“It’s a bit much,” Adelinde Gantzmann declared.

“Nah!” both Rosa Mackeson and Amber Leckie refuted.

“Honestly ma’am,” Stirling Fightmaster cut in, “I had to talk them into the display case. They just wanted to mount it to the wall.”

The entirety of Silver Team and Adelinde had finally managed to assemble in Port Royal only a few days after the events of CR-718. The wait had been at the behest of Doctor Terax, whose tyrannical dictatorship of sickbay had refused to let Gavin Mitchell leave until only a few short hours ago. Their assembly had been just outside, Rosa and Amber guarding the doors until both Mitchell and Gantzmann had arrived and upon entering, the surprise the junior members of the team had undertaken was unmissable.

Mitchell leaned over the bar, squinting at the display case now mounted on the wall just above the large mural that formed the wall opposite the windows. “In case of emergency, break glass,” he said, reading the small printed red words along the bottom edge of the glass that separated everyone else from the spear that was now contained within.

There had been no clean-up or upgrade of the weapon before it was mounted in the case. The haft still read ‘Starfleet Maintenance’ along the side, the spearhead still bore a few dings from where it had hit metal and was coated in the various ichors it had gained killing the Borg drone aboard the station. The only change, according to Amber when she and Rosa revealed it, was a slight coating that had gone on the head to preserve it just as it had been when they returned aboard ship.

“I understand some would find that funny,” Brek said. The team’s resident Vulcan was seated at the end of the gathering and like everyone else was nursing a rather ridiculously large beer stein. “And recent experiences show it is also practical advice.”

“Cheers to that!” Rosa shouted before attacking her drink.

“Next Borg fight, I’m sitting it out,” Amber said, then glaring at Stirling. “You can go.”

“Name like Fightmaster,” Mitchell interjected, “I think we’ll let Stirling handle the Borg by himself.”

“I’m not going to be living this down any time soon, am I?” Stirling asked.

It was Adelinde who clapped a hand on his shoulder, smiling. “Not for a very, very long time. Now, tell us about this fearsome bookcase.”

Stirling’s response was to look into his own stein, contemplating drowning in it, finally relenting at Rosa and Amber’s teasing.

“A Borg drone?” Commodore Sudari-Kravchik asked, the delay in their conversation an appreciable two seconds either way, but close enough that a conversation could at least be attempted. The delay would have been shorter, even unnoticed, if CR-718 was operational as a booster, but that wouldn’t be for another couple of days.

“I didn’t skimp on the details in my report Commodore. One Borg drone.” Tikva was keeping her replies short and sweet. She was getting a sour feeling every time she had to deal with Starfleet Intelligence, in any capacity, and just wanted the meeting to be over. “It has been neutralised, all nanoprobes forcibly deactivated, contained in level ten forcefield and stored in a sealed shipping container.”

“I’ll arrange for a ship to rendezvous with you immediately and take possession,” Sudari-Kravchik replied after the delay. “It will afford your teams more time to bring CR-718 back online.”

More delays, but only a handful of days hopefully. Tikva barely avoided sighing before she spoke. “Very well Commodore. We’ll send an all-clear message when we bring the station back to full operations.”

“I look forward to it. Sudari-Kravchik out.” And with that, the line went dead.

“I think I had an instructor like her once,” Commander Vilo Kendris said, seated opposite Tikva in the ready room and outside of pickups for the brief call. “Cold, efficient, to the point.”

“She’s a desk jockey,” Tikva replied, then clarified when Kendris’ look of confusion became evident. “She’s never had a proper space-borne command. She’s an administrator par excellence I understand.”

“Ah, one of those paper-pushing wizards that fall upwards.”

“Save from everything I’ve heard or been able to dig up, she’s actually damn good at her job. Wouldn’t have made Deputy Intelligence Director for Fourth Fleet if she wasn’t.” And just saying all of that had truly soured Tikva’s mood with the thoughts of what Sudari-Kravchik’s boss had done with her ship during the Deneb Crisis.

It had been minor shenanigans with contingency orders in her ship’s computers, but it still irked her. Sealed orders would have been one thing, but implanted computer programs were altogether different.

A huff of annoyance and she pushed herself to her feet. “I have it under good authority there’s a celebration taking place in Port Royal. We best go show our faces.”

“Drinking while on duty?” Kendris countered as she stood, both women heading for the door.

“I didn’t say that,” Tikva corrected with a smile. “I said ‘go show our faces’. If drinking happens…well, it’s synthehol for the most part anyway. Unless Pisani left a few bottles of her cursed moonshine aboard.”

Port Royal hadn’t descended into total anarchy, but obviously, Silver Team’s celebrations had grown. More crew had been pulled in or voluntarily joined the impromptu party. Someone had produced the karaoke machine used for the monthly competitions and brought it to life. The mood was entirely jovial, celebrating the success of Silver Team which had turned out to be a catalyst for a relief the crew clearly needed.

Mitchell and Brek had formed the nucleus of a bubble of calm on the far side of the lounge from the singing, a gathering of other crew members listening with rapt attention. Rosa was leading the rotating cast on the small stage for the singing while Amber was busy, to the chagrin of the bar staff, forcing Stirling to work off his debt by serving the rest of the crew.

But in a single booth sat Tikva, Adelinde and Vilo. The normally reserved in public Adelinde, who kept her displays of affection to a minimum, had one arm wrapped around Tikva, holding her close as they sat opposite the Romulan woman. Rank had gone out the window shortly after Tikva and Vilo had arrived.

And Tikva’s comment about synthehol obviously wasn’t true.

“This is a serious breach of protocol,” Kendris commented as she looked out across Port Royal.

“They deserve it,” Tikva answered, turning slightly and learning back into Lin with a smile. “And besides, it was like this when we got here. I’m certainly not going to ruin the good times without a damn good reason.”

“Besides, you’d need Security for that,” Lin commented, then pointed to Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va, who was seated in Mitchell’s circle, arms waving as they animatedly asked something of Mitchell and Brek.

“I…” Kendris started, her thoughts half-formed and stopping in quick succession as she gathered them up, then shook her head. “This isn’t how we’d do it in the Republic Navy.”

“Welcome to Starfleet. We explore nebula, study planets, occasionally cause solar flares, fight the Borg and party hard.” Tikva chuckled. “We’ve been needing a party for ages anyway. Just…have fun Vilo.”

The use of Kendris’ first name in such a casual manner got her attention and she thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. “I think I might go check on our engineering efforts,” she replied after a few seconds. “To see how Commander Velan is coming along.”

Excuses made, Kendris slid out of the booth, leaving Tikva and Lin alone. Sweet nothings were traded as they simply enjoyed each other’s company, a socially lubricated Adelinde Gantzmann a bit freer with her attentions than normal. But it was all ruined by an amplified shout from across the bar.

“Oi Six!” Rosa shouted, microphone in hand and pointing directly at the booth, drawing all eyes on Tikva and Lin. “Get up here!”

“Six?” Tikva hissed, feeling her face flush with the attention of the crew and acutely aware she’d been about to suggest she and Lin retreat from public.

“Silver Six,” Lin whispered in her ear. “And as the bottom of the order, guess I have to do as Two demands.” She slowly pushed Tikva and herself from the booth, kissed the shorter woman on the cheek and then stomped through the crowd towards the stage to a few cheers – another victim to the karaoke gods as Rosa handed her the microphone.

“I’m going to kill you,” she growled through a smile at Rosa, keeping the microphone far away.

“Who, me?” Rosa quipped, then stepped aside, leaving Lin on the stage and a crowd demanding a song from her.

She took a moment looking at the machine, selected a song and then looked out across the crowd to Tikva, offering a wink to her as the music started, filling Port Royal with heavy synthesizer sounds in quick order.

“We’re no strangers to loveYou know the rules and so do IA full commitment’s what I’m thinking of…”