‘We should have brought Rosara or Cortez,’ grumbled Beckett as he peered at the object inside the containment field in the Excalibur’s cargo bay.

Kharth grunted, arms folded over her chest. ‘Your girlfriend’s not here. Do your best.’

‘Your girlfriend’s not here, you do your best,’ Beckett muttered. Then he froze as if he’d not realised he’d said that aloud.

Before Kharth could figure out what hell to unleash on him, Harrian chuckled. ‘He’s got you there.’ He nodded to Beckett. ‘I’ve seen all the same reports you have, Lieutenant. It looks about right.’

‘We’re talking about a Borg data processing node. There’s not much “about” here.’ Beckett sighed and straightened. The arrival of the Tempest had stopped the Syndicate both staging a counter-attack or escaping, the scout disabling the ships before Harrian had sent boarding parties there and to the surface. Now the Orions were languishing in the Rhode Island-class’s brig, the devices in the lab were in the cargo bay, and they’d gone over it with a fine tooth comb before identifying one device, labelled as arriving at the system only days previously, as possibly of use to Endeavour’s mission.

‘At worst,’ said Harrian, ‘it’s a gift for the team at Lockney.’ He turned back to Kharth. ‘I should get the Tempest out of here. I don’t love hauling all of this gear back to Gateway, but I need to get our new detainees off the block ASAP.’

‘The Orions were tinkering with this stuff, getting it ready to move, and it did nothing. Call Redemption if something wakes up.’ Kharth straightened. ‘Thanks for the save, Commander. This would have been messy without you.’

‘Any time. But you’re the one who threaded the needle on getting in comms range and still getting here in time. I’ll make sure the commodore knows.’ Harrian smiled at her, she couldn’t bring herself to make a sarcastic comment about earning Rourke’s approval. The Bajoran was just too damned likeable.

She let him leave, beaming back to the Tempest, and looked at Beckett. ‘It’s what we’ve got. And at worst, we shut down that operation.’

‘Oh, it’s all in a day’s work, Commander.’ Beckett straightened. ‘You’re just not going to be mocked if we’ve brought them back a hunk of junk.’

‘…not by my girlfriend?’ Kharth deadpanned.

‘I -’

‘Let’s get going. We need to get out of the damn nebula before we can even tell where Endeavour even is.’ She glanced up towards the rest of the runabout. ‘Is Logan still in the bunkroom?’

‘Uh. Yes.’ Beckett shifted his feet. ‘It’s fine. I don’t need to sleep. Ever.’

Kharth hesitated. Then sighed. ‘Go tell Lindgren to get us underway. I’ll check in.’

Beckett’s relief was palpable, the young man practically evaporating once given permission to leave. She’d hoped he’d put up a pretense of objecting and give her more time to procrastinate, but then she was alone in the cargo bay with the hunk of Borg wreckage.

It didn’t look like much. They’d pulled the power sources, with the Tempest’s Commander Far double-checking there were no backups to activate homing signals. The Orions themselves had taken measures to avoid bringing the wrath of the Borg down upon them. All they were left with now was a dull, obsidian-black chunk of metal. If activated, emerald lights would crackle across it like a spider’s web, belying its origins, but for now, it was plain and dead. She hoped it stayed that way.

The second bunkroom on the Excalibur was equally dim and still. Even the faint rumbling of the runabout getting underway, its progress through the nebula far from smooth, could not break the silent tension as Kharth stepped through the door. ‘Logan? Can I turn on a light?’

A shadow moved on far lower bunk, and with a groan, Jack Logan swung his feet over and sat up. ‘You don’t knock?’ he grumbled.

‘Beckett said he didn’t want to come in here. I figured you weren’t asleep.’ She turned on a dim light anyway. He looked pale and tired.

‘Maybe I’m just scaring him in his sleep.’ He scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘I… apologise for the outburst down there.’

Kharth leaned against the bulkhead and folded her arms. ‘You apologising is the least of my concerns. I should apologise for not letting you melt her head off.’

‘It wouldn’t have helped.’ Logan sat hunched over, arms on his knees, and stared at the deck. ‘But go on, then.’

‘What?’

‘Say your piece. Whatever way you’ve gotta slice it.’

She squinted. ‘Do you think I’m in here to chastise you?’

‘Your security chief lost his cool an’ attacked a suspect on an away mission…’

‘In the sort of incident I report to the counsellor. Not to Valance. Logan, I came in here to check if you’re okay.’

He looked up at that, startled. Then his expression fell. ‘I don’t like gettin’ angry,’ he said at length. ‘But down there, it were like my only options were that or folding in two.’

‘I get that.’ She advanced to the small desk chair and sat, turning it to face him. ‘I’m sorry we found… what we did. I’m sorry this was news. I’m sorry we weren’t there sooner.’

‘…you do get it, sorta, don’t you,’ he mused, gaze dropping again. ‘Show the wrong emotions. Too much, too little. An’ all you do is prove to folks that you’re not people, that you don’t feel like they do. Is that it for a Romulan? Can’t be too cold, or they think you’re lyin’ to them?’

Kharth’s throat tensed. ‘Or show too much emotion, too much anger, and all they see is the ragged little refugee girl. And they act like I was raised by wolves.’ Her voice came out quiet, awkward, voicing thoughts and apprehensions she normally didn’t give much space to. ‘I just… did it anyway. Let them think what they wanted. Fought hard and proved them wrong.’ She shifted again. ‘I won’t pretend that would work for you.’

‘Folks at least feel sorry for you.’ Logan didn’t sound resentful but was certainly clear on the differences between them. ‘I got a tightrope to walk. Let anger win, an’ I’m a danger. Control myself, an’ they think I’m… inhuman. So it’s smiles and laughs and bein’ as unthreatenin’ as possible, as human as possible, only it’s not…’

‘Hey.’ She could see him spiralling and, against her instincts, brought a hand to his arm. Contact levelled him, levelled them both. ‘We’re not done getting the people who did this. This was just stage one. When this mission is over? We’re going after the whole damn outfit.’

‘That’s just retribution.’ He looked up, gaze clouded. ‘This happened – they could find xBs, catch xBs, drag them off the streets and out of their homes, because of who they were. Because folks let them. Including Starfleet.’ Logan drew a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Tell me again how it’s all the same now since Frontier Day.’

Her gut twisted. ‘My homeworld was destroyed, and the galaxy sat on their hands and watched it happen and said, quietly and out loud, “they had it coming.” So yeah, I do know a little bit what it’s like.’ But her shoulders dropped. ‘It’s not the same. I’ve read the reports. XBs gunned down in the middle of the road and nobody doing anything.’

‘They won’t think I’m the same as all those kids from Frontier Day,’ Logan sighed. ‘They’ll look at me and go, “Thank God, my kids ain’t like him.” You look at, I don’t know, Beckett, and you don’t know, on sight, what he’s been through. Done.’ But he waved a hand, pulling away from her touch in the motion. ‘I hate self-pity. I didn’t come in here to belly-ache it at you.’

‘No, you came in to be on your own. And you hate being on your own.’ He looked up, visibly startled, and she gave a wry smile. ‘I’m not a people-person. It doesn’t mean I can’t read people. And I’m not trying to say we’re the same, we’re both as miserable and wretched, because you’re right – I wouldn’t swap places with you.’

His eyes were on her, clearing and growing warmer as she spoke. At length he mumbled, ‘What are you saying?’

She shifted her weight. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. It sucks. The galaxy’s a shit place that doesn’t give a shit. There is no cosmic justice, no greater balance. No power that rights wrongs. Crap things happen to good people, and we often can’t stop it.’

His lips twitched. ‘An’ you were telling me off for peddling hopelessness.’

‘Because that all means the only thing we can control is us, and the situation in front of us, and what we do. To hell with the rest. We can’t impact that.’ She drew an apprehensive breath. ‘I’m saying… you’re not alone.’

His gaze flickered. ‘I hear you. An’ I appreciate that. But when I was stood in that… slaughterhouse? I really was alone. ‘Cos it’s just one more time. One more reminder. No matter what I do, no matter who I am. I can’t get back what… what they took from me.’

‘No,’ Kharth allowed. ‘But we can stop it from happening to more people. What happened to you, and what happened to them.’ She nodded at the deck as if the lab was beneath them still. ‘And you’re not in that room right now.’

‘I’m not,’ he breathed, and all of a sudden, she was aware of how close they were, sat together in this tight bunkroom in the dim lighting. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. Thought you were avoiding me.’

You’re on my team, she almost said. But in the quiet closeness, it was too transparent a lie, even for her. Instead, she said quietly, ‘No. Not today,’ and let that be enough as they sat in the gloom together, alone and yet not, not fully, alone.