Everything in Paulo Costa’s universe was good. After a friendly but fierce game of tennis with their friends, he was sitting in the recreation room with his arm draped over his boyfriend’s shoulder while nursing a glass of synthehol. It would have been even better if his drink were a fine glass of real mezcal and the setting was a white sand beach, but that evening was about as good as it could get on Arondight. Other than that totally minor incident where all of Olympia Station was thrown across the quadrant, his first few months as first officer had gone very well in his estimates—though his estimates still had a lot to do with his personal popularity more than anything else.

Costa and Captain Bennett had settled into a good working relationship, and he’d figured out that the captain preferred things less formal than Lancaster had but a few notches more locked down than Costa would probably let go on his own command. Among the senior staff, he counted Lieutenants Robinson and Sadir amongst his friends, was friendly with Engineer Shadi and Doctor Sarama, and seemed to have the respect of Lieutenants Lassus and Wilders—though he’d remained non-committal about Wilders’ idea of couples counseling for him and Hawthorne. Counseling was for people who needed something fixed, right?

Mirroring the more sedate observation lounge on the other side of the mess hall, the recreation room had a prime spot on the bow of Arondight with three floor-to-ceiling viewports providing views of space to go with board games, pool, darts, and drinking. Costa, Hawthorne, Robinson, and Sadir had a table near the center of the room. It was a nexus of conversational energy, and Costa reveled in being at the heart of the ship’s social scene as he managed to acknowledge the junior officers passing around him while also staying focused on the conversations passing between his friends. Cognizant that Hawthorne found socializing as exhausting as he found it energizing, he had half of an eye on the scientist at all times to await the secret signal that it was time to retreat to one of their sets of quarters.

“I think it’s an honor to be selected to escort Vice Admiral Hayden,” Sadir said to Robinson after the latter had complained about the sedateness of their assignment. The Betazoid man’s deep voice and serious, formal manner of speaking, even in casual settings, still sometimes took Costa off-guard. “The admiral is an accomplished officer and humble enough to travel aboard her squadron’s smallest vessel.”

“Muscles, I’m already the president of her fan club. I got her coffee and managed her inbox for two years, remember?” Robinson retorted, rolling his icy blue eyes. Not only was Robinson Hayden’s former flag lieutenant, but Captain Bennett was her former chief of staff, so Costa had to wonder how they both really felt about being back under her thumb. He tossed back the last sip of his glittery, fruity cocktail and set the glass down on the table with a dramatic flourish. “I just mean that service on a frigate was supposed to entail a little more swashbuckling, you know?” he said.

“You always did have an overactive imagination,” Hawthorne noted as he smoothed out a non-existent wrinkle in his sleeve. He made a move to resituate himself in his chair, surreptitiously inching closer to Costa. They’d gone public with their relationship a few weeks prior, and Robinson and Sadir had known well before that, but Hawthorne was still becoming comfortable accepting the subtle public displays of affection that Costa found so natural and casual. “You realize that by asking for excitement, you’ve doomed us all, right.”

Robinson laughed. “Yeah, and I’m the one with an overactive imagination,” he retorted. “I just hope that we get something a little juicier next time. If piracy is up, we should be out here looking for pirates.”

“I’m with Hawthorne on this one—” Costa started.

“Big surprise,” Robinson interjected, nudging Sadir with his trademark shit-eating grin.

“If you go look for trouble, it’ll find you,” Costa continued. As he finished his drink, he glanced to one of the other tables and saw Ensign Wren’s eyes on them for a moment. The young man averted his gaze when he felt detected. “Though, some tiny bit of trouble would be good to help break our new ensigns in. I want to see what they’re made of.”

“The little one is made of anxiety,” Sadir offered, clearly referring to the shy scientist.

“Wren? Yeah. I can sense that, too,” Costa said, again glancing at the ensigns. All of them were looking at them now. “They seem pretty tight-knit. They’ll take care of each other.”

“So, we should bring them over shots? Ramp up the bonding experience?” Robinson suggested as he waggled his eyebrows at them.

“Let’s not traumatize them, please,” Hawthorne demurred. “Everyone deserves at least one quiet mission before things hit the fan.”

As soon as those words were out of his mouth, the bosun’s whistle sounded. Moments later, the computer summoned the ship’s senior officers to the bridge. Costa sucked his teeth shruggingly at it being Hawthorne of all people who’d been bold enough to tempt fate.

The four men scrambled up from their seats and left the recreation room. The turbolift was only a few steps away, and the ride up to deck one was short. Stepping onto the bridge, Costa relieved the ensign at the tactical station next to the helm and then turned to Captain Bennett in the center seat.

“We’ve picked up a distress call from one of Starfleet’s automated cargo vessels,” Bennett announced once the rest of the senior officers had filed in. He rapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “Number One?” he asked.

Costa turned back to the tactical station and pulled up the text of the incoming distress call. There was a short message, as well as a lot of technical and sensor data that would have taken him a few minutes to parse on his own.

“Right, Freighter NAR-505310 has sent out a ‘general system fault error’ without specifying a cause. She’s in stable orbit over a gas giant, about an hour off of our present course,” Costa reported. “Can anyone translate that?”

“A general system fault means that the ship’s robotic brain has either encountered environmental factors that have triggered a full reset or that it’s been tampered with,” Lieutenant Shadi replied from the engineering station. “The radiation belts from that gas giant would be enough to do it if she got close enough.”

“Why would any sane navigator, let alone a computer, get that close?” Costa wondered aloud. Before anyone else could offer a thought, his own brain got there first. His heartbeat started to pick up as he imagined the possible explanations. Maybe Robinson really had cursed them after all. “When threatened, Flyut-class vessels are programmed to flee. Someone could have herded it too close to the gas giant.”

“It’s a possibility, but let’s not speculate too much at this stage,” Captain Bennett demurred as he shifted a little in his seat. “The regulations obligate us to investigate the system fault, confirm the integrity of the cargo, and put it back on course if we can.”

“A cakewalk, sir,” Costa replied.

“It should be, yes,” Bennett agreed, still seeming thoughtful. “Our priority is the admiral’s safety. We’ll get in and out quickly. Helm, alter course to intercept the freighter and increase to warp nine.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ensign Lassus reported. “That cuts our intercept time down to 38 minutes.”

“Number One, assemble an away team and be ready as soon as we’re sure the freighter is safe.”

“Understood. I have just the team in mind, sir,” Costa said, thinking back to the four ensigns in the recreation room. “Hawthorne, Robinson, and Shadi, meet me in transporter room one. Let’s see what our new ensigns are really made of.”

Costa led the way off of the bridge, with Hawthorne, Robinson, and Shadi filing into the turbolift after him to get changed and equipped for their mission. An away team of eight was a little larger than standard, but he figured that more hands would make less work. While he didn’t fully share the captain’s anticipation over the distress call, he could appreciate wanting the task to get done quickly so that they could get back to more important missions than ferry service.

“Costa to Ensigns Carter, Wren, Aiden, and Xi. Report to transporter room one in thirty minutes for an away mission,” he ordered after tapping his badge. He closed the channel and smirked to himself. “Go easy on them,” he said as the doors opened to let him and Hawthorne off on deck two. “And that means you, Coop.”

“Please. I’m always so nice,” Robinson retorted just before the doors closed.

As soon as they were out of sight, Costa grabbed Hawthorne’s hand and practically sprinted down the short length of corridor separating them from their quarters on the forward end of deck two. Well, technically, the ones on the starboard side were his, but that’s the set they ended up in most nights. Formally moving in together would let them combine their suites, but that still seemed a little too much like tempting fate.

As soon as they were fully in private, Costa’s hands were on Hawthorne to unfasten and discard his uniform jacket, which was quickly joined in a pile on the floor by his turtleneck and undershirt. Given that this happened pretty much every time the men were alone, Hawthorne didn’t even pretend to act surprised or reticent, his mouth tasting of eager desire. He did have more presence of mind and foresight than Costa did, though.

“Computer, set a twenty-nine-minute timer,” Hawthorne ordered, his hand firmly in the center of Costa’s chest to enforce a break in the torrent of affection.

Once the computer chimed its assent, Hawthorne used that same hand to push Costa down onto the couch. Costa landed with a bounce, and then Hawthorne was on top of him. Clothes went flying, and no words were exchanged because they weren’t necessary. Just like the first time they’d been physical, that time on the eve of a much more dangerous mission, the question “if not now, when?” channeled their passion into something that was far more than a tryst borne out of convenient timing. In Starfleet, little could be taken for granted, after all.

Twenty-seven minutes later, the two officers were pulling on their leather expedition jackets. Costa couldn’t help but feel smug at the way Hawthorne was glowing.

“You know the best part about your being second officer?” Costa asked as he tossed Hawthorne his combadge from the heap of uniform parts by the door.

“I can only imagine. Go on,” Hawthorne replied.

“You’re expected by protocol to accompany every away team. So, neither of us has to go up on the widow’s walk and watch the sea when we’re sent on missions,” Costa explained.

“That’s a very dramatic way of putting that, but it’s certainly a perk,” Hawthorne agreed as they made their way toward the transporter room. “I’d assumed you were going to say something about being able to boss me around.”

“Well, that’s not so bad either,” Costa agreed, goosing him before they stepped into the turbolift.

A few moments later, the two of them walked into the transporter room. All four ensigns and the two lieutenants were already waiting for them, decked out in their away team gear. Still feeling light, Costa decided to open with a joke.

“Hey, do any of you know how to jumpstart a freighter?” he teased, causing Hawthorne to roll his eyes. “We’re on tow-truck duty.”

Hawthorne cleared his throat. “We’re responding to a distress call from an automated freighter. After we assess the situation, we’ll be sending it back on its way.”

“Yeah, that’s the boring way to say it,” Costa snarked. “We’ll be working in pairs for this mission. Wren with Hawthorne, Carter with Robinson, Aiden with Shadi, and Xi with me. Science and ops will check the cargo, command will check the bridge, and engineering will run diagnostics. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” came more or less in unison from the group.

“Bennett to Costa. We’re dropping out of warp now. There’s no sign of any hostiles, and there are no lifesigns on the freighter. Take your team over and figure out what happened,” the captain ordered over the comm.

“Understood,” Costa replied. “You heard the man, people. Let’s go see what put our robot freighter to sleep,” he said before the eight of them got up onto the transporter pad. “Energize.”