Kharth didn’t venture to Valance’s ready room until an hour after the captain had returned from the Suv’chu, supervising the patchwork repairs the remaining engineers on duty had performed on this new damage.

‘We’re just about done,’ she reported as she stepped in, brandishing the PADD with the key updates. ‘But this kind of decides it, doesn’t it?’

Valance sat with her back to the door, facing the window and the gentle curves of Rencaris III below. She did not move or speak.

‘Valance?’ Kharth hesitated. ‘I heard what happened on the Suv’chu; Forrester said -’

‘What does it decide?’ Valance still didn’t turn, voice grating.

‘What?’

‘You said “this kind of decides it.” Decides what?’

Kharth frowned at the back of her head, shifting her feet. ‘I talked with Airex. Even a brief word with Thawn in Sickbay. We really need to get the ship in one of Rencaris’s docks if we’re going to keep on with repairs like this.’

‘Mn. Probably. I’ll arrange a meeting with the governor. Or try. I expect he’ll tell me to hold off until the opera.’

‘We’ve got other repairs we can do in the meantime.’ Gingerly, Kharth put the PADD on the desk. ‘So, about what happened over there -’

‘That’ll be all, Commander.’

She hesitated. Then stepped forward. ‘Valance, who gives a shit that you were about to beat the snot out of Ledera? In a bad way, I mean. I could have sold tickets to that.’

‘It’s hardly how a Starfleet captain should -’

‘I bet Rourke would have happily kicked her teeth in if he’d had the chance.’

‘He would never have been given the option. I was. Because I’m a Klingon.’ Valance turned sharply in her chair, her expression that dull mask of control that Kharth by now knew meant she was really troubled, and thought nobody could tell.

‘And you… took up a sword and nearly beat an enemy captain who’d abducted our officers, in a legal fight that would have secured their freedom without escalating violence in the eyes of the Rencaris government?’ Kharth’s brow knotted. ‘I know as your XO I’m meant to yell at you for getting in danger, but that doesn’t feel like what you’re getting at.’

‘It’s not.’ Valance stood. ‘Again, that’ll be all.’

Kharth still didn’t move. ‘It’s good to let loose a little,’ she ventured, knowing something was wrong, not knowing what angle to take, confident that Valance would happily say nothing to anybody if left to her own devices. ‘Sometimes it’s what you need to do -’

‘I said get out.’ At last Valance snapped, and the edge of anger did more to jolt Kharth back than the actual words.

Back on the bridge, jaw working in frustration at her banishment, Kharth stalked to Airex, stood at Science. ‘Talk to her,’ she hissed.

Airex glanced from her to the ready room door. ‘You pushed it?’

‘Of course I -’

‘You’ve got to give her far more time to calm down before you push anything,’ he said wryly. ‘She needs a chance to feel comfortable with her emotions before she’ll discuss them.’

‘She doesn’t discuss them,’ Kharth pointed out. ‘Giving her time lets her shove everything back in a box. Either you talk to her, or I’m going to Dhanesh; I mean it.’

He looked her up and down, and now his gaze flickered from her to the tactical console. Logan wasn’t there, Qadir on duty after the day’s ordeals, but the point was clear. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked.

‘Me?’

‘I know you and Logan went for a trip,’ he said, looking down at his work and assuming a not-very-convincing casual air, ‘and you’ve been… tense since.’

Despite the tightening in her chest, her lips curled at his tone. ‘Is “tense” code for “heinous bitch?”’

‘I didn’t say -’

‘I know your ways, Dav.’

After a beat, he gave an uncertain smile. ‘I just hope you have someone to talk to.’

‘It’d be a bit hypocritical of me to brush all of that off after telling you to go to Valance, huh.’

‘Why do you think I picked my moment?’ Airex scratched his nose. ‘Logan’s a good man.’

‘I know he -’ She stopped herself. ‘I’ll talk to someone. We don’t have to do this.’

‘Good. Or I’ll come asking questions.’

It was an awkward kind of banter, but the point landed. On another day, she’d have brushed him off, or at least lied until the conversation was over. Instead, the desire to not be a raging hypocrite brought her later to the bar at the Safe House, pulling up a stool beside a stern-eyed Caede.

‘I thought you’d find somewhere down there to drink,’ she said by way of greeting.

‘I prefer constant Starfleet surveillance when I’m off-duty to Rencaris surveillance,’ Caede grunted. ‘Something you’ll have to get used to when you begin the government’s big cultural legitimacy tour.’

Kharth groaned as she gestured to the holographic bartender for a beer. ‘I didn’t come down here to argue about that.’

‘Sorry,’ said Caede, not sounding sorry at all. ‘I’ll point out you’re propping up an oppressive, totalitarian regime out of mere convenience on another day.’ And yet, he had a swig of his beer and did change the topic. ‘I hear it was rough up there. Damn Klingons.’

‘That, I can get on board with. Thankfully Brok’tan brought his people in line. Because apparently they’re savages the moment the civilised one isn’t looking over their shoulder.’

‘We’re all savages the moment nobody’s telling us to be better. Apparently for our people, savagery just means total control of your life.’

‘Wow, “another day” came fast, huh?’ But she’d known what she was signing up for when she approached him, and near-snatched the beer bottle from the bartender’s grip when it was brought over. ‘Logan took me down to a Rihan-kholva on the main continent.’

‘Cute.’

‘Touristy. Messy. Fake.’

‘Sounds… awful?’ Caede frowned, clearly aware she was fishing for something, clearly not understanding at all.

She couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure she understood. ‘Tell me they don’t do stupid shit like that in the Republic.’

‘What. Old rural traditions? Probably. In rural places.’ His frown deepened. ‘I’m not playing twenty questions with you, Kharth. Spit it out.’

‘I don’t -’

‘I’m not gonna pat you on the back and tell you that you are or aren’t Romulan enough of whatever.’

‘I just – it sucked! It was boring!’

Caede stared at a point on the wall, then rolled his eyes. ‘Are you having some sort of crisis of belonging ‘cos you, a city girl who grew up in a refugee shelter didn’t feel at home in some bumpkin farm festival gussied up for tourists?’

Kharth gave him an indignant look. ‘No! It’s not like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because when you put it like that, it’s so obvious it makes me look like an idiot.’

‘They’re not your people,’ Caede said roughly, swigging beer. ‘Your people are – forget the refugee shelter – what, the comfortable middle class who either suck up to systems of power or are just about influential enough to be a real thorn in their sides?’

There was something thoughtful behind what she would normally take as a jab. ‘I suppose.’

‘Then if you want to connect to our people – or find out you can’t connect, or… or whatever… you need people who are like you.’ He glanced around before leaning in. ‘There’s a group of students I’ve made contact with, part of the anti-government resistance movement here on Rencaris. One of their leaders is the guy who got arrested the other day.’

Kharth’s gaze clouded. ‘Caede, don’t tell me you’re operating from a Starfleet ship to aid enemies of the Rencaris government -’

‘One: they haven’t been arrested or anything, they’re just people. Two: so what if I have? If I’m going to get thrown off this ship because I helped Romulans push back against governments like Rencaris’s, then it’s worth it. What damn use are you, anyway, crying about how sad a farming festival made you, while agreeing to help this government look legitimate by swanning around with the elites at the opera?’

She leaned back, jolted by the venom in his voice. ‘I wasn’t pretending to be “of use.”’

‘Good, because you’re not. You don’t connect by thinking like people. You connect by doing things with people. Maybe you lost some essential spirit of Romulus or bullshit like that;  don’t know, don’t care. But I can’t connect with these kids. They’re not soldiers, they’re not about to fight-fight. You? I reckon you’re a lot like them in a bunch of ways, except you had to grow up.’

After being the bluntest person on the ship for several years, Kharth was growing less and less fond of Caede, she thought. ‘Yeah, because I was forced to. I’m not helping you turn these students into some resistance army.’

‘Then come talk to them. And see what they can do.’

‘I’m a Starfleet officer, Caede; I legally can’t help incite rebellion against the lawful government of -’

His noise of disgust was palpable, and he slammed his beer bottle on the bar. ‘Fine. Forget it. Stupid of me to ask Starfleet to really stick their necks out, huh?’

‘Caede, there can be other ways we -’

‘I said forget it.’ He stood. ‘Go back to helping legitimise a government that wants to control what people say and do and think, what our people say and do and think. Because that uniform you worship so much? Out here, it’s not a symbol for hope, or whatever Starfleet tells itself. It’s an excuse to do absolutely nothing.’

‘Caede -’

But he was gone, storming out of the bar, and all Kharth could do was sit, scrub her face with her hands, and wonder if there was any possible way she could do anything right by her people here at Rencaris.