It felt like he’d tried to drown himself in his shower a few dozen times since joining the Rooks. But this time, Rosewood thought, he might actually do it.

Proxima IX still burned. The Vaadwaur consolidated their position at Toliman. And Drehm was still out there somewhere. There was very little to lure him out.

Eventually, the Blackbird’s protocols kicked in, cutting off the shower system and forcing him to get out and reaffirm for the computer that he did want to cook himself for longer. It was enough to break the stupor of staring at metal fixtures as if it would bring an answer to the galaxy’s perils. But he’d only just ducked back into his rooms, looking for his sweats to stay casual and comfortable in this nest he was making, when a message flashed up on the wall display.

At a first look, the summons made him groan and open his wardrobe to pull out his duty uniform. Then he stopped. Considered. And reached for the field jacket.

Virellon Square was not the heart of Innes. It had likely been chosen by the Vaadwaur, by Drehm, for its proximity to the residential districts that could draw a suffering crowd to play audience to injustices. Now, in the days after the Battle of Proxima, it was becoming something else.

The home of a forward station for relief efforts and local government, set up out of the abandoned shops and stores and field tents propped up in the square proper. A hub of civilian rebuilding, both physical and emotional.

The site where the first shots to liberate Alpha Centauri had been fired.

Summons had been sent to him by Chief Eli Gault, Commodore Rourke’s yeoman, a veteran of the Dominion War and a former Fenris Ranger, who looked like he wanted to put the Vaadwaur’s murderous scaffold back up when Rosewood found him amidst the crowd and hustle and bustle. Possibly for himself.

‘Thanks for getting down here,’ Gault grunted, ticking his name off a PADD. ‘Wish it were for something that mattered.’

Rosewood adjusted his jacket and ran a hand through his hair. After the shower, he’d been slick, clean, presentable. It served to muss his hair a little. ‘Morale’s important, right?’

‘Governor Drevayne asked for you directly,’ said Gault. He’d set up on a small table outside the remains of a café, smaller and cuter than the one Rosewood had claimed for a sniper’s perch. Inside, Rosewood could see officers from Sirius, the ship’s leadership on the ground trying to save a world beneath smeared chalk signs offering the day’s pastry selection. ‘We’d all understand if you had better things to do.’

Rosewood waved a dismissive hand. ‘Who else have we got?’

‘Shep pulled the short straw from Sirius. Airex from Endeavour. And Musovic from Mercury.’ Gault clicked his tongue. ‘Heroes all.’

‘It’s fine,’ Rosewood reassured him. ‘I’ll do my part.’

His part was to stand in a photo op with Governor Drevayne. In the bright noon sun of Proxima II, with the battered-but-rebuilding towers of Innes behind them, flanked by officers from the battle who all plainly wanted to be somewhere else, the local media flapped and fussed like they still mattered and took pictures and vids that made them look like heroes.

Shep knew how to play to a crowd at least, grinning and smiling and shaking hands of locals and the governor, while Airex and Musovic could provide perfunctory public appearance performances. Rosewood knew that all he had to do was wait.

‘Commander.’ When Drevayne eventually advanced on him, the imaging drones of the journalists loomed closer, and it was a two-handed clasp of a handshake. ‘I’m so delighted you could make time to see me.’

‘Of course, Governor.’ Rosewood calibrated his smile in real-time – sincere and warm, but tired, committed. He wanted to be here. He sincerely cared. But a part of his mind and heart were elsewhere, locked on the next challenge.

Or such was the image he had to present.

‘We’re indebted to all of Starfleet,’ Drevayne said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘But you have my personal thanks, Commander. You saved my life and offered inspiration and hope to millions.’

‘I’m doing my job here,’ said John Rosewood, humble and affable. ‘Like everyone else. And we’ll keep on doing it. Every day. Every moment. Until all of Alpha Centauri is free.’

That was it: the soundbite, accompanied by the picture of him – the image of a practical, active Starfleet officer – beside a weary but enthused and, above all, alive Governor Drevayne.

It would inspire some. Keep civilians enthused. Remind tired Starfleet officers that there were people they were fighting for who benefited just from their presence. Some officers would be left indifferent, certainly, focusing instead on the work ahead. And some, for sure, would be irritated, consider this to be a distraction at best, self-aggrandising at worst. Rosewood was sure he knew who some of those officers were.

The loudest found him that afternoon, when he headed into the Rookery and found Cassidy watching the newsfeed on the main display.

‘What the hell is this?’ A week ago, such a performance might have been met with a hint of amusement, a wry banter. Now, on his feet, hands on his hips, Cassidy just sounded cold, accusing.

Rosewood took his time. Went to the replicator, ordered a pastry, stuck it in his mouth while he ordered a coffee. Bit. Chewed thoughtfully. ‘PR.’

‘We’re a special operations unit, we don’t need PR -’

‘Okay.’ Rosewood turned, expression flattening. ‘You want to yell. Yell. Get it all out.’

That made Cassidy stop short, his finger coming up sharply before he halted. For a moment, Rosewood thought he’d deflected him.

Then came the thunder.

‘We had a goddamn plan,’ Cassidy snarled. ‘You ran off and endangered yourself, the mission, and the team. You forced us to blow up the spire before we needed to, you exposed us to the Vaadwaur, and you nearly got an entire damned crowd of people shot up by the soldiers!’

Rosewood opened his mouth despite having nothing to say, knowing Cassidy would cut him off, knowing that would delight him.

‘And don’t even think,’ Cassidy thundered on, ‘to suggest you had some moral damned righteousness about this! Of saving lives or whatever! You had no plan, no idea, you just couldn’t cope with your own feelings of fucking helplessness!’ He stabbed a finger at the holographic display. ‘So, what, you play hero now? To make yourself feel better?’

‘I play hero now,’ said Rosewood carefully, ‘to buy currency. With currency, we get to call the shots.’

‘Currency with Governor Drevayne doesn’t influence Rourke -’

‘Yes, it does. Of course it does. If Rourke tries to sideline us, send us off to pointless missions, not put us where we need to be put, all I need to do is drop a line to the right journalist questioning whether the fight for Alpha Centauri is being handled in the best way.’ Rosewood felt his expression sink, felt the masks of the past days fade away. For the moment, he didn’t need them. For the moment, he had to be, for once, deathly serious.

Even Cassidy stopped short at this. ‘Turning the civilians against us helps how?’

‘Doing it once doesn’t cripple us. But it forces Rourke to play ball. So long as our demands are reasonable.’

‘Oh,’ said Cassidy, gaining in sarcasm again. ‘You got demands, now?’

‘Of course: to find and kill Drehm.’

‘Drehm’s just one officer, one leader -’

‘Drehm did it all.’ Now Rosewood advanced on the holo-display, and steeled his expression again. The mask had come down. Another needed to come up, one with the right level of intensity and sincerity. One Cassidy would listen to, because he would use the words he’d want to hear. ‘Not just Innes. Not just Proxima IXa. But the Liberty, too.’

‘The Liberty was the Astika class -’

‘With the comms system taken out, the Vaadwaur had to swap to a different communications protocol. One we could actually monitor. Record. Decrypt. Listen to, in the aftermath.’ Rosewood reached up and summoned the files on screen, the ones Falaris had identified and studied. ‘The Astika initially ordered its boarding parties back when Endeavour got in their face. Drehm belayed that. Ordered them to hold their ground. And to draw our attention, because he’d picked up we were following him.’

Cassidy took slow steps towards him. Rosewood couldn’t see his face, but the guarded caution and tension in his gait was audible. ‘Us?’

‘He knew we were the ones who’d shot at him on the surface, knew we’d beamed up to the Blackbird – must have put two and two together on the beam-up, simple stuff – knew we were chasing him. The Vaadwaur actually took the Liberty’s bridge sooner than we thought. They kept systems running up there to stop anyone doing exactly what we did: storm it.’

Rosewood had brought up a timeline of comms chatter from the battle, time-stamped transmissions. He ran a finger over a window of a few minutes. ‘That last request for aid from the Liberty wasn’t on all channels. It was to us. Then the bridge went dark.’ He turned to Cassidy, knowing he’d set it up right. Knowing he now had to land it. ‘Drehm oppressed the people of Innes. He slaughtered the people of Proxima IXa. And he’s the reason Elara Galcyon is in Sickbay, dangling her on a hook and brutalising her crew specifically to keep us off his tail.’ There was a beat where Cassidy looked uncertain, where, for a moment, Rosewood thought he might point out the holes in the picture. So he put on the slightest amount more pressure. ‘You’re telling me you don’t want to get this guy?’

Cassidy’s gaze clouded at that. ‘Him,’ he said roughly. ‘All of them.’

‘The squadron just arrived.’ Rosewood nodded. ‘We’ve been here days. We’ve seen what the Vaadwaur do. So, yeah. I did PR. Because I want to be able to get these bastards. Starting with Drehm. But, no.’ He leaned in. ‘We don’t have to stop there.’

He’d let Cassidy rage, let him vent all of his fury, because until that happened, he’d never get anywhere. But now Rosewood knew how to hook him; how to appeal to his ego, point out Drehm had singled them out, the Rooks out, as a singular threat. And using Galcyon as the final bait was child’s play, because Hal Cassidy was not as complicated as he liked to think he was.

Cassidy ground his teeth. Then said, ‘Command says we’re pushing forward. We need space superiority in the channels between Proxima and Toliman. That’s occupying territory, that’s taking out patrols, that’s making them bleed if they even think about coming our way.’

‘Sounds like a lot of space combat. Not our forte.’

For a moment, Rosewood thought he’d lost his gambit, thought Cassidy had indulged him only to let strategic realities swat him to one side. Then the big man’s gaze hardened, and he clasped Rosewood’s shoulder.

‘We’ll have our part to play,’ he said, voice a low rumble. ‘And by the time we get to Drehm, he’ll know we’re coming for him.’