The screen flickered almost imperceptibly, a sign of the homesteads outdated communications system. ‘It works perfectly well’ David’s father had always declared from behind his worn glasses, thus it was never upgraded but held together by DIY fixes and patch jobs by well-meaning neighbours. Now it would never be changed, nothing in that house would lest it taint his memory. The face of an old woman looked out from the screen, her grey hair barely contained into a loose bun, as strands reached out medusa-like at the crown of her head. Her sun touched skin, tanned from a decade of afternoons pruning roses in their country garden, was blushed Scarlett at the cheeks as she waited to deliver a difficult message. 

“David, I hope this message finds you well.” 

A long silence, weighted with tense discomfort. 

“I know we haven’t spoken since…” 

Another silence, why wouldn’t she just say it. The woman attempted to take a deep breath but visibly found her lungs shallow, David’s own breath was thin. 

“It’s been too long since we spoke, not since…” she paused, a reality unacknowledged, unspoken “…and I blame myself for that.” Of course she couldn’t say it, couldn’t bring herself to address their shared loss, even now, when her reluctance had driven them lightyears apart. 

“I know that I struggled to discuss what had happened. And I’m trying to, I promise. It’s just not something I can…” David felt his frustration growing, say it or don’t. “I’m not like you, I couldn’t just carry on. Not all of us can just move on so easily.” Venom hung on her lips where it had dropped from her words, sharp and cruel, it burnt at the young man’s ears and sizzled painfully against his the thin membrane of his wounded heart. A nauseous fury rose in his throat, all bile and acid, partly that she could spit such poison against her own son and partly that she was right. 

The steel of her face abated, suddenly wounded she stared off screen through the window David knew looked out over the distant fields of the family farm. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair. Your going back to Starfleet was your way of processing his…” her weak voice caught in her throat, her tearful eyes looked as they had months ago when she had first summoned him back to Earth. The wound was fresh for her, kept raw and angry by the mementos that surrounded her; the house they had built, pictures of the child they had raised, the life they had tended through baking summers and frozen winters. David’s own wound remained unhealed. Well bandaged as it was by the blue of his Starfleet uniform, it festered beneath untreated and malignant. 

“Say it.” he whispered to the recorded message. 

She wiped a tear from her eye before if could breech the dams of her wrinkled eyes. “… of processing his death”

He had expected to feel relief that she had said it, or at least wounded at the reminder of his father’s recent passing. Instead it slipped from his shoulders like water from the ducks back, simply another reminder of the fact. 

“But i’m not writing to rehash these things.” She sniffed, pressing the emotions back to their deep recesses, “there’s something else that I need your help with.” David snorted in wounded amusement, of course she wasn’t writing to repair their relationship, of course she wanted something. “I hope remember uncle Saul? 

“Barely, he’s been gone for years.” David muttered as he stood and moved towards the replicator. 

“Then again, perhaps not, he’s been gan for years.” A faint smiled touched the young man’s lips, his father had always spoken with a thick scottish accent, clearly the decades had taken their toll on his mother’s lexicon. “Recently he’s been working in the former demilitarized zone, mostly out of…”  His mother’s voice was overwhelmed by the pleasing whistle of notes as a tumbler appeared, punctuated by the clink of ice against the empty glassware as the top cube settled into place. 

“Apparently his engineering  skills  have  been  useful  on  the  border  colonies, where Starfleet doesn’t often make an appearance…” His mother continued as David reached behind the knick-knacks on the small shelf afforded him in his junior officer quarters aboard Helios, pulling the tall scotch bottle from the shelf and pouring himself a glass. His mother wasn’t the only one effected by his father’s choices. A pang of sadness hung on the ends of his soft smile as he looked over the bottle, marked simply with the name of the makeshift distillery that had sprung up in their barn, ‘Mitchells’, the bottle was almost empty, almost emptied several months ago one evening when he had first received the news of his father’s death during Frontier Day. Between the two of them they had offered more than one toast. Another pang tugged at his heart with sadness at the thought of the young Tellerite who had opted to transfer to Starbase Bravo rather than join Theta Squad aboard the refitted Akira-class, the events of their recent encounter Unimatrix Zero to much for him to bear. 

“Well, last I heard he was on working out of Allicent Base with some like minded people…” Theta Squad, another recent loss in David’s life, family members were dropping like flies it seemed. Since Bib had been promoted to XO and Log had transferred off-ship they had been reduced to a squad of two, a scientist and an explosive expert, hardly a capable response team. Captain Tanek had offered his condolences when he handed the two of them a padd that finally listed the others as MIA following the destruction of the Exodus sphere; he had been honest, heartfelt, but the captain had never quite understood that it was more than simply friends. They had been made into a family on Nestus and then given a home on Deadalus, they had been everything to each other, happily adventuring across the galaxy, safe in each other’s arms. He hadn’t seen Ole since that day, when he had taken the padd and left the room, it was a big ship but not that big, he had no doubt the gigantic Bolian was avoiding him. His own way of processing. 

“Are you listening? This is the important bit.” Even across the lightyears his mother knew how to scold him. 

“Yes Mother.” David replied to the recorded message, suitably admonished over the lightyears as he returned to the seat at his small desk. No doubt she was about to ask for a favour to arrange transport aboard a Starfleet ship or use what little connections he had to attempt to expedite a support request. 

“I got a message yesterday from Saul. It was different.” Her panicked face unsettled David’s stomach, she had always been a strong pillar of confidence, save for the time when they had found a mouse in the cupboards. To see her so shaken was unnerving. “I think he’s in real trouble. I think he needs your Starfleet.” He could see the cause of her reluctance now, not born out of the most recent use of their strained relationship but what had se them at odds years ago. His parents had long viewed Starfleet with suspicious eyes, a ‘high-minded military’ she had called it, recent history had done little to dissuade that opinion, when he had enlisted with them his mother hadn’t spoken to him for six months. To ask for its help now must be difficult. 

“His message is attached. I hope you can help him.” She looked pleadingly towards the screen, the desperation in her eyes reaching across space, chilling David. “I hope to hear from you soon.” Her arm reached towards the screen to end the recording but she paused. “I miss you.” 

David sucked in a sharp breath. “Computer, pause!” She looked scared, weak, alone. An old woman lost on a sea of pain and sadness, at the mercy of the overwhelming waves and the beastly thoughts that hunt upon the bleeding heart. It was finally too much, the last crack in his emotional armour, to see her so afraid. His heart finally split beneath the weight of his barely balanced emotions, precariously stacked one atop another, a mute cacophony of rending walls of cold repression. He felt his chest begin to heave, reaching for ragged breaths as he began to sob at the vision of his broken mother; his heart screamed in the unending silence, clawing at the screen, desperate to reach her embrace. As her tanned face filled his vision he whispered apologies to the empty room through tear slicken lips, his body folding in on itself as it attempted to find solace in its own arms. As his beloved stars sailed by the small window of his private quarters David Mitchell began to admit all that had been lost.  

The quiet sliding of the briefing room doors left David alone with his thoughts in the conference room. His gaze lost through the wide windows that looked out aft of the ships oval primary hull, through the void in the catamaran and into the trailing wake of the ship. David had always preferred it at the head of the ship looking out, as it had been aboard Daedalus, he always thought it had a sense of moving foward, but today as his empty eyes gazed out on the specks of light filling the space he found himself looking back both literally and figuratively. 

“Are they worth a penny, Lieutenant?” A warm voice reached across the room and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

Shaken from what he had believed to be his lonely musings he turned slightly to see the face of Ashra, still fitted with her perpetually maternal smile. “I’m sorry?”

“The thoughts, isn’t that what the saying is?” the older woman furrowed her brow, accentuating the creases that had formed over the years. 

“Sort of.” David mumbled politely, the two of them had a passing acquaintance as many did on a ship, a natural result of her being the Chief Medical Officer, he knew she was a veteran, and a re-enlister after Frontier Day. “Can I help you ma’am?” He paused, suddenly wondering if he should stand to the superior officer. 

“Oh don’t be silly.” she motioned to a seat at the long arcing wooden table. David nodded, unsure why she asked his permission. “You can’t go through 3 decades worth of Starfleet without picking up a few extra buttons.” She smiled, it was warm, comforting. “So… should I go rooting through my purse?”

“For what ma’am?”

“A penny?” she said, reaching up to adjust the silken scarf that was wrapped round her head. Golden yellow threads wove through the pink fabric, forming the outlines of delicate petals, abstractly coalescing into blossoming flowers on a golden bough. “I might have to owe you. It’s been a while since they were common thing.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard the expression.” David returned his gaze to the windows, the pinpoints of light now streaking away as the vessel slipped into warp speed, the long nacelles just out of sight propelling them to a superluminal velocities without the slightest shake. “I thought you’d be in sickbay ma’am?”

“Oh Ensign Talika is perfectly capable of prepping the team’s supplies. Her bed side manner however…” Ashra tilted her head as he shoulders shrugged, “It’s a work in progress.” she twirled the end of the headscarf in between her fingers. “Besides, I thought you might want to talk.”

“About?” David’s attention was fixed on the starts that peeled away into the distance. He knew of course what she wanted to discuss, Bib had attempted to address the young man’s grief when he had approached the XO with his mother’s message which contained the data from his uncle. Despite the older man’s best efforts, the Commander was not a councillor and had been able to offer little more than a supportive hand on his shoulder. 

“This mission involves your family.”

“Distant.” David added quickly, whilst the contents of his mother’s message remained private it was unavoidable to tell the senior staff at least about the familial source of the data.

“A family separated by lightyears is still family.”

“I suppose.” 

“And a family member that delivered data about the New Maqui’s activities. That’s something you might want to talk about.” 

David hadn’t been able to watch the message again when it had been played to the senior staff, instead focusing on tracking the grain of the dark oak that formed the room’s table. His eyes had followed the twists and turns as he heard his uncle’s panicked voice, unable to block out the familiar Scottish brogue that signalled a relationship to his recently deceased father. A chill had run down David’s spine as, in breathless and frightened whispers the man had relayed what little information he had known about a possible New Maqui attack.

‘Cyodan.’ ‘Freighter’. ‘Bomb.’

Then a flurry of scared shouts and the message had ended, leaving only a frozen image of uncle Saul’s face, thin and fraught in the dim light of a back alley. 

A silence hovered over the room as the two of them looked out the aft windows, the stars silently peeling away from the ship as it carried them toward what might be another loss in the Mitchell family. 

“I’ve always wondered what it must’ve been like aboard those old sailing ships.” Ashra mused. “Watching the waves and wake, leaving the horizon behind.”

The silence continued, David wasn’t feeling particularly talkative, not that he believed he had the words to express his thoughts even if the mood did take him. 

“Most of them leaving a whole world behind. Not unlike the early space farers.” Ashra probed again. The silence remained stoic across the table. “People don’t always appreciate in this age of subspace communication and faster than light travel that every journey still takes you away from somewhere.” She threw another lure across the wooden pond. 

“But you can always go back.” Finally, a bite.

“Sometimes I suppose. But the universe doesn’t stand still, the memory we have is always in the rearview.”

“Did you expect Starfleet to have changed when you came back?” David’s voice was pale from across the slowly defrosting table. 

“I suppose I did. Though if I’m being honest, I wasn’t prepared for quite how changed it would be.” The older woman lent back into her chair as she offered up her own unspoken struggles to the young man, a thought for a thought was a fair exchange. “Theres a trust to be rebuilt in Starfleet, both inside and out.”

David span his chair towards her, his attention drawn from the stellar horizon. Ashra was struck by his dark eyes, signs of the vulnerable man’s lack of sleep. “I don’t understand.”

“People wearing the faces of our friends chased us through the hallways.” 

“They were our friends.” David had been relatively safe from the Jupiter signal along with the rest of the Daedalus’ crew at the far reaches of Federation space. But he had seen the footage; friends and colleagues striking down people who had been mentors, friends and loved ones only moments prior. “The Borg took them. Like they take everything.” David choked back his anger, a lava flow of bile beginning to boil in his stomach. His mind filling with an imagined vision of his father’s face, moments before the explosion of Probert Station engulphed him. The fearful face of his uncle frozen in the message had become the a surrogate visage of his father. In the shadows behind, he could see the faces of his friends aboard the Exodus sphere, fighting for their lives moments before it too exploded at high warp. All of them taken from him. 

“It’s not just the Borg though.” Ashra mused, her eye trained on David’s freshly tense jaw. “The Dominion War, Utopia Planitia, The Lost Fleet, Frontier Day, the Fourth Fleet Directive. Now a New Maquis and a less than friendly Klingon Chancellor.” She smiled wearily. “We’ve been given a lot of reasons not to trust. Perhaps the New Maqui are a symptom of that broken trust.” 

“I’m not sure how my feelings are relevant.” David was desperate for the conversation to be over, to fall back into his empty meditation. Ashra might have kind intentions but talking wasn’t helping, he felt nothing was helping. He longed to run back into the past, to catch the lingering smell of Zaya’s perfume once again, to overhear Hermira’s wicked laugh as she won another round of Kadis-Kot, to catch Maine smiling when he thought no one was looking. To sit at his father’s knee one last time, watching him lick his fingers and turn the page of their nightly story.

“I don’t think I want to discuss this anymore. I appreciate the kind thought but I don’t think you really understand.” David whispered, his wounded heart creeping into his voice as a childish tone. “I’d like to be alone.”

Ashra stood from the table, she had pushed far enough, healing came in stages. She pulled the scarf from her head and held it in her hands, revealing several scars that ran across her hairless head, deep gouges and broken skin that raked across her olive skin creating cruel valleys and trenches; her own marks of battle. “I’m just saying David. Our memories are behind us on the horizon, they’re lovely to look at but they’re out of reach now. We have to remember there’s an exciting new horizon ahead of us. It’s easy for people to get fixated on the past, trust is much clearer in hindsight.” 

The quiet sliding of the briefing room doors left David alone with his thoughts and an extra penny.  

I can feel a sigh of relief from the ship as it exits warp, the minute difference in my stomach as the ship stops bending the rules of physics and returns to the familiar strictures of space and time. No longer are we running the thin line between matter and energy as the pontoon like nacelles take a gulping breath of the void, their coils still glowing white hot in the housings, shining like stars across the invisible bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now we simply are, simply being. Maine always said I was imagining it, that there was no perceptible difference between faster than light travel and simply floating in the empty cosmic sea, “fast or slow, it’s all the same” he would mutter every time I let out a relieved sigh, as with everything he was so sure. But I never could shake the feeling that being at warp was somewhat of a middle finger to the universe, ‘we see your rules and have decided to play our own game’. I can hear him now, his voice floating across the room every time we left the untrustworthy shelter of the warp bubble “You worry too much David, we’re not offending the universe.” Always with that wide smile, self assured, confident. The man was infuriating.

I miss him desperately. 

As the turbolift arrives at the bridge, I concede he might be right, perhaps it’s simply all in my head. As the doors slide open I can see people milling around the bridge, unbothered by the fact we have just been catapulted across lightyears in an admittedly large and elegantly designed tin can. Maybe it’s just me.

“Lieutenant?” there is a woman standing in the doorway, her head tilted slightly as her eyes narrow and the twin antenna atop her head twitch accusingly. Behind her I can see three officers in discussion, their heads bowed as they mutter, brows furrowed in…? Concentration? Frustration? At the centre I can see Bib. Command agrees with him, something about the third golden pip on his collar has changed the way he stands, his already muscular shoulders seem broader, his back straighter. And was that… just a touch of strategically trimmed stubble across his chin?

“Lieutenant?” The officer is snapping her fingers at me now, her perfectly manicured blue fingers tipped with silver nail polish, her own acceptable little rebellion against the dress code. I like Captain Tanek’s willingness to overlook the minor bending of the rule, it speaks to his understanding of the truly important matters, who cares about your nail varnish when confronting the Borg. Certainly not the Borg; or else we might as well have painted all our nails and waved aggressively out the windows. 

Another clicking of silver tipped fingers.

“Yes?”

“May I use the turbolift?” She makes a swinging motion with her arms, indicating I should leave the lift carriage where I am rudely considering the existential nature of warp travel and whether Bib is more handsome as a result of being the big boss. I step out, muttering apologies as she mutters her own complaints, I barely catch the something about ‘cow-eyed junior officer’s’ as the doors slide shut behind with a full stop thud. 

Science console, science console. I scan the large room, still unfamiliar with the layout despite having been here a dozen times; in my defence, usually its night time and there are far fewer people. With the Science department positions still up in the air since Rana’s…. departure, and the likely collapse of Theta Squad, I’ve been trying to make a good impression, bridge duty is always a good box-ticker. I turn to make a move left, pretty sure the station was once to the left but there’s a bank of mustard shouldered engineers there, the words ‘Mission Operations’ illuminated above their heads. Right, it’s definitely right. Across the room, past the trio of senior officers whose brows now are the envy of the Grand Canyon, I can see a merciful sea of blue shoulders and an empty chair. The words ‘Science II’ are emblazoned above them. I feel as if I could break out into a run, leaping effortlessly across consoles like an action hero to reach the waiting chair. Instead, it’s a nervous meander in a wide arc around the rear of the bridge, quietly apologising to unbothered crewman under my breath for having taken the wrong turn. I can feel the soft leather of the seat calling to me, its plump cushions welcoming me to the background position at the back of the bridge; where junior science officers can get lost pitter-pattering away on their consoles, processing the multitude of data captured by sensor palettes and probes. I am steps away when the increasingly handsome form of Bib blocks my path. 

“David.” Has his voice gotten deeper? “The captain and I have been discussing some things.” Yes, almost definitely deeper. “Have you had anything more from your mother, more than the message?”

Ah yes, the message that forced us to bend space to race across the sector to the Cyodan system. My mother would be ecstatic that her simple message had so put the brass on edge that they redeployed us to the former demilitarized zone; once upon a time she and my father would have laughed at the mighty Starfleet set quaking by an old woman’s message. But she was alone now, another victim of Frontier Day and the message had been one of desperation rather than a flexing of anti-establishment muscle. I can see her worried face, burned into the forefront of my brain as she relayed my uncle’s message. I might have broken the laws of physics myself to reach through the screen to her, pushing my tear covered hands onto the panel as if I could melt into subspace and change the truth; that she was now a lonely old woman having to live with her loss in every brick and mug. And worse, that I had abandoned her to that fate with the cruel tongue of my own grief, too blinkered by the loss of my father to realise that she had lost her husband. I had still not managed to send a reply other than a few pathetic words ‘Message received. I will ask.’ A dozen attempts to record a message sat waiting in my quarters, none of them said the right words but rambled desperate apologies that we had parted with such unforgivable words. 

“David?” Bib was leaning in, close enough to smell the Yara root that hung in his aftershave, a gift from Zaya months ago, a mote of his own unspoken grief. “Are you okay?” I could see his eyes looking across the Captain. “Do we need to go somewhere a bit more private?” He was worried I might cry again, as I had when I had first shown him the message, as I had when we had shown the Captain. 

“No Commander.” The words are pulled from deep within, his bright blue eyes an unwelcome distraction. I’d never found him handsome before, perhaps I was just attracted to those in authority. Perhaps I’m just a bit of a mess. “I haven’t had any further messages from my mother.” He looks visibly disappointed, his brow now forming a valley so deep it might fold in on itself and produce a small black hole here on the bridge. That would be a relief, no more tears, no more memories, no more accidental left turns, no more confusing feelings for the increasingly attractive Andorian, no more nightmares at my uncle’s face, no more regrets for things beyond my control. No more regrets for the things that were. 

“That’s a shame. We don’t have a lot of Intel to go on and we’re not amongst friends here.” What had he expected? That I had absent mindedly forgotten to mention a dossier that had landed in my inbox, revealing the inner workings of the New Maquis? 

“No Sir. ” I had heard the news reel, they liked to play the news channel it in the lounge, ‘Tenacious outpost kicks out Starfleet’, whilst littered with journalistic speculation it had included some uncomfortably accurate reflections. The inhabitants of the border we’re frustrated, Starfleet was a shadow of itself, the Federation had other priorities. 

Bib is sighing, his big hands reaching to un-crease his temples, no black hole today, no salvation. “Well, it looks like we’re going to have to go down to the moon ourselves.” He’s looking at me again with those big blue eyes. He’s expecting a response, a volunteer?

“I’m sure you and security will find them sir.” I can see where he’s leading, Theta Squad, which means seeing Ole again, I can see the twinkle in his eyes, I think he is the only one interested in reaching that destination. 

“I thought we might get the old band back together. This is exactly the kind of thing Theta Squad was created for.” Must find a way to derail this train, that bridge seat is so near I can hear the leather calling my name. 

“I’m not sure how much of a squad we are anymore.” That might have been a bit too cruel. “Sir.” That almost definitely doesn’t make it less cruel. I can see I’ve hurt him, the twinkle in his eye muted slightly, he had known most of our departed friends far longer than I had, Maine especially so. For a moment we are both widows, pining for the same long lost company. But the third pip is quickly back, his grief shelved behind the Yara root aftershave. 

“Then we will have to find some new squad members, won’t we David.” He smiles at me. 

“I’ve got bridge duty…” I lean round his massive shoulders to motion to the open seat behind him. But I see it’s already filled, a young Benzite woman, her iridescent skin shimmering in the muted light from the console. 

“Looks like I can borrow you. Let go.” He motions with his arm back towards the turbolift I emerged from only moments before. “I’m sure Ole will be pleased to see us.” 

I’m sure he won’t be. My stomach is lurching again.  

“David! David are you listening?” The young man blinked his eyes, attempting to draw his focus away from the rolling vista of the yellow tinged desert presented through the open window panel. Satisfied his attention was back in the moment and not on the stakes of the mission he turned to see the concerned face of Oshira looking straight at him, her normally welcoming round eyes squeezed into thin lines of concern at his lack of attention. The hulking blue figures of Ole and Bib hovered over either of her shoulders, neither looked impressed. The ever stoic Ole stood inscrutable as stone, he could be planning David’s assassination or planning to propose, it was impossible to read the gigantic Bolian; whilst Bib stared in concern, his antenna twitching back and forth, an unfortunate tell the middle aged Andorian had never been able to master.  

“Yes Ma’am.” David shouted, attempting to reach a decibel level sufficient where his lie could be heard over the screeching of the hovercrafts tired old engines. She tapped her ears indicating he had been unsuccessful. “Yes! Ma’am!” He shouted, attempting to push the short syllables over the cacophony of whipping wind, whining engine and the wailing in his head. 

Oshira leant forward and tapped the small button hidden in the collar of his olive field jacket. “Clearly not very well.” Her voice was clear and crisp, carried over the deafening din through the small earpiece David remembered he had fitted within his ear moments earlier. “Try now. And no need to shout.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He said evenly. Realising she had activated the small mic nestled against his jawline. Bib continued to look worried over her shoulder, the aged woman dwarfed by the two men in the prime of their lives, perhaps he had been wrong, maybe David wasn’t ready to be back in the field yet. 

“Rule number 1 David?” She pointed to the absent pips at her throat.

“No Ranks.” David nodded, he had been listening to most of her advice, save for the odd moment of existential drifting. 

“Correct. Now as I was saying…” she took across the small open bed of the hovercar, placing herself as speaker to the three men. “Starfleet isn’t welcome here, hasn’t been well received since Dominion War, but that business with the True Way really tipped it over.” She pressed a key on a small padd she held, conjuring a miniature model of a balding older human to appear in the open space between the four of them, walking back and forth reciting rhetoric to an unseen audience. “When C-91 was attacked it was the last straw for current Premier Allatira Dhal, conclusive proof that Starfleet couldn’t defend the civilians along the DMZ. He called a public rally and demanded Starfleet leave the system. Despite several attempts by the Diplomatic corp, no luck so far.” A cough suddenly interrupted the woman’s briefing, her rough hacking causing her to clutch at her stomach in pain. 

Bib, true to form, was already moving across the space, shattering the diminutive form of the fiery Premier as he walked through the hologram, his muscular arms reaching to pat her back. Quickly dismissed with a wave he took a step back, retuning to his post, the small hologram looking even more frustrated with being disrupted a second time on his return. 

“Oshira, your breathing equipment?” Bib asked. 

“Has been filled with sand before and with any lucky will be again.” David could barely see the small line of healed skin that ran across the woman’s cheek to the edge of her lips, masked as it was by the beginnings of her wrinkle. “I appreciate the concern but I am fine.” She ran her long manicured finger along the faded scar, a sign of her Barzaan heritage, a mark shared by many of her race. She coughed once more, expelling phlegmy contents into the small handkerchief she secreted within her sleeves. 

A sharp click interrupted David’s observations, followed by the fuzz of an open comm circuit. “We’re about 10 minutes out from the landing pads, we’ll have to proceed into the market on foot from there.” The honey voice of their Trill pilot dripped into his ears across the channel, “Bib, you should be aware that we seem to have acquired some observers.” From the elevated control position a long arm emerged and motioned with a long index finger upwards before returning to its nest in the pilot’s lap. 

“How many Helena?” Bib crossed the small passenger unit, disturbing the hologram’s perpetual rhetoric once again and crossed to the large open bay door, sticking his broad shoulders through the portal and craning his neck to the sky. David followed suit at the small transparent panel fitted to the bulkhead behind him, pressing his nose against the shaking material, the vibrations that battered against his jawline threatening to shake his teeth loose. 

“At least 2, maybe a third at high altitude.” 

“They look like Peregrines.” Bib’s torso was almost fully out of the hovercraft, his long civilian scarf whipping in the dusty wind, his large boots hooked around one of the boxes that littered the compartment as an anchor.  

“Agreed.”  

“New Maquis?” Bib’s eyes fell on the older Barzaan woman as he swung his body back into the cramped space. 

“Almost definitely.”

“Where did they get starfighters from?” Ole grumbled, his nose pressed against another window, his attention fixed on the vessels tailing them from above. 

A short cough tumbled from Oshira’s lips as she gave out a dry laugh. “The same place we did big guy. Starfleet storage locations aren’t as secure as everyone thinks.” She offered him a knowing smile as he turned from the small window. “There are plenty of people out there who can be convinced to miscount their monthly inventory.”

“And it’s entirely possible they went missing several years ago, records have been spotty ever since the synth attack on Utopia Planitia.” The dusty figure of Bib returned to the small group, patting his chest and emitting a gentle snowfall of the planets signature tan dust. “We don’t know how long the New Maquis have been building their assets.”

“It is disconcerting to believe we have been betrayed from within. That someone in Starfleet would give weapons to these terrorists.” Ole’s frowned against the glass, his attention still locked on the grey shapes following them; their curved wings diving in and out of the thick clouds above the open plains they sailed across, predatory & eagle like.

“I don’t imagine it’s as simple as that.” Bib looked on from a distance, the young Bolian man was hurting and the new XO continued to struggle to connect with him following the Exodus incident. He fumbled with retying his scarf as he looked for the words to say, the electronic voice of Helena saved him from his embarrassment. 

“If they decide to engage with us I won’t be able to do much, I could dodge a few shots but we’re definitely at the disadvantage.” her voice was tinged with a mote of worry, barely noticeable beneath the joined Trill’s perpetually calm tone. David found it unusual and unsettling, his stomach tightening as he understood her insinuation. 

“Tactical assessment?”

“If they decide to engage, we’ll all be growing gills.”

Bib’s brow furrowed in confusion as he looked to the other three team members. Following shrugs from both Ole and Oshira his blue eyes landed on the young human being jostled back and forth on the crate. 

“Fish in a barrel.” David clarified, his own eyes narrowing as he considered which of the pilot’s past lives had offered up that oddly rephrased idiom. 

“I could call in the Heliades, have them fly some interference?” The expert flight wing of Helios was located not far away, secreted in one of the many lava tubes that covered the surface of the planetoid like polka dots. With their mothership unable to enter the system without enflaming tensions, they and the small security detachment aboard the runabout hidden with them were the only backup readily available to the team. 

“No. Let’s not show our hand too early. They’ve every right to be suspicious, if they want to flex their muscles let them.” Bib continued to dust his shirt, hoping the activity was sufficient to mask his newly surfacing nervousness. “Helena, just keep an eye on them. Oshira, lets go through the plan again.”

The aged Barzann retrieved a small padd from one of the many folds in her brightly coloured duster jacket, the fabric wafting and twisting in the omnipresent wind. With a short sequence of commands the small, red faced figure of Premier Dahl finally took a rest from his hate speech and fizzled away, replaced with a wire frame diagram of the swiftly approaching town and market.  

“OK. Rule one… David?”

David tugged the straps on his shoulders, tightening the long dungarees he wore and drew his thick jacket around him as he brought his attention back to the woman. “Rule one. No Ranks.” 

There is light. A light so bright it might as well be darkness, so bright its painful to look at but everywhere I turn it exists, pressing against me like a casket. Between the fine silk of the lining I can hear her voice, melodic and omnipresent. 

“Not Yet…”

I can hear the frustration in Hermira’s voice as she lets out an exasperated screech, her small fists smashing against the terminal as the circular glyph blossomed and melted away. A stream of choice expletives spewed from her clenched jaw, the most filthy and cruel insults from across the quadrant tumbling from her delicate crimson lips as she continued to wail on the now empty display, her tiny, curled hands, covered in dark henna patterns, barely making a dent in the settled dust. Only a few days ago she had been cackling with laughter alongside a Lieutenant in the lounge as they painted each other’s palms, practicing before the young human’s upcoming nuptials. She had been fighting for access to the control panel and its associated forcefield for several minutes but was defeated at every turn, her calm collected demeanour now filled with fury. He can hear the desperation that tinges her angry cries, the tears that begin to roll down her cheeks. She is out of options, he has won, he has adapted. 

Across the compartment Zaya tries an alternative tactic, I can hear the sustained serpentine hiss of their phaser beams. Alongside Khos, our freshly minted XO, they attempt to destroy the forcefield generators entirely, unloading cell after cell into the slender emitters recessed into the bulkhead. As the time stretches on I see them now for what they are, two sides of the coin. Khos is clearly panicking, beneath the burly confidence of a young officer I can see the tell-tale bulging of veins and grinding of molars as the field doesn’t waver. The young man’s hands clutched tightly, white knuckled against the stock of the rifle, he cannot see another option. Zaya looks as if she stands on the holodeck, testing a phaser rifle after stripping and servicing it, the calm confidence of a lifetime soldier. I wonder where she is; back on Cardassia Prime perhaps? Back amongst the tall tan arches of Central Command where her allegiance was questioned more than once but she was always found to be a true child of the Union. Or amongst the tall ears of corn on Ciman II where she had aptly fended off enemies with both phaser and rhetoric? Or perhaps she has taken herself away to the dark corners of Daedalus’ late night lounge, Labyrinth, her arms wrapped around an Andorian thaan’s shoulders, their fingers laced together as they shared delicate whispers. Regardless she is not here, she has seen the outcomes with the wisdom of the aged general; they both realise it. There is no escape now.

The flickering green light mocks us as it begins to flash brighter, the repetitive cycle of illumination growing in speed. He is pushing the ship too fast, in his race to make it to Coppelius he’s asking too much of a vessel that is designed to be administered and monitored by hundreds of drones. I can hear the crack of the hull the instance before it happens, before the barely contained power that allows us to mock the universe’s laws give up and we are wrenched back into reality with the silent thunder of a core breach that cannot echo through space. On the distant side of the room, her prone form upon a table, her body masked by the furiously concentrating figure of Brynn, our villain, I catch a glimpse of Rana’s pale face. I hear her voice in my head, the calm melody of her telepathy muffling the screeching of rending bulkheads and failing deck plates. 

‘Not Yet’.

Then there is a light, so bright it hurts to look at it. 

I can hear the frustration in Hermira’s voice as she lets out an exasperated screech, her small fists…