Her eyes going back and forth between the senior officers sitting at the table and the lieutenant that’d led her here, Ensign Maya Ortega was completely confused. “I… I’m not following any of this. What the hell is going on?” How had she ended up here? How had the lieutenant known they were here? And who the hell was she really? There was no way a mere diplomatic attache could have – or would have – done all of that. There had to be something more going on.

“While you get your bearings, give me that rifle,” Lieutenant Camille Anderson said in a curt, no nonsense manner, the woman Ensign Ortega knew as quiet and reserved, now forceful and forward as she plucked the Vaadwaur polaron rifle from her hands.

Ensign Ortega willingly let it go. She didn’t know what to do with it anyways.

Lieutenant Anderson slid it across the table, the rifle coming to a stop in front of Commander Kris Eriksson. The security chief did know what to do with it, and he gladly accepted it, lifting it up and giving it a once over. Everything looked functional and in good condition. Yes, this would do just fine until he could get to a weapons locker. “Much appreciated, lieutenant…” he said as his voice droned off, trying to put a name to a face but realizing he had no idea who their rescuers were. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met?”

“Anderson,” the lieutenant answered. “Camille Anderson.”

“Officially, diplomatic attaché to the Archanis Diplomatic Mission,” Captain Kurayami Kioshi added Lieutenant Anderson withdrew from her jacket a sidearm she’d commandeered from the Vaadwaur and handed it to him.

“And unofficially?” Commander Eriksson raised an eyebrow. The fact that the shadowy head of the station’s intelligence services knew this young woman’s name suggested there was more to her than just a midlevel position under Ambassador Michael Drake.

“One of mine,” Captain Kioshi admitted as he smiled at the young woman. She was one of his best, someone who had, in her covert assignment, ferreted out so much about the goings on of the sector. “It makes the perfect cover, doesn’t it, Camille?”

Lieutenant Anderson nodded coyly.

“Off book?” Commander Robert Drake inferred. While the JAG officer knew it was not unheard of to embed an intelligence officer within a diplomatic unit, he didn’t like it. Far too often, when you did that, one thing led to another, and eventually they’d end up opposite him in the courtroom when they crossed the line. “Does my father know?”

“It’s on a need to know basis,” Captain Kioshi answered without answering. “Unfortunately, given our current predicament, you all have wound up with a need to know.” He preferred to keep the circle small and his sources close, but this reveal had been necessary to engender their escape. “Best we keep it to just us though.” The way he said it, it almost sounded like a threat.

Commander Eriksson had a more practical question: “How did you know we were here?”

“Your guys have been rounded up, but mine are still operating,” Captain Kioshi shared. He was a believer that intelligence was best done quietly, and while one had to be a bit loud now, his operatives were good at blending in, and that was presently paying dividends. He glanced over at the JAG. “This is why you should be happy that mine are off the books, Robert, since the enemy is currently reading our books.”

“I’m not following,” Commander Drake replied.

“The Vaadwaur have realized they have an insurgency problem, and to deal with it, they’ve been pouring over our personnel files to ferret out problem children,” Captain Kioshi explained. “That is why they locked us up here. Probably don’t trust me and Kris aren’t going to try something – although who knows why you are here – and they’ve done the same to Kris’ security staff too, but they are still having problems, so now they’re making their way through the rest of our files, flagging anyone that might be inclined to try something heroic.”

“There are no heroes left,” Lieutenant Anderson smiled deviously. “We hit the computer core before coming here. Updated the files of anyone that might look interesting to them.” Anyone with a background in combat, anyone who’d received a commendation for heroism or bravery, and anyone who’d had a past as a vigilante or freedom fighter, she’d stripped those parts of their dossiers and filled the gaps with fluff. “We’re a station full of sheep now.”

“Color me impressed,” Commander Eriksson nodded approvingly.

Commander Drake, though, was less than impressed. Beyond the fact that Kioshi had been running people off book on their own station, something about Lieutenant Anderson’s arrival bothered him even more. “How exactly did you get in here?”

“Just shot the bad guys and opened the door,” Lieutenant Anderson answered nonchalantly. “Nothing more to it.” It really had been about that easy, just using poor Ensign Ortega as bait so she could gun them down, and it had been a happy outcome that the girl hadn’t even ended up dead as a result.

Commander Drake frowned. That was most definitely not what he wanted to hear. It wasn’t necessarily all of her own doing though, and he always preferred to go after the bigger fish when possible. He turned back to the intelligence chief. “Captain, did you sanction this?”

“Of course,” Captain Kioshi nodded, taking responsibility even though he had not explicitly given the order. The reality, though, was he had no intention of allowing the lieutenant to take all the heat for where he could tell the JAG was headed. “Why perchance do you ask, Robert?” He knew full well where the JAG was going to go with this given what had just played over the public address system.

“Because you – both of you – just heard the Vaadwaur commander!” Commander Drake snapped. He spun back towards the lieutenant. “How many guards were there out there, lieutenant?”

“Two,” Lieutenant Anderson replied flatly, now realizing as well where this was going.

Two times ten. Twenty. “You two all but commissioned the murder of twenty of our people!” Commander Drake accused, his voice angry and aghast, as he glanced between the captain and the lieutenant. Even sequestered in this conference room, they had heard what the Vaadwaur commander had said. For each Vaadwaur that died, the Vaadwaur would kill ten residents of Archanis. And yet this lieutenant, on the captain’s orders, had killed two Vaadwaur. “Reprehensible!”

“Would you rather we still be locked in here?” Captain Kioshi asked.

“It is not your place, nor hers, to decide who lives and who dies!” Commander Drake insisted. And it wasn’t just a moral issue either. He was certain there was a policy he could use to see to it that these two loose cannons were behind bars at the end of this.

“Then whose is it?” Captain Kioshi raised his brow.

“Grayson or Elsie,” Commander Drake replied flatly. “It’s a command decision.”

“No one can confirm Grayson’s whereabouts,” Captain Kioshi pointed out. His operatives, the ones still able to move about freely, had been looking for Vice Admiral Alex Grayson, but so far, no dice. The best theory they had was that, given the enemy had determined him to be the sector commander, he was being worked over for command-level intelligence for their war.

“Well, my sister should have been consulted then,” Commander Drake replied. Fleet Captain Elsie Drake was the station commander, and she should be the one to approve any sort of operation in the absence of the vice admiral.

“And that would be a problem too,” Captain Kioshi replied. And not just because of the logistical issues of somehow reaching another sequestered senior officer. There was another problem in Elsie’s case specifically.

“Why?” Commander Drake asked. “Do you not know where she is either?”

“Oh no,” Captain Kioshi answered. “I know exactly where she is.” Now came the part he’d neglected to mention until now, the part he’d been holding onto for just this moment, a moment to push the JAG over the edge. “She’s lying dead on the deck in the command center.”

A pin drop could have been heard in the silence that followed.

Captain Kioshi let the silence linger for dramatic effect, but then drove the point home. “When they stormed the place, the Vaadwaur put a disruptor to her head and pulled the trigger. Her and Owens both. Just to make a point.”

Commander Drake stood there in shock. His sister… dead?! What?!

“They would have kept going too, down to the very last man, if Grayson hadn’t surrendered the place,” Captain Kioshi kept on talking. “Thankfully, Grayson saw the light and took a knee.” He left out that it’d only been at his urging, recognizing that the battle had been lost, and that it was better to surrender rather than give up more material for no purpose. It wasn’t like any of them would have gotten out of there otherwise.

Commander Drake couldn’t even hear the words Captain Kioshi was saying anymore. He was just lost. So very lost. His sister was the best of them. Elsie couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t. “How… and you’ve known this the whole time?!”

Captain Kioshi nodded.

“How could you not tell me sooner?!” Commander Drake screamed. “We’ve been sitting here together for days!”

“Dunno,” Captain Kioshi shrugged ambivalently. “Didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

Loss and dismay turned to anger. Now he was angry. So very angry. How could Kioshi neglect to mention that his sister – his own blood – was dead?! He looked like he was about to strike the intelligence captain, his face reddening with rage. Rage was easier than sadness.

“Angry?” Captain Kioshi asked, playing his cards exactly as intended. “Good. You should be. But not with me. Your beef is with them, the two dead fucks Camille killed, and the thousands more crawling all over this station.” That’s what this was about.

Commander Drake didn’t even know what to do. “Agggghhhhhh!!!” he screamed as he slammed his hands down on the table. He keeled over, closing his eyes. It couldn’t be…

“Take that anger,” Captain Kioshi offered. “And channel it.” This was how you turned people. He looked over at Lieutenant Anderson’s jacket and nodded.

Lieutenant Anderson understood. She reached into it and withdrew another of the stolen disruptor pistols, setting it down on the table next to the JAG.

Commander Drake looked over at it. They had killed his sister. He reached over and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. He’d never used one of these before. Not since that one class he almost failed at the Academy. In his eyes, it had always been the job of others to use such crude tools, but suddenly, he felt ready to use it.

“If you want revenge,” Captain Kioshi smiled as he turned for the door. “Then come with us.”

And Commander Drake followed.