Captain’s log, Stardate 2402.8. Tempest has just left the Midgard sector, skimming the Federation border. By the day after tomorrow, we’ll have hopped the fence: first the outskirts of the Skaleri Sector, then we hit the Blackreef Belt asteroid field the day after.

Commander Sorren says we’ll know soon if we’re chasing ghosts. Thing is, whatever we find – or don’t find – the living will have a thing or two to say about this hunt. That’s my experience of history: nobody cares until you poke it, and then it turns out lots of people have suddenly got an opinion.

Three months in command had left Pentecost’s stamp on her ready room. She found most captains either thought too much or too little about their offices, either leaving them with the cold sterility of bare bulkheads to look disciplined, official, or carefully selecting the exact right assortment of curios so they looked humanised – but still professional.

Her desk wasn’t cluttered, exactly, but the abandoned mug next to a scatter of PADDs had been left half-empty for hours. On arrival, she’d propped her display case boasting a fourth-century coin from the Arkenan Polity front and centre, only to keep finding it in the way; now it sat at the edge, precarious and abandoned, next to a slim paper book she’d no time to finish.

The sofa under the wide viewports was where she did her best thinking, so she was sprawled there now, one boot up on the coffee table. She’d started out with a PADD crammed full of case studies of recent space archaeological digs, research she hadn’t kept abreast of in months. Already, her attention had been caught not by the stars streaming out the window, but the reflection they cast across the glass of a rotating starmap she’d hung on the bulkhead.

The sound of the door-chime was a welcome reprieve. ‘Yeah?’ she called, and didn’t move up.

The door parted with its clean hiss, and Commander Valois stepped in like he was bracing himself. Most officers did, even the kind or relaxed or eager ones, stepping into a ship’s master’s sanctum. She kept a politely indifferent expression as she studied him, and found the focused gaze of a man who had probably read every report about the Tempest more than she had.

Pentecost lifted her mug and found it empty. She shook it anyway. ‘Commander. You don’t know how to make coffee, do you?’

His brow flickered. ‘I know how to work the replicator.’

Was that a jibe? She hoped so; it’d be what she’d deserve. ‘That’s how you get really mediocre coffee.’ She swung her legs off the sofa at last and gestured the empty mug at one of the hard-backed chairs by her desk. ‘So. Julien Valois. My new first officer. How do you feel about mysteries?’

He sat like he was appearing before an admiralty board. ‘In principle, Captain, I prefer clarity in my missions.’

‘And you think this one lacks clarity?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ And yet, Valois pressed on, shifting his weight, to say, ‘There are considerable unknowns in this assignment.’

‘I know, that’s why we’re going to find out.’ Pentecost sat up, brightening. ‘It’s great, isn’t it? There are historians who’ve called this Starfleet’s first mystery. This is our Mary Celeste, our Ourang Medan, our Ticonderoga Drift.’

Again, Valois’s brow knotted. ‘Wasn’t the Drift a computer malfunction which cracked the airlocks before resealing and -’ Either he noticed her unimpressed expression at his pedantry, or sincerely moved on, clearing his throat. ‘I mean less the investigation of Eurus-7. I trust the management of that to yourself and Commander Sorren. My concerns are the Klingons.’

‘Yes,’ Pentecost mused. ‘They are concerning. You’ll have to be more specific than that.’

‘Chancellor Toral has no reason to grant rulership of the Skaleri Sector to a pro-Federation faction. Whoever assumes control may look ill on our presence there.’

‘Which is why we’re going now, before he gives it to anyone. I’m not determining my missions on whether it might hypothetically piss off a future Klingon who wasn’t going to like me anyway.’

Valois sighed. ‘I’ve dealt with Klingons for many years, Captain. Neighbouring houses will view the collapse of the House of Pvarn as an opportunity. They will want Skaleri, and the best way to be seen as suitable custodians is to act like custodians.’

Pentecost did pause at that, tapping her chin. ‘You’re saying we might run into Klingon forces thinking they already run the place. Fake it ‘til you make it.’

‘Exactly.’ He reached into his uniform jacket and pulled out a PADD. ‘I’ve prepared an analysis of the local Klingon houses; their political stance towards the Federation and Toral, and their military and industrial power. We can review these to assess who we’re most likely to encounter -’

‘That’s great.’ Pentecost leaned back on the sofa. ‘Pop it on the table. I’ll get to it.’

The knot in Valois’s brow tightened. ‘Ma’am?’

Pentecost sucked her teeth. ‘Don’t love that. “Captain” will do.’

‘Ma’am, this is a crucial analysis for the strategic risks we’ll -’

‘Do we have eyes on who’s moving in yet in the Skaleri Sector? Which houses are actually throwing their weight around?’ Valois was silent, and her lips thinned. ‘Then I’ll read the report. And I’ll remember the Who’s Who of bad-tempered Klingons if and when we run into them. Sounds good?’

‘Yes, m- Captain.’

She stretched her arms across the back of the sofa. ‘Why’d you take this assignment, Commander? Dockmaster of Gateway Station, tidy post with your wife and kids; you could have angled for a bigger ship. Brought the family.’

Valois regarded her, dull expression unmoving. ‘I was assigned.’

She didn’t know if his dourness told her anything or not. ‘Great. Good talk, Commander.’ Pentecost stood, stopping short of rolling her eyes. ‘Over the next few days, get yourself properly situated. Sit down with each department head, run a full readiness review, and cross-check duty rosters. Lets you know how things run, lets me know if there’s any problems before we hit Blackreef.’

He stood, shoulders easing at the sense of, she suspected, formality. ‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Oh, and – it’s open mic night tonight. Rec Room, Deck 4. Pretty much everyone who’s not on duty or asleep shows up. Senior staff have got to give it an hour’s look-in, minimum. You don’t gotta perform.’ Pentecost paused and let a savage grin tug at her lips. ‘Yet.’

Valois’s lips moved like he was fighting with words, before he just gave a sharp incline of the head. ‘Yes, Captain. Anything else?’

She’d told herself she wasn’t going to ask. But his woodenness was annoying, as had been his condescending implication he thought she wasn’t going to read a key strategy briefing. Pentecost matched his frown for thoughtfulness. ‘Yeah, just wondering, Commander – why’d you change your name?’

It was blunt. But it did the job, his chin jerking up an inch, the frown settling into a scowl. ‘My name.’

‘Yeah. Valois.’

The dour expression returned after only a beat. ‘It’s my maternal family’s name, Captain. I changed it after Mars. Or the name would have been extinguished.’

Her overly thoughtful frown faded as the sick twist of shame rose in her throat. Pentecost could only give her own short nod at that, and looked away, embarrassed. ‘I see. Understood, Commander. Well – see you at open mic?’

‘As you say.’ Then he was gone, leaving her in the low glow of her rotating star map, feeling more than a little abashed that her digs had uncovered something raw and brutal.

Which meant that less than an hour later, she was in the archaeological science lab, feet swinging off a high stool, complaining at length as Sorren bustled about his preparatory work.

‘…like I wouldn’t read it! Like I needed him to point out, “Oh, gee, maybe the Klingons might try to kill us!” Then when I asked why he left his wife and kids he just gave me this “I was assigned” as if he’s some… Starfleet robot…’

Sorren didn’t even look at her, tapping commands into a console while a holographic asteroid belt rotated overhead. They had no scans of Blackreef proper, but plenty of case studies of investigations of this ilk, fit for preparing equipment ahead of a dig.

‘That’s because,’ said Sorren, clicking his tongue as she gestured irritably, ‘he’s stupid.’

Pentecost paused at that. ‘He’s not stupid. He’s a Starfleet commander. Been in the service twenty-five years. You don’t get there by being stupid. You don’t get into the Academy by being stupid.’

‘Just as there are different kinds of intelligence,’ mused Sorren, continuing his calibrations, ‘so there are different kinds of stupidity. And our new XO strikes me as the kind of man who might be very capable at decisive action under pressure, telling people what to do – you know, simple, base, survival skills and instincts – but has never had an original thought in his life. The perfect tool of Command to try to curb your worse instincts.’

‘My worse instincts?’

‘I would consider them your finer instincts. Scholarly intuition. The desire to follow it.’ Sorren shrugged as he peered at a display. ‘Starfleet has never been that fond of them in you, though, has it?’

‘I know, he’s sent to babysit me,’ Pentecost groaned. ‘They always are. I don’t want to think about it.’ She chewed on her thumbnail as he took her at her word and fell silent as he worked. That was a different kind of annoying. ‘Did you know he’s Renard’s brother?’

Sorren did react to that, straightening and staring at a bulkhead. ‘Stars above.’

‘I know.’

‘Renard wasn’t made in a lab?’

‘Hey, I like Renard!’

‘Nobody likes Renard,’ Sorren grumbled, moving to the next sensor pallet and reaching for the harmonic calibration controls. ‘You like needling her, that’s all. Specifically because she doesn’t rise to it. Because she was made in a lab as an experiment to see what would happen to a human who had never been exposed to the concepts of humour or joy.’

‘So one has no imagination,’ mused Pentecost, ‘and the other has no joy.’ She followed him with her eyes, heels kicking the legs of her stool. ‘We gonna be up and running for Blackreef?’

‘We’ll be fit for a range of scenarios,’ said Sorren, sucking his teeth. ‘But therein lies the problem, no? We have no idea what we’ll face until we get there.’ He turned to her, elbow atop the screen. ‘Have you thought about it?’

‘About what? Eurus-7? Only since I was about five years old -’

‘I mean,’ he said, voice dropping in a way she knew was, from Sorren, a softening, ‘if we don’t find anything.’

Pentecost regarded him for a moment. Then she hopped to her feet. ‘We’ll find something. And we’ll publish off this for years, Ked; this one’s a find of the century.’ That was only true as it related to a fairly narrow field of historians; the simple fact was that scores of ships went missing in space every year, never to be seen again. Half of the value of Eurus-7 was its age and its mystique, but if she found the entire task group had simply had a navigational malfunction and flown into a star, that power would fade.

But there had to be something.

She rolled her shoulder. ‘Let’s wrap up. C’mon, you’re not getting out of performing tonight.’

Sorren blinked, but she recognised that as him losing track of time rather than any sign of reluctance. He snapped the control panel shut. ‘I’ve no intention of slipping away. I have a whole host of riddles ready. Crowd participation always makes this shine.’

‘I hate your riddles,’ she grumbled as they headed for the door. ‘The answer’s never the classics. You know: death, time, a sponge…’

‘No, or that would be predictable, wouldn’t it?’ Sorren shook his head, sighing. ‘You know, for a celebrated archaeologist, you really should have better appreciation for a good, classic riddle…’