“Are you sure I can’t convince you to come with me?” Sehgali twirled a rogue forlock mysteriously as her eyes became wide. “It comes with bigger quarters, more facilities-”

“-I’m not so easily bought.” Rhoska smiled as he batted away another playful offer.

“You’d have your own lab!” Sehgali implored, undecided whether she even had that authority in her new role.

“I have a lab here.” The man adjusted his cap and gestured to the comparatively vast room, the wall stacked high with equipment and barrels of raw materials.

“Alfred, this is a cargo bay.”

“It’s my lab.”

“Store a lot of emergency rations in your lab, do you?” Sehgali tapped a nearby case with her knuckles playfully.

“Chewing on protein bars helps me think.” As if by magic, Rhoska produced a silver packaged bar from beneath his makeshift workbench and unpeeled it, before taking a large bite out of the unappealing brown stick.

Sehgali held her hands up in surrender and let out a defeated sigh. Captain Harrison had tasked her with forming a new Division team before they arrived at the first stop on their mission. Whilst filtching crew from Daedalus wasn’t her only method, there were a few key faces she would have liked aboard.

“What would I do on your team anyway?” Rhoska mused, his interest peaking like the tip of his signature cap. “What could you possibly need these old bones for?”

“We’ll be dealing with a lot of unknowns out on the border, and having favours is a big boon.” Sehgali tiptoed across to him at the workbench and picked up a small metal device she had never seen before. Mindlessly, she rolled it back and forth between her fingers.

“Ah, so it’s not me you want. It’s my favours.” Rhoska gave her a knowing look over his metaphorical glasses, his attitude suddenly patriarchal. “Don’t touch that, it could burn your fingers off.”

Sehgali placed the device tentatively back on the table, offering it a suspicious side eye.

“And you!” She insisted. “The favours are an added bonus.”

“I’m not sure my favours would be much use to you out here, they’re all back there.” He tipped a calloused thumb over his shoulder towards the large cargo bay doors that were aft of the ship. Beyond it, lightyears away, the Federation unfurled into the galaxy. Home to trillions of beings, a substantial number of whom had encountered and worked with the old man in his many decades.

“Oscuri is your girl for favours out this way. There are a lot of people who owe the trader’s daughter a darsek or ten.”

Rhoska leant in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“And Tulil, there are more Republic assets in the empire than you might think.” Rhoska tapped his nose with a gnarled finger. “Plenty of green-blooded patriots who can help out in the big black.”

Sehgali nodded an understanding and began towards the square bay doors, out into the corridor. Moments before the portal swished open, she stopped as she reached for one last offer.

“I can offer you a promotion?” She called over her shoulder.

“I said no to the brass, what makes you think I’ll say yes to you?” Rhoska replied from the workbench with a chuckle.

“It was worth a try.”

Khal’s concentration faltered momentarily as Sehgali finished her proposition, just in time to offer a feint to the left and an upper cut with her right fist. Her slender knuckles made contact with his jaw, eliciting a dull thud.

The burly figure of the Romulan stumbled back a few steps in surprise.

“That was a cheap trick to distract me.” He hissed as he rubbed his chin.

“You always told me that I had to feint and distract. I would never win otherwise.” Sehgali replied with a smile, bouncing lightly on her heels in preparation for his inevitable retribution.

“A false job offer is not a feint.”

“Oh, that wasn’t a distraction, that was a real offer.”

“Offered at a tactical point.”

“Maybe.”

“Then you are learning.” Khal smiled as he suddenly leapt forward towards Sehgali like a large dog on a particularly interesting stick.

The dull patter of boxing gloves against forearms bounced around the small gymnasium for a few seconds before the energy of Khal’s flurry gave out, and he fell back a few feet.

“You really wish for me to join you on Typhon?” Khal raised a dark eyebrow quizzically.

“If you’re interested.” Sehgali tilted her head innocently. “This isn’t an order, it’s an offer.”

“And the Republic Navy has agreed to this?”

“I didn’t want to bother them with the ask until you’d said yes,” Sehgali admitted nervously. “Carts and horses and all that.”

A frown deepened Khal’s pronounced brow.

“I do not understand what equines have to do with my transfer.”

“That’s not-” Shegali began, but the giant of a man was already on her with a renewed energy, his massive shovel-like hands tumbling down on her like an avalanche.

Left. Right. Left. She barely had time to raise her gloves defensively before each hit landed with bone-crunching force.

After what seemed like an age of meaty boulders smashing against her forearms, the assault relented, and the pair fell back to their marks.

“That was naughty.” Sehgali chided through heavy breaths.

“It was a feint.”

Sehgali raised her gloved hands above her head in surrender.

“I’m done! I’m done!” She cried as she rubbed her wrists through the bulky gloves, fearful she might have done herself an injury. “You win.”

Khal’s warrior face fell away in an instant, and the big bear of a man rushed across the room.

“Did I injure you?”

“Maybe a little” She flexed the wrist once more. Satisfied it was not too damaged, she began removing the large red foam claws.”I had really hoped you’d come to Typhon.”

“I’m afraid I cannot leave Daedalus at the moment.” Khal sighed. “I have other … commitments.”

Sehgali paused mid-hand extraction.

“Do these commitments have a name?”

“They do.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a matter of security?” Sehgali cupped a gloved hand over her mouth like a schoolgirl petitioning for some delicious gossip. “I promise I won’t tell the Klingons.”

Khal allowed a smirk to pull at his normally rigid lips.

“It is not a matter of security, merely a matter of privacy. You know as well as I that it is a commodity aboard this tiny vessel.” Khal gave the commander a knowing look. Her relationship with the Captain had been a fairly well-kept secret; their separation had been far less inconspicuous.

The pit in Sehgali’s stomach dropped several inches, sending a chill up her spine. She had hoped to avoid becoming a subject of conversation with a quiet departure to the division’s lead ship. Apparently, that was out the window.

“If it will sate you, Lieutenant Rutters and I have been spending a great deal of time together.”

“Rutters?” Sehgali clung to the conversational life raft, anything to escape the thought of her recent, very public breakup. “She won the annual springball championship on 47 last year, right?”

“She is a formidable opponent.” Khal mused with a devilish grin as his eyes glazed over contentedly.

“I would expect nothing less.” Shegali let out a frustrated sigh as she placed her gloves on the nearby shelving. “It seems I’m running out of options.”

“You mean I was not your first request?” Khal feigned offence.

“It was a very short list.” Shegali landed a playful pat on his shoulder. “Like you said, small ship.”

An omnipresent chirp interrupted the pair.

“Shani to Sehgali.”

“Go ahead, chief.”

“I require your assistance in engineering.”

In the background of the comm channel, Sehgali could hear raised voices, a cacophony of phosphorus insults ricocheting at the edge of hearing. She already knew what the call was for, there were only two aboard the ship would would argue with such fury.

“One last bomb defusal?”

“I’m on my way.” Sehgali offered Khal a shrug. “Wouldn’t be Daedalus if I didn’t have to play referee one last time.”

“Perhaps you should take one of them with you?” Khal joked as he began tidying the temporary boxing ring away. “A few light years might stop them from killing each other.”

“I wonder how much it costs to hire Klingon mercenaries?” Shegali made her way to the gym door, which hissed aside deferentially. “Though I might need to hire the whole Defence Force!”

She paused at the threshold, turning over he shoulder with a tender smile.

“Good luck, Tulil, don’t let the job get in the way.”

“I would offer you the same advice, Indira.” Khal tapped his arm to his chest, laying it against the spot where his enormous heart rested. “Jolan Tru.”

Sehgali tapped her own chest and allowed her head to fall into a slight nod.

“Jolan Tru, brother.”