Endeavour was still measuring every micron of energy pumping into every replicator, so Captain Borodin hosted Valance aboard the Scylla. The last Endeavour had been a Manticore class, and she’d served aboard for four long years as XO. To walk the interior with its crisp metal bulkheads, shining fixtures, and steel blue carpets was like stepping back in time, and the pang she felt in her chest was unexpected. What she missed about those days was not the ship, that lean vessel made for combat her crew had tried to wield as a weapon of hope. It was the people – Captain MacCallister, the other senior officers – and the simplicity of those days that she missed. The similarities were still striking.

But that sense of familiarity passed quickly. Within seconds, in fact, as the light of the transporter faded around her to reveal the transporter room, and a larger reception than she expected: not only the transporter chief and a sturdy, grey-haired man in a red uniform and commander’s pips, but a pair of officers posted to frame the steps of the pad.

Before she’d taken a step forward, the transporter chief had tugged a bosun’s whistle from his uniform and blown a quick, reserved arrival piping. The officers snapped to attention at once.

‘Welcome aboard, Captain Valance,’ said the commander with a swift, formal salute that he, to her relief, did not hold in expectation that she return it. Starfleet had never adopted such protocol formally into its codes of conduct, but she’d known some crews practice it. ‘I’m Commander Solheim, XO. Let me show you to the captain.’

She nodded politely as he extended a hand towards the door. ‘Thank you, Commander.’ She had questions, but knew it was down to Borodin to explain just what had brought the Scylla this far out. They had not walked more than a few metres of corridor in silence before they passed two more junior officers, who snapped to attention at either bulkhead as they passed, and Valance couldn’t suppress a raised eyebrow.

‘Captain Borodin runs a tight ship.’

To her relief, a tight smile crossed Solheim’s lips. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d welcome the whistle, ma’am. It might be a bit old-fashioned, but Captain Borodin wanted to be sure you were welcomed with the respect you deserve as a fellow starship commander, even in this situation.’

Even when I needed rescuing, she thought wryly. ‘Captain Borodin only took command of the Scylla a few months ago. Have you served with him before?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I was his XO on the Vigilance. He brought much of the crew over with him.’

‘The Vigilance. She was a New Orleans, no? How are you finding a Manticore?’

‘Bigger. Faster. Tougher. She’s a tough piece of work, this girl. She’ll go toe-to-toe with anyone who wants to make trouble, and end it.’

‘I appreciated the manoeuvrability,’ Valance mused, ‘but found the forward-facing weapons profile affected my thinking. We had to face problems head-on.’ At his curious look, she shrugged. ‘The last Endeavour was a Manticore. We’re not so much made for slugging matches any more.’

His eyebrows went up as they stepped into the turbolift. ‘No, ma’am. But the new Endeavour’s a fine ship. Traditional.’

Valance didn’t know if that was code for soft, and didn’t much want to prejudge a seasoned officer being proud of his ship, supportive of his captain, and polite in conversation. Thankfully, the turbolift trip was brief, and soon enough Solheim had led her into the CO’s ready room.

If Valance thought her approach to decorating was minimalist, Captain Borodin’s was practically invisible. He kept the steel blue carpets and clean lines in gunmetal grey. The interior bulkhead had a large Starfleet crest etched into the metal, and a display shelf along another wall showed off models of ancient sea-going warships of Earth. The wall behind his desk, beside the tall window, had only a few frames hanging, which Valance at once recognised held records of the captain’s commendations.

The man himself stood from behind his desk the moment they arrived. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, strong-jawed, he looked younger in person. Valance wasn’t used to being the elder captain, though she knew he’d held the rank for longer, and she decided that this, and the greater prestige of her ship despite its condition, put them on equal footing.

Borodin seemed to think so, too, walking around the desk to extend his hand for a crisp shake. ‘Captain Valance. Welcome aboard.’

‘Thank you for the welcome, Captain, and the save.’

‘Of course. You’d do the same for me, I’m sure.’ He looked to Solheim. ‘That’ll be all, Commander. Check in with Oraix on his tracking of the Klingons.’ As the XO left, Borodin turned to the replicator. ‘I took the liberty of brewing a raktajino. I hope that isn’t crass, under the circumstances; I served alongside KDF ships on the Warspite back on Operation Gatecrash and acquired a taste for it.’

She’d been half-bracing for him to make some implication about her heritage, and this wrong-footed her. ‘Raktajino sounds great. Black, no sugar.’

‘As it should be.’ Borodin took up a stainless steel jug and poured into two hefty mugs bearing the Scylla’s crest. ‘Please, sit,’ he said, gesturing to the low seating by the window, rather than his desk, as he handed her one.

Her worry about an excess of formality was fading. ‘We were very lucky your patrol took you this far out, Captain,’ she said as they sat before the windows, the distant shape of Endeavour dimly visible as a brighter gleam among the stars.

‘That’s true,’ said Borodin without pride. ‘We left our Republic allies behind to race here at maximum warp. We’ve told them to hold position; there’s no telling how many of the House of K’Var are out there. I’ve not encountered this Ledera before, but it’s not our first run-in with her house.’

‘They’ve fallen in very firmly with Toral. The house used to be divided in its attitude to the Federation, but the hostile factions seem to have won. They’ve been escalating against the Republic?’

Borodin nodded, stone-faced. ‘Probing, for now. But setting their eyes firmly on the Republic, like the rest of the Empire.’ She hadn’t realised her expression gave anything away, but he cocked his head. ‘You’ve been out of Federation territory a while, Captain. Chancellor Toral’s all but declared war on the Republic. The border houses who want their territory are starting to act like it.’

Endeavour hadn’t been completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy, but Valance wondered how much Rourke had kept his thumb on her reports, making sure he didn’t include anything which would have her racing back. Her lips set. ‘They’re going to burn the Khitomer Accords at this rate.’

‘I expect that’s why Chancellor Toral hasn’t formally declared war.’

She shook her head. ‘To an extent. It’s not necessarily fear of escalation that keeps him in line. But there are houses who don’t want war with the Federation, and he’s not strong enough to defy them.’

‘Yet,’ said Borodin grimly.

‘Yet,’ she conceded. ‘K’Var’s been focusing more on this border?’ The local tactical issue was, while threatening, a preferable concern to the risk of war with the empire.

Borodin sighed with frustration as he nodded. ‘They’ve found clear passage to traverse the dorsal border of the Republic to this frontier, which they expect to be less well-defended than the direct border with the Empire. Commodore Rourke dispatched me to aid the Republic with border security this far out. Fleet Captain Faust has her division at Unroth and Nemus Station, building up defensive infrastructure.’

Valance glared out the window for a moment. ‘We’ll have to return to Gateway once we’re able. Report to Commodore Rourke and see how we can help.’

‘Admiral Morgan’s calling the shots in the sector,’ said Borodin carefully. ‘I expect the commodore dispatched the Scylla to mollify the admiral. He’s taken the Sirius out past Vadfall, chasing reports of a Romulan warlord. The admiral wanted the Sirius closer for defence.’ Again, she must have been poor at masking her expression, because Borodin gave a low chuckle. ‘I know. Command politics. Much better to be out here, getting our hands dirty.’ He paused, wincing. ‘Apologies, Captain. I’m sure you’ve not enjoyed the dirt you just got on you.’

‘Not much, but we lost nobody,’ said Valance. ‘I call that the good end to a bad day.’

‘You think you can secure the help you need at Rencaris?’

‘I don’t know. But I think that if the House of K’Var is out here, Rencaris will be involved in local politics more, one way or another. Now we have the best excuse for diplomatic outreach.’

‘Even if we’re on the back foot.’

‘I think the company of your ship, Captain, puts us in a stronger position.’ She shrugged. ‘It makes us look less desperate. We can go somewhere else, it’s just an inconvenience. It’s not a matter of survival.’

‘We should make sure,’ said Borodin carefully, ‘they don’t realise that the longer I’m with you, the longer the Republic patrols don’t have my help.’

She nodded, and her brow knotted finally as she was reminded of his tactical acumen. ‘You hit that bird-of-prey rather hard, Captain.’

Borodin’s expression didn’t change. ‘I did. They had deadly designs on a Starfleet ship.’

‘A volley of half your weapons would have made the same point.’

‘It would have demonstrated we could bloody them. It might not have demonstrated we would. There’s no benefit to walking softly with these people.’

Again, she braced for the implication he was lumping her in with Klingons, but he didn’t. There was, this time, no hint of the affection with which he’d spoken of his comrades on Operation Gatecrasher, liberating Federation space from the grips of the extremist Sovereignty of Kahless over a decade ago. Only a cold pragmatism.

‘The wrong hit, and we’d have been rescuing them or retrieving bodies,’ Valance pressed.

‘I disagree,’ sad Borodin. ‘I calculated the ordnance loadout carefully. You can disapprove of my desire to bloody them to make a point, Captain, but please don’t suggest I didn’t use exactly as much force as I chose to.’

Force doesn’t work like that, Valance thought but didn’t say. It gathers momentum fast. She inclined her head. ‘Then I’ll just thank you for the save.’

‘Even though we sent them packing,’ said Borodin, and for a moment she thought he was going to double-back and relitigate something he’d just asked her to stop litigating, ‘and politics of Rencaris aside, I want to make sure your ship is escorted and safe. I heard much of the comms chatter on our approach. You’ve made an enemy there.’

The thought that this brusque, formal man had heard her borderline begging for her crew’s lives did not make this meeting any more pleasant. ‘I’m sure she and I will have a chance to resolve our business.’

‘Not just you. Your crew. She came for them, too, coming for you like that.’ Borodin’s gaze was fixed, firm. ‘Your XO sees that.’

She wasn’t sure if he was accusing Kharth of speaking out of turn, suggesting she was dismissing her crew’s feelings, or reassuring her that she wasn’t alone in what had just happened. Before she could press, the door-chime sounded and Borodin looked up with a flash of irritation at the interruption as he gave his summons.

‘Apologies, Captain,’ said Commander Solheim once inside. ‘We’ve found something on our long-range scans.’

‘The Morinar?’

‘No, sir. Another Klingon ship. Vor’cha class.’ Solheim hesitated. ‘Sir, it’s at Rencaris.’

Borodin was on his feet. ‘Return Captain Valance to her ship at once – Captain, I apologise, but if the House of K’Var are assaulting Rencaris then we must lend aid -’

‘They’re not attacking, Captain.’ Solheim was more firm, sounding now like the older man bringing his commanding officer’s youthful exuberance in check. ‘They’re in orbit of the third planet. It looks like they’re… visiting.’

Borodin stopped, staring at his XO. ‘Visiting?’

Valance let out a slow breath, chest tight. ‘This won’t be a vacation. Or a scouting trip. There’s only one reason to send a Vor’cha for something like this: they’re negotiating. And they’re serious about it.’

‘Negotiating what?’ said Borodin.

‘That,’ said Valance more levelly, ‘is something we must find out when we get there. And complicate this party.’