‘Looks good from here.’

Runabout cockpits weren’t designed for people like her, thought the five foot-and-a-sneeze tall Commander Cortez, leaning across the control panel to get a better look at the sensor reading. She could have adjusted her chair, but she’d only moved to this station to double-check something. Now she was deeply undignified, like a child in need of a booster seat.

The deep voice of Master Chief Lann rumbled back a moment later. ‘Panel integrity check complete, then. How’s them power systems?’

‘I know how to install power systems on a surveillance post.’ Cortez pressed her palms to her eyes, then let out a deep breath. He was right to ask. ‘Running final checks.’

‘Understood, Boss. I’ll stay out here in case something needs yanking.’

‘Got it. Setting the check to run and getting coffee.’ She could have asked one of her keen young engineers to bring a mug from the replicator, but it meant she could stretch her legs. The briefing room behind the cockpit was abuzz, her sensor systems specialist liaising with the others to check the platform’s sensitive equipment was fully calibrated, and she left them to it as she fetched a steaming mug of raktajino.

Klingon coffee. When did she start drinking Klingon coffee? But Cortez knew damn well when, and pushed the thought back with a bitter sucking of teeth as she returned to the cockpit. The canopy was filled with the shadows of asteroids drifting in front of pinprick stars, and the hulking shape of the surveillance platform they’d installed here, nestled where the electromagnetic interference of the field would shield it from prying eyes. It was also why installing the power systems was such a pest; the platform’s sensors needed a lot of juice to look outward.

Minutes later, the systems check blatted its results at her, and she reached for comms to Lann, EV out on the platform itself. ‘Armada to Lann. All lights are green. We’re -’

On the other side of the cockpit, a fresh boop went off. Cortez looked around. Her power specialists were still consumed with work in the briefing room. The boop went again. It was the main comms. She sighed. ‘Stand by, Chief.’

She kicked off to roll her chair across the cockpit, saw the light of the incoming hail, read the name USS Triumph, and sighed loudly to get it out of her system before she brought up the call. ‘This is the Armada, mother goose. What’s up?’

‘How’s it going out there, grease monkeys?’ came the chipper tones of Commander Krish Malhotra, Triumph’s Ops Officer. She normally quite liked Malhotra. He normally wasn’t interrupting her work.

‘Almost done.’ And done sooner without interruptions.

‘Good. You’re ordered to wrap up and ship back to Triumph ASAP, Commander. We’re heading out of this sector.’

‘ASAP?’ Cortez stared. ‘The whole reason we’re out here -’

‘Was the Rebirth. They’re not a problem any more.’

‘They’re not?’

‘Squadron ran down Trellian’s gang this morning. Well, Endeavour picked up Trellian, we ran down his ships and officers and guns.’ There was the subtlest hint in Malhotra’s voice that he felt Triumph had done the lion’s share of the work. ‘So we’re moving on.’

Cortez looked at the hulking surveillance platform out the cockpit. ‘And my last week of work?’

‘Will help keep an eye on things when we’re gone. This is the captain’s orders.’

‘I didn’t think it was your call, Krish,’ said Cortez, not unkindly. ‘We’ll finish up here as soon as we can, but even if we have to chase after you, I’m not leaving this platform non-functioning. That’s a waste of time and resources. We’ll be back in three hours.’

‘He was quite clear he wanted you back –’

‘I’ll see you soon! Armada out!’ Cortez cut the line and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Then she retrieved her coffee and keyed the internal comms to connect to the whole team. ‘Everyone, this is Cortez. Mothership wants us back as soon as possible. I told them we’ll be back in three hours so, you know the drill, people. Let’s finish off essential systems, get this platform switched on, and be back to Triumph with the sort of punctuality Starfleet Engineers can be proud of.’

The runabout Armada set down on the shuttlebay of the USS Triumph two hours and forty minutes later, because Isabela Cortez was a graduate of Starfleet Academy’s best engineering programmes, and they had trained her within an inch of her life to under no circumstances tell her superiors the truth about her work estimates.

Malhotra was already waiting for her on the deck of the shuttlebay as she and Lann descended the ramp, his expression taut. ‘Welcome back. Captain wants to see you.’

‘Someone will be pleased to know surveillance platform Omicron-7 is fully operational and sweeping the sector for bad guys as we speak,’ said Cortez, producing a PADD with a flourish. ‘Ahead of schedule.’ She glanced around the deck gang and could almost taste the jubilation in the air. Members of her team who’d already been serving on the Triumph were greeted with backslaps and enthusiasm she didn’t think was down to installing a pile of sensors in an asteroid field. ‘We having a party?’

Malhotra gave a small, pleased smile. ‘For taking down the Rebirth around here? Probably, later.’

‘I thought we wanted to monitor them for a while. Check their movements. See where they’ve got links and connections. Use them to get at the whole network.’ That had been the point of her team’s project.

He shrugged. ‘Independence is running that down. Today, we took on a gang who’ve been exploiting locals and made them meet the business end of a phaser or the inside of a cell.’

Chief Lann shifted his feet beside her. ‘I hope our cells are full.’

Malhotra sighed. ‘Not as full as we’d like. But these guys are pirates and brutes.’

‘What’s Navinor going to do next?’ said Cortez, frowning.

Another shrug. ‘That’s Navinor’s problem. The Rebirth have been getting bold along the border, so we’ve uprooted them like the weeds they are. Let the locals worry about local issues.’ He looked between them with a faint frown. ‘It’s over. It’s been a good day. And the captain still wants you, Isa.’

‘Right!’ She gave him a quick gesture to wait, and pulled Lann – or, rather, gently tugged at his sleeve, because he was about twice her size – back towards the runabout. ‘You can wrap things up here?’

‘Stow gear, do supply check, debrief,’ Lann said with the sigh of an engineer reaching the dull, routine parts of his job. ‘Enjoy politics. Do these guys ever chill out?’

‘I think it’s like this every time.’

‘Nobody gives me butt-pats for nailing the ship back together like they give each other butt-pats for ripping ships apart.’

Cortez didn’t answer that. She disliked lying to her engineers even more than she disliked speaking ill of superiors to her subordinates. Neither was a good idea right then, so she just gave him a clap on the shoulder and scampered after the departing figure of Malhotra, into the corridors. ‘Krish!’

He waited for her, more relaxed now they were through the formal niceties. ‘I was just down here to see if you needed anything, not to come fetch you. But you clearly had it in hand.’ He looked a little abashed now they were out of the eyes of subordinates. ‘That wasn’t meant to be high-handed or anything.’

‘It’s helpful,’ she reassured him. It wasn’t, necessarily, but she thought he meant well. ‘So if we’re done with the Rebirth, where to next?’

‘We’re done with the Rebirth here,’ said Malhotra, stopping at the turbolift doors. ‘But there’s worlds inside the border still struggling with the Mo’Kai. That’s our next stop. Which is for the best.’

She frowned. ‘For the best?’

Malhotra looked like he hadn’t meant to say that. ‘It’s not good, obviously. But it’s good for us to move on from the Rebirth for a while.’

Cortez waited until the turbolift arrived and they had the privacy of being behind its bulkheads and doors, whizzing up to the bridge, before she pressed that. ‘The captain seems… hella tense dealing with the Rebirth.’

‘He’s fine,’ came Malhotra’s reflexive response.

‘He’s tense around Romulans,’ she pressed.

‘You would be, too, if you found out after fifteen years that they killed your family, not just the synths, and now the Federation’s bending over backwards to help them.’ The defensive snap looked like it wasn’t well-considered, and Malhotra immediately squared up against her, mindful he’d probably said too much.

Cortez raised her hands. ‘I’m not judging,’ she said quietly. ‘Mars? That’s messed up. And now we play nice with the Free State, riddled with the same Tal Shiar who screwed us? That’s messed up.’ It wasn’t a lie, exactly, even though those weren’t her feelings. But Isa Cortez’s ‘too awesome’ weakness was a propensity to see the best in people, even if they didn’t deserve it, and she could absolutely understand how a man like Lionel Jericho could be rattled by the revelations of Coppelius two years ago. ‘I’m not trying to rock the boat. I want to know where I stand so I don’t.’

Malhotra worked his jaw. ‘I don’t know who told you,’ he said after a moment, ‘but it’s not going to be like at Omega Intornia again. That was a hell of a bad situation and not the norm.’

It took effort to stop her expression from changing. She only knew the name vaguely from her skimming of Triumph’s past missions, but it had stood out. It was the system on the spinward reaches of the fallen Romulan Star Empire that had been plunged into chaos during the collapse six months ago, and where the Triumph – along with the Nighthawk and the Independence, in the operation that had solidified the unit – had been sent. Not to protect and make peace, as Endeavour had sought to do at Agarath, despite their clashes with Klingons and the Star Navy. But to stop a rogue warlord from seizing a vast swathe of assets that would make him a clear and present threat to not only Romulan neighbours, but possible the Federation itself.

But while that was all she knew, Cortez wasn’t going to let on when Malhotra had made a gaffe this big. ‘I believe you,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll be honest; I don’t know what I know, because rumour’s an asshole and I don’t want to give it undue weight. But that’s why I’m asking.’

Krish Malhotra drew a deep breath. ‘All you need to know is that Fleet Captain Jericho has everyone’s best interests at heart. He cares about this crew more than anything. He’s a good man, and he’ll do the right thing.’

Those, Cortez thought, are three potentially contradictory statements. But she didn’t say that, just smiled like she was reassured, patted him on the shoulder, and let the turbolift take them to the bridge.

There was more enthusiasm there. Lieutenant Sterlah was a stoic figure, but he was bursting with such energy she thought he might have blown up Rebirth ships by spitting at them. Even the stern Commander Ranicus wore a tight smile as the bridge crew stood by, eager to regale their new SCE Team Leader with how the fight had gone.

‘You should have seen Arys,’ Malhotra said at one point, leaning down to clap the newest member of the senior staff on the shoulder.

Tar’lek Arys, transferred over from Endeavour, flushed a faint purple. ‘I would hope I can out-fly some border scum.’

‘A lot of those “border scum” are former Romulan Navy,’ said Sterlah with a small, approving nod. ‘Your flying was exemplary.’

Arys gave a pleased smile. ‘Then I’ll have to keep it up when we face the Mo’Kai again.’

‘And we’ll dispatch them just as easily,’ said Ranicus with cool confidence before she turned to Cortez. ‘I appreciate you finishing your mission in a timely manner, Commander. The captain would appreciate a debriefing.’

‘Not much to say apart from “mission complete,” but you got it.’ Cortez gave her a thumbs up and headed for the ready room.

After ten years, Fleet Captain Lionel Jericho had made this office perhaps more a part of himself than his quarters. Dark wooden panelling on the bulkheads and deck and replicated red leather upholstery on the seating threatened a distinguished, serious look, but it was offset by the bright splashes of colour from the rugs and throws in their jagged, sharp-lined designs, the landscape art on the walls showing vast blue horizons. It was overall homely, but so quintessentially Jericho’s that visitors immediately knew they were on his turf.

The man himself was behind the desk, and sat up as Cortez entered. ‘Commander. Glad you made it back promptly. How’d it go with the platform?’

‘It’s operational.’ She hesitated, then made a face. ‘It’d be more operational with more reliable sensor readings if we had the day to run calibrations.’

‘Can’t be helped. If we were here permanently, we’d be a starbase, not a squadron of ships.’ Jericho’s smile was, annoyingly, sympathetic. If he hadn’t made such heavy-handed changes to her career, she might have been more amenable to his warmer side. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll help us keep an eye on the region.’

‘Yeah – sir, if we’re not committing to building much infrastructure, if we’re just uprooting bad guys, why am I here? Why do you need an SCE Team?’ In private, she didn’t mind speaking up. She didn’t think she was going to charm Jericho himself, after all.

‘Border security needs infrastructure. Sometimes we’re gonna have to play more defensive. When that happens, you’ll be an essential part of the process. We got lucky today, Commander – I thought we’d be hunting down Trellian for much longer. Turned out Commander Shepherd pulled a rabbit outta the hat on Endeavour.’

Cortez noted him credit his protege and not the crew she’d served with for years. ‘Sir, I don’t need a private conversation so you can make me feel better about pulling the plug on the project. I might not love it, but these things happen. I’m an engineer. In a week, I’ll have new toys.’

He grinned at that. ‘Good to hear. I wanted you to hear from me that I appreciate you pulling the whole thing off at all, and wrapping it up in this time limit. If someone else moves into the space left by Trellian, we’ll know. If they have designs on Federation territory, we’ll see them coming.’

She glanced to the door, realising she’d not been inclined to sit and he’d not pressed the point. ‘It looks like it was a good fight. Saw some scratches on the hull on our way in.’

‘Everyone held firm. Did their duty. Won the day.’ Jericho gave a firm nod. ‘Those guys won’t threaten the border any more, and to anyone else who might think to do so, it’s a warning. We’re done being soft out here.’

It’s not going to be like at Omega Intornia again. Malhotra’s words echoed inside her, and as she looked Lionel Jericho in the eye, she had to wonder just how bad it had gotten.

She made nice through the meeting. Accepted, without open complaint, Jericho’s ‘request’ she assist CEO Commander Isakov with the repairs as there was nothing significant for her SCE team to get on with now they were done. Knew she’d be a shift engineer until it suited the squadron commander better.

It meant that she had multiple reasons to, once she was back in the privacy of the turbolift, tap her combadge and say, ‘Cortez to Hale. You got lots of wine aboard? I’m back and I think it’s time for lots of wine.’

What she didn’t say, because she wanted to watch her words on internal comms, was, I’ve found something. We need to talk.

‘That’s good. That’s very good.’ Chief Engineer Commander Isakov gave a toothy smile as the pool-table display in main engineering lit up with positive diagnostic results. ‘The hull took a pounding, but there she is, good as new.’

Cortez, however, sucked her teeth. ‘On a basic simulation. We should crank up the stresses and see how the points of strain react. This is still a patch job done in the field, not a return to a dockyard…’

But Isakov put a large, firm hand on the middle of the panel. ‘Commander. I thank you for all of your assistance. But you can leave the fine-tuning to me and my team.’

So I’m part of your team when you need the grunt work, but not when it comes to me looking like I can do your job better than you. Cortez was not prone to uncharitable bitchiness. But she couldn’t deny feeling used, her SCE team dragged off work that supported the whole of the squadron’s operations just to add to the manpower of the Triumph’s engineering team. She’d been chief engineer of a larger, more complex vessel than the Triumph and yet here she was, treated as nothing more than a shift leader.

Nevertheless, she had better things to do than argue. Not to mention how it wouldn’t get her anywhere. So Cortez gave a sunny smile. She was starting to realise why her former captain enjoyed making people underestimate him. ‘Happy to let you deal with the tiny microns of calibration, Dimitri.’ She had at least insisted on first names. It made them feel a little more like colleagues and equals.

The veteran engineer gave a low chuckle. ‘Privileges of position. The boring work.’

‘This can’t be the first time you patched Triumph back together, though.’ Cortez tilted her head with a spot of coyness as he continued nodding, though he didn’t look up from his readings. ‘What was the worst?’

Isakov blew his cheeks out as he thought. ‘Perhaps our action against the Sovereignty of Kahless? The Klingon warriors, they are remorseless. We were a mighty opponent and so they had to seek us out for their glory, test themselves against us. That was weeks of campaigning and patching back up together again, then fighting again.’

‘You’ve been with the Triumph a while, then.’

‘Since she was commissioned. But I’ve been with Captain Jericho since I graduated. He was my first chief. When he asked me to serve as chief engineer when he was given the Triumph it was no decision. Even if the Klingons were our first challenge.’

‘I remember fighting the Klingons at Archanis,’ said Cortez with soothing sympathy. ‘But the Sovereignty were a while back. How about recently?’

‘Last year? In Romulan space?’ Isakov tilted his head this way and that as he mused. ‘We gave better than we had. But we had the Independence and Nighthawk to cover us. That spread the load. Commander Vornar knows us and knew how to work with the captain.’

‘I heard it got nasty out there. You were one of the furthest units out.’

But he just gave a broad shrug. ‘No more than Endeavour at Agarath. Fending off a whole fleet and a sneak attack by Klingons. But you know how it is in engineering. Do you even know who we’re fighting half the time when you’re more worried about keeping the ship in one piece?’

She watched him for a heartbeat. Then she grinned. ‘I guess not. I’ll let you wrap up here, Dimitri. Call me if you need anything.’

She shouldn’t have said that last part. He’d have her scrubbing manifolds or something whenever he decided his shift engineers needed a rest. But it was the best way to graciously get out of the conversation. Besides, she had somewhere else to be.

‘I’m not that important,’ Sophia Hale was grumbling an hour later as she topped up their wine glasses. Her quarters on the Triumph were not as luxurious as they had been on Endeavour, this more compact and punchy ship with rather less space to dedicate to VIP rooms. The diplomat had left them with the same plain and generic decorations, which Cortez had noticed she’d done on Endeavour too. But they still came with a comfy seating area, and plenty of wine glasses.

‘Don’t put yourself down,’ said Cortez with an airy hand wave. She hadn’t had time to change, so her uniform jacket was open, the collar loosened. They’d eaten quickly and gotten down to business. And drinking. ‘You’re an important diplomat.’

‘I’m not being modest,’ Hale huffed. ‘I mean I am just a diplomat. That doesn’t give me access to Starfleet records about operations on the far side of the galaxy. Triumph’s mission at Omega Intornia was peacekeeping, with very little negotiation.’

‘And you don’t have the contacts?’

‘Believe it or not,’ she sighed, ‘calling for more doves than hawks on the Romulan border has not always made me friends in Starfleet. Especially not among those who do know what happened on this ship.’

‘It might have been nothing,’ Cortez sighed and had a swig of wine. ‘But Malhotra seemed very defensive. Like he thought I would use it against him – against the crew, against Jericho. Like I knew something I shouldn’t.’

‘If he expects it reached your ears, however incorrectly, then this is probably something Starfleet knows,’ Hale pointed out. ‘You’re not about to uncover a secret that will conveniently undermine Captain Jericho’s career and have him stripped of command of the squadron.’

Cortez hesitated. ‘I didn’t say I wanted that.’

‘It’s an uncharitable reading,’ Hale admitted, ‘but you’re not happy with this assignment. You’re not happy with Commander Valance’s reassignment. You’ve been affected perhaps more than anyone by Jericho’s choices.’ She hesitated, then shrugged and sipped her wine. ‘And you’re not quite as sunshine-and-daisies as you pretend, Isa.’

Cortez gave her a flat look. ‘I don’t pretend. I think people deserve chances and are usually pretty decent if you give them that chance. My personal life being inconvenienced by Starfleet isn’t enough for me to wish ill on Captain Jericho. Just…’ She shook her head. ‘Something’s wrong here.’

‘Perhaps. And I dare say we should know what it is. But I suspect the answers are aboard this ship, not elsewhere.’ Hale’s eyes drifted to the window, to the stars streaming past as Triumph raced back to Federation space at high warp.

It was Cortez’s turn to reach for the wine bottle and top up the glasses. ‘Have you heard from Endeavour?’

‘No.’ Hale looked wistful for a moment, then shook her head. ‘And I haven’t reached out. You should be careful who you communicate with, too.’

‘You think our comms are being monitored?’ Cortez stared.

‘I don’t think anything’s being listened in on,’ Hale said quickly. ‘But I think our comms records are being scrutinised. Or mine certainly are. Captain Jericho would rather I’m not in this squadron at all, but unfortunately for him, that’s not his decision. He’s a man who would rather shut the borders when I want to reach a hand across them, so he wants to know if I’m sending messages every day to the Diplomatic Corps.’

‘Are you?’

She gave a smile Mona Lisa would be proud of. ‘Not in any manner Captain Jericho’s aware of.’ But then she sobered. ‘Truthfully, Isa, we are going to have to accept the way of things. I truly believe that Captain Jericho is a good man, and just because he has a different idea of what it takes to make the galaxy a better place, that doesn’t make him our enemy. We should be working together to find resolutions that suit everyone. Not fall into partisanship.’

‘This isn’t the first move he’s made against you, though,’ Cortez pointed out. ‘That new JAG officer seems like he’s here to decide the law’s all on Jericho’s side.’

‘Commander Hawthorne has certainly been involved of late in treaty negotiations that favour Captain Jericho’s interpretations,’ Hale said cautiously. ‘But I happen to know it wasn’t Jericho who had Hawthorne assigned here.’

‘And it sounds like Jericho’s dumped a Strat Ops officer on Endeavour, which only makes sense if he wants someone to speak with his voice at Rourke’s shoulder.’

‘Or if he wants to make use of Endeavour’s better facilities and have that officer’s analysis shared across the squadron,’ Hale pointed out. ‘But yet again, this Commander Harrian wasn’t assigned by Jericho. Starfleet is invested in this squadron and wants us to succeed. Not everything is about drawing battle lines.’

Cortez slumped, staring at her wine glass for a moment. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she sighed. ‘Maybe I am looking for some… villain. I guess I’m just not all that sure what I’m doing here. SCE is cool and all, but is this the best place for me?’

‘Life changes. The things and people we love and care about move on, and so must we. All we can do is focus on the tasks ahead of us.’ Hale sipped her wine with an air of regret. ‘What we had before, we won’t get back. You know that, yes?’

Cortez fiddled with the stem of her glass. ‘Yes,’ she said reluctantly. Then she sighed. ‘Maybe this isn’t the place for me. But it’s too soon to be sure, isn’t it?’

‘If it’s where you are and where you’re staying, it’s your place.’ Hale shook her head. ‘There’s no such thing as perfect.’

I spent months thinking there was and that I had it, Cortez thought with bitter wistfulness. But before she could reply, there was a rumble of the Triumph’s hull, and the stars stopped streaming as they dropped out of warp. She sat up. ‘That’s odd.’

Hale rose to her feet. ‘We can’t be at Starbase 23 yet.’

‘We’re not.’ Cortez moved to the window, squinting at the distant stars. After a moment, she tilted her head. ‘That’s a ship out there. Maybe two. Can’t tell anything more from here.’

Hale reached for her communicator on the coffee table. ‘Hale to Captain Jericho.’ There was a pause, and she rolled her eyes. ‘Watch my call get forwarded to his yeoman.’

A moment later, indeed, the youthful tones of Ensign Gagneux came through. ‘Sorry, Ms Hale, Captain Jericho isn’t available right now. Can I help you?’

‘Yes, Ensign. Do you know why we’ve stopped? Are we changing course?’

A pause. ‘We changed course an hour ago, ma’am. We received word from the USS

Nighthawk. We’ve rendezvoused with them and the Endeavour.’

Cortez frowned at Hale. ‘Endeavour shouldn’t be anywhere near the Nighthawk right now.’

Hale nodded, brow furrowed, but spoke with an airy, unconcerned tone. ‘Understood, Ensign. Please let the Captain know I’m available if I can be of assistance, and I look forward to being updated within the hour. Hale out.’

Cortez winced. ‘You think you’ll be called on?’

‘Absolutely not, and he’ll update me at the last possible moment. But the squadron wasn’t expected to come together until SB-26, and yet here we are, probably not even in Federation territory yet.’ Hale gave her a pointed look.

Cortez harrumphed. ‘Go stick my nose where it don’t belong so people tell me just enough to make me go away. Got it.’

‘And find out secrets.’ Hale gave another ambiguous smile. ‘We might be all on the same side here. But I would like my answers to be the ones that prevail in helping everyone.’

Cortez left, fastening her uniform jacket back up. Hale had one moment encouraged passivity, and was now sending her out as her eyes and ears. It was impossible to shake the sense she’d just been manipulated.

And impossible to know what she should do about it when she, too, knew there were secrets in the heart of the Triumph, and hated paddling at the surface of deep waters that might drag her down if she didn’t know to keep watch for danger.

‘I’m not trying to be an asshole here.’ Jericho paused, bottle of beer halfway to his lips, and raised a finger. ‘I know. Folks who’re being assholes are the ones who say that.’

Dimitri Isakov grinned toothily and shrugged. ‘I was not going to say a word.’

‘People died. The Rangers have been going completely off the rails the past few months. You can say “oh, only some of them,” all you like, but when they sneer at Starfleet, get on their high horses and tell us they’ve been helping everyone out here while we’ve supposedly been sitting with our thumbs up our asses, how am I supposed to tell the difference? What, am I supposed to let them police themselves? How’s that been going?’

‘I assume not well.’

‘I assume “ask the families of those who died in the Mirabiel attack.”’ Jericho sighed and put the beer down on his ready room desk with a thunk. ‘I do get it. Rourke’s looking out for his buddy.’

‘For certain,’ Isakov deadpanned, ‘the worst of men.’

‘They were in the Dominion War together, did you know?’ Jericho grumbled this as he picked at the label on the bottle. ‘Enlisted security officers. You know the things I’d do for the guys I was in the engine room with in those days?’

‘I cannot tell,’ said Isakov, ‘if you respect him for this loyalty or if you think he is blinded by it.’

Jericho grimaced. ‘Me neither. I do know I ain’t happy at what he pulled back there. It was like he assumed what I was gonna do before I had the chance to even think, and came at me for it.’

Isakov was silent for a moment, thoughtful in the gloom of the ready room. ‘Do you want what I think, Lionel?’

‘I don’t invite you up here for beers so you can stand on ceremony.’ Jericho harrumphed and waved a hand. ‘Alright, tell me why I’m wrong.’

‘You act like he is one of us. Like he has known you for ten years.’

Jericho’s brow furrowed. ‘I surely don’t. I don’t know Matt Rourke.’

‘I mean that you can be heavy-handed. Decisive. You see a bigger picture and you act on it. And you do not explain yourself.’ Isakov leaned forward, grimacing apologetically. ‘For a long time, you have acted like that and been surrounded by people who have served with you for a decade, Leo. You took his XO. You took his CHENG.’

‘I know which of those you think is worse,’ Jericho mumbled. ‘I needed to spread experience around the squadron. Put a seasoned XO like Valance with a green CO like Kosst. Put a green XO like Shep with a seasoned CO like Rourke.’

‘I think it is clear,’ said Isakov with a wince, ‘that you favoured Triumph in these dealings.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jericho said indignantly. ‘You think I wouldn’t have kept Shep if I could? I had to sacrifice someone from the team, send them off someplace else.’

‘A demotion for Valance, a promotion for Shep. Because if you had to break up this family, it had to be for something better. So you broke up his.’

Jericho worked his jaw before he said, reluctantly, ‘His family included a spy. I don’t know if I can trust his family. And he shouldn’t neither.’

‘You know that is not how this works,’ Isakov pointed out gently.

There was a pause as Jericho narrowed his eyes at him and considered how to reply. Eventually he settled for draining his beer and putting the bottle down hard. ‘We’re gonna be late.’

‘Late?’ Isakov’s eyes moved to the screen on the wall. ‘Ah. Late.’

They had to move at a brisk pace to the turbolift, down the corridors as they headed for their destination. It was never easy on this ship, not if all was well. In a crisis, everyone moved like a well-oiled machine. Otherwise, Jericho couldn’t stop himself from pausing as he passed a crewmember, checking on their day, asking after them. Three hundred and fifty souls and he made a point to know them all by name. Those who had been aboard more than a few weeks, he knew a little something about – family they’d left behind, a project they were working on.

The more stoic Isakov sighed at every stop, and when Jericho finally parted ways with Chief Petty Officer Transinger, lab technician, he gave Jericho a pat on the back that was almost a push. ‘As you said. We are late.’

But when they got into the lounge, the eager eyes of the senior staff landed on them, and Jericho did not see one face in particular. He smirked at Isakov. ‘If we’re before her, then we’re not late.’

‘No,’ Isakov allowed, ‘because I asked her to check for a phase variance in plasma conduit seven. Because I knew you would be late.’

Doctor Namiya, leaning against the bar with a whiskey, gave a sharp laugh. ‘He’s got you there, Boss.’

‘Alright, alright, settle down,’ Jericho chastised good-naturedly. ‘We’re here to play nice, remember?’

‘We must be warm and welcoming,’ rumbled the huge, icy figure of Lieutenant Sterlah. ‘Greet her as a new comrade.’

‘I was just going to get her a drink, jeez.’ Krish Malhotra blew his cheeks out, but moved to the captain’s side, cheerful smile fading in a moment. ‘Quick word, Captain?’

Jericho glanced at the doors. ‘It’ll have to be.’

They couldn’t go anywhere private, but they could step just out of earshot of the others. Malhotra shifted his feet. ‘I want to talk to you at some point, sir.’

‘We’re talking now, aren’t we?’

‘Properly, sir.’ Another hesitation. ‘About my future.’

Jericho watched him and tried to disguise his heart lurching. ‘Krish, you know it wasn’t anything against you that Shep made XO on Endeavour…’

‘She was second officer; she had seniority,’ Malhotra said in a rush, ‘but I’ve got longer in service, I’m qualified…’

‘I know, and the next opportunity that comes up we can talk about. But you know I don’t want to lose everyone, right? That we’ve got to stick together on Triumph, right?’ Jericho jerked his head back to the crowd. ‘Don’t pretend there ain’t fewer smiles aboard with Shep gone. I need someone in the senior staff who can crack a joke. That new kid from Endeavour’s too damn earnest.’

Malhotra wilted. ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt the ship, sir.’

Jericho sighed and clasped his shoulder. ‘You gotta look out for yourself. I would hate for anything else to come between us all, though. You know I count on each and every one of you.’ Then the doors slid open to the lounge, and he had to make the clasp a quick clap. ‘We’ll talk. I’ll book you in. We’ll sort this out, Krish.’

He could not afford to lose anyone else.

But now he had to welcome someone new, and returned to the crowd of senior staff just as Commander Cortez approached with a bewildered look. ‘Someone order a party?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘I thought this was just Dimitri and me.’

‘I was lying,’ Dimitri said in a dry voice.

‘Commander Cortez.’ Jericho beamed at her. ‘You got dragged aboard. No two ways to say it. You didn’t have much of a choice, I absolutely stole you for the team here on Triumph. Because I want the best, and you’re the best. But that might do something for your ego – it don’t necessarily do much for your happiness.’

Cortez watched them all, and he saw her expression creak with guilt. ‘Oh, no, Captain – I’ve not meant to be ungrateful or unhappy to be here or anything…’

‘Change is hard, and I’ve taken you from folks you were with for years. But let me tell you – you come on board Triumph, and you’re my family. So I gotta make you feel welcome, which this -’ He gestured to the gathered. ‘Is all about. A proper welcome for you.’

‘He likes,’ said Commander Ranicus in a low drawl, ‘to figure out what everyone wants to drink. So it may be easier if you tell him rather than watch him try to ask without actually asking.’

Jericho clicked his tongue. ‘None of that. I know what the commander wants.’ He pointed at Cortez. ‘Tequila, right? Neat?’

Cortez worked her jaw. Then she grinned and this smile, he thought, was not so guilty. ‘Maybe you do know how to do a proper welcome, sir.’

Jericho barked with laughter and ushered her forward. ‘Alright, alright. Then unwind, Commander. Tonight, we make you part of the family.’