The lavish command chamber of the Pirate Queen’s ship glittered like a treasure hoard, all burnished metals and rare fabrics; the spoils of centuries of plunder. The Queen herself sat at a dais upon a throne-like chair, legs crossed, surveying the shimmering opulence with the cool air of one who knew the real wealth was not in her lucre, but her control.

It was control that kept the three lieutenants before her cowed, quiet. They had come with differing ideas, full of anger or fear or enthusiasm, disagreeing in the next step, the right step, but now united in one simple way: submission to her.

‘Profits have soared,’ said the Orion among them, a young woman with sharp eyes. ‘We have a treasure trove on our hands, or falling into our hands. Cloaking devices, subspace weapons, AI systems, all manner of technologies – either their application brings us riches, or selling them brings us riches.’

‘Selling them to who?’ said the second, a gruff Nausicaan man. ‘We trade with other factions, or the Ferengi, or arm local pirates and insurgent movements. They get phasers and disruptors. Now, we’ve got goods on our hands that can change the face of planets. You can only sell those to the very powerful, or the very dangerous.’

‘The very powerful bring immense riches,’ the Orion lieutenant pointed out. ‘As for the dangerous… scared?’

‘Realistic,’ the Nausicaan sneered. ‘I don’t doubt our capacity to survive. But this draws attention. Starfleet’s been increasing their patrols. Reports rise of them mobilising task forces -’

‘And yet,’ said the Pirate Queen, her voice cutting through the argument like a micro-blade, ‘we’re still here. Profiting.’ She leaned forward, and the gathered lieutenants stiffened. ‘We’ve tasted only a fraction of the wealth we can enjoy from this bounty. Not merely in coin – but power. Influence. We don’t deal with petty pirates, now, but kings. That gives us the power to be kingmakers. Starfleet will bark, yes. Threaten. But what can they do? Their hands are tied – by their own treaties, their own red tape, their own principles. We are beyond them now.’

‘With respect,’ the Nausicaan said, which was always enough to make her accusingly tilt her head, ‘it’s not just Starfleet we should be concerned about. We are making a lot of enemies. And we hardly know what many of these technologies can do. Our reach is so stretched, even you cannot see everything.’

‘I have trust in the Syndicate,’ the Pirate Queen said lightly. ‘We never pretend we can control everything. We know we can control the fallout. We always do.’

The last lieutenant, a grizzled Farian who had worked with her for decades, shifted his feet. That hint of uncertainty was enough to make her stop, and her eyes landed on him. ‘Yes?’

‘We are stretched,’ the Farian rumbled. ‘Some of the factions think this push is reckless. Many from Kolar itself. That we’ve gotten too big. Too visible. One misstep, my Queen, and a rival will use this to move against you.’

She was artful in keeping her smile light. Dismissive. Controlling. ‘There are always rivals,’ she said, though she knew he was right. ‘But nothing silences them like… success.’ The fact the rumblings came from traditionalist corners of the Syndicate, groups with whom she’d enjoyed significant popularity in the past, was recent. Then again, traditionalist groups were always the most conservative. They hated nothing more than change, no matter how profitable.

The Pirate Queen stood, and all three lieutenants took sharp steps back. She’d been right to hold this audience in private, with nobody else present save her most trusted guards. However much she projected strength and certainty, the Orion Syndicate walked a tightrope. ‘Starfleet can chase us all they like,’ she sneered. ‘But they’ll chase their own tails, too. They let this equipment fall out of their hands. What makes you so afraid they’ll be able to get it back? They are not the mighty force they were two decades ago.’

The Nausicaan did not look reassured. ‘They’ll come for us.’

‘Then do as we always do. Stay a step ahead. Slink to the shadows. And if they force the issue, well…’ Her lips curled. ‘Maybe they’ll find out what their toys can do. If they think they can defeat us by targeting us one at a time, chasing one lead at a time, they’ll find out how wrong they are. We are not one, but many. In every shadow of the galaxy: that’s where we thrive. And the galaxy is not short of shadows.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Commodore Rourke told Admiral Beckett bluntly. ‘The Orion Syndicate are weeds. Cut off the head of one and the roots aren’t gone.’

Being summoned to Starbase Bravo was the sort of thing Matt Rourke had thought would happen less often since his promotion to flag officer. He’d assumed his responsibilities – to his squadron, to the sector whose security was his duty – would keep him less on the dangling strings of the Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence. It was turning out that it simply made him a different kind of asset.

‘Yes, thank you, Matt,’ drawled Beckett, not looking away from the window in his office overlooking Bravo’s arboretum. ‘Obviously, in my position, I’m very stupid and don’t know how the most powerful criminal organisation in the galaxy works, and need it describing using simplistic metaphors.’

Rourke scowled. ‘I mean that the Fourth Fleet is the wrong tool to send. It’s taking a hammer to -’ He stopped. There’d be another snide comment about his metaphors. He drew a sharp breath and tried again. ‘Starships deal with big problems. This needs something subtler.’

‘I have a graviton shield device, a local space-time manipulation device, Genesis nano-seeds, more lost Borg technology than I can shake a stick at – all stolen from Federation research sites and vaults and now flooding the black market. Tell me, Matt; where does subtlety come into that?’

‘In the ways they move it, find a buyer, then sell it, all before it’s ever used.’ Rourke’s jaw clamped. ‘This is flashy, and flashy’s the wrong approach. You need a strategic, intelligence-led effort, leveraging informants, undercover agents, and existing networks to find out where they are and then dismantle them from the inside.’

‘Again, it is incredible how you tell me to do my job,’ Beckett sighed. ‘Those assets would be ideal. But they’re gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Dismantled over the years by Starfleet’s continuous security breaches; how do you think half of these devices were stolen in the first place? And, thus compromised, the Syndicate has managed to clear itself of most of our influence. I have my thumb on various lone pulses, but the general circulatory system, let alone the heart itself…’ He waved a dismissive hand in illustration.

Rourke was silent for a moment. When he mumbled, ‘Now who’s talking in metaphors?’ it was a lame effort to lighten the mood at this dark revelation.

‘We are not what we were,’ Beckett said, stony-faced. ‘So now I have to use what we have. I have the Fourth Fleet.’

Another long beat of silence. At length, Rourke said, ‘Captains aren’t used to this.’

‘They’ll adapt. They always do.’

‘This kind of work – the moment you’re not just chasing a pirate down, the moment you’re dealing with a network like this, it’s easy to see everyone as the enemy. Criminals aren’t an enemy.’

‘They are right now.’

‘We have laws and policies and principles; this isn’t as if we’re mobilising against the Cardassian Union. The Syndicate operate in the Federation; many of them are citizens. Otherwise they live and work alongside citizens, civilians. It’s easy to see everyone as the enemy.’

‘This time, Matt, you presume that not only I cannot do my job, but that the captains of the Fourth Fleet cannot possibly match your experience of a criminal investigation job you haven’t done for a decade or two,’ Beckett sneered. ‘I asked you here because I have a specific task for you. Not to be lectured. Shall we get to business? Or do you want to question the whole operational endeavour?’

‘I think that’s exactly what I’ve done so far,’ said Rourke, though his tone made it clear he knew he was on the back foot.

‘Mercifully, I do not answer to you. Mercifully, I have faith in the Fourth Fleet, and the captains of the Fourth Fleet.’ Beckett extended a proprietary hand towards the seat across his desk. ‘Let’s get to work.’