‘What the hell?’ Q’ira’s outrage had travelled with the Rooks from the station to the transporter room. ‘We’re just giving up?’

Cassidy didn’t look at her as he descended the step. ‘Tell me how we were going to break out of that junction against automated defences and an unknown number of guards? Actually, don’t – I don’t answer to you,’ he snapped, voice low and taut. ‘We gotta get to the bridge.’

‘So we find somewhere else to beam to!’ Q’ira followed, eyes blazing. ‘Bounce about, draw their attention, then, bam! Breach Ops and take the Changeling!’

‘We can’t transport through their shielding everywhere,’ said Aryn, rushing up beside her as the Rooks all proceeded with Cassidy towards the bridge. ‘We can only reach so many -’

‘Then we reach somewhere else! I don’t know, you’re the specialists!’

‘You’re right,’ said Cassidy, not looking back. ‘You don’t know.’

As a civilian, Q’ira hadn’t yet been on the bridge. Rosewood wondered if he should stop her from following, but when Cassidy didn’t banish her as they clambered through the hatch to reach the Blackbird’s control room, figured the decision had been made. He might not have been listening to the Orion girl, but he perhaps thought she deserved to not be kept stuffed below decks while this played out.

Ranicus was on her feet as the Rooks filtered in and surrendered the command chair to Cassidy. ‘They detected us when we beamed you in. We’ve had to dance in and out of weapons range.’

‘That’s not hard,’ added Falaris, nose almost to her display screens, ‘but obviously if we’re away enough to be safe, we’re not close enough to be effective. You had an impact; their power levels are fluctuating heavily. They must be trying to reroute power from other systems and sections.’

Cassidy’s fingers curled around the armrests of the command chair. Rosewood watched him look down at the display by his seat, then across the bridge, then up. ‘Identify key power conduits close to the exterior of the hull, key systems – anything we can damage that might disrupt them. Then we hit and run.’

Rosewood leaned in towards Nallera and made damn sure to keep his voice down. ‘Has he taken this ship into a fight before?’

Nallera stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she thought. Then, ‘Nope.’

‘Great.’ Casually, Rosewood reached out to grab the nearest railing.

The Blackbird was not made for an open, fair fight – just as the Rooks weren’t. She was mostly designed to not get into a fight at all, but if that was inevitable, she was a shiv in the dark, surging through space to hit, to bloody the enemy’s nose, and then withdraw.

Under Cassidy’s instructions, the ship dived, pivoted, and spun through the station’s weapons fire, its own phaser blasts raking across the station’s hull and deflectors before the defences became too fierce, and they pulled back. Again and again they struck, sweeping in and out of range, launching torpedoes in carefully targeted attacks. But for every time Rosewood saw a report flash on the screen of a successful hit, every time he saw an impact thud into the station through the Blackbird’s canopy, the ship underneath him shuddered and shook twice, thrice.

Ranicus sucked her teeth as the Blackbird fell back from the latest assault. ‘Our shields are down to forty percent. Their weapons are old and don’t pack much punch, but there’s a lot of them.’

Rosewood looked around. ‘Are we even making a dent?’

‘More against their deflectors than their systems,’ said Falaris. ‘They have to shield themselves against our attacks, which is drawing some power… but not as much as if we were really hurting them.’

Aryn had taken the auxiliary console at the rear, fingers flying across the controls as he ran scans. ‘I’m detecting increasing neutrino levels from one of the subspace distortions nearby,’ he warned. ‘Whatever they’re doing, it’s starting.’

‘We gotta stop then now, then,’ said Nallera, eyes flashing. ‘If we blow them up halfway through opening a wormhole -’

‘That could be catastrophic,’ Aryn agreed.

‘We’re nowhere near blowing anyone up,’ muttered Rosewood.

Q’ira stepped forward. ‘Then we’ve got to board. Right? It’s do or die, and all that!’

Cassidy looked back at his team for a moment. Then turned to the front. ‘I prefer to not die,’ he said. ‘Hail the station.’

‘What do you possibly have to say -’

A holographic panel shimmered to life in front of the canopy to serve as a viewscreen. The battered and worn interior of the Romulan station’s operations centre was clear in the background, shrouded but still humming with active systems. A half-dozen figures could be seen at stations, monitoring and managing systems. And there, front and centre, was the face they recognised as Aestri.

‘You’re too late, Starfleet,’ said the Changeling in disguise. ‘By now, I’m sure you can detect the wormhole opening.’

‘You still have to get through it,’ said Cassidy, leaning on the armrest. ‘You gotta go through us to do that.’

‘Under the cover of this station’s defences -’

‘Listen up, all of you!’ Q’ira stepped in front of Cassidy, eyes not on ‘Aestri’ but on the figures behind her. ‘This isn’t who you think it is! This is a shapeshifter, a renegade Changeling! She killed Torrad-Var and took on Aestri’s identity! She’s not working for the Syndicate; she’s using you!’

Heads behind the Changeling turned in the screen’s direction, but the gazes of the Syndicate members were disinterested, impassive.

‘Aestri’ scoffed. ‘Bold claim from the murderer of Torrad-Var and traitor to the Syndicate. Is that the best tall tale you have to justify selling out to Starfleet, little one?’

‘She’s got a point,’ Nallera muttered to Rosewood. ‘I wouldn’t believe her, either.’

Rosewood glanced between her and Cassidy, Q’ira, the others, and stepped forward. ‘Let’s talk in private, Aestri,’ he said. ‘It’ll stop the girl from disrupting a negotiation.’

‘Do we have anything to negotiate?’ But to his surprise, she took a beat and nodded. The screen went blank.

Cassidy looked over. ‘The show’s yours, Kid.’

Moments later, the screen reactivated with Aestri stood before them again in a dusty office. ‘Don’t try to do anything clever, like beam an admission back to my team,’ the Changeling drawled. ‘I’m controlling comms to and from the station.’

‘You know as well as I do,’ said Rosewood, heart thumping in his chest, ‘that this whole thing could go wrong. A miscalculation, a power surge – our ship getting in the way – and this wormhole collapses into a big enough rip in space-time to make the Lliew Rift look like a pinprick.’

‘Then don’t get in my way.’ The face of Aestri had gone slack, now, emotionless. The Changeling was maintaining the facade in appearances only, but had stopped apeing the image of feelings. ‘I’m not doing this to best you. I’m trying to avert disaster. For my people and yours, Solid.’

‘What, by bringing them under Dominion rule in the past?’

‘By stopping the war at all.’ The Changeling shook its head. ‘If I travel back even forty years, we can secure the wormhole between our quadrants, stop you from breaching into our territory, and make sure we leave each other alone.’

‘The Founders seek to stay safe from the galaxy by controlling the galaxy. What you master can’t hurt you. How do you convince them?’

‘I’m one of them -’

‘You can’t link with them!’ Rosewood jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘You might not want to acknowledge it, but I read the reports, I know the physiological changes to your body. You link with a Changeling, you infect the Changeling.’ He heard a faint mutter from behind him, even Cassidy sounding confused. Playing a trump card with the Changeling had meant showing his hand to his own people. There were things he knew that nobody aboard had the clearance to know.

The Changeling was silent for a moment. ‘Even delaying the war will help my people. This is happening. Stop me at your peril, Starfleet.’

The screen went dead, and Rosewood pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, I tried,’ he sighed.

‘That was good,’ grunted Cassidy after taking a beat to gather himself.

‘Good?’ Q’ira looked wildly between them. ‘What were you trying to do? Talk it down? Did you actually think that’d work?’

‘I was buying time,’ Rosewood admitted.

‘It might not be enough,’ said Aryn, voice tight. ‘Seriously elevated neutrino levels coming from this rift – something’s forming out there.’

‘What was the point?’ snapped Q’ira. ‘Buying time so we can watch her change history in about ten minutes instead of two minutes?’

‘Sensor contact!’ called Falaris, voice apprehensive for a moment – then she gave a small, victorious hiss. ‘Here she comes!’

And through the canopy, dropping out of warp almost on top of the Rift, on top of the station, soared into sight the shining, silver hull of the USS Liberty.

The corner of Cassidy’s lip curled. ‘Buying time,’ he said, ‘for backup.’