‘…radically different biomes. Our scans aren’t giving us a full picture of the nature of the comet shards that hit each planet, but it looks like they each hit regions of very low bio-diversity compared to the rest of these planets.’ Airex stood at the main display in the conference room, gesticulating wildly as he ran through his briefing.

Kharth tried to not rest her chin in her hand as she listened. ‘I get this is fascinating,’ she said, and her tone betrayed her anyway. ‘But, bluntly, Commander: so what?’

The look he gave her was more indignant than he’d dared to appear for years. But it did remind her of how he used to be, when they were on the Cavalier together, and an effusive Davir Hargan wanted to divert their attention to some phenomenon or another. ‘We have six planets teeming with massively diverse life. It’s as if they’ve been engineered to present completely different living conditions. And that’s not even getting into the gas giant’s moons. That alone has fascinating implications, not just for finding out how and why this has happened, but what we can learn from the planets themselves. And the comet…’

‘But until or unless we can put boots on the ground,’ Kharth pressed on, ‘or at least atmospheric fly-overs, we’re limited to relatively inefficient scans from the system’s periphery. Right?’ At his hesitation, she turned to Valance. ‘And we don’t have authorisation to re-enter the system.’

Valance looked ungrateful for being dragged into this, despite being the captain. ‘We already have vast amounts of data to go through. Without a full analysis of everything we’ve scanned so far, I’m not happy to assume this is an abandoned star system with the comet as some sort of automated scout. Starfleet policy is clear: we enter Koperion only if we’re confident there is no indigenous intelligent life or if we contact them and receive permission.’

Airex’s indignation only rose. ‘You’re saying we walk away?’

‘I am saying,’ Valance pressed, ‘that we have to finish our initial analysis before we proceed. You can review your data before we gather more, Commander. As you said, this system is a wholly new finding. We still don’t know what the comet was doing or how it shrouded its nature from our sensors.’

‘A full analysis of what we have so far could take weeks.’

‘Koperion isn’t going anywhere. And remember Commander – neither are we. We’re not on a mission of deep space exploration where if we move on, we never come back. This sector’s our area of operations. And this is our primary duty: to explore regions of space we were never permitted to enter since the Earth-Romulan War.’

‘There’s got to be a reason,’ Thawn ventured, ‘that Koperion avoided our notice until now? All of these M-class worlds. And the Romulans surely didn’t know about it, or they wouldn’t have given it up to the Neutral Zone?’

‘I need to go back through historical scans,’ Airex admitted.

‘That’s fine,’ said Valance, with fatigued firmness. ‘We’ll continue to work on Koperion, Commander. But this system isn’t one mission; it could keep a whole project busy for a lifetime. Conclude your scans by the end of the day, and we’ll return to Gateway.’

Kally stuck her hand up, only to be stared at. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘I have never asked you to raise your hand to be called on, Ensign,’ Valance said.

‘No, but we’re on a much fancier ship now and -’ She stopped herself. ‘We could leave a comm buoy at the system’s edge. Include one of our standard packages for communications, especially with, uh, potentially non-corporeal life forms.’

Kharth looked at her dubiously. ‘Non-corporeal?’

‘We have a wide range of programmes to attempt contact with a variety of sapient life forms,’ Lindgren jumped in, sounding rather defensive of her young successor. ‘These include different methods of communication when we have no idea of the nature of anyone out there.’

‘If they’re out there.’

Valance cast them a look. ‘Do it, Ensign. Once Commander Airex has appraised the data, we’ll set a schedule for completion of analysis. If that’s finished with no signs of life and no response to the comms buoy, we’ll move forward on plans for further survey work. Is that acceptable?’

Airex dropped his hands, at last looking a bit bashful. ‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Good. Dismissed.’

Kharth stayed in her seat as the others rose and headed out. Valance spotted this early, and the two women sat, regarding each other in silence until they were alone. Kharth spoke the moment the doors shut. ‘I want us to stop by Teros on the return.’

Valance pursed her lips. ‘It won’t do the people there any good to see Starfleet arriving and departing without making contact again.’

‘Increased Starfleet traffic ahead of any intervention is good, actually,’ Kharth pushed back. ‘It demonstrates our presence in the region, which can encourage people to believe us when we try to make up for broken promises. But that’s not my reason. We hi-tailed it out of there with Logan, but we have little idea of the state of the system or Teros IV since we were last there in ‘99. All I want is a full strategic scan. A few hours’ work.’

‘What does that give us?’

Kharth knew this was a test; Valance knew the answer but wanted to hear how she articulated it. She tried to not look resentful. ‘We’ll know the size and scope of the sanctuary districts on Teros IV. We’ll know the level of local orbital and mobile infrastructure. We can compare this to our records from ‘99 and assess any change. It might indicate how much the Rebirth has influenced or expanded, for example. From there, we can better plan a relief operation.’

Valance’s expression remained flat. ‘You do understand that the relief operation will likely be launched out of Gateway and is unlikely to include Endeavour, Commander. This would be a long-term aid project.’

‘The long-term work, yes. But the Rebirth will need uprooting first. As you say, this is our area of operations. I’m the only expert in Teros around. I expect I can make it to some briefings on Teros.’ Kharth leaned forward. ‘I’m not pushing for us to do this instead of Koperion, Valance. I want Starfleet to invest in Koperion, too.’

Now Valance’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t care about this science mission.’

‘If the Federation wants to expand its research operations into the Midgard Sector, then the Federation needs Midgard to be stable,’ Kharth pointed out. ‘You’re half-right: my priority is the work we do as Starfleet officers to make people’s lives immediately better. But exploration fosters outreach. If we’re going to venture further into Midgard, we need to work with the Republic, and we need to connect with worlds like Teros, with former Star Empire holdings. Everyone benefits.’

‘I didn’t realise you had this perspective.’

‘Starfleet hasn’t offered me much of a chance to right its past wrongs. Even Hale’s project was just about making people shake hands. It was better than nothing, but this is about laying down roots.’

Valance leaned back. ‘I’m not trying to get rid of you, Kharth. But have you considered going for the strategic operations role on Gateway?’

‘I like to get my hands dirty.’ It wasn’t the whole reason. But that could spawn a different conflict.

‘Teros, then.’ Valance nodded. ‘I’ll do you better than an hour. If we depart by the end of the day, we’ll reach Teros on the twelfth.’

‘So?’

Valance gave her a look. ‘Check your calendar, Commander. It’s Frontier Day. We’ll be opening up the Safe House with the display screens for the feeds from Sol. You can run your scans while the ship’s on reduced staffing so people can enjoy the festivities.’

‘You’re right,’ said Kharth, getting to her feet. ‘I absolutely don’t want to watch that. I’m surprised you do.’

‘I don’t,’ Valance said with unusually vigorous candour. ‘Burdens of command.’