“Do you ever think we’re going around in circles?” RJ mused, lounging in his command chair and staring out of the front view screen. The Resolute had been on patrol for what seemed like forever, but they hadn’t picked up hide nor hair of these borg signals that had everyone’s knickers in a twist. 

His XO turned his head slightly to look at him. 

“Given the pips on your collar and the fact that you’re an academy graduate, I’m fairly sure that’s a rhetorical question,” Thane replied, without so much as batting an eyelid.

“Yeah, yeah… I’m familiar with how star charts and navigation systems work,” RJ sighed, waving dismissively. He’d been born in space and been piloting one of the families transporters since he was old enough to reach the pedals, so he could read a starchart and set a nav system upside down, back to front, while naked and drunk (the last two he actually had evidence of). “It’s just… boring as fuck.”

Thane just grunted in the back of his throat and went back to the padd he was flicking through reports on. 

RJ watched him for a moment. He still hadn’t worked the guy out. Tall and heavily muscled, he was handsome as hell, with a ‘touch me not’ aura about him RJ had only ever seen on one other person. Another llanarian… Raan Mason, the former CO of the Resolute.  But since Thane and Mason were related somehow, that made sense. Perhaps it was a family thing. 

“Were you in range of the signal on Frontier Day?” he asked in a undertone. It was partly out of curiosity, and partly because he really needed to know. If they came up against the borg again, he needed to be confident that his XO had his back and wouldn’t fold. 

Thane looked up from his padd again. He didn’t speak much, and smiled less. In fact, if he hadn’t seen the guy with his son, and caught him speaking to his wife, RJ would have doubted he actually knew how to do anything other than glower. 

“Yes. My ship was in range.”

O…kay. That meant Thane had gone up against assimilated crew. His gaze was steady, his expression closed but with none of the haunted look RJ saw on others. Then he remembered Thane’s planet had been at war. 

“You’re a veteran, aren’t you? Like Mason?” he asked and Thane shrugged. 

“Yes, and no. Ra—Mason was a lot higher up the food chain than I was,” Thane replied. “I was just a weapons sergeant.”

“You saw action though?” RJ guessed, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before. Thane held himself the same way as Mason did, although was perhaps even more reserved. 

Thane nodded. “I won’t hesitate to do what needs to be done, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

RJ inclined his head. “As long as that includes me. Should the worst happen of course.”

A flicker of a smile crossed Thane’s face. If RJ hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed it. It was nothing more than a slight crinkling of the skin around Thane’s eyes and a glimmer of movement at the corner of his full lips. 

“Would you like to define ‘the worst’ case scenario?” Thane asked, his deep voice a burr. “Just so I’m clear on the criteria here. Are we talking about assimilation, or just your choice of sleeping partner?”

RJ chuckled, not at all offended. Obviously the ship grapevine was working perfectly. “So you do have a sense of humour. Good to know.”

“Sir,” an ensign called out from the comms console, breaking into their conversation. “You wanted to know if I picked up anything unusual. Well… I think I have something.”

RJ sat up, every trace of the charming joker put aside as he looked at the ensign. “Thank you, Ensign Howell… what do you have?”

The ensign turned in his chair, a frown on his face. He was one of the younger crew, but transferred in after the events of Frontier Day. RJ wondered where he’d been assigned previously, and whether he’d been affected by the signal. It was a constantly recurring thought; who had been affected and how? Could he trust half the crew when in the back of their minds they didn’t trust the other half?

“Well, it’s not much,” the ensign replied. “But there are several reports of ships not making their scheduled stops or not reporting in when they were supposed to.”

“Starfleet ships?” he asked, leaning back and casually crossing his legs, one ankle on the opposite knee. 

Howell shook his head. “No, these are civilian ships and transports.”

RJ inclined his head, his thoughts instantly going to his sister, but she was over the other side of the quadrant, on the Morgana. “Could be nothing more than coincidence.”

“I would say that, but for all the ships, their listed flight paths took them through the same system.”

RJ rubbed his chin. “So two coincidences. Radio silence and the same location.” He tilted his head and looked at Thane. “What do you think, number one?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.” Thane slid him a glance. “We should check it out. Besides, perhaps it will stop you thinking we’re going in circles.”