Season Five

by EnlightenedSkye

Picking up six months after Terra Prime, the Enterprise attempts to hold the Coalition together while keeping an eye on the growing Romulan threat. Trip takes his own command and the war begins mid-season. [July 2155 to January 2157. 25 episodes. Fully episodic, so each chapter is a stand-alone story. ATP, Troshi, Malcolm/OC, P/C. Rated T throughout. Complete, S6 and S7 complete]

16. Episode 16: Here There Be Dragons

A/N: Welcome back and thanks for the support! I'm a big fan of the phrase "here there be dragons" to represent a passage through dangerous or unexplored territories. It's also quite literal here.

The Kandar conspiracy starts to unravel...was there really ever any doubt about who was behind it? I'm toying with the idea of code names; let's just say that every name mentioned corresponds to a character we've already met. The conspiracy is blown wide open in E18 and E19.

This episode references TNG 5x05 Disaster, VOY 3x12 Macrocosm, DIS 1x19 The War Without The War Within, TNG 6x25 Timescape (we all knew the joke was coming), and DS9 7x16 Inter Arma Silent Leges. I say let's bring back the Section showing up randomly in people's bedrooms in the middle of the night.

Here we have (hypothetically) the most expensive CGI shot in this season; trust me, you'll know when it hits. Next time we'll have the single most expensive episode, and also my most ambitious story to date. In the grand tradition of episodes like Our Man Bashir, Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, The Killing Game, and Elementary Dear Data, we're doing a decade theme. I'll give you a hint. It involves tons of flapper dresses, plenty of hard liquor...and all that jazz.

Because when the going get tough, sometimes you just have to take a break from the war and write Trip as a very Daniel-Craig-in-Knives-Out-style detective trying to solve a murder among the patrons and performers of a seedy cabaret.

Season Five

Episode Sixteen: Here There Be Dragons

Enterprise Captain's Log, April 2nd, 2156: We are responding to an automated distress call from the ECS Olympia. It seems that they experienced a catastrophic engine failure and crash landed in the volcanic region of Berengaria VII. As of yet we have been unable to raise the Earth Cargo Authority to confirm their whereabouts, but time is almost certainly of the essence.

---

Just as the twin suns were setting over the rugged landscape of Berengaria VII, the away team departed their shuttlepod and began to make their way across the rocks.

The ground was rough, uneven, and rippled, resurfaced time and time again by lava flows meandering down from the crater far overhead. If he craned his neck all the way up, Malcolm could barely make out a plume of smoke rising from the vent, teasing the skyline and curling into the dense cloud cover.

According to Crewman Marceline, this volcano was even larger than Mauna Loa or Mt. Fuji, and wasn't even the tallest peak in this mountain range. This both fascinated and terrified him; regardless of his duties as first officer to keep the Captain out of harm's way, he knew that he would have volunteered anyway.

He was accompanied by Ensign Pascal, who insisted on leaving the pod running should they need to make a hasty exit, and Ensign Singh, who had locked on to a very faint transponder frequency from orbit. They'd tracked the Olympia's warp signature from some distance away, and given the strategic importance of the Berengaria system, had diverted course immediately. All were keenly aware of the vulnerability of ECS vessels to Romulan attacks, and most knew of the malicious tenacity of the hybrids who had managed to infiltrate the ranks of Starfleet, the High Command, and the Security Directorate.

Waiting for backup would be too great a risk.

The air was filled with ash and acid rain, the remnants of a recent eruption. The EV suits they wore were slightly unwieldy, a little too cumbersome to traverse this kind of terrain, but ultimately necessary; as Dita lead the way, he could feel the effects of the planet's much lower gravity, threatening to sweep him off his feet.

They soon passed a lava flow originating from a secondary vent, emerging as a molten river of fire that crackled and smoldered as it rambled down the side of the mountain, determined to extinguish every living thing in its path. Somewhere beneath them, a bubbling magma chamber stewed away, threatening to cause another blast at any moment. It was enough to set every nerve ending in his body alight, trigger his fight or flight reflex, and make him want to move a hell of a lot faster.

Dita crossed the gap with a flying leap and they followed her, growing closer and closer together as they rounded the slope. On this side, the lava was only recently solidified, and the ground sounded like broken glass underfoot. Thick, impenetrable black smoke rose to their knees, and for a time, they had to shuffle to avoid running headlong into any obstacles.

Up ahead of them, the rock face rose precipitously before cutting across and falling again, revealing the mouth of a massive cavern. From far within, they heard water dripping, or perhaps the wind blowing, though it was difficult to be sure around the helmets of their EV suits. Dita skidded to a halt, raising her tricorder into the air.

They made eye contact. She nodded, and together they forged into the darkness.

A moment later, Malcolm was reaching for his phase pistol, a swift motion that didn't go unnoticed by Simon. Switching on his flashlight, he aimed it at his back. "Are you a little nervous around caves, sir?"

The smug nature of his question notwithstanding, Malcolm could have admitted that he was nervous, all things considered. There had been Terra Nova, the incident at P'Jem, the rescue mission on Xantoras, and though the source of their misadventure hadn't directly originated from it, the Corsettis' dilithium mine on Solnara III. He could have owned up to his misgivings, but vehemently decided against it.

"Just being cautious, Mr. Pascal." A cursory scan of their surroundings revealed that the air around them was now breathable. Malcolm paused, steeling his nerve, then popped the seal of his helmet, inhaling slowly. It smelled acrid, slightly sulfuric, but was significantly less caustic than whatever awaited them outside.

It was hard to believe that Starfleet Command had shortlisted Berengaria VII for the location of Starbase 2 and subsequent colonization. He hoped any number of the other climate zones were slightly more hospitable.

They continued their procession into the unknown, illuminating the sides of the cavern with their flashlights. The walls were blackened, rugged, almost impossibly tall, made up of the same dried lava flows as the ground. The acidic smell intensified, and as they walked, it grew hotter and hotter until the heat was nearly unbearable.

The cave curved sharply to the right, and Dita paused, watching as every single bell and whistle programmed into her tricorder went off at once. He called out to her, but she shushed him, silencing the alarm and creeping around the corner.

Almost immediately, she shrieked and clasped a hand to her chest, taking a huge step back. She sunk down to her knees, and Malcolm thought he heard her curse under her breath, but couldn't be sure.

"Singh, what's-"

She made a swift cutting motion with her hand, then gestured them forward, closer and closer until they were huddled together. Dita extinguished her flashlight and cupped her hand over the end of Simon's, dulling the intensity of the beam significantly.

For a moment, Malcolm was almost sure he was dreaming. He blinked once, then twice, before confirming that yes, asleep before them in the middle of a giant, domed chamber, was an honest-to-God dragon.

He vaguely remembered the last time they visited the system under the guise of performing a routine scout mission; it had been shortly before their incident with the Orion women, but T'Pol had been sure to relay them of tales of the flourishing ecosystem, the lack of intelligent life, and most significantly, a species of fire-breathing flying reptile over two hundred meters long.

Well, ten or fifteen meters was more like it, but the creature was still massive, almost as wide as it was long, with glimmering golden scales and ribbed wings studded with red and orange stripes. It had two arms and two feet, replete with meter-long talons and an arrow-tipped tail. Its eyes were closed, and it was breathing slowly, evenly, a testament to its slumber. It seemed perfectly unaware of their presence, which was just as well, because its great, yawning maw seemed big enough to swallow them whole.

"I never thought-"

"Just like in story books-"

"How can it live like this? This heat is awful."

Dita studied her tricorder once more, met his gaze, then shook her head. She didn't even need to say it; none of them were science officers, though at the moment, the presence of their very own was very much warranted.

Lieutenant Cutler was still on light duty following the Battle of Solnara, where she'd risked it all to save a little girl who had been left behind by the last evacuation ship, eventually finding her way to an ancient transport and guiding it into the atmosphere. There, she'd been on the receiving end of two significant radiation exposures, one from the core breach that had been staged to draw them away from the battlefield, and another from the cataclysmic dilithium explosion caused by another vessel running headfirst into the planet at full impulse.

The little girl, Qulin, was fortunate than Solnarans were much less susceptible to the radiation poisoning than humans. She'd returned to the temporary evacuation shelters on the Cochrane within a couple of days, though the Captain did have some trouble getting her to leave Liz's side. A week later, they'd received a letter from the girl's mother, extending her heartfelt gratitude and best wishes for her recovery, and three days after that, she'd returned to the quarters she shared with the doctor.

Though it irritated her to no end that Phlox kept doting on her, admittedly, her condition warranted the concern. She seemed to get better before getting a whole lot worse; she was nauseous, dizzy, feverish, with anemia and a pounding headache that wouldn't go away. Her hair was falling out; she tried to put on a brave face, but everyone could tell that she was in a tremendous amount of pain the few times she managed to venture down to the mess hall.

The senior officers each took turns visiting her, recounting the ship's gossip and bringing her PADDs full of sensor data when she felt up to working. Several times, Malcolm wound up sitting at her bedside, holding her hand as she wept and said that she felt like death, that she feared that this was the end and that she'd never get better.

But heal she did, slowly, day by day, until she was able to make it to the end of the corridor and back unassisted. The day before she returned to light duty, Dita and Anna visited her quarters, and they'd cut her hair shorter, just enough to where the slow regrowth would look perfectly natural. When she reported for the first time, a month to the date after the battle, she'd been smiling, but there'd been a far-off look in her eye, enough to where each of them knew that their encounter with the Romulans at Solnara had left her forever changed.

Regardless of the lack of a science officer, they were soon faced with the imminent nature of their next decision, especially as Dita reached for Malcolm's arm, indicating the great metal hull of something resting underneath the dragon's wing. He didn't want to believe it, but it was there, and it turns out there was no ECS Olympia at all.

"It looks like an energy converter of some kind," Simon whispered. "It's taking geothermal energy around us and transforming it into EM waves, sound energy, gravimetric-"

"Could that be what's been giving off the emergency distress call?" Dita asked, and they all knew what she was really asking.

Could this be a trap?

"Whatever it is, it's really powerful. Does that look Romulan to you?"

"I can't tell, Pascal, we're all the way over here," she replied, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. The two of them were about to descend into another argument when Malcolm cut them off with a wave of his hand.

"I'll go," he said, reaching for her tricorder, which she quickly passed into his hands. Both looked like they wanted to question his decision, but didn't dare, watching as he approached the dragon step by step, keeping one eye trained on the screen and another on the gentle rise and fall of the beast's chest.

The UT was having trouble getting a lock on the characters in the near darkness, and he was having difficulty seeing himself. Even standing right next to the creature, the origin of the power source was unknown. It was perhaps a meter long and cylindrical, with a triangular peak on one end. The dragon was holding onto it like a child would a teddy bear, huffing loudly through its nostrils, its talons switching as it dreamed about heaven knew what.

There was no other option to find out the truth. He briefly wondered if anyone would believe him that he had manhandled a dragon, but scarcely had time to ponder it, curling a gloved hand around the edge of one wing and lifting upward.

The Romulan characters were unmistakable.

Exhaling slowly, Malcolm lowered the creature's wing back down, then turned on his heels just in time to see Simon retrieve his camera and snap a picture.

They quickly realized at once that he'd neglected to turn off the flash.

Instantly, the dragon's eyes snapped open, and this time Dita really did curse, loudly and emphatically, gesturing for him to remain still. Beside her, Simon was sputtering, apologizing profusely, only for her to reach under the brim of his open helmet and slap a hand over his mouth.

Malcolm didn't dare turn around, but he could sense the creature sniffing around, peering into the darkness. All of a sudden he could feel its hot breath against the back of his EV suit. He inhaled sharply and held it, feeling his heart race but being powerless to do anything about it.

Dita made a rapid twirling motion with her free hand, and he complied, turning sideways and starting to inch towards them. In his peripheral vision, he could barely make out a long, sinuous neck connected to two flame-tipped ears and a pair of strange reptilian eyes. Sure enough, they were on opposite sides of its face, meaning there was just enough of a blind spot to where he just might be able to slip through.

He was so focused on the creature that he didn't notice the rock right by his feet; it was there in the next moment, then he tripped and was falling, crying out as he fell face first into the floor.

The beast reacted instantaneously, as did they, doing away with any pretense of a stealthy exit and breaking out into a slightly ungraceful sprint. Dita had seized his arm and was practically pulling him along, not slowing down for a moment. The EV suits were somewhat of a hindrance, and the dragon was gaining on them, but they managed to reach the mouth of the cave first, crouching down behind an outcropping of rocks.

It burst from the cavern, flapping its wings, rising a couple hundred meters in a matter of seconds. Its tail whipped around, cutting the air, keeping time as it peered over the rugged landscape in search of its prey.

Malcolm realized it really was an extraordinary sight; somewhere within him, the young man who had grown up reading Lord of the Rings and doodling tiny little dragons all over his notebooks was overjoyed. The creature was beautiful, and though it had nearly taken off his head, he was grateful he'd been able to witness such a spectacle just once in his lifetime.

It suddenly roared, unhinging its jaw and belching a great plume of fire into the air. It seemed frustrated, enraged even, but quickly gave up its search, turning and flying off into the sunset.

A second later, the power source they'd been so keen to get close to fell from its talons, plummeting hundreds of meters to the earth.

There was no time to react. One moment it was there and the next it wasn't, whole and then shattered upon the ground. A field of blue light originated from the point of impact, quickly forming a shockwave and rushing forward in all directions. It sounded like a sonic boom, deafening, and the air seemed to vibrate momentarily. Malcolm seized the back of Simon's EV suit and pulled him downward until they were all sheltered behind the rocks, which he dearly prayed would offer them some kind of protection.

It quickly rushed over the top of their heads and into the cavern, and they were soon greeted with blissful silence.

Malcolm wordlessly passed Dita's tricorder back into her hands. "That was a psionic energy burst. Like what we saw with the telepresence units, but with no external consciousness attached. Tremendously powerful."

"How powerful?"

"Powerful enough to…" She trailed off, reaching for her communicator and flipping it open. "Singh to Enterprise."

Silence.

"Reed to Enterprise."

Nothing.

"Pascal to Enterprise?" His refrain was hopeful, but ultimately useless. In the space between them, they locked eyes, then immediately rose as one to their feet.

Their mad dash back to the shuttlepod was frantic, and their flight back to their rendezvous point was even more desperate. The ship appeared to be adrift, and several exterior beacons were off. There was no sign of external damage, no indication of recent transporter activity, and everyone's life signs appeared to be accounted for. It was unusual to say in the least, and more than a little terrifying.

At Malcolm's insistence, Pascal navigated the craft to one of the starboard docking ports. The moment the clamps launched on, he was moving towards the hatch, insisting: "Both of you, grab a phase pistol. We're going to get some answers."

Without someone on the other end of the airlock to enter their access codes, gaining access to the ship was a little difficult, but he managed it with a bit of the code-cracking expertise he'd picked up from Hoshi and Dita along the way. The door slid open, and he stepped over the threshold, holding his weapon aloft as he looked left and right down the hallway.

Main power was offline; that much was evident from the near darkness in the corridor, the emergency lights flashing red overhead. Even the internal comm was down; Dita stepped up to the wall console and did a little bit of investigation, only to come up woefully short.

"This place is like a ghost town," Pascal mumbled as they turned and approached the turbolift, walking carefully, pausing at every juncture in the hallway. They still wore their EV suits, and though he couldn't be certain, he was almost sure the environmental controls were down from how stuffy it already felt. The residual heat from the warp coils would threaten to boil them alive before too long.

The lift didn't appear to be functioning, but together they forced it open with some difficulty, finding a crewman unconscious, face down on the deck plating.

Dita startled a bit, but quickly maintained her composure, sinking to her knees and gently rolling them to one side. It was Crewman Kelly, and her features appeared relaxed, serene, her eyes moving around behind her lids.

"I can't be sure, sir. This isn't a medical tricorder, but it looks like she's dreaming."

"Dreaming?" He echoed incredulously, only for Dita to shake her head emphatically. As much as he wanted to believe the psionic wavefront had just knocked everyone unconscious and brought a couple systems offline, he also couldn't shake the feeling that this was a precursor to something bigger. "We need to get to the bridge and secure helm control. We might already be in a decaying orbit."

"I'm on it," Pascal assured him.

"I'll go down to engineering and make sure we still have engines. It's been awhile since Commander Tucker showed me the ropes, but I believe I may be able to-"

"Sir," Dita interrupted. "Are you sure we should be splitting up like this?"

It wasn't like her to question an order, but upon second thought, she might have been right. Perhaps this was a virus, or a telepresence attack, and they were all about to start losing touch with reality one by one.

Whatever they faced, they had to face it together.

"Fine. Bridge first. We'll take the access tubes." He took a step forward, then paused, glancing over his shoulder. "Be sure to stay close."

He didn't need to tell them twice.

---

Maelstrom Captain's Log, April 2nd, 2156: We are nearing Starbase 1, where we will rendezvous with a series of transports bringing officers transferring out of their deep space assignments to their new posts. With the extra help, finishing up repairs from the Battle of Solnara has been a breeze, although, I won't lie, I'll be a little relieved to see them go.

---

"I'm telling you, Captain, this is going to blow your mind," Alira insisted as they stepped into the turbolift.

"A Deck," Trip said loudly, and the cabin began to move.

"Change your life, even," Julia added.

"I believe you." He reassured them with a wave of his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his first officer rub her hands together in anticipation, and his tactical officer bounce on her toes excitedly. It was a lightning-fast motion, barely perceptible, but noticeable nonetheless.

The three of them had just come from breakfast in the Captain's mess; Trip had listened, halfway asleep, to Julia detailing the momentous undertaking they were about to embark upon in the form of transferring one hundred officers from their temporary barracks in cargo bay three to a dozen different transports heading in every direction, to Earth, Mars, and Vega Colony, among others.

To say that it had been a tight squeeze over the past few weeks would be an understatement. It had taken a week of all hands on deck, around the clock repairs to restore impulse engines, and another week of crawling through the quadrant at a snail's pace before they got warp drive back. By that time, Maelstrom's non-comms were ready to kill the transfers for crowding their community bathrooms, the transfers were ready to kill each other due to their close quarters living arrangements, and Chef was ready to kill Trip for nearly doubling the workload of the galley.

He digressed. They'd had arguments and petty disputes in spades, and for once, he was glad to no longer be first officer. As it turned out, Julia, with her friendly demeanor and no-nonsense attitude towards any kind of foolishness, was more naturally suited to the job than he'd ever been.

Alira was quick to remind them that technically they were at war, and as such, critical areas on the ship needed to be secured at all times. At first he was skeptical of her plan, but after his second cup of coffee, it started to sound a whole lot better.

He just wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to having a MACO stationed on the bridge.

The doors opened, and together they swept onto the deck, affording a cursory nod to Private Gilson as they did so. She was positioned at the far corner of the situation room, almost completely out of sight, though the phase rifle strapped to her back certainly couldn't be missed.

Kelby stood from where he'd been hunched over the conn, slipping his hyperspanner into his pocket. At Lieutenant Sato's prompting, and then her insistence, he half-heartedly joined her and Travis in producing an artificial drumming sound between his lips, which continued up until Alira made her way to the front of the room, throwing her arms wide in a somewhat anticlimactic gesture over the Captain's chair.

Trip looked at her, then at Julia, his expression nothing if not incredulous. She shook her head and laid a hand on his shoulder, gently urging him to take a seat. As soon as he did so, Alira clapped her hands together and retreated to the tactical station.

"Okay, so imagine this. You're in the middle of a battle. Things are getting heated. Maybe, I don't know, inertial dampeners are down. Probably the grav plating, too." She shrugged in a marvellously exaggerated manner and tilted her head to one side in a gesture that irrationally caused him to smile. "I just have one question for all of you. What are you going to do?"

"Fly directly upwards, hit my head on the ceiling, and float above everyone unconscious for about half an hour?" Novakovich called out from the other side of the room, in a direct recollection of what had happened to him during the Battle of Solnara.

"Absolutely not!" Her hands came down onto her console and she sat back in her chair, which Trip noticed was now thoroughly bolted to the deck plating. "You're going to press the button on the side of your right armrest, lean back, and-"

No sooner had she uttered those instructions did Trip's fingers find the button in question; instantly, he felt two thick, flexible straps shoot out of his chair back above his shoulders, criss-cross across his chest, and disappear into the fabric of his seat with a decisive click. He preemptively tried to stand, but couldn't.

"You're telling me all those engineers and designers at Utopia Planitia couldn't come up with seatbelts?"

"Not for the entire bridge staff, sir," Kelby replied. "Ensign Taxa and I have spent the past couple of days looking at materials and ergonomics, but if you'd prefer we try something different-"

"No, no!" Trip glanced back over his shoulder and made eye contact with Julia, who promptly slid into the first officer's chair next to him. "I'm impressed. Good work, you two."

Kelby seemed to soak up the positive affirmation like a sponge, and for a split second, he thought he might have seen the precursor to a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It was short-lived, though, because a moment after that he was on his way to return to engineering.

One foot had just stepped over the threshold of the turbolift when Lieutenant Novakovich called out to him, and he stopped in his tracks, turning in profile to face him.

"Why don't you celebrate with us tonight, Kelby? Taxa, Mayweather, and I are going to hit up the bar on the promenade."

"What are we celebrating?"

"Being alive," Alira deadpanned, checking her fingernails.

Travis made a dismissive gesture in her direction. "Think about it. When do you think we'll have another opportunity to let loose?"

"The terrible trio rides again," Julia mumbled, much to Trip's amusement. Ever since commissioning, the three of them had been almost inseparable, taking their meals together, working out together, and, recently, kicking ass and taking names in the Maelstrom's ship-wide bowling tournament. Travis tended to temper Alira and Ethan's exuberant personalities; they were both known to run into misadventure when left to their own devices, meaning their even-keeled navigator was a natural foil to their recklessness.

"Not too loose," Trip warned. "The three of you have alpha shift tomorrow."

"Don't worry, sir. You're welcome to come along to supervise, if you like," Alira said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"You're all welcome to join us," Ethan corrected her.

Julia shook her head, but smiled all the same. "Thanks for the offer, though I suspect the Captain and I will be dining with the stationmaster and his senior staff tonight."

"Hoshi?"

"You know, I think I might tag along with them. I hear Commander Leota knows Samoan. I've never met a native speaker."

"And I guarantee you she'll be fluent by the time we get to dessert," Trip said, cutting a meaningful glance at her from across the bridge. She rolled her eyes and swiveled around towards the wall; a veritable mountain of PADDs had been constructed on the dorsal console, and it was clear that a mail call was imminent.

Ethan, however, wasn't about to let their chief engineer go without a fight. "How about it, Kelby?"

He glanced between the three of them, then grimaced, which he was only barely able to conceal behind a sigh. "We'll see," he answered, and disappeared into the turbolift.

A couple of seconds passed, and when she was sure he was out of earshot, Julia said, "Lieutenant, you'd have better chances at getting Dr. Yuris to join ladies' night for masks and a manicure."

"Do you think he would?" Hoshi asked rhetorically, affording her a nearly clandestine wink. She leaned over precariously in her chair, passing a PADD into Ethan's hands. "Your brother again. The attachment size is huge, so it's probably more pictures of his new puppy."

"Thank God," he whispered. "Just when I thought I wasn't gonna be able to get through this shift."

She laughed softly and rose to her feet, shuffling across the deck plating. At the helm, she dangled a PADD over Travis's shoulder for a fraction of a second before dropping it into his lap. He made a small, surprised sound before retrieving it and switching on the screen.

"Any news from the homefront, Lieutenant?" Julia accepted her mail, which she positively knew was from her mother, and tucked it underneath her seat, knowing full well she'd need to devote her full attention to her letter if she was to absorb the minutiae of the family drama contained within.

He frowned. "Paul's volunteered to run freight to the front lines. They join the convoy next month."

Trip knew all about Travis's last visit to the Horizon and how he and his brother had clashed, disagreeing over the ship's operations and the circumstances surrounding their father's death before banding together to protect their home from pirates. That had been several years ago, and while they had been estranged for quite some time, they were now attempting to make amends and mend the rift that had long since separated their family.

He wondered if they would have the opportunity to meet them once again.

Hoshi passed Trip a letter from one of his many aunts, then stepped up to the tactical station, sliding two PADDs down the front of Alira's console.

"One from you-know-who, one from your sister."

"Which-"

"Yolanna. Came through the Teerza Prime subspace exchange about ten minutes ago." She smiled, knowing full well at this point in their friendship she could identify each of her eight siblings simply by their comm code. The moment she turned and retreated to her station, Alira pulled her mail into her lap, tapping her fingers on the screen contemplatively.

There was one problem with the origin of that message.

Yolanna had officially moved back to Denobula three weeks ago to attend university, meaning only one person could have sent it.

Or, rather, one group of people.

Fighting the wave of apprehension clenching her gut, Alira activated the screen and leaned back far enough to where no one could see it.

AGENT LAZULI.

NEW MARCHING ORDERS. 0100 HOURS. HABITAT RING DECK C SUBSECTION SIX.

AGENT LONG.

It was all very unmistakable and very terrifying.

It was followed by a page and a half of random numbers and letters to pad out the message, to make the file size look legitimate. Immediately she archived the correspondence within her personal files, encrypted it, and sealed it for erasure later, all of it very much a part of her routine.

She'd been carrying on like this for months. She knew how not to get caught.

Part of her wanted to ignore the summons, to shirk her duties in the Section altogether, but knew it would mean immediate retribution. If she was to become honest, she would need to game the system, would need to know more, would need to gather information to extort or bribe or fight her way out.

She would need to make the rendezvous, come hell or high water.

Together the bridge staff felt a sudden jolt which signaled they were dropping out of warp; ever since battle, the inertial dampeners had been a little out of alignment, to the point that every time they shifted headings, they became used to catching their PADDs and coffee mugs before they slid off any number of tables and consoles around the ship. At one point Trip berated Kelby, telling him that his team had had a month to fine tune it, only to be told that if he wanted them any more efficient than they were at the moment, he'd need to get out and put his hands on the hull every time they stopped.

Hoshi slid into her seat, almost falling forward into the deck plating as she did so. She quickly righted herself and swiveled around to face the view screen.

No sooner had the autopilot disengaged did the imposing figure of Starbase 1 appear in the distance; Travis banked hard to one side, and the rays of a distant star caught the structure, illuminating the windows and the hull in a dazzling display of light and shadow. It was spellbinding, and Trip found that he couldn't look away for even a second.

The architecture itself was simplistic; a tall, semi-triangular column extended from high above a round saucer base studded with docking ports around the perimeter. A conical sub-space transceiver and sensor array jutted out from beneath, and every conceivable empty space was covered with portholes or iridescent plating, the same soft gray, reflective material that traversed the halls of the Maelstrom. There were several J-class freighters docked at the station, some in better shape than others, along with a handful of civilian transports, easily identifiable by the United Earth flag painted along their forward section.

Most prominent, however, was the large swath of the inner ring kept bare, the lights of the docking clamps blinking red and blue, inviting them to come closer. Trip rose to his feet and approached the helm, watching as Travis decelerated from full impulse to half and then a quarter, before ordering: "Break subspace silence, Lieutenant. Let 'em know they've got guests."

Hoshi complied, and a second later, they received a response, audio only.

"Maelstrom, this is Commander Teo Leota. We've been expecting you."

"Thanks for rolling out the welcome mat, Commander. I take it we already know where to go."

"Yes, sir. Come right on up to our front door. My senior staff will meet you at docking port nine. I'd like to see you in my office when you have a moment," Teo replied, and they could hear the smile in his voice.

"I think we can spare a minute or two," he admitted, glancing around the room to the hopeful expressions of his bridge staff. "Is my crew free to disembark?"

"Of course. What's ours is yours." He paused, and they thought they could hear the rush of conversation behind him. When he turned back towards the comm, his tone was friendly, responsive. "Welcome to Starbase 1."

The moment Hoshi closed the connection, Trip clapped his hands and rubbed them together, feeling a surge of excitement for the first time in many months. "You heard the man. Ready to go, Jules?"

She rose to her feet and took one step towards the turbolift, hiding her smile as she did so. If Trip was calling her by her nickname during a duty shift, that meant he was in an exceptional good mood. Irrationally, hopefully, she was looking forward to an away mission not fraught with hybrid marauders, Romulan fortresses of doom, or wild hallucinations that made her question her sanity. Just forty-eight hours docked on the closest thing they could get to Earth in deep space.

What could go wrong?

"Sir, are you sure you won't need an escort?"

"Come again, Ensign?"

Alira crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, treating them to one of her trademark dazzling smiles, charming with a hint of something else underneath. "I'm just saying, we've never been here before. Who knows what we might run into?"

Trip and Julia exchanged a meaningful glance, and she shook her head, her eyes twinkling with mirth. Suddenly not in the mood to debate their imminent safety with his tactical officer, he beckoned to her, saying, "Alright, Taxa, let's-"

He was interrupted by her whooping excitedly, something he'd never heard before, but certainly wouldn't mind hearing again. In the blink of an eye, she'd crossed the room to stand by his side, joining them at the lift.

"No fair," Novakovich grumbled, though his countenance betrayed his amusement. "I'd like to go aboard, but I'm stuck here."

"You'll get a chance," Julia reminded him, adopting a mock patronizing tone.

"We all will," Hoshi interjected. "After alpha shift."

"She's right. The moment we come across anything befitting your expertise, say, a radiation trail from a neutron star or a strange-looking toad, you'll be the first person I call." Alira leaned over his station and far into his personal space, affording him a wry grin as he rolled his eyes at her.

In that moment, his console chirruped, and he reacted with surprise, swiveling around towards the wall and peering into his viewfinder. It took a moment, but when he turned back to face them, all diversion was gone, replaced with nothing but concern.

"Sir, I'm reading energy signatures from spatial torpedoes in standby mode. It's faint, and it could be a scattered signal, but it looks like there's a couple dozen, maybe-"

"Hundreds," Alira said, peering over his shoulder. Soon she was joined by Julia, who confirmed their suspicions, glancing up at the Captain.

"Maybe they're holding them for distribution? I know the wartime accords of the ECS are requiring all cargo ships to beef up their defenses."

She shook her head adamantly. "Not these, sir. They're Mach two, self-aligning, maximum yield…" Alira leaned forward, jostling for real estate at the science console until her face was mere centimeters from the screen. "These haven't been released from R&D yet. I couldn't get my hands on these if I called in a hundred favors."

Over her shoulder, he made eye contact with Julia, watching as the corners of her mouth twitched downward. He had no way of knowing what she was seeing, that the torpedoes looked like they were being held in a shielded section, that their homing sensors had been deliberately turned down to avoid detection.

He did know, though, as well as Alira, that the distribution of spatial and photonic torpedoes was closely supervised, conducted on specially sanctioned and heavily armored courier ships, lest they fall into enemy hands. They were never left unguarded, and never once left their berths from the time they left Earth to the time they reached whatever NX-class they were destined for.

It was suspicious to say in the least.

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this," Trip assured her, and he dearly hoped he was correct. "I'll be sure to ask Commander Leota about it."

None of them seemed satisfied, but they quickly joined him at the turbolift, their previous exuberance somewhat dulled from before their discovery.

They traversed the distance between the bridge and the airlock in expectant silence; the corridors were full of officers, dressed in their civvies and traveling clothes, carrying duffel bags and dragging suitcases behind them. Many of them carried PADDs laden with transport reservations and transfer orders. While all of them seemed ready to disembark, few dared to make eye contact with the members of the bridge staff wandering among their ranks, pushing to the front of the lines and up to the hatch.

Trip's fingers hovered over the controls. Julia saw him inhale slowly, throw his shoulders back, and plaster a smile on his face, the likes of which she hadn't seen since long before Kandar.

The second the doors opened, they were greeted by Starbase 1's incredibly small coterie of senior staff, a man and a woman, both standing at attention with their arms crossed behind their backs.

The woman reacted first, stepping forward and extending her hand. "Welcome aboard. I'm Lieutenant Commander Min Zhang, chief of operations."

Min was petite, but carried herself as though she was much taller. She wore her hair in a short bob with a fringe of bangs hanging over her eyes, and her smile was intensely welcoming, seemingly radiating warmth with her entire being.

To Trip's surprise, she greeted Alira with the traditional touchless Denobulan handshake, and a curious look went up between them, like a spark to a flame.

"Thank you. We're happy to be here," Julia assured her, casting an inquisitive glance over her companion, who had yet to say a word.

Min suddenly elbowed him in the ribs, and he startled, his gaze shifting from the wall above Trip's head to look at him directly. "Major Yuri Danilenko, Military Assault Command Operations. Chief of security. You honor us with your presence, sir."

Trip gave him the once over, taking in his immaculate MACO fatigues, his severe military haircut and perfectly impassive expression. For a fleeting moment, he mused that it was as if Major Hayes had come back to life.

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Danilenko," he said, taking a step further into the station. Immediately, he was taken aback by how spacious it felt; the docking ring was at least three levels tall, with guarded walkways leading down to the main corridor, which was presently swarming with people, mostly Starfleet personnel with a handful of civilians mixed in, humans and Vulcans and Rigelians and even a few Tellarites. The overhead lights were almost blinding, and the interior deck plating and bulkheads were a brilliant, unblemished white.

He wondered if the next round of vessels would similarly feel like a cruise ship rather than a submarine. That would be that day.

"Beautiful station you've got here," Julia marveled, falling into step at Min's side.

"You think so?" She sounded proud, and simultaneously excited to avail them of her knowledge of the station. "Would you believe we're only four years old? You're the second NX to come through here. Columbia had a fly-over on their way to Bajor."

"And they should be back in another month. They're headed out to the front lines with us."

"That's what I hear," she replied, leading the way as the corridor branched off at a tee. Soon they were in a different section, built for long-term storage, and ECS personnel were bustling all around them, moving and lifting and swapping out cargo containers. "We'll be expanding for another decade at this point. The original blueprints have room for up to eighty thousand people."

"Eighty thousand?" Alira echoed, her eyebrows flying up into her hairline. She couldn't imagine a station that big.

Min nodded, stepping into a smaller hallway, leading them through a shortcut which led them into another open area hugging the curve of the saucer section. The deck plating was darker here, a softer gray, and both levels were lined with shops and stores, all bursting with activity.

Suddenly two children dashed down the walkway, heads down, giggling over some unheard joke.

"No running on the promenade!" Yuri roared, taking them all by surprise. It had been the first time he'd spoken since they left the airlock. The children ignored him, sweeping past them and into the cargo bays.

"Ignore him," Min whispered to Julia, a mischievous glint in her eye. Then, louder, to the others: "Major Danilenko's daily patrols are so consistent that these shopkeepers set their chronometers by it."

They continued down the platform, passing what appeared to be a barber shop, a tailor's store, a gym, and a currency exchange. At the moment they passed the school, Trip asked, "How many children live here?"

It was an unspoken rule that families didn't belong on deep space assignments, something that he put more and more thought into as he got older and things got serious with Hoshi. He loved the starship lifestyle, adored it, but hated to think about putting a future child in the path of the kind of danger they experienced on a daily basis. It seemed that a starbase might offer a happy medium, and he was immediately interested.

"Forty-seven, and we're about to have a few more. I understand we're getting Ensign Keeley from the Enterprise and Lieutenant Almodovar from the Cochrane."

He nodded. They had five children between them, and Keeley's baby was barely a year old. He took this to mean their spouses would be joining them as well, and the future began to take shape.

They descended a spiral staircase to the lower level, then around the curve of the promenade, before finally stepping into a turbolift. There were a handful of other people already there, all talking over one another, the range of voices and sounds almost dizzying. The doors opened, and they rushed out into a much less populated corridor.

About a hundred meters down, they swept through a pair of sliding glass doors into a great circular room. The stations were identical to the ones they had on the bridge back on the Maelstrom, but they were arranged in a circle in the center of the chamber. The ceiling was high, almost needlessly so, and dozens of screens covered the walls, the blinking lights and pealing alarms and chatter of the officers tending to them creating a dull roar of activity. Once again, everything seemed tailored to be as light and welcoming as possible, running like a well-oiled machine.

"Welcome to ops!" Min took one step over the threshold and threw her arms wide. "The brains of the station, if you will. Right this way…"

She sidestepped an Ensign rushing past with an arm full of PADDs, spinning on her heels and dodging him with practiced ease. At the far end of the room set underneath the view screen was the office of the stationmaster, encircled by windows on all sides. Rather than bother with the comm, Min rapped on the glass, then tapped her chest, as if to say, and this is the heart.

Commander Teo Leota stood with his back to them, arms crossed, studying the great expanse of open space outside his porthole. At first Trip was afraid they'd snuck up on him, but then he turned slowly, deliberately, reaching for the door controls and ushering them into the room.

"Sir, I've brought you-"

"Captain Tucker, yes." For the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes, Trip was shaking hands. Teo was tall and broad shouldered, with a pleasant demeanor that immediately endeared him to them. "Tell me, what do you think of our own little slice of paradise?"

"It's beautiful," he admitted. "Can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it. Congratulations, Captain."

"Not for another three months," Teo chastised, unknowingly mimicking one of Trip's habits from before the commissioning of the Maelstrom. At the end of the summer, he was due to take command of their sister ship, the NX-06 Tempest, and immediately join them on the front lines. From what he knew of the man, he was warm, intelligent, and more than capable, every inch the perfect commanding officer. He was looking forward to working with him. "At that point, our very own Commander Zhang will be taking a seat in the big chair."

"No kidding?" Julia asked with a smile, glancing at the woman in question.

"Of course," Yuri interjected, coming to stand beside Teo at the window. "She's been here since day one. We all have."

Teo smiled and leaned across his desk, silently inviting them closer. "So tell me, what is it I can do to make your short time here more productive?"

"We're here to pick up additional MACO detachments for the front lines, sir. If you won't mind, I'll just-"

"Right away, Ensign…" He trailed off, squinting, studying the pips attached to her lapel.

"Taxa, sir. Chief tactical officer."

His eyes suddenly lit up with recognition. "You'll have them by tonight. Major Danilenko will need to brief them first. He's the commanding MACO officer for field operations."

Yuri nodded curtly, though didn't spare them a passing glance.

"We'll be needing to replenish our food stores as well. I'm sure you can imagine, doubling our crew for the past couple weeks has done a number on them." Julia's eyes were dancing between him and Min and Yuri, knowing something was wrong, but not quite being able to place it.

"Naturally. Our dockmaster will see to that." Teo clapped his hands together, then pointed at them, his smile unmoving. "Will there be anything else?"

Trip and Alira were picking up on it too. They were trying to get rid of them.

"Yes, Commander. I'd appreciate it if we could speak with you privately for a minute."

Min's eyes flashed with something indecipherable, but she and Yuri complied, slipping back into the main ops chamber and keeping a watchful eye on them through the glass. Trip turned his back to them, just in case they were keen to read lips, and said: "You should know that right as we docked, we picked up energy signatures from a class of high-yield spatial torpedoes which haven't been released by R&D at HQ. I'm sure you're aware of the risk this poses. If that kind of intellectual property gets out there-"

He was suddenly harried, intensely concerned in a way they couldn't tell was performative or not. "Captain, I had no knowledge of this! Where are you picking up these readings?"

Alira retrieved her tricorder, turning this way and that. "That's strange, I'm not picking up on it now."

Teo seemed to relax visibly, but she wasn't buying it. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Min stow her PADD in her pocket.

"An errant reading, perhaps? You might want to run a diagnostic."

Fortunately, Trip and Julia were similarly unconvinced. They exchanged a meaningful look, then Julia said, "All the same, we'd like to investigate a little. Look over your cargo manifests, conduct some internal scans-"

"Of course, of course. You'll have all of our resources at your disposal." He leaned over to one side a bit, studying the chronometer on the wall. "Tomorrow morning."

"Commander, I'd really prefer to-"

"Please enjoy your evening!" He was stepping towards them, ushering them towards the door. "Don't hesitate to explore, to ask questions. Remember, sir, what's ours is yours!"

Trip didn't have a moment to question that, for the next moment they found themselves unceremoniously shoved back into ops, listening to Lieutenant Commander Zhang detail how they would get back to the Maelstrom from here.

Silently, he mused that they probably wouldn't be having dinner with the senior staff tonight.

He locked eyes with Julia first, then Alira, his intent unmistakable.

This wasn't over.

---

After some struggling, a bit of backtracking, and more than a little cursing, the away team arrived on the bridge.

Malcolm was first to emerge from the wall of the situation room, swiveling around so he could go through the opening feet first. He descended from several meters above the deck plating, crouching down at first, then rising to his feet once he realized he was the only one conscious on the bridge.

Simon came next, accepting his proffered hand, then Dita, who looked like she was about to faint. It was already unbearably hot, pushing thirty-five degrees, and though they'd shed the outer layers of their EV suits back on E Deck, they were still withering under the heat.

She leaned into him momentarily, and through the barrier of physical touch, he could feel her heart racing, feel how clammy her skin was. They locked eyes, and she shook her head, but allowed herself to be guided over to the empty chair at the tactical station.

The Commodore was seated at the conn, listing dangerously to one side, centimeters from tumbling forward onto the deck plating. Malcolm was at his side in a second, scanning him, confirming he was in a similar way to Ensign Westminster and Crewman Marceline, both of whom were slumped over at their stations, completely asleep, seemingly dead to the world.

He located a discarded water bottle underneath the Captain's chair and gave it to Simon, who passed it into Dita's waiting hands. She drank ravenously until she was quenched, then said: "You know, Pascal, I think I might have to kill you. I was hoping that dragon would have done that for me by now."

He seemed slightly bemused by this, even though Malcolm could tell she was only half kidding. He retreated to the comm system, gingerly moving Westminster aside. The main computer was down, but there were plenty of systems that ran on secondary power; he was hoping that long-range communications was one of them. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be in this situation right now."

"Now, listen. I know I made a severe error in judgment, but-"

"That doesn't excuse your-"

"Enough!" Malcolm cried, cutting them off. "Pascal, can we send a distress call?"

He shook his head ruefully. "I don't think so, sir. We can try."

Swiftly, he nodded his approval, listening for the telltale mechanical tone. "This is the United Earth vessel Enterprise calling any alliance vessel within range. We are in distress and need assistance. Please respond."

"I'm not sure we're even transmitting," Dita mumbled, studying the handful of buttons that were still illuminated at Malcolm's station. "Keep that signal on auto-repeat."

"The internal comm?"

"We won't have it unless we can restore main power, sir. Even then…"

He paused momentarily, propping his hands on his hips and studying the blank viewscreen. In the near darkness of the bridge, he could feel the weight of expectation on him. He was in command, they were all looking towards him for orders, and he needed to act decisively.

"Divert as much power as you can from the forward phase cannon bank into the bridge control systems," he said, and Dita got to work, falling to her knees and disappearing underneath his console.

It took a couple of minutes, but soon every console and display on the bridge flickered to life. It was a Godsend, somewhat miraculous, as he hadn't been entirely sure it was going to work in the first place. Quickly, he retreated to the science station, where he discovered with relief that partial sensors were online.

Several alarms were going off as well, and he tended to them one a time, his concern growing by the second. He could tell that Dita and Simon were both picking up on it,because the second he glanced up to deliver his report, they were staring right at him.

At STC and in his subsequent tactical training, they'd drilled through common spacefaring pitfalls, historical emergency situations, and imagined worst-case scenarios. Some of them had seemed outlandish in their scope, ridiculous even, but none of them could have prepared him for this.

"I'm reading residual chroniton radiation from a cloak. It's Romulan."

"How could we not have sensed them approaching?"

He shook his head. Apparently, the Commodore hadn't picked up on it either, because they hadn't been at tactical alert when the wavefront hit. "It's possible they've been stationary for some time, lying in wait. We only picked up on it now because-"

"Six Romulan biosigns, D Deck, forward section," Dita interrupted, rising in her chair.

"-they had to decloak to use transporters." His head was spinning, and for once, he was struggling to think in a crisis. He knew, as well as Dita, that they'd modified the sensors to disguise most hybrid biosigns as full blooded Romulans, in a bid to better hide the Captain's secret. Given recent events, he severely doubted they were using their own kind to do their bidding. He also knew that Pascal was oblivious to the hybrid plot, and would like to keep it that way.

Now more than ever, he was almost positive he couldn't be trusted.

"Bypass all computer consoles on the ship and place them on manual override. Lock it down with our biometric data. We can't risk giving them access to any critical systems."

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking-" Malcolm's hands froze over the science station, and he glanced up at Simon, as if to indicate he definitely did mind him interrupting his attempts to secure the ship. "What should be our next priority?"

"Finding the Captain. I'm having a hard time locking onto her biosign. We've got to get to her before the Romulans do."

Far behind him, he heard Dita push her chair back so roughly that it struck against the wall. He realized his mistake a fraction of a second too late.

"What could they possibly want with the Captain?" His expression was curious, imploring, with a hint of something indecipherable underneath.

"They would want her for what she knows." Dita quickly came to his rescue, and from the back of the room, he could hear her preparing to climb back into the access tunnel. "She's in frequent contact with both Starfleet HQ and the High Command. That makes her a very valuable target. At any rate, we need to protect the Commodore as well."

"Once we get out of here, I'll engage emergency bulkheads in the turboshafts. Our first stop should be the nearest weapons locker." Malcolm locked down his station and then joined her, crouching down and offering his knee as a stepladder. She obliged, reaching for his hand and using it to lift herself into the tunnel.

Simon followed, somewhat reluctantly, and soon they were scrambling back the way they came.

They emerged onto B Deck, quickly rushing down the hall and into a nearby chamber. Two of them had to throw their entire weight against the door to open it, but then they were amidst rows and rows of weapons, and Malcolm was passing a massive phase rifle into Dita's waiting hands.

She fancied herself a good shot, and she could certainly defend herself if need be, but there was something about holding one of these enormous firearms that set her ill at ease. She realized she was sweating even more profusely now, and used her sleeve to wipe at her brow.

"What's wrong with our phase pistols, sir?"

In truth, it was more of a precaution than anything; on Betazed, Alira had encountered two hybrids, who seemed much stronger than they had any right to be. They'd almost overpowered her and left her to die right there, in some anonymous abandoned building in the city's industrial sector. He didn't want to take a chance.

He ignored his question, propping his own weapon against the wall and rolling up his sleeves. He tugged the zipper of his EV jumpsuit down by a few centimeters, but received little reprieve from the punishing heat. Nodding at the both of them, he shouldered his rifle and stepped up to the doorway.

He looked left and then right, but miraculously found no one. Beckoning the two of them forward, he surged down the corridor in the direction of the Captain's quarters, moving faster and faster until they were only one section away.

Just before they were about to round the corner, he heard a shuffle of a footstep and a sharp intake of breath from somewhere nearby. He held up his hand, and they skidded to a stop behind him. Together they paused. Listened.

Finally, Malcolm peered around the corner into the darkness, squinting, desperately trying to make sense of whether they were alone or not. He took one step into the corridor, then another, until he was fully exposed.

Instantly, the green beam of a disruptor cut across the empty space, and he cried out, sinking to his knees and rolling away. A second and third burst followed, then Dita was crossing the gap, narrowly avoiding her own demise as she did so.

Several panels were struck in the ensuing crossfire, filling the corridor with sparks and smoke. They couldn't see, but they were still firing as though their lives depended on it.

Simon and Dita were holding the line, but Malcolm was hunched over against the bulkhead, breathing heavily, clutching his side. It was a familiar sensation, the same sharp, searing pain that he felt when he'd been grazed on Tellar Prime while trying to rescue the Captain. Phlox had informed him that he was lucky he returned to the ship when he did, because if he'd waited any longer, he would have fallen victim to a rather nasty infection.

Immediately, he knew he was in trouble, but had little time to feel sorry for himself. Crawling over to a nearby panel in the wall, he activated the emergency bulkhead causing it to slam shut in front of them, but not before their invaders got the chance to deliver one final volley.

Simon inhaled sharply and listed to one side; he would have fallen if Dita weren't there to catch him, wrapping his arm around his shoulder and supporting him by the waist. Together they looked down. The disruptor would have grazed his right leg, but they didn't see any bleeding, nor any burns.

He groaned, shifting his weight to his other leg, and suddenly she understood.

Their helmsman had lost partial use of his legs in an accident over a year ago; while he preferred to use a chair during off-duty hours, they were mostly used to seeing him get around using a system of mechanical neurostimulators fitted over his uniform. He was just as capable as any other crewman, but now that one of his implants had been struck, he was going to have a little trouble walking.

"Sir, I think we're going to have to-"

"Go on," Malcolm rasped, having problems thinking straight around the pain. He fleetingly wondered if the disruptor had been set to kill, because the burning sensation was a lot more intense this time, threatening take his breath away. "Check on the Captain. Leave me here. It's important that we-"

"No, Dita, listen. You need to get him to sickbay. I'll be fine. I've got some crutches in my quarters. I can just-"

"I'm not playing this game with either of you," she insisted, not leaving them a second to get a word in edgewise. "No one is sacrificing themselves, no one is being left behind, and no one is going to die. If I can help it, we're all staying together. Got it?"

They looked like they wanted to object, but mercifully stayed silent. Dita helped Simon move over to the wall and regain his balance, then stooped down to retrieve her rifle. "I'm going to check the Captain's quarters. We'll regroup from there. No one better move while I'm gone, or so help me, I'll shove both of you out an airlock and deal with this myself."

They knew she was kidding, but the fire in her eyes was utterly profound, and they knew better than to argue with her. A second later, she forged forward into the shadows, rounding the corner onto the senior officers' block before she could lose her nerve.

Her heart was pounding as she reached T'Pol's front door, and she tested the controls, knowing full well they weren't going to be functional. A second later, she emptied a round into the latch, using her entire body weight to shoulder it open.

The darkness within was utterly complete. With a flick of her thumb, she activated the flashlight on the end of her weapon, and the room ahead of her muzzle was suddenly filled with light. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow moving in the bathroom, and together, they froze.

There was an almost eternal silence, filled only by the sound of her clicking the safety off her rifle. She just knew that she was in the room with a hybrid soldier, and he'd likely already incapacitated the Captain or worse. She'd have to kill or lay down her life to make her way out of the situation, and in the moment, she was more than willing to do so.

Suddenly her target appeared, and she fired, missing by mere centimeters. It fired too, and she dodged, suddenly catching a glimpse of a fraught, terrified face.

Realization struck her, and she screamed, realizing she'd nearly just killed their doctor. Phlox reflexively joined her in her emotional outburst, tossing his weapon aside and rushing towards her. She met him halfway, clutching his arms, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.

"Ensign," he said waveringly. "Needless to say, I thought you were someone else."

---

Ethan had been sitting by himself, feeling positively alone in a room full of people, when he heard his name being called from across the way.

He turned just in time to see Alira break through the crowd, sidestepping small clusters of people and muttering her apologies as she traversed the space. Even from a distance, he could see that she was dressed in her civvies with her hair cascading over her shoulders, the low light of the bar creating a halo of blonde curls around her face. As she drew closer, she offered him a smile, but he wasn't about to let her off the hook.

"You're late," he reminded her.

"Have you tried this?" She asked, fully ignoring his reprimand, pushing a cup full of murky liquid into his line of sight. "There's a Vulcan food stand on the promenade specializing in plomeek broth from six different provinces. I hate to say it, but I think I finally understand why Yuris is so grumpy all the time."

"Let me take a sip," he said, accepting her gift and raising it to his nose for a whiff. It smelled bland, like absolutely nothing, but he took a drink anyway, frowning and furrowing his eyebrows.

"See what I mean?"

He made a broad gesture with his hand, as if he was trying to grasp words out of the air. "I'm having a hard time describing what this tastes like, but I feel like it's the edible equivalent of-"

"Listening to Kelby talk about the engines for more than five seconds?"

"Unfortunately," he replied, and briefly considered pushing it towards the stack of discarded glasses left by other patrons at the empty seat next to him. Instead, he passed it back to her, and she did the honors, nearly pushing it off the bar and onto the floor in the process. "Speaking of which, where is he? Or Travis, for that matter?"

She shrugged. "No idea about Kelby. Travis is having dinner with some old family friends that are docked here."

He clasped a hand to his chest, swooning in mock offense. "I'm wounded. After all we've been through?"

"You know how he is. Give him the chance to set foot on an ECS freighter, any freighter, and he's all there." From the opposite end of the counter, Alira made eye contact with the bartender, dealing him a distinct come-hither glance that couldn't be missed. "I have to admit, it won't be the same without him."

The last time they all got drunk together, long before Kandar, Travis had spent half an hour explaining to them in excruciating detail about how if they were to acquire every single hot dog made on United Earth over the course of a year, they could build a bridge to the moon and there would be no need for short-range transports anymore. Of course, with their mutual level of intoxication, he had gotten quite angry with them for not taking his proposal seriously, and from them on, nary a week passed without one of them bringing up the hot dog moon bridge, to amusement between them and confusion with everyone else.

The bartender arrived, leaning towards them, continuing to polish a glass with his rag. Alira immediately turned her attention to him, and for a moment, Ethan felt like he might have been intruding on something.

"Perhaps something sweet and light for the lady? A nice white?"

She laughed, as though he'd just asked the dumbest question in the history of the known universe. "Perhaps not," she chastised, closing the space between them. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "Black Russian."

There were at least a half dozen other people trying to get his attention, but he tended to her request immediately, and no less than thirty seconds later, she was being served. Alira thanked him profusely and accepted his offering, brushing his fingers with her own.

The second he was gone, Ethan leaned in, whispering intensely: "How did you do that?"

"Simple." She took a sip, peering at him over the rim of her glass, then set it back down. "I'm telling you, men are so predictable, especially humans. It's how I always make sure I'm served first, and when I was single, it's how I made sure I never paid for my own drinks."

"You're telling me that you can charm any man in this bar, right now?"

"Most of the women, too." Shifting to one side, she retrieved her PADD from her back pocket. "Listen, back on Denobula, every mating season me and my friends would go down to the river and hit up the Kaybin bars-"

"I've heard about those! Aren't they basically one giant-"

"Yes," she confirmed, turning to face the center of the room. Somewhere around them, musicians were playing and some faceless chanteuse was singing an ode to newfound love. Alira looked perfectly at home surrounded by strangers, the ECS crewmen and civilians and Starfleet officers, as though they were presently sitting in the mess hall. "Tell you what. You played wingman for me after Solnara. I'll return the favor tonight."

"All I did was fabricate some excuse to get him away from the Commodore. Don't worry about it." Her enthusiasm was endearing, but he was feeling more than a little awkward at the prospect of getting back into the dating scene. He'd been with his boyfriend for years before he was unceremoniously dumped via a subspace Dear John letter a few weeks after the Maelstrom commissioned. It had been sudden, though not at all surprising, and though he'd gotten over it relatively quickly, he was woefully out of practice when it came to dating. "Besides, I already told you, I'm not looking for anything serious. Right now, I just want to meet someone and have some fun."

She gestured around the room, towards the people huddled together in groups, standing by themselves, or very obviously trying to step into someone else's line of vision. "Ethan, everyone here is on their way to somewhere else. What better place is there to meet someone for that?"

She was right. The war was weighing heavily on everyone's minds, and for a majority of them, this was likely the last opportunity they would have in a long time to blow off a little steam. For them, he was almost certain that was the case.

Finally, he acquiesced, giving her an encouraging smile and turning back towards the bar. A second later, she leaned back into the countertop, holding her PADD with one hand and teasing a lock of her hair with the other. She smiled, as though she was reading something incredibly amusing on the blank screen in front of her.

It took about a minute, but a man finally sidled up to her, asking, "Is this seat taken?"

"It is now," she said somewhat triumphantly, swiveling around to face him. "I'm Alira, and this is Ethan."

He looked up just in time to catch his eye. He was handsome for sure, fair haired and bright eyed, with a distinct air of self-assurance that Ethan immediately picked up on. Nonetheless, he smiled, and his gesture was returned.

"Aaron. I'm on my way to the United Earth consulate on Vulcan. Work picked a hell of a time to transfer me, I'll tell you that." Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan could see his hand inching closer to Alira's fingertips, and he almost wanted to warn him before it was too late, but was a little curious to see how it was about to play out.

"A diplomat!" She exclaimed, nodding reverently. It was incredible. In a flash, she'd gone from indifferent to rapturously focused on what he had to say, pinning him under her gaze and smiling softly. "I bet you've got stories."

"Plenty," he assured her. "So, where are you heading?"

"We're with Starfleet, actually. It's two days for us, then back out onto the front lines. I'm in tactical, and Ethan is in the sciences." He felt her elbow jab into his ribs, and he sat up, immediately coming to attention. She pulled back from Aaron's rapidly encroaching touch and laughed, pressing a hand to her chest, dropping another onto Ethan's shoulder. "We've been on some wild away missions, haven't we? I remember this one time-"

"Tactical, huh? You know, the Ambassador has been suggesting we pick up a martial art or two. Apparently Vulcan's not the safest place to be right now."

He had no idea. "They practice the suus mahna there. Our former CO was a master practitioner. Really, it's like watching someone move through water."

"Are you any good?"

"I'm passable," she answered, her voice a half-octave higher than normal. Ethan knew this was a gross underestimation.

Aaron leaned into her, completely undeterred by the way she was using her body language to close herself off from him. "Maybe you can teach me a couple of moves before we ship out."

For a split second Ethan thought he was about to see her murder someone right then and there, in the middle of the bar with a hundred witnesses all around them. She tensed up, then immediately relaxed, turning in full towards the bar.

"You'd be better off finding yourself a Vulcan." Alira glanced back at him one more time. "We work with a strange one, don't we, Ethan? That man is so crazy about-"

"Could I buy you a drink?"

And there it was. To her credit, Alira barely reacted, reaching forward and collecting her glass. She took a slow, leisurely sip, then replied, "I've already got one. You can buy my friend one, though."

"Listen…" He suddenly made contact with her other hand that she'd placed on the countertop, curling his fingertips around her palm and stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "Why don't we get out of here? There's an amazing place for stargazing on the upper level of the habitat ring. I'm telling you, it's unbelievable."

"I'm sure it is." Ethan could see that she was staring at his hand, glaring at it, scrutinizing the location of the unwarranted physical touch. Collecting herself, she made one final attempt to keep the conversation going. "You sure know how to show a lady a good time, don't you?"

"I like to think so." He made eye contact with Ethan over her shoulder as if asking for backup, and he shook his head quickly, hoping he would catch on. "It would give me a chance to tell you a few of my stories."

Suddenly she captured his wrist, bearing down with force, to where she could have easily broken it with another flick of her hand. Ethan noticed she was smiling, a purely rote gesture that didn't make it to her eyes. She leaned forward and ground out: "Keep them to yourself."

He sputtered somewhat ungracefully, saying something about catching up with some coworkers, and a second later he was gone. Alira glanced up at the ceiling; he could almost see the wheels turning in her head. He knew that the world of human relationships and mating practices were still very foreign to her, and as such, she was likely having trouble processing what had just happened. Finally, she asked, "Is it just me, or-"

"That one was exceptionally aggressive," Ethan assured her. Really, it had almost been embarrassing.

"Not my type," she mumbled, gesturing towards him. "And not your type, either."

He made an attempt to flag down the bartender to little success. "How do you know I have a type?"

"Everyone's got a type, Ethan."

"And what's yours? Miserable bastards?"

She cut him a reproachful look, which was quickly replaced with a flirtatious smile. She propped her elbow on the table, made eye contact with the bartender, and wiggled her fingers at him. He made a beeline towards them, passing several other patrons as he did so.

"Scotch and soda," he whispered, and she parroted his order. "You know, after all this time, I still don't know what you see in that guy."

Alira started to respond, then cut herself off, furrowing her eyebrows and peering into the spotlights hung over the bar. She looked unsure, bewildered and a little confused. Finally, she made a noncommittal gesture with her hand, saying, "You know, this time around, it's different. I won't say my relationships have always been predictable, but there's a formula."

"Do tell," he pressed, catching his drink as the bartender slid it down the length of the countertop.

"From what I've experienced, you've got to hate the exact same things. You need to have the same general interests, but enough variance that you have something to talk about. You have to encourage and challenge each other, work each other up and make one another laugh so hard you cry." She was smiling, somewhat wistfully, adopting the same far-off look in her eye he usually saw whenever the object of her affection was brought up in conversation. "There's got to be chemistry, but it can't be everything. Looks fade, but your love shouldn't."

Suddenly she met his gaze, and her smile reached full strength. "Above everything, you just know when it's right, don't you?"

If she was saying what he thought she was saying, she was in trouble for sure. He felt happy for her, and at the same time, deeply sad for what he'd had and lost just a few short months ago. Swiftly, he extended his glass towards her, interrupting her reverie. "To kismet."

"To casual flings," she added for his benefit, meeting his overture of a toast halfway. Over his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of someone else approaching, a reassigned ensign from the Phoenix she vaguely recognized from the mess hall. He was striding confidently towards them, eyes trained on the back of Ethan's head, his focus singular. "Speaking of which…"

An hour later, Ethan and Alira were still alone at the bar, drowning their sorrows, no closer to finding him a companion than they were three drinks ago. There had been many crewmen escaping their deep space assignments who approached them to wish them well, a handful of civilians who actually seemed keen on getting to know them, and, unfortunately, several severely misguided men who were destined to woefully misinterpret Alira's intentions.

"The next man who approaches me asking to go stargazing is going to have to hear how in love I am." She took another sip of her water, fighting a sudden wave of nausea that threatened to make the room spin. At some point after their visitors started to blend together, she came to the unfortunate conclusion that she'd gone too hard too fast, and decided to pace herself. Ethan was in a similar predicament, picking at the bowl of pretzels the bartender had placed in front of them. "In excruciating detail."

"Some of them have been pretty creative. What about the guy who was working on his sociology post-doc?"

She giggled, burying her face in her hands for a moment, before slipping into a flawless imitation of his robust Boston accent. "I'm doing a thesis on interspecies mating rituals. Would you care to join me in some empirical research?"

"He was three sheets to the wind!" Ethan shook his head, knowing full well he wouldn't remember his ungainly attempts at banter in the morning. "You know, I can't believe you wouldn't help the man out."

"What makes you think I would-"

"I thought it was a topic you were interested in," he interrupted, then immediately burst into raucous laughter, dodging the napkin that was summarily thrown at him. This only increased his amusement, and she lunged for him, nearly pushing him off his stool as she did so.

"Excuse me." The request came from somewhere behind them, and neither looked up, struggling and failing to regain their composure.

"Keep it moving," Alira replied automatically, barely able to get the words out around her laughter. "Nothing to see here."

Their guest deflated slightly, and started to move away. A second before he was out of earshot, Ethan called to him: "Hey, wait a second!"

He turned, and they were both treated to a friendly smile. The man in front of them was of average height and build, with a close crop of dark hair and the largest, most beautiful green eyes Ethan had ever seen. It could have been the alcohol, or maybe the convivial atmosphere, but he was immediately intrigued.

"I'm Lucas Garrett. Sorry to interrupt, but it seems like everyone else in this bar has taken the chance to say hello to your two, so I thought I might have a turn."

"Ethan," he said, reaching out to him as he returned to their side. Gingerly, slowly, they shook hands, and his touch felt like bolts of electricity going up his arm. "This is Alira."

"Nice to meet you." She reached behind her and retrieved her water, gesturing to the patch sewn onto the sleeve on his jacket. "I'd ask what brings you to Starbase 1, but I have a feeling I already know the answer."

"I'm with the ECS Flagstaff. We're on our way to the front lines." He paused, crossing his arms, then admitted sheepishly, "I'm the Captain."

"Well," Alira said with a note of fascination in her voice. "Color me impressed."

"We're from the Maelstrom's senior staff. We'll be headed out right behind you." Ethan met his gaze and locked on, not looking away for a second.

"I bet you've seen some crazy stuff."

"You have no idea," Alira mumbled, glancing between them. She knew exactly what that look meant, and what necessarily followed. Leaning far over in her seat, she began to plot her escape.

At the far corner of the room, she could barely make out a circle of officers standing around a circular game board mounted on the wall. Surprisingly, Kelby had shown up after all, standing on the fringes, trying to look casual but failing miserably. Every so often he would glance at them, looking straight through her and to her companion, his eyes blazing with something intense, yet indecipherable.

Suddenly, she understood.

"If you'll excuse me, I think I see a chief engineer who needs to be sorely beaten at darts." She slipped off her stool and tossed back the rest of her water, affording Ethan an encouraging smile.

"Are you sure? You're not exactly-"

"Are you kidding?" A few paces towards the center of the room, she paused and turned to them, throwing her arms wide. "My aim is much better like this."

Ethan was skeptical, but watched her go anyway. Lucas swiftly filled the seat he had vacated, swiveling around towards him until their knees touched. Irrationally, he felt a twinge of nervousness, as though he were a teenager alone with a crush.

A man he'd only just met.

"You'll have to excuse my friend. She's a little...much."

He chuckled. "By whose standards?"

"Anyone's," he assured him, reaching for his drink. His fingers cupped the glass, slipped through the condensation, and beared down slightly. "So, tell me, exactly how does one become an ECS Captain?"

"What, are you looking for a career change?"

"Actually, I was going to sneak aboard when you weren't looking, hop on the helm controls, and ride it out into open space." He could see that he was amused, intrigued even, especially when he leaned forward, perhaps to hear him better, until their foreheads nearly touched.

"Funny, you don't strike me as a pilot. You ought to be careful, one scratch on the hull and the insurance company will have my ass."

"You're right about that. I'm actually chief science officer."

"No kidding?" He reached for his glass, tugging at it slightly, until Ethan released it and he pulled it from his hands. "And how does someone become a chief science officer aboard a starship?"

"Oh, a very time-consuming and ultimately useless Ph.D. in botany." He sighed with an inordinate amount of dismay. "Add onto that a spur-of-the-moment career move, a handful of disastrous away missions, and a sprinkle of blind stupidity, and four years later-"

"Here you are," he interrupted, taking a slow sip of his water. "What brings you to Starbase 1, though?"

He grimaced, bearing his teeth for a fraction of a second. "You see, I don't know if you heard, but we're kind of in the middle of a war, and there's about two hundred officers looking to get the hell out of dodge."

"I'm aware," he said, setting down the glass and rubbing his hands on his trousers. "Your HQ is offering short-term contracts to deliver out to the front lines. The consensus among my crew was that we'd be damn fools not to take it."

"That irresistible, huh?"

"War's a dirty business. A crazy lucrative one." He paused, studying his expression with such intensity that he almost faltered. "So if you ever come across a freighter traveling at warp two, about to fly apart under the stress on our engines-"

"It'll probably be you."

"I guarantee it."

A cheer came up from the far corner of the room, and Ethan looked up just in time to see Alira exchange high-fives with a handful of science crewmen, before reaching forward and clapping a hand on Kelby's shoulder. Over her shoulder, the outcome of their match was unmistakable.

"Listen-" Lucas's voice startled him, and he redirected his attention immediately. It looked like he was trying to get something out, to say what was on his mind, but was having trouble expressing it.

"Do you want to take a walk?" It was a crazy risk, but he could see it had paid off the moment his shoulders relaxed and a broad smile spread across his face. "I've been hearing all about this stargazing spot on the habitat ring."

"You read my mind," Lucas replied, sliding off his stool and retreating from the bar. A second later, Ethan joined him, slipping into the crowd and into the corridor.

---

With seconds to go until 0100 hours, Alira rushed onto the habitat ring, trying her best to look perfectly natural.

She'd spent quite some time in the company of her fellow crewmen, drinking and carousing and gossiping even after she saw Ethan leave with a certain ECS Captain. An hour later, she'd sent him a message asking if he was alright, and he'd replied with a thumbs-up emoji, and that had been the end of that. By the time her buzz had faded, she was more than raring to go, her fight or flight reflex igniting her senses into near oblivion.

The walls and floors were immaculately white, though the hatches were all the same slate-gray as the Maelstrom, with tiny computer consoles in the wall that seemed to denote who lived there and what duty shift they were presently assigned to. The idea was interesting, though she had to admit there were times she preferred to dodge the crew and remain elusive.

She was aware she was intruding on the quarters of the station's personnel, and fielded more than a few curious looks from gamma shift officers as they tended to their duties. She realized far too late that her attempts to blend in were woefully misguided; there was only one Denobulan in Starfleet, and she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Stepping into a side corridor, she was startled by one of the screens beeping along the wall. The text there disappeared, and it flashed bright red, followed by another farther down the hall. Not hesitating for a second, she pursued the line of blinking lights, being led farther and farther into the interior of the station until she found herself in an uninhabited section of quarters, seemingly constructed but not yet open to the crew.

The overhead lights were dimmed; the only illumination came from the corridor far behind her, but she continued her hunt, farther and farther until she reached a dead end, the bulkhead solid, absolute.

She could hear the steady thrum of the impulse reactor, the ambient noise of the ship and farther away, someone's footsteps. Subconsciously, she reached underneath her tunic, gripping the handle of the phase pistol strapped to her belt.

A screen on the opposite side of the corridor flashed green, so quickly it was almost imperceptible. She caught it in her peripheral vision and approached it, tapping the display with her thumb. The text appeared instantaneously.

AGENT LAZULI.

DEFLECT AND DIVERT ATTENTION FROM PERCEIVED TORPEDO PRESENCE ABOARD STARBASE 1. MUST ACCOMPLISH AT ANY COST.

AGENT LONG.

Just as quickly as it arose, it vanished, and the power leading into the display went dead. Alira took a step back and wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tightly. Her thoughts were racing a mile a minute, theories and speculations and suspicions crowding her mind and forcing out all rationality.

She wanted to walk away and forget it, to pretend that she never saw it, to become the honest woman she desperately wanted to be. But she'd heard horror stories of operatives who'd gone rogue or reneged on their commitments, whose careers were ruined, family members killed in freak accidents, or were framed for terrible crimes. Harris could ruin her life, or end it altogether. If she wanted to double cross the Section in an attempt to get out, she needed to be smart about it.

The footsteps were growing closer, and she quickly flattened herself against the wall, watching with bated breath as Captain Garrett strode past, head down, seemingly on a mission.

As much as she didn't belong in Starbase 1's habitat ring at 0100 hours on a weekday, he didn't belong to an even higher degree. Before she could begin to formulate a plan, she counted silently to herself, one-two-three-four-five, then slipped into the hallway after him, walking on the outside of her heels so the click of her boots wouldn't give away her location.

She followed him down the promenade, then through the docking ring and to the storage lockers reserved for visiting ECS freighters. Twice he doubled back on his path, and she was worried he knew he was being followed, though he gave no other indication of it. Finally, he paused in front of a door, hit the controls, and slipped inside.

Though she desperately wanted to charge after him, she forced herself to wait until he exited, returning back the way he'd come. Her gut was telling her to run, but she forged forward, slipping through the hatch a split second before it closed.

The sudden shift into darkness was disorienting, but soon she realized she was surrounded by cargo containers on all sides stretching as far as the eye could see, each stacked higher than her head. In the near vicinity, she heard a singular voice. It sounded echoey, reverberating around the high ceiling and rendering it indecipherable.

Steeling her nerve, she moved between the rows deeper into the chamber. This time, her phase pistol came out, and she held it close to her side, ready to react at any moment.

A light source reflected against the far wall, and someone's silhouette moved in front of it, swaying from side to side, as though they were pacing a small section of the deck plating. She squinted, barely able to make out a short, blunt haircut and a headset. Immediately, her stomach clenched with dread.

Eventually, she came across the PADD Captain Garrett had discarded and pulled it from the top of one container into her side. The screen was still activated, and though the lights were low, she could barely make out a series of words. A list.

One immediately jumped out at her: Lazuli. Her codename, the one they used over subspace communications. Then a few more. Jaguar. Winston. Cicero. Corsica. Rosalind. Long.

Most were given the chance to choose their own, but when her time had come, she'd hesitated, something Agent Corsica had pointed out immediately during their ill-fated mission to Xantoras a year ago. He'd asked her what it felt like to be the odd one out in every respect, and she'd replied it made her twice the operative than he ever would be. She didn't tell him anything about her, not even her name, and he'd done the same. Things had been going great, up until the moment they weren't.

They'd been lucky to escape with their lives. His injuries had been far more severe.

All the same, their mission had been the incredibly rare duel assignment; agents typically worked alone, so it made his assignment to Enterprise all the more troubling. It indicated she-or someone else very close to the Section-was already on thin ice.

The person at the far end of the room was still speaking, availing their conversational partner, insisting, "It's all under control, sir. There was a close call today, but I've made modifications to the internal deflector shielding module. We'll be ready to go tomorrow morning. We'll have to be."

There was a pause where they were listening, and then a reply: "We can make it seem like they're on a moon on the far side of Jupiter if we need to. There's a half dozen other ECS freighters docked here right now. Just say the word."

Suddenly her tricorder chirruped, and she gritted her teeth, waiting for the inevitable reaction. Sure enough, the person fell silent, and she could hear their footsteps, growing closer and closer by the second.

Abandoning the PADD, she slipped around the corner and hid, crouching down until her knees were pressed against her chest. The beam of a flashlight danced across the ground to her left, then the right, and she held her breath, momentarily feeling like an animal pinned down in a cage.

A moment later, they continued to speak, growing farther and farther away until she knew they were at the far corner of the room. Rather than reaching for her tricorder, she pulled out Ethan's, the one he'd abandoned at the bar in his haste to go his a walk with Captain Garrett. She'd planned on taking it hostage until he paid her back for sticking her with the tab, but now seemed to be as good a time as any to put it to good use.

He'd taken scans that afternoon as he walked through the station; they all had, looking for any telltale sign of the energy signature of those torpedoes. Like her, he hadn't found anything, but to overwrite the data and falsify a time signature was an easy enough deception. She'd done it before, but now, she told herself it was for the right reasons.

If she couldn't tell them directly of the Section's plot, she would lead them right to it.

Sure enough, the power readings were incredibly strong at the moment, before tapering off to almost nothing. This corresponded to the growing whirr of an unknown instrument, growing in volume until it readily drowned out any conversation in the room. Seemingly satisfied, the person removed their headset and closed it with an audible crack, then made a beeline for the door, collecting their PADD as they went.

The moment she passed by the gap between cargo containers, an errant beam of light struck her face, and Alira was able to distinctly make out the figure of Lieutenant Commander Min Zhang, who had been so eager to welcome them into the fold earlier in the day.

The hatch closed, leaving her in near total darkness with a hand clasped to her chest as she fought to control her racing heart. Suddenly willing herself to move, she surged to the back of the room, finding rows upon rows of torpedoes in their distinctive yet unremarkable casings, all protected with a short-range force field to mask their presence on sensors.

She had many questions, but one thing was certain.

If she didn't act decisively, United Earth's first deep space station was about to fall under complete control of Section 31.

---

By the time Dita and Phlox made it back to the junction in the corridor, Malcolm had somehow fought his way to his feet and stumbled a few steps in their direction. He'd heard her scream and was naturally concerned, though he hadn't been able to make it very far; even from a distance, Dita could see that he'd unzipped his jumpsuit and tied it around his waist, and there was such a copious amount of blood seeping through his undershirt that she immediately felt queasy.

"Look who I found," she announced somewhat rhetorically, leaning into the wall and taking a slow, deep breath.

"Doctor, what are you-"

"I was in decon adjusting the UV lights when the wavefront came through. I believe the additional shielding in that area protected me." He was wringing his hands together, a clear tell that he was nervous. "I've been trying to find someone, anyone ever since. The comms are down, and sensors weren't functioning for a time."

The entire ordeal had quite reminded him of the time they were in the Expanse and he'd been tasked with watching over the ship as the crew lay in comas for their passage through a trans-dimensional disturbance. Almost immediately, the sensation of being truly alone had gotten to him, as it had now. The ship was falling apart, and he was in immediate, mortal danger. The only thing missing was the extremely vivid hallucinations, unless…

"We know," Simon said. "Have you seen the Captain?"

"I was just in her quarters looking for her. I thought that…" He trailed off, studying Malcolm and Dita's fraught expressions, and instantly recalled that they were in the presence of someone who didn't know the particulars of the hybrid plot, one who the former was adamant couldn't be trusted. "I've searched three decks with some difficulty. The turbolifts are down, and some emergency bulkheads have engaged."

"Isolation protocol. We need to drive the Romulans off the ship, trap them in a particular section, back them into a corner, whatever it takes."

"Sir, we don't even know what they want," Simon protested.

"Do we not?" He turned, with some difficulty, to face him. "Either they want to dig for information, capture one or more of our people, or destroy this ship. We've got the main computer locked down, and the residual energy from the wavefront is interfering with our tricorders. I ask you, if you wanted to destroy Enterprise with little effort and no access to our mainframe, where would you go?"

"Engineering," he replied automatically, a little too quickly.

Malcolm snapped his fingers and pointed at him. "We need to secure engineering first. Singh, Pascal, if you can reach an auxiliary maintenance bay, you should be able to access our security systems and whatever environmental protocols are still online. You have my full authorization to do whatever you have to in order to get them off this ship."

"Sir, are you positive? If I go with you, I may be able to-"

"You know the computer better than anyone here, Ensign. The doctor and I have more experience with the engines." This was a bit of a gross exaggeration; the limit of his experience lay in a series of worst-case scenario talks Trip had given him years ago, detailing how to boost power to the engines and purge the impulse manifolds should the need arise. He knew Phlox had once started up the core and brought them all the way to warp two by reading the manual alone, so he was almost positive the man had some sort of natural instinct. Besides, if and when they located the Captain, she could be injured or worse.

Somehow, the fact that he was presently bleeding out from a disruptor wound completely slipped his mind.

"They've probably reached engineering by now." Pascal was leaning heavily to one side, balancing himself on one foot. "They'll likely be using the access tubes as well, unless they plan to blast through every bulkhead between here and there. You ought to go the back way."

It would take twice as long, but Malcolm had to acknowledge that he wasn't in any condition to run from hybrid soldiers at the moment. He wasn't about to admit that out loud, though.

Suddenly the silence of the corridor was cut by the sound of four tricorders chiming simultaneously. There was a pause where none of them wanted to look; whatever crisis was drastic enough to break though the subspace interference and make itself known would likely be nothing short of catastrophic.

Dita was the first to check; they watched as first her eyes lit up in recognition, then her expression fell, the rest of her all but frozen in fear. She reached for him, and Malcolm obliged, stepping closer to look over her shoulder. What he saw illuminated on the tiny screen was nothing short of terrifying.

"We may have bigger problems at the moment," he announced. "One of those disruptors clipped a power coupling in the wall on this deck. It feeds back into the antimatter containment field in the warp drive. I'm no engineer, but…"

Dita heard him trail off, saw him shake his head, and forged on, her voice wavering uncontrollably. "It looks like the damage to its power supply caused a polarity shift in the field surrounding the containment pods. It's been weakening, but it's just now approaching critical."

"How critical?"

"It's at fifty percent. If we reach twenty percent, we're going to have a breach."

"Can we backtrack and repair that power coupling?"

"The damage is already done, Pascal. We need to get moving immediately. At a worst case scenario, we only have-"

"Eleven minutes," Dita confirmed, and she broke away, moving to Simon's side.

"If the Romulans don't get there first," Malcolm added, shouldering his phase rifle. He inhaled slowly and seemed to hold it, his hand hovering over his wound for a fraction of a second. They could all tell that he was in a tremendous amount of pain, but refusing to acknowledge it, as was his wont. He had already decided that if they were going to make it out of this alive, he was going to need to put on a brave face for the rest of them. "We all know what we need to do. Are we ready?"

"No," Phlox interjected, lending credence to what they were all thinking.

"That's the spirit," Malcolm mumbled, turning on his heels and approaching the end of the corridor.

---

It was nearly 0630 hours when the door chime sounded in the darkness of Alira's quarters.

She'd been laying in bed for hours at that point, staring up at the ceiling, trying and failing to talk herself out of the act of subterfuge she was about to conduct. She was driven by duty, by an overwhelming sense of loyalty, and she was reluctant to betray the people who had been her gateway into Starfleet. But she knew that she wasn't the same person now, that she was through with them dangling the carrot of finally avenging her father's death in front of her. If she was going to get her revenge, she'd get it on her own, before the Section could take everything from her.

Fear kept her in, fear made her want to get out. It was a vicious cycle.

She answered the door without pause, only to find Trip standing there, dressed for duty. A sudden wave of anxiety clenched her gut, and she had to swallow her trepidation before greeting him. "Captain?"

"Ensign," he said, his voice much quieter than normal. "They'll be here any moment. Get dressed."

She seemed confused, though she complied, and returned to the door only to find four of them standing there. They entered one by one, and when they were all contained within her quarters, Julia shut the door behind them, engaging the lock.

It felt a bit like a breach of privacy for them to be here like this, in the early hours of the morning, while she had something to hide and there were any number of things to discover. Trip walked towards the window, studying the curve of the docking ring before them, then turned back to the assembled senior officers. "This is strictly off the record," he said, retrieving his communicator and tossing it on top of her desk.

They repeated his gesture, and Alira retrieved hers from her bedside table, adding it on the pile for good measure. Ethan seemed worried, preoccupied, and when he spoke, he knew her gamble had paid off.

"I must've not have noticed it the first time, but now that I look back at it, it's as plain as the nose on my face. It looks like I picked up some energy fluctuations as I passed through ECS storage yesterday afternoon."

"Why are we just hearing about this now?"

"Well, sir…" He blushed a vivid crimson and glanced towards Alira, who was striving her mightiest not to react to anything happening around them. "I got home around 0030 hours. I thought I might have misplaced my tricorder, so I got up early to look for it. Apparently I dropped it in the corridor right outside my quarters last night."

Julia raised her eyebrows and leaned into the bedframe, crossing her arms. "Did y'all really go that hard last night?"

"No, ma'am," Ethan assured her. "I left the bar around 2300 and-"

"Were either of you with him?"

"No, I was having dinner on board the ECS Austin. They're old friends of my parents, and-"

"I was there until 0100," Alira interrupted Travis, cutting him an apologetic glance. "Kelby was there. He can confirm that."

"So where were you between 2300 and 0030 hours, Lieutenant?" Trip asked.

"Sir, I-" He cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm not sure why that's pertinent information."

"We could be looking at a criminal investigation here. We need to get our stories straight."

"You see, that's the thing. I recognize the cargo hold I took those readings in because its registration number corresponds to a vessel I visited during that time frame. The ECS Flagstaff." Alira and Travis were looking all around, suddenly finding their shoes and the deck plating extremely interesting, trying to avoid eye contact with their COs at any cost.

"Right. And the nature of your visit was-"

"Personal, sir," he advised, and said no more.

Trip felt more than a little awkward prying into the details of his science officer's personal life, but if the man was guilty-and he was almost sure that he was-he needed to make sure any of them could be cleared of wrongdoing. He gestured towards the other two members of their terrible trio, and they at first appeared reticent, then began to speak.

"I saw Lieutenant Novakovich leaving with Captain Garrett at 2300 hours," Alira said.

"And I saw him at around 0030 hours in the mess hall. He was getting a midnight snack." Travis shifted slightly, nudging his shoulder, doing his best to minimize the embarrassment he was sure he must be feeling.

So much for casual, anonymous flings.

"Just to be clear, you didn't record any anomalous readings during the time you were on the Flagstaff?"

"No, Commander. I probably had my tricorder on me at that time, but it didn't pick up anything suspicious."

"Was the Captain acting strangely? Being secretive? Refusing access to certain compartments?"

Ethan shook his head again. "I'm telling you all I know. If those spatial torpedoes are on board right now, there's only one way to find out. And we better hurry, because as far as I know they're due to ship out to the Dessica system at 0700 hours."

Trip nodded, inhaled sharply, and turned back towards the window. There was a prolonged silence, and Alira was about to suggest that they notify Major Danilenko's security team when he suddenly spoke up. "You know, I asked Hoshi to look into their last known rendezvous. Apparently it was with a Tellarite freighter at Jupiter Station. They docked at the armory research and development module briefly."

"What if this is a legitimate operation, sir? It could be Starfleet Security, or even Intelligence-"

"Ensign," he interrupted, and it almost sounded like a reprimand. Though, when he turned back to face them, they saw only regret in his eyes. "Whenever we were at Tellar Prime, I was approached by their Ambassador Kell. She offered the services of their Trade Directorate, said she could get us specialty materials, whatever we needed. I told her we'd be interested, that we'd need her services eventually. Now-"

"There's some kind of collusion afoot, a plot of some sort. I'm almost certain it's treason," Julia declared, and they all started a bit at that word, that implication, that they'd almost gotten caught up in all of it.

As usual, the Section was ten steps ahead. Alira was plainly stunned, but hid it well, digging her fingernails so hard into her palms they almost bled.

"There's only one way to know for sure," Ethan said reverently, realizing what they had to do.

"But how-"

Trip surged forward and seized Travis's shoulder. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips. "Do you remember when you were captured by that automated repair station?"

---

Five minutes later, they were all rushing through Starbase 1's docking ring on a mission of reconnaissance.

Trip and Julia led the way, weaving in and among the throng of ECS personnel and civilians on the walkway. They were surprised how crowded the station was so early in the morning, but perhaps, just maybe, that might be to their benefit.

Alira and Travis walked on opposite sides of Ethan in complete silence, tense and expectant, until Travis reached out and patted him on the back. "Listen, Ethan, I'm sorry about Captain Garrett."

"It's a shame, you know. He was really funny. Really interesting." He shrugged, as if to say it wasn't a big deal, but simply by the look in his eyes they could tell it was a very, very big deal. "You know how it goes. Boy meets boy, they hit it off, boy turns out to be an interstellar weapons smuggler..."

"We don't know that," Alira affirmed. At least not yet.

"What's the saying? There's plenty of fish in the sea."

She shook her head and placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. "We say there's plenty of stars in the sky."

A moment after they crossed into the line of ECS vessels docked together, Julia turned and retreated back the way they came. Immediately, Alira's heart jumped into her throat, and she surprised both of them by reaching out to grab her arm as she passed. "Ma'am, where are you-"

"To get Commander Leota and Major Danilenko. I doubt he's going to go quietly."

"I should go. We need both of you there to be convincing."

Julia pulled away gently, then gestured ahead, to where Trip stood in front of the Flagstaff's hatch, with Ethan and Travis standing just out of sight. "We need you here, Ensign. You know these power signatures better than anyone."

"Commander-"

"That's an order," she insisted, and hurried away. Alira stood there, motionless, stunned, for almost a full minute before joining the others.

She'd thought about it for hours. To get away with it, there was no way she could be there when the walls came tumbling down.

---

Captain Lucas Garrett was making the final preparations for their departure when his first officer raised the alarm.

He was used to sudden rushes of adrenaline; they always accompanied these runs. He'd completed over a dozen of them without difficulty, never once running into a single soul. The route was dangerous and fraught with Romulan marauders, but he was extremely motivated and very well paid.

The Starfleet Captain who had first given him his assignment had seen to that.

He'd worked closely with Lieutenant Commander Zhang for some time now, and never once crossed her, never once done anything to incur her wrath. This had been the exception.

They pleaded with her, told her it hadn't been their fault that their shielding unit had malfunctioned, but she'd insisted on taking the reins. She told him he'd been impulsive. Reckless. She'd said there better not be any more complications in their plan if he knew what was good for him.

He briefly wondered if she'd used him to test the loyalty of an operative. It seemed a little outlandish, but just drastic enough to be true.

As he stood before the hatch, ready to greet Captain Tucker, he took a moment to steel himself and his expression. They had received an advance warning about him, about his senior staff, that they were rooting around where they didn't belong. Now, her admonition was coming to a head.

Garrett hit the door controls and immediately laid in on a smile. "Can I help you?"

"Captain Tucker of the NX-05 Maelstrom." He swiftly extended his hand for a shake, and he obliged. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Captain Garrett of the ECS Flagstaff. The pleasure is all mine." He braced his hand against the opposite end of the hatch and leaned forward, effectively blocking him from entering. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he leaned out, looking left and right. "Is there something I can do for you?"

He chuckled, as if something were amusing, and it immediately set him on edge. "Actually, I just thought I'd make a house call. I hear you're among the ships who've signed on to deliver us supplies on the front lines. Seeing as we're headed back out tomorrow, I wanted to give y'all a little feedback about your cargo inventory."

"Feedback?"

"Yessir. You see, my crew, we're used to getting spare bolt couplings during every resupply. For the past three rendezvouses, we haven't seen a single-"

"I think you'd be better off reaching out to the Earth Cargo Authority. I barely have any control of the kinds of supplies I carry." In more ways than one.

"Well, since I've got you here…" He took a step forward, laying a boot next to his and coming halfway over the threshold. "You know what they say, Captain, the customer is always right."

The look in his eye was clear and unmistakable.

He wasn't getting rid of him that easily.

Garrett knew that turning him away was due to cause more suspicion, so he stepped aside, allowing him to enter. He knew they could easily skirt the cargo hold altogether, and that was exactly what he was planning to do.

"We were going to head out in a bit, but I can spare a few minutes. My ready room is right this way…"

Around the corner, Travis, Ethan, and Alira heard his voice fade away into nothingness and surged forward, crossing over into the Flagstaff a second before the hatch closed.

Three identical tricorders came out, and they each began to scan, coming up short. Travis shook his head and lead the way farther into the vessel.

"It's an old J-class," he whispered, "Just like home."

They followed him, heads down, twice having to duck into adjoining chambers to dodge the crew. The ceilings were much lower and the corridors much smaller than anything Alira had encountered back home; she distinctly noticed the handles built into the corners and doorways, and surmised they must have been for jumping to warp.

What with the damage done to the Maelstrom's inertial dampeners, they could have used a few of them.

Travis readily maneuvered to the forward cargo module, explaining that they had a lot of ground to cover; from a cursory scan of the Flagstaff, it appeared that there were six different modules, each twice as large as the cargo bays on the Maelstrom.

They quickly got to work, ducking in between rows of cargo containers, scanning and looking for the characteristic silvery cases of the spatial torpedoes. More than once Ethan called out that he'd picked up on a faint signal before losing it again, and by the time they made it into the second module, Alira was all but shaking in her boots.

She knew that she was going to be in trouble, that she was directly violating Section orders. She was sure that the truth would come out easily that she hadn't gone above and beyond to keep them from making their discovery, or, even worse, she'd led them directly to it.

Over and over again, she kept telling herself that it didn't matter. She had to deal with the consequences of her actions, come what may.

And she would never betray her friends, her family.

Their search continued until they reached the last module; so much time had passed that she was presently concerned about getting caught, though, as Travis pointed out, trespassing wasn't a court martial offense. They pressed on, growing more and more thorough by the minute, until they arrived on the last row at the very rear of the craft.

Frustrated, Ethan turned on the two of them, throwing his hands up in the air. Alira shook her head apologetically, and he swiveled on his heels and kicked the bulkhead with all his might.

The sound reverberated from the space within, echoing and resounding for so long that it gave them pause. It sounded like the rattle and shake of the ground that accompanied an earthquake.

Travis attempted to wrench a panel off the wall to little success; Alira gestured for him to step aside and hit it with the kill setting of her phase pistol until the metal was red hot and melting away. It took a few seconds for the smoke to clear, but then Ethan pressed forward, standing on his toes and peering into the darkness with his flashlight.

What he saw was unmistakable: hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of torpedo casings lined up in seemingly endless rows, all protected with the distinctive haze of a force field emanating from several emitters on the ground.

Reaching for his communicator, he flipped it open and whispered into the unknown: "Novakovich to Hammond."

Minutes later, they stood by, watching Captain Garrett being dragged away by MACOs. Julia had been gracious enough to allow them time to escape; she and Trip proved to be excellent actors, feigning shock and offense, but Commander Leota gave an even more masterful performance of dressing him down, informing him of his treachery and his impending charge of treason. They'd been standing across the walkway on the outer level of the docking ring when they'd emerged, trying not to make a scene but failing miserably.

Lieutenant Commander Zhang brought up the rear, detailing to a trailing operations officer the impounding process. She didn't mean to, but she seemed to seek her out, and from a great distance, Alira locked eyes with her.

She nodded, and realization struck her like a speeding bullet.

It had all been her. Every bit of it.

---

No less than ninety seconds after their departure, Malcolm and Phlox made it to the appropriate entry point into the vast network of access tubes that traversed the ship. Together they sank to their haunches, and the doctor briefly waved his tricorder over the hatch. He was able to confirm that there were no hybrid biosigns in the near vicinity, and almost immediately, Malcolm was wrenching open the door, tossing it to the side and climbing in.

There was scarcely enough room for two people to traverse the space side by side, let alone stand or even sit upright. Malcolm led the way, crawling on his hands and knees with his phase rifle strapped to his back. Every so often it would strike him on the side near his disruptor wound, causing a lightning bolt of pain to shoot through his body. As time went on, the burn intensified, taking the form of a white-hot heat that overwhelmed his senses and threatened to steal his breath away. He knew the doctor was concerned; every minute or so he'd mention it, that if he'd just slow down and let him scan the affected area, he'd be able to discern the severity of his injury. But he knew that trick, and knew better than to fall for it.

They had more important matters to attend to at the moment.

Twice they had to divert course to avoid closed emergency bulkheads; months ago, he'd programmed the computer to seal off critical areas whenever it detected a hull breach, but now his tactical advancements seemed to be doing more harm than good. The third hatch came just short of engineering; he knew that if only he could get through it, they'd be only meters away from the air cooling duct that led into the upper level of engineering. They were agonizingly, tantalizingly close.

He decided to try and subvert the very code they'd written to be unbreakable.

Phlox looked more than a little curious when he produced a hyperspanner and a micro-caliper, but soon realized what he was doing. Carefully, he sidled up to him, aiming his tricorder at the control panel and giving him continuous updates on shifts in phase variance as they worked.

It felt like hours, but it had really only been a matter of minutes before he spoke up. "Mr. Reed, I find myself wondering what Alira would say if she knew you were dodging treatment once again."

He paused momentarily, and in the low light, Phlox could see him frowning. It was a low blow, and they both knew it, but really, he would have thought he'd left that particular set of behaviors behind in the Expanse, before he was a commanding officer with only two individuals standing between him and total control of the ship.

"If the roles were reversed, you'd be having the same conversation with her. Compression index?"

"Point-oh-eight. The two of you are among the most stubborn people I have ever met. We've got a phrase for that." He paused, and, ignoring the aggrieved look he was dealt, said something in Denobulan. When Malcolm's expression shifted into curiosity, he clarified: "Good match."

"I won't dispute that," he mumbled, before setting his tools aside and making another go at separating the two halves of the hatch. Miraculously, they began to separate, and he rushed forward into the adjoining section.

Soon they were peering through the air vents into the upper level of engineering, studying the walkways below. There was no indication of hybrid soldiers, but they could have just as easily been lying in wait, anticipating them making an appearance.

"You know, considering that my half-daughter has no spouses or children, if there's a question you need to be asking, you ought to direct it towards me and Elizabeth," he whispered, displaying his species' characteristic and flagrant disregard for anything resembling subtlety.

Malcolm couldn't believe what he was hearing; over the past few months, he and Phlox hadn't discussed it once, though he'd always known it was coming. It was true enough that he'd been thinking about it, thinking about her and the purity and intensity of her love, thinking about how she made him want to take steps towards a future that was completely antithetical to how he'd seen his life going even just a year ago. It was all terrifying, and very alarming, and yet so authentic and so right.

Truth be told, he wasn't sure what to do about the situation. He knew a few talks definitely needed to be had, but they weren't about to be started here, as they hid in an access tube away from Romulan marauders that were threatening to take over the ship.

"You know, doctor, I don't think this is the right time to be having this conversation," he replied adamantly, reaching forward and popping the cover off the air duct. Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself forward and onto the deck plating.

"But we will be having it?" In a flash, he was out, offering him his hand. Malcolm hadn't realized just how long he'd been trying to right himself until then, but it forced him to come to terms with the fact that his condition was rapidly deteriorating.

He accepted the help and rose to his feet, peering out over the railing into the great open space behind them. Nothing, and mercifully, no one, greeted them. Engineering was completely silent save for a few alarms pealing at the panels that ran on emergency power at the back of the room. "In due time," he promised, and hobbled towards the stairs.

Every motion felt like his rib cage was threatening to separate from his sternum. By the time he made it down to the main console of the warp drive, he was bleary eyed, breathing and hissing raggedly through his teeth. Phlox noticed and began to move towards him with his tricorder, only to be swatted away. "How long do we have?"

"Six minutes."

He cursed, reaching for his flashlight and shining it over the controls. They were still faintly illuminated, running on auxiliary power, and he could barely make out what was printed there.

Phlox was still pressing buttons, moving this way and that. Soon he realized they were very close to a faint Vulcan biosign. Wordlessly, he clambered back down to the deck plating and made his way to the front of the room, watching as the signal grew stronger and stronger.

Malcolm called out to him, but he didn't respond, soon finding himself before Lieutenant Commander Hess's office. He held his phase pistol aloft with one hand and used the other to wrench the door open, just a fraction of an inch, until he could barely see what lay inside.

Anna was slumped forward over her desk, as though she'd been in the middle of a conversation when the wavefront hit. The Captain was unconscious, face down in the middle of the floor, having missed striking her head on the edge of the table by a fraction of a centimeter. He could barely see the mobile emitter sticking out her back pocket, the one he'd insisted she wear before the Battle of Solnara, and silently thanked his lucky stars that she'd bothered to listen to him.

"I found the Captain!" He cried triumphantly, returning the way he came. To his utter surprise, Malcolm met him halfway, his expression fraught, his gestures frantic.

"There's a thermal inversion in the power coupling. To prevent it from overheating, we need to cross-connect it to the transfer coil. It should buy us some time before the containment field breach. We're down to thirty percent."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure," he lied, in all actuality only being about halfway sure they were doing the right thing. Though he considered himself mechanically inclined, his expertise lay nowhere near the field of warp theory, and the displays could have been written in ancient Klingon for all he could make sense of them. He handed Phlox his hyperspanner and he accepted it, somewhat tentatively.

"You want me to go? Exactly how far away is this transfer coil?"

"Not far," he assured him, though his journey would be considerably shorter if the emergency bulkheads weren't engaged. "Take access tube J37, hang a left at D Deck Section 4, then go straight on past the transporter pad until you hit the lift. Make a left and use the auxiliary maintenance shaft to get down to E Deck. Go through the port section and go all the way around until you pass three airlocks and the MACO training room, and then-"

"Crawl down access port A25 for two more decks, take two lefts then a right until I reach the hatch at the end of the hall. Now I remember!" He turned on his heels, then paused, glancing over his shoulder. "Who designed this ship, anyway?"

Malcolm shook his head as if to say he didn't know, but would like to give whoever it was a stern dressing-down. A few seconds later he heard the doctor wrench open the main door to engineering, and soon he was alone, alone with his thoughts, alone with the sound of machinery hissing and groaning and the strange whirring sound of the engine trying to hold itself together.

He halfway wanted to accompany Phlox, but knew that someone needed to remain behind to hold down the fort and protect the Captain. He wondered what Simon and Dita were up to; even though he'd only taken their leave of them minutes ago, it felt like ages, eons, and he dearly prayed they were having some success.

---

"If you touch that panel again I swear I'm going to take this phase rifle and shoot you in the ass."

Simon reeled back and held his hands up in surrender, swiveling around in his chair. He soon got a glimpse of Dita's harried, angry expression and realized she wasn't kidding. He'd never so much as heard her curse before, so such a shift in demeanor certainly gave him pause.

"I've told you before, we're not killing a single member of our crew. There's got to be another way. We've still got time, the containment field's still at-"

"Twenty-four percent. We've only got five minutes until the breach, and even less if this power coupling continues to overheat. If we shut off life support from Decks E, F, and G, we'll be able to extend that time twice over. They're the least populated decks, even in the middle of a duty shift."

"It's an unacceptable risk."

"I shouldn't need to remind you that I commissioned first and I technically outrank you."

"And Mr. Reed outranks us both."

"Too bad we can't contact him with the comm down. The way I see it, we're going to die here in this maintenance room unless we act now."

She suddenly dropped her phase rifle with an audible crack and joined him at the computer panel on the wall, which were only dimly lit with auxiliary power. They'd been able to access them with their biometric codes since they'd locked down the computer with them on the bridge, but the hybrids had not, and they'd been trying to break into the mainframe all over the ship. It had become immediately clear to Dita that their objective hadn't been to capture them, but to gain reconnaissance, and now that they'd presumably gathered all they needed, they were going to try and take out the United Earth flagship in one blow.

They'd managed to lure them into a disused section of D Deck, seal the bulkheads of the access tubes, and flood the chamber with hexafluorine gas. It was enough to render them unconscious, but not kill them, as Dita was unsure if the Commodore would prefer to interrogate them. They'd even searched for their ship, but they were cloaked with an extremely advanced system that kept shifting their phase variance every time they got close. By the time they checked back up on their guests, two of them were missing, and their argument reached a fever pitch.

"With all this focus on keeping them contained, I still don't understand why finding the Captain was such a priority." They locked eyes, and she returned his gaze, firm, unmoving, in a way that made her almost entirely sure he already knew why.

"She's the Captain," she replied noncommittally, not looking away for a second.

"What about the Commodore?"

"He's safe on the bridge."

"And yet we don't have people out there with rifles trying to protect him. He'd be just as valuable a prisoner as she would."

She knew he was right, and was suddenly seized with the urge to divert the course of the conversation. She was thinking about Bran, the Betazoid temporal agent who had cornered her in the cargo bay of the Saral, and how he'd prophetically foretold the destruction of the ship.

Dita knew they'd subverted and changed the timeline by sending the Maelstrom after the telepresence unit, but she wasn't sure it had been for better or for worse. She was considering her time on the Enterprise so far, how it had been fraught with danger at every turn. She was thinking about her family on the ECS Saraswati, who had only recently accepted a contract to deliver supplies to the front lines. She was wondering if their time was now, if her morals and values were getting in the way of their survival, but wouldn't know until the moment of impending disaster.

If they were due for another visit from Bran, she suspected it would be sooner rather than later.

"You know, Pascal, I think we're focusing on the wrong things."

And they had been, this entire time.

She wondered if it would be their downfall.

---

Malcolm had stabilized the warp core the best he could, poring over the operator's manual and trying to piece together the instructions line by line, but he knew without the repair of the main power coupling, it would all be for nothing. He was seconds away from abandoning his post and going in search of the doctor when he heard the hatch at the back of the chamber being wrenched open.

He almost called out, but stopped himself, sinking down to his haunches and ducking behind the warp core. The sudden movement sheared at his wound, and he nearly cried out anyway, gritting his teeth and biding his time as he listened to footsteps approach.

The sound was heavy, repeating, and resonant, indicative of multiple boots on the ground. He couldn't tell how many people were there, but if the various engineering crewmen passed out around him told him anything, they certainly weren't human.

A second before they rounded the corner, he slipped around the side of the engine, keen to stay out of sight.

They were talking in another language; he couldn't begin to decipher it, though it sounded familiar, as though he'd heard it a thousand times, in between briefings and transmissions and meals in the Captain's mess.

He reached for his pockets, initially coming up short, but finally locating his UT. He began to walk farther and farther away from them, step by step until he could scarcely hear them.

"How long do we have?"

"Two minutes. We have what we need. All we must do is wait until the last possible second."

"So they're transporting us out?"

"Presumably. We must anticipate that they will not keep their word."

"And if they do, where do we go next?"

"The World Ender, undoubtedly."

He squinted at the tiny digital screen, wondering if the UT had possibly misinterpreted what he'd said, but it indicated a correct translation from Vulcan with one hundred percent certainty. He, as well as the Captain, the Commodore, and the senior officers of the Maelstrom knew that the Romulans were building something, something horrible and calamitous and powerful, even more devastating than the Xindi weapon. He was supposed to be accompanying Alira to meet with an old Special Ops contact to gather more information, but now…

Now he suspected they would need to move the rendezvous up by as much as they could.

"Where is it?"

"Closer than you may think. I do believe that-" Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement, and realized he'd been distracted, his attention focused elsewhere for long enough that the hybrids could take him by surprise. A disruptor beam whizzed past his head, and he pivoted, dodging out of their line of sight.

One of them shouted, though he couldn't even begin to tell what was being said over the roaring of blood in his ears. He could barely think straight, with the substantial mortal terror coursing through his veins, the searing pain setting every nerve ending in his body alight, and the uncertainty of knowing they were once again dealing with a superweapon of unfathomable power.

They were on him in a moment, and they were certainly Vulcans, with two cranial ridges rising from the tops of their noses into their hairlines. They wore the traditional uniform of the High Command, but if their behavior was any indication, they certainly weren't a part of the service anymore. Each were firing rapidly out of a disruptor pistol with a curved hilt, their fingers never leaving the trigger, and he was struggling to hold them back, stepping backwards and sneaking in a shot wherever he could.

Their expressions were perfectly neutral, which made the experience all the more unnerving. He needed to get to higher ground, to gain the upper hand in some way, but he knew it was impossible in the state he was in. At last he managed to strike one of them, and he faltered, clutching his arm and stumbling into the core.

Another round incapacitated him, and then the hybrid woman was surging towards him, baring her teeth, suddenly impossibly enraged. To his surprise, she forgot all about her weapon and threw herself against him, knocking him to the ground.

The impact was painful and momentarily disorienting; he tried to inhale sharply through his teeth, but found his airway was blocked by her hands around his neck, squeezing and twisting with all her might.

He'd almost lost consciousness by the time he managed to pull his knees up and push them into her chest, throwing her roughly to one side. He reached for his weapon, only to immediately feel her throw her hands around his neck once again, this time from behind. Not hesitating for a second, he rose to his feet and threw them both backwards into the deck plating.

She cried out, reaching over his shoulder and seizing a hold of his phase pistol. It fired errantly into the air, and suddenly they were both grappling for it, violently, ferociously, taking turns throwing each other into the core and the adjoining consoles.

Malcolm tore away to look into her eyes, and saw nothing but blind rage, perhaps forged through months of indoctrination and covert operations. She was intent on killing him, and would stop at nothing to see it through.

He fleetingly mused that even if she were to succeed, by that time they likely had less than thirty seconds left, assuming the doctor hadn't reached the catwalk. The thought was somewhat comforting, and when she at last overpowered him, forcing him down to his side, he scarcely reacted.

As a final insult, she delivered a swift kick to her abdomen, and he saw stars. He heard someone fire, and closed his eyes, expecting to welcome the void, but it never came.

The hybrid fell to the floor beside him, her final expression a torturous mask of frenzied rage. Phlox was running towards him, and with a sudden surge of adrenaline, he stood, reaching for him. "Doctor, we need to-"

"It's over, Mr. Reed. The power coupling and the containment field have been stabilized. The Romulans-"

Behind them, they heard a characteristic whoosh of a transporter, and turned just in time to see the crumpled forms of the hybrids disappear. Suddenly he was desperate to tell him about what he'd seen and heard, all about the World Ender and how his adversaries had fought tooth and nail to kill him. "They're all gone, aren't they?"

"They are now. We have no idea what they were looking for, or what information they took, but-"

Malcolm understood that all of this would need to go into a report somewhere, as many missions had before, only to be forgotten and filed in some Admiral's hard drive somewhere. He suddenly understood why this time felt different.

It wasn't the first time he'd had a near death experience, but it was the first time he'd almost left someone behind.

The realization was revolutionary, and soon he was laughing in spite of himself, which alarmed the doctor, but he said nothing, and together the two stood in the expectant silence of engineering with the emergency lights flashing overhead.

---

That evening, Alira lay in her bunk, arms crossed over her chest, staring up at the ceiling.

She didn't need to sleep at all really due to her hibernation cycle, but she tended to doze off for an hour or two a night, to center herself more than anything. Ever since Kandar, she'd been fighting anxiety, waves of self-doubt, and an ever-encroaching sense of regret. It had consumed her, tortured her, kept her awake and occupied for months on end, as it did now.

They'd all watched Captain Garrett get arrested, watched Major Danilenko's men drag him away. As Commander Leota had told them, he'd squealed after a few hours of interrogation, spinning a yarn about a rogue Tellarite contact who had supplied him with spatial torpedoes, and an Orion smuggler who was only too willing to pay top dollar to get his hands on them. Apparently, even when pressed, he claimed he acted alone, that his crew was oblivious, that he had no co-conspirators.

Captain Tucker hadn't believed it for a second, and had insisted that he be brought to trial; the ECS didn't operate by the same strict code of ethics as Starfleet, but seeing as he'd sought to supply an enemy power with classified weapons obtained by illegal means, he'd contacted the head of the United Earth Council directly, leaving the door open for him to be charged with treason.

His mistake had been allowing Commander Leota to handle extradition; a couple hours after they returned to the Maelstrom, she'd tentatively scanned the station for his biosign, and found nothing. It only solidified in her mind that the lot of them were in on it, that the whole conspiracy was much bigger than she could ever tackle on her own.

Solnarans and Captain Garrett and Captain Hernandez and Agent Corsica and dilithium mines and experimental torpedoes and exploding stations and her own mother.

She was positive it was all connected, though she wasn't sure how.

At some point she exhausted herself spinning her wheels, nodding off, allowing her entire body to relax into her blankets from her toes to the top of her head. It wasn't long before she became sub-consciously aware of a soft, resonating sound at the far corner of the room, coupled with a rapidly dissipating swirl of light.

Her eyes snapped open and she rolled over just in time to see Lieutenant Commander Zhang twirl around in her desk chair, crossing her legs and studying her contemplatively.

They locked eyes, and for one long moment, said nothing. Alira's fingers were inching to the side of her mattress, where she always kept her blaster from her days in Special Ops hidden. With a practiced flick of her wrist, Min revealed the phase pistol strapped to her waistband. "I wouldn't try anything if I were you."

Slowly, she sat up in bed, kicking off her blankets and peering into the darkness. Every bit of instinct within her was telling her to run, to put as much space between this woman and her as possible, but she forced herself to stand her ground. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She laughed, a short, sharp bark of amusement that was completely unexpected. "I just want to talk."

"About?"

"This mission. How you've thrown it, how you've deliberately defied your orders."

"I did no such thing. I kept them delayed as long as possible. I even-"

"Do you really expect me to believe that? You're one of the best operatives we have, Lazuli. You should know better. We always cover our tracks, and we always make it our business to know things." She rose to her feet and retreated to the window, turning her back on her for a fraction of a second. Alira reached for the comm, and her hand came out, as if warning her not to cross her. "If you call for security, I'll be gone by the time they get here, and there will be no record of me ever being on the Maelstrom."

"You know, I'm still not sure why you're here, Agent Long. What's done is done, and if you believe I've betrayed the Section, I guarantee you can't prove it."

She whirled on her, suddenly intense, her eyes burning with rage. "You've made the one fatal error people like us should never make. You've allowed business to become personal."

"And you're getting sloppy," she accused, referring to the fact that she now knew the real identities of two different agents. "If we don't tighten this up, the whole operation will come crashing down."

"What do you know of this operation? Are you suggesting there's a conspiracy?" Her tone was cold, mocking. "Do me a favor. Stick with what you know."

"Which is?"

"Following orders," she replied, crossing her arms and leaning into her line of sight.

"Like you do with Commander Leota? How long had he worked for the Section?"

"He doesn't. We have an arrangement."

"And Major Danilenko?"

"Something similar. I'll spare telling you about how the ends justify the means if you'll forego encouraging me to do what's right." They both keenly remembered the unofficial creed of the section, the one that had been drilled into their heads throughout initiation.

Inter arma enim silent leges. In times of war, the law falls silent.

"Right, and is smuggling spatial torpedoes right under the nose of an NX vessel going to win us this war?"

"Yes," she insisted, striking her hand upon the tabletop. "You don't understand what's going on, and as long as I'm in charge of this operation, you never will. I'll only tell you once more. Follow orders, or suffer the consequences."

"And if I don't?"

Min sank down in her desk chair and slid over until they were almost nose to nose. She smiled, and it was utterly malicious, her eyes entirely devoid of emotion. "I suppose you'll go the way of Captain Garrett."

"Where is Garrett?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

"How many operatives are working for you?"

"Not enough."

"And what am I supposed to do now?"

"Sort out your priorities. Eventually, you're going to have to choose." She paused. "Between the life you want and the one you can actually achieve."

She was utterly bewildered by her statement, but had little time to question it; in the next moment, she was rising to her feet, retreating to the far corner of the room. She understood now that this was the woman calling the shots, plotting and orchestrating the front lines from light years away. In a way, she controlled the supply lines and the distribution of troops, and by extension, who lived and who died.

"The next time I contact you, you better do precisely as I say. You don't want to be burned by the Section, Lazuli."

"I don't plan on it," she replied, and meant it.

"Then act like it. This conversation never happened." They locked eyes, and her fervor shook her to her very core. "Remember that we are everywhere."

A second later, she was gone, and Alira pitched forward, burying her face in her hands.

---

T'Pol was dreaming, something she seldom did.

The last time she recalled doing so had been years ago following their away mission to the derelict Seleya; the Trellium had wreaked havoc on her synaptic pathways and on her emotional control as a whole, and she'd very nearly lost touch with reality altogether. She vaguely remembered being carried into sickbay, kicking and screaming, only to be strapped down to a biobed and sedated. It was a sensation she wouldn't experience again until her encounter with Sub-Commander Tovin on Tellar Prime in the arena.

From that moment, she had dreamed, vividly and in color, past acquaintances and colleagues and family and friends dancing before her eyes, taking part in ridiculous scenarios across an ever-changing landscape, so dizzying she couldn't for a moment keep track of it. The loss of control, which she so desperately tried to maintain in her everyday life, was disorienting. Every time her addled brain was able to make sense of what was going on, her subconscious would shift again and again, until she finally found herself in the mess hall taking part in movie night with the rest of the crew.

Trip and Phlox were seated behind her, and they were teasing one another, something they often did in those days that she dearly missed. Then a tactical alert was called and she was rushing through a corridor with figures rushing all around her. These quickly turned into the crew of the Seleya, and the floor was rocking, bulkheads exploding, the ship threatening to fly apart around her. She jolted awake in sickbay, and Phlox was holding her down, explaining to her that she was on Enterprise, that she was safe now. It was added reassurance, but it wasn't enough.

In and around the days of nightmares that followed, she remembered begging Jonathan to leave her on the next habitable planet, telling him that their mission was too important to risk for the safety of one crewman. He told her that he couldn't save humanity without holding on to what makes him human.

In retrospect, he had been her rock in her crumbling world, the one carrying her through corridors, reasoning with her when she drew a pistol on her now first officer, pinning her up against the bulkhead and pleading with her to cooperate with their escape attempt. Up until she fully recovered, she felt harried, weak, and she'd fallen asleep time and time again with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, desperately wishing they were his.

The months that followed would almost mean her ruin.

She was presently dreaming of walking through a lush oasis in the middle of a desert, a place she remembered from her childhood. She was with her mother and father on a meditation retreat, and she was more than excited to run and shout and play in the water, no matter how illogical it was. Even then, she pulled at her father's hand, nearly skipping with elation, the half-formed defenses in her young mind not yet being able to hold back the depths of her emotion. Finally, he yielded, bending over and picking her up. It was an uncharacteristic display of affection for him, and she as a little girl had wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, hiding the ghost of a smile in the fabric of his tunic.

She wouldn't know until adulthood that the man she so idolized growing up wasn't her father at all, but a Romulan sleeper agent, who had been killed after revealing the truth to her mother. Ambassador Soval had gone to great lengths to hide the truth from her, to protect her and keep her in the fold, but it hadn't been enough; the revelation had utterly shaken her to her core and perhaps changed the course of the war.

T'Pol knew that the High Command had been keeping tabs on her, perhaps expecting her to defect to the enemy cause like so many hybrids already had, but she was determined to keep her secret as long as possible. She knew that once all was revealed to Starfleet, her loyalties would be questioned, and in the meantime, she didn't want to do anything that would cast doubt over her ability to command.

The relationships she'd formed, the purpose she found in her work, the importance of their mission-they were all too important to risk becoming compromised.

At some point, she became aware that she was dreaming, and slowly began to slide back into consciousness, until she realized she was laying on a biobed, not standing in Lieutenant Commander Hess's office as she last remembered. Her eyes fluttered open, and she beheld the expectant face of her first officer, looking immeasurably concerned, holding a PADD to his chest.

"Mr. Reed," she mumbled, surprised at how hoarse her own voice sounded. "What is going on?"

All around her, she heard the quiet rush of conversation, of crewmen waking up and consulting with Phlox's field medics. Craning her neck, she realized that sickbay was presently flooded with cots and pallets, every single one of them full.

"We discovered a power source on the surface, ma'am." He handed her a PADD, but she couldn't even begin to read it; the characters seemed to dance before her eyes. "It was releasing an EM signature that corresponded to the ECS Olympia. We were finally able to raise the ECA; apparently, an entire convoy of freighters was attacked near the Tarod system early this morning. We believe they stole their automated distress signal from there."

"It was a trap?" She slowly began to sit up, accepted Malcolm's proffered hand, and gradually rose to her feet. She faltered a little, almost falling into him, leaning into his shoulder for balance.

"It appears that way. It released a psionic wavefront. Once everyone was unconscious, a ship in orbit decloaked and tried to take over the Enterprise."

"Were they-"

"Yes," he interrupted, tapping on the screen. "It's all in here. The doctor, Pascal, Singh and I were able to regain control. I'll spare you the details for now, but I recommend you read this as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Mr. Reed." She paused, taking in his mussed hair, his soiled EV jumpsuit, the sweat beading on his brow. He was standing stiffly, as though he was trying not to disturb a wound. He'd clearly been through it, and if the chronometer on the wall was to be believed, had done it all in the space of six hours. "Good work."

It was unusually high praise coming from her, and he couldn't help but smile. On the other side of the curtain, someone was stirring.

"And to think that the Battle of Berengaria was won by only three humans and a Denobulan," Jonathan mused, standing with Dita's assistance.

"I wouldn't go that far, sir," she admonished gently, moving the curtain aside. She also looked a little worse for wear. "We were just doing our duty."

"You performed admirably, Ensign. And what's this I hear about a new species we've discovered?"

Dita and Malcolm exchanged a meaningful look, then he chuckled, rubbing at his temples. "We've decided to call it Draco Berengarius. Lieutenant Cutler is looking over our sensor data as we speak."

"I thought that Dita's Dragon had a nice ring to it, but I was overruled."

Jonathan laughed, crossing his arms at his chest. He made eye contact with Phlox from across the room, and he nodded, seemingly absorbed in other matters at the moment, a tangle of wires and circuits laid out before him on the table. "I take it there were no severe injuries?"

"Just a couple of grazes with disruptor pistols and head injuries from people falling face-first into the deck plating. One of those volleys nicked one of Pascal's neurostimulator implants, so he'll be using his chair for the time being." They could see him near the center of the room, locked in conversation with his very disoriented-looking second.

"Whatever the case may be, I'm glad we've made it out in one piece," Jonathan said, and together they proceeded towards the door. "Tell you what, why don't the four of you take tomorrow off?"

Dita seemed surprised. "Sir?"

"Commodore, I don't think-"

"Mr. Reed, are you telling me you don't want to rest after crawling through access tubes and narrowly preventing the ship from exploding?" He looked at him incredulously, and more than a little reproachfully. "At least take a shower."

He soon realized he was right; he was still sweating profusely even though the environmental controls were back online, and he knew the two of them probably looked like they'd been struck by a hovertrain. Silently, he gave in, turned, and stepped into the turbolift.

Dita retreated in the opposite direction, saying something about a celebratory chocolate sundae in the mess hall, and soon the Captain and the Commodore were alone in an empty corridor.

There was a pause, then together they rounded the corner, descending into a companionable silence.

Sweet dreams, honey?

His voice was a welcome interruption in her head, a recent development in their bond. As they passed a handful of crewmen en route to their quarters, she glanced over her shoulder towards him. Indeed. I was dreaming about my childhood. Memories of my father.

Mine was something similar, with a little bit of a role reversal. I was on the beach, watching the sunset.

It had been a recurring dream he'd been having for weeks, he and T'Pol and their two young children in San Francisco overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful, and hopeful, and had kept him going when their situation looked desperate.

He couldn't describe it in words, how it made him feel, but he had to make her see.

They stepped into a darkened side corridor, and he took her hand, allowing the warmth and thoughts and emotions to flow across their bond like water.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

In a flash, she closed the space between them, and yielded to his promises of the future.

End of Episode Sixteen

---

Next time on Enterprise...

Episode Seventeen: Life in Monochrome

Trip and Hoshi wake up to find that they're the only crew members of the Maelstrom and Enterprise aware that they're all trapped in a recreation of Jazz Age Los Angeles.