From the control booth, the scurrying of engineers around the shuttlebay looked an awful lot like over-stimulated children running rampant at a birthday party.  The flashing of yellow alert indicators had caught them in the middle of a diagnostic and maintenance cycle.  For the preparedness required at yellow alert, there were too many shuttle pods and equipment sleds crowding the bay.  The raised voices of orders being given echoed across the bay at cross-purposes.  Despite that first impression of chaos, there were patterns forming: runway space being cleared around the runabout Darial.

And then Commander Elbon Jakkelb strode into the shuttlebay from the corridor entrance.

The broad-shouldered executive officer was looking leaner in his black and red uniform.  Days earlier, Elbon had confided in Kellin Rayco about the extra time he had been spending with Captain Taes to ensure she felt supported, and bolstered, and needed after the destabilizing effect blood dilithium had had on her.  Because of the psychic intrusion on Taes’ mind, and how her erratic behaviour unsettled the crew, Taes had been avoiding overly much time in public beyond bridge duty.  She had been keeping to herself and issued all her orders through Elbon.  From experience, Kellin could infer that longer duty hours meant Elbon was sacrificing his own well-being, meals and the like.

Kellin Rayco sprinted out of the control booth, crossing the catwalk in a hurry.  He bypassed the turoblift doorway and threw his body at the ladder.  After climbing down the first half of the rungs, Kellin jumped the rest of the way, sliding down the rails with a loose grip.  Despite all his attention on Elbon, Kellin sprinted past the man to reach the USS Darial before the XO.  Planting his boots and filling his lungs with a deep breath, Kellin struck his most intimidating security chief pose to physically block the runabout hatch with his body.

Despite Kellin’s efforts, Elbon only offered an amused smirk to Kellin, as he closed the distance between them.  As much as Elbon remained silent, Kellin recognized the look in Elbon’s sapphire eyes.  His eyes were laughing at Kellin, at the absurdity of Kellin playing the security officer role with him of all people.  Elbon scratched at the distinctly Bajoran ridges above his nose.  To most, it might look like a ponderous expression, but Kellin recognised it as a gesture to say: challenge accepted.

Once Elbon was standing close enough for Kellin to smell the fragrance he was wearing, Elbon shrugged off the shoulder strap of his luggage case and hiked it over his other shoulder.

“Say something,” Kellin requested softly.

Elbon shrugged and he frowned.  The puzzlement behind his eyes was far more striking than the way the frown put lines of his face.

“I didn’t expect you to react like this,” Elbon said.

“Why not?” Kellin asked.  He wanted to sound defiant, but he feared he sounded petulant.  “You’re always leaving.”

Lowering his voice, Elbon remarked, “You signed the application too.”  His voice was tight, like there was a lump in his throat.  He sounded more confident when he added, “This is what naturally happens after a divorce.”

Kellin couldn’t maintain eye contact with Elbon.

“Doesn’t mean I was ready for you to not be here every day,” Kellin admitted.

Elbon sounded hurt when he said, “You could have fooled me.”  Hurt, but not defensive.  Still, that didn’t make his words sting any less.  “After the Delta Quadrant, you stopped coming by my quarters at 2 am.  My doors were still unlocked.”

Kellin risked a glance in Elbon’s eyes, but it hurt too much to see Elbon’s own pain.  And there were times Kellin feared Elbon’s old counselor training meant he could read Kellin’s thoughts with just a look.

“I told you why,” Kellin said.  He tried to measure his reaction, tried to sound matter-of-fact in his delivery.  Even in his own ears, Kellin thought he was the one who sounded defensive.  “When we thought we were going to die on the USS Brigadoon, I told you everything.”

Elbon snorted; the sound was a brief, yet derisive, laugh.  “Yuulik tricks us all into saving her ex-girlfriend — fakes the sensor logs and risks her whole career,” Elbon said, “and yet Kellin Rayco can’t make time for his ex-husband anymore.”

His whole body tense, Kellin kept his eyes on the down.  He had stayed frosty while held prisoner by Remans on Kunhri III and yet Elbon’s directness could make Kellin feel tongue-tied.  Kellin hadn’t prepared himself for this debate again –the shifts he’d seen in Elbon’s behaviours since their divorce– and he figuratively lost the capacity for speech.  His mind went into protective stasis.

Elbon’s voice went cold.  “I don’t want to do this again.  I have to go,” he said.  He shifted the luggage case strap again, pulling it closer to his neck.  “There’s been a disaster on the USS Olympic.  Their captain has stepped down and their number one is dead.  Taes needs me there now.”

Smiling sheepishly at Elbon, Kellin reckoned, “You’re not coming back.  You dreamed of captaining the Dvorak and now Olympic provides everything you ever wanted.”

“Not everything,” Elbon said weightily.  The sadness in his eyes went away when he put on a sardonic smile.  “Besides, what the Olympic needs is a scientist captain, not a retired ranjen.  Taes was clear.  My only job is to bring that crew safely home to Deep Space 17.  I’m going to hold them together like my flock, so they don’t spin out.”

Elbon raised his right palm.

“May the Hand of the Prophets guide me,” Elbon said and then he used that hand to grab Kellin’s ass.  As soon as he did it, though, he gently pushed Kellin aside from where he was blocking the runabout’s hatch.

Kellin teased, “The ass of the Prophets blind you.”

Elbon smiled fondly and he climbed the stairs onto the runabout.

“May it ever be so,” Elbon said.

Like the slingshot effect in action, Taes took the long route from her ready room.  After arcing behind the bridge’s freestanding master systems display, she picked up speed in her stride down the portside ramp.  Her arms were crossed over her chest while she walked; her right hand idling stroking her left wrist.  Only as she passed by the engineering hub did she reach out and gently squeeze Lieutenant Nune’s shoulder.  Her touch was electric, incendiary, and then just as quickly she had moved on.

Reaching the flight control well, Captain Taes stood at attention between the CONN and the viewscreen.  She waited silently until, gradually, all of the eyes on the bridge were upon her.

“I have a disturbing report to share with all of you,” Taes said, in a kind preamble.  “Under the protection of the Romulan Free State Warbird Vishatha, the USS Olympic returned to the planet Ullho to complete the excavation we began last year when the Sarek was diverted to the Delta Quadrant.  Upon arrival, the Olympic was attacked.”

The wave of vertigo that washed over Chief Engineer Nune would have dropped him to the deck if he hadn’t already been seated at the engineering hub.  This feeling wasn’t unfamiliar.  He hadn’t felt like himself since the Sarek’s mission to the Delta Quadrant.  Nune had been sitting in this very seat the first time he had heard the ghosts of slaughtered Brenari echoing from the blood dilithium they were studying.  Their cries from beyond the grave had dragged him into a panic attack that had escalated to disassociation, altered perceptions and violence.  Since returning to the Beta Quadrant, Nune had separated himself from the USS Sarek to participate in in-patient mental health treatment until he had returned to duty on this very day.

Continuing her report on the USS Olympic, Taes said, “Captain Holmgren is… ah… incapacitated.  As Sarek Squadron’s commander, I have assigned Commander Elbon to take command of the Olympic.  They have escaped the Ullho system and Elbon will guide the crew back to Deep Space 17.  Commander Rayco, therefore, will step in as Sarek’s Acting Executive Officer once again.”

A Romulan raised her hand.  Nune didn’t recognize her by name.  Judging by her face, framed by a severe bob of black hair, the Romulan appeared of advanced-middle age.  Given she was seated at the LCARS horseshoe of science consoles, and she was dressed in a black and orange jumpsuit of the Romulan Free State, Nune could imagine she was one of Flavia’s civilian scientists.  She hadn’t served aboard Sarek during the blood dilithium campaign.

She asked, “What is Sarek Squadron?”  Her question about Sarek Squadron, rather than the Olympic crew, landed as especially tactless given the emotions Nune could feel from most of the bridge crew through his Betazoid perceptions.  A ripple of whispers trickled across the bridge.  He felt an overwhelming ember of concern for their colleagues aboard their sister ship.  

“When the USS Sarek was launched as a multi-discipline mobile research platform, Ketris,” Taes replied to the new Romulan crew member, “the USS Olympic underwent a refit as our sister ship.  She serves as the publisher of the Olympic Journal as well as a diplomatic hub for academic discussion and debate between the Federation and the Romulan Free State.  Doctor Flavia and I share mission oversight over Sarek Squadron.”

Taes drummed her fingertips on the flight control console.  “Mister Door, what can you tell Ketris about our mission to Ullho last year?”  As soon as the question was asked, Taes rounded the console on her way to the captain’s chair.

Hovering above the flight control console with his anti-grav boots, the exocomp Cellar Door self-replicated the multi-tool stylus he used for most of his LCARS input.  He tapped at the controls, which activated a translucent holographic projection over the viewscreen.  A Starfleet star chart of the Typhon Expanse appeared on one side and a green star chart described in Romulan characters on the other side.

Despite his synth origins, Cellar Door spoke with all the dramatic gravitas of a Vorta.  He said, “The very name Ullho comes from the incomplete star charts provided to us, by Flavia, to locate a centuries-old outpost she believed to have been abandoned in the Typhon Expanse by the late Romulan Star Empire.  We searched several star systems and finally located the outpost in the Ullho system.  The outpost was identified on the only M-class planet in this system, located on the spinward outskirts of the Typhon Expanse.”

Although she said it softly, Nune heard Ketris say, “Outpost Dha’mne.”

Silently, Nune waggled an index finger at the star charts.  His mind wandering, he loosely plotted the USS Sarek’s course through the expanse, and beyond, since her launch the previous year.  Starfleet had ordered the Sarek from Tenope to Fincycle to Ullho, let alone the Dyson Sphere and the Delta Quadrant.  Nearly every research mission had been interrupted by the urgency of the next, putting the crew in a position to solve imminent science mysteries, rather than the type of long-term research Captain Taes had conducted aboard the USS Dvorak.  Nune’s counselors had put him in a reflective mood, these past weeks, and he couldn’t quite picture the strategy behind their movements.  Was each successive mission truly more important than the last or were they pushed in a hurry to leave one of them behind?

Pointedly, Cellar Door asked, “Captain, did the warbird Vishatha attack the Olympic?”

Seated beside Ketris, Science Chief Flavia was the first to reply with an unimpressed, “No.”

“Captain?” Cellar Door asked again.

Having reached the base of the command stairs, Taes spun back in response to the plea in Cellar Door’s voice.  Reassuringly, she answered, “No, ensign.  Without warning or provocation, the Olympic was attacked, while her shields were down, by an Antares-class freighter.”

The way Security Chief Kellin Rayco was gripping the edge of the tactical horseshoe console, he looked like he was using the solid surface to stretch his triceps.  He had a tendency to fidget when he was anxious and had admitted to being self-conscious about it at times.  Nune suspected Kellin was forcing himself to remain still, to emulate Taes in his own way.  Kellin’s eyes were half-lidded when he spoke.  In fact, little to none of Kellin’s typical boisterous energy shone through his inflection.  Perhaps he was still for a different reason.

“Nearly a dozen different governments and organisations operate freighters of that class,” Kellin tentatively said.  He crossed his arms over his chest.  “Doesn’t exactly narrow down the number of possible suspects.”

Looking only at Flavia, Nune chimed in to ask, “Did the Vishatha defend the Olympic?”

Flavia only answered with a resolute, “Yes, of course.”

Sitting in the captain’s chair, Taes patted the executive officer’s chair beside her as a reminder to Kellin to vacate the tactical station.  She looked back over her shoulder to catch Kellin’s eye.

“Commander Rayco, you’re on the case,” Taes ordered.  “Find out who attacked the Olympic and, more importantly, find out why.  Coordinate with Elbon; he’ll discover what information he can from their crew.”  –Wincing in discomfort, Taes shifted her posture in the captain’s chair– “Flavia will support, even if it means putting independent research on hold.  I want the science department digging through every individual quad of sensor data we collected on Ullho.  By the end of this shift, I want at least ten theories on what we may have done that could have caused such distress to that Antares freighter.”

“Aye, Captain,” Kellin said.

Taes shifted her weight again and, with a quiet huff, returned to her feet.  She crossed paths with Kellin as he ascended the command platform.  Taes clattered down the stairs to join Nune at the engineering hub.  Standing behind Nune’s chair, Taes clasped both of his shoulders.  He could physically and psychically feel the strength she was openly sharing with him.

“Welcome home, Lieutenant Nune,” Taes said encouragingly, “and now we have you with us again, I want the warp core prepared for emergency speed.  Don’t hesitate to ask for any resources you require.  If that freighter was waiting for Olympic, she could have a sister ship looking for us too.”

“You can count on me, captain,” Nune said, elated to have her trust after the blood dilithium messiness.

Taes was already rounding the tactical horseshoe and waggling an index finger at the Edosian officer who had taken over Kellin’s typical posting.  Nune’s Betazoid senses could feel the strength of anxious energy boiling under Taes’ skin.  Even as she walked away from him, he could sense her so clearly.

“Lieutenant Jurij,” Taes ordered, “work with Operations to triple our forcefield redundancy.  Start shutting down labs and non-essential sensor arrays if you must.”  Darting in a new direction, Taes adopted a path of travel that would take her directly to her ready room.

“Commander Rayco, you have the CONN,” Taes said, leaving Kellin in command of the bridge.

Despite the clarity of Taes’ intention to excuse herself from the bridge, Lieutenant Yuulik jumped up from her seat at the science hub and scampered to catch up with Taes.  Yuulik long-jumped the entire set of stairs down from the science hub and remained on her feet well enough to stride apace with Taes.

Breathlessly, Yuulik said, “Captain, I hoped to speak with you about my report on the USS Brigadoon affair…”

Taes didn’t spare Yuulik a look, nor did she slow her pace.

Instead, Taes flatly said, “I asked you for no report, lieutenant.  Flavia is my Chief Science Officer.”

Nune took notice of how uncharacteristic it was for Taes to refer to one of her crew by their rank and their rank only.

Yuulik must have noticed it too because she sputtered, “Yes, but– or, and you’re my captain?”

The double doors to the ready room parted for Taes.  She stepped through the opening even before the doors had fully receded into the bulkhead.  Taes spun on her heel to face Yuulik.  Not only did Taes face Yuulik, she breathed in deeply to expand her ribcage, expanding her body to block the path through the hatchway.

Speaking softly, Taes remarked, “If you need to confess someone, you have a department head and you have a counselor.”

Taes stabbed at the manual door control with a finger.  She didn’t blink once.  As the doors closed between her and Yuulik, she spat out her final words on the subject.

“Take your pick.”

Stalking to the very spot where the cobblestone path met a bench, Flavia stopped and she made a sweeping hand gesture.  She silently offered her leave for the junior science officer to sit ahead of a superior.  Because Starfleet officers had little to gossip about, scuttlebutt around the ship would suggest this particular bench offered the best view of the arboretum’s pond.  

T’Kaal did not choose to sit.  Instead, she stood her ground and folded her hands behind her back.  T’Kaal raised her chin at Flavia and she raised a hard-angled Vulcan eyebrow too.  There was distasteful puzzlement in T’Kaal’s stare, as if Flavia’s gestures were an entirely unknowable form of communication.

Flavia, in turn, sat in the very middle of the bench.  T’Kaal patiently stood by.

“Can I ask for your assistance, lieutenant?” Flavia asked.  “On Romulus, my parents never had the forethought to train me in memory accuracy technique as a child.  On Vulcan, though, I understand such programming by parents is far more common.  What can you tell me about the Sarek’s mission to Ullho?”

With the Starfleet officers under her command –in her role as Chief Science Officer– Flavia did not have permission to interrogate them as she would do the scientists from her own government.  She reminded herself to smile.  It wasn’t a gregarious smile; those only made Starfleet officers distrustful.

Impassively, T’Kaal replied, “I remember all of my experiences with precision and clarity.”

“Mmmhmmm, I understand,” Flavia retorted, suppressing an edge of annoyance at what she received as an intentionally obtuse response from T’Kaal.  Accurate, perhaps, but ultimately meaningless.  

In a saccharine tone, Flavia clarified, “What memories stand out for you?”

“My recall for all memories is equal,” T’Kaal said.  She blinked.  “Do Romulans have less capacity for memory when under emotional distress?”

Flavia squinted at T’Kaal.  “Your pointed question almost feels like an answer to me,” Flavia said.  By discussing feelings and childhood programming, Flavia continued to use provocative language in the hopes of eliciting a raw response from the Vulcan; a response that was neither guarded nor composed.  

Feigning intrigue at T’Kaal’s line of inference, Flavia asked, “Tell me about a time when you observed me becoming emotional on the Ullho mission?”

“Each time you failed,” T’Kaal said, “your personal affectation became flat and reserved.  The Romulan Star Empire star charts you presented as a map to the abandoned Romulan outpost proved incomplete.  Perhaps the files were corrupted or you exaggerated their worth?  I recall with perfect clarity every one of the three planets in the Typhon Expanse we surveyed in search of the outpost before we finally located Ullho.”

The holographic sun had continued its trek across the holographic sky by the time Flavia was meandering along a different cobblestone path in the arboretum.  Her pace was slow and measured, each step in sync with those of Ensign Dolan, from the archaeology department.

“What can you tell me about the Sarek’s mission to Ullho?” Flavia asked Dolan.

“There’s little to tell beyond your initial hypothesis,” Dolan answered.  He sounded irritated to be asked an obvious question but was unafraid to show his irritation.  “Sensor scans confirmed the Romulan outpost on Ullho was constructed over two hundred and fifty years ago and had been abandoned for almost as long.  Days after we began our excavation and analysis, the Sarek was given new orders to report to the Delta Quadrant.”

Flavia scoffed.  “I know my own hypothesis, ensign.  I planned the mission.  Tell me about your experiences of the planet.”

Dolan planted his feet in the grass, beyond the path.  His posture visibly stiffened and he crossed his arms over his chest.  When he responded, his brow was knit in consternation.

“I don’t wish to be inaccurate,” he said.  “If you’ll allow me to review my logs, review my tricorder readings–“

“But what does your instinct tell you?” Flavia demanded.  She balled her fists and she raised her voice, pleading with the Zaldan science officer to reflect deeper than his tedious Starfleet indoctrination.  

Flavia entreated, “Computers will lie to us; they tell us whatever we tell them to tell us.  I understand the importance of truth in your culture, but you’re no Vulcan.  What is the truth of Ullho to you?  What can you feel with all the certainty of the blood circulating through your body?”

Uncomfortably, Dolan replied, “I don’t understand that question.”

“When the Olympic was attacked,” Flavia asked, “was Ullho being protected from the Olympic or was the Olympic being protected from Ullho?”

Dolan sputtered out a puzzled, “Huh?”

Hopping from one of their motive trunks to another, Doctor Nelli splashed in the arboretum’s pond.  Although they had no face, no facial expression to examine, the Phylosian danced in the water with all the self-assurance of a child.  From the moment Nelli had dipped their first leaf in the water, they had shown not interest in their ongoing conversation with Flavia.  Nelli had left Flavia on the grassy shore with her arms crossed over her chest, silently crafting a strategy.  This served as a biting reminder that Flavia knew too little about the Phylosian chief medical officer, compared to the rest of the senior staff.

As if no time had passed while Flavia was left waiting, Nelli settled their footing in the pond and they swung their red eye-stalks in Flavia’s direction.

“Take no offense, I plea,” Nelli said to Flavia.  “The inspection of the withered husk, the outpost, offered little of interest.  It carried no scent of novelty or variation.”

Having recaptured Nelli’s attention, Flavia lowered herself to sit in the grass.  She made herself comfortable and she watched as Nelli’s eye-stalks moved in response.

“Then why did you join the away teams on Ullho?” Flavia gently asked.  “You could have remained in sickbay, I wager.”

Nelli said, “Beaming into a living world held more appeal than the Sarek.  Ensign Dolan sought my expertise at his dig of the land the outpost was built upon.  Before I ever learned about humanoid biology, I knew deeply about humus layers in soil, be it pollen, seeds, phytoliths, or palynomorphs.  He thought he discovered a second deposit of shell midden in the earth, but we were called away to investigate blood dilithium before we collected sufficient samples to examine.”

Although Flavia had requested Yuulik meet her at a specific time on a specific bench, Flavia was late for the meeting with her assistant chief of the science department.  Despite this, Flavia made no haste to close the distance between them as she crossed the grass.  Rather, Flavia admired the holographic sky and she plucked a leaf that had adhered to the sleeve of her olive-green jumpsuit.  From her peripheral vision, Flavia observed that Yuulik was equally unbothered, sipping from a wide-set mug.  Only when Flavia perched herself on the bench beside Yuulik did Flavia smell the strong fishy aroma wafting from the mug.

Without preamble, Flavia started to ask “What can you tell me about–“

But Yuulik beat her to it, interjecting, “I can’t say I ever believed you were going to allow us unfettered access to the Romulan outpost on Ullho.”

Pursing her lips, Flavia folded her hands in her lap and she nodded at Yuulik’s guileless suspicions.  She performed an affectation of deep concern because it was the last thing Yuulik would want.

“My government assessed the centuries-old technology and intelligence in the outpost,” Flavia countered, “was roughly equal to Starfleet’s current levels of development.  Revealing it to your team of scientists would pose little to no risk to state security.”

Even while slurping from her mug again, Yuulik’s eyes remained locked on Flavia, ablaze with competitive ferocity.

Yuulik had hardly choked down a mouthful of fish stock when she posed, “Ahh, but the Romulan Republic could have thought differently!  The Republic could have easily hired the freighter to attack Olympic.  Or one of the independent Romulan factions?  Not to mention some secret faction within the Romulan Free State!”

Flavia smirked.

“Have you shared your conjecture with Captain Taes?” Flavia asked.

Yuulik was too quick to answer: “No, I’m asking you.”

“Even if I knew, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,” was Flavia’s tart response.

A painfully tight smile crossed Flavia’s expression.

“Now it’s my turn,” Flavia added.  “Before my assignment to the Sarek, I only ever kormerkeked with Taes over subspace.  You’re the one who spent every day alongside Captain Taes for the past year, whispering in her ear as her scientific advisor.  Tell me truly, does Taes want Ullho for herself?  Does she have the steel to orchestrate the attack on Olympic remotely?”

By the time Yuulik had been shouting at Flavia for nearly three minutes, Ketris had peered out from a bush and given Flavia a look.  The Romulan eyebrow was capable of arching in a dozen different formations and, in Flavia’s observation, Ketris had managed to learn another dozen more among her decades of intimidating young scientists.  This particular eyebrow arch communicated both begrudging approval and also impatience.  Ketris widened her eyes at Flavia to communicate: it’s time for the adults to talk.

Flavia began to make excuses to Yuulik but it proved unnecessary.  Yuulik insisted she would be the first to storm off.  Without another word, Yuulik proceeded to stomp off to an exitway, tossing her mug aside along the way.  Only once Yuulik was out of sight did Flavia follow Ketris into the arboretum’s small environmental control room.

As soon as they were alone, Ketris spoke to Flavia in a common Romulan language they shared.  What Ketris said was, “For what reason did you meet with each of the Starfleeters?”

Although Ketris asked Flavia a question to gather information, it was plain to Flavia that such a question was a mask.  Ketris had no interest in the reasons; she was simply visiting Flavia’s intentions as their mission’s leader.

“Captain Taes has challenged me to treat her science officers as if they were my own,” Flavia responded, swallowing her indigence at being questioned.  

Feigning confusion in that way that had sliced through Flavia’s self-confidence so many times before, Ketris said, “The Starfleet scientists would expect a team briefing together.  And yet you divided them?”  The deeper the lines of confusion on Ketris’ face, the deeper Flavia questioned if her stratagem was in any way coherent.

“A Starfleet briefing is designed to provide information,” Flavia said.  “My intention was the opposite.  Now it’s your turn.  Have you spoken with our colleague Lakken aboard the Olympic?”

“I have,” Ketris said simply.

Flavia lowered her voice to a whisper, when she asked, “Did he arrange the attack on the Olympic?“

A husky laugh escaped Ketris’ lips.

“He asked if you had arranged it.”

It snuck up on him like heartburn.  In his semi-conscious state, anxious thoughts of the attack on the USS Olympic interrupted his drowsing, unbidden.  His mind’s eye evoked images of the bridge crew rallying to the pitched battle, except, in this waking dream, every one of them looked exactly like Captain Taes.  His mood began to sour before he understood the cause was the emotional state of another.  Through his Betazoid senses, he felt pinches at the edges of his consciousness like pops of static electricity.  The foul mood fully clouded over him shortly before he felt a sudden absence of sunlight on his face.

Nune opened his eyes.

Clad in swim trunks, Nune was reclined on a deck chair when he heard the heavy footfalls approaching.  He opened his eyes to find Yuulik looming large over him.  Even through his sunglasses, he was forced to squint through the glare overhead.   To Nune, the Arcadian’s visage was haloed by the holographic projection of the sun on the arboretum’s three-deck-high overhead.  At first blink, it looked like Yuulik’s head was on fire.

Yuulik frowned down at him.  There was something pitying in the crease of her eyelids.  She waved her hand in the general direction of his bare chest.

“You know you won’t get a tan that way, yes?” she asked, her voice faltering halfway through.

As if an entire paragraph could be said in a single sigh, Nune responded, “Holographic sunbathing may not fool my skin but it fools my mind.”  –He cleared his throat–  “I just returned from four weeks in a starbase psychiatric facility.  Please excuse me if my quarters are feeling a little claustrophobic.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Yuulik took a step back.  There was something elfen about her appearance when her lips thinned into that sheepish cringe.

“You’re going to laugh,” Yuulik said brashly, “when you discover this is my way of asking for a favour.”

When Yuulik dropped onto the deck chair beside his, Nune shifted his posture into an upright position to match her.

Nune removed his sunglasses, hoping Yuulik would be able to see the sincerity in his eyes.  He further hoped his sober expression looked nothing like the haunted man he had been under the psychic influence of blood dilithium.  Nune had menaced Yuulik to the point of abuse and she had pointedly never forgiven him for his actions, even if he hadn’t been in control of his faculties at the time.  She had professed to hate him, even weeks after his recovery.

Nune said, “I never imagined I would deserve to be in your presence again, Sootrah.  Your request for a favour is most welcome.”

“I don’t know if anyone in the crew knows Taes as well as I do,” Yuulik said.  She folded her hands over one thigh and diffidently dropped her gaze into her lap.  “But you’re Betazoid.  You can know for a fact what’s preying on her mind.”

Reflexively scoffing at her request, Nune said, “I can’t profess to be the most disciplined Betazoid in Starfleet, but I would be the one preying on Taes’ mind if I excavated her conscious thoughts too closely.  I won’t do that to her.”

“In passing then,” Yuulik proposed.  She blew an exasperated breath through her lips, clearly unimpressed with a matter she viewed as mere semantics.  “Have you not noticed a change in Captain Taes since you came back?”

Nune shrugged helplessly.  “It’s only been a few days now,” he said.  “She spends more time in her ready room, I suppose, while we’re at cruising speeds.”

Yuulik stridency interjected, “And she won’t talk to me!  Why won’t Taes talk to me?”

Although Nune could feel his eyebrows raising up his forehead, he doubted Yuulik had the emotional intelligence to read such cues.  

So he asked, “What do you think she’s thinking?”

Huffing at him, Nune could feel Yuulik’s frustration at being asked to take the slow path.  After a couple of huffs, she began counting off her points with raised fingers.

“Observation one: even when I stole team data for my private research a year ago, Taes joined me in the rain on New Tenar, for hours, to examine a box of bones,” Yuulik said impassively.  “Observation two: when I publicly questioned the hubris of her plan to feed the entire Kunrhi system with weeds, we stayed up all night repeatedly, designing the farms together.  Observation three: after I tried to augment myself in the Delta Quadrant, Taes wouldn’t give me one moment’s privacy in Sickbay.  All she could talk about was ways to promote me, while testing my methods for destroying blood dilithium.”

Yuulik huffed again.  “My hypothesis?  I’m Captain Taes’ mentor, but she has given up on living up to my quality of brilliance.”

Nune was left speechless.

“Leander, I need to know,” Yuulik said to him, “Why has Taes given up on me?”

Nune shook his head at her.  It was a small movement.  He didn’t want to meet the intensity of her mood.

“I can’t hand you the answer to a question like that, even if I knew,” Nune remarked.  He balled his hand into a fist and he beat it against his abdomen twice.  “You have to feel it.  You have to find it for yourself.”

Distraught, Yuulik asked, “Are you saying you do know and you’re not going to tell me?  Bitch, you owe me.  You say you were intoxicated on blood dilithium, but you’re the one who hit me.  You did.  You owe me!”

Remaining still, Nune took a deep breath.  He looked at Yuulik, really looked at her, when he said, “I can see how much Taes means to you, Sootrah.  I wish I could tell you what has changed since I’ve been gone, but what has changed is that Taes’ mind is completely closed to me now.”

Stepping into the Captain’s Ready Room from the bridge felt an awful lot like stepping out of the known physical universe.  Even the foundational realities of starship construction were no constraint to the ready room.  The copper and transparent duranium plating, which framed out each deck, was hidden behind the pale pink facings that decorated every surface.  Sourced from a textile manufacturer on Delta IV, even the texture of the walls and floors was unfamiliar: neither metallic, nor woven, nor claylike, nor glass.  

Those first steps through the doorway took one down a spiralling ramp that opened up into the ready room proper on deck two.  Descending that ramp felt like plummeting into the very mind of Captain Taes.  Although the compartment was large –easily twice the size of the observation lounge– it had been designed by Taes with half a dozen partitions, sub-dividing the area into a labyrinth of vestibules and antechambers.

Sootrah Yuulik could have sworn she walked through five different archways before she located Captain Taes.  Maybe she had even walked through the same archway twice.  

“Captain?” Yuulik had said repeatedly and received no reply each time.  “Captain, I would like to present my theories on Ullho to you.”  Still, she received no reply.

Even when Yuulik found Taes seated on a pink mat on the deck, Taes offered no reply or acknowledgement.  Rather, Taes was staring into a meditation crystal, which was raised upon a plinth.  Yuulik took a tentative step closer and she used her PADD as a fan, waving it close to Taes’ face.

Taes blinked.

The placid expression across her face became marred by a downward twist to her lips as if the taste of something exceedingly bitter had crossed her tongue.  Despite the change in her disposition, Taes’ dark brown eyes never appeared to lose their soft focus on the meditation crystal.

“Let me reassure you,” Taes said suddenly.  She spoke slowly, enunciating her words with a crispness Yuulik had rarely heard from her.  “Your chief science officer will keep me apprised of the department’s progress.”

There was a tightness in Yuulik’s throat when she said, “Yes, yes, for the sake of political convenient, I’m not the chief in name.”  As much as she could guess that sounded dismissive, her wistful nostalgia became equally hard to hide.  “But that’s never mattered to us.  This is what we do.  I wasn’t the chief on New Tenar or Kunhri or Camus.  We still quietly stepped away from the plebeians to have a proper look into the research and imagine what else is possible.”

Taes didn’t even blink.  The twist to her lips had relaxed, the placid expression returning as if Yuulik had left her alone again.  She said nothing.

“What if I’ve overlooked something disastrous, captain?” Yuulik asked.  “Only your experience can–“

Jutting her chin up at Yuulik, Taes said tersely, “Don’t pretend to flatter me.  Your aims are transparent.”

Proffering the PADD in her face again, Yuulik demanded of Taes, “Then look at it!”

Taes didn’t flinch from the PADD; she simply waited.  She waited until Yuulik recognised the futility of the gesture and ended the desperate plea.  She waited and it worked.  Only when Yuulik lowered her arm did Taes rise to her feet.  Standing across from Yuulik, Taes half-heartedly pointed at the PADD.

“That is procedure,” Taes said through a brittle intonation.  “You have forty-five decks where it’s justifiable for you to armour yourself in procedure.  This patch you’re standing upon now is in my ready room.  This space is for reflection, looking inward for the development of your own being.  You, Yuulik, have no business being here.  You are incapable of self-reflection.”

Yuulik shrugged at Taes.  “I know that.  You don’t have to tell me that.  But you won’t reflect with me.  This is what we do.”

Taes shook her bald head.  The small movement spoke of defeat and frustration.

“What do you want, Yuulik?” Taes impatiently asked.

Petulantly, Yuulik replied, “You haven’t said anything to me about the USS Brigadoon.”

“What!  Do you!  Want?” Taes demanded.

“Just tell me!” Yuulik snapped back.  “End the suspense already.  Tell me what you thought of my plan to save the Brigadoon.“

Taes declared, “You mean when you decided you knew better than your nine-hundred peers aboard this ship?  Again.  When you compromised ship systems?  Again.  To trick me into searching out the Brigadoon?  And then you dragged us headlong into danger?  Again!“

Taking a step back, Taes crossed her palms over her chest.  Her jaw tightened in a stricken expression and the hardness in her eyes made her look capable of murder.

“The Sarek was almost lost,” Taes said breathlessly.  “You nearly killed us all.”

Dropping to her knees, Yuulik pleaded, “I know!  I was terrified.  That’s why I need you!  We need to analyse every step of that mission.  You need to tell me how to become a better scientist, a better department head!”

Gently, Taes said, “No, Yuulik.  I don’t.”

She shook her head again and she lowered her chin.

“What?” Yuulik scoffed.

Taes nodded at the access door to the corridor on deck two.  

“You’re permitted to leave now,” Taes said.

“You win!” Yuulik beseeched, her voice raspy.  “I concede, all right?  Is that what you want?  You get to mold me, shape me, turn me into your plaything.  Just forgive me, all right?  You have to forgive me, captain.  You have to–“

With one hand, Taes grabbed Yuulik by the front of her uniform.  The flap of black fabric came loose and Tase twist the flap around her wrist.  As soon as she had a firm grasp, Taes wrenched Yuulik to her feet, tugging Yuulik’s face close to her own.

Taes whispered something to Yuulik through tears and then she released Yuulik with a shove.  Taes tugged at the lower hem of her own uniform jacket to smooth out the creases.  She then walked past Yuulik, ascending the ramp back to the bridge.

Yuulik would long be haunted by how shattered Taes sounded, when she whispered, “You were my favourite.”