Chapter 2: The Struggle Against Error

Sickbay's decon chambers resembled a slightly larger agony booth, merely offering the comfort of a metal bench to sit on and enough room to impatiently pace, as Lorca was doing barely two minutes after entering the chamber.

Culber sat behind the control station, monitoring the result. He'd set up the internal sensor of the chamber to the sensitivity of what a public sniffer would have, though he was eyeballing that particular value. Sniffers weren't known to be particularly precise instruments, serving more as a deterrent than an actual alarm. Still, Culber didn't want to learn what would happen if one of the things picked up a whiff of one Gabriel Lorca.

Meanwhile, Kodos wasn't even present in the database as a person of interest. In fact, despite his curious absence from Tarsus as either dead or alive, he'd been counted as a casualty and his record locked. What had been made of his last-minute appointment as governor was anyone's guess, but the most likely conclusion would be a total breakdown of leadership, going through the line of succession rapidly. Somewhat similar to what had gone down after Georgiou's death and the destruction of the Charon.

Culber leaned past the holo-screen and settled his chin into his hand, regarding Lorca for a little while, shamelessly self-indulgent, of course. He wasn't one who held himself to higher standards.

"Hey," Culber said and Lorca's pacing stuttered as he looked at Culber through the glass. "If you're bored in there, you could just enlighten me why you're in there in the first place. You could just send Tyler."

"He's hungover," Lorca answered blithely, raising his eyebrows as if Culber wouldn't already know and have helped take care of that little hiccup.

"Leighton."

"Not his skill set."

"Zhang."

"Engineers stay on board."

Culber opened his mouth to suggest some other security officer, but couldn't come up with a name fast enough. While there was a measure of trust between Lorca and his crew, not everyone should be left to their own devices on a planet like Yemuro. Selling Lorca out would be an easy task, possibly too easy for many to resist, especially if they ended up cornered in some way.

"Tyler is doing just fine," Culber finally said.

"Tyler has conflicting emotions about me."

"That's because you aren't even letting him have that pity-fuck."

Amused, Lorca said. "That's not what he wants."

Culber snorted, "Believe me, he'd take it."

"Tyler has the bridge," Lorca said with finality. "I'm taking Kodos to Yemuro with me."

Culber leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, frowned at Lorca and studied him with a little more leisure. Although the man was likely to disagree, he didn't seem like his prolonged stay in a universe he so vocally hated had harmed him in the least. Culber wasn't a man who thought of himself as easily intimidated and he wasn't, people generally didn't want to harm him and he tended to have one up his sleeve in case they did, but Lorca, to put it quite bluntly, could be a scary bastard without even trying to be. He also had a functioning brain, last time Culber checked, leaving only a few options as to why they were having this conversation at all.

"Right, so what's going on?" Culber asked. Took out one arm and raised his finger at Lorca, "No deflections or I'll just leave you in there, are we clear?"

A slight smile slashed across Lorca's face, not entirely pleasant but with genuine humour nonetheless.

Lorca was thinking, or rather, he was pretending to consider it when he had already made up his mind.

"Fine," Lorca said. "I got a coded message from Marlena. She was transferred off the Charon right before things went bad. She's serving on the Enterprise now."

Lorca arched his brows as he added, "One of the ships based on the Constitution design, not one I want to meet in combat."

"Figures Marlena set herself up nicely," Culber said. "What did she find?"

Lorca flexed his shoulders as something irritated him, but he said, "Computer, access file Lorca-16120111-1, Dr Culber's terminal, one play."

The file announced itself on Culber's terminal and he gave Lorca a long critical look before turning his attention away from him. He stroked his fingers over the console and Marlena Moreau's face replaced the holo-screen.

"My dear Captain," Moreau said with a feral little smile, perfectly aware of the inappropriate intimacy of the address. "I've come across this little tidbit of information I'd like to share. I couldn't get anything on the spore drive, classified to hell and back. But I did find out that Paul Stamets wasn't the only expert in the field. There was a rival called Straal who fell out of favour and died soon after. Stamets probably took all his research and used it for himself. But.. and that's the good part… Straal had a research assistant, she was in the files as 'Elizabeth Sennai'. I had to do some digging on that but turns out Sennai is an alien, some vulcan-romulan-whatever-crossbreed. I guess Straal covered up her race to stop some bureaucrat from getting nervous about having a non-terran attached to such a project. I first thought she'd died with Straal, but she's managed to weasel away. I've tracked her to the vulcan-romulan quarter on Yemuro. She works at a dilithium refinery. I have no idea if she knows anything useful." Moreau tilted her head. "But it's the best lead I've seen since… ever. Check it out. Don't get killed."

"She's attached Sennai's work registration file so we know where to find her," Lorca added while Culber was still musing on how much a few short months had matured Moreau. Though it shouldn't be surprising that Moreau had not only escaped but was doing well for herself. Culber wouldn't be surprised if she had the Enterprise's captain wrapped around her little finger very soon.

Culber cast a glance over at Lorca, who was rubbing his neck and taking a few steps up and down the small enclosure.

"You've told no one about this," Culber said, making it not quite a question.

"Alibali knows," Lorca said. "You do, now. Officially, our only interest in Yemuro is the dilithium. It'll stay that way."

Lorca's face darkened and he said, "It's not a lie, we really need the dilithium."

Lorca dropped his hand from his neck, frown deepening as he turned to pace another few steps and Culber finally noticed what had Lorca so distracted. Culber had put it down merely to the effect of the scrubbing, which would leave Lorca feeling like his skin was getting too tight for his body, dry and brittle and uncomfortable as the cells' genetic structure was distorted. However, the red-welted lines on Lorca's neck and buttock were clearly scratch-marks reacting to the treatment by obvious inflammation.

Just to be sure, Culber cast a glance at the readout on his terminal. The load of identifiable DNA hadn't been going down at the rate Culber had expected. At least it made sense now.

Culber said, "Had some fun earlier, huh?"

Lorca turned back, frowning and saying nothing, probably because there was no good defence to be had.

"You see," Culber explained, entering lecture mode gleefully, raising both pointer fingers at Lorca. "Dermal regeneration and surface scrubbing don't mix. Newly regenerated skin can't handle it. As you can probably tell by now. ."

Lorca stepped towards the glass, now holding himself still, frown deepening. "So do something about it," he said.

Culber sighed, "I can't. I mean, it'll spread DNA everywhere, even the worst sniffers are going to catch on. But it's a small area, so I'll just put a patch over it and it should be fine. Just…" he waved his hand for emphasis, "keep your collar and your pants up."

Satisfied with the solution, Lorca merely nodded, rubbed at his neck absent-mindedly, then dropped his hand as he resumed his pacing once more.

Curious how long it would take Lorca to ask how long it would take, Culber offered no estimate of his own volition, chasing his own lines of thoughts. The one time Lorca had truly struggled with his new circumstances had come several months into his command. One of the people who had, as Lorca tended to emphasise, chosen him, had turned out to be an imperial agent. Originally placed to infiltrate this universe's Gabriel Lorca's organisation, he had seized on his chance to deliver a different prize to his superiors. Secretly, he had installed a tracking device in the ship and had been close to plug it into the Defiant's communications systems. If he had been able to activate it, the Defiant would have broadcast its designation and position across all subspace channels across the empire.

That had not been the problem. Lorca must have expected something like that and in fact, he was always expecting something like that. However, he was ill prepared for the way his crew expected him to respond.

Starfleet's penal code required severe punishment for wholesale treachery on the level of endangering the entire ship and crew. As it were, there was no other possible punishment than death, although the code allowed captains some leeway as to the method of execution or even whether they would execute the perpetrator immediately or if they were to spend some time in agony beforehand. Though, traditionally, traitors were beamed into the cold emptiness of space. Except, Lorca had refused even to listen to the idea. Instead, he'd kept the traitor locked up in the brig for days while the murmuring confusion of his crew built into audible discontent.

In the end, all Lorca had done was take a phaser to the brig and shoot the traitor, jettisoning his ashes into space and never speaking a word of it to anyone. No one was happy with the result, not Lorca, not those of his crew who were disappointed in his timidness and not those who might secretly hope he represented a new style of leadership.

"Why won't you tell us?" Culber asked into the silence.

Lorca gave him another frown.

"The truth," Culber clarified. "Everyone can figure out you aren't going to the planet for just a bunch of crystals."

Lorca just kept watching him, eventually, he shook his head and turned away. "If you can't work it out on your own, you don't need to know."

Culber smacked the release button and the air hissed as the decon chamber vented its atmosphere. At Lorca's frown, Culber said, "The scratches need to go."

The annoyance at the dismissive answer he'd been given gnawed away at Culber's mood, distracting him to the point where he didn't even remember making a lewd comment as he applied the transparent patch to the welts on Lorca's skin.

Surely Tyler could be trusted? Conflicting emotions or not, if Tyler had the bridge and he was operating on incomplete information, all sorts of things could go wrong. At least the command staff needed to be briefed on the facts so they could give the right orders down the line. Lorca was being secretive for no other reason than the old adage of knowledge is power. And now Culber was an accomplice. If he were an imperial captain, Lorca would have done well for himself, but Culber decided to withhold that barb until the moment he could really make it hurt.

Patched up and back in the chamber, the readable amount of DNA dropped quickly. Culber watched it sullenly, arms crossed over his chest, waiting in vain for Lorca to pick up the trailing threads of the conversation.

The terminal announced completion and Culber hit the release again. Culber pointed at the bed and said, "Sit."

Although it wouldn't have made sense for Lorca to resist and it would have been unlikely for him to bark at the tone, Culber felt a slither of satisfaction at Lorca's tame compliance with the command.

Culber picked up a handheld scanner.

"Watch," Culber said, flicked his gaze over Lorca's face only to find passive expectation there. "Scanner set to emulate a sniffer."

He passed the scanner over Lorca's chest and received nothing. Just to be sure, he reached out and brought it close to his neck, but to the same result. The effect of the scrubbing meant the scanner not only couldn't decode the DNA, it didn't even identify it as DNA in the first place, so it didn't even produce an error.

"Now, any normal scanner will do this," Culber snapped the setting back and even without aiming for Lorca, the scanner immediately identified him. A holographic image was projected above the device, displaying Lorca's face and information and the brightly flashing warning that marked him as 'Enemy of the Empire'.

Lorca dropped his gaze to the display. "Why am I not dead?" he asked.

"Lorca was on the Charon when it blew up," he added. "Wasn't he?"

"That's what Marlena said."

"Everyone else on that ship has been declared dead."

"I know where this is going," Culber said, keeping a snarl from his tone by sheer force of will. "But the truth is, it's simply very convenient. Not for you, obviously, but for the new emperor. Captain Lorca is a handy threat to help keep things together. Nothing unites better than a common enemy."

Lorca slid from the bed and stood straight. He flexed his neck as if to test the patch, but said nothing.

"You should be good for about a week, two if you keep your distance from the sniffers and don't pick on your skin," Culber explained. "Kodos sent over clothes for the masquerade."

Lorca nodded. "Lorca to Alibali, how are we doing?"

"We are nearly done, sir. Preparations should be finished in less than an hour."

"That's what I like to hear," Lorca said as he picked up the clothes and started to dress. "We'll move as soon as everyone's ready."

"I'll keep you briefed, sir."

"Good," Lorca said. In his hands, a shapeless tan coat unfolded. "Lorca out."

He left the coat off for now and fixed his gaze on Culber.

"I'll need a full set of pins," Lorca said. "For bartering."

Culber nodded and went to the cabinet where he stored the pins. He retrieved the small, metal casket and handed it back to Lorca who put it on top of the coat.

"The crew's talking about that," Culber pointed out.

"They are meant to."

"I'm not sure you've thought that through all the way," Culber pointed out. "Faking a drug addiction can go wrong in so many ways. Even if it's a weakness that doesn't actually exist."

"You're just worried someone is coming after you to get to me," Lorca said with an unpleasant smile threatening the corners of his mouth.

The thought had crossed Culber's mind, but he wasn't unduly worried about it. What bothered him was more how it undermined Lorca's own position as the smartest possible person to be giving the orders. Terrans knew how to follow orders given by idiots, of course, but usually only for as long as it took to remove that idiot from power. Lorca was provoking another attempt at his life and fuelled it with doubt of his own abilities. Doubt which would forever stick in some small measure, no matter what else he did.

"You'd make a fantastic imperial captain," Culber said. "But maybe not one of the smart ones."

The humour, or whatever effigy of it had been there, slowly drained from Lorca's face until all that remained was an intimidating sort of composure. "Is there an issue you wish to address, doctor?"

It took some measure of willpower to actually remain standing where he was, facing Lorca.

"I have been addressing all the issues," Culber said, tone clipped. "You don't listen."

Lorca just looked at him, eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but Culber could tell Lorca was actually thinking, running his mind through their conversations, the points Culber had raised and Lorca had dismissed, now re-evaluating it all in the span for mere moments. The scrubbing had left the surface of his skin with a strangely waxy appearance, which would turn to look like a bad sunburn and then an ugly rash as the body finally rejected the altered cells and shed them. Most of his hair would do the same, though it would take a little longer. Culber was a little vague on the long-term effects of scrubbing. It was a method used by criminals and spies, not a group of people likely to live long enough to worry about delayed problems.

"Now is not the time," Lorca said. He picked up the pins casket and the coat. "But…"

The hesitation alone made Culber listen up.

Lorca said, "Can I trust your issues with me, they'll stay between us?"

Despite himself, Culber snorted a laugh. "Don't be an idiot, I mean, for real. I just called you one, but we both know that's not true. I'm not going to backstab you, for fuck's sake!"

It looked like it took some effort for Lorca to nod, though whether it was an affirmation or merely the acknowledgement of having heard the outburst was anyone's guess. Doubt and hope briefly swam through Lorca's eyes before he shut down whatever emotional response he might be having.

He shrugged it off.

"Remember that," Lorca said, though just mildly enough to take the sting out of what could easily have been an earnest warning and a threat he would be following through with. Culber did not throw his arms up in exasperation, at least not until Lorca had left the vicinity.

Culber huffed angrily in the empty silence of Lorca's wake, dissatisfied with the encounter on all possible levels. He just hoped Lorca knew what he was doing — or at least had his wits about him when things went sour. Culber really didn't want to find out what would happen on the Defiant if Lorca didn't return.

Though, he was equally unhappy at the prospect of finding out what would happen on the Defiant if Lorca continued to slip into whatever mental dark hole he was so keen on digging himself into.

"Fuck you," Culber said, tossed the scanner away. "And fuck me, too."

Until she had met Lorca, Noor Alibali had never explained to anyone what her brain implants felt like. No one had ever shown much interest in them, not even the doctors who had implanted them after she'd suffered severe nerve damage in a rebel attack on her home colony. The doctors had been content with her appearing to be functional. The right side of her body had burned away in the acidic spray of the explosion, damage too extensive to heal, so robotic replacements took the place of her crippled limbs.

After waking up that first time, it had taken her mere minutes to realise what it would mean, being only half human anymore. Her career would be hampered at every turn, faced with scorn and disdain at being reduced to barely more than a machine.

She had wondered, since meeting Lorca if the other one, the one whose cause she had joined without ever seeing him, would have given her this much attention. She was a member of the senior staff, subordinates under her and only few people left who would dare side-eye her or bad-mouth her too loudly. Lorca trusted her with information he was giving no one else. She was the only link between him and his agent, Moreau, the only one who could decode the messages.

It seemed she had made the best of herself, after all, the best she could do and it didn't look so shabby, even if there was no recognition outside the confines of the ship and her crew. It was enough.

But then, there was Airiam. The Emperor. The new Emperor, who was more machine than Alibali herself by all accounts. And far more successful by any measure one might put to it.

She had put thinking about that permanently on hold, though because only part of her brain was artificial, the rest did not quite obey these orders and would sometimes slip into contemplation, taking her implants with it, so far her flights of fancy turned dark and sinister.

Her augmented mind parsed through the information the databanks provided on Yemuro, faster and more efficiently than a purely human mind could. After so long, it felt natural, even through the strain on her implants left her with a strange, hot sensation inside her skull. It was an entirely imaginary perception, of course, her brain tissue could not feel anything.

"Is everything ready?" Tyler asked with a slight rotation of the captain's chair to glance at her station. The Defiant was keeping position just outside Yemuro's sensor range.

Alibali's terminal was the nerve centre of the operation, it's stoic coldness reassuring against the insistent impression of white-hot shards had been buried in her head. Everything she could control, she would, everything she could predict she had accounted for. Everything else just hung in the, variables waiting to be set and she could only hope she could incorporate them with that very narrow span of time she had at her disposal to adjust their course of action.

"Ready to go, sir," Alibali said. In the end, it would Tyler who made the calls, not her. She could only hope he was up to the task in the same way she would be.

"Captain?" Tyler asked.

Lorca's voice filled the bridge through the comm channel, making himself through his very absence.

"Still manoeuvring in the shuttle bay," he said. "Haven't done this in a while."

Tyler arched his brows. "I did offer you a pilot."

"It was a great vote of confidence," Lorca said.

Alibali wondered if the humour was genuine or if Tyler would face a reprimand for this slice of insubordination once Lorca returned. No captain could stay in charge if he allowed too much leniency in his crew. Lorca tended to be laid-back about it, but perhaps he was just more discreet than most.

When Lorca spoke again, his tone was conversational, almost as if he was just passing the time.

"Have I ever told you about how I lost my ship?" he asked. "The Buran, the one in my universe, when another Captain Lorca attacked us. Did I?"

Tyler needed a moment to figure out the question wasn't rhetorical. "No, sir, you haven't."

"We were at war with the klingons at the time, when they take prisoners, they parade them around, public humiliation, public execution. I wasn't going to let that happen to my crew. I asked Starfleet Command to install a second self-destruct system. My request was denied, they didn't like the concept. You know what I did?"

Tyler avoided making eye-contact with anyone on the bridge, no doubt harbouring his suspicions on why Lorca was regaling them with this particular tale. The captain's casual tone hadn't changed, but the deep rasp in his voice added weight to his words.

"I installed it anyway. But I didn't need it for the klingons. It was your another Captain Lorca and another Buran," Lorca laughed a little at the irony of it. "When I realised I'd lost, I used it. Should've been the end. I called it a dead man's switch, but it was a bit of a misnomer. It was just a self-destruct without the off-switch."

He paused, just for a moment. Alibali watched the on her monitor as the shuttle finished positioning itself with its rear-end towards the shuttle bay doors, hovering already with the aid of its thrusters.

"This time, I got something much closer to it. The Defiant will never have another captain. But it's nothing you need to worry about just now. I'll be back in ten days, after all."

Another pause, thin, like the edge of a blade. "Ready."

Alibali snapped her attention down on her console while the rest of the bridge crew hastily collected themselves from the muffling veil Lorca's narrative had wrapped around them and subdued them. She knew what Lorca was saying, even if the true meaning had eluded her until now. Lorca had asked her to help with some of the adjustments he made to Defiant's mainframe, the integral computer system controlling everything on the ship. She had known he was making it impossible for someone else to take over the way he originally had, but she hadn't understood the lengths he would go to to ensure no one would turn against him in his absence.

He couldn't hamstring the actual command of the ship without crippling it, someone had to be in control, but that someone might be tempted not to hand that control back. Leaving the ship for the first time since he had taken it was a risk, one Lorca had found a way to mitigate, or at least equip it with built-in revenge. And he had just told the entire bridge crew about it.

By the beginning of the next shift, everyone on the ship would know.

Alibali wondered if she, or another computer engineer, could reverse whatever Lorca had done. After all, there were many reasons for him not to return which had nothing at all to do with mutiny on the Defiant.

For her, the switch from internal contemplation of a potentially grim future was probably slightly easier than for the rest of the crew, but she noticed barely a second delay for at least Tyler to remember where he was. Settling his hands on the controls in his armrest, Tyler confirmed and gave the order to cloak, then go to warp.

The warp drive revved up to speed, bringing the cloaked ship back into Yemuro within less than four minutes, when they had to slow down to avoid collision in the tightly packed space. Numerous ships of all sizes, data buoys and satellites, armed defence platform littered their path. There was always a chance if they got to close, they could raise an alarm, or at least cause a sensor disturbance that someone would want to investigate and while the cloak was effective, it wasn't without its flaws.

"Approaching Yemuro," the helm announced. "Bringing us into stable orbit."

"Slow and steady," Tyler said. "We don't want to give them a scare. Yet."

The helm and navigation controls had been hot-wired to link them together, allowing just one crew-member to fly the ship, a necessity brought on by their small crew complement. The officer acknowledged the reminder, though he almost certainly didn't need it.

The Defiant found a spot in orbit, just south of the equator, at the edge of the busiest parts around the two space elevator spikes which allowed for constant supply to and from automated freighters along the bristles of their docking bays.

"Passive sensor sweep," Tyler ordered. "Let's find a good transporter location."

The information came in in overabundance, not a particularly militarised planet and with much of it populated by civilian operations, control of signals wasn't as tight as it could have been. Yemuro was entirely covered by industrial parks, raised over mining facilities supplying them with raw materials. City structures and towering, cobweb-like living quarters weaving between them. Essential areas were blanked out, military installation and security checkpoints, secret research labs, all of which were protected from direct transport by a scattering field, but most of the public areas offered no resistance to a transporter beam.

The moment the shuttle left the protective area of the cloak, it could be tracked and so could any transporter beam emanating from it. Moreau's message had contained several possible locations and the passive sensor sweep confirmed and refined the information. Alibali selected an area near a transport hub, where people would be packed thick, most of them in a hurry and not everyone with legal business. Even if the transporter destination was tracked, it would allow Lorca and Kodos to get lost in the crowd quickly.

Alibali transmitted the final coordinates to the shuttle and received a non-verbal confirmation from it.

"Alright," Tyler said. "Deploy the shuttle."

The shuttle, already in position, slowly drifted backwards with only a slight push by its navigational thrusters, bringing it out of range of the cloak.

Almost immediately, Yemuro's tracking systems registered the newcomer, invasive scanners went over the area. There was no attempt to hail the shuttle, defence platforms in range immediately took aim.

"Transport complete," Alibali announced. At the same time the transport had displaced Lorca and Kodos to the planet, the shuttle's autopilot kicked it, accelerated it forward and back into the open shuttle bay.

"Torpedo!" Alibali warned. "Locked onto the shuttle."

Even as the shuttle vanished from the torpedo's sensors, it's on-board computer was powerful enough to simply calculate its target's most likely trajectory.

The shuttle crashed into the bay and the doors began to close even as the Defiant shifted its position to make a run for it. The torpedo hit the closing doors, unprotected by anything but the thin atmospheric shield. The impact shook through the Defiant, crawling through all the decks right up to the bridge, setting off sparks in the consoles. The cloak wavered at the sudden breach in the power distribution.

"We are being targeted," Alibali said.

"Time to get out of here," Tyler said. "Let's punch through, warp one."

There was no way they could navigate the tightly packed space at warp one, but the helm officer had plotted a comparative safe passage through the mess, minimising the damage they would sustain.

Bell managed to get the cloak back up while Alibali tracked with some concern the spreading damage the torpedo had left. The shuttle-bay door had deflected some of the explosive power, but the bay itself was in ruins, causing a chain reaction of explosions eating through the belly of the ship. Emergency containment was struggling to contain them as both the warp drive and the cloak sucked up all available power.

The Defiant jumped to wrap, leaving a thin trail of damaged, smaller spacecraft in its wake as they collided with it on the way out.

"That definitely scratched the paint," Tyler remarked at a particularly hard impact, gaze on the terminal in his armrest that told him of the severity. The Defiant hurled away from Yemuro's monitored and controlled space, looking to gain a safe distance before they dropped the cloak.

Engineering's reports stacked up in increasing intensity, but Alibali knew better than devoting much of her attention to them. Bell and her repair crews knew their job, her interference could only distract them. Instead, Alibali watched as the swarm of pursuers that Yemuro had launched after them lose their trace in the vastness of space, outmatched by Defiant's speed and the power of her cloak. She gave them an additional twenty seconds at full warp, estimating they could either handle it or it wouldn't matter either way.

"We've lost them," she finally announced.

"Drop the cloak," Tyler ordered immediately. "Get us down to impulse."

"Yes, sir," the helm officer said.

Tyler cast a long glance at Alibali. "Keep an eye out, I don't want any surprises."

"Yes, sir," she confirmed.

"And let's have that damage report," Tyler added, though he was clearly already watching the gist of it on his own terminal. In fact, the way the Defiant was still shuddering must be more than enough of a hint as to the state of the ship.

"Massive damage to the shuttle bay and decks 17 through to 22," Alibali said. "Plasma splatter is eating into the ship. We have fires spreading up to deck 15, but we've nearly contained it. We have no reports from the sections nearest the shuttle bay, I suspect they are completely destroyed, but life support remains stable."

"Containment fields?"

"Holding," Alibali said, frowned as her implant felt overheated, left her with the urge to do her thinking with the human part of her brain. "Not sure for how long, I'm afraid. There are too many variables to calculate."

"Well, I'll take a rough guess on whether we'll blow up right now or later," Tyler said, a wry undertone in his voice which made Alibali remember the threat Lorca had left hanging over all of them.

She eyeballed the data on her screen, fixated on the report that had just stolen itself to the top of the priority list, where Bell herself announced the plasma splatter had managed to do damage to the right nacelle, probably in tandem with the strain of rapid acceleration and equally rapid deceleration just before. She queried engineering for clarification on the status of the warp core. It was, at least for now, stable.

"Later," she finally said and looked up at Tyler briefly.

He nodded. More to himself, he muttered, "Hopefully much later."

Louder, he said, "Let everyone know R&R is cancelled, I want every crew member working on containing that mess. By the way, do we have casualties?"

"Seven crew-members are not reporting in," Alibali said. "Sickbay is reporting twenty-one emergency aid requests. Sickbay hasn't given any status reports yet."

Tyler seemed satisfied with this, though his expression remained grim. Perhaps more in memory of Lorca than the lost crew-members. It wasn't a number that threatened the functioning of the ship, but it was going to make itself known when the new shift schedule had to be set up.

"Bridge to engineering," Tyler said and the channel opened.

"Engineering," Bell's voice answered, sounding ill-tempered and winded, like she was working underneath a console and inhaling acid smoke. Alibali guessed she was.

"When can we go to warp?"

"Sir, we can't maintain integrity at warp, not right now. Not for a few hours. Not for a few days."

"We have to rendezvous with Captain Lorca in ten days," Tyler reminded her, paused as he obviously considered sharing the likely consequence if they didn't. "What about the cloak?"

"Do you want me to laugh?"

"I expect you to be professional," Tyler said, sharper.

There was a long pause, then an audible hiss as Bell braced herself. When she spoke again, she sounded a little better, perhaps she had got up from underneath the console.

"Sir, a torpedo just fucked a giant hole into us. If we go to warp in that state, we disintegrate. I can fix it, but I need some time. But there's no cloak. The power distribution is shot all to hell, there's no cloak. It won't even explode if we engage it. It'll just do nothing."

She paused again. "Professionally speaking, sir."

Tyler's mouth was a thin line of displeasure, at her assessment or her attitude, though most likely both.

"So we're sitting ducks," he said. "Are you a duck, Chief Bell? Do you want to get eaten?"

Bell had the sense to take the thin sliver of insult without defending herself. She might be indispensable now, but that would change, especially if she did her job.

"Fix the warp drive first," Tyler finally said. "Than the cloak."

He sucked in a deep breath, "So we can at least run and hide if they catch up."

Alibali had never quite considered how uncomfortable it must be to sit in that chair and realise how utterly helpless a captain fully in charge of his own ship could be. A lessen maybe Tyler hadn't considered before, one none of them had considered before, Alibali was sure of it, while Lorca had been there.

End of Chapter 2

Author's Note: Long wait, short chapter, bad technobabble, but a naked Lorca, so I guess things worked out in the end…