‘Merlin reports the third sweep of the sector is complete, Captain,’ reported Kally from Comms. ‘Still no sign of any other ship, but no sign of anyone else from Skippy’s herd, either.’

That was the first good news of the day.

‘Thawn reports that fifty percent of the coil repairs are complete,’ came the next update, from Caede at Ops. ‘Our energy reserves are looking good. Diagnostics on our SIF emitters are speeding up and we’re getting teams on those repairs, too.’

That was the next good news. As a bonus, it gave crewmembers more leeway on their replicator credit allocation. They’d not been restricted to emergency rations, but one more setback might have made that necessary.

It meant Logan could treat himself to a specific, complex coffee when he arrived on the bridge that morning – a Colombian blend, nutty and smooth. The microns of power from the more sophisticated flavour profile weren’t the difference between life support failing or working, but he could at least enjoy it today without guilt.

He was going to get, he reckoned, plenty of that anyway.

Airex was at his post at science, half of his screens filled with the scans of the nearby area, the others with all of their studies and data of Skippy. The cosmozoan remained next to Endeavour, seemingly comforted by their presence and whatever communication wizardry Kally had performed. He did not look up as Logan reached him. ‘Commander.’

Logan leaned on the railing in front of the science station. ‘How’s it going?’

That made Airex stop and frown at nothing. ‘Going? I’ll give reports to the captain when there’s something to say -’

‘Easy, cowboy.’ That line usually confused people enough they calmed a little, and Logan set the second mug he’d brought over into the panel’s cupholder. ‘This were small-talk. With a little pick-me-up.’

Airex’s eyes landed on the mug, and he looked a little abashed. ‘Tarkelien Tea.’

‘And a request to set phasers to “stun”. You look like you’ve been at this all day an’ all night.’

‘We have a whole new lifeform to investigate and which seems at least somewhat friendly, and we’re in a stellar phenomenon that might still kill us if I miscalculate.’ He paused with his hand halfway towards the mug. ‘I won’t.’

Logan frowned with fresh confusion. ‘I know you – oh. You think I’m still bugged I suggested we don’t hide in here, an’ she went with your judgement instead?’ He’d have been lying to pretend it didn’t sting, the effortless way Airex could command Kharth’s trust in a crisis. But lingering on that was a petty luxury he didn’t want to pay for. ‘You’ve shown you were right.’

‘Mn.’ Airex sipped the tea. ‘I appreciate we haven’t worked together enough to easily take such chances with each other.’

‘Yeah, I’m hoping to change that.’ Logan glanced around him. Officers had been wearing the bridge like a second skin, all but living at their posts in this crisis. But that meant for a constant yet dull level of background activity, enough that their conversation was easily ignored by anyone else. ‘We should be working together.’

‘I assume you don’t mean by you bringing me tea.’

Logan’s eyes fell on the conference room. ‘By backing her up.’ Kharth had barely used the ready room if she could avoid it.

Airex’s expression flickered, and Logan couldn’t stop himself from studying intently. Every micron of movement told a story, and some were relevant to him as chief of security, as a senior officer holding the crew together in the face of adversity. Others were more personal and yet, Logan felt, not really his business. He could not stop himself from studying them, anyway.

‘The thing about Kharth,’ Airex said at last, as if he’d shuffled through several options of how to respond and settled on one he felt diplomatic, ‘is that if you try to support her too overtly, she’ll insist she doesn’t need you.’

‘Yeah, I figured that one out already.’ It was hard to not sound sardonic. ‘I did meet her for five seconds. But fact is, crew’s strained, and they respect her, but a lot of folks here don’t see her as a leader.’

Airex stiffened. ‘They’re wrong.’

‘I’m gonna be blunt here: we both know she’s nobody’s first choice to be in charge in a crisis like this.’

Before he could say the all-important ‘but,’ the Trill’s eyes had locked on him, and he jabbed a finger as he said in a low, intense hiss, ‘You have no idea who she is or what she’s capable of -’

‘Yeah, I get it, you two go way back,’ Logan said in a flatter, firmer voice. ‘Don’t be blind. Don’t be stupid. Loyalty ain’t about that. I respect the absolute hell out of that woman, but she ain’t who you choose to lead a crew sitting in a pressure cooker. She acts – and she can’t, not right now.’

Airex’s eyes swept the bridge, confirming yet again they weren’t overheard as he hissed, ‘Then what are you suggesting, Commander?’

‘We can’t help if we ain’t realistic. I’ve been doing what I can for the crew. Making sure people feel listened to. Confident that we got plans. Got a way through this. Elsa’s been helping. But she’s junior an’ I’m still the new guy.’

Airex rolled his eyes. ‘The crew love you, Logan.’

Being liked and accepted by his crew was the sort of thing that kept Logan up at night, with the fear that some day they would wake up, remember what he was, and reject him. Such a dismissive comment about something Logan felt was so precious jarred, even though he felt Airex was missing the point.

‘I kiss their boo-boos an’ made them feel like a big ole’ blanket’s been thrown over them,’ he said, trying to sound more self-effacing than he felt. The crew’s affection was important to him. It wasn’t necessarily important to the mission. ‘Papa Wolf ain’t the solution to each crisis. You’re the guy who’s been deliverin’ miracles for them for years. Just… run double-time on reaching out to people. Like the ones who listen to you. Like Thawn.’

That stopped Airex short. ‘She could probably do with some support.’

‘There you go.’

Airex sipped his tea, brow furrowed, thoughtful. ‘And Kharth?’

‘Mood’s lifting. We ain’t being chased right now. Repair work’s progressing. The pressure in the pressure cooker ain’t so bad.’ Logan nodded at the screens behind Airex. ‘And our new little buddy is cheering people up. How’s he doing?’

‘It seems like the… like Skippy… has sustained some minor lacerations and burns on his membrane and tendrils, I suspect from a cloud of charged particles. Turbulence inside the nursery may have injured and separated him from the herd, which I’m still confident exists.’ Airex turned on the chair, gesturing to the main display monitoring their new contact. ‘Doctor Winters is considering regenerative medical care we could give, and how to deploy it, while Kally’s trying to further our communication options so we don’t agitate it.’

‘We reckon we can give him a shot of medicine?’

‘It shouldn’t be hard to figure out a medical relief. The good news is that Skippy’s biology seems rather consistent with that of comparable cosmozoans. In cosmological terms… he’s not very unusual.’

Logan looked at the video feed of the fifty-metre long manta ray-like alien that had, to his eye, nestled quite firmly alongside the comforting hum of Endeavour’s engines. The hide pulsed only gently now, rippling with hues that Kally was beginning to understand the messages therein. To his eye, the peacefulness and acceptance seemed clear enough. ‘Maybe he ain’t. But he’s pretty cute, right?’

Airex gave the sigh of a scientist whose studies were being reduced. Then he paused. ‘The crew like him, you say?’

‘Him. Her. It. They. Everyone’s got different pronouns. I just wanna call him things like “sport” or “tiger”. Throw a ball about with him. You know.’ Logan shrugged. ‘Skippy’s something new that ain’t horrifying an’ seems to like us. We needed a bit of good first contact.’

‘Hm.’ Airex paused a moment. Then he reached to his controls and input a few commands.

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Patching the visual feed on Skippy and our ongoing sensor read of him to share every public display on the ship. You’re right. People need a little more positivity.’

Logan grinned. ‘Skippy TV.’

Airex rolled his eyes, but Logan knew a good natured response when he saw one. ‘You’d hope the crew might be fascinated by the phenomenon we find ourselves hiding with… but nobody’s ever going to call a stellar nursery cute.’

The conference room doors slid open, and when Kharth set foot on the bridge, she looked more than a little suspicious to see the feed of Skippy on the main display.

‘Has it done something?’ she asked, her look towards Science suggesting the presence of Logan at Airex’s side wasn’t reassuring.

Logan decided to take the hit on this one, waving a hand. ‘It’s for morale. People love the little guy.’ Had they been alone, he might have made a teasing comment, tried to bring her out of her shell. The middle of the bridge was no time for that, so he knew he had to play the buffoon a little, take the emotional steps she wouldn’t – perhaps couldn’t.

Kharth had the nounce to look about the bridge, take the temperature of the officers around her. Skippy TV was, at least, not a distraction. With a curt shrug, she approached the two men, arms folded across her chest.

‘If we’re making progress with repairs and Skippy isn’t a problem,’ she said, voice dropping, more audibly awkward around the two of them with nobody else to overhear, ‘is it time to think about how we get the hell out of here?’

Airex grimaced. ‘To retrace our steps through Underspace, I’d prefer a chance to reattempt studying the aperture first. We could dispatch a runabout to run scans or leave a probe…’

‘We should hang tight,’ Logan said, shaking his head. ‘We got no idea who’s out there and we still ain’t equipped for a fight. We’ve found a quiet patch of this phenomenon, an’ repairs are happening. In a few days we should have the main systems fully operational, an’ then even if the Hirogen do show up, we can sock ‘em in the jaw.’

Kharth glanced between them, and Logan felt his throat tighten when he realised she was waiting to see if Airex objected. When he didn’t, she nodded. ‘So we wait a little longer.’

‘Hence Skippy TV,’ said Logan, feeling a little more useless now. ‘Best way to start your day.’

‘Right.’ Kharth shifted her feet. ‘That’s a good plan. I should notify everyone.’

She turned to approach the captain’s chair, slinking almost as if she didn’t want the eyes of the bridge crew on her, and the lack of trepidation seemed forced to Logan as she reached for the comms controls on the armrest.

‘All hands, this is the – this is Commander Kharth.’ At once she scowled, clearly frustrated with her faltering opening. ‘We’re confident now there’s no threat immediately out there. The phenomenon is keeping us hidden on sensors from any possible threats and the region is stable enough to not be dangerous. We’re going to use this time to complete as many repairs as possible, and then we’re going to return to the aperture that brought us here, and Commander Airex is going to study it to find us a way home.’ While she’d sounded more confident as she spoke, now she hesitated. That was the update. What was the message?

‘In the meantime…’ Kharth swallowed. ‘We wait. We enjoy the view of this, uh, creature that’s shown an interest in us, and we’re going to try to help it. I know the last few days have been hard.’ Another beat. ‘I know we’ve lost people.’ Another. ‘I know we’re a long, long way from home and we’re not sure how we’re getting back. But.’

‘Oh no, wrap it up,’ Logan breathed.

‘But we are going to get home,’ Kharth said at last. ‘We’ll get through this. If you do your jobs.’ Her expression fixed, and Logan knew she wanted to cringe at her own choice of words, the accidentally implied threat that getting home was reliant on them, not her. ‘Carry on.’

The moment the line to the whole ship was cut, Kharth turned on her heel and stalked back to the conference room. On the main screen, Skippy stirred more than it had in hours, giving a brief pulse of a more vibrant hue of violet.

‘Aw, man,’ said Logan, too quiet to be heard by anyone but Airex. ‘She even bummed Skippy out.’

Airex rubbed his temple, clearly trying to control his body language in front of the eyes of the bemused bridge crew. ‘Alright,’ he said at last. ‘So there’s work to do. But that’s fine. We’re safe here, and we’ve got time.’