“Well?” Kevak asked in his typical grumbling, brusk tone of voice. Punctuated by two mugs of coffee he set down on the table between himself and Sidda.

“Well, what?” she challenged back between spoonfuls of cereal. She’d come straight to the mess hall upon returning to the Rose, to seek a bit more breakfast than what she’d gotten earlier and had been given a bowl of cereal by Revin and a glass of orange juice to go with it. Not much, but sweet and filling.

“Did you learn what you wanted to?” Kevak pushed one of the cups across the table at her, grinning slightly as he did so. “Dash of cinnamon, as the princess informed me.”

“For a Romulan, she’s terrible at keeping secrets,” Sidda conceded as she set the spoon down in the mostly empty bowl and ignoring the orange juice, went for the coffee. “Goddesses this is good,” she said after a sip, her expression changing at Kevak’s look, a repetition of the question not needed.

“I know where Gavalore is and Shreln too,” she said, answering his query. “And al-Jabar’s comments just supported what Higgins’ data on her says. I just wanted to know where she was and he confirmed a few of the more damning details.”

“What are you going to do about it?” He had hidden half of his face behind his own cup of coffee. Knowing Klingons, it was likely his wind-down drink of choice – less potent than vile, disgusting raktijino, but still able to convey a nice earthy aroma and more importantly a conveyance for caffeine. She still couldn’t understand how such a wonderful-smelling drink was so vile and bitter as to be unbearable.

“If what everyone says is true, Shreln is a terrorist and is loose inside the Federation now. I’ve…I’ve got to find her and find out what the hell happened. But…” She trailed off, considering the depths of her mug for a few heartbeats. “I’m not going to find her by running off to Qualor. She’ll be long gone and I’ll just end up chasing ghosts and trails. I thought she was dead. I saw Gavalore shoot her and yet she’s alive? I haven’t seen her in ten years. Even heard about her!”

“We go to Gavalore and get this mark off of you then,” Kevak said. While everyone else would have said that as a question, his tone conveyed a statement. Klingons; what a wonderfully plain-spoken and direct people. You knew where you stood with most Klingons. Not all, but most.

“It’s a plan,” she replied. “We could still go to Qualor, find out what this Merrac has to say, then hand it over to Starfleet and see if the pyjama-wearing idiots will actually follow up on actionable intel.”

“Or hand it over to someone who will,” Kevak answered. “Like yourself.”

“I mean yeah, it would just be easier to keep pursuing her. But if she’s been some criminal mastermind that everyone is after but are busy keeping her off the public most-wanted lists and she’s survived this long without being caught by Starfleet Intelligence, Federation Intelligence Bureau, the Tal’Shiar, House Mokai, KDF Intelligence and probably even the Obsidian Order and a dozen other security apparatuses, what chances do I have?”

“Directness,” he answered.

 “She’s not going to stand forth and come out all honourably like if I lay out a challenge to her.”

“Then make her,” he stated.

“I just said she won’t,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Then make her,” he reiterated. “Find something precious and push. Force the coward to stand their ground and deal with them when they do.”

“She isn’t a coward,” she snapped, then stopped and took in a breath. “T’Halla Shreln isn’t a coward. She’s…she’s a mentor. A friend. And the last I saw her, Brett Gavalore put two shots into her while we were fleeing a pack of Nausicaans trying to kill us.”

“People change,” Kevak said. “You may have to accept that the woman you knew is indeed dead.”

“Then who is it that Higgins seemingly wants me to chase after? And how the hell would I find something precious I can even use to force her to come out and face me?”

“To the former, a monster who stole her skin,” he answered, then finished off his coffee in a single go. “Or which this Brett Gavalore unleashed. Finding something precious though, well, that’s part of the hunt, isn’t it? You are aware of the threat now though. Can you sit idly by, Princess?”

She looked up from her coffee, glaring at him for his use of that title once more. He’d used it only a few times, to either get her attention or slap her down when she tried such shenanigans with him in the past. This was the former. And he was right too.

“No.”

“And why is that?” he continued.

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

He leaned forward, speaking in a whisper so that the walls of the empty room couldn’t hear him. “The honourable thing to do, Lieutenant Sadovu.”

“How,” she said, her voice dropping equally to a whisper, leaning forward to add to the conspiratorial tone, “the fuck do you know that?” She couldn’t bring herself to assign blame to Revin for that. Revin might let slip a food or a beverage choice, but that – it was a secret. Her secret. It was too precious.

“I did my research before signing on with you all those years ago girl,” he answered with a slight chuckle. “KDF Intelligence is far more capable than people think, and we prefer it that way.”

“We?” she asked.

Kevak didn’t answer, just stood up, then nudged at her glass of orange juice, pushing it closer to her. “Drink it or we’ll both never hear the end of it from your woman,” he said, then started to walk back towards the doors back into the galley.

“She’s not my woman,” she shouted back at him.

“You’re right, you’re hers.” And with that he passed out of the mess, leaving her to stare at the door he passed through, daggers aimed at his back.

The landing bay was quiet, just her guarding the ship and a couple of guards at the large cargo doors that lead deeper into the asteroid base. They weren’t particularly attentive, busy playing a game of some sort between themselves on top of a crate. They’d seemed friendly enough, but for whatever species they were from but had insisted she wasn’t allowed in.

Just Commander Gavalore and Dr Shreln were allowed to go in.

It had been a rough year since losing the captain, and Starfleet Intelligence’s support was coming with more and more strings. And tighter and tighter limits on what they could give them. The Federation as a whole seemed to be turning its back on desperate people in need and even crafty accounting in a socialist utopia could only hide non-replicable supplies disappearing for so long. Getting supplies they needed to help refugees was getting harder and Gavalore’s attempts at supplementing SI’s paltry scraps had been growing harder as well.

They’d discussed a few times about calling it, packing up and heading home. But then they’d find another world abandoned by the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire alike, with desperate people making desperate plays at survival and those conversations just died. People were out there needing help and dammit they would.

So desperation led to a little bit of work on the wrong side of the tracks. Move some not-quite-legal cargo and get paid. Use that to keep the ship running, buy supplies for refugees, and then get those supplies where they needed to go. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

They’d continued with their acts of cargo liberation as well, keeping with the captain’s restriction of only stealing from the rich, or the pirates already out there, to give to the poor. And smuggling was helping, but things were still slowly falling apart. There was just too much to do.

It was the work of a federation, to be honest. And where was the Federation? Behind the border, citing its own injuries and political necessity for why it couldn’t help anymore.

She shook her head, clearing the maudlin thoughts before they could truly fester. She was the lookout after all. She couldn’t disappear into her own head.

“Hey Greenie,” a voice echoed from inside the ship. Jason Hurts, one of the newbies Brett had brought into the crew recently. “How much longer?”

Hurts and the handful of others now padding out the crew weren’t in it for the same reasons the original Surabaya crew had been. They were in it for the glory and the fame. The profit of it. They’d had to be whipped into a shape a few times for being too enthusiastic. If she’d still been in uniform she’d never have associated with the likes of Hurts, unless it was throwing his ass in a brig and letting him fester there.

“I told you not to call me there,” she grumbled at him. “Do it again, I’ll break your jaw.”

“Hey Sammie,” Jason’s voice sounded like he was shouting down a hall, but it still echoed out to her. “Are Orion pickup lines always so violent?”

“Nah mate,” Sammie’s response came from somewhere deeper in the ship. “She really means it. Stop being a dick.”

“Ah fuck you,” Jason shouted. Then back to her, “So, how much longer?”

“Fuck should I know?” she grumbled again from the open access door, looking out at the guards. “This is a good score if we can get it, so if the Commander wants to grease the wheels, he can take as long as he wants.”

“Should have just sent you to -” Jason started before a loud smack interrupted him, eliciting a howl of pain. “What the hell was that for?”

“Being a dick,” Sammie answered. Footsteps announced Sammie’s arrival behind her. “You want, I’ll kick his ass.”

“He’s a pig,” she said to Sammie. “I’ll deal with him later. Stupid kid has seen way too many holovids.”

Before they could wile awhile more time just chatting, hopefully without Jason’s idiotic commentary, the bay doors opened up and a scene of chaos was coming their way. Gavalore and Shreln were both running their way, firing as they went at a mixed band of very angry pirates pursuing them.

Gavalore at least at the sense to look where they were going, at the two guards in the bay who were turning to look at the commotion, then going for their weapons. But he was aware they were there; he was armed and had dropped both of them with precision shots before they could even raise their weapons.

“Fuck! Get ready for takeoff,” she told Sammie, ignoring him as he dived back inside and started yelling at the rest of the crew to get ready. Her own weapon was soon in her hand and she was letting fire across the bay as Gavalore and Shreln made their way towards the ship.

“Out of the way!” Gavalore shouted at her as he neared, a dozen paces in front of Shreln.

She stepped inside and to the side, clearing a path for her fellow shipmates to escape to the safety of the Subi. But instead, Gavalore stopped right in the door, turned around and merely fired two shots right into T’Halla Shreln before slamming the door shut, the hull soon reverberating with the sound of successive personal energy weapons slamming into it.

“What the fuck is going on? Why’d you shoot her? Open the door, we have to save her!” she shouted at him. The world had just gone from making some sort of sense to complete nonsense.

But instead, he just turned to her, shaking his head. “No.”

“Fuck that! She’s our shipmate,” she shouted at Gavalore.

“Not any more Lieutenant,” he growled at her. The single most intimidating growl she’d ever heard from him.

“You won’t get away with this,” she threatened. “I’ll make sure Higgins hears about this.”

“No, I don’t think you will,” he said, then fired on her.

“Cousin,” Orelia said aloud, breaking Sidda’s reverie. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she answered.

“Then why are you in the EV suit bay?” Orelia asked, stepping into the room properly. “T’Ael saw you, you didn’t answer her so she called me.”

“What?” she asked, shaking the cobwebs free from her thoughts before a nod of her head to invite the other woman closer. “Just…caught in a bit of reflection.”

“You hate EV suits though, so why here?”

“Didn’t say it was a good reflection,” Sidda answered, eyes returning to the suit she’d been looking at. It didn’t matter which since the dozen EV suits aboard the Vondem Rose were mismatched suits from all over the galaxy. But they were safe, secure and functional. All that really mattered in the end.

“This about this Gavalore prick? Or the Andorian woman?” Orelia asked as she sat down on the bench next to Sidda.

“Both really,” she answered. “Just been thinking about things, recalling events. Guess I finally got to the point where I got my phobia of EV suits. Thought I’d come and stare at my demons.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“What’s to talk about? I threatened Gavalore, he stunned me, stuffed me in an EV suit and when I came to, he said his final goodbyes and then spaced me. Coward didn’t have it in him to kill me face to face.”

Orelia growled, actually honestly growled. Muscles tensed across her shoulders. “Prick,” was all she managed to say in response.

“Say that again,” Sidda found herself saying with a smile. “I still don’t know why he shot Shreln, or me. But he did.”

“So he just pushed you out of an airlock in deep space?” Orelia asked, seeking confirmation which came with a head nod. “How long were you out floating out there?”

“Long enough to hear the low oxygen warnings. Long enough to pass out.” She shivered at the thought. Full body shaking until Orelia wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeeze her tight.

“I’m going to kill him,” Orelia said after a few heartbeats of silence.

“No,” she said. “I have to. To satisfy T’Rev’s stupid demands and myself.”

“Then I’ll make sure it happens,” Orelia said.

“I know you will cousin.”

It was a few more heartbeats before Orelia let her go, then gave her a few pats on the back in reassurance. “You should call the matriarch before we go much further into this.”

“I’ll call my grandmother when I feel like it,” she said to Orelia. “You told her about my proposal to Revin?”

“Naturally,” Orelia answered. “She’s displeased of course. You’re wasting yourself on that girl when you could be making alliances back on Vondem.”

“I’m not some plaything for my grandmother.” She breathed in, then stood, mirrored by Orelia. “And she’s not the empress of the fifteenth great and power Orion Empire.”

“The great Sadovu line ends with you then, does it?” Orelia challenged.

“Never said that,” Sidda said. “But first, I’ve got to survive T’Rev’s little blackmail and death threat. So, if you want to keep the matriarch happy, go set a course for Ayer’s Rock and get us back under cloak and on our way. Don’t want any Starfleet border patrols causing us issues as we slip the border.”