The engine room aboard the Asbetos was a mess. Cables had been strung across the tiny compartment to allow the ship to far exceed her average top speed, even after sustaining damage across multiple vital systems. The chief engineer had been burned badly—an irony given that the ship was named for one of the Greek daimones keramikoi, the spirits who made life for potters and ceramic artisans difficult, and in particular the spirit responsible for burning and charring—so a team from the Arcturus had been sent over to see to the situation. Lieutenant Arturo Hidalgo was in command, with the support of the ship’s second hazard team under Lieutenant Tellora.

“No, no, we can’t divert power away from the deflector dish. They’ve routed primary EPS power through the bus there,” Hidalgo said, stopping Chief Osid from carrying out her proposed course of action. “We have to find the power somewhere else.”

“Well, we don’t need weapons or shields, do we?” she asked.

“Good idea,” Hidalgo confirmed.

This Centaur-class ship’s engines were barely what Hidalgo would consider to be “modern,” derived from the same designs that powered the venerable Excelsior-class cruisers. They operated under the same principles of most designs created since the 2290s, a step ahead conceptually from the older engines found aboard the long-retired Constellation and Miranda-class ships, but going from a top-of-the-line Class-Nine design down to this nearly-obsolete design was making his head spin. 

“I haven’t worked on an engine like this since the academy,” the lieutenant muttered, glancing over at one of the situation displays. There was a low thud from deep within the ship, followed seconds later by an alarm. All of the panels switched to red, and Hidalgo’s heart sunk. “We are too late. We’re four minutes from a warp core breach, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Osid to Tellora. It’s time to go,” the chief said, tapping her badge.

**

Lieutenant Tellora was on the bridge of the Asbetos. Of the ship’s own crew, only Lieutenant Commander Samir, the captain, had remained behind. Tellora had half of her team with him on the bridge to help him maintain what processes could not be automated. The young Human was at the edge of exhausting himself, going between the engineering, operations, and environmental control stations to keep the ship spaceworthy. Tellora respected his will to keep his ship intact, though her instinct was just to scuttle her and be done with it.

“Ensign Gardner, flush the auxiliary life support buffers. The automated system is offline,” Samir ordered.

“Yes, Commander,” Gardner replied, earning a glare from Tellora. “Captain,” he corrected before completing the task from one of the aft stations. 

Samir nodded, not seeming to notice the disrespect as he collapsed into the center seat. Before he could get his bearings to return to his task, Tellora’s commbadge chirped.

“Osid to Tellora. It’s time to go,” the chief reported.

“Understood. Evacuate Lieutenant Hidalgo and his people to the runabout,” she ordered. She could see from the helm console that a warp core breach was now in progress. “Captain, our efforts have been unsuccessful. With your permission, I will put distance between us and the Arcturus.”

“Do it. I’m not ready to abandon her yet, though,” Samir replied, leaping out of his seat and going over to the engineering console. “There has to be something left to try.”

Executing a pre-arranged plan with Ensign Stanton on the runabout, Tellora used what thruster power was left to make the most of the momentum provided by the smaller ship’s impulse engines. If the Asbestos were too close to the Arcturus or the planet, the effects of a warp core breach would be devastating.

“Tellora to Arcturus. Our efforts have failed.”

“Understood. Evacuate immediately,” replied Captain Okusanya. 

Samir tapped his own badge. “Your team can go, but I’m not leaving until I’ve tried everything.”

“Captain, I have been monitoring my team’s progress. There is nothing left to try.” 

Samir shook his head. 

“As the senior officer present, I am ordering you to abandon ship.”

Crewman Woods didn’t fully have to pull Samir off of the console, but nearly so, until Samir, Woods, Tellora, and Gardner were crammed into the turbolift. Samir gave one last glance at his bridge before the doors closed. They went down two decks and then crossed the saucer to the docking port for their runabout. As soon as the hatch closed behind them, Stanton blew the explosive bolts on the docking tube and pulled them away. On her current course, the Asbestos would avoid damaging anything in the system if it didn’t make it to the sun before exploding.

Samir pulled up an external view from one of the auxiliary science stations on the runabout, watching his ship get further away. About a minute later, it exploded, causing a whiteout on the screen and a tremendous flash of light in the viewports. He punched the bulkhead next to the screen. The idea that the captain should go down with the ship was familiar to Tellora, just as much from Klingon culture as Starfleet and Earth mythos, so she understood where he was coming from. It was an honorable death to die on the bridge of your ship, after all.

“Captain, there is no dishonor here. You did what you could,” she offered.

“Just ‘commander’ now, I think, but I appreciate that.”

***

The Arcturus was far enough away not to feel the effects of the blast, but a warp core breach was enough to send a ripple through subspace. Commander Armstrong knew they only had a few seconds to adapt the shields on the sensor network to protect the delicate sensors from being thrown out of alignment. It would take far too long to reconfigure each of them manually, and they’d just finished installing the new equipment. It was a much easier problem to solve than to figure out how to protect the network from the storm itself, which was still bearing down on them. 

“Got it,” he said, mostly to himself, as he sent the command across the network to set their shields to the inverse of the resonance frequency from the warp core breach.

The science officer watched from his station as the relatively minor subspace wavefront hit the sensor grid and was successfully repulsed. There were reactions in the atmosphere, though. The region was already volatile enough even ahead of the storm that it was causing lightning storms in the planet’s atmosphere. The station at Sentinel Major had been reinforced with enhanced lightning towers, but the delicate ecosystem in the habitable zone was being driven haywire. The explosion triggered another burst of intense storms.

Lieutenant Eirell from Cetacean Ops had journeyed to the bridge for the occasion, wearing a somewhat-awkward suit that provided her with two mechanical legs and support for her arms, which were used to moving with the buoyancy of water. As the resident expert on cetaceans, she was monitoring the so-called “gas whales.”

“Commander, there is a large pod of the organisms headed towards the outpost itself,” she reported, her suit’s systems translating her voice. “Based on these movement patterns, they are quite agitated.”

“Great. Just what we need,” Armstrong muttered. “Captain, I think you should see this,” he said, looking up from the science station.

“On screen,” Okusanya ordered.

On the viewer, the bridge crew could see a pod of maybe forty whales headed towards the aerostat colony. Most of them veered off, but two of the larger specimens were headed directly for one of the flotation bladders—enormous blimp-like constructs. The massive creatures were likely confused by the strange weather, their internal navigation senses thrown off. One of them hit the flotation bladder with enough force to puncture it, flying straight through to the other side.

“How long can the station remain afloat damaged like that?” Okusanya asked.

“Normally, indefinitely. But the anti-grav array won’t be able to function when the storm hits,” Armstrong replied. “When the Century Storm arrives, the colony is going to end up crashing to the planet’s core.”

Ship’s Log, USS Hokule’a. NCC-84000/1. Commander Luca Sheppard, recording.

We are on course to rendezvous with Arcturus in just over twelve hours. After a week on detached duty, we have completed our mission to the Federation science station on M-2128C. Annual physicals and resupply operations concluded successfully. All systems continue to read nominal, following the most recent round of upgrades at Starbase Four.

Like many medical officers, Luca Sheppard held the substantive rank of commander, which he had earned after passing the Bridge Officer’s Examination and becoming rated to command a starship in operational circumstances. With so many lieutenant commanders and commanders aboard Arcturus, it was difficult enough for many of the command and operations division officers to get a chance for a bridge watch, let alone the medical officers. When the ship was assigned to conduct the annual wellness check for the scientists stationed on M-2128C, Sheppard had practically begged Dr. Anjar to recommend him for the chance to take the support ship on detached duty.

All his life, Sheppard had strived to be the absolute best in anything he did, from his dedication to his physical fitness to his career. The desire for self-improvement was something he shared with his husband, and it’s one of the reasons they were such a good fit for one another. He’d proven himself first as a nurse and then as a physician, so now he had his sights on matching those achievements with excellence as a starship commander.

“You’re giving me that ‘something isn’t quite right’ look, Ensign,” Sheppard noted once he’d concluded the log.

Captain Lancaster had ‘lent’ Sheppard his yeoman, Ensign Kaplan, for the mission’s duration. The young man had a savant-like grasp of the regulations and proper Starfleet protocol that rivaled the captain’s own legendary knowledge of the handbook. Sheppard had realized, though, that he was as much a babysitter as an assistant, though. The two of them were finalizing some paperwork in the tiny ready room the Starfleet Corps of Engineers had managed to add during their last round of upgrades at Starbase Four.

Kaplan cleared his throat. “Well, just to say, sir… You forgot to state the stardate.”

“Isn’t that encoded automatically?” Sheppard asked, failing to conceal his frustration.

“Yes, but it’s customary to also state it verbally, sir,” Kaplan replied.

“Are you saying I need to re-record it?”

“No, sir. That’s why I wasn’t going to say anything. Just keep it in mind for next time?”

“You’ll make Records Officer in no time,” Sheppard quipped.

Though in all respects a milk run, Sheppard’s command of the Hokule’a over the past week had opened his eyes to the challenges that sitting in the center seat brought. He was used to managing people and even making life-or-death decisions, but he was actually quite unused to being in the spotlight. Beyond the culture shift, he’d also not expected there to be so many niggling procedural details to get right. Overall, he was enjoying himself, but he was also happy at the prospect of getting back to sickbay and back into a realm where he knew he was one-hundred percent competent.

“Captain Sheppard to the Bridge,” Lieutenant Belvedere called over the intercom.

Sheppard rose to his feet and passed through the hatchway onto the bridge with Kaplan following closely on his heels. Lieutenant Hidalgo vacated the captain’s chair for him and moved over to the engineering station.

“Report, please,” Sheppard said.

“There’s a vessel approaching fast off the bow. Very fast,” the engineer reported.

“Have they signaled?”

“No, Captain. We’re clocking them at close to warp 9.99, so they’re going nearly as fast as subspace signals travel,” Belvedere reported from the communication station; the recently-promoted junior lieutenant had made a move from anthropology to communication a few weeks prior, and it seemed to suit him.

“Yellow alert. Raise shields,” Sheppard ordered, his heart pounding at the idea of an unknown, non-communicative vessel approaching.

The Hokule’a wasn’t quite in the Triangle, but it was close enough to neutral space to make Sheppard nervous. He didn’t know of any Orion vessels that could travel that fast, but there was no reason to take chances, and General Order 12 applied. The lighting in the room switched subtly to indicate the change in alert status, as a low tone sounded around the ship to bring the crew to a greater state of readiness.

“They’re slowing, Sir,” Lieutenant Robinson reported from the operations station. After over a year serving as flag lieutenant to Vice Admiral Hayden, he’d requested and received a transfer to the operations department, though he seemed to miss the feeling of authority he got from his proximity to the admiral. “Receiving IFF. It’s Arcturus.”

“Stand down, yellow alert,” Sheppard ordered.

“Wow. They were pushing way past the red line, even after the refit…,” Hidalgo noted from his station.

“We’re getting new orders. They’re sending us a new course, and the instructions are to increase speed immediately to warp eight and prepare for docking,” Belvedere reported.

“I’ve got the course, sir. They want us to come perpendicular to our current heading,” Lieutenant Stanton explained from the helm. “I can execute the order at your discretion.”

“Alter course, Lieutenant,” Sheppard confirmed as he tried to visualize what their new trajectory would look like. Spatial dynamics were not high on his list of favorite subjects. “What’s our time to intercept?”

“Approximately two minutes now, sir. They’re increasing speed to pull ahead of us on a parallel course,” Robinson reported.

“Instructions for warp field intersection coming in now, Captain,” Belvedere said.

Sheppard cleared his throat. “They want us to dock while still at warp?” he asked; the sheer physics of such a maneuver gave him a slight sinking sensation in his stomach.

“It’s technically feasible,” Lieutenant Stanton said, swiveling to offer a bright smile before turning back to the helm.

Like his academy classmate Belvedere, he’d recently earned his promotion to lieutenant junior grade. Stanton, Robinson, and Belvedere were all close friends, and they had a good rapport with one another, even if their banter at times bordered on the inappropriate. The three of them had once been sent on an away mission all on their own at the behest of the admiral, and they were a natural choice to give Sheppard a core bridge crew without sending along anyone that would outshine him—or at least that’s how Sheppard interpreted the choice.

“That it’s ‘technically feasible’ doesn’t exactly fill me with hope and confidence, Cody,” Robinson noted. “Don’t slam us into a nacelle or something.”

Sheppard couldn’t help but agree internally with the sentiment. It was dangerous for starships to get that close while at warp, and one wrong move could be disastrous for both. There must have been some extremely pressing matter for Lancaster not to want to take the several minutes it would take to slow both ships down to sublight speeds and reconnect.

“You’re the one who wanted more field experience, Coop,” Stanton replied.

“Walk me through the procedure, Stanton, please,” Sheppard ordered before the two of them could start bickering in earnest.

“Once Arcturus overtakes us, both ships will slow to warp six until intercept reaches zero. At that point, we will synchronize warp field frequencies and enter their warp field envelope. After we shut down and stow our engines, they’ll then pull us in with a tractor beam,” the lieutenant explained.

“Simple. Easy,” Robinson quipped.

“We wouldn’t be given orders that we weren’t capable of following, Mr. Robinson,” Sheppard reminded him. “Besides, if you keep pouting, your face is going to get stuck like that.”

Robinson turned around to clutch at the non-existent pearls around his neck. “Rude, sir. So rude,” he said with an exaggerated gasp. Just as quickly as he’d made that display, though, he switched back to a professional demeanor. “Adjusting power levels for the maneuver and priming nacelle retraction mechanisms.”

“Warp field adjustments ready,” Hidalgo reported from the engineering station. “The two ships were built together, and their warp fields are already naturally close to one another for this purpose,” he added.

“So, in English, don’t sweat it?” Belvedere asked from the other side of the room.

Hidalgo laughed. “No, sweat it very, very much, still, but this ship was designed for maneuvers like this,” he corrected.

“Arcturus now in visual range, sir,” Robinson reported.

The viewer switched from the starfield to zoom in on Arcturus, as their speeds were simultaneously adjusted so that they would match speed while close enough to initiate the reconnection sequence. Sheppard found himself gripping the blue leather of the command seat’s armrests a little tighter than he would likely admit to later on seeing their mothership from that angle.

“Attention, all hands, this is Sheppard. We are performing a high-warp reconnection maneuver. Please brace for reconnection,” Sheppard announced before tapping the control that brought the ship to blue alert.

“Syncing warp fields now, Captain,” Hidalgo said as the larger ship loomed even closer.

“We’re on course,” Stanton confirmed. “Ready to retract nacelles in twenty seconds.”

The Hokule’a was now perilously close to Arcturus so that they could nearly reach out through the viewer and touch her. Sheppard watched the proximity monitor start flashing so rapidly that it became a solid line, meaning they were right on top of their target.

“Initiate docking sequence,” Sheppard ordered.

“Aye, Captain,” Robinson replied. “Retracting nacelles.”

“They have us in the tractor beam,” Robinson said.

The viewscreen was filled with blue light as Arcturus locked onto the support ship, pulling her forward into the docking cradle on her stern. It took only a few seconds before Sheppard could feel the distinctive clunk of the docking latches securing them in place. The ship’s systems automatically began to shut down and sync with those of the mothership, and the bridge crew let out a sigh of collective relief.

“Pretty exciting for a first command, right?” Robinson asked, turning around to flash Sheppard one of his perfect smiles.

“Exciting is one word for it. Good job, all of you. Now, maybe we can get someone to explain what the rush was,” Sheppard replied as he stood up from his seat, feeling a genuine sense of relief at the prospect of returning to life as Dr. Sheppard rather than Captain Sheppard.

As with Hokule’a, Arcturus now had a brand-new bridge module. It was a little smaller than the original one she’d carried for two years, with more emphasis on practical use of space rather than a grand, open design. It suited Captain Lancaster’s personality much better by situating the command chair slightly further forward than the two other seats in the center of the bridge. They’d also moved the transporter room to its own compartment further aft, giving the bridge a much more traditional appearance than it had before.

“Reintegration successful, Captain,” Commander Navarro reported from the operations station.

“Very well. Helm, resume our previous course. Maximum warp,” Lancaster ordered, secretly relieved that he hadn’t just ordered his husband to perform a maneuver that would have got him killed.

“Aye, Captain. New ETA to the Romulan border is nine hours, twenty-three minutes,” Marshall confirmed.

“Lieutenant Galan, give me ship-wide,” Lancaster ordered.

The bosun’s whistle sounded, indicating that the channel had been opened.

“Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking. We are currently on course for the border between Federation and Romulan territory to escort a refugee convoy into our space. Some of their vessels have been damaged, so we will be using all available guest quarters and cargo holds for temporary accommodations. Specific instructions will follow from your department heads, but our mission is to resettle them on Gamma Sagittarii III. I am confident that you will all perform admirably in what is sure to be a challenging assignment. Lancaster out.”

Once he had finished the announcement, Lancaster rose to his feet. “Number one, you have the bridge. Lieutenant Galan, with me,” he said, exiting the bridge to starboard.

Lieutenant Galan was the person on the ship who had the most apparent insight into the situation they were about to face. As someone who was himself resettled by the Federation on Vashti, Lancaster knew that the Romulan lieutenant would either be an invaluable resource or a possible emotional liability for their upcoming mission. As with most things, he wanted to face it head-on.

Lancaster took a seat at the table in the reconfigured ready room and gestured for Galan to do the same. The young Romulan was the same height as Lancaster was but seemed to be all limbs, lithe and slender; he often had a drooping posture that concealed his stature, just as he wore his hair long to conceal the points of his ears.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” Galan asked; Lancaster could detect the sarcasm dripping through the lieutenant’s words.

The captain cleared his throat. “I say this without meaning to tokenize you or expect you to speak for all Romulans—”

“Or all refugees?” Galan interjected.

Lancaster let the slight impertinence pass. “But I also don’t want to pretend that you don’t have a valuable perspective on our mission.”

Galan nodded. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Go ahead.”

“My one main piece of advice would be: Don’t turn Gamma Sagittarii III into Vashti,” the lieutenant said, managing to combine venom and earnestness into the same statement. “I’ll always be grateful to the Federation, but the job was only half done there. We can’t be the architects of another festering hell hole like that.”

“Believe me, Lieutenant. I have no intention of botching this.”

“Neither did Admiral Picard, sir.”

Even a casual observer could tell that there was a lot of empty, seemingly wasted space in the design of a D’Deridex-class warbird, but it was essential to their core functionality: to demonstrate the might of the Romulan state. For many Romulans, these battleships were a source of pride or even nationalistic fervor, but the presence of the Romulan Star Navy rarely generated hope for the average citizen. Twice as large as the mighty Federation Galaxy-class explorers that they once faced off again, the D’Deridex had been a symbol of Romulan strength—and hubris and folly—for over fifty years. The IRW Ditaria was one of the earliest members of the class and was now only a shadow of its former self; extensive sections of the large wing-like sections that encircled the centerline of the ship had been stripped away for scrap, leaving her looking skeletal with living areas and critical systems now without the armor they once carried.

Oban watched the Ditaria hanging in space opposite the small Federation vessel that had asked them—very politely—to wait at the border for clearance to proceed. His forehead was pressed up against the viewport he’d found in the former Chief Officer’s stateroom aboard the passenger liner Morav. Like the Ditaria and a half-dozen other ships of various sizes and in various conditions, it was packed with refugees fleeing the likely final collapse of their homeland. He knew very little about starships, but even he could see that the freighters leaking green warp plasma and their one warship missing half of its hull plating were in dire straits. 

There was a brief but brilliant flash of light as another ship emerged from warp. Dwarfing the Federation vessel already there and surpassing even the Ditaria, it gleamed in silver and blue, hull alight from its hundreds of viewports. Oban allowed him to feel the barest and most fleeting sense of hope, hope that their salvation was at hands on the back of the largest ship he had ever seen. He knew that feeling was likely pouring through the rest of the flotilla, too, as the Federation stood for everything that the Star Empire never had. Unlike many, though, Oban was not fleeing the old regime but the new one.

The young Romulan moved away from the viewport to the desk. The data encoding device there had just finished translating thousands of intelligence files and historical records into amino acid sequences. He inserted the vial into a very pointy-looking hypospray and then applied it to his own carotid, wincing slightly at the high-pressure injection. The data he had now concealed within himself would increase his worth five-fold if the Humans and their multi-species lackeys were intelligent. 

Unholstering a tiny disruptor pistol concealed in the leg of his boot, Odan vaporized the device and the hypospray, along with the many data cards it had finished processing. Satisfied that there was no evidence left, he slipped the disruptor under the mattress of his bed, now happy to be found by his Federation rescuers before his fellow passengers learned who he really was. 

The bridge of Arcturus was fully-crewed and humming with activity as the ship began its initial sensor sweeps of the motley collection of Romulan vessels gathered on the border. The supplementary stations on the periphery of the bridge had each been tasked to analyze and track a single one of the seven ships; there was no sense leaving anything to chance through inattention. Mere moments after Arcturus resolved back into sublight speeds on their sensors, the communication board lit up with more hails than there were ships.

“Helm answering all stop,” Armstrong reported from the helm.

“Sir, we’re being inundated with requests for assistance. Fortunately, I speak the language,” Lieutenant Galan reported, earning a laugh from the first officer. “We’re also being hailed by the captain of the André Aciman.”

“I imagine that Captain Crast will have a thing or two to say, yes,” Lancaster said. “Put him on screen.”

Moments later, the Tellarite captain of the André Aciman appeared on the main viewer. Unlike on capital ships, Crast and the rest of the crew of that Reliant-class frigate wore uniforms that were more colorful and simpler than the darker and more formal ones worn across the Fourth Fleet. The bridge, too, was unadorned and classic in its design.

“This is Captain Lancaster of the—” Lancaster started.

“It took you long enough to get here, Arcturus! I’ve been sitting with my tusks hanging out here, trying to make sure that 25,000 refugees don’t break the door down trying to get into Federation space!” the other captain interrupted.

“Of the Arcturus,” Lancaster concluded with a frown. “It’s nice to see you, too. What sort of dialogue have you established with the Romulans? Have you completed a needs assessment?”

Crast growled, shaking his head. “Those were not my instructions. We have taken aboard several critically wounded patients and have managed to stabilize them, but otherwise, we have just been sitting here. Observing them until you arrived to take command of the situation.”

“Next time, I’ll ask my engineer to break the transwarp barrier rather than just exceeding every conventional design limitation of our engines,” Lancaster retorted. “Who is their leader?”

“The captain of what is left of that class-two warbird seems to be representing them. He was a centurion in charge of stripping the ship before they used it in their escape. Valar,” Crast explained. “All he has asked for is immediate clearance to proceed, and I have told him ‘please stand-by’ each time.”

“I’m surprised that you said ‘please,’ Captain,” Lancaster noted, running his hand along the new gold trim on the armrest of his command chair. “Come alongside Arcturus and stand by for further instructions. Lancaster out,” he said, cutting off the transmission before Crast could splutter a protest.

“Charming guy,” Alesser said.

“I’ll chalk that one up to being face-to-face with a Romulan fleet for the last day,” the captain replied. “Galan, hail the lead ship.”

“I have ‘Captain’ Valar for you, sir,” Galan replied.

The screen switched to display the interior of the Ditaria. Lancaster hadn’t seen many Romulan bridges, but from what he could make out, it was in a rough state. There was a haze all around Valar, who looked to be in his eighties if he were Human anyway. Since Romulans had a much longer lifespan, he might have been at least a century old. 

“This is Captain Lancaster of the starship Arcturus. I have been sent to ensure your safe passage through Federation space,” Lancaster explained. “My orders are to ensure that your vessels are safe for continued warp travel and to evacuate as many of you as is necessary to my ship for the voyage.”

Valar nodded. “We are grateful for any assistance you can provide, Captain. Your colleague has been… less than forthcoming… when it comes to the Federation’s plans for us,” he added. “Does this mean you have found us a destination at last?”

“We have begun establishing a settlement for you on Gamma Sagittarii III. Once all of the necessary immigration procedures have been followed, you will be free to remain there or travel as you wish within the Federation,” Lancaster explained.

“That is… unexpectedly generous, Captain Lancaster. I was sure you would try to keep us in Romulan space,”Valar said.  

“The Aciman has relayed a vast number of asylum claims from your group. It’s not the Federation’s policy to turn away refugees,” the captain replied. “We are analyzing your ships to see what we can do in terms of repairs and evacuations. Please transmit a list of your needs, such as food or medical supplies. For the time being, hold position here.”

“Understood, Captain. Thank you.”

The transmission ended.

“Tactical, give me a tour of their fleet,” Lancaster said, turning back to glance at Commander Isethos, the newest member of the senior staff.

“Aye,” the Andorian replied, antennae twitching slightly as he tapped the controls on his panel. 

The viewscreen switched to a schematic display of the D’Deridex-class warbird.

“The lead ship is the ex IRW Ditaria. Decommissioned in 2395, our records indicate she was in the process of being scrapped, which is why she is missing so much of her superstructure,” Isethos explained. “We are designating her Cardinal 1, and she has 10,594 lifesigns aboard, which is just under the design limit for a ship of that class.”

“Cardinal 2 and Cardinal 3 are both passenger liners, with an approximate normal capacity of 2,000 people. Cardinal 2 has 2,975 lifesigns aboard, while Cardinal 3 has 1,224,” the tactical officer said, putting up two identical diagrams of the following two ships. Roughly 250 meters in length, each vessel was clearly meant for light to medium interstellar passenger duties. “There are no obvious structural or mechanical problems with these two vessels. From what we can tell, they were pulled off their standard duties.”

“Or stolen,” Alesser suggested.

“Cardinal 4 is an agricultural transport, meant to transport vast numbers of livestock. Its bays have been repurposed, and it’s carrying 2,108 people. Perhaps ironically, our initial analysis suggests that it’s food that they might run into trouble with there, rather than life support,” the tactical officer continued.

“Cardinal 5 is a troop transport, a Dominion War-era relic. Her warp drive system is completely offline, but she has 5,981 people aboard, well over her design capacity of 4,000,” Isethos explained. “Similarly, Cardinal 6 is a light freighter with a capacity of 50, but 276 lifesigns are aboard.”

“The last vessel is Cardinal 7. It’s an ore freighter, and we’re detecting 1,497 people aboard. We’re having trouble localizing exactly where they are in the freighter because it was apparently used to transport dilithium: the resulting resin impedes our sensor scans,” the Andorian said.

The display switched to show a massive vessel, with a central spine, bow module, and stern module of obviously-Romulan make. Each side of that spine was joined to numerous ore-carrying pods, which were meant to be detached and unloaded separately to increase efficiency. Lancaster felt a sinking sensation imagining what hell the people aboard that ship must have been fleeing to choose to be locked in a vessel never meant to transport people.

“An ore hauler, seriously? They must be desperate,” Commander Armstrong said from the science station. “I’ll see if I can clean up our readings.”

“In desperate situations, people will do what they need to, Commander,” Counselor Sharma interjected; she had donned a standard uniform for the occasion, and it was the first time Lancaster had seen her on the bridge at all. 

“What’s the life support capacity of Cardinal 7?” Doctor Anjar asked, chiming in from sickbay.

“We don’t have any data on that vessel’s specifications. My guess would be that it’s significantly less than what she’s carrying. Ore holds wouldn’t have life support at all,” Commander Navarro at ops chimed in. “What are the short-term effects of exposure to dilithium?” she asked.

“In its natural state, dilithium is quite benign, but when fragmentary, it’s like breathing in diamond dust. Compounded with other things, its residue can be… problematic,” Anjar explained. “That ship has to be our priority, Captain.”

“I agree. If we can’t track their lifesigns precisely, we will need to send teams over with pattern enhancers, though,” Lancaster replied. “Hail them.”

“Attempting to do so, Captain,” Galan confirmed, tapping away at his station. “I’ve managed to raise them.”

“Attention ore vessel, this is the starship Arcturus. We are reading an extremely large number of people aboard. What is your status?” Lancaster asked.

The screen crackled, and Lancaster could barely make out a Reman woman behind a control console. If the bridge of the Ditaria was a mess, the bridge of this ore hauler would be a total disaster.

“This was the only ship we could get. The Romulans didn’t want us on their ships. We managed to increase power to the life support systems and rig additional filters for the ore bays, but we’re running out of food, water, and oxygen,” she replied.

Lancaster stood up. “There are people in the ore bays?” he exclaimed with uncharacteristic emotion.

“It was the only way,” she replied, seeming neither angry nor desperate, just resigned.

That, even among a flotilla of refugees, the Remans were still being treated as second-class citizens (if that), had Lancaster seeing red. It was difficult for him to conceive of the type of racial animus that existed in the Romulan-Reman relationship in the first place, but to have it persist even in a time of emergency was mind-boggling to him. 

“I will send teams over to begin evacuating you to Arcturus. Help is on the way,” Lancaster said, cutting the channel with a motion across his throat as he turned to look at Alesser. “Thoughts?”

“Recommend we activate all four hazard teams and put all small craft on standby. With guest quarters, we can accommodate 2,500 passengers. Another 5,000 in the cargo holds. The Aciman should be able to take another 500. After that, we start compromising our hanger capabilities,” Alesser replied.

Lancaster nodded. “Have a pair of the runabouts prepped and take two of the hazard teams with you to Cardinal 7. I want the others to evaluate the engines on Cardinal 1 and Cardinal 5. Without them, we’re not going to be able to get everyone to Gamma Sagittarii in one trip,” he said.

“The Corps of Engineers team is already standing by, Captain,” Okusanya reported from her post in engineering over the comm. “I’ll see what Starfleet Intelligence has in the database on these designs, but most of our spare parts will be incompatible with Romulan technology. I’ll get the industrial replication bay primed for high-detail work.”

“Very well,” Lancaster replied, glancing over at Galan. “Feel free to call on Lieutenant Galan or Lieutenant Commander Najan’s first-hand experience with Romulan languages if you need it.” 

“Sir, if I may?” Evandrion asked from the security station.

“Go ahead.”

“I recommend that we go to Security Alert Four. While there is no specific danger here, it would be best to control access to sensitive areas on the ship,” the security officer suggested.

That level of alert would put armed guards at important places around the ship, and restrict the bridge, engineering, defensive systems, and most science labs to higher classification levels across the board. While Lancaster had no reason to suspect any ill will from the refugees—it would go against his training and his oath to do so—he kept what the counselor had said earlier in mind. There was no telling what desperate people might do.

“Do it. We can be welcoming without giving them access to critical systems,” Lancaster agreed. 

The captain walked forward of the helm and operations stations, looking out at the ships now under his care. The amount of plasma drifting from vessels that they had little experience with was troubling, but he knew the engineering teams would figure out what they needed to get them space-worthy. What he was less confident of was his own ability to keep the peace between the different groups on those ships; he doubted that the Remans were the only ones with reason to hold a grudge, after all. 

“Let’s get to work,” Lancaster said, prompting Alesser to leave the bridge with Marshall and Galan while the rest of the bridge crew began preparing the ship for what was to come.

Less than twenty minutes after the order had been given, two of the Volga-class runabouts assigned to Arcturuslifted up from the hanger deck and headed towards the ore hauler designated Cardinal 7. Between the freighter’s shielding and interference created by radiation and particulate matter left behind from a century of bringing raw dilithium from the mines to Romulan military installations, regular transporter use would be impossible without pattern enhancers. Halo 1, with Captain Alesser and Hazard Team Alpha, would secure the ship’s forward hanger and set up two beam-out sites there. Halo 2, with Lieutenant Commander Bowens and Hazard Team Beta, would see to the aft hanger. Between them, Alesser estimated that they could have the nearly two-thousand refugees beamed over to Arcturus within two hours—assuming nothing went wrong.

“Gladstar, Halo 1. On approach to Cardinal 7. The board is green,” Marshall said from the helm of the Ausable, designated Halo 1 for the duration of their operation.

“Halo 1, Gladstar. Telemetry confirmed. Continue approach,” one of the flight control officers aboard Arcturusreplied.

The Romulan-built, Reman-crewed freighter loomed closer. While it was nowhere near as large as Arcturus, it was meant to move millions of tons of ore at a time and had some serious mass. As with anything Romulan, there were sharp angles everywhere one might expect a curve, which gave it a menacing appearance even without any weapons. The beak-like forward section was connected by a long spine to a rectangular engine pod, with the massive ore pods attached to that spine in between them. Halo 1 was on a course head-on to intercept Cardinal 7, the maw of its hanger bay looming in front of them.

“Captain, we may have a problem,” Robinson reported from the station next to Marshall’s.

“Please don’t tell me you’re about to disappoint me on your first hazard team mission, Lieutenant,” Alesser chided.

“I never disappoint for long, sir,” Robinson said with a smirk. Thankfully, he continued with his report before Alesser would have felt compelled to chastise him for being too flirtatious in a serious situation. As the new number two of the team, Robinson had a lot to prove. As a fellow second-in-command, he knew the feeling. “The handshake protocols the Remans provided us with are working, but the hanger has no power. The doors are stuck in the open position, and the forcefield is inoperable.”

“Of course they are. Why would this be easy?” Alesser quipped. “What about a docking port?”

“I’m not seeing any that are operational, sir. What if we used the runabout’s shields to seal off the bay and then pumped in our own atmosphere?” Marshall suggested.

“If we reconfigure the shields to function that way, they will stop working as the sort of shields that deflect weapons fire,” Robinson replied. “Plus, it would take three or four hours for our environmental systems to fill a bay of that size.”

“What about using the shuttle’s power supply to get the bay working then?” the helmsman asked.

“That has merit, but we’d need to adjust the frequency and flowrate of our systems to match those used by Romulan EPS grids unless we want to burn out the equipment entirely,” Alesser agreed. “I hope you’ve been studying your manuals, Mr. Robinson,” Alesser said before reaching past the blond lieutenant to tap the ship-to-ship communications button.

“Halo 2, Halo 1. How are things looking on your end?”

“We’re on final approach. All systems are nominal. We might have to haul a few crates out of the way to set up our evac zones, though,” Bowens replied.

“Very well. The forward hanger has no power, so we’re going to have to solve that problem before setting up. Let whoever’s in charge on your side know what we’re up to,” Alesser ordered.

“Halo 2 confirms.”

“Robinson, update the bridge on our situation, and then join me in the back,” Alesser said, leaving Marshall and Robinson alone in the cockpit.

The first officer passed through the doors into the runabout’s middle compartment. The rest of Hazard Team Alpha was waiting in their standard gear: exoprene-reinforced uniforms with utility belts and plenty of space for accessories. They were helping each other into the chest shells that turned their suits into fully fledged EV equipment, all in the appropriate departmental colors.

Windsor, the team leader, turned to Alesser. “We were listening on the intercom, sir. I recommend detailing Shadi and Taom to get the doors closed while Seagraves and Zhou get the forcefield emitters back online. Robinson and I can get the power back,” the lieutenant said.

“You know your team best, Windsor. Accomplish the objective how you see fit,” Alesser replied as he pulled open his uniform jacket. “Someone replicate me a suit. I’ll assist in getting the power back online.”

“Is that wise, sir?” Windsor asked.

“It’s not my first spacewalk, Lieutenant,” Alesser said, shrugging it off.

“No, sir. But it’s a spacewalk on a damaged Romulan vessel,” Windsor insisted. “With all due respect, sir… The purpose of the hazard team concept is to keep senior officers out of life-threatening situations. We’ll remain on the comm at all times,” he said, demonstrating much more of a backbone than Alesser might have expected from the always-smiling lieutenant.

The rest of the team was doing an outstanding job at looking at anything other than Windsor or Alesser at that moment. Alesser’s initial reaction was annoyance at the lieutenant’s impropriety and then respect for his willingness to speak his mind to a more senior officer. What he was saying had merit, but Alesser wasn’t precisely the hands-off sort.

“The captain sent me to ensure the success of this operation personally. Don’t you think that implies that I shouldn’t be waiting on the runabout while you do all the work?” Alesser asked, arms crossed.

“Yes, I suppose, sir…,” Windsor replied, clearing his throat.

“On the other hand, someone with engineering experience will need to keep an eye on our EPS grid here. I’ll stay on the runabout,” Alesser relented to the lieutenant’s visible relief. “I still want one of those suits because I’m coming out if you’re not done in twenty minutes.”

“Aye, sir,” Windsor replied, nodding to Crewman Seagraves, who went over to the replicator to fabricate what Alesser had requested.

Robinson entered the compartment a few moments later.

“We’re coming in for a landing. The good news is that there’s no debris like there is in the aft hanger, sir,” he reported before Windsor started helping him into his EV harness. “Is everyone ready to save some Romulans?” he asked.

“Remans,” Alesser interjected.

“Remans, sir,” he replied, with an uncharacteristic flash of doubt on his face corresponding to the gold shell clicking into place around his chest and torso.

Going from a desk job to ‘real’ Starfleet service is something Robinson had been hoping for—and training extensively for—since he’d started working for Admiral Hayden. The young man was in top physical shape and had exemplary scores, good enough to earn him a spot on a hazard team, but he lacked practical experience.

“You’ve got this. All of you,” Alesser said, reaching up to squeeze Robinson on the shoulder for a moment before the deck rumbled slightly under them, signaling that they had touched down on the Reman vessel. “Mr. Windsor, you know what to do,” he said before returning to the cockpit, grabbing the hazard suit from Seagraves on his way.

With the first officer returning forward, Lieutenant Windsor had his team make sure that their helmets and gloves were securely attached. They all filed into the aft compartment, where Robinson activated the outer forcefield and lowered the aft ramp. They could see that beyond the runabout, the hanger was pitch-black.

“Halo 1, Windsor. Can we get some light out here?” Windsor asked.

“We’ll do what we can. Use your helmet overlays if you need to,” Alesser replied.

“Aye,” the lieutenant confirmed. “Maglocks on, everyone,” he ordered.

There was a series of clunks as six pairs of boots magnetized to the runabout’s deck plating before they clomped down the ramp into the hanger, passing through the forcefield and into the airless environment of what felt very much like a derelict vessel. The runabout activated all of its navigation lights, which helped some, but they would barely have been able to see without the image enhancement and thermal overlays on their helmets.

“Shadi and Taom, look for the emergency hydraulic release for the hanger doors. There should be a way of closing them in situations like this,” Windsor ordered, sending the Bajoran and Trill ensigns forward towards the open mouth of the ship. “Chief Zhou, take Seagraves to see about those forcefield generators. We stay with our partners at all times. Understood?”

There was a simultaneous round of “Yes, Lieutenant” from everyone before they dispersed. Windsor turned to Robinson, who was scanning the room with the integrated tricorder on his EV gauntlet.

“I think I’ve found an auxiliary access tap for their EPS grid. 10 meters that way,” he said, pointing towards an area towards the rear of the ship. “If this is anything like a Starfleet ship, that should be our way of repowering the equipment here.”

“Awesome. Let’s check it out,” Windsor agreed.

The two lieutenants walked slowly towards the access point; when they got to the spot Robinson’s tricorder indicated, they had to get down on their hands and knees to remove a deck plate. It was difficult, awkward work in an environment without gravity to get the right leverage, but they managed after some struggle. Once it was free, it revealed an access port about thirty centimeters across, far larger than most normal EPS taps.

“The translation says this is a slot for an emergency power cell,” Windsor said once his helmet had a chance to read the markings around the terminal. “We’ll either have to find one or fabricate an adapter.”

“Well, if there’s a slot, hopefully, some of those batteries are somewhere nearby?” Robinson asked, standing up to resume scanning.

“Shadi, Windsor. We’ve found the hydraulic access point, but it’s fused. There’s no way we’re getting these doors closed without some heavy-duty cutting equipment and about a week of work,” the engineer reported.

“Zhou here. The good news is that the forcefield emitters are perfectly fine. They just need power,” Chief Zhou interjected.

“All right. We’ve just found an emergency power slot. Robinson is sending you the approximate dimensions of the cell that fits there. We need to find one if it’s here,” Windsor said, glancing up at Robinson.

There was very little in the room, at least on the main floor, but there were dozens of storage lockers and bins along the side of the hanger. Windsor and Robinson proceeded to the nearest bank of them, finding some well-used mining equipment and a bunch of isolinear chips in the first bin. The team leader was mindful of the time; getting done before Alesser’s twenty minutes were up was as much a personal challenge as it was a professional imperative to keep the first officer from entering into needless risk.

“Halo 1, Windsor. We’re sending you the dimensions and specs of the port we found. Can you fabricate something that will fit?”

Alesser didn’t reply immediately, likely looking at the information.

“Probably. I’ll send the data back to Arcturus and see if we have anything about Romulan emergency power cells in our files. I guess that means you haven’t found one yet?” he asked.

“Not y—,” Windsor started before Robinson opened the next bin to reveal at least six cylindrical devices that looked very much like what they were supposed to find. “I think we have something.”

Robinson nodded and started scanning them. “They’re intact, but none of them are energized. We’ll need to fill them with plasma from the runabout,” he said.

“Good work. Bring them back to the runabout, and we’ll figure out how to recharge them,” Alesser ordered.

“Shadi, Windsor. Meet us at the runabout. Seagraves, we could use some help over here.”

Crewman Seagraves was even taller than Windsor was, and he spent more time in the gym than almost anyone on Arcturus. Even with no gravity to contend with, his strength was helpful in relocating the awkwardly-shaped emergency batteries back to the runabout. When they got there, Shadi already had one of the access ports on the starboard nacelle removed and was talking through the specifics of the procedure with the first officer.

Taom emerged from the runabout with a funny-looking cable, separated in the middle by a frequency modulator and flow regulator, which would transform the plasma from Halo 1’s warp nacelle into something that the Romulan ship could use without damage.

“How long will this take?” Windsor asked as Taom and Shadi worked to hook one of the batteries up to their runabout.

“We’ll have it done in our time limit, sir,” the engineer said, grinning through her helmet.

The team managed to get the emergency battery into the receptacle with about two minutes to spare on Alesser’s clock. It slid into place easily, causing the panel around it to light up, but nothing else did. Once Windsor figured out the instructions to pull out a handle and twist it, the rest of the room lit up, and the entrance to the hanger crackled with green energy. A tiny status display next to the power cell showed that the environmental systems had been brought back online, which meant they also had gravity again.

“How long will this be able to power the hanger?” Windsor asked.

“Five or six hours. Probably more if we lower the air pressure in the room,” Shadi replied.

“Good. That will give you time to find the actual source of the power failure and fix it,” Windsor said. He checked his gauntlet tricorder, which flashed a green light to show that the air was breathable about a minute after he replaced the power cell. He took his helmet off, and the smell of mining equipment exposed to vacuum hit him—stale oil and grime—even after just a few moments of being oxygenated again.

“All clear, Halo 1,” Windsor reported.

Alesser stepped out of the runabout a few moments later, where he’d likely been waiting just in front of the forcefield for the signal. He walked over to Windsor and flashed him a grin.

“Good work. A minute or two longer, and I’d have had to start micromanaging,” he teased. “Let’s get the pattern enhancers set up. I want clear lines of sight and a large area for staging. The other team has already started beam-outs.”

Before the team could react and follow those orders, the doors to the ship’s interior opened, and people started to pour through. They were all Reman, and most were dressed like miners or other hard laborers. Their presence on the ship suddenly made more sense, though it was still hard to fathom how anyone would be willing to put up with the conditions there.

Windsor instinctively moved between the crowd and Captain Alesser but was dumbfounded when nothing happened. The Remans didn’t start running towards their runabout or mobbing them but started forming orderly lines. It was a show of dignity, even in the face of hardship, making Windsor stand up straighter.

“Let’s get these people out of here, Alpha Team,” Windsor ordered.

The number of injuries among the Remans beaming to Arcturus was relatively small and limited to things like broken bones and burns sustained during the rough crossing on Cardinal 7. Hundreds of them required immediate and intensive respiratory therapy from spending too much time in the holds, which were coated in pulverized dilithium fragments. The worst cases resulted in patients who could barely take in enough oxygen to remain conscious. Nanite therapy was able to repair most lung damage within 24 to 48 hours, but those patients had to be actively monitored throughout the treatment, which was enough to put a strain on Arcturus and her medical staff.

Beyond that, they were also beaming aboard critically hurt and ill Romulans from other ships in the flotilla, meaning that the surgeons were kept busy with a stream of patients that had injuries up to and including disruptor wounds. Thankfully, the two types of care didn’t use the same personnel or resources, but a real crisis was starting to develop over another issue that divided the two groups: lighting.

“You can’t seriously be suggesting that we segregate our patients by species!” Sheppard exclaimed, tossing down his napkin onto Dr. Anjar’s coffee table in irritation. “The Federation doesn’t do that.”

“Our Cetacean and Medusan colleagues are segregated from the rest of the crew, are they not? I’d offer that comparison if only to highlight the… reactiveness of your position, Doctor. Different species have different environmental needs,” Dr. Tenesh replied, rolling her eyes.

“The easiest solution would just be to lower the lighting in all of our medical facilities to a range that the Remans can tolerate,” Sheppard retorted. “Surgical bays can use standard lighting with sedated patients.”

“Long-term convalescence in non-standard lighting can be extremely detrimental for circadian rhythms and mental health. By separating the groups, we can optimize care for everyone,” Tenesh insisted. “Patient care shouldn’t be compromised out of a misguided but well-intentioned attempt to heal two-thousand years of racial animus.”

“No one on this ship should have to read a sign on the door that says ‘this isn’t the place for you,’ Hertane,” Sheppard said.

“You know, I am familiar with that sensation of being an Orion in Federation space. And having been an Orion in Klingon space. Out of uniform, do you realize how many times I’ve been questioned as a possible pirate?” she said with a chuckle.

“That’s different. You actually served on a pirate ship,” Sheppard reminded her.

“Privateer ship. We had a letter of marque from the Klingon Empire. Any piracy was… minimal,” the Orion said, making a show of checking her nails. “And anyway. That’s not the point. I know what real discrimination feels like, and it’s not a medically necessary temporary separation of different groups based on their individual needs.”

Before Sheppard could say anything else, Doctor Anjar walked back into the office. He’d left them in the middle of their dinner together to have a brief meeting of the minds with The Inner Circle, i.e., the other three high-and-mighty captains. 

“They’re cute, right? The perfect couple,” Anjar noted, glancing over at Commander Vircar, their Head of Nursing. 

“Absolutely. The sexual tension is palpable,” the Risian woman laughed. 

Sheppard had almost forgotten that Vircar was there since she had stayed out of the back-and-forth between him and Tenesh. That was her general modus operandi, though: to avoid interposing herself between the stronger personalities among the senior medical staff. He didn’t usually consider himself to be among those himself, though, but this particular issue had him fired up. 

The two arguing doctors looked at each other and then at Anjar in complete agreement that they couldn’t dignify his comment with a response. 

“So, Hertane, you want to set all illumination to one thousand percent of standard in every compartment, and Luca, you want to plunge the ship into darkness for this day and all future days? I was only half-listening to your spirited discussion on my way back, but I could hear most of it down by the dispensary,” Anjar said.

“That’s not what we—,” Tenesh and Sheppard said in uniform.

“Yeah, yeah. Save it for the jury,” Anjar chuckled as he sat back down to his chicken soup. “All right. We have two groups of patients with very individualized needs, but we also have the challenge of managing arrivals from 20 separate transporter rooms and the shuttle bay. Both sickbays need to be able to handle anyone who comes in.”

Sheppard and Tenesh both started to voice their opinions, but Anjar held up his hand.

“Melandis, I’m sure you’ve already sorted it out, right?” he asked.

Vircar laughed. “Not quite, but I say we split the difference: a light and a dark ward in each sickbay. We can also make sure that any Reman who wants one has a set of light-filtering goggles. We’ll designate wards by illumination level, and ambulatory patients can choose where to be treated,” she suggested.

“Do either of you have objections to that?” Anjar asked.

“That really isn’t that different from what either of us said,” Tenesh noted.

“Yes, and we would have reached that compromise eventually,” Sheppard agreed.

“So that’s a ‘yes,’ then. Good,” Anjar replied. “And, you know, being Bajoran, I can’t say that I’d be super thrilled to be in a ward full of Cardassians, especially in my younger days, but I also wouldn’t want to see a sign that said ‘Cardassians Only,’ either, so, I get both sides.”

“I’ll go distribute those orders,” Vircar said as she stood up and headed out of Anjar’s office.

“Good. And then I want all three of you to take off until alpha shift. I can’t have my core team exhausted,” Anjar said.

All three of them made a noise of collective protest.

“Nope. I have one more pip, so I get to make edicts like that. Get some rest,” Anjar insisted.

While Sheppard was in the mood to argue, he was also dead tired. They had been prepping for a solid 24 hours before arriving on the Romulan border, and then he’d been carried through their first waves of treatment on adrenaline alone. Even still, his first stop after sickbay wasn’t his quarters but one of the holosuite. He usually worked out in the actual gym, but he wasn’t in the mood for any company nor having to wait for any of the equipment. 

After thoroughly putting himself through his paces, Sheppard finally entered his shared quarters with Lancaster at around 0130, ready for a shower and bed. He found Lancaster with a glass of wine in his hand and three holoPADDs spread around him at the dining table. 

Lancaster glanced up and smiled. “So, when he said ‘rest,’ you took that to mean ‘fuck yeah, it’s chest day, bro!’” he noted.

“I’m not Austin. I don’t talk like that,” Sheppard scoffed, referring to their mutual friend Austin Carver. “You know me. Without my gym time, I’m no fun,” he added, slipping into the seat next to his husband.

Sheppard saw that there was some decanted wine, though a wooden ball was sitting in the mouth of the decanter to stop the aerating process. Lancaster took the last sip of his glass and then nodded towards the dark red substance.

“I saved you half,” Lancaster noted.

“I can see that. I’m not drinking half a bottle before bed,” Sheppard said before splitting what remained between the fresh glass Lancaster had left out and Lancaster’s own glass. He leaned over and kissed his husband firmly on the lips. “I’m sorry I kept you up.”

“I have lots of reasons to be awake,” Lancaster demurred. “Though… I did want to avoid going to bed without seeing you,” he admitted. 

The captain took a drink from his glass. “I know I can never compete with a bench press, but I’m happy being a silver medal,” he teased, squeezing one of Sheppard’s pecs.

“Stop,” Sheppard said as he took a deep drink from what turned out to be a smooth but slightly piquant shiraz. It was probably one of the bottles the two of them had obtained during their weekend in Madrid. “Feel me up all you want, but don’t put yourself in second place to anything.”

Lancaster laughed. “Noted,” he replied, swirling the wine in his glass around. “I feel bad, though. We have over 4,000 refugees on board already and we’re up here living in luxury. It just doesn’t seem—,” he started before being interrupted by a bang.

Over in the corner of the room, the access panel concealing a Jefferies tube hatch popped off and hit the deck plating. Moments later, a young man emerged: a Romulan with a raven’s nest of black hair and a slender, lanky build. Sheppard guessed that he was around 20 to 30, but Romulans were tricky to pin down at that age. 

“Wrong deck?” Lancaster wondered aloud.

“Captain, my name is Oban. My father was Zadan, the imperial military governor of my homeworld. I am here to present vital intelligence to the Federation and to seek asylum as a political refugee,” the young man said after brushing himself off and standing tall. “I apologize for interrupting your private time.”

It took Captain Lancaster a few moments to get over his surprise at suddenly finding a young Romulan in his quarters. He was at least glad that the large glass of wine he had been poured had largely remained untouched, but it was the end of an extremely long day, and he just didn’t want to deal with whatever complaint the man calling himself Oban had. The mention of having “critical intelligence” for Starfleet did pique his interest, though. 

“It’s the middle of the night. Don’t they use doorbells where you are from?” Sheppard asked, crossing his arms and making an obvious move to interpose himself between the intruder and his husband. 

The Romulan looked as though he had gone far too long without a good meal, and the almost waxy look to his skin suggested he had been experiencing high stress for a long time. His clothing didn’t indicate that he was anyone of particular importance, though Lancaster figured the first thing he would have ditched if he were on the run would be his uniform. 

“I… misread the directions. I thought I would end up in the corridor,” Oban admitted; that seemed relatively easy to believe, given how half-baked a plan involving surprising an alien captain in the middle of the night. “The computer said Captain Lancaster was awake, but I was hoping to make… less of an entrance.”

“How trusting of the computer,” Sheppard muttered; Lancaster made a mental note to chat with the security department to see why a passenger could ascertain not only where he was on the ship but whether or not he was conscious.  

“This really wasn’t necessary since the Federation is planning on giving everyone in your convoy asylum once we get to our destination,” Lancaster added as he studied the young man. His initial instinct was just to have him thrown in the brig, but the absurdity of the situation stayed his hand for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate. “You said you were the son of the governor?”

“The former governor. He was executed by the rebels, along with the rest of my family,” Oban corrected, which caused a twisting sensation in Lancaster’s stomach as he imagined what it must be like to lose one’s entire family. “I have scrutinized your immigration laws, and I wished to make my case in person that I should be treated as a political asylum-seeker, as I face extreme personal risk if I were to return to my planet—or if I remain with the people I have traveled with. I have intelligence to offer in exchange,” he added, a tone of desperation creeping in.

“I’m sorry to hear about your family,” the captain offered as he considered what the Romulan was saying. 

“Yes. That’s awful,” Sheppard agreed.

“Any decision about your asylum classification will be based on your risk, not the value of your information, but what type of intelligence are you offering? Does it have anything to do with our current safety?” Lancaster asked. 

“I have years’ worth of military records. Ship specifications. Locations of bases,” Oban replied, looking down at his feet for a moment. “Nothing that has an impact on our present situation, but much that could be useful for your people in future dealings with my people.”

“Then it can wait until the morning. Lancaster to Security. The senior officer on duty to my quarters,” he ordered.

“Captain, please,” Oban insisted. 

“Your request will be given a fair hearing,” Lancaster replied, though he could see that didn’t do anything to make Oban feel more secure. “You’re safe on the Arcturus.”

About forty-five seconds later, Lieutenant Commander Valera Osokin entered the room with two ensigns in gold. All three drew their phaser pistols, but Lancaster waved them off.

 “Place our guest under protective custody until further notice,” he ordered. “There has to be a free cabin somewhere. Ask Lieutenant Najan to see him in the morning.”

“Aye, Captain,” Osokin replied before escorting the Romulan politely but firmly out of Lancaster and Sheppard’s quarters.

Lancaster watched until the doors closed behind them and then walked over to replace the panel concealing the hidden Jefferies tube access point. He was not sure what to think of the young man and history, but he was thankful he could delegate figuring out where he fit into the chaos of the current state of the Romulan Star Empire to his intelligence officer. He was about to look Oban’s father up in the database, but he shook that idea out of his head.

“Where were we?” he asked, turning back to Sheppard.

“You were objectifying me.”

“Right,” Lancaster said with a grin. “Computer, privacy mode. And make sure that includes the Jefferies tube,” he ordered.

“Confirmed.”

It wasn’t every day that a Starfleet team was allowed aboard a Romulan ship, let alone a D’Deridex-class warbird, even one in such a dire state as Cardinal 1. Lieutenant Sarcaryn’s hazard team had been assigned to assist and escort several of Commander Slater’s Starfleet Corps of Engineers team members during their efforts to repair the old warbird’s propulsion systems. It was a wonder that the Romulans had managed to get across the border in the first place, with the engine room in the state it was. The ship had been in the process of being stripped for raw materials, and when they ‘acquired’ it, they’d failed to bring along any engineers with enough know-how to keep the engines going.

With a scientist leading it, Sarcaryn’s team was tasked mainly with handling scientific missions in particularly hazardous conditions. They had been able to help some with the repair mission but had more or less been acting as bodyguards, and it had the young Risian quite bored. He had assigned himself to keep a lookout while Lieutenant Galan helped the engineers translate the ship’s engineering records, looking for any clues that might help them get the propulsion systems back online more quickly. Romulans were notoriously detail-oriented, so they hoped that even the salvage yard engineers would have kept logs. They’d been at it through the night.

“What kind of scientist are you again? I don’t suppose you could help me go through these records?” Galan asked, rearranging his messy black hair to fall over one of his pointed ears.

“Biologist. I also can’t read Romulan, so I can’t really help. Besides, I can’t keep an eye on our surroundings if I’m also helping you,” Sarcaryn replied.

“Are you here to keep an eye on the people on this ship or an eye on me?” Galan asked in a tone that fell somewhere between a joke and an accusation. 

“I’m definitely your bodyguard, not a minder,” Sarcaryn replied, chuckling as he hopped up onto the counter next to the console where Galan was working so that they could have a somewhat face-to-face conversation even as the Romulan read.

“I suppose I don’t mind your utility being limited to being muscular and imposing,” Galan noted. 

The communications officer’s face was lit dimly in green from the text of what he was reading. With his natural viridian complexion, he looked almost like an Orion in the tiny records room that they were ensconced in off of the main engine room. Sarcaryn decided to take that observation as a compliment as he sized up Galan.

“Well, I’m glad you think I’m muscular and imposing. The illusion is complete,” he offered, winking at the slightly more superior officer.

“I’ll grant that being imposing is a state of mind, but unless Risians have physiological characteristics that I am unaware of, you are objectively muscular,” Galan pointed out, blue eyes glancing away from the screen for a brief moment. “You must… exercise frequently? The results are not unnoticeable.”

Sarcaryn chuckled. “Sara,” he said, thanking him in his native language. “You Romulans are such masters of circumlocution. I remember reading about an order that practices so-called ‘absolute candor,’ which is a little closer to my own cultural sensibilities,” he teased.

“Well, given that I am a man, I’m not a member of the Qowat Milat, so I don’t practice the Way of Absolute Candor,” Galan replied, shaking his head at the very idea. He paused in his reading and turned to Sarcaryn, leaning in closer. “I’m one of those cunning, devious Romulans I’m sure you’ve heard so much about.”

The Risian found himself blushing slightly. “I shouldn’t paint all Romulans with the same brush. I apologize.”

Galan shrugged. “I’m not offended. If this were a Vulcan ship, you wouldn’t have been sent along with a phaser on your hip to guard me. Most cultural stereotypes are based on truths,” he offered, seeming genuinely unbothered as he turned back to his work.

Lieutenant Sarcaryn knew that better than most people, being one of the few Risians in Starfleet and among those few being among the even fewer that weren’t serving in medical or counseling roles. Emotional intelligence, the desire to serve, and an openness towards intimacy were all stereotypical traits of Risians that most of them adhered to. He personally felt as though he did as well; he just didn’t think being Risian meant that he had to conform to a particular performance of Risianness. 

“After several hours of close observation, you don’t seem devious to me,” Sarcaryn whispered as he reached over to push some of the other man’s obsidian-colored hair back behind his ear. The Romulan didn’t flinch, but Sarcaryn could see Galan’s nostrils flare with a sudden intake of breath. “I understand why you seem so reluctant to show this part of yourself.”

“Are you a counselor, too, now?” Galan quipped.

“No, but I sometimes think about taking off my ikaran,” he added, pointing to the symbol above the bridge of his nose engraved in gold. “Pass as Human.”

“Why? Everyone loves Risians.”

“Maybe, but they also underestimate us. We come from a society that places an extreme importance on pleasure; ergo, we can’t be serious scholars or officers,” Sarcaryn explained. “I derive great pleasure from science and doing well at my job.”

“Then why keep it on?” Galan asked, placing a tentative finger on Sarcaryn’s ikaran.

“Why not surgically alter your ears?” the Risian countered.

“Because I’m Romulan. They’re a part of me.”

“Well, I’m Risian. This is a part of me,” Sarcaryn replied. “I just get that sometimes it would be easier to appear a little more ‘standard,’ in the interests of being taken seriously. I’m more than just an excellent practitioner of jamaharon, after all,” he added with a wink. 

Galan gave him an actual grin for that. “In addition to being devious and cunning, as a linguist, I have a very talented tongue,” he offered, surprising even the Risian with the tiny dose of flirtation he’d thrown into his voice. 

“Prove it,” Sarcaryn insisted, glancing over his shoulder to confirm that they were in an isolated enough spot not to be seen by the rest of their colleagues or any of the vessel’s crew.

“My Risian is pretty rusty, but I did study—,” Galan started.

“I’m impressed you know any at all, but that’s not at all what I meant,” Sarcaryn said, leaning in to close the distance between them and kiss Galan firmly on the lips. 

The Romulan kissed the Risian with an unexpected level of enthusiasm; he was less of a novice than Sarcaryn anticipated. Spending close to twelve hours on an alien ship packed with desperate people had been stressful, and Sarcaryn could feel both of them working through that tension through another emotion.

“We left out a descriptor in the list of Romulan characteristics: passionate,” Sarcaryn said, putting his thumb on Galan’s chin. 

“Thank you for that. Being here… around other Romulans… it’s stressful,” Galan said, smiling at him.

“What’s mine is yours,” Sarcaryn offered, in the traditional Risian response, though he was pretty pleased that his intuition about the other man had proven correct. 

Galan looked as though he were about to explore the boundaries of that phrase before his commbadge chirped. The two of them reflexively straightened up and put more of a respectable distance between themselves, even if the call would only be audio.

“Slater to Galan,”

“Galan here. Go ahead,” the lieutenant replied, clearing his throat.

“We’ve isolated the primary engine failure to the plasma distribution systems. What we’re seeing down here doesn’t match our available schematics of this class of ship. Can you check the records to see what they did to it?” the commander asked.

“Affirmative. Stand by, please,” Galan said, tapping his badge to mute the call for a moment.

Thanks to both damage and purposeful stripping, the terminal he was working from was no longer connected to the ship’s main computer. He put in the appropriate search terms, but it was taking quite a bit of time to index the logs and then search them. Keeping one eye on the progress display, Sarcaryn hopped down from where he was sitting on the counter and kissed Galan again. They locked lips for several moments before Galan pushed Sarcaryn away playfully but firmly to read the relevant data files.

“I like the way you taste,” Sarcaryn noted, wiping spit off of his mouth. 

“We are going to get into so much trouble,” Galan muttered. “You’re trouble,” he emphasized.

Sarcaryn smirked. “Nothing I haven’t been told before by members of less permissive cultures,” he quipped. “Anything in the logs about the EPS grid?”

Galan nodded and tapped his badge. “Sorry about that, Commander. The records recall was slow. It looks like the second-stage plasma impeller was removed in the 2380s. They bypassed it, but I’m having trouble understanding the schematic,” he said as he pulled up a diagram. 

While Sarcaryn wasn’t an engineer per se, he had enough training to recognize the rudiments of an EPS flow schematic. Clearly, something was different and weird about it beyond the fact that it was hooked up to a singularity core and not a matter/antimatter warp core.

“What’s this say?” Sarcaryn asked, pointing to a label near to what he assumed was the warp core.

“Primary EPS tap,” Galan translated.

“So, this would be where the secondary impeller should be,” Sarcaryn said, pointing to an entirely different part of the schematic. With his other hand, he reached up to the nape of Galan’s neck to play with his hair but was quickly swatted away. “What does this label say?”

“S72K-3000,” Galan read out. “Does that mean anything to you, Commander Slater?”

“Cross-referencing on my end,” Slater replied. There was a pause, and it was Galan this time who took the initiative to risk a reprimand being added to his file by kissing the Risian. “It’s an EPS flow regulation system from a civilian Romulan ship. It has a different frequency than the military-grade system.”

“The computer system that they were using to regulate the frequency differential is offline,” Galan reported after switching to a diagnostic view. “It looks like its power source was diverted to life support.”

“Thank you, Lieutenants. That should give us the last clue we need to get warp power back online,” Slater replied, sounding relieved. “Stay there in case we find any other issues that need explaining. Slater out.”

“I’m a little disappointed that we’ll no longer have an excuse to be all by ourselves,” Sarcaryn said once the call had ended. “Not that we would necessarily need an excuse back on the ship if you ever wanted to continue this cultural exchange.”

The communications officer grinned. “I’m certainly interested in exploring the linguistic nuances of the term you used earlier, ‘jamaharon,’ as it doesn’t neatly match any of the other euphemisms for intimate behavior that I’m familiar with in other languages. If you are as talented as you say, you seem like you would be an ideal candidate to… educate me.”

Sarcaryn laughed, and Galan’s face fell. 

“Was that not the right thing to say?”

“No, it was. I… I guess I wasn’t expecting you to be as receptive to the idea as you seem to be. I’m pleasantly surprised,” Sarcaryn admitted. “A misconception about my people is that we are attracted to everyone. We might have a broader standard for attraction, but we still have standards. You’re quite exceptional, Galan.”

“That’s very high praise coming from you, Zaos,” Galan replied, his cheekbones tinged slightly in green blush.

“Friends—and lovers—call me ‘Z,’” Sarcaryn replied with a wink. 

Before either of them could continue—or escalate—there was a gentle hum throughout the ship as the EPS grid realigned itself. For a moment, the lights in the room even got brighter. Whatever Slater and his team had done, they’d prepared the ship for the last leg of its journey into Federation space.

“Slater to Away Team. We’ve restored warp power. Please stand by for further instructions,” the commander said through both of their badges.

Sarcaryn reluctantly led Galan through the short passage that connected the library computer access bay to the engine room, where Lieutenant Hidalgo was monitoring the singularity core, and other members of both the SCE team and the hazard team were assisting forlorn Romulan engineers. No one seemed to notice as they entered the room, which just made Sarcaryn smirk, as he found having secrets to be quite thrilling. 

“Warp power, yes, but I don’t trust it to hold for the whole trip without some substantial breaks for cool-down,” Hidalgo said.

“How long can she hold warp six?” Captain Lancaster replied.

“I wouldn’t want these engines going that fast for more than four hours at a time, and even then, not without at least half an hour to recycle the systems in between legs,” Hidalgo replied.

“That seems like a very conservative estimate,” Captain Okusanya chimed in.

“There are thousands of people on that ship. There’s no point in being reckless,” Dr. Anjar interjected. 

“Fine. We’ll take it slow. Commander Slater, I want you to stay with both teams on Cardinal 1 for at least the first leg. Once we’re sure things are stable, we’ll bring you back and send over relief at the first break,” Lancaster ordered.

“Understood, Captain,” Slater replied, weariness evident in his voice; they’d already been working through the night, so what were four more hours? As he said that, he walked into the engine room, done with his work on the EPS grid elsewhere. “Did everyone hear that?” he asked.

Galan’s badge chirped. “Lancaster to Galan. I’d like for you to return to Arcturus. There’s been… an emergent situation… and we need you back,” the captain ordered.

“Understood,” Galan replied, looking both stoic and annoyed simultaneously.

“Here I was, looking forward to a shower and a warm bed after a job well done,” Sarcaryn muttered once the call had ended. 

“I’m not likely to get either of those if there is an ‘emergent situation’ to be dealt with. But perhaps once the two ships rendezvous and you come back aboard in four hours, we’ll be able to rectify that… together?” Galan whispered.

“Oh, that’s just the incentive I needed to make sure this ship’s singularity core doesn’t collapse with me still aboard,” the scientist replied with a chuckle. “See you on the other side.”

“Galan to Arcturus. One to beam up,” Galan said before vanishing a few moments later in a column of sparks.

Lieutenant Sarcaryn was left with many pleasant thoughts as he went to regroup with Commander Slater to figure out their next few steps in getting Cardinal 1 where it needed to go. Slater and the rest of his team had forgone their more formal duty uniforms for coveralls, which the slender engineer was practically swimming in.

“I’m sure that can’t have been a very thrilling task, monitoring Galan reading a databank,” Slater offered.

“Oh, it had its moments.”

USS Arcturus, Captain’s Log, Supplemental. 

We are now underway with four of the Romulan ships that met us at the border. The remaining three were evacuated and scuttled. Arcturus is now home to 7,593 refugees for the duration of our voyage. With the warp drives aboard some of the ships still in an abysmal state of repair, we must make stops at impulse every eight hours to allow the fleet to rest. At this speed, it will take just over a week to reach our destination. Meanwhile, I have ordered Counselor Sharma, Lieutenant Commanders Holland, and Najan, and Lieutenant Galan to determine the credibility of Oban, one of our passengers, and his claim that he is the son of one of the governors deposed—and executed—during the revolutions in Romulan space.

It had been decided that Holland and Osho would go into the interview room first, both to avoid making Oban feel threatened and also to respect his rights as an asylum seeker. Though a diplomat first and foremost, Holland was a trained and qualified judge-advocate as well. The fact that he was handsome and charming was a bonus. Meanwhile, Osho was slender and unassuming, unlikely to intimidate him, and also possessing a decade’s worth of undercover experience on Vashti, with a perfect command of the Romulan language.

“Jolan tru, Oban,” Najan said, smiling at the young Romulan from one side of the triangular table in one of the ship’s smaller lounges that they had commandeered for the purposes of their initial interview. “I hope your accommodations are satisfactory?”

“I grew up in a palace but have spent the last three weeks in steerage. Just having a working replicator is quite satisfactory, thank you,” Oban replied, not batting an eyelash.

Holland cleared his throat. “I’m Dorian Holland, the ship’s diplomatic officer, and judge-advocate. This is Najan Osho, our intelligence officer. This is a very informal interview—” he started.

“To see whether I’m full of shit or not,” Oban concluded.

“That is a… surprisingly idiomatic assessment of the situation,” Holland replied with a chuckle. He slid over a PADD which contained the full text of the Federation’s laws that pertained to asylum-seeking situations. “I’m here as your advocate to explain that under no certain terms does the Federation want anything from you. As a passenger aboard this convoy originating from the Velorum sector, you are already slated to receive refugee status based on your flight from a material change in your physical safety. You don’t have to tell Ms. Najan anything to enter our space.”

Oban nodded. “I understand that… Sub-Commander?” he asked, nodding towards Holland’s rank pips.

“We’re both lieutenant commanders,” Najan explained, smiling at him again. “The Romulan equivalent is centurion.”

Oban chuckled. “Middlemen, then. Well, Lieutenant Commander Najan and Lieutenant Commander Holland, I do understand my situation: the reason I am seeking political asylum status is that I have as much to fear from my fellow refugees as I do from returning to Romulan space. Namely, my father and brothers were responsible for a lot of their pain,” he said.

Najan tapped a control in at her seat, which put a hologram of a Romulan male in the center of the table. “Yes, I’ve done some research on your father. Federation records are very limited from your area of space, but all accounts show that he wasn’t well-liked by his people or by the Tal Shiar,” she noted.

“I didn’t realize the Bajoran talent for understatement was so… Vulcan,” Oban grumbled. “Yes, that is why I need to be on Earth or Bajor or… even Vulcan, not whatever camp you’re sending us to. If they figure out who I am, I am dead,” he insisted.

“How did you board Arcturus. You aren’t in our treatment database, and you weren’t aboard any of the ships that we evacuated,” Najan asked.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Holland reminded him.

Oban shrugged. “A critically ill patient aboard the ship I traveled on was beamed aboard, and I volunteered to help him onto the transporter pad. To preempt your next set of questions, I asked your ship’s computer where the captain was and what the best route through the access tunnels was to get there. Nothing was locked, and I haven’t broken any of your laws,” he explained.

Holland and Najan looked at one another for a moment.

“Your candor is appreciated,” Najan offered. “You’re not carrying any electronic devices or analog storage modalities. What form does the intelligence you’re carrying come in? Did you memorize it?”

The Romulan shrugged again. “That’s not a question I’m willing to answer without assurances that I can remain in protective custody,” he said.

Lieutenant Galan was watching in the next room over the security feed with Counselor Sharma. After hearing Oban’s most recent statement, he tapped the button that connected him with the earpiece that Najan was wearing.

“Tell him that you know he would have at least a taste of the intelligence for us to prove his credibility. He wouldn’t risk getting dismissed entirely without something important at hand,” Galan instructed.

“You have to give us something, Oban. We have no way of verifying your identity or that you have any valuable data,” Najan said.

“To be clear, the value of your intelligence is not what would impact our decision about your ability to remain in the Federation, but something that could help us verify your identity could make you eligible for extended protections,” Holland added on the other side of the screen.

“I can provide the encryption sequence for coded channel Zeta-Zeta-Zeta, which is used by the Romulan military to track mid-level personnel transfers,” Oban offered.

Najan slid over a PADD, and Oban started typing.

“You seem in an unusually good mood for someone who was combing through records in a Romulan engine room until an hour ago, Lieutenant,” Counselor Sharma observed as the two watched the meeting on the viewscreen.

Galan smirked. “I think there are two explanations: I’ve hit my third wind, and Lieutenant Sarcaryn found little ways of making our tedium more tolerable,” he noted as he was reading the code sequence coming in from Oban. “This is a legitimate decryption key.”

“I guess we have something to talk about at our next session, then,” Sharma chuckled.

“So, is he crazy or sane?” Galan asked.

“I don’t think it’s productive to use terms like that, but I don’t see any signs that he’s deceiving us,” the counselor replied.

“Well, he hasn’t said anything in Romulan for me to translate, so I don’t know how helpful I’ve been. Najan would have got that code out of him, too,” Galan said, flinging himself down into a chair and crossing his arms. “She probably has more insight into the Romulan psyche than I do, you know.”

“We’ll check this out and get back to you,” Najan noted.

“Do you have any questions for me?” Holland asked.

Oban shook his head. “No. Go verify my story. Do what you have to.”

Galan chuckled. “He’ll never get it. Not within the time we have him here, anyway. He’ll never get that we don’t want anything from him. Everything in Romulan society is quid pro quo,” he said when Sharma caught his eye. “That must mean he has something real if he’s being so… honest.”

Ensign Kaplan had hoped that the current set of crises—refugees onboard and a passenger attempting to claim political asylum—would mean that his standing Monday 1130 appointment with Captain Lancaster on one of the ship’s weapons ranges would be canceled. He didn’t have any moral scruples about using a weapon, but he never liked any situation where his lack of skill was so evident. The large, heavy doors parted, and Kaplan arrived precisely on time, finding Lancaster already there. The components of a Type-1 phaser were arranged neatly on a metal table.

“Good morning, Captain,” Kaplan said, approaching his boss and coming to a respectful parade rest. He cleared his throat. “I would understand, sir, if we had other tasks to accomplish today and you’d rather postpone this lesson.

Lancaster chuckled, nodding to the phaser. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time, Ensign. Show me what you remember about phaser maintenance,” he said.

The yeoman pursed his lips as he stepped up to the table and began quickly identifying the different components of the weapon. Power cell. Emitter assembly. Targeting matrix. Another power cell? And another emitter assembly? He glanced over at the captain with a frown when he realized that there were parts for more than one phaser there; a dirty trick. He could tell, though, that the pieces were not all the same size, and so he quickly sorted them into what he thought were type-I and type-II piles. He found the body of each weapon and inserted the power cells into the matching slots in the bodies, followed by the targeting and trigger assembly and then the emitter matrix.

“Done,” Kaplan announced, knowing that despite the added complexity of the task, he’d memorized the successful assembly of all three main types of Starfleet handheld phaser types.

Lancaster picked up the smaller of the two weapons and pointed it at the far bulkhead. He tapped the trigger on the top of the phaser, but all it did was make a sad beep. 

“Evidently not,” Lancaster chided, setting it back on the table.

Kaplan let out a noise of audible frustration as he took the case back off the type-I; he quickly saw that the targeting assembly was upside down. When he removed it, he saw that the tab that would have prevented him from installing it incorrectly had been purposefully removed. The captain was deliberately trying to throw him off and was doing so quite successfully.

“In the field, components can easily become damaged—or even manufactured incorrectly—so you can’t rely on ergonomic aids in the casing,” Lancaster said.

“Yes, captain. Sorry, sir,” Kaplan replied, fixing the one in his hand as Lancaster picked up the other phaser. 

The type-II weapon worked perfectly, a blue beam on the stun setting connecting with the back wall as soon as the captain aimed and fired. Lancaster looked at it, turning it over in his hands for a moment before setting it back on the table. 

“Good,” Lancaster said before picking up the repaired type-I and moving towards the circular stage in the center of the room to take his spot on the blue hemisphere. Kaplan grabbed the slightly larger pistol and joined him on the other side of the range. “Computer, set cooperative defense mode, level 2,” he ordered.

“Confirmed. Defend the green spheres,” the computer replied. A moment later, the space around them was populated with a set of green spheres, and then a countdown clock appeared going down from 15 seconds. “Begin,” it said, producing a rainbow of smaller spheres swarming around the green ones.

Kaplan was used to just having to keep track of his own color—yellow—and only shooting those targets. Now, it was much more complicated to hit everything except the green ones. He at least liked that he wasn’t competing against the captain for once. The first target he hit was red, and then he missed a shot at a purple one that collided with a green sphere and destroyed it. Cocking his head over his shoulder, he saw Lancaster successfully defend one of his spheres. 

“Focus on your half, Connor,” Lancaster reminded him.

The match lasted for five minutes, which were five minutes of anxiety for the yeomen as he got about a 50% defense rate when all was said and done. He was sure there was a lesson embedded there in being able to recognize and respond appropriately to targets, but he didn’t have much time to think about that as he played. In the last minute of the game, the number of targets seemed to double, which in some ways made it easier to score hits but also meant that Kaplan ended up taking out a green sphere by mistake—the equivalent of shooting a hostage during a rescue attempt—which lowered their overall score.

“Match concluded. You have earned an 81% success rate,” the computer reported at the end.

“Not bad,” Lancaster noted, holding his phaser down at his side as he turned to look at Kaplan. 

“Only if our scores are aggregated together, sir,” Kaplan replied, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ll be joining one of the hazard teams any time soon,” he added.

“Marksmanship is your weakest aptitude area, and that’s why we’re spending so much time on it,” Lancaster said. Kaplan’s field promotion to ensign had come with the requirement that he meet the same standards that academy graduates had, including qualifications in marksmanship that he wasn’t required to have as an enlisted yeoman. The captain had taken it upon himself to play the role not only of a boss but now a professor. “You’ll only get better by practicing.”

Kaplan nodded. “And there’s no getting out of this?”

The captain chuckled. “No, I’m afraid not.”

Captain Lancaster looked as though he were about to order another round, but his commbadge chirped, sending a sigh of relief through Kaplan.

“Armstrong to Captain Lancaster. Could you join me on the bridge? I’ve found something quite interesting that I think you’ll want to see,” the ship’s science officer asked.

“On my way, Commander,” Lancaster replied, tapping his badge to end the call.

“Aw, shucks,” Kaplan said, snapping his fingers theatrically.

The captain arched an eyebrow, and Kaplan immediately understood that his moment of glee would cost him like it had so many others before him; he’d never been on the receiving end of one of Lancaster’s creatively punitive whims.

“I was almost going to let you come with me. Lancaster to Bowens,” he said, tapping his badge again. 

Kaplan arched an eyebrow at that call. What could Lancaster have in mind?

“Bowens here, Captain,” came the reply quite quickly.

“Ensign Kaplan is here with me on Phaser Range 2. I have other business to attend to, so I want you to continue our lesson. He’s just volunteered himself for hazard training,” Lancaster ordered.

Kaplan’s jaw dropped, and he kicked himself for planting that seed in the captain’s head. Bowens had a reputation for being just as much a stickler for protocol and regulation as Lancaster was, but with even less of a sense of humor and a penchant for intense physical training. He knew that it wasn’t worth pointing out that hazard duty was volunteer only, since he bet that the actual training was something he didn’t have a choice in, even if he didn’t end up serving with one of the teams. This was not how he thought his morning was going to go.

“Aye, sir,” he replied.

“Don’t go easy on him, Commander. Lancaster out,” the captain said, making eye contact with Kaplan before ending the call. “Cheer up, Connor. If you pass out, he’ll probably let you spend the rest of the shift in sickbay,” he said, patting Kaplan on the shoulder before exiting the range and leaving the ensign to his fate. 

On the bridge, Captain Alesser had the conn, while Commander Armstrong focused on the strange and exciting readings that were coming in from the long-range sensors. With the ship on a higher alert level, more processing power had been given over to the sensors to make sure that they weren’t leading their Romulan charges into some sort of trap, but it had also meant that they were collecting an enormous amount of scientific data on top of that, a boon for the science department which was currently left without much to do. Over half of Armstrong’s people had been pulled away for medical or logistics support duty, anyway, leaving just the bare minimum staff to ensure that ongoing experiments were maintained and live specimens were cared for.

“Do you think he’ll go for it?” Armstrong asked from the starboard station of the command rail, prompting Alesser to spin around the captain’s chair around. Before calling the captain, Armstrong had shared his findings with the first officer, but he sensed that the Ardanan man was less excited about it than he was. “You have to admit it’s hard to beat the timing.”

“He might let you take a runabout,” Alesser suggested.

“That’s not a great idea. They’re so—” Armstrong replied, but before the two of them could get further into those details, the bosun’s whistle sounded, and the captain stepped off of the turbolift. “Captain!”

Armstrong saw that Lancaster had a smile on his face when he entered the bridge, which he considered both to be an unusual occurrence and a sign that he might be able to get what he wanted from him. The captain approached him, glanced at the data, and then gestured for him to get on with his presentation.

“I have discovered a pod of gormaganders! They’re one degree off of our present course, less than a tenth of a lightyear away,” Armstrong explained, tapping a sequence of keys that brought up his readings on the main viewscreen. “We’re distinctly detecting the signals that they use to communicate with each other, and spectrographic readings confirm that there are fifteen to twenty of them. I’m requesting that we—,” he started, but the captain held up a hand.

“They’re not tagged?”

“No sir, that would be—,” Armstrong started.

“Helm, adjust our course by one degree to starboard. Number One, have the rest of the fleet follow. That should coincide with our first stop,” Lancaster replied to Armstrong’s stunned disbelief. “The Endangered Species Act clearly says that we must tag any gormaganders we locate within our space for conservation purposes. I assume that’s what you called me up here to ask for?”

“Uh, yes, sir. I thought you might have been more… reluctant,” Armstrong replied, clearing his throat.

“Astrozoan lifeforms are one of the marvels of our galaxy, Commander. Our passengers could use something like that. Besides, we’re explorers,” the captain said. “Recall what personnel you need to tag and catalog them. It’s a shame Admiral Hayden is guest lecturing this term. She’s always wanted to see a gormagander,” he mused.

“I’ll make sure to forward her the data, sir,” Armstrong replied with a smile. “Thank you, Captain.”

Armstrong turned back to his console and eagerly began ordering the replication and provisioning necessary to tag what were essentially space whales. The ship’s biology department was going to have a field day when they found out, and he was thrilled that he would be one of the few starship science officers to see a live gormagander in the wild.

“Captain, speaking of admirals, there is an incoming transmission from Fourth Fleet Command marked priority one,” Lieutenant Belvedere chimed in from the communication station just as Lancaster was about to take the center seat from Alesser.

“I’ll take it in the ready room,” Lancaster replied before leaving the bridge crew to their duties.

Once behind the doors of his ready room, Lancaster took a moment to straighten his uniform jacket before standing at ease in front of the communications terminal on the forward bulkhead. He’d found that when others could see that he was standing, calls tended to be shorter. The screen displayed the insignia of Fourth Fleet Command, bearing the distinctive bolt emblem that signified the fleet’s fast response mission. When he tapped the screen, that logo was replaced with the face of Commodore Uzoma Ekwueme, commander of the Fourth Fleet Expeditionary Group. The Arcturus wasn’t strictly speaking under his command in most routine operations, but with Hayden gone, Ekwueme was their link to base.

“Captain Lancaster, how are you?” Ekwueme asked.

“The mission is proceeding according to plan, sir,” Lancaster replied.

The commodore chuckled. “That’s not precisely what I asked, though the admiral tells me that your personal satisfaction and your job performance are tied quite closely together,” he replied.

Lancaster nodded. “Indeed, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Right to business, then. I’m calling ahead to let you know that Vice Admiral Dahlgren and most of his staff will be joining you in the field when you arrive at Gamma Sagittarii III. His courier just left,” the commodore explained. “He wants to shorten response times for our other assets further afield, and your ship has the appropriate communications equipment and space to make that happen.” 

“Understood, sir. Does this happen to have anything to do with our possible defector?” he asked.

Ekwueme shook his head. “Not directly. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from Fourth Fleet Intelligence at some point,” he explained. “Do you believe the boy?”

“I’m not sure yet, sir. I think things will become clearer when he understands that he doesn’t need to trade anything for safety with us. I have a team working on verifying his credibility,” Lancaster explained.

“I saw the report. Oh, and, Captain? Just a word of advice: don’t expect Admiral Dahlgren to spend much time on the flag bridge. He’ll want to be in the thick of things in a way that your normal boss doesn’t,” Ekwueme warned. “Admiral Belvedere looked as happy as I’d ever seen him to see his courier leave sensor range.”

Lancaster clenched his jaw; the last thing he needed during a delicate operation was to figure out a new relationship with an unfamiliar flag officer who had a penchant for being hands-on. He had worked with Hayden for a very long time, almost a decade when all was said and done, so he didn’t relish the idea of breaking another admiral in.

“Thanks for the heads up, sir.”

“Ekwueme out,” the commodore said, smiling at him before ending the transmission.

The captain spent the next few hours at his desk, reading over reports and approving various parts of the operation they’d undertake when they arrived: resettling several thousand Romulans on empty land near an existing Federation colony. Every detail seemed to require not only his assent but a nod from every bureaucratic apparatus of Starfleet Command and the Federation government. While he found logistics puzzles to be quite stimulating, he’d just about lost his temper with reading through notes on what colors were acceptable for the initial housing units.

“Bridge to the captain. We’re preparing to drop out of warp,” Alesser reported over the comm.

By the time Lancaster entered the bridge, the ship had slowed from warp. Officers all around the bridge were confirming the status and disposition of the vessels accompanying them, while Commander Armstrong looked practically gleeful as he fine-tuned his instruments to catalog the gormagander pod.

“Report,” Lancaster said, moving towards the center seat.

“All ships accounted for, Captain. Our teams on Cardinal 1 are reporting that the engines are holding, but they need to fully shut down for forty-five minutes before we can resume course,” Alesser said.

“I thought it was going to be thirty minutes?”

Alesser shook his head. “Commander Slater would like the extra time to account for the extra strain that may have occurred during the course change,” he explained.

Lancaster glanced back at Armstrong, who didn’t seem to be listening. “Very well. Have we at least found the gormaganders?” he asked.

“Boy, have we, sir!” Armstrong replied, magnifying the viewer to show the pod of creatures more clearly.

Space whale was a good analogy for them, but physically they were something of a cross between cetaceans and cephalopods, with strange tentacles that held the organs they needed to traverse interstellar space. There was a mix of sizes and colors; Lancaster didn’t know enough about their biology to be sure, but he assumed it had something to do with age or sexual dimorphism. Silhouetted against the purple glow of a micro nebula—likely a source of some sustenance for them—they were a beautiful sight.

“All hands, this is the captain speaking. We are passing close by a pod of gormaganders for the next forty-five minutes. As this is an extremely rare occurrence, I’d encourage you to find a viewport or watch the external camera feed if you can,” Lancaster said. “This is—,” he started to continue but heard the sound of the announcement being paused.

“I’m sorry to cut you off, Captain, but we are being scanned,” Commander Navarro reported from operations.

“By whom?”

“That’s just it, Sir. If I’m reading this right, we’re being scanned by the gormaganders.”

“What?” Armstrong asked. “They can’t do that.”

“Red alert!” Lancaster ordered.

Lieutenant Belvedere had tipped Counselor Carver off about their impending intercept with the gormaganders. He found it a little improbable that they were stopping off for conservation duties while also housing thousands of refugees, but it seemed like the thing that Captain Lancaster hated even more than misaligned combadges was being entirely predictable. Once Galan relieved him on the bridge, Belvedere met Carver in the ship’s forward observation gallery. On the other side of the main airlock from The Plowman’s Tap, this large lounge was usually a quiet, serene place to take in the stars from the leading edge of the primary hull. At that moment, it was pretty chaotic, though, and not at all the oasis that Belvedere was used to.

Carver had taken it upon himself to organize a special viewing party for the children aboard the ship, mostly Romulan and Reman children but a handful of the crew’s own children who lived aboard Arcturus. Given that he had less than two hours to make the arrangements, Belvedere was extremely impressed by what he saw: old-style telescopes by the windows at child heights and holographic displays of gormagander anatomy and behavior. He was being assisted by the schoolteachers and a few counseling aides, but it was still quite a feat.

“Look at you being all paternal,” Belvedere drawled as he sidled up to where Carver was standing by the front of the room. He left a respectable distance between the two of them, given that his grasp of Romulan sexual mores was limited, even though it was difficult to resist engaging in physical affection whenever he saw the other man. “My subconscious appraisal of you as a partner whose genetic and social characteristics are likely to lead to successful offspring has surely just improved,” he teased.

“If only you had ova,” Carver quipped, though he did look genuinely pleased by the compliment. Belvedere wasn’t exactly sure if he could call the counselor his ‘boyfriend’ at that point, but they’d at least become comfortable seeing each other in public. “I couldn’t have done this without you feeding me intelligence from the bridge, you know,” he added.

“Duh,” Belvedere said, picking up one of the telescopes. “You know these viewports have zoom functions, right?”

“Kids like toys,” the counselor replied. A few moments later, the ship fell out of warp, momentarily creating an aurora of rainbow colors as the ship’s subspace field was purposefully disengaged. “All right, everyone! We’re going to be able to see them soon!”

The children clamored for a good view as several screens around the room activated to show what the bridge was seeing through the visual scanners. The nearby micronebula cast a purple glow into the room, which Sheppard had kept dim enough to be comfortable for both Remans and Romulans without any special eye protection. Belvedere used the telescope he had in his hand to look out into space. Sure enough, there was a very evident pod of gormaganders in front of them. There was a chorus of ‘oohs and ahs’ from the children in the room.

The feeling that Belvedere got from the entire room was of genuine enthusiasm and hope. These children had been holed up aboard barely-operational ships—many of them in actual ore holds—for who knew how long, but now they got to see something that few others ever got to, a group of one of the most heavily endangered species in the galaxy. Despite the distinct possibility that someone would see, Belvedere threw his arms around Carver’s neck and planted a kiss on his cheek, feeling as though words were not enough to express how proud he was of him for showing that level of initiative.

The bosun’s whistle sounded, and then Captain Lancaster began speaking.

“All hands, this is the captain speaking. We are passing close by a pod of gormaganders for the next forty-five minutes. As this is an extremely rare occurrence, I’d encourage you to find a viewport or watch the external camera feed if you can,” Lancaster said. “This is—,” he started but was cut off mid-sentence.

Belvedere wheeled around to look at Carver; both of them knew that something must be wrong for a blip like that to occur. The next few seconds dragged by until the lighting in the room changed to red, and the klaxons began to sound. A chill went down Belvedere’s spine as it always did when the ship went to red alert.

“I wonder what’s going on,” Belvedere asked.

“I’m sure we’ll hear about it later,” Carver noted; the blue shirts aboard any starship tended to be the last to know about anything, especially counselors. “Alright, everyone! It looks like we’re going to have to cut this short. Let’s calmly and quietly make our way back to our habitation levels. If you’re not sure where to go, that’s okay,” he said, addressing a surprisingly-calm crowd of children.

Belvedere’s eyes were focused on the windows—whatever was happening had to be happening out there. He jumped when there was a burst of phaser fire from above them, lancing out towards… the Gormaganders?

“Jesus fucking tap-dancing zombie Christ! Are we firing phasers at whales?” Belvedere exclaimed, earning him an admonishing glance from a nearby teacher. The lieutenant grabbed the telescope again, expecting to see the results of a space whale being vaporized by a starship-grade phaser bank, but what he saw instead was metallic wreckage. Past the debris, space began to shimmer as something green and angular emerged: a Valdore-class warbird flanked by two of her sisters. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered.

Belvedere’s combadge chirped three times, signaling him to report to the bridge. He grabbed Carver’s hand before the other man could disappear into the crowd. “Stay safe, Austin,” he ordered before setting off on a brisk walk for the turbolift. Once he was out of sight of any children, he increased that to a run. He was whisked away to the bridge in just a few seconds, thanks to his priority clearance.

Captain Lancaster was standing in the center of the bridge in a heated conversation with a Romulan on the viewscreen as Belvedere slid into the secondary communications station next to Galan.

“I say again, this convoy is under my protection, and I have no intention of backing down in the face of three antique class-three warbirds, Commander!” Lancaster spat. “This is an Odyssey-class starship, and you challenge me at your peril.”

“We will not allow you to steal Romulan property or abduct Romulan people, Captain! The Ditaria is a proud vessel of the Romulan Star Navy and belongs to us, as do the slaves you are holding captive, as does the data your spy has stolen from us!” the Romulan commander retorted. “If you wish to settle this on the field of battle, so be it!”

The transmission cut out, and the captain took his seat.

“Launch the Hokule’a. She and Aciman are to cover the convoy at all costs,” Lancaster ordered. “Galan, tell the refugee ships to stick together and back off.”

“Aye,” Galan replied as Belvedere fed those orders to their support ship and the frigate accompanying them.

A few moments later, Arcturus was rocked by disruptor fire from the Romulans. Thankfully, they seemed to be focusing their fire on the Starfleet ship and not yet on the refugees. Arcturus was built to take a pounding and to be able to handle engagements with smaller, more maneuverable craft, but three Valdore-class ships would be a challenge to handle with her support vessel ordered to escort the convoy.

“Shields holding at 95%, Captain. I recommend we focus all of our attention on the lead warbird. That may give the other two pause,” Commander Isethos said from the tactical station behind the first officer.

“Do it. Target their weapons and engines. Attack Pattern Lambda-3,” the captain ordered.

The four ships quickly ended up in a dogfight at extremely close range. The Romulan pilots were extremely talented, and they managed to avoid giving the Arcturus a clean opportunity to fire torpedoes or line up strikes with her main phaser banks. At the same time, the three warbirds were mostly limited to using their secondary disruptor beams, their large forward canons unable to target from up close like that.

“They have us boxed in,” Alesser complained.

“Shields down to 82%,” Navarro reported from ops. “Captain, the Aciman has broken formation and is headed our way at full impulse!”

“Tell them to get back into position, Communications,” Lancaster ordered.

Belvedere sent another message to the Aciman and received a terse response. “Sir, they report that they are following your original orders to protect the convoy,” he read out. “And some things in Telarese that I wouldn’t like to translate with an audience.”

“Aciman has scored a direct hit on one of the warbirds. It’s drifting,” Isethos said. “If we swing around to port, we can take out the leader,” he said.

“Helm, get me a torpedo lock on that ship,” the captain said.

“Absolutely, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Marshall replied, grinning from the helm as he applied far more thrust than was allowed to get the ship out of its dogfight with the other two warbirds, pulling around in a long arc to come about to face them.

“We have a lock, but the other warbird is breaking off towards the convoy,” Isethos reported.

“Fire,” Lancaster ordered. “And get Aciman back into position!”

Belvedere glanced at the viewscreen just in time to see a full salvo of quantum torpedoes slam into one of the warbirds. The shields took some of the energy, but the ordnance blew a hole through the wing of the avian ship, causing her to list just like her sister and begin leaking drive plasma.

“Captain, the third warbird is making directly for Cardinal 1,” Navarro reported.

“On screen,” Lancaster ordered.

Once the viewer shifted, the whole bridge crew saw a beam of plasma lance out from the smaller warbird to its older cousin, impacting the aft section directly. Without power from the singularity core, Cardinal 1 was helpless, and her weapons had long been stripped. The Hokule’a flung herself between the two Romulan ships, soaking up some of the fire as the Arcturus raced closer. Before Arcturus could get a targeting lock, the last Valdore jumped to warp, leaving behind a raging inferno on Cardinal 1.

“Damage report on Cardinal 1,” Lancaster ordered.

“They took a direct hit to the engine room, sir,” Navarro replied.

“How many of our people are still over there?”

“A dozen, sir. Most of them were in or near the engine room.”

Belvedere saw Galan turn all the way around in his chair, looking as though he’d seen a ghost, his features even paler than normal. He seemed to be in a daze as he responded to the captain’s orders for a hailing frequency and then when he wanted them to raise the away team. There was no response, and the bridge fell silent.

Aboard Cardinal 1, Lieutenant Sarcaryn had been chatting with Commander Slater when they received word of an impending battle. The Starfleet team had just shut down the ship’s warp drive so that it could recycle, but that had the effect of also taking down what little shielding they had left. While Slater scrambled to pull whatever power he could find for their protection, Sarcaryn went around making sure that the engine room itself was as safe as it could possibly be, with secured hatches and forcefields where they could be erected.

Sarcaryn and his team had been well-trained in away team duties, but none of the people in the room had much experience with ship-to-ship combat, so they didn’t know what to expect. The impact from a disruptor beam piercing the ship’s hull and leaving the engine room a mess of twisted metal and plasma fires came as a complete shock to everyone. The young Risian pushed Slater out of the way of a falling beam before he felt everything go black, quiet, and cold.

Captain’s Log, Supplemental.

 

Hazard Teams Alpha and Beta have successfully retrieved our personnel from Cardinal 1. There were no fatalities among our own personnel, but 47 Romulans were killed, and Lieutenant Sarcaryn was critically wounded. He has been in surgery for the past twelve hours with an uncertain prognosis. The warp drive aboard Cardinal 1 cannot be repaired, so I have ordered the rest of the flotilla to proceed without us while we take on their passengers. This will cripple our small craft launch and recovery abilities, as we must use our hangers to house another ten thousand people.

CW: This scene depicts someone experiencing the immediate aftermath of a traumatic injury. 

Lieutenant Sarcaryn’s breathing was shallow but regular as he woke up. The barely perceptible smell of antiseptic hit his nose and reminded him of the physiology lab. Things were blurry, and he was disorientated but not in pain while his senses rebooted. Flashes of the brief battle went through his mind, trying to knit themselves together to explain how he got to where he was then, but the last thing he could clearly remember was pushing Commander Slater out of the way of a collapsed structural member aboard the Romulan vessel. The ceiling above him started to look reasonably enough like a Starfleet sickbay, and he realized that he couldn’t move his head or limbs. His heart rate started to climb, and the monitor above him began to complain.

“Easy, you’re safe,” Dr. Anjar said, coming into focus as he put a hand on Sarcaryn’s shoulder.

“Can’t move,” Sarcaryn managed, not hearing his own voice in the sounds that came out; getting his mouth and tongue to form the words was hard, and something definitely felt wrong.

“You’ve been through a lot. I have the restraint field on so you don’t hurt yourself accidentally,” the doctor explained. “I can lift it, but I need you to promise to stay still.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarcaryn agreed. The doctor tapped a button on the side of the biobed, and Sarcaryn immediately felt free. He couldn’t help but crane his neck up slightly to try to catch a glimpse of himself, but he was covered in a blanket, and Anjar gently returned his head to the pillow before he could do an accurate assessment. “Sorry, doc.”

“Perfectly alright. I would have preferred to leave you under a little longer, but I need to do a neurological assessment. Are you in any pain?” the Bajoran said, picking up a hand scanner from the bedside table.

“Not at all. Just groggy,” Sarcaryn said. “Difficult to talk.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ll keep the questions brief, and then we’ll help you get back to sleep,” Anjar said, nodding past Sarcaryn to someone on the other side. Commander Vircar came into view, the only other Risian officer on the ship. Her presence made Sarcaryn start to worry, as he wondered how badly he must be hurt to have a commander and a captain looking after him. “Let’s start with something easy: What is your name and rank?” the doctor asked as Vircar started to take notes on a PADD.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Zaos Sarcaryn,” he replied, though he got frustrated in the reduplicated first syllables of his surname, stumbling over them in a way that he never had before, not even when stone-cold drunk. “Serial number XX-690-66-999.”

Anjar chuckled. “Going for bonus points, Lieutenant. Do you know where you are and how you got here?”

“Sickbay on the Arcturus. Not sure how I got here, though,” Sarcaryn admitted.

“That’s probably for the best,” Anjar noted.

“I remember pushing Commander Slater out of the way. Is he OK?”

“You saved his life, Zaos. You’re a hero,” Vircar replied, watching as Anjar slowly passed the scanner over Sarcaryn’s eyes. She glanced down at the PADD. “Pupil responses are good, Doctor.”

Anjar reached over to take Sarcaryn’s hand, and the lieutenant wondered for a moment if that meant he was about to get some bad news. “Can you squeeze my hand?” Sarcaryn did so, finding his muscles responding quickly and easily to the command. “Quite the grip!”

Sarcaryn tried to grin, but that did hurt. “Can you release the field on my legs now?” Anjar and Vircar looked at one another, and Sarcaryn’s heart sank. “No, no, no…” he whimpered, trying with all of his might to move even a toe, but he realized that he had no sensation at all lower than his navel.

The heartrate monitor started to gently warn again. He tried to sit up to see what was going on, but Vircar held him back, and that just made his heart beat faster. His pulse was pounding in his ears, and he felt like he was going to hyperventilate.

“Zaos, look at me,” Anjar insisted. Sarcaryn’s eyes snapped obediently to those of the senior officer. “You’ve suffered several traumatic injuries. Your body will take a while to repair itself.”

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Sarcaryn said. “Please.”

Anjar sighed. “It’s a long list. Broken bones in all four limbs. A traumatic brain injury. Jaw fractured in three places… and a few lost teeth. Significant plasma burns on much of your body,” the doctor listed, each extra injury just numbing Sarcaryn further. There was a pause that he knew could not be good. “Those are all easy enough to deal with, but I believe your spinal cord has been severed between your L2 and L3 vertebra.”

Sarcaryn felt his heart rate climb, but he tried to take a deep breath. “Will I walk again? Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s… unlikely,” Anjar admitted. At that point, he and Vircar had a hand on either side of him, keeping Sarcaryn down. “There are still treatment options to explore, and the Risian nervous system is much more elastic than other humanoids, Zaos.”

“Once elastic breaks, that’s it,” Sarcaryn spat, though he managed to avoid sending himself into a panic attack. He was reeling at the idea that life as he knew it was over. Being active and athletic was central not only to his identity but to his culture. He simply couldn’t imagine losing that. “I want to see myself.”

“Zaos, I think it’s time that we let you rest,” Vircar suggested.

“No! Show me.”

Anjar nodded, and he folded Sarcaryn’s blanket at his waist. He tapped another button on the biobed, and a holographic mirror appeared above the bed so that Sarcaryn could get a full view of his body. What he saw shocked him; it wasn’t him. It just couldn’t be. Most of his chest and torso were covered in silver patches, likely knitting his skin back together. All of his copper-red hair was gone, and when he opened his mouth, he could see that most of his teeth were as well. Half of his face was also covered, and it took both of them to keep him from pulling the bandage off.

“I’m a monster,” Sarcaryn sobbed, rational thought leaving him entirely. He had always strived to be more than his looks, but that was also the feature he was most confident in about himself and the part that was most essential to his identity. Without them, he couldn’t imagine a future. “Why did you save me?!” he screamed, his panic leading to his upper body thrashing, trying to get his useless lower half to do something.

Sarcaryn could vaguely hear the two officers trying to calm him down as the lighting above his bed turned blue, and others swarmed him. He wasn’t taking in any breath at all and nearly whited out before he felt the cold applicator of a hypospray on his neck take him all the way to undreaming unconsciousness.

After having him on the operating table for twelve hours, Anjar was not about to lose Lieutenant Sarcaryn to a stroke or cardiac arrest. Once the sedative was in, he watched the monitor closely until the lieutenant’s heart rhythm left arrhythmia. The group let out a collective sigh of relief when Anjar canceled the code blue.

“Implement suicide watch protocols. He is not to be left alone at any time for any reason, understood?” Anjar said, looking at the nurses and techs around him.

“Yes, doctor,” they said together.

Alenis Anjar was one of the finest and most experienced neurosurgeons in the entire Federation, and yet he wasn’t sure how he could restore his patient to total health. He looked at the young man, wrapped in bandages and bruised from a heroic act at the peak of his youth and fitness, and it made him twinge with disgust. Sarcaryn was nearly killed—and the lieutenant had certainly intimated that he felt his life was over—saving one of his crewmates caught between Romulans firing on other Romulans. Anjar hadn’t seen things like that or felt the sheer level of contempt he had towards them in a long time.

“It’s still early days, doctor,” Vircar offered, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You should get some rest.”

“How can I rest with this man—this child—lying here mangled in my sickbay?” Anjar asked, even though he wasn’t sure if it had been thirty-six or forty-eight hours since he’d been in his own quarters, let alone slept.

“You had it right the first time. He’s a man, not a child,” the nurse pointed out. “We have other treatment options to explore, and he will get better, but not if you’re sleep-deprived.”

“Fine. But give him another six or seven hours up here and then have him moved to one of the isolation wards. He won’t want to be seen,” Anjar replied, catching sight of Counselor Sharma over Vicar’s shoulder.

Anjar nodded across the hall to his office, and Sharma joined him there. Though he was a neurologist by trade, or perhaps because of that, he never had much use for non-psychiatric counselors. To him, the brain and any resulting errors it might make were physiological issues to be solved, not to be talked about and cried about.

“How much of that did you see?” Anjar asked, leaning back against his desk.

“Enough. That poor boy,” Sharma replied. “He must be devastated.”

“He was. I should have left him under longer, but I wanted to make sure his nervous system wasn’t completely wrecked,” Anjar explained. “I put the chances of him walking again around twenty percent. There’s not enough case information for Risians with these types of injuries, though.”

“We’ll both have our work cut out for us, then,” the counselor replied, studying him. “Perhaps after you’ve had a chance to rest, we can talk about how you are feeling as well.”

“When the beds in my wards are empty, sure,” Anjar replied, trying his very best not to sound sarcastic. “I told Melandis that I was going to sleep, though. I’ll see you in the morning, Counselor,” he added, breezing past her towards the hall, though he paused for a moment when he caught a glimpse of Sarcaryn’s face in the dim lighting of the ICU.

The further Anjar got from sickbay and the closer he got to his quarters, the more tired he realized he was. He’d opted for a new set of quarters on the same deck as sickbay in their recent refit, but when the doors closed behind him, he still felt as though he were in another quadrant entirely. He glanced at the replicator, but he was too tired to eat. When he sat down on the bed to take his boots off, he saw the picture of him and Mason that he always kept there and snatched it up.

It was the last picture the two of them had taken together. Anjar was in his medical cadet uniform, and Mason was a newly-minted command division Ensign. He was two years older and was shipping out to serve during the Dominion War aboard the Valley Forge when Anjar was stuck behind in medical school. The picture was taken less than six months before Mason died at the First Battle of Chin’Toka, almost thirty years prior. It was the first and only time that Anjar had ever experienced romantic love with someone else.

The reason he grabbed the picture, though, was that he’d forgotten that Mason had the exact same shade of bold, copper-red hair that Sarcaryn did. Sarcaryn had arrived with his hair bloody and matted, and they’d had to shave it off for surgery. The two men otherwise looked nothing alike—Sarcaryn was traditionally handsome, with the sculpted muscles everyone imagined Risians having, while Mason had softer features and a rounder face—but they shared hair colors.

“I never thought I’d forget what you looked like,” Anjar whispered, feeling a day’s—or maybe a decade’s—worth of tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m not going to let him go the way I had to let you go.”

Anjar sniffed but refused to allow himself to break down and cry. That felt too… Bajoran. He set the photo back in its place and stood up, moving through the living room and into his private study, which was essentially the same as his work office, but with fewer patient tissue samples lying around.

“Computer, interface with the Risian Medical Commission and find me every available treatment record for severe neurological trauma involving any Risians, and cross-reference with available equipment aboard Arcturus and at any Starfleet Medical facilities in this quadrant,” Anjar ordered.

“Please confirm search parameters. The requested information may take several hours to collate,” the computer replied.

“Confirm. While we’re waiting, make a pot of black coffee and pull up the patient file for Sarcaryn, Zaos. I want to know about anytime this kid has had so much as a hangnail,” Anjar replied, literally cracking his knuckles before bringing all of the holographic displays on his desk into range. “He’s walking out of my sickbay on his own two feet, you hear me?”

“Message understood. Search in progress,” the computer replied.

The doors to the shuttlebay slid open to allow Commander Navarro a last glimpse of one of the Volga-class runabouts leaving the bay. Not much bigger than large personnel shuttles, the Volgas had squared off hindquarters and could easily handle two or three-week excursions away from the mothership. Navarro watched as it pierced through the faint blue forcefield that kept the air inside the shuttlebay before the massive central door started to roll down into place, the attention alert sounding the entire time. They needed all the space they could for refugees, so the largest of their embarked craft—the ones that could keep up with the Arcturus reasonably well—had all been launched. The hanger decks under the bay were already filling up with Romulan passengers.

“Halo 10 is away,” the flight systems officer reported through her combadge, just as the door closed completely with a clunk and the forcefield shut off.

Navarro tapped her badge. “This is Navarro. I want enough space past the doors for us to recover them for refueling. Otherwise, start setting up for emergency housing, please,” she ordered.

The newly promoted commander was not yet accustomed to running one of the largest departments on the ship, even though she’d spent a year and a half serving as deputy to Alesser; he hadn’t ever been one to delegate too much, and it was a learning curve to now be the decision-maker. In theory, the Arcturus could beam aboard 1,500 people every hour, but it had been over sixteen hours since they began the process, and there were still several thousand aboard the Ditaria, the D’Deridex-class warbird they were calling Cardinal 1. Damage to the ship and residual problems caused by radiation, plasma fires, and other hazards had slowed them down significantly, as had finding the space for them. Navarro usually relished challenges like these, but she was ready for the scramble to be over. 

Satisfied that no new crises were brewing down in the shuttlebay, the operations officer turned on her heel and walked back towards the turbolift. She was late for a staff meeting, but the adrenaline rush that might have once sparked in her was missing. When Navarro arrived, Captain Lancaster was speaking to Commander Odea over the holographic communicator in the briefing room. 

“I want that third warbird taken off the board. We have enough to worry about without rogue actors,” Lancaster ordered.

“Understood. They can’t evade us forever,” Odea replied from the bridge of the Hokule’a. “I suggest that we use the runabouts to form a tachyon detection grid around Arcturus and Cardinal 1 in the interim.”

Lancaster turned to look at Isethos, their Andorian tactical officer. 

“It’s a sound tactic, Captain,” Isethos confirmed. “Without a localized area for the Hokule’a to search in, even active tachyon sweeps will be quite ineffective. We need more information on that ship, but Starfleet Intelligence doesn’t have anything specific in the database.”

“Number One, get the tachyon detection grid in place,” Lancaster ordered. “Lieutenant Najan, Oban is claiming to have intelligence related to Romulan fleet deployments, is he not?”

“He is,” Najan confirmed.

“Please stress to him that anything he can tell us to help avoid future attacks is in his interests now as much as it is ours,” the captain replied; Navarro hadn’t been in the loop fully on their potential defector, but she could see Lancaster clench his jaw out of frustration.

“I’ll relay the message, sir. It’s a pity that the other two warbirds self-destructed, as we could have recovered their computer records,” Najan noted.

“And could have saved their crews,” Counselor Sharma interjected.

Lancaster held up his hand to prevent Najan from taking the bait, which was probably a good thing since all of the crew were stressed to the breaking point, even if the fireworks might have been amusing as a spectator. “Navarro, where are we on evacuations? I don’t like sitting here out in the open.”

“Things are speeding up, sir. I estimate we’ll be ready to depart in two hours,” she replied. “We should be able to catch up with the convoy on their last stop before reaching the colony.”

“Good. I don’t want us this close to capacity for any longer than we need to be,” Lancaster said. 

The faint praise was enough to make Navarro beam, as she knew that it was good as anyone could possibly get from the notoriously critical Lancaster. With the captain and first officer both being operations officers—and the ex-oh being her immediate predecessor—she felt pressure to not just be good but exceptional. 

Alesser also nodded in her general direction. “Staffing levels are becoming a little more problematic, though. I never thought I’d see the day where a crew of this size just doesn’t have enough bodies to go around, but we’re at minimum staffing in science and tactical to give medical and security the people they need,” the first officer explained.

Isethos’s antennae twitched at that statement. “Yes, captain. We may be unable to fully crew every battle station in the event of another engagement. Phaser and torpedo stations are set to automated, for the moment.”

The captain nodded. “Very well,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table for a moment.

“Sir, we may be able to find volunteer medics and runners from the refugees,” Navarro suggested, thinking about how having something to do would give a lot of their passengers a sense of purpose and hope. “We could train them on basic first aid.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Sharma noted.

“At this point, it’s worth a shot. Please organize it, Counselor,” Lancaster said. “Does anyone have anything else?”

Sharma spoke up. “Just to say, sir, that Lieutenant Sarcaryn’s procedure saved his life, but he’s still in quite a critical condition, mentally as well as physically.”

The officers around the table were quiet for a moment as they processed that.

“Thank you,” Lancaster said, looking around at the others. “We may be straining right now, but sickbay gets whatever they need for his care. Dismissed.”

Oban was nearly sure that the Humans—and their assorted coterie of sycophants and hegemonized ‘allies’—had forgotten about him, after nearly a day alone in the guest quarters they had provided him with. He definitely wasn’t used to silence when he wanted something. The fact that they hadn’t come back to him about his request to be transported not with the other refugees but on his own to one of the Federation’s core worlds made him question the value of the data he was carrying—or the intelligence of Starfleet’s analysts. The young Romulan had done an exhaustive study of the replicator items available to him but hadn’t found anything that reminded him of home. Even though he hoped he would never return to Romulan space, he felt more isolated than ever before.

The door finally chimed.

“Come!” Oban said, standing up from the couch and straightening the tunic he’d found in the replicator database alongside the practically inedible food. The Bajoran woman, Najan, entered. This time she was alone, without the lawyer. “What can I do for you, Commander?” Oban asked.

“We were able to confirm that the frequency you provided was a Romulan military channel, but it no longer appears to be in use,” she said, causing Oban’s heart to sink a little; that was the one thing he’d managed to firmly memorize from the data cache he’d taken.

Najan smiled and pulled up the holographic PADD on her wrist device. She tapped a few things and then tossed a set of images toward Oban. They were of Valdore-class warbirds, as far as Oban knew.

“You can tell me what you know about this ship, the IRW Meran. We matched it against some intelligence provided by the Romulan Republic, but I need to know its warp signature or any other identifying characteristics,” Najan said, before tossing up another image of a D’Deridex-class battleship with a plasma fire burning out of a large hole in the engineering section. “It did this to the largest ship in your convoy.”

“Not my convoy,” Oban said, shaking his head. He didn’t recognize the name of the ship, but he also barely knew the names of any of the ships in the flotilla he’d stowed away on. “I don’t know things like that.”

“I thought you said you had Romulan military data,” Najan reminded him.

Oban blanched. “Have you memorized everything on your data device?”

“No, but then again, I have such a device, but there aren’t any technological signatures on you at all,” Najan said, looking at him. “That makes me think that you’re either lying, or you’re carrying the information in another fashion. Lucky for you, the Federation believes in bodily autonomy,” she said, eyeing him. 

Oban was now fairly certain she was aware he was carrying the data in his bloodstream, though he doubted that she knew exactly in what format. She was right, though, as he would already have been tied to a chair and probed, had the Tal Shiar found him first. Neither of them would be able to access the data without the secondary encryption code he’d memorized; that was his last safeguard against it being forcibly taken from him. 

“This ship is what is keeping us here. We can’t go anywhere until we evacuate the refugees, and every second we stay here we risk being subject to another attack,” Najan offered.

“If you drove off three of them, surely just one isn’t a problem for you?” Oban asked, his eyes narrowing. “You can’t ask me to give up all of my leverage.”

The Bajoran sighed. “There is no need for guile here, Oban. There’s nothing stopping you from going to Earth when we arrive. I’ll take you myself, but we need your intelligence now,” she said. “Lives are at stake.”

From his perspective, there was simply no way for him to give up the only thing he had because he didn’t trust Starfleet to follow through with it. The last thing he wanted was to be extradited on some trumped-up charge from whoever was scrambling to rule his former home, and he needed an ironclad guarantee of safety. 

“I’m going to leave these images here and you can call me if you remember anything,” the woman said, before turning on her heel and leaving the room.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” Oban said, genuinely, as the doors closed behind her.

The young man glanced at the images again, before dismissing them. His heart was racing and he thought about calling her back and just giving up, but the thought of being thrown back to the Star Navy or the Tal Shiar or the horde of peasants in the hold kept him back. He didn’t know what to think about these people—and he definitely didn’t understand why they were being so accommodating in their interrogations.

“Computer, are there any other Romulans on this ship? On the crew, I mean.”

“Affirmative. Lieutenant Galan, Chief Communications Officer,” the system reported, just as obligingly as it had when had told Galan how to find Captain Lancaster. 

Oban was momentarily surprised; he hadn’t expected a yes to that question, but the firm border between their two civilizations had ended with Romulus. He reasoned that any Romulan who was part of the crew would be a little more sympathetic to his situation than any of the people the ship was carrying as passengers.

“Please inform him that I would like to meet with him,” Oban said.

There had been some work for Galan in managing the various handshakes between Arcturus and the remaining functional transporter rooms on Cardinal 1, but once the runabouts were off the deck and the evacuation was proceeding in earnest, he was able to leave his post and get some much-needed rest, or at least some much-needed ablutions. For all of its moisture-wicking and survivability qualities, the Type-B Starfleet Duty Uniform didn’t lend itself to being worn for nearly seventy-two hours without a break. That’s how long it had been since he’d been to and back from the Romulan ship, and he’d stayed on duty through their first layover, then through the attack, and then through the relentless flow of new responsibilities during the evacuation. The cloth practically shattered when he discarded his jacket and undershirt on the floor of his quarters, or at least that’s how grungy he felt.

Galan didn’t realize how much of a pallor had set over him until he looked at himself in the mirror, his already-pale skin looking waxy even under the very forgiving lights built into the vanity. He should have been exhausted—and perhaps he was, after a second, third, fourth, and fifth wind—but all he felt was numbness and shock over what had happened more than a day prior to Zaos Sarcaryn. To the Risian, their casual intimacy was probably not a significant occurrence, but Galan didn’t find himself one who was readily given to such indulgences. He was beautiful and kind, and the fact that Galan’s own people had been responsible for what by all accounts was a horrific injury had the Romulan cursing his own heritage and wishing for an exchange of fates. He also knew that had the timing been slightly different, it could have been him crushed under the structural support braces in the engineering bay on Cardinal 1 rather than Sarcaryn.

“That temperature is not recommended for your physiology,” the computer complained when he set the bath water to 42 degrees Celsius.

“Understood,” Galan replied, crossing his arms and waiting for the tub to fill.

Through the marvels of Federation science, his bath filled quickly. When Galan stepped in, he instantly felt the pinpricks of his skin complaining “no, no, no,” for being exposed to water just short of being scalding, even for a Romulan. He laid back until he was all the way submerged, with just his nose sticking out of the water. Eyes closed, he felt the heat on his body and the insistent beating of his heart as blood rushed to his digits and head, trying to cool him down. He counted to thirty and then to sixty. By that point, the pounding in his ears made him wonder if that’s what the all-encompassing sensation of being in the womb might have been like.

After two minutes, his body was starting to adjust to the water, and Galan had yet to really feel anything as he let his dark hair flow unrestrained behind him. He wondered at what point would the computer warn him again, but at three minutes, he had had enough. The young man emerged from the water and grabbed a towel to pat down the intermingled water and sweat on his forehead. Feet back on the floor, he cinched the cloth around his narrow waist and then walked into the sonic shower.

As with the bath, Galan set the contraption to the highest frequency his sensitive Romulan ears could stand, gritting his teeth as the sensory equivalent of cold jets of water hit him from all angles. The sonic pulses took the water out of his hair as well as cleaned what might have been imaginary grime off of his body. Still, all he could really feel was a gnawing emptiness inside him.

Galan punched the wall, and the connection between the flesh in his hand and the tritanium lattice material of the sonic shower partition made him briefly wince in pain. That was something, at least. He didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish exactly, but successfully causing a sensory reaction didn’t scratch the itch he was having trouble naming.

“Get ahold of yourself. You studied at La Sorbonne. You’re better than this,” the lieutenant muttered.

The mirror was still steamed up from the hot bath, so Galan wiped enough of it off with his hand so that he could see his face. His hair had gotten behind one of his ears, and he was reminded of Sarcaryn reaching over to style his hair just like that, saying that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his heritage even if it led to some stereotypes. After Vashti, he’d thrown himself into Earth’s culture in Paris and then gave the Vulcans a trial run before joining Starfleet, so he was used to being an outsider; he hadn’t fully realized what he was doing with his hair until Sarcaryn had pointed it out.

He took a deep breath and tapped one of the drawers to the side of the vanity, where he retrieved his barely used set of standard-issue clippers. They even had the Starfleet delta on them. To make sure that he would finish the job, the young man buzzed a strip of his hair off straight down the middle of his head. While changing his entire aesthetic with just a few minutes of coiffage didn’t shock him out of his funk, he found it perversely satisfying to indulge in such an impulsive choice. It’s not like it wouldn’t grow back after all. With his obsidian locks now lying at his feet, Galan no longer had a way of hiding his ears, and that did make him feel something: he wanted to look in the mirror and not see someone passing as Vulcan or Human but as a member of the race that was in the midst of a self-inflicted death spiral. When he helped Arcturus find and hunt down that last warbird, he wanted to do it as a Romulan.

“Lieutenant Galan, Passenger Oban would like to meet you,” the computer reported, as if on cue to his psyche.

Oban living in comfort and luxury aboard Arcturus when his refusal to hand over information either had likely led directly to the attack or was just a ruse to get himself better accommodations—even if he claimed otherwise—made Galan’s blood boil. It was especially galling now when he thought of Sarcaryn again.

While Galan had been part of Oban’s interrogations, it had always been from behind a screen to avoid tipping their hand that they had some amount of Romulan insight. What the other young Romulan wanted from him was beyond Galan’s guess—perhaps he was hoping for a sympathetic ear or someone to lobby the captain for his cause? Fat chance. Still, maybe he could exploit whatever assumed familiarity there might be there to his own advantage.

“Tell him that I will meet him soon,” Galan replied as he kicked the copious pile of hair he had created into the vacuum chute under the sink.

“Affirmative.”

The lieutenant pulled on a fresh duty uniform after another quick sonic shower to make sure that he wouldn’t itch for the rest of the day. As it was apparently a day of impulsive decisions, he stopped by the equipment locker set into the bulkhead next to his door. He keyed in his access code, and the panel spun around to reveal a comprehensive set of handheld equipment nestled in custom-made foam rubber slots, including a type-II phaser pistol and the smaller type-I hand phaser. He grabbed the smaller one and slipped it onto his belt under the edge of his uniform jacket.

The turbolift journey from Galan’s quarters in the saucer section to Oban’s temporary space near the battle bridge was short. The lieutenant found two crewmen in gold uniforms standing next to the door, though their weapons weren’t concealed like his was.

“Our guest said he wanted to see me,” Galan said.

The two crewmen looked at each other before one turned to hit the chime on the door panel; Galan was sure that he could see a flicker of uncertainty on the young guard’s face, which Galan attributed to his being Romulan and wanting to see their Romulan passenger-turn-intelligence source. A moment or two later, Oban called from within that Galan should enter, so the same crewman unlocked the door and let the officer pass.

“You wished to see me?” Galan asked, crossing his hands behind his back once he entered the guest quarters.

Oban was much as Galan had expected him from seeing him on the security feed, but meeting someone for the first time in person always made him take a moment to reconcile the remote image with the real person. He seemed smaller and more desperate in person, though they were about the same height and build.

“Ah, you must be Galan. Jolan tru,” Oban said, gesturing towards one of the seats near to the couch.

Galan remained standing. “Jolan tru,” he replied, nodding. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Oban blanched and swallowed nervously, making a somewhat awkward pirouette to abort his own move to go sit down. Good, his nerves would work against him, Galan thought.

“The computer said that you were the only other Romulan aboard this ship, at least as a member of the crew,” Oban said. “I… guess I wanted some perspective on whether the Humans can be trusted.”

Galan chuckled. “Do you honestly think I would tell you if they couldn’t be? It’s not just the Humans, though,” he replied, drawling slightly as he studied the other man. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the one whose trust is in doubt at this point.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Because you’re in a suite by yourself, and the rest of the convoy is being crammed into cots in cargo bays,” Galan replied, gesturing around the room. He chuckled. “I can certainly understand not wanting to go somewhere like Vashti. I lived through that before I moved to study on Earth,” he added, eliding some of the unhappier details of his childhood.

“Yes, well, I’d like to skip that step,” Oban quipped. “I have real information about troop movements and Imperial starships. Put me on a shuttle to the core worlds, and I’ll give it to you.”

“You know as well as I do that any Romulan forces lying in wait cloaked are more than a match for any of our shuttles and they are looking for precisely such a mistake,” Galan replied. “So, conversely, give us what you know, and we will be able to end the threat and send you along.”

Oban shifted on his feet as though that argument resonated at some level with him, but he shook his head. “I have the metaphorical equivalent of a disruptor with one shot. If I fire, I’m disarmed,” he said.

Galan shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said, moving a step closer and placing his hands on the back of one of the lounge chairs that neither of them was using. “The fact that it’s all or nothing is what leads me to believe that you’re telling the truth. You have a data cache with a single encryption key.”

“It was admittedly not my brightest choice.”

“I’m not finished: you clearly also think that your biggest threat is already aboard Arcturus—your fellow passengers—, so this is what’s going to happen: You are going to tell me exactly what you have and how to access it, or I’m going to broadcast your name, face, and location to every screen and PADD on this ship and I’m going to order the two guards outside the door to find something better to do with their time,” Galan said.

“You… You wouldn’t. You don’t have that kind of authority,” Oban stammered.

Galan shrugged. “Authority, no. Ability? Yes,” he said, looking Oban straight in the eyes. “My backup plan is shooting you and telling my captain to throw you back to the masses as a liar,” he said.

“You’re bluffing.”

“About which part?” Galan replied, unclipping the type-I phaser he had on his belt and resting it on the chair’s back. He saw Oban studying the weapon. “Lucky for you that Starfleet weapons have a stun setting, I guess. The attack on the last ship in your flotilla left dozens dead and one of my good friends maimed, so… I guess you could say that I’m willing to roll the dice to see whether my captain cares that I’m pointing a phaser at you, right now.”

Oban crossed his arms.

“Computer, prepare to open a ship-wide channel.”

“Affirmative.”

“Wait! Fine. Fine!” the other Romulan relented.

“Cancel request, Computer,” Galan said. “Good. Give me the information.”

“It’s not that simple. It’s in my blood proteins.”

“So, give me your blood, then. Computer, replicate one blood test kit and a PADD,” Galan ordered. On the table near them, the computer created the requested items. Galan gestured with the phaser, and Oban went over to get them, hands shaking a little. “It’s simple enough. Find a vein on the inside of your arm, and press the button on the machine.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Oban muttered. Galan watched as the other man extracted a vial of green blood from his arm. Without prompting, he tapped in a code sequence into the PADD, which Galan could tell was a decryption key. “I’ve given you what you wanted.”

Galan clipped the phaser back to his belt and went over to gather the materials. “We’ll see. I hope this performance wasn’t too… Romulan for you,” he noted, shaking his head before leaving Oban to his thoughts.

Captain Lancaster was ensconced with a dozen reports at the table in his office, his dinner pushed aside and untouched. The ship was close to being able to depart and resume course for the remainder of the convoy, but there were still loose ends to tie up and a few hundred more refugees to get aboard. One of the most important unknown questions was what to do about the barely functional but still-menacing D’Deridex-class warbird they were leaving behind. He doubted that the Romulans would approve of him scuttling it, but he couldn’t exactly leave it for anyone to stumble upon anyway. Fourth Fleet Command, also exceptionally busy, had told him to ‘use his best judgment,’ as they weren’t particularly interested in combing over the pieces of a half-century-old battlecruiser when so much about Romulan technology was already known.

The door chime sounded.

“Come!” Lancaster turned to see Lieutenant Galan entering the room with Lieutenant Commander Evandrion behind him. It was a curious pairing, so the captain was already running through the possibilities of what they might need from him together. “What is it?”

“I have recovered the information that Oban has been carrying, sir. Based on our scans of the third Romulan warbird, I’ve identified it and have extracted its full specifications, including the design frequencies of its cloaking device, shields, and engines. This should allow the Hokule’a to track it down,” Galan reported.

“That’s excellent,” Lancaster replied. “Shouldn’t either Commander Najan or Isethos be here then? Evandrion handles internal security.”

Galan nodded. “I have already sent them the contents of the data cache with the appropriate passages identified, sir. I asked Commander Evandrion to accompany me so that he can arrest me.”

The captain clenched his jaw; of course, the news that they finally had the intelligence data that was being held back from them was too easy. There had to be a catch.

“What did you do?” 

“I coerced the subject to reveal the information he had by threatening to reveal his presence to the rest of the refugees. I also had him at phaser-point. Briefly,” Galan explained calmly. “Though I recognize that the efficacy of this tactic does not diminish the fact that I have violated several Starfleet regulations, Federation laws, and likely the Charter.”

Lancaster sighed. “This is unlike you, Lieutenant. You’re the last person I’d expect to do something like this.”

“Yes, sir,” Galan agreed.

“That’s it, Lieutenant? ‘Yes, sir’?!” Lancaster shouted. “You’re not going to offer any mitigating circumstances?”

“With respect, sir, no. You must arrest me so that I do not make you party to this,” Galan said stubbornly.

Lancaster wanted to lash out again, but he just shook his head. One of his most promising officers had likely just thrown away his career, all because of a stubborn child. 

“Fine. Evandrion, take Mr. Galan into custody and put him in the brig until further notice,” Lancaster ordered. 

The Deltan security chief nodded and took Galan by the upper arm to leave through the side exit of the ready room so that the young man wouldn’t be paraded past his shipmates on the bridge. Lancaster clenched his fist for a moment before taking a deep breath to calm himself down. 

When Lancaster walked out of the ready room through the other exit, he found the bridge already buzzing with activity. He relieved Alesser at the center seat just as he heard Isethos coordinating with Odea on the Hokule’a, which had been hunting for the other Romulan ship for some time now.

“We’ve isolated the Romulan ship, sir,” Alesser reported. “But I think they know we’re onto them.”

“I’d almost rather they did: maybe they’ll turn tail and run,” Lancaster replied. 

“Doesn’t look like it, Captain. They’re decloaking and heading right for us,” Isethos replied.

“How long until they’re in weapons range?” Alesser asked.

“About two minutes,” Isethos said.

“We still have another hundred refugees to get off of the warbird, sir,” Navarro reminded him from the operations station.

“Order the runabouts and the Hokule’a to break formation and screen us. I want those people on here in those two minutes,” Lancaster ordered. The captain tapped the armrest console to switch the viewer to tactical display mode, watching as the dozen small dots around Arcturus let the medium-sized dot representing Hokule’a take point towards the Romulan ship. “Weapons free.”

The seconds counted down excruciatingly. To keep bringing passengers aboard, Arcturus had to keep her powerful shields down. They were vulnerable. Still, they had a shot with their support vessels.

“Captain, I have almost all of them. Still reading three life signs aboard Cardinal 1, on the bridge,” Navarro reported. “I can’t beam them off. They’ve raised shields.”

“Raise ours,” Lancaster replied. “What the hell are they doing? Hail them.”

The viewer switched to the interior of the looming D’Deridex-class warbird. Lancaster recognized Valar, the self-proclaimed leader of the flotilla.

“This works out well, Captain. I may no longer be in a position to return home, but I also couldn’t have turned over this warship to you. I thank you for your assistance,” Valar said simply before cutting the channel.

Lancaster stood up from his chair when he saw that Cardinal 1 was heading at full impulse towards the attacking bird of prey, which was focused on warding off the Hokule’a’s pulse phaser strikes. The two ships collided with a massive fireball seconds later.

“Inform Starbase Bravo that we are now ready to get underway,” Lancaster said. “Once the support ship is docked, we’ll resume course with the runabouts,” he said, tugging on his jacket as he sat down. “How many more self-inflicted wounds can the Romulans take?” he wondered.