‘We’re minutes out, sir,’ came Drake’s brisk report.
‘Boost power to the forward sensor array,’ said Rourke, glancing
over his shoulder to Airex at Science. ‘Let’s make sure there’s nothing in our
path.’
‘Our route is clear, sir, up to sixty million kilometres of the
fight. It’ll be approximately fifteen minutes to engagement at full impulse,’
Airex confirmed.
‘Elsa, let the Blakewater
know. Tell them to hang on just a little longer.’ Fifteen minutes was nothing in space travel.
It was everything in a battle.
‘We’re at the periphery of the system; reducing speed to Warp 2,’
said Drake.
Valance sat up. ‘Red alert.’
‘Blakewater
seems to be holding against the Birds-of-Prey,’ reported Kharth from Tactical.
Rourke nodded, jaw tight. It
was feeling like a dance by now, this rapid deployment, this heart-stopping
anxiety as they hurtled into danger, where all he could think was move faster, get there faster. Risk life
and limb, his ship and his crew; let them
take weapons fire so others didn’t have to. This was what they were trained for, what Endeavour was
built for. What he was built for.
A treacherous thought. And one
he didn’t have time for.
‘Sir!’ Kharth’s voice had a fresh tension. ‘The Pendle’s drifting,
but they’ve sent out a fresh
distress call. They’ve been boarded, and they already had significant
casualties from the fight.’
‘Tell the King
Arthur to make ready to launch; we’ll send the Hazard Team to reinforce,’ said Rourke.
‘I’m not sure they’ve got fifteen
minutes, sir.’
He looked down at the display
next to his armrest, then up at Drake. ‘Helm, you up for doing something stupid?’
‘Pretty much my job description, sir.’
‘Shave off a few more million kilometres before you drop out of
warp.’
He could feel Airex stiffen behind him. ‘Sir, I can’t recommend us maintaining warp speed in a battlefield
-’
‘I said a few million kilometres, not on top of them.’ Rourke
paused. ‘Get on top of them if you can, Drake.’
‘Sir, I don’t -’
‘Linking navigational sensors directly to the forward array,’
Thawn interrupted, her voice slightly higher-pitched. ‘Lieutenant Kharth, if
you boost power to the the navigational deflectors then I can adjust our safety
threshold on collision detection -’
Kharth gave a gentle snort that
sounded approving. ‘On it.’
Valance squinted. ‘What does this get us, for what risk?’
Rourke lifted a hand to her. ‘It gets us there sooner.’
‘Or we don’t get there at all,’ warned Airex.
Drake looked over his shoulder,
impatient. ‘Skipper, I can do it.’
‘Yes,’ Thawn chimed in, eyes cautious. ‘We can.’
Rourke nodded. ‘Alright.’ He glanced back. ‘I’d put your
objection on the record, Commander Airex, but if you’re right then there won’t be a record.’
Valance leaned in as they set
to work, dropping her voice. ‘Sir…’
‘You once accused me of being the guts and glory type of leader,
Commander.’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Maybe that’s what today needs.’
* *
Captain Fostig had been in
Starfleet for sixty years. That covered a supernova, the Dominion and Klingon
wars, two Borg incursions. He had spent almost three decades as a calm and
steady first officer, guiding mighty ships and brilliant but jittery young
commanders through their first steps. The ancient dignity of the USS Blakewater, patrolling a peaceful border
with the Federation’s
closest allies, had been a transparent end-of-career gift from Starfleet
Command. An opportunity for some quiet years training green officers, and
letting him eventually retire with all of the prestige of a starship captain.
It hadn’t happened sooner because Fostig was thoughtful
and patient but unimaginative, outstanding at managing a situation directly in
front of him, but wavering when the buck stopped with him. Fostig knew this,
accepted it; had been all of thirty-six when he’d realised he was already
approaching the apex of his career. That was fine. It meant the twilight of his
professional life would be peaceful.
Or at least, it was supposed to be peaceful. As a fresh
explosion racked the Blakewater’s hull, Fostig suspected the twilight of his
professional life would be violent and brief.
‘Lateral sensors offline!’ shouted the science officer who’d had
to take over at Operations. ‘Trying to reroute power to the targeting sensors -’
‘No point!’ called back Tactical. ‘That last shot took out our
dorsal phaser array; we’re down to torpedoes and they’ve been evading…’
Fostig drew a deep breath that
sounded more like a wheezing snort. ‘Where are those damned
reinforcements!’ Endeavour
was at least fifteen minutes out when last he’d checked. Had it been fifteen minutes? Fifteen
seconds? A lifetime?
He had no answer, Tactical just
swearing under his breath. ‘Captain, I’m detecting Klingon life-signs on the Pendle.
They’ve been boarded.’
‘Course they have. We will be, too, if we let them peel off our
shields like this.’ Fostig wrinkled his wide nose and looked up. ‘Helm, get me
in close to the nearest Bird-of-Prey. Right up their nostrils. Right on top of
them.’
‘Uh… yes, sir. What’re you going to do, sir?’
Not really sure. Was sort of hoping I’d have an idea once I got there. He gripped his armrest,
looking from his central seat down about the bridge of bright young faces. None
of them were the blazing future of Starfleet, the officers who would set the
service alight. Those went to mightier, newer starships. These were the ones
who would labour every day, give sweat and blood, and still be considered
under-achievers. But they were his.
‘If we stay on top of them, they can’t cloak,’ he said, and hoped
that was true. ‘If we stay on top of them, we can pump them full of torpedoes
even when we’re half-blind. If we stay on top of them, we are going to take a
hell of a pounding, but at worst we take them down with us, they don’t get to
the colony, and when reinforcements arrive we’ve softened them up…’ He could
not outwit and outflank the D’Ghor with guile and brilliance, because he was
but a dour and unimaginative man. But he was a determined man, and that meant his ship could
unimaginatively sink her teeth into the enemy with an iron grip and never let
go as they scratched and bit and clawed each other to the end. Uninspiring. Got
the job done.
It wasn’t meant to end like this.
‘Ops, give me more power to impulse engines,’ said Helm as the Blakewater surged
from her limp evasions into a dead sprint. ‘We gotta run them down.’
‘Establishing a close-range targeting solution,’ Tactical
confirmed.
‘I can’t - oh.’ Operations - Science, really - looked up with wide
eyes. ‘I’ve got another ship coming in, but damage to sensors means I can’t
confirm an ID…’
Fostig gave a deep, snuffling
snort. ‘So make it simple.
On-screen.’ Let’s see our doom.
It had not been long enough,
not nearly enough lifetimes, for Endeavour
to arrive. And yet the viewscreen flashed to life to show the blazing
battlefield in orbit of Taldir VII, the remains of a firefight between the Pendle and the Bird-of-Prey trying to
gut her, the orbital defence platforms raining fire on the D’Ghor even as they were snuffed out one-by-one,
and the two enemy ships trying to rip the Blakewater apart hull panel by hull panel. But
the broad belly of a Manticore was
enough to almost fill the view, the flashing of her phasers and torpedoes
lighting up the display in a final flourish.
The Blakewater’s bridge broke into celebratory
hoots and hollers, and Fostig almost collapsed back in his chair as Ops spoke. ‘Endeavour’s hailing us, sir.’
‘Put them through, and promise them your first-born.’
The Blakewater’s bridge was a little small and
run-down even at the best of times. Fostig had long ago abandoned bitterness
towards bigger, newer ships, but even had that not been the case it was only
relieving to see the larger, bustling heartbeat of their salvation on the
viewscreen, and the stout - younger - human face of its master. ‘This
is Captain Rourke, USS Endeavour. You’ve done all you can, Blakewater; get some distance.’
‘Not that I don’t appreciate getting breathing room, Endeavour, but
we can still help. Keep patching us targeting telemetry and we’ll rain down torpedoes.’ Fostig gestured to
Helm and Tactical for the withdrawal and the sensor synchronisation, then
narrowed his heavily-lidded eyes at Captain Rourke. ‘You’re quicker than we
expected.’
Rourke shrugged like he hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, enough to save
however many lives that would have been lost had the D’Ghor downed the Blakewater and
continued their attack run on Taldir VII unimpeded. ‘Took
a shortcut, Captain. You’d have done the same.’
No, thought Captain Fostig as he gave the orders for
his ship to pull out of the thickest fighting, Endeavour’s phasers peeling away the
Bird-of-Prey they’d
intended to grab in a death-grip. No, I’d have probably arrived exactly when I was supposed to.
But as Endeavour dived into the beating heart of the firefight before
them, weapons blazing and enemy fire cascading off their deflectors, a bright
beacon that could burn out with just a sliver of bad fortune, he didn’t envy what their brilliance had won them.
* *
The King Arthur lurched as Harkon twisted them away from weapons fire,
out of the thickest chokehold of fighting Endeavour
had dropped into, and towards the Bird-of-Prey hunched like a buzzard over
the shattered frame of the Pendle.
Dathan leaned over the Science controls and shook her head. ‘Klingon life-signs on several decks, but their
shields are down.’
Behind her, Rhade gripped the
door-frame to the cockpit. ‘Harkon, get us closer to the Pendle so we can beam over. What’s the Bird-of-Prey doing?’
‘Watching,’ said the pilot, not looking back. ‘Kind of unsettling,
to be honest.’
Dathan drew a sharp breath. ‘You’ll need to let me finish explaining before
you object,’ she said, ‘but we should board the Bird-of-Prey first.’
‘What -’
‘If we board the Pendle
and repel the D’Ghor, then the Bird-of-Prey has no reason to not open fire and
take out the entire ship,’ she pressed over him. ‘Unless Endeavour can
pull her off in that time, and that’s not guaranteed. But if we take the Bird-of-Prey while most of
her crew are boarding the Pendle, we
can take the bridge, maybe even from there beam the D’Ghor off the Pendle…’
‘The Bird-of-Prey’s shields are up,’ said Harkon. ‘They’re low,
but we couldn’t just beam in.’
Rhade blew his cheeks out. ‘Can you latch us onto their hull?’ He shrugged
as Dathan gave him a startled but approving look. ‘You’re right. And this way,
we take the fight to them.’
‘Okay,’ said Harkon in a sing-song voice as her hands flew over
the flight controls. ‘I’d like to officially stop flying the Hazard Team
places, your missions keep going nuts.’
* *
Rourke watched on the
viewscreen as the Bird-of-Prey twisted and turned, trying to escape the barrage
of phaser fire Kharth was sending thudding into its hull with pinpoint
accuracy. For a moment it looked like the gleam of their deflectors would take
the worst of it, then the ship jolted. In an instant, Kharth had redoubled fire
on that point, phasers breaking through the shields to rake directly across the
hull and engines.
For just an instant, he
considered telling Kharth to hold fire. The Bird-of-Prey would drift, crippled
from this damage, no danger to anyone - probably. But even if it was, what
then? What of the crew?
It was not that Rourke
consciously chose to let his Tactical Officer keep firing until the D’Ghor ship was enveloped in the detonation of
its own warp core. But he certainly took too long deliberating to stop her.
‘Coming about!’ Drake reported as Endeavour swung away from the high-orbit inferno
of the Bird-of-Prey, and Rourke’s head snapped over to Lindgren.
‘The Pendle? The
Hazard Team?’
‘Hazard Team has taken the Bird-of-Prey’s bridge,’ said Lindgren,
eyebrows rather raised. ‘They’re moving onto the Pendle. Lieutenant Rhade says they’ve got it in hand.’
‘Let’s trust them. Where’s the other Bird-of-Prey?’
‘They’re - blast.’ Airex sucked his teeth. ‘There’s a breach in
the orbital shield, they’re heading for the surface.’
Kharth’s eyes narrowed. ‘They’ll try to land or beam
down and send warriors to a settlement -’
‘Or they know they’ve lost,’ said Valance in a low voice, ‘and won’t
care about bombarding from orbit. Remember, if they can’t win then they mean to
make us bleed.’
Rourke sat back in his chair
and gripped the armrests. ‘Lieutenant Kharth, direct a security team to make ready to deploy
to the surface if they drop raiders. Drake? Take us in after them.’
It was Thawn who turned with
the inevitable concerned objection. ‘Ah, Captain, Endeavour
isn’t really rated for
atmospheric flight below the thermosphere…’
‘Then we catch up with them quick.’ There was already a rumble as Endeavour followed
the Bird-of-Prey through the damaged gap in the planetary shields of Taldir VII,
and into the exosphere. ‘Go for their engines, Kharth.’
‘Trying, sir, once we have a line of fire. They have a bit of a
lead on us, and targeting in atmo is… different.’
Drake made a frustrated noise. ‘They’re coming on a much more direct landing
arc, but they’re made to
land, Captain, I can’t
follow them like this.’
‘Do what you can.’ Rourke looked at Valance, whose expression was
set. ‘It’s a Code Blue for landing, right?’
‘That’s on a ship that canland.’
‘Pretty sure we can land.’
‘You know what I mean, sir.’
From behind him, Kharth
muttered something in her native tongue before piping up with, ‘Captain, I’m switching to torpedoes only, and
setting them to self-detonate after sixteen seconds; if they miss, they’ll
explode in the thermosphere and the remains will burn up before they hit the
surface.’
‘Anything you can pipe from orbital defences for a targeting lock?’
‘It’s not interference, they’re just more maneouvrable than us at
this altitude.’
Altitude was not a word Rourke liked hearing
about his ship’s situation. But before
he could think too hard about that, the comms went.
‘Engineering
to Bridge; what the hell?’
‘Fair question, Commander. We’re chasing them down in atmosphere -’
‘Really can’t recommend
going lower than two hundred kilometres. We’re in condition to fight and fly,
but after emergency warp speed for that long, not sure we have the thruster
power for enough lift to fly up if
we get that low.’
Rourke glanced at his display. ‘Can you do me one-hundred-fifty, Commander?’
‘Sir,
I am serious!’ Cortez’s
voice reverberated around the bridge. ‘This isn’t a coy underestimation to make me look good!
This ship has been through hell and wanting more out of her super
badly isn’t going to give us more
juice!’
His throat tightened, and in
the heartbeat he hesitated it was Valance who answered, louder and clearer. ‘We hear you, Commander. Keep us aloft until
then. Bridge out.’
He wanted to glare at her, but
didn’t have time. Despite
the ship shuddering under him, Rourke pushed himself to his feet. ‘You heard
Commander Cortez. Let’s not do the impossible. Let’s do the very difficult. We
won’t catch up, and we have limited time. So how do we hit them from here?’
‘I’m liaising with surface defences now, sir,’ Thawn immediately
spouted. ‘Trying to get us better targeting telemetry.’
‘It’s their evasion that’s the problem,’ Kharth reminded. ‘Not
that I can’t pick them up. I can’t predict where they’ll be.’
Rourke nodded. ‘Can we do anything to their sensors, or hit
them with something they can’t see coming?’
Valance grimaced. ‘It’s not as if we can induce atmospheric
conditions.’
‘Yes, we can.’ Airex straightened. ‘Tactical, I’m sending you some
calculated targeting data; with simultaneous torpedo launches you might be able
to do it.’
‘Do what?’ Rourke frowned.
But Kharth’s eyes were lighting up as she read. ‘Maybe - yes. If we fire here and here,
then a follow-up should get them.’
Airex’s expression visibly flickered at the
unconscious flash of familiarity, but he met Rourke’s gaze. ‘We don’t have much
time. Just trust me, sir. Trust us.’
Rourke sighed. ‘Damned if I’ve got a better idea.’
Kharth nodded. ‘Firing now.’ As they watched, a trio of
torpedoes rocketed away from Endeavour,
scoring across Taldir VII’s atmosphere towards the Bird-of-Prey.
‘They’ll dodge a dispersal pattern,’ Drake said, nose wrinkling.
‘I’m not trying to hit them with yet,’ said Kharth, and murmured
something under her breath Rourke thought might have been counting. Then she
launched two more torpedoes.
‘What’s that -’
‘Detonating volley one,’ Kharth interrupted, and he realised she
was talking to Airex, not him. As he watched, the torpedoes that had streaked
past the Bird-of-Prey like Drake had predicted exploded, a detonation of energy
and shrapnel that sent a burst of disruption even across Endeavour’s state-of-the-art sensor array. A burst the next
two torpedoes thudded into.
‘Confirmed detonation!’ Kharth snapped, clenching a fist. ‘We got
them.’ And as the sensors cleared up, nothing remained but the shattered
fragments of a Bird-of-Prey that had taken two torpedoes directly to the
engines.
Rourke’s heart surged, but he didn’t have time to
celebrate. ‘Get us out of here, Drake! All power to the impulse engines!’ The
shift on the deck alone was enough to force him back into his chair, gripping
for dear life, even if the strength hadn’t gone from his knees.
‘Leaving atmosphere!’ Drake confirmed. ‘We have lift, heading for
high orbit.’
Still Endeavour shuddered at the effort, at the massive amounts of power
it took to bring her huge form higher and higher, for the deflectors to protect
her against the burn of atmosphere. But Rourke granted himself five seconds to
put his head back and close his eyes, precious heartbeats of escape before he
finally looked at Kharth. ‘You detonated the torpedoes in front of them to muddy their
sensors, then hit them while they were too blinded to dodge, right?’
Kharth shifted her weight. ‘It was Commander Airex’s idea.’
‘Really,’ he said, ‘it was Commander Valance’s idea from Elgatis.
We have much better sensors than the D’Ghor. We can disrupt them without
blinding ourselves.’
Lindgren turned in her chair,
and Rourke straightened at once. ‘Captain, Hazard Team reports the Pendle is secure; they’ve taken heavy casualties, but the Blakewater is
coming in to render assistance. Taldir VII authorities confirm the surface is
secure, no D’Ghor got through.’
Something loosened in Rourke’s chest. ‘And the Fleet?’
‘Orders from Admiral Beckett are for all ships to hold to their
defensive zones; we’re not to chase off in case more cloaked enemies appear.
But with the KDF getting into it…’ Lindgren looked like she barely dared smile.
‘It’s not looking good for the D’Ghor, Captain.’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Valance cautiously, ‘then it’s over.’
He wanted to bend over in his chair,
let all strength give up and fade away, or maybe curl up and sleep for an eon.
Instead, Rourke forced himself to sit up as Endeavour’s deck stopped
rumbling, as the mighty ship rose to the upper atmosphere of Taldir VII, escaped
through the devastated planetary shielding. ‘If that’s the case,’ he said,
voice taut despite the relief thudding through him, ‘then we’ve won.’
Rourke hadn’t liked Kehinde Hargreaves very much when they’d
first met several months ago, and the prospect of him now commanding Beckett’s
flagship was not reassuring. But the weathered officer extended a hand as he
intercepted him outside the admiral’s new office, a guarded smile on his face.
‘I heard how one of the Taldir colonies would be a smoking wreck without
Endeavour.
That’s good work, Captain.’
Hargreaves’s eyes flickered to Rourke’s pips. ‘I’m not sure I congratulated you
on your promotion, either. Well-earned.’
It was rather sickening when
people he disliked were nice. Rourke gave a twist of the lips. ‘Thanks. Heard the Caliburn held the centre at Archanis IV.’
‘Couldn’t get as stuck in as we’d like with the admiral aboard,’
Hargreaves mused. ‘We held our own.’
‘Reckon we can all be pleased with ourselves.’ It was the politest
way to escape, and enter a meeting he’d soon want to escape from again.
Once, Lieutenant Dathan had
been the shadow at Beckett’s side in meetings, the one ready to furnish him with every
report and detail. As was inevitable he’d moved on with a new favourite, this
Commander Lockhart rather more nervy of disposition than the cool, professional
Bajoran. At least he got a polite smile.
‘Matt, excellent work at Haydorian and Taldir.’ Beckett’s voice
was silk on steel, the handshake firm, and Rourke braced himself as he sat
down. Opening with the good meant he wanted to be clear he’d acknowledged it
before he moved onto the bad. ‘How’s the ship?’
‘My Chief Engineer will skin me if I don’t put in at a serious
dockyards for further repairs, lurching from battle to battle. So my request is
for us to put in at Starbase Bravo, hand her over to a work team, and give the
crew some leave for a couple of weeks. They’ve held up well, but they need it.’
‘Mn.’ Beckett took a PADD off Lockhart and flicked from screen to
screen. ‘Talmiru. Elgatis. Haydorian. Taldir. A series of battles. Endeavour’s been bloodied, for certain.’ His eyes snapped up. ‘And your primary
mission?’
‘The Kut’luch was destroyed.’
‘By a press-ganged crew of pirates -’
‘My orders gave me a lot of latitude in how to conduct the hunt -’
‘Don’t lecture me on the reach of your orders, Captain, I wrote them,’ Beckett snapped. ‘You let the Kut’luch slip
through your fingers, and then had to turn to local rabble to finish the job -
and what on Earth possessed you to
then reward them?’
Rourke opened his mouth to reel
off the prepared arguments - then stopped, scowling. ‘Sir, you’re not that naive. You know why I did
it. Can you pinpoint a specific mistake I made, a different course of action I
should have taken rather than “do better?” My officers damn near threw
themselves into fire because I asked the impossible of them.’
Beckett merely arched an eyebrow.
‘That’s what crews are for, Captain.’ But he gave a low harrumph, and set the PADD
to one side. ‘If this Gaveq shows himself again, I will expect you to account
for yourself. Otherwise, Endeavour
is to be commended for the final battle. Oh, and… by all means. Permission granted for the
repairs and the leave.’
It was the closest he’d get to congratulations, and the closest he’d
get to Beckett accepting the deal he’d made with Captain Sadovu. But still he
had to press on. ‘The trust a crew has in us is a trust that we’ll only ask of
them what they can do, even if it’s their best, even if these are capabilities
they can’t see in themselves. It’s not a permit for us to push them to breaking
point.’
‘I am sorry for the losses you suffered.’ It was clear Beckett had
no real concept what Rourke was talking about, and had assumed this outburst
was a manifestation of grief. ‘I understand Elgatis in particular was vicious.’
And though that had not been
Rourke’s point, it still stuck
in his throat. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I’ll make sure Endeavour
is well-treated by Personnel for your replacement crew. Perhaps
some time with young officers, some fresh ensigns, and the missions to help
weather them will suit you for the next few months.’ That didn’t sound like a reward to Rourke, but
Beckett pressed on before he could object. ‘Oh, and Lieutenant Dathan appears
to have been a good fit. You should consider keeping her in your CIC.’
Like a once-favourite toy that
had bust some stitches, Beckett had played with Dathan and now grown bored.
Rourke shifted his weight. ‘She saw Haydorian coming.’
‘A product of her vantage point in the field. It seems a better
use of her skills.’
Rourke tried to not look at
Lockhart, lest his eyes give away the secret: He’ll tire of you, too. He’ll think he’s made you,
graced you with time by his side, then send you off to the galaxy to do his
bidding, part of this elite network. The secret is that his club hates him, and
still comes crawling back to him for scraps. Rourke knew he wasn’t all that different, despite his cynicism.
Beckett gave him what he needed, and he performed as requested. But the club looks after each other. ‘She’s more than earned a place on Endeavour.’
‘Then it is decided,’ said Beckett, and tapped the desk. ‘Always
good to see you, Matt, but there’s plenty to be done. Interrogations of Kuskir,
processing him while I liaise with Command on how to proceed with a trial…’
They’d both all gotten what they’d wanted. Beckett
had acted the kindly patron, jerking on the leash for good measure, while
Rourke had the promise of respite and reinforcement. But of course the admiral
had to make it clear this happened at his say-so, at his
indulgence.
And Rourke would make do with
his scraps.
* *
The officers’ mess was more of a bolt-hole than Endeavour’s busy, bustling main lounge. It was more cold metal
panels but was far more private, so Thawn had found a quiet corner of cushioned
chairs to curl up in with the latest reports. But her eyes had slid over them,
missing all detail, and she’d sunk into such a stupor that she was startled when someone sat
opposite her.
Lindgren’s smile was apologetic. ‘Penny for your
thoughts.’
‘A - what?’
‘Old Earth saying. I’m asking what’s on your mind.’
Elsa Lindgren had almost lost
an arm, and then been forced to listen to a whole facility die because Endeavour had to save someone else.
Thawn’s thoughts felt very
petty indeed. ‘Nothing exciting,’ she said evasively. ‘It’s just the logistics
reports. We’ve a lot of resupplying needed.’
‘Is that urgent?’ Lindgren smiled as Thawn shook her head, and
slid over a different stack of PADDs. ‘Then I have better recommended reading.’
Thawn picked them up gingerly. ‘What is it?’
‘Comms transcripts from the after action reports. Every world that
checked in, every task group.’ The smile went sad. ‘I’ve mostly listened to
cries for help the last few weeks. Some of these places were hit hard, but for
the most part, the message here is different: all is well.’
Thawn hesitated. ‘That’s not a logistics report.’
‘It’s not. I thought it might cheer you up.’ Lindgren shrugged. ‘Some
sign of the good we’ve done. It’s easy to lose sight of it.’
‘How do you do that?’ Thawn put the PADDs down. ‘How do you - Elsa,
how by the Great Fire does it not get too much?’
Lindgren bit her lip, amusement
hovering at the edge of her gaze. ‘I could make a pointed comment about how I talk about
my feelings, and even attended Counsellor Carraway’s sessions after Elgatis. Because I almost lost
an arm, and I was attacked at my post, and it was terrifying and there was
nothing I could do about it.’ She sighed, sober now, and shook her head. ‘You’re
pretty much a super-genius, Rosara. Turn those analytical skills a bit more on
yourself. You used to let Noah do it, but…’
Thawn braced herself, expecting
the stab of pain at the memory of Noah. The sting was different, though, and
rather than the bitter grief of loss, what she felt instead was a dull ache of
loneliness. It was no longer him that she missed. It was the companionship. She
reached again for the PADDs. ‘Alright. Maybe I’ll listen to these.’
‘Mm. And join me in one of Starbase Bravo’s lounges for drinks
once we get there. We’ll trawl for cute officers -’ Lindgren paused. ‘Is that
something you’re allowed to do? With Lieutenant Rhade around, I mean.’
‘There’s - it’s very complicated with Adamant and I,’ Thawn said
delicately. ‘But it’s also very simple in that I am certainly allowed to join you in that, and not
just because I have never successfully trawled
for anyone in my life.’
Lindgren laughed, her eyes
dancing. ‘We’ll try to do
something about that.’
Thawn joined in, but she left
the officers’ mess not long after,
because it had gotten later than she’d expected, and she still needed to sleep
if the basic systems repairs were going to get done the next day. So she
returned to Deck 2, and spotted a familiar figure down the corridor ahead when
she emerged from the turbolift.
Thawn broke into a jog. ‘Drake!’
He was out of uniform, back to
the state of casual déshabillé
that these days seemed to follow him off-duty, but when he turned at her voice
his gait was anything but relaxed. ‘Lieutenant.’
She slowed, apprehensive all of
a sudden. ‘I just - I wanted to
talk. We’ve not talked in a while.’ They had certainly not talked since Rourke
had chewed them out, nor since the incident for which he’d done so. Had they
talked, in fact, since Rhade’s arrival?
He folded his arms across his
chest. ‘Alright.’
‘I didn’t mean here.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, come on, Drake. We
did a great job at Taldir, bringing Endeavour
in that close to the firefight with -’
‘Yeah, it’s good we can work together. Was that it?’ He jerked a
thumb over his shoulder, eyes cold. ‘I got a guest heading to meet me at mine
soon. Want the place tidy before Adrienne gets there.’
Thawn faltered, the implication
not missed. ‘Oh. Oh, of course. I
won’t keep you.’ He left with barely more of a word, stalking back down the
corridor, and she watched him go with a similar dull pang to what she’d felt
when Lindgren had mentioned Noah. It wasn’t just him that she missed. When she
reached out to where he had been, for a time there had been the shadow of
Drake. And now there was nothing.
She had to fight to stop
wringing her hands together as she reached her next destination, and anxiously
she shifted her weight from foot to foot after she hit the door-chime.
Attempting to stifle that when the doors slid open was unsuccessful, and Adamant
Rhade’s gaze was immediately
concerned.
‘Rosara. Are you - please.’ Emotion shifted for his structured
formality, and he stepped back to usher her inside. ‘Can I get you something? A
drink?’
‘I need…’ She faltered as the doors slid shut behind her, and turned
to him. ‘People think I’m bad at people. And I am, I mean, I’m bad at people,
and aliens say I’m bad at people for a
Betazoid, but they really don’t understand it.’
Rhade didn’t look like he understood what she was saying,
either, but that was part of the point. He faced her head-on, listening despite
his confusion, and stayed silent.
‘At home, it was easy, wasn’t it? At home, we all just… share
thoughts. We can lock things away, but there’s no difficulty expressing
ourselves because we can reach out. There’s no difficulty understanding others,
because we can reach out. But out here it’s not acceptable, so I have to put
concepts into words I never had to before, and I have to read into tone and
expression that I never had to…’ Her voice trailed off, and she watched him,
anguished. ‘I’m an above-average telepath. That’s not a boast. It’s why I’ve
found it really hard to adapt; being out here’s been like cutting off a limb.
But you - didn’t you find it awful to adjust anyway?’
He nodded slowly. ‘It was difficult. But I adapted with time and
practice; I spoke with counsellors to learn how to better express myself, and
how to better read -’
‘I’m not asking how you got over it. I’m explaining why I’ve been
like this. With you.’ She gestured between them. ‘I don’t know how to put
things into words.’
It was an explanation and a
request, and her thudding heart was somehow both soothed and tensed when she
felt his mind brush up against hers, a tentative invitation and offer. It had
been so long since she’d communicated
telepathically, since she’d expressed herself in the only way which came as
easy as breathing, and still she’d been so accustomed to everything being
trapped inside that she hesitated.
One thing. She could perhaps
let one thing through, and see if the sky fell in before she opened more.
Especially to him, to this man whom everyone had decided was for her, yet maddeningly was the only one who could
reach her like this.
It was almost despite herself
that Elgatis came flooding to the forefront: the boarding, taking position
against the oncoming D’Ghor,
hunkering down to cover Valance - and then, as the blood and death flew through
the air, ducking down in one moment to get out of the way and not rising. Her
arms refusing to pull her up, her lungs refusing to bring breath back in, her
every instinct howling at her to just stay down, and her body obeying even as her
mind tried to scream that she was a Starfleet
officer, and it was her duty to fight.
And, of course, Kharth beating
her raw with words in the armoury after.
Rhade did not push. His mind
stayed close throughout, but he kept his distance, letting her come to him, and
he did not let anything of his own feelings, his own reaction, leak through.
She suspected this was intended as a courtesy, but it left her shaky when it
ended, pulling away to revert to words, because if she could not read him then
she could not let herself be open any more.
‘I was a coward,’ she said, and found her treacherous throat dry.
He did not reply at once. He
did get her a glass of water, and then guide her to the sofa, and put a hand at
her back and kept it there, and she remembered how the body was sometimes even
better than the mind to communicate. When he, too, spoke out loud, his voice
was gentler and kinder than it had ever been when she imagined him hearing
this. ‘You weren’t trained for
that.’
‘I’m a Starfleet officer -’
‘You are an operations officer. One capable, by all accounts, of
phenomenal acts from the bridge of a starship. Of inventing a new use of
transporter technology to breach shifting dimensional alignments to save
Captain Rourke’s life. Of calculating an impossibly dangerous flight route to
our destination so we could arrive minutes faster and save who knows how many
lives. These are all things I couldn’t do.’
She shook her head. ‘But I couldn’t shoot a phaser as well as you,
and I’m not blaming myself for that, it’s just training -’
‘Facing violence is a matter of training.’ Rhade sighed and looked
away for a moment. ‘There is no way for me to phrase this which does not sounds
self-aggrandising, or obnoxiously masculine, or glorifying some warrior-ethos.
Many people can adapt to many things, with preparation and exposure. Violence
is one of them. So are heart-stoppingly high stakes on a starship bridge. I do
not pretend that violence is different, and I do not mean to demean you or pity
myself when I say that hardening one’s self to violence comes with a price, but
it does. And I commit, as a tactical officer and as the leader of the Hazard
Team, not only to hardening myself to it, but to retaining my personhood, my
warmth, my love, in spite of it.’
A bitter laugh escaped her
lips. ‘I’m not sure I have
either that physical courage or that
personal warmth.’
‘Lieutenant Kharth was wrong to blame you. It was unacceptable of
her, in fact. I will do her the kindness of remembering she was grieving heavy losses
in the Security Department, including Otero, but I will not accept her treating
you that way. And nor should you.’ He opened then shut his mouth, and again shook his head. ‘I won’t
patronise you by saying that you have skills and capabilities I do not, though
you do. What I will say is this: your strength - your value - is
not defined by how little an atrocity makes you flinch.’
She swallowed. ‘I shouldn’t have volunteered for the mission.’
He frowned. ‘Commander Valance asked for you. She wanted
your skills with the refinery’s system. Do you recall how you accessed them and
got us to where the civilians were just minutes ahead of the D’Ghor? Do you realise that we couldn’t have
saved those lives if it hadn’t been for you?’
She had honestly forgotten.
Everything before the firefight was a dull blur, and all she remembered was
hiding until it was over and she could see the bodies. She had to close her
eyes against the wave of emotions, of grief and guilt, and work harder still to
keep that wave in her thoughts from him. His hand stayed at her shoulder, and
that was something else to fight, too, to not lean into him and his warmth and
contact.
‘Thank you,’ she croaked at last, and stood before her treacherous
feelings tugged further at her. ‘I should - I should go, I still have work
tomorrow -’
He stood as she did, crisp and
precise, the picture of Betazoid courtesies and etiquette. ‘Of course. Rest well, but I… if you ever need
to talk of this, or think of this, or truly, not think of this… I will be here.’
* *
‘If you’ve felt any pain and aren’t telling me…’ Sadek’s voice
promised a subtle but petty retribution as she made Airex stretch his left arm
out.
But the tall Trill extended his
limbs with no apprehension or grimace. ‘Truly, Doctor, I feel better. Consider it a testament to your
skills.’
‘Hm. Flattery will always
distract me.’ She snapped the
tricorder shut, and ushered him up off the biobed. ‘Very well, Commander, I’m
satisfied by your recovery. We can shift your check-ups to weekly. If you take
leave when we’re offered it, you had best tell me where so I can make you a
local referral.’
‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’
Sadek tapped her updates onto
his chart on her PADD. ‘No family on Trill to visit?’
‘I have family. I hadn’t contemplated what I’d do if we’re granted
a few weeks. There’s been plenty to preoccupy us. If that’s all, Doctor?’
‘Oh, yes. Haydorian and Taldir were terribly dull, I hardly have
anyone to put back together, but I suppose you’re taking up my precious sitting
time.’ With the disinterested flap of the hand, she ushered him away.
But the Sickbay doors slid open
before he approached to admit Lieutenant Kharth, and despite his best efforts
these past months, the unexpected sight of her was still enough to stop him
dead.
She hesitated, too, drawing an
inch straighter. ‘Commander.
Everything’s well?’
He nodded quickly. ‘A final check-up with Doctor Sadek,’ he
explained, aware the CMO herself was hovering with her keen ear for gossip
deployed and pointed at them. ‘You?’
She lifted a hand and rolled
her eyes. ‘After getting through
almost all of this unscathed, I think I wrenched my wrist in the last battle.
Possibly hanging on when we went through atmospheric turbulences. I’ve not been
able to shake it off.’
‘Ah. Well, I’m sure the doctor can help.’ He squared his
shoulders, and drew a tense breath. ‘I should thank you, Lieutenant. For
Elgatis. That’s the second time you’ve saved me.’
He caught the flicker of guilt
in her eyes when she looked at him. ‘It’s my job, Commander.’ But she hesitated. ‘It was an outstanding
idea you had at Taldir.’
‘It was simple -’
‘But you went from concept to calculation to execution quicker
than anyone I know.’
‘The execution was yours,’ he pointed out. ‘And tremendously accurate.’
Silence hung between them,
stretched by all they wouldn’t and couldn’t say, and broke only when Sadek popped up with a
long-suffering air. ‘Much as I could listen to this all day; Lieutenant, you
need me?’
Airex inclined his head. ‘Of course, I’ll let you work, Doctor. Good day,
Lieutenant.’ He left before he had to look back, before he had to feel the gaze
of either of then, inquisitive or guarded, on him for any longer.
Perhaps it was not a bad idea
to take a few weeks’ leave
far, far away from Endeavour.
* *
Carraway made sure his smile
was as warm as possible when he put down the tea. ‘I think we’ve made a lot of progress,
Commander. Or, rather, you have.’
‘That’s your way of saying I should have more sessions,’ Valance
pointed out, sat across from him at his office’s comfortable seating. ‘I’m not
sure anything’s wrong; the last few weeks have simply been… difficult.’
‘Consider this the mental health equivalent of regular check-ups
with Sickbay,’ he said. ‘And you should treat the last few weeks as body blows in
your mind.’ He cocked his head,
and loaded what he’d always intended to leave as the parting topic of their
session. ‘Have you spoken about much of this with Isa?’
Valance sighed. ‘I’ve not not spoken about it. We’ve been busy, and I didn’t want to get into the Long Walk until I
could explain it properly. I’m sure she’ll say much as you have -’
‘I hope not, or I could have just sent you to her.’ His smile
softened. ‘All I’ll suggest is that you take time for yourself the next few
weeks. For yourselves.’
‘We’ve…’ Valance shifted her weight. ‘Off-handedly mentioned the
upcoming leave. It would be a step to vacation together. But. Perhaps.’
Carraway tried to not look
patronising as he nodded. ‘Perhaps. That’s good.’ He let her end it there, and not just
because she was his last session at the end of his shift, and he, too, was
contemplating what leave would look like once they were at Starbase Bravo. In
practice, he anticipated deferring his to stay at the starbase and offer to
help crewmembers who would benefit from further sessions, further opportunities
to work through what they’d been through.
That at least included planning
his holodeck time.
The other reason he was happy
to pack off Valance in a quick and timely fashion was because she wasn’t his last meeting before his shift ended. He made sure
the lighting was less determinedly gentle, that he’d stopped the soothing music, and the fresh
steaming mugs were set on his desk instead of the comfortable seating when
Lieutenant Dathan arrived.
She still eyed the room with a
hint of suspicion. ‘I didn’t
know this was a session, Counsellor.’
‘It’s not.’ He smiled and extended a mug of tea. ‘I heard your
assignment with us is permanent. I hope you’ll accept my congratulations.’
She took the mug, still
cautious. ‘It’s a change.’
‘I also hope you don’t take it as a mark against you from Admiral
Beckett.’
‘Most officers only spend some months in his office. I didn’t
expect to be different.’
‘That’s an evasion,’ he pointed out. ‘But I didn’t ask you here to
talk about that. If you’re going to be a permanent crewmember of Endeavour,
however, that makes your wellbeing my concern.’
‘I suppose.’ She took a cautious sip.
‘I expect that I’ll have your records, medical and professional,
forwarded to me soon. I would normally say your “full” records, but that’s why
we’re here.’ He looked across the mug at her. ‘Will they be your full records?’
Dathan took a slow breath. ‘No,’ she said at length.
He nodded. ‘You would know better than me if I’ll get
anywhere trying to request those. But I understand this is a delicate topic. So
my second question, Lieutenant, is this: may I try to request your full records?’
Her gaze pinched. ‘I expect you won’t be successful, Counsellor.’
‘But may I try?’ The corners of his eyes creased. ‘I won’t read
anything into a refusal, Lieutenant. I’m not asking to push, I’m asking because
I want you to be able to set you boundaries with me.’
‘You constantly
challenge the boundaries of crewmembers.’
‘That’s an unkind way of framing my work,’ he pointed out. ‘But I’ll
take that as a refusal. That’s quite alright, Lieutenant. I want to keep
working with you; I think adapting to Endeavour will be a challenge, and it’s one I want to help with. So let me make it
clear: I want you - everyone on this ship - to be able to be emotionally honest
with themselves. That’s what I push. Sometimes that means people are
emotionally honest with me, but
that really isn’t my goal. If I don’t
have your permission to pursue these records, I won’t do that, but it won’t
change my primary goal. Even if it means we have to work around the unknown.’
She drained the teacup quickly,
far too quickly, before returning it to his open hand. ‘I accept your terms, Counsellor. Was that all?’
‘Oh, no.’ He smiled kindly. ‘Before you go, let me say: Welcome
aboard. It’s a pleasure to have you here.’
* *
The beating heart of the ship
was slow and steady, the great giant Endeavour
sleeping even as she hurtled through the cosmos away from the Archanis
Sector. But engineers had been dispatched to rest, and at a steady Warp 6,
their pace was not enough to need more than a perfunctory oversight in Main
Engineering.
Rourke was unsurprised to find
that oversight came from Cortez herself, stood at the pool table console with
rolled-up sleeves and loosened collar. ‘You should give yourself some of the time off you give them,’ he
suggested.
Her tired eyes flickered up to
him. ‘Could say the same to
you, Boss.’
‘I’ll sleep when we’re at Bravo. Maybe.’
‘Don’t I get to say the same?’ She rolled a shoulder. ‘Gonna be
presumptuous, but I reckon you know this as well as I do: a ship’s got two
masters, not just you. And I’m the other one.’
‘I do know that.’ He approached the console and touched the
display only gingerly. He knew a ship by instinct and experience; knew how to
feel the deck under him and knew what the reports that came to him directly
meant. That was different to the raw data of the ship’s condition from the
display. ‘I’ve meant to talk to you for a bit.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘A bit?’
‘Since Elgatis, I guess.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Cortez nodded. ‘You were an ass.’
Rourke didn’t need his staff to treat him with reverence,
but he still looked up sharply, startled. Disrespect from Cortez was new. ‘Commander?’
‘Look, either you came down here to say you’re sorry, in which
case you know I’m right, or you really
need me to stop mincing my words.’
‘I did come down here to apologise. I didn’t listen to you enough
the last few weeks. I kept demanding more and more of you and your team, and
taking your successes for granted but refusing to acknowledge your limitations.’
‘I’m just - nope.’ Cortez clicked her tongue. ‘I was gonna say I’m
glad you listened to me at Taldir like that resolved everything, ‘cos I’m not
good at hitting folks when they’re down. But I’ll let you work through this.’
He slumped at that, somewhat
deflated. ‘I could talk about the
pressure of the mission. Or repeat that I think you’re excellent at your job,
so I have a lot of faith in you, and unfairly turned that into asking too much
of you.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, you did do that. But don’t be too kind to yourself,
Captain. I warned you we couldn’t chase the Kut’luch after Elgatis, and you pretty
much yelled at me to shut up and do it anyway.’ She shifted her weight unhappily. ‘What, you did that because
you just think I’m that gosh-darn
good?’
‘When you put it like that…’
‘And normally you’d have Commander Valance to tell you to wind
your neck in, except she’d just been through hell, you then put her through more hell,
and she’s my girlfriend and is trying to be professional about it.
Especially when you’d just ripped into Thawn and Drake for letting personal
stuff get in the way.’ She winced. ‘I do like you, Captain. I’m not a woman to
hold a grudge. But I think this is stuff you need to own.’
Rourke’s shoulders sagged more, his smile rather sad
when he managed it. ‘You don’t mince your words when you need to speak up, do
you, Cortez?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t reckon we’re going to talk like this
often, Captain. So I figured I’d get it all out now. There’s not anything you can say - look, you’ve apologised, I’ve said my bit.’ She
hesitated. ‘Which means I really should say it all.’
He rocked back on his heels. ‘This was you holding back?’
‘I didn’t care about the you vs MacCallister conflict when we both
arrived,’ Cortez admitted. ‘I liked this ship, you were my captain, who came
before didn’t matter to me. But I watched. Saw you wrestle Karana on-side,
because you sort of had to. Saw you cosy up to Saeihr. And you worked around
Airex, but he’s a tough nut to crack. But basically, you got some of us super on
board with you, not just professionally, but as a figurehead, or a… I guess a big brother figure. Karana likes
you. Elsa’s friendly with everyone, but you adopted her like it sounds
MacCallister did. And you took Rosara under your wing.’ She sighed. ‘Then there’s
me, and Greg, and I think Connor, but he’s a weird case right now. And you
haven’t so much as tried
to charm us.’
Rourke frowned. ‘I needed to charm you?’
‘No, but you didn’t need to
charm Rosara, either; she’s a neurotic mess who’s too desperate for approval to oppose you.
Some of us you couldn’t establish a personal relationship - again, Airex -
and some, you established a personal relationship with really firm power dynamics. So I…’ Her voice trailed off, and she sighed, looking irritated with
herself. ‘This is partly none of my business. But I’ve seen what you’ve done,
Captain. Any one of us in the senior staff who might possibly have
the emotional maturity or freedom to
treat you like an equal, or as much as possible with Starfleet hierarchy, you’ve doubled-down on keeping at arm’s length. Is
it because we might call you on your shit?’
He planted his hands on the
controls, studying the details of the ship that he’d never be able to understand - and didn’t,
because his mind and heart and skills were elsewhere, and because the woman
across the table, Endeavour’s second master, understood it for him. Rourke took
a slow breath. ‘Alright. I guess there’s
only two things for me to do here, right? The first is to say that I am sorry. I do trust and respect
you as Chief Engineer, and wouldn’t have had you promoted, made third officer, if I didn’t. And I
should have listened to you more.’ He scrubbed his face, felt his scratchy
beard in need of trimming. ‘Second is that when this is all over, you and me
should sit down with a bottle of whisky. Because I thought I had someone on the
senior staff who gave it to me straight, but I need to remember that Aisha
prides herself on being the outside observer.’
‘Not at all me, Captain. I’m neck-deep in this ship. Nearly damn
well died for it. And I don’t think you need to hide from us like you do.’
Cortez’s expression at once shifted back for her usual, cheerful smile. ‘I look
forward to whisky. Might make it tequila.’
‘I… that might
be a bit more contentious.’ But he managed his own smile, nodding, and stepped away. ‘Alright.
I’ll let you get back to it, Commander. Try to take your leave somewhere sunny,
and maybe take Valance with you.’
‘Working on it,’ said Cortez wryly. ‘Thanks for coming down here,
sir.’ She glanced up, lips twisting. ‘Oh, and - apology accepted, Captain.’
That brought more relief than
he expected, and he left Main Engineering with more energy in his tired step.
But this was not the first apology he was due to give, so he didn’t let himself slow down as he headed for the
turbolift, lest he find any excuse to stop or go somewhere else.
He was so determined in making
it to his destination that he almost swore when the turbolift doors slid open
to show Dathan, and some of that must have shown on her face because she raised
an eyebrow. ‘Captain.’
He slid inside and hit the
panel for his destination. ‘Settling in?’ he said instead as the turbolift whirred to life.
‘I will once we get to Bravo. My permanent quarters were there,
after all. I’ll just move over.’ There was a pause. ‘Thank you for asking for
me, sir, for Endeavour. I
know what the Admiral is like. I appreciate you making sure I went to a decent
assignment.’
‘Oh, Beckett would make sure you went somewhere decent.’ Rourke
watched the ceiling. ‘Just decent and convenient for him.’
‘You seem to be where things happen. After a long time only
analysing it from a distance, I would like to get back to these front-row
seats, so to speak.’ Another pause. ‘Some time - not right now - but some time,
there’s something I’d like to hear your assessment on, Captain: the rest of the
operations behind the Wild Hunt, this suspected incursion from another reality.’
Rourke nodded, but frowned. ‘You’ve read the files.’
‘Yes, sir. But I expect you have thoughts. And this feels like
something we need to take seriously.’
‘It is.’ His lips twisted, quietly pleased at her assertiveness. ‘Sure,
Lieutenant. When we’re at Bravo, we can go through notes and the CIC records. I’ll
bring you up to speed on how it’s all gone down from these new seats. Fair?’
‘More than fair, sir.’ Dathan inclined her head as the turbolift
reached her stop. ‘Good night, Captain.’
He sighed as he pressed on, and
tried to not fidget. It wouldn’t make this easier if he was still doing it by the time he hit
the door-chime to Josephine Logan’s quarters.
She answered in baggy clothes,
her hair up, jaunty music piping in from behind her, and his heart sank as he
realised he was interrupting a perfectly pleasant evening. Her apprehensive
smile rose. ‘Captain! I mean, Matt.’
He fought a smirk. ‘Should I start calling you Doctor Josie?’
‘That’d make me sound like a kids’ edutainment vid mascot, or
something.’ She stepped back to usher him inside. ‘You’ve caught me clocking
off at the end of the day, but don’t worry, I’m not yet at the stage of drinking wine and dancing in my
underwear…’ Her voice trailed off
at his expression. ‘Not that I do that, no way.’
He still hovered near the door,
trapped by the mantle of being Captain Rourke, upon whose frayed edges Cortez
had gnawed and tugged. He flexed his hand. ‘I shouldn’t interrupt your evening.’
‘I - you think I had big plans if I was definitely not going
to dance in my underwear? It’s just me, the wine, and some sexy, sexy new journal articles.’
Shaking her head at herself, Josie padded across her room. ‘How about I get
that wine, then you tell me what’s going on, and Ishut up forever?’
As ever, Rourke couldn’t quite suppress his smile. ‘I’m doing the
rounds of things I needed to do, but couldn’t, until the mission was over. And
the mission’s over. And I just opened myself up to being mauled by my Chief
Engineer because I’ve treated her really
badly, so it’s now… your turn.’
‘I’m supposed to maul you?’ She grabbed a second glass of wine and
poured for him from the chilled bottle on her coffee table. ‘We take turns
mauling you?’
‘I’m off to a good start.’ Rourke sighed, but followed and took
the glass offered. ‘You tried to offer me support at Haydorian, before the
battle.’
‘Oh.’ Shoulders sagging, Josie sat down and gestured for him to
join her. ‘You don’t need to apologise, Ca- Matt, that was intrusive of me…’
‘It wasn’t, and even if it was, I should be realistic, you…’ He swigged the wine. ‘You know more about
what’s going on in my head than most aboard.’
‘Right!’ She snapped her fingers and sat up in an attempt to
return to business. ‘I don’t have much of an update on this Scylla operation,
I’m sorry, it’s been a
busy few…’
‘Josie.’ He put his glass down. ‘I didn’t come here to ask if you’d
jumped through more hoops for me. I came to apologise for being brusque the
other day, but I… Cortez just hit me for keeping people at arm’s length, and I
don’t think she’s entirely right to because I am the captain. That’s the job, and she doesn’t get that, but… sometimes it’s
necessary.’
Her gaze shifted, the nervous
officiousness adjusting for a softer apprehension. ‘I understand. I made the offer because I get
that I sit in a different niche, but you don’t have to -’
‘We lost thirteen crew to the D’Ghor.’ He blurted it not to
silence her, but because if he didn’t shove the words past his lips, they’d
never come. ‘Some to the mine. Two on the refinery. Some from the ship-to-ship
combat. And the rest when they boarded, when they… they broke onto this ship, my ship…’
Josie’s gaze eased. ‘I hid under a table,’ she
admitted quietly. ‘In a lockdown spot. And it was awful enough to hear it and
see the aftermath as… as not really
one of the crew. I can’t imagine what it was like when you’re responsible for everyone.’
‘And, well. You know I’m not a great fan of dealing with losing
people when there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Rourke shook his head and
clasped his hands in his lap, shoulders hunching in. ‘Thirteen…’
There was a moment’s hesitation before Josie awkwardly shifted her
wine glass to her other hand, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. ‘I’m not
exactly Counsellor Carraway, but… I can do listening. Honest. I’ll make sure I
limit my words and babbling responses and everything, and maybe let you get a word in edge-ways
sometimes.’
His laugh was a short burst and
a low relief, but it also brought a dislodging surge of emotion, and before he
knew it Rourke was shaking his head and swallowing the threat of a choking
grief. ‘I’ve lost people
before. People I really cared about. And I… I didn’t want to command again,
because I didn’t know if I could survive
going through this again. So I’ve tried hard, really
hard, to just be the captain to everyone and… Cortez might be right, but damn it, there are
reasons I’ve not reached out to people like her.’
‘She’s likable and well-adjusted,’ Josie agreed with a sigh. ‘It’s
frustrating.’
‘These people saved me. In a whole lot of ways, this crew’s saved
me. But we take one hammering, and we lose officers I barely know, and
I’m still… on my heels. I
almost got everyone killed chasing down the Kut’luch, as if vengeance would make it
better.’ She was stroking his
back by now, and that helped push down the wave. ‘I don’t know how to be a good
captain and not open myself to this going wrong again.’
‘I’d say that that’s life, but then, most people don’t worry about
all two hundred and fifty people they’re responsible for being murdered by a
bloodthirsty Klingon death cult,’ mused Josie. ‘Sorry, that’s… not very
reassuring.’
‘I’ll take honest.’ He drew a slower, less raking breath. ‘Carraway
has to assess me professionally; it’s his job, his duty. I’m not ready for that yet,
to unpick myself with someone who has to judge my fitness with every word. He’d say that’s not true, but it is, and I’m not
ready for it.’
‘So I’m your non-judgy, entry-level shoulder to cry on?’ Josie’s
nose wrinkled. ‘Not cry on. Forget that. Express yourself to. Manfully.’
Again he laughed, and again it
brought with it a dull ache, though it was a better sort of ache this time. ‘No. No, you’re the only person I can be a
person with.’
‘I mean, I’ve had a lot of colleagues and even an ex-boyfriend who
said I’m more like a computer-person than a person, and I won’t lie, that was
hurtful, but I can promise with about ninety-five percent certainty that I am,
in fact, a person.’ She’d made it to a smile, and it wasn’t apprehensive any
more. ‘So sit here for a bit, and be Matt. A person with a glass of wine and a
nerd for company. Who’s out the other
end of a calamity. And I can listen. Or I can make you listen to me,
because I make most people listen to me, only it’ll either be words or some truly awful train of thought that I’m afraid I’m… not very good at stopping…’
At last he smiled, no longer pained or
wry, though the ache continued within him and he knew all he could do for now
was acknowledge its presence and continue to feel it. ‘Let’s start,
definitely-a-person-Josie,’ he said, and reached forward for his glass, ‘with
that wine.’
Comments
‘We’re minutes out, sir,’ came Drake’s brisk report.
‘Boost power to the forward sensor array,’ said Rourke, glancing over his shoulder to Airex at Science. ‘Let’s make sure there’s nothing in our path.’
‘Our route is clear, sir, up to sixty million kilometres of the fight. It’ll be approximately fifteen minutes to engagement at full impulse,’ Airex confirmed.
‘Elsa, let the Blakewater know. Tell them to hang on just a little longer.’ Fifteen minutes was nothing in space travel. It was everything in a battle.
‘We’re at the periphery of the system; reducing speed to Warp 2,’ said Drake.
Valance sat up. ‘Red alert.’
‘Blakewater seems to be holding against the Birds-of-Prey,’ reported Kharth from Tactical.
Rourke nodded, jaw tight. It was feeling like a dance by now, this rapid deployment, this heart-stopping anxiety as they hurtled into danger, where all he could think was move faster, get there faster. Risk life and limb, his ship and his crew; let them take weapons fire so others didn’t have to. This was what they were trained for, what Endeavour was built for. What he was built for.
A treacherous thought. And one he didn’t have time for.
‘Sir!’ Kharth’s voice had a fresh tension. ‘The Pendle’s drifting, but they’ve sent out a fresh distress call. They’ve been boarded, and they already had significant casualties from the fight.’
‘Tell the King Arthur to make ready to launch; we’ll send the Hazard Team to reinforce,’ said Rourke.
‘I’m not sure they’ve got fifteen minutes, sir.’
He looked down at the display next to his armrest, then up at Drake. ‘Helm, you up for doing something stupid?’
‘Pretty much my job description, sir.’
‘Shave off a few more million kilometres before you drop out of warp.’
He could feel Airex stiffen behind him. ‘Sir, I can’t recommend us maintaining warp speed in a battlefield -’
‘I said a few million kilometres, not on top of them.’ Rourke paused. ‘Get on top of them if you can, Drake.’
‘Sir, I don’t -’
‘Linking navigational sensors directly to the forward array,’ Thawn interrupted, her voice slightly higher-pitched. ‘Lieutenant Kharth, if you boost power to the the navigational deflectors then I can adjust our safety threshold on collision detection -’
Kharth gave a gentle snort that sounded approving. ‘On it.’
Valance squinted. ‘What does this get us, for what risk?’
Rourke lifted a hand to her. ‘It gets us there sooner.’
‘Or we don’t get there at all,’ warned Airex.
Drake looked over his shoulder, impatient. ‘Skipper, I can do it.’
‘Yes,’ Thawn chimed in, eyes cautious. ‘We can.’
Rourke nodded. ‘Alright.’ He glanced back. ‘I’d put your objection on the record, Commander Airex, but if you’re right then there won’t be a record.’
Valance leaned in as they set to work, dropping her voice. ‘Sir…’
‘You once accused me of being the guts and glory type of leader, Commander.’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Maybe that’s what today needs.’
* *
Captain Fostig had been in Starfleet for sixty years. That covered a supernova, the Dominion and Klingon wars, two Borg incursions. He had spent almost three decades as a calm and steady first officer, guiding mighty ships and brilliant but jittery young commanders through their first steps. The ancient dignity of the USS Blakewater, patrolling a peaceful border with the Federation’s closest allies, had been a transparent end-of-career gift from Starfleet Command. An opportunity for some quiet years training green officers, and letting him eventually retire with all of the prestige of a starship captain.
It hadn’t happened sooner because Fostig was thoughtful and patient but unimaginative, outstanding at managing a situation directly in front of him, but wavering when the buck stopped with him. Fostig knew this, accepted it; had been all of thirty-six when he’d realised he was already approaching the apex of his career. That was fine. It meant the twilight of his professional life would be peaceful.
Or at least, it was supposed to be peaceful. As a fresh explosion racked the Blakewater’s hull, Fostig suspected the twilight of his professional life would be violent and brief.
‘Lateral sensors offline!’ shouted the science officer who’d had to take over at Operations. ‘Trying to reroute power to the targeting sensors -’
‘No point!’ called back Tactical. ‘That last shot took out our dorsal phaser array; we’re down to torpedoes and they’ve been evading…’
Fostig drew a deep breath that sounded more like a wheezing snort. ‘Where are those damned reinforcements!’ Endeavour was at least fifteen minutes out when last he’d checked. Had it been fifteen minutes? Fifteen seconds? A lifetime?
He had no answer, Tactical just swearing under his breath. ‘Captain, I’m detecting Klingon life-signs on the Pendle. They’ve been boarded.’
‘Course they have. We will be, too, if we let them peel off our shields like this.’ Fostig wrinkled his wide nose and looked up. ‘Helm, get me in close to the nearest Bird-of-Prey. Right up their nostrils. Right on top of them.’
‘Uh… yes, sir. What’re you going to do, sir?’
Not really sure. Was sort of hoping I’d have an idea once I got there. He gripped his armrest, looking from his central seat down about the bridge of bright young faces. None of them were the blazing future of Starfleet, the officers who would set the service alight. Those went to mightier, newer starships. These were the ones who would labour every day, give sweat and blood, and still be considered under-achievers. But they were his.
‘If we stay on top of them, they can’t cloak,’ he said, and hoped that was true. ‘If we stay on top of them, we can pump them full of torpedoes even when we’re half-blind. If we stay on top of them, we are going to take a hell of a pounding, but at worst we take them down with us, they don’t get to the colony, and when reinforcements arrive we’ve softened them up…’ He could not outwit and outflank the D’Ghor with guile and brilliance, because he was but a dour and unimaginative man. But he was a determined man, and that meant his ship could unimaginatively sink her teeth into the enemy with an iron grip and never let go as they scratched and bit and clawed each other to the end. Uninspiring. Got the job done.
It wasn’t meant to end like this.
‘Ops, give me more power to impulse engines,’ said Helm as the Blakewater surged from her limp evasions into a dead sprint. ‘We gotta run them down.’
‘Establishing a close-range targeting solution,’ Tactical confirmed.
‘I can’t - oh.’ Operations - Science, really - looked up with wide eyes. ‘I’ve got another ship coming in, but damage to sensors means I can’t confirm an ID…’
Fostig gave a deep, snuffling snort. ‘So make it simple. On-screen.’ Let’s see our doom.
It had not been long enough, not nearly enough lifetimes, for Endeavour to arrive. And yet the viewscreen flashed to life to show the blazing battlefield in orbit of Taldir VII, the remains of a firefight between the Pendle and the Bird-of-Prey trying to gut her, the orbital defence platforms raining fire on the D’Ghor even as they were snuffed out one-by-one, and the two enemy ships trying to rip the Blakewater apart hull panel by hull panel. But the broad belly of a Manticore was enough to almost fill the view, the flashing of her phasers and torpedoes lighting up the display in a final flourish.
The Blakewater’s bridge broke into celebratory hoots and hollers, and Fostig almost collapsed back in his chair as Ops spoke. ‘Endeavour’s hailing us, sir.’
‘Put them through, and promise them your first-born.’
The Blakewater’s bridge was a little small and run-down even at the best of times. Fostig had long ago abandoned bitterness towards bigger, newer ships, but even had that not been the case it was only relieving to see the larger, bustling heartbeat of their salvation on the viewscreen, and the stout - younger - human face of its master. ‘This is Captain Rourke, USS Endeavour. You’ve done all you can, Blakewater; get some distance.’
‘Not that I don’t appreciate getting breathing room, Endeavour, but we can still help. Keep patching us targeting telemetry and we’ll rain down torpedoes.’ Fostig gestured to Helm and Tactical for the withdrawal and the sensor synchronisation, then narrowed his heavily-lidded eyes at Captain Rourke. ‘You’re quicker than we expected.’
Rourke shrugged like he hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, enough to save however many lives that would have been lost had the D’Ghor downed the Blakewater and continued their attack run on Taldir VII unimpeded. ‘Took a shortcut, Captain. You’d have done the same.’
No, thought Captain Fostig as he gave the orders for his ship to pull out of the thickest fighting, Endeavour’s phasers peeling away the Bird-of-Prey they’d intended to grab in a death-grip. No, I’d have probably arrived exactly when I was supposed to.
But as Endeavour dived into the beating heart of the firefight before them, weapons blazing and enemy fire cascading off their deflectors, a bright beacon that could burn out with just a sliver of bad fortune, he didn’t envy what their brilliance had won them.
* *
The King Arthur lurched as Harkon twisted them away from weapons fire, out of the thickest chokehold of fighting Endeavour had dropped into, and towards the Bird-of-Prey hunched like a buzzard over the shattered frame of the Pendle. Dathan leaned over the Science controls and shook her head. ‘Klingon life-signs on several decks, but their shields are down.’
Behind her, Rhade gripped the door-frame to the cockpit. ‘Harkon, get us closer to the Pendle so we can beam over. What’s the Bird-of-Prey doing?’
‘Watching,’ said the pilot, not looking back. ‘Kind of unsettling, to be honest.’
Dathan drew a sharp breath. ‘You’ll need to let me finish explaining before you object,’ she said, ‘but we should board the Bird-of-Prey first.’
‘What -’
‘If we board the Pendle and repel the D’Ghor, then the Bird-of-Prey has no reason to not open fire and take out the entire ship,’ she pressed over him. ‘Unless Endeavour can pull her off in that time, and that’s not guaranteed. But if we take the Bird-of-Prey while most of her crew are boarding the Pendle, we can take the bridge, maybe even from there beam the D’Ghor off the Pendle…’
‘The Bird-of-Prey’s shields are up,’ said Harkon. ‘They’re low, but we couldn’t just beam in.’
Rhade blew his cheeks out. ‘Can you latch us onto their hull?’ He shrugged as Dathan gave him a startled but approving look. ‘You’re right. And this way, we take the fight to them.’
‘Okay,’ said Harkon in a sing-song voice as her hands flew over the flight controls. ‘I’d like to officially stop flying the Hazard Team places, your missions keep going nuts.’
* *
Rourke watched on the viewscreen as the Bird-of-Prey twisted and turned, trying to escape the barrage of phaser fire Kharth was sending thudding into its hull with pinpoint accuracy. For a moment it looked like the gleam of their deflectors would take the worst of it, then the ship jolted. In an instant, Kharth had redoubled fire on that point, phasers breaking through the shields to rake directly across the hull and engines.
For just an instant, he considered telling Kharth to hold fire. The Bird-of-Prey would drift, crippled from this damage, no danger to anyone - probably. But even if it was, what then? What of the crew?
It was not that Rourke consciously chose to let his Tactical Officer keep firing until the D’Ghor ship was enveloped in the detonation of its own warp core. But he certainly took too long deliberating to stop her.
‘Coming about!’ Drake reported as Endeavour swung away from the high-orbit inferno of the Bird-of-Prey, and Rourke’s head snapped over to Lindgren.
‘The Pendle? The Hazard Team?’
‘Hazard Team has taken the Bird-of-Prey’s bridge,’ said Lindgren, eyebrows rather raised. ‘They’re moving onto the Pendle. Lieutenant Rhade says they’ve got it in hand.’
‘Let’s trust them. Where’s the other Bird-of-Prey?’
‘They’re - blast.’ Airex sucked his teeth. ‘There’s a breach in the orbital shield, they’re heading for the surface.’
Kharth’s eyes narrowed. ‘They’ll try to land or beam down and send warriors to a settlement -’
‘Or they know they’ve lost,’ said Valance in a low voice, ‘and won’t care about bombarding from orbit. Remember, if they can’t win then they mean to make us bleed.’
Rourke sat back in his chair and gripped the armrests. ‘Lieutenant Kharth, direct a security team to make ready to deploy to the surface if they drop raiders. Drake? Take us in after them.’
It was Thawn who turned with the inevitable concerned objection. ‘Ah, Captain, Endeavour isn’t really rated for atmospheric flight below the thermosphere…’
‘Then we catch up with them quick.’ There was already a rumble as Endeavour followed the Bird-of-Prey through the damaged gap in the planetary shields of Taldir VII, and into the exosphere. ‘Go for their engines, Kharth.’
‘Trying, sir, once we have a line of fire. They have a bit of a lead on us, and targeting in atmo is… different.’
Drake made a frustrated noise. ‘They’re coming on a much more direct landing arc, but they’re made to land, Captain, I can’t follow them like this.’
‘Do what you can.’ Rourke looked at Valance, whose expression was set. ‘It’s a Code Blue for landing, right?’
‘That’s on a ship that can land.’
‘Pretty sure we can land.’
‘You know what I mean, sir.’
From behind him, Kharth muttered something in her native tongue before piping up with, ‘Captain, I’m switching to torpedoes only, and setting them to self-detonate after sixteen seconds; if they miss, they’ll explode in the thermosphere and the remains will burn up before they hit the surface.’
‘Anything you can pipe from orbital defences for a targeting lock?’
‘It’s not interference, they’re just more maneouvrable than us at this altitude.’
Altitude was not a word Rourke liked hearing about his ship’s situation. But before he could think too hard about that, the comms went.
‘Engineering to Bridge; what the hell?’
‘Fair question, Commander. We’re chasing them down in atmosphere -’
‘Really can’t recommend going lower than two hundred kilometres. We’re in condition to fight and fly, but after emergency warp speed for that long, not sure we have the thruster power for enough lift to fly up if we get that low.’
Rourke glanced at his display. ‘Can you do me one-hundred-fifty, Commander?’
‘Sir, I am serious!’ Cortez’s voice reverberated around the bridge. ‘This isn’t a coy underestimation to make me look good! This ship has been through hell and wanting more out of her super badly isn’t going to give us more juice!’
His throat tightened, and in the heartbeat he hesitated it was Valance who answered, louder and clearer. ‘We hear you, Commander. Keep us aloft until then. Bridge out.’
He wanted to glare at her, but didn’t have time. Despite the ship shuddering under him, Rourke pushed himself to his feet. ‘You heard Commander Cortez. Let’s not do the impossible. Let’s do the very difficult. We won’t catch up, and we have limited time. So how do we hit them from here?’
‘I’m liaising with surface defences now, sir,’ Thawn immediately spouted. ‘Trying to get us better targeting telemetry.’
‘It’s their evasion that’s the problem,’ Kharth reminded. ‘Not that I can’t pick them up. I can’t predict where they’ll be.’
Rourke nodded. ‘Can we do anything to their sensors, or hit them with something they can’t see coming?’
Valance grimaced. ‘It’s not as if we can induce atmospheric conditions.’
‘Yes, we can.’ Airex straightened. ‘Tactical, I’m sending you some calculated targeting data; with simultaneous torpedo launches you might be able to do it.’
‘Do what?’ Rourke frowned.
But Kharth’s eyes were lighting up as she read. ‘Maybe - yes. If we fire here and here, then a follow-up should get them.’
‘A follow-up to what?’
Kharth ignored him. ‘Establishing targeting solutions - Dav, you explain -’
Airex’s expression visibly flickered at the unconscious flash of familiarity, but he met Rourke’s gaze. ‘We don’t have much time. Just trust me, sir. Trust us.’
Rourke sighed. ‘Damned if I’ve got a better idea.’
Kharth nodded. ‘Firing now.’ As they watched, a trio of torpedoes rocketed away from Endeavour, scoring across Taldir VII’s atmosphere towards the Bird-of-Prey.
‘They’ll dodge a dispersal pattern,’ Drake said, nose wrinkling.
‘I’m not trying to hit them with yet,’ said Kharth, and murmured something under her breath Rourke thought might have been counting. Then she launched two more torpedoes.
‘What’s that -’
‘Detonating volley one,’ Kharth interrupted, and he realised she was talking to Airex, not him. As he watched, the torpedoes that had streaked past the Bird-of-Prey like Drake had predicted exploded, a detonation of energy and shrapnel that sent a burst of disruption even across Endeavour’s state-of-the-art sensor array. A burst the next two torpedoes thudded into.
‘Confirmed detonation!’ Kharth snapped, clenching a fist. ‘We got them.’ And as the sensors cleared up, nothing remained but the shattered fragments of a Bird-of-Prey that had taken two torpedoes directly to the engines.
Rourke’s heart surged, but he didn’t have time to celebrate. ‘Get us out of here, Drake! All power to the impulse engines!’ The shift on the deck alone was enough to force him back into his chair, gripping for dear life, even if the strength hadn’t gone from his knees.
‘Leaving atmosphere!’ Drake confirmed. ‘We have lift, heading for high orbit.’
Still Endeavour shuddered at the effort, at the massive amounts of power it took to bring her huge form higher and higher, for the deflectors to protect her against the burn of atmosphere. But Rourke granted himself five seconds to put his head back and close his eyes, precious heartbeats of escape before he finally looked at Kharth. ‘You detonated the torpedoes in front of them to muddy their sensors, then hit them while they were too blinded to dodge, right?’
Kharth shifted her weight. ‘It was Commander Airex’s idea.’
‘Really,’ he said, ‘it was Commander Valance’s idea from Elgatis. We have much better sensors than the D’Ghor. We can disrupt them without blinding ourselves.’
Lindgren turned in her chair, and Rourke straightened at once. ‘Captain, Hazard Team reports the Pendle is secure; they’ve taken heavy casualties, but the Blakewater is coming in to render assistance. Taldir VII authorities confirm the surface is secure, no D’Ghor got through.’
Something loosened in Rourke’s chest. ‘And the Fleet?’
‘Orders from Admiral Beckett are for all ships to hold to their defensive zones; we’re not to chase off in case more cloaked enemies appear. But with the KDF getting into it…’ Lindgren looked like she barely dared smile. ‘It’s not looking good for the D’Ghor, Captain.’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Valance cautiously, ‘then it’s over.’
He wanted to bend over in his chair, let all strength give up and fade away, or maybe curl up and sleep for an eon. Instead, Rourke forced himself to sit up as Endeavour’s deck stopped rumbling, as the mighty ship rose to the upper atmosphere of Taldir VII, escaped through the devastated planetary shielding. ‘If that’s the case,’ he said, voice taut despite the relief thudding through him, ‘then we’ve won.’
Rourke hadn’t liked Kehinde Hargreaves very much when they’d first met several months ago, and the prospect of him now commanding Beckett’s flagship was not reassuring. But the weathered officer extended a hand as he intercepted him outside the admiral’s new office, a guarded smile on his face.
‘I heard how one of the Taldir colonies would be a smoking wreck without Endeavour. That’s good work, Captain.’ Hargreaves’s eyes flickered to Rourke’s pips. ‘I’m not sure I congratulated you on your promotion, either. Well-earned.’
It was rather sickening when people he disliked were nice. Rourke gave a twist of the lips. ‘Thanks. Heard the Caliburn held the centre at Archanis IV.’
‘Couldn’t get as stuck in as we’d like with the admiral aboard,’ Hargreaves mused. ‘We held our own.’
‘Reckon we can all be pleased with ourselves.’ It was the politest way to escape, and enter a meeting he’d soon want to escape from again.
Once, Lieutenant Dathan had been the shadow at Beckett’s side in meetings, the one ready to furnish him with every report and detail. As was inevitable he’d moved on with a new favourite, this Commander Lockhart rather more nervy of disposition than the cool, professional Bajoran. At least he got a polite smile.
‘Matt, excellent work at Haydorian and Taldir.’ Beckett’s voice was silk on steel, the handshake firm, and Rourke braced himself as he sat down. Opening with the good meant he wanted to be clear he’d acknowledged it before he moved onto the bad. ‘How’s the ship?’
‘My Chief Engineer will skin me if I don’t put in at a serious dockyards for further repairs, lurching from battle to battle. So my request is for us to put in at Starbase Bravo, hand her over to a work team, and give the crew some leave for a couple of weeks. They’ve held up well, but they need it.’
‘Mn.’ Beckett took a PADD off Lockhart and flicked from screen to screen. ‘Talmiru. Elgatis. Haydorian. Taldir. A series of battles. Endeavour’s been bloodied, for certain.’ His eyes snapped up. ‘And your primary mission?’
‘The Kut’luch was destroyed.’
‘By a press-ganged crew of pirates -’
‘My orders gave me a lot of latitude in how to conduct the hunt -’
‘Don’t lecture me on the reach of your orders, Captain, I wrote them,’ Beckett snapped. ‘You let the Kut’luch slip through your fingers, and then had to turn to local rabble to finish the job - and what on Earth possessed you to then reward them?’
Rourke opened his mouth to reel off the prepared arguments - then stopped, scowling. ‘Sir, you’re not that naive. You know why I did it. Can you pinpoint a specific mistake I made, a different course of action I should have taken rather than “do better?” My officers damn near threw themselves into fire because I asked the impossible of them.’
Beckett merely arched an eyebrow. ‘That’s what crews are for, Captain.’ But he gave a low harrumph, and set the PADD to one side. ‘If this Gaveq shows himself again, I will expect you to account for yourself. Otherwise, Endeavour is to be commended for the final battle. Oh, and… by all means. Permission granted for the repairs and the leave.’
It was the closest he’d get to congratulations, and the closest he’d get to Beckett accepting the deal he’d made with Captain Sadovu. But still he had to press on. ‘The trust a crew has in us is a trust that we’ll only ask of them what they can do, even if it’s their best, even if these are capabilities they can’t see in themselves. It’s not a permit for us to push them to breaking point.’
‘I am sorry for the losses you suffered.’ It was clear Beckett had no real concept what Rourke was talking about, and had assumed this outburst was a manifestation of grief. ‘I understand Elgatis in particular was vicious.’
And though that had not been Rourke’s point, it still stuck in his throat. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I’ll make sure Endeavour is well-treated by Personnel for your replacement crew. Perhaps some time with young officers, some fresh ensigns, and the missions to help weather them will suit you for the next few months.’ That didn’t sound like a reward to Rourke, but Beckett pressed on before he could object. ‘Oh, and Lieutenant Dathan appears to have been a good fit. You should consider keeping her in your CIC.’
Like a once-favourite toy that had bust some stitches, Beckett had played with Dathan and now grown bored. Rourke shifted his weight. ‘She saw Haydorian coming.’
‘A product of her vantage point in the field. It seems a better use of her skills.’
Rourke tried to not look at Lockhart, lest his eyes give away the secret: He’ll tire of you, too. He’ll think he’s made you, graced you with time by his side, then send you off to the galaxy to do his bidding, part of this elite network. The secret is that his club hates him, and still comes crawling back to him for scraps. Rourke knew he wasn’t all that different, despite his cynicism. Beckett gave him what he needed, and he performed as requested. But the club looks after each other. ‘She’s more than earned a place on Endeavour.’
‘Then it is decided,’ said Beckett, and tapped the desk. ‘Always good to see you, Matt, but there’s plenty to be done. Interrogations of Kuskir, processing him while I liaise with Command on how to proceed with a trial…’
They’d both all gotten what they’d wanted. Beckett had acted the kindly patron, jerking on the leash for good measure, while Rourke had the promise of respite and reinforcement. But of course the admiral had to make it clear this happened at his say-so, at his indulgence.
And Rourke would make do with his scraps.
* *
The officers’ mess was more of a bolt-hole than Endeavour’s busy, bustling main lounge. It was more cold metal panels but was far more private, so Thawn had found a quiet corner of cushioned chairs to curl up in with the latest reports. But her eyes had slid over them, missing all detail, and she’d sunk into such a stupor that she was startled when someone sat opposite her.
Lindgren’s smile was apologetic. ‘Penny for your thoughts.’
‘A - what?’
‘Old Earth saying. I’m asking what’s on your mind.’
Elsa Lindgren had almost lost an arm, and then been forced to listen to a whole facility die because Endeavour had to save someone else. Thawn’s thoughts felt very petty indeed. ‘Nothing exciting,’ she said evasively. ‘It’s just the logistics reports. We’ve a lot of resupplying needed.’
‘Is that urgent?’ Lindgren smiled as Thawn shook her head, and slid over a different stack of PADDs. ‘Then I have better recommended reading.’
Thawn picked them up gingerly. ‘What is it?’
‘Comms transcripts from the after action reports. Every world that checked in, every task group.’ The smile went sad. ‘I’ve mostly listened to cries for help the last few weeks. Some of these places were hit hard, but for the most part, the message here is different: all is well.’
Thawn hesitated. ‘That’s not a logistics report.’
‘It’s not. I thought it might cheer you up.’ Lindgren shrugged. ‘Some sign of the good we’ve done. It’s easy to lose sight of it.’
‘How do you do that?’ Thawn put the PADDs down. ‘How do you - Elsa, how by the Great Fire does it not get too much?’
Lindgren bit her lip, amusement hovering at the edge of her gaze. ‘I could make a pointed comment about how I talk about my feelings, and even attended Counsellor Carraway’s sessions after Elgatis. Because I almost lost an arm, and I was attacked at my post, and it was terrifying and there was nothing I could do about it.’ She sighed, sober now, and shook her head. ‘You’re pretty much a super-genius, Rosara. Turn those analytical skills a bit more on yourself. You used to let Noah do it, but…’
Thawn braced herself, expecting the stab of pain at the memory of Noah. The sting was different, though, and rather than the bitter grief of loss, what she felt instead was a dull ache of loneliness. It was no longer him that she missed. It was the companionship. She reached again for the PADDs. ‘Alright. Maybe I’ll listen to these.’
‘Mm. And join me in one of Starbase Bravo’s lounges for drinks once we get there. We’ll trawl for cute officers -’ Lindgren paused. ‘Is that something you’re allowed to do? With Lieutenant Rhade around, I mean.’
‘There’s - it’s very complicated with Adamant and I,’ Thawn said delicately. ‘But it’s also very simple in that I am certainly allowed to join you in that, and not just because I have never successfully trawled for anyone in my life.’
Lindgren laughed, her eyes dancing. ‘We’ll try to do something about that.’
Thawn joined in, but she left the officers’ mess not long after, because it had gotten later than she’d expected, and she still needed to sleep if the basic systems repairs were going to get done the next day. So she returned to Deck 2, and spotted a familiar figure down the corridor ahead when she emerged from the turbolift.
Thawn broke into a jog. ‘Drake!’
He was out of uniform, back to the state of casual déshabillé that these days seemed to follow him off-duty, but when he turned at her voice his gait was anything but relaxed. ‘Lieutenant.’
She slowed, apprehensive all of a sudden. ‘I just - I wanted to talk. We’ve not talked in a while.’ They had certainly not talked since Rourke had chewed them out, nor since the incident for which he’d done so. Had they talked, in fact, since Rhade’s arrival?
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Alright.’
‘I didn’t mean here.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, come on, Drake. We did a great job at Taldir, bringing Endeavour in that close to the firefight with -’
‘Yeah, it’s good we can work together. Was that it?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, eyes cold. ‘I got a guest heading to meet me at mine soon. Want the place tidy before Adrienne gets there.’
Thawn faltered, the implication not missed. ‘Oh. Oh, of course. I won’t keep you.’ He left with barely more of a word, stalking back down the corridor, and she watched him go with a similar dull pang to what she’d felt when Lindgren had mentioned Noah. It wasn’t just him that she missed. When she reached out to where he had been, for a time there had been the shadow of Drake. And now there was nothing.
She had to fight to stop wringing her hands together as she reached her next destination, and anxiously she shifted her weight from foot to foot after she hit the door-chime. Attempting to stifle that when the doors slid open was unsuccessful, and Adamant Rhade’s gaze was immediately concerned.
‘Rosara. Are you - please.’ Emotion shifted for his structured formality, and he stepped back to usher her inside. ‘Can I get you something? A drink?’
‘I need…’ She faltered as the doors slid shut behind her, and turned to him. ‘People think I’m bad at people. And I am, I mean, I’m bad at people, and aliens say I’m bad at people for a Betazoid, but they really don’t understand it.’
Rhade didn’t look like he understood what she was saying, either, but that was part of the point. He faced her head-on, listening despite his confusion, and stayed silent.
‘At home, it was easy, wasn’t it? At home, we all just… share thoughts. We can lock things away, but there’s no difficulty expressing ourselves because we can reach out. There’s no difficulty understanding others, because we can reach out. But out here it’s not acceptable, so I have to put concepts into words I never had to before, and I have to read into tone and expression that I never had to…’ Her voice trailed off, and she watched him, anguished. ‘I’m an above-average telepath. That’s not a boast. It’s why I’ve found it really hard to adapt; being out here’s been like cutting off a limb. But you - didn’t you find it awful to adjust anyway?’
He nodded slowly. ‘It was difficult. But I adapted with time and practice; I spoke with counsellors to learn how to better express myself, and how to better read -’
‘I’m not asking how you got over it. I’m explaining why I’ve been like this. With you.’ She gestured between them. ‘I don’t know how to put things into words.’
It was an explanation and a request, and her thudding heart was somehow both soothed and tensed when she felt his mind brush up against hers, a tentative invitation and offer. It had been so long since she’d communicated telepathically, since she’d expressed herself in the only way which came as easy as breathing, and still she’d been so accustomed to everything being trapped inside that she hesitated.
One thing. She could perhaps let one thing through, and see if the sky fell in before she opened more. Especially to him, to this man whom everyone had decided was for her, yet maddeningly was the only one who could reach her like this.
It was almost despite herself that Elgatis came flooding to the forefront: the boarding, taking position against the oncoming D’Ghor, hunkering down to cover Valance - and then, as the blood and death flew through the air, ducking down in one moment to get out of the way and not rising. Her arms refusing to pull her up, her lungs refusing to bring breath back in, her every instinct howling at her to just stay down, and her body obeying even as her mind tried to scream that she was a Starfleet officer, and it was her duty to fight.
And, of course, Kharth beating her raw with words in the armoury after.
Rhade did not push. His mind stayed close throughout, but he kept his distance, letting her come to him, and he did not let anything of his own feelings, his own reaction, leak through. She suspected this was intended as a courtesy, but it left her shaky when it ended, pulling away to revert to words, because if she could not read him then she could not let herself be open any more.
‘I was a coward,’ she said, and found her treacherous throat dry.
He did not reply at once. He did get her a glass of water, and then guide her to the sofa, and put a hand at her back and kept it there, and she remembered how the body was sometimes even better than the mind to communicate. When he, too, spoke out loud, his voice was gentler and kinder than it had ever been when she imagined him hearing this. ‘You weren’t trained for that.’
‘I’m a Starfleet officer -’
‘You are an operations officer. One capable, by all accounts, of phenomenal acts from the bridge of a starship. Of inventing a new use of transporter technology to breach shifting dimensional alignments to save Captain Rourke’s life. Of calculating an impossibly dangerous flight route to our destination so we could arrive minutes faster and save who knows how many lives. These are all things I couldn’t do.’
She shook her head. ‘But I couldn’t shoot a phaser as well as you, and I’m not blaming myself for that, it’s just training -’
‘Facing violence is a matter of training.’ Rhade sighed and looked away for a moment. ‘There is no way for me to phrase this which does not sounds self-aggrandising, or obnoxiously masculine, or glorifying some warrior-ethos. Many people can adapt to many things, with preparation and exposure. Violence is one of them. So are heart-stoppingly high stakes on a starship bridge. I do not pretend that violence is different, and I do not mean to demean you or pity myself when I say that hardening one’s self to violence comes with a price, but it does. And I commit, as a tactical officer and as the leader of the Hazard Team, not only to hardening myself to it, but to retaining my personhood, my warmth, my love, in spite of it.’
A bitter laugh escaped her lips. ‘I’m not sure I have either that physical courage or that personal warmth.’
‘Lieutenant Kharth was wrong to blame you. It was unacceptable of her, in fact. I will do her the kindness of remembering she was grieving heavy losses in the Security Department, including Otero, but I will not accept her treating you that way. And nor should you.’ He opened then shut his mouth, and again shook his head. ‘I won’t patronise you by saying that you have skills and capabilities I do not, though you do. What I will say is this: your strength - your value - is not defined by how little an atrocity makes you flinch.’
She swallowed. ‘I shouldn’t have volunteered for the mission.’
He frowned. ‘Commander Valance asked for you. She wanted your skills with the refinery’s system. Do you recall how you accessed them and got us to where the civilians were just minutes ahead of the D’Ghor? Do you realise that we couldn’t have saved those lives if it hadn’t been for you?’
She had honestly forgotten. Everything before the firefight was a dull blur, and all she remembered was hiding until it was over and she could see the bodies. She had to close her eyes against the wave of emotions, of grief and guilt, and work harder still to keep that wave in her thoughts from him. His hand stayed at her shoulder, and that was something else to fight, too, to not lean into him and his warmth and contact.
‘Thank you,’ she croaked at last, and stood before her treacherous feelings tugged further at her. ‘I should - I should go, I still have work tomorrow -’
He stood as she did, crisp and precise, the picture of Betazoid courtesies and etiquette. ‘Of course. Rest well, but I… if you ever need to talk of this, or think of this, or truly, not think of this… I will be here.’
* *
‘If you’ve felt any pain and aren’t telling me…’ Sadek’s voice promised a subtle but petty retribution as she made Airex stretch his left arm out.
But the tall Trill extended his limbs with no apprehension or grimace. ‘Truly, Doctor, I feel better. Consider it a testament to your skills.’
‘Hm. Flattery will always distract me.’ She snapped the tricorder shut, and ushered him up off the biobed. ‘Very well, Commander, I’m satisfied by your recovery. We can shift your check-ups to weekly. If you take leave when we’re offered it, you had best tell me where so I can make you a local referral.’
‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’
Sadek tapped her updates onto his chart on her PADD. ‘No family on Trill to visit?’
‘I have family. I hadn’t contemplated what I’d do if we’re granted a few weeks. There’s been plenty to preoccupy us. If that’s all, Doctor?’
‘Oh, yes. Haydorian and Taldir were terribly dull, I hardly have anyone to put back together, but I suppose you’re taking up my precious sitting time.’ With the disinterested flap of the hand, she ushered him away.
But the Sickbay doors slid open before he approached to admit Lieutenant Kharth, and despite his best efforts these past months, the unexpected sight of her was still enough to stop him dead.
She hesitated, too, drawing an inch straighter. ‘Commander. Everything’s well?’
He nodded quickly. ‘A final check-up with Doctor Sadek,’ he explained, aware the CMO herself was hovering with her keen ear for gossip deployed and pointed at them. ‘You?’
She lifted a hand and rolled her eyes. ‘After getting through almost all of this unscathed, I think I wrenched my wrist in the last battle. Possibly hanging on when we went through atmospheric turbulences. I’ve not been able to shake it off.’
‘Ah. Well, I’m sure the doctor can help.’ He squared his shoulders, and drew a tense breath. ‘I should thank you, Lieutenant. For Elgatis. That’s the second time you’ve saved me.’
He caught the flicker of guilt in her eyes when she looked at him. ‘It’s my job, Commander.’ But she hesitated. ‘It was an outstanding idea you had at Taldir.’
‘It was simple -’
‘But you went from concept to calculation to execution quicker than anyone I know.’
‘The execution was yours,’ he pointed out. ‘And tremendously accurate.’
Silence hung between them, stretched by all they wouldn’t and couldn’t say, and broke only when Sadek popped up with a long-suffering air. ‘Much as I could listen to this all day; Lieutenant, you need me?’
Airex inclined his head. ‘Of course, I’ll let you work, Doctor. Good day, Lieutenant.’ He left before he had to look back, before he had to feel the gaze of either of then, inquisitive or guarded, on him for any longer.
Perhaps it was not a bad idea to take a few weeks’ leave far, far away from Endeavour.
* *
Carraway made sure his smile was as warm as possible when he put down the tea. ‘I think we’ve made a lot of progress, Commander. Or, rather, you have.’
‘That’s your way of saying I should have more sessions,’ Valance pointed out, sat across from him at his office’s comfortable seating. ‘I’m not sure anything’s wrong; the last few weeks have simply been… difficult.’
‘Consider this the mental health equivalent of regular check-ups with Sickbay,’ he said. ‘And you should treat the last few weeks as body blows in your mind.’ He cocked his head, and loaded what he’d always intended to leave as the parting topic of their session. ‘Have you spoken about much of this with Isa?’
Valance sighed. ‘I’ve not not spoken about it. We’ve been busy, and I didn’t want to get into the Long Walk until I could explain it properly. I’m sure she’ll say much as you have -’
‘I hope not, or I could have just sent you to her.’ His smile softened. ‘All I’ll suggest is that you take time for yourself the next few weeks. For yourselves.’
‘We’ve…’ Valance shifted her weight. ‘Off-handedly mentioned the upcoming leave. It would be a step to vacation together. But. Perhaps.’
Carraway tried to not look patronising as he nodded. ‘Perhaps. That’s good.’ He let her end it there, and not just because she was his last session at the end of his shift, and he, too, was contemplating what leave would look like once they were at Starbase Bravo. In practice, he anticipated deferring his to stay at the starbase and offer to help crewmembers who would benefit from further sessions, further opportunities to work through what they’d been through.
That at least included planning his holodeck time.
The other reason he was happy to pack off Valance in a quick and timely fashion was because she wasn’t his last meeting before his shift ended. He made sure the lighting was less determinedly gentle, that he’d stopped the soothing music, and the fresh steaming mugs were set on his desk instead of the comfortable seating when Lieutenant Dathan arrived.
She still eyed the room with a hint of suspicion. ‘I didn’t know this was a session, Counsellor.’
‘It’s not.’ He smiled and extended a mug of tea. ‘I heard your assignment with us is permanent. I hope you’ll accept my congratulations.’
She took the mug, still cautious. ‘It’s a change.’
‘I also hope you don’t take it as a mark against you from Admiral Beckett.’
‘Most officers only spend some months in his office. I didn’t expect to be different.’
‘That’s an evasion,’ he pointed out. ‘But I didn’t ask you here to talk about that. If you’re going to be a permanent crewmember of Endeavour, however, that makes your wellbeing my concern.’
‘I suppose.’ She took a cautious sip.
‘I expect that I’ll have your records, medical and professional, forwarded to me soon. I would normally say your “full” records, but that’s why we’re here.’ He looked across the mug at her. ‘Will they be your full records?’
Dathan took a slow breath. ‘No,’ she said at length.
He nodded. ‘You would know better than me if I’ll get anywhere trying to request those. But I understand this is a delicate topic. So my second question, Lieutenant, is this: may I try to request your full records?’
Her gaze pinched. ‘I expect you won’t be successful, Counsellor.’
‘But may I try?’ The corners of his eyes creased. ‘I won’t read anything into a refusal, Lieutenant. I’m not asking to push, I’m asking because I want you to be able to set you boundaries with me.’
‘You constantly challenge the boundaries of crewmembers.’
‘That’s an unkind way of framing my work,’ he pointed out. ‘But I’ll take that as a refusal. That’s quite alright, Lieutenant. I want to keep working with you; I think adapting to Endeavour will be a challenge, and it’s one I want to help with. So let me make it clear: I want you - everyone on this ship - to be able to be emotionally honest with themselves. That’s what I push. Sometimes that means people are emotionally honest with me, but that really isn’t my goal. If I don’t have your permission to pursue these records, I won’t do that, but it won’t change my primary goal. Even if it means we have to work around the unknown.’
She drained the teacup quickly, far too quickly, before returning it to his open hand. ‘I accept your terms, Counsellor. Was that all?’
‘Oh, no.’ He smiled kindly. ‘Before you go, let me say: Welcome aboard. It’s a pleasure to have you here.’
* *
The beating heart of the ship was slow and steady, the great giant Endeavour sleeping even as she hurtled through the cosmos away from the Archanis Sector. But engineers had been dispatched to rest, and at a steady Warp 6, their pace was not enough to need more than a perfunctory oversight in Main Engineering.
Rourke was unsurprised to find that oversight came from Cortez herself, stood at the pool table console with rolled-up sleeves and loosened collar. ‘You should give yourself some of the time off you give them,’ he suggested.
Her tired eyes flickered up to him. ‘Could say the same to you, Boss.’
‘I’ll sleep when we’re at Bravo. Maybe.’
‘Don’t I get to say the same?’ She rolled a shoulder. ‘Gonna be presumptuous, but I reckon you know this as well as I do: a ship’s got two masters, not just you. And I’m the other one.’
‘I do know that.’ He approached the console and touched the display only gingerly. He knew a ship by instinct and experience; knew how to feel the deck under him and knew what the reports that came to him directly meant. That was different to the raw data of the ship’s condition from the display. ‘I’ve meant to talk to you for a bit.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘A bit?’
‘Since Elgatis, I guess.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Cortez nodded. ‘You were an ass.’
Rourke didn’t need his staff to treat him with reverence, but he still looked up sharply, startled. Disrespect from Cortez was new. ‘Commander?’
‘Look, either you came down here to say you’re sorry, in which case you know I’m right, or you really need me to stop mincing my words.’
‘I did come down here to apologise. I didn’t listen to you enough the last few weeks. I kept demanding more and more of you and your team, and taking your successes for granted but refusing to acknowledge your limitations.’
‘I’m just - nope.’ Cortez clicked her tongue. ‘I was gonna say I’m glad you listened to me at Taldir like that resolved everything, ‘cos I’m not good at hitting folks when they’re down. But I’ll let you work through this.’
He slumped at that, somewhat deflated. ‘I could talk about the pressure of the mission. Or repeat that I think you’re excellent at your job, so I have a lot of faith in you, and unfairly turned that into asking too much of you.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, you did do that. But don’t be too kind to yourself, Captain. I warned you we couldn’t chase the Kut’luch after Elgatis, and you pretty much yelled at me to shut up and do it anyway.’ She shifted her weight unhappily. ‘What, you did that because you just think I’m that gosh-darn good?’
‘When you put it like that…’
‘And normally you’d have Commander Valance to tell you to wind your neck in, except she’d just been through hell, you then put her through more hell, and she’s my girlfriend and is trying to be professional about it. Especially when you’d just ripped into Thawn and Drake for letting personal stuff get in the way.’ She winced. ‘I do like you, Captain. I’m not a woman to hold a grudge. But I think this is stuff you need to own.’
Rourke’s shoulders sagged more, his smile rather sad when he managed it. ‘You don’t mince your words when you need to speak up, do you, Cortez?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t reckon we’re going to talk like this often, Captain. So I figured I’d get it all out now. There’s not anything you can say - look, you’ve apologised, I’ve said my bit.’ She hesitated. ‘Which means I really should say it all.’
He rocked back on his heels. ‘This was you holding back?’
‘I didn’t care about the you vs MacCallister conflict when we both arrived,’ Cortez admitted. ‘I liked this ship, you were my captain, who came before didn’t matter to me. But I watched. Saw you wrestle Karana on-side, because you sort of had to. Saw you cosy up to Saeihr. And you worked around Airex, but he’s a tough nut to crack. But basically, you got some of us super on board with you, not just professionally, but as a figurehead, or a… I guess a big brother figure. Karana likes you. Elsa’s friendly with everyone, but you adopted her like it sounds MacCallister did. And you took Rosara under your wing.’ She sighed. ‘Then there’s me, and Greg, and I think Connor, but he’s a weird case right now. And you haven’t so much as tried to charm us.’
Rourke frowned. ‘I needed to charm you?’
‘No, but you didn’t need to charm Rosara, either; she’s a neurotic mess who’s too desperate for approval to oppose you. Some of us you couldn’t establish a personal relationship - again, Airex - and some, you established a personal relationship with really firm power dynamics. So I…’ Her voice trailed off, and she sighed, looking irritated with herself. ‘This is partly none of my business. But I’ve seen what you’ve done, Captain. Any one of us in the senior staff who might possibly have the emotional maturity or freedom to treat you like an equal, or as much as possible with Starfleet hierarchy, you’ve doubled-down on keeping at arm’s length. Is it because we might call you on your shit?’
He planted his hands on the controls, studying the details of the ship that he’d never be able to understand - and didn’t, because his mind and heart and skills were elsewhere, and because the woman across the table, Endeavour’s second master, understood it for him. Rourke took a slow breath. ‘Alright. I guess there’s only two things for me to do here, right? The first is to say that I am sorry. I do trust and respect you as Chief Engineer, and wouldn’t have had you promoted, made third officer, if I didn’t. And I should have listened to you more.’ He scrubbed his face, felt his scratchy beard in need of trimming. ‘Second is that when this is all over, you and me should sit down with a bottle of whisky. Because I thought I had someone on the senior staff who gave it to me straight, but I need to remember that Aisha prides herself on being the outside observer.’
‘Not at all me, Captain. I’m neck-deep in this ship. Nearly damn well died for it. And I don’t think you need to hide from us like you do.’ Cortez’s expression at once shifted back for her usual, cheerful smile. ‘I look forward to whisky. Might make it tequila.’
‘I… that might be a bit more contentious.’ But he managed his own smile, nodding, and stepped away. ‘Alright. I’ll let you get back to it, Commander. Try to take your leave somewhere sunny, and maybe take Valance with you.’
‘Working on it,’ said Cortez wryly. ‘Thanks for coming down here, sir.’ She glanced up, lips twisting. ‘Oh, and - apology accepted, Captain.’
That brought more relief than he expected, and he left Main Engineering with more energy in his tired step. But this was not the first apology he was due to give, so he didn’t let himself slow down as he headed for the turbolift, lest he find any excuse to stop or go somewhere else.
He was so determined in making it to his destination that he almost swore when the turbolift doors slid open to show Dathan, and some of that must have shown on her face because she raised an eyebrow. ‘Captain.’
He slid inside and hit the panel for his destination. ‘Settling in?’ he said instead as the turbolift whirred to life.
‘I will once we get to Bravo. My permanent quarters were there, after all. I’ll just move over.’ There was a pause. ‘Thank you for asking for me, sir, for Endeavour. I know what the Admiral is like. I appreciate you making sure I went to a decent assignment.’
‘Oh, Beckett would make sure you went somewhere decent.’ Rourke watched the ceiling. ‘Just decent and convenient for him.’
‘You seem to be where things happen. After a long time only analysing it from a distance, I would like to get back to these front-row seats, so to speak.’ Another pause. ‘Some time - not right now - but some time, there’s something I’d like to hear your assessment on, Captain: the rest of the operations behind the Wild Hunt, this suspected incursion from another reality.’
Rourke nodded, but frowned. ‘You’ve read the files.’
‘Yes, sir. But I expect you have thoughts. And this feels like something we need to take seriously.’
‘It is.’ His lips twisted, quietly pleased at her assertiveness. ‘Sure, Lieutenant. When we’re at Bravo, we can go through notes and the CIC records. I’ll bring you up to speed on how it’s all gone down from these new seats. Fair?’
‘More than fair, sir.’ Dathan inclined her head as the turbolift reached her stop. ‘Good night, Captain.’
He sighed as he pressed on, and tried to not fidget. It wouldn’t make this easier if he was still doing it by the time he hit the door-chime to Josephine Logan’s quarters.
She answered in baggy clothes, her hair up, jaunty music piping in from behind her, and his heart sank as he realised he was interrupting a perfectly pleasant evening. Her apprehensive smile rose. ‘Captain! I mean, Matt.’
He fought a smirk. ‘Should I start calling you Doctor Josie?’
‘That’d make me sound like a kids’ edutainment vid mascot, or something.’ She stepped back to usher him inside. ‘You’ve caught me clocking off at the end of the day, but don’t worry, I’m not yet at the stage of drinking wine and dancing in my underwear…’ Her voice trailed off at his expression. ‘Not that I do that, no way.’
He still hovered near the door, trapped by the mantle of being Captain Rourke, upon whose frayed edges Cortez had gnawed and tugged. He flexed his hand. ‘I shouldn’t interrupt your evening.’
‘I - you think I had big plans if I was definitely not going to dance in my underwear? It’s just me, the wine, and some sexy, sexy new journal articles.’ Shaking her head at herself, Josie padded across her room. ‘How about I get that wine, then you tell me what’s going on, and I shut up forever?’
As ever, Rourke couldn’t quite suppress his smile. ‘I’m doing the rounds of things I needed to do, but couldn’t, until the mission was over. And the mission’s over. And I just opened myself up to being mauled by my Chief Engineer because I’ve treated her really badly, so it’s now… your turn.’
‘I’m supposed to maul you?’ She grabbed a second glass of wine and poured for him from the chilled bottle on her coffee table. ‘We take turns mauling you?’
‘I’m off to a good start.’ Rourke sighed, but followed and took the glass offered. ‘You tried to offer me support at Haydorian, before the battle.’
‘Oh.’ Shoulders sagging, Josie sat down and gestured for him to join her. ‘You don’t need to apologise, Ca- Matt, that was intrusive of me…’
‘It wasn’t, and even if it was, I should be realistic, you…’ He swigged the wine. ‘You know more about what’s going on in my head than most aboard.’
‘Right!’ She snapped her fingers and sat up in an attempt to return to business. ‘I don’t have much of an update on this Scylla operation, I’m sorry, it’s been a busy few…’
‘Josie.’ He put his glass down. ‘I didn’t come here to ask if you’d jumped through more hoops for me. I came to apologise for being brusque the other day, but I… Cortez just hit me for keeping people at arm’s length, and I don’t think she’s entirely right to because I am the captain. That’s the job, and she doesn’t get that, but… sometimes it’s necessary.’
Her gaze shifted, the nervous officiousness adjusting for a softer apprehension. ‘I understand. I made the offer because I get that I sit in a different niche, but you don’t have to -’
‘We lost thirteen crew to the D’Ghor.’ He blurted it not to silence her, but because if he didn’t shove the words past his lips, they’d never come. ‘Some to the mine. Two on the refinery. Some from the ship-to-ship combat. And the rest when they boarded, when they… they broke onto this ship, my ship…’
Josie’s gaze eased. ‘I hid under a table,’ she admitted quietly. ‘In a lockdown spot. And it was awful enough to hear it and see the aftermath as… as not really one of the crew. I can’t imagine what it was like when you’re responsible for everyone.’
‘And, well. You know I’m not a great fan of dealing with losing people when there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Rourke shook his head and clasped his hands in his lap, shoulders hunching in. ‘Thirteen…’
There was a moment’s hesitation before Josie awkwardly shifted her wine glass to her other hand, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. ‘I’m not exactly Counsellor Carraway, but… I can do listening. Honest. I’ll make sure I limit my words and babbling responses and everything, and maybe let you get a word in edge-ways sometimes.’
His laugh was a short burst and a low relief, but it also brought a dislodging surge of emotion, and before he knew it Rourke was shaking his head and swallowing the threat of a choking grief. ‘I’ve lost people before. People I really cared about. And I… I didn’t want to command again, because I didn’t know if I could survive going through this again. So I’ve tried hard, really hard, to just be the captain to everyone and… Cortez might be right, but damn it, there are reasons I’ve not reached out to people like her.’
‘She’s likable and well-adjusted,’ Josie agreed with a sigh. ‘It’s frustrating.’
‘These people saved me. In a whole lot of ways, this crew’s saved me. But we take one hammering, and we lose officers I barely know, and I’m still… on my heels. I almost got everyone killed chasing down the Kut’luch, as if vengeance would make it better.’ She was stroking his back by now, and that helped push down the wave. ‘I don’t know how to be a good captain and not open myself to this going wrong again.’
‘I’d say that that’s life, but then, most people don’t worry about all two hundred and fifty people they’re responsible for being murdered by a bloodthirsty Klingon death cult,’ mused Josie. ‘Sorry, that’s… not very reassuring.’
‘I’ll take honest.’ He drew a slower, less raking breath. ‘Carraway has to assess me professionally; it’s his job, his duty. I’m not ready for that yet, to unpick myself with someone who has to judge my fitness with every word. He’d say that’s not true, but it is, and I’m not ready for it.’
‘So I’m your non-judgy, entry-level shoulder to cry on?’ Josie’s nose wrinkled. ‘Not cry on. Forget that. Express yourself to. Manfully.’
Again he laughed, and again it brought with it a dull ache, though it was a better sort of ache this time. ‘No. No, you’re the only person I can be a person with.’
‘I mean, I’ve had a lot of colleagues and even an ex-boyfriend who said I’m more like a computer-person than a person, and I won’t lie, that was hurtful, but I can promise with about ninety-five percent certainty that I am, in fact, a person.’ She’d made it to a smile, and it wasn’t apprehensive any more. ‘So sit here for a bit, and be Matt. A person with a glass of wine and a nerd for company. Who’s out the other end of a calamity. And I can listen. Or I can make you listen to me, because I make most people listen to me, only it’ll either be words or some truly awful train of thought that I’m afraid I’m… not very good at stopping…’
At last he smiled, no longer pained or wry, though the ache continued within him and he knew all he could do for now was acknowledge its presence and continue to feel it. ‘Let’s start, definitely-a-person-Josie,’ he said, and reached forward for his glass, ‘with that wine.’