None of their leads had panned out.

Murphy groaned as he leaned back in his chair, ignoring the warning groan and rubbed at his face. Everything they’d had was a dead end, Vayne had gone so far underground that mole wasn’t the word, and it was like Sinistra had simply… ceased to exist. Trying to find that one elusive clue… the one that would lead them to the missing captain was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

He frowned, he’d never understood that particular human phrase. Why would they look for needles in a haystack? Was that a normal location for needlework for humanity? If so, that explained an awful lot about them as a species.

“Bad time, sir?” He looked up at Rennox hovering in the doorway.

“No, not at all, come in, Ensign,” he said with a sigh, sitting upright again. He’d been so deep in thought that hadn’t even heard the door open, which meant his situational awareness was shot to hell. Which would have gotten him killed back home, even before the war. There was a reason he’d slept with a knife under his pillow…

“Is that for me?” he asked hopefully, eyeing the coffee Rennox was carrying with an eagle eye. It was long past alpha shift and he should head off to get some sleep, but there were still reports to go through. Something, somewhere had to yield something they could use to find Murphy. He wouldn’t accept that they’d lost the guy, and Captain Thorne had been clear. He needed something to present to the Canterbury’s Hazard team leader as options when they got picked up at the Canterybury’s next stop.

“Yes sir.” Rennox crossed the ready room (a feat that took all of three steps, even for a human) and placed it on the desk. The top was covered in cream and sprinkles.

“Replicator on deck four?”

“Absolutely. Best coffee on the ship.” He grinned.

Mason nodded. Rennox wasn’t wrong, the replicator on deck four did give the best coffee on the ship. Mostly because all of the other’s refused to produce coffee. At all. They’d do anything else. Just not cofee. For that, you had to go to deck four.

“Thank you.” He smiled up at the ensign, who was looking at the files spread out over his desk with a frown. “Something wrong?”

Rennox reached out and rearranged the files on the desk, just slightly, almost absent, then shook his head. “No sir, just checking in on you because I hadn’t seen you leave yet. I was shadowing the duty officer on Ops like you said I should.”

Mason froze, fear rolling through his veins like an icy tsunami. He’d seen what Rennox could do to a poor, unsuspecting filing system, he wouldn’t like to think what the kid could do to operations.

“But, if I’m honest with you, sir, I don’t think Ops is for me,” the young ensign admitted. “I couldn’t make head nor tales of what the lieutenant was trying to show me.”

Relief flooded Mason and he sent up a silent prayer to the gods.

“Perhaps…” he tried to think of some department on the ship that Rennox could shadow and not somehow damage the ship and/or the crew. A devil sat on his shoulder and he bit back his grin, unable to resist.

“Perhaps shadow Kovash next? And I mean Kovash, no one else. She’s the only pilot aboard capable enough to teach you.”

“Really?” Rennox perked up a little. Or looked mildly terrified. Mason couldn’t work out which. “Are you sure I can’t shadow Commander Bennett in engineering?”

Mason almost ended up with a cream and sprinkles moustache as he took a sip of his drink. Regulating his expression, he shook his head as he swallowed. “No. Commander Bennett is busy on another project at the moment, so please report to Lieutenant Kovask tomorrow.”

“Aye sir!” Rennox stood to attention. “I’ll… leave you to it then. Goodnight, sir.”

“Goodnight Ensign.”

Mason sat back in his chair to enjoy his moco-chocola-latte with sprinkles before getting back to his research and chuckled slightly.

Kovash would be pissed at him, but what good was being the captain if you couldn’t make your friend’s life hell?