Even within the transporter room, they could feel the deck of the Mat’lor shudder as the nebula broiled around them.

Valois had barely pulled his helmet off before he rounded on Ash’rogh. ‘If your captain keeps firing into that storm, there’s no telling how volatile it’ll become. This ship is already damaged.’

Ash’rogh turned, jaw tight. ‘You have your records,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘The captain is clearly in no mood to debate.’

‘He’s destroying an historic site!’

Ash’rogh’s answer was swallowed by an alert klaxon, and a beat later, an officer rushed into the gloomy transporter room, their eyes locked not on him, but on Jodrak.

‘Sergeant! Power levels are fluctuating. You’re needed in Engineering!’

Jodrak looked unseasonably relieved at the prospect of peril, even for a Klingon, as Renard caught his cautious glance in Ash’rogh’s direction. ‘Finally! A fight worth my hands,’ he barked, the grandiose tone sounding somewhat affected to Renard’s ears.

As he left with the officer, she, too, looked to Ash’rogh. ‘This ship has been damaged, and has limited capacity to measure these fluctuations in the nebula plasma,’ she pointed out. ‘And you are acting first officer.’

He did not reply for a moment, glaring at her. Then, with a grunt of frustration, he began to unbuckle his EVA suit.

When they reached the bridge, it was not yet chaos that met them, but a building intensity.

Kovor stood at his elevated command chair, silhouetted against the roiling emerald light of the nebula blazing on the viewscreen. His officers bent to their tasks, speaking in low murmurs to each other as disruptor arrays fired in measured bursts.

He turned as they arrived, expression tight but victorious. ‘You are welcome, Starfleet, for the rescue.’

Valois huffed. ‘We wouldn’t have needed the rescue if you weren’t pumping disruptor fire into the nebula and ionising its plasma. And you’ve destroyed what remains of the Mercury, an unprecedented finding of Federation history -’

Kovor ignored him and looked at Ash’rogh. ‘We have recovered the staterooms of the Mokvarn flagship. Proven our House’s role in this historic victory from the claiming of the Skaleri sector. Is there any more to report, Lieutenant?’

Ash’rogh had gone very still, stood beside the door. After a beat, he gave a short shake of the head.

‘Good,’ said Kovor, and turned back. ‘We will finish our work. Then, Commander, Lieutenant, we will return you to your starship. And you will be grateful.’

Gratitude, Renard thought, was probably expected to sound a lot more like silence. She slunk towards Valois as the bridge continued to hum with steady activity, the Mat’lor swinging towards the next wreck from Eurus-7. He had pulled out his tricorder.

‘Orders, sir?’ she asked, voice low.

He gave her a quick look, and she was not fond of the glint of surprise in his eye. He was the leader of the away team, her superior. Asking him about the next move was not a sign of intimacy. It was simply the chain of command.

Rather than answer, though, he tapped a finger lightly against the frame of the tricorder as data spilled across the stream. It came in stutters and static, and it took her a moment to realise what she was seeing: a feed from the Tempest, punching its way slowly, intermittently, through the nebula, updating them on the ionisation of the plasma. On the gathering storm.

A storm the Mat’lor was not equipped to detect.

‘Isolate the next wreck,’ Kovor called out, voice crisp and clear. At a pointed look, Ash’rogh moved to a weapons console, head low. ‘Focus the targeting on the data core. Leave the Tempest debris for their scientists to pore over; we must give our Starfleet allies enrichment activities.’

Valois shook his head and stepped forward. ‘Captain, you have to stop firing.’

Irritation ran through Kovor like tendons as he rounded back. ‘I will not indulge Federation lies to weaken the Empire in this -’

‘It’s not about the wrecks. It’s about your weapons hitting them.’ Valois stabbed a finger at the viewscreen. ‘Every shot excites residual charge in what remains of polarised plating systems. That charge is rebounding into the nebula’s plasma filaments. If you keep this up, you’re going to see an energy surge in the plasma that’s going to have nothing better to hit than this ship.’

‘Again,’ spat Kovor, ‘my systems pick up no such charge. You cannot -’

‘Your systems can’t detect it – the Tempest’s systems can!’ Valois brandished the tricorder. ‘Look at these! You’re putting this entire ship, this entire crew in danger -’

Kovor’s hand shot out to snatch the tricorder, and the sound of it being broken against the deck echoed through the bridge. ‘Security!’ he barked. ‘Remove this coward!’

As heavy hands of a pair of Klingon officers landed on Valois, he set his feet firmer on the deck. ‘There’s no risk to waiting!’ he insisted, but even as he spoke, they yanked him back, boots dragging. ‘Let Tempest finish her work and come back – you can show your science officers the data!’

Renard took a step forward – only to feel a strong hand at her arm. For a split-second, she thought she was about to be dragged off, too, only to look back and see Ash’rogh by her side, his expression absolutely flat – but he didn’t move. He wasn’t removing her from the bridge. He was holding her back from joining Valois.

‘The brig!’ Kovor snapped at his guards, and Valois’s shout vanished a heartbeat later behind the bridge doors snapping shut as he we dragged out. ‘Ready the next bombardment!’

As Kovor turned away, Renard looked up at Ash’rogh, dropping her voice to a low hiss that was lost amidst the hum of bridge activity. ‘Valois’s right. This ship is going to tear itself apart if he carries on.’

‘It suits you to argue this,’ Ash’rogh rumbled. ‘You want these wrecks intact.’

‘You read the records on the Mercury yourself,’ she whispered as fiercely as she dared, eyes raised to meet his dark, uncertain gaze. ‘You know the truth, and you know he’s just trying to cover it up. Why would I be lying? And what’s the danger in waiting, and verifying?’

‘He is my captain –’

‘You said courage is in facing unwelcome truths. He’s going to get us all killed. Then how do you die, Ash’rogh? The loyal dog who beats the helpless? Or a protector of your people?’

His gaze fell from her, and rose to lock onto Kovor, stood before the storm as if he could master it. As if it would not rise and consume them all.

Then Ash’rogh stepped forward. ‘Captain,’ he said, and Renard’s heart sank as she heard the falter in his voice. ‘We should delay. Verify this danger. Even if it means treating with Captain Pentecost. If these are lies, their data will fall apart.’

Kovor turned, disbelief in his eyes. ‘Even days among Starfleet was too long for you, Ash’rogh. You have fallen for their tricks. They will delay, and delay. We treat with them now, they will demand another ship, another study. Then another. Then that they verify their findings. And then their lies will spread before we have contained them.’

‘I do not suggest days. More eyes,’ said Ash’rogh, visibly forcing himself to straighten up. ‘Only hours.’

‘And who will verify the data of a Cardassian scientist and his forked tongue? Who will make numbers dance before us and then spin a lie out of it, and when we challenge him, insist that we are too simple, too backwards to understand?’

‘If they are correct, Captain, we risk the ship.’ As Ash’rogh stood more firm, a low hum rumbled through the bridge crew. Renard wasn’t sure if she’d imagined the deck itself shiver, not from his words, but from the gathering storm.

But Kovor’s lip curled. ‘You are but a low-born soldier, Ash’rogh. I would not expect you to understand.’ As Ash’rogh went to speak, he raised his hand, commanding, condescending. ‘Starfleet cannot be allowed to claim that when Klingons first lay claim to this sector, the House of Mokvarn were bested, turned tail as cowards, and had to be cut down for their dishonour.’

Ash’rogh worked his jaw for a moment, then spat, ‘This has nothing to do with my birth, or what we read on the Mercury. This is to do with the safety of this crew -’

‘This crew are warriors, and warriors who will fight for their House. What do you think will happen if these lies spread? Our House’s enemies will set upon us, say our claim to this region is stained, use this to undermine us before the High Council and take Skaleri for themselves.’

‘And nobody will take anything if we die here!’

‘I will not return empty-handed!’ Kovor roared. ‘I am a son of the House of Mokvarn, and I will prove my worth to all who have doubted me! I will bring Lord Mokvarn the proof he needs to seize this region, and he will have no choice but to give me my place beside him!’ He rounded on the weapons officer. ‘Fire again!’

Renard braced herself as disruptor fire lanced out again from the Mat’lor. She watched on the viewscreen as the hull of the struck ship, the Gryphon, rippled with energy, before fading. To the eye, nothing else happened, but she heard the faint beep from a console across the bridge.

‘Captain,’ said the science officer, voice apprehensive. ‘We are detecting elevating ionisation levels in the nebula plasma.’

‘Harmless static. Nebulae are dangerous,’ Kovor spat. ‘Fire again!’

‘Belay that!’ Ash’rogh roared, but he had hesitated for half a heartbeat, and the weapons officer hit the command. Moments later, the deck rumbled, and the next alarm that went off was from the engineering console.

The shouted warning of the officer at that post was lost, however, under the surge of fury from Kovor. The captain stormed across the bridge, bringing himself nose to nose with Ash’rogh.

‘You dare? On my bridge? You low-born dog -’

‘I am doing my duty,’ Ash’rogh snarled. ‘Commander Q’ovraH is in Sickbay; I am your right hand, I am the one who must challenge you when you endanger the entire ship for politics.’ He looked, Renard thought, like he regretted the word ‘challenge’ the moment it left his lips.

Kovor’s d’k tagh was in his hand before Ash’rogh had finished the sentence. ‘I protect the name of my ancestors and I serve the House of Mokvarn, without whom you would be nothing. You will remove yourself to the brig, or -’

It felt like metal wailed as Ash’rogh drew his own knife, but a moment later, Renard realised that was the hull of the Mat’lor creaking as the promised storm began to form. Alert klaxons roared across several consoles, but there was nobody there to read them, nobody there to report, all bridge crew entranced as Kovor and Ash’rogh fell upon each other.

Knife fights were short, Renard knew, and bloody. And in the gloom of the Mat’lor’s bridge, the roiling mass of the emerald storm shining through the viewscreen at them, it was hard to see much of each slash, each dodge. Green light flashed on a strike of Kovor’s blade and vanished in the shadow of Ash’rogh, and her heart lunged into her mouth.

Knife fights were short and bloody. But when the shadows of the two hulking Klingons broke apart, it was Kovor who tumbled back, a blade embedded in his chest up to the hilt. And it was Ash’rogh who stood over him, eyes blazing as his captain fell and died by his hand.

And as Kovor’s corpse hit the deck, the Mat’lor rose up to meet him with a mighty surge. A wave of ionised plasma crashed into the bird-of-prey, and Renard had to grab the nearest console to not be thrown from her feet.

As Klingon officers shouted – waves of surprise and a few scattered calls of Ash’rogh! Ash’rogh! – her eyes landed on the scrolling data on the screen, the wave of reports rushing in from the ship. She did not know Klingon ships well, but she was a trained tactical officer. She knew what they looked like as they died.

‘Hull integrity is failing!’ Renard called, the words cutting through the sea of chaos. ‘Power systems collapsing!’

Through the crescendo of the storm, Ash’rogh’s eyes met hers, and though she gave no more updates of the scrolling data, all blazing with one avoidable truth, she saw he understood.

The Mat’lor had made her decision. She would die with her last master. And so Ash’rogh turned to his officers, and gave the only order he would ever give as captain.

‘…Abandon ship.’