“That’s a lot of asteroids,” Nuld ruminated beneath her breath, her gentle exhalations sending the ganglia around her face dancing with vibrations. “And they’re all full of dilithium?”

“I believe that’s your job to tell me, Lieutenant,” T’Sunik chided without turning from the viewscreen where a cluster of jagged asteroids floated serenely. The bobbed and bounced with hypnotic turns of long forgotten nudges, a momentum gifted to them by ancient gravimetric forces.

T’Sunik allowed a momentary curving of his lips as a smile crawled onto his face at the possibilities held in the vast field of resources. Beyond the bulkhead, the wide river of rocky polyhedra continued into the distance, curving outward several thousand kilometres away from the sides of Hart. Millions of metric tonnes of dilithium might be sheltered in their geology, enough to fuel the fleet’s exploration efforts in Shackleton for a century or more.

Nuld glanced round from her slim station at the rear of the bridge towards the oblong-headed XO and offered a minute upright flick of her posterior thumb from behind her chest. A minor offensive gesture, but enough to satisfy her own frustration at the man’s seemingly endless passive-aggressive comments.

“Initial surveys indicate there are rich veins of raw Dilithium in almost 75% of the nearby field,” she announced, her voice smooth as butter despite the bubbling in her heart.

“And all untapped?” T’Sunik asked, his focus still fixed on the rocks bobbing in their minute current.

“The Concord have focused mainly on mining their nearby planetary moons over the field due to the lack of forward logistics points,” Dynem answered from the other end of the bridge’s bank of consoles, her clawed fingers tapping a few commands into the surface and causing the viewscreen to zoom in on a tall phonemast of a satellite. “They have deployed some surveying platforms, but as yet show no sign of extended deployments.”

A hiss of the bridge doors interrupted their collective considerations as Captain Dasranika stepped out from her ready room, clutching a cup to her chest. T’Sunik leapt to his feet before her second footfall had landed, offering up the bridge’s single command chair to her, but she waved him back with a flick of her wrist.

“No, T’Sunik, it’s still your watch. I was just coming to see if there had been any change.” Dasranika waved him back to his seat once more, which T’Sunik took with an uncomfortable twisting of his eyebrow.

“No sign of any craft or comm signals yet,” he replied as he pressed himself into the leather, every inch of his skin protesting at the harmless breach of protocol.

“And we’re definitely in the right place?”

“We are exactly at the rendezvous co-ordinates that we were given,” Dynem confirmed, his eyes darting upward to the local sensor scan to triple check. The stubby form of Hart sat in the centre of the readout whilst a small stack of co-ordinates floated nearby, twitching back and forth by one or two digits. “Exactly.”

“And how long have we been waiting?” Dasranika lifted the cup to her lips and went to take a sip, but grimaced as the liquid touched her tongue; the once warm, steaming tea now reduced to an icy sip of milky water.

Nuld swept her hand over the corner of her console, summoning a ticking timer that continued to roll upwards with seemingly ever-increasing slowness.

“Seven hours, fifty-one minutes and…” She paused to allow the clock to tick over. “… thirty seconds.”

“Perhaps they’ve changed their minds?” T’Sunik offered.

“No, Commander. They are making a statement,” Dasranika sighed as she lowered herself on the small cushioned pad inset in the bridge’s centre bench, eliciting a barely audible grumble from T’Sunik, who would much rather she accept the centre seat. “An unfortunate reality of one-sided negotiations, they always feel the need to flex.”

Dasranika turned towards the assembled officers as she lay the cup on the side, a smile of happy memory lighting up her face.

“Did I ever tell you about the time Dane and I had to climb a literal mountain to-”

A shrill squeal erupted from several consoles, cutting across the captain’s reverie with its urgent chime.

“We are detecting two vessels emerging from the asteroid field; they are trading weapons fire,” announced an Andorian officer sitting at the wide tactical console in the forward well.

“Yellow Alert, shields up!” T’Sunik announced, already rising to his feet and making his way to an empty station at the rear of the bridge, allowing the captain to slide across into the now-empty command seat.

“Concord?” Dasranika asked as she settled into the chair, the lights of the bridge dimming slightly as an amber yellow hue descended over the ship. In corridors and corners throughout the bulky ship, golden patchwork screens announced the call to caution and sent crewman to their duty stations.

“Unconfirmed, but energy signatures are consistent with the readings from seventeen’s initial contact,” Nuld replied as she began summoning comparative data to her screen. The outline of a long tapered vessel in shining silver, sharp as an arrow and just as threatening, appeared on her console’s surface. Along its surface, slender metallic barbs signposted weapons emplacements and shield generators whilst long lines of narrow slit windows ringed the superstructure, accentuating its bevelled appearance. It looked simultaneously angry and elegant, even in digital form.

“The pursuing vessel appears to be a Concord destroyer,” Nuld finally confirmed, satisfied that the data was close enough if not exact.

“The other?” Dasranika asked, running her finger over the rim of her cup as the chase unfolded on the viewscreen.

She watched as the pair of vessels danced back and forth through the asteroid field. The smaller fugitive was blocky and bulky, far less impressive than the shining silver bullet of the destroyer. Even at this distant viewpoint, she could see the patchwork hull repairs scattered across its mottled surface, faded and bleached by decades of solar radiation.

“Unknown, it doesn’t match anything on record, but initial scans suggest similar construction materials to the Concord destroyer,” Nuld replied as she continued to scrape data from the quick scans.

“A pirate? Or a criminal?” T’Sunik suggested, “They don’t appear very tactically capable.”

As if on cue, the small vessel shuddered beneath a flurry of white hot energy pulses that rained down on its weary hull. For an instant, the small craft hung in the dark amber of empty space as it rolled upwards from the field.

Dasranika held her breath.

The crew held their breath.

Then the vessel collapsed, like an empty tin can in the hand of some terrifying giant, before clusters of orange flame tinged with a sickly green aura enveloped the now compact ship and swallowed it into the heart of a newly racing meteor.

It fell for a lifetime.

Spinning and turning and twisting in screaming silence.

Until it came to a stop on the surface of a large asteroid, shattered across its rocky skin.

As the flames licked out into space, their long edges turning into a strange burning shell in the absence of any gravity, another shrill chirp interrupted the bridge.

“We are being hailed by the Concord,” T’Sunik announced, his voice carrying just a waver of anxious energy.

Dasranika offered a nod to the man as she stood, just catching time to tug her sleeves to the ends of her wrists as the golden face of the Envoy appeared on the viewscreen. His hairless, scaled golden cranium glistening in the low light that eeked out from his luminescent eyes, nestled within his deep orbital sockets like minute stars. Two lightly feathered wings twitched behind his back, framing his shining golden chest, covered by a single slip of pale cream fabric, lackadaisically slung over one shoulder.

“Greetings, I am Captain Millina Dasranika of the Federation Starship Hart. Do you require-”

“Federation vessel. Fall in behind our ship and follow us to Velantri Prime, do not deviate from the course.’ The golden being announced with a lilt of disinterest.

“We witnessed your fight, do you require-” Dasranika began again, but the figure cut her off with a heaving sigh as its star-like eyes rolled in its sockets.

“We do not require assistance; the rebel ship was little challenge with the advice of our latest consultant.” The man twisted to look off-screen with visible boredom as a figure swept onto screen with a sneer of gleaming white teeth set within emerald skin almost as glowing as the Concord commander.

“Yes, Hart, your assistance is not required. The Klingon Empire is here to assist its allies in the fight against these measly rebels.” The Orion man sneered with a smug satisfaction. “Follow Starfleet.”

The comm link disappeared, but the smugly beaming face of the man seemed to hang like a ghost in the air between the screen and Dasranika’s eyes.

“Klingons?” T’Sunik mused to the room.

“Like I said,” Dasranika sighed as she slumped into the seat. “Everyone feels the need to flex.”