They dropped out of warp to find a graveyard. Shattered emerald and obsidian littered the viewscreen, but Endeavour’s sensors warned the wreckage of the Borg Cube stretched further than the eye could see.

‘Scans suggest about thirty percent of the Cube exited transwarp here,’ Airex summarised after a moment.

‘At least it isn’t all in one piece,’ said Shepherd.

Valance was on her feet and looked back at Airex. ‘Power signatures?’

‘Some,’ he said, and gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Nothing very powerful, nothing moving. I confess I’m not an expert in Borg operations.’

‘What matters are the drones,’ said Logan. He sat facing the viewscreen, but one hand rested at the rim of the tactical controls. His face was stony. ‘The good news is that the hull breaking up will have killed most of them. But if any of the destroyed sections didn’t lose containment or have power for emergency forcefields, those drones will be trying to restore operations. How bad that is depends on what systems they’ve got to hand.’

Valance nodded. ‘Life-signs, Airex?’

‘You won’t get anything reliable,’ Logan butted in. ‘Our sensors often don’t pick up drones. Anything they do pick up might be from nothing – an artificial heart still pumping in an incapacitated drone will register as a life sign on our sensors.’

Kharth leaned towards her. ‘Redemption’s been over this,’ she reminded.

Valance’s lips twisted. ‘Of course.’ Her eyes fell to the sensor reading of the Sovereign-class, still and poised and ready for action, crouched before the main body of the wreckage in the centre of the system. ‘Signal the Redemption, Kally.’

‘You got it, Captain!’ Kally’s voice sounded a little too chirpy. Everyone dealt with the looming Borg in their own way. A moment later, she looked back up. ‘Commodore Rourke is asking to come aboard to brief senior staff.’

Valance was not surprised to see the transporters log four people coming over from the Redemption. Beckett and Thawn had rendezvoused at Lockney, after all, and so when they trooped into the conference room behind Rourke, not even back in uniform yet, she nodded a polite greeting. But it was not Captain Daragon of the Redemption who took up the rear, nor was it Commander Harrian, strategic operations officer for the squadron. It was Isa Cortez, who gave a sheepish wave of greeting to her old crew and managed the impressive feat of not quite looking at Valance without appearing to blank her.

‘I brought wayward strays,’ Rourke said by way of greeting, though he had the good grace to look apologetic about Cortez as he approached Valance. He still gestured to Beckett and Thawn. ‘The Borg interrupted their holiday.’

‘Our important political and anthropological undertaking!’ Beckett protested. He, too, sounded a little strained, a little forced in his ebullience.

‘It shows our success,’ Thawn cut in, ‘that the Khalagu came across something this dangerous and entrusted it to Starfleet. They want us to deal with the situation.’

‘It’s the Borg,’ Kharth said bluntly. ‘Norms go out the window.’ Valance cast her a sharp look, and she worked her jaw. ‘I mean, good work. Welcome back.’

‘On that warming note,’ sighed Rourke, ushering everyone to seats, ‘let me bring you up to speed.’ It felt, just for a moment, like old times. Valance realised they hadn’t all been in a room together like this in half a year, scattered to the four winds and brought back together under only the most extreme of circumstances. The bittersweet taste of that thought still brought strength. This was a team that had faced worse, surely, and emerged victorious.

The squadron leader advanced to the main display and brought the operational map of the Midgard Sector up. ‘Approximately forty-eight hours ago, the USS Ranger picked up a transwarp signature at the Zephral system. As you know, it turned out to be a transwarp conduit in the process of collapse. A Borg Cube has been destroyed, but the nature of the conduit’s collapse has strewn its wreckage across the sector. Lockney appears to be where the conduit collapsed completely, and where the largest mass of the destroyed Cube exited transwarp, but as you can see, this gives us a stretch tens of light-years long for all manner of debris to have been ejected.’ He swept a hand from the top of the map, showing the rimward trajectory of the collapsing conduit.

Cortez leaned forward, any bashfulness fading in the face of business. ‘I’ve brought my SCE Unit up along with the Redemption for our initial assessment of the wreck. So far, I think this Cube’s lost too many vital systems to be a danger. We’ve not come across a single active drone, and we’re in the process of securing and disabling power signatures. But that’ll need to happen…’ She gave a vague gesture. ‘Everywhere. Everywhere there’s tech.’

Valance looked from her to Rourke. ‘Endeavour’s ready to locate, disable, and retrieve the remains of the Cube, sir.’

But he shook his head. ‘That’s not your job. That’s Swiftsure’s job, with the Tempest running backup. Ranger is holding fast at Zephral; we want a full analysis of the initial point of the conduit’s collapse.’

‘We’re still not sure why this has happened, after all,’ said Cortez. ‘We don’t know if the Cube malfunctioned or the conduit collapsed first. What we’ve recovered of their computer records isn’t giving us that. But they did give us something.’ She hopped to her feet now, going to take over the screen. ‘This Cube was on a Priority 004 mission.’

Logan barely moved, but Valance thought she saw the xB pale. ‘Zero-zero-four. That’s a critical operation. Barely shy of Collective-wide emergencies.’ He frowned at Cortez. ‘How did you get that out of the computer core so quick? Starfleet doesn’t have those decryption protocols.’

‘Enter the wayward wanderers,’ Beckett said, leaning forward. ‘Because we picked up a thing.’

Thawn rolled her eyes. ‘We picked up what appears to be a Borg Assimilation Interface Probe. Our records say it’s designed so the Borg can directly interface with alien computer systems, facilitating intelligence gathering and assimilation. But that means it’s also designed to interface with Borg systems. We’ve been using it to access the Cube’s computer records.’

‘Only, the records are damaged and incomplete,’ sighed Cortez. ‘On account of that whole “blowing up” thing.’

‘Which means,’ Rourke said, in that tone which made it clear he was taking the briefing over again, ‘we know this Cube was on a critical mission, but we don’t know what that mission was or where it was going. Which is where Endeavour comes in. Cubes have extensive system redundancies. Swiftsure and Tempest will be hoovering up Borg wreckage closer to the border, which is where the bulk of it appears to be by initial scans. If they find anything which appears to have sections of the primary or secondary computer systems, they’ll flag it up. But some of it’s going to be further afield. Take the AIP with you. Hunt down remains of this Cube. And find out what it was up to.’

‘We’re using the AIP.’ Logan’s voice was tight.

‘I’ve figured out how it works, sir,’ Thawn assured him a little primly.

‘And I’ve used it,’ Cortez added.

‘Using it once is one thing. Making it our mission?’ Logan shifted to look at Valance and Rourke. ‘Sirs, I gotta advise against that. We connect it once to their systems, sure, maybe it pulls info for us. More than that? If the AIP is usable, it’s Borg tech. It adapts.’

‘It pulls information,’ said Cortez, leaning forward. Valance thought she caught a flicker of irritation that Logan was addressing the two non-engineer command officers instead of her, the expert. ‘I’m monitoring it the whole time it’s active and can shut it down the moment it does anything other than extract data and run the decryption programme – that’s all it’s designed to do -’

‘Apologies, Commander, but I don’t need you to explain Borg technology to me -’

Neither of them were snapping, exactly, but Valance raised a hand as the air shifted between them. ‘I know Commander Perrek and Lieutenant Thawn will only use this equipment with the utmost caution. We’re not going to be rash about it.’

Cortez cleared her throat, finally a little awkward. ‘Actually, Captain, Commodore Rourke asked me to ride shotgun on this mission with my team,’ she said, and glanced across to her successor, Commander Perrek. ‘No offence, Commander, but you’ve not got the experience with Borg technology. My old team at San Fran helped develop some of the systems that ended up in the Sagan-class.’

Perrek, of course, merely raised his hands in an amiable fashion. ‘No offence taken. Happy to have another expert on the team. You can come tell me how I’ve messed up your old engine room any time.’

Valance found Rourke catch her eye and was just grateful he didn’t openly ask if this was a problem. She, of course, gave the slightest of nods. ‘Of course, Commander, we’ll give you everything you need,’ she told Cortez a little tonelessly. ‘Make use of Endeavour’s facilities and crew.’

Cortez gave a measured smile. ‘Thank you, Captain. I’ve already borrowed a lot of Thawn’s brain, as per usual. I’ll be happy for your team’s help – Airex, you know I can always use your thoughts. Commander Logan, I’d like to work with you, too.’

Logan had been stiff since the exchange and only gave a terse nod. ‘Of course.’

Valance looked to Beckett and Thawn. ‘I assume this is your expedition over? Welcome back.’

Rourke straightened his jacket. ‘If that’s all, I’ll head back to the Redemption. This is going to be our field command post for this operation, and Redemption will take care of the wreckage here.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘A chunk of something landed on the fourth planet. There’s a pre-warp civilisation there. Captain Daragon and his crew are having a time.’

‘I don’t miss those days,’ mused Beckett.

Rourke looked them all over. ‘I’m trusting Endeavour with this because you’re my eyes and ears in the deepest part of the sector. We don’t just need to know what this Cube was up to – we can’t leave Borg technology out there. At best, it’s disabled and it falls into the wrong hands. At worst… you know the drill.’ He shook his head. ‘Good hunting.’

Cortez looked to the staff as Rourke left. ‘Redemption will go over the debris in the system with a fine tooth-comb, but there’s one signal in one of the secondary debris fields I’d like us to check out.’

‘We’ll start there.’ Valance stood. ‘Commander Kharth, help the SCE Unit get settled aboard and then facilitate that investigation. Commander Shepherd, monitor the squadron-wide reports for sign of our next heading. Dismissed, everyone – Beckett, Thawn, stay behind.’

The two young officers looked a little anxious as everyone bustled out, and Valance knew she was making them worry more than she intended by keeping intense eye contact with them so she didn’t have to look at Cortez leave.

Thawn squirmed in her seat. ‘Sorry we’re out of uniform, Captain -’

‘It’s fine. You’re ready to return to bridge duty, Lieutenant?’ At Thawn’s nod, Valance straightened. ‘Good. Commander Shepherd is now SOTW; she oversees bridge departments. Report back to duty ASAP. Dismissed.’

The glance Thawn exchanged with Beckett told her volumes, and the young man looked even more uncomfortable as she left the two of them alone.

Valance raised her eyebrows. ‘Relax. I said we’d talk about your future once you were back.’

He winced. ‘This isn’t what anyone had in mind.’

‘No. But it makes this easier. Because it solidifies what I need from you.’ Valance leaned forward. ‘I’m making you Chief Intelligence Officer. Permanently.’

Beckett’s jaw dropped. ‘You really can’t find a more experienced analyst than me?’

‘The short answer? No, not after Frontier Day. Everyone died, Beckett. Young officers have to step up everywhere. The long answer is that you’re selling yourself short. You have exactly the skillset to do what I’m going to desperately need these next few weeks: finding and analysing a vast range of information from across the sector and the squadron to figure out what this crew needs to know to do their job.’

‘I don’t -’

‘You can take it,’ said Valance more coolly, ‘or you can report to Commodore Rourke for reassignment. I’m not having you sitting on my ship kicking yourself.’

Beckett swallowed. Then he said, ‘I have one condition.’

Valance’s eyebrows hit her hairline. Her voice dropped to levels that would make an Andorian shiver. ‘Go on.’

But he only gave a sunny smile in response. ‘I get to be one of those Intel officers who wears red, not gold. Gold washes out my complexion.’

Valance sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, Captain?’

‘Get out.’