“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Captain Saito insisted to the group packed into his ready room. “It’s just too dangerous, and the people of Duraxis have made it crystal clear: they don’t want us here.” Standing beside him, Lieutenant Commanders Miriam Gessler and Gabe Rivera nodded in concurrence. Even before the catastrophe at the reactor, both had questioned why they were even here to begin with.

“No, this is exactly why we should be here,” Commodore Agarwal countered. Why couldn’t they see it? It should’ve been plainly obvious to all. “If ever we want to change the narrative across the Archanis Sector, we must start by lifting up its people, to show them the future is brighter with us than without us.” It was because of Starfleet’s decades-long neglect of places like Duraxis that these localist attitudes had been allowed to fester.

“It’s too messy,” Lieutenant Commander Gessler insisted. All this craziness, the slipped schedules, the missing equipment, the frontier resentment, none of it was to her liking. She preferred things controlled and predictable, like how she ran her operations department, and she wished the whole galaxy would get in line too.

“And it’s not safe,” added Lieutenant Commander Rivera. He liked himself far too much to throw his life away defending construction meant to support a people that didn’t even want it.

Commodore Agarwal frowned. “Go down there. Walk among these people. See the life they live. It’s a hard life. They need us.” Unfortunately, none of the officers he stood opposite of had so much as set foot on Duraxis, nor did they have any interest in doing so.

“You almost blew them all up today!” Captain Saito snapped back. He’d debriefed with Lieutenant Commander Cho while Doctor Goodwyn was checking on her injuries. He understood the scale of the harrowing catastrophe that had only narrowly been avoided.

“That’s not fair, and you know it,” Commodore Agarwal glared at Saito. This captain was barely a captain, only in his seat by tenure, nothing more. Who was he, sitting up here, to lay criticism on his Corps of Engineers? “We deployed a stock standard reactor, no different than those that power a hundred other colonies just like this one.”

“Then what happened?” Captain Saito replied. He had the Commodore there, he knew. Stock standard or not, it had almost gone critical tonight. And that was on him.

Commodore Agarwal had no response.

“It was terrorism,” Ensign Elara blurted out, causing everyone to turn. Freshly returned from the protest in the town square and the disaster at the reactor, the intelligence officer’s hair was still matted, her skin still covered in soot, and her outfit still a scrappy pair of dirty coveralls. There was a sharp contrast between her and her colleagues from the Pacific Palisades, all of whom were dressed in clean, pressed uniforms, having spent their entire shift sheltered within the comforts of their ship.

“Come again, missy?” Lieutenant Commander Rivera asked, his tone somehow managing to be equal parts aghast and infantilizing. What a leap the child had made, he thought to himself.

“It’s Ensign to you, Lieutenant Commander,” corrected Captain Westmoreland, the other officer to step through the door with her. While he wasn’t as disheveled as Alessa Elara, he too looked out of place, dressed in the sweats he’d been wearing in bed when the call had come in that something had happened at the reactor. “And yes, your Chief Intelligence Officer is quite correct. We have reason to suspect that a malicious actor penetrated the facility’s physical security and planted malware with the intent of causing widespread destruction.”

“That’s quite a claim,” Captain Saito observed warily. “What makes you so certain?”

“After decompiling the bioneural processor used to mediate ion cyclotron resonance heating within the fusion reaction, we found malicious subroutines present within the firmware,” Captain Westmoreland explained. “I can say confidently that they were planted after installation, and further, I can say with certainty that it wasn’t just some mistake made by Captain Feng’s team.”

“I think you’re making our point for us, cap,” Lieutenant Commander Rivera said as he directed his next point back towards Commodore Agarwal. “Commodore, if ever we needed more proof that we should just pack it up and leave, the colonists trying to blow everyone up would be it.”

Captain Westmoreland frowned. What sort of security chief didn’t want to track down the bad guys and stomp out crime? But it wasn’t just about fighting some local crime either. “Actually, based on the signature of the malware, I would say we absolutely cannot leave now.”

“What would a jumble of bits and bytes tell you that these unappreciative colonists have not already?” Lieutenant Commander Rivera spat. “This is proof of how far they’re willing to go to send us on our way. Why don’t we just listen?”

“They were of Borg origin,” Captain Westmoreland stated flatly.

Suddenly, all the air left the room.

“Amit, it’s time we call Reyes,” Captain Westmoreland continued. “The Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity has specialists with far more background in Borg technology than me and my team.” While his team had helped clean up Salvage Facility 21-J in the aftermath of Beta Serpentis, it had been the ASTRA folks that had solved it in the first place.

“I’ll put in the call as soon as we’re done here,” Commodore Agarwal agreed. If what Captain Westmoreland had found was accurate, this had just become significantly more complicated.

Before anyone else could speak, the door to the ready room hissed open again, and this time, it was Commander Gideon to step through. He’d been manning the bridge while the others discussed the next course of action, but now he had news. More troubling news. “We just received work from our damage control teams on the surface. The riot that was forming earlier, it’s now headed directly for the reactor facility, currently a quarter klik from the gates.” He handed a PADD to Captain Saito with the details.

The captain skimmed it quickly and then handed it over to his security chief as he turned to the head of the Corps detachment. “Commodore, you still bent on us staying?”

”After what we just learned? Frankly, there’s no other choice,” Commodore Agarwal replied firmly. What else could they do, knowing that there was Borg technology in the wild down there?

“It’s quite a mob, commodore,” Lieutenant Commander Rivera warned as he passed the PADD to Agarwal. “I’m not sure we can hold them.”

Commodore Agarwal glanced down at the PADD. A couple hundred angry colonists advancing towards the reactor facility with signs and rocks? “I’m sure your well-staffed, well-trained security department can handle some upset colonists,” he assured Lieutenant Commander Rivera. And besides, he thought to himself, even if that mob was a horde ten times the size, they still had no choice given what Captain Westmoreland had determined. They could not leave until they got to the bottom of this.

Lieutenant Commander Rivera sighed frustratedly. This was most definitely not how he had envisioned his night going. He had a Wyatt Earp program on the holodeck he’d been looking forward to playing, and then he’d planned to go down to the lounge to enjoy a few tall boys.

“Looks like you’re up, champ,” Captain Westmoreland chuckled, patting the security chief on the back. He was enjoying the discomfort splayed across the security chief’s face a bit too much.

“We’re going to be severely outnumbered,” Lieutenant Commander Rivera warned.

“You and your men have ballistic gear, stun batons, and the best training the Academy could offer,” Commodore Agarwal countered. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask Reyes to bring a few extra hands with her when they come.”

At least it would be someone else’s problem soon, the chief thought to himself.

“In the meantime,” Commodore Agarwal cautioned. “Just remember, the goal is to calm the mob, not to incense it.” He’d unfortunately seen far too many security teams take the wrong tact and end up escalating the situation. “After what they’ve just witnessed, the colonists are going to be an emotional bunch, and rightfully so.” This wasn’t just about tonight either. It was about the years of neglect these colonists had to endure while the Federation turned a blind eye.