It felt like a thousand years since they’d talked. Lifetimes. In some ways it was, as Saeihr Kharth and Davir Airex had not truly spoken since they were plunged together into the depths of his memories and lives, and all of his secrets had been laid bare before her. Before them both.

She’d immersed herself in his thoughts and feelings and recollections and found he’d ripped away from her years before because Davir Hargan had become Davir Airex, and Davir Airex was the heir to a monster who’d hurt her. Who was responsible for her father’s death. So he’d left her. Walked away, and only hurt her more.

But Lerin Airex was dead. Davir Hargan was, for all intents and purposes, dead. Davir Airex was all that was left, a changed man of dark secrets who’d locked himself tight against the universe until he couldn’t any more, and left both of them stumbling through oblivion. They didn’t know where they stood with each other not simply because it was unclear, but because there was no solid ground to stand upon.

She had never been more acutely aware of this than now, when the absence of solid ground wasn’t merely metaphorical; when they were in EV suits strapped to thruster packs shooting at high speeds through a junkyard, and if she made one miscalculation she’d lead them both into a wreck’s broken hull.

‘Further wreckage drifting in, bearing four-seven mark three twenty-two,’ came Airex’s voice over the comms a split second before her HUD sensor display caught it. He had to be running more active scans while she navigated.

Kharth’s eyes flickered across the display. ‘It’s not in our path.’

‘It’s coming fast; recommend we –’

‘This route keeps us in the most magnetised section of the junkyard. We deviate too far and the Repository’s systems catch us. Follow my lead, Commander.’ Airex did not respond, and as she picked up a fresh burst of speed she saw his dot on the sensors rush to match.

He doesn’t trust you. Or is it that you don’t trust him? Out here, in the dark…

Gritting her teeth, she shoved away treacherous thoughts and plunged on. For an age it felt like they swooshed between broken hulls and shattered remnants of ships – lives, businesses, homes, everything these hulks were and might have been – but her timer said they had only been out eight minutes when they manoeuvred around a broken freighter and the ping on her sensors showed it there, right in front of her: the Brenari scout. Goravin’s ship.

‘Got it,’ came Airex’s satisfied sigh as he drew level with her. ‘Scanning now to check for defences.’

Kharth found herself turning and sweeping a scan around the rest of their surroundings, though from here the junkyard seemed still, most of it drifting in-sync. ‘This is too easy,’ she breathed.

‘Thawn’s faking an ion storm and Rosewood’s got to hustle station security in real-time. We’ve just completed a Grade Six EV manoeuvre through hostile and unpredictable debris where the slightest miscalculation rips our suits apart and kills us. And the job’s not yet done. What about this is easy, Commander?’

It was a relief that he couldn’t see her face, and all she said was, ‘See if you can crack it open.’

With the briefest flash of his thrusters Airex drifted down to Goravin’s ship, spinning dizzyingly to bring his boots to the hull for a magnetic lock. It was impossible to feel or hear the impact and the seal, but still it was like she could imagine either as he snapped to the hull and began approaching an airlock.

‘We don’t want to bring systems online if we don’t have to. Let’s see if we can pop this.’

She drifted down to join him, and her stomach lurched more than it should have at the manoeuvre. ‘Right.’ The markings were unfamiliar, the universal translator scrawling its work across her HUD, and she checked the seals and systems as he swung his toolkit around and set about the task. ‘We should have brought Isa.’

It was a mutter she didn’t intend for her comms to pick up, but Airex chuckled. ‘The challenge is more about getting here and then figuring out Brenari systems without being caught. We don’t need to be chief engineers to pop this airlock.’

As if he’d timed it, the airlock doors rumbled beneath her before cracking open an inch. From there she could crank it further, and they slipped into the Stygian darkness within Goravin’s ship. Most of its bulk was cargo space, so the living area was nothing but a back room with bunks and a table, the cockpit, and the passageway between them onto which they stepped from the airlock.

Relief was audible in Airex’s voice. ‘I’ll see if I can access the database. I’ve brought an additional power source which shouldn’t light us up on the Repository’s sensors.’

‘Sure,’ Kharth said as she turned to the aft of the ship, headlight on her suit stretching jagged shadows across meagre living space. It was all too reminiscent of the freighter where, though she had not encountered the crazed Brenari, she and Cortez had found his handiwork. ‘I’ll sweep the rest.’

‘I don’t know what you expect to find,’ said Airex, but he sounded distracted by the oncoming puzzle. Over the comms she heard him thump towards the cockpit, and soon there was the faint flicker of lights as he tried to access the database while disturbing their surroundings as little as possible.

She felt the thunk of every step as she approached the aft cabin. The beam on her headlight was too small, too narrow, even if the room was little more than a bed and a desk; cramped and claustrophobic for anyone living aboard.

You’ll be left to die in here.

Her torch snapped around as she turned to the prow of the ship. ‘What did you say?’

A pause from Airex. Then a click of the comms. ‘What?’

‘You said something.’

‘I did not.’ Another pause. ‘I’ve separated this data drive from the systems and plugged it into my tricorder. My comms might have picked up something reverberating through the suit.’

‘That must be it.’ Jaw tight, Kharth found it difficult to turn her back on the cabin as she went to join him. ‘What do you have?’

‘I’ll download it and review what’s there.’ He’d placed equipment on one of the cockpit panels and was bent over it, audibly more focused on the work than anything else.

That did not reassure her. If something else was wrong, he wouldn’t notice. Kharth stepped to the front of the canopy and peered through as if she’d see anything in the vastness of the Repository with just her eyes. Most of the hulks were specks barely bigger than stars, and everything else was the same roiling blackness they’d plunged through to get here. Ending communication with Endeavour or the Merlin, leaving just the two of them this far out, Kharth suddenly felt very alone.

They sent us here to die. You understand that, don’t you? A whole world abandoned and murdered and then you, cast into the wilderness and left. But for us it was more; not just forgotten, but hunted, eradicated, destroyed because of what we are, who we are…

Saeihr Kharth was no stranger to anger. But that was almost a gift in this moment, because it meant she knew her own fury, knew its contours and its motivations. So she knew when the hot knife of rage slid into her heart that this was not her own, but something deeper and more fathomless than any pain and fury she could ever feel.

Thousands, millions, tormented and murdered and trapped, sliding into her heart, rising to tighten her chest and choke in her throat and –

Kharth snapped upright, hands landing hard on the ship’s controls. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she rasped, and her palm slapped firmly on the power systems to bring the entire shuttle bursting to life.

‘Uh… Captain?’

Rourke looked at Danjuma, ice sliding into his belly at the young officer’s tone. ‘Talk,’ he snapped. He almost wanted to chastise her for asking to speak when something was so plainly wrong, but that would take more time.

‘It’s Goravin’s ship, sir – it’s powering up. The commanders must have tripped a system or something…’

He was on his feet in an instant. ‘Hells,’ he hissed. ‘If we contact them, Elsa, will the Repository be able to tell?’

‘Probably,’ Lindgren said with a wince.

Valance stood from mission control at the aft. ‘Levellir’s noticed this. Rosewood’s trying to run interference but she’s suspicious.’

‘Has Nate got eyes on their sensor systems?’ At Valance’s nod, Rourke took a tense breath. ‘Direct this information to the Lancelot, tell Thawn to start running our decoy.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Valance hesitated. ‘What about Goravin’s ship, sir?’

‘Let’s trust that Airex and Kharth know what they’re doing,’ Rourke growled. ‘And try to cover their arses while they recover from whatever’s going on.’

The alien Levellir’s eyes were so wide they almost took up her entire skull as she shoved Beckett away from the console. ‘What are you doing, Starfleet?’ she hissed, before wheezing and pressing her respirator back to her face.

Rosewood and Beckett exchanged frantic looks before the diplomat surged on. ‘If someone’s breaching your security, then please allow Endeavour to render aid -’

‘You’re breaching my security!’ Levellir hissed. ‘What else could it possibly be when someone’s trying to make off with the ship you asked for?’

Then the panel she was stooped over lit up with a whole new reading, and Rosewood could have reached through space and time to kiss the Lancelot’s crew for their timeliness. ‘That’s not one of ours,’ he lied with an effortless simulation of indignation and surprise. ‘That’s a Devore ship!’

Levellir stared at the sensor reading in close proximity to what her systems told her was a distant, blossoming ion storm, and the small dot which did, indeed, match the sensor profile of a Devore vessel. ‘Those bastards,’ she swore. ‘They should never have dared to come here.’ She turned on her heel to the Repository’s security systems controls.

‘Power to deflectors at maximum,’ Arys said through gritted teeth, holding the Lancelot’s controls tight as if their gambit might rip the shuttle apart.

‘It’s working,’ Thawn confirmed with breathless delight. ‘Through this interference, at this range, with this recalibration of our deflectors, we’ll look like a Devore scout. Endeavour’s confirming that through Beckett’s spying. It’s working.’

‘Excellent,’ said Arys, but could not feel any satisfaction when evidence for his apprehensions sprung up on his sensors. ‘But the Repository’s launched defence systems. Uh, unmanned drones. Heading our way.’

‘Oh.’ Thawn bit her lip. ‘Armed?’

‘Doubtless.’

‘ETA?’

‘Seven minutes.’

‘And, uh, Goravin’s ship?’

‘Still lit up and alive, and with absolutely no sign Airex and Kharth have completed their mission and returned to the Merlin.’

‘And if they don’t get out in time,’ Thawn said slowly, ‘Repository defences are going to try to blow us up?’

‘If we’re still here,’ said Arys. ‘Yes.’

‘And if we’re not still here, Levellir will probably realise she’s being robbed by Starfleet. Not the Devore.’

‘Yes,’ said Arys. ‘Suggestions, Lieutenant?’

She stared at her display for a moment. ‘All we can do,’ she said at length, ‘is trust the commanders.’

‘Commander!’ Airex launched to his feet and managed to get a solid grip on Kharth’s arm, but he was slower than he expected and she had a more firm stance than him, far more trained and practiced in zero-g. ‘Step away from the controls!’

She took so long to speak he knew she wasn’t responding to him, not really, and the snap-hiss of the comms system only picked her up partway through a sentence. ‘…trapped in here, they sent us here and we’re trapped…’

‘Saeihr!’ When he grabbed her by both shoulders and planted his feet for a solid magnetic lock, this time he could pull her around. Her face was pale, eyes wide and unseeing, and he was all sharply reminded of the state of T’Kalla, catatonic in Sickbay. Of every report of blood dilithium he’d read and seen. ‘You’re not trapped. You don’t need to listen to them – we’re going to help them, you understand me?’

But then her elbow had slammed into his chest, not just knocking him back to drift across the cockpit, but smacking his control panel and making his EV suit’s systems go wild. He flailed as he floated, scrambling to stop his thruster pack from going off and smearing him into a bulkhead, as Kharth rounded back on the control system to slam his toolbox on the panel.

He had to twist in mid-air to catch himself on the opposing bulkhead. With two steps he’d adjusted his position, moving towards the canopy, and launched himself at high speed to fly into her. The impact broke any magnetic lock of boots and pulled her away with him into the corridor, spinning together even as she struggled against him.

Airex slammed his helmet against hers so his voice could reverberate through, unrestricted by comms systems. ‘Saeihr, listen to me,’ he hissed, trapped between the desperate urgency and a desperate need to be heard and understood. ‘Don’t listen to those voices, listen to me.’ She was struggling, but he’d managed to pin her arms against her side, and she had nothing to push back against.

‘You don’t have to be overwhelmed by their pain.’ He locked his eyes on hers, however wild they were, but at last she was looking at him, not through him. ‘I know you feel it. I know you know pain, I know you’ve been through trials that would break someone else. And I know it’s still nothing compared to the voices of a thousand lost. Don’t give in to pain. You can stop listening without turning your back on it.’

Her grip on his arm became less of a fight and more of a clasp, and he felt her press tighter against him, clutch at him. In their suits it was impossible to tell if this was from the rage of the slaughtered running through her or some desperate effort to anchor herself. ‘So many voices. So many lost,’ she hissed. ‘And for what?’

‘We can’t fix that,’ he breathed, and only by the faintest softening in his grasp did he know she could hear him. ‘We can’t bring them back. All we can do is stop the Devore from doing it to anyone else. And we need you for that, Saeihr. I need you for that.’

She tensed. ‘You don’t need me… they need me, they’re calling…’

‘They’re a million ghosts. I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m with you through all of this, and I need you through all of this. You hear me, Cara Sai?’

The last time he’d called her that, called her by her true name, it had been a crass manipulation and had infuriated her beyond belief. On some deep, guilty level, Airex knew it was possible this would only enrage her again, but that it was better for her to feel her own fury than the rage of a thousand dead.

But she stilled and closed her eyes, and barely above a whisper, barely loud enough to be heard, he carried on. ‘You brought me back when I was hiding in my pain before, so let me bring you back now. Breathe and focus on my voice and forget everything else. Just for a moment, Cara Sai. Just me. There’s just me.’

Their ragged breathing filled their helmets for long moments. It could have been the length of two heartbeats, it could have been enough time for stars to birth and die, but still they drifted there, in the dark of this dead hulk of a ship, while all around them was chaos and disaster. Airex banished it all from his thoughts, because he knew if he couldn’t bring her back, it was for nothing.

When she tensed in his embrace again, he worried it had been for nothing. But then her eyes snapped open and were clear. ‘Oh, shit,’ hissed Saeihr Kharth. ‘We’re screwed.’

He couldn’t help but laugh – at the understatement, with relief, and for another moment he didn’t let go. ‘Good assessment, Commander.’ Then he pulled away, and shoved off towards the cockpit of Goravin’s ship, its displays lit up like a First Contact Day light-show. ‘Let’s salvage this mission.’