“So tell me,” Aspis sighed, her lilting voice rolling through a stormcloud of smoke that tumbled from her lips. “Why would a bunch of xB’s be so interesting to a group of…” She smiled as she looked around the small bar table at the trio, the tip of her tongue dancing over her blinding white teeth, flashing a forked tongue in the shadowed bar light. “…mercenaries?”

“The same as anything else.” Bib returned her smile confidently. “Latinum.”

Aspis let out a short laugh as she took a sip from a tall stemmed glass filled with vibrant red liquid. In the bar’s dim light, the drink’s natural glow cast her face in a morbid visage, the golden serpent tattoo appearing to drink down the thick blood-like liquid with pleasure. David shuddered reflexively, every inch of his skin begging to escape.

“I assumed Latinum was involved, are you being paid to find them or kill them?”

“Does it matter?”

“Sometimes, it depends on who is doing the asking.”

Eyma took a data padd from her small bag nested beneath the table and slid it across the table. “An old guy heard his son might be back from the Borg. He will pay most of his life savings to see him back on Earth.” She tapped the padd indicatively, causing it to spring to life with the fake cover story the team had created. Silently the three shared a moment of hope that it wouldn’t fail under scrutiny.

Aspis didn’t even lift the padd to take a look, instead swinging her head, cobra-like, her attention settling on the young Orion woman. A wicked smile crept across her lips as the serpent’s head flickered in the shadows of the bar; beneath the table, Mitchell reached for the small phaser pistol hidden at the bottom of his bag. The cold surface calmed his nerves momentarily.

“There’s a lot of people who would like to see loved ones they lost to the Borg.”

“Do they all have Latinum?”

“Rarely enough.”

“Then we’re not interested in them.” Eyma’s face was an emerald statue, cool and inscrutable. Mitchell felt a shudder up his spine once again at her sudden poker face, the young woman was normally so vibrant and friendly, this was not a side he had ever imagined could exist beneath her signature wry grin.

Aspis leant back into the patchy leather of the booth, seemingly satisfied or bored with baiting Eyma.

“As luck would have it, I have heard a rumour that several xB’s have been sighted planet side. Looking for work in the refinery.” She swirled the red liquid once again, the viscous drink slopping slowly against the crystal glass. “Poor things were desperate apparently, you’d have to be to take work there.”

“And did they get work?” Bib leant forward, the refinery was a lead at last but not a big one.

“Probably, though whether they survived it is a different matter.” She lifted the glass in a mock toast. “Few who enter come back out, it’s deadly work.” She took another deep sip from the glass, her forked tongue reaching out to lap the scarlet liquid moments before it reached her lips.

“They die in there? That’s awful.” Mitchell blurted out. Across the table Bib’s eyes narrowed at him in a silent scold.

Slowly Aspis turned all her attention to the mousey man, her body uncurling from its reclined position to bring her face inches from his own. The scent of her perfume crept around Mitchell’s neck, filling his nostrils with whispers of unnamed spices as the golden serpent hovered a breath away, he could almost taste the remnant of thick red drink that stained her lips. Mitchell went to reach for the small phaser pistol but found his body locked in place, petrified before this medusa.

“People die all the time my love, is it always awful?” Her breath was warm on his skin.

A parade of faces danced in the reflection of his eyes, looking back from the steely crystal of her piercing orange eyes.

T’sal, lost attempting to find the Lost Fleet’s hidden base, for what was eventually a great ruse.

A waste and thus doubly awful.

Zaya, lost aboard the Exodus sphere trying to stop a madman from resurrecting the Borg.

A heroine, heartbreakingly awful.

Uncle Saul, lost to the false promises of rebels and anarchists who sought to raise another war.

A fool but no less awful.

“Yes, it’s always awful,” David whispered.

The last face lingered painfully clear. His father, lost on Frontier Day through no fault of his own.

Awful. Indescribably, eternally awful.

“Such delicious sadness for such a young man.” Aspis slipped closer, her whole body now rising over Mitchell as she lifted herself onto the booth’s seat. In panic he attempted to look to Bib or Eyma, offering a desperate plea for help beyond the serpentine woman; but there was nothing beyond her scent, her tongue, her all-perceiving eyes.

She pressed herself closer, the heat of her body brushing against Mitchell’s soft, fearful skin.

“My, my, my do all young men suffer such loss? Or is it just those in Starfleet?”

He shuddered again, from fear or excitement he wasn’t sure.

“I’m not Starfleet.”

His pulse thundered in his ear like the hoofbeats of a charging stampede, a deafening betrayal of his obvious lie.

“That’s not what I heard.” She took a deep breath, drawing in the young man’s fearful scent. “Lieutenant. Mitchell.”

Mitchell’s heart stopped, and the deafening sound of his pulse fell away as his breath caught in his throat. He would be the cause of the mission’s failure and worse, likely the team’s demise. Here in the shadows of a dark syndicate bar, he would end his days in service of the great Starfleet. Just as his mother had feared, just as he had secretly feared ever since returning to service aboard Nestus over a year ago.

And then there was a flash of brilliant light.

And then there was darkness.

And Mitchell took a breath.