After a long shift, the Round Table always gently buzzed with activity. This was where senior officers could go to blow off steam, complain about their workload or subordinates, escape from the wider ship without anyone coming to bother them.

Which meant Ed Winters felt distinctly guilty that he was coming here to bother someone. There had been a lot of steam that needed blowing off in recent weeks. There would only be more to come. Although he was allowed here as a senior officer, although he was fulfilling his duty as the chief medical officer, he was also invading the sanctity of the officers’ mess. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

Worse, his target was nestled in the comfortable chairs by the far viewports, stars flashing past the window as Endeavour advanced at high warp. They had only hours ago crossed the border into Klingon territory and only hours ago had a chance to breathe as their mad dash approached its end. Curled up with a steaming mug of tea, out of uniform for once in a comfy knitted jumper, Rosara Thawn looked like she was actually approaching something resembling unwinding, laughing gently as Nate Beckett, sat across from her, regaled her with some likely-farcical story.

To Winters’s relief, Beckett gave him a welcoming wave as he approached. ‘Ed! Grab a drink and pull up a pew.’

For a moment, Winters considered prevaricating. Then he tapped his fingertips anxiously on the PADD in his hand, drew a deep breath and said, ‘Nate, could you give me and Lieutenant Thawn a moment?’

Beckett glanced between them. Thawn looked no more illuminated than him. He shrugged and stood. ‘I’ll get you a drink, then. Tea?’

‘Please. Moroccan mint.’ That made the easy part easy, at least. Not wanting to look too much like an intruder, Winters pulled up another stool rather than take Beckett’s vacated chair. He gave Thawn an anxious smile. ‘How are you, Lieutenant?’

‘I’m confused, Doctor.’

Normally, he found Thawn’s standoffishness uncomfortable to deal with. He was friends with Beckett and Lindgren, on first-name terms with both of them. But he and Thawn had never made the transition from professionalism; she was too cold, and he was too awkward. Even off-duty, surrounded by friends, they stayed formal. Today, that was a blessing because he wasn’t here to be friendly.

‘You missed your check-up in Sickbay,’ he said, trying to invoke his light bedside manner, knowing that this wouldn’t work on her.

Thawn frowned. ‘We cancelled that when we were given shore leave.

‘Not exactly,’ said Winters carefully. ‘I wanted you to have a check-up with a doctor on Betazed.’

‘Which I would have done, were I on Betazed. But it would have been with an expert in telepathic medicine. Which, forgive me, you’re not, Doctor.’

‘I’m not. But I’m still your doctor while you’re recovering from a serious mental strain after making telepathic contact with a being we still don’t understand.’

Thawn’s brow furrowed. ‘The trip to Betazed was long. It would have been another week before I had an appointment there. I’m not sure why you’re making a fuss about me missing a cancelled check-up with you.’

Winters decided to not press the point that he’d uncancelled the meeting in her schedule. He would not get dragged into arguing the bureaucracy. He let out a deep breath and said, politely, ‘The doctors’ appointment on Betazed would have been a week away, yes. A week where you’d have been on a comfortable transport, off-duty, under no stress. Instead, you’ve had leave unexpectedly cancelled and had your responsibilities significantly increased. That seems like a fine reason to keep on monitoring you.’

‘You’re not a counsellor.’

‘I’m not,’ said Winters patiently. ‘And I’m not going to ask you how you’re doing. I’m very glad to see you’re relaxing in the mess after a long shift. But if I run more scans of your synaptic resonance patterns and find there’s any indication of disruption, then we might have to go to the captain.’

‘The headaches stopped weeks ago,’ Thawn said defensively. ‘I’ve been working long shifts and they haven’t come back.’

What about the nightmares? Winters thought. But he was not, as she’d said, a counsellor. He had to pick his battles. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ he said. ‘I’m going to book a check-up for you tomorrow, Lieutenant. I look forward to seeing you there.’

She gave a gentle, impatient harrumph, but nodded. ‘Alright.’ Her gaze flickered past him. ‘You can stop trying to eavesdrop, Nate.’

‘I was trying to not eavesdrop,’ said Beckett apologetically, returning to his seat. A steaming glass teacup was set in front of Winters on the table. The doctor considered beating a polite withdrawal, but his friend carried on. ‘Ed’s right; you should be careful.’

‘I have an appointment,’ Thawn said, a little frosty now this professional conversation had turned personal. ‘And if you think that running Endeavour’s engineering during a time of massive political upheaval is more stressful than a visit to Betazed, you haven’t met my family.’

‘You’re right,’ said Beckett, his expression flickering. ‘I haven’t.’

Winters sipped his tea and tried to evaporate. It didn’t work.

Thawn sighed, looking sheepish. ‘You don’t want to meet them. That would be premature.’

‘No, but aren’t you still technically engaged to Rhade until your Houses agree to dissolve the agreement?’ There was a definite edge to Beckett’s voice, a hint of accusation. The two had run away together months ago, now. Thawn was divorced from Rhade by Federation law, but Winters knew Betazoid traditions were more complicated than that.

‘They can’t force me to do anything,’ said Thawn.

‘That’s what I tell my father all the time,’ mused Beckett, ‘and yet, his grubby pawprints are all over my career.’

‘Yes, it must be very hard to have someone making sure you get choice assignments and recognition for all your achievements.’

Winters had known Beckett and Thawn long enough to know they would bicker at the drop of a hat – that had taken him approximately ten minutes of acquaintance – but there were edges here that he didn’t want to see cut. Not here and now, not when they had bigger fish to fry. If they’d gotten like this in front of him the last few weeks, he’d normally had Lindgren with him, and she was much more experienced and subtle at derailing the tension. But Lindgren wasn’t here, hadn’t made it back to the ship in time for their departure. He was stranded.

He cleared his throat. ‘Do we expect to see much actual work on this mission? Surely we’re playing courier for Ambassador Hale and Commodore Rourke, and the rest of our job is to look like a Constitution III class?’

It worked as a topic change. Thawn sipped her tea and frowned again. ‘That sounds like it depends on the Klingons.’

Winters glanced at Beckett, knowing the ship’s Chief Intelligence Officer rarely resisted showing off any special knowledge he was permitted to share. On cue, Beckett leaned forwards, eyes lighting up.

‘There’s already reports of trouble inside the borders. The House of D’Chok reigniting their old rivalry with their neighbours, the House of Noggra. That’s at least down on the rimward border, though; we shouldn’t be going anywhere near them. But who’s to say what other houses aren’t turning on each other in Martok’s absence?’

‘Is that how we think this will go?’ Winters’s brow furrowed with concern. ‘The Houses will turn on each other because Martok’s not there to hold things together?’

Beckett shrugged. ‘For all they know – for all we know – Martok’s ship’s crashed somewhere and he’ll be found at any moment. What better time to take chunks out of your old enemy? While the rest of the Empire is fretting about the chancellorship?’

‘Do you think we are about to find him crashed somewhere?’

Beckett paused as the topic became slightly less of an intellectual exercise, or a consideration of far-off conflicts that wouldn’t affect them. ‘I don’t know. We’ve not seen any of the reports about his ship’s movements for ourselves.’

‘I can’t imagine the Empire failed to competently investigate the disappearance of their leader,’ said Thawn, shaking her head.

‘I can’t imagine the leader of the Klingon Empire disappearing without a trace,’ pointed out Beckett. ‘Mark my words, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’

That felt like a fatuous and obvious comment to Winters, but Beckett said it with a tone of calm portentiousness that made it feel rude to point that out, and he suspected Thawn didn’t get the reference and wouldn’t admit to ignorance. Winters sighed. ‘It’s scary. The Klingons are our oldest allies. Now they’re about to collapse into civil war if we can’t help find Martok or maybe shed light onto what happened? I bet there’s a tonne of finger-pointing going on on Qo’noS.

‘Hopefully we can help them get to the bottom of this,’ said Thawn with quiet agreement. ‘Before they tear themselves apart.’

There was a scoff from over Winters’s shoulder, and he looked over with abashed surprise to see Commander Kharth stand from a nearby chair, the back of which had shrouded her from sight. She had a PADD in her hand and the doctor suspected she’d probably been minding her own business after her shift until the conversation behind her had broken out.

That was more likely than Kharth giving a shit about the chattering of junior officers, anyway.

‘Why are you so worried that the Empire tearing itself apart is the bad result?’ Kharth challenged, eyebrows arched.

Thawn was immediately cowed in the face of Kharth, and Beckett looked like he didn’t want a fight, so Winters knew he was being thrown out the airlock on this one. He fidgeted. ‘Like I said, they’re our oldest allies. They helped us in the Dominion War.’

‘And ever since, they’ve been ripping themselves apart faction by faction. Do you know why?’ Kharth watched them as they stayed silent. ‘Because the Empire’s a violent, expansionist power by its very nature, and Martok sat on that for twenty-five years. Make no mistake, this was always coming.’

‘You think that a Klingon civil war is the inevitable aftermath of Martok’s reign?’ ventured Beckett, looking like he was prepared to brave the political debate.

‘I think violence is the inevitable aftermath of Martok’s reign. Because it’s what enough Klingons want. Look at the Sovereignty, the Mo’Kai, the D’Ghor.’

‘All renegade factions,’ said Thawn faintly.

‘All incredibly successful factions with significant followings,’ pointed out Kharth. ‘Because they offered what Klingons want: glory through battle. Nobody could call Martok a coward for keeping the peace because he’d won the Dominion War for them. But the Empire can’t farm those past glories forever. They’ll want new ones. Better for the great battles of the next generation to be against each other.’

Winters’s brow knotted. ‘The Empire won’t attack the Federation. That would be madness. We’ve got too many economic links, political links, security links…’

‘First, find me Klingon warriors who care about the realpolitik when there’s glory to be won,’ scoffed Kharth. ‘Second, who said anything about them attacking the Federation?’

Winters looked at the Romulan XO, and knew she wasn’t talking out of concern for the Klingon Empire’s Gorn neighbours. He fidgeted with his sleeve. ‘I’m not really okay with rooting for a Klingon civil war, Commander.’

‘That’s very cute of you, Doctor.’ Kharth picked up her mug to drain what was left of it, and set it back down on her table, turning to go. ‘While you’re grilling Thawn on her responsibilities, ask her what it was like to fight Klingons at Archanis. And hope that everyone’s grown a little more spine over the last two years.’

Kharth would have left with a flourish, then, Winters was sure, her parting words enough to make Thawn visibly flinch in a way that made it clear they would not get war stories out of her in the XO’s wake. But she hadn’t taken another step before the lights shifted and the alert klaxon went, and the controlled release of tension of the Safe House evaporated when Captain Valance’s voice filled the room over the comms.

‘Red alert. All hands to battle stations.’