Raghnill was seated with her first officer, Vegaror, around a table in the privacy of her quarters. Several pads with current and future fleet operations lied forgotten on the table; in her concealed absence, they were doing their admiral's job. But once all the pressing matters had been solved, they had relaxed a bit, only to invariantly come back to the same topic, the one that most troubled both of them.

"Commander, the crew is growing suspicious. There are already several rumors…" The voice of her first officer penetrated her ears, but most of its content was lost in her mind. Raghnill just tried to keep the appearance, and feigned really listening to him. After all, she already knew what he had to say, and her thoughts didn't wander far away.

She reflected about her crew, and about those who could possibly betray her. There was always one ready to inform the Tal Shiar, no matter how hard one tried to avoid that. For the last years, her chief of security had done a good job investigating the new recruits, but now she would have to appoint someone else for the post. Now that her initial rage had cooled, she wished she could still keep her, even in spite of her failure, but she was not the one making regulations and laws, but the one enforcing them; and discipline was not open to exceptions.

So she had lost a loyal officer in a key position, and the unconditional Eldgrímr was gone too.

"If you have a plan, whatever it is, you know we all will support you." The sentence took a while to be really acknowledged. This time, Raghnill really looked at her first officer and actually saw him.

His skin was a dark olive that was quite common in the colony world were he had been raised, but that was attractively exotic for most Romulans, and he was actually very handsome.

Raghnill smiled at him, and he answered the gesture, even if he had no idea of what was going on in her mind.

When Raghnill had met him, all his beauty had been gone, and she never imagined he could actually look so well. He was a sickly thin man, his face turned into a skull, who looked back at her with shallow hopeless eyes. Newly arrived at the hellish Klingon prison camp, he had been the first fellow prisoner she had seen when thrown into the cell where she would lose three years of her life, and his terrible state, a forewarning of what was to come, had shocked her.

And there he was, comfortably sat in front of her, smiling, healthy, strong again, even irrestiblely good-looking. But he was one of the few.

Since she had returned home after the long imprisonment, she had tried to keep all those who had escaped with her under her command. None in all the empire could be more faithful and more reliable; they had suffered too much together and now they were bond to each other until their death.

However, some had left her; she understood, it was ok; they had been promoted and assigned to other ships, or they have retired. As her former first officer, that now had his own command. She was happy for them, and even had had to nudge some of them who reluctantly had moved over. They deserved the best.

She wished all of them were gone for such good reasons, though; the truth was most of them were already dead, or too severely injured to serve. The majority of them had fallen during the Dominion War. Her ship had been first in the front since they entered the war; considering, both of them were very lucky to be still alive. She was proud of the many battles fought, she did not regret the price she had had to pay, but still, it hurt her.

Of all of her former prison mates, now only four stayed beside her. Just four of them. Once freed, she had thought they were safe, that after enduring so much, nothing could stop them. As her mother had told her many times, again, she had been quite naïve. Their lives as soldiers continued anyway, and they were not invincible at all.

"Do you know what I plan?" Raghnill asked him, her voice flat.

His silence answered her. He really had no clue. Actually, there was no way he could know; she really did not have much of an idea.

"You know who I contacted to learn about my mother," that was a statement.

He just nodded; he already knew what she meant.

"Do you seriously think they will approve my actions?" she inquired again before he could add anything.

The subcommander hardened his look, "They don't need to approve them, their duty is to obey them, and that's all."

"That's not what I asked," Raghnill tilted her head, awaiting his answer.

He suppressed a sigh; his index finger caressed slightly his cheek, in thought, before replying, "We are now allied to the Federation; there is nothing wrong."

But her eyes probed him further. He looked an instant away, then reluctantly admitted, "Maybe they don't."

Raghnill had clashed her hands before her, and now rested a moment her head on them. She gazed up to comment, "There are only five of us, five of us who really understand."

Her mind continued giving her flashbacks. She saw an aged man, many scars crossing his weary face, staring at her with mad saddened eyes.

She still visited sometimes, when she was on leave back at Romulus; even if her mother got upset and insisted once again that she should not. In truth it pained her, and every time she was with them, the old wounds threatened to open again.

They were not invincible. They had never been. And euphoria is a transitory sensation that soon goes away. Once it does, some are left still optimistic, most are balanced again, but some others are left empty, and broken. For some, the ghosts of the prison camp still lived with them, and there was no respite.

That man had set his tormented eyes upon her one last time several years ago, and somehow, the memory still haunted her. She still visited others, yes, but he had been the most important to her, the one who had been with her since the beginning, serving on her ship before their capture. "Now we will be back," she had told him, and he had been happily excited.

Before shutting down. Before losing his mind when all seemed to be finally over.

And he had never recovered; none of them had. Worse, with regret Raghnill remembered vividly that she had been informed of his death soon after that last visit, so long ago now. He had committed suicide, and there had been nothing honorable in that. He had been a brave warrior; he had not died like one.

Her gaze must have revealed some of the dark thoughts that rapidly crossed her mind, for there was some concern in her first officer's stare.

"The crew is utterly loyal to you, you know," he offered as support, and she knew it was true; she had never doubted it.

It was something slightly different what troubled her, "But they know nothing of the other battles we fought."

This time, he was the one who offered the smile, "They will accept."

"Commander," both officers looked up and straightened at the interrupting voice, even if it was coming from the speakers and there was no way their interlocutor could see them.

"Yes, Inara," she was her science officer, the one who had accompanied her to her meetings with Saavik, one of the remaining four.

"An encrypted message is coming for you, ma'am, I pass it through." She did not need to say anything more, Raghnill immediately got up and went for her computer terminal.

Her first officer also stood with her, "If you want me to leave…" he offered.

"No, please, stay," she turned to flash him a wicked smile, breaking the grim atmosphere that both had created, "We're together in this, aren't we?"

However, his answer was not a playful one, "Until the end," he said with conviction, saluting, and stepped behind her.