‘It’s a dense asteroid field,’ said Airex, reading from his console as Endeavour slid out of warp before the sprawling expanse of rocks and dust. ‘Heavy in refractory metals, with debris ranging from dust to several kilometres across. Gravitational shear’s high; I’m getting constant interference on short-range sensors.’

‘But,’ cut in Cortez at the mission control station to the aft of the bridge, ‘we are reading a power signature from deeper in there. Faint, old, but not natural.’

Valance leaned back in the command chair. The viewscreen was a sea of slow-drifting shadows and starlight. The dying star at the field’s heart was no more than a dull red haze, its warmth long faded, gathering nothing over its millions of years but dead rocks and silence. But somewhere in that silence, buried in this graveyard of shattered potential, was an answer Starfleet had been hunting for two years.

Or, more likely, a new set of questions.

‘Can you get us a heading for navigation?’ she asked, chin tilting up.

‘Close enough for now,’ said Airex. ‘I’ll refine the vector as we advance. We’ll need to fly under impulse and map our way manually. Too much radiation scatter for the computer to predict trajectories.’

Lindgren looked over her shoulder from the helm controls with a thin smile. ‘You all need to stop acting like I’m just moonlighting in flight control,’ she said, her voice light but the point clear. ‘I like threading needles.’

Airex inclined his head. ‘My apologies, Lieutenant. That wasn’t my intention.’

‘I could do some unnecessary barrel rolls, start wearing a leather jacket -’

Logan’s voice cut across her words, sharper than the sudden alert klaxons from Tactical. ‘Klingon battlecruiser decloaking off our port side, K’Var transponders!’

‘Red alert!’ Valance snapped, knuckles tightening on her armrests.

The bridge shifted in a heartbeat. Lights dimmed to the pulsing crimson of danger, and the background hum of the warp core gave way for the steady, more tense vibrations of active deflector shields. Across the viewscreen, a shimmer rippled through the dust and silence as the silhouette of a Vor’cha-class battlecruiser materialised, pulsing with the light of the dying star and its own weapons systems.

‘They didn’t stop following us,’ Kharth hissed beside her. ‘They slipped ahead of us.’

But as stations reported readiness, as the viewscreen overlay changed for a readout showing the ship’s defence systems and the tactical sensor feed, though, Valance realised long seconds had passed with the ambush not firing.

Finally, Kally spoke in a low, anxious voice. ‘We’re being hailed, Captain. It’s the IKS Qor’otan.’

Valance leaned back, forcing her expression into a studied mask. ‘Put Torkath through.’

The viewscreen flashed to the bustling bridge of a KDF battlecruiser, and something old and childish inside her bristled when they were greeted with the sound of roaring Klingon laughter. At the heart of his amused bridge crew, seated in the elevated central chair, was Torkath, son of K’Var, once blood-brother to Matthew Rourke and leader of Klingons who had tried several times to kill them.

Torkath, weight on his armrest, leaned forward with a knife-edge smile. ‘Now I have your attention, Endeavour. Ignoring the Empire has been your way lately, and I won’t have it.’

‘Torkath.’ Valance kept her stance and expression studied. ‘You didn’t have to go to such lengths for a conversation.’

‘Touchy this far out, are we, Valance? You should be. This Expanse has been a realm of mystery and danger since before humans so much as brushed against the stars. It’s bold of you to dive into its secrets alone.’

She couldn’t tell if he knew anything, or simply suspected Endeavour to be up to something interesting. Valance drew a careful breath. ‘I’m not much one for secrets. I prefer to uncover them. If you want answers, Torkath, you can ask. You don’t have to stalk my ship, pretend to ambush me, and drop implied threats. We can discuss without games.’

‘I think the time between our dropping cloak and your raising shields makes my “ambush” less a pretence and more of a drill you badly needed –’

But a figure stepped up beside Torkath on the dais, an older Klingon, wider in both shoulders and midriff, long hair and beard streaked with grey. ‘We believe your mission, Captain Valance, is one of strategic significance for the Federation and Empire,’ he said. ‘And we seek the open exchange of intelligence, as enshrined by the Khitomer Accords.’

Valance’s mouth went dry. ‘Brok’tan.’ He had been a brigadier when she’d met him almost a year ago, commanding a mighty K’Var battleship in the Midgard Sector, leading his House’s efforts to establish a foothold from which they could assault the Romulan Republic. But machinations by Endeavour – by Nate Beckett – had weakened him in front of his subordinates such that he’d been challenged to, and lost, an honour duel.

Now he wore the rank insignia of a more humble officer, and instead of leading a K’Var battleship, stood at the right hand of a son of K’Var. But his voice, low and steady and reasonable, cut through both Torkath’s irritable posturing and Valance’s own defensiveness.

‘My second officer has the right of it,’ said Torkath, settling back. ‘We believe you are hunting an echo of tri-quantum energy that matches reports the Federation shared from the formation of the fissure that became your transwarp conduit. A fissure that threatened to devastate an entire sector. Is that so?’

The Khitomer Accords did indeed set expectations of sharing intelligence between the Federation and Klingon Empire, an agreement both sides had ignored as much as possible since the ascendance of Chancellor Toral. But the fissure had happened when Martok still led the Empire. Torkath, with his long history of cooperation with Starfleet, must have seen those intelligence reports.

From behind her, leaning against a railing near the tertiary command chair, Elias Walker said, ‘We shouldn’t tell them anything,’ in a voice too low for comms to pick up.

She didn’t know when he’d made it to the bridge, but she made sure to not react at his comment, meeting Torkath’s eyes on the viewscreen. ‘That’s so,’ she said. ‘We’ve been assigned to investigate the possible origins of the fissure. As you say, this is the echo of an energy pulse that might be related.’

Torkath had looked like he expected her to prevaricate, and shifted his weight at her honesty. ‘Do you have any further knowledge of those responsible?’

‘Not yet,’ said Valance. ‘We hope the energy reading at the heart of this asteroid field may lead to something more solid.’

He worked his jaw. ‘There’s more you’re not telling me,’ he surmised. ‘There could be a threat buried in the Expanse – far, far closer to the Empire than the Federation – and still Starfleet keep your secrets.’

‘If I knew who was behind this, Lord Torkath, I’d tell you,’ said Valance, keenly aware she hadn’t mentioned the beacon nestled in her cargo bay.

‘As Starfleet made no effort to tell the Empire about their intention to seal Underspace?’

She frowned at that. ‘Underspace’s sealing was necessary to repel the Vaadwaur -’

‘One fights an enemy in many ways, Valance, depending on the battlefield. It is one thing to fight an enemy knowing an end is in sight, knowing they will be cut off. It is another to have their boot at your throat, their forces seeming endless, and to need to claw and sacrifice for every inch –’ Torkath stopped at that, raising a sharp hand and looking away. After a beat, his lip curled. ‘I know that decision was not yours, Valance. But the knowledge should have been shared.’

‘You’re right. That was not my decision,’ said Valance carefully, and glanced at the navigational sensor feed of the asteroid field. She drew a slow breath. ‘Join us, Qor’otan. We’re looking for the heart of what might have been an intentional effort to destroy a sector of Federation space – mere sectors away from Klingon space. Let us see what is there together.’

She watched as Brok’tan put his hand on Torkath’s shoulder, the older Klingon meeting her gaze and nodding. ‘Agreed, Endeavour. Transmit your navigational feed and we shall follow.’

‘We will. Endeavour out.’ Valance waited until the viewscreen went blank before she closed her eyes in anticipation of a storm of complaints from her bridge crew.

Except there was silence. Silence broken only at length by Kharth saying, ‘I don’t like this.’

‘Me neither,’ said Valance, peeking to her right. ‘But they have a point. This threat is about more than politics.’

Walker had stepped around to put a hand to the back of the tertiary command chair, a presumptuous move she did not yet indulge. ‘We can’t pretend politics won’t be a factor, though. Torkath is a known ally of Chancellor Toral…’

‘We know Torkath pretty well,’ Kharth cut in. ‘We know he’s helped us in the past and that the last time we met, he tried to kill us. This is about more than Toral.’

‘Which is why we should work with him,’ said Valance. ‘Torkath used to be a close ally of the Federation. If we can remind him of the value of that relationship, we can maybe turn a corner with the House of K’Var.’

‘Respectfully, Captain, that seems unlikely,’ said Walker. ‘Because I have read the reports on Lord Torkath. I know Commodore Rourke killed his brother, and I know he attacked Endeavour near Boreth in retaliation. You can’t separate the personal from the professional with Klingons.’

After years of trying to avoid being seen as ‘the Klingon officer,’ having Klingons explained to her by young Eli Walker grated harder than she expected. ‘The decision’s made,’ Valance said sharply. ‘We will abide by the Khitomer Accords and investigate, with our Imperial allies, a threat that’s bigger than just one government or one leader. Airex, Lindgren, share our sensor and navigational data with the Qor’otan. We’re doing this together.’

The two ships crept into the asteroid field under impulse, and for a time it felt like they were the only pulses of life in this drifting sea of rock and shadow. Lindgren had to fly as much by instinct as by instruments, Endeavour leading the way as the field’s gravitic turbulence scrambled sensors. Airex and Cortez updated her and the Qor’otan with constant recalibrations of sensors, filtering out stray readings until the faint power signature strengthened into something distinct.

‘We’re getting a lock,’ Cortez reported. ‘There’s a large asteroid with irregular readings here. Reckon there’s a structure built into it; power systems, but no life-signs, no signs of traffic, only very weak signatures.’

‘Try hailing them,’ said Valance, leaning on her armrest. But only silence met Kally’s efforts.

Airex sucked his teeth. ‘Still no life-signs. No systems responding to our proximity. This might be an automated platform, or…’

‘Or this is the origin point for a pulse launched two years ago,’ said Kharth. ‘Maybe nobody stuck around to wait for someone to come looking for them.’

‘I’m reading life support systems,’ said Airex, ‘but they seem to be low-powered. The atmosphere aboard’s contaminated – elevated chlorine and nitrogen dioxide, likely from mechanical breakdown. Lethal without suits.’

Valance paused, drumming her fingers on the armrest. ‘Any indication of equipment to launch the pulse? Anything more we can learn from here?’ At his faint shake of the head, she sighed. ‘Commander Kharth, assemble your away team. We will be signalling the Qor’otan to send a party to join you.’

‘I love a crowded party,’ Kharth grumbled as she stood. ‘Alright, Airex, Cortez, you’re with me; we’re suiting up and heading over.’

Logan stood with an awkward air. ‘Permission to join you, Commander. I know there’s no life-signs, but we should watch our backs with the Qor’otan’s party.’

‘Agreed,’ said Valance, wary of Kharth bringing her personal business into the decision – or not wanting to be seen too bullish with their Klingon colleagues. ‘Remember: we’re here to remind them the value of Federation cooperation. But Commander Walker made a valuable point. For these warriors, the personal is the professional. And from their perspective, we’ve got blood on our hands.’