“I just got the results back from the tox panel,” Lieutenant Krer Feyir reported as he stepped back into his office with a look of pure shock on his face. “And I… ummm… I’ve never seen anything like it.” His hands were shaking as he handed the PADD to Dr. Hall.

“Torture drugs,” Dr. Hall said flatly without any visible emotion as she read over the results of the bloodwork done on Lieutenant Morgan and Chief Shafir. She knew the drugs well. She’d used some of them herself against the Vorta on Nasera. “Anticholinergics, inhibition reducers, nerve stimulants… psychoactive cocktails meant to inflict pain and disassociate you from reality.” It was curious that Mark Ellis had none in his system though. Maybe he simply wasn’t viewed as a valuable asset? Or maybe he’d just rolled over and given them what they wanted?

The acting Chief Medical Officer of the USS Serenity looked over at Fleet Admiral Reyes, expecting to see shock or anger on her face at the explanation from her counselor, but Reyes just sat there nodding. It was almost as though she expected it. How could one expect such a thing? Or maybe she didn’t really understand what Dr. Hall was saying? “Ma’am, these are the sort of drugs that land you in prison for decades,” Lieutenant Krer explained. “We need to report this to the authorities.”

“We will do nothing of the kind,” Admiral Reyes said flatly, drawing a stunned look from the young doctor. “Get Morgan and Shafir patched up, and see to it that these files are sealed.”

The doctor opened his mouth, as if to protest, but before he could, the door of his office slid open once more. Lieutenant Commander Ekkomas Eidran stepped through with fire in his eyes. “Admiral, forgive my frustration, but what the hell is going on here?”

“Excuse me?” Admiral Reyes asked the Betazoid calmly.

“Based on our scans, there’s a crater where you had us beam you out!” Lieutenant Commander Eidran exclaimed with an accusatory tone. “Meanwhile, you’ve had me telling HQ that you’re off sunbathing in the Mediterranean, which was clearly a straight lie!” Something was very wrong, and he’d lied on their behalf, which would make him culpable for whatever they were up to.

“Yeah, we didn’t get quite the tan we were hoping for…”

“And what about Starfleet Security?” Lieutenant Commander Eidran pushed, not letting her finish her coy little lie. “They’ve been calling all morning about some convict they say you illegally removed from the New Zealand Penal Colony. Is that one of the civvies you’ve got in my sickbay right now?”

“Oh, Dr. Brooks?” asked Admiral Reyes rhetorically. “Yes, he would be the trimmer, more British looking dude in the other room, the one with the scraggly hair. A real scientific prodigy…”

“Enough smoke and mirrors!” Lieutenant Commander Eidran interrupted once more. He was at his wits end. “I have half a brain to just call Starfleet Security back and tell them what I know…” She’d put him and the rest of his staff in a bad spot, and she had to see that. “But I don’t want to do that. We fought the good fight together Admiral, and I want to believe whatever it is you’re up to is on the up-and-up. But you’re not giving me anything to work with!”

For a moment, the Admiral and the Lieutenant Commander locked eyes. Could she trust him? He was young and had his faults, but he’d given her no reason to believe he was tainted. In fact, his youthful naivete almost guaranteed he wasn’t tied up in this. “Alright, you want the truth?” she asked ominously. He nodded hungrily. “We’re hunting some very bad people.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know,” Admiral Reyes conceded. “But we know that they’re Starfleet or Starfleet adjacent, highly connected, and willing to go to any ends, including torture and murder, to stop us.” The tox panel and the details Morgan and Shafir had shared could be described as nothing but torture, and based on what Commander Lewis had shared from Milan, their enemy had also murdered at least two Starfleet officers there in cold blood.

“To stop us from what?”

“We’re not exactly sure.”

“I don’t understand,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran conceded. How could you so brazenly disregard protocol and trample on rights without understanding why? Lieutenant Krer, who’d become a mere fly on the wall for the heated exchange occurring in his office, looked equally confused.

“When the Lost Fleet returned to the Deneb Sector, did you ever stop to ask yourself why HQ offered no response? That only the Fourth Fleet came to the aid of our people?”

“The fog of war can be disorienting,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran offered as he reached for straws. “Maybe they didn’t have good intelligence about what was happening.” It was the only answer that made sense without assuming foul play. And he wasn’t ready to go there.

“That’s a crock of shit,” Admiral Reyes snapped back. “They had it from Rear Admiral Allard, from Admiral Beckett, from Fleet Admiral Ramar, from our frontline commanders, and from the planetary governors they abandoned! They chose to sit on it and do nothing, to leave our people to suffer and die at the hands of the Jem’Hadar. You saw the results over Nasera, heard the reports from Arriana, Janoor and Izar, and faced the enemy in the Ciatar Nebula.”

“There has to be a reason…” Lieutenant Commander Eidran stammered. He was but a young Executive Officer thrust into the big chair when his Commanding Officer was killed just two months ago so he couldn’t pretend to understand the ways of the Admiralty, but he had to at least assume they had their reasons.

“There is no appropriate reason,” Admiral Reyes stated coldly. She wore the same pips as them, and she understood to her core the responsibility that rested on their shoulders. “They vacated their oath. Plain and simple. An old colleague of mine here on Earth, a retired Rear Admiral, was looking into the matter when she went missing. Her husband is that portly older fellow that’s sitting in our sickbay right now.”

“And that’s the real reason we came to Earth?” Lieutenant Commander Eidran asked as a lightbulb came on in his head. He thought back to when she gave the order, the one to ignore the priority one call for assistance from Farpoint Station as the remainder of the Lost Fleet bore down on it. She’d given them a vague explanation then, but now, if what she was saying was true, it made more sense.

“Exactly.”

“The shootout in Milan… the convict from New Zealand… the crater in Healdsburg… they were all part of your investigation?”

“None of that was supposed to happen,” Admiral Reyes explained. “And, if everything was on the up-and-up, it wouldn’t have. But shit’s not on the up-and-up. Someone here on Earth is very committed to preventing us from finding out what they’re up to.”

Lieutenant Commander Eidran just stood there silently. He was trying to process it all. He didn’t know what to say. The idea of a conspiracy, here at home in the halls of the institution he held in such high regard, was a lot to take in.

The door slid open once more, and Commander Lewis stepped through.

“Any word?” Admiral Reyes asked hopefully. Morgan couldn’t have been right, could he?

“Yep, I spoke with Gérard,” Commander Lewis replied, referencing Captain Devreux, their Executive Officer who’d stayed behind at Nasera with the USS Polaris. “He confirmed that Drake is still aboard the Polaris. He saw him personally just this morning.” The spook looked almost disappointed with the news he had to share. He hated Commander Drake, their JAG officer, and he would have loved it if the shark was actually tied up in this whole conspiracy. In fact, it had almost fit. Drake had worked very hard to get in the way of their work.

“Well, that is good news at least,” Admiral Reyes sighed with relief. As much as Commander Lewis could not stand Commander Drake, she knew Drake as an incorruptible prosecutor, and the insinuation that he could have been involved had shaken even her a bit. “Although that does lend to the question of why Lieutenant Morgan was so sure he was interrogated by Drake.”

“The mind can do funny things when it’s all warped with this stuff,” Dr. Hall replied as she waved the PADD around. “With how aggressively Commander Drake has come at Lieutenant Morgan since Nasera, a transposition of Drake as his interrogator is not unsurprising given the reality distortions Morgan would have been subjected to from these drugs.”

“Allison, maybe you should do something about that,” Commander Lewis scowled at the Admiral. She had the authority. Why wouldn’t she use it? “Imagine if, instead of thinking he was opposite Drake, Morgan could have identified who it was that was actually interrogating him? Drake’s witch hunt is doing real world damage at this point.”

Admiral Reyes disregarded the statement and turned to Dr. Hall. She knew Lewis was just being opportunistic. “Dr. Hall, once Lieutenant Krer has their bloodstreams cleaned up, please spend some time with Lieutenant Morgan and Chief Shafir before you clear them for duty again.”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Hall agreed.

“And Commanders,” Admiral Reyes added, turning to Commander Lewis and Lieutenant Commander Eidran. “I want all Lieutenant Morgan, Chief Shafir and Mark Ellis moved to more discreet accommodations, and a guard posted with each of them. While I’d like to believe we can trust the crew, with Frontier Day just hours away, we’ve got visitors aboard. Best no one knows where they are. I’d rather not lose them again before we get to the bottom of this.”

The insinuation that their own ship might not be secure was lost on no one.