Buried deep within the underbelly of Archanis Station, far from the grand promenades and esteemed establishments of its upper levels, the Drifter’s Den was a rough and rowdy place packed with racketeers, reprobates and rabble rousers, those down on their luck or up to no good. It was no place for an admiral, yet this was exactly the place they’d picked to meet.

Set back from all the commotion of the dom-jot and t’Sang tables, Allison Reyes, dressed in slate cargo pants and a black leather jacket, sat watching the denizens of the raucous parlor. Why was it that Commander Eriksson had let this place be? Was it one of Captain Kioshi’s honeypots? Or did they just have more pressing concerns? The station was still reeling from the contagion, and the sector was still a messy and complicated place.

Slowly, the admiral took a sip from her tumbler, the Alberbaran whisky lighting up her pallet. It was neither from a good vintage, nor a quality distiller, yet there was something endearing about the stiff, smoky bite of an unruly liquor that’d been over-aged to hide its flaws. It reminded her of days long past when she’d actually frequented places like this. Now, others did that work for her. It was the reality of the office she now held and the pips typically attached to her collar. But on this particular night, nearly three months since her team had slipped away in the dead of night, she could spare one evening for them. They’d chosen this place, rather than the comfort of her Ready Room, and that told her that whatever they had found wasn’t suited for a more formal and official setting.

An old man, his hair disheveled and his beard unkempt, floated through the crowd almost as if he wasn’t there, untouched by unruly elbows and unnoticed by passing stares. His clothes were tattered and his expression demure, and he looked no different than the weary wayfarers that packed the place… except, of course, that he had almost nothing in common with the riff raff. Dr. Tom Brooks was one of Starfleet’s finest scientists, a Ph.D. in temporal chromodynamics once heralded by one pop-sci magazine as “Breakout Scientist of the Year” and “Starfleet’s Hottest Eligible Science Bachelor” by another. Those days were long past, but his mind was still sharp as ever, and besides his appearance, the only thing he had in common with the riff raff was his criminal history.

“You almost look like you belong, boss,” he said as he pulled back a chair across from Reyes. “Except, of course, your teeth are too white, and your jacket is too clean.” As he took a seat, he pulled a thin wafer-like device from his jacket and activated it to ensure their conversation would not be overheard by any electronic eavesdropping equipment.

“Not all of us can spare months away from our post to go full native,” Reyes chuckled. She had, of course, allowed them to go, even though she knew nothing of their mission beyond that they were searching for clues as to the fate of the Serenity and Ingenuity. But that had been enough to let them go, and to cover for their absence. Those ships and their crews were gone because of the decisions she’s made. “Where are Shafir and Hall?”

“They’re not coming back. Not yet, at least.”

“I see…” Reyes was uncertain what to make of that, but she was willing, for the moment, to let it pass. “Did you get the answer you were searching for?”

“We did,” nodded Dr. Brooks. “They are still alive.” He had already known that, but he couldn’t bring relief to his colleagues until they found proof in this timeline. That was why he’d gone along with Chief Petty Officer Ayala Shafir and Dr. Lisa Hall, hoping they’d find something that might relieve the doubt in their hearts. And they had.

“So where exactly are they?” Reyes asked excitedly, relief washing across her face.

Dr. Brooks reached into his pocket, pulled out a small Cardassian-made data chip, and slid it across the table. “If they ask you how you got this, I’m not sure how you’ll explain, but based on what we got from a Cardassian friend we made, their ships were ejected from the Underspace by a resonance pulse at a point that will have placed them spinward and coreward of Federation space approximately six thousand light years, deep in the Beta Quadrant, well beyond Romulan space and the Talvath Cluster.”

“For Gérard, that’d be a grand adventure,” Reyes observed. Her friend and colleague, Fleet Captain Devreux, would have loved an opportunity to go so far out into the frontier. “But Lewis? He’s not much of the explorer type.” Captain Jake Lewis was only a captain, or even a Starfleet officer, begrudgingly. 

“But he is the survivor type,” Dr. Brooks noted.

“That he is,” Reyes agreed, although even that was a scary thought. She knew what Lewis could do. He wouldn’t hesitate to take a Ransom-like approach to their return. But there was something else bothering her too. It all seemed a bit too easy. “How do we know this intelligence is reliable?”

“Lisa made certain of that,” Dr. Brooks assured the admiral, referencing the twisted psychologist they’d brought with them to ensure they could extract the answers they needed.

Reyes didn’t need to ask what Dr. Hall had done. Just like she hadn’t needed to ask what she did on Nasera. There were some things best left unsaid. “No matter how good she is, how do we know your source knew their fate for certain and wasn’t just sharing rumors?”

“Because he was the one that pulled the trigger,” Dr. Brooks said flatly.

Reyes raised a brow. Of all Cardassians in the galaxy, they’d just happened across the one they needed?

“Miss Shafir’s friends, they’re good,” Dr. Brooks acknowledged in reference to the two vigilantes, Grok and T’Aer, who had tracked down the initial lead. The lost captain had meant something to those two as well. “They hunted the Gul down that gave the order to fire a resonance pulse at the Serenity and the Ingenuity as they raced the Underspace together.”

“I see…” Reyes understood. “That’s why they never made it home… not because they were destroyed, but because they were ejected.” They’d been running with the Cardassians in a double-cross she’d ordered. This new information confirmed that Cardassians had discovered what they’d been up to.

Dr. Brooks nodded.

“But how do we know their fall from the Underspace didn’t destroy them?”

“Our friend was very forthcoming with the details once Lisa loosened his tongue,” Dr. Brooks smiled. “He was quite proud of slamming our ships into the walls of the labyrinth, but based on his description, competent crews and modern space frames should have survived the fall.”

That wasn’t enough to satisfy the admiral, who had once been a quite prolific scientist herself. The Underspace was a turbulent place, a hyperenergetic compression of the subspace manifold, and so many things could have gone wrong. No word of mouth description from a Cardassian Gul should really have been enough to assure a scientist as good as Dr. Brooks that they’d survived. Not unless there was something more.

But then Dr. Brooks leaned in. “Trust me on this. They’re okay.”

There was an undertone to his words, one that said far more than he’d ever dare say aloud. He knew how this all ended, they both knew, and he’d just given her a gift here, a sense of closure she’d hungered for since they vanished. Even if he might have just lightly violated the Temporal Prime Directive. “I gather we should keep this to ourselves?”

“Probably for the best,” Dr. Brooks nodded. “At least the certainty of it.” He had to assume that, even without his added assurances, she herself would have made the same decisions whether hanging on a hope or knowing for certain. That just sort of was how she was. But to share it more broadly, such knowledge might have unintended consequences.

“So where is our Cardassian friend now?” Reyes asked, shifting gears.

“Right where he belongs,” Dr. Brooks chuckled coldly.

Again, Reyes knew better to ask.

“He deserved it though,” Dr. Brooks added with a smile. “Gul Narek wasn’t on Montana to enjoy the spring harvest of Ritalian plum blossoms. He was there to wheel and deal.”

“Wheel and deal what?”

“You name it. He had it. The motherload salvaged from recent crises and lapses – Dominion and Borg tech, and even Alpha and Beta Quadrant toys – we really need to do a better job securing the remnants of war after the conflict ends,” Dr. Brooks explained. “I wouldn’t be surprised if prior sales of his wares weren’t responsible for your experience on Duraxis, or what happened here on Archanis Station.” He’d caught up on the news during his return trip from Montana.

“An enterprising profiteer thriving in the proliferation of illicit goods,” Reyes noted. “How very Cardassian of him.” This wouldn’t be the first issue they’d had with the Union.

“That, and more,” Dr. Brooks frowned. “He had more than any one individual ever should have been able to acquire, and that got us curious, so when we got him in a room, we asked kindly.” Kind probably wasn’t the right word to describe what Dr. Hall had done to him. “The Orions and the others, they may think they’ve come across these goods on their own accord, but it has not been by accident. Not all of it, at least. The Gul and those he works for, they were certainly responsible for at least some of it.”

“And who does he work for?”

“Who did he work for,” Dr. Brooks corrected, clarifying a bit the fate of their Cardassian friend without saying it explicitly. “Unfortunately, that answer is not so simple, but the long-short of it is those who benefit from chaos within our borders.”

“That could be almost anyone…” Reyes mused. “The Cardassians, the Klingons, criminal enterprises, even malicious parties within our own government.”

“To all of those, the answer is yes,” Dr. Brooks nodded. “We don’t know the extent of the coordination and collaboration, but he had inroads with all of them. And this reached beyond him. He was but one cog in the wheel.”

“So you’re saying this won’t have ended with the Gul?” Reyes asked.

“No, almost certainly not,” Dr. Brooks confirmed.

A thousand had died on Archanis Station as a result of the contagion unleashed, and the whole station probably would have gone with them if not for some unlikely heroes. On Duraxis too, if not for a bit of luck, the place would have been wiped off the map. “So what are we doing about this?”

“You and me?” Dr. Brooks asked. “Nothing.”

Reyes frowned. She didn’t like that answer. Not one bit.

“You can’t, dear admiral, courtesy of your office. Not where this trail leads. Nor can I. I’m too old and my hands too uncalloused for what is to come.” And that was saying something for the man who’d shanked an Andorian in the blink of an eye over Beta Serpentis, who’d tortured a Cardassian Gul on Montana, and who’d spent time in the New Zealand Penal Colony for past transgressions. It also answered the question of why Chief Petty Officer Shafir and Dr. Hall hadn’t returned, for this was their domain, as well as why he’d chosen the Drifter’s Den, rather than her Ready Room, for this conversation. “Ayala, Lisa and the Sebold operators are off to link up with an old friend of yours, one who I hear recently bailed you out of a pickle.”

She knew at once who he was referring to.

“Frank says hello, and that they’ll be in touch when the time is right.”