The morning came early for Seraphina Pearce and Thasaz.  Both were slurping their coffee as the fiery sun broke over the horizon.  “It’s a pretty little corner of space,” Thasaz mused as they walked out the kinks from the rough beds they’d bunked in the night previous.  “And yet, they still find a way to make some pretty damn good coffee.”  Pearce agreed.  The beds hadn’t been a surprise.  The coffee was.  She’d asked, and the short answer had been the beans grew in a large field on the other side of the planet, about one hundred yards from the infested forests.  Thasaz continued, “It’s one thing The Syndicate could never figure out – how to take over the coffee harvest.  The animals and plants in the forests were actively hostile to anyone but the original crew.  So, they were allowed to continue.  It’s part of why we’re fighting to save this place.  A corner of space with such a bright spot shouldn’t be burned out just for the hell of it.”

They rounded a corner and continued walking.  Pearce lowered her voice as they left the relative safety of the protected sector, “I heard you were on the Edinburgh.”  

The Romulan smiled as if she’d told a joke but answered, equaling the volume of the security chief, “For a short time.  I came aboard on the Erigone before her.  Commander Harris was a good friend.”  She lapsed into silence as they trudged to the left and down the main drag towards the headquarters building The Syndicate had claimed as their own.  She continued, “It hurt me to hear the news of his death and how he had been taken from us.  I am glad they captured the Devore bastard.  I would have killed him outright.”

They passed a few guards who gave Thasaz the nod.  Pearce asked quietly, “Then how in the hell did you get to be a commander of a Hazard Team?”

A shrug, “Needs must, I suppose.  I was a known quantity, and my ability to…how’d that captain phase it…take to it like a fish to water.  It was an odd phrase and a human one at that, so it made some sense.”

“You almost sound Vulcan.”

Thasaz chuckled at that, “We are two species at opposing ends of each other.  Closer than we know and farther because we know.  Logic and Violence…the tension goes back generations beyond history and understanding.”

It was Pearce’s turn to chuckle, “And that sounds almost human.”

The Romulan mused, “As big as the universe is and as far apart as we pretend we are…we’re closer to each other in means and manners.  It’s been called the Universal truth…or some shit like that.  I’m a science officer, not a philosopher.”  They turned another corner, and she went silent as she read the guard’s positioning, “They look tense.  Your ship must have arrived.  Let’s see how they’re feeling about me today.”

Pearce’s eyes nearly went wide, “I thought you said they trusted you?”

“Have you met The Syndicate?  Trust is an economic factor around here – the value changes on the hour as it’s traded between ears, lips, and hands.  Come on.  Live a little.”

As she stubbornly followed Thasaz, Seraphine muttered, “Or we die a lot.  A lot of dying.”