‘Our focus should be on Regier IV. The atmospheric conditions and their impact on the planet’s meteorology remain highly unusual, and are worthy of prioritisation for study.’

‘All of the planets have unusual atmospheric conditions, it’s just that Regier IV is M-class; a study of the sun’s radiation and its propensity for solar flares would give more insight into the whole system.’

‘We are not certain yet of what questions to ask. To begin with a case study would allow us to identify variables worthy of further inquiry. It would also allow us to harness more of the Endeavour’s Science Division at once, employing the Life Sciences department…’

‘Okay.’ At last Rourke lifted his hands to stop the bickering of blue shirts that had taken over his ready room. It was his own fault; he’d asked them here. But what he’d anticipated to be a straightforward discussion was already showing the gaps in his ship’s roster. ‘Is there any reason we can’t just… do it all?’

His eyes raked over the four team leaders. Beckett, newly inaugurated to lead Social Sciences, was ostensibly reading the briefing paper on his PADD but Rourke suspected he’d zoned out entirely. He’d have been irritated, except Social Sciences had nothing to do in an uninhabited system with no signs of past civilisations, and Rourke also wished he could disappear out of an airlock. The veteran Veldman wore an enigmatic smile, particularly at the suggestion of her Life Sciences department being deployed, but had yet to weigh in.

That left Planetary and Stellar Sciences, and the two new, diametrically opposed faces. Lieutenant Turak was positively loquacious by Vulcan standards, entirely confident in his own opinion and judgement but lacking the expected reserve of his people in either offering it or doing so with brevity. Rourke couldn’t tell if he was uncommonly self-assured or simply uncommonly inclined to talk.

But if Rourke found Turak a lot, he suspected Lieutenant Danjuma of Stellar Sciences was having a worse time. Every time Turak spoke up in that clipped, low, speedy but self-assured manner of his, Danjuma’s voice went higher and quicker.

She was the one who responded after the beat of silence, gesticulating quickly with her hands. ‘We, ah, can do that, sir; it’d just be a question of where to employ Endeavour herself, as she has more sophisticated sensors – obviously – than our auxiliary craft and so would do well sweeping the system while the shuttles and runabouts are supporting any teams on Regier IV or the study of its atmosphere…’

‘Its atmosphere,’ jumped in Turak, ‘which could easily be scanned and analysed by the Endeavour while it remains in orbit of Regier IV to support landing parties. While auxiliary craft can conduct scans of the system and return.’

This was not a complicated situation, Rourke knew. These were not massive, project-changing variables. It was just that normally he had a Chief Science Officer to weight it up and make a recommendation. But this time there was nobody to filter out what he expected of the team leaders: for them to represent their own interests.

He looked a little desperately at Veldman. ‘Your thoughts, Lieutenant?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘We can make it work either way. Auxiliary craft have enough support materials to keep our teams on the planet operating. Staying in transporter range of Endeavour would do the same.’

Thanks. Rourke glanced to his right, where Kharth sat in a chair with her back to the bulkhead. Where Beckett looked like he’d abandoned the entire situation, she looked like she was considering resolving it with murder. He turned back to the four scientists and drew a deep breath. ‘Endeavour will stay in orbit of Regier IV and support the Planetary and Life Sciences teams, while Lieutenant Danjuma can lead auxiliary craft in their scans of the system. But if you find any irregularities,’ he pressed on, at Danjuma’s openly dismayed expression, ‘we can reassess.’

‘Let me know if you find ruins,’ Beckett drawled. He was probably playing a connect-three game on his PADD by now. ‘Otherwise we’ll be in the labs.’ Social Sciences was the smallest of the teams, with only three officers under him and the rest support staff or analysts. Rourke again couldn’t really begrudge him this attitude.

‘There remain prospects,’ said Turak levelly, ‘of subterranean discoveries -’

‘Which you can tell me about if you find them,’ Rourke said briskly, standing up in a way that made it clear he wanted them all out of his office. ‘Thank you for your time, Lieutenants. Veldman, a quick word?’

The other three left, but Veldman also remained on her feet, openly disinclined to linger as if she knew what was coming, eyebrows raised with mock-innocence. ‘Sir?’

‘I really can’t convince you to step in as acting chief? After…’ He waved a hand vaguely. ‘That?’

‘If you make me acting chief, you’ll work very hard to remove that first word from the title,’ she drawled. ‘And you’ve not made it look at all appealing from this meeting. You could make Beckett do it again.’

He didn’t know if she was trying to shift responsibility, or if she was at all bitter from him appointing Beckett to the role almost a year ago, when he’d been a mere ensign elevated over her. Either way, it didn’t get him what he wanted, and Veldman took advantage of his hesitation to beat a judicious escape.

‘Someone has to do it,’ said Kharth in the silence that followed. ‘Or they’ll kill each other.’

‘They might explode from anxiety first,’ Rourke mused. ‘In Danjuma’s case, anyway.’

‘She’s married to my new assistant, and she is not what I expected. He’s a man of few words.’ She hesitated. ‘Perhaps because she uses up his.’

‘She’s got a teen-aged sibling she takes care of, right?’ Rourke furrowed his brow as he thought. ‘The ship’s filling up with children.’

Kharth shrugged. ‘That’s what happens when you let families aboard. People bring their families. A lot of our new transfers have dependents; I expect officers are considering Endeavour who wouldn’t have before.’ Now she shifted her weight. ‘How’s your daughter settling in?’

He did his best to keep his expression studied, to not betray the combination of terror and delight that had raked through him since Ellie decided she did, in fact, want to stay with him for a while. ‘Taking over my quarters,’ he grumbled instead. ‘Staying out too much with Aisha’s kids.’ That was one mercy; his closeness to Aisha meant that Ellie knew Aamir and Haya, all of them within a few years of age of each other.

‘It’s good she’s got friends?’ said Kharth like it was a question, and Rourke realised his new second officer was just trying to make conversation rather than having any real concept of the challenges of parenthood, especially parenthood when one was now a captain responsible for the lives of hundreds and one’s daughter.

So he gave Kharth a wry smile. ‘It’s good,’ he said, and looked her up and down. ‘Run point on the survey mission.’

She looked like she immediately regretted showing an interest in his life. ‘Me? I’m not a science officer.’

‘I think your low tolerance for bull makes you perfectly suited to filter Danjuma and Turak’s arguing and figure out what the best use of resources is. Consider it further experience as second officer.’

‘Every day I’m second officer is more experience at being second officer,’ she pointed out, but sighed. ‘I should have fought to go on the away mission.’

‘That’s good experience for Aisha.’

‘So command is about making sure nobody’s where they’re happy to be?’

‘Not the leaders.’ He smirked. ‘Valance is running the training sessions and personnel reviews and settling in all the new officers. I’m not going to give you that kind of pastoral responsibility first.’

‘It’s because of my warm and loving tendencies,’ Kharth drawled, then made a face again. ‘Wait, you’re saying I’m less personable than Valance?’

‘I’m saying she’s better at making it work for her professionally than you.’ He waved a hand at the door. ‘Now, shoo.’

These days – this past week – he usually headed for his quarters after his shift, rather than lingering to finish off work. Unimportant bureaucracy could be handled in his room, and now he had something to go home to. But this time he diverted down to the suite of diplomatic offices, and stuck his head in the bull-pen.

The Diplomatic Service had scaled back its personnel with Endeavour’s crew shift, but Cyrod Brigan wasn’t about to let himself be reassigned. It did mean that for once he had company, and Rourke was relieved to recognise the uniformed figure as his new Staff Judge-Advocate, and not the officer he really didn’t want to deal with right now.

‘There’s no wiggle-room in the wording,’ Brigan was complaining, jabbing his finger at the PADD on his desk. ‘Ambassador Sarek carved it through with perfect logic…’

‘Ambassador Sarek,’ drawled the wiry figure of Lieutenant Commander Hin Ra-Talorei, ‘failed to account for the Denebian concept that words need reiterating and repeating to maintain integrity. Or, at least, someone on his staff failed to record that recommendation. Which is why the 2381 summit of Alpha Cygnus IX was needed, and long-overdue. It wasn’t about the exact wording, it was about the cultural context of its legal weight for the other party.’

Rourke cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen?’

The two stopped and looked at him like an interloper. Brigan frowned. ‘Ms Hale’s busy.’

Hale had been thoroughly caught up in meetings for a while now. Rourke sighed. ‘She’s pissed off at me for not stopping Rosewood’s assignment, isn’t she.’

‘I don’t know what she is or isn’t pissed about,’ said Brigan, and shrugged. ‘I’m pissed about Rosewood.’

Commander Ra-Talorei smiled. ‘Commander Rosewood seems like such a dedicated young man…’ But there was an indulgent air to the Efrosian’s voice, like he meant what he said and yet knew there were vast gulfs of further unspoken truths.

‘Lieutenant Commander Rosewood is here to make his name in Starfleet off the backs of the First Secretary and my staff,’ Brigan protested. ‘Such as we are any more. And it’s an insult to Ms Hale’s work to have Starfleet diplomatic officers brought aboard.’

‘Rosewood and his team are all of a half-dozen officers here to support and liaise,’ said Rourke, parroting the party line that had been used by his superiors to bulldozer him. ‘Not replace you or take credit for your work.’

‘Tell him that.’

Rourke huffed gently, then looked at Ra-Talorei. ‘You’re settling in fine, Commander?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about me, Captain.’ The Efrosian’s smile became more sincere. ‘I have a backlog of fascinating incidents to read through and a husband quite beside himself at consulting with your science department.’

‘Don’t get too excited by the backlog of fascinating incidents,’ Rourke tried to not grumble. The last thing he needed was a Judge-Advocate taking an undue look at parts of Endeavour’s mishaps he’d thought had been laid to bed. He didn’t know what in particular weighed on him, but JAG sending a representative aboard – ostensibly to act as a legal advisor on the many diplomatic and political missions that were Endeavour’s primary duty – didn’t sit right. However pleasant Ra-Talorei was; perhaps the simplest of the new arrivals in adapting.

He looked at Brigan. ‘Tell Ms Hale I stopped by.’

Hale’s Chief of Staff opened and closed his mouth, and Rourke could almost hear the suggestion he tell her himself. But he just nodded, and Rourke now wondered how much Brigan knew, by being told or divining it himself.

And if Brigan knew anything, that put him a step ahead.

The thought made his shoulders heavy as he left the offices and took the nearest turbolift, and the burdens had not lifted when he reached his quarters. Until he opened the doors and was greeted with a sight that he knew he’d be sick of, some day, or at least wouldn’t brighten his entire evening.

But seeing his teen-aged daughter with her booted feet up on the sofa was still, for now, enough of a novelty and a delight. So of course he greeted her by wandering over and nudging her foot. ‘Oi. Down.’

‘We live on a ship, Dad,’ Ellie Stone groaned, swinging her feet over and sitting up. ‘What dirt am I picking up on my shoes?’

‘You never know what security have tromped in,’ he chided, and sank on the sofa next to her. Then he grinned. ‘Hi.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Chill out, I’ve been here a week.’

‘Nope. I’m not done being overbearing yet.’ To make his point he reached out to ruffle her hair. Ellie had inherited her mother’s red locks, but he fancied she had his eyes, and a certain squareness to her jaw from him that he knew she was self-conscious about but he felt gave her character. At sixteen she was eager for independence, which he knew had contributed to her leaving Earth for him, at least for a few months.

In time, he’d be just as smothering as her mother. But for the moment he was a novelty, and Matt Rourke would take that after a lifetime of never Quite Doing Enough for his daughter.

‘How was school?’ he pressed on, delighting in going down the check-list of fatherly questions.

‘Fine,’ she huffed. ‘There are eight of us now in the Upper Section, so… you know. Some group work.’ Most education aboard was remote, making the schooling space on Endeavour more of a shared study room while different students took classes to meet their needs. The teenagers fifteen and over shared one such study space, supervised and with the chance to socialise. Rourke knew this was only worsening Ellie’s alliance with Aisha’s kids, something he suspected all parents would come to regret, but he was just happy for now she wasn’t alone. ‘Lawal’s the only one doing advanced lit, though. So it’s him and me arguing with some kids from Starbase 24 about Vulcan classics.’

‘Lawal’s the Danjuma boy, right?’

‘Yeah, Aamir’s too busy with double-biology.’ Again she rolled her eyes. ‘Do you want dinner together?’

Rourke hesitated. ‘You’re not out with them tonight again?’

‘That was yesterday. We’re just going down to the Pembroke later. But I figured we could eat.’

He didn’t know if he was reading too much into her indifference, didn’t know if it was wishful thinking that made it seem forced. But she could have gone out and eaten with her friends at the Earl of Pembroke, the old mess hall he’d had converted to be more civilian friendly. Instead she was, unprompted, suggesting she stay in.

Matt Rourke still grinned, any thought of Sophia Hale’s detachment thousands of light-years away now. ‘Let’s do it.’

And Ellie rolled her eyes at his obvious satisfaction as she pushed to her feet. ‘Again, Dad. Chill out. It’s just food.’