They would learn later, from scans of the wreck of the Nomad, that they’d been taken out by a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. Their route had been anticipated, with someone posted atop a building with a clear view of the street to watch for them, wait, and then take them out.

All Rosewood knew in the moment was the deafening blast, the shrieking of metal, the cries of surprise from the Rooks. Searing heat and the lurching sense of the Nomad flying through the air before it crunched into the dirt road and rolled, rolled, rolled. Then stopped.

For a moment, it was almost peaceful. Even as Rosewood’s head spun and the metal frame of the Nomad creaked around him, all he could hear otherwise was the distant thrum of citywide conflict. But that was a kilometre away by now. Far gone.

Then Ireqah was over him, dark hair wild, grabbing him by the shoulders. ‘John! We don’t have time to be dead!’

The Nomad was upside down and Rosewood had to unclip his webbing to pull himself free with a groan. ‘This seems like a perfect time to be dead.’

Around him, the team stirred. At the front, Cassidy shoved a panel off himself, his face bloodied but his movements deliberate as he got upright and took stock. ‘Sound off!’ he called, phaser pistol already in hand.

‘Present,’ grumbled Tiran beside him. ‘The Nomad’s not, though.’

Nallera was sat up, a hand to a cut on her temple. Beside her, Aryn was a crumpled, motionless bundle. ‘Still breathing. Aryn’s out cold. That was a photon grenade; just as well the Nomad’s plated higher than standard issue…’

‘Movement,’ Cassidy called, eyes on the windows. ‘They’re here.’

Tal Shiar or warlords? Rosewood wondered, but once again, it didn’t matter. His eyes landed on Ireqah. ‘We’ll get you out of here. Just stay low.’

Her expression didn’t shift. ‘That’s the plan?’

He couldn’t reply before disruptor fire crashed into the body of the Nomad. Cassidy cursed, shifting away from the upturned window and letting off his own phaser blast. ‘Keep it tight! Chief, we gotta get in touch with the Blackbird.’

The good news was that not all windows were shattered, and they had a decent amount of cover inside even a wrecked, flipped vehicle. The bad news was that once their hiding places were exhausted, there weren’t any new ones. Rosewood slid to keep Ireqah behind him, letting off shots into the dark. Disruptor blasts highlighted armoured figures moving in the gloom, approaching the Nomad, and a small mercy was that they’d landed at a spot denying anyone advancing on them any cover. But there could have been four enemies, or forty; it was impossible to tell.

‘Okay, okay,’ muttered Nallera, tossing her phaser rifle to Cassidy as she pulled out another photon grenade. ‘Maybe a big enough electromagnetic pulse from this thing might weaken the jamming field so the Blackbird spots us, or spots something. Might just be fireworks, but it’ll scream Starfleet fireworks.’

‘Try it!’ Cassidy barked, firing with the rifle into the dark.

The Nomad’s armour offered limited protection, but they were pinned. Rosewood popped his head up to shoot, only to duck back down as another volley slammed into the vehicle, one shot searing inches from his face. ‘They’re flanking!’ he warned. ‘Tiran, watch the -’

Before he could finish, a shadow moved at the window on the far side of the vehicle. Rosewood spun, eyes widening as he saw they’d been out-manoeuvred, a Tal Shiar operative only metres away, weapon raised. He brought his own phaser up, but not soon enough, not fast enough –

Then a shot from beside him took the Tal Shiar in the throat, and Rosewood gaped as he saw Ireqah brandishing the phaser pistol she’d snatched out of Aryn’s holster. Her eyes were wide, her jaw tight, but her voice was clear as she looked at him. ‘You missed one.’

He didn’t manage more than a mumbled thanks before he turned, but there wasn’t another. Cassidy and Tiran fired a few more shots, but there was no more movement. No more attacks. The air grew still.

‘Hold your fire,’ Cassidy muttered. ‘Reckon we were a tougher nut to crack than they expected. They’ll try something else. Chief?’

‘Working on it,’ Nallera muttered, hyperspanner-deep in a photon grenade.

‘Commander Cassidy!’ A voice rang out through the gloom, reverberating through the shell of the shattered Nomad. Rosewood narrowed his eyes as he assessed the tone, the accent – all Romulan, cultivated, cultured, even in that handful of syllables. ‘This doesn’t have to end with every one of your team dead!’

Tiran frowned. ‘How do they know your name, Hal?’ she hissed.

Cassidy worked his jaw, then yelled into the dark, ‘I don’t chit-chat with the Tal Shiar!’

‘Do you negotiate?’

Nallera’s grip on her tools tightened. ‘Think they know we’re planning something?’

‘Think we already killed enough of their guys they fancy buying us off,’ Cassidy muttered. ‘Keep working, Chief. If they want to talk, this buys us time.’ He hunkered down to peer outside of the Nomad, though in the distant dark, all Rosewood could see was black. At this time of night and from the faded voice of the one who’d addressed them, he suspected their assailants had backed off a way.

Ireqah leaned towards Cassidy, propped up on her elbows. ‘It’s Major Falco,’ she murmured. ‘She was my Tal Shiar liaison at Defence. No doubt she was sent to tidy her own mess.’

Cassidy nodded, lips curling. ‘Alright, Falco!’ he called into the dark. ‘Let’s negotiate! I don’t kill all your guys, and you carry on your merry way. Sounds good?’

As Rosewood watched, the shadows of the shrouded streets shifted for a figure to be visible. They were some distance away, just a silhouette in the same body armour, though he could not see the shell of the helmet.

‘I see you briefed them, Ireqah. I’ll be kind and not add that level of treason to your charges,’ called the Tal Shiar agent Major Falco. ‘There don’t need to be any treason charges. We’ve all had our doubts, Ireqah. If you come out now, we’ll take what information you have on Starfleet operations and bring you back to the people who actually understand what you’re capable of. The Federation will welcome you with open arms, then discard you. You’re smarter than that.’

Ireqah scoffed. ‘Too smart to trust a word that comes out of your mouth, Falco. You’ve botched this operation from beginning to end: letting me through your fingers, letting these officers kill so many of your agents. The Federation might be soft, but you’re incompetent.’

‘Hey,’ muttered Cassidy. ‘We want time, not to piss them off.’

Rosewood looked incredulous. ‘You’re lecturing on that?’

Falco’s response interrupted. ‘The Federation is soft. You see it too, Cassidy, don’t you? All those years you spent as their knife in the dark, doing what you thought would uphold order and keep the shadows at bay. All for nothing.’

‘The Federation can change,’ retorted Cassidy. ‘If it wants to shine brighter and fluffier, that doesn’t make fighting for it pointless. It means it needs me even more.’

‘I didn’t mean the end of the Downturn, Cassidy. I meant that you spent years doing things, awful things, because you thought it was for your people. The incident on Drynok IV, cleaning up the fallout on Theta-Nine, the destruction of Kal’mak Station. How many bodies did that leave?’

Nallera shifted her weight as she worked. ‘She’s chatty,’ she muttered, but sounded shaken by Falco’s knowledge, concerned, and Rosewood couldn’t blame her.

Cassidy shrugged. ‘I don’t keep count,’ he called.

‘I could tell you. I probably know more about those operations than you do. You didn’t waste your career fighting for the Federation because it’s changing. You wasted your career because you were fighting for us. Following orders given by our people, completing missions designed by our people. How many of those operations were at the Tal Shiar’s behest, Cassidy? To our benefit? Do you even know?’

The look on Cassidy’s face was as if Falco were tightening his jaw muscles like twisting metal bolts on a spaceframe. ‘Chief,’ he hissed.

Nallera made a small noise. ‘Working on it!’

Rosewood squinted into the dark. ‘Think they’re flanking us?’

‘Probably,’ murmured Ireqah. ‘She’ll want to at least get into a better position, even if she can’t talk you down.’

‘And none of this is to mention Starfleet’s little Changeling problem,’ Falco carried on. ‘How can you trust any of your superiors? You don’t get told context, you don’t get briefed on the bigger picture, you just have to take it on faith that it’s worth fighting for, worth dying for, and your Federation is so weak that it’s let people like you become the puppets for its enemies. Don’t let yourself get played into dying for nothing today, Cassidy.’

Nallera paused. Cocked her head. ‘What’s that?’

‘Oh, no,’ Rosewood groaned, unable to hear anything. ‘Can we catch a break?’

Ireqah was looking up, too, just as sharp-eared as the half-Vulcan Nallera. ‘Those aren’t Romulan engines -’

‘Blackbird to Rooks! Stand by for transport!’ came the squawking, desperate voice of Lieutenant Falaris over their earpieces, and a split-second later, Rosewood could hear it – the rushing sound of the USS Blackbird swooping overhead.

There was a thumping of footsteps outside the Nomad’s wreck, the whirring of weapons powering up. ‘Open fire!’ yelled Falco, followed by a cacophony of disruptor rifles, shots coming in from all angles – but none quite right.

‘Aw, screw it,’ exclaimed Nallera, hefting the charge she hadn’t finished altering – and hurled it out the open window toward Falco’s voice. Again, Rosewood braced for the sound and shockwave of an explosion, because God knew what Nallera had achieved after tinkering with this one –

But the sound of the blossoming explosion was cut short by the hiss of the transporters, and the darkness cast aside by the beam’s shimmering, shining lights as they were all consumed.