Lieutenant A. Charles Shepard, Charles to most and Charlie to only a select few, watched as data fragments scrolled slowly past his eyes. He’d spent the past half hour studying the science outposts database, or what was left of it. The data was heavily corrupted, with only a few fragments remaining. Charlie’s task was to retrieve whatever he could that might shed some light on what happened to the team.

“What’ve you got, Lieutenant?” Mitchell asked smoothly as he breezed into the computer lab.

Charlie tried hard not to roll his eyes at the XO’s arrival. He didn’t dislike Mitchell, but he wasn’t as taken by the pilots ‘charm’ as others seemed to be. Charlie firmly believed Lieutenant Commander Pezara should have been promoted to XO, instead of Fleet Captain Forrester’s best friend. It’s not what you know, but who you know, Charlie thought sourly. 

“It seems that a virus has corrupted their database,” Charlie replied as his fingers started moving frantically across the surface of his console. “Lucky for us, their virus wasn’t very effective.”

Charlie could feel Mitchell at his shoulder, watching. It wasn’t like Mitchell would understand what Charlie was doing. Nothing about the XO suggested any kind of intellectual curiosity. He seemed more like the kind of guy who would do the bare minimum to get by and still succeed somehow.

“Can you recover the corrupted portions of the database?” Mitchell asked.

Charlie nodded as his fingers continued to dance across the console. “Some of it at least, yes.”

“How long will it take?”

How long is a piece of string? Charlie bit back that retort and replied, “Difficult to say, sir. Probably hours, possibly days.”

“Alright, let me know when you have something,” Mitchell instructed needlessly. And here I was just going to keep it to myself. Charlie thanked his lucky stars that the XO wasn’t a Betazoid with all his internal sassing of Mitchell.

Rather than leaving, as Charlie had expected, Commander Mitchell remained in the computer lab. Was he planning to hang around until Charlie had something? Didn’t he trust the chief ops officer to do his job without supervision? It was neither of those. Mitchell eventually asked, “Did your parents really name you Aristotle?”

Charlie froze at the sound of that name. That fucking name. His fucking name. The name his parents had saddled him with. The name that he’d been teased about in school. The name he’d spent more than two decades trying to shake with limited success. Charlie tensed and stared at a spot on the LCARS display in front of him. 

“Yes,” he replied simply. Mitchell chuckled. “You must have fond memories of school.”

If Mitchell thought this would amuse Charlie, he’d badly misjudged his audience. “No,” Charlie snapped, “I don’t and I’d rather not talk about it.” 

Charlie didn’t dare look at Mitchell. He could feel the Commander’s eyes drilling into him and could imagine the fury burning in Mitchell’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” Charlie was taken aback by the XO’s words and the note of contrition in his voice. “I didn’t realise it was a sore spot.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Charlie replied. He was relieved that Mitchell’s response had been so measured. Another officer wouldn’t have been so understanding of Charlie’s outburst. 

Mitchell patted him on the back, “I’ll let you work in peace.” The hiss of the door behind him a few seconds later signalled Mitchell’s exit. Once certain he was alone, Charlie’s shoulders slumped and he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, taking several deep breaths. Once he’d calmed himself, he continued writing a new algorithm to recover the outpost’s data. 

Lieutenant Commander Mitchell was back six hours later, this time with Captain Matheson and Lieutenant Fournier joining him. In the hours since Mitchell left, Charlie had recovered about thirty percent of the outpost’s database. That included the last few minutes of the internal visual logs before the virus was uploaded.

“Let’s see what you’ve found,” Matheson instructed.

Charlie tapped a control and the visual log he’d cued up began to play. There was no sound, just the images. It showed the science team being rounded up by people dressed in rugged civilian clothes. The leader was holding a disruptor to Gorek’s chest. Despite the lack of sound, it was clear that the Tellarite was being predictably defiant.

They already knew how this ended. The group’s leader, a human man with salt and pepper hair and a scraggly beard that was more grey than black, narrowed his eyes at Gorek and fired the disruptor. The science officer was sent flying back, crashing to the floor out of sight of the sensor. The rest of the science team was huddled out through the outpost’s external door. One of the kidnappers remained behind, working at a console but after a few seconds, the feed went dead.

“Any clues to where they took them once they left the outpost?” Fournier asked.

Charlie already had the answer to that question lined up and waiting. He pulled up a feed he’d been able to recover from the outpost’s external sensors. It showed the science officers being loaded onto an old Starfleet shuttle, since modified for civilian use.

“A type four shuttle,” Mitchell muttered as they watched the shuttle slowly lift off the ground and fly out of sight.

Captain Matheson folded her arms. “Can we track it?”

“The type four has a limited range,” Mitchell told them as he stepped up beside Charlie and started tapping at the console. On the screen in front of them, a star chart of this region appeared showing their current location and the surrounding systems. Finally, a circle was overlaid on the chart, indicating the shuttle’s range. It covered three other star systems. “I estimate they’ve been taken to a planet somewhere in this circle.”

They silently studied the chart for a few moments. “Are there any M-class planets within this area?” Matheson asked.

Charlie input the query into the computer, which highlighted three planets, other than the one they were currently orbiting. “There are three within the shuttle’s range.”

“Are any of them inhabited?” This question came from Mitchell.

Charlie once more consulted the computer. “Not anymore,” he finally announced. “Falor III was home to a small mining colony until last year. Most of the inhabitants were evacuated during the Century Storm. About a hundred decided to remain behind.”

“That’s where the science team’s been taken,” Captain Matheson announced confidently before turning to Mitchell. “Commander, get us there. Best speed.” 

Mitchell acknowledged the captain’s order before leaving the lab. As he did, Fourner asked, “Any chance we can identify the leader?”

“If I can get a decent still image of him, I can cross reference the Federation database.” Charlie was already scrubbing the visual log back to search for an image of their leader they can use. “But it could take a while.”

Matheson let out a snort. “The nebula will see to it that you have plenty of time.” She patted Charlie gently on the shoulder. “Good work, Lieutenant.”

Fournier followed Captain Matheson out, leaving Charlie alone with his new task.