He woke with the taste of blood on his lips and an ache in his knuckles as if they were scuffed by blows. For long, thudding heartbeats, the gloom around him did not shroud the walls of his quarters aboard night-clad Gateway Station, or even a shadowy unknown. He knew this darkness as it seeped as much from his soul as hiding from the sun, knew what lay within, knew its secrets. That made it only harder to slow his breathing, steel himself, and croak, ‘Computer, lights.’

Illumination flooding his quarters banished the shadows, but not the seductive tang on his tongue, nor the satisfying throb in his hands, so deep the blows might have been fresh. It brought him to the here and now, to a cold, respectable present, away from the memories of blood and brutality. But no light could sear away the secret. The dreams ringing with the echoes of blood dilithium were not nightmares.

Adamant Rhade rose from his bed and staggered to the bathroom. The chill of the metal deck on his feet was grounding, as was the hiss of the faucet as he bent over the sink. When he soaked his hands in cold water, they were clean, untouched. The splash of water in his eyes pushed back the darkness, and he looked up at the mirror.

To see his reflected form wrapped and bound in chains dripping with emerald blood.

This time when he woke up, he was choking in bed, kicking against the covers, and there was no quiet seduction of ancient horrors to this awakening. For a moment as he sat up, wracked double by his retching, he thought he’d spat out blood. Lights flooding to life in his quarters were cooler, seemingly dimmer than in the dream of false awakening, and he was much heavier of gait when he staggered to the bathroom anew. This time, his reflection showed only his slumped form, exhausted and somehow shrunken by sleep. He would not go so far as to say that this time, it showed the truth.

Tap water washed the taste of blood but left him cold. It was with reluctance that he returned to his room and approached the wall panel, a tap of the display bringing it to life. He was on the comms controls, halfway to opening a line to Greg Carraway before he remembered the station’s counsellor was not aboard, was at Teros with Ambassador Hale and the Redemption. His staff remained, but the thought of hailing them in the middle of the night to talk about the old nightmare made his fingers curl away from the panel.

Rhade paused a moment, hand bracing on the bulkhead. It was a mere dream. He had techniques for this; breathing exercises, pacing out his rooms to ground himself in the present, even going to the gym facilities to push his body’s limits enough to bind him in his own flesh and blood rather than the recesses of his mind. And yet, he hesitated.

Later, he would say it was an irrational impulse that saw him move to a different section of the comms registry. A paranoia that lead to truth. Later, he would pretend to everyone, even himself, that he did not hear the rattle of chains a moment before he opened a new channel. ‘Rhade to Station Security. Has something happened?’

He knew he was right by the gruff, confused voice that took a beat before answering. ‘…just got the report in now, Commander,’ said a bemused Chief Kowalski. ‘You in the area?’

‘No,’ said Rhade, walking away from the display to slide open his wardrobe door, revealing all the hanging red-shouldered uniform jackets. The identical masks shrouding him in the respectability of his station, his rank, and blotting out the blood. ‘Send me the location, Chief. I’ll meet you there.’

At this late hour by station time, the involvement of Kowalski meant something was sorely amiss; the Chief of Arcade Security must have been roused and summoned. When Rhade arrived at the old storage spaces near the Arcade, disused since SB-27’s relocation to this frontier, and found Doctor Elvad in attendance, he realised the matter was serious.

‘The devil works fast,’ growled Kowalski at the sight of Rhade, ‘but Gateway’s rumour mill’s faster.’

These storage facilities were once for the cargo of incoming civilian ships, but Gateway had yet to reach the same dizzy heights of traffic in the Midgard Sector. Row after row of storage compartments stretched out before them, each section hidden behind a door. Security officers hummed about the area with a subdued energy, as if whatever had happened was sapping them of their will far more than any physical fatigue.

‘You have a terrible taste in when to be nosy, Commander,’ drawled Elvad. ‘This is a bloody mess.’

‘I can see that,’ said Rhade, looking down the row of compartments at the door smeared with dark emerald blood. ‘What have we got?’

This was not his area of responsibility. But he was still Senior Officer of the Watch, still a ranking figure aboard the station, and he and Kowalski went back a ways with the Hazard Team. Without further question, the security chief led him and Doctor Elvad down to the blood-stained door, and opened up the small storage compartment. ‘We don’t want to contaminate the scene, so we’ve got forensics coming down. But you can take a look. You know the protocol.’

This time, Rhade knew the taste of blood in the air was real. The young Romulan man was a slumped, small figure in the empty compartment, clad in the simple garb worn by most of the Teros refugees. Newly arrived after Ambassador Hale’s negotiations, they were a small commune on the station being processed and receiving help before their upcoming settlement on the surface of Alfheim below. Rhade had had little to do with them, with the politics of resettling a small group from Teros to Federation space, with the resistance of the Midgard colonists, or with the care and support they were receiving from Gateway’s crew on arrival. But there was no mistaking the provenance of this young Romulan. Nor was there any mistaking that he was dead.

‘Great Fire.’ The words slithered from his throat like a choke. ‘When was he found?’

The lone security officer who’d been keeping watch inside the compartment, a petty officer in his thirties that Rhade didn’t recognise, turned from his vigil over the corpse. ‘I was doing my patrol down here, sir. Found him.’

Kowalski waved a hand at the security officer. ‘This is Petty Officer Amaru; it’s his beat. We haven’t reinstated much of the systems down here, because the area’s not in use. Until we do, we keep watch with the occasional boot-leather.’

Rhade did not look at Amaru, taking one step forward. Any more, and his boots would become slick with the emerald blood staining the deck. That flow belied how the young Romulan had died, his throat slit from ear to ear. This would have been plain to see but for what drew the eye more: the pale, ivory horn as long as Rhade’s forearm that had impaled the youth in the chest, and the slick metal chains that bound his wrists and ankles. ‘He was stabbed after he died.’

‘So it would seem,’ said Elvad in a low, level voice. ‘I’ve only run my scans from here. I’m waiting for forensics so they don’t shout at me for disturbing anything.’ The Cardassian surgeon’s expression was steeled, but a muscle worked in the corner of his jaw. ‘Someone decided the first murder of Gateway must be stylish.’

Amaru gave a low scoff. He was a square-faced man, salt in his dark hair, sallow of expression. At their glances, he winced. ‘Sorry, sir. Just to say – no coincidence, is it, that you bring in the Romulans and then trouble follows.’

Elvad’s gaze was cool. ‘You’ve been in the Midgard system a while, haven’t you, Petty Officer?’

‘I have, sir. I know the area.’

‘Hm.’

Rhade looked at Kowalski, ignoring the exchange. ‘Do we know who he is?’

Kowalski nodded. ‘Name of Voler. Best as we know, he’s got no family, dependants, which seems likely why he left Teros for Midgard. But he must have travelled with some. I’m headed to the commune next to try to probe ‘em on who knew him, who knew what about him, without letting slip yet that he’s been brutally murdered in a fuckin’ storage room when trying to get away from hardships.’

Rhade ran a thumb over his wrists as if he felt the weight of metal back upon them. ‘This took organisation. Preparation, equipment, knowledge –’

‘I know, Commander. I’m on it.’ Against logic, Kowalski brightened an iota as something occurred to him. ‘You can tell Rourke. The station commander needs to know when there’s been a messed up murder with props on aboard.’

Rhade nodded. ‘You should contain information, though. People only kill like this for a few reasons. Like wanting to spread fear.’

‘Or,’ said Amaru, ‘because they really, really hate each other. They’ve brought their grudges with them.’ He shrugged at their looks. ‘This boy had no reason to come in here; he was lured. There’s no sign of a fight. He knew the person who did it.’

‘Or people,’ said Rhade.

‘Why,’ pressed Elvad, ‘would refugees on Teros on the verge of getting what they’ve wanted for fifteen years – settlement on a Federation world with appropriate support – decide to wait until they’re on Gateway Station before ritualistically killing each other?’

‘This is the Federation,’ said Amaru doggedly. ‘People don’t do that here.’

‘They clearly did.’

‘Federation citizens don’t do that.’

The smell of blood was almost overwhelming by now but it was not, Rhade thought, sickening. Black and emerald like oil, even by sight it felt like it seeped into every part of him. His knuckles throbbed anew, like they had in his dreams, like they had when the song of blood dilithium had drowned out all sense and he’d beaten the helpless young Devore officer to death. Deep in skin and bone, the throb was not painful as it hummed through him, stirring his veins. His nostrils flared as he swallowed. ‘I’ll inform Commodore Rourke. Keep me posted, Chief. He’ll want to be updated, but you’ve got work to do. I’ll liaise.’

‘Very good, Commander,’ said Kowalski, with obvious relief that he wouldn’t have to handle the station’s command staff on top of this murder.

Rhade paused at the doors, open but not flush against the bulkhead, and turned to look at Elvad. ‘Is this the victim’s?’ he said, gesturing to the bloodstains.

Elvad glanced over, disinterested. ‘Is what the victim’s?’

When he blinked, the stains were gone. The door was clean, identical to that of every other storage room. Again, Rhade swallowed, euphoria shifting at last for nausea. ‘I mean – did he bring any of this. The chains. The horn. Are they replicated? We need to know all of this.’

‘I’ll get you the report,’ said Kowalski firmly, ‘once we know anything more.’

Rhade nodded, focus flowing back into his vision. ‘Keep me posted, Chief. We need to understand what’s happened here.’ And he left, with the throbbing of his knuckles and the echo of metal weights trailing across his skin, and felt in his blood he understood what had happened far more than even he knew.

Even sending word ahead of time, Commodore Rourke didn’t look particularly happy at Rhade coming to his quarters at 0400 hours. Nevertheless, the station commander ushered him in with a curt wave of the hand, still in pyjamas and a comfortable dressing gown. ‘Is this as bad as it sounded from the report?’

‘Worse,’ said Rhade, entering the CO’s quarters. On a starbase like Gateway, the commanding officer enjoyed a full, multi-deck apartment. Rourke was clearly in the process of moving in, some of the standard-issue decorations still in place, but any effort to make the rooms appealing was eased with the huge exterior windows stretching across the far bulkhead. At this time of day, the surface of Alfheim peeked at the corner. By the time Rourke should have been waking up, he could stand by the window and look down on the colony over a cup of coffee.

That came earlier today, Rourke setting a mug on the breakfast nook as he sat down. ‘A Romulan refugee’s been murdered within days of getting here, on his way to what we promised was a better life in Federation space. How does it get worse?’

‘You didn’t see the state of him,’ sighed Rhade. His eyes swung about the rooms some more. He knew Rourke lived with his teenaged daughter, who’d decided the frontier was a more exciting place to be than wherever she’d come from the core worlds, and at last her father lived somewhere he could keep family close. It also wasn’t a secret that Commodore Rourke and Ambassador Hale were in a relationship, but she was off on Teros, and still formally had her own rooms on the station.

‘Brutal?’ Rourke checked, bringing Rhade’s attention and thoughts back to the murder.

‘Thoroughly. Enough that I’m sure Kowalski will say that this is personal in some way – that someone truly hated this young man.’

‘That doesn’t preclude a hate crime,’ Rourke pointed out.

‘There’s more, sir. It’s… the only word for it is ritualistic. He wasn’t just restrained, he was restrained with chains. Then there’s the post-mortem impaling by an ivory horn. All of this is, at least, to send a message. But I don’t know to whom.’

If Rourke had been unhappy at being woken up, he at least looked a lot more awake now. He did not look more happy as he sipped his coffee. ‘You want me to put a lid on this.’

‘As much as possible. Which won’t be a lot once Kowalski starts talking to the refugees.’ Rhade winced. ‘Sir, I’m afraid Alfheim Colony will start to use this as an excuse to delay their settlement on the surface.’

‘You don’t need to be afraid of that. They’ll definitely use it as an excuse. They’ll say that we can’t put refugees on the surface if one of them is a weirdo ritualistic murderer.’

‘We can hardly punish them all for the suspicion one of them did this.’

‘Legally? It’s arguably grounds to delay the resettlement. There’s arguably a threat to the safety of Federation citizens. Never mind the Romulans are going to be hundreds of miles away from anyone on their own damn island. Morally, it’s ridiculous. But that’s what the people of Alfheim do, Commander, you’ll learn to realise. This isn’t the Core Worlds, with its high-minded ideals. For hundreds of years, Alfheim has thought itself the last bastion of the Federation on a fraught frontier, facing off against the implacable Romulans.’ Rourke rolled his eyes. ‘They don’t unlearn that overnight.’

‘I understand, sir. I’ll help Chief Kowalski get to the bottom of this ASAP.’

Rourke looked him up and down. ‘What got you into this in the first place?’

‘I was in the area,’ Rhade lied without batting an eyelid. ‘And it seems this should have a senior officer involved. Especially one who’s trained in security and investigations.’

There was a gleam in Matt Rourke’s eyes, and Rhade wondered how much, in another world, the station commander would have dirtied his hands with the matter himself. For years, then-Lieutenant Rourke had led his own security investigations team along the Klingon border. There was probably nobody on the starbase more qualified to run this murder investigation than him.

But those days were long passed, and now Rourke had to set that keen mind to the politics of local Federation citizens desperate to keep out the wave of refugees they’d played a key role in leaving to struggle for decades. ‘This is a hell of a time for Ambassador Hale and Rosewood to be gone,’ Rourke groaned, rubbing his temples. ‘I’ll talk to Captain Everard in the morning. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I want you to stay on this case, Commander – don’t tread on Kowalski’s toes, he’s running point on the investigation, but stay abreast of things, keep me informed, make sure he has everything he needs.’

‘As you say,’ said Rhade briskly. ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you at such a time.’

Rourke waved a dismissive hand. ‘It serves me right for complaining that all I had to do here was process logistical requests.’ He hesitated. ‘Do I want to see the full images from the murder scene?’

Thinking of it, hours on, made Rhade feel less like he might drown in the scent of blood, the imagined sense of pain, of slitting a throat, of the hate and ecstasy that had to come hand-in-hand from such a kill. Now, he had to swallow a hint of bile as he shook his head. ‘You do not.’

‘Alright. I’ll try to keep the Alfheim folks off your and Kowalski’s backs. You keep me abreast so I’m properly armed.’ Rourke rubbed the back of his neck. ‘We’ve got to have someone in Science with an anthropology speciality about Romulans. Or a friendly Romulan. Get a consult on the imagery.’

Linking the concept of a ‘friendly’ Romulan to Commander Kharth felt irrational, but it was where Rhade’s mind went under the circumstances. He nodded, then said, voice softer, ‘Have we heard from Endeavour lately, sir?’

Rourke shrugged. ‘Just that they’re all fine and are on their way back.’

‘They will be fine,’ Rhade stressed. ‘Captain Valance is an exceptional commander. The crew are all exceptional.’

‘I know,’ rumbled Rourke, a little defensive, a little wistful. If he couldn’t be elbow-deep in a ritualistic murder, he could have been back on his bridge. Now he had to stand on this frontier starbase and not only handle politics, but wait for news for his old crew’s long and likely-dangerous return home. That did not stop him from his own empathising, and his gaze flickered back to Rhade. ‘Are you alright, Commander?’

For one irrational moment, Rhade thought Rourke was asking about his nightmares. Then he blinked the memory back and remembered Rourke had no reason to think that the killing might feel so close to home. He cleared his throat. ‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Endeavour being so far out. I know you and Lieutenant Thawn are separated, but…’ Rourke winced. ‘I also know divorce papers were in the last transmission.’

That, at least, was within the station commander’s remit. The man who had officiated their wedding was also in a position to see when next-of-kin information on their personnel files would change. ‘It’s not official yet,’ Rhade said, shifting his weight. ‘I expect we will need to speak to our respective families before anything is finalised. But we were never married by Betazoid custom.’

‘I know it’s more complicated than that.’

Rhade drew a sharp, raking breath. ‘We raced into getting married. That was clear, sir. After the Delta Quadrant, we made an impulsive decision. But before Rosara left, we talked matters through, openly and honestly at last. I care for her, deeply. I want her – the whole crew of Endeavour – to be well. But our relationship was something our families wanted – not us. At last, we’re making the right choice.’ He stood a little sharper than intended, and Rourke’s eyes flickered over him.

‘I don’t think anyone can blame you, Commander,’ Matt Rourke said, softer and more sympathetic, ‘for your judgement being compromised after the Delta Quadrant.’

The Delta Quadrant, where blood dilithium had driven him beyond the edge of sanity and led him to kill a man in cold blood. He’d been so lost in the aftermath, bewildered and unaware of who he was, what he was, that he hadn’t thought but to let slip his mistakes, his betrayal of Rosara with the traitor Dathan Tahla. At his lowest and most miserable, a traitor and cheat and murderer, he had been in no position to push against Thawn when she’d wanted to hide from her own mistakes by rushing into a marriage. They’d both tried to paper over the cracks in themselves with their duty and commitment to their people.

Rosara had broken free, running away with a man she truly cared about, recommitting to the life where he knew she shone. Rhade had thought he’d ripped the cracks open, too, realised he’d been wilfully naive in ignoring the warning signs, and was embracing honesty anew. But this night was suggesting there were more cracks in him than he’d truly known.

‘I can blame myself, sir,’ said Rhade at last, straightening. ‘But I thank you, as always, for taking a leap of faith and trusting me after that mission.’

‘It’s no leap of faith, Commander.’ Rourke turned to face him, and somehow he could look bold and reassuring even when bedraggled by sleep and swaddled in a comfy dressing gown. ‘You didn’t act of your own free will out there. I know who you are, and you’re an easy man to trust. Help Kowalski get to the bottom of this. He’ll need someone like you beside him.’

He doesn’t need a man who knows what it feels like to crush the life out of someone and enjoy it.

Rhade hid his expression by finishing the coffee and set it down a little too hard on the breakfast nook. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll go check our personnel roster now. See who we have who might advise on… chains and horns.’

‘Very good.’ Rourke scratched his beard, his eyes going to the steps to the upper floor. He had to be wondering, Rhade knew, what he’d tell his daughter. The truth would escape at some point. Did she get any of it now? Or did he lie and say nothing had happened until word of the street proved him wrong?

That was not a question Rhade envied having to answer. He had enough of his own struggles and was, at last, free of any commitment to any one person. He was, besides, an expert at lying to those close to him, however much he’d never meant to.

‘We’ll get answers, sir,’ Adamant Rhade assured the station commander. ‘And there’ll be justice.’

‘Justice for Romulan refugees,’ Matt Rourke mused, shaking his head, and suddenly looking very weary even for being woken up in the middle of the night. ‘That’ll be a novelty.’

‘Wouldn’t this be easier to do this down in the security office? We can make sure people are comfortable.’

Kowalski gave Rhade a dubious look as the turbolift whisked them down to the section of Gateway where the Teros refugees were being hosted. ‘That’ll make it look like we think they’ve all done something wrong.’

Rhade’s brow furrowed. ‘Won’t it look like we’re taking them seriously?’

‘There’s been a murder on the station. It’s serious.’ Kowalski rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Respectfully, Commander, you’re thinking like we’re in the Core Worlds. There, a show of strength from Starfleet or local law enforcement is reassuring. It reminds people that their protectors are around. What do you think Romulan refugees think of a Starfleet show of strength?’

Rhade, the son of a Betazoid noble house, gave a gentle sigh. ‘I suppose you’re right. That’s good thinking, Chief.’

‘I’m from Ajilon Prime,’ Kowalski mumbled self-effacingly. ‘I know frontiers.’

The turbolift halted to admit them to where the Teros refugees were being housed. It had taken delicate planning to make sure they were all kept together so they could be properly assessed and helped by the medical staff and the colonial planning team, without giving them the impression they were being corralled or even imprisoned. In the end, the refugees had been given some degree of choice, and chosen to stick together even if that meant their surroundings were a little less luxurious. Large groups were housed on corridors with sleeping and communal areas, but they were bunkrooms and small shared spaces, rather than the comfortable guest quarters which Gateway could offer but would have scattered them across the station.

They were in the corridor where Voler had lived, and Rhade kept silent as Kowalski gathered the other Romulans in the rather spartan communal area to talk with them. They’d already been told Voler was dead, so Rhade was spared witnessing that shock, but for a telepath this was almost worse. With the initial surprise wearing off, the grief oozed out of them like oil, while terror coiled tight around chests and throats and threatened to choke. They had come to the Midgard System for a better life, and now one of their own had been brutally taken away.

‘Anyone who would have wanted to hurt him was left behind on Teros,’ explained a gruff, matriarchal, older Romulan woman, who hushed the babbling confusion and fear that had begun to spill out over the gathering as Kowalski began his questions. ‘If you came to Gateway, you came to get away from violence. Not to bring it.’

‘I hear you,’ said Kowalski with a small nod, the big man with his craggy features unfailingly gentle when faced with the vulnerable. ‘Do you know who he spent time with here? If there’s anyone he met?’ He looked here to the gangly Romulan teenagers; Voler was a little older than them, but had acted as something of a big brother, a youth forced to grow up so fast he had to become responsible for others.

But there were only confused shakes of the head. Voler had been quiet and thoughtful, with no blood family of his own, but he’d still been a part of the refugee community. He’d been working hard with colonial affairs in the planning of what the surface-side settlement might look like, but otherwise had kept to his own. Nobody had any idea why he might go to the storage rooms, or who he might have left the housing section at night to go and see.

When they finished their questioning, the older Romulan woman slipped away from the crowd and joined them on what felt like a long walk down the corridor to the turbolift. ‘Is it true, Chief?’ she asked Kowalski, and Rhade felt her sense of trust in the security chief, who had been hands-on with them, far more than him, the stern senior officer who represented Starfleet’s indifference much more to her. ‘Is it true they had… done things to Voler?’

Kowalski grimaced, clearly mulling over what truths to tell. ‘It wasn’t pretty,’ he admitted at last. ‘Whoever did this planned it and wanted to hurt him. That’s all you need to know.’

The Romulan woman didn’t look much appeased by this, but she did let them go. Rhade waited until they were back on the turbolift before he shifted his feet. ‘She might have known something. About the horn. About the chains.’

‘Maybe,’ Kowalski grunted, ‘but I want to be sure we’re asking the right questions before I say there was some sick ritualistic shit.’ He reached into his uniform jacket and pulled out a PADD. ‘Forensics was done with the… props. The chains were civilian-fare replication.’

‘Federation civilian replication?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kowalski, drawing the word out. ‘But remember that Teros had the industrial replicator we left there.’ The we almost took Rhade by surprise; there had always been such a tone of accusation when anyone talked about Endeavour’s aborted relief mission to Teros two years prior that it felt odd for someone to admit to being a part of it. Moreso, Kowalski had been on the surface when Endeavour had begun to withdraw and the people of Teros had rioted, the violence spilling out and causing the death of helmsman Connor Drake. At the time, Rhade had still been in the brig after refusing Rourke’s orders in orbit, but Kowalski had suffered losses at the hands of these people and continued to help.

So it seems. What about the others who lost someone because these wretched people felt they hadn’t been helped enough, and lashed out?

Rhade had to swallow the ungenerous thought. ‘What about the horn?’

‘That gets weirder,’ Kowalski allowed, oblivious to any of Rhade’s discomfort. ‘It’s real. The horn of a furjweit, which is apparently a fairly-common bovine creature farmed on a lot of Romulan worlds? Native to somewhere in the empire then bred and spread out. That’s as much as we’ve got so far.’

‘That would need importing.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not the sort of thing that’s going to be flagged on an inventory. It could have been brought by refugees, too – some keepsake from home.’

‘It would be strange,’ mused Rhade, ‘if they replicated chains on Teros and then used them in a murder on Gateway.’

‘It would be strange to truss a young man up with chains, slit his throat, and then impale him in the heart with a cow’s horn.’ Kowalski put the PADD away. ‘Colonial Affairs next. If Voler was working with some of them, maybe they know a little more of his comings and goings.’

‘You sound unconvinced.’

Kowalski winced and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I just think… taking people off Teros really hurts the power of the Rebirth Movement. We’d ask why someone would take a grudge away from Teros and not act on it until they got to Gateway, but there’s a damn good reason: to make this resettlement fail.’

Rhade thought of Petty Officer Amaru, so convinced that the Romulans were bringing their inherently violent ways to the placidity of the Midgard system. The Rebirth Movement were not the only ones who would have liked to see the resettlement onto the surface of Alfheim fail. But Kowalski either knew that or would not take well to hearing ill of one of his officers, and Rhade held his tongue.

The Romulan refugees were housed in a rough-and-ready part of the station converted hastily to meet their needs. Colonial Affairs, however, occupied sparkling-white premises far closer to Gateway’s recreation areas and seats of power, and even on one starbase the transition was like night and day. Here, there was no tangy taste of metal or ripples of terror and grief enough to make him choke.

Here, they were greeted by civilian Federation staff who gave them refreshments and ushered them through to the offices of the team working on the surface settlement for the refugees. Windows stretched across the far bulkhead boasted holographic projections of the gentle hills of Alfheim, showing the horizon and time of day as if they were near the settlement location itself, a comfortable island far from the human habitations of the planet.

Yes, they had worked with Voler. Yes, he was giving feedback on the planning and even looking to be trained in some of the housing systems to help the settlement be as self-sustaining as possible. No, they had no idea who he spent time with personally or why anyone would hurt him.

Perhaps it was the rich dichotomy, the sense that these people sat in an ivory tower of comfort and planned every inch of the lives of the desperate, housed in harsh metal confines, that made it hard for Rhade to focus. Perhaps it was that they were telling him nothing new. Or perhaps, in the absence of the telepathic onslaught of being around the refugees, something else in him rose to fill the absence. But their words began to wash over him, and his gaze settled on the holographic display of the gentle horizon of the Alfheim islands that would be their new home.

For the mere span of one blink, the skies in the projection blazed red.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Kowalski sighed as they left the office and returned through the lobby.

Rhade swallowed hard, realising he’d followed Kowalski on automatic and that these were the first words to properly sink in. ‘We’re closing off avenues.’

‘And not opening new ones.’ But the turbolift doors opened before they got there, and when a wiry human man in his forties stepped out, Kowalski stopped and brightened. ‘And there’s someone we wanted to talk to. Mister Grimm!’

Rhade only knew of John Grimm, having never met the man before. His exact title escaped Rhade’s recollection at that moment, with the blood rushing in his ears and difficulty focusing, but he knew he was a staffer in the civilian government of the Midgard system, with its seat of power in the Alfheim colony, who had been running point on the liaisons between the local government and the plans to settle Romulan refugees on the surface. He was at least, by reputation, not the most vehement voice in opposition.

Grimm’s eyes lit up when he saw Kowalski. He was a hale and fit man with a swimmer’s build, grey creeping in at his temples, and wore the sort of suit Rhade knew was expensive and well-made but to the extent it hardly looked it, offering a simple, rather than showy, elegance. He made a bee-line for the officers, hand extended. ‘Chief Kowalski – exactly who I wanted to see.’ He dropped his voice as they came together at the outskirts of Colonial Affairs’s lobby, quiet and to the side but hardly private. ‘I heard about the Romulan boy.’

‘Damned rumour-mill,’ Kowalski muttered. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s bad business. Voler?’

Grimm’s brow furrowed in thought. ‘I know the name. That’s all, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Of course, you know that if the Midgard government can do anything to ease this process I’ll help, but once word of this gets out there’s going to be an absolute mess…’

And like that, his words fell into the usual politics of evading and excusing. Rhade knew that even if he was sincere, there would be people in local government who’d be delighted at the excuse to pull the plug on this settlement, but it was still enough for the air to begin again rushing in his ears, for his focus to drift.

Kowalski said something, and Rhade tried to blink back into focus, only to taste a bitterness in his mouth. At that, Grimm turned to face him, and Rhade had to grit his teeth and offer a forced smile as it felt again like cold metal binding tightened around his chest and throat.

Grimm stuck out a hand. ‘…a pleasure to meet you, Commander,’ he said, words just about audible through the rushing in his ears.

Rhade’s fingertips tingled as he shook the hand, unsure how hard he was gripping. ‘Mister Grimm.’

If Grimm noticed anything was amiss, he didn’t comment. ‘I need to talk with the planning committee,’ he said, nodding past them. ‘Touch base about… all of this. I’m very reassured to see you’re on it, Chief Kowalski.’ He looked back to Rhade. ‘And that the Old Man has sent his best, Mister Rhade.’

Grimm had left and they were back on the turbolift by the time the rushing in Rhade’s ears faded and he heard Kowalski say, ‘You alright, Commander?’

He’d taken a sharp step back when the turbolift doors had shut, he realised. Again, his mouth tasted bitter as he swallowed, and Rhade rubbed his temples to push back the roiling pressing on the front of his senses. ‘I didn’t get much sleep even before… all of this.’

‘Then you should maybe get some sleep now.’ Kowalski didn’t make it sound like a suggestion. ‘You look terrible.’

‘Maybe.’ Rhade felt Kowalski’s eyes on him, and shifted. ‘I’ve got a meeting down in A&A. Then I’ll sleep.’

‘Anthropologists can wait.’

‘Maybe.’ Kowalski didn’t push this second evasion, and the two men sank into silence, the big security chief likely with far more to worry about than his former team leader looking sleep-deprived.

And in truth, Rhade felt awake, alert – too much so. All around, Gateway Station hummed with life, and his telepathic senses thrummed with the feel of it all. Life, hope, excitement – and pain. He was not normally so sensitive to the station, and even if he did reach out, did not normally feel such an underbelly of anguish, grief, fear, like a rot somewhere deep in the heart.

Perhaps he did need sleep. But then Rhade blinked again, and this time for just a split second saw the turbolift doors again daubed in blood in a branching pattern before it vanished. It took effort to not gasp, to not take a step back, and he drove his fingernails into the palm of his hand as he stood firm.

Greg Carraway was far away, on Teros. But after the ritualised murder of a young Romulan, he knew Kowalski was wrong about one thing: anthropologists could not wait.

The Crowbar stood just off Gateway’s Arcade, built out of old storage space not dissimilar to the disused sections several decks away where Voler’s body had been found. Instead of being left to ruin, one of the newly-arrived spacers who had done business in the Midgard Sector long before the Spacedock’s establishment had petitioned for permission to set up an establishment here. Off the beaten track and with limited refurbishment of its surroundings, the Crowbar was a favoured locale for non-Federation visitors, rough-and-ready with bare bulkheads and scavenged furniture. Perhaps in some years, as the denizens of the Midgard Sector worked and lived across the border and boundaries became murkier, it might be the heart of an underbelly. But Gateway Station barely had a belly to be under, yet. For now, it was just a dingy bar.

It was also where Rhade had been sent after a less-than-fulfilling encounter with the station’s science department. There had been theories, for certain. Or, rather, guesses. Guesses teeming with borderline armchair-psychological analysis of a killer they knew nothing about. All Rhade was left sure of throughout was how little Starfleet still knew about the Romulan people and their culture.

‘There’s someone you should speak to,’ Commander Dashell had said, intercepting him on his way out of the labs. ‘Who, if he helps you, might know something.’

‘This is Starfleet Science. Aren’t you supposed to know something?’ Rhade had been unable to not sound scathing, frustration now coiling in his gut alongside the nausea.

But Dashell was too seasoned and calm to be offended. ‘We’re new to this region. We’re here to learn. Let’s consider this an opportunity.’

‘A young man’s been brutally murdered. This isn’t an opportunity.’ On reflection, Rhade was surprised Dashell continued to help him. But a PADD was handed over, and a little follow-up investigation led Rhade to the most run-down bar on the station.

He’d changed out of uniform, at least, but the glances he received from the spacers and traders at the bar and tables suggested he wasn’t fooling anyone. When his eyes landed on his target, he headed for the individual seated at a corner table; the moment he was even a metre away, there was a low, cool drawl of, ‘Not today, Starfleet.’

The speaker was a Romulan man of indeterminate age, a messy shock of dark hair dangling into bright eyes that barely looked up from the PADD he was reading over a mug of brown ale. When Rhade paused at the dismissal, the Romulan returned to his reading, clearly hopeful this would be enough.

It was not. ‘Mister Draven?’

‘Great incognito work, Starfleet.’ Draven looked up with languid annoyance. ‘Why’d you even bother changing out of uniform if you’re going to Mister me? Also, it’s Doctor.’

‘I was told not to call you that.’ Uninvited, Rhade pulled up a chair.

‘It’s not a trap,’ said Draven. ‘I don’t like standing on ceremony. That doesn’t mean you jump to a different ceremony. Anyway, who the hell are you?’

‘Lieutenant Commander Adamant Rhade. But you are Draven, right? Scientific advisor to the Republic representatives here on the station?’

Draven rolled his eyes and had a gulp of ale. ‘I swear, if this is about a damned translation or something…’

‘It’s not. Dashell Antedy said you could help.’ It spoke of the reputation of the station’s Chief Science Officer, a seasoned scholar more than he was the starship adventurer of most Starfleet officers of his ilk, that dropping the name made Draven hesitate. ‘It’s about something somewhat delicate.’

Draven’s cool eyes dragged up and down over him. Then he turned towards the bar and clicked his fingers. ‘Another round! Starfleet’s paying.’ He leaned across the table and dropped his voice. ‘Did you fuck the wrong Romulan and -’

‘There’s been a murder,’ said Rhade, jaw setting as he tired of not cutting to the chase. ‘One of the Romulan refugees from Teros.’

‘That’s sad,’ said Draven cautiously. ‘But the Republic isn’t responsible for every wayward resident of -’

‘I’d be going to the Republic representatives if this was about that, wouldn’t I?’ Rhade slid his PADD across the table. ‘Take a look at this.’

Draven’s indifference faded the moment he saw the images. ‘What the Vor…’

‘We found him like this. The throat slitting was the cause of death. The impaling happened post-mortem. And aside from being horrifying, neither Starfleet Security nor our forensic researchers are equipped to understand the implications.’

Draven quirked an eyebrow. ‘You’re kidding me, right? This has baffled you?’

‘We know the horn is from a furjweit, imported; the chains are replicated -’

‘Vor, you people are ignorant! You come to Romulan space and don’t know the most basic…’ He threw a hand in the air. ‘What’s your background, Rhade? You’re a Betazoid, I’m guessing noble house by the accent – what are you in Starfleet, some pilot with aspirations of the captain’s chair…’

‘I was a security officer and Hazard Team leader – you know what all this means?’

‘Security officer, so you look for things that make sense. Except culture doesn’t make sense, people don’t make sense, and a broken people don’t make sense. This isn’t the Core Worlds; this isn’t Betazed, where everything’s cultivated and perfect…’

A muscle twitched in the corner of Rhade’s jaw. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘And I don’t really want to, but you don’t know anything about my people, and yet here you are, stood on the precipice, looking into the abyss – culturally, psychologically, geographically…’

‘A young Romulan man has been killed and I’m asking for help and you’re lecturing me on how little I know – yes, that’s why I’m asking –’

‘It’s Starfleet arrogance to think you can come in here and fix things.’ Draven shook his head. ‘You’re not ready for this place. You could have been, but you betrayed and abandoned it, and now you’re back, and it’s so much worse than you imagine. You can’t make civilisations toys you put down and pick up as it suits you.’ At Rhade’s level look, he pushed the PADD away and leaned back. ‘Do you know what a Ganmadan is, Rhade?’

‘It’s… something in Romulan culture, like an armageddon -’

‘That’s what “Ganmadan” is, not a Ganmadan. A mythological beast.’ Draven sighed. ‘My people have a story of the end of days. Something that has happened and will happen again. Bear that in mind. When demons are called forth to bring about the Thousand Days of Pain.’

‘Is that what a Ganmadan is? A demon?’

‘The demons are ch’khalagu. Yes, like your friends in the nebula. They took the name because they’re rejects from society.’ Draven drummed his fingers on the overturned PADD. ‘They’re demons broken from their shackles – their chains – when one of their own blows the horn of a pale Ganmadan. A creature with many different depictions across time. Is it a cervid? Bos? Depends on who you ask, where and when. But I do know one thing.’ He stabbed the table with his index finger for emphasis. ‘In ceremonies, in art, if my people have ever needed the horn of a pale Ganmadan as a ritual prop, they have used the horn of a furjweit.’

In the silence that followed, one of the bar staff placed two heavy mugs of dark ale before them. Draven did not wait, drinking deep, but Rhade fidgeted with the handle and spoke only when the barstaff was gone.

‘A Romulan has been bound in chains and impaled with the horn of what is perhaps supposed to be a pale Ganmadan,’ he said. ‘Is that how you’d stop a demon escaping?’

Draven shrugged. ‘That’s where my interpretation clashes with the interpretation of whoever did this. Hate to break it to you, Rhade, but you’ve got a weird ritual murder by someone who’s got a demonic apocalypse on their mind.’

‘You give me the impression,’ said Rhade in a low voice, ‘that this isn’t uncommon.’

Draven gave the gentlest of scoffs in response, gaze going distant. ‘They will cause the death of Seb-Natan, but beautiful Seb-Cheneb will survive. She will raise her Hell-horn to her lips and blow a single piercing note of grief. And this will bring Ganmadan, the Day of Grief, the last of days,’ he recited, emphasising his point with a swig of ale. ‘Can’t imagine why the Romulan people might have a bit of an apocalypse fixation.’

Rhade sighed and looked away. ‘I suppose that reinforces one thing: a Romulan did this.’

‘It reinforces something else, actually: it truly looks like a Romulan did this.’ Draven shoved the PADD back to him. ‘There you go. Consider this drink my consultancy fee.’

‘You spent half of this conversation discussing how Starfleet’s unprepared.’

‘You are.’

‘Then…’ Rhade frowned with confusion. ‘Help me.’

Draven peered over the rim of his mug. ‘Are you asking, Commander? You did it so politely.’

‘I’m not here to play games,’ said Rhade with a burst of frustration that felt new but not unpleasant. Normally, he swallowed such feelings. ‘Someone’s dead. One of your people. I’m asking you to help me get to the bottom of this.’

‘Why? So Starfleet Security can pick which Romulan refugee they want to blame and never look at themselves?’ At last, Draven pushed the mug of ale away and went to stand. ‘I’m sad the kid’s dead. There probably won’t be justice. There hasn’t been justice for a lot of dead kids. Not from Starfleet.’

Rhade’s hand shot out before he could stop himself, grabbing Draven just below the elbow. The Romulan stopped, tensing, but he was a wiry type and Rhade’s hold was powerful.

‘I don’t think this is just a random Romulan refugee,’ said Rhade. ‘Something’s going on here. Something powerful. And I’m not Starfleet Security.’ Slowly, he stood so they were level. ‘I’m Senior Officer of the Watch. I have the ear of the commodore, and he’s thrown me in the brig before for doing the right thing.’

Draven hesitated, eyes dragging over Rhade. ‘Strange brag,’ he mused, clearly buying time. ‘What makes you so certain? I could be wrong. This could just be petty suffering. No grand meaning at the bottom of it. There usually isn’t. All of that slashed skin and emerald seeping is, at the end of the day, just blood.’

‘The blood of your people. The most vulnerable of them. I cannot promise you justice, but I can promise you two things: it won’t be for lack of trying on my end, and without your help, there will certainly not be justice.’

Draven’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know something.’

‘Not… know.’ Rhade hesitated. ‘Feel. I’m a powerful telepath, Draven. I trust my instincts.’

The Romulan looked back at the ale he’d abandoned and slid slowly back into his chair. ‘Well,’ he said at length. ‘You didn’t even know what a Ganmadan is. I suppose you clearly do need my help.’

The Teros sun was somehow bright yet anaemic at the same time, shining a pale gold hard enough to blind down on the surface but never bringing as much warmth as might be expected. As she watched staff from the Redemption bustle around the new aid station and its construction, Sophia Hale had to keep on both sunglasses and a thick jacket to be comfortable.

‘Aw, man,’ sighed Greg Carraway, stood next to her. ‘This is a little hard.’

She glanced over at the counsellor, whose support she’d asked for in the delicate engagement with traumatised locals. ‘Hard?’

‘Yeah, I mean – only two years ago, Endeavour was here doing the same thing.’

‘This time, it’ll last,’ Hale said gently.

‘That’s what I mean. Last time, it didn’t. We worked so hard – people died – and we can’t go back to the old aid station without triggering a fight with locals.’

Hale hesitated. The loss had to hit harder because most officers, including Carraway, didn’t know why Endeavour had been forced to abandon their mission. All they’d known was they had to hunt down leads on the Tkon Empire, with no understanding of the Omega molecules seeping into the galaxy at large. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, but without it, it was easy to feel like Starfleet had been neglectful or failed. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

‘You mean a fight with the Rebirth Movement,’ she said instead.

‘The Rebirth Movement are locals,’ Carraway protested, and her gut eased because he’d taken her bait and changed the subject. ‘We treat them like they’re a supremacist organisation, as if their culture hasn’t faced a mass-extinction event and…’ But his frustration was, as always, short-lived, and he sighed. ‘All we can do is move forward. It’ll be better this time.’

‘It will.’ Hale checked her wristwatch. ‘Zhatan should be here by now.’ They had asked the locals they were working with to visit them this late morning, come to the outskirts of the shanty town of Sanctuary District A to where dust and stone were being transformed into something that could help them anew. It was not like the Romulan elder to be late.

‘She’ll be here,’ Carraway reassured them, but then another twenty minutes passed and there was no sign of the envoys.

Lieutenant Sterlah of the USS Redemption didn’t look happy when Hale flagged him down and explained the situation, because the sturdy Andorian was enough of a veteran to know the next step. ‘You want to go looking for her.’

Hale gave her most reassuring smile. ‘I thought you’d like to know before I wandered into the Sanctuary District, yes, Lieutenant.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t. But you’re the one with rank.’

‘I can’t order you to do anything, Lieutenant.’

‘And I can’t order you to not, Ambassador, but it’ll be my head if anything happens.’ Sterlah folded his arms across his chest. ‘You get just me, or you get four of my people.’

Carraway gave an awkward smile. ‘You think you’re worth four?’

‘I think if something goes wrong, I need to see it for my own eyes or I need to make it damn clear I took it seriously.’

Hale raised a placating hand. ‘I don’t want to cause disruption in the district. There’s been no sign of violence. Rather than marching me in to the home of people we’re building a friendship with surrounded by security officers, why don’t you come with us, Lieutenant?’

‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Sterlah, and needed promptly talking out of bringing a rifle.

Sanctuary District A had once been built by the finest of Starfleet prefabricated structures to house refugees from Romulus temporarily until they could be relocated somewhere more permanent. Sixteen years later, sturdy metal buildings had been weathered, torn down, and put back up again in a Frankenstein’s monster of a village, adding in remains of ship hulls, some local stone, and anything that could make a wall, a door, a roof. Hale found that one moment she might walk a narrow street that felt lived in, with signs of the homes people had built over the last decade and a half. The next, she was face to face with some of the most destitute ways of living she’d ever seen as people tried to live in dangerous buildings with no amenities, or simply huddled on the street. The population only grew, and the facilities did not. But people lived. The district had an ebb and flow of activity, of its own sense of commerce and community. Which meant that it was very odd to enter the streets of the district and find them empty.

They walked for long minutes, the diplomat and two Starfleet officers, and while there was the odd movement at a window suggesting someone was indoors and watching them, there was little sign of life. Eventually, a hubbub was heard ahead, and as they reached one of the main roads heading through the heart of the district, they saw Romulan locals in their ones and twos moving in a gentle ebb to some shared, final location.

It was Carraway who approached one. He’d spent as much time in the district as he could, offering the sort of psychological support nobody included in aid packages, and while Hale believed he was seen as a bit of a joke talking about feelings when people were starving, he was at least seen as harmless. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’

For once, the glint in the eyes of the Romulan he’d addressed looked hopeful, not scared or defeated. ‘The Rebirth are gone. Vortiss is gone. They’re out of the old aid station.’

Sterlah mumbled something under his breath about having just built a new one, but Carraway pressed on. ‘Gone?’

‘They were chased out. Got transport off-world.’

Hale looked up at Sterlah. ‘We didn’t chase the Rebirth out, did we? I feel I’d have noticed.’ At his stern shake of the head, she grimaced. ‘And I feel I’d have noticed if someone was gearing up to take them down.’

‘This is where everyone’s heading, though.’ Sterlah jerked his head down the road. ‘The old Endeavour aid station.’

Carraway had to jog to catch them up after he was done with the local. ‘This could be a game-changer. The Rebirth gone? Our job could be about to get a lot easier.’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Counsellor,’ Sterlah said ominously. ‘The Rebirth wouldn’t just leave.’

‘I’m not sure who can move in to take their place,’ said Carraway with a shrug, ‘who could be worse.’

Which was the point they heard the shouting and jeering in the distance. Hale took a sharp step ahead to make sure Sterlah couldn’t grab hold of her or block her way, and all the security officer could do was grumble in her wake as he picked up the pace to follow.

The crowd around the gates to the old aid station went twenty people deep, with the yelling from all of them an indeterminate noise of complaint. Heart sinking at this apparent rage against people who seemed to have displaced the thoroughly unpopular Rebirth, Hale had to move to the side of the street and clamber onto a crate to get a better view of the gates and the aid station itself.

What she saw took her breath away. ‘My God.’

Carraway, by her side, looked up. ‘Ambassador?’

Across the sign above the gate, no more could she see the words ‘aid station’ in the clear stencilling letters. The gate, sign, walls, facilities, had all stood out for the past two years, the newest and cleanest part of the sanctuary district, all taken over by the Rebirth mere days after Starfleet’s withdrawal. They had kept it to maintain a chokehold on the district, controlling the main source of resources to make lives better. That they were gone, no longer blocking Starfleet’s capacity to help Teros, should have been good. But Hale’s heart rose enough to choke her at what seemed to have slipped into its place.

Daubed across the sign in slick red, the words GANMADAN IS NOW dripped above them all. Hammered beside it was the sad, twisted body of the small, goat-like creature, one of the limited livestock on the planet, that had to have provided the blood.

As they watched, a Romulan man emerged through the gate. His clothes were torn and bloodied, though the gashes on his skin could not account for it all. By his side he held a disruptor rifle loosely, a battered weapon Hale suspected had seen recent use, but as the crowd fell silent on his approach, he raised it above his head.

‘Those who thought themselves masters are gone!’ he called in a hoarse voice. He had to be young, she thought, but the sallow cheeks and sunken eyes of the refugees of Teros never made that easy to tell. ‘Witness their downfall!’

There was a low thunk. A ruffle of shadows. Then over the walls of the old aid station, three bodies were hurled over the outside to hang by ropes and crash against the metal walls. Broken and battered, they did not look like they had died easy.

Sterlah muttered an oath. ‘Those are Rebirth thugs.’

‘The Brothers have awoken once more!’ the speaker continued, voice hoarse and rent by now. ‘Stand by them and enter the world anew, or be consumed in the Day of Grief!’

As the crowd broke into more yelling, Sterlah reached up to all but drag Hale back down to the ground. ‘Ambassador, I really don’t like this.’

Carraway looked at her, aghast. ‘What’s going on?’

She planted her feet, stopping Sterlah from pulling her away, and set her jaw tight. ‘And when the gods have broken all their oaths, and the last of their pledges has been forgotten, then the time of the gods will come to an end,’ she murmured.

‘What?’ snapped Sterlah.

‘Ilqoant Telant. The Book of Uncoverings, Lieutenant,’ said Hale, her chest tight. ‘The myths that explain, among everything, the beginning and end of the world. And, oh. Oh, so many gods have broken their oaths and forgotten their pledges, no?’

Carraway looked back at the crowd, at the old aid station. ‘Apocalypse cults rising to make sense of calamity, embrace the catastrophe, act as if they have some sense of control over utter desolation… it makes sense.’ Then he frowned. ‘Hey, what’s -’

The flash of light hit them first. Erupting brighter than the sun, the billowing cloud of flame burst from the heart of the old aid station as the explosion surged forth, consuming everything within the walls. It raced out, heat and fire, surging forth to break against the barrier but billow from the gate. The youth who’d spoken merely turned towards the fire, arms outspread, before it consumed him.

Then it raced towards the crowd, and towards them. And the last thing Hale knew before things went black was the strong form of Lieutenant Sterlah tackling her to the ground, and covering her with his body.

‘Sir!’ The young security officer didn’t look like he much enjoyed having to step out to block Rourke’s path, but stood firm as he stormed through the infirmary reception towards the double doors at the rear.

If it were possible, Rourke’s anger would have made him double in size. He did stop, only to turn his venomous glower on the guard. ‘I’m the station commander, Petty Officer; what the hell do you think you’re doing to -’

‘It’s alright.’ The doors slid open, revealing the tired-looking figure of Aisha Sadek in rumpled scrubs. ‘You can step aside, Petty Officer. I’ve got this.’

‘Good,’ snarled Rourke, going to pass the security officer – but Sadek didn’t move from where she now blocked the doorway. ‘Aisha -’

‘Ambassador Hale received care aboard the Redemption before she was put on a runabout and returned to Gateway; do you honestly think Doctor V’Lenn didn’t take care of her, Matt?’ Sadek stood like a rock in the sea of murmuring waters that was the Infirmary. The convoy from Teros was not large, nor were the wounds serious; Redemption had the facilities to render all necessary emergency aid. But the high status of the patients and the high stakes of the situation had set the station’s medical centre into a buzz of anxiety above which Sadek seemed to have risen in wry serenity.

Rourke’s fists clenched by his side. ‘I want to see her.’

A nurse emerged through another door, passed Sadek a PADD, and fairly ran away. Sadek took her time reading the report, though in practice it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before she said, ‘Visiting hours are at 0900.’

‘Aisha -’

Again she cut him off. ‘No. You don’t get to come down here and wave your pips around and bully my security officers and scare the hell out of my medical staff because you’re the station commander, Matt. You don’t need an official report, you have that: weirdo cultists blew up the aid station on Teros. You don’t need a serious update on the condition of the diplomatic envoy to the Midgard Sector, because if this materially impacted operations, you’d have it.’ Now she looked up and met his gaze. ‘This is wholly personal. You don’t get to use your rank to take it out on everyone else just because you’re afraid of your own feelings.’

Guilt, at last, swirled in him, but he did not unclench his fists. Perhaps she had a point, but he wasn’t ready to back down yet. At last he said, in a low rumble, ‘How is she?’

‘The Ambassador was seriously injured at Teros. Severe burns, internal injuries, traumatic shock,’ said Sadek in her cool, professional manner. ‘She was beamed immediately to the Redemption, where she received life-saving care from Doctor V’Lenn. She’s been received here because, while she was under medical supervision on the journey from Teros, the runabout’s facilities are less sophisticated. I wanted to give her a full examination to make sure she’s recovering as expected. She is.’

A muscle twitched in the corner of Rourke’s jaw. ‘Now you’ve demonstrated you’re God here, Aisha, can I please see her?’

‘Hang on.’ Sadek reached out for his hand. For a moment he thought this was a confusing, uncommonly overt expression of affection, only for her to tilt her grip and press her thumb on the inside of his wrist. After a moment, she said, ‘You can see her on one condition: you make an appointment with Greg when he’s back. Who’s fine, by the way; full recovery on the Redemption. I’m surprised you didn’t have a panic attack.’

No, Rourke thought. That came days ago, with the report that there’d been an explosion on Teros and her condition was critical, and there was nothing I could do. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

Perhaps realising her leverage was coming to an end, Sadek stepped past and gestured down the corridor. ‘Third door to your left. V’Lenn had to regrow her spleen and liver. It’s put her on a hell of a cocktail of drugs to provide essential nutrients, amino acids, supplements, and pain relief, and it’s a process I want to monitor closely until it’s complete. She’s awake, mobile, but a little weak and likely to tire. Don’t you dare explode your feelings all over her.’

That was a better warning than any other, and with a curt nod, Rourke pulled his hand free and headed to the door as directed, knowing it led to one of the private care rooms in Gateway’s infirmary.

To his surprise, Hale was not in the biobed, but sat in the comfortable armchair by the holographic window, a PADD in her hand, a stack of them on the table beside it. While her skin was pale, her hair a little lank, and he fancied he could see the faintest mottling along the side of her face from serious dermal regeneration that he knew would fade soon enough, she looked for all the world like she’d merely been under the weather, not had nearly died mere days ago. She’d been frowning in deep contemplation until she looked up and saw him, smiled, and went to rise. ‘Matt -’

He wanted to pull her up and wrap his arms around her, hold her as close as possible, but had to settle for closing the gap, putting a hand to her shoulder so she stayed in the chair, and coming down to one knee beside her. ‘You shouldn’t be moving around,’ he rumbled. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

‘I’m fine.’ Exasperation tinged her voice. ‘I want to read and walk ten feet, not run a marathon. Why does everyone assume I can’t be a good patient?’

‘Because these are Starfleet doctors, and Starfleet officers make terrible patients.’ Despite the wryness in his voice, he had her hand in both of his, his shoulders slumped, exhaustion at the ordeal his feelings had put him through sinking in at last. ‘What happened?’

Her expression flickered. ‘I’m sure you saw the reports. A group of locals on Teros we hadn’t been tracking and weren’t familiar with somehow mobilised, drove off the RRM, then took over the old aid station and blew it up. And anyone they’d lured nearby. It’s the aftermath I want to know about; I’ve not exactly been kept in the loop.’

Rourke sighed, closing his eyes a moment. ‘Redemption investigated as they deployed emergency aid. It looks like this group came out of nowhere to swarm the RRM at the aid station. Both sides took massive casualties before the RRM bugged out. Any surviving eye-witnesses say it was like the attackers just didn’t care how many they lost so long as they won. Then they made a big song and dance at the aid station, caught the attention of everyone in the Sanctuary District, and blew themselves up, like you saw. Sixteen dead civilians, but we think as many as twenty-one dead of this group, maybe ten dead RRM? It’s difficult to say.’

‘I’ve been at Teros for weeks. There was never so much as a whisper of locals arming themselves to fight the RRM. Certainly not suicidally.’

‘What few IDs we’ve been able to make, the locals are saying were some of the absolute dregs of the Sanctuary District. Even by their standards. Mostly old soldiers who didn’t want to work with the RRM for whatever reason but lacked the skills or were too psychologically damaged to do anything but fight. People the district had given up on. Then somehow they… get together weapons and organise and go on a suicidal rampage.’ It felt reductive to summarise it like that. Suicidal rampages were rarely so simple. But Rourke had no idea how to estimate the situation better.

‘An apocalyptic rampage,’ Hale sighed. ‘The speaker was chanting from texts of Romulan mythology before the explosion.’

‘I know.’ He winced. ‘Everyone knows. Now the locals think the Teros refugees are a violent, apocalpytic cult.’ Falteringly, he explained the murder. She didn’t need more on her plate, but what had seemed like a bump in the road to relocating the Teros refugees had become something much, much worse.

Hale’s expression sank. ‘Alfheim are using this to reject the settlement, aren’t they? We can’t let that happen.’

Those at the Alfheim Colony who resented the idea of settling Romulans on their planet, even on a part of the planet they didn’t live on, had wasted no time amplifying the crisis through the media to the population at large. On a frontier defined by the long watch of the cold Romulan border, then the xenophobic apprehension of the nearby Romulan collapse and crisis, any reason to distrust these refugees as chaotic and dangerous was like chum in the water.

‘The resettlement process is too far along to simply call it off,’ Rourke reassured her. ‘They’re here, on the station, after all. If they hadn’t yet left Teros, it might have been different. You can relax, I’m dealing with them.’

She did not look reassured. ‘I shouldn’t have brought John with me to Teros.’

‘I can be polite!’

‘You think they’re small-minded bumpkins who don’t just hate outsiders, but need the Romulans to be scary and dangerous to justify their sense of self-importance,’ she said, rather flatly summarising sentiments he had never directly expressed. ‘We won’t get anywhere if we don’t take their feelings seriously.’

Rourke bit his lip, then ran his thumb across the back of her hand. ‘We won’t get anywhere until you’re rested and recovered. Let my officers deal with the murder. Let Redemption continue to help at Teros. Let me deal with Alfheim Colony. And with you.’

At last she paused, and even that momentary falter opened the door for exhaustion to sink in. ‘I would very much like to argue with you…’

‘But I’m right.’

‘But I need rest.’ Her gaze flickered up to meet his. ‘Are you alright?’

‘I didn’t get blown up -’

‘And if you had, I think I’d be a complete mess.’ She raised a hand to brush her fingertips across his cheek. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I’m…’ Rourke felt his throat quiver, and in the end, the only word which came out was, ‘not.’ The admission was like scaffolding holding him up had begun to crumple, and he all but fell towards her, both of them wrapping their arms around each other. It took a few more moments before he rediscovered his voice for a muffled, ‘Station life was a stupid idea. I should have been on the ship. Not stuck back here.’

‘You couldn’t have stopped it,’ she murmured, stroking the back of his head.

‘I’d have been there when it happened. Dealing with the problem, not dealing with people trying to exploit it.’

There was a pause before she said, ‘Instead, you’re here while I’m elbow-deep in a crisis, and Endeavour is still so far from home?’

It was like she’d blown cold air on the back of his neck; like she’d exposed a wound he hadn’t known was there but had been bleeding him dry nonetheless. She was not the only one he felt helpless about. But she was the one he could do something about. The one who was here, the one he could wrap his arms around and hold close, and sit in silence with. Silence for mutual comfort, and silence so he didn’t correct her.

Because Endeavour wasn’t far from home. Endeavour was home, and she was far away.

‘I told you, we didn’t follow Voler’s every move.’ The elder Romulan woman who’d answered most of the questions when Rhade originally came down to the refugee section with Kowalski didn’t look best pleased at being asked again. ‘If he had friends, contacts, people he might have gone to see that night, he didn’t tell us.’

Rhade folded his arms across his chest, brow furrowing. ‘It sounds like this would have been a clandestine meeting. Why might he not tell anyone?’

But the woman’s face merely closed up at a question Rhade only too-late realised sounded accusatory. Draven, who had been doing most of the questioning to that point, reached out to pluck Rhade’s combadge off his chest.

‘Excuse me -’

‘Tlraven quo?’ With one tap of the thumb, Draven had deactivated the combadge’s universal translator, and wasted no time addressing the refugee in their native tongue. She seemed to realise what had happened, her shoulders sinking, but when she talked, it was in a different, less defensive tone.

The back and forth did not last for very long. The two Romulans clearly felt they could speak freely, chattering back and forth with a more open body language that Rhade did not need to be a telepath to interpret. She was still guarded, Draven was more direct, but it looked like he was at least getting answers instead of being stonewalled. Still, at the end, Draven shoved the combadge back into Rhade’s hand.

‘-still Republic,’ the Romulan woman was saying when Rhade reactivated it. ‘Don’t act like you’re one of us.’

‘That was your choice, not mine; the Republic offered help on Teros and you refused it,’ Draven drawled. ‘So I wouldn’t act all high-and-mighty about Starfleet sticking their noses into your business when you could have had us instead.’

She muttered something, then said, ‘If we’re selling out for protection, I want protection that will last. You’d have to go running to the Federation when in trouble anyway. Why not cut out the middle-man?’ At his accusing look, she tilted her chin up. ‘Anyway, you know what to do. Until then, you don’t get to say we’re the ones too close to the Federation. Words are your blades; let’s see what you do with them.’

Draven scowled but led the way out without retort. Only once they were in the corridor on the long walk out of the refugee aid section did he talk. ‘Funnily enough, they don’t really trust Starfleet when one of their own was murdered on a Starfleet station.’

Rhade sighed. ‘They think that we won’t investigate properly?’

Draven stopped and turned to face him. ‘Let’s say a Federation citizen murdered Voler. How do you think that plays out?’

‘That depends who or why -’

‘Don’t give me that.’ Draven stabbed a finger down the corridor towards the doors that would take them out into the public sections of the station. ‘You know what’s waiting for us outside. Don’t talk to me about nuance.’

‘What did she say?’

Draven looked away. ‘Not much. Voler was getting close with people in Colonial Affairs. He wasn’t just working with them; they were his friends.’

‘None of the ones we interviewed said they knew Voler socially.’

‘This might be wild to you, Starfleet, but did you know that people lie?’

Rhade opened his hands. ‘Why would someone working in Colonial Affairs to resettle refugees then brutally and ritualistically murder one of them?’

‘Knee-jerk reactions like this,’ said Draven, ‘are exactly why she didn’t say anything about it to Kowalski, and why she wouldn’t say anything about it if she thought you could understand it. Think about this for five seconds, Rhade. Locals don’t want refugees on Alfheim. Refugees turn out to be violent, murderous cultists. Rather undermines the whole resettlement plan, no?’

‘You’re saying you think someone in Colonial Affairs murdered Voler and tried to make it look like the Romulans did it.’ Rhade set his hands on his hips. ‘There’s quite a few problems with that.’

‘What, the idea that Federation citizens might be so underhanded?’

‘The fact this took specialised knowledge of Romulan culture – knowledge I had to go to you to find out. And this just happens to coincide with the rise of an apocalypse cult on Teros blowing themselves up? While invoking the same mythology, no less?’

Draven fidgeted with his sleeve. ‘There’s a reason you asked me to come with you to talk to these people a second time,’ he said at last. ‘You knew they might say things to me they wouldn’t say to you. Don’t get defensive when you don’t like the answers.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Besides, Rhade. You know something.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why are you here?’ Draven squared up against him. ‘You’re not a security officer. Kowalski’s assigned to the case. If you’re just a face, just a suit, just a go-between for security and the station command staff, why did you bring a Republic scientist down for a chat behind Kowalski’s back?’

Rhade looked between him and the door out, back into the belly of Gateway Station. Rather than answer, he turned to the door, and though Draven made a noise of protest, within moments the doors had opened and they had surged into the circus waiting for them. It was no place to press a point.

The wall of sound and press of bodies heralded their return, just as it had heralded their horizon. Rhade knew many of the people in the crowd didn’t live or work on Gateway; they were from Alfheim Colony, locals transporting up to cluster in the protest that had taken up a cyclical position just outside the refugee shelter. Along with the sight of the crowd and sound of their jeers came the wave of emotion hitting him before he could lock it off; fear, resentment, hate.

Even without his telepathy, he knew what they were there for. It was emblazoned on their signs as well as their faces, on the placards with their simple messages. Our World, Not Yours. Murderers, not Refugees. Send Them Back. The discontent from a noisy minority of Alfheim’s population about the Teros resettlement had simmered for months. The murder had prodded embers, but the attack on Teros had been lighter fuel on the flame.

Only when Draven’s hand grabbed his forearm did Rhade realise he’d frozen. The protesters were a regular sight outside the refugee housing, and security officers kept them back, clearing a path for the two to make it out. Soaking in everything around him had planted Rhade’s boots on the deck, though, and it took his Romulan companion’s urgent hiss to snap him back to reality.

‘I would rather not stay here.’ Draven had drawn the bulk of the jeering and looked less than impressed at Rhade’s failure to move.

Abashed, head spinning, Rhade slipped to put himself, with his considerably larger form, between the Romulan and the heavily anti-Romulan crowd. ‘Let’s go.’

Murderer –

Mars was your fault –

Parasite –

Should have left you to die –

Should stay and rot on your shithole of Teros –

Then something flew through the air, aimed at Draven but hitting Rhade’s shoulder. His head stopped spinning, and he moved.

‘He’s a fucking officer of the Republic, you racist cowards!’ His hands grabbed hold of someone and his heart surged at the impact, at the strike, at the struggle.

Murderer.

They’re like ants.

Crush them.

It sounded like the crowd’s jeers, raging just as loud in his ears, though it was his own voice in his head, furious and delighting in the fury. Whoever he’d grabbed was smaller than him, weaker, and it would be nothing for him to snap them like a twig. They’d demanded blood, no? He could give them blood.

Then more hands were on him, and they weren’t the crowd but the security officers, Draven, and through the heady swirl of intoxicating, seductive violence, he felt himself be dragged off, away from the figure he’d grabbed, away from the crowd, until he and Draven were bundled into a lift.

‘Promenade!’ Draven gasped, collapsing against the bulkhead while Rhade stood, fists clenched. If he could have dashed back out the doors, for a moment, he thought he would have.

Then they were gone, whisked away, and as his head began to clear, he realised that what had been thrown at him was just an empty disposable coffee cup, not enough to do more than risk a spatter of a stain. The person he’d grabbed hadn’t even thrown it. And as his fists unclenched, he could once again taste blood on his tongue.

‘I say again,’ Draven rasped, chest heaving. ‘Why are you here, Rhade? What’s this to you? What’s wrong with you?’

The blood-smoke haze drifted, and in its wake was exhaustion. Rhade, too, staggered to brace himself against the turbolift doors, and shut his eyes to scrub his face with his hands. For a moment, again, he could see the branching bloodstain flash in front of his vision – then it was gone.

‘Something is wrong,’ he said, voice coming like it had been dragged from somewhere deep. ‘I can sense it. Can’t you?’

‘It’s called instincts and a distaste for bigots. It doesn’t make me punch them out. But then, you can probably get away with it…’

The jeer in Draven’s voice did not escape him. ‘I’ve only felt like this once before.’ Shuddering, Rhade looked over at the Romulan. ‘When telepathic entities were influencing people to brazen, brutal violence.’

Draven was silent for a moment. Perhaps he was gathering his wits after the crowd. Perhaps he was trying to figure out if Rhade was completely crazy. At last, he said, ‘Are you suggesting this isn’t a cult or a false flag operation, but a telepath is making people do this?’

‘I know,’ Rhade groaned. ‘They’d have to be ridiculously powerful. And I have no evidence.’

‘Only the evidence that you’re on the edge, perhaps breaking, and are maybe looking for an explanation.’ Draven shook his head. ‘All of the hate we’re seeing doesn’t need psychic powers. Trust me: in Midgard, it can burst to life all on its own.’ Still, he let out a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘But whatever’s happening here is… strange. If Kowalski is here to run down typical lines of enquiry, then let’s be different. Let’s look at the angles nobody else does.’

‘I don’t even know where to start.’ Rhade’s combadge chirruped.

‘Kowalski to Rhade.’

Grimacing, Rhade tapped the badge. ‘Rhade here. I can explain what happened at the refugee shelter.’

‘What? That does sound like I need an explanation. But that’s not why I’m calling you. We just had a walk-in. One of the Teros refugees.’ As Rhade and Draven stared at each other, bemused and confused, Kowalski spoke on. ‘He just admitted to killing Vorel.’

The rumour mill on Gateway was working overtime; Rhade barely beat the crowd to the main security office. Even there, he had to navigate the crush of bodies of gold-shirted officers, all gathered together to see the culprit of the brutal and incendiary murder that had stirred so much feeling across the station.

‘He handed himself in to Amaru,’ Rhade heard one officer say to another. ‘Just walked right up to him and said, “I did it.”’

It sounded baffling. But by the time Rhade had inveigled himself into the back rooms, joining security officers watching the screen showing the discussion in the interview room, he found this to be accurate.

A sallow-faced Romulan youth. Kowalski grilling him. A thorough explanation of what he’d done, luring Vorel out to nowhere to kill him. An explanation of the horn being a family belonging, the chains being replicated at Teros.

‘All that’s missing,’ Rhade wondered aloud, ‘is the why?’

But Amaru was in this back room and gave Rhade a dubious look. ‘They’re a broken people, Commander. All they know is how to make things worse. There was clearly a cult on Teros; this guy was one of them. And now we’re shipping more in.’

‘That’s enough,’ Rhade snapped, turning to look about the room. Not everyone had given Amaru a dirty look; some officers were nodding a little or looking diplomatically quiet. ‘You’re Starfleet officers and investigators. Your duty is to the truth, not your own petty judgements.’

Amaru met his gaze but said nothing. Rhade folded his arms across his chest, looked back at the screen, and listened.

Nothing he heard could keep him from storming towards the door once the interview was done. He found Kowalski in the corridor, an officer guiding the suspect back towards processing, and felt his fist clench as he approached.

‘This is ridiculous, Chief.’

Something tugged at Kowalski’s expression when he spotted him, and Rhade couldn’t help but expand his senses just a little. He didn’t read the other man’s thoughts, but with the slightest concentration could sense the feelings rushing off him. Apprehension, disgust at what he’d just seen, and, rising despite efforts to keep it under control, annoyance.

‘The man’s confessed, sir,’ said Kowalski, expression set by now. ‘I know you’ve been nibbling at the edge of this -’

‘There is no way this man replicated chains at Teros and kept them just in case of a ritual murder. Which he says he did alone?’ Rhade stabbed a finger down the corridor in the direction of the escorted suspect. ‘What happened on Teros was a wild and violent attack by madmen. This was planned, calibrated, meticulous. Why’d he hand himself in?’

That did make Kowalski hesitate. ‘He said he wanted his message out.’

‘He sent his message. It was the murder. Something’s not right here.’

‘Says what, sir?’

‘It feels -’

‘I’ve appreciated your help.’ Kowalski’s interruption was blunt and came with a firm hand to Rhade’s shoulder. He wouldn’t have dared do that to a superior officer had they not worked together, fought together, through some of the Hazard Team’s hardest trials. ‘But this is my job, Commander. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it. That’s not your job. Take it up with the XO if you don’t like my performance.’

‘The commodore -’

‘Wanted you as a go-between, not double-checking my work with the help of a malcontented, disgraced officer.’ At Rhade’s confused look, Kowalski rolled his eyes. ‘The adviser, Draven. He used to be Starfleet. Didn’t you know? He defected from the Empire before the supernova, then resigned. Now he’s been pouring poison in your ear about how everything’s Starfleet’s fault.’

Rhade opened his mouth to give a sharp response, but then a new voice came from down the corridor to cut him off.

‘Commander! Chief!’ Both turned to see John Grimm, the Alfheim governmental liaison, approaching. In his sharp suit, he stood out from the uniforms around him, more crisp and refined than the hint of rugged readiness of Starfleet officers. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’

Rhade narrowed his eyes at him, the tang of metal back on his tongue. ‘Sir, I’m not sure you should be back here -’

‘Amaru let me in; we need to get ahead of this to manage the situation.’ Grimm spoke briskly but warmly, as if they were all in a pinch together. He looked at Kowalski. ‘Is it true? One of the other refugees did it?’

‘Word travels fast,’ Rhade observed. ‘One of the refugees claims he did it -’

‘We have a confession,’ Kowalski cut in. ‘We’ll process him and let the judicial system take this forward.’

Grimm shook his head and clicked his tongue. ‘That is a pickle,’ he said, as if murder was a cancelled round of golf. ‘We definitely have to get out ahead of this. There’ll be people in the administration trying to use this to call off the resettlement.’

‘Not you, though, sir?’ said Rhade.

‘What do we do; leave them here? Send them back? We can’t let a few bad apples ruin this for a whole people. I might not have supported this, but it’s where we are now.’

‘Tensions are gonna run hot,’ said Kowalski. ‘I’ve already got security on double shifts to deal with protests.’

‘That’s a wave we’ve got to ride out.’ Grimm shrugged. ‘It’ll get worse before it gets better. Thank you for being open, gentlemen.’

‘I don’t…’ There was a tingle on the back of Rhade’s neck, like a cold wind down his spine. For no reason, he looked back down the corridor, just in time to see the door to processing open and for the suspect, that gangly young refugee, be led back out. Cuffed, he hung his head low as officers guided him towards the custody suite, but as Rhade looked, the Romulan youth lifted his head. Their eyes met for a moment, and all Rhade saw was fear.

When he looked away, Rhade realised he’d bitten his tongue and could taste blood. He looked at Kowalski and Grimm and swallowed. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

He left, fingertips tingling as they had only minutes that felt like days earlier when he’d grabbed the civilian protester, blood pounding in his ears. But this time, the blood wasn’t deafening or blinding; instead, it brought clarity. This wasn’t right. None of it was right.

And still, he had other conversations to have first.

Sometime later, he was hammering on a metal door to private quarters hard enough to bruise his knuckles. There was a muffled shouting from inside, but he didn’t stop until the door opened and the confused, angry eyes of Draven were staring at him from inside dimmed rooms.

‘What is it, Starfleet? I heard the news. It’s over,’ the Romulan snarled at the interruption.

‘Starfleet.’ Rhade set his hands on his hips. ‘You call me that like it’s a slur – Lieutenant. That’s a hell of an accusation from a deserter.’ He’d dug out records. Kowalski hadn’t been lying, but he hadn’t told the full truth. The full truth was worse.

Draven straightened, clearly wrong-footed. ‘You read my file.’ His shoulders sank, but no shame entered his eyes. ‘I was discharged.’

‘Politics,’ Rhade sneered. ‘You ran to the Republic, and Starfleet didn’t want a diplomatic inconvenience for the alliance.’

‘I left for the Republic, and Starfleet didn’t give a damn. But if you’re going to rage half-baked accusations, let’s not do it in the corridor.’ Draven stepped to one side, letting Rhade enter his quarters.

They were spartan, the scientist keeping little by way of personal belongings. Rhade had assumed he was sleeping, with the lights so low, but found the room lit by candles arrayed on various surfaces.

‘You were meditating,’ he said, slightly wrong-footed and not sure why.

‘You should try it; it might help you calm down,’ growled Draven, heading for the replicator. ‘Tea? To also calm you down?’

Rhade hesitated again, realising he’d barged in on the Romulan with wild accusations and was being met with hospitality, however sniping. His shoulders sank. ‘I don’t think this other Teros refugee killed Vorel.’

‘Why, because it’s too neat?’ Draven looked him up and down and replicated only one tall glass mug of steaming black tea, taking it for himself. ‘Sometimes people do bad things for no reason at all, Rhade. The galaxy is a cruel and petty place. Don’t take it personally.’

‘No, there’s something wrong.’ Rhade shook his head, hands on his hips. ‘I can feel it. I looked at that suspect, and nothing about any of my senses said this was someone who’d committed a cold-blooded, ritualistic murder. This was a scared kid.’ Something else gnawed at him, somewhere on the edge of his senses, but he couldn’t place it. ‘Since this started, I’ve felt like this case has… has a pull. Even the night it happened, before I heard the news, I felt something was wrong, I knew something was wrong.’

‘Minds are powerful things,’ said Draven, and sipped his tea. ‘We can convince ourselves of all sorts. And either we crave simple answers, or we reject them.’

‘Is that why you abandoned Starfleet?’ Rhade was unable to keep out a cutting edge. ‘Starfleet wanted it too simple?’

Draven stared at him for a moment, impassive. Then he said, ‘I spent years in the Reunification Movement. When my people learnt of the supernova, there was a short-lived effort by the Empire to stop word from getting out. I knew then that my government wasn’t going to save my people, so I defected to those I thought would: Starfleet.’

Rhade’s chest tightened. ‘Then came Mars.’

‘Then came Mars, and you left us to die. I stayed on for a little. Tried to make things better. Then the Republic came along, and that seemed like the best chance for my people. My ship had been assigned to the border, helping in the old Neutral Zone, only to be part of a massive downturn in the early-90s. Another one.’ Draven shrugged. ‘I didn’t leave. The Republic became my home.’

‘I… should have guessed your story was something like that.’

‘Starfleet wanted it very simple: them before anyone else. What would you do, Rhade, if they abandoned Betazed in the Dominion War?’

Rhade was silent. Draven set down the tea and crossed his room to pick up an unlit candle and a lighter. Carefully, he brought it to life, and approached him before extending the candle.

‘You’ve actually cared about finding a complicated answer, when it would be easy to condemn Romulans as senseless murderers,’ said Draven. ‘I respect that. But I don’t know if you’re crazy, if you don’t want to face the political inconvenience of this murder, or if there really is something bigger going on. I know the galaxy’s a large and strange enough place that all sorts of things can happen.’

Confused, Rhade took the candle. ‘What do I do with this?’

‘Do? It’s a candle, Rhade, you don’t do anything. What do you think I was going to say; you need to eat it?’ Draven rolled his eyes and nodded to the floor where he must have been when he’d been interrupted. ‘Dim lights help you focus. A candle helps you see. That’s not a metaphor. Sit your ass down.’

Rhade did so, bending to sit cross-legged on the deck of the quarters. Draven sat opposite, pulling a candle closer so he, too, could see, before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a cloth-wrapped bundle.

‘Do you know what Zhamaq is, Rhade?’ A head shake. ‘Technically, it’s a card game. We won’t play it; it takes three of us.’ He set the bundle down, flipped it open to show a deck of cards within, and tapped the deck. ‘This is the pikhmit. Depicts gods. Heroes. Demons. They’re not just used in Zhamaq, but for… hm. Fortune-telling.’

‘You’re going to figure out if I’m crazy or if something is telepathically influencing me through fortune cards.’

‘No,’ scoffed Draven. ‘I’m going to draw cards for you, and you’re going to figure out if you’re crazy or if something is telepathically influencing you.’ He shuffled the cards adeptly. ‘You meditate, don’t you? To control your senses? To stop the whole station’s feelings and thoughts from overwhelming you?’

Rhade let out a slow breath and closed his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Then stop shutting it out. Let whatever’s been out there in. And when you’re ready…’ There was the sound of Draven ruffling the deck. ‘…reach out, and take a card.’

For a moment, Rhade felt very silly. But either he needed a meeting with Carraway, stat, in which case this experiment would come to nothing, or he needed to take something on faith. Even if it was himself. He drew a sharp breath, tried to block out the sense of candlelight, and let his mind go where it had for days. Months. Years?

Not just Voler’s body. Not just the way the smell of blood had tasted, tantalising and alluring. Or how the blood of the Devore soldier he’d murdered had filled his nostrils when he’d surrendered to the siren call of hate and violence and death. Not just to when it felt like he had not been himself, when something else had called to him.

It was, after all, calling to something inside him. And it was into that darkness Rhade went.

Clashes with the Jem’Hadar in Deneb. The street-fighting in Agarath. The brutal battling against the Hunters of D’Ghor. The years and years of combat in Starfleet’s name, foreign blood staining his uniform, blood spilt in the name of safety, security, duty.

Duty, or delight?

And the duties he’d failed. Rosara – not for not being able to keep her. But for keeping her so long, holding her so tight even when he’d known it was wrong, known he was breaking her. Known he’d broken his oaths, thrown his honour to nothing for a woman who’d betrayed him – and yet saved him – and yet he’d saved –

As ever, his mind sheered hard away from thoughts of Dathan Tahla, or the impostor, or whoever she was. And when it swerved, he felt it. Something on the edge of himself. Skies of blood and streets aflame, fear and despair.

And chains settling around his chest, throat, and neck. When he lifted his hand, he did not feel like he’d broken them. He felt like he’d accepted them. Rhade’s fingertips brushed a card, pulled one back, and as he opened his eyes, he thought for a moment he’d heard a sound of metal rattling.

Draven’s brow was set into a deep frown, like he’d sensed something, too, but he didn’t say anything for a moment. He just nodded at the card. ‘You want me to explain that one?’

Rhade had never looked at a pikhmit deck before, and yet knew the answer. When he spoke, his mouth felt very dry. ‘The sorcerer.’

Draven’s frown didn’t fade. ‘Sort of. The vizier. The deceitful adviser, who uses trickery and obfuscation to lead the powerful astray. For us, the point isn’t to not trust them – the point is that they’ll blend lies with truth, and you have to be wise enough to see what you need to see.’

‘I understand,’ said Rhade, putting the card down. At the edge of his hearing, chains rattled. ‘If it wasn’t the other refugee,’ he breathed, as something approaching clarity winked in the distance, ‘then who was it?’

‘That’s the question,’ came Draven’s voice. ‘Who else would Voler meet? Who else did he know?’

‘Colonial Affairs. But they said…’ Something surged in him, that distrust, that fear. ‘…but I’m not the only one they talked to.’

‘Kowalski?’

‘No. He sent someone for proper statements as a follow-up. Closer questioning. I only saw Kowalski’s report, not the transcripts.’

Draven was frowning. ‘Who’d he send?’

It was the answer, and yet, not the answer. The tip of the answer. Rhade swallowed. ‘Amaru.’

The transporter set him down a short walk from his destination, privacy regulations stopping him from materialising on the front porch unannounced. Along a winding path through thick woods of tall firs and spruces he stepped, the early evening buzz of birds and insects in the undergrowth washing over him. Had he not known where he was going, he might have assumed there were no people here for miles around.

That was the way of the Midgard Colony, the settlements across the Federation’s furthest-flung system along this border, and no more so than on Midgard III. Also named Alfheim, rich resources had pushed the human settlement towards the colder poles and hemispheres, with the frost-locked capital of Ymir built atop and near the plentiful mineral deposits that had given the colony its economic might and social capital. Most human settlement had stayed within those continents, which had left the equatorial archipelagos, a little hot and arid for comfortable habitation, a perfect choice for the Teros resettlement.

Deep in the woods on the northern continent’s most southern reaches, Rhade needed a thick jacket to stay warm as he broke from the treeline towards the modern, comfortable, timber house. He spotted the security devices, the camera that clocked him as he moved from dirt underfoot to gravel crunching as he advanced along the path towards the house. He had nothing to hide.

Despite the size of the house, John Grimm lived alone, and opened the door himself before Rhade got there. He had clearly had a chance to school any possible surprise at this unannounced arrival. ‘Commander Rhade. Do come in.’

‘I know this is sudden,’ said Rhade, ascending the wooden steps to the porch before stepping into the heated house. He shucked his jacket, hanging it up as Grimm indicated on the hooks. ‘But I knew I could find you here.’

None of it was an apology, but Grimm still waved it off. ‘I was wondering if I’d see you.’ He extended a hand, ushering him into the living space. The interior of the house was big and open-plan, with large windows looking onto the deep woods that surrounded them.

‘You were?’

‘Of course. You’re not happy. Have a seat. I’ll get you tea.’ Without asking, Grimm went to the cupboards along a wall. A replicator was set into them, but from there he only acquired boiling water. Fresh leaves and teacups were gathered from storage, assembled in a firm, confident routine that reminded Rhade distantly of Greg Carraway preparing for a counselling session.

But there was none of the sense of comfort constantly exuded by Greg Carraway, still far away on Teros. Rhade had dropped by unannounced, without apology, and now Grimm was determined to be hostly. Considering the humming in his veins and the tingling in his fingertips, it was off-putting.

‘Please, sit,’ said Grimm as he returned with a tray of his teapot and cups, setting it down on a coffee table. ‘You came to talk to me about Voler.’

Rhade hesitated, and took his time finding a seat to buy time. He had come with such certainty, a certainty that Grimm’s confidence was blowing chunks out of. ‘Yes.’

‘Not the resettlement on Teros. Which will go ahead. I’ve made sure of it.’ Grimm poured them both cups of tea, and slid Rhade’s towards him. ‘Please. Drink.’

Rhade took the cup. ‘Why?’

‘Traditionally, once you have offered someone sustenance under your roof and they have accepted it, they are protected under all laws of hospitality. Old laws, you understand. The kind that bind our blood, not our legal affairs.’

Cautious, and not sure why any more, Rhade sipped the tea. It tasted a little acrid, with a scent that shot into his nostrils. It should not have bothered him to be rude, and yet Grimm’s manner had disarmed him so much he had another gulp.

Only once he’d set the teacup down did he say, ‘I meant, why are you making sure the settlement on Teros goes ahead?’

‘I have no reason to stop it. I’m an intelligent man, Commander. I know that evil doesn’t lie in the hearts of a whole species, or a whole community.’ Grimm’s expression stayed level. ‘Evil lies in the hearts of everyone.’

The humming in Rhade’s ears had begun to return. He took another sip of tea to disguise the effort of fighting it. ‘I’m not sure why an intelligent man would lie to me and Chief Kowalski.’

He’d expected confusion, blustering. Not the calm tilt of the head. ‘Did I lie?’

‘You said you didn’t know Voler, only of him.’ Rhade pulled out a PADD. ‘But in the transcripts of Petty Officer Amaru’s interviews of the Colonial Affairs staff, several of them mentioned that you did know him. That you worked with him.’

Still no change in expression. ‘I worked with several Romulans. I must have gotten confused. But why is this coming up now, Commander? You have a suspect in custody.’

‘It’s coming up now because Amaru didn’t put this in his report to Chief Kowalski. I had to dig the transcripts out. Kowalski had a lot to go through; he had no reason to scrutinise one of his officers’ report of the statements of some fairly unrelated individuals.’

‘But you had reason to scrutinise.’ Grimm leaned forward, eyes narrowing. ‘I thought you came here with such fire and determination, and now you’re sat there all… procedural. All Starfleet.’

‘What else should I be?’

‘Why did you look at Amaru’s transcripts? Why did you come here yourself?’

‘I don’t…’

‘You have nothing. I didn’t lie in a statement, I misspoke in a conversation. You have a confession from a cultist. Because that’s what everyone thinks, no? That the Romulan refugees are cultists. I’ll stand against that, of course.’ When Grimm stood, he didn’t just look taller; he loomed. The gathering dusk behind him had come quickly, and the shadows crept in from the corners of the room as Rhade tilted back his head. ‘Everyone will crow and complain, rage in fear against the Romulans on their door. But they will live on Alfheim. Wretched and hated as they are.’

Rhade stood, but found his legs shaky. ‘Did you kill Voler?’

‘Why would I do that? Falsify a ritualised Romulan murder of a random refugee? Why would I do that and still fight to let the refugees resettle, when I could whisper in the governor’s ear and it’d all be over. The more important question is, why are you asking me that?’

The gathering dusk and shadows brought with them colours sparking in front of Rhade’s eyes, kaleidoscoping around Grimm’s looming form. He blinked hard. ‘I don’t know what your political motivations are, but you had a connection with him, you could have seen him that night…’

‘And killed him in a way to stir a bloody chaos, stoke embers that are sparking across the sector.’ Grimm’s expression at last changed. When he smiled, his smirk seemed to split his face in half. ‘So many would think that irrational. But that’s why you’re asking me, isn’t it, Adamant? Because you understand. I knew from the moment we met that you understand.’

‘I have no idea why you’d -’ But Grimm took a step forward, and Rhade flinched unwittingly. His legs wobbled, and his body, usually so strong, betrayed him. Knees buckled, and he fell back down onto his seat. His eyes swam to the teacup. ‘…did you drug me?’

‘I wanted us to talk. To talk properly. The brew isn’t so nobody will believe you, though… that helps. But I had to be sure your mind was open, first. You’ve been so close for so long. Longer than I could have imagined.’

Grimm stepped forward, and Rhade found his head lolling as he tried to look. But before him was not the mild-mannered bureaucrat, but a figure wrathed in shadows. Colours ebbed around him, crackling and oozing crimson, and coalescing around his head in the same branching pattern Rhade had seen before. The blood on the door to Voler’s murder. Again in the turbolift, flashing before his eyes when he’d first met Grimm. And now, branching, bloodied antlers crowning his temples.

‘I thought for so long I was alone,’ said Grimm, his voice reverberating with a rumble no vocal chords could muster. ‘I saw the hate in the heart of the galaxy, and when it called back, I thought I was the only. The work of others was… something. The immolation in fire and blood of those on Teros impressive, but limited. The heart of the galaxy called to them, and they were so weak they could only throw themselves into the abyss. Not call the abyss back.’

Rhade brought his hands up, as if he could claw away this veil across his eyes. All he found was air and shadows. ‘What are you…’

‘It’s called you, Adamant. I know the blood on your hands. The boy you killed whose suffering and fate you relive every night. Do you hate those dreams? Fear them? Or relish them? Gorge yourself on them?’ Grimm’s hand came to the back of the sofa as he leaned over Rhade, now close enough that the stench of blood hanging off him filled his nostrils.

‘I didn’t mean – that was the blood dilithium -’

‘Ghosts of the slaughtered who found something in you they could stir. Because they saw behind the mask. The man of duty, who’s bathed himself in blood for the Federation. How many frontiers? Battles? For so many years.’ A low chuckle escaped Grimm’s throat. ‘You call it duty, when in truth, you’re just weak to the call of flesh and blood. You call slaughter duty, then, when it comes to true duty, duty to those around you – family, the ones you’re oathbound to – you break it. Throw yourself on your base hungers. Rosara. Tahla.’

The haze of shadowed confusion did not fade, but the names stirred something. The fog coalesced into a fist in his chest, burning bright and seeping with his heart’s blood, and Rhade’s hand shot out to grab Grimm.

‘Don’t say those names.’ His chest heaved, and the flash of fury brought some clarity. ‘How do you know?’

Grimm looked only more delighted as he lashed out. ‘I told you. I saw the hate in the heart of the galaxy, and it called back. It showed me. There’s so much it gave me, Adamant, and so much it could give you.’

‘Give me? You’re insane.’

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it. A presence. A companion. Ancient and powerful. You are special, Adamant, to have found its attention.’

Rhade’s breathing slowed. ‘That’s why I’ve been seeing things. Hearing things.’

‘That’s why you knew it was me when you saw me. But you didn’t know to read the signs.’

‘What is this thing?’

‘The galaxy does not need help to inflict untold suffering upon itself. People do not need help to inflict untold suffering on each other in so many ways. Malice. Neglect. And here? Midgard? We have wrought and felt such suffering.’ Grimm shook his head, almost as if he thought it were sad, though Rhade could nearly taste his delight. ‘And in response to that call, something answered.’

Rhade’s throat was raw as realisation sank in. ‘It gave you dreams, too. Visions.’

‘Signs.’

‘And those people on Teros? The ones who blew themselves up?’

‘Weaker than I,’ said Grimm with satisfaction. ‘But serving a purpose. Taking the suffering within themselves and passing it forth tenfold.’

‘You’ve been feeding it.’ Rhade tried to push Grimm away, but there was no strength in his arm. The man loomed over him, shadows twisting to give him even more monstrous proportions, as though he was all he knew and all there was. ‘Killing Vorel to stir up hate.’

‘Don’t pretend.’ Grimm met his eyes, voice going softer. ‘Wasn’t it beautiful?’

The surging siren song of the memory of Vorel’s broken corpse, bloodied and still, called at him. Rhade had to screw his eyes shut to block it out.

This could just be petty suffering. No grand meaning at the bottom of it. There usually isn’t. All of that slashed skin and emerald seeping is, at the end of the day, just blood.

Draven’s words came surging back at him, simple and scathing. They cut through the illusion with cold clarity, a reminder of the banality of evil that stripped away the veneer of meaning, the seductive beauty of pain. There was no soft ache at how exquisite it was. Just a harsh sting. A mundanity.

When Rhade’s arm coiled to shove Grimm back, this time his body responded. ‘Get off me!’

Grimm tried to hold firm, then Rhade’s fist coiled for a cracking blow against the jaw. He gave way, staggering back, and Rhade was free. He legs sturdier now, fists clenched, but the room still swam around him, a swirling maelstrom of shadows oozing crimson and emerald.

‘It’s disappointing,’ mused Grimm, touching his bloodied lip. ‘I thought you understood.’

‘No.’ Rhade’s chest heaved. ‘I just deceived myself for so long. You use these lies to convince yourself there’s meaning in bloody brutality. So did I. That I killed people, hurt people, tricked and betrayed them, out of duty.’ He spat out the acrid taste in his mouth. ‘That’s enough. I’m bringing you in.’

But Grimm’s shadowy form began to swim before him at that. ‘But Adamant,’ he said, voice soft again. ‘What will you tell them?’

And the darkness rose to consume him.

When Rhade woke, he was in the woods. He wore the jacket he’d taken off in the house, but the chill of the cold ground had still seeped into his skin and bones, and he sat up quickly, shivering. That brought forth the pounding in his skull, the unsteadiness in his limbs, and for a moment, he fought the urge to retch.

He was far from Grimm’s house, not a long way from where he’d beamed down. No doubt, if he checked his blood, he’d imbibed something. But for all the thudding in his temples, the nausea in his gut, something felt lighter. Rhade blinked. He’d heard his own blood pumping in his ears for days, weeks. Only now it was gone had he realised.

His eyes dragged down the path towards Grimm’s house. He had little to nothing to make an accusation against John Grimm. He’d come to challenge him on an inconsistency, and got more than he bargained for. Soon enough, the young refugee who’d made his confession would be charged with murder. The settlement would be established on Alfheim, risking whipping the colonists into a frenzy. Teros remained stricken with grief and horror at the bloody attack. And the shadow of a brutal, nihilistic murder still hung over them all.

And all Rhade had to show for his work was a tale of a monstrous encounter in a government official’s house that would stand up to no scrutiny, and a claim that he, and Grimm, and the attackers on Teros, had all been influenced by some mysterious, telepathic entity. One that had stirred these events, and sunk its claws into people to do its bidding, and feasted on the emotions stoked by the horrors it had wrought, and was likely not done.

For days, aches and pains had felt like comfort, a soft companion to the thudding in his ears. Now thudding was gone, leaving only the silence of himself, and the aches were just sore. Dragging himself to his feet, he looked up and down the path, knowing he had to get a little further from the house if he was to beam out, needing to take a moment to check which way to go.

Disorientated, he looked up, through the canopy of trees. Mostly, it was dark. Shrouded. But here and there, he could pick out the gleams of the stars, pinpricks of light clawing to break through to him. It was enough.

Sore and stiff, Rhade began to walk.

‘I thought you were going to talk to him.’ Draven returned from the replicator to pass the cold pack over to Rhade, slumped back on the sofa in the Romulan’s quarters.

‘I did.’ Rhade pressed the pack to his lip with a faint hiss. He’d bitten the inside of his mouth somewhere inside the whole affair, and it still stung. ‘He drugged me, Draven, it’s not like this was the plan.’

‘At least we know he did drug you.’ Draven picked up the tricorder he’d used for a scan upon the Betazoid’s arrival. ‘Looks a lot like lysergic acid diethylamide, but with some cognitine and zephralactin thrown in. That’s fast-acting.’

‘It was.’

‘The cognitine is interesting.’ Draven looked like he expected Rhade to understand him, and sighed. ‘It’s a restricted substance. It’s been used to amplify a telepath’s awareness, but that’s of course… pretty dangerous.’

Rhade blinked muggily. ‘You’re saying that there might have been more going on than a bad trip and possible theatrics from Grimm?’

‘It’s possible. If you’re not both crazy and there really is something out there. You’d have been primed to be receptive to its telepathic communication, and highly suggestible on how to interpret it.’

‘But it’s not – none of this – is evidence.’

Draven shrugged. ‘There’s the transcripts of Amaru’s interviews. ‘

‘Already edited. I checked before I came here. The references to Grimm and Voler are gone.’

‘Who could do that?’

‘Amaru.’ Me, Rhade thought, but didn’t say.

‘So we have a refugee who’s confessed to the murder,’ said Draven, voice going slow as it sank in how screwed they were. ‘A link between the victim and Grimm that only you picked up on and has now vanished from the record. And an admission from John Grimm that he did it, only you were vividly hallucinating at the time, and would have to include that he claimed he’s acting on behalf of an extra-dimensional telepathic monster.’

‘Yes.’ Rhade’s voice grated. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Fuck me.’ Draven sank onto the sofa beside him. ‘That’s it, isn’t it. Either he gets away with it and you look crazy, or he gets away with it and you say nothing.’

‘Even if Kowalski believed me, I don’t know what he could do about it.’

‘How did he know, though? Grimm, I mean. Invoking Romulan mythology, if he hates Romulans…’

‘I think he hates everything. And he seems to have links to the cultists on Teros. Maybe this mysterious… thing… links them. He said it gave him gifts. Knowledge?’ Rhade put the coolpack down and rubbed his temples. ‘It was all perfectly assembled to play on the worst fears of everyone, and set them against each other. Even by allowing the Romulans to settle on Alfheim, he’s keeping this controversy alive. That appears to be the end goal. Not politics. Just… cruelty. Cruelty without meaning.’

‘Does it ever have meaning?’ Draven grunted.

They were silent for a moment, slouched on the sofa, defeated, until Rhade said, ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘That sort of pragmatism. This thing, it played on my mind. Played on every lie I’ve told myself about myself. Every dark feeling. We try to make sense of bleak things, of suffering, and sometimes that helps us work through it, but sometimes it means we…’

‘Romanticise it.’

‘Yes. I’ve done some truly rotten things and pretended it was for some higher purpose.’ He ran a hand through his hair, glaring at nothing. ‘Not only violence. The people I’ve hurt. My… ex-wife – I knew she wasn’t happy, I knew she wasn’t free to express it, but I told myself that I was respecting her choices, because she didn’t say anything. I kept her trapped and told myself I was being a man of duty. Until I couldn’t stand it any more, broke anyway, and hurt her.’ He shook his head. It was a long story. ‘You’ve cut through that. All that… romanticising self-delusion.’

‘Well,’ said Draven after a beat. ‘Nobody ever accused me of being a romantic, after all. Happy to help.’ He pushed to his feet again. ‘You’re a rare creature in all of this, Rhade.’

‘Crazy?’

‘Ha. Yes. But I mean, you tried to see things for what they were. Regardless of the inconvenience, or the politics. So many people got caught up in the implications, even well-meaning people, that they forgot the simple truth. A man died. For no reason at all. You didn’t lose sight of that.’

‘No. I just either lost my mind, or let something bend me to its will.’ Rhade rubbed his temples again. ‘Or nearly let it. I should talk to Counsellor Carraway.’

A pause. ‘Yes.’

‘Not just for me, though.’ Rhade glanced over. ‘You and I are the only ones who know about Grimm. What he’s been doing. What he works for.’

‘Thinks he works for.’

‘We’ve not stopped him. He’s won this one. And next time, I’m not going to be susceptible to this thing’s influence.’

‘Ah, pursuing psychiatric aid out of spite and embarrassment at defeat. It’s as good a reason as any,’ Draven drawled. Then he hesitated. ‘Though there might be advantages to this thing having you in its crosshairs. It put you on the right path this time.’

‘While trying to manipulate me.’

‘Which it failed to do. I’m all for putting past demons to bed. But I wouldn’t be confident that ten rounds with a counsellor will be enough to turn away something vast, ancient, unknowable, and, well, evil.’

‘No,’ Rhade allowed. ‘But I have to try.’

‘Mm. Isn’t that all we can ever do?’ Draven padded to the window. His was holographic, showing a projection of the outside view if his rooms were a few hundred metres closer to the hull. ‘Normally, I don’t think of actual evil. Just the utter callousness of the universe, uncaring and meaningless. That’s the real enemy, isn’t it? The weakness in the galaxy – in all of us – that lets things like this in in the first place? After all, we didn’t need it to do all of these awful things to one another for years, decades, centuries. That just caught its attention.’

Rhade got up and went to join him. His head still hurt. ‘It’s enough to make you feel quite insignificant.’

‘That’s the trick. However hopeless it might be. However powerless it might be. However much you can’t actually stop the bad things from happening. You try. Win or lose. Because if you don’t?’ Draven shrugged. ‘We might as well not be here.’

‘We try,’ mused Rhade, ‘because we’re the only things we can control.’ He closed his eyes, and this time there was no flash of colour, no vivid shapes, no taste of blood, no drumming in his ears. Just him.

‘Sometimes,’ said Draven.