The pain wasn’t so persistent any more. She’d have asked Doctor Winters for more painkillers, but then he might not have cleared her for duty, and that was untenable. So Thawn applied an anaesthetising spray down her throat just after breakfast. The guidance said to take care after use; to not speak too much, too loudly, or sing, due to the risk of causing further straining an injury.

Thawn thought there was little risk of that.

Because they were departing from Gateway, she’d stayed at Rhade’s quarters the night before the mission. When she emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and in uniform, she found him at the breakfast bar, pouring from a steel cafetiere and laying out plates. Her heart fell. ‘I’m meeting Elsa for coffee this morning.’

Rhade hesitated. His expression didn’t shift, but despite her best efforts, she couldn’t miss the sense of his heart dropping. He set the cafetiere down. ‘Then breakfast, at least,’ he said kindly. ‘You should eat something.’

She’d considered a pastry with coffee on the Arcade, but indulged him, pulling up the stool. ‘I don’t have long.’

‘I know.’ But he shifted his weight. ‘I was surprised you accepted this mission. I thought you were taking longer to recover.’

‘Commander Kharth needs me.’

‘If I’d known you were up to it,’ he said after a beat, ‘I would have tried to have a conversation.’

She bit a croissant so she didn’t have to answer at once, looking up at him with dark, guilty eyes. He only met her gaze, and at length, she swallowed and said, ‘Oh?’

His brow furrowed. ‘Please let’s not pretend. Rosara, we’re married – but only by Federation law. There’s still been no ceremony on Betazed. This doesn’t fulfil the arrangement between our Houses.’

‘Are you saying you want us to go to Betazed? Leave will be -’

‘I’m asking,’ he said, with a hint more firmness, ‘if that’s what you want. I was… not at my best when you left for the Pathfinder. We didn’t talk about any of this properly. We almost cancelled the arrangement last year, after the Century Storm, and then you didn’t. I came to Endeavour because I hoped we could get to know each other better, make a more informed decision of our arrangement. Instead, you’ve just seemed more trapped.’

She had another mouthful of croissant. ‘We can’t pretend that you coming aboard didn’t speed up the timetable on our arrangement.’

‘That wasn’t my intention,’ Rhade said, straightening. She believed he was sincere. She just knew that didn’t matter. ‘After… after Blood Dilithium, after Dathan, after losing Tyrell, it would be easy for me to make brash choices. This is too important for that.’

Thawn paused, assembling thoughts. Or, rather, assembling the argument that would get her out of this conversation quicker. ‘What do you want me to say, Adamant? I said we should get married. Now we’re married. If we can arrange leave to go to Betazed, we can do that – at some point our duties allow.’

‘I’ll accept that,’ Rhade said guardedly, ‘if you can explain to me why you broke our agreement a year ago and then returned to it.’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you -’

‘You didn’t hurt me,’ he said, and this time she thought he was lying. But she knew his pain was not the point he was making. ‘But I don’t understand you, Rosara, or what you want. I can make this work. I will be whatever you need in this companionship. But you’ve committed, and still… you seem even further away than ever. This arrangement can be what we both need from it, but that requires us to both be honest, and to both be here.’

‘Well,’ said Thawn after a moment. ‘That does mean we’ll have to have the conversation later. Because I’m about to not be here. I have an assignment, Adamant. And I’m going to be late for Elsa.’

He did not stop her as she left.

Lindgren waited for her at Bean Me Up, the cafe on Gateway’s Arcade, sat in a booth whose bright orange upholstered bench was only not blinding because of the pristine white tables. A frothy-looking coffee sat before her.

‘Don’t try to get a cappuccino,’ Lindgren warned by way of greeting. ‘They gave me this wannabe latte and I nearly started a fight with a barista.’

Thawn gave her a quizzical look but didn’t ask until she’d picked up a much safer-looking flat white and joined her at the booth. ‘Transferring to Command has changed you.’

Other, pricklier members of Endeavour’s crew would have protested. Lindgren proved she hadn’t changed too much with her bashful smile. ‘I got excited by having a real coffee shop on our door. They let me down.’

‘It’s very nice coffee,’ Thawn rasped after a sip.

‘I thought we should make the most of it before we leave. But should you be having hot drinks?’ Lindgren’s gaze flickered from her mug to her neck.

There was no bruise any more. Winters had quietly asked if she’d like him to run the full set of treatments with the dermal regenerator, which she knew he hadn’t been doing for everyone. Plenty of survivors of Frontier Day were going about their business with bruises faded yellow by now. Most of them hadn’t been strangled and left for dead.

Thawn’s eyelashes flickered as she self-consciously pushed hair over her shoulder. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t be going on an expedition to hunt down pirates if I weren’t.’

Lindgren’s gaze was dubious. She glanced about the hustle and bustle of the cafe, full of the morning crowd of Gateway’s residents – mostly Starfleet before the alpha shift. ‘You definitely would,’ she said at last. ‘But forget “fit for duty,” okay. How are you doing?’

Swallowing felt, for a moment, as hard as it had when she’d woken up on a biobed. Thawn fidgeted with her mug while she gathered her thoughts. ‘You’re not going to take “still alive” as an answer, are you?’

‘I do have higher standards than that, yes.’ Lindgren paused. ‘I’m not – this isn’t me trying to push. If you don’t want to talk about this, then we don’t. But… I spoke to Nate.’

Something creaked deep in her chest, and Thawn felt her expression fall. ‘How is he?’

‘Horrified.’ Lindgren studied her expression for a moment. ‘He wanted to know how you are.’

‘Is he… Is he staying away? I didn’t want to crowd him.’

‘It sounds like he doesn’t want to crowd you.’

‘I don’t blame him.’ Thawn’s eyes rose. ‘If that’s what he thinks. I’m not going to have a panic attack and relive it all at the sight of him, I…’ Her mouth snapped shut, further explanation dying as words became unfit for purpose. ‘Is that what he thinks?’

‘It’s what he’s worried about. That’s why he asked me.’

Thawn drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said at last. ‘When we’re back.’

Lindgren grimaced. ‘First,’ she said, finishing her disappointing cappuccino, ‘we have to find the Three Lost Crows.’

‘Kharth! Commander!’

Kharth had heard the initial call, but hoped she could slip onto the turbolift and get away before she had to acknowledge it. But then Jack Logan’s hand was sticking in the door before it shut, and he slipped in after her. The glint in his eye said he knew she’d avoided him.

The lift was unfortunately empty save them, and Kharth cleared her throat as she looked at the ceiling. ‘Shuttlebay Bravo, Deck 126.’

His eyes were on her, but he said nothing for a moment. She heard him get his breath back after jogging to catch up, then he said, ‘Computer, halt turbolift.’

Kharth turned, tense. ‘Commander?’

Logan raised his hands. ‘Okay, we could dance about this for ages, like you’ve avoided me the past couple weeks, but we’re about to work together properly, and I don’t like playing games. We should talk.’

Her jaw tightened. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about.’

‘It’s pretty clear what’s going on. We hooked up when you thought I’d be gone in the morning. Then Valance promoted you and asked me to take Security. Does this have to be awkward?’

‘You’re the one who chased down my turbolift.’

The corners of his eyes creased, pained but darkly amused. ‘And here I thought we’d been getting on. Now you won’t even talk to me?’

Kharth fought to gather words. ‘Commander Logan. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression…’

‘What impression’s that? What do you think I think?’ He spoke calmly, with a hint of indignation but not like he was angry with her. That tone and the direct question were more disarming than she’d expected after a lifetime of being close to people who played games with words and never said what they meant. At her hesitation, he gave a small smile. ‘How about I tell you?’

Wrong-footed, she nodded mutely.

‘I think we get on. I think we both get that this galaxy’s a crapsack place and the best you can do is fight the good fight that’s in front of you. I think we both have complicated relationships with people, but our reasons are real different.’ He straightened, sobering. ‘I think you’d just been through a hell of a time and wanted some sort of escape, but I think it wasn’t just me ‘cos you thought I’d be gone not long after. I think that helped, for sure. But I think the fact we had a connection meant I was, I don’t know. An easier escape route.’

She worked her jaw wordlessly, then managed, ‘I wouldn’t have slept with you if I’d known you were about to be posted to Endeavour.’

‘Can I ask why not?’

Kharth frowned. ‘It’s unprofessional.’

‘It’s surely not unless we fail to be grown-ups about it. So… let’s be grown-ups about it. Was I wrong about your motivations?’

‘…no.’

‘Then do I get to tell you mine?’ At her cautious look, his lips twisted. ‘I thought I’d be shipping out soon. But I like you, and I’d like to get a drink with you sometime. And I know you’re about to bite my head off just for suggesting it, so you note, I’m not asking you out for a drink.’

She frowned, heart thudding in her chest. ‘You’re just saying you’d like to.’

‘Yeah.’ Logan reached for the button on the turbolift controls to start them back up again, then winked at her. ‘Ball’s in your court.’

Kharth didn’t say anything, glaring at the doors until they opened again and let them back into the humming network of Gateway to reach one of the station’s main shuttlebays. It had been a while since she served on a starbase, and the Canopus-class was larger than her old posting. It was easy to forget how cavernous they could be; how this shuttlebay was twice the size of Endeavour’s largest and was not even the starbase’s primary bay. But their chariot awaited them, the sleek figure of the large Arrow-class runabout Vigilance sat in the centre of the bay amid the hustle and bustle of the bay.

Logan gave a low whistle. ‘You don’t see these babies very often.’

‘Captain Rourke – Commodore Rourke – doesn’t want us going into a possibly hostile area under-prepared,’ Kharth said briskly, heading towards it. She was quietly relieved they’d been given a ship as big as the Vigilance; there’d been some discussion of giving them the Starfall, one of Gateway’s Orion-class runabouts – smaller but faster, tough and swift and discreet, and it would have absolutely forced the four-man team to share the two rooms.

‘We’ll still have to run if we hit trouble,’ Logan said, sobering.

Lindgren was already running the pre-flight check when they got aboard and glanced back from the pilot’s seat with a smile. ‘Rosara’s down at the computer core making sure we’ve got the processing power we need for the scans. We can head off at any time, Commander.’

Kharth glanced at the flight controls. ‘You’ve both stowed your gear?’ At Lindgren’s nod, she shrugged. ‘Then take us out as soon as you can. We’ve got to get to Scarix and pick up the trail.’ She looked back at Logan, hovering by the door. ‘You should grab a bunk and get reading, Logan. I want you to brief us on the Three Lost Crows over dinner.’

He looked like he might protest – he’d probably already read everything they had on the pirate group – but then nodded and left. When Kharth went to take the co-pilot’s seat, she caught Lindgren looking at her. ‘What?’

Lindgren faltered. ‘Sorry, Commander. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

Kharth sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.’ She liked Lindgren; it was hard not to like the polite, considerate, thoughtful, and above all, often quiet young officer. ‘This mission could get… complicated, that’s all.’

‘We’re both doing new things,’ Lindgren said, with more insight than Kharth necessarily appreciated. Then she smiled. ‘But I was just thinking, Commander: we both look pretty good in red.’

Despite herself – despite her tension at her new responsibility, despite the possibility they were racing into a new lion’s den, despite the proximity of Logan and all her anxieties surrounding their new security chief – Kharth couldn’t help but sit back in her chair, watch as Lindgren eased the Vigilance out into space, and smile.