He hated telepaths. Loathed and detested them. 

It was something that he’d made very sure to keep from the counselors throughout his starfleet career. Very sure given that most ships contained at least one of them, and generally Starfleet took a dim view of any desire to stab them in the eye with a blunt spoon. 

But it was even worse when the telepath was actually a counselor. That made keeping up the pretense harder. Quinn Allen ground his teeth, pretending to busy himself at his station on the bridge, but the lights on the console in front of him might as well be pretty christmas lights for all the attention he was paying them. 

Instead, all his attention was on Armstrong, sitting all prim and proper on the little fold-down seat next to the captain’s. She’d totally screwed up the interaction with the Tanvas, which could have led to damage and loss of life on the Resolute. She should have been thrown in the brig, he grumbled to himself, his annoyance safely kept in his head. For now. One day, it would come out. When he was sure the telepath wasn’t controlling the Captain and the executive officer. 

He was sure she was. Otherwise why would the captain have let her off so easily? His hands moved over the console, reacting to the scans the ship was currently performing, reacting to the results that came in a few seconds after his fingers touched the input panel. He didn’t notice, his anger simmering about Armstrong. 

At least she couldn’t affect him. His life, his childhood under the brutal regime of the Kerlation, and their telepathic bulldogs, had ensured he knew all their tricks. They’d punished him for it, of course, once they’d realised he was immune to their manipulation. He’d been younger then as well, not as strong as he was now. 

“Allen.” Kovash’s voice broke through the chaos of his simmering rageful thoughts. “Need me to loop again or are scans complete?” 

He blinked and looked down at his screens. Actually looked at them. A map of the asteroid belt was laid out in front of him, with each deposit of Blood Dilithium clearly marked. As was the Tanvas, currently hunkered down on the other side of the field. There were no other ships that the Resolute’s sensors could find. 

“No, we’re good,” he replied, his brow furrowing as he paid attention to the results. This area had a higher percentage of the new dilithium than he’d expected. 

Expanding the map around the area, he marked a couple of nearby systems and looked around. The captain was still holed up with some of the other senior staff in the briefing room, so he threw the new coordinates over to helm. 

“New areas I think we should survey, or at least confirm the presence of Blood Dilithium so we can get a more dedicated vessel out here to check.”

With that, he pushed off his console and stalked off the bridge. He had projects and other things to check on in the science labs… and he absolutely needed to get the hell away from that telepath before he did something that someone else would regret…