It had been a matter of minutes since Captain Gor had relinquished command of Hathaway as ordered by Starfleet Command, and already the rumour mills were swirling. To be fair, they hadn’t stopped since the initial reports had come in almost a week ago, but now they had a focus much closer to home. Rumours and disquiet were an enemy of any crew in a time of war, with the potential to seriously disrupt the focus of all aboard and derail any progress they may have had. It was certainly working here. The conversation had already moved on from the successful intelligence-gathering mission they had been participating in and was instead focused on the removal of their Captain. Their Captain. Not Starfleet’s, but theirs. And now they were being expected to follow a relatively unknown (to most of them anyway) person.

“I heard that the Nogura crew were glad to see the back of her,” Henry shrugged, slouched in his seat, arms folded across his chest.

Every member of the senior staff had gathered, once again, this time in the officer’s mess on the upper levels of the Starlight Lounge. A private place, which most of them rarely visited, but a great place for a clandestine meeting to occur. Those who should have been elsewhere had made their excuses to head there and shoot the breeze with the rest of the team.

“Listen,” Noli threw her hands up, “those of us who were on the Prometheus, however brief, had no problems with her.” The blonde bombshell nudged the Bajassian next to her to wake her up. “Right Prida?”

“What?” Prida looked flummoxed, unfocused. When she eventually clued herself back in, she shrugged. “I guess you’re right. It could have been worse; we could have been stuck with someone no one knows. At least some of us have experience with her,” she suggested, trying to put a positive slant on the situation.

“So what?” Josue frowned, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. “We’re supposed to just welcome her with open arms because you lot got sent to the Prometheus, while the rest of us went to the Intrepid?” he shook his head incredulously. “No. Captain Gor earned our trust. What has this woman ever done for this ship or crew?”

“Oh, and you would have preferred your Vulcan, would you?” Tuca spoke sternly, raised eyebrow and folded arms an indicator of his irritation.

“Josue is right. Why should we trust this woman to bring us home safe?” Akaria asked, hands on her hips as she paced the officer’s lounge on the upper level of Starlight. “She shows up, out of the blue, rescues us… which we didn’t need, I might add… then the captain invites her over for tea and coffee and loses his job as a result of his hospitality,” she spoke angrily.

“Because those are your orders…”

Coming to an immediate stop, the words from behind the scientist caused her to drop her head and let out a sigh. Not only had they been found, but they had been found by the one person on the ship they would have wanted to avoid such discussions with.

“Disabling the sensors on this deck to avoid detection,” Commander Giarvar Kauhn mused, nodding in appreciation, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since you’re all sat here, perilously close to that fine line between insubordination and mutiny,” he scolded them, looking around the room at every single one of the senior staff in turn.

“It’s not mutiny Giarvar,” Noli stood forward in defence, taking the proverbial bullet for the team, “we’re just blowing off steam; venting.”

“Commander Kauhn,” he reminded the Bajoran sternly. “All of you sit,” he instructed, adding a swift “now” to punctuate his order.

Waiting until everyone in the room was sat down, the Trill thought about his choice of words carefully. “I suppose I am to blame for this shindig,” he finally confessed, throwing his arms up in surrender. “Ever since we transferred here, maybe even before that for those of you on the Intrepid, I’ve stepped back, given you all a high degree of latitude. You’ve been through a tough few months. That ends today,” he told them quietly, calmly. Every head traced his steps around the room. When he stopped and dropped his arms behind his side, the normally mild-mannered Trill looked angrier than any of them had probably ever seen.

“I get it,” he warned them sternly, “you lost someone important to all of you. Tough shit,” he scowled. “We’re going to lose a lot more people close to us if we don’t pull through this. This is war; where there are no winners, only losers. So yeah, we have a new commanding officer. It’s not what any of us wants, but it is the hand we’ve been dealt,” he put his hands on his hips.

“Each and every one of you will follow your orders. You’ll make sure everyone in your department follows their orders. You will give that woman your all, or so help me, you’ll need more than Prophets to make me disappear,” he sensed that the chastisement could probably cease now, so headed for the door.

He stopped short of crossing the threshold though and spun his head to look back at the staff. “You’re Starfleet officers. You’re among the best I’ve ever served with. At least I thought you were…” he shook his head and headed out the door.

“Shame on all of you.”

Standing beside the table in the observation lounge a short while later, Giarvar was in the middle of reeling off the latest developments in the region, when he paused and looked down at the new face sitting at the head of the table.

Buried in status reports regarding Hathaway’s own mission, Nazir noticed the sudden lull in the Commander’s report and looked up. “Something wrong, Commander?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” he frowned, clutching the PADD in his hands, held just in front of him. When offered, he took a seat next to the captain. “This crew have been through a lot in recent months, as you well know, and now Starfleet is expecting them to get used to another new commanding officer,” he was quick to add in an additional proviso, “and that’s nothing against you, ma’am. But they’re beginning to question these strange decisions. Frankly, so am I.”

Relaxing into the comfort of the chair, the captain nodded as he spoke. Once he had concluded, she took the opportunity to address those concerns. “Starfleet has made a lot of odd choices lately,” she agreed, “and while we can question them, we still have to act on them until such a time as they contravene the Starfleet General Orders. All I can say to you is what I said to Vasoch; I’m here for one mission, and then he’ll be back in command. I have no plan to usurp him permanently, just Starfleet felt that a mission of this magnitude could do with a little more experience,” she smirked, hinting at their shared heritage from their homeworld.

“Might I enquire as to the nature of that mission, Captain?” the First Officer asked, looking hopefully at his new leader, waiting to be inspired.

“Grab your phaser rifle Commander…” she grinned, “we’re going hunting.” 

 “Folks, let me introduce you to the indomitable Thot Rodyn…”

Gathered around the observation lounge table, the senior staff were a little more subdued than usual, each looking rather sheepish as they regarded the spinning head of a holographic Breen projected between them.

“Thot Rodyn is one of the highest-ranking Breen officers in the sector, and probably our biggest pain in the ass,” the captain pressed a button to remove the helmeted figure from sight and displayed a mini-map of the Deneb sector. “Fourth Fleet intelligence suspects Rodyn and his forces of being involved in dozens of successful assaults spanning the entire region. Wherever the Breen forces are, he seems to appear. Lieutenant Tuca,” relaxing into her chair once more, the newly confirmed mistress of Hathaway passed the meeting over to the strategic minds around the table.

“Data that has finally been shared with us indicates that Thot Rodyn has been leading by example,” the Alzek reached out and twisted his wrist, causing the holographic display to shift. “He personally oversaw the attack on Sevury and was leading at least one of the Breen squadrons at Izar. We also have reason to believe that he may have been at Nasera,” the strategic operations chief then slid a data PADD across the table to each officer. “This is everything we have on him. It’s not a lot, mostly just details from the last few years. Alongside his most successful assaults, he prefers to focus his forces on hit-and-run style raids. His forces have not only been devastating Starfleet defences, but we’ve also received countless reports of them taking prisoners-of-war.”

“Prisoners?” Counsellor Chiera shook her head as she sat forward, “we all know their idea of prisoners is our idea of slavery.”

Nodding along, the captain couldn’t argue with the Betazoid. “Starfleet has assured me that assets are being assigned to retrieve these… prisoners. But any such operations remain outside our purview,” she then gestured for the Alzek to continue his briefing.

Appreciative of getting back on track, he adjusted the display again, this time to show a large Breen warship. “What is clear from our analysis is that Rodyn moves freely about the sector, unchecked, undeterred. There also appears to be no discernable pattern to his attacks. One minute, his ship will be on the K’Zinti border, and the next it will be in the Ciatar Nebula. Just when we think he may have gone to ground, he resurfaces with a swift attack somewhere else. As if he is letting us know he is still out there,” and with that, the grey-skinned figure was finished with his part of the briefing.

“Our orders are pretty clear,” Keziah sat forward, once again taking the lead. “Starfleet has ordered us to eliminate the threat of Thot Rodyn, she revealed. “Dead or alive, we don’t come back until he is neutralized in some way. Number One,” she gestured to the XO now.

“We’ve been given license to roam; for us to go wherever our search leads. What is certain, however, is that this will be no cakewalk,” activating the display, the warship lit up with what information they had on it. “She’s heavily armed and rarely travels alone. They’ll be doing everything they can to avoid detection, up until their next strike. Our job is to seek them out and prevent their participation in any future engagement.”

“Full details of our brief are in the data packets Lieutenant Tuca provided,” the captain revealed, holding up one of the PADDs and waving it half-heartedly. “For now, I want you all to have a read, and share the data with your teams. It’s not just going to be the handful of us in here that find Rodyn, but everyone out there, too. All ideas are on the table, so if you have any ideas on where to start, or where he might strike next, I want to hear it. Until we have a lead or something to go on, we’re going to head off and rendezvous with survivors from Sevury. Lieutenant Mitchell,” the Trill focused her attention on the pilot, “the location of the rendezvous is in the data packet. Best possible speed, please.”

“You got it, Captain,” Flyboy nodded, then looked across at Giarvar, who remained silent.

“Then you’re all dismissed,” Keziah smiled, using her hands on the tabletop to push herself out of the chair.

Watching as the room emptied, Giarvar finally relented and nodded to the pilot. A sign of approval? Forgiveness, perhaps?

It didn’t matter, of course. Nothing but their mission mattered now. And in the dead of space, the mighty Sagan drifted away from its Inquiry-class neighbour before slipping seamlessly into warp, destined for the survivors of Sevury.

Several lightyears away and ensconced within the radioactive material of the Mutara-class nebula, a Chel Boalg warship had found an opportunity for respite. Flanked by her Chel Grett escorts, the mighty warship had made the Vadlox nebula home for the time being. A feat that should have been nigh on impossible, recent advances in their defence systems allowed them to survive the high particle density and subnucleonic radiation the cloud emitted. Regardless of the high levels of static discharge and ionized gases that threatened the ships, their commander obviously felt the risk was worth the reward. Even without shields, without sensors, he knew they would be safe.

Standing at the center of his bridge, Thot Rodyn’s breathing apparatus worked overtime to counter any lingering effects from the nebula, but it was worth every second. Safe havens such as these had proved crucial to his operations so far, and those periods of respite allowed him to plan his attack wing’s next assault against the Federation forces in the Deneb sector. Starships destroyed; Izar burning; Sevury abandoned. All at the tip of his blade.

Approached by a subordinate, a series of incomprehensible, garbled electronic sounds passed back and forth between the two until he was, again, alone at the heart of his command center.

Vessels of Starfleet’s Fourth Fleet had reinforced countless positions across the sector, but to no avail. They wouldn’t be enough to derail his plans. As he had told his subordinate, nothing could deter them from their next task.

Staring into the gaseous abyss beyond, a smile emerged beneath his helmet.

Kanaan would be the next Federation system to fall. He would see to that.