‘When the sensor interference started flooding in, we lost track of you.’ Lieutenant Falaris’s voice held the faintest of shakes, as if nerves had stayed locked up while she worked, but now, as the Blackbird thundered up through the atmosphere of Tau Mervana, they had begun to leak out. ‘And even boosting power to our sensor array didn’t give us much except that everything had gone crazy. So I had to apply an adaptive signal filtering algorithm to clear up the sensor interference layer by layer until I could broadly locate your combadge signatures – not enough to contact you or beam you out, but for a broad location -’

‘Yeah.’ Cassidy’s voice was rough as he cut her off, his grip on the door-frame to the Blackbird’s bridge tight. Dried blood had encrusted down the side of his face, and his dusty and battered figure cut a sharp contrast to the crisp efficiency of the ship’s command centre. He looked from Falaris to Ranicus, stood at the command chair. ‘We still running silent?’

‘Normally, an overhead flight would have drawn attention,’ Ranicus drawled, ‘but lucky for us, someone’s blinded half the planet.’

‘Not someone.’ Cassidy’s jaw was tight. ‘The Tal Shiar. They’ll have a ship somewhere. Get us out of the system; quiet is better than fast.’ Footsteps padded behind him and he rounded on the approaching Tiran, not looking in much better shape than him. ‘How’s Aryn?’

‘In the medical bay. EMH says a knock to the head; nothing serious.’ Her voice was lower, more reassuring. ‘We got through this one okay, Hal. We’re only down a Nomad.’

‘I liked that car,’ Cassidy growled. ‘Fucking Tal Shiar.’ His eyes landed on Ireqah. ‘Tell me more about this Falco.’

The defector straightened an inch. On Tau Mervana she’d been coiled, cautious. Now on the bridge of a Starfleet ship, iron was sinking back into her bones, and she was much more like Rosewood had remembered her. Her expression went taut. ‘You know everything you need to know about her to get us out of this situation, Commander. Her resources are good but her manpower isn’t limitless. Critically, if we slip through her fingers now, she won’t have a long enough leash from T’Met to keep chasing. She’ll have to go and explain her failure. All you have to do is keep running.’

‘I don’t -’

‘And anything else about the ins and outs of specific Tal Shiar agents,’ Ireqah continued, voice raising a pitch, ‘is for me to negotiate with your superiors once you drop me off.’

Cassidy’s expression had folded into a scowl. His eyes landed on Tiran. ‘Get her settled in the guest quarters.’ He managed to make it sound like a banishment to the dungeon, though Rosewood was fairly sure he sincerely meant the one spare stateroom aboard.

‘We’re breaking atmo,’ confirmed Ranicus as Tiran and Ireqah left and the ship’s shuddering faded. Within moments, the tactical display lit up with an array of sensor blips cascading and colliding, a tapestry of chaos in orbit. But that was on the far side of the planet; the Blackbird had looped away from the city, rising from the surface only once they were nowhere near the tight knot of ships they’d slipped past on their approach.

‘Fighting’s broken out between the warlords up here, too,’ Falaris confirmed after a beat, hands racing over her sensor feed controls. ‘But the Liberty’s getting stuck between them.’

Rosewood turned to lean over her shoulder. ‘Are they in trouble?’

‘Those are last-generation warbirds who’re more interested in fighting each other than them,’ said Cassidy. ‘Liberty will be fine. Doesn’t matter anyway – get us out of here. Keep an eye out for any ships not directly involved in the fighting.’

‘They shouldn’t be able to paint us anyway,’ said Falaris.

Arms folded across his chest, Rosewood watched as the Blackbird peeled away from the planet and the fighting. Cassidy was right; the flotillas in orbit were ancient and would have needed to assemble their full might to challenge a Sagan-class starship. That level of unity was beyond them, so as the Liberty soared through the firefight, loosing shots when fired upon to take out engines and weapons systems, it seemed the mess in orbit the Starfleet ship had been left with was, at least, not lethal.

It still took an hour of careful manoeuvring at low power before they had slipped far enough away for Ranicus to turn away from the main display and say to Cassidy, ‘We’re clear to go to warp.’

Rosewood’s lips tightened. He didn’t know enough of Cassidy’s records to know his familiarity with starship command, and especially not with the cautious calibration of sensors and systems that went into the Blackbird’s stealth capabilities. But he saw Ranicus’s statement for what it was: a declaration that while he might be the captain of this ship, she was the one really in charge of it.

Whether Cassidy read this or cared was less clear. ‘Then get us the hell out of here,’ he rumbled. Once the deck hummed underneath at the jump to warp, he looked her up and down and said, ‘You came to get us through all that mess?’

Her impassive expression seemed, Rosewood thought, to soften. ‘It was my determination that maintaining the covert nature of this mission was less important than ensuring its success. But it was Lieutenant Falaris who found you so I could make that decision.’

Falaris smiled nervously up at Cassidy when he turned. ‘I didn’t have much else to do but find you once I lost you. We’re mission support. I wanted to support.’

There was a beat as he stared her down. Then he said, ‘Good work,’ before looking up at Ranicus and giving her a nod, too. He turned towards the door and his gaze landed on Rosewood. ‘Get some rest, Kid. Long day.’

‘Do I get a pat on the head for being a good boy, too?’ He smirked.

Cassidy rolled his eyes. ‘Save everyone’s lives and we’ll talk.’

There was, Rosewood liked to think, less bite to his voice. But he was too tired to keep this up, and while his mind hummed with a thousand thoughts and concerns, it was difficult to resist the siren call of the living quarters, his room, his bunk.

He must have slept for twelve hours, and the shower after to wash away the dust and blood was long and luxurious, even if it could only scrub the surface. There was a certain liberty to feeling like he didn’t need to shove himself back into uniform after; to grabbing jeans and, after a moment’s hesitation over a patterned button-down, a merino wool charcoal-grey sweater. It was a double-edged sword; freedom to feel like him after the mission opened the question of exactly who that was.

It was exposing to stand at the door to the guest room, waiting for his chime to be answered; even though he only saw a pair of the engineers passing down the end of the corridor, chatting and paying him no mind, the close nature of the ship made even that feel intrusive. So for a split second he was more relieved than nervous when the door slid open – then he saw Ireqah, and the nerves returned. ‘Hi.’

She’d washed and probably rested, too, but it looked like she’d put her hard-worn clothes in a cleaning cycle before putting them back on; the typical move he’d expect from someone on the run. Her eyes gleamed before she said, simply, ‘Commander.’

That merely spurred him on, and he stepped inside without asking. ‘You know that formality just says you kept track of me enough to know I got promoted?’

‘It’s a reasonable appraisal for an officer of your capability.’ But she did pause and soften as the door shut behind him. ‘It is good to see you. Now we’re not in a war-zone.’

He swallowed as he turned. ‘Glad I could get you out of that war-zone. Still glad you ran into it.’

‘The fall of the Star Empire leaves the Free State as the biggest faction left. That only tightened the Tal Shiar’s grip, just as I thought Coppelius had broken it.’ Her gaze flickered down. ‘It was time.’

‘Why us? And not the Republic?’

‘The Republic is a naïve experiment that’ll be destroyed by the Klingon Empire. If I go there, I’ll be fighting to keep alive a government I don’t believe in. Starfleet Intelligence is the best place I can be to undermine the Tal Shiar.’

His eyebrows went up. ‘You’re here for revolution in the Free State.’

‘Revolution is a strong word. Let’s settle for shifting the power balance in the ruling factions.’ But she looked away, eyes going to the stars racing past the porthole view. ‘Eventually. First, I have to convince Starfleet they can use me.’

‘Your knowledge and skills? They’ll be desperate.’

‘They’ll be happy to debrief me, put all my knowledge in a file, and then give me a farm somewhere to live out my days. But I don’t know if the Free State is a high enough priority for them to put me to work against them.’

He offered a weak, encouraging smile. ‘Makes you a cheap expert?’

‘Perhaps.’ But she managed her own tight, apprehensive smile. ‘Where are you after this? Playing a key role in a defection – that’ll be a feather in your hat, I’m sure.’

He shrugged. ‘Still here. This ship, this team.’

‘Third-string with some petty field agents?’ Now her nose wrinkled. ‘That’s a waste of your talents.’

‘You’ve seen Cassidy. He could do with someone beside him who gets the wider geo-political picture to improve his decision-making -’

‘I don’t mean those talents.’ She took a step closer, gaze soaking him in. It wasn’t that he thought she could see through all of his masks – just as she was an expert in piercing them, he was an expert in making them – but he could feel her peeling back more than he liked. After a beat, her lips curled. ‘Oh, my. They think you’re just a diplomat.’

‘Hey, I’m not just anything -’

‘You’re right.’ She didn’t sound like she was listening. ‘I kept track of you after we met, yes. Enough to know there’s no such ship as the USS Lusanka. You had a busy three years, John.’

For a moment, he considered denying it. Then he smirked. ‘Three years? Try a busy career, Sinach. But like I said. I’m touched you kept tabs on me.’

‘Like you didn’t keep tabs on me.’

‘I had to know enough to sweep in and save the day, didn’t I?’

‘I’m quite sure I saved you from getting your head shot off.’ Her lips curled, and just as he was about to say something else – more than he should – they felt the hum of the warp drive fade, felt the Blackbird shift out of warp. He frowned with surprise, but her gaze went more distant as it fell again on the window. ‘Here we are.’

‘We’re not – we’ve not been at warp long enough to get back to Gateway.’

‘No. But we’re far enough into Federation space for a pickup. Cassidy didn’t tell you about the rendezvous?’ Her smile returned, more wry, as he shook his head. ‘Don’t underestimate that one. He only plays the thug. Just as you only play the fool.’

‘Hey, sometimes I’m not playing.’

Overhead, the computer chirruped with the sound of a comm connection. ‘Cassidy to Ireqah. Get to the transporter room and we’ll beam you over.’

Rosewood’s lips twisted. ‘I’ll walk you down.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she said, nose tilting in the air. ‘You did well convincing me it was you on Tau Mervana without showing your entire hand, but we’ve still played a lot more cards than I’d like. There’s no need to throw the game.’

He hesitated as he summoned a protest – times had changed, she’d just defected, they were in a very different situation – but then she leaned up and kissed him, banishing any argument.

Rosewood let out a deep breath once he let her go. ‘I shoulda been here hours ago.’

‘You always did have bad timing.’ Her fingers ran down his jaw. ‘Be careful, John.’

‘Hey, just as I’m not always playing the fool, Cassidy isn’t always playing the thug. I’ve got enough shit-kickers around me to stay safe.’

‘I don’t mean in the field.’ Her eyes grew serious. ‘I know what happened to your father.’

That shut him up for a moment, throat clenching tight. After a beat, he rasped, ‘That was months ago -’

‘Falco wasn’t wrong about Starfleet. I’m taking a risk here, but my eyes are open. Make sure yours are, too.’ Her hand clenched in his sweater for a moment before letting go. ‘Make sure you know who you can trust.’

‘Didn’t you always tell me the answer to that is “no one?”’ he said, wryness returning to his voice as she stepped away.

For a moment, he thought she’d leave without answering as she turned to the door, expression falling. Then she paused. ‘I was wrong,’ she said at last. ‘Realising there really was no one I could trust was what made me understand it was time to leave. You have to trust someone, John. It doesn’t have to be yourself.’

Then she left. It was sensible to stay put, sensible to give her a head-start. Sensible to linger until the Blackbird had gone back to warp, leaving behind whatever ship they’d met, whatever pickup had collected her, and Rosewood thought he was better off not knowing such details.

But it was not caution that had him lingering for so long in the dark of the empty room, alone, with her words echoing in his ears.