Chapter 26

Kirk wakes in the shadows to the sound of birdsong, and wonders if he's ever felt so lost.

He's found his way, in sleep, onto the very edge of the bed, facing the dark drapes that cover a window almost as large as the wall itself, but he can feel her presence behind him, the soft, even rasp of her breath, the contours of the mattress where they dip under her weight. He doesn't know what time it is, but he guesses from the empty ache behind his eyes that it's still early. For a moment, he lies, disoriented, seeking his bearings in a place he doesn't know, and then, quietly, carefully, he pushes back the sheets, slides his feet out and onto the floor. The hardwood boards are cool beneath his soles as he stands slowly and crosses, naked, to an armchair in the far corner. He doesn't sit - there's etiquette to be observed in someone else's home, and it advises against pressing one's buttocks au naturel into the cushions of their pale yellow furniture - but instead he leans his coccyx against one high arm, bending his head to his hands and scrubbing them vigorously over his face.

He feels hollowed out, evacuated, and it has nothing to do with exhaustion.

Ciana sleeps curled in on herself, knees bent halfway to her chest, spine curved, one arm thrown over her head and resting against the bedstead. Her hair is fanned out like golden thread across the pillow, sheets pulled up to her collarbone but stretched tightly across her body so that he can see every line, every camber: the arc of her hip away from her small waist; her narrow, muscular thigh; the rise of her breasts. And he remembers the taste of her skin, the touch - like satin - beneath his mobile hands, the arch of her neck, his name on her lips. He watches her sleep, and remembers, and he just wants to leave.

The air is cool and fresh, cycled by a conditioner that knows its job, and he can feel goosebumps pricking through his skin. He wraps his arms around his chest, exhales deeply, and it's not a grand gesture, but it's loud in the silence and, across the room, she stirs. A sharp intake of breath; her wide-flung hand twitches, and her legs stretch slowly beneath the sheets, spine twisting, hips flattening against the mattress. He freezes, watching and waiting, as she swallows, chin dipping as her throat contracts. For a moment, there's silence, and then, just as he's thinking she's gone back to sleep, she sucks in a deep breath and her eyes slit open. The shadow of her lashes colors them dark blue, almost black, behind the glazed, vacant stare of a brain reloading after sleep. Then she blinks, slowly, and when her eyes open again they are pointing at him.

Her mouth curls upwards in an uncertain smile. "Hey," she says.

The script dictates that he stand up, pad across the cold floor to perch on the bed beside her, lean in and press a kiss to her lips. She tastes faintly of whisky and sleep, and she kisses him back, softly, but, when he pulls away, her eyes are like stone. She reaches up a hand to brush a stray wisp of hair from his face, cupping her palm against his cheek, but there's a strange sort of loneliness to the gesture.

She says, "What time is it?"

He offers his best smile, though it feels plastered on and he knows better than to think she won't notice. "Early," he says.

"Still couldn't sleep, huh?" Her hand leaves his face, sweeps down his naked arm. "You're cold, Jim. How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long. The room is…"

"Yeah." The hand retracts, drifts to her face to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "I live here; I know." A deep breath. "You want coffee or something? I guess you're not coming back to bed."

The thought dances in front of his eyes, and he sees himself pulling back the covers, sliding in beside her, feeling the warmth of her body stir the air beneath the sheets. He sees her rolling onto her side, twisting into his arms and nestling her head into the hollow beneath his neck, her warm breath ghosting across his chest. Maybe they make love again; maybe they simply sleep, wrapped in each other, warm and content and untroubled by the world outside this room.

But that's not him. That's someone else, someone Kirk doesn't know, someone who's worked out how he feels about this. He was so certain last night, so sure of his desire. And now? His commanding officer lies, stretched out and naked in the bed before him, watching him with eyes that see too much, and it's… not simple anymore.

So he says, "It would look bad if we showed up at the office together."

"Jesus, Jim." She laughs, but there's no humor in it; it's the most bitter sound he's ever heard her make. "Is it even light out yet?"

He has no idea. He's not even sure that it matters. He says, "Lori…"

But they both know there's nowhere for the sentence to go. She sits up on her elbows, shuffling herself awkwardly upright, sheet clamped to her chest as though it's armor, and he stands up, paces to the foot of the bed. The frame is built of dark, solid wood that rises like a barricade between them, and it allows him to meet her eyes again, to hold her stare, to acknowledge what's in it. Her mouth tightens, and, after a moment, she looks away.

She says, "It's okay, Jim. It's not me; I get that."

Her knees are drawn in to her chest, her shoulders hunched around them; it makes her look smaller than she is. Kirk's hands tighten on the bedframe, knuckles whitening under the strain.

He says, "What do you mean?"

She brings her eyes up to meet his, though they're skittish. "It's not me you want," she says. A beat. "I do know."

If she were anyone else, he would close the distance between them in two strides, climb onto the bed and close his mouth over hers, press her into the mattress with a wordless denial. And maybe she would allow him, but he doesn't want to lie like that, not to her. Not when he knows she'll read it for what it is.

So he answers, as honestly as he can, "It's not that simple."

Her lips curl into a rueful smile. "Seems that way to me."

Kirk releases his grip, fingertips protesting the sudden rush of blood, and pivots on his heel, pacing to the center of the room. His shorts are lying where they were discarded last night, and he snatches them from the floor, shakes them out, pulls them over his legs, covering his nakedness before he turns back to her. She's still watching him, but he knew that anyway.

"I saw your face, that day outside OpTacs," she says quietly. "When you turned, and you saw him… Yeah." A soft breath of laughter. "My parents have been married nearly fifty years, Jim. That's the way my dad looks at my mom." A beat. "Like nothing's ever been so beautiful."

Kirk's breath catches in his chest and he feels his hands curl into fists, feels his brows furrow and his lips purse as his throat tightens and the angry ache lacerates his chest.

"It's okay," she says, but her voice is thready, distant. "It is what it is, Jim. There's not a whole lot either one of us can do about it, I guess."

Kirk sucks in a steadying breath, clears his throat. "I didn't mean to…." he says, and hesitates. "…Lie to you."

But Ciana shakes her head. "You didn't lie to me," she says. Softly, almost a whisper: "Christ, what a mess." She looks up, eyebrows arched in rueful defeat. "I knew the way it was, Jim. This one's on me. I guess… maybe my judgment's not what it ought to be when it comes to you. Don't," she adds, holding up a hand to check his hesitant, guilt-stricken half-step forward. "Just - don't. It's okay. I just didn't want you to think…" She trails off, shakes her head again, as though she's trying to rattle free a troubling thought. "You know what? Never mind. I need to get moving; we have work to do."

She throws back the sheets, swinging her legs out of the bed and onto the floor, standing and crossing briskly to the other side of the room. He watches her move, detached, aware that he ought to be aroused at the sight of her naked body moving uninhibited across his line of sight. But she disappears through a doorway for a moment, and, when she reappears, she's shrugged on a thin robe and she's fastening the belt in a knot at her waist, carefully and deliberately, eyes focused on the fabric as she makes her way across the empty expanse of floor. As she approaches Kirk, she folds her arms beneath her breasts, hugging them in tight against her chest, and tilts her head until her chin is pressed in against her shoulder.

She looks up at him and says, "This doesn't change anything between us, okay?"

He nods slowly. "Agreed."

"Okay. Good." A resolute half-smile. "And… you know. If you ever work out what it is you want, Jim…" She shrugs. "I'm here."

A gentle laugh, utterly devoid of humor. "What I want," he says, "…Is complicated."

Her hand unhooks itself from its defensive circle, moves up to cup his cheek. "Yeah," she says, "That much I worked out."

She rises quickly onto her toes, presses a soft kiss to his mouth. Kirk closes his eyes and drops his head to meet it, breathing in her scent and her warmth. His hands hang uselessly by his side, fingers flexing distractedly, but it feels wrong to pull her closer, to circle her waist with his arms, to push for anything more than she's offering in this single, chaste brush of her lips.

It lasts no more than ten seconds: too brief to be provocative, too long to be casual. But she pulls away and rocks back on her heels, meets his eyes, and says, "You know what? You're right. We shouldn't turn up at the office together. I gotta take a shower." An eyebrow arcs, and she grins, a flash-bomb of color in the gray shadows. "Think you can find your pants okay?"

He returns the gesture in the spirit in which it's offered, and it feels as though it reaches his eyes. "Yes, Ma'am," he says.

Her fingers find his, lock around them, squeeze once, then retract. "I'll see you in a few hours," she says.

-o-o-o-

The apartment is cold and dark and the air is stale with lack of use. Kirk kicks off his boots in the doorway and crosses straight to the head, stripping as he goes and letting his clothes fall on the floor at his feet. His skin smells of Ciana, of her perfume, and he dials up a torrent of hot water from the shower and lets it scrub the textures of her body from his; opens his mouth and lets it pool on his tongue, washing away the taste of whisky and regret.

You ever work out what it is you want, Jim…

But the thing is, he knows exactly what he wants. He knew it last night as well: he knew it when he kissed her, he knew it when he took her to bed, and he knew it in the empty hours afterwards as he lay in the darkness and tried to silence the ghosts inside his head. His hips are stiff and sore from folding himself into a lonely corner of the mattress all night while he pretended not to know. Kirk rests a hand against the cubicle wall and bends his head underneath the hail of tumbling water, letting it catch in his hair and spill down over his cheeks, his lips; a fraying curtain of water, cascading from his face, sealing him inside a liquid cocoon with memories he doesn't want to see.

Yes, he knows what he wants. That's the problem.

He twists the faucet with unnecessary force and steps onto the bathroom floor, puddles spilling onto the tiles around his feet as he pads across the narrow room and into the startling chill of the bedroom. His footsteps press irregular dark shapes into the carpet tile as he carelessly rubs himself dry, tossing the towel into a damp heap on the bed and grabbing a fresh uniform from the closet. This at least has not changed: welcome continuity in a world that's spinning off its axis. These are the same clothes as the ones he casually shed last night in his CO's bedroom, and these are the clothes he will wear again today. He hasn't changed that much.

He snaps a command to the computer as he steps out of the bedroom, clammy hair clinging to his head and disarrayed in abstract spikes where he's run his hand through it to shake out the worst of the moisture, a towel slung around his shoulders to catch the runoff before it can stain his tunic. Coffee: never in history has a man been in greater need. A glance over his shoulder as he slings a cup into the synthesizer and punches in a code tells him that his terminal is slow to get started this morning, and he resists the urge to cross the room and physically impress a sense of urgency into the sluggish reboot.

"Computer," he says, in a voice thick with curbed impatience, "Whenever you have a moment, please call up my latest messages." A beat, and he can't refrain from adding, pointedly, "Of course, there's no rush."

The synthesizer heralds the successful completion of another cycle with a tinny buzz, and Kirk retrieves his steaming mug, carrying it with him to his desk where he pointedly does not glance up at the wall or acknowledge the presence of any form of pictorial ornamentation thereon. Whether by accident or malevolent design, Starfleet's collective knowledge of the culinary diversity of a galaxy's worth of sentient beings still can't replicate coffee worth a damn, and he pushes it irritably to one side as he lowers himself into his chair and waits for his terminal to remember how to find the cortex, and what to do with it when it gets there. He wonders if he could comm in a request to work from home - it is supposed to be his day off, after all - but, in the first place, the last thing he needs is more time inside his own head, and, in the second place, Ciana is really, really not that stupid. And there is surely only one thing more humiliating than having to look his superior officer in the eye the morning after a spectacularly ill-advised seduction, and that is having her know that he is too cowardly to look her in the eye at all.

His head aches: a ferocious pounding just behind his eyes. It feels like it's trying to beat its way out of his skull. Kirk drums impatient fingers on his desk for the moment it takes him to realize that this is at least 100% more irritating than just sitting quietly - silently, in fact - and waiting for the computer to just do as it's damn well told.

"Unread messages retrieved," says the computer, and he'd swear there's a note of pride to the monotone delivery, as though it wants a gold star for fulfilling the very least of its obligations.

"On screen," says Kirk, and at least that command doesn't cause the duotronic relays to cough to a consumptive halt. "Prioritize messages pertaining to the situation with Draconis II… Wait," he adds quickly, as the computer begins to work. "Go back. Reorder the messages by time of arrival."

The screen flashes and the messages reappear in chronological order. Kirk is not completely certain, but he thinks he saw… yes. 0125 hours, right when he was… Never mind.

At 0125 hours this morning, Spock finally replied.

He stares at the message for ten, fifteen seconds, while his eyes ache and his brain fills the inside of his head with hot white noise. After almost fourteen hours of silence; of waiting and very deliberately not doubling back to check every fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes; of pointedly and stoically ignoring the sucking, black loneliness that opened up in his gut every single time his mind returned to the subject of their abortive stargazing expedition and what very nearly happened there - somewhere in the small hours of the night that followed that day, Spock finally decided to reply. Goddamn it: they've been here before, and he just does not have the energy to do it again.

Kirk snaps an irritable command to the computer and the message opens, filling the screen with the expected two short lines of text.

My apologies: my work has demanded my full attention all day. This is likely to remain the case for some days to come. I look forward to resuming our social engagements at a mutually convenient time. Regards, CDR Spock.

Kirk shuts his eyes. This again.

It's not that it's unexpected. It's not even as though it has to be irreversible. Maybe it's actually a good sign - Spock's going to that place he goes to when he's pushed himself a step too far and he needs to regroup, reassemble his shields, find a way to live with what he's feeling. So why, why, does it feel as though there's a wall going up, brick by brick, with every passing day? Why does it feel as though it's waist-height already and getting taller?

Why does it feel as though he's already gone?

Yes, Kirk knows what it is that he wants. He just doesn't know how much longer he can keep doing this.

-o-o-o-

Xeno doesn't sleep, nor does it particularly observe weekends. Kirk is not comfortable asking subordinates to work hours he wouldn't work himself, so he often takes a Saturday or a Sunday shift; it turns out it's much easier to do this when his team's shift patterns are not controlled by a Vulcan with an encyclopedic knowledge of Human physical tolerances and an obsessive interest in the Captain's sleeping patterns. Ciana notices, of course, but her habits are scarcely healthier than Kirk's, and so she's tended to hold her peace.

The lobby is at somewhere between thirty and fifty percent capacity as Kirk makes his way through the gentle buzz of activity and towards his office. Ciana's door is closed, but all that means is that her door is closed; he doubts she wasted any more time than he did kicking around in an empty apartment full of silence and thoughts. Draconis occupies a substantial portion of three of the five floor-to-ceiling screens, and Kirk glances absently at them in turn as he passes, though it's no surprise to find that the information is just new ways of phrasing data that's already ten, twelve hours old; if there was something else to say, he'd know about it by now. Yeoman Banner, doing his best impression of Sanders after three nights without sleep, presses a PADD into Kirk's hands as he passes, but otherwise his presence goes unremarked. There's something satisfying in this.

The office is as still and quiet as if nothing has changed in the hours since he last crossed its threshold. Kirk steps inside, letting the door close quietly behind him, and sets the PADD on the desk as he crosses to the window. Ciana will either leave him for a couple of hours until a natural opportunity presents itself to require his presence, or else she will…

"Hey," she says as the door slides open. She hesitates for a second before stepping inside, which is unusual, but, he supposes, normal etiquette is temporarily suspended. "Took you a whole forty-five minutes, Commodore." She grins, and he realizes, with a heady rush of relief, that she's going to just brazen it out. "What, did you get stuck in traffic or something?"

He should have guessed this was how she'd want to play it: she won't bury it, because that does neither of them any favors, and she won't let it fester. Instead, they're going to skip right ahead to the part where they can laugh about it, and just keep on pretending that's how it is until it becomes true. It's how he'd play it, in her situation, but there was a darkness behind her eyes this morning when she woke up to find an empty bed and a lover separated from her by the length of the room, and he couldn't be certain she'd want to fix what they've broken. He's certain he's wounded her, and not only in the obvious way: there was an echo of earlier cruelties in her face when she looked at him. But she's going to paper over the cracks as best she can - because they have to work together, because they work together well, and because that's just who she is.

In another world, he could fall in love with this woman.

So it's easy to return the grin; it's even possible that it chases away a few of the lingering cobwebs inside his skull. Kirk grins, and says, "I believe you had a head start on me, Ma'am."

He thinks he sees something release, some hidden tension in her shoulders that was waiting to see if he'd meet her halfway. But if it's there, she's covered it well.

"Maybe," she says. "But your place is closer to the airshuttle."

She crosses halfway to his desk, but stops short of closing those final feet and perching on the edge, the way she might have done twenty-four hours earlier. "So - that work I told you to go home and sleep instead of doing last night?" she says. "I have a meeting with the admiralty at 0930 hours; I'll need some kind of preliminary findings by then."

"0930 hours?" he says. "That was quick."

She arcs an eyebrow. "They're with me on this," she says. "They think you've got something."

That's… unexpected, but he's not going to argue. "It will be very preliminary," he says.

Ciana waves a hand. "I'll take your 'preliminary' over two weeks' research from some other ranking officers in this organization," she says. "Whatever you've got in an hour's time, send it through. And I guess… stick close to your desk, too. I don't know if they'll want to call you in, but it could be that they do."

Well, what else would he be doing on a Saturday morning but sitting in his office in case the admiralty decide they want to have a chat? Actually… not much, if he's honest. He can think of a few things that he'd like to be doing, but most of them are connected in some way to Starfleet. The only thing that's changed with being grounded is that now he has the illusion of free will.

But he sits staring at his terminal screen for several long minutes after the door slides shut behind her. He's fighting some rebellious urge to storm out of Bozeman and go find somewhere that beautiful, successful people hang out so that he can charm someone into his bed and convince himself that he hasn't lost his edge completely, but, number one: it's not even 0800 hours on a Saturday morning and the beautiful, successful people are still in bed or working, and, number two: he's not that man and he doesn't want to be. He came close enough last night with Ciana and that's bad enough.

So he calls up his message from Spock and gives himself a moment, no more, to feel the irritation roil in his stomach and the angry ache twist against his ribs. Then he types, briskly and efficiently, Sorry to hear that. On all counts. Will await further developments, JTK. It's deliberate ambiguity laced with an ugly, vicious subtext designed to bruise, to exchange like for like, but he hits send nevertheless and watches it disappear.

It doesn't actually make him feel any better.

There's no use in expecting a reply; even if Kirk's response had been all sweetness and light and beneficent understanding, Spock has retreated out of reach again and he won't return until he's ready. And besides: there's already one impossible task sitting on Kirk's desk, and he's eaten ten minutes into a deadline that was already insanely truncated. So he takes a breath, dials a fresh batch of strong coffee from the replicator, and calls up the Federal starchart archive.

-o-o-o-

The problem, of course, is that space exists in three dimensions, and his terminal screen exists in only two. There's an interactive simulation suite over in the Marin County observatory, of course, and he has the rank and authority to jump the queue, plus a contact on the faculty who knows how the damn thing works, but he can spend the next fifty minutes tied up in bureaucracy and specifics, or he can draw a straight line across his screen and try and work out what it comes near.

Trouble is, it comes near a hell of a lot of places. He calls up the map he used last night and instructs the computer to plot a course onwards from Draconis and watches the red stripe telescope into infinity with something of the old sense of Human insignificance that always assaulted him in his earliest days of exploration: so much space, worlds unnumbered, and mankind is like a grain of sand on an infinite beach, with no way to ever conceive of just how inconsequential they really are. They've barely visited a fraction of the worlds inside their section of galactic space, barely even plotted more than a few thousand cubic parsecs. Kirk's hypothetical route blows through the metaphorical equivalent of Here Be Dragons and shoots straight out into the intergalactic medium, and the usable portion, from which he can gather data pertinent to his present task, is depressingly short. There's a mining colony in Delta Epsilon Rho that's poorly defended and spectacularly remote; he adds it to the list and assigns it a probability level of three. There's an asteroid system in Faustus with a rich profusion of sideralis petraviridi, which is useful for breaking down antimatter waste, and potentially a few diamond reserves that might be easily accessible. Coronis III is no more than 0.7 lightyears off-route, and they've been doing some interesting things with lithium compounds that's certainly got Federal ears pricked up and might, potentially, be of interest to Q'onoS too. And there's about four hundred other places that all had something to recommend them to the men and women who've held his job in the past - resources, technology, or political allegiance - but nothing strikes him as particularly exciting from an imperial armada point of view. The Empire is large and well-stocked. They don't need to go striking out into pastures unseen for the kind of rewards they can get closer to home.

About fifty-five minutes in, Kirk realizes he's still waiting for his Eureka moment, the one where the slightest shift in perspective makes the pieces slide effortlessly into place, like an optical illusion that can only be seen from a specific angle. There's always a Eureka moment, and its conspicuous absence this morning makes him uneasy. He's narrowed the list down to twenty possible targets, ordered by likelihood and ranked according to accessibility, return, and probability of success, but the top candidate, Cocidius IX, has Federal embassies in two of its fourteen capital cities, and currently has ambassadors at the trade summit on Rigel V. There's no way they were recently attacked, and there's no way the armada hasn't got there yet, if that's where they were heading. Ciana comms him at 0905 and he stalls her, running his figures again, expanding his search parameters outwards, even as he shakes his head in frustration. They are already too generous. Numbers five through eleven are pushing the boundaries of probability; they're so far off the proposed tangent that he might as well just point his finger randomly at a starmap of the sector and see where it falls, for all the logic that's guided his selection. Ciana comms again at 0912 and he promises to have the report on her terminal by 0915; then, three minutes later, he stretches it to 0920. In the end, she has to invoke a Commodore Kirk in a tone that brooks no disagreement and he has no option but to forward what he has, with the proviso that he's not happy with his own conclusions; that there's something he isn't seeing.

Her reply comes back almost immediately, couched in warmer tones: Understood, Commodore. I have every faith in your calculations. For what it's worth, I'd have said Cocidius too - Ciana.

But it's not Cocidius. He knows she knows that. He also knows that she's going to have to go into the meeting now and immediately rebut a half-dozen objections that Cocidius IX seemed perfectly fine two hours ago when the latest reports came through from the Starfleet field office in Ralassa. He waits until she's left, then stalks out into the lobby and asks Banner to pull up the last three weeks' transmissions from the Cocidius system; nothing Kirk can't find himself, of course, but he's restless and pensive and he thinks better when he's on his feet. The Yeoman obliges with a speed that might be humiliating if Kirk was prepared to think about it, but he's distracted, wandering absently across the empty atrium as he scrolls through the PADD, and there's nothing, not so much as a streak of lightning across the pale green Cocidian sky.

Kirk hands the report back to Banner with a muttered word of thanks and slinks back to his desk to find a forgotten mug of cooling coffee and a rainbow profusion of scattered tapes spread across the surface. There's a small note at the foot of his screen to say that he has unread mail, and for a heart-stopping, hopeful moment he thinks he might have been wrong about his friend and snaps a breathless command to the computer, but it's nothing: a communique from Communications and Marketing about the event next Sunday, a note from Lieutenant Berniere about some long-range scans from the Antigone that still haven't arrived, a reminder from Admin Support that his weapons certification is due to expire in the next three months and he'll need to pass a refresher course to be re-certified. It's the fault of none of them that they are not Spock, but he feels a tidal surge of frustration wash up his throat anyway, twisting his voice into something thin and furious as he barks out the command that closes them and switches him back to his red streak on black.

A straight line from Q'onoS through Archanis IV. A slight adjustment, then straight ahead to Draconis II and onwards to the final piece of the puzzle, the bit that makes all of this fit. A detour to Starbase 19 where they took what they needed to make that final leg of the journey, the one that brought them into the orbital path of a lonely planet of semi-aquatic spacefarers who now, for reasons that are not entirely unfair, blame the Federation for putting them on someone else's radar. But why Draconis? It's the question he can't escape, the one he keeps coming back to because there's still no answer. They have to change their course heading at Archanis to point them in the right direction - and it's even more obvious in 3D; it's a significant angular adjustment - but there's no discernible reason. There's nothing about the deuterium on Draconis II that they couldn't have gotten elsewhere, and there's nothing in the blackness beyond unless they readjust their heading again, and that just doesn't fit with the journey so far. Why follow a straight line as far as Archanis and then suddenly veer off?

And then it hits him. It hits him so hard upside the head that he can't imagine why he didn't see it before. This is why he needs Spock at his side, this right here: because his brain just works better with his friend beside him to bounce ideas off, to challenge and to quietly disapprove until a light goes on in Kirk's head and the fuzzy outlines of something indecipherable resolve into a fully-formed idea.

Draconis was never the course heading after Archanis. How the hell did he convince himself that it was?

"Computer," he says, and he can feel the adrenalin building; he knows he's right. This is it: this is Eureka. "Adjust current route to ignore Draconis and terminate at Federation Starbase 19."

"Adjusting route," says the computer, and the red bar shifts again, reorienting the angle by thirty degrees.

It's a straight line.

Draconis was the afterthought. The course heading was for Starbase 19; Ajillon Prime and Archanis IV, and who knows how many silent others were collateral damage along the way, convenient stopovers to collect supplies. A Klingon armada left Q'onoS with the express intention of targeting a Federal Starbase for information held within its cortex: navigational plans that made them readjust their route accordingly, brought them in line with Draconis II when they were starting to run low on fuel.

"Computer," says Kirk now. "Plot a course from Federation Starbase 19 to Draconis II, continue on from there indefinitely."

"Plotting course," says the computer. It's so damn obvious; how, how has he not seen this until now? The line disappears into the vanishing point and Kirk scrolls along it with impatient hands, through empty space and planetary clusters, stellar nurseries and asteroid clouds. There's nothing out here, no outposts, no colonies, no M-class planets, but Kirk has a lingering sense of deja vu that grows as he plunges further into the black. There's nothing out here, but sections of it have been named; it has been explored and categorized, scanned for items of interest and filed away as dead space by the stellar cartography team on the Merrimac when their path brought them out this way more than a year ago. There's a binary system designated Mitra and Varuna, cloaked by a vast, sprawling Oort cloud; a lonely planetoid orbiting the black-hole remnants of its long-dead sun; a fifteen-planet system full of nothing but rock and exotic chemical compounds… and Kirk remembers these, because he's been here before. He knows where he's going because they planned to stop and take gravimetric readings close to the event horizon so that Spock could satisfy some fit of curiosity piqued by an unusual long-range scan, but they had a mission to complete first, a delegate to deliver to a hostile race whose planetary riches were worth the effort of forcing the hand of friendship.

Whose planet has been emitting a single, continuous signal for more than forty-eight hours now.

He scrabbles for his communicator amongst the detritus of prolonged and frustrated thought, and dials Ciana, once, twice, three times, before giving up and tossing it across the desk, scattering tapes onto the floor. Damn it. Her communicator is switched off, which means she's already in her meeting with the top brass of the Starfleet admiralty, preparing to make an idiot out of herself with hopelessly inaccurate suppositions and the flimsiest of arguments as to why they need to pay attention. She knows that she doesn't have much, and he knows he can't rely on her to sell something she can't get behind. This could be their only chance to make the case, and the signal has been running for two full days now. There's no time to waste.

There's a dress tunic in his cabinet. Kirk grabs it with one hand as the other is tearing off his everyday fatigues, pulling the shirt awkwardly over his head and casting it haphazardly towards his chair. He's still fastening the front seam as he exits his office, striding briskly across the wide lobby floor and calling a brusque, "Yeoman, with me," to Banner over his shoulder as he goes.

Banner catches him midway across the atrium, scurrying to keep up, and fussing over Kirk's uniform as he moves, smoothing and straightening, pulling it into place.

"Keep trying Admiral Ciana," says Kirk impatiently as they walk. "I need to speak with her immediately. Interrupt her meeting if possible. I'm on my way over to OpTacs to do the same, but I'd prefer you kept that information to yourself for the time being."

"Yes, sir," says Banner. "May I say I'm calling on your authority?"

"You may. But if they ask why I'm not calling directly… deflect. I've never tried to crash an admiralty conference before, but I doubt they'll take kindly to it. I'd rather they didn't have time to prepare their defense."

"And if I manage to contact Admiral Ciana?"

They're at the doors to Xeno now. Kirk pauses, turns and addresses his Yeoman full face. "Tell her I know where the armada is headed," he says. "Tell her there's no longer any doubt."

-o-o-o-

If Xeno never sleeps, then OpTacs is the relentless tide of adrenalin that keeps the system moving. There is no such thing as downtime in the center of Starfleet, only the occasional pause before the next inexorable scrambling panic, and the halls of the higher echelons are awash with movement as Kirk makes his way down corridors greasy with the aura of power. He's been in this part of the building precisely once in his life - the day he received word of his promotion to Captain - and every step is a barrage of memories from that earlier self, the man whose life's ambitions were about to be handed to him with a canny smile and a firm handshake.

The dress uniform was an instinct, but it's a good one. Fatigues are in evidence, but they're accompanied by insignia far above Kirk's rank; the lower flag officers are in their formal best. One does not simply wander into the offices of Heihachiro Nogura; one needs to look as though one belongs there, and Commodores who belong there are dressed accordingly.

The last time he was here, he was ushered into the plush, wood-paneled office by a smiling assistant whose security clearance most likely rivaled Komack's, to be clapped on the arm by the aging head of Starfleet who was performing Genial Uncle Hei that day, to great effect. This time, he meets the stone-faced glare of a woman who gets the same old shit on a daily basis from men two grades above Kirk, and who knows where to punch so that they don't get up again.

"You don't have an appointment, Commodore," she says, by way of an opening, and Kirk is struck by the uneasy feeling that, not only has she read his entire file, including his medical and sexual history, but she's memorized the important parts.

He tries his most effective smile, though he's privately convinced that he might as well try scratching his way through the highly-polished, oak-effect walls, for all the good it will do him. "That's correct," he says smoothly. "However, I work with Admiral Ciana…"

"I'm aware of that, Commodore Kirk," she says, and now she's showing off. "Vice Admiral Ciana is in a meeting with Fleet Admiral Nogura and cannot be disturbed."

So much for the charm offensive. He clears the smile from his face and says, in his bridge command voice, "It is imperative that I speak with her immediately. I have information critical to her current discussions."

"My instructions are to allow no interruptions…"

"This is more important than your instructions. Please verify with Admiral Ciana…"

"Commodore Kirk, if I had a dime for every time I heard those words from a visitor to this office…"

"Admiral Ciana has incorrect information."

"Then you're free to take a seat and convey the correct information to her once her meeting has concluded. I will not interrupt them, Commodore. Now take a seat or please leave."

There's a security guard stationed at the door to the waiting room, another by the connecting door that leads to Nogura's office. Both are armed. There's no way to get past them, not without using his own weapon, and he won't even dignify that notion with his consideration, but all he needs is enough of a commotion to carry into the room beyond.

The assistant is half a step behind him; she catches his intent before he's three strides across the floor, rising to her feet with a sharp, "Commodore Kirk, what do you think you're doing?" and then, "Security, apprehend that officer!" Elsewhere in the service, his Commodore's braid might count for a second's hesitation; here, the replicator maintenance crew outstrips his authority, and the man by the door, whose insignia give his rank as Captain, moves swiftly to intercept him before he's halfway there. His hand closes around Kirk's arm with disconcerting force, bone locking onto flesh and holding him in place.

He glances down, impassive. "Commodore," he says quietly. "I'd think again, sir."

"Damn it!" snaps Kirk, twisting in his grip so that he's facing back towards the assistant. "Ma'am - this cannot wait! I will take full responsibility for any repercussions, but I must insist that you let Admiral Ciana know that I'm here!"

"Commodore Kirk, you're in no position to insist on anything," she says calmly. "Captain Novak, please escort the Commodore out of this office…"

Novak moves like an advancing glacier; there is literally nothing else for it but to be dragged along in his wake. In the end, it's less humiliating to fall into his sphere of gravity, to straighten his back and move of his own volition towards the door, but as he passes the assistant's desk, Kirk snaps, "Wait. One moment - just wait."

She looks up, a mask of ice-cold disdain, but one raised eyebrow buys him a moment's grace. Novak releases his grip, and Kirk shrugs the kink out of his arm. "Will you please," he says, "With all due urgency, inform Admiral Ciana that I was here, that I have time-sensitive and critical information, and that…"

"Commodore Kirk!"

The sound of Ciana's voice cuts through the thickening tension, causing both Kirk and the assistant to look up abruptly. Novak immediately straightens, snapping to attention, and the assistant scrambles to her feet. Kirk wonders idly what her rank might be, that she doesn't feel the need to attend a superior officer, but it's a momentary aberration, quickly dismissed as he tightens his spine, squares his jaw.

"At ease," says Bernstein, from somewhere towards the back of the group, and Novak relaxes into parade rest, but Kirk takes a firm stride forward.

"Commodore Kirk was just leaving," says the assistant, but she sounds a little less certain now.

"Ma'am, I apologize for the interruption," says Kirk. "I have information that couldn't wait."

"About Draconis?" says Ciana, as Komack opens his mouth to speak. She stands almost half a foot below him, and he outranks her by a full grade, but there's something about Ciana's tone when she shrugs on the mantle of authority that tends to discourage outright dissent.

"About the armada," says Kirk.

"Kirk, we've just spent a highly unproductive half hour debating the existence of your armada," says Komack irritably, and Ciana's jaw sets in a way that tells Kirk as much as he needs to know. "I've spoken to both Federal ambassadors to Cocidius over the past three days and I can tell you unequivocally that there have been no attacks in that system…"

"It's not Cocidius," says Kirk, with poorly-reigned irritation. "The co-ordinates that led to Cocidius were based on a misconception. Ma'am" - he turns to Ciana - "Starbase 19 was not a detour. It was the primary target."

"Commodore Kirk…" begins Komack, with choleric fury, but Bernstein cuts him off.

"I think we'd better discuss this in the office," she says quietly. "Stern," she adds to the assistant, and Kirk takes a moment to reflect on the fact that never was a woman more aptly named, "Clear Admiral Nogura's diary for another fifteen minutes, please." To Kirk: "Commodore. You have five."

An economic gesture of her hand invites him to lead the way into Nogura's inner sanctum. Kirk sucks in a breath and sets off in the direction of the open door, through which he can see the figure of the Fleet Admiral himself, settled at the head of a long, mahogany desk. PADDs are stacked at his left hand, though he's bent over a screen inlaid into the table itself, scanning its contents with the air of a man who will be disturbed as and when he sees fit, and not a moment sooner. A series of huge, stuffed armchairs circle a low coffee table, where discarded mugs and a plate of untouched donuts testify to the morning's activities, and a large, shimmering screen displays a familiar red streak across a dark starmap.

The Admiral looks up. "Commodore Kirk," he says neutrally. "This is a surprise."

Kirk can feel Ciana settle into place at his right shoulder; it's something about the way the energy changes in her presence. It's not quite the same as having Spock there, but, right now, he'll take it.

"Sir," he says, "I apologize for the interruption. But I believe the report I presented to Admiral Ciana this morning was wrong."

A white eyebrow slowly arches. "All right, Commodore. I assume you have a revised conclusion, or you wouldn't be bursting into my offices unannounced?"

Kirk bristles, but buries it. "Yes, sir," he says as evenly as he can.

"Let's have it, then."

A brisk nod; Nogura was never a man for preliminaries. Kirk says, "Sir, the attack on Starbase 19 was not a detour." A beat. "It was the armada's original destination."

A quiet scoff somewhere behind him pinpoints Komack's location in the room. Bernstein, standing close to Ciana's right, says, "Kirk, we found no evidence to suggest that the Empire was behind the attack on Starbase 19."

He turns in her direction. "Ma'am, with all due respect, I'd be suspicious if we had. They cannot afford to be held responsible for an attack on Federal citizens."

"Commodore Kirk has a point," says Ciana now. "We found no recognizable DNA signature anywhere in the environs of the starbase. The official conclusion speculates that we were subject to an attack from an unknown race or lifeform. Sir, you know my objections to that conclusion. It's too neat. It's premeditated…"

"Not every sentient race in the galaxy is warlike, Admiral," says Nogura calmly.

"Sir, I'm aware," she says, and Kirk can hear the note of frustration creeping into her voice and silently wills it away. "But the attack on the starbase was purposeful, it was planned and executed with military precision. They wanted the cortex and they didn't want anyone to know…"

"Must we rehash the same arguments again?" snaps Komack, and Kirk hears her sharp intake of breath. If he thought he could do it without drawing attention to himself, he'd edge a foot backwards and tread on her toes, protocol be damned. Komack is an ass, but drawing him into open battle is unwise.

"Sir, with respect…" she begins, which is the universal symbol for I would like to tell you where to shove your stripes but it's important to maintain the illusion of politesse, but fortunately Nogura intervenes.

"Jim," he says, and it takes Kirk a moment to remember that Komack is also James, and Nogura knows him somewhat better than he knows Kirk. "I'd like to hear this."

A pace behind and to the left of Kirk, the temperature drops noticeably. "Yes, sir," says Komack coolly.

Nogura nods, and couched in that simple, utilitarian gesture is the kind of effortless authority that can build and maintain an empire. His steel-eyed gaze falls on Kirk.

"Commodore," he says. "Enlighten us."

Kirk is not unaccustomed to the sensation of commanding the unwavering attention of the entire room, and he's weathered it in situations where far more was at stake. So he clears his throat, an anchoring gesture, and indicates the terminal interface on the wall beside the screen. "If I may?" he says.

Nogura registers his assent with a brief dip of his head, and Kirk crosses quickly to the control pad. As he slides his tape into the dock and the screen flickers and rearranges itself into his revised schematic, he says, "The attack on the starbase bothered me for a long time. I was certain there was something to it that I wasn't seeing."

"So I understand," says Nogura dryly. "Admiral Urquhart was good enough to inform me of your interest in the committee's report."

Kirk lets that one slide and turns to the screen. He says, "Admiral Ciana and I discussed the possibility that the attacks on Ajillon Prime and Archanis IV might be part of a series that included Draconis. As you see, when I plotted the progression onto our starcharts, it was immediately apparent that both systems fell along a roughly straight line along a trajectory from Q'onoS, which veers" - he adjusts the display - "on a tangent at Archanis, heading for Draconis II. This new course heading carries them at a plausible distance from Starbase 19 within a timescale consistent with the attack. However" - and the display adjusts again; he sees Bernstein's eyebrows arch abruptly and Nogura leans forward in his chair - "If we ignore Draconis for the time being and continue along the same course trajectory from Archanis, it is immediately apparent that Starbase 19 was their initial destination."

"It's four points on a three-dimensional graph," says Ciana quietly. "That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for doubt, sir."

"Assuming that all four points are evidentially connected!" protests Komack, with the air of a man who knows he's twisting in the wind. "I have yet to see one shred of proof that these attacks can be linked by anything substantive. It's guesswork…"

"Yes, sir," says Kirk sharply. "Because they were too damn clever to leave anything substantive behind."

"Kirk…" says Ciana quietly, a warning tone. He glances at her, briefly, but her eyes are fixed on the screen. "Starbase 19 to Draconis gives us an alternative vector," she says. "Did you plot it onwards?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he says. "There's not much along that corridor. However…"

"That's a loaded 'however', Kirk."

"Yes, Ma'am. There's one system of interest. I believe it's an excellent candidate."

"For an entirely hypothetical advance…" says Komack, but Nogura cuts him off.

"Jim," he says. "I think we're past hypothesis now." To Kirk, with an unreadable expression: "Go ahead, Commodore."

"Sir," says Kirk. "On a trajectory from Starbase 19 that brought them in line with Draconis, they would be heading directly towards Ilion Gamma."

There is a moment of perfect, loaded silence.

Ciana is the first to break it. "Jesus," she says. "The signal…"

"Yes, Ma'am," says Kirk. "It's also isolated, formerly unknown, practically defenseless, and incalculably resource-rich. We wanted them in the Federation for a reason; mining rights on either of their northern continents would have doubled our pergium yield in the first year alone. And they've been trying to get some kind of message through to us - the same Federation they threw off their planet not six months ago - for the past two days. That fits with the distance and the trajectory. They're under attack, sir, and they may or may not know that we had something to do with pointing the Empire in their direction, but they sure as hell know we're the only ones who can help them. Now, I know that the bulk of the fleet is out of immediate range, but the Invictus and the Pharsalus are both within seven days' journey at maximum warp. It might be enough to rebalance the equation in the interim…"

"Now, just a minute!" snaps Komack. "You're not suggesting that we get involved, Kirk?"

"Of course I'm suggesting…" says Kirk, quickly, without thinking, anger geysering up through his chest and escaping in a rush of ill-considered words that disappear into a room that has gone suddenly silent. His eyes automatically find Ciana's, flicking back from a quick survey of Nogura, Bernstein, a red-faced, venomous Komack, and they meet his with a rush of horrified understanding.

They are the only two people in the room for whom Kirk's epiphany comes as a surprise.

"You already knew," says Ciana quietly. Her face is expressionless, canted on her shoulder to face Nogura. Softly, almost to herself: "Damn it. I'm an idiot. Of course you knew."

"I don't understand," says Kirk, though he has a terrible suspicion that he does.

"I think we're done here," says Bernstein. "Admiral Nogura, thank you for your time…"

"The hell we're done here!" cries Kirk with a violent rush of impotent rage. Ciana's eyes widen in sudden shock, and she whirls on him, face tight with anger.

"Commodore Kirk!" she snaps, all ice-cold fury. "That's enough. We'll discuss this in my office…"

"You knew that the signal was a distress call! How long have you known, sir? How long have you known and done nothing?"

"Commodore Kirk!"

"I see no reason to discuss this any further," says Komack, but he glances at Nogura as he says it.

"We led Q'onoS directly to them!" cries Kirk. "We've given them the keys to the safe, and now we're just going to sit back and watch them take what they want?"

"That's enough, Commodore!" snaps Ciana. "Goddamn it…"

"We have a moral obligation to help these people!"

"They are not Federal citizens!" snaps Komack, and Kirk rounds on him, but Nogura interrupts before he can speak.

"Kirk, do you know what would happen if we were to take these people's side against the Klingons?" he says. His voice is even and unwavering, stripped of emotion. "The Klingons with whom we have a peace treaty in effect, prohibiting any act of war by either side?"

Kirk huffs a bitter, humorless laugh. "No, of course not…"

"Neither do I," says Nogura.

Kirk stares at him for a long moment, while words tangle in his throat. "This is obscene," he says at last.

"Admiral Ciana, control your officer," snaps Komack.

"Commodore Kirk," she says coldly. "That's enough, goddamn it. You will leave this room right now."

"Ma'am, with all due respect…"

"No. No respect. Leave. Now."

"We're going to stand back and watch an atrocity happen?" Kirk is vaguely aware, behind the hazy fury, that he's mouthing empty words to a room irretrievably lost, but they spill out of him regardless. "We're going to wash our hands of it, even though we set it in motion? We gave them that planet. We gave them the goddamn cortex!"

"We gave them nothing," says Komack. "They took what they wanted from us, and you are so far out of line, Commodore, that you'll be lucky if your next assignment is scrubbing plasma coolant from an engine room floor…"

"This is not the oath that I swore to uphold," spits Kirk. He is so angry he can barely hear himself over the thunderous roar of blood in his veins. "This is a matter of honor, sir…!"

"Kirk!" snaps Ciana.

He spins on his heel, pivoting to face her. "We have a peace treaty in effect!" he says. "Were we the aggressors? Was it Federal aggression that breached the treaty? Did we attack a Klingon outpost? Are we waging war on a peaceful planet in the name of monetary gain? What value does a peace treaty hold if it allows that kind of license? We are betraying everything we stand for if we do nothing!"

"And we are risking war with the Empire and war with the Organians if we act!" hisses Komack.

"If war is the consequence of standing behind our principles…"

"Do you really think this has never crossed anyone's mind but yours, Kirk?" Komack is white with rage. "Are you really so arrogant that you would think that yours is the only voice of dissent?"

"Where is your voice of dissent, Admiral?" snaps Kirk, and Ciana's eyes widen.

"Kirk, that's it," she hisses. "Get out. You're on administrative leave, effective immediately."

His eyes fix on hers, hold them. She does not look away. He says, "You cannot support this."

"What I do or do not support is immaterial right now," she says. "You are on leave, Commodore. Don't make me have security escort you from this building."

"You've been told, Kirk," says Komack in a dangerous tone, but Nogura cuts across him.

"That's enough, Jim," he says, and it's no longer clear which man he means. It could be either.

A bitter smile slices across Kirk's face and he shakes his head. "This is obscene," he says again.

Her eyes close. Her face is very still, but there's a faint tremor in her shoulders that speaks of muscles under extreme duress. "Leave, Commodore," she says. "I don't… we'll talk about this when you get back. That's it. We're done here."

"Admiral Ciana," says Nogura quietly. "Perhaps you'd be good enough to escort Commodore Kirk to the aircar bay."

Her jaw tightens. "Yes, sir," she says. To Kirk: "Let's go. Just… let's go, Kirk."

A sharp, acid laugh chokes its way free of his throat, and he gestures, with exaggerated politesse, for her to go ahead of him. She falls into step without another glance in his direction, leading them out through the door, and he can hear Komack's affronted rage explosion before they're even across the threshold: "Goddamn it, the man's always been insubordinate but that was two steps shy of mutiny…!"

As the door slides shut behind him, Kirk just catches Nogura's even reply, delivered with a soft authority that brooks no argument: "Let it alone, Jim. We need more men like him…"