A thick, sugar-rich scent hung throughout the modest cabin, its scavenged walls and repurposed furnishings heavy with the sweet smoke that tickled the tongue and twitched the nostrils. The remodelled chairs and hand-hemmed curtains suffused with the indefinable mix of spices and seasonings that was a testament to hours spent above the perpetually bubbling cauldron in the corner of the kitchenette. Bahir’s tongue wrestled behind his thin lips, desperate to leap out and sample the sweetened air like a young saurian, still unaccustomed to manners. Confident he could sup that air for a thousand years and still never discover each ingredient, he pushed the childish desire down as his attention returned to the avian figure of Anyok who continued her polite questioning of the plump wire-haired matriarch who stood at the fire-filled stove. 

“How long did you say you’ve been here?” Anyok’s beak chattered, her eyes wide with an interest both explorative and tactical. 

“Najall and her kin will be the second generation born on the planet’s surface.” The older woman motioned to the slim girl playing with her stout brother in the corner of the room, she danced around him picking and poking at the young boy’s unkempt hair. She whispered unfamiliar teasing words, two generations worth of deviation enough to confuse the universal translator’s linguistic library, whose base knowledge of the Kazon language was thin at best. 

“We’re you born here?” Anyok probed. “I’m sorry I completely forgot your name…” 

The woman’s eyes narrowed momentarily, lifting a wide round tasting spoon to her lips as she scrutinised the pair of Starfleet Officers. Anyok suspected she was not unfamiliar with first contacts of a sort, her words as considered as each of the spices she selected from a small shelf nearby. “Kylana.” She offered after a brief pause. “And you are Anyok? And Bahir?” She nodded to the coral coloured Saurian also sat at the table, who nodded a silent affirmation. Though Bahir technically outranked Anyok as acting XO, the Saurian was not so foolish as to flex his rank over the Theta Squad’s commander who had several first contact accolades in her thick service jacket. He could hear the voice of Captain Tanek, half a thousand light years away, ‘a good XO does not shout louder than his officers’. 

Anyok chattered happily, “Kylana, yes! That, I could forget such a lovely name.”

She waved dismissively with a free hand as the other continued to stir slow circles in the cauldron before continuing. “No, I wasn’t one of the first born on the surface, though I wasn’t even a teen when we finally left the ship and set up the village proper.”

“And where is the ship now?” Bahir interrupted, suddenly considering Helios was at a detecting disadvantage even against relatively unadvanced Kazon tech. 

“Gone.” She motioned with the spoon through the kitchen’s wide window towards the glowing white orb that was the underspace aperture fizzing in space not far from the planet. “In amongst the debris out there somewhere.”

“So you know about the debris field and…” Anyok hesitated, taking an educated guess by the woman’s age they had been on the planet for at least 4 decades if not more. That was well before Voyager’s journey to the Delta Quadrant, they may not even know about Starfleet, the Federation or the state of the galaxy. 

“The portal?” Kylana finished. “Yes. Don’t let appearances fool you, we’re not backward, we remain informed about the ways of the universe.” She offered an admonishing brow. “We journeyed through the portal ourselves and we’ve collected a variety of information from the ships that have also been stranded here.”

The two Starfleet officers shared a glance, there was no way to know what information had made it through to this remote colony. “If I may, what led you to make a home here?” Bahir asked, steering the conversation in a different direction. 

“Necessity. We remained on the ship for a few months after the transit but we suffered significant damage and were never able to restore the ship to faster-than-light functionality. ” Kylana set a lid on the pot and returned to the carved table, offering a small bowl of fresh looking berries to the room. “I suspect you’ve encountered something similar.” She fished, unsubtly. 

Ignoring the bait Anyok charged on, “You didn’t attempt to return through the portal?”

“Kazon technology is somewhat basic and our understanding of its true capabilities even more so.” she acknowledged. “We were a small, struggling tribe on the run and unfortunately we lacked the knowledge to reopen the portal. It was only several years later when a Turei ship got dragged into orbit that we learnt of Underspace and it’s reach.” She sat on a carved chair with a heavy thump of her skirts. “By then our ship was lost and we were settled here amongst the reeds, there was no desire to leave. Even if we could.”

“And the other vessels? Other people?” Bahir asked, acutely aware of the homogenous population of the village, it was a dangerous tactic but she had mentioned other space faring civilizations and a quick call into Helios confirmed no other colonies on the planet. Solitary Kazon amongst a sea of broken ships begged several questions. 

“Lost en route or trying to leave.” If she was hiding something it didn’t show. “Survivors would usually orbit for a few days, make repairs and then re-enter the portal or more accurately die trying.”

“No-one made it out?” Anyok’s words were short and precise, an edge of barely perceptible worry deep in her throat. 

“Not for as long as I remember.”

“And they all try to leave via the portal? No one wanted to stay?” Bahir asked, looking around the cabin, the village beyond the scavenged metal walls wasn’t the height of luxury but he couldn’t believe no one in 50 years hadn’t opted to stay. “No one tried just heading out?”

“I think a Hazari bounty hunter attempted to fly to the edge of the system a few years ago, to see if he could escape the interference and generate a warp field.” The woman pinched a small berry in her fingers pretending to fly it slowly through space. 

“And?” Anyok slicked quietly. 

Kylana squished the berry between her fingers. “Last we saw was his ship collapsing in the upper atmosphere beyond the gas giant when he got caught in its gravity well.”

A sudden chill ran down Bahir’s spine as a realisation crossed his brow. “Then you have some long-range sensors?”

“As I said Bahir, we’re not as backward as we might appear.” She smiled, picking another berry from the bowl with her sticky fingers. 

Bahir glanced to Anyok and flicked his round eyes upward, if the Kazon had sensor tech, they were no doubt already aware of Helios, the injured mothership still hanging in geo-synchronous orbit above the tidally locked planet. Anyok tilted her head slightly in acknowledgement, it wasn’t a huge leap to believe they might have also held on to technology of a less scientific nature. The pair’s silent consultation was interrupted by the thud of a head upon the doorframe as the hulking form of a Kazon male entered the cabin. 

“Chucka!” Kylana cried, “One day your skull or that lintel will loose the fight!”

“No doubt you pray it will be my skull.” Tos laughed, his voice deep enough to rumble the table and quake the berries in their pot. “I was in such a rush to come and meet our newest arrivals.”

“Word travel’s fast it seems.” Bahir stood to meet the man. 

“I would have been here 5 minutes ago but I was chatting to your own mountain men outside.” He motioned with a great arm, spade-like hands pointing to Ole and Khal who stood watch in the small square formed by the collected cabins. As instructed their weapons remained holstered, though the two crewmen remained on high alert. “Is it only the four of you?”

“No, actually there are…” Anyok caught her loose tongue before it danced merrily from her beak. “… we have others aboard our ship in orbit.”

“Then we shall have to see what we can scrounge up for a welcome.” Tos threw his arms wide and laughed once more.

“We would love that. We just need to check in with our ship, lest they become worried we are incapacitated.” Anyok nodded to the two security officers in the square. “If we may?”

“It’s not my house to keep you in, nor would I if t’were.” He smiled, standing aside to allow the officers to leave. 

As Bahir stepped past the man with a grateful nod, Anyok hovered, studying the unfamiliar face. The man was gigantic, his rust-coloured skin cut with a wide toothy grin. Atop his head, thick clumps of hair, the signature of the Kazon people, were slowly beginning to grey with age though the man showed little else in the way of geriatric traits. A second shudder ran down her spine as she realised what little knowledge Starfleet retained on the Kazon and how different might these people be after 50 years, separated from the tribes. Perhaps there was hope for a different relationship?

As the older officer dipped her blue plumage in a respectful nod and she took a step out into the warm twilight air of the square, she allowed a mote of hope to creep into her heart; unaware that the dimpled smiles that she left behind had quickly been replaced with cold, calculating eyes.