Captain Drake was astonished when Endeavour came out of warp to find eight Klingon ships waiting for it; and even more astonished when the Klingons didn't immediately blow them from the stars.
"Red alert, all hands to battle stations; Cartwright, plot an escape vector."
"Escape course charted, sir," he said, as the alarm blared and security and medical personnel arrived on the bridge, prepared for an emergency.
Sturnn was listening to an incoming transmission on his earpiece. "Captain, we're receiving a signal from the station."
In the alarm of the Klingons' presence, the captain hadn't even noticed the immense space station – almost the size of one of the Federation's monolithic starbases. That was where Alex had gone. Had the Klingons taken it? Had they captured her? Or killed her? He forced himself to be calm.
"On screen."
"Hi Will!"
Drake was on his feet immediately, staring at her with undisguised astonishment. "Alex? What the merry hell is going on?"
Kana tried to smile sweetly, but it wasn't really in her nature to do so, and consequently the expression came out somewhat twisted. "It's an interesting story. For now, suffice it to say that we have control of this installation, we've freed the Daedalus crew, and these nice Klingons have agreed to help us get our ship back."
"Understood," said Drake, very slowly. "We'll dock momentarily. Be ready to come aboard."
"Of course."
He gestured to Sturnn, and a new comm channel was opened, this one to the Starfleet force. "All ships: go to yellow alert and maintain readiness. Endeavour out. Cartwright, docking course; Mr Hill, full thrusters." He pressed a button on his armrest. "Inogashira, I want you and a team of your best men at the number one airlock, right now."
"Aye, Captain."
The Endeavour nuzzled into the station's docking port. While the airlock's umbilical connection was being secured, the Shadow Wing returned to the shuttle bay, piloted aboard by the marines. Drake received a report of this over the comm; Tholiar had the chair, he was waiting by the main airlock door. The station-side airlock had already opened and people were crossing the umbilical. There was no window in the ship's airlock, so Drake couldn't tell if there were Klingons in the party or not. He glanced at his security contingent, and felt reassured: the ship's best close-combat specialists were with him. Security Chief Miho Inogashira, a petite and deceptively frail Japanese woman, stood at his shoulder, her hand resting lightly on her holstered phase pistol.
A green light came on above the airlock, and the door slid slowly open. Kana stepped onto the ship, followed by two human men. Drake gestured for the security officers to relax, and stepped forward to greet them.
"Major, Hiro; glad to see you both. Alex, tell me what's going on here, and make it spectacularly good!"
Neither Nain had ever heard Drake so honestly angry and Kana was brought up short. Why was she intimidated? There was absolutely nothing that Drake could do that could harm her, and yet she still felt a prickle of fear. She scratched the back of her head and mumbled, "Yeah…um…" She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Alex. "Over to you."
Alex suddenly found herself thrust to the fore, facing her irate captain. "Oh that's real mature, Kana!"
"I'm waiting, Alex."
She twitched on her feet and said nervously, "I've negotiated a temporary alliance with the Klingons, Captain."
"I can see that. Where did these Klingons come from?"
"There were a large contingent of Klingon prisoners on the station. The ships have been following us pretty much since we left Federation space, always staying just on the edge of sensor range. Brok and I detected them ages ago."
"And you forgot to mention this?"
"Erm…"
Why had she said that? Now she had got Brok in trouble as well, and she hadn't helped herself any; she'd just made herself look even more irresponsible. She blamed that slip on not having quite recovered from her fall. She still felt a little giddy on her feet. Why had Kana thrust her into this situation?
"And I suppose you're the one who told my tactical officer not to mention this to me, either."
"I didn't want you to over react."
Drake folded his arms sternly. "How long have you been planning this?"
Think fast, Alex told herself.
"A while. We need help if we're going to get the Daedalus back, and no one does fighting like the Klingons. I've convinced them that the Vyar are the biggest threat right now. They'll provide us with cover while we get our ship back."
His temper was cooling fast – he just couldn't stay mad with Alex. But how easily she glossed over the problem of Daedalus' recovery. Or did she have a plan? That cocky gleam in her deep red eyes, he had seen it before. "Any thoughts about how we achieve that?"
"As a matter of fact…"
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Captains Drake and Matsura reclined in the captain's cabin, sipping from glasses of double malt Scotch whisky, not saying much in particular; the Daedalus captain was still enjoying being in the old comfortable surroundings of a Starfleet ship, and Drake was giving him his time.
He hadn't seen Matsura in years. Not since the captain had been awarded command of the U.S.S. Daedalus, the prototype of the Daedalus-class of starship, and the Federation's first warp seven point five capable vessel. It had been a proud moment for Matsura, and for his friend. He remembered wishing the captain all the best. He hadn't felt a hint of jealousy. At the time, he had command of Challenger, that old NX-class saucer, and he was happy enough with her. Alex had been that ship's helmsman, and that had made Challenger the best command in Starfleet as far as Drake was concerned.
Matsura had aged horribly since then. Drake knew that he had grown older – he wasn't so old that his hair had greyed, but he could feel it took more of an effort to keep in shape, his eyes and his reflexes weren't quite what they had been – but it wasn't so noticeable. Matsura had been so boyish, very much younger than his years. Now, he had a decade or so on his birth certificate.
Losing your ship could be traumatic, Drake reasoned. Being imprisoned with Klingons probably didn't do wonders for a man's complexion, either. Matsura would be better once he had his ship back, and they had put these aliens – Vyar, Alex called them – far behind them.
A few weeks of R-and-R on Risa wouldn't hurt matters, either.
Hiro Matsura took a sip of the whisky and felt it burn pleasantly down his throat. It had been far too long since he had enjoyed a good glass of Scotch. His friend had always had good taste in whiskies. They had bonded over a bottle, not too dissimilar to this one, the very first day they had met. He smiled at the memory. It felt wonderful to smile again. He was in no hurry to stop.
"I like to see the Dynamic Duo is still together."
Drake matched his friend's smile. "Can't keep us apart."
"You two aren't…?"
"Just friends. Why does everyone always assume there's something going on between us?"
"If you really can't see it, you're probably right and you're not in love. Any chance of a top up?"
Drake reached for the bottle. "I think I can handle that. But supplies are limited, Captain. Decent Scotch like this you can't find lying around any old outpost; you have to be in the core systems to get a bottle for anything like a reasonable price."
"Tell me about it. I saw a tempting '60 – wine, that is – back on Starbase One the last time we were in port. Nine months back. I had a date that evening; I needed a nice wine."
"Was that Dominique?"
"No. Isabella."
"Ah," Drake nodded. "I remember you writing about her. She seemed…interesting."
"Interesting is one way to put it," Laughed Matsura. "Anyway, I was all set to buy it, until I saw the price tag."
"Out of your price bracket, huh?"
"Oh, I could have afforded it. If I'd wanted to live on nothing but ship-issue slops for a month!"
They laughed, good loud and happy laughter, and it seemed to Drake that his friend was really recovering. But then he turned abruptly very serious, and something dark hovered in his eyes.
"I want her back, Will."
Drake was left a way behind. "Who? Isabella?"
"No, not Isabella. The Daedalus."
Of course, he should have realised. A captain's first marriage was always to his ship. Those who weren't deeply attached to their vessels made bad captains. He adored the Endeavour, and Matsura had similar feelings for the Daedalus. The separation was intolerable for him; that his beloved ship was in enemy hands, even worse.
"How did the Vyar capture her in the first place?"
Matsura tried to sound nonchalant as he explained, but Drake could hear the very real indignation creep into his voice. "They came at us out of the black, six ships: four corvettes and a pair of cruisers. They wouldn't answer hails, and they were on direct approach, so I ordered battle stations. Well, as soon as our shields went up they attacked. The corvettes came in fast and strafed us. We returned fire and damaged a couple of them, but they were just a distraction. The cruisers lined up, one either side of us, and fired a sort of…net at us. It passed straight through the shields and anchored to the hull. I don't know how, but it sapped off our power, shut down our systems. As soon as the nets hit, we were floating dead in space. They just took us in a tractor beam and hauled us off. They didn't even bother to board until we were at their shipyard; they knew we couldn't restore our systems. Bastards."
"Don't worry about it," Drake assured him. "We have a plan. It'll work."
The Daedalus' captain eyed his friend dubiously. "A plan? That crazy idea Alex came up with?"
"That would be it."
"We're calling that a plan now?"
"It's better than anything else we've got."
Matsura shook his head. "It's nuts."
"Trademark Alex. She'll get it to work. She always does."
Hiro didn't know Alex Nain as well as Will Drake did, or even as well as Drake's other close friend, Captain Nwabudike Lal. But he had heard plenty of stories about her, from those two captains and from other sources. Mad schemes were her speciality; impossible was a word whose definition she didn't know. All well and good, but how much had those stories been exaggerated in the re-telling?
"Klingons and humans fighting together? Stranger things…haven't happened."
"She says they can be trusted."
Matsura swirled his drink and watched it go round. "Do you believe her?"
Drake had to be honest. "No. Klingons are dangerous, ruthless, and I wouldn't trust them within a light year of my ship if I had a choice. But I don't. And Alex is right that we need the help."
"Desperation. Arising from necessity."
The Endeavour's captain raised his glass. "To necessity."
"Necessity," agreed Matsura, clicking his glass against Drake's. "I still don't like it."
"I'm not in love with it, either. But I think it's our best shot at getting Daedalus back."
"And what do we do once we've recovered her?"
"Run like hell for Federation space. We'll leave the Klingons and the Vyar to duke it out. If the Klingons beat the Vyar, and destroy their base, they'll have reduced the threat in this region. If the Vyar win, the Klingons will have lost several ships, as well as one of their top generals."
Matsura now understood why Drake had gone alone with Alex's alliance. He had seen potential in it, a potential to turn things to their advantage. "Either way, we win."
"Exactly."
This time, when Drake offered a toast his friend raised his glass with enthusiasm. Some good might yet come out of this incident.