‘Oh, now you grace me with your presence.’ Lindgren tilted her nose to the ceiling as Thawn slid into the booth across from her.

Thawn’s glare was ruined by suppressing a yawn. ‘I was on a late shift,’ she grumbled, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug of coffee.

‘For five weeks?’

‘What? Oh.’ Thawn rolled her eyes. ‘Are you really indignant that I went away? We’re not even remotely that co-dependent.’

‘No,’ said Lindgren with, at last, a permissive laugh. ‘I just enjoy having something to hold over you.’ She leaned forward. ‘So?’

Thawn gave a groggy blink. Outside the windows of the Safe House, the golds and bronzes of the Mesea Storm raged. A day into their search, they had navigated the plasma field with a cautious, ginger speed, trying to avoid the worst of the ion storms on their approach. It had not taken long for her to miss the stars. Focused work had taken as much of a toll as long hours, so she looked blankly at Lindgren. ‘So? What?’

‘The trip! Nate. The galaxy might be in peril, but I don’t get an update?’

‘Oh.’ Thawn flushed. ‘Is there anything you haven’t figured out?’

Lindgren rolled her eyes. ‘You’re useless. You run away with another man on an adventure to a nomadic culture in a nebula, and have nothing to regale me with when you get back? Do I have to keep going to Ed for gossip?’

‘Ed? Ed Winters? He’s not much of a gossip.’

‘No,’ Lindgren allowed. ‘But Nurse Li is and Ed’s tolerably competent at getting information out of her. Probably because she volunteers it every time they’re on break in Sickbay.’

‘Well.’ Thawn sniffed. ‘I guess you don’t need me catching you up -’

‘Oh come on! What is this with Nate? You two still seem close, but was this, what, some sort of summer fling while you got away from Adamant?’

‘No! Why does everyone think that?’ Thawn set her mug down heavily. ‘Do you really all think I’m going to play him around and then drop him the moment things get hard?’

‘I didn’t mean “play him”; maybe you two had a perfectly well-agreed arrangement of casual fucking…’ Lindgren waggled her eyebrows. ‘I’ll take that as a no. Thank you. That’s all I asked.’

Thawn narrowed her eyes. ‘You really need to start dating again.’

Lindgren raised her mug with a smile of which the Mona Lisa would be proud. ‘Who says I haven’t already?’

‘You can’t -’ Then the ship bucked and sent their drinks flying. Metal creaked, Thawn had to grab hold of the table to not follow the mugs, and a low, deep hum ran through Endeavour as an impact rippled across the hull, across the decks. A heartbeat later, red alert activated. ‘What the…’

Lindgren’s eyes snapped to the windows, where the maelstrom of the plasma field continued to rage. ‘Ion storm,’ she gasped. Around them, crew had been jostled, but nobody looked seriously hurt. The ship had taken a smack, not a serious blow – but it could be the prelude to anything. ‘Let’s go.’

Officers got out of their way, two senior staff members racing to the bridge in a clear Situation. Shepherd was in the centre chair when they arrived and looked relieved to wave them to the front. ‘To your stations. A storm front formed right on top of us, and we’re half-blind already.’

Thawn slid behind Ops as Lindgren relieved Fox at Helm beside her, and saw at once their systems going haywire from interference and the latest impact of ionised particles on the hull. ‘Rerouting power to the lateral sensor array!’

‘This was only a force-4 vibration,’ came the call from Airex. Either he’d been pulling double shifts, or he’d been closer.

‘That’s an intensity we can handle,’ said Shep. ‘But not if we stay in the middle of it and can’t see anything. Elsa, get us out of here!’

‘Not sure what way is out, sir!’ Lindgren warned, hands racing across helm controls. ‘I still need eyes!’

‘I’m working on it,’ said Thawn through gritted teeth.

‘Lindgren; I’m transmitting you a predictive model of the ion storm’s formation,’ Airex called. ‘But it’s based on what little data we had before the storm hit us.’

‘It’s better than nothing,’ said Shep. ‘Elsa, roll with it.’

It was still, Thawn knew, a gamble. If they didn’t have the data on the ion storm to have avoided it in the first instance, Airex would have had to fill in gaps on his predictive model from ion storms forming in other plasma fields, like the Badlands. They knew so little about the Mesea Storm, which meant they didn’t know how it might be different. The deck surged as Endeavour moved under Lindgren’s directions, but then there was another rumbling impact of a wave of ionised particles.

‘I’m trying to break this interference,’ she said, jaw still tight. ‘It’s just not…’ She paused. Defeating a stellar phenomenon’s disruption to their sensors in mere moments was impractical. But there was nothing consistent about an ion storm forming right off their aft. ‘Running a wide-band scan!’

Shepherd stared at her. ‘Why?’

‘Charting for heavy interference. The places we can’t scan? That’s where the storm’s thickest.’ Thawn flung the data across to Lindgren – just as she realised a wave of ionised particles was surging up at them. ‘Brace for -’

The ship bucked. The world spun. Thawn hit the deck hard as emergency lights flickered, and barely managed to catch herself. The spin of the ship was enough to pin her down for thudding heartbeats before she could fight to grab her chair, pull herself back up into the gloom of a chaotic bridge. It was like resurfacing after being dunked into inky black waters.

Behind her, Shepherd was still getting up. ‘Report!’

‘We were hit,’ Thawn creaked unhelpfully as she dragged herself to her controls. ‘That broke through our shields. Hull impacts on decks eight and nine… no breaches.’

‘Casualties?’

‘Still coming in…’ No sign we lost anyone. Not yet. ‘Starboard impulse engines are out…’

Next to her, Lindgren was gathering herself with a groan. ‘Nav sensors are lighting up again. I think that was the ion storm washing over us… looks like the predictive model turned us into its path.’

Thawn looked towards Science, only to realise that Airex wasn’t there – he was flat out on the deck, with Lieutenant Zherul bent over, administering medical assistance. He looked like he’d taken a blow to the head. With a suck of the teeth, she turned back to her post. ‘Minor injuries only, Commander. No losses. Hull is still holding. Looks like it could have been a lot worse.’

The turbolift doors slid open and Valance all but bounded out, upright and intent. ‘Report!’

Shepherd looked beleaguered as she explained. No losses. Minor injuries. Repairable damage. ‘Our engines, though…’

Thawn sighed. ‘Commander Perrek’s getting me a full assessment, but that took the brunt of the impact. He needs to take a look before he can get us underway.’

‘Captain.’ For the first time, Qadir, at Tactical, piped up. ‘Ship approaching on sensors. It’s the Ihhliae. They look undamaged; they must have avoided the storm.’

Kally had scuttled onto the bridge with Valance, and hadn’t yet bothered adjusting the comms officer’s seat. Her chin barely peeked over the controls, but still she turned back. ‘They’re hailing us, Captain!’

‘USS Endeavour – do you need critical assistance?’ This time, Commander Morvith was the one who looked gathered, presentable, her ship untouched by the ion storm that had battered Endeavour.

Valance took a PADD off Shepherd, double-checking their ongoing damage report. She blew her cheeks out after a moment. ‘We’re still taking stock of casualties and the damage,’ she said, and Thawn frowned. There was nothing the Ihhliae could do for Endeavour that they couldn’t do for themselves in this condition.

Morvith cocked her head at something she read off-screen. ‘You seem to have it covered,’ she said after a moment, sharing Thawn’s assessment. ‘Unless your medical teams need more support, we won’t get underfoot.’

A muscle worked in the corner of Valance’s jaw. ‘Thank you for your concern, Commander.’

‘Of course. You’d do the same for us. We’ll see you outside the storm. Ihhliae out.’

Oh, Thawn thought. The captain was trying to delay them. Now they’ll –

‘They’re back underway,’ sighed Shepherd. ‘Chasing the signal while we’re beached for repair for God knows how long.’

‘My apologies,’ groaned Airex, only just back on his feet. Zherul was still running a medical tricorder over him. ‘It looks like my predictive model lacked key information.’

‘You think?’ Shepherd asked him, wry rather than accusing.

He still gave her a flicker of a glare. ‘Now the ion storm’s subsiding, I’m detecting subspace fractures in this area. Our sensors couldn’t pick them up through the storm. But it seems to have affected the formation and direction of those ion waves. That’s why my calculations were off.’

Thawn looked back at him. ‘That’s not normal for a plasma field like this.’

‘We’re not sure what’s normal for a plasma field like this,’ Airex pointed out, ‘but I agree it was not anticipated.’

Her throat tightened as her mind raced. ‘The transwarp conduit?’

‘It’s possible.’

Valance looked between them. ‘We think its collapse damaged subspace in the area and rendered the plasma field more unpredictable?’

‘Again, it’s possible,’ sighed Airex.

‘This is what we get,’ said Valance, eyes returning to the viewscreen, ‘for coming so far out into the unknown while this is the Republic’s backyard.’ She shook her head. ‘We need to be underway ASAP. Thawn, keep me appraised of damage reports, especially from Perrek. Get Cortez’s team down to join him if necessary.’

‘Of course, Captain,’ Thawn said, looking back at her station. ‘Wait -’ Everyone did. Then, as soon as she’d seen it, it was gone – a momentary surge in Endeavour’s computer processing and power output. For a heartbeat, she’d thought it was the systems responding to another wave of ionised particles, but even without the lack of an impact on the ship, it didn’t match.

‘Lieutenant?’ said Valance after a beat.

‘…nothing.’ Thawn blinked. ‘Sorry, Captain. I’ll keep you appraised.’

Whatever it was, it didn’t affect their need to get back on their feet. She could look at it later, and Kally hadn’t said anything, after all. That was what really mattered, Thawn thought, because for all the world, it looked like Endeavour had just used a high-power subspace frequency to create a secure data tunnel for a transmission.

But it wasn’t her job to worry about that – Endeavour had to get back on her feet to win this race. Besides, nobody aboard should have been able to do that from outside the bridge. And certainly not without being noticed. And even if they could – why would they?