The low hum of a portable generator pulsed faintly beneath the colony’s central administration dome. The room was long and arched, built in the old Bajoran monastic style, polished stone floors now scuffed, corners littered with tool crates, and the air thick with ozone and dust. Emergency lighting flickered along exposed conduits, casting broken shadows across the room where Velar stood, arms folded, watching the display scroll across the tabletop holopanel. Her Starfleet field jacket was half-unzipped, streaked with dust, the glow of the displays dancing in the green of her eyes.

Security Chief Zh’vhoral paced slowly behind her, her boots crunching faint bits of shattered casing beneath them, antennae twitching with the restrained fury of someone trying very hard not to smash something.

“It wasn’t just sabotage,” she said, stabbing at the display with a gloved finger. “It was precision parasitism.”

The forensic overlay displayed a schematic of the colony’s power relay nexus, but it no longer resembled the clean Starfleet design specifications installed for the original Bajoran colonists. Along one side of the main transfer coil, a metallic device had fused like an industrial leech: black, webbed in copper alloy, with a central node pulsing slowly under the holographic light.

Around them, the dim light from damaged panels cast a faint green wash across their faces, giving the scene an eerie, underwater hue.

Velar narrowed her eyes. “That’s not Breen.”

“Not even close,” Zh’vhoral growled. “Look at the modulation matrix. Triple-spiral emitters, ion inversion couplers. That’s Orion tech.”

She tapped the rotating model. “Energy siphon. Mid-tier design. Compact, efficient, filthy.”

“Which family?” Velar asked.

Zh’vhoral paused. “No house crest, no make-stamp. They scrubbed the ID tags and rerouted the diagnostic subroutines through dummy buffers. Professional job, but not top-tier. I’d bet Latinum this came from a splinter faction. Freelancers, or one of the newer independent clans.”

Velar’s mouth set in a line. “So, the Breen weren’t acting alone. Someone sold them this tech, or is working with them.”

Zh’vhoral gave a short nod. “And this wasn’t just to kill power. The siphon drew off residual energy from the grid before shorting it. A harvest, not a shutdown.”

Velar straightened. “Get me a residual spectral readout of the siphon’s output.”

Zh’vhoral gave her a curious look but ran the command.

The readout appeared, jagged, inconsistent spikes… and a narrow band at the bottom edge pulsing faintly in the sub-ionic range.

“There,” Velar said. “That harmonic trace… that’s radiation signature from the Rolor Nebula. Specific to certain thoron-laced gas pockets on the Cardassian side.”

Zh’vhoral’s eyes widened. “That’s a long way from here.”

“And not somewhere you just pass through by accident,” Velar said. “They’ve been there recently, or sourced this from someone who had.”

She tapped her badge. “Velar to Thunderchild. Captain, you’ll want to hear this.”

Captain Jast stood at the main viewscreen as Velar’s voice filtered in. The bridge was quiet, save for the soft hum of consoles and the occasional chirp of status updates. The stars beyond the screen drifted slowly as Thunderchild maintained station above Free Haven, her posture a sentinel against the dark.

His arms were not behind his back for once; instead, they rested loosely at his sides, hands relaxed, eyes sharp. There was a tension in his jaw, the faint crease at his brow suggesting a mind already ten steps ahead.

M’Ryn turned from the science station. Her rebreather unit hummed softly as she moved, the indicator lights on the base attached to the chest of her uniform pulsing steadily blue. Benzite physiology required constant environmental calibration, but she managed her console with smooth, practiced ease. “The residual trace matches your suspicion. Rolor thoron variant. There’s no way that signal contaminant would appear on colony-grade infrastructure without physical contact.”

Jast glanced toward Tactical. “Commander Vok, plot vectors from Rolor space to Free Haven that avoid core patrol lanes. Use known smuggler routes. I want to know how they got that tech here.”

Vok’s heavy brow furrowed. The Ktarian officer stood tall at Tactical, arms folded behind his back like a statue carved from obsidian. His eyes narrowed with clinical focus as his fingers danced across the controls. “Three possible corridors. All outside Federation sensor nets. Two pass within twenty light-years of known Syndicate refueling hubs.”

“Of course they do.” Jast stepped away from the viewscreen, moving toward the ready room. “M’Ryn, Th’Íveqan, with me.”

The door to the captain’s ready room slid closed behind them with a hiss. Soft lighting framed the room in cool amber, the display behind Jast’s desk showing a real-time render of the colony below. PADDs and intelligence briefs were arrayed in measured stacks; each one marked with departmental seals.

Jast moved directly to his console and brought up the rotating schematic of the siphon. “Thall, tell me you’ve seen this variant before.”

Th’Íveqan scowled. The engineer’s presence filled the room, compact, powerful, the sheer density of his Andorian frame radiating purpose. His uniform bore the faint stain of plasma lubricant, and his antennae leaned slightly forward, as if bracing to lunge.

“I designed half the emergency response architecture for the Akira-class during the war, along with our Klingon engineers. And yes… I’ve seen these in shattered hulls… bleeding power back into space. This model leeches subspace harmonics like a tumor. It was first seen with the Breen weapons at the Second Battle of Chin’toka. We think they got the tech from the Tholians and modified it to be even more effective. If this one’s still functional, it’ll sing its maker’s song.”

M’Ryn leaned forward, already extracting data with a portable scanner. The scanner’s glow reflected in the glassy blue-green sheen of her skin, her gills flexing once beneath the collar of her environment wrap. Her tone remained even, focused, unshaken by the implications.

“These coils are still warm. With your permission, Captain, I’d like to run a harmonic decay inversion on this signature. I might be able to isolate the source factory.”

Jast nodded. “Do it. And Doctor…” he turned to Th’Íveqan. “I need a favor.”

The Andorian raised an eyebrow. “That usually precedes a crime or a call I’ll regret.”

“My last host… Lirien… ran operations near the Syndicate border during the purge of Maelstrom Base. She had a contact. Ferengi… brutal, but he owed us a favor.”

“Still breathing?”

Jast smirked faintly. “I think so. Last seen running a ring near the Phemari Drift. Calls himself ‘Vrex’ now. Back then, it was ‘Vaskar.’ Different nose, same teeth.”

Th’Íveqan crossed his arms. “And you want me to track him?”

“I want to know if any known Syndicate clans are moving product from Rolor space into the Breen frontier. And whether this was a sale… or a partnership. I also need your help activating an old… asset.”

“I’ll tap some ears,” Th’Íveqan said. “If he’s still got a pulse, I’ll find it.”

The obsidian-black windows of the Thunderchild’s observation lounge stretched from deck to ceiling, stars wheeling slowly beyond them. The ship remained in high orbit above Free Haven, holding a slow axial rotation while repairs on the colony’s grid continued below. Inside, the room was dim… subdued lighting, low voices, and the quiet tension that clung to every intelligence briefing.

Commander Zuri Velar stood at the end of the long table, arms braced on the hardwood as the holo-display projection in the center cycled through the latest forensic reconstructions.

A schematic of the siphon rotated slowly in the air between them, its internal coils pulsing with filtered data signatures.

“This,” Velar began, voice steady, “is where colony-side sabotage ends and the culprit trail begins.”

She tapped her fingers on her control interface, the siphon fractured apart, replaced by a multi-layered spectral analysis in shades of green and blue.

“M’Ryn isolated the thoron trace we flagged planetside. Here’s the decay pattern, matched against known environmental signatures within the Rolor Nebula’s outer sectors.”

M’Ryn gave a small nod, her gill vents pulsing faintly. “The thoron variant is rare, only present in radiation pockets with sub-hadronic interference. The profile matches emissions logged in the Drelari Expanse. Cardassian-side. Orion splinter groups have operated out of that region for at least the last eighty years.”

Jast leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled. “You’re certain it wasn’t carried in by someone from the colony?”

“The decay curve is too steep,” M’Ryn replied. “This sample is fresh. Hours, not days. And we found matching particulates inside the siphon itself, baked into the insulation sheath. This device wasn’t just near the Nebula. It was manufactured there.”

Th’Íveqan’s scowl deepened. “Then the question isn’t if the Orions are involved. It’s who sold them the rights to a Breen frontier build.”

Jast’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

He rose from his chair and stepped toward the long comms panel mounted along the port-side wall. With a tap of his command authorization, a secured Starfleet Intelligence channel blinked open, and the screen bathed the room in soft cobalt light.

“Computer,” Jast said, his tone low. “Open encrypted relay Theta-Five-One. Route through Ananke Relay and bounce off Phemari Drift.”

“Working,” came the calm, female voice of the ship’s computer.

Velar tilted her head slightly. “Theta-Five-One?”

“An old relay from my last host,” Jast replied, not looking back. “Lirien used it during the purge of Maelstrom Base to route false convoys. It should still ping a contact near Orion-controlled space… assuming he’s still alive.”

The screen crackled… then resolved into a grainy, dim-lit interior. A Ferengi male sat behind what looked like a bar made of repurposed duranium plating. His teeth gleamed under poor lighting, half his face cast in shadow. Larger than most Ferengi, and showing a thick gray-tinged beard.

“Well, well,” the Ferengi said. “If it isn’t Lirien’s ghost.”

Jast’s expression remained neutral. “Vaskar.”

“Call me Vrex now,” the Ferengi grinned. “Been three names since Dren vanished. You don’t look like her.”

“I’m not her,” Jast said flatly. “But I carry her debt ledger.”

Vrex’s grin faded. “If you’re calling this line, you need something.”

Jast nodded. “I want to know who’s moving siphon-grade tech from the Rolor Nebula into Breen territory. Privateer stock. No house seals. You know the type.”

Vrex leaned back in his chair. “That market’s not cheap. Most of it’s funneled through Clan Yelad… brutal bastards. Half of them are dishonored Klingon ex-pats with a fondness for surgical suppression and backroom deals. But they’re getting their toys from a single source.”

“Name it,” Jast said.

The Ferengi smiled coldly. “Arms broker named Dronaz. Ferengi like me, but twice as ugly. Runs through fronts out of Ultima Thule, but he sources from a drydock shadow site outside the Cardassian border from Septimus. Doesn’t sell to the Syndicate. He sells through them.”

Velar stepped closer. “What do they trade for?”

“Not latinum,” Vrex said, his voice dropping. “Information. Transport routes. Movement algorithms. The kind of intel you don’t get without someone deep in the black. He’s building something. Can’t say what, but it’s not just for profit.”

Jast nodded once. “Send what you have to this channel, then we can consider the debt paid.”

Vrex leaned in, yellow eye flaring. “If Lirien Jast’s name still means anything, get clear of this. This isn’t just a raid. It’s a rehearsal.”

The channel closed with a soft chirp.

Jast turned back to the table. “Clan Yelad. Dronaz. A drydock site just outside Cardassian space.”

Velar folded her arms. “We’re out of coincidence territory.”

Th’Íveqan cracked his knuckles absently. “And into Syndicate politics. This is going to get messy.”

“Then we go where the mess is,” Jast said, tapping in a command to the helm from the conference table. “Ensign Sorel will have us underway in six minutes. Commander Velar, I want a full infiltration assessment. If this drydock is even partially manned, we’ll need Ibanez’s MACOs ready.”

Velar gave a tight nod. “I’ll work with Tessa.”

Jast looked to Th’Íveqan. “And Doctor… don’t stop listening.”

The Andorian engineer grunted. “If that Ferengi contact twitches, I’ll hear the echo.”

As the stars outside began to pivot with the Thunderchild’s realignment, Jast watched the Rolor Nebula’s vector populate on the main screen, swirling green in the distance, a wound in space they would pass through en route to Septimus.