‘They’ve got a targeting lock on us,’ Kharth called.

‘Taking evasive!’ The Excalibur swung around as Borg weapons fire flashed what felt like inches away from the canopy.

Beckett felt his chest ease at Lindgren’s piloting, but still, his hammering of the sensor controls yielded no results. ‘I still can’t break through the interference of their shields.’

‘You mean we have to go even closer?’ Lindgren yelped.

‘What the…’ Airex gasped. ‘The Diamond’s dropped its containment field around the core. They’re suffering a major coolant leak – losing antimatter containment…’

‘Did Endeavour hit it?’ said Kharth.

‘No, this looks like a systems malfunction,’ said Airex. ‘But that’s going to blow in… minutes.’ Then he swore. ‘I still can’t break through this interference. We’d have to be right on top of the away team to beam them out.’

‘This ship is massive, and it’s trying to kill us,’ Kharth snapped. ‘We can’t do a fly-by in minutes, and we’re still in the dark trying to find them!’

Airex said more. Lindgren said more, the Excalibur swerving as the dying Diamond didn’t stop trying to take them with them. But Beckett wasn’t listening as Kharth’s words echoed in him.

I could find you in the dark.

Why can’t that go both ways?

There were a myriad of reasons. He wasn’t a telepath, to begin with. But still, Beckett slammed his eyes shut, focused out all sound from the rest of the cockpit, and concentrated.

It was impossible to tell what was his imagination. What was memory. What was sheer desperation. But when he opened his eyes again, moments that felt like hours later, he gave no room for doubt as he turned to Lindgren and said, ‘I know where they are,’ before punching coordinates into the co-pilot’s controls.

Kharth stared at him. ‘Beckett, what the hell -’

‘Trust me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m sure.’

He wasn’t. He didn’t know if it was even possible for their latent telepathic connection to go both ways. He didn’t know if he wasn’t just making things up, imagining a presence. But when he’d closed his eyes and reached out with his very being, projected his thoughts across a million kilometres, he could have sworn there was something out there. Her.

Unexpectedly, it was Airex who spoke up. ‘Trust him,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen this before.’

Lindgren whistled. ‘Okay. What’ve we got to lose?’

‘It’s gotta be less than a minute,’ said Cortez, reading from the main display. ‘I feel like I oughta say something, but what the hell for?’ She looked at Thawn. ‘Hey. You still with us?’

Thawn’s head snapped back around. ‘I… yes.’ She rubbed her temples. ‘I thought I heard something.’

‘That’s just hope,’ said Cortez in a mock-airy voice. ‘It pipes up in the face of death.’

‘If you can say that, then that means you’ve been right to hope every time?’

Cortez opened her mouth, doubtless to argue. Then there came a chirrup from their EV suits. ‘Excalibur to away team. Come in!’

The engineer’s jaw dropped, then she smacked the button on her forearm. ‘Sae, you beautiful creature, tell me you can get us the hell out of here!’

‘It took practically crawling inside this thing. We’ve got a lock on you and Thawn, but… Logan’s life sign is… what’s going on?’

Cortez looked at Logan. His eyes were shut, jaw tight, muscles spasming with the effort of whatever was going on. Likely, the Diamond was not embracing death willingly. Perhaps its efforts to reconnect to the Collective were advancing. Whatever line needed holding, he was holding it. ‘He, uh… he plugged in.’

‘What?’

‘To the Diamond. He’s set off the core overload.’ Cortez strode towards him. ‘Jack – Jack, we’re getting out of here.’

When Logan opened his eyes, this time, they were milky white. His voice slurred even though it still held the echo. ‘…keeping… them out…’

Airex’s voice came over the comms. ‘If you can disconnect him, it has to be now. This ship is going to explode, and we can’t be this close when it happens.’

Cortez put a hand on Logan’s shoulder. ‘They can’t stop this. It’s too late; containment’s been lost, antimatter levels are rising. Let me disconnect you.’

Another grunt. ‘…go. Need to see this out.’

Cortez hissed an oath. ‘He’s not cooperating, Excalibur.’

‘Jack.’ Saeihr Kharth’s voice rang through the chamber. She had to have raised the volume on the comms from her end, her words reverberating to fill the room and be all they knew. ‘I’m not going to let you die alone.’

He went still. ‘I don’t…’

‘You’ve beaten them already. That doesn’t mean you get to die yet. Now, you’ve got to live. Live in spite of the people who chewed you up and spat you out.’ Thawn would have sworn she heard a waver in Kharth’s voice. ‘Come back.’

Logan’s eyes shut again, and Cortez was shaking her head and looking like she was about to give the order for them to pull out. Thawn put a hand on her arm, stopping her. Then the connection dropped out of the back of Logan’s neck, and he tumbled forward, falling to his knees.

Cortez swore in Spanish. ‘Cutting it close. Get us out of here, Excalibur!’

Lights shone bright, a light that could not pierce the darkness of this heart of the Borg’s power, but it was enough to take them away. A heartbeat later, the putrid air of the control centre was gone, and they stood in the brightness of the deck of the runabout Excalibur.

Then they all fell over as the ship swerved wildly at Lindgren’s manoeuvring. ‘We are leaving!’ she called.

Kharth wasn’t staying put. She pulled herself out of her chair and grabbed the medkit before racing back. Logan lay on the deck, still and unmoving, only the rasping of his breath confirming he was still alive. ‘Commander? Hell.’ She fumbled with the medkit, grabbing the tricorder. Cortez rolled over to join and assist.

Thawn groaned as her focus swum in and out of Logan’s state and back to her own. Awkwardly, she sat up, only to at once find Beckett by her side, his eyes shining bright with concern. ‘Are you okay?’ he said.

They’d rowed. Said hurtful things. And that all felt irrelevant as she grabbed him and pulled him close. ‘I’m okay.’

Over his shoulder, she saw Airex looking back from the cockpit at her. ‘Your mastering of your telepathic talents once again saves the day, Lieutenant. Great work.’

She blinked and pulled back from Beckett. ‘What?’

‘Oh,’ said Beckett, glancing between them. ‘Sorry, Commander. Rosara didn’t look for me. I, uh. Looked for her.’ He turned back to her, eyes shining. ‘Guess I can find you in the dark, too.’

‘Buckle up, everyone!’ Lindgren interrupted from the cockpit. ‘We’re getting clear!’

‘Captain, that Diamond’s about to explode. We need to be out of the blast radius.’

Shepherd had said this minutes ago. On her armrest display, Valance had watched as they calculated the time to detonation, Endeavour’s potential top impulse speed as they took blow after blow from the Borg ship’s weapons, watching for the last possible second before they couldn’t stay any longer.

Five. Four.

She looked up at the viewscreen, at the looming Diamond, still formidable as its regeneration protocols continued to make it mightier and mightier even as its heart burned itself out. ‘Any sign of the Excalibur?’

‘Negative,’ said Qadir. ‘They’re too close to the Diamond’s hull to pick them up.’

There was a pause. At mission control, Shepherd got no further than saying, ‘Cap-’ before Valance spoke again.

‘Get us out of here. Maximum impulse.’

Endeavour’s deck surged as they rushed away, and Valance found herself grabbing fistfuls of the ship. All she had done was drive her crew to the brink, drag them on a terribly dangerous path to the edge of known space, and sacrifice some of her best officers, all to a Borg ship that had been so unstable it was going to destroy itself and take with it the people she’d come to rescue.

Death. Suffering. Loss. All for nothing.

On Frontier Day, she’d been helpless to act. Nobody could have expected her to do more than she did. It was not reasonable, even she knew, to consider that her first true test as captain. No, this was her true test. And she’d failed.

The Diamond tore itself asunder. It was not in one detonation, but the viewscreen kept it in sight as something exploded deep in its belly – then came the chain reaction, racking the surface to rip up the hull, tear through power systems, consume it in an inferno. Whatever had gone wrong was a mortal wound, and by the time the dust settled, it made even the debris from the Alpha Wreck look robust.

Shepherd checked her readings, then let out a slow breath. ‘We’re clear.’

Valance stood. ‘The Excalibur?’

‘Scanning.’ Shepherd was silent. ‘There’s a lot of debris out there,’ she said after a minute, her forced cheer enough to grate down Valance’s spine. ‘They’re only small.’

At comms, Kally pressed a finger to her earpiece. ‘Endeavour to Excalibur. Please come in,’ she said, voice quiet, hopeful.

‘Only small,’ said Valance, ‘and there’s no sign they were getting clear before us.’

‘The Diamond was putting out a lot of sensor interference,’ Qadir reminded them.

‘Endeavour to Excalibur. Please answer.’

‘I’m not picking up their transponder,’ said Shepherd. ‘Might be it was taken out.’

‘Without blowing them up?’ said Valance.

‘It’s possible.’

‘Endeavour to Excalibur. Please -’

‘This is the Excalibur!’ Kharth’s voice came in a crackle across the bridge, and though Valance heard the gasps of relief from her crew, she could not relax one iota. ‘We’re singed, but okay.’

Valance fair flew at Kally, leaning over the comms panel. ‘Commander, mission report!’

‘It’s good to hear your voice too, Valance,’ drawled Kharth. ‘And what you’re asking is, did we pull off the rescue?’ Valance knew she’d been given the answer by her XO’s casual tone, but still the ice in her gut could not ease, would not stop in its crawl up her chest, into her throat, into her heart. ‘All present and accounted for. But we need to get Commander Logan to Sickbay.’

Valance closed her eyes and felt her legs waver. If she allowed it, she could fall now. Tumble to the deck and give up fighting. But it was not over. She braced herself against the controls. ‘Acknowledged. Good work, Commander. Bring the runabout back. We’ve got a long trip home.’

‘Yeah, about that,’ said Kharth. ‘How far out are we?’

Valance looked at Shepherd, eyebrows raised. The other officer ran her hands over the controls, re-running calculations that had only been done in haste at their arrival.

‘At least two weeks,’ said Shep. ‘Could be worse.’

‘Huh,’ came Kharth’s reply. ‘That kind of summarises it all, doesn’t it?’