Nihor Prime was a beautiful world. Song So-mi wasn’t someone who tended to enjoy being planetside- she was a self-admittedly strange little woman who preferred the close confined of a small, cramped escort. If she was the kind of person who liked being planetside, she would’ve been working on some Grissom or Nova tossed to the metaphorical winds of the frontier. But as she sat at the outskirts of the capital city, watching the sky turn from yellow to orange to crimson to a deep, rich violet, one of the moons and a just-close-enough nebula burning through the sun’s setting rays… just for a moment, she let her mind drift. Let it think. This was a beautiful sight… and maybe she’d be able to live with seeing it every night, instead of a steel wall and the vintage ceiling fan she’d ripped apart half the ceiling to install.

How long had she been here? Two hours? Three? She’d lost track of time, but Azestra hadn’t called her and no senior officer had barged over to grill her into a fine paste, so she’d not much bothered. Wasp was safely tied up at dock while T’Vara and her crew worked over their minor damage, and she no longer felt particularly needed anyways.  She was content, for once in her life, to just sit down and watch the sunset in peace and quiet.

Well… almost quiet.

“So-mi.”

The sudden voice behind her should’ve startled her, especially with how silently the other approached, but all Song did was cock her head just enough over her shoulder to lock eyes with Kurino. Just for a second. “Never took you to be the kind of woman who’d watch a sunset.”

“Nor I you.” Regardless, Kurino sat down in the grass next to her, legs crossed, dark eyes drifting from Song’s own to the glow of the setting sun. “But every warrior must remind themselves what they fight for.”

“I wouldn’t think most Klingons consider pretty sunsets as what they fight for.”

“Mmh.” Kurino grunted, lips setting in a way that wasn’t quite a frown, wasn’t quite a grimace. “Every Klingon has a different drive for war… including for war’s sake. Many of the Empire’s greatest schisms have been over this difference.”

A little smile cracked through Song’s distant expression. “Every day, you make me wonder more and more, daughter of Dar’rok.”

“As do you, Song,” the Klingon replied with a teasing grin, elbowing her in the ribs lightly. “You would think, after so long knowing each other, you’d stop being surprised every time I think for a moment instead of blindly charging into battle.”

“To be fair, you didn’t miss much,” Song replied, smile widening. “All I really did was pump enough power into the phaser cannons to fry some primitive sensors overload and they ran for the hills.”

“They had just lost a small task group to two small escorts,” Kurino noted. “The vessel that rescued those Draxan survivors seemed scared of us. A great big cruiser, skirting around a forty-year-old Bird of Prey like we’d bite its bow off. I wonder if they were surprised we left the survivors alone.”

“I have a feeling my gesture of goodwill might’ve gone more like a threat with Mok’tal circling like a shark,” the human laughed lightly, “but we didn’t kill 500 people for no reason, so my conscience is satisfied.”

“Mm.” Kurino’s gaze drifted from the sun to Song’s face, relaxed and at peace for the first time since they’d entered the Expanse. “… So-mi.”

“Mhm?”

“I’m glad you returned.” The Klingon’s chest heaved as she huffed out a breath, almost a sigh, smile dropping into something approaching pensive.

Song turned to meet her gaze, studying her in the golden glow of the setting sun for just a moment too long. “Yeah, well… I don’t make a girl a promise, if I know I can’t keep it.”

The grin crept back onto Kurino’s face. “That is most fortunate… for us and the Draxans.”

If Nihor was beautiful on the surface, watching the brilliant tones and subtle colour shifts in the planets atmosphere was a privilege, even from aboard the more sterile confines of Al-Batani. Noli, like the rest of the squadron commanders had been ‘invited’ aboard for a debrief, but the mood was not pleasant as she waited with the two junior commanders and their older colleague from Cardenas. Gor was keeping them waiting for a reason. To her credit, Noli didn’t seem at all phased as she stood at the window of the observation lounge, staring at the world thousands of kilometres below.

“He’ll be smarting because of that move you two pulled,” Mercer addressed the youngster across the table from him. Truth be told, he was a little pissed himself; they’d left the squadron vulnerable at just the wrong time, but luckily for them, nothing had come of the Draxan attack on Nihor.

Song was already frowning- she’d known this time was going to come, but now that it was here, she was in a truly foul mood, arms crossed as she leaned against the wall. “What were we supposed to do, just leave that ship out on its own?” the escort skipper replied, more bite to her tone than she’d intended there to be. “There were lives at stake, sir, and Starfleet requires us to act decisively in those sorts of situations.”

To her credit, Kurino was being surprisingly pleasant about the whole thing- if, by “pleasant”, one includes “dead silent, watching Song and Mercer argue like she was placing bets on who’d win”. Or maybe she was just entertained by the entire thing. It was hard to tell with the unusually stony-faced, seemingly reserved Klingon.

“You don’t abandon your post,” Mercer lent across the table to chide the young woman carefully. “You aren’t out here alone, you had orders and you ditched them to go and play hero.”

Before Song could reply, Noli had turned and was strolling back to her place at the table, pulling her chair out just as the Captain from Cardenas finished his little rant. “Come on Captain,” the Bajoran smiled, leaning back in her chair, “are you telling me you never did something so impetuous in your early days of command?”

“Play hero?” was all Song managed to blurt out before Noli interjected, and any thought of interjecting further was silenced with a pointed glare from Kurino. The juniormost commander straightened, stuffing her fists in her pockets to keep herself from a sharper retort than anyone would’ve liked thrown around. Instead of looking back at Mercer, the Korean settled for staring at the door Gor had disappeared behind, face set in grim resignation.

“I was an engineer,” Mercer scoffed, “I didn’t go looking for trouble, I fixed it.”

“Which would have been a lot easier on this occasion had our two friends here stayed at their posts…”

Captain Gor emerged from behind closed doors just in time to hear the retort from Elliot, moving swiftly to the chair at the head of the observation lounge table.

Noli didn’t even let the Tellarite take his seat before she lept to the defence of her colleagues. “And that is exactly what Kurino and So-Mi did. They fixed things, in a way that we are trained to as tactical officers and strategists. It might not be the way that you engineering types are taught to do things, might not be quite as methodical and thought out, but the three of us come from a different train of thought… a different mindset…”

Gor stood behind his chair, hands gripping the headrest firmly as he listened to the explanation from the Bajoran, and then turned to the younger officers at the table. “Well? Anything to say for yourselves?” he asked.

Song usually didn’t think herself an easily angered woman, but Mercer’s hero comment still had her feeling like her blood was going to boil away. Even still, Gor was a captain, not a commander- losing her cool would probably have much more detrimental effects now than it had earlier. She could feel Kurino’s gaze boring into the side of her skull, the Klingon focused seemingly only on making sure Song didn’t pop like a cork on a beer bottle.

“There were 86 people still alive aboard that transport, sir,” she responded, her tone forced so flat one could iron their uniform on it. “Unarmed, innocent people, already fleeing their home worlds, saved solely by one Nihari’s selflessness only to be methodically massacred by an entire squadron of Draxan ships. Starfleet is obligated to answer calls for help and act in the defense of innocents. We didn’t leave because of vainglory or pursuit of a fight or playing hero.” Her eyes locked with Mercer for a split second when she said the last two words. “We did it because we had an obligation. A duty. Because if we didn’t, we’d be consigning a hundred people to death because we were too scared to split off a few of our ships to help. I wouldn’t be able to live with that on my conscience, sir.”

She almost didn’t stop herself from tagging on at the end, could you? Almost. The feeling of Kurino’s eyes on her, and a momentary glance back at Noli, held her tongue.

Mercer sat, listening to the exchange and the youngsters explanation of her actions, locking eyes with Noli while the younger generation tried to explain their actions. When Gor inched forward, looking more concerned than angry, the Captain relaxed back into his chair and opted to remain quiet for the duration.

“Soghla’ Kurino,” the Tellarite turned without acknowledgement of the Korean and instead trained his ire on the Klingon. “Might I remind you of the terms of your agreement. While you are stationed with the Fourth fleet, you are expected to follow our orders. There might be some justification on this occasion, but I’ll be watching you closely in the coming months.”

Before the Klingon could respond, the Tellarite sat back and trained his eyes on the data PADD before him. “You’re both dismissed. Go back to your ships and await your orders,” he told sternly, leaving no room open for interpretation.

Song’s lips twitched in an attempt at a scowl, but apparently the miracles kept coming- neither she nor Kurino responded, though the Klingon managed to hide her disappointment somewhat better than the human. With a muttered “yes, sir,” she spun on her heel and marched out the door, practically dragging her unnaturally-quiet companion behind her.

With the doors closed, Noli inched forward and turned her gaze to the Tellarite. “That was uncalled for,” the Bajoran frowned, shaking her head at her colleague. “When So-Mi gave her explanation in her initial report, that should have been enough for you. you didn’t need to drag them over here for some show of rank. They sit in their respective chairs because they have earned the right to do so,” she placed her hands on the table top and slowly pushed herself to her feet.

“And what about you?” Gor looked up at his former subordinate. “You know better than anyone the importance of the chain of command, yet you went into business for yourself too. If we don’t follow orders, we have anarchy.”

“If they’ve earned the right to sit in their chairs, I sure as damn it have earned the right to sit in mine. Starfleet trusts my judgement, and so do my crew. Just like those women outside,” Noli glowered at the Tellarite. “I won’t be summoned here to be chastised because I did what was right for my ship, my crew, and the situation we found ourselves in.”

With that, the Bajoran marched her way towards the door, stopping briefly when they parted to leave a parting diatribe. “You may have been my superior once, Vasoch, but we’re equals now. You’re not my commanding officer anymore…”

Leaving that particular sting to linger, the blonde left the room, letting the doors close before taking a deep breath and then a massive exhale. She’d dreamt so many times about putting him in his place when she served aboard Ulysses, but now she had finally done it, it didn’t quite feel as she had imagined.

Tugging on the hem of her jacket, she was about to set off for the transporter room when she noticed the two younger officers from before and wandered over to them. “You two ok?” she asked them.

“- and he thinks he can just stand there and call the moral high ground? I’d like to see him leave a hundred people hung out to dry, see how he’ll sleep at night-”

Whatever rant Song was rambling through was cut off almost immediately by the sight of Noli approaching, snapping back to attention with fists still balled. Kurino, whose mouth had been opened to make some reply, simply closed it and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re fine, Captain,” Song replied, stood ramrod-straight. “Just heading back to our ships. As ordered. Ma’am.”

Noli slapped both women on the shoulders and started to guide them away from the meeting room, and the challenge of the Tellarite captain. “Command is a risky venture, filled with pros and cons and relentless second guessing. There is always someone who will find fault in what you do,” she warned the pair of them, but a giant smirk preceded her next message. ”Pair of you can escort my ship any day.”

After a moment for the reassurance, almost maybe a compliment, to click in, both younger women’s sour dispositions lifted. Song dared to let her lips twitch up into a grin, while Kurino’s almost ran ear to ear. “It’d be an honor, ma’am,” the human agreed. “Maybe we’ll even be sticking around a while longer.”

As Noli vanished in the transporter beam, the duo stepped aboard next. “One each to Wasp and Mok’tal?” the transporter officer asked.

A glance between the two said everything that needed saying. Song let her smile grow. “Actually… two to Wasp.”

And as they dematerialized… for the first time all day, Song’s soul felt light as a feather.