Because of the great distance between them, the change in state was hardly visible. Framed by the expansive transparent viewscreen, there appeared to be little more than a single blue spark—a flicker in the night, just another shooting star in the endless void. Anything could look beautiful, given enough distance.

Disquieted, Kellin Rayco felt his hands go numb. The apocalyptic potential of that spark was beyond his comprehension, yet he comprehended what a deeply personal danger it posed, too. He pressed his palms against the armrests of his chair, trying to flex the feeling back into his hands.

“Magnify,” Kellin ordered.  It was better to know than to assume what the flickering meant.  He glanced at Taes by his side, and she nodded her endorsement.

After the anbo chohr exchange between Taes and Gul Khem, Taes had requested great space to think.  She had ordered Constellation’s withdrawal to a range of two hundred thousand kilometres from the Underspace aperture.  Despite how she phrased it then, it was clear that what Taes really wanted was distance from the Cardassian cruiser Vorkel and its tachyon transmitter platform.  

In private, Taes had admitted to Kellin that she sought to minimize any temptation into conflict with Gul Khem when the only weapon Taes held was a type-XIV phaser array.  The Treaty of Bajor demanded a different way forward for them as Starfleet officers.

A holographic projection of the Cardassian’s deep-space platform centred on the screen.  Seeing it close up, it was activated, emitting a crackling blue burst into the void.  Under the attack of the burst, normal space tore apart.  The aperture opened, revealing the burnt caramel glow of Underspace, spilling slightly into regular space.

To Captain Taes’ left, Yuulik swiped a hand over her science console, sending a scroll of sensor data across the bottom of the viewscreen.  Her sharp blue eyes bulged wider when she made passing eye contact with Kellin.  Yuulik would never admit it, but Kellin could intuit the platform was being activated far too soon.  They weren’t ready for this.

“The platform is emitting a beam of tetryon particles at the aperture in a pattern I’ve never seen before,” Yuulik reported.  “Captain, we’ve only managed to transfer sixty percent of the anti-tachyon loads into the Bussard ramscoops.  I don’t– I don’t think that will be enough to disrupt a tetryon beam of this intensity.  In my opinion.”

Kellin was surprised to see Yuulik’s confidence buckling, but he supposed it was still strange and new for her to fully support a course of action that her team had developed without her.  Seeing her progress like a baby konari on new legs, Kellin felt compelled to offer reassurance.

“We still need time to feign damage to the ship,” Kellin suggested. “If we flew into the aperture, could a navigational error through the path of the tetryon beam be enough to explain our ‘accidental’ discharge of an anti-tachyon cloud?”

“Maybe,” Taes said in the precise tone of voice that meant ‘no.’  Leaning forward to perch on the edge of her chair, Taes gave new orders to the bridge crew.  

“Mister Door, hold position until you have my say-so.  Nova, has the aperture opened enough to transmit a subspace signal to USS Almagest in Underpsace?”

“Hailing Almagest now,” Nova said in a musical lilt.  “I’ve locked onto the subspace relay platform they planted on the other side of the aperture.”

Splitting the viewscreen with the tetryon platform, Captain Elbon Jakkelb appeared on screen from the comfort of his own bridge.  Before he could speak, he was rocked from side to side by what was probably tachyon turbulence.

Captain Taes said to Elbon, “You’re out of time, captain. The Cardassians have activated their tachyon emitter.”

“As we feared, captains,” Yuulik interrupted, “the concentrated tachyon beam is destabilising this aperture.”

Forgoing the correct chains of command, Kellin said, “Jakkelb, it’s time to run!”  Despite the creeping death of their marriage, Kellin held no ill will for his ex.

“We’ve made contact with USS Grus,” Elbon said. He had that patronising smile whenever he found a way to out-maneuver Taes and Kellin without explicitly shutting either of them down. 

“They’re en route to your aperture at maximum warp, but the exact distance is too nebulous to measure in Underspace. They could still be near galactic core, or they could be two minutes away. We never managed to map as far as the corridors Grus is travelling.“

“Toss a homing probe behind you and run!” Kellin barked.  “It’s crash position time.  I didn’t jump with you at Temtibi, but I beg you to jump with me now.”

Elbon’s smile flattened.  Looking away from the visual sensors, Elbon sighed, “Helm, set course for the aperture and engage.”  Looking right at Kellin, Elbon said, “The subspace relays don’t have the same range as our sensor pod, but we’ll boost the homing signal for as long as we can.“

Seated on the other side of Captain Taes, Flavia swivelled her chair to lean back and nod at Kellin.  Although he was puzzled by catching Flavia’s attention, Kellin turned to gossip behind Taes’s chair, too.  He shook his head at Flavia in an expression of ‘So what now?’

“Such uncommon passion from you, commander,” Flavia whispered.  “Did the Changelings threaten your loved ones too?”

Kellin received her question like a jab to the gut.  He couldn’t understand why now, of all times, she would remind him of his time spent a prisoner of rogue Changelings while his Changeling imposter roamed Constellation.  It took a couple more heartbeats for him to catch the ‘too’ in her question.  That was the first suggestion of where Flavia had gone when she’d been lost during the Dominion invasion.  Had she, too, been kidnapped and replaced by the Changelings?

But Flavia’s attention was already returned to the viewscreen, and the holographic sensor panel that was projected from her armrest.

“From what sensors can pick up through the aperture,” Flavia said, “the very substance of the radial walls have begun to discorporate.  Underspace is coming apart.”

“The aperture is widening, captain,” Yuulik added.  “The ship is coming through!”

“Raise shields!” Taes ordered.  “Mister Door, set a course to position us between the Almagest and the Vorkel.  Put our ventral shield in the Carassians’–“

On screen, the projection of Elbon raised a hand, urging, “Captain–“

On the magnified image beside him, the tear in space widened, but the ungainly curves of a Sutherland-class starship didn’t emerge.  Instead, a blunt-nosed hulk of a starship pounced out of Underspace, its hull the colour of rust.  The Predator-class carrier hadn’t even escaped Underspace before it lanced phaser beams at the tetryon platform.

Flavia exclaimed, “Metallurgic analysis and subspace transponders confirm this is the same Kazon who attacked us in Underspace with such unfounded confidence. …Ah, that’s better now. The Vorkel is firing back at them.”

From the CONN station, Cellar Door’s vocoder chirruped with an error sound of surprise when he asked, “Maje Midrell found us out here?”

“Was that what he was called?” Flavia haughtily asked.  “His name is long forgotten to me.”

Taes raised her voice to be heard above the chatter.  “Mister Door, set course back to Federation space, full impulse.  Let the Cardassians and Kazon battle for supremacy over Underspace.  It’s not our fight.  There are other apertures in this region where Almagest and Grus could have escaped.  Let’s find out.”

Through the translucent holograms on the viewscreen, the starfield appeared to spin as Constellation turned away from the mounting conflict between their antagonists.  Elbon’s hologram frowned deeply, exaggerating the lines on his face.

“You’re not giving up on me so soon, eh?” Elbon asked.

Yuulik said, “The Almagest!  She’s coming through the aperture.”

“Keep running, Constellation,” Elbon added.  “We’ve received word from the Grus.  They escaped Underspace in orbit of Leonis.”  Elbon hardly got the words out when he was knocked back in his chair.  A shower of sparks exploded from the overhead as the Almagest took a stray blast from the Kazon or the Cardassians.

Swaying forward in his chair, Elbon laughed, “It takes us longer to get to speed, but we’re catching up to you presently.“

“He’s right, captain. There’s nothing left for us here.”  Her demeanour contrasted Elbon’s cowboy zeal in his excitement to dodge the Cardassians. Flavia didn’t even display her typical sly smirk, which betrayed the double meaning of most everything she said.

Flavia said, “The aperture has collapsed.  Perhaps this entire corridor of Underspace is gone with it.  The Cardassians had already done too much damage by the time the Kazon arrived.”

“It’s done then,” Taes concluded.  “Mister Door, increase speed to warp five.”

“It’s done then?” Flavia asked, echoing Taes’s words.  One arched eyebrow rose up her forehead.  “What’s done exactly?  Why did the Kazon attack the platform in the first place?  And so distant from where we left them?”

Elbon replied, “That would be my fault.  I added a recording of Captain Taes to the homing beacon we sounded from our sensor pod.“

Taes regarded Flavia. “I declared myself the queen of the Kazon-Remora, claiming Underspace for the glory of Starfleet,” Taes said, “I precisely described the Cardassian tachyon platform as my Underspace fortress.”

She nodded at Yuulik, “Yuulik said she knew how to enrage the Kazon into action.  Manipulate the environment rather than our deflector dish.  When Yuulik says she knows how to get under someone’s skin, how to irritate a person beyond the point of reason, I believe her.”

Flavia narrowed her eyes at Yuulik and Taes in quick succession. Her smirk returned.

“I never could have imagined Starfleet was capable of such growth,” Flavia said. “Still, you have far more to learn from the Romulan Free State. Perhaps this mission of joint exploration is more than self-indulgence after all.”