For the Rooks, the job was over. For the rest of the crew of the Blackbird, the mission wasn’t yet done. Rosewood ducked onto the bridge some hours after he’d thought the dust had settled on the Lliew Rift to find it still buzzing with low-level activity. Aryn was still up there at the auxiliary console, a headset on as he read scans and muttered to himself, while Ranicus stood near the front of the canopy, monitoring local activity. Through the canopy, the white-silver shape of the USS Liberty hung in space, the only thing visible to the naked eye to suggest there was anything of interest out here at all. The knots of the Lliew Rift were beyond his perception, and of Viridia Station, nothing remained.

Ranicus’s eyes were cool and set, and rather than interrupt her, Rosewood slunk to Falaris’s console, leaning over with a ready grin. ‘No rest for the wicked up here, huh?’

She jumped, tired eyes meeting his, and he felt a pang of guilt. ‘Oh, uh – Commander. Sorry. We’re still sweeping through wreckage.’

He glanced from her to the canopy. Galcyon had said she wanted the Liberty to do a thorough scan of the Rift to make sure the localised subspace distortions had stabilised after their meddling. That left Blackbird to root for remains and evidence. ‘Any luck?’

‘I’ve reached one conclusion,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Yeah?’

‘If you ever want to really scrub something from existence, put it on a station where the singularity core was amplifying a device that distorts space-time and then collapsed.’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘No luck so far, but we’re here until Liberty is done.’

His eyes drifted to Aryn, hunched over a console. ‘I assume Mac’s looking for some sign of the Regulator.’ She gave a small nod. ‘I’m gonna check if he needs his head pulling out of his ass.’

‘Before, ah, before you go.’ She looked up at him, but at once checked the bridge, and he stiffened as he realised she was seeing if anyone was listening. Even once she had, Falaris still hesitated. Then said, ‘It was a shame we couldn’t take Kanem into custody.’

Rosewood froze. ‘Arresting those guys wasn’t our mission,’ he said after a beat.

‘When we thought none of the serious culprits would be there at night. We couldn’t throw them all in the brig. But maybe the leader of the operation.’

‘Aside from our jurisdiction being dubious, I don’t think you rehabilitate that man. One way or another, he needed to be stopped for good.’

Falaris bit her lip. ‘One way or another.’

She’d been on the other end of the comms, the comms they’d silenced after he’d shot Kanem in the head. And she wasn’t an idiot. Rosewood drew a raking breath. ‘Listen…’

‘I just thought you should know…’ But she stopped, uncertainty taking over whatever had compelled her to speak at first. She cleared her throat. ‘I know you guys go through a lot down there. But. I’m here.’

On the surface, it sounded like an offer of support. But then, it could have been a reminder of solidarity from the final member of the Rooks, the one who watched from on high and looked out for them from afar.

Or it was simply a statement. She’d been there. She knew.

‘Thanks,’ he said tonelessly, and was relieved when she nodded and returned to her station.

It took three attempts to get Aryn’s attention when he rolled up on a stool beside him, and the science officer jumped and scowled as he took his headset off. ‘What?’

Rosewood blinked. ‘I’m checking in. Gotta talk to Cassidy. Saw your nose was glued to the scans. You okay?’

Aryn sighed, then rubbed his temples. ‘Yeah. Sorry. I just… our mission was to recover the Regulator. I’d hoped some of it might survive what happened. But there’s no sign even of wreckage.’

‘I thought our mission was to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.’ Rosewood winced at Aryn’s sharp look. ‘Oh, that was naive of me.’

‘Oddly so. There are reasons there weren’t more of it. I’m not sure anyone has the clearance to make another. It was built in a different time. And now…’ Aryn waved a hand at the screen full of empty scans. ‘At least we can mollify R&D with the records of Kanem’s modifications.’

‘More experimentation on integrating Borg technology. Great.’ Rosewood’s nose wrinkled, but he glanced at Aryn. ‘Pleasing your buds at Daystrom can’t be the only thing that’s got you stressed.’

Aryn was already focused back on his work. ‘What else would it be?’

‘Q’ira. Us screwing her over.’

He paused, but didn’t move. ‘We had to make a choice.’

‘Where our lives happen to be fine, and hers is ruined.’

‘I can’t do anything about that.’

‘You can’t.’ Rosewood nodded, relieved. ‘Good. I’m glad you’re not beating yourself up about that. I was worried you’d get caught up on some girl we made a fickle alliance with we’ll part ways with in a few days.’

This time, Aryn’s gaze flickered, but he still didn’t look away from the screen. ‘Like you said, John. I’m not good with women. But it’s fine.’ He tapped the edge of his console. ‘You should go see Cassidy.’

‘Right.’ Rosewood clapped him on the shoulder as he left, but knew he couldn’t procrastinate any more.

He had almost forgotten Cassidy had his own office on the Blackbird. Rather than a full ready room, it was more like a closet with a desk in it, giving little surprise to the truth that Cassidy tended to work in his quarters or from the Rooks’ lounge. Its sole advantage was its proximity to the bridge, giving the ship’s commander somewhere he could retreat to receive private communications or read sensitive information and, sparingly, receive visitors.

Ranicus used it most of the time, and Cassidy hadn’t bothered to even adjust the chair settings as he hunkered over the desk, almost comically hunched over to read the screen. ‘You took your time,’ the big man grunted as Rosewood stepped in.

Rosewood glanced around for somewhere to sit and in the end had to settle for another stool. ‘I was checking in with the others.’

To his surprise, Cassidy looked up. ‘They doing okay?’

‘Aryn’s wound tight. This mission took a toll on him and he doesn’t exactly open up. I’ll keep an eye on him.’

‘He thinks he has to put on a strong front with me,’ Cassidy grunted. ‘Most of the time, that does make him tough. Catch up with him in a couple days.’

Rosewood nodded, quietly surprised at the insight, the deliberate thought behind both the appraisal and a behaviour Cassidy had no doubt instigated, cultivated. He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘And, uh. Falaris knows – I’m pretty sure Falaris knows what happened to Kanem.’

Cassidy’s expression didn’t move. ‘Her post-mission report gave no sign of that.’

‘Good.’

‘And mine didn’t, either.’

‘I wasn’t about to write it in triplicate,’ Rosewood drawled, the wryness softening some of the nausea in his gut. Or obfuscating it.

‘Falaris is new to this kind of work,’ said Cassidy. ‘But Ranicus rated and vouched for her. She’s not going to snitch at the first sign of trouble.’

Is it snitching to report illegal activity from your unit? ‘I didn’t think so. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to warn me first, anyway.’

Cassidy shrugged. ‘People can do stupid things under pressure.’ Now his eyes flickered back to Rosewood. ‘What you did there was incredibly dumb.’

Rosewood straightened. ‘We could have grabbed Kanem, thrown him in the brig, brought him back for a trial. Watch him try to slip through the cracks as a lawyer pokes holes in the process we went through to arrest him. And even if he doesn’t, you don’t rehabilitate someone like that. He’d just rot in prison forever.’

Cassidy tilted his head. ‘Is that why you did it?’ He scoffed at Rosewood’s silence. ‘Then quit with the self-serving bullshit.’

Frustration coiled in Rosewood’s chest. ‘You don’t care,’ he spat. ‘You don’t give a shit that I shot him, you don’t give a shit about that guy -’

‘I don’t,’ Cassidy admitted. ‘I hated him, I don’t care that he’s dead, and I don’t really care by what means he was stopped from continuing to do what he did. But you’re a galaxy-class liar, John Rosewood, and you’re no use to me if you turn your skills on yourself all the time.’

‘You can’t…’

‘Look me in the eye.’ Cassidy leaned forward, expression suddenly open and oddly honest. ‘And tell me what you did and why you did it.’

Rosewood’s mouth was dry. ‘What is this, some kinda loyalty test?’

‘I’m not the one playing games here. You are.’

‘I…’ Rosewood swallowed. His heart had punched out of the coils of frustration, now thumping loud enough to almost deafen him. He ran a dry tongue over his lips and drew a raking breath. ‘I shot him.’

‘Go on.’

‘Because he was a monster.’

‘So? Lots of people are monsters. You gonna shoot all of them?’

‘I don’t -’

‘Why’d you shoot him, John?’

Rosewood shoved his stool back and stood. ‘You came here for a report -’

‘You can answer the question, or you can get off my ship when we make it back to Gateway and never come back,’ said Cassidy, leaning back with cool indifference. ‘It’s up to you. I don’t know where you get off acting high and mighty at me right now -’

‘As if you haven’t done shit like this all the time -’

‘You don’t have a clue what I’ve done, but I saw what you did. I just want to know why? Did the privileged, pampered kid decided this edge of the galaxy, that so many people endure and survive, was just too hard for his little nerves -’

‘I shot him because I wanted to!’ Rosewood barked. ‘Because he was a monster, and I wanted to hurt him, and because it made me feel better.’ The admission did not stop the singing of blood in his ears, even as it echoed through the tiny box of an office, his words bouncing off the bulkheads and hitting him a second time.

Cassidy was silent for a moment, watching him. Then he said, ‘Do you still feel better for having done it?’

‘I… don’t know.’

‘That’s okay.’ He nodded sharply at the stool and, a little numb, Rosewood sat down. ‘When you came aboard, I told you we’d put your anger to good use.’

Rosewood stared down at his hands, suddenly both exhausted and feeling like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s office. ‘Was that good use?’

‘Maybe. It wasn’t the kind I meant, though. Because anger was in the driving seat. But you don’t master it by ignoring it. And I got no use for a man who’s piloted by his fury and pretends he ain’t. Not to mention no use for a man who killed a target he weren’t supposed to and couldn’t be bothered to figure out why.’

‘You don’t seem that bothered that I did it.’

‘If you were gonna go off-mission and cap anyone, it might as well be him.’ Cassidy’s eyes narrowed. ‘This one gets to be a learning experience. You gonna do it again?’ Rosewood swallowed and shook his head. ‘Good. Got an offer for you.’ Cassidy plucked a PADD off the desk and slid it over.

Rosewood blinked at the pivot. ‘An offer?’

‘Tiran’s gone. Probably dead. Probably we’ll never know for sure.’ Cassidy sounded quiet, rather than coarse. ‘One way or another, this unit needs to move forward. We need to move forward.’ When Rosewood looked up, the big man’s eyes were on him. ‘I need a new second-in-command for the team. Not the Blackbird, of course; Ranicus runs this ship better than I do.’

‘Oh,’ Rosewood breathed. ‘What’s next comes at us fast.’

‘There’s always another mission. So what about it, John?’ Cassidy raised an eyebrow. ‘Or do I call you Rook Two from now on?’