“I don’t think you understand,” Yuulik said.  

As much as that was a common expression from Yuulik –practically her catchphrase– the words carried none of her casual condescension.  If anything, the sentence ended with an undercurrent of fear as punctuation.  Yuulik leaned over Nune’s shoulder, close enough to back-seat pilot the engineering panel where he was seated.  She tapped at the remote sensing system, cancelling out Nune’s last command.

Huffing in frustrated defeat, Nune raised his hands from the console.  Yuulik’s physical presence was as profuse as the blue glow from the warp core.  His nostrils were filled with the fragrance she wore: floral yet peppery.  As delicately as her scent, Yuulik lowered her voice to say more.  Nune could empathically sense she intended to avoid being overheard by the other officers across the engineering deck.

Gravely, Yuulik said, “Captain Taes is losing her patience.”

“How is that possible?” Nune asked, keeping his voice low, too.  “I’ve watched Captain Taes debate a Pakled for three hours over the definition of a sector.  Most of that time was spent on explaining a cuboid.  Her smile didn’t crack once.”

Yuulik replied, “The opportunity to examine a Wolf-Rayet star is a rare amusement,” as she thumbed through the wheel interface for the gamma-ray telescope’s settings.  “We were only granted leave from our survey of the Borg’s borders because their sightings in the Gradin Belt have diminished.  Now that we’re parked this deeply in the star’s corona, we should be drowning in sensor readings.  And yet our sensors are demonstrating as little proficiency as newly graduated cadets.”

“I’m working on it,” Nune said, gritting his teeth at the thinly-veiled slight.  While Yuulik adjusted the gamma-ray telescopes, Nune accessed the controls for the z-range particulate spectrometer.

Little time passed before Yuulik’s comeback.  Her intonation had a reflexive quality, like a ball being volleyed back.  She spat her words out quickly and then laughed at her joke twice as long as it took her to say it.

“Would it help,” Yuulik asked, “if I straddled a probe and launched out there with a tricorder?”

Since it seemed safe to do so, Nune cheekily asked, “Didn’t you already try that on Frontier Day?”

Yuulik blinked at him when he glanced back over his shoulder.  Were he anyone else, Nune would have expected a barrage of insults as punishment for mentioning one of Yuulik’s failures.  But Yuulik hadn’t raised her voice to him since their long days of puzzling ancient technology together on Camus Two.  

…Except for that one other time neither of them talked about anymore, the last time they were in the Delta Quadrant.

Tapping on the upper display, Nune accessed the deflector system status.  A simple schematic of USS Constellation appeared on the display, surrounded by a circular shield bubble representing their metaphashic shields.

Nune summarised his findings by telling her, “The shield harmonics protecting us from the corona’s radiation is also filtering out the radiance and energy of the star before it can reach the apertures of our sensors.  New technologies enhance our short-range sensors and shields, mostly tested in laboratories.  Our mission parameters include finding the most effective shield modulations for this kind of study.”

Yuulik lay her palms to rest on Nune’s shoulders.  Had Kellin made the gesture, Nune might have detected distinctly tactile overtones.  Within Yuulik’s grip, he was being claimed.

“Aren’t I fortunate,” Yuulik asked, “to have an ex-engineer in my science department?”

Nune’s shoulders tensed instinctively.  Yuulik softened her grip on him.  For all the strides they’d made in their friendship, she didn’t manage to find the words to ask him why he tensed up.

“I’m not the only one,” Nune said, deflecting.  Playfully taunting, Nune went on to say, “I’ve seen you conspiring over tables in the Planetarium most nights.  Pagaloa has caught your eye, or is it his cybernetic augmentations?  Should I be jealous?”

Yuulik tsked and said, “Don’t minimise us.  I treasure my friendship with you.”

And Nune could sense she was hopelessly sincere in that moment.

Yuulik explained, “Taes expects me to collaborate kindly with the senior staff and we all know Pagaloa is the most,” –she lowered her voice to a hiss of a whisper– “tragic among us.”

As if the effort of standing for even three minutes had grown too arduous for her, Yuulik flopped herself into the chair at the engineering console by Nune’s side.  She put a hand on his shoulder again and looked him right in the eyes.

Revealing secrets with such ease, Yuulik said, “It’s not common knowledge that Taes allowed Pagaloa’s daughter to move aboard the ship conditionally after her mother and stepfather were killed on Frontier Day.  That wasn’t the arrangement any of them had agreed to as a family.  None of them wanted Misriam out here with Pagaloa.”

Nune winced.  “That’s harsh.”

Yuulik nodded.  “He said it to me himself.”

“So what does that mean?” Nune asked, leaning in closer to Yuulik.  “Have you been babysitting Misriam?”

Yuulik chuckled softly under her breath, and she slapped Nune on the upper arm.

“Pagaloa isn’t that cruel a father,” Yuulik retorted.  “No, Misriam has Addie to look out for her.  Pagaloa and I have been developing child-rearing protocols from the best research available.  Taes has spoken about the importance of filling friendship tanks with affection when you know a relationship might be fraught with risk and conflict in the future.  Pagaloa has been an… experiment to test Taes’ theory.”

“Oh,” Nune said, reading between the lines without telepathy.  “Now that Flavia is back, you’re worried Taes will demote you again?”

Yuulik narrowed her eyes at Nune, but her voice remained affable when she said, “Flavia may be on board, but she’s not back.”

Swivelling his chair to face Yuulik, Nune took his hands off the console to cross his arms over his chest.  He widened his eyes at Yuulik to convey the significance of his question.  At the same time, he lowered his voice to an incredulous whisper.

He asked, “How did she come back?  I thought the Jem’Hadar killed her in the Deneb Sector?”

“She hasn’t told me,” Yuulik replied, shaking her head hard enough it made her fins of dark hair bounce from side to side.  “Neither has Taes.  All she’s said is she’s ‘exploring the continued feasibility of Romulan Free State Scientists working in partnership with our crew’ after… what happened in Deneb.”

“Well,” Nune asked, “How feasible do you think–“

Nune saw it before he heard it, but he didn’t understand what he saw until after he heard the sickening crunch.

The thrumming of light across warp engineering was uniform and predictable.  He’d spent enough years on other engineering decks that he could practically time it from memory.  What he saw wasn’t predictable, nor orderly.  It was chaotic, confusing, distressing even.  Flailing limbs plummeted down the open shaft of the warp core.  Despite the staccato outreach for salvation, a vibrant engineer on the catwalk turned into a mere body on the floor in less than five seconds.