‘Nice digs.’ The Crow called Galen padded through the airlock with his hand on his phaser pistol. ‘Good to know the Feds travel in comfort.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kharth. ‘It’s incredible what can happen if you don’t choose to live in a shithole pretending it’s the moral high ground.’

Gale paused at the threshold between his ship and the Excalibur, the two ships docked in a gentle orbit of this pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere in Synnef. He looked at Lindgren. ‘I can give free info to someone else, you know…’

‘Nothing’s free,’ scoffed Kharth.

‘Okay!’ Lindgren raised her hands. ‘Can we try this again? Hi, Gale. Good to see you. Thanks for getting in touch.’

The Crow gave a theatrical bow. ‘And thank you, Elsa, for responding. Any chance of some hospitality?’

Kharth looked at Beckett, Beckett looked indignantly back at her, Logan stared at the ceiling, and Lindgren gave another sound of frustration. ‘How about we all go up to the lounge and sit there? And I’ll get the drinks.’

‘I want the most exotic thing your replicator does,’ said Gale as he amiably followed up the steps.

‘There’s this one great drink – it’s called an Arrest Warrant,’ grumbled Kharth. Lindgren gave her a sharp look, but the XO’s gaze was inscrutable. If this was a deliberate negotiation tactic, Kharth wasn’t giving anything away even to her own side.

‘I’ll sort the drinks,’ said Logan as they reached the top of the stairs, nudging Lindgren in a reassuring way. ‘Let’s talk, Gale – do I get to call you Gale?’

‘Don’t really care what you call me, Tin Man,’ said Gale, pulling up a chair around the circular table of the Excalibur’s lounge. ‘We going to talk business or flirt all day?’

Kharth sat opposite him and shrugged. ‘You asked for this meeting.’

‘Yeah. ‘Cos there’s things going on I think we both care about.’ Gale swept a hand across the air. ‘Borg.’

Kharth’s eyebrows hit her hairline. ‘We’ve noticed. Is that all?’

‘Oh, so you know all about the Borg tech black market in Synnef? Where it’s operating, who’s doing it, where it’s going? Where they’re getting stuff from?’ Gale went as if to stand up. ‘I guess this was a waste of time -’

‘Gale, please.’ Lindgren sighed. ‘Can we stop the posturing? Everyone? If this is about Borg tech out here, nobody wants that unchecked. Even, I’m figuring, the Three Lost Crows?’

Gale shrugged. ‘Makes us money.’

‘Borg technology,’ said Beckett in a careful, level voice, ‘is a game-changer. If it falls into the hands of your rivals, they can leapfrog you inside a year.’

‘If,’ said Logan, bringing over a tray of steaming mugs of hot drinks, ‘they can make use of it. But the lieutenant’s right; even a small operation can integrate sensor equipment, engine coils, even power conduits to beef up their ships.’

Gale smacked his lips as he examined the drink Logan had put in front of him: a marshmallow-stacked hot chocolate. ‘You figure me for a sweet tooth?’

‘I know treats ain’t exactly a constant in places out here,’ said Logan with a shrug.

Gale grinned. ‘I’ll take it. And your tin man’s right,’ he said to the others with a nod. ‘Which sounds awful bad for you all, too, huh?’

Kharth rolled her eyes. ‘So we have a mutual interest in this black market getting shut down. But let me guess – you’re fine with this stuff ending up in the hands of the Three Lost Crows?’

‘I don’t know; I’m sort of a fan of the status quo, and I don’t reckon you’d help me capitalise quite that shamelessly.’

She tilted her head at him. ‘You don’t want the Orion Syndicate getting their hands on it. Which means it’s easier if nobody has it.’

Gale went stiff at that, and Lindgren smothered a smile. Kharth had indeed lulled him into a false sense of security, her antagonism only inciting him to show his hand further. The XO was not a diplomat, but she knew how to get under people’s skin. The pirate glanced at Lindgren. ‘I never said anything about the Syndicate.’

‘You didn’t,’ Lindgren agreed. ‘Ours wasn’t the only conversation the team had at Sot Thryfar, though.’

‘But thanks,’ said Kharth. ‘We only suspected the Syndicate were getting their fingers into the sector. And the Crows.’

Gale worked his jaw and sighed. ‘Yeah. Alright.’ He sat up and cracked his knuckles. ‘Rator collapsed, and the Syndicate saw their chance. This was a nothing backwater, now it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet for them. And like I said: I’m a fan of the status quo.’

‘You think,’ said Kharth, ‘we’re going to help you kick the Syndicate out?’

‘I think you want to kick the Syndicate out,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And you don’t want them getting Borg tech. And I think that’s more important to you than anything else – than a little outfit like the Crows. So I think, yeah, today, you want to kick the Syndicate in the teeth. And so do I.’

Logan glanced between them. ‘We’ve talked generally. But you ain’t talked specifics.’

‘I’m not giving you ways of shutting down my captains or anything like that,’ Gale warned. ‘But that’s just the symptoms. What if I told you how to take out the disease?’

Kharth scoffed. ‘The disease is the Borg tech itself. We’re working on that.’

‘Alright, alright, Commander Literal.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s go with the heart of the op, then. Shall we?’ At their silence, he grinned and opened his hands. ‘Anything Borg that’s picked up by anyone who wants to work in the Midgard Sector gets handed over to the Syndicate. They strip it down, pull the components they can use, figure out what can be modified. They turn salvage into commodities. All from one place right here, in Synnef. One miserable rock of nothing hidden in the nebula, with a state-of-the-art tech lab sitting right on top of it.’

Logan sat up at that and looked at Kharth. ‘If we drop Endeavour on that…’

She grimaced. ‘Then the salvagers just take their haul elsewhere, surely?’

Gale shook his head. ‘There is nowhere else. Sot Thryfar doesn’t want raw Borg wreckage being brought aboard. Somewhere will come along, for sure. But that’ll take time. But here’s where it gets tricky. How far out’s your ship?’

Kharth met his gaze. ‘I’m not telling you that.’

‘Fine. Point is, in two days, the lab sends out a big shipment. It’ll slip across the Republic border by the nebula, then back into Fed space further rimward, or into the Triangle, or into the Empire. Nowhere good. You took your time getting to me. The lab’s further into the nebula than here. Can your ship get here in time?’

Beckett winced. ‘You’re suggesting we take on their lab with a Waverider.’

‘It’s a secret lab, not a big lab, or a well-guarded lab. Too much activity means anyone can spot it, even in Synnef,’ Gale pointed out. ‘Slip by some local patrols, land on the rock, and you can take out a half-dozen guards; you’re Starfleet.’

Kharth turned to look out the viewport, working her jaw. At length, she said, ‘And what’s in this for you? Seriously.’

‘Seriously?’ He sighed. ‘It sticks a thorn in the side of the Syndicate. Makes them weak. Which weakens their hold on the Midgard Sector, which means me and mine have to listen to them less. Yeah, you’re doing me a favour.’ Gale caught her eye and gave her a wicked grin. ‘I’m the devil you know.’

Unimpressed, Kharth met his gaze. But after a heartbeat, she sighed. ‘You’re not. But the devil I do know is the Syndicate, and I don’t care for that kind of hell.’

Gale met that with a humourless laugh. ‘You choose rightly.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a slim, civilian-design PADD. ‘The coordinates of the lab. Nice doing business with you.’ He put it on the table and slid it over, then stood.

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Lindgren, getting to her feet.

They were alone in the cargo bay before either of them spoke. Gale paused, hands on his hips as he looked at the airlock, then back at her. ‘For all the song and dance this was… thanks.’

‘I told you Starfleet was here to help. And that I’m here to listen. I couldn’t exactly fall flat on my first try, could I?’ She gave him a small, sweet smile she hoped was a little infuriating.

‘You haven’t done anything yet,’ said Gale.

‘And all you’ve done is rat out your colleagues, so be careful with that moral high ground, huh?’

‘Fair play.’ He laughed, then sobered quickly. ‘Be careful with the lab. Especially if it’s just the four of you. I reckon you can take it; they’re relying on secrecy, not heavy defences. But it won’t be easy.’

‘We’ll be fine. Commander Kharth and Commander Logan know their way through a scrape.’ She tilted her head. ‘If it’s so secret, how do you know about it?’

Gale grinned. ‘I got my ways.’ He went from standing to swaggering in an instant as he stepped towards the airlock. ‘Nice chatting, Elsa. Good hunting.’ The airlock hatch slid shut behind him, and then he was gone. Only a minute later, she heard the hiss and felt the rumble of his Kaplan disengaging with the Excalibur, breaking the seal and heading on its way.

‘…could be right out of our depths,’ Logan was saying to the other two as she returned to the lounge. The holo-projector on the table had been activated, and the map of the Synnef Nebula – such as Starfleet knew it, even with Beckett’s additional knowledge – hung between them. There was a decent distance between them and the destination Gale had given them, deeper into the nebula’s depths.

‘You mean,’ said Beckett, ‘just because he says we can handle the guards doesn’t mean we can?’

Logan shook his head. ‘I reckon we can scope a place out, bypass any local patrols by running dark in a place like Synnef – surely you’ve got some Khalagu-learnt tricks up your sleeve on that front – and deal with who’s on the ground. But what do we do when we get there?’

Beckett blinked. ‘Shut down a black market tech lab.’

‘Blow up the equipment?’ said Logan. Beckett nodded. ‘Shoot the guards?’ Another nod, and Logan straightened. ‘Phasers set to kill or to stun?’

‘Ah,’ said Beckett.

Lindgren looked between them. ‘They’ve got to have expertise there. People who know what to do with the Borg tech. If all we do is shut down their equipment, that’s a setback, but it doesn’t ruin their whole operation, does it?’

‘We don’t have space on the Excalibur,’ sighed Beckett, ‘to arrest a whole weapons lab.’

‘And we don’t have time,’ said Lindgren, ‘to wait for Endeavour. I’m not sure we can even signal her from here without tracking back a bit. And we only have two days.’

Beckett shifted. ‘We can’t let that shipment make it into the black market. And we can’t let the Syndicate make off with the knowledge they’ve accrued these past weeks.’

Logan folded his arms across his chest. ‘And we don’t get to blow up a lab and all the people in it. I don’t care what they’ve done.’

Beckett blew out his cheeks. ‘Maybe there’s another ship there we can convert into a jail, truss them up and put them aboard and fly out…’

‘No.’ Kharth had been quiet, her eyes on the map. ‘We’re not taking any of these chances. We’re not tracking back; Endeavour’s out of the question. We’re not making a plan to let these technicians go, or summarily execute them.’ She reached up and traced a finger in an arching line between them and their destination. ‘Can we manage this route in two days?’

Lindgren tilted her head as she calculated. ‘With Nate’s help with our navigational sensors… yes.’

Kharth nodded, and straightened. ‘Then let’s get moving.’