  

“What are they saying?” Yuulik asked.

Nune said, “You don’t want to know.”

Stepping into the Captain’s Ready Room, Kellin Rayco felt like he was walking into a pocket dimension.  As soon as the doors closed behind him, he waited for his ears to pop.  The size of the compartment was far grander than Taes’ ready room on their last Springfield-class starship and yet the decor and furnishings were far more minimalist in design.  Adding to the surreal experience of the room was a noise-cancelling field that nearly silenced the hum of the engines and life support system.  Furthermore, every bulkhead and deck plate was painted a matte bubble-gum pink.  This candy-coated wonderland created a visual separation from the drudgery that starship duty could become day in and day out.

Kellin normally bounded into Taes’ ready room full of small talk and gossip, but he didn’t have space for all of that in his head on this day.  His arms were crossed over his chest and he couldn’t look at Taes for too long.  His every mental process was bound up in a single question.  Moments like this were one of the rare, rare times the Trill wished he had the greater mental acuity he imagined might come from being joined to a symbiont.  Striding farther into the room, he found Taes meditating on a mat and he forgot any of the pleasantries that were normally so important to him.

“Science Officer Flavia, and her team, are on permanent assignment here from the Romulan Free State,” Kellin said.  The tall man stood a little taller, reciting this fact from memory as if he were presenting a hypothesis in an academy science class.  “Starfleet is committed to this great experiment.  If we can learn to work jointly in our mission of exploration, we may find a path forward to meaningful diplomatic relations with the Free State.”

Stretched out on the floor, Taes nimbly shifted into an upright sitting position.  Her eyes studied Kellin.  The quality of her gaze seemed to beckon his eye contact.  Taes nodded at his statement and she said nothing else, offering him the space to continue.  When they had first embarked on their tour aboard the USS Sarek, Taes had made it clear to Kellin and the senior staff: her ready room was designed to be a retreat from the clamour of the main bridge.  Transactional duties –such as performance reviews or delivering orders– were strictly forbidden in the ready room.  This space was meant for reflection, meditation and philosophical debate, and he could feel her holding that space for him now.

“It’s no real secret,” Kellin went on, “the Romulan Free State is being empowered and propped up by the Tal Shiar.  In the heyday of the Romulan Star Empire, the Tal Shiar was an intelligence agency, but by the end of the empire, they were thugs.  Secret police.”

Kellin unfolded his arms.  He shrugged helplessly.  And now he said it: “Does that mean Flavia is a Tal Shiar secret agent?”

Taes looked up at Kellin with a placid expression.  She offered no shock or awe at the bluntness of his question.  She simply nodded at him, slightly, in a sign of acknowledgement.

“This is where we find ourselves,” Taes said, and she sounded resigned to that fact.  “We have no way to know.  Flavia might fool us into believing she’s a Tal Shiar agent for a giggle.  Or she might do the opposite for the same reason.”

Huffing out a frustrated breath, Kellin sat down on the deck, leaving some space between himself and Taes.  He crossed his legs at the ankles and he attempted to put himself into Taes’ meditative posture.  Perhaps a calm exterior could bring him a calm interior, he hoped.

“Taes, I need to know,” Kellin asked, “can I trust Flavia?”

That was when Taes cracked.  She broke into a fit of laughter that wracked her body so suddenly, she practically doubled over on herself.  Taes breathed in through her nose to calm herself and she sat upright.

“Absolutely not,” Taes answered.

Kellin sighed and he frowned at Taes.  He said, “If I can’t trust her, that means I have to assign security guards to follow her discreetly.”

Taes raised an eyebrow at Kellin in a sharp expression of caution.  Shaking her head, Taes replied, “That wasn’t in our agreement with the Free State.”

Shaking his head in confusion, Kellin cringed at Taes.  Her logic was starting to sound as labyrinthine as Flavia’s own.  He huffed out another breath he’d been holding.

“Does that mean you’re ordering me to trust her?” Kellin asked.

“Absolutely not,” Taes said again, but this time with far more gravity.

Kellin vocalized a couple of indistinct syllables as he struggled to find the words he was mentally reaching for.  His hands balled into fists.  He hoped Taes would say more, but she didn’t.  

After three attempts, Kellin managed to say, “That makes no sense.”

“Two things can be true,” Taes sagely said.  “Even in opposition.”

“No,” Kellin responded awfully quickly.  The confusion and sputtering were gone from his mien.  “I don’t trust her!  Any other truth is a lie; either it’s a lie to you or a lie to myself.  I did, in fact, read the provisional treaty with the Free State too.  Starfleet has ordered me to trust Flavia, even if I believe I should not.  I don’t even have access to the internal sensors in the Romulan laboratories or quarters unless the computer detects a security risk.”  As outlined in the treaty, such risks included damage to life support, weapons fire, open flames, or unregistered communications transmissions.

“Starfleet cannot issue orders on your beliefs,” Taes said in absolute certainty.  “I can override the internal sensor lockouts if I judge it necessary.  But the trust I’m putting in Flavia is not far off from the trust I put in all of my crew.  As a captain, there’s only one of me.  I don’t have the luxury of watching the entire crew following my orders.  I must trust in all of you.  Trust and, at times, verify.”

Kellin shook his head, slumping forward until his elbows were on the floor and his chin was in his hands.  He groaned very softly in discouragement, even though the stretch felt incredibly satisfying.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Kellin said in a saddened sing-song.  “I asked T’Kaal all about Romulan culture, but Starfleet’s understandings are contradictory.  She didn’t say much about trust.  It all gives me a headache.”

In a consoling tone, Taes said, “Forget about Romulan culture for today.  Focus on the culture you’re creating as this ship’s second officer.  The most impressive leaders in Starfleet are capable of inspiring loyalty.  Their crews desire to do the right thing for their leaders, even when their leaders aren’t looking.  You’ve been learning that for yourself with the security team; you run that department like a pack of equals.”

Taes shrugged. “You’ve got to invite Flavia to join your pack.”

While Captain Taes and the saucer section remained in orbit of Burleigh Minor, the Sarek’s stardrive section raced towards the Kadi home colony at its best cruising speed.  As Commander Elbon prepared for his diplomatic side quest with the Holy Goddess Mother’s Great Kadi State, Lieutenant Yuulik could not muster a single erg of energy to support him.  Taes had only thought Yuulik worthy to serve as the crew’s Assistant Chief Science Officer and Yuulik supposed that meant Elbon could find someone more important to be his research assistant.

Ever since her face-to-face conversation with Leander Nune, it took great effort for Yuulik to think of much else but the strange spell the blood dilithium had cast over him.  In one moment Nune would come across as cogent, and in the next, he was overcome with fits and fancies that seemed otherwise unknowable to Yuulik.  In fact, Yuulik couldn’t quite guess which side of Nune’s personality was responsible for his profane design of a subspace trumpet to amplify the mystery song of blood dilithium.  Was that coming from Nune’s own creative mind or was that exactly the reason the blood dilithium was exerting its influence over him?  She had gone to bed, the night before, trying to imagine exactly what Nune could hear the blood dilithium saying to him.  By the time her alarm chimed the next morning, Yuulik took notice that she hadn’t slept for a minute.

While clutching a PADD in her right hand, she watched a video playback of the security footage in Nune’s brig cell from the night before.  A holographic screen floated in front of her, and she scrubbed back and forth through the timeline, trying to make sense of when Nune was awake, when he was asleep, and when he was sleepwalking.  Sickbay had slightly increased Nune’s level of sedation.  It looked as though he was struggling to keep his head upright at times, and yet he insisted on standing whenever he was awake.  He only availed himself of the bunk in his cell when he was unconscious.

Yuulik fast-forwarded to Science Officer Dolan’s last interview with Nune.  Dolan had asked probing questions about Nune’s latest theory to bombard blood dilithium with a modified resonance burst.  Nune had read a duty log from the USS Voyager, which had used a resonance burst to break through a hallucinogenic psionic field.  He theorized if a resonance burst could have a tangible impact on psionic energy, it would cause some measurable change in the psionic transmissions of blood dilithium.

Dragging the video backwards again, Yuulik found another segment that had caught her attention in the sonic shower, earlier that morning.  She pinched at the interface to zoom in on Nune’s lips.  She watched the same five seconds over and over again.

“Is he saying help,” Yuulik asked herself, “or Hell?”

“I have a better question.”

And then Yuulik yelped and dropped her PADD, because she heard the voice of Ensign Dolan from directly behind her, rather than coming from the recording on her PADD.

“Are you going to order something?” Dolan asked her pointedly.

Without the video recordings floating in her face, Yuulik took stock of her surroundings.  She was standing in one of the smaller mess halls, pacing back and forth in front of the replicators.  A line had formed behind her and Yuulik had truly no perception of how long ago she had walked to the mess hall, nor for how long she had been blocking the two replicator alcoves from the other patrons.

Startled, and frustrated by her lack of progress, Yuulik popped off to say, “You’re stupid for not standing up for yourself sooner.”

Dolan rolled his eyes at her.  “Honestly, calm down, lieutenant.”

“No!” Yuulik said.  She stomped one foot (and only later discovered she had smashed her PADD).  “This is important work!  There are ships from countless governments and corporations swarming over the Gradin Belt to gobble up blood dilithium.  Starfleet officers are risking their precious lives to rescue the foolish ones who have been waylaid by spatial anomalies and the disastrous health effects of the dilithium itself.  If we’re not vigilant and brilliant, someone is going to turn blood dilithium into a weapon!”

“No, I know, lieutenant,” Dolan said blandly.  “I hate to see Nune that way too.  I just want some eggs this morning.  Helps me think.”

The number of holographic LCARS screens scattered around Leander Nune’s security cell had more than doubled since Sootrah Yuulik last visited him.  She watched as Nune scrolled through a spiral of menu options on one of them while she signed in at the brig’s guard station.  

As she made her approach to Nune’s cell, Yuulik caught sight of her own reflection in a transparent aluminum bulkhead panel.  The Arcadian science officer took notice that her appearance was nearly as dishevelled as Nune’s own. She was still wearing the same cosmetics from the day before and her two fins of dark hair looked greasy, hanging limp.  But there wasn’t time or space to worry about that.  Yuulik’s boots echoed keenly as she crossed the darkened, cavernous compartment.

Nune blinked at Yuulik repeatedly, as if he were struggling to see her through the soft glow of the forcefield between them.  He pushed aside the holographic screens that were crowding in on him.  He took one confident step forward and then he stumbled halfway across the cell, closing the distance between himself and Yuulik.

“Did– Did Dolan tell you?” Nune asked Yuulik, breathlessly.  The words came out of him slowly and slightly slurred.  He sounded as if his own teeth were unfamiliar to him and his tongue was landing in the wrong spot of his mouth.  “Did he– did he explain about the resonance burst?”

“Yes, you might be on to something, Leander,” Yuulik said tentatively.  

Yuulik nodded vaguely, but her voice was tight in her throat.  She recognised all the ways Nune’s insight was filled with possibility, but Yuulik was far more distressed by how fatigued he looked.  She watched him swaying on his feet as they spoke.  It was like there was a preternatural source of energy keeping him moving when his body was crying out for rest.

“As an intermediary medium,” Yuulik supposed, “a resonance burst could prove a valuable mediation between blood dilithium, telepathic communication and our communications systems.”  –She pointed at one of the LCARS holos in his cell– “What resonance frequency is showing the most promise in your research?”

Nune blinked at Yuulik heavily once and twice and then his right eyelid didn’t open.

He snarled, “The death cries of those who sent me here.”

A rush of vertigo swept over Yuulik.  She took a couple steps to the left and she sat on the edge of a powered-down LCARS terminal.  It disgusted her to see Nune in such a pallid state, to hear those hateful words in his own voice.

Yuulik said, “I don’t think you should be working.  You need to rest.”  

Even to her own ears, Yuulik’s words sounded lifeless.  She didn’t even believe herself, because there was simply no part of her that trusted he would comply. Leaning further over the LCARS console, she activated the next panel over and tapped in the command to deactivate the holographic projectors in Nune’s cell.  An LCARS error sound beeped back at her.

“All I do is rest,” Nune said furtively.

“This was a mistake,” Yuulik said and she waved her arms widely to encompass any and everything that had led her to this situation.  “I’m sorry, Leander.  You never should have been allowed to join this mission.”

“You might be right,” Nune said, through a haunted chuckle.  He stumbled backwards until he collided with an unyielding bulkhead.  “I don’t want this.  Not any of this.  I don’t want them in my head anymore.”  –He clawed at his scalp with both of his hands– “It’s too crowded in here!”

“Maybe– maybe we can put you on a runabout?” Yuulik proposed desperately.  “Get you away from all this?”

A chilling calm settled over Nune.  He lowered his hands and then he dropped to his knees on the deck.  Seemingly ignoring all else, Nune looked at Yuulik, looking right at her.

“But you need me, don’t you?” Nune asked in a taunting timbre.  “What has your scientific brilliance taught you about blood dilithium so far?”

Yuulik looked down at her lap.  She had no answers to offer him.

Nune went on: “Do you know how it was created?  Do you know what it wants?”

Even amid all of Yuulik’s sympathy for Nune, her contrary nature rose up.  She could feel her desire to prove him wrong rising in her chest like bile.

“It doesn’t want anything,” Yuulik replied.  “It’s not sentient!”

The vibrancy behind Nune’s eyes went glassy and his facial expression went slack.  He whispered something, but all Yuulik could hear was ‘something something m-s-kah something.’  Listening had never been Yuulik’s strongest trait, so she stood up and took a step closer to the cell.

“Pardon me?” Yuulik asked.

Nune whispered what sounded like the same statement, but even quieter than the time before.

“You’re not making sense,” Yuulik said.

Nune made no effort to move closer to Yuulik or raise his voice.  He remained kneeling on the deck, staring into the middle distance.  He whispered the same thing again.

“Speak up!” Yuulik said.  She edged as close to the forcefield as she dared.  She leaned her pointed ear in Nune’s direction as if that would make any difference at all..

Nune whispered one more time.

Yuulik glanced at the guard in her peripheral vision and decided he was sufficiently distracted by something on his LCARS display.  She reached out and tapped the control on the bulkhead that deactivated the forcefield.  The shimmering energy screen dropped in an instant.  Surreptitiously, Yuulik crept into Nune’s cell.

To avoid drawing any more attention to herself, Yuulik whispered, “What did you say?”

Nune jumped to his feet, driving his shoulder into Yuulik’s midsection.  As Yuulik toppled to the deck, all she could do was scream.

Chief Science Officer Flavia drummed her fingers on the edge of her LCARS console.  There was a peculiar syncopated pattern to the rhythm.  Then she cracked her knuckles and tapped a command into her holographic interface.  Flavia hopped up from her chair and she descended the stairs to position herself in front of the viewscreen.  She raised her voice to be heard over the low rumble of conversation from every corner of the bridge.

“Hailing the USS Palm Springs,” Flavia said in a lyrical manner.  “And hailing frequencies are now… open.”

Through the transparent viewscreen, the California-class USS Palm Springs had been visible in its orbit around Burleigh Minor, ahead of the USS Sarek.  Moments later, the Gallamite Captain Tommoso appeared on the viewscreen.

“Ahhhh, Captain Taes,” Tommoso asked, “Do you have a status update for me?“

From the centre chair, Taes smiled wanly at her fellow captain.  She tilted her head, deeply, to the left.  Sitting beside her, Kellin could hear that Taes’ breathing had become more shallow since Flavia’s unexpected behaviour.  Despite that, every other indicator of Taes’ body language spoke of tranquillity and control.

“I wish I did, captain,” Taes said.  From the back of her throat, there was an edge of a question towards Flavia, but Taes kept her gaze on Tommoso.  “Commander Elbon has arrived at Kadi III and is currently engaged in negotiations.”

In her most condescending tone, Flavia said, “Very interesting.”

One of the turbolifts behind the command chairs hissed open.  A hint of gleaming body armour flashed in Kellin’s peripheral vision, taking hold of his full attention.  Five Romulan scientists filed out of the turbolift.  Instead of the artfully-quilted jumpsuits they usually wore around the ship, they were clad in tactical gear.  Although none of them were armed, their usual outfits were augmented with body armour, shoulder lamps, and climbing gear.

Far more confidently, Flavia said, “Captain Tommoso, I must say I heard you when you spoke of the dire importance of our mission.  Solving the mysteries of blood dilithium could change the shape of the galaxy to come.  Aligned with that, the first remnants of civilization we’ve discovered beneath the surface of Burleigh Minor are unprecedented in our understanding of the cultures in the Gradin Belt.”

Flavia glanced back over her shoulder to check on Taes’ reaction.  But only for a brief moment.

“For these reasons,” Flavia said, “the Romulan Free State will be resuming the archaeological dig on Burleigh Minor.  We will transport any bodily remains to another safe location where they can be studied at our leisure.  In twenty-four hours or less, this will free up the dig site for your crew to resume their mining.”

Buoyantly, the image of Tommoso on the screen said, “Thank you, Flavia.“

Dead serious, Flavia said, “Call me Mistress Flavia.”

Tommoso sputtered at her with a cantankerous expression of confusion.

“Didn’t you hear Captain Taes?” Kellin asked Flavia rhetorically.  “Negotiations have hardly begun.  The Kadi have made no agreements to allow us to touch the remains of their people.”  On the command platform, Kellin rose to his full height.  If Flavia could march around like she owned the bridge, Kellin had a haughty timbre to show her too.

Kellin asked, “Whose starship do you think this is?”

Highly amused, Flavia said, “You know, I think this is a Federation starship.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  Do you know what this is not? Federation territory.”

Kellin’s forehead furrowed as he scrambled to understand the end point of Flavia’s circular logic.  Seated beside him, Taes only rubbed her temples with the pads of her fingertips.

Flavia took one step towards him.  “The treaty between the Free State and the Federation is very clear, commander.  When we’re not in Federation space, the scope of my autonomy is much broader.  I’m not in your Starfleet.  I have not participated in your officer exchange program.  I am a rightful representative of the Romulan Free State’s science ministry.”

Sounding defeated, Taes concluded, “And we cannot restrain any of her movements beyond the outer hull of this starship.”

It was the first time Kellin had seen anything but a sour pout or a menacing grin on Flavia’s face.  For once, she didn’t look like she was performing.  Nodding at Taes, Flavia smiled at her in self-satisfaction.  Flavia clearly savoured that moment and then she took to a quick step, crossing the ramp to the aft of the bridge.

“Captains Tommoso and Taes: I will dutifully keep you both apprised of my progress,” Flavia said.  To the Romulan scientists awaiting her, Flavia added, “Landing party: you’re with me!”

As she passed behind the command arch, Flavia turned back for a heartbeat.  “Captain, be a dear, and prepare the transporter room for my arrival, will you?”

With an unmistakable sardonic edge, Taes replied, “Yes, Mistress.”

It happened very gradually that Ensign T’Kaal had started to tune out every third word Ensign Dolan was saying.  Whenever Dolan spoke about his research, he was prone to belabour his description of every point, as if his conclusion wasn’t plainly obvious from the first sentence.  It had happened so gradually, T’Kaal didn’t notice when the shift in the room came very suddenly.  She looked up from her PADD and every eye was looking at her.

T’Kaal was seated at the large circular work table in the cybernetics lab.  Four science officers were sitting on either side of her, staring at her expectantly.  Seated on the other side of the table, a hologram of Ensign Dolan was attending the meeting virtually, representing the geology lab on the USS Sarek‘s stardrive section.  Standing further beyond the table was a holographic transmission of Lieutenant Gailwon, Chief Science Officer aboard their task force’s flagship, the USS Discovery.

“Go on, ensign,” Gailwon said, looking directly at T’Kaal.

The four other science officers sitting with T’Kaal were more senior in rank than her, and yet they had elected her to represent the science department aboard the Sarek‘s saucer section.  Chief Science Officer Flavia had abandoned the blood dilithium research to return to the surface of Burleigh Minor early that morning.  Given her absence, it would be a lesson in leadership, they had all said, but T’Kaal had observed each of them shying away from public speaking in the past.  As a born and raised Vulcan, T’Kaal’s mastery of emotional control meant she could crush any stage freight in a matter of picoseconds.

T’Kaal reported, “Ensign Laola has been restrained in sickbay.  Lieutenant Szerda observed her attempting to sabotage the plasma coolant system.  Laola made an attempt to strike Szerda, claiming Szerda had locked her children in a dungeon.  To our knowledge, neither Laola nor Szerda are mothers.  Based on our progress with Nune, we have prepared new interview questions for Laola to understand how her telepathic abilities may be impacted by the blood di–“

The holographic transmission of Dolan was abruptly shoved to the left.  Pushing in beside him was a hologram of Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik.  Using a cane to assist her walking, Yuulik lumbered forward awkwardly, colliding with the edge of whatever table Dolan was sitting at on the stardrive section.  Yuulik put a hand on Dolan’s shoulder to steady herself and then she rose her cane and smacked it on the LCARS tabletop.

“Nune is off-limits!  He is only permitted security and medical personnel as visitors,” Yuulik declared.  She waggled a warning finger at T’Kaal.  “You better do the same with Laola, ensign.“

The hologram of Gailwon gasped at the state of Yuulik.  She asked, “Oh my gods, Yuulik, what happened to you?“

Yuulik replied, “Doctor Nelli kept all the competent doctors on the saucer section is what happened.  The butchers here were taking too long with me, so I told them I’d come back later.“

Yuulik shook her head in naked frustration.  She took a heavy breath.  T’Kaal thought she heard a rattling sound from Yuulik’s chest, even over the subspace comms.  

Finally, Yuulik said, “I’m– I’m– I’m sorry I’m late.  What did I miss?“

Emotionally expressive, even for a Bolian, Gailwon shot Yuulik a questioning look.

“No, I mean,” Gailwon asked, “what happened to you?“

“What did I miss, lieutenant?” Yuulik asked, pointedly repeating herself.  

Yuulik gripped her cane in what T’Kaal could only interpret as a threatening manner, despite the fact Gailwon and the Discovery were fully in another sector as Yuulik.  T’Kaal wondered –for less than a second– if Yuulik might try to throw the cane at Gailwon anyway.  Gailwon cleared her throat in reply.  A strong emotion appeared to cross Gailwon’s face, but T’Kaal couldn’t quite identify it.  Gailwon swallowed hard and then she relented.

“We’re comparing notes on our research and development,” Gailwon reported.  “There’s no sense in our crews retreading the same hypotheses twice.  Discovery has just finished a loop around the spatial anomaly at the heart of a Class T cluster and we’ve mapped another border of Chaotic Space.  There’s been no further sign of the subspace phase pulses we believe bloomed the blood dilithium in the first place.“

“Before you arrived,” Dolan added, “we were sharing our attempts to communicate with blood dilithium or at least identify whatever signals the crystals are exchanging with telepaths.“

Yuulik asked, “Did you share Nune’s theories for a subspace trumpet or a modified resonance burst?“

“No, lieutenant,” Dolan replied matter-of-factly; “You just said he’s off-limits.“

“Do it,” Yuulik ordered.  “His plans are all on file.  He’s dangerous but one of his deranged ideas might spark another idea that sparks another idea that actually works.“

The holographic transmission of Yuulik braced her palms against the tabletop and she leaned in heavily.

Yuulik said, “I want to know everything that blood dilithium is saying to the telepaths.  I need to know.  We can’t trust Nune.  I think he’s been lying to me.  I need to talk to the blood dilithium myself!  Starfleet doctors are capable of reconstructing damaged brains with cybernetic augmentations.  So build me a mechanical Betazoid paracortex!  Make me a telepath!”

“You have the CONN, commander.”

When Captain Taes excused herself from the saucer section’s bridge, Lieutenant Commander Kellin Rayco accepted her order with a nod.  While she withdrew to her ready room, Kellin remained seated in the executive officer’s chair and he kept his questions to himself. A couple of minutes later, when Yeoman Cellar Door made a fuss of joining the captain, Kellin afforded him none of that same consideration.  Kellin asked Cellar to join him in the observation lounge and he didn’t explain why.  Acting first officer’s prerogative was on his side.  

Attempting his best impersonation of Taes, Kellin used the power of silence as a tool.  As soon as the double doors to the lounge isolated Kellin and the exocomp yeoman from the rest of the bridge, Kellin walked slowly to the replicator.  Ignoring Cellar, Kellin ordered himself an iced coffee.  With every step, Kellin reflected on the many times Taes had left him in agonising silence until Kellin usually relented and told Taes everything that was on his mind.  In all the time it took Kellin to retrieve his beverage and meander back to the conference table, Cellar remained silent too.  Floated over the table on his anti-gravs, Cellar stared at Kellin, offering nothing.  Even the small running lights on his outer casing were blinking more slowly than usual.

Kellin extended the pregnant pause even further.  He turned to stare out the tall observation windows, taking in the view of the stars and a sliver of Burleigh Minor.  It was all the more odd for the mission pod and stardrive section to be missing from this vantage point.  Kellin slurped at his coffee through the straw, but then he couldn’t take it anymore.  The self-inflicted silence was eating away at him, as if Taes were waiting for him to spill all his secrets.

“Is Captain Taes okay?” Kellin blurted out to Cellar.

“Commander, when you were promoted to second officer,” Cellar tentatively replied, “Captain Taes ordered me to never lie to you, even when I know I can do so with ease.”

That sounded like a non sequitur to Kellin’s befuddled ears.  He took a step back from the exocomp and he took another slurp of iced coffee.  Kellin shook his head.

“Thank you?” Kellin said.

Cellar continued to say, “When Captain Taes retired to her ready room, I heard her murmur something under her breath.  I’m not sure if she understands the power of my acoustic relays.”

With some small compassion, Kellin said, “You’ve only worked with Taes for a couple of months.  I’m sure she’s still learning all your… skill sets.”  He hesitated only because he couldn’t be sure of the exact functioning of an acoustic relay.

Cellar made a sound like a damaged combadge and then he replied, “I know I shouldn’t blame just how recently the Federation lifted the synth ban, buuuuut–“

“What did she say, ensign?” Kellin interjected.

“She said the bridge crew were crowding her,” Cellar finally answered.

Kellin shook his head.  “What did she mean?”

“How could I know, commander?  I was eavesdropping after all,” Cellar said.  “Unless my memory banks deceive me, I did notice Lieutenants Jurij and Szerda ask Taes to assist them with interpreting readings on their consoles at least seven times in a two-hour period.”

Given the division of crew between the two Sarek hulls, and additional officers reporting to sickbay due to strange blood dilithium feelings, the bridge crew was stretched thin.  Taes had named Annikafiore Szerda the interim operations manager, but the USS Sarek was a far more complicated vessel than when Szerda filled that role aboard the Raven-class Nestus for her.  Kellin could imagine why Szerda might need assistance managing the competing systems when Sarek wasn’t at its peak efficiency as a saucer section only.  Lieutenant Jurij, on the other hand, was an old pro.  His struggles with the tactical controls was–

“That’s weird,” Kellin said.

***

“Any sign of Devore warp signatures, lieutenant?” Kellin asked.  

Having left behind the observation lounge and his coffee, Kellin joined Lieutenant Jurij at the bridge’s tactical console.  The Edosian assistant chief of security, Jurij, manipulated the LCARS interface with his hand-toes as if he were performing a dance.  Between the harmonious movement of Jurij’s three hands, Kellin observed a skilled officer who knew every gestural shortcut available to LCARS.  The sensor readings from the tactical scanners expanded to display their current input in greater detail.

“No, sir,” Jurij said perfunctorily.

“Any new sightings from task force command?” Kellin asked.

“Not in this sector, commander,” Jurij said.  “USS Sojourner staved off a Devore scout that demanded to inspect their ship.  Reports have it Captain Tarken didn’t fire on them once.”

A wistful smile came to Kellin.  “I worked with Tarken at Kunhri Three.  She fed a lot of starving Remans when the Romulan Star Empire fell.” Kellin took on a jocular tone when he said, “If she can turn back the Devore Imperium with her steely gaze, maybe I chose the wrong mentor.”

“Huh,” was all Jurij said, sounding discomfited.

Moving on, Kellin said softly, “We’re not armed like a Pathfinder-class, especially in the absence of our torpedo launcher in the mission pod.  Too much of our crew has some degree of telepathic or empathic abilities.  The Devore Imperium’s hatred for telepaths appears to be motivated by little more than violent dominance.  There’s no reasoning with them.  We can’t allow any of our crew to be taken.  We’ve got our escape route to the Markonian Outpost plotted.  If you catch even a glance of something vaguely Devore-shaped, we jump to warp immediately.”

Jurij nodded his snout at the transparent viewscreen, through which the orb of Burleigh Minor was visible too.  He added, “We jump to warp after we beam up Flavia and her science team, commander.”

Kellin braced a palm against the arch and he leaned closer to Jurij, conspiratorially.  Kellin looked around the bridge to make sure no one was watching, especially not his gossipy friend Szerda.  He confirmed Szerda’s eyes were on her console.  Kellin looked to Jurij and he waited until he had Jurij’s yellow eyes staring back at him.

“Have you had any luck,” Kellin whispered, “decoding that communique you picked up from the surface of Burleigh Minor nine hours ago?  You know, the one that’s only being transmitted on Romulan subspace frequencies?”

“Not even the computing power of our computer sciences lab can crack a Romulan progressive encryption lock,” Jurij replied, “and the terms of our treaty with the Romulan Free State would not permit us to make the attempt, sir.”

“Huh,” was all Kellin said in return, sounding discomfited.

Making himself comfortable in the executive officer’s ready room, Kellin loosened the front flap of his uniform jacket and he replicated a snacking bowl of almonds.  Commander Elbon’s decor wasn’t as surreal as Captain Taes’ ready room; the XO’s ready room more closely matched the starship’s reflective bronze and copper interior design.  Kellin padded out a slow lap around Elbon’s desk and then he decided to settle himself on the dark burgundy sofa instead.  After he chewed on a couple of almonds, Kellin accepted the subspace communication that was waiting for his attention.

On a wide LCARS panel set into the opposite bulkhead, a live video link with the USS Sarek‘s stardrive section appeared on screen.  Commander Elbon himself was centred in the comms.  The day’s end stubble was visible along his jawline and his uniform jacket was falling off, like Kellin’s.  They exchanged the usual pleasantries, by rote.

“We’re setting course for Burleigh Minor in the company of an ambassador from the Holy Goddess Mother’s Great Kadi State,” Elbon said.  His face was lit up with a different smile, the one Kellin didn’t always get to see.  So often, Elbon played off Starfleet duty as second nature, something he’d already mastered years ago.  This Elbon was invigorated.  He looked genuinely proud of swaying the Kadi with little more than words.  

“We will rejoin with the saucer section by stardate 77884.4,” Elbon explained.  “As long as we facilitate their procedures and rituals –and pending a blood dilithium donation to the Holy College of Abbotts– the Kadi have agreed to our offer to repatriate the remains of their ancestors to their home colony.“

Flashing a grin at the screen, Kellin said, “I never should have doubted you.”

“You never have,” Elbon countered.

Kellin’s grin tightened to an impish smirk.  “I spoke to your–” Kellin said, “to Commander Duncan from the USS Odyssey this morning.”

With a touch of amusement in his delivery, Elbon asked, “And how is my Academy chum?“

“He requested a wellness update on our telepaths impacted by the blood dilithium,” Kellin said.  “I think he might have been looking for you, but the computer routed him to the saucer, rather than the stardrive.  He did ask about you.”

Kellin glanced off to the side, suddenly replaying the memory in his mind.  “I think… I implied we were still married?  By accident.”

Elbon used the lower register of his voice, the one he used to mock Kellin mercilessly.  Pointedly, Elbon pointedly asked, “Is that jealousy I hear, darling?  Max contacted me for our initial findings when we first arrived in the Delta Quadrant.  I already told him we were divorced.  …You always said you were functionally incapable of jealousy, no?“

“Jealous of Max Court from the Odyssey?” Kellin asked, boggling at Elbon.  His voice went higher in a pantomime of disbelief.  “I don’t need to be jealous of him; I’ve already had you.  No, I’m jealous of you when you were a cadet.  Max can odd-my-sea any day.”

So soon after sipping at his tea, Elbon bleated out a laugh that sent tea dribbling down his chin.  After he daubed at his face with his uniform flap, Elbon shook his head at Kellin.

“By the Prophets, Kel,” he said, “you’re funniest when you’re not funny.“

Kellin blinked.  “What did I say?”

Crossing the sunken flight control deck of the main bridge, Lieutenant Commander Kellin Rayco made up his mind.  There was a casual sway to his hips as he climbed the two steps of the command platform.  He kept his shoulders loose.  Kellin was accustomed to taking up space in any room, given his thickset, if maintained, build.  This one time, he wanted to be invisible.  He craved this moment for himself: as Second Officer of the USS Sarek, Kellin sat himself in the captain’s chair.  He placed his palms on the armrests and he cast his gaze through the forward viewport.

A heartbeat later, as Kellin looked around the bridge, the moment rang hollow.  The senior staff were scattered across the two hulls and the surface of Burleigh Minor.  Elbon and Yuulik were on the stardrive.  Nune was locked in the brig, fighting for his own mind.  Nelli was swinging all ten of their vines in sickbay to keep up with the number of telepaths succumbing to the distressing effects of blood dilithium.  Even Captain Taes hadn’t returned from her ready room retreat.  

The only truly familiar face among the bridge crew –from the old USS Nestus days– was Annikafiore Szerda.  Even Szerda looked out of place, sitting at the engineering hub to his right, managing the operations station rather than the conn.  He wondered idly for a moment if this was what a career in Starfleet would be like, growing and developing beyond each of your crews and friend groups.  He supposed he didn’t really know how many crews Captain Taes had left behind to reach her position aboard the USS Sarek.

The thought of crews left behind reminded him of a nagging frustration Kellin walked away from in the ready room.  He looked to the U-shaped hub of science consoles to his left and nodded at the Vulcan ensign overseeing science station one.

“Ensign T’Kaal,” Kellin said, “Lieutenant Yuulik hasn’t been answering my hails and I promised a status update on Nune to the USS Odyssey.  Did Yuulik share her shift-end report with you?  Not that she would ever ask anyone to proofread her work…”

T’Kaal inclined her head in Kellin’s direction.  He saw her visibly hesitate before responding.

“No, commander,” T’Kaal replied.  “Yuulik has not responded to my hails either.  Nor has she made any of her research available in the department’s shared library for over twenty hours.”

At that, Kellin sighed.  It was a soft, frustrated sound.  Frustrated with himself more than Yuulik.  “I should have checked on her after–“

A piercing LCARS alert sounded in Kellin’s ear.  His shoulders tensed automatically.  He knew that telltale sound all too well.  Sitting at the tactical station behind Kellin, Lieutenant Jurij silenced the alarm.

“We’re receiving a distress call from the surface,” Jurij reported.  “Audio only.”

Kellin did the most rational thing he could think to do first.  He tapped a comms button on his armrest and he requested, “Captain Taes to the bridge.”  The computer routed the request to the captain’s ready room automatically.  Simply knowing Taes would arrive momentarily, Kellin took the deepest of calming breaths.

Waiting no longer, Kellin said to Jurij, “Open the channel.”

Flavia’s harried voice came from the bridge’s embedded communications nodes: “USS Sarek this is Science Officer Flavia, requesting emergency beam up. I don’t know what experiments you’re playing with up there, but the blood dilithium beneath our cavern has detonated!“

For just a second, Kellin squinted at the moon through the viewscreen, as if he should have been able to see smoke rising from the away team’s cave.  He blinked and then he looked to T’Kaal, raising his eyebrows in a questioning expression.

Taking note of his look, T’Kaal reviewed the sensor logs on her holo-display.  Moments later, she met Kellin’s eyes and shook her head in the negative.

“We detected no explosion, Flavia,” Kellin said in puzzlement.

Flavia retorted, “The solar radiation is interfering with your sensors, fool.  I wasn’t sure this comm signal would even get through.“

When Kellin looked to Szerda at the operations station, she was already nodding at him, her expression pained.

“I can’t get a transporter lock on Flavia,” Szerda said, struggling to hide the rising panic in her voice.  “Sensors can’t locate the other members of her away team.”

Flavia hurriedly explained, “My colleagues were injured in the cave-in.  Their communicators may be damaged or lost.  Commander, you have to get us out of here!  The veins of blood dilithium run deeply into the moon’s crust.  If there should be another explosion–“

“I’ll– I’ll prepare a shuttle with engineers and medical staff.  They can launch in less than five minutes,” Kellin promised, falling back on an order of operations he’d memorised for a command school exam.

“You can’t risk any more crew, commander.  If the blood dilithium destroys more of the cavern,” Flavia chided him.  “You’ve lost the six of us already.“

With Flavia’s damning assessment, Kellin felt his chest tighten, and the gears stopped turning in his head.  The running monologue of thoughts and feelings in Kellin’s mind went blank.  He was so accustomed to modelling his leadership off Taes and he couldn’t remember Taes finding herself in a situation where a planet had turned against the crew so suddenly, so harshly.  Raising his hand, he made a cutting motion across his neck.  

Lieutenant Jurij silenced the bridge’s side of the communication channel.  Over the subspace link, scrabbling footsteps and laboured breathing could still be heard from Flavia’s end.

“Where is Taes?” Kellin asked desperately.  His gaze swung across the bridge, only finding eyes looking back at him expectantly.  When his eyes landed on Ensign Cellar Door, Kellin ordered, “Check the captain’s ready room.  Get her, ensign!”

His body painfully tense, Kellin looked back over his shoulder at Jurij.  He gave the order with a look and Jurij opened the comm channel with Flavia again.

“Flavia, can you escape to another chamber?” Kellin proposed.  “If you can make it closer to the surface, we can get a stronger targeting lock for the transporter.”

Kellin held his breath when Flavia didn’t respond.  He still heard footsteps, faster now, a rustling sound of her communicator rubbing against fabric, and a hollow scraping sound too.  It sounded like Flavia was dragging something behind her.  Something or someone.

“Flavia?” Kellin called out again.

“Com-man-der,” Flavia said, exaggerating every syllable, and then she grunted painfully.  “We almost– there’s just–  one more–  Yes!  We restored the pattern enhancers.  Beam us up!“

Floating into the bridge from an open doorway, Cellar raised the volume on his speakers to announce, “Help me!  Captain Taes is unresponsive!  I think you would call it a fugue state?  She’s sleeping at her desk with her eyes open!”

Tapping the comm controls on his armrest, Kellin sent the order, “Doctor Nelli, report to the bridge immediately.  We have a medical emergency!”

In the same breath, Kellin snapped his head in Annikafiore Szerda’s direction.  He ordered, “Szerda, lock onto the pattern enhancers.  Beam the away team to the bridge immediately!”

“Energising!” Szerda declared as she dragged three fingers down the controls on her interface.

A swirling, sparkling mist of light coalesced before Kellin’s eyes.  As the swirls narrowed into six blinding pillars, those pillars solidified into Flavia and her team of five Romulan scientists materialising on the bridge between the captain’s chair and the conn.  When Kellin blinked the first time, he noticed there was no sign of bruising or blood on any of them.  Flavia had reported they were all injured and their jumpsuits didn’t even look dirty.  When Kellin blinked again, he then noticed the pile of bones and amour plates and helmets scattered at their feet.

A swirling, sparkling mist of light coalesced before Kellin’s eyes.  As the swirls narrowed into six blinding pillars, those pillars solidified into Flavia and her team of five Romulan scientists materialising on the bridge between the captain’s chair and the conn.  When Kellin blinked the first time, he noticed there was no sign of bruising or blood on any of them.  Flavia had reported they were all injured and their jumpsuits didn’t even look dirty.  When Kellin blinked again, he noticed the pile of bones and armour plates and helmets scattered at their feet.

“No!” Kellin shouted impulsively.

From the open doorway, Captain Taes stumbled onto the bridge, shoving Cellar Door aside.  The floating exocomp went spiralling towards the science hub.  Taes opened her mouth and she shrieked the kind of heart-wrenching sound Kellin could have only predicted if Taes were being stabbed in the chest.

“GRAVE-ROBBER!” Taes bellowed at Flavia.  “How DARE you bring death to my ship?!?”

Science Chief Flavia appeared unmoved by Taes’ display of raw emotion.  The Romulan held her ground in the face of Taes’ disgust.  Flavia’s face was a cold mask; there wasn’t even the typical glint of mischief behind her eyes.  The only reaction Flavia offered was to shrug flippantly when Taes lumbered on uncertain steps toward her.  

“It’s not personal, babes.  It’s science,” Flavia said.  “Knowledge doesn’t have to be pleasant or nice.  Some days it’s about getting there first.  These Kadi were buried in the ground wearing Hirogen armour as if they adopted the Hirogen way!  That’s unheard of!”

Groaning in protest, Taes threw herself to the deck.  She crawled towards Flavia, scrabbling on her hands and knees.  Taes reached out a hand to the nearest of the Kadi remains, but then she recoiled in disgust.

“Calm down, captain,” Flavia said dismissively.  “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Taes slapped her palms on the deck with a grunt.  She craned her neck back to look up at Flavia, her eyes set on her in deadly earnest.

“You’ve killed me,” Taes riposted, “and now you want me to calm down?!”

Flavia snapped back, “Don’t play me.  No one’s being killed.”

Taes’ voice went quiet when she asked, “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

All eyes on the bridge were drawn to the squawking feedback sound from a speaker.  Doctor Nelli’s amorphous vegetal form descended the ramp from the aft turbolift.  Their four trunk-limbs stalked toward Taes at a confident stride.  Nelli tapped the side of their vocoder again to increase the volume louder than Flavia and Taes had been shouting at one another.

“Captain Taes, you are now relieved from duty,” Nelli said.  “By threatening a representative of the Romulan Free State, I am duty-bound to inform the Captain she is under the influence of blood dilithium, which constitutes a danger to the ship.  I judge you to be mentally incapacitated.  Does the Acting Executive Officer concur?”

Kellin’s breath caught in his chest.  He tried to respond, but his throat was too dry.  Forcing himself, Kellin quietly said, “I concur.”

As Nelli approached Taes with a hypospray raised in their vine, Taes spread her arms wide and scooped a pile of bones onto her lap.  Her every movement plainly anguished, Taes shoved the bones under the flight control console.  But she pushed too hard and the bones scattered across the deck.

“By ere’ka,” Taes breathlessly cursed, “we have to hide the bodies.  We have to hide them!  We can’t let the Kadi see!  Helm, set course for Deep Space Seventeen; warp nine.  Take us home!”

Kellin stood from the captain’s chair and he turned his back on Taes.  He couldn’t watch Nelli sedate Taes and take her in a site-to-site transport to sickbay.  From behind him, Flavia spoke up.  All of the panic and fire in her bearing had gone away.  All that was left was the saccharine mockery of how Flavia usually portrayed a Romulan in Starfleet.

“You heard the captain, big boy, we need to hide the bodies,” Flavia said.  “You can transport the remains directly to our laboratory.  You know the Romulan laboratory is shielded from sensors. The Kadi need never know about any of this… messiness.”

“The captain has been relieved of duty,” Kellin said.  He spoke as firmly as he could muster, but he kept his back on Flavia.  He was scared of what she would see in the whites of his eyes.  “Taes’ orders were to leave the Kadi’s remains in the cavern.  I recommend we beam them back where you found them in the first place.”

Szerda rose from her seat at the engineering hub.  Since their days of serving together on the Nestus, she had never stood on ceremony with him.  Kellin turned to look at her, at least, when she spoke up.  The way her eyes cut into him –cut through him– Kellin knew this day was no different.

“Sir, why are you making recommendations?” Szerda asked intently.  “You’re in command of the Sarek.”

As a new recognition dawned on Kellin, he threw his arms in the air and he squeezed his head between his palms.  Kellin spun on the command platform to glare at Flavia.  He threw down his arms, but only to point at Flavia with an accusatory jab of his index finger.

“Ohhhhhhhhh!  There was no cave-in!” Kellin blurted at Flavia.  “Dilithium doesn’t spontaneously explode.  You lied to me!”

Flavia raised her hands to her chest and she clapped for him.

“Catch up, commander,” Flavia taunted.  “You wouldn’t have been sloppy –or at least not this sloppy– if I hadn’t feigned an emergency.”

Rising from the science console on his anti-grave, Cellar hooted at Flavia: “Holy shit, you’re definitely Tal Shiar!”

Standing on the other side of the console, T’Kaal said, “No,” and she shook her head.  Unlike the rest of the bridge crew, she spoke at a moderate volume and pace.  She offered her opinion as if she didn’t care who hear or believed her.

“The Kadi remains cannot be merely returned to the ground,” T’Kaal advised.  “Evidence of our interference remains everywhere.  The ground has been disturbed and Taes touched the remains.”  –T’Kaal gestured to the bones scattered across the deck– “Romulan collection protocols are clearly substandard; Flavia has probably touched the remains too.  None of that evidence goes away through burial.”

From behind Kellin, Jurij offered his recommendation from the tactical station: “Now that Taes is incapacitated, we must return to the Markonian Outpost at maximum warp.  Commander Elbon can determine the best course of action to assuage the Kadi ambassador.  But we go.”

Glancing back over his shoulder, Kellin grimaced at Jurij.  On top of everything else, it stung that his assistant chief of security had so little faith in Kellin’s command.  But Kellin didn’t have time to ponder that lack of loyalty at this junction.

“If that damage is already done,” Szerda said, “The Romulan Free State can take responsibility.  It’s not Starfleet’s problem.  I vote with Flavia.”

Kellin scoffed.  “There is no vote!“

Dropping himself into the captain’s chair, Kellin closed his eyes.  He couldn’t look at the bridge littered with bones.  He didn’t want to see all the faces waiting for him to do something — something smarter, faster, better.  But when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Captain Taes behaving as if she were possessed by an anguished spirit.  Kellin hadn’t recognized her at all.

Shutting it all out, Kellin opened his eyes.  He said, “Beam the away team and their findings to the Romulan’s private laboratory.”

“Aye, captain,” Szerda said.  “Energising.”

Flavia winked at Kellin.  As the transporter’s annular confinement beam began its swirl around her body, Flavia said, “I knew Captain Taes chose you for a reason, commander.”

When junior Science Officer T’Kaal accepted the incoming subspace communication, the ID coding suggested she was being called by her superior, Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik.  T’Kaal had spent much of the day leaving communiques for Yuulik, all of them to no avail.  And yet when a helmeted face appeared on her desktop LCARS display, T’Kaal’s first impression was that she was being besieged by a Breen soldier.  It was a snail-shaped tactical helmet that fully encased Yuulik’s head; instead of a visor panel in the front, all that looked at T’Kaal were three LCARS panels, displaying sensor logs and communication waveforms.

“What could you possibly want?” Yuulik asked from the LCARS display protruding from T’Kaal’s desk.  The vitriol in Yuulik’s voice was digitally distorted by communicating through the helmet’s comm system.

Speaking evenly, T’Kaal said, “Lieutenant, it is my duty to report to you that Captain Taes has been relieved of duty and Science Chief Flavia has–“

Yuulik waved a hand at the screen dismissively.  Her scoff sounded all the more peculiar, being transmitted through the helmet.

“I know all that!” Yuulik said.  “Gossip travels faster than light.“

Changing strategies, T’Kaal evaluated she could only make progress in her inquiries if she framed it through a topic that was of interest to Yuulik.  T’Kaal sat up straighter in her chair.

“Is the helmet working, lieutenant?” T’Kaal asked, gesturing to Yuulik on the display.  “Have the cybernetics team been successful in constructing a mechanical paracortex to approximate telepathy?”

Yuulik’s typical mad-on was replaced with a deadpan timbre.  “Has your brain exploded yet?“

T’Kaal inclined her chin in mild confusion.  “No,” she said, “It has not.”

“Then it’s not working,” Yuulik said.  “I’m not telepathic.“

T’Kaal didn’t hesitate.  “A lie?” she asked.  “Have you not ordered junior officers to genetically augment your brain until you become capable of telepathy?”

Yuulik unlocked the failed paracortex helmet and yanked it off her head.  She threw it across the compartment and T’Kaal could hear it clattering across the deck.  Yuulik’s wide-set eyes were aflame with indignation; that was a facial expression T’Kaal had witnessed a hundred times.

“Are you spying on me, ensign?” Yuulik asked.

“Yes,” T’Kaal said simply.  “My peers on the stardrive section have confided in me.  They have expressed genuine concern for you, Lieutenant Yuulik.  I am told you have not washed your hair or changed your uniform in days.”

At that, Yuulik dropped her gaze to her own uniform.  Beneath the teal shoulder panels, T’Kaal could plainly see a couple of suspicious stains on the black fabric near Yuulik’s combadge.

“You have begun yelling at yourself instead of yelling at them,” T’Kaal said.  “That’s not like you.  From here, I can see you’re sitting in the epigenetic laboratory.”

“Exactly,” Yuulik said, almost as if she were agreeing with T’Kaal, but experience had taught T’Kaal that this was a trick.  “We’ve prepared an epigenetic therapy using equipment provided to us by Starfleet.  I’m not talking about altering my DNA sequence.  I’m not breaking any Federation laws.  It’s just a teeny, tiny compressed metamorphosis.  Through a very small change in gene expression, I can reshape the function of one of my brain lobes to behave as if it were a Betazoid paracortex.“

“Lieutenant, you are misrepresenting the risk to your health,” T’Kaal said. She maintained a flat intonation, despite her inflammatory accusation.  “Epigenetic therapy is approved for use in little more than cosmetic alterations in the course of Starfleet duty.  The magnitude of change you’re proposing in an Arcadian brain structure…”

Trailing off, T’Kaal leaned back in her chair.  Her eyes fluttered for a moment as she approximated the calculations in her head.  Yuulik didn’t interrupt her.  That was concerning in and of itself.

T’Kaal concluded, “There is a seventy-four percent chance you’ll lose the ability for speech and sight to express your brain function as telepathy.”

“It’s only temporary,” Yuulik insisted.

“The purpose of Federation laws against genetic engineering are not simply about technicalities,” T’Kaal said, reflecting on a philosophy that meant as much to her as the logical teachings of Surak.  “The intention is to protect us from ourselves, protect us from the states of mind that led to the atrocities of the Augment warlords.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Yuulik asked indignantly.  “T’Kaal, I grew up on Arcadia.  We don’t have murderers or terrorists on Arcadia.  When my parents wanted to scare me, they told me bedtime stories about genetic engineers and Augments.  Like everyone in the Federation, I’ve been raised to believe genetic engineering is a disgusting abomination.  Don’t worry your logical head, I disgust myself.  I’ve vomited twice today already.”

Although T’Kaal maintained a lack of emotional modulation in her voice, she did speak slightly louder when she said, “Lieutenant, you have not considered the consequences.  Epigenetics is not your specialty.  You are entrusting your life to the handiwork of recent graduates from Starfleet Academy.  Changing brain functions should only be the work of the Stanford Morehouse project or the Daystrom Institute.”

“Their theories are sound and the ends are right,” Yuulik said, leaning closer to her LCARS screen.  “The blood dilithium is tapped into trans-dimensional beings beyond our comprehension and they have a plan!  Somewhere beneath your Vulcan facade, you must have seen it in Nune’s eyes.  Didn’t you see it?  How can you know higher powers exist, how can you know they exist for a fact, and then permit them to hoard their mysteries to themselves?“

T’Kaal shook her head.  Her voice took on a brittle quality.  “There are no higher powers, Sootrah.  There are only dead telepaths.  The memory engrams of telepathic Brenari captives, murdered by the Devore, have been transmuted into blood dilithium.  Have you not read the reports from USS Discovery?  Commander Rozar made first contact with them directly using their construction of Lieutenant Nune’s subspace trumpet.”

“Rozar is a liar!” Yuulik screamed at T’Kaal.  “She’s a telepath, you idiot!  We can’t trust the telepaths.  Not any of them.  They’ve been listening to the blood dilithium for too long now.  They’ve been indoctrinated already.  I’m not really a telepath.  I won’t be susceptible like they are.“

T’Kaal said, “There is no logic in your words.  If the epigenetic therapy is successful, you will become telepathic and become susceptible to the cries of the Brenari.  If the epigenetic therapy fails, you will suffer brain damage.”

“Clearly,” Yuulik insisted, “you’ve already been fooled by the telepaths’ conspiracy.  If you were open-minded enough to consider all of the facts, you would see the logic in what I’m doing.“

“How dare you say that to me?” T’Kaal spat the words out as if they were acid.  She lost her emotional control in a single moment.  “I told you, Sootrah!  When we were camping on Kunhri, I told you about my parents. I only ever told you!  And now?  You sound just like the specialists my parents sent me to; you sound just like their logic extremist conversion therapy.”

Yuulik shook her head, glaring at T’Kaal with half-lidded eyes.  

“Now you’re just trying to hurt me,” Yuulik said softly, “comparing me to those monsters.“

Reigning her emotional state in tightly, T’Kaal affected a formal timbre when she said, “I hold no wish to hurt you.  I want to protect you, lieutenant.  If you won’t help yourself, I will immediately notify Flavia and Commander Elbon of your attempts at self-harm.”

“You nasty offal,” Yuulik remarked sadly.  “You leave me no choice.  The epigenetic therapy isn’t exactly where I was hoping it would be…“

Yuulik reached outside the range of the visual sensors.  When she pulled her hand in, T’Kaal could see a hypospray clutched in Yuulik’s grasp.  Yuulik jammed the hypospray into a dispenser device and she said nothing while the hypospray’s cartridge filled with an injectable green liquid.

“I’ll tell the blood dilithium you said hello,” Yuulik said.

“Please, Sootrah, don’t!” T’Kaal shouted.

Yuulik had already pressed the hypospray to her own neck.  It took no time at all before Yuulik began to convulse and shout out in agony.  Yuulik collapsed onto her table top and her face clearly smashed into her own LCARS display before the subspace communication channel went dead.

“Not this,” Szerda murmured the moment the observation lounge’s double doors closed behind her.  When Kellin Rayco had called his first staff briefing as acting captain, Lieutenant Junior Grade Annikafiore Szerda had expected to find him sitting at the head of the conference table.  She anticipated seeing his grin, just like a labrador retriever excited for a walk.  The only thing that greeted her was the captain’s empty chair.  Kellin hadn’t arrived and nobody else in the desolate observation lounge reacted to her arrival.

“Captain’s prerogative to be late,” Szerda spat out under her breath.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Szerda took a step forward.  With the Sarek‘s hyper-modern EPS grid and forcefield projector systems, the bands of black metal fused to her uniform –her anti-gravity Lieber exoskeleton– allowed the Elaysian to feel light as air in the starship’s M-class gravity field.  Szerda strode nimbly to a chair at the middle curve of the conference table.

Awaiting Szerda in the observation lounge were two fellow crew members.  Szerda had repeatedly made the radical choice to never ride in a turbolift with either of them: Science Chief Flavia from the Romulan Free State and Doctor Nelli, who sometimes experimented with Federation social norms, but who often decided their own Phylosian ways were better in the end.

By the time Szerda had sunk into her chair, Kellin Rayco rushed into the observation lounge.  Since Kellin’s promotion to lieutenant commander, he had taken to slicking back his dirty blond hair in what Szerda could only assume was meant to be Kellin’s twisted fetish of Starfleet professionalism.  He didn’t appear to be as concerned with his appearance this morning; the wild curls atop his head bounced with every step he took.  His hands fidgeted with anxious energy the whole time.

“Doctor,” Kellin asked of Nelli before he reached the table, “What can you tell me of Captain Taes’ status?”

In the measured tones of their vocoder device, Doctor Nelli said, “Captain Taes’ vital signs have stabilised.  She self-reports continued distressing emotions, along with concerns that her Deltan presence has been amplified by the blood dilithium, acting like an aphrodisiac to the nursing staff.”

Kellin coughed a couple of times, as he draped himself in the captain’s seat at the head of the table.  Szerda couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard an awkward chuckle mixed in with the coughs.

“Is that real, doctor?” Kellin asked.

“Unknown,” Nelli replied.  “We will study the hypothesis.  Taes has made no attempt to escape Sickbay in the manner the other blood dilithium patients have done.”

After thanking Nelli for their report, Kellin met Flavia’s eyes for the first time since their exchange on the bridge, the day earlier.  Kellin’s brow furrowed and he leaned back in his chair.  He looked about to say something and then he hesitated, chewing on his lower lip.  Flavia’s expression remained impassive except for a slight widening of her eyes that approximated amusement.

“Let’s not pretend,” Kellin said.  The words came out fitfully, as if he just wanted to get it over with.  “I don’t want to work with you.  But you are the most experienced scientist in the crew.”

Flavia nodded deeply.  “By far,” she clarified.

“And Taes selected you as the Sarek‘s chief science officer.”

“That too.”

The entire surface of the conference table was one large LCARS panel and wherever Kellin’s hand happened to land, peach and purple menu options spidered out from his touch.  Tapping his way through the interface, he scrolled through a list to find a couple of retained files and then he selected the command to project them as holograms above the conference table.

“Following task force command’s initial reports on the origins of blood dilithium,” Kellin shared with the senior-most officers aboard the saucer section, “the USS Discovery has shared Commander Natashar Rozan’s complete log, describing her telepathic dialogue with the blood dilithium.  They’ve also transmitted the schematics for Lieutenant Gailwon’s subspace trumpet, which Rozan used to converse with the dilithium.”

A holographic recording played –the sound muted– of Rozan gasping at the sight of blood dilithium being bombarded with a subspace resonance burst.  That was the moment, they had been told, when Rozan had made telepathic contact with the telepathic imprint of long-deceased Brenari within a shard of blood dilithium.  The Devore Imperium had spent generations oppressing and murdering the telepathic Brenari and some twist of cosmic karma had brought the lost Brenari back as the blood dilithium.

Flavia raised a hand, using her middle finger to point at another projection: the holographic schematic of the subspace trumpet.

As Flavia pointed out, she said, “I can see two components they incorporated from Lieutenant Nune’s original subspace resonance emitter.”

“Even after everything we’ve learned,” Kellin said, “the counsellors aboard USS Sarek and USS Discovery are in disagreement.  We don’t know if Nune designed the prototype to escape the influences of blood dilithium or if he designed the prototype under the influence of blood dilithium.”

Narrowing her eyes at Kellin, Flavia banged her elbows against the surface of the table and brought her hands together to interlace her fingers.  Leaning closer to Kellin, Flavia gazed at him with a glassy menace behind her dark eyes.

“If every crystal of blood dilithium is imprinted with the telepathic matrices of the Brenari’s dead,” Flavia asked, “does Starfleet still intend to use these crystals to stoke your warp cores?”

Szerda immediately saw panic in Kellin’s eyes.  That had to mean he didn’t know the answer.  Not definitively, not for sure.

Kellin said to Flavia, “Now that you’ve excavated the Kadi remains from Burleigh Minor, the USS Palm Springs has resumed its mining operations.  Our orders are to protect the blood dilithium we mine from this moon, while we determine how to free the Brenari from the crystals.  This moon will become a target if the Devore learns of the blood dilithium.  Task force command has shared Captain Dex’s report of the Devore Imperium annexing a Monean colony world, far beyond their borders, because their scouts learned of blood dilithium blooming on that world.  USS Saratoga is supporting the colony’s evacuation.”

Flavia sniffed disdainfully.  “Far be it from me to respect Starfleet technology, but an Odyssey-class starship would be far more successful at protecting blood dilithium from the Devore than the Palm Springs and the Sarek‘s saucer.”

Szerda felt Kellin’s gaze land on her.  She couldn’t remember ever seeing him this determined before.

“That’s why Lieutenant Szerda is going to coordinate operations and engineering support for the Palm Springs,” Kellin said.  “Replicate more trans-sonic mining equipment and offer our crew to the mining operations.  We need to get out of here twice as fast as Captain Tomosso proposed.”

Szerda started to reply, but Flavia interjected, “Wait, I missed something!  I heard you say Starfleet wants to free the Brenari from the blood dilithium?”

Kellin nodded.  “It’s an option we’re exploring.  You’re exploring.  Make it the science department’s top priority on both hulls.”

Flavia affected a matronly tone, condescending to the senior staff.  She said, “What does freeing the Brenari entail?  Are they alive?  Their bodies have purportedly been killed.  Would releasing them from the dilithium crystals kill them again?”

“I don’t know,” Kellin admitted softly and he shrugged at her.  “Don’t the Vulcans have lore about the transference of souls?”

“That’s not science,” Flavia snapped.  “It’s mysticism.”

Gaping at Flavia, Szerda intently asked, “Do you believe in the mystic arts?”

Flavia blinked at her.  “Don’t you?” 

At the sight of Doctor Nelli lurching towards her, Taes could feel her body reacting in terror.  Taes’ mind began to react as if Nelli’s nearest vine was swinging a laser scalpel at her recumbent form.  Feeling the physiological responses to panicked hormones flooding her body, Taes’ first thought was how difficult it would be to break into a run while laying on a biobed.  Taes supposed she could unbalance Nelli by opening with a scissor kick to their mid-truck.  The two of them were alone in a private recovery room; no one would notice if Taes tackled Nelli to the deck.  Taes imagined she could buy herself more time to run if she damaged Nelli’s vocoder with her second strike.

Before Nelli stepped into kicking range, Taes practiced a breathing technique to ignore every instinctive signal her body was telling her.  She took notice of her panic and she isolated her conception of self.  Taes could see –she could plainly see– that Nelli’s vine was carrying a medical tricorder rather than a laser scalpel.  The large chunks of blood dilithium in the Sarek‘s geology lab were radiating a still-unidentified form of psionic something that was causing Taes more and more distress the longer it remained on her ship.  As Kellin had informed Taes, it was the psychic screams of deceased Brenari that were tricking her body.  

With a flick of a vine, Nelli tossed the holographic scanner results from their tricorder to join Taes’ medical records on the biofunction monitor.  By the time Nelli trod beside Taes’ bed, they put the medical tricorder aside.  Taes observed Nelli dropping the tricorder as if it had weighed three hundred pounds.

Nelli said, “Captain, given the marked improvement in your cognition function, I wish to submit myself to a Starfleet board of inquiry if you believe my relieving you from duty was unjust.”

Watching Nelli intently, Taes shook her head.  It was a gentle movement to protect herself from aggravating her headache.  Taes folded her hands atop the thin blanket that covered her legs and abdomen.  She tried to speak, but her voice was too raspy from disuse, having spent the past few hours in solitary meditation.

“You’ll do no such thing, lieutenant,” Taes replied, firmly and with warmth.  “You’ve done everything you can in the protection of this crew.  Frankly, I can’t be certain I can say the same for myself.  Has there been word of improvement in Lieutenant Yuulik’s condition?”

There was a flutter of the leaves on Nelli’s head-approximation.  They only hesitated in answering for a moment and that was enough time for their vines to droop close to their trunk.

“Her condition is unchanged, captain,” Nelli said.  “The stardrive section’s sickbay has advised Yuulik remains comatose.”

“Yuulik…” Taes muttered, as her chin fell to her chest.  Unbidden, Taes’ hands balled into fists, crinkling the clean lines of her hospital bedding.

When the door chime rang, it let the figurative air out of the room, even before Taes said, “Come,” and the door opened.  Taes smiled fondly once she saw Kellin Rayco standing at the threshold.  Beyond her usual delight at seeing him, Taes appreciated the distraction.  Whatever tedious update Kellin was bringing to Taes, to prove she was still valued, would buy Taes another fifteen minutes before she had to debate if her commands in this mission had led to Yuulik’s questionable life choices.

Nelli was already moving towards the door when they offered greetings to Kellin and made excuses to return to their duties in sickbay.  Kellin nodded at Nelli and said something about an “invasive weed”, but the statement made little sense to Taes without the shared context between the other two.  Kellin sat in a chair beside the bed.  Even in her tender mental state, Taes could empathically sense he was concerned for her comfort, not wanting to tower over her.  He asked Taes how she was feeling and she said she was fine.  Taes rose her eyebrows at him to tell him to get on with it.

It was only after Nelli had excited and the door closed that Kellin shared his report.

“Szerda picked up a strange transmission,” Kellin said, “A song called Sonic Headache by an Orion post-modern punk band named Kolar Blight.”

Taes broke into a grin, breathing out a soft, “Huh.”  She took such perverse delight in just how inconsequential Kellin’s report turned out to be.  Taes supposed any news that didn’t involve crew members committing blood dilithium-inspired violence was good news.

“That turned out to be our lucky song,” Kellin said enthusiastically.  “To search for the source of the transmission, we tested out the absolute maximum reach of the Sarek‘s new long-range sensors.  We couldn’t find the source of the music, but we did detect a Devore warship passing through the outer reach of this sector.”

Taes sat upright on the biobed.  She wasn’t smiling anymore.

Kellin advised, “Based on Flavia’s projections, the warship’s course won’t intercept the Burleigh system and we haven’t detected any telltales of their sensors on our hull.  I’m sorry, captain, I can’t risk losing any more crew to the debilitating effects of blood dilithium.  I’ve invited any telepathic crew members from the USS Palm Springs to board the Sarek and I’ve transferred all our blood dilithium to the Palm Springs.”

Taes cleared her throat and she said, “Commander, I don’t think–“

Although Kellin interrupted Taes, he did so in a compassionate and understated manner.

He said to Taes, “Captain, this is a tactical risk.  This is what I’ve trained for and it’s why you put me in command.  This is happening.  The blood dilithium is already gone from our science labs.”

“…Okay,” Taes said.  Blinking at Kellin, Taes couldn’t make out if she was feeling offended or impressed.

Kellin said, “I’m taking the saucer section into the corona of the Burleigh star where, Flavia assures me, the solar radiation will be more effective than any cloaking device, should the Devore’s sensors glance this way.  Palm Springs is taking up position in the Lagrange point between Burleigh IV and Burleigh Minor to avoid detection by the Devore.  Their away teams will complete the mining of Burleigh Minor in less than six hours. ”

“You’ve thought of everything,” Taes said.

Nodding glumly, Kellin said, “In fact, when the Kadi ambassador arrives–“

“No, commander,” Taes said, and she wasn’t as kind when she cut him off.  “I have already spoken with Commander Elbon about our diplomatic strategy.”

“It’s me,” Kellin said in earnest.  “You have to surrender me to whatever punishment the Supreme Abbott requires.  I’m the one who beamed the Kadi remains to the Sarek.”

Taes snapped, “That’s out of the question, commander.”  She paused to take a breath.  “As commanding officer, I am accountable for the actions of the entire crew.  Only because my perceptions are… unreliable right now, Command Elbon will represent me in our negotiations with the Kadi.  We will reach a new agreement on how to move forward now the Romulan Free State have claimed the Kadi’s history for their own.”

“But it’s my fault,” Kellin said.  The decisive starship captain in Kellin was replaced by a petulant teenager quicker than a blink.

“Yes,” Taes said, “and it’s my fault for giving you autonomy to make the mistake without the capabilities to avoid it.”

Kellin said, “Captain, I insist on–“

“If you say one word to the Kadi ambassador,” Taes promised, “I will demote you, commander.  What I will permit is for you to watch.  I want you to watch Jakkelb humble himself to the Kadi ambassador.  I want you to watch him grovel and beg for forgiveness.”

Taes poked Kellin in the chest to make her point, knowing how much Kellin still cared about his ex-husband.

Tilting her chin up, Taes said, “That will be a far greater punishment than anything the Kadi could do to you.  Besides, you need to see how commanding officers grovel for when it will be your turn.  Your day will come.  But it’s not today.”

His voice dropping to a whisper, Kellin sounded fatigued, when he said, “I didn’t mean to fail you, captain.  I didn’t keep you secure.  Not from Flavia or the blood dilithium.”

“You didn’t fail anyone, Kellin,” Taes said.  She smirked at him then.  “You can’t imagine this was the first time I threw myself on the floor and screamed gibberish at a foreign dignitary, can you?  I negotiated constantly with Cardassian scientists on starbase three-ten!”

Shaking her head, a mirthless laugh bubbled out of Taes.  “I’m almost relieved Flavia betrayed us.  I don’t have to wait for it anymore.  We can always trust the Romulans to be Romulans.”

In another sector, in another sickbay, on the Sarek‘s stardrive section, Elbon Jakkelb clasped Sootrah Yuulik’s hands between both of his own.  Her biofunction monitor softly chimed the steady beat of Yuulik’s heartbeat.  The sound reassured Elbon that Yuulik was alive.  Laid out on the biobed, Yuulik’s body was motionless.  Practically lifeless.  Her pale skin was all the more pallid and Elbon was unaccustomed to seeing her face without a sneer on her lips.  Yuulik’s condition had remained unchanged since T’Kaal’s hails had alerted him to Yuulik’s condition, unconscious on the deck of the epigenetics laboratory.

Yuulik’s condition remained unchanged until it changed.  Her heartbeat started to rise and her eyes fluttered open.  A pained groan reverberated from her chest.  Yuulik blinked heavily, but her eyes remained otherwise half-lidded, while they welled up with tears.

“Yuulik?” Elbon said in hope she could hear and understand him.  “Yuulik, how are– how are you feeling?”

Yuulik’s mouth dropped open, but she didn’t say anything.  She didn’t even groan again.  Silently, she stared at the ceiling, rivers of tears cascading from her eyes.

Then she said, “Don’t.”

It wasn’t the waiting.  Kellin Rayco expected to wait.

When he pressed the chime to the Romulan Free State’s primary laboratory, he waited exactly as long as he expected to wait for any response.  Kellin had no expectations that Flavia would make a fuss over him.

What surprised him was that even the double doors into the lab showed him disrespect.  Those interlocking doors heaved open as slowly as the doors to an overused holodeck at the end of a five-year mission.  Idly, Kellin had to wonder if Flavia had programmed them to behave in that manner.

By the time the doors had parted, Flavia was stood waiting for Kellin at the threshold.  Although she was over a foot shorter than him, her presence filled the doorway.  Flavia’s body language spoke plainly that Kellin wasn’t welcome inside.  The illumination inside the lab was particularly dim.  The brightest source of light was the acid-green computer interface in a Romulan script he couldn’t translate; it appeared far more analog than the predictive swirls and pop-ups of Starfleet’s LCARS.

Recalling the research Yuulik had provided him days ago, Kellin offered Flavia a traditional Romulan greeting by saying: “I see nothing.”

“Nothing to see,” Flavia replied by rote.

In his formal timbre, Kellin said, “As acting captain of the Federation Starship Sarek, I formally petition the Romulan Free State for the release of the Kadi remains that were taken from the surface of Burleigh Minor.  Starfleet wishes to return the Kadi to their home colony and take accountability for their removal.  We request no claim on the Hirogen artifacts you recovered.”

Flavia squinted at Kellin.  It was overly dramatic.  She held that pose for a remarkably long time.

“I would rather kill you than tell you my real name,” Flavia remarked incredulously, “and you plan to admit your mistakes to the Kadi?”

Kellin shrugged at her naked cynicism.  When he replied, he unwittingly slipped back into his natural intonation and he emphasized his points with hand gestures.

“Trust is what forms the foundation of any bountiful relationship,” Kellin said aspirationally.  “How can Starfleet maintain a meaningful dialogue with the Kadi if we’re standing on buried secrets?  We already told them what we found on Burleigh Minor; we can tell them what I did and find a way forward from there.  I hope to explore the Delta Quadrant one day.  I may need the Kadi as an ally.”

Kellin sighed.  “I don’t think you’re confused by Starfleet’s intentions.  You’re better than this.”

“Am I?” Flavia asked in an enigma-forward tone.

Kellin earnestly said, “Your science ministry asked to work with Starfleet.  You couldn’t have joined forces with a Starfleet crew expecting to pillage the universe.  How can you think it’s okay to take those Kadi remains when you, yourself, went to the Federation News Network to decry Taes studying ancient Romulan art that you believed rightly belonged to your government?”

Flavia’s murderous smile flattened.  “There is no word for hypocrisy in Romulan.  You can’t prove anything to me with a metaphorical speech.  The Romulan Free State only tolerates subservience from its people.  Looking for your concept of consistency is a fool’s errand.  Violent dominance cares little what new philosophy it wears as a cloak each cycle.”

Huffing out a breath, Kellin’s Starfleet bearing began to slip further.  Flavia’s posturing about posturing sounded just like everything he had read in Starfleet’s cultural research about the Free State.  Trying to think about what Taes would say caused Kellin’s shoulders to round and he took half a step back diffidently.  Instead, he said what he would say.

He said, “You joined this crew to explore if Starfleet and the Free State can learn to work together.  Is this how it’s going to be?  Are we going to operate as two separate units, working at cross-purposes?”

“That’s a good question,” Flavia said.  She pursed her lips and she squinted at Kellin as if those words had tasted bitter as they crossed her tongue.  Most days, Flavia had a biting retort to anything he said, but her appearance suggested she was putting consideration into this question.

“I will say…” Flavia offered.  She trailed off when she appeared to have a second thought and then she continued with, “This is how it’s going to be in the Delta Quadrant.  My science ministry has little access to the Gradin Belt.  I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the diplomacy to the diplomats out here.  I can’t ignore a single opportunity.”

Kellin shook his head and he softly replied, “Doesn’t that make you tired?  Is that really why you embarked on this great experiment with us?”

Affecting Kellin’s Trill accent in a mocking fashion, Flavia said, “I will open myself to consider other means of collaboration when we’re operating in the alpha and beta quadrants.”  –The menacing smile returned as she fell back into her common intonation– “I’ll release the bones to your custody if I can watch you degrade yourself the Kadi.  Demonstrate for me the performance of Federation humility; make it the performance of a lifetime!”

Tightly, Kellin remarked, “It will be Commander Elbon.  Not me.”

“Then I’ll watch you watching him.”

“Don’t ask me any questions you don’t want to hear the answer to,” was the cryptic preamble offered by Lieutenant Jurij.

Kellin had been tingling with a sense of disorientation since diverting to the tactical laboratory.  When Assistant Chief Security Officer Jurij had asked to meet him in the lab, Kellin could infer this wasn’t about the regular course of duty.  The tactical lab itself was largely powered down; it looked more like the Romulan lab in this state.  Illumination was at 75% and the LCARS panels were in standby mode.  When the stardrive section had taken the Sarek‘s probe and torpedo launcher with it, Jurij had redistributed the tactical officers to other duty stations.  Kellin supposed that meant either Jurij had constructed a torpedo launcher for their saucer section or it meant Jurij didn’t want an audience.  The preamble was starting to make Kellin think it was the latter.

Jurij presented a PADD-like device to Kellin using his centre arm.  As Kellin grasped it, he could feel that it was dented and a little dirty.  Scrolling across the display screen was green Romulan text, much like Kellin had seen in the Romulan lab.

“I’m a collector.  Dominion War mostly.  Romulan supernova scattered more across all markets,” Jurij said.  Kellin couldn’t be sure if the terse explanation was simply Jurij’s brusque manner or if he was being intentionally oblique in his explanations.  Jurij pointed at the handheld computing device with his right arm. 

“Including Romulan cryptanalysis devices,” Jurij said.  “I fed it the transmission Flavia sent from Burleigh Minor on Romulan subspace frequencies.  It took a couple days, but the little slug unpicked the progressive encryption lock.  You can watch it, but it’s a load of Romulan doublespeak.”

Jurij tapped a command contact on the device and a video of Flavia appeared on the screen.  The image was slightly distorted, but Kellin could recognise Flavia was recording in the caverns beneath the surface of Burleigh Minor.

The recording of Flavia said, “To all Romulan vessels within the range of my voice, I order you to converge upon the encoded coordinates for star system DQ-358.  This is Science Minister Flavia ir-Llantrisant and I’ve led an archaeological team of five to their ruination.  We have been marooned here by the USS Sarek!”

After Kellin watched the entire recording, Jurij confirmed, “This was transmitted hours before Flavia sent her distress call to the Sarek.  We were in orbit the entire time.”

Kellin handed the device back to Jurij, as he said, “She probably hoped a Romulan warbird would scoop up the Hirogen ship or all the blood dilithium while we were vulnerable without the stardrive section.”

Kellin bobbed his head from side to side as another thought came to him.  Debating with himself, he added, “Or she was struck by a pang of the blood dilithiums.  Romulans aren’t too biologically different from Vulcans.  That genetic ancestry of touch telepathy could have made her susceptible to the cries of the Brenari.”

Jurij plainly waited for a third theory from Kellin.  When Kellin said nothing more, he nodded at his assistant chief for whatever theory Jurij had been eagerly waiting to tell Kellin.

“Or,” Jurij said, “Even the decrypted message is still coded.  She’s telling her people something she desperately doesn’t want us to hear.”

Kellin had been struck by the odd specificity of Flavia telling her purported rescuers that she had discovered a source of water precisely four kilometres away from the dig site.  

He thought aloud, “What was four kilometres away from the dig site?”

Captain’s Log, Stardate 77916.9,

 

Upon arrival in the Burleigh star system, the USS Sarek’s stardrive section promptly set course to return the exhumed skeletal remains to the Kadi home colony.  The saucer and stardrive sections are maintaining formation at warp with a twenty-thousand-kilometre distance between the two hulls.  The USS Palm Springs has moved on to another mining operation, meanwhile.  Lieutenant Command Rayco has coordinated the storage of the Burleigh Minor blood dilithium on the stardrive section and the transfer of all telepathic crew members to the saucer section.

 

We believe this distance between the saucer and stardrive sections should prevent the destabilising effects of blood dilithium on our telepathic crew members.  In practice, our long road to reconciliation with the Kadi will be our first real test.  Although the intruding thought patterns of the deceased Brenari appear to have passed for me, the stronger telepaths among the crew report they don’t quite feel like themselves yet.  I have declined to regain command of the USS Sarek until Doctor Nelli has run more tests on me.

 

Oh…

 

One more thing.  I spoke with Captain Kirin Tarken of the USS Sojourner this morning to reminisce over the trials we faced at Kunhri and to compare our crew’s challenges in the Delta Quadrant.  The expansive sensor array on the Sojourner also happened to detect a song by the post-modern punk band Kolar Blight, this one called “Agency Crisis.”  They were able to locate the source of the transmission: a K’t’inga-class starship, the SS Vondem Rose.  Thanks to that distraction, the USS Sarek managed to evade detection by a passing Devore warship.  I’d say I owe the captain of the Vondem Rose a very strong drink indeed.

The captain’s recovery room in the USS Sarek‘s sickbay was significantly larger than any other recovery room on the ship.  The urgent necessities of a deep space captain’s recuperation were made apparent in the compartment’s design.  Not only did the recovery room have a redundant electro-plasma conduit, but it also contained an industrial medical replicator, a backup secondary life support processor, and a direct passageway to an escape pod.  Given how infrequently the recovery room was used, it felt excessive to Captain Taes.  For that reason, among a couple of others, Taes had insisted on Sootrah Yuulik being transferred to the second biobed in the room with her.  Despite all of Yuulik’s protests, Commander Elbon had made it an order.

Yuulik had already ignored a couple of Taes’ attempts to strike up a conversation since arriving.  Even though Yuulik too had been relieved from her duties as assistant chief science officer, she had nested herself in an overlapping arc of holographic LCARS panels.  Sitting up in her biobed, Yuulik toggled through dozens of blood dilithium sensor logs and the computer’s simulated projections of how blood dilithium might react to various forms of energy and radiation.  Yuulik was flicking between them so quickly, Taes couldn’t make out the details from where she was sitting on her own biobed.

Taes looked up from the singular report on her own holoPADD.  She cleared her throat and watched as Yuulik completely ignored the social cue.  Taes may have feared that Yuulik had suffered lasting brain damage from her epigenetic self-experimentation if Yuulik hadn’t been designing her simulations with such precision and speed.  These observations were consistent with Doctor Nelli’s prognosis that Yuulik would make a full recovery.  If anything, Yuulik’s presence in sickbay had as much to do with dehydration, and a lack of self-care for days, as the byproduct of using her own body as a science experiment.

Despite Yuulik’s preoccupation with her work, Taes said, “Commander Elbon is very hopeful after the first day of negotiations with the Kadi ambassador.  Although the ambassador is understandably horrified, she remains engaged in the dialogue.  Apparently, Flavia has even taken accountability for her own actions, but she keeps winking at Kellin as she does so.  Elbon intuits the Kadi ambassador to be perplexed by Flavia but not outright perturbed.”

Yuulik raised an eyebrow at that, but she continued her tapping at a holographic LCARS pane.  She didn’t even slow down her design of the next simulation.

Absent-mindedly, Yuulik asked, “How did you trick Flavia into doing that?  I’ve been right here.  I would have seen you drowning her in moral superiority.”

“I’m still relieved from my duties,” Taes said and she frowned at Yuulik, shaking her head twice.  “Kellin stepped into his role.  He spoke with Flavia and she volunteered to help.”

The suggestion of Flavia being cooperative drew Yuulik’s attention.  She looked at Taes and she waved most of her LCARS projections to the side of her biobed.  Taes could see Yuulik’s gaze become clouded by bland concern.

“That’s creepy,” Yuulik said.

“Oh really?” Taes asked pointedly.  It was sloppy, but she took the opportunity to pivot the conversation.  “Are you ready to talk about creepy, Sootrah?”

“You mean the Brenari trapped within blood dilithium?” Yuulik replied.  She didn’t even try to hide her smirk when she evaded speaking about what had put her in sickbay once again.  Yuulik plucked one of her abandoned holo panes and pushed it into the space between the two biobeds.  At Yuulik’s command, a simulation of an energy waveform rippled dramatically on the projection.

“If we subject the blood dilithium to a series of resonance bursts,” Yuulik described, “five rounds rapid, it would theoretically generate a subspace flow field that would drag any form of energy –psionic, biological, metaphysical– back into subspace.  We have to modify the subspace oscillation with each burst, but I haven’t found the right combination.  In eighty-seven percent of the simulations, the resulting spacial harmonics pulverise the dilithium into dust.”

Taes swiped a hand through the air, gesturing to the computer to close all of the holographic LCARS panes.  As soon as she did that, Taes could empathically feel that she had Yuulik’s full attention.

“You know that’s not what I was talking about,” Taes said firmly.  Even for all that bravado, Taes recognised she would need to figuratively back Yuulik into a corner to visit her own motivations.  Taking a breath, Taes began to mentally build the trap in her mind.

But then Yuulik raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Taes, which caused heat to rise in Taes’ chest.  Before Taes knew it, she was talking, and the carefully-constructed philosophical argument was abandoned to the recesses of Taes’ mind.

“We talked about this at Kunhri Three.  It was oh-three-hundred hours in the astrometrics lab on the night USS Dvorak was banished from the system,” Taes said, pained by how much she had shared of herself with Yuulik, only for Yuulik to keep making the same mistakes.  “I challenged you to decide if you want to be a leader or a mad scientist.”

“You decided for me,” Yuulik said resentfully, “when you chose Flavia to be the science chief over me.”

Scoffing loudly, Taes glared at Yuulik for her willful misinterpretation of the facts.  Taes shook her head slowly.

“That was politics,” Taes said.  “You made a choice.  You made a lot of choices.  Exposing yourself to an untested epigenetic therapy wasn’t the choice of a leader.”

“It didn’t do anything!” Yuulik spat back, plainly frustrated at Taes for forcing her to admit her failure out loud.  She shrugged and somehow made it look defensive.  “I’m not telepathic!  Or if I was, I can’t remember any of it.  All I can remember is the end of a dream as I woke up: I cut open Kellin’s stomach and I joined him to a fat chunk of blood dilithium…”

Taes insisted, “Experimenting on yourself is wildly reckless.  You will of course be attending mandatory counselling sessions until the medical department is satisfied you are no danger to yourself.  Starfleet captains have some degree of leeway, but I will be consulting with my JAG advisor to confirm you have broken no Federation laws.”

Yuulik screwed up her face into a discomfited cringe.  Now it was she who shook her head at Taes.

“Just say the blood dilithium made me do it,” Yuulik said petulantly.

Taes retorted, “You’re not telepathic.  No, I want you to tell me: how could you risk yourself like that?  You saw the disastrous effect the blood dilithium had on Nune and that was your best-case scenario if the epigenetic treatment had actually worked.”

“Risk is our business!” Yuulik declared.  “It says so on all the Starfleet brochures.”

Setting her jaw, Taes couldn’t think of her next move.  If she was honest with herself, she knew Yuulik well enough to know she wasn’t going to acknowledge her own vulnerability, and yet Taes had still needled her anyway.  Yuulik’s ability for self-reflection was always in absolutes.  She only ever worked from the first drafts.

Taes had read all of Yuulik’s logs detailing her experiences with interviewing Leander Nune, the first member of the crew to succumb to blood dilithum’s deleterious effects.  Yuulik’s frustrations in trying to make sense of Nune’s blood dilithium rantings were increasingly palpable with each log.  It had been especially painful to read about Yuulik’s naturally extreme reaction to Nune’s physical attack on her body.  Taes had no way to know if anything would have stopped Nune’s battery if the security officer hadn’t dragged Yuulik out of the brig.

Aiming to defuse Yuulik’s defensive posture, Taes told a story.

“On my first starship assignment as a science officer, I couldn’t acclimate to Federation society,” Taes said.  “I didn’t fit.  I had grown up on a Deltan colony; I had gone to the academy on Delta Four.  As an adult, Deltans communicate physically, empathically and sexually.  Being restricted to verbal communication felt hollow to me.  I thought everyone was lying to me all the time.  It made me paranoid.  This was only a few years after I had survived the colony collapse.  There were days when my duty was my only solace.  I would have done anything to prove to myself — to prove I was on the right path in Starfleet — because it felt all wrong.

“I would never speak for you, Yuulik,” Taes continued, “but I can imagine that was a little bit like how you’ve felt the past few days.  There are so few empirically proven facts about the origins of blood dilithium or what it can do.  You were trying to parse out the mysteries and your only source of information was an unreliable narrator in Nune.  He may not have understood what he was saying to you; he may have been lying.  It must have been challenging to know what to trust, especially after Nune attacked you…”

Taes’ voice faltered.  “I have to apologise for that.  I’m responsible for the behaviour of my crew.  Yuulik, I’m so sorry.”

Still sounding discomfited, Yuulik said, “You don’t owe me that.  It’s not your fault.”

“I’m still accountable,” Taes said sombrely.  “I can’t blame you for lowering the forcefield, letting yourself into Nune’s cell.  Honestly, I would have done the same thing.  What’s more distressing was you put yourself in a position where the only thing that mattered to you was solving the puzzle.  That way leads to doom.  You can’t let yourself become so empty, so bereft of meaningful relationships, that literally nothing matters to you but the puzzle.”

“That’s not fair,” Yuulik said.  “That night above Kunhri, you told me not to change myself for Starfleet but to also make myself more likeable as a leader.  You expect me to solve a problem you never solved for yourself.  How many of your Deltan ways have you abandoned to become your concept of a Starfleet captain?”

“I felt like I had no other choice,” Taes admitted.  “My oath of celibacy is enforced upon me and I came of age in the shadow of the Dominion War.  You may not remember it, but everyone was terrified of Changelings in their midst back then.  For a short while, for a short short while, conformity was the culture of the day.  It felt like I would be kicked out of Starfleet if I couldn’t find my place within the crew.  Nivoch was gone and I gave up on their dream.  The community on my colony was first established with the goal of seeking new truth.  They wanted to find a new spirituality, a new brand of science, a new way to see.”

Yuulik remarked, “That’s what I saw in Nune.  That’s what I wanted.  He had access to a secret truth underneath space.  I didn’t know it was only going to be the echoes of death cries.  What can I tell you?  I needed to know.  I needed to know it all.  It was the only thing that mattered to me.  After Nune hurt me, I had to beat him to the secret first.”

Taes could see something haunted behind Yuulik’s eyes.  It was distant now, maybe only a memory.  But it was enough to push Yuulik to change the subject again.

Yuulik said, “You know, I thought you were looking at me through new eyes at Kunhri.  You spent the night telling me about your life and then I thought you were going to kiss me.”

Taes remarked, “Evidently you have a history of paranoid delusions?”

Captain’s Log, Stardate 77928.1,

 

After wandering the Gradin Belt for over a month, the USS Sarek has missed the first opening of the Barzan wormhole back to the Alpha Quadrant.  Our renewed negotiations with the Holy College of Abbots were still too fragile at the appointed time.  That means it will be nearly another month before we can catch the next opening of the wormhole.

 

Our negotiations have proven fruitful.  The Kadi remains we discovered on Burleigh Minor have been laid to rest on the Kadi Home Colony.  To enrichen our blemished relationship with the Holy Goddess Mother’s Great Kadi State, Commander Elbon has agreed to the Supreme Abbott’s request that we investigate one of their colony worlds that has gone silent ten days ago.  The Kadi called this planet Withheld and it’s located a couple of lightyears from the outer reaches of chaotic space.  Neither the government of Withheld nor any of its citizens are responding to subspace hails.

 

Although Sutherland-class starships have been equipped with beautifully sensitive long-range sensor capabilities, they weren’t truly designed for venturing headlong into the unknown.  Despite the dangers, none of us can ignore the Kadi’s request.  I had a hand in the disrespect done to their history.  I owe them this much.  

 

I’ve consulted with Commander Elbon and he has decided to join the saucer and stardrive sections to prepare the Sarek for any eventuality we may find at Withheld.  Commander Rayco has transferred all of our blood dilithium onto the runabouts Kalev and Darial, which will follow the Sarek at a distance of twenty-thousand kilometres to limit the potential impact on our telepaths.  At least the runabouts are nimble.  If we encounter danger, they can run and hide more effectively than the saucer section alone.

The day the Sarek‘s saucer and stardrive sections rejoined:

Gripping the armrests on her chair, Captain Taes braced herself for the deck to shake as if the Sarek was about to be struck by a torpedo or a shockwave.  This was the first time she had experienced her Sutherland-class starship undergoing a reconnection of the saucer and stardrive sections.  As the stardrive made its final approach, Taes monitored the sensor readings as the computer took automatic control of fitting the hulls together smoothly and reconnecting the docking latches.  It was only the data on her LCARS panel that told Taes that joining was complete.  She felt no shaking, no vibrations through the deck.  

Ultimately, it had mostly been uncomfortable for Taes because she was sitting in the executive officer’s chair on the bridge, as an observer.  To her left, Lieutenant Commander Kellin Rayco sat in the captain’s chair, as the saucer section’s commanding officer.  To Kellin’s left, Science Officer Flavia had taken up the mission specialist’s chair, instead of her more customary place at the science hub.

Scant minutes later, Commander Elbon Jakkelb bounded out of the dedicated turbolift from the secondary bridge.  In one hand, he was carrying what looked like a transparent cylinder filled with rocks.

As soon as Elbon stepped onto the bridge, Taes noticed Kellin shift his weight in the chair beside her.  He suddenly looked as uncomfortable as she felt.  She could sense he was about to stand up, but then Elbon winked at him and waved his hand through the air.  It looked like a nonverbal message for Kellin to stay comfortable in the centre chair.

“Did you bring me a souvenir, commander?” Taes asked.  She affected a heckling tone to distract from any awkwardness Kellin was feeling.

Elbon’s brow furrowed at Taes’ question.  The gold chains linking his earrings swung when he bobbed his head from side to side in a gesture intended to communicate, ‘it depends.’

“A gift from the Kadi,” Elbon said.  “I haven’t mastered the rules just yet.  I thought I might need it for my retirement cabin on Bajor.  No one lives within a dozen acres.  An obscure game with too many rules might make for good company.”

As he strode to the foot of the command platform, Elbon proffered the cylinder to Taes.

“We can share it for now,” Elbon proposed. “I thought it would look fetching with the rest of your collection in the observation lounge.”

As Taes rose to her feet, she caught a movement from Flavia in her peripheral vision.  Flavia was looking right through Taes to raise an arched eyebrow at Kellin.  Taes thought she saw Kellin turn his head to receive that look when she descended the stairs of the command platform.

“You’re not planning for retirement already, are you?” Taes tauntingly asked.  “Kellin did remarkably well in your stead, but I’m not sure his first taste as Number One was entirely appealing.”

It surprised Taes that Kellin didn’t join in with a self-deprecating joke about the challenges he faced on the bridge the past weeks.  If she wasn’t mistaken, Kellin was still staring at Flavia.

Elbon’s eyes also followed Taes’ gaze in Kellin’s direction.  When Kellin still said nothing, Elbon replied.

“You’re stuck with me a while longer, captain,” Elbon said.  “I still have a taste for Starfleet’s fully automated luxury.  My cabin has no electro-plasma system.  Wood-fired everything.  Hopefully, you’ll retire me off while I still have the strength to keep chopping wood.”

Behind her, Taes vaguely heard Flavia say, “Are you really so afraid of being alone?”

By the time Cellar Door fluttered by Taes and took the Kadi game away to the observation lounge, Flavia had excused herself to the science-one console, making space for Commander Elbon on the command platform.

Kellin had moved over into the executive officer’s chair and Taes took up the mission specialist chair that Flavia had vacated.  As she sat down, she leaned over to question Kellin softly.

“What just happened?” Taes whispered.

Kellin blinked, staring into the middle distance.

“Those questions I had about Flavia,” Kellin said distantly.  “Those things you said–“

“About trusting Romulans to be Romulans?” Taes asked.

“…Yeah,” Kellin breathed out.  “I think I can trust Flavia.”

The day the Sarek‘s saucer and stardrive sections had separated:

Kellin could smell the fragrance on Elbon’s neck as he came closer.  It was still the same scent Elbon had been wearing the day Kellin met him, all those years ago, and it still set Kellin’s nervous system aflame.  Some distant part of his brain wondered if he should feel embarrassed that the executive officer was leaning his warm body into the crook between Kellin’s neck and shoulder — considering it was all happening on the bridge.  Elbon planted a kiss on Kellin’s cheek and Kellin ignored those thoughts at the back of his mind.  He enjoyed Elbon’s scent and he grabbed Elbon’s wrist to steady himself.

When Elbon put a hand on the side of Kellin’s face, Kellin completely forgot where he was.  Elbon’s hand dragged through Kellin’s beard on its way to grab Kellin’s earlobe in that funny Bajoran religious gesture Elbon would do sometimes.  Kellin was left standing in his memories of the previous times Elbon had fingered his earlobe, usually in a state of undress.  It wasn’t until Kellin noticed Flavia was standing beside him that he remembered where he was.  And Kellin only noticed Flavia when she began to shout.

“Goodbye!  Fly safely in your oddly shaped half-ship!” Flavia proclaimed to Elbon.

Elbon rolled his eyes at Flavia, as he backed into an open turbolift car.

“Uh, thanks,” Elbon said.  He offered Flavia a formal Starfleet salute to bid her farewell and then he offered Kellin a fond look before he ordered the turbolift to take him to the “Secondary bridge.”

Kellin started to pivot on his heel when he felt a rustle at his sleeve.  Kellin turned his head in Flavia’s direction and he watched her tug at the sleeve of his uniform jacket.

“I need to tell you something,” Flavia said.  She tugged at his sleeve again.

Given Flavia’s short physical stature and the incessant tugging on his sleeve, Kellin crouched down obediently.  Flavia cupped a hand over Kellin’s ear as Elbon’s turbolift doors closed.

“Have you ever noticed,” Flavia whispered, “whenever Elbon talks about his future, it never sounds like you’re in it?” 

The moment Leander Nune stepped into the research and development lab, Science Officer Yuulik held her breath.  It may have sounded like a gasp, but she would assure you it was absolutely nothing like a gasp.  If anybody dared say aloud that Yuulik had gasped, Yuulik was prepared to file court martial proceedings against them.  But those thoughts would come later.  Standing at a maintenance table, with her hands in the guts of a Class-V probe, Yuulik didn’t even notice Operations Manager Szerda proffering emitter lenses to her.

Bobbing her head from side to side, Szerda asked, “Lieutenant?”

Yuulik took a stumbling step back from the table.  Her days in Sickbay had figuratively offered her a spiritual reboot.  She no longer felt like the same person she had been a week ago: terrified of blood dilithium and yet obsessed with harnessing its secrets.  Seeing Nune again, in person, struck Yuulik in the gut like she had fallen through the Guardian of Forever.  It was like time travel.  At the back of her throat, she could taste all of those obsessive feelings she had worked so hard at tamping down.  Worst of all, she could taste the fear from when Nune had raised his hands to her and kicked her with his own feet.  Yuulik understood the blood dilithium had diminished his mental capacity, but her nervous system couldn’t make that distinction when she saw him standing there.

Following very closely in Nune’s shadow was the Edosian Lieutenant Jurij.  The Assistant Chief Security Officer was keeping a personal eye on Nune, even though there was no blood dilithium within concerning range of the USS Sarek.  Taes had assured Yuulik that Nune asked to remain in his quarters, or under guard, until he felt more like his own self.

“Can I see it?” Nune asked faintly.  He sounded as gaunt as he looked.  The gaze from his dark eyes bounced from Szerda to Yuulik and back again.  Yuulik thought he was able to look at Szerda for far longer than he could look directly at Yuulik.

Nune explained, “I’d like to know it’s real.”

When Szerda moved to share the emitter lenses with Nune –presumably given his expertise as chief engineer– Yuulik grunted at her.  Szerda looked at Yuulik with her eyebrows raised and Yuulik shook her head in the negative.  Szerda didn’t say anything in response.  She simply frowned and returned to installing the emitter lenses in the opened probe casing.

Yuulik pointed her index finger at the arch of the doorway Nune had just walked through.

“You can see perfectly well from right over there, thank you,” Yuulik said firmly.  She yanked a holographic schematic from a transparent LCARS panel that was protruding from the maintenance table.  Yuulik tossed the schematic across the compartment and the computer understood the gesture well enough to present the holographic schematics in front of Nune’s face.

“We have new orders from Task Force Seventeen command,” Yuulik affirmed.  “Destroy all blood dilithium!  We cannot allow the souls of the Brenari to be further abused by the Devore, nor used as fuel for warp engines.  The USS Discovery platformed off the research of the entire fourth fleet –including significant findings from the USS Sarek— to design the antiproton burst emitters you’re studying.  We’re installing them in a class five probe.  The antiproton bursts will reverse the tachyon flow from the spatial anomalies that bloomed the blood dilithium in the first place.  Those same anomalies will draw in any matter that originated in subspace.  The Discovery‘s first test–“

“I believe you, Yuulik,” Nune said, plainly overwhelmed by Yuulik’s brilliance.  He had traced a finger through the emitter schematics the entire time Yuulik had been speaking.  If Yuulik could only trust Nune for one thing at this point, she trusted his technical mind to spot any mistakes in the technology.  Nune snatched up the holographic schematics in his fist and he tossed them back to the LCARS panel they had come from.

“If the emitter design looks sound to you,” Nune said, “I trust they’ll be true.  They’ll send all the blood dilithium back to subspace.  No, Yuulik, I’m here because I’m horrified by the things I said to you,” –his voice went soft and cracked– “the things I did.  I’ll do anything to atone for my actions until you can trust me again.”

Yuulik’s eyes widened at Nune in a threatening glare.

“I don’t trust you,” Yuulik affirmed.

“I understand,” Nune replied.

“I don’t forgive you either,” Yuulik said.  “I do– Leander, I do understand the voices of the Brenari were echoing in your head.  You probably thought I was a Devore fascist half the time.  But I hate you right now.  That’s how I feel today.  I don’t know when that will change.”

“You have every right to hate me,” Nune said.  “If I can’t ask for your trust or your forgiveness, can I ask for something else?”

The swirl of stars streaking across the viewscreen made for a dynamic backdrop to the story Captain Taes was telling Elbon Jakkelb about her days of scientific diplomacy with the Cardassians.  Elbon was still seated in the captain’s chair and the captain was sat beside him in the mission specialist perch.  Although Doctor Nelli had cleared Taes for duty, Taes herself had insisted on Elbon remaining in command as they warped into areas of the Gradin Belt that could still be infested with blood dilithium.

From the tactical console behind Elbon, Security Chief Kellin Rayco said, “We’re closing to within long-range sensor distance of the planet Withheld.”

Elbon waited thirty seconds for elaboration and when none came, he teased, “The sensor palettes on this ship are like a mobile starbase.  Is that all you can tell me?”

He heard Kellin clear his throat.

Unamused, Kellin responded, “There is no sign of interference that should be preventing them from subspace communication with the Kadi home…”  He trailed off as he tabbed through his tactical scans.  

Then he said, “I’m detecting two starships of Devore origin in orbit of Withheld.  They’re not– I’m not familiar with their configuration.  The hull plating is much thicker than Devore warships, but their tactical systems are far more rudimentary.  The superstructure is reminiscent of our Typhon-class starships.”

Elbon mused aloud, “We’ve been receiving reports of the Devore expanding across half the sectors in the Gradin Belt for the past month.  Perhaps they’re stretching their resources too thinly?”

Kellin added, “They must know the Kadi can’t present much of a defence.  It wouldn’t require an entire flotilla of warships for a remote colony like Withheld to fall.”

“Captain,” Flavia interjected from the science hub, “I’m detecting dilithium deposits on Withheld.  If our sensors can pick that up from this far out, they must be very, very large deposits.”

“Huh,” Elbon reacted with concerned confusion.  “The Supreme Abbott made no mention of that.”

“Blood dilithium,” Kellin assumed.  “The configuration of those Devore starships: they’re probably mining ships, mobile refineries.  Our orders are clear: destroy all blood dilithium.  That would serve the Supreme Abbott too.  From everything the fourth fleet has observed, from what the Kadi told us of their experiences in the past, the Devore would abandon the planet if there was no blood dilithium for them to covet.”

“That has to be the one!” declared Science Chief Flavia.  

From where she was standing on the edge of the narrow work platform in the stellar cartography lab, Flavia pointed out a specific stellar object that was flashing in front of her.  She heard Ensign T’Kaal manipulating the LCARS console behind her and the perspective of the starscape shifted.  In its darkened state, the stellar cartography lab was little more than a globe-shaped holodeck, but with the holographic projectors running, it felt like they were standing on a narrow bridge protruding from the hull of the ship, out among the stars.

Sneering back over her shoulder, Flavia asked, “Unless… Are you certain you’ve adequately incorporated the Kadi’s star charts, the Starfleet charts and Romulan ones I provided?”

T’Kaal looked up from her console and she offered Flavia a blink and a bland expression.

“Our computer systems,” T’Kaal said, “are more than capable of such menial tasks.”

As she said that, the Vulcan science officer swiped the pads of her fingertips across the smooth interface to illustrate her point.  Out in the holographic starfield, a peach-coloured LCARS indicator drew a ring around the speck of light Flavia had pointed out.

“That cosmic string has been labelled as PX-two-twenty-seven by Starfleet,” T’Kaal said, “and the Kadi call it the Silent Confession.  Oddly, there was no sign of it on the Romulan Free State’s star charts?”

Flavia ignored that example of typical Vulcan superiority.  She gestured to the LCARS indicator and swiped her hands wide to magnify the holographic image of the quantum string.  Given the quantum string was actually as narrow as a proton, the sensor composite created artificial colouration to identify interstellar gasses accelerating into the string’s powerful gravitational fields.  A further visual representation demonstrated sensor data of the subspace frequencies and tachyon particles emanating from its event horizon.

“The Silent Confession is located a little over a light-year beyond the borders of chaotic space,” Flavia said, pointing out the relative distances on the star charts.  “The Withheld system is another light year away from the cosmic string.  If the Devore truly are mining blood dilithium on the planet, the subspace phase pulse that bloomed the dilithium had to originate from here.”

Further along the starfield, a Starfleet arrowhead pulsed into view to represent the USS Sarek.  A curving purple line extended from the arrowhead and avoided the representation of Withheld to arrive at the cosmic string.

“If we take this route,” T’Kaal suggested, “there is a sixty-four percent chance we will remain out of the sensor range of the Devore starships.  The gravitational fields emanating from the cosmic string should obscure our arrival when we drop out of warp.”

After squinting at the holographic course projection, Flavia took two steps back to examine T’Kaal’s calculations on the LCARS panel.  She nodded at the work, if only slightly.

“Send the new course to the bridge,” Flavia ordered.

After T’Kaal had done so, she pushed her chair back from the LCARS console.  She was about to stand up and Flavia put a hand on her shoulder.

“Commander Rayco tells me commendations are in order,” Flavia lyrically said.  “When I was on the surface of the moon, you remained a voice of reason.  Even when the concentration of blood dilithium caused the vaunted Captain Taes to lose her senses, you were steady.  Are the teachings of Surak so powerful that you were never even shaken by the cries of blood dilithium?”

T’Kaal logged out of the LCARS panel.  She didn’t look up at Flavia when she responded.

“I’ll never tell.”

“It’s somewhere out there, huh?” asked Commander Elbon Jakkelb.  

From his perch in the captain’s chair, he squinted at the stars that were visible through the transparent viewscreen.  All he could see was a scattering of stationary stars.  It looked the same as any other star system he had passed through.  Elbon understood the USS Sarek was positioned a safe distance away from it, but he expected to be able to see a spatial phenomenon of such incredible gravitational pull.

From the raised platform of science consoles, Flavia clucked her tongue at Elbon.  Amid the three other teal-shouldered science officers seated around her, Flavia looked out of place in her Romulan Free State jumpsuit.

“That is rather the defining quality of a cosmic string, captain,” Flavia said.  Despite her chiding tone, Elbon noticed she respected the Starfleet tradition of referring to Elbon based on his current responsibility, if not his rank.  “It’s why they pose such navigational hazards, even when they’re not blooming blood dilithium as this one has done.”

Elbon raised an index finger to communicate, ‘wait, slow down.’

“We presume,” Elbon corrected her.

“Actually, captain,” Szerda said, looking up from the operations console on Elbon’s right, “We’ve managed to decode the subspace chatter between the Devore starships in orbit of Withheld.  Blood dilithium is confirmed.  They’ve invaded Withheld to mine the blood dilithium.  The Kadi are offering no resistance to the Devore apart from quote ‘thoughts and prayers’.”

Sneering at the viewport, Elbon remarked, “I don’t think so.  If they can’t resist, then we’ll resist for them.”  The sentiment felt even more natural to him than Starfleet rhetoric.  Having grown up during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, none of the Devore’s horrific actions were terribly surprising to Elbon.  While he had sought out the Vedek Assembly as his own first act of resistance, that hadn’t been his last one by far.

“Flavia, has the class-five probe been prepared?” Elbon asked.

Relishing in the phrase, Flavia replied, “Armed and ready, captain!”

Elbon tilted his head to the left.  “Launch it,” he ordered.

An LCARS panel behind Elbon chimed as Security Officer Kellin Rayco executed the order. 

“Probe is away,” Kellin said.

Through the viewscreen, Elbon’s eyes followed the flicker of light that had been launched from the Sarek‘s mission pod and hurled through the space between them and the cosmic string.  In seconds, the probe had travelled too far for Elbon to see it, and the cosmic string remained virtually invisible too.

As she executed the task via her own LCARS panel, Flavia reported, “I’m engaging the probe’s antiproton burst emitters.”  

Presumably for Elbon’s benefit, Flavia overlaid a holographic LCARS panel over the viewscreen to provide visual representations of the sensor readings.  She did so just in time: through the lens of the sensor array, the cosmic string emitted an energy discharge that looked like lightning.  The crackles of light sprung into a dozen different directions.  For a second, it looked like the entire star system was shattering.

“We’ve shifted the flow of tachyon particles from the quantum string,” Flavia reported.  “The flow has reversed and it’s accelerating, captain!  The effect is expanding into the Withheld system even more quickly than the simulations predicted.”

Kellin interjected, “We’re being hailed by our runabout Kalev.”

“On screen,” Elbon ordered.

In the upper left corner of the viewscreen, another LCARS pane overlaid the sensor composite.  Within the purple borders of the LCARS rectangle, a video channel in the cockpit of the Kalev appeared, featuring Ensign Cellar Door in the foreground and stacks of raw dilithium crystals visible in the aft compartment.

“Whatever you’re doing, captain,” Cellar said, “has got the blood dilithium fizzling.  A couple of rocks have dematerialised completely!“

From the science hub, Flavia confirmed, “Quantum spectrometer readings are detecting a fifteen percent reduction in the blood dilithium on board the runabouts.  Thirty percent… Seventy percent…”

“The probe actually works,” Kellin chimed in, sounding awed, if also pleasantly surprised.  He continued softly, saying, “The Discovery‘s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.”

“One hundred percent,” Flavia said.  Elbon thought he heard an edge of amazement in her own voice too.  “All of the blood dilithium aboard our ships has dematerialised into subspace.”

“Szerda, tractor our runabouts home,” was the first order Elbon gave.  The comms channel to Kalev winked out on the viewscreen.

Elbon rubbed the back of his neck as he reconciled their orders and their options.  He and Taes were determined to prove Starfleet’s friendship to the Kadi, but Sutherland-class starships weren’t fully-fledged explorers.  The Sarek was a research cruiser with her tactical capabilities heavily weighted in her shield capacity, rather than her torpedo count.  A captain of a Sutherland-class starship was meant to defend the crew while running back to the nearest starbase.  As he started to make up his mind, Elbon asked the one question that remained among his decision-making criteria.

“Flavia, we don’t fully understand the mechanism for how the blood dilithium bloomed from subspace phenomenon, do we?” Elbon asked.

Flavia shook her head.  “Not entirely.  We have observed the effects of its arrival and departures, but I could not deliver a lecture on the subspace mechanics.  Not yet anyway.”

“All right then,” Elbon said.  “CONN, set course for the outer rim of the Withheld system.  Warp seven.  I don’t want to invite a confrontation with the Devore, but we need to observe for ourselves if the blood dilithium on Withheld has been diverted into subspace.  That’s the Kadi’s only chance of driving off the Devore.”

All too soon, Kellin was saying, “One of the Devore mining ships has broken orbit from Withheld.”  

With Kellin standing behind Elbon at the tactical console, Elbon could practically feel Kellin’s breath on the back of his neck.  This first indication that the USS Sarek had been noticed, while creeping along the outskirts of the Withheld system, gave Elbon that dreadful feeling like his stomach had plummeted into his feet.

“The ship is on an intercept course,” Kellin added.

“Shields up!” Elbon ordered.  “Red alert!”

As Kellin energized the shields, the red alert klaxon sang out from overhead.  Red borders began to flash around the viewscreen and every other LCARS panel around the bridge.  Captain Taes had long ago customised the default settings to let the klaxon scream three times and then the volume lowered considerably.

Impatiently, Elbon shouted to be heard over the klaxon: “Flavia?”

“Aye, captain,” Flavia responded.  She had expanded her LCARS console with two additional holographic panels and she compared sensor readings on all of them before she committed to anything more.

“Quantum spectrometer readings confirm,” Flavia said, “there are no longer any deposits of dilithium in the crust of Withheld, blood or otherwise.  The blood dilithium has dematerialised back into subspace through the cosmic string.”

“Thank you, Flavia,” Elbon said, his left leg twitching against the deck.  Moving on, he asked, “Kellin, I would assume even the Devore’s mining ships have more torpedo launchers than we do?”

“They do, captain,” Kellin replied mirthlessly.

Tapping at the LCARS monitors on his armrest, Elbon took another look at the sensor readings of the Devore starships.

“Even if we’re not tactically equipped, this might still be a fair fight,” Elbon said encouragingly.  “We’re weighed down by large-scale scientific instruments, but those mobile refineries might be even less maneuverable than we are.”

Elbon cleared his throat. “CONN, set course for the Kadi home colony.  Warp seven.  Let’s go!”

A burst of light flashed through the viewscreen, signalling the Sarek‘s jump to warp speed.  Instinctively, Elbon gripped his armrests for support, as if he were still flying the Antares-class freighters of his youth.  It was unnecessary, of course, given how effectively the inertial dampeners kept the ship feeling as if it was still at rest.  A heartbeat later, his force of habit passed.

“Ensign Aloyye,” Elbon called out to the Brikar flight controller seated at the curved LCARS console in the sunken flight control well.  “Have you practiced an Immelman turn before?”

“Uh,” Aloyye nervously answered, “No, sir.”

Kellin, meanwhile, maintained his formal timbre in saying, “Captain, two Devore mining ships are pursuing us at warp seven.”

In another heartbeat, Elbon was out of his seat and clattering down the stairs.  He rounded the engineering hub of consoles to stand behind Annikafiore Szerda.  Although Szerda was filling in for the Sarek‘s telepathic operations chief, her usual posting was as chief flight controller.  Elbon gripped the back of her chair.

“Szerda,” Elbon prompted hopefully, “How about you?”

“Afraid not, sir,” Szerda answered.  “You’re the one who taught me.”

A hint of panic crept into Kellin’s voice, when he reported, “Mining ships are increasing to warp 8, captain.  They’re targeting us with phasers.”

Almost on auto-pilot, Elbon responded, “Ensign Aloyye, increase to warp 8.”  He stepped back from Szerda’s chair to stride down the ramp into the flight control well.  “And then I’m taking the CONN.  I can get them off our tail.”

“Sir?” Aloyye asked.  His voice cracked with uncertainty as if he had misheard Elbon.

He wasn’t the only one.  From the mission specialist chair, Taes asked, “Captain?” in a tone that questioned if Elbon’s decision was absolutely necessary.

Elbon glanced back over his shoulder to Taes and he fixed her with a mischievous smirk.

“We grew up in the DMZ, captain,” Elbon replied congenially.  As soon as Aloyye stepped away, Elbon dropped himself into the vacant chair and oriented himself to the current positional and course projections from the flight controls.  He said to Taes, “I learned to fly in the Badlands, didn’t you?”

Taes’ reply sounded brittle when she replied, “Flight school wasn’t a priority at the time.”

Elbon swiped his fingers over the smooth LCARS panel, making adjustments to the relative bearing and utilising the computer’s computational skills in preparation for his intended maneuver.  Half of the displays around the bridge rang out in alarm because the Sarek‘s aft shields were struck by Devore phaser strikes.  Shield power remained close to maximum, Elbon could see from the monitors, even when the Devore fired another volley the Sarek‘s way.

“That was in a previous life, I’ll admit,” Elbon said somewhat metaphorically.  “In Starfleet, I spent a couple of years as a crisis counselor, around Eighty-Five.  Our Romulan rescue armada was spread so thin, it was just me and a runabout most days.”

Elbon looked back again when he added, “But more importantly, Commander Rayco can anticipate how I fly.  Isn’t that right, Kel?  Do you have the mining ships’ engines targeted?”

“You know me too well,” Kellin said.

Elbon gave the command, “Fire at will,” as his fingers stabbed and swiped over the flight controls.  The tunnel of stars through the viewscreen spiralled into a blinding blur, as Elbon  climbed the Sarek to loop back towards Withheld.  He rolled the Sarek at the same time and it happened too fast for the mining ships to become visible on the viewscreen.  As soon as Elbon positioned the greater coverage of the saucer section’s phaser arrays in the path of the Devore mining ships, he saw the indistinct flurry of phaser beams through the viewscreen.

“Szerda?” Elbon asked.

“Plasma injectors remodulated,” Szerda reported.

“Flavia?” Elbon asked.

“Flooding their sensor palettes with a randomized EM field,” Flavia reported.  “They won’t catch our warp trails this time.”

Elbon rolled the Sarek onto another course, which was evidenced by another flash of light through the viewscreen.  With the Devore ships behind the Sarek, Elbon ordered Kellin to lay quantum torpedos in their path and Elbon pushed the warp engines to emergency speed.

“Direct hits on both ships,” Kellin reported excitedly.  He tapped at the tactical console a couple more times.  Elbon swivelled his chair to show Kellin he was eagerly awaiting another report, without distracting Kellin with more words.  He saw Taes and Flavia watching Kellin just as intently.

“The mining ships have dropped out of warp,” Kellin announced with a satisfied laugh.  “They’re not pursuing our new course!”

Elbon didn’t even have time for a deep breath before an LCARS telltale signalled an incoming subspace message.

“We have new orders from Task Force Seventeen command,” Szerda advised.  “Because our probe was successful, we’ve been sent the coordinates for an asteroid field with large deposits of blood dilithium.  We’re to destroy all blood dilithium.  Send it back to subspace.”

“That’s too much excitement,” Elbon laughed.  Sighing, his posture slumped low in the chair.  He took that deep breath he needed.

Elbon went on: “I was hoping we could spend a couple of weeks exploring before the next opening of the Barzan wormhole.”

Flavia enthused, “This ship was built for multitasking.  We can do two things at once.  Why else was it assigned two teams of scientists?”

As Elbon waved Ensign Aloyye over to take back the flight controls, he watched Kellin and Taes share a silent look.

When they didn’t say anything, Elbon replied to Flavia, “Keep fabricating more class five probes in the meantime.”

Leander Nune was losing track of what was real and what was fantasy again, but it didn’t scare him as much this time.

He could hear Lieutenant Yuulik talking, but the exact meaning was indistinct.  She was using those consoling tones she had perfected in the brig with him, weeks back.  He could remember telling himself to focus on Yuulik’s voice, to hold onto it like a tether, but she was starting to sound more like the dream than the reality.  Her voice extended into slow motion as if she was experiencing time distortion from the wormhole effect of an antimatter imbalance.

Yuulik said something about the “subspace trumpet amplifying the voice of the blood dilithium.”

What felt more like reality was the way Nune had laid his head in the lap of someone he trusted.  It was someone warm, who was intentionally sharing a feeling of comfort with Nune.  There was a person, but he also had the feeling of stepping into a warm bath.  But the warm bath had hands.  Nune felt rough hands caressing his hair and massaging his scalp.

Nune knew bath-hands was reality because when he turned his attention to Yuulik in his quarters, he experienced it from an out-of-body perspective.  He could see Yuulik pointing the subspace trumpet at a small shard of blood dilithium, and he could see Jurij guarding Yuulik, but he could also see himself sitting on the sofa.  Through the viewports out of his quarters, he could see an asteroid field, with large chunks of blood dilithium protruding from half the asteroids.

Nune opened his eyes.  In the other reality, Nune was laying in the man’s lap.  He looked up at the most beautiful open features he’d ever seen on a living being.  The man was bald-headed and he had distinctive Brenari ridges between his eyebrows. He looked down at Nune with hazel eyes, the rich shade of those irises were flecked with gold.

“Was it you?” he asked.

“Was what me?” Nune said.

“Time is short,” he said sadly.

From the dream, Nune could almost hear Yuulik shouting excitedly about the probe.

“Why did you talk to me?” Nune asked.  “I was barely exposed to the blood dilithium.  Not like the others.”

Looking down at Nune, a smile crossed his face.  Nune could have only described that smile as beatific.  

“You wanted to hear me,” he said.

“Not that,” Nune urged.  “I didn’t want all of that.”

“I’m falling,” he said, even though his legs felt sturdy beneath Nune’s head.  “Falling underneath space.”

“We’re freeing you from the dilithium,” Nune remarked.  “There’s no real life to be had in there.  It’s only another prison.”

He shrugged.  “It doesn’t hurt?  If that means anything?”

“Before you go,” Nune said, “I need– I need to know.  Why did you make me feel that way?  Your voice made me stuffer and distrust all my friends!  Why would you wish your suffering upon me?  You could have told me — you could have explained who you were.”

“I told you my story,” he said, but his features were becoming indistinct.  His voice was fading and Nune could hear Yuulik speaking more clearly now.  

Before fading with all the blood dilithium across the asteroid belt, the last thing he said was, “Why didn’t you listen?”