Roasted potatoes, minted peas, buttered asparagus and glazed yams sat on serving plates or bowls as required, all in service and arrayed around the platter with stacks of roast pork and crackling, or chicken. The heady aromas filled the expansive and truly ridiculous grand hall aboard the Hohenzollern. While the olfactory senses were satisfied, a trio of bards in a corner played gently to soothe the auditory.

Stained glass panels gave the illusion of windows, despite the grand hall being nestled firmly within one of the larger towers, nearly halfway from the base. They cast the room in gentle colours, each panel depicting a scene in the great history of the House of Crashanburn. And between each faux window were statues, armour stands, plinths with artefacts of some sort on them, or merely full-sized paintings of people all bearing some resemblance to the Viscount Crashanburn.

“I think I see where they got the family name,” Willow Beckman whispered as she leaned closer to Blake Pisani, pointing at one of the panels that had gotten her attention. It depicted a stylised rendition of a centuries-old colony ship, made even worse through the filter of medieval technological transformations. But this most pressing part of the whole panel was the ship plunging towards the ground, flames surrounding it as a heroic individual stuck out of the top of the vessel, stern-faced and moustachioed, hands on the reins of wild horses pulling the ship downwards. The half-dozen passengers, all equally improbably sticking out of the top, were panicking, hands waving in the air.

“Piloting lesson says the captain was actually the most panicked person on that ship,” Blake replied, a smile then a wink before she shook her head to tell Willow to sit back.

The Viscount’s meeting with Mac aboard Republic had been the day before. Mousetrap had departed, making a day’s journey towards the direction of the Archanis Nebula. It had so far only sent out standard automated messages, proudly announcing its cargo of colonial goods bound for Ayer’s Rock. But during the night the engineers of Republic, with a little assistance from a few other Starfleet Engineers aboard Thames Station, had devised a potential fix for Hohenzollern’s engine issue.

And that meant that Blake was getting to lead an engineering team aboard the Hysperian ship. And would just have to rub all of this in Cat’s face when they were all reunited. But she’d brought Willow along instead, to test further the young woman’s ‘spooky sense’. And maybe make use of it as well. There were, after all, plenty of things out there in the universe that modern science still hadn’t gotten around to proving is fake or explaining in a rational manner.

And as Evan had warned Blake, they’d been whisked away, to while away time while the ‘squires’ did all the work. And the Viscount hadn’t been stingy on this occasion, deigning to join the visiting ‘knights’ for a ‘lite lunch’ as he’d called it when a veritable army of servers had brought out the many serving plates, the carafes of wine and one of them had offered a choice of deserts to the visitors for later, before simply asking the Viscount what he wanted and commenting “Wise choice m’lord” when he finally gave an answer.

A handful of other members of the Viscount’s court had joined them. Knight Lorelei had been there to meet them when they arrived. Knight-Captain Filippo had greeted them in the grand hall before the Viscount himself had arrived, and insisted on correcting Blake’s addressing of him, his family name used ‘only formally and by those I don’t like’ he said, laying on the charm as thick as he could.

A parade of other names and faces had washed over both Starfleet officers, continuing as they had sat for lunch. Conversations had broken out on a matter of subjects, and people were joining and leaving nearby discussions as they pleased with the ebb and flow of discussions.

“Excuse me, young lady, are you perchance the helmsman for the Starfleet vessel?” The young man who asked the question, directed to Willow, was perhaps a few years her senior at most. He sat opposite them, having kept quiet for most of the meal so far. Unlike so many of the other men present, he was clean-shaven. Dark hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail.

“I am,” Willow answered, hesitantly at first. “Willow Beckman, chief helmsman, USS Republic.”

“Yes, Republic, quiet,” the man said, disdain like so many others at the ship’s name. “Tell me, is it true your ships use fish for navigation?”

“Fish?” The question in response was immediate from Willow. “No, not fish. Some ships in the fleet have cetaceans aboard in a specialist capacity as navigators, but not all ships. Republic doesn’t, for example, but one ship in the squadron, Perseus, has these amazingly gigantic tanks for Cetacean Ops.”

“Cetaceans?” the man asked, looking at his fellow Hysperians. Those paying attention merely shrugged or shook their heads in response.

“Whales and dolphins,” Blake answered. “Starfleet officers specialised in navigational challenges.”

“Merfolk?” The man sounded genuinely perplexed. “That must be a sight to see. Please, would you indulge me in another question?”

“Besides that one just now?” Blake asked cheekily.

“I – ” the man started, before being cut off.

“Sure thing,” Willow said.

“Without said specialists, if your ship was plunged into an astral miasma that dulled your scrying, how would you handle the task of finding your way?”

Willow took a moment, blinking, then looked at Blake, blinked twice more, then shook her head before looking at the man again. “A sensor blocking nebula?” The man took his time translating before nodding in agreement. They were both speaking the same language and the words were understandable, just the comprehension was missing, unless thought about.

“Make sure your inertial guidance system is fully calibrated, ensure all the backups are running and in agreement, then pick a direction and go. Keep slow, check what you can on sensors, then just keep on going till you find something a chart recognises or you leave the nebula.”

“I see,” the young Hysperian answered. “And if approaching from outside?”

“Is this theoretical or practical?” Blake asked, interrupting Willow before she could talk.

“You must excuse Enrico,” Knight-Captain Filippo declared as he approached from behind Willow and Blake. He’d been doing the rounds of the table, checking in on collected groups here and there. If this was the equivalent of a staff meeting aboard the Hohenzollern, then the ship had a truly impressive crew. Given its size, it had to. “He has always been a curious sort and likes to quiz visitors, to see if they can teach him anything.”

“I don’t mind,” Willow said. “He’s just asking about first year navigational classes, really. I’d expect anyone who has passed their basic flight qualifications to know this.” Her eyes went to Blake, a knowing squint following. “Right, Doctor?”

“I have never gotten lost in a nebula,” Blake snapped back. “Delayed perhaps, never lost.”

“In that case, m’ladies, please entertain Enrico to your heart’s content. Enrico,” Filippo looked to the young man, a fatherly smile on his face, “Do be mindful and not bore our guests. And perhaps give them a tour after lunch before seeing them to their squires?”

“Yes sir,” Enrico answered. He waited for the Knight-Captain to leave before continuing. “Where were we?”

Hours later, after a report from the engineers that matters were proceeding well, a tour given and more questions from Enrico and Blake and Willow found themselves with a spot out of the way in the main engine room aboard Hohenzollern. The general gist of a Federation engine room could be seen, with a heavy veneer of faux-medievalism over the top. “Something still isn’t right here,” Willow whispered. “I can’t…” she trailed off as her eyes scanned the vast expanse of the room.

“Can’t what?” Blake asked. She’d made sure a corpsman had been with the engineers the whole time and had packed them a second tricorder, claiming it when they had arrived after lunch. Now it was in her hand, pointed at the young woman beside her.

“I can’t tell where I am,” Willow answered, sounding far away. She’d taken a few steps, spinning around as she did so like someone trying to get their bearings. “I mean, I know the bow is that way,” she pointed at one of the walls, roughly in the direction of the Hohenzollern’s bow. “We’re in engineering, sorry, the forge, but where exactly is that?”

“Aboard the Hohenzollern?” Blake asked. Her attention drifted to her tricorder once more. “Oh, wow, this is interesting.”

That had broken Willow’s semi-trance, the young woman snapping back to the here and now. Seeing the tricorder, her face scrunched up slightly before she shook it off, then stepped up beside Blake to examine the results. “A neurological scan?”

“You, my dear, are something else,” Blake announced with a smile. “Your neurological activity is spiking in lovely weird ways.”

“Is that a good thing? Bad thing?”

“It’s a weird thing.” Blake waved the tricorder over Willow, consulted it briefly, and then smiled. “Otherwise you look fine. Feeling okay?”

“Lost.”

“When did it start?”

Willow thought for a moment. “Ever since we got here,” she answered, pointing to the floor with both hands. “Actually, I think I started feeling confused before, but like, not by much.”

“Hmm.” Blake looked around herself now, looking for something that just screamed ‘suspicious’ but not finding it amongst the flaming torches, two-meter oil paintings of Viscount Crashanburn, or the grotesques high up on the walls. “Ever feel like this in Engineering?”

“On the Republic? No, never.”

“You know, Lieutenant,” Blake said after mulling what evidence she had for a moment, “I think you’re right. Something isn’t right here.”

“Doc, we’re done here.” Lieutenant Michelle Jamieson was the one really running the away team here to implement the engine fix. As she approached, she was busy wiping her hands clean on a rag, the effort not so much cleaning the woman’s hands as just evenly distributing what mess was there. “And thank you so, so much for keeping those busybody knights off my team. Us and blacksmiths got the work done quicker without them.”

“A filling lunch, wine in the middle of the day and a pleasant conversation are all slings and arrows I’ll take for engineers any day of the week,” Blake said, a slight chuckle from Jamieson in response. “Anything weird or interesting you noticed?”

“I did want to check a few compartments, but the Hysperians got awfully defensive about them.” Jamieson pointed at a door on the far side of the Forge from the three women. “Apparently it’s a personal project space for the chief blacksmith and he didn’t want to show me. ‘Not until it’s ready’ or something like that.”

“Curious.” Blake considered the door for a moment, then saw the exhausted faces of the engineers as they were packing their tools up. “Right, shall we take these weary souls home?” she asked Willow. “Back to the 25^th century!”