The Tempest moved like a scalpel, careful and precise even when steered under pressure. On the main viewscreen, wreckage tumbled in slow arcs against the swirling emerald backdrop of Ketha’s Shroud. The tractor beam stabbed out from the ship’s emitter, blue lines snagging slabs of hull and dragging them to new vectors.

‘Fragment G-4 secured,’ called the relief Tactical officer. ‘Redirecting spin; velocity under control.’

Hargreaves’s hands worked the helm. ‘Fragment F-7’s drift is off. It might get grabbed again by the planet’s gravity.’

‘Then let’s grab it and fix it,’ said Pentecost, trying to sound more reassuring and calm than she felt. ‘Bring us about five degrees starboard, and compensate with thrusters. Boost power to tractor beam so we can grab it from here. Bleed power from secondary life support if you have to.’ The ship hummed as systems activated, the low vibrations soothing as Pentecost felt not just her crew, but Tempest herself obey her commands.

At Science, Sorren’s brow was furrowed as he monitored sensors, his voice cutting through the hum of the bridge’s activity. ‘Trajectory correction on debris holding. But Captain -’

She turned at the new note of tension. ‘What?’

‘Readings from the main battle site. New disruptor signatures, collimated. Coming from the Mat’lor.’

Her hands tightened around the armrests. ‘On screen.’

The view shifted to show the bird-of-prey prowling the graveyard. Emerald lances of energy shot from its hull, stabbing into the broken carcass of a Starfleet saucer.

‘It’s the Stavanger,’ said Sorren, brow furrowed.

The disruptor fire tore the wreck’s midsection. For a moment, it looked like nothing more than wreckage burning. Then the plating lit with a faint blue glow, sparks leaping across the hull.

‘That wasn’t just debris breaking apart,’ Sorren continued, urgency now in his voice. ‘The collimated shot’s re-energising the old polarisation coils in the hull. They’re coupling with nebula plasma.’

‘Explain,’ Pentecost demanded.

‘Two-hundred-year-old capacitors,’ Sorren said quickly. ‘Polarised hull plating still holding trace charges. Disruptor fire energises them, but they can’t bleed it safely anymore. The energy’s jumping into the plasma around them.’ His hands moved fast, calling a predictive model to the other half of the viewscreen. ‘Every shot feeds a chain reaction. The more he fires, the more the nebula itself ionises. Localised storm front forming.’

Pentecost’s heart sank. ‘Is it a threat to us?’

‘Not immediately. The Tempest can ride it out. The Mat’lor’s hull is sealed enough.’ He hesitated. ‘But the wrecks aren’t. And anyone inside them…’

‘The Mercury.’ Pentecost shot to her feet. But before she could give another order, an alert sounded from the helm controls.

‘Captain, debris field’s slipping again,’ called Hargreaves. ‘We leave now and this job’s half-finished.’

‘Which means it’s not done at all,’ Pentecost growled. ‘Put a relief team in the Caliban and tell them to hot-foot it to the Mercury. And get me Kovor!’

Static hissed on the viewscreen, then cleared to show the Mat’lor’s captain on his bridge.

‘You were warned, Pentecost. Cease your fabrication of Starfleet lies, or I will have to ensure there is nothing left for you to prop up this deceit!’

‘This is a total violation of the treaty!’ Pentecost barked. ‘But more than that, you’re destabilising the wrecks and pouring energy into the nebula plasma! Stop firing, or you’ll trigger a chain reaction you can’t control.’

Kovor sneered. ‘My sensors show no sign of such danger.’

‘Your sensors aren’t designed to pick up minor fluctuations in the ionisation of nebula plasma! Ours are – and by the time you detect it, it’ll -’

‘How fitting!’ Kovor scoffed. ‘That your justification for me to stop scouring this site of lies is one that Federation sensors can read, but Klingon ones cannot. A weak gambit, Captain.’ He was mid-barking fresh orders to fire even as he cut the line.

On the screen, another disruptor shot lanced out, striking the Stavanger’s hull anew. From Science, the sensor feed continued, the feedback storm growing.

Pentecost felt her gut twist. Two of her officers were out there, on the Mercury, exposed to this threat – while wreckage continued to drift towards the atmosphere of a world that would be forever changed by the sight of it.

‘Valois,’ she whispered, and gave the order to open a channel.

‘Sorry to say we’re aware of the problem, Captain,’ said Valois as the Mercury’s bridge shook around them. Dust drifted free of the ceiling, shaking about in zero gravity.

‘We can’t leave the planet, but the Caliban is en route to get you out. Hold -’

Then Pentecost’s voice was swallowed in their helmets by static. Renard stared at Valois as he thudded his wrist panel, expression twisting with frustration.

‘Whatever’s going on out there has increased interference from the nebula,’ he said. ‘The Tempest’s too far out now.’

She rounded on the Klingons, voice tight. ‘Your captain’s not just destroying wrecks. He’s going to get us both killed.’

‘More than that,’ said Valois as he continued to read the data feed and projection that Pentecost had sent them. ‘If this keeps up, ionised nebula plasma’s going to form a localised storm that could rip even the Mat’lor apart.’

‘My captain is stubborn,’ said Ash’rogh, setting his feet, ‘but not stupid. He has no reason to trust your ship, but once he detects this build-up of ionised plasma, he will see the threat.’

Valois’s voice was iron-tight. ‘It might be too late by then.’

Another tremor rolled through the wreck, harsher this time. The limited emergency lights on the Mercury’s bridge sputtered and died, casting them into a darkness broken only by the surviving consoles and their headlamps.

‘I’m confirming download of the Mercury’s logs,’ snapped Renard, rounding on the controls. ‘We might have to settle for whatever we’ve already extracted. Is there anywhere on this wreck that’s going to be safer than this?’ The breach in the bridge hull hadn’t grown, but it felt bigger, now, looming – and exposing.

Jodrak looked at the immobile Ash’rogh, then back to Valois. ‘What of the shuttle your captain is sending?’

‘Still too far out,’ said Valois. ‘That leaves only one option.’ All eyes landed on Ash’rogh.

The big Klingon stood with his arms folded. At last, he exhaled like the breath had to be dragged from his lungs, and raised his wrist comm. ‘Mat’lor. This is Ash’rogh. We require emergency beam-out from the Mercury – all four of us. This wreck is failing.’

There was a pause, then Kovor’s voice cut in, ringing with satisfaction. ‘At last. Tell me, Lieutenant – is it done? The records, the lies, purged?’

Renard’s stomach twisted as Ash’rogh’s visor turned towards her. He’d watched as she downloaded the files from the Mercury. The two stood locked in silence for a beat. Then,

‘They are gone,’ Ash’rogh lied. ‘The Starfleet officers protested, but it is done. They are no threat to bring with us.’

Kovor gave a satisfied growl. ‘Good. Stand by.’

The Mercury groaned again, a jagged crack tearing across a bulkhead. A panel blew, sparks hissing. Renard’s mag-boots jarred on the deck.

‘Emergency systems collapsing,’ Valois confirmed. ‘She won’t hold together much longer.’

Then the transporter field grabbed them, green light shimmering around their suits. The last thing Renard saw of the Mercury’s bridge was Captain Malard’s shattered chair, lit briefly by a spark before the storm swallowed it.

They materialised in the Mat’lor’s transporter bay, boots clanging on a deck alive with power. At once, Jodrak pulled off his helmet, and his booming laugh was the first sound from beyond her suit that Renard had heard for hours.

‘Death shall wait another day!’ he proclaimed, slapping Ash’rogh hard on the shoulder.

Ash’rogh rocked at this but did not react, and the other three were slower to remove their helmets. The air tasted different on a Klingon ship, Renard thought; more metallic, the scent of Klingon life in the air. It was still somehow richer than the tinny, recycled oxygen of her EV suit.

But with her helmet off, she could hear it: the sound of disruptor fire as the Mat’lor carried on its work, isolating and destroying Starfleet wrecks bearing truths its captain could not bear to hear, undaunted by threats and warnings alike.

And further beyond, all around them, the storm would only grow. With them now deep within its heart.