The sun was creaking over the horizon, peeking between the highest towers of Kalviris, by the time Dalia Vengoris made it back to her apartment at the end of her shift. She didn’t need to turn on the lights to go through her routine: check the panel by the door for messages, slouch over to the kitchen bar and dump her bag and coat over the stool, kick off her heels and head for the resequencer. The rest of the world was having breakfast. Dalia jabbed in the command for tacos with enough hot sauce to melt a Tholian.

When she turned to find a shadow seated on her couch, she jumped hard enough to spray it across the kitchen, and screamed. ‘What the hell –’

‘Dalia, it’s me!’ The shadow stood, hands raised placatingly, no longer looming and ominous but small, feminine.

‘Q’ira? What are you doing here -’

‘I was waiting for you; I didn’t know you weren’t gonna turn on the lights, girl -’

‘Lights!’ Dalia snapped, her voice squeaking. Illumination flooded the apartment, and Dalia screamed again when what she’d thought was the shadow of her storage case behind Q’ira turned out to be a tall, wiry man.

‘It’s okay!’ Q’ira said again, hands flapping. ‘That’s just – he’s with me, it’s fine! Dalia, this is…’

Her voice trailed off, and even in her panicked state, Dalia knew when Q’ira was unsure what name she should drop. The man gave an awkward wave.

‘Call me Mac.’

‘Mac. Right,’ said Q’ira. ‘Dalia, this is Mac. He’s worked with me this last job. Mac, this is Dalia. Bartender at Redoubt.’

Dalia’s heartbeat was finally slowing enough to let her think halfway straight. She stared at Mac for a moment, then back at Q’ira. ‘Everyone’s looking for you – what did you do to Torrad –’

‘I didn’t kill Torrad. You know I wouldn’t do that. He took care of us, of all of us. Why would I cross him?’

‘They say you got paid off by Starfleet.’ Dalia’s eyes fell on the man called Mac. ‘Are you Starfleet?’

‘Uh…’

‘He is Starfleet, they didn’t pay me. I need you to trust me.’

Dalia looked back at the remains of her taco. Then at the door. ‘How’d you get in here?’

‘Your security’s basic as hell; it took me less than a minute to crack it. I’ve been on Federation core worlds with better locks.’ Q’ira’s gaze turned pleading. ‘I just need info.’

‘I should tell T’Mell you’re here,’ said Dalia, taking a step towards the comms panel.

‘Oh, come on!’ Q’ira looked indignant rather than concerned. ‘You hate that greaseball.’

‘You killed Torrad-Var –’

‘No, I didn’t, it was a shapeshifter!’

‘What?’

Q’ira sucked her teeth. ‘Okay, it sounds stupid when I say it. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t us. Someone’s playing T’Mell. I don’t need you to do anything, Dalia, I just need to know what went on inside Redoubt tonight, and to not tell him you saw me.’

‘What do you mean, “what went on?” All hell broke loose, you guys got chased out, T’Mell shut down the main floor for an hour. Then he sorted some stuff out and reopened it. But he was sending people out looking for you.’ Dalia hesitated. ‘Okay, and someone did come by.’

‘Someone?’

‘If he finds out I didn’t call you in…’

‘How much have we been through together? How many times did I listen when you had a shit manager or a handsy bouncer? I’d take it to Torrad-Var every time, and he took care of it every time. Because he cared about us. Took care of us.’ Q’ira’s gaze turned pleading. ‘Didn’t I earn a bit of trust?’

Dalia bit her lip. ‘That Syndicate dealer. Aestri.’

The man called Mac’s expression immediately clouded. ‘Aestri? Are you sure?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure. Torrad-Var hated her, didn’t he? But she waltzed in and asked for a meet with T’Mell, and he gave it. Looked like they were burying the hatchet.’ She winced. ‘I guess a ranking member of the Syndicate like her backing him would go a long way for him to take over the reins from Torrad.’

‘It sure would.’ Q’ira and Mac exchanged pointed looks. ‘Who was in that meeting?’

‘Pendeor. Bertan. Kerr. The usual people.’

‘The people T’Mell needs to keep close. Where’s Aestri now?’

Dalia shrugged. ‘The main floor was open again by the time they would have finished. I don’t know, and I’m not finding out.’

‘You don’t need to.’ Q’ira raised a hand. ‘Thanks. I’m sorry for pulling you into this. But I needed someone who might take a chance and trust me.’

‘Yeah – did you have to scare the crap out of me and waste my taco?’

‘I owe you one. Once all of this is over.’

‘Yeah, if you’re not dead.’ Dalia hesitated as Q’ira and Mac headed for the door. ‘You be careful, okay? Things are bad right now. T’Mell’s set on taking over, and you know he’d love an excuse to blame you and clear out anyone who was too close to Torrad.’

‘I know. I won’t let him get close.’

‘And Q’ira? If you didn’t do this to Torrad? If someone else did?’ Dalia shifted her feet. ‘Get them for us, will ya?’

‘I didn’t know you worked with the bar staff,’ said Aryn, breaking the silence awkwardly only once they were a few minutes away from Dalia’s apartment block, walking the streets back towards the Velvet Spire. The dawn light was pale, anemic, and stripped away most of the colour from the city as neon lights turned off and weak sunrise replaced it. There was glamour in the colour and shadows of the night, but now he could see Kalviris Prime’s every crack, every blemish papered over by smoke and mirrors. But as sleepy-eyed workers began to filter into the streets to start their day, it also felt more real, lived in, than the non-stop decadence of the parties and clubs under the moon and stars.

‘I practically lived in the building,’ Q’ira said, quiet and distracted. ‘I worked with everyone.’

‘Torrad-Var sounds like he was a good boss. I’m sorry about him. I didn’t say that before.’

She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear with a self-consciousness he couldn’t quite believe wasn’t deliberate. Not after the night they’d had. ‘Thanks. A lot of people liked him. They don’t like T’Mell. Dalia helping me is as simple as that.’

‘It sounds like she trusted you, too. That you supported her.’

‘Maybe.’ Q’ira looked up at the streets, pale eyes sweeping over faces and crowds, evaluating and assessing for navigation and threat alike. ‘So we’re both assuming the Changeling has impersonated Aestri, right?’

‘It makes sense. Not many people are going to know she’s dead. Maybe none of them do. And if there’s any collaboration between the surviving Changelings, perhaps she’s an identity they’ve rotated through before.’

‘I believe she could walk in, promise T’Mell her backing, and he’d let her take the Regulator. The good news is that if he has a Syndicate gang leader backing him, he doesn’t need to parade our heads on spikes to show he’s big and bad enough to take over from Torrad-Var.’

Aryn sucked his teeth. ‘And the bad news is that the Changeling is now high and dry, likely with the Regulator, and we have no idea where it is, or where it went.’

‘No,’ said Q’ira. ‘But it will still have had to convince T’Mell to hand it over. And does it even have a ship here? Money? Resources that aren’t from the Syndicate?’

‘You’re saying T’Mell might know what its next move is?’

‘I’m saying everyone who was in that meeting might know.’

The corners of Aryn’s lips curled. ‘There’s no way this isn’t more than Cassidy and the others found out.’

She dropped her gaze. ‘I don’t know what we found. That the Changeling is still pulling strings?’

‘Yes, but – this is what I meant. This is intel we couldn’t find, with contacts we don’t have, skills we don’t have.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I didn’t know you were a dab hand with door security like that, either.’

She winced. ‘Okay, so I wasn’t just a dancer Torrad-Var picked up and promoted. But it’s not like I’m a master hacker, or that I can handle tech like Nallera or anything. I just have… some practical skills.’

‘Practical skills for getting into and out of places?’ She didn’t answer, and he drew an awkward breath. ‘You see how I’m not judging.’

‘Yeah, you sound completely at ease, Professor.’ They’d reached one of the heavy industrial lifts to take them down a dozen levels, closer to the ground of Kalviris and nearer to the Velvet Spire’s district. The crowds were thick here, labourers heading from this impoverished but relatively stable residential district to the deep, choking smog of the lower levels and its industry.

He dropped the topic with such a heavy crowd around, both aware of the need for discretion with so many close-pressed ears, and self-conscious enough to not push any personal point. But once they’d filtered into the heavy lift, Q’ira spoke up again, tart in a way that almost, but didn’t quite, cover the naked anxiety.

‘You think this is enough of a neat trick that your boss won’t ditch me the moment it suits him?’

‘No more than the rest of us,’ said Aryn, trying to add some levity.

Her expression didn’t shift. ‘At least you’re starting to realise that to men like him, you’re all disposable.’