Of all the people Thais would have picked for an impromptu away mission, the Resolute’s chief science officer, Lieutenant Allen, was not one of them. The guy was… well, a little odd. 

Tall and lean, he wore his uniform like a rumpled afterthought, and his blond hair was a mess of spikes that looked like he’d run his hands through it. It wasn’t the deliberate bedhead sort of look their playboy of a captain would have gone for, but more absent minded. 

And… he was late. 

Thais didn’t like late. He liked precise.

“Glad you could join me, Lieutenant,” Thais said, his voice level and neutral as he checked over his weaponry. Given the nature of the situation, and with the Borg involvement, the captain had authorised personal weaponry. 

Well, that wasn’t technically true. He’d frowned and been about to say no, so Thais had smiled. He didn’t do charm often, but he wasn’t above using every advantage he had, something Mason had taught him. Smiling at the captain had seemed to lock RJ’s brain out for a second or two, which was, of course, his in to ask about personal weaponry. 

“You’re welcome, boss,” Allen quipped, dropping into the co-pilot’s seat next to him. “The captain said we’re headed to a ghost ship.”

Thais slid him a sideways glance. “A dead ship. I don’t believe in ghosts.” 

“Dead. Ghosts.” Quinn shrugged, the lights from the console in front of him playing over a face full of hard angles and dark stubble. “Same difference to those who can see.”

Thais’s eyebrow flickered up a fraction. Okay, Quinn was not just a little odd. He was very odd. 

“Are you locked and loaded?” he asked, noting Allen carried a standard issue phaser, holstered. 

Allen blinked at him, then looked down at the phaser like he’d never seen it before in his life. “Ah… yeah, you could say that.” 

Thais managed a tight smile. Great. Typical science officer. Wouldn’t know a weapon from his arse or his elbow. He’d probably shoot his own damn foot off the first time he used that thing.

“Okay, when we get in there stick close,” he ordered, closing the loading doors of the shuttle and bringing the engines online. The shuttlebay doors were already opening in front of them. “We’re heading over to the Robert Walton, it’s a—“

“Science vessel,” Allen butted in, lounging back in his chair. The movement reminded Thais of the captain, but where RJ’s lounge was practically a sexual harassment charge waiting to happen, Quinn’s was more disaffected teenager. “It’s registered to Professor Victor Henries. He’s a specialist in Mendelian Genetic Pathology.” 

Thais looked at Allen sharply. Initially it had looked like he’d rolled in after a hard night’s drinking, but now Thais looked more closely, he saw the sharp intelligence in the man’s eyes. 

That wasn’t unexpected for a science officer, it was a hard field of study. But the Resolute was set up for combat rather than scientific exploration, so it wasn’t a prime assignment by any stretch of the imagination. There were only two types of science officer that would end up here; young and up and coming, or washed out. 

And Allen wasn’t young. 

“Layman’s terms,” he ordered in a low voice. “Unless we’re talking the thermo-dynamtics and other properties of things of an explosive nature, then I’m all out at sea.” 

“MGP is a field of study concerned with genetic inheritance,” Allen swiveled the chair around, leaning on the arm. “Specifically genetically inherited conditions. I had no idea Professor Henries was out here in this area of space. If I’d known, I would have contacted him. His work on Stavoris syndrome was ground-breaking in its time.” 

“Stavoris syndrome?” 

Allen nodded. “Nasty little buggar of a condition. Attacks the pulmonary and cardiovascular system. It’s like stoneman syndrome, but for the internal organs. Bloody nasty way to die.”

Thais grunted in the back of his throat, concentrating on piloting the shuttle out through the doors and getting them clear of the ship. Their target was floating in space just on the edge of the system, so it wouldn’t take them long to get there. 

“Is that a human thing?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Allen shrugged one shoulder. “No reason you should have. Given the size of you, you ain’t human.” 

Thais inclined his head. “Good guess. I’m llanarian. But my wife is human. Is this Stavoris thing something that could affect her?”

He had Allen’s full attention now. “Depends how old she is. I mean, I ain’t one to ask a lady’s age and all that. But, if she’s over mid-thirties then no… you need the gene mutation from both parents, and life expectancy is late twenties, early thirties. You get a few more years with gene therapy if you’re lucky. But, if no signs by the big three-oh, then she’s good.”

Relief flooded Thais. His species were as hardy as hull plating, and had very few diseases that affected them. He’d been horrified at the sheer number of things that could affect humans, and worried about Mads a lot. Of the two people he was married to, he definitely worried about her the most. 

“So this Professor, he specializes in gene diseases?” he asked. “Then why isn’t he in a lab somewhere, instead of out here in the middle of nowhere?”