Chapter Ten

Harrow, Ling, Kravft and Grownel were delivered to In'jara'wa on time and they left the ship without ceremony. The fifth member of the party, Yeoman Hope, petitioned to transfer to the starship during the voyage, and since Harrow had no objections Drake welcomed her into the crew. She thanked her former master heartfully for helping her with her dream, and was there to see him leave the ship, but she was glad not to be going with him.

Endeavour remained at In'jara'wa for no longer than it took the engines to cool down from their long run at maximum power, then the ship returned to warp, racing out of Klingon space as fast as she had come in. Fox's squadron had already been on patrol for most of a month, and they had clashed with a Klingon heavy cruiser. Somehow, the fourteen Starfleet ships had failed to either destroy or contain the Klingon cruiser, and it had escaped into its home space, eluding their attempts to track it.

Drake had never had a very high opinion of Captain – now Commodore – Fox, and this display of ineptitude only convinced him that it was vital that Endeavour joined the squadron as soon as possible. He pushed the ship as hard as she could possibly go, and the crew even harder. Free time became practically unheard of on the starship, but this met with no grumbling from the crew. If anything, they thought that Drake was being a little too lenient; they would have gladly pulled double shifts if it meant squeezing just point one more of a warp factor from the Endeavour.

Two months after the destruction of Herminie, the Endeavour was back in orbit above the obliterated colony planet. The squadron was already on station, a long line of ships stretching across the night sky, headed by the Starship Thunderer. As a display of Federation military might it was extremely impressive: the Excelsior-class pendent ship, four Miranda-class cruisers, and nine frigates of various class and tonnage. Hundreds of phaser banks, thousands of photon torpedoes, the squadron could decimate a starbase.

Hard to believe, then, that they had failed so utterly to capture a single Klingon cruiser.

Endeavour joined the force, slipping into her assigned position right at the back. Drake wasn't surprised to find himself positioned amongst the frigates at the aft of the line. Fox, a few years his senior in the service, had never liked him. This did not greatly concern the captain, as his own respect for Fox was low: the commodore had never distinguished himself, and he had never led a happy crew.

The captain studied the starships as the Endeavour moved into position. The Thunderer was the future of Starfleet, or so Drake had been told. The Excelsior-class was the replacement for the old Constitution-class, to which Endeavour belonged. Larger, faster, and equipped with more sophisticated sensors and computers, it was designed to be the workhorse of the new fleet.

Drake didn't like the new ships, and never had. To him they looked ugly and blocky, not at all like the elegant swanlike form of the Endeavour. Obviously it was more important that the ship was functional, but he still felt that some effort could go into making it look pretty. There was something about the Excelsior-class that made it seem malformed: saucer was far too small, engineering hull too stretched out to the rear.

The Mirandas came next. Modern ships as well, although not so new as the Excelsiors. They were essentially just saucer modules with a pair of nacelles attached directly to the underside. The Miranda-class was primarily a science vessel, intended for long-range survey missions and the likes, but it was also a fast and manoeuvrable ship, and it packed similar firepower to the Endeavour.

The corvettes were the last to pass: small, simple vessels, very much like a paper dart with nacelles attached to the tips of the wings. Drake's first command had been a corvette and he felt a smile tug at his lips. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Fond memories?" Alix whispered to him, and he nodded.

McDonald looked up from her instruments, holding her earpiece in place. "Commodore Fox is hailing, Captain. He requests permission to come aboard."

"Granted. Lieutenant Wolf, with me."

"Will. Let me come."

Drake loved Alix dearly, but right now he had no time for her. "Can you promise to behave?"

"Yes."

"Can you promise and mean it?"

A much more difficult question, one that actually required some thought from her. "No."

Drake hadn't expected any other reply. "Lieutenant Wolf, with me. Mr. McDonald, you have the con."

Commodore Fox was received aboard the Endeavour by the ship's captain and security chief, no more. He looked thoroughly disappointed and angry, as though he had been slighted. There was nothing in the regulations that said any kind of reception committee was required for a commodore, but he had expected one nevertheless, and in his opinion the lack of a row of officers ready to welcome him aboard was a deliberate insult on the captain's part.

Fox was three years Drake's senior on Starfleet's list of captains, but he had at least fifteen years on him in actual age. Drake was in his mid-forties, although his face retained some of the smoothness of youth and his hair was only lightly speckled with grey. Fox, on the other hand, was over sixty years old, his hair was perfect silver, and his pale skin was heavily wrinkled, making him look even older than he was. A lifetime of disappointments and perceived injustices sat heavily upon him, and he looked at the much younger captain with intense dislike and jealousy. He hated how young Drake was and how close together they were on the list, he hated the man's success, his popularity amongst his crews, and the good luck that he had with his missions. He hated how Drake was always top of the list for important assignments, how he had never been without a ship, having taking the Endeavour when he first made captain and having never given her up since. In fact, the only thing that Fox liked about Drake was now being his commander.

Whatever the captain felt about Fox, he didn't let it show when he stepped forward and greeted, "Commodore. Welcome to the Endeavour."

"You took your sweet time getting here, Captain," said Fox, not feeling very civil. "We've been expecting you for two days. Held the whole squadron up with your slowness."

Drake said nothing; indeed no reply was expected of him. Both he and Fox knew that the Endeavour had cracked on at a terrific pace, that few ships in the fleet could have matched her during her last run, and that to go any faster she would have required a transwarp drive. It was a ridiculous comment, and Fox knew as much the moment he had said it.

The captain allowed a moment to pass. "Perhaps we should talk in the conference room, sir?"

"Lead the way, Captain. I'm not so familiar with the layout of these old ships." The last part was said deliberately to provoke; all it did was cause Drake to congratulate himself for leaving Alix on the bridge: she'd have bitten the commodore's head off.

They gathered around the conference room table. Drake offered the commodore a cup of coffee; Fox replied that he only drank tea.

"The squadron has already been out a month, and we've chased away a Klingon ship," said Fox, doing his best to turn that horrible blunder into something that at least sounded positive. "My intention is to run the same course through the sector again, which will take another month, and then return to port to resupply. We were put into space in a hurry, and most of the squadron isn't equipped for a prolonged patrol."

"Understood," said Drake, giving no opinion as to the merits of this plan. The very lack of any kind of praise or criticism (the later being much more expected than the former) addled Fox, but he pressed on. "Endeavour is to be stationed towards the rear of the line. I know you'll say that she's a heavy cruiser and belongs in the front, and you're technically correct; but she's old and fragile, and no match for a modern warship. Realistically, we must considered Endeavour a light cruiser at most."

"As you say, sir."

"I believe there's nothing else, Captain. I shall return to Thunderer."

"Lieutenant Wolf will escort you back to the transporter room, Commodore. I must return to the bridge."

"Very well. Carry on."

Drake found Alix waiting for him when he stepped out of the turbolift. "And how is the old arsehole?"

"Alix," he reproached without much conviction. "That's no way to talk about a senior officer.

"Really? I thought I'd modified my language quite well. You should hear some of the things I was thinking of saying."

"Some other time, perhaps." He tapped the general announcement button on his chair. "Now hear this. All hands, this is the captain. We have joined formation with the Federation squadron, under Commodore Fox. We will patrol this sector of space for approximately one month, before returning to port. I know this kind of duty is long and tedious, but if we stick to our duties and work it'll pass before you realize it. Carry on."

Alix's eyebrows were up in her hairline. "A month? You've got to be kidding, Will."

"We're lucky it's not a year, Alix. That attack was brutal."

"Fox had a chance to catch the perpetrators, and the oaf bungled it."

"Alix…"

"Will. You know I'm right."

An argument on the bridge between the captain and helmsman, the two most respected people on the ship, would be disastrous for morale. Drake didn't feel like it, anyway. He agreed with what his friend was saying, and only objected out of the necessity of showing respect to Fox's post. There was little point in him doing so, however, as by now every hand on the ship was well aware of his opinion of the commodore – word having filtered down the grapevine during the flight – and there wasn't a man or woman aboard who didn't fall into line with their captain's view.

"That's in the past," was what he said. "We have our orders. Let's just get to it and get it over with."

And so the Endeavour took her place in the line, and that line began the long slow journey around the sector, never pushing more than warp six, never seeming to get anywhere. A week into the flight they paused above the mining colony on Im II, but no shore leave was granted to the crew of any ship, and only a day after arrival the squadron was off again, back into the loneliness of deep space.

The only joy of squadron duty was being able to move between the ships, and crewmen took every opportunity to do so. It wasn't as good as shore leave, but it at least made a change from the all-too-familiar bulkheads of one's own vessel. Bodies of men would transport to and fro during off duty hours, and very quickly the favourite ships amongst the squadron were decided. Endeavour, Phoenix, Atlante and Namur became the most popular, as there a crewman could actually relax and not be tyrannised by the officers. Detroit, and the frigates Cunning and San Pablo, on the other hand, were seen as ships to be avoided at all costs.

Being the largest of the good ships, Endeavour saw the greatest number of visitors, and her people made the most friends amongst the squadron. One or two of her crew became very friendly indeed with their squad mates, and when Hope discovered Lieutenant Claise kissing Ensign Montavier of the La Minerve in one of the observation galleries, the story was right the way around the ship before the hour was out; and around the squadron before the end of the watch.

New friendships weren't all that was happening, some old ones were renewed. Making their way off the Cunning frigate after an unhappy visit, Marty Lewis and his friends Davis and Cook, old Albatrosses all three, recognized a pair of former shipmates working on one of the frigate's EPS regulators. It turned out that there were more than a dozen Albatrosses on the vessel, and after their shift was over they were all more than happy to take Lewis up on his suggestion that they come aboard Endeavour.

These particular Albatrosses had been most unfortunate. After leaving their ship because of the tyranny of their captain, they had ended up aboard a frigate commanded by a weak and ineffectual lieutenant. There was no malice in the man, but he could no more control his officers than he could conjure a wormhole, and the first and second officers were excessively cruel.

Lewis's uniform, emblazoned with Endeavour in white stitching, was a great shock to his old friends. The officers of Cunning insisted on the ship and its crew looking beautiful all the time, and a lot of the crew's 'free time' was spent cleaning their vessel. Uniforms had to be spotless and perfect, presentable for an admiral's inspection, otherwise it was a week of punishment detail. No one would dare dub the name of his ship onto his uniform, even if he had been proud enough of the goddamned tub to want to.

"Won't the captain punish you if he sees your uniform like that?"

Lewis laughed. "No. If he did, he'd have to punish the whole crew. Besides, the captain doesn't much care what we look like, so long as we do our work."

"You're lucky, Marty, you landed a good ship."

"It's pretty bad over there, is it?"

Hopkins' voice dropped to a whisper. "It can't go on, Marty. We've got nothing against our captain, he's always treated us civil, but if things don't improve there will be a mutiny. Mark my words."

The very suggestion of such a thing would have shocked anyone in Starfleet. Mutiny was practically unheard of in the service. For Lewis, now so used to the comfortable life on Endeavour that he could hardly believe he had ever been an Albatross, the idea of an armed uprising against the command staff was unthinkable.

"You can't be serious."

"I'm deadly serious, Marty, and there are seventy more of us over there who are just as serious."

Seventy mutineers? The compliment of a frigate like Cunning was seventy-nine, including five officers. Things were bad indeed over there.

"That ass Fox doesn't do anything to help, either," muttered another Cunning.

"What's the matter with him?"

"What's the matter?" Hopkins spluttered. "Marty, have you seen him? He's just like our frigging first officer: every uniform must be neatly pressed, every bit of metal buffed to a gleaming finish. He's sent out orders that every ship in the squadron should meet his own standards. Doesn't look like you've paid any attention, mind," he added, reflecting on the Endeavour's appearance: wonderfully casual.

"The captain does things his own way."

"So I see. Listen, this stays between you, me, and the bulkhead, but there are a lot of us who are happy to see you Endeavours, and I'm not just talking about Cunnings, either."

"Why's that?"

"Why? Fox and Drake are only one name apart on the list, you see. Our commodore only has three years seniority on Drake, and he's never had the kind of success that your captain has. He can't afford to push his luck too much around Drake, because there's a better chance of your captain getting promoted than him."

"I didn't know any of that."

"Well, you do now. Most of the ships in the squad are commanded by lieutenants, and Fox has no qualms about bossing them around; the few captains we've got are all new to the list, so they're not going to put up much of a fight either. But Drake…"

Senior captain or not, Drake was far from immune from the commodore's whims. He had received repeated orders to tidy up his ship, get his crew into line, and he had decided, on reflection, to just pretend that they had never arrived. He utterly refused to make his crew miserable for a month simply to appease a man who would be his superior for just that length of time as well. He was pretty certain that, on returning to port, the squadron would be broken up and Fox would return to being a captain. Maybe a new squadron would be formed and sent out to continue the patrol, but Drake could not imagine the admiralty allowing this inefficient, near-useless, collection of ships to remain together. Not if any of the admirals had even a gram of sense.

He was on his way to the turbolift to pay engineering a visit when Commander McDonald's voice stopped him. "The commodore is signalling permission to come aboard, sir."

"Again?" Snapped Alix. "That's the fifth bloody visit today!"

Drake and his entire crew were tired of Fox coming aboard to criticise and complain. Even McDonald, who had more respect for rank badges than most, had long since lost patience with the commodore, and she had been severely tempted not to mention the matter to her captain. A lifetime of strict adherence to rules and regulations had opened her mouth for her, however.

"I'm going to engineering," decided Drake. He would not come running every time Fox called. "Alix, can you promise to behave?"

"Not really."

"Fine. Go down to the transporter room, greet the commodore, and get rid of him. And if you could engineer it so that he doesn't come back for a while, I think we'd all be grateful."

On her way over to the port turbolift, Alix paused by communications. "Don't worry, Commander, I won't say or do anything that can get us in trouble."

McDonald thought of that time, long ago now, when they had been hurrying to prepare a dinner for Mr. Harrow, and Alix had got the awkward McDuff to behave with just a glance. Did she intend to do the same to the commodore? Perhaps more importantly, would that work?

Yeoman Hope and Crewman Linois were working the transporter when Alix walked in. Linois, a very capable and hard-working French crewman, was showing Hope how to operate the complex piece of machinery, and the yeoman was delighting in her lesson. Since coming aboard the Endeavour as crew she had taken it upon herself to learn as much about the ship as was humanly possible, and as a result she had been warmly welcomed by the hands, who loved eagerness.

"Lieutenant," greeted Hope, and Linois gave her a nod. Alix removed her uniform jacket, hung it deliberately from her shoulders like a cloak, and after flashing a conspiratorial smile at the crewmen she said: "Bring the commodore across."

Fox's first sight when he came aboard the Endeavour, therefore, was of the young lieutenant, standing with a slouch and her hands in her pockets, her uniform jacket hanging from her shoulders, and her dark red hair gelled into entirely non-regulation spikes. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I'm Lieutenant Nain."

It was a greeting and an explanation rolled into one, and Fox recoiled with something like horror. He had heard plenty about the troublesome Nain, but had never met her. She was, he decided in a heartbeat, even worse than she was made out to be.

"Where is Drake?"

"The captain is otherwise engaged."

"That's the problem with this damned ship. No respect, no discipline! No respect for the chain of command, officers lounging about in improper uniform, the decks a mess, uniforms defaced," he raged, plucking at Hope's. "Remove that stitching, Crewman. Take it out!"

"Belay that," Alix drawled, turning lazily to meet the commodore's outrage. She was intentionally provoking him, and having a great time doing it.

"How dare you?"

"I love a dare."

The commodore spluttered. "This is insolence! Insubordination! I will speak to Drake now!"

"Nah, you won't."

"What did you say?" Demanded Fox, or at least that was what he intended to say. In fact he didn't get much farther than 'What' before his voice failed him and his blood fled into his boots to try and hide in the tips of his toes.

Kana Nain had a hell of a look.

"Get off this ship," the Destroyer instructed, "leave us be, and take your pomposity with you." Fox mounted the platform obediently – no one in their right mind would refuse an order uttered by a voice like that – and Kana hissed: "Energise."

The commodore disappeared, having learned his lesson when it came to antagonizing the Endeavour, and although he did return to the ship from time to time during the patrol, he kept his visits to a minimum, kept his thoughts pretty much to himself, and always found a reason to cut his stay short if Nain was so much as on the same deck.

News of this encounter in the starship's transporter room spread through the squadron like a plague, and it became one of the most popular stories. Alix found herself highly respected on the other ships, and the general impression of the Endeavours rose as well. Even the Thunderers, who had no particular love for their captain, enjoyed whispering the tale to each other in the mess, although never when an officer was within earshot.

The line continued on its path through the night, and aboard each ship the steady routine of life continued. Happy ships remained happy, miserable ones stayed miserable, and the relationships between different members of the squadron settled down to a pattern and became fixed in stone, with the San Pablos having little time for the Phoenixes, the Atlantes and the Namurs becoming brothers, and all feeling fondly towards the Endeavours. The feelings amongst the captains in the squadron did not always match those of their men, and while the Atlantes and Namurs might love each other dearly, Captains Solvak and Jervis disagreed on everything; nor were they the only captains to have difficulty in their working relationships, with Captain Li of the Detroit and Commander Butcher of the Ronald Reagan practically at each other's throats. Fox was not unaware of the troubles that were brewing in his squadron, and he attempted to talk to his captains, but he was too ineffectual a commodore, commanded too little respect, to have much influence, and so very little was done and the line simply carried on, resentment and ill-will festering like an open wound.

"I've never been involved in such a shabby display," Drake said to Alix one day, the two of them relaxing in his ready room. "It's a good thing that we're on our way back to port, because I don't think this squadron can hold together for much longer. Li and Butcher are ready to kill each other, Philippe and Von Braun got into a fight the other day – and you know how bad that is for morale."

"On the plus side, I hear Shark and Zebrowski are talking about an engagement. Pity, really. I had my eye on Zebrowski. Lovely legs."

Drake laughed. "You're a character, Alix. I hadn't heard that about those two, though. I mean, I know they've been dating…"

"Yes. And despite my best efforts to throw a spanner in the works, it looks like they want to make the next step." Alix shrugged. "Good luck to them, if it's really what they want. Moira doesn't know what she's missing out on, though."

"I don't think she much cares, Red Eyes. No, I'm glad there are one or two happy commanders, but most of them are miserable, and they're starting to really despise one another. I'm just happy that Fox doesn't hold more command councils, because I don't think my nerves would take it. Solvak and Jervis can argue for hours about nothing." He yawned. "I'm worried for the men, too. I've been on those ships; I've felt the atmosphere. Lieutenant Cole will be lucky if someone doesn't cut his throat while he sleeps."

"Individually some of the ships are very unhappy, and the Cunning in particular, but I hear that the mood of squadron has picked up a lot since we joined. They like having the Endeavour here and they like our people."

Drake smiled fondly. "That's good to know. And I think that some of their glee must come from your handling of Commodore Fox the other week. Which reminds me; just what did you do to him, Alix?"

She chuckled. "Will, if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, these red eyes of mine…"

"Are scary as hell, I know. I'm glad you came on this voyage with me, Alix," he admitted, feeling in the mood to air what he had been thinking for over a month. "There was no need for it. You'd earned your rest, more than anyone else."

"Will, I was always going to come from the moment I heard you had a mission. You know that."

He nodded. He and Alix had a bond, and he wasn't surprised that she had come with him on this mission. "Still, I'm grateful for it. This last month's been a real trial, Alix, and I don't know how I'd have managed without you."

"You're going to give me a big head."

"You have a big head." He tapped her forehead playfully.

Alix grinned. "That's the point. If my ego swells too much more it'll burst. You'll have to clean bits of goo from your ready room. You don't want that."

Drake's laughter was cut short by the blaring of the red alert klaxon and McDonald's voice thundering from the comm speakers. "All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, all hands report to battle stations. This is not a drill."

Drake and Alix were on the bridge immediately and they both saw the cause of the alert. There, on the main screen, they could see a Klingon squadron bearing down on them, weapon ports glowing and ready to fire.