“I need to speak with the admiral urgently,” Commander Robert Drake insisted over the video link. “It’s about a legal matter of utmost importance.”

“I’m sorry, Commander, but the Admiral is not taking any calls,” apologized a pale-faced Arcadian. “If you would like to leave a message, I would be happy to pass it along.” 

What the comms officer had neglected to say was that the Admiral wasn’t taking any calls from him. Not for now, at least. Not since Elsie’s flash had come in and let him know that Eleazar Adler had ruled against him. The Admiral knew what the zealous prosecutor would be looking for him to do, and he wasn’t going to do it. It was best to leave it to someone else, someone already aboard the Polaris, to manage for now. At least until the JAG calmed down.

The door to Commander Drake’s office hissed open, causing him to look up. And then he frowned. It was his sister, who’d sat there silently and not so much as raised a finger in the courtroom as a grave injustice was committed. He slammed the screen shut, closing the link with the Arcadian. It wasn’t like he was getting anywhere with the call anyways.

“Here to tell me I was wrong, sis?” Robert shouted angrily. “Here to tell me that the ends justified the means? Or that I shouldn’t have done it because they’d just lie when I put them up there? That I…” His voice choked up as he thought about it. “That I should have ignored the crimes of hardened criminals who flagrantly desecrate our uniform?”

“I’m sorry, Robert,” Elsie said gently as she reached out and touched his shoulder. “I know how much this case mattered to you.” She really did. She’d seen how he fought in the courtroom. Typically, he only took cases he could win, but this one, it meant more to him than his win rate.

“To me? To me?!” Robert asked aghast. “No, sis. Not to me. To the Federation. To its heart and its soul. Those two, they tortured another living being, and then they murdered it in cold blood.” He exhaled deeply. “But the deck was rigged. It was fucking rigged. The witnesses lied, the evidence was tampered with, and the subpoenas went unanswered. And because Eleazar didn’t have the stomach, now those two are right back out there, no consequences, no nothing, ready to do it again.” And he had no doubt they would.

It was a scary thought, Elsie had to admit. Captain Lewis and Dr. Hall hadn’t even bothered to feign innocence or repentance, nor had they seemed even remotely worried about being found guilty. Maybe her brother was right. Maybe the deck was stacked against him. Still, that wasn’t healthy thinking. The burden of proof rested with the prosecution, a fundamental tenet of their system of justice, and so it just sort of was what it was. There was nothing that could be done to change that verdict. It didn’t mean, though, that she wouldn’t keep a closer eye on the reports coming from the USS Serenity in the future. “Who were you trying to call?” 

“Rear Admiral Grayson,” Robert replied, his tone desperate. He needed to find a way around the ruling. He needed to find a way to hold Captain Lewis and Dr. Hall responsible. “As the Task Force 47 Commanding Officer,  he has the ability to overrule the old man and do what is right.” And if Grayson wouldn’t, then he was even debating cold calling Ramar or Barrick.

“He won’t overrule Captain Adler,” Elsie warned. “None of them will. Eleazar is one of the most esteemed veterans of the JAG Corps, and he came here with the full support of Alex and the others. Plus, I’ve also worked with Alex long enough to know that, if you reach him, he’s just going to lecture you on the sanctity of our justice system and then send you on your way. He’d probably also tell you that you’re too close to this thing, that it became too personal.”

Robert looked furious.

“Besides, Grayson can’t help you anyways, since he’s no longer in command of Task Force 47,” Elsie warned. Even if the Rear Admiral wanted to overturn the case, he was no longer the convening authority, and it wasn’t like Sudari-Kravchik would overturn it. Not with her dual loyalties to Starfleet Intelligence.

“Come again?”

“He’s been reassigned to Starbase 27.”

“The old clunker out in that backwater?” Robert chuckled. What a step down from commanding the Fourth Fleet’s task force responsible for pathfinding operations. “Who’d the Admiral upset to get shelved like that?” 

“No one,” Elsie replied. “He wanted it, as did I.” Her brother looked confused. “You see, the aging Starbase 27, the one you’re thinking of, is being retired, and so is our decades-old attitude about the Archanis Sector. A new Canopus-class station has just come online to replace it, and we’re all heading out that way to begin the hard work of revitalizing a borderlands region that has, for far too long, been allowed to fall into disrepair.” The crisis with the Hunters of D’Ghor and the fungal blight of that same year had been the catalyst, and now, the whole situation with Toral had crystalised the need.

“You said we all?” Robert observed. “What exactly did you mean by that?”

“I mean you included, Robert,” Elsie replied calmly. “In fact, Grayson all but insisted. A sector like Archanis, neglected for so long, is in need of someone like you. Think about your work in the Triangle back in the early nineties. This could be like that, all over again. You are one of the best frontier prosecutors we have.” She set the three pips he’d discarded in the courtroom on the table in front of him. “Join us, and help us make a difference.”

Robert stared at the three pips on the desk before him. “How can you say that after what just happened?” He’d just suffered a gruesome defeat.

“I can say it more emphatically now than ever,” his sister replied kindly as she pushed the pips towards him. “This is a fresh start Robert, for you and for the sector. It’s a place where you can make a difference, where you can put an end to exploitative practices by criminals and pirates who’ve taken advantage of our absence, and where you can show skeptical colonists what the Federation can truly be for them.”

“Ok, I’ll admit, you have me intrigued,” Robert shared as his tone softened for the first time all day. Maybe it would be good for a fresh start, and there was an appeal to something like this. “But it comes with the condition that I have full judicial autonomy.”

“Alex would have it no other way.”

“And my team? Do they come with me?” He’d spent the last few years building his team, and he didn’t want to start fresh. It was hard to find good medical examiners and CSIs, let alone junior attorneys that would fight like he would.

“You’ll have a high degree of discretion on your team,” Elsie assured him. “Both in terms of your new office on Archanis Station, and as it relates to the resources you have on Polaris today.”

“What do you mean?” Robert asked. It was an odd way to phrase the response. Why would he still have access to the resources on Polaris if they were transferring to Archanis?

“Polaris is coming too… sort of.”

Robert looked confused. He wasn’t following.

“While it will still have its ASTRA mandate, Polaris Squadron will now be based out of Archanis,” Elsie explained. “With the rise of Toral and the posturing of the border houses, it made sense to double down, to have Polaris out there – when she’s not otherwise occupied – to reinforce our presence.”

Earlier, his sister had pitched it as a fresh start, but now it had become something more. Not only could he bring change to a sector that had suffered abuse in the face of neglect, to make a real difference and defend the core values of the Federation, but knowing that Polaris Squadron would still be around, he’d still be able to keep an eye on it, and to intercede if Lewis, Reyes or the others stepped over the line again. He reached down and scooped the pips off the desk. 

As Robert reattached his pips to his collar, Elsie shared some additional news. “And there’s more,” she offered. “You’ll be with family again, and not just me.”

Robert looked at her curiously. The Drake family had a multi-generational history with Starfleet, but besides himself and his sister, who among the family line was still in the service?

“Between the need to strengthen ties with our marginalized colonies, and the need to deal with this burgeoning situation with the Klingons, the Diplomatic Corps is establishing a new mission on Archanis Station,” Elsie explained. “And dad volunteered to lead it.” She beamed as she said it. Family had always taken a backseat to her career, but now, the two had become one and the same.

“Dad? Seriously?” The shock on his face was evident. “He hasn’t so much as set foot on the frontier since he made it back from Delta.” That experience had led Michael Drake, the lifelong explorer, to rethink his priorities and to choose a more stable, rooted path for his twilight years. “What convinced him to return to the stars once more?”

“It was the Borg.”

“The Borg?” Robert asked. The Borg were responsible for his dad’s retirement in the first place, but now they were also responsible for his return? “What happened?”

“Frontier Day happened,” Elsie explained, as if that should have been obvious. But then she noticed the clueless look on her brother’s face. “Robert, I thought I was the one that was too busy with my career… but the way you’re looking at me, have you really not spoken to him since Frontier Day?”

“No… I… I… I’ve been a bit busy…” Robert admitted sheepishly as he looked down at his desk. He’d been so consumed by this case, he’d literally not even bothered to call home after it was nearly destroyed by the Borg.

“Well then, brother, I think we have a lot of catching up to do.”