The rec room was already loud by the time Renard slipped inside, though not from any talent on display. The first few volunteers for the open mic night had been coaxed up with more good-natured heckling than applause, and the crew’s laughter was at the expense of their peers rather than for them. She scanned the room from the doorway to observe crewmembers crammed five to a table, drinks in hands, joshing each other over who would take the stage next.

The senior staff usually sat together, because Pentecost would pick on them, anyway. This time, Valois was there, stiff-backed but with a look of attentive politeness as he watched a nervous ensign mangle a ballad from Arcturus. She could tell he thought the performance was awful, and hated that she could read his distaste even as he joined the applause.

Pentecost swept to her feet when the ensign stumbled off stage, clapping more enthusiastically than anyone. ‘Wow!’ she declared, cutting through the whoops and applause. ‘Who’s never going to Arcturus now?’

Laughter and groans rippled about the room, but young Ensign Jeresan wore a sheepish, yet sincere smile by the time he took his seat. Pentecost pounced on the moment and pointed an accusing finger at the crowd. ‘You!’ she barked, singling out a petty officer who’d been jeering at the back. ‘Think you’ve got a better voice?’ The crowd howled their approval, particularly those next to the crewman, who was hooted and pushed enthusiastically towards the stage.

The rec room had replicators rather than a bar, and Renard grabbed herself a bottle of synthale before slinking through to where the senior staff sat. She pulled up a chair at the end next to Hargreaves rather than take the empty seat next to Valois. ‘How bad has it been?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘Bad,’ Hargreaves said unabashedly, still subsiding from joining in with the laughing crowd. ‘Captain’s in a mood. Picking on the people who don’t usually step up. Watch out.’

Renard sipped her beer. ‘I am still not performing.’

Hargreaves’s expression flickered, like it always did when Renard said something blunt and she wasn’t sure how to take it. In a lighter tone of voice she looked to her right and said, ‘What about you, Commander?’

Valois’s smile was indulgent. ‘Once I’ve the measure of the crew better. This is, ah, different from last week.’

‘What, you don’t want to humiliate yourself the moment you arrive? The captain might call that cowardly.’ Hargreaves gave a light smile to keep her josh gentle.

‘It’s his habit,’ Renard said before she could stop herself. Valois went stony-faced at that, Hargreaves fell silent, and Renard bit her lip before she drank her beer and looked back to the stage.

Beyond the windows, the outer reaches of the nebula gases of Ketha’s Shroud curled like emerald smoke staining the blackness of space. Over the last day, they’d been able to see their progress. By morning, it would be difficult to make out the stars themselves. Perhaps that had affected everyone’s temperament, she wondered. Perhaps the sense of claustrophobia was starting to sink in. Or pending duty.

The petty officer couldn’t hold a note, and perhaps inflicted a jaunty pop ballad in retribution. The crowd jeered, his friends booing loudest of all, and he bowed and preened as if he’d won an award by the time he was done.

Then the doors slid open, and everyone fell silent when the Klingons arrived.

Ash’rogh and Jodrak were in the sort of off-duty garb she didn’t see very often, cloth and brown leather rather than the metal armour of KDF officers. As they stepped into the rec room, the crowd’s energy sputtered, laughter and jeers tightening, applause slowing.

Ash’rogh bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. Jodrak laughed, loud and boisterous, then elbowed him, and the two advanced to take one of the empty tables near the side as if they had not just drawn the eyes of the whole room. When Pentecost stood and rounded on the crowd to select the next performer, Renard noted she picked Petty Officer Tuila – a fine singer, a regular of the evening. Someone reliable.

‘Who invited them?’ Hargreaves hissed as the singing began.

Renard grimaced. ‘I suppose I did.’

‘You what –’

‘They are guests. It’s protocol to inform them of social events aboard.’

‘What’re they going to do, throw things if they don’t like us – oh, God, they’ve got themselves tankards…’ Hargreaves squirmed in her seat as Jodrak sat back down after a trip to the replicator to get them foaming, hearty drinks. But they listened. Watched Petty Officer Tuila intently. And when she finished, Ash’rogh put his drink down for hearty applause, while Jodrak thudded his on the table in enthusiastic approval.

Pentecost stood at that, and Renard braced at the twinkle in her captain’s eye. ‘I’m glad our guests of honour approve! Welcome to our humble night of entertainment, Lieutenant, Sergeant. Everyone’s welcome to take part. Care to show us how it’s done?’

Ash’rogh hesitated, but Jodrak was on his feet in an instant. ‘For an audience who don’t know my songs? Of course!’ he proclaimed, raising his tankard to the crowd with a panache that had them cheering the big Klingon. He swept onto the stage, and didn’t bother to wait for the crowd to go silent before he began to sing.

It was a Klingon tune, of course – raucous and rhythmic, half-sung, half-shouted, with verses about bad bloodwine and worse lovers. He stamped the beat so hard the stage shook, and by the end, the room was clapping and laughing. Despite herself, Renard tapped her toe, and Hargreaves looked delighted.

Jodrak drained his tankard as they cheered, which only made the Tempest’s crew cheer louder, then bowed, soaking up the roar of approval. Then he jabbed a finger back at his comrade. ‘Now, my brother! If you have the courage to sit through my song, you have the courage to follow it!’

The crew erupted again. Ash’rogh stood more hesitantly than Jodrak had, but advanced after a moment, tankard in hand. Jodrak surrendered the stage but, rather than return to his seat, scuttled through the crowd to take the seat next to Valois.

‘He’s not a good singer,’ the big man hissed, loud enough for everyone to hear.

‘Shut up,’ Ash’rogh called as he took the stage, looking over them all. His brow furrowed with purposeful thought, and a hush fell as he shifted his tankard from hand to hand. ‘But my comrade is right. My song is for the chorus. Not to be a lone voice. You have invited me to your halls; let me invite you to mine. On a Klingon ship, we would offer toasts. Not of ourselves, but our comrades. A boast of a fine deed – and the response: Qapla.’

He lifted his tankard. ‘To my captain, Kovor – who fought until his blade broke, then fought on with his teeth! Qapla!’

‘Qapla!’ Jodrak barked it back first, but the crew caught on, echoing a heartbeat later.

Renard tried to not roll her eyes. ‘Of course he toasts his damned captain,’ she muttered, quiet enough that only Hargreaves would hear.

‘To my last ship, the Krimvor – that burned, but destroyed her enemy before the flames took her! Qapla!’

‘Qapla!’ The crew were quicker off the mark now.

Ash’rogh seemed to swell at the response, but now his eyes landed on Jodrak, and narrowed. ‘To my comrade, Jodrak, who charged bravely into the fray at Onrikan XII… only to realise his disruptor’s safety was still on! Qapla!’

‘Qapla!’ called the crowd, and Jodrak howled with laughter at the call-out.

A crooked smile tugged at Ash’rogh’s lips, and his eyes swept the crowd. ‘But you do not know these tales. Give me your toasts. You.’ He pointed a finger at the crowd, and for a second Renard thought he’d singled her out, only to realise his eye was on Hargreaves. ‘Give me a name of a comrade, and their heroic deed!’

Hargreaves looked like a delighted deer in the headlights, beaming as she thought frantically – then she elbowed Renard. ‘To Lieutenant Renard, who saved my hide in drills when I had no idea what I was doing!’

Ash’rogh’s grin broke wide. ‘To Renard! Who made a warrior from raw stone and saved her comrade from disgrace! Qapla!’

Next came Sorren, whose dry comment of, ‘To the captain, who ignores my advice and survives anyway,’ became, ‘To Captain Pentecost, who laughs in the face of reason, and triumphs still!’

There were more, Ash’rogh picking the people who met his gaze, taking tales both grand and mundane and carving them into epic boasts. Until he stopped pointing at the crowd, and sobered, again tapping a finger self-consciously against the tankard.

‘To Mordak,’ he said at last, and now his voice was lower, more sincere. ‘Who trusted his shield-brother to stand beside him, and died when the coward fled. Qapla.’

‘Qapla.’ The echo was more sombre, the crew sobering.

Ash’rogh nodded, and the gesture was more than approving. It was accepting. He raised his tankard again and said, quieter, ‘To the dead who cannot drink with us tonight, but whose names are carved in our hearts. Qapla.’

And in the respectful, sombre echo of the word, he stepped down from the stage.

Pentecost gave them a beat before she stood and took over again, clearly studying the crowd for who would be the best to follow on from such a performance, but as Ash’rogh headed for the viewport and Jodrak went to get himself another drink, Valois turned to Renard.

‘Did you expect that of him?’ said Valois, voice low. ‘Your report made him sound like a mindless brute.’

‘That’s not what I said,’ said Renard. She’d thought it; she’d never have written it. ‘I described his actions; that’s all.’

Valois hesitated at that, then glanced at the stage. Renard could sense Hargreaves trying to lean back, as if she could fade away from the non-conversation happening over her. ‘Would you ever step up there?’

‘No,’ said Renard flatly, and finished her beer before standing. ‘Excuse me.’

She didn’t particularly want another drink, but she didn’t want to give Valois the satisfaction of driving her from the evening, either. Jodrak had joined a knot of security officers with whom he was already laughing, while Ash’rogh was still at the viewport, observing the proceedings.

She was their escort. Joining him was a deniable excuse to leave the table. She padded over, and he watched her all the way, gaze more open and curious than before.

‘That last name you gave in the toast,’ she said by way of greeting as she joined him at the window. ‘Mordak. That was recent?’

On the stage, a wizened engineer ran a riddle contest. Ash’rogh nodded and kept his voice low. ‘Gorn raids at the Tannerein colonies. A petaQ failed to hold the line, broke and ran when to hold his post would have bought time for reinforcements. I lost friends that day.’

‘I’m sorry.’

A curt shrug. ‘He paid for his cowardice. You saw that.’

Renard frowned. ‘The deserter at Breaker’s Quay.’

He nodded. ‘I do not brutalise the innocent and helpless. That was a warrior who had broken and condemned his comrades. Little more than a dog who needs to be put down.’

She considered that a moment. It put the violence in perspective; turned what had seemed callous cruelty into spite and vengeance. Thickened the air with blood. Still, she grimaced. ‘He was helpless. Kovor was to execute him. What was the gain in beating him?’

‘You think he did not deserve -’

‘Did it bring back your comrades?’ She tilted her head. ‘Did it make you feel stronger? Better?’

Now his lip curled. ‘I do not expect you to understand.’

‘You still tried to explain yourself.’ She kept her voice low, unaccusing. The crowd’s laughter at the riddles rolled over them, smothering the tension, and her eyes stayed on his as he scowled.

He straightened, shoulders squaring. ‘I serve Captain Kovor and the House of Mokvarn. I do not answer to you. My captain told me to hunt down a dog who had betrayed his comrades, and to make sure he paid for what he had done before the end. I did my duty.’

‘Duty? You just said it was righteous vengeance, a deserved suffering. Now you say it was orders. Do you always follow orders, no matter how brutal?’

His eyes flashed. ‘Your captain told you to stand down, and you obeyed. Even though you would plainly have stopped us if you had your way. Do not then mock me for my duty.’

That made her hesitate. Then she nodded. ‘You are right,’ said Renard, and his surprise was apparent. ‘I do not know your story, Lieutenant. I should not judge it so swiftly.’

He subsided at that, big hands wrapping around the pewter tankard. His eyes landed on the stage, where another singer was stepping up, and he didn’t look at her when he said quietly, ‘I do not enjoy beating the helpless, as a rule. That dog had let many better men die, though, and I will not weep for a coward. And when my captain gives me a duty, I do not shy from it.’ He shifted his weight and finally glanced back at her. ‘I am sure you are much the same, as protector of this ship.’

More than you know. Renard looked away, giving the stage more scrutiny than it deserved. ‘Perhaps,’ she said at last. ‘And perhaps we will find out, Lieutenant.’