Fools.
Admiral Katrina Cornwell stood at attention while Gabriel's little protege droned on about family and trust and second chances. No, not Gabriel, she reminded herself. Her Gabriel had been blown to space dust when that interloper crossed realities. Blown to space dust along with a future she had still imagined sometimes, a cabin, maybe, in Montana. Getting away from Starfleet once Gabriel was done playing the hero at the outer edge of space.
But he was gone, and in his place this darkened Gabriel with whom she shared her feelings and her bed. A night of strange passion that she was still processing when he shoved a hidden phaser in her face. That betrayal was worse than the rest of it that followed, the fake peace conference and Klingon torture.
But when that the other Gabriel was gone too, Kat's mind had begun to change. This war, which Burnham was speaking about in the past tense, was far from over. She knew L'Rell, the new leader of a unified Klingon Empire. L'Rell couldn't stop fighting any more than she could stop breathing. Kat knew the Empire was more dangerous than it has ever been before.
There was one person she could count on in the world now. Not these stuffed suits giving out medals to cowards. Not the scarred man who was now scattered across the fungal network. Her only link to that Gabriel, the woman who intrigued her as much as she scared her.
Cornwell's new office was located in one of the more tucked-away portions of Starfleet Command in San Francisco. Normally she would have enjoyed a leisurely shuttle ride into orbit from Federation HQ in Paris, but Kat's recent experience had made her impatient. She could hear that drum of a heartbeat from the imposter Gabriel. She could feel it travel from her hands down into her own soul. So she stepped into one of the transporter pads outside the meeting hall and indicated to the chief her destination: Section 31.
Cornwell's first thought as her brain rematerialized were that both Gabriels would have appreciated the tribute. She had named the new counter-intelligence division after the ship that had given so much intel in the months they were active. The NCC-1031 Discover was the only ship with Paul Stamets' creation, the DASH drive. Spore travel hadn't been just theoretical, it was laughed out of the offices of several vice admirals until Lorca had 'returned', singing the praises of Stamets' genius and the possibilities for exploration.
He spoke of "Strange new worlds, new lifeforms, and new civilizations."
It wasn't until later that Kat realized that Gabriel's quotations of Zephram Cochrane were so accurate because he had just read them from a textbook. Probably that very morning. But Kat was done feeling manipulated or betrayed. Gabriel had done what he had to do get the program off the ground, and when the Discovery and the Glenn were christened within months, even the top brass in Paris were impressed with his results. The tragic loss of the Glenn even provided a clue to making the drive work, an act the Admiral has thought mere coincidence at the time.
Starfleet had assigned Cornwell and a small group of admirals to receive the Discovery's coded messages and relay new orders. They'd made remarkable progress in such a small amount of time, and victory had seemed so close. Only her growing distrust of Lorca nagged at the back of her mind. But his methods were working. When she was rescued, the Klingon flagship destroyed, and Starfleet ordered Lorca home, she wasn't even sure what they would do.
But no medal, no court martial, and no cabin in Montana would be coming for Gabriel Lorca. The quickly-classified ISS Discovery was found as a cloud of debris. No survivors, and no sign of the man she thought she loved.
Kat Cornwell stepped into her grey office. Steel decor and glass accents matched, it not consciously, the way she felt inside. They had had no time for a search, no time for mourning. Gabriel was gone, both of them. A valiant crew, vanished without a trace. And with them, the only tool holding back the increasingly splintered and angry Klingon fleet. Cornwell's office turned from intelligence gathering to… well, whatever it was going to take to win the war.
Not since the Xindi threat had Earth itself been threatened. After a brief power struggle, Admiral Marcus left the group and Cornwell emerged as the leader of what she first jokingly, then later officially, called Section 31. A Federation charter made their actions legal, and then quickly ignored by the rest of Starfleet, who would rather believe that negotiation would win the war, not shrewd tactics.
Cornwell reviewed her datapads of the last nine months, sighing deeply as she tapped through their contents. She had to admit that even the shrewd tactics had not done anything except delay the inevitable. A different kind of thinking was required.
When her Section 31 team stormed the newly reappeared USS Discovery, Kat half-hoped to find the imposter Gabriel still on the bridge. Even clamped in irons, he could give her that insight she lacked. That extra percentage of cunning that humanity had weeded out in the last two hundred years since First Contact Day.
And now she had it. If not the man himself, maybe something better. The mutineer Burnham had accidentally brought her exactly what she needed.
A three tone notification on the console meant that the first piece of the puzzle was in place. Tapping commands into the LCARS terminal, she submitted to a retinal scan and stated "Admiral Katrina Cornwell, security code Gamma Lamda one oh three one." Then, ensuring that her office was sealed, she inserted a small isolinear chip into a slot on the desktop.
Immediately the holographic projectors scattered around her office glittered into action, and a familiar form made its translucent shape in front of her. Clad in combat boots, leather pants and a well-fitted jacket, Phillipa Georgiou, former leader of the Terran Empire, finished tying her hair up, met her eyes, and smiled.
"Hello, Kat. Is this line secure?"