The carpet outside Vice Admiral Morgan’s office was thick enough to swallow her footsteps. Pentecost had known admirals who liked the corridors on the approach to be stark and cold, officers hearing their every step echo off bulkheads in a countdown to their fate. But this suite on Gateway Station was all warm browns and burnished golds, potted greenery softening corners. Morgan didn’t go for cold, didn’t try to strip things bare to leave an officer feeling exposed. He smothered them.

A staffer just outside the admiral’s office offered her a drink, and Pentecost paused, hand on hip, eyes going skyward as she thought.

‘What’ve you got?’ she said at last.

The chief petty officer, steely haired and steely eyed and plainly accustomed to serving as threshold guardian at the next step of any captain’s adventure, paused at this. ‘We have the replicator, Captain.’

‘Sure,’ said Pentecost, ‘but this is Midgard. You got nothing from Alfheim? I hear their beans are… actually only okay, but it’s local, you know? I like to try things.’

The CPO’s tongue ran over her teeth. ‘I can get you a coffee, Captain.’

‘Yes, but is it local –’

‘The admiral will see you now.’ A curt hand extended to the door. Pentecost walked in.

She didn’t think she was getting her coffee.

Pentecost had studied not only in advanced labs and frontier starships, but hallowed halls of some of the Federation’s finest centres of learning. This office on a frontier starbase felt more like the latter: mahogany desk big, carved, gloriously impractical. Brass nailheads studded the arms of the admiral’s burgundy leather chair. The viewport beyond covered half the bulkhead, Gateway’s gliding traffic like a fish-tank, if the room’s owner ruled over the fish-tank.

Admiral Morgan rose as Pentecost entered. Tousled hair and tidy beard silvering at the edges, average height and average build, he would have been an unremarkable middle-aged man were it not for his uniform, and the calculation she could read in the disarming smile. His handshake was firm without clinging.

‘Captain Pentecost.’ They had never met, but he spoke like they were old friends. ‘Quite a storm.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Pentecost insisted. ‘It’s nice to meet someone who appreciates these things, Admiral.’

He chuckled, soft and indulgent, and gestured to the chair opposite. ‘The Science Division is enthralled by your data from Kethara II. Terraforming research teams are already swarming around the idea of how to tame these storms on future colony worlds. And your science officer’s suggestion of an artificial influence on the supercell has set tongues wagging. You’ve done it again.’

Nobody ever had that much unqualified enthusiasm about her missions. Pentecost propped her elbow on the armrest, index finger running across her lips as she studied him. ‘But?’

Morgan sighed the sigh of a man always laden with the duty of bearing bad news. ‘Your executive officer has requested reassignment.’

That made her eyebrows shoot up. ‘It’s not even been three months.’

‘And you’ve made quite an impression on poor Commander Jelvier. I’ve already accepted the request, Captain; it’s quite clear the two of you make a poor team. Nobody’s to blame; command pairings are a complex alchemy.’ Morgan shook his head, regretful but with the faint undercurrent that someone was actually to blame.

‘I wasn’t going to try to keep him if he wants to go. He doesn’t trust me, anyway.’

‘It’s a first officer’s job to look after their captain.’

‘It’s a first officer’s job to look after the mission, not wrap me in shipping padding.’ Pentecost waved a dismissive hand and tried to look like losing Jelvier wasn’t a complete relief. ‘Have you had time to go over my request for Tempest’s next heading, sir?’

Morgan faltered at that and yet had a PADD to hand to pluck off the desk. Or, she wondered, it was blank and he was just pretending. ‘Yes.’ He drew the word out with a wince. ‘I admire the spirit of carpe diem in your request, Captain – the House of Pvarn always guarded the Skaleri Sector so jealously that even in our times of closest alliance with the Klingon Empire, they dragged their heels at the idea of letting Starfleet ships poke around. But the fall of Pvarn doesn’t mean the sector suddenly becomes no-man’s land.’

Pentecost straightened like she was squaring for a fight. ‘Pvarn’s been stripped of their seat. Rulership of Skaleri reverts to Qo’noS. Which means that we don’t need to ask the chancellor or anything – the scientific research provisions in the Khitomer Accords apply. It’s perfectly legal for me to walk Tempest in on a scientific mission, and the hunt for Eurus-7 more than counts!’

He sat back at that, steepling his fingers, gaze swinging to the wide windows and the vast expanse of stars beyond. ‘Yes, Eurus-7. It is quite a tale, isn’t it? A Starfleet task group from the earliest years of the Federation, lost without a trace in territory soon swallowed by the Klingon Empire? I remember reading about it in my first year at the Academy. It’s like a ghost story.’

‘It’s more than a ghost story. It’s one of the oldest mysteries of Federation history, not to mention of Klingon-Federation relations.’

Morgan sucked his teeth and side-eyed her. ‘You know it’s supremely likely the Klingons just killed them all. Space was a lot… bigger in the late-22nd century.’

‘Yes, but how? When? Why? The Empire’s never been interested in answering these questions, and flag officers in Starfleet Science thought interrogating our old animosities was impolitic. But I don’t think our… difficult relationship with Chancellor Toral is going to be affected by a journal article finally revealing how much we killed each other nearly two hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I’m not sure he can read.’

Morgan gave a gentle, indulgent scoff. ‘Very droll, Captain. I understand this has been something of a passion project of yours, but territorial access is hardly enough to send you on a wild goose chase to… what, scour an entire imperial sector for one of the coldest trails in Federation history?’

Pentecost plucked an inch-wide data card from her uniform pocket and held it up between middle and index finger. ‘What if the trail’s not cold?’ As his eyebrows rose, she gave a gleam of a grin, leaning forward. ‘This is an intercept log from Observation Post Koraena, dated stardate 1043.3: June 3rd, 2171. It caught two overlapping IFF bursts inside an asteroid belt in the Skaleri Sector: a Starfleet signature I matched to the USS Glenmore, the other KDF.’

A knot tightened in between Morgan’s eyebrows. ‘Forgive me, Captain – what is “Observation Post Koraena?”’

‘A Romulan subspace monitoring station.’ She set the card on the desk and slid it towards him. ‘Sat there to watch their rambunctious neighbours after the war. The Star Empire logged it as a probable skirmish and just… didn’t care. So the record’s sat there for over two hundred years – but that territory’s Republic now, sir.’ Pentecost felt her chest tighten as her words picked up speed, and she made sure to catch Morgan’s eye, snatch him up in the wake of her enthusiasm. ‘It took a decade or so before any of their archivists noticed it, and, through some back channels, it made its way to me.’

Now his head tilted. ‘Back channels?’

‘Sir, half of science isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. And I both know a lot and am very charming.’ She watched him give a gentle exhale of indulgent amusement, but knew he wasn’t hooked yet. ‘Admiral, this isn’t a ghost story anymore. We know where Eurus-7 was, and we know they fought the Klingons. That’s more than anyone’s had for two hundred years.’

Morgan’s fingers drummed softly on the desk. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he leaned forward to pluck up the data card. ‘Space is still very big, Captain. There could be nothing there.’

‘Maybe. But the Blackreef Belt is dense. It’s the kind of asteroid field where all sorts of things get lost.’

The soft light of Morgan’s indulgent wall fixtures cascaded through the translucent data card as he rotated it like he could read it from here. ‘I’m not sure anyone wants a story right now of how we wandered into the wild frontier and were killed by Klingons,’ he said, but his voice was soft, wondering.

‘What about a story where, even with the Beta Quadrant going to hell in a handbasket, we solved a mystery of the ages? History’s for the living, sir. The past doesn’t exist any more. What matters is what it means to us.’

Only in the silence did Pentecost realise that Vice Admiral Morgan had an old-fashioned grandfather clock sat in the corner of the office behind her, and that it was very loud.

You pretentious bastard.

He smacked his lips and put the data card down. ‘Very well, Captain.’ His voice was still soft, but with the rushing in Pentecost’s ears, his permission could have been a howling yell. ‘Take the Tempest to the Skaleri sector. Do not start trouble with local forces. You’re there under the protection of the scientific research provisions of the Khitomer Accords, and you will follow them to the letter, you understand? Which means that if they want you to leave, you need a damned good reason to stay. And make sure the Diplomatic Corps is filled in; we will do this by the book, with a clear paper trail.’

Pentecost beamed, already shifting to stand, unperturbed by the admiral’s transparent desire to cover his arse. ‘Yes, sir!’

But he lifted a hand. ‘That’s not all, Captain. You can’t go without a first officer. I’d thought we could discuss candidates today, but if you’re so set on the trail of Eurus-7… well, I have a replacement immediately available. I’ll give the order; he’ll be with you before you depart – and you will extend him your full confidence, Captain.’

She heard the implication: this was horse-trading, that she got her mission and he got his pick of officers at her back. Pentecost was under no illusions; no matter what happened, she’d be departing with Admiral Morgan’s choice of XO, not her own. If he wanted to play nice, pretend this was a negotiation, then at least she’d got her choice of assignment out of this.

Nevertheless, there was no way cautious, political Morgan had sent anyone fun.

‘Understood, Admiral. Thanks for saving me on personnel paperwork.’ She gave a grin he was uncertain in the return of, wrong-footed by what he’d thought was a demonstration of both power and largesse.

‘Yes. Well. Thank you for your time, Captain. Dismissed.’

She fair fled the office. A new mission. A new first officer. Not a bad day’s work.

Except she’d never gotten her coffee.