Lieutenant Morgan was dead, and someone was going to pay. The kid might have taken his own life, but that wasn’t the whole story. “How can you live with yourself?” That was what Commander Drake had asked the broken man, the words that had pushed him over the edge, the words that had killed him. For that, there was only one answer.

After leaving the Lieutenant’s quarters, Captain Lewis returned to his own. He approached his nightstand, flipped over the lamp that sat atop it, and detached a power source concealed within its base. Then he walked over to his closet, dug out an old running shoe, plied back the insole, and retrieved a polaron focusing crystal he’d hidden there. Systematically, he continued to move about his quarters, retrieving discreetly hidden items and assembling them into a disruptor.

Not even five minutes later, Captain Lewis re-emerged from his quarters. He still wore his standard issue sidearm, but it was now nothing more than a prop. If he used it, it would do nothing except ensure him a one-way trip to New Zealand. Instead, he would rely on the ghost gun he’d concealed in an angle holster beneath his pant leg, a weapon the investigators would never trace back to him.

Typically, Captain Lewis would have beamed over to the Polaris, but the polaron power source would have registered on the transporter’s sensors so he elected to take a shuttle instead. As he made the quick flight over, Captain Lewis had time to think back on the last few months. His team had been through so much. On Nasera, they lost half their team to the Jem’Hadar; on Earth, Shafir and Morgan had been tortured by the conspirators of the Changeling plot; and in the shadow of Sol Station, they’d fought and killed their own when the Borg assimilation signal overtook their colleagues. Every step of the way, they’d done their duty and sacrificed so much. They didn’t deserve this. It was time to put an end to Commander Drake before his machinations did further harm.

“Welcome back, sir,” a shuttlebay manager greeted the squadron’s intelligence officer as Captain Lewis stepped off the Type-12 shuttle. “Staying long this time?” It was a courteous ask, one of pure logistics as to whether he should leave the shuttle on the pad or move it below deck to make room for the other shuttles coming and going from Beta Serpentis III.

“Just here to debrief with Commander Lockwood about the Borg tech,” Captain Lewis replied nonchalantly. After he paid a visit to the JAG, he would continue to the ASTRA lab to chat with the ASTRA team lead. It would provide believable cover for his real purpose. “I won’t be long.”

The shuttlebay manager nodded as Captain Lewis departed the shuttlebay and headed for the turbolift. When Captain Lewis stepped inside, he was pleased to see he was alone.

“Computer, locate Commander Drake.”

“Commander Drake is on deck 7, crew quarters.”

“Deck 7,” Captain Lewis ordered. As the turbolift began to move, he smiled. It couldn’t have been a better set up. The traitor would die to his disruptor, and no one would find him for hours. When that happened, Captain Lewis would be there to help, and, after everything that had happened recently, it wouldn’t take much to work everyone up over the fact there must be a Changeling infiltrator or something in their midst. Who else would have used a polaron disruptor to kill the squadron’s JAG officer?

As Captain Lewis stepped out of the turbolift, his eyes were flush with conviction. He and his team risked everything for these people, and what Commander Drake had done was unforgivable. With anger coursing through his veins, the only thing on his mind was vengeance. The captain turned left, and then right, and then continued on his way towards Commander Drake’s quarters. With everyone consumed managing the aftermath of the Beta Serpentis situation, the corridors were empty.

Just a couple turns more, and he’d be there. He’d simply jack into the door control, override it, and then it would be done. But suddenly, he ran headlong into the one thing that could stop him.

“Going somewhere, Jake?”

Standing there in the middle of the hallway was Fleet Admiral Reyes. The expression on her face left no doubt to the fact she knew his purpose, and he didn’t miss the fact that, although they were within the safety of their own ship, she had a sidearm on her hip.

“Step aside, Allison,” Captain Lewis ordered coldly as he drew to a stop momentarily. “This does not concern you. Turn around, walk away, and forget I was ever here.” Long ago, Allison Reyes had been a shooter, same as him, and she had to understand.

“I can’t do that,” Admiral Reyes replied firmly as she set her hand on the butt of her sidearm. The message was clear. There was murder in the captain’s eyes, and she’d draw on her old friend before she let him pass. She had no other choice.

“Suit yourself,” Captain Lewis sighed, feigning defeat as he turned. But then he just kept on turning, spinning a full 360 as he drew his Starfleet issue sidearm from its holster.

Admiral Reyes was ready for it though, and she was as quick on the draw as the captain. “Really, Jake?! Really?!” she screamed. This was insane. What had gotten into him? Would he really shoot her where she stood? It would be throwing away his life.

“You still have time to walk away,” Captain Lewis begged desperately. “Don’t make me do this.” He didn’t want to stun her, but she would not stop him. No one would. Commander Drake was responsible for the death of one of his men.

“How the fuck are you going to explain this?” Admiral Reyes pressed without backing down.

“I’m not,” Captain Lewis admitted. His plan had been to use the polaron disruptor tucked in his ankle holster to do the deed without a trace, but the disruptor didn’t have a stun setting. He’d have to stun the Admiral to get to Drake, and if he did that, all plausible deniability was out the window. Still, he couldn’t let Drake’s affront pass, even if it meant spending the rest of his days in prison.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?” Admiral Reyes asked as she took a step closer to him, staring down the barrel of his phaser. “This isn’t how things are done.” She took another step forward, but he didn’t flinch. “Are you really going to shoot me?”

“If I have to,” Captain Lewis snarled back. “Get out of my way, or you’ll wake up in a few hours.”

She could see the bloodlust in his eyes, but still she didn’t blink.

Suddenly, Captain Lewis felt the cold of a phaser muzzle pressed into the small of his back. He’d been so focused on what was in front of him that he’d lost track of his six. Just like how he’d lost track of Lieutenant Morgan as the young man fell into the dark spiral of his trauma.

“Put it down, Jake,” said a young female voice from behind him.

Captain Lewis recognized the soft, gentle voice instantly. It was Ensign Elyssia Rel, the young flight controller from his team, the one who’d found a crack in his armor, the one who’d kindled a spark within him he didn’t know existed. “Are you really going to shoot me, Elyssia?”

“If you force me to,” Ensign Rel replied firmly. She didn’t want to, but she would if she had to. The Admiral had told her what Lewis was going to do if he made it to Commander Drake’s quarters, and there’d be no coming back for him after that. He’d spend the rest of his life behind bars. Whatever fledgling romance she’d begun to develop between them, it would be over, but even more importantly, it would mean that those Captain Lewis might go on to save in the future would now be on their own. She needed him, and they needed him. It couldn’t end here. “Please, Jake. Please. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth throwing your life away for.”

“This isn’t about Drake,” Captain Lewis insisted. “It’s about Jace.”

“Bullshit!” Admiral Reyes countered. “This is about you.”

“You know me better than that…”

“No, I know you just well enough to know that,” Admiral Reyes shook her head, refusing to back down. “This is about you and your guilt.”

“You didn’t hear him…”

“No, I didn’t,” Admiral Reyes admittedly with a pained voice, aware of what Lieutenant Morgan must have been going through that brought him to his end. “But if you did, you should have done something about it.” She locked eyes with him, daring him to speak. She knew how he could be. “I’m going to guess that instead you said something along the lines of ‘straighten that upper lip soldier’. This is as much on you as it is on Drake.”

The bloodlust snapped from his eyes. The Admiral wasn’t wrong.

“So turn the fuck around and go back to your ship,” Admiral Reyes ordered as she reholstered her phaser. “And don’t make dear Ensign Rel have to shoot you in the back.”

Slowly, Captain Lewis reholstered his phaser. “How’d you know I’d come here?”

“Because I know you,” Admiral Reyes replied with understanding borne of decades operating alongside Captain Lewis and people like him. The moment she’d heard about Lieutenant Morgan’s suicide and then seen that shuttle on approach from the Serenity, she knew its purpose. “Now get out of here before someone comes along and asks why we’re all hanging around outside the JAG’s quarters with phasers drawn.”

She had him beat, for now, and so angrily, Captain Lewis spun on his heels and stormed off back towards the turbolift.

Admiral Reyes watched him go, and then she looked over at Ensign Rel. She could see the mix of emotions on the young woman’s face. “Go,” Admiral Reyes urged, and she watched as the Trill flight controller turned and rushed off after the captain.

“Wait, Jake… wait for me…” Ensign Rel was saying as her voice faded into the distance. 

“You know you’re playing a dangerous game,” came a calm voice as Dr. Hall approached from behind the admiral. “But I must say, I’m impressed.” Most flag officers would have called security, but that would have just added more fuel to Commander Drake’s crusade. Admiral Reyes had kept it discreet by keeping it in the family instead.

“We still need him,” Admiral Reyes sighed. It was quite the pickle.

“I do not disagree,” Dr. Hall nodded. The galaxy was a dark place, and they needed people like Captain Lewis. “But you’re just inviting disaster by keeping them both here. You got to him in time this time, but what about the next time? Unless you want to see Captain Lewis locked up, it’s time to send Drake packing.”

“I can’t do that,” Admiral Reyes admitted. Nor did she want to. As much as they needed people like Captain Lewis, so too did they need people like Commander Drake, even as inconvenient as it could be at times. “As much as I get that it would be convenient for you and the captain.”

“You can’t always have your cake and eat it too, Admiral,” Dr. Hall warned. It might not happen today, or tomorrow, but she knew Captain Lewis’ type. So long as Commander Drake was still part of the squadron, Captain Lewis would not back down.

“It’s not just that,” Admiral Reyes conceded. “I can’t just make him go away. Not so long as this investigation is ongoing. I’m under strict orders unless you want the whole damn JAG Corps turning the ship upside down.” Commander Drake was a shark, and once he sunk his teeth into something, he wouldn’t back down until he got his day in court.

“Then will you get rid of him after he fails in court?” Dr. Hall countered. She had no doubt he would fail. The evidence was circumstantial without a witness. She and Captain Lewis would never flip, and the JAG’s only possible flip was now lying dead in the Serenity’s morgue.

“Yes, after that, I will see to his reassignment,” Admiral Reyes agreed. There really wasn’t another choice. Commander Drake had done them a good one during the corruption purge of 2399, but now he’d become too much of a liability. “And until then, Ensign Rel will just have to keep Lewis on a tight leash.”

“You know about the two of them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” nodded Admiral Reyes with a twinkle in her eye. “And for now, it works to our advantage.” Protocol around good order and discipline would have argued the opposite, but Admiral Reyes was more pragmatic than that. “When this is all over though, he and I will have a conversation about it. He’s got to see how it could compromise his judgment.”

Dr. Hall didn’t bother pointing out how compromised his judgment already was.