Arcturus held her position at the outer edge of the debris field left from the ill-fated Outpost C-91, a brand-new station that had been shattered into a hundred thousand fragments alongside the starships Rocinante and McCoy over a week prior. A remote border post, C-91 had been intended to make the former Demilitarized Zone on the Cardassian border safer, but it had only lasted a week in service. One of the Copernicus-class station’s docking pods had survived intact, but there were only 47 survivors aboard. Between the station itself, its assigned Aquarius-class defense vessel (Rocinante) and the visiting Olympic-class McCoy, at least five thousand Starfleet personnel and civilians had been killed. Nearly two thousand casualties remained unaccounted for. Workbees, shuttles, and runabouts flitted out from the Arcturus’s two open hangers, moving into the debris field to look for survivors and bodies. While some hope remained, the crew was largely resigned to the fact that anyone else they brought back to the ship was likely not just to be dead but nearly atomized—sensors couldn’t pick up enough organic material left in the wreckage to constitute whole beings anymore.

Recovering the fallen was proving to be a more straightforward task than solving the mystery of the station’s destruction. Much of the debris had been irradiated, which had damaged the memory systems aboard the station’s computers. The distress beacons from the two starships were also compromised, the engineers aboard Arcturus were working around the clock to try to piece these systems back together. They would get there given enough time, but everyone was starting to lose patience. All the survivors had managed to add to the investigation is that there was absolutely no warning of an attack before the station simply exploded.

“It’s not like we don’t know who did this. I don’t understand why the fleet isn’t mobilizing,” Commander Christopher Forrest spat at the briefing room table once the other officers had given their departmental summaries of the recovery effort. “Cardassians did this.”

There was a general murmur of agreement from the assembled senior staff.

“A brand-new space station exploding could just as easily be a mechanical fault,” Lancaster said, calmly. “As my strategic operations officer, I shouldn’t have to remind you what the consequences of massing a force on the Cardassian border would be.”

“We can take them,” Forrest replied. “They may have caught up to us pound-for-pound, but we weigh a lot more than they do.”

That was partially true. With the Federation focused more to its interests and borders in the Beta Quadrant, the Cardassian Union had slowly and quietly managed a rebuilding program no one had anticipated. While still a regional power, their ships were once again to Starfleet vessels, and there were loud voices in the Central Command pressuring the Detapa Council to take a more militaristic stance towards the Federation. The loss of C-91 had awoken equally loud voices at Starfleet Command who wanted a full mobilization against the Cardassians to “put them back in their place,” but Lancaster knew that Starfleet was stretched too far and too thin to face a full-scale conflict. Forrest was useful for the way he could generally see the bigger strategic picture, but he was also a hawk. The strategic operations officer sounded like he was going to try to continue advocating for his point, but Lancaster had reached his breaking point.

“Enough, Commander,” the fleet captain replied, slamming his palm down on the table and causing his young communications officer, Lieutenant Belvedere, to jump. The room was dead silent for a beat. “Our orders—my orders—are to find out what happened to this station systematically and completely. There will be no deviations from those orders. Even if the Cardassians did this, we do not know why they did it. If we get this wrong, it means war. I already have the Federation Council and Starfleet Command screaming at me to find answers, so I will not tolerate petulance from my own staff.”

Commander Armstrong cleared his throat. “Sir, if I may?” 

“Go ahead,” Lancaster said to his science officer.

“My team has been modeling various methods for cutting through the radiation interference from the wreckage. I believe we can modify the main deflector to essentially scrub the debris to tolerable levels so that our transporters and tractor beams will function more effectively,” the commander said. 

Before Lancaster could respond, Captain Vane spoke up. “Between recovery, reassembly of the station’s computers, and shuttle maintenance, I don’t have time to re-engineer one of our largest and most complex pieces of equipment,” the Bolian engineer protested.

“If we can get a clear scan, we may not need to reconstruct the computer core, and we won’t need to keep scrubbing the shuttles,” Armstrong argued. “We just need to refine the targeting scanners and tune the beam to match the local subspace harmonics.”

“Just,” Vane snorted.

“Mister Armstrong, send me your specifications,” Lancaster interjected. “The first officer and I are both engineers. We’ll work with Mister Bowens to make your modifications, while engineering continues its work,” he said, glancing to his right where Alesser was sitting.

“Piece of cake,” Alesser confirmed, though Lancaster sensed insincerity in his smile. 

Lancaster nodded; he’d take even false civility, given the past few days of tension. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair before moving on to the last item. Counselor Sharma and Commander Holland, the ship’s diplomatic and protocol officer, were the only ones who already knew about Lancaster’s decision to move forward with a mass funeral for all of the Starfleet personnel they had recovered.

“I am aware of how difficult this assignment has been for the entire crew, especially our medical department,” Lancaster said, fixing his eyes on his husband, the chief medical officer, for a moment. “I have consulted the regulations and with the visiting specialists from the Bureau of Mortuary Services. Based on their estimations, the personnel that remain unaccounted for were likely vaporized. We do not have sufficient space aboard the ship to properly store the remains we have collected, so we will be performing a burial in space at 1800 hours today for the Starfleet personnel we have recovered.”

The officers around the briefing table were silent. Lancaster imagined the thoughts that were coursing through the room and the frustration that they must be feeling at the idea of working round-the-clock to recover their fallen comrades, only to put them back into space.

“We’ll retain civilians and anyone who left religious directives until they can be transferred… home,” Lancaster continued, finding himself faltering on that last word. He cleared his throat. “There’s no practical alternative.”

Sheppard spoke up first. “I think a ceremony will help the crew come to some degree of closure,” he said.

“Agreed,” Alesser said simply.

“Commanders Sharma and Holland will work out the details of the ceremony,” Lancaster said. He looked around at the sullen faces of his crew. “And I want all of you to schedule time with the counselor within the next few days. This mission… it’s not something you should be trying to process on your own. Dismissed.”

Dr. Sheppard was one of the first people to leave, practically bolting out of his spot to return to sickbay. As the crew filed out, Captain Alesser remained behind. He didn’t speak until the doors closed behind the last of their subordinates.

“A head’s up on your plan would have been nice,” Alesser said.

“You would have had one, if you hadn’t been avoiding me,” Lancaster said. “Ari, I’m doing my best here,” he continued, using the private pet name he had for Alesser as his lover rather than first officer. “I’m doing what I can to get the crew through this.”

Alesser’s face contorted through several different emotions in rapid succession. “I gave you an opinion you didn’t like, so you’ve cut me out of command decisions,” he countered. “You’re literally avoiding facing the situation!” he added, pointing to the viewports, which were pointed away from the debris field.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Lancaster replied, fighting his instincts to return venom with venom. Alesser was clearly spoiling for another fight as well. “If I have to be your lightning rod, that’s fine. I can handle it. Just consider who or what you’re really mad at. At least you’re talking to me when we’re in the same room—I can’t get more than a few syllables out of Luca because he’s so exhausted. I’m very concerned about you both.”

The first officer crossed his arms and sunk lower in his chair, another set of emotions clearly going through his mind. The Ardanan man sighed.

“I don’t actually have a competing proposal. There’s no other logical course of action,” Alesser conceded, which filled the captain with a sense of. His amber-colored eyes were fixed on Lancaster. “How could Starfleet let this happen? What if it were us out there?” he asked.

“That’s what we’re here to find out—and it’ll be a lot easier to accomplish that if you can stop treating me like the enemy,” Lancaster replied. He swallowed, finding his throat dry from the emotions he was feeling. “If this was some sort of terrorist attack, it’s working exactly as intended.”

Alesser nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. He stood up and pecked the captain on the temple as he moved towards the exit. “I’m sorry. I have to rearrange some of the away teams and I’ll meet you in deflector control,” the first officer said.

That was a little less of a catharsis than Lancaster was hoping for, but he felt a glimmer of hope that Arcturus would be able to return to normality. Or at least that his personal life would. Sheppard working himself to exhaustion was one more problem that remained to be solved.