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Chapter Text

Stardate 59864.1
Interstellar Space

When her monitor chimed to announce an incoming call, Mariner was in the XO’s office with Boimler, the two of them sitting across from each other at their partner’s desk. They had been working logistical planning for the upcoming mission, lobbing snarky comments back and forth the whole time. Mariner had been getting the worse of the exchange for once, so she was glad of the distraction.

“Huh. Starbase 80,” she observed. “Wonder what Mom wants?”

Boimler shrugged. “I hope it won’t be anything like the last time she handed us a mission.”

“You’re just mad because you didn’t get to come along.” Mariner reached for the accept key before he could raise any objections.

Sure enough, when the call came through, Captain Carol Freeman’s face was center field. At least she was smiling . . . and it was a genuine smile, not the diplomatic pasted-on kind, the crinkles at the outer corners of her eyes in full view. “Beckett! It’s good to see you, hon.”

“Good to see you too, Mom. How are things at the gateway to everywhere?”

“Chaotic as always. Those agents from Temporal Investigations have been here, turning everything upside down.”

“Oh, man, those two are the worst.”

“You know it. I think they’re trying to decide if the quantum portal counts as a time-travel device.”

“Ugh, of course it does! As long as you define ‘time travel’ as going sideways, and up and down, and blue and orange, and some other directions too, as well as forward and back.”

“I think that’s the conclusion they’re converging on too, but they’re taking their sweet time about it.” Freeman chuckled. “Pun not intended. I figure it’s better to let them do their job. That way, they might actually be of some help if things get weird around here. Well, weird-er.”

“So, what brings you to our office? Got another mission for us?”

Freeman’s eyebrows rose. “Your office, plural?”

“Hi, Captain Freeman!” Boimler called, sing-song, waving even though she couldn’t possibly see him. The dweeb.

“Ah, of course. No, this is only a social call. I understand congratulations are in order.”

Congratulations? Oh, right, the Starfleet rumor mill must have gotten to Starbase 80. Only thing faster than subspace radio. “You heard about me and T’Lyn, huh?”

“I did.” Freeman gave her a sharp glance, although it wasn’t an unkindly one. “It seems to be doing you some good, from what I can see. I’m happy for you, Beckett, though I must admit to some surprise.”

Mariner narrowed her eyes, a danger signal. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that Lieutenant T’Lyn seems out of character for you.” Freeman smirked. “You used to be in the habit of dating people designed to piss me and your father off.”

Despite herself, Mariner laughed. “That’s fair. I don’t know how well you got to know T’Lyn while you and she were both here, but she’s a very bad girl by Vulcan standards.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yeah,” Mariner said, “quite the cultural rebel. Underneath that icy, stoic exterior is someone who is very much in touch with her intuition and her emotions. She even has a sense of humor. It’s as dry as Vulcan’s Forge, but it’s definitely there.”

Freeman smiled warmly. “I see. Maybe she fits the pattern, after all.”

“You got it. Besides, she’s crazy smart, and she does not put up with my bullshit, and she’s always open and honest with me, and . . .” Mariner had to stop and take a deep breath. “Damn, Mom, I really am falling for this one.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Mariner saw Boimler aiming an unusually sunny smile across the desk at her. She gave him an instant’s warning glare, and turned back to her mother.

“Good. When you get the time, Beckett, your father would like to meet your girlfriend, and I wouldn’t mind the chance to get to know her better. Bring her with you and come visit us at Starbase 80.” Freeman’s smile widened, and became a little sharp-edged. “I know, this is not your favorite place, but it’s quite a lot better than you may remember. All the resources coming this way have helped us to clean it up, make it an installation Starfleet can take pride in.”

Mariner scoffed. “Did you at least get rid of the Pyrithian bats?”

“Oh yes.” Freeman shuddered. “That was first on the priority list. The turbolifts work now too, and the Gatherers are a lot better behaved now that they have the tourist concessions.”

“No promises,” said Mariner. “We’re going to be tied up on Vashti for weeks, but I think Jack might be willing to cut us some leave time if things go as well there as they did on Torrassa.”

“I’ll cover for you,” Boimler volunteered, “and Tendi should be able to fill in for T’Lyn.”

Mariner nodded in thanks.

“What about T’Lyn’s family?” Freeman asked. “You’ll need to make a trip to Vulcan at some point, I imagine.”

“Yeah, but that’s not happening anytime soon,” said Mariner, frowning at the thought. “I mean, if we do decide to make something permanent out of this, we’ll need to square things with her family, but that’s not going to be easy. T’Lyn still talks to her dad once in a while, but I gather he’s not likely to approve of a relationship with a human, much less a woman. Her mom pretty much disowned her years ago. She doesn’t talk about them much. I think she’s a little scared of opening that can of worms.”

“Well, I for one am not concerned. Because she’s going to have my determined, fierce daughter at her side the whole time.”

“Damn straight!”

“All right, hon, I’ll let you get back to duty. I just wanted to see for myself how things were going with you, and give you our best wishes. Come see us when you can.”

“Will do, Mom. Bye!”

After the connection was broken, Boimler remarked, “You know, I think that was the nicest conversation I’ve ever seen you and your mom have.”

“Carol and I get along on an inverse-square law,” said Mariner. “The greater the distance between us, the better our relationship. Although . . . I have to admit, T’Lyn has been helping me deal with a lot of the issues that used to have us striking sparks off each other all the time. For someone who’s not trained as a therapist, my girl is frighteningly good at diagnosing where my brain is miswired, and helping me fix it.”

“Didn’t you say she was trained as a Vulcan healer? I understand they treat mental issues as much as they do physical.”

“No. They thought she might go in for that when she was young, but she went into science and the Expeditionary Group instead. Which I think is one reason her mom pretends she doesn’t exist. T’Lyn has what they call adept’s training, to help her manage her telepathy, but she only ever picked up the basics of healer training.” Mariner shrugged. “I ask her how she does it, and all she ever says is, ‘I pay attention.’”

“Well, I’m glad. She’s been good for you . . . and I think you’ve been good for her too.” Boimler gave her one more warm smile, then turned back to his monitor. “Now, we’d better focus. Vashti is going to be an order of magnitude more involved than Torrassa.”

Senior science officers’ log, stardate 59867.8, Lieutenants (junior grade) D’Vana Tendi and T’Lyn reporting. The Cerritos has arrived in standard orbit of Vashti, a Federation colony world in the Qiris Sector, 2.4 parsecs from the Romulan Neutral Zone. Vashti has agreed to accept Romulan migrants, and the UFP High Commission on Refugees has designated the planet as a Romulan Relocation Hub. Not only will the planet receive a quarter of a million Romulan refugees on a permanent basis, as many again may stay here temporarily before being further resettled on worlds deeper inside Federation space. Cerritos is one of three ships being deployed to improve local infrastructure and housing stock before the arrival of the first wave of migrants.

Vashti is a marginally Class-M planet which resembles Vulcan. Most of the planet’s surface is arid desert or exposed bedrock, with no world-spanning oceans, although there are several small seas. Humans find the planet more hospitable than Vulcan, with lower surface gravity, a cooler climate, and a thick atmosphere rich in oxygen.

The local biochemistry is fully compatible with human or Vulcan life, with cellular biology dominated by standard DNA and RNA processes, along with the usual list of amino acids and carbohydrates. About 20% of the planet’s surface is covered by vegetation, including several varieties of trees that grow to truly remarkable size. Animal life forms tend to be small, with many pseudo-avian and pseudo-mammalian species capable of gliding or flight. There are no dangerous predators, although some species of small biting or burrowing animals are considered a nuisance.

The current population of Vashti is 5.1 million. 79% of these are human, most of them adherents of Hinduism, Buddhism, and similar dharmic religious traditions. 16% of the colonists are Vulcan, and the remainder are from a variety of Federation worlds. The planetary government is a representative democracy, centered around a Constituent Assembly whose members are elected on an annual basis. The colony has a strong sentient-rights charter and a tradition of respecting diversity, which may be one reason it was so willing to accept Romulan refugees.

Although the Science Department will not be the focus of the ship’s mission on Vashti, we look forward to lending our support as needed.

“Curious,” said T’Lyn, as she finished editing and archiving their log entry. “Lieutenant, what do you know about the religious traditions dominant among the humans on Vashti?”

“They mostly come from a place called India,” Tendi answered, turning away from a lab bench to watch T’Lyn where she sat at her desk. “I’ve never been there, but I’ve known humans from that part of Earth. The last head of Ops was one of them. Remember Commander Singh?”

“Yes.”

“I read about the dharmic religions in the Academy,” Tendi continued. “They’ve spread all over Earth by now, and to the stars. There’s a lot of variety. Commander Singh was a Sikh, but most Indians are Hindus of various kinds, a lot of other humans are Buddhists, and there are some other sorts too. It’s interesting that they all seem to live together peacefully here on Vashti. As I understand it, they haven’t always gotten along well back on Earth.”

“Human history is full of conflicts over religion,” T’Lyn observed. “Although I should not belittle them for it. Despite our ability to sense the presence of the divine in the universe, Vulcans have rarely agreed upon its nature, and before the Time of Awakening we also fought over such differences of opinion.”

Tendi opened her mouth, then her brain visibly caught up with what she had heard. “I’m sorry, did you say Vulcans can sense . . .”

“It seems to be a by-product of our telepathic abilities. Aside from the presence of other corporeal sentient beings, we constantly have a sense of something that inhabits the universe as a whole. Sentient, always present, even watchful, but silent.” T’Lyn shook her head slightly. “It would be illogical to deny the sense, but it settles fewer questions about reality than one might think. Most modern Vulcans continue to observe ancient rituals and traditions, but we do so because they are of psychological and social value, not because we believe a deity expects them of us.”

“That’s interesting!” Tendi’s eyes shone, as they often did when she was learning something new. “We Orions have hundreds of little goddesses and gods that still get attention. Guardians of place, personal protectors, tricky beings that have to be placated if you want luck, that kind of thing. Most of us think there’s a Goddess above all, but she keeps her distance and doesn’t interfere in mortal affairs. Though she’s useful to swear by when you’re angry, or pray to when you’re in trouble. It’s probably a good thing we can’t ‘sense the divine’ like you can.”

“Why is that?” T’Lyn asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, Orions generally aren’t as sneaky and paranoid as Romulans, but most of us still wouldn’t be comfortable with the sense that something is watching us all the time.”

“Yes, I can see why that might be disturbing.”

Tendi’s eyes went wide at a sudden thought. “Hey, do you think this thing you sense might be Q?”

T’Lyn frowned slightly in distaste. “Highly unlikely. I have never encountered Q, but from the reports I have read, it is nothing alike. Which may be one reason Q has never been recorded as harassing Vulcans. We would not pay it the attention it craves, or provide any amusement for it.”

“True. Q seems to prefer pestering humans.” Tendi turned back to her work, making a small adjustment to the equipment on her bench. “I’ve never heard the name Vashti before. Is it from one of the dharmic religions?”

T’Lyn called up an encyclopedia article on her padd, speed-reading it. Her eyebrow rose. “No. Apparently Vashti is a figure from a completely different human religious tradition, one which is not represented among the human colonists.”

Tendi shook her head. “Humans are weird sometimes.”

“I concur.”

Stardate 59869.5
Standard Orbit over Vashti
Aboard the USS Hiram Roth

Mariner shimmered into existence on the transporter pad, already looking around at the room.

Big airy transporter bay, everything’s spit-and-polish . . . and is that a mural on the side and back walls? Ugh, some kind of Federation heroic-realism style. All bright shiny faces, on a bright shiny planet, looking up at bright shiny Starfleet ships in the sky. I mean, I love Starfleet too, but get over yourselves, dudes.

A Haliian male stepped forward, tall and burly, in Command reds with four pips. “Captain Ransom, welcome to the Hiram Roth. I’m Kaleel Ren, task force commander.”

Ransom smiled as he stepped off the transporter stage and took Ren’s hand. “Looking forward to working with you, Captain. My officers, Lieutenants Boimler and Mariner.”

Ren nodded politely to each of them. “We’re still waiting on the San Clemente to send their staff over. I suspect Captain Tharin likes to interpret punctual as last-possible-moment.”

Ransom chuckled. “He has a name for it. Don’t worry, he’ll be here on time. Exactly on time.”

Ren indicated a young human woman standing close by. “In the meantime, Lieutenant Hughes will show you to the conference center. We’ll get started as soon as Captain Tharin graces us with his presence.”

“Right this way, sir,” said Hughes, leading them out of the compartment.

Mariner kept her head on a swivel. She had never been aboard one of the Envoy-class diplomatic cruisers before.

New class, a post-Dominion-War initiative, she thought. My career took its nose-dive by the time I would have had any chance to serve on one of these. I’m not what Starfleet would consider its best foot forward, after all.

In fact, she wasn’t impressed. Every panel and every line shouted Academy clean. There were more murals on the walls, all of them in that same heroic-realism style that was doubtless generated by computer. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see crew holystoning the deck plates. Even Lieutenant Hughes was a gorgeous little thing, with absolutely perfect posture and grooming, striding along and looking as if she wanted to start power-walking at any moment.

If anyone on board this ship has ever seen so much as a Drookmani scavenger armed with harsh language, I’d be surprised.

“Right in here,” said Hughes, bowing at the door to one of the most spacious and sumptuously decorated conference rooms Mariner had ever seen.

She followed Ransom through the door, still looking around. Little cluster of Starfleet uniforms already seated at one end of the conference table, likely Captain Ren’s staff. A couple of ensigns setting padds and drinks out on the table. At the far end of the room, a knot of civilians, all standing and paying court to . . .

No. No fucking way.

Mariner had a momentary impulse to run, or failing that, to freeze in Ransom’s shadow. She suppressed the urge, staying right behind Ransom and to his right as he entered the room and crossed over to the Starfleet contingent, she and Boimler being good little wing-men.

A glance to the far side of the room, and he hadn’t noticed her presence yet. He didn’t seem to be taking any notice of anyone in a uniform, in fact.

Ransom was smiling, shaking hands, introducing himself and his co-first officers. Not noticing that Mariner had gone stiff and silent all of a sudden. Boimler, on the other hand, was as always more sensitive. He asked no questions out loud, but he was giving her a very puzzled look.

Just then, Captain Ren came striding through the door, a tall Andorian thaan with captain’s pips and two more junior officers following. “Well, we’re all here, finally,” said Ren, with a sharp-edged smile directed at Captain Tharin. “Let’s get started —”

“What is she doing here?” came a harsh voice, from the far end of the room.

Mariner looked, and sure enough, he was staring directly at her.

“Commissioner, is there a problem with one of our officers?” asked Ren, bewildered.

He pointed at Mariner, and demanded, “Captain Random . . .”

“Ransom.”

“Captain Random, that officer has no place in this mission. If she’s one of yours, I want her returned to your ship and kept there for the duration.”

Give him credit, Ransom immediately drew himself up and set his jaw. “I don’t know who the hell you are . . .”

“I am Commissioner Charles Enright Quinn, with the United Federation of Planets High Commission on Refugees, and this is my mission. I don’t want that officer anywhere near it. If you need a reason, I suggest you look up her service record, specifically on and about stardate 53472.”

“I’m perfectly familiar with Lieutenant Mariner’s service record,” said Ransom, “and the events of that date have no bearing. She is a dedicated and capable officer, and I will employ her as I see fit in pursuit of this mission. Commissioner.”

“Captain Ren?”

The Haliian cocked his head, looking unsure as to what he had stepped in, but he showed no sign of yielding. “Sir, this is indeed your mission, but you are not in the Starfleet chain of command any more. It’s your job to give us direction. It’s our job to make sure you succeed. Nothing in your charter gives you the authority to make personnel changes in Starfleet.”

Quinn continued to give Mariner a hostile stare. “If that’s the way you want to play it, Captains. Be sure I will be watching very closely, and if anything goes wrong – anything at all – and Lieutenant Mariner is involved, I will see her and you in front of a Board of Inquiry.”

“Understood,” said Ren. “Let’s all sit down and get started.”

Under cover of the bustle of Starfleet officers and civilians finding their seats, Boimler leaned close and whispered in Mariner’s ear. “What the hell? I’m never surprised any more when you turn out to have odd connections, but they’re usually not this hostile.”

Mariner shook her head, avoiding any glance down the length of the conference table. “It’s a long story,” she murmured. “Six years ago, I was a full lieutenant, assigned to the Yosemite as the helmsman, and Quinn was the ship’s captain.”

“Yosemite,” Boimler mused. “Wasn’t that the Oberth-class ship that . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Boimler took a deep breath. “Oh, shit.”

Mariner only nodded. Oh, shit indeed.

Chapter Text

Stardate 59870.9
Standard Orbit over Vashti

Somehow Mariner got through the rest of that terrible meeting, got back to the Cerritos, got through the ordeal of volunteering to stay aboard for the time being. Until Commissioner Charles Enright Fucking Quinn got over himself. As if that was ever going to happen.

She skipped dinner with the gang, just went to her quarters the moment her shift was over and her to-do list for the day was finished. Hours later, she was still sitting at her desk in the darkened room, her uniform jacket open, staring at an unopened bottle of Argelian brandy.

Her door chimed. She ignored it.

It opened anyway, the bright light from the corridor casting her shadow across the desktop and the bottle, making her frown though she was facing away. At least it didn’t last long. The darkness returned. Someone moved across the room in almost complete silence, and then a gentle hand rested on Mariner’s shoulder.

“You didn’t have to come,” Mariner said, but her hand crept upward to touch the one on her shoulder.

“I know,” said T’Lyn.

Mariner sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired of dealing with my issues?”

“You never seem to tire of helping me with mine. It seems only logical that I return the consideration.”

“Only logical,” Mariner said, with a small laugh. “Right, babe. Keep telling yourself that.”

T’Lyn moved around her, pulling up the other chair so she could sit facing Mariner, their knees almost touching. She leaned forward, taking and holding one of Mariner’s hands. Mariner felt it, the brush of T’Lyn’s mind against hers, and it was a comfort.

“I am familiar with what your service record has to say about events aboard the Yosemite,” said T’Lyn. “Would you be willing to tell me what actually took place?”

“It’s all in the official record. That’s what makes it, you know, official.”

T’Lyn said nothing, only cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“What makes you think there’s any more to the story?” Mariner wondered.

“I know you, Beckett,” said T’Lyn simply. “Even at a time in your life when you were being utterly reckless of your own career, of your own safety, you would never have put your ship or your crew at risk. Not through negligence, and certainly not through deliberate action.”

“Well, the Board didn’t see it that way.”

T’Lyn sat still, holding Mariner’s hand and projecting wordless reassurance, for a long time. “Times have changed,” she said at last. “I am here now, and I want a true account. Will you give it to me?”

Slowly, Mariner relaxed, pulling her stare away from the bottle of brandy and looking into T’Lyn’s shadowed face instead. She sighed, and brought the other woman’s hand to her lips, kissing the knuckles.

“All right, babe. Not that it will make any difference.”

If you’ve read my service record (said Mariner), you know I spent a little over two years assigned to Deep Space Nine, the whole way through the Dominion War. After that whole mess was over, Starfleet started drawing down all the wartime deployments, and a lot of us who had fought on the front line needed to find new jobs. Captain Sisko left behind some nice words for me before he disappeared, and I guess Colonel Kira thought I had done okay, so I got what might have been a pretty good assignment.

I should never have accepted it.

Yosemite was a little Oberth-class scout, eighty crew tops, the kind of ship Starfleet sends out to count asteroids or something equally routine. She was an old junker of a ship, too, and she had never come within shouting distance of the war. One half-wrecked Jem’Hadar attack fighter could have wiped the floor with her in six seconds flat. But Starfleet was trying to get back to science and exploration, and Yosemite had plenty of history there. They needed a new lead helmsman, and there I was, two gold pips on my collar and perfectly qualified. On paper, anyway.

I suppose if Yosemite had a different captain, or a halfway decent ship’s counselor, things would have worked out. But no, I ended up with Charles Enright Fucking Quinn.

The man was entirely competent in his scientific specialty, sociology or xenopsychology or something like that. But if you looked in the dictionary for Dunning-Kruger Effect, you’d see his scowling face right there next to the definition. He was blissfully ignorant of anything outside his own little patch of intellectual territory, but he sure didn’t realize it. I don’t see how he ever passed the bridge officer’s exams, much less Command College. It was his first time in command of a starship, and his last.

I had just gotten out of two years of front-line duty in the worst war the Federation had fought in a century. That had already messed me up something fierce. I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Mount Seleya, and I thought I knew what was what, better than some desk jockey who’d never seen action. It didn’t take long for Quinn and me to start butting heads. Three days, tops.

Honestly, I think my hindbrain was already looking for ways for me to sabotage my own career.

Matters came to a head when the Yosemite was sent to carry out close-range observations of . . . oh, hell, I can’t remember the catalog number. Some neutron star they’d found out toward Antares, way too old to be a pulsar, too quiet to be noticed most of the time. Some Kzinti scouts had spotted it, when it suddenly started spitting X-rays while they were passing within a parsec or so.

The neutron star had gone quiet again by the time we arrived, but the navigational sensors picked up a lot of debris in the neighborhood. Nothing too big for the navigational deflectors to handle, you know, just an unusual amount of gravel and bits of ice floating around. Pay attention, there’ll be a quiz later.

We settled into a close orbit, about half a million kilometers out, and started taking readings. Lieutenant Garev – he was our Science Officer – thought we were a little too close. We weren’t picking up too much radiation, but Garev couldn’t be sure the neutron star would stay quiet. If it flared up, we were likely to get toasted. Quinn overruled him, but you know Tellarites. Garev wouldn’t let it go, and he formally logged his objection when Quinn ordered him to shut up about it.

This did not improve Quinn’s mood. Especially when the annoyingly insubordinate helmsman put her two credits in about agreeing with Garev. Quinn ordered us to stay on station, turned the conn over to the XO, and went off to sulk in his ready room.

He was still in there an hour later, when it all went to hell.

The first warning was a spike of X-rays from the neutron star. Still not enough to pose a radiation threat, but it sure woke us up. Then, a few seconds later, the navigational deflectors lit up like a Christmas tree. Collision alert warning. All I saw was a cloud of something roaring up from the star at us at relativistic speed. I slammed the shields into place.

Quinn came running out of his ready room. Give him credit, he saw what was happening and ordered us to turn away from the neutron star at full impulse. It was a quick decision, it was smart given what he had the time to see, and it was wrong.

I’m not sure how I figured it out so fast. I’m a historian, dammit, not a physicist. Somehow I realized the oncoming crap was moving at a substantial fraction of light-speed, and therefore it wasn’t where it seemed to be on sensors, and therefore turning directly away from the neutron star would put us right in its path. I disobeyed Quinn’s order and threw us into a corkscrewing power dive instead.

Quinn screamed at me. I ignored him and held to the course.

It almost worked.

Near as Garev and I could figure it out later, the neutron star was spitting radiation because it was in a cluttered neighborhood, and sometimes some of the junk fell into its gravity well and came down hard on its surface. Tiny little explosions, but hot, hot enough to put out X-rays. This time, a big cluster of space junk grazed the neutron star instead of falling straight in. Some of it hit, making the EM spike that warned us. The rest whipped around the neutron star, accelerated by its magnetic field, and was sent our way.

If I’d followed Quinn’s order to the letter, we’d have been in the middle of a relativistic shotgun blast. As it is, only two or three pieces of junk hit us, probably no more than a kilogram of mass in all. Flying at about point-four-cee, which made it like a barrage of photon torpedoes. More than enough to punch through the shields.

The port nacelle and the secondary hull took hits. Warp and impulse drives got knocked out, subspace comms wrecked, we had to evacuate Main Engineering for a while, and a few labs in the secondary hull were destroyed. Nobody was killed, thank the Prophets, just a few injuries that Dr. Argunov was able to fix. We spent thirty-six hours repairing the impulse engines and subspace radio, so we could limp away from the neutron star and call for help. Two days after that, the Tecumseh arrived and took us in tow to Deep Space 5.

That was where they convened the Board of Inquiry.

Yosemite was a total loss. Too old and too out-of-date to bother repairing. So Charles Enright Fucking Quinn had to answer for losing his command. He blamed me, of course. Produced evidence saying I had a history of being insubordinate, of ignoring his orders. I had disobeyed his direct order on the bridge, and the ship had ended up wrecked. All true. Case closed.

The Board found Quinn hadn’t been negligent, so he was let off with an admonishment. He didn’t get another command, but that was okay with him. His real goal was a job in the Federation bureaucracy, and his time on the Yosemite let him check off a box. He resigned his commission a month or so later, and I guess he ended up with the High Commission on Refugees.

Me, they threw the book at.

Looking back on it, I think I botched my defense on purpose. I answered every question put to me, sticking to “yes, sir” and “no, sir” whenever possible, but I didn’t volunteer anything. I didn’t offer any explanation for my actions. I didn’t take any opportunity to add to my testimony. I didn’t tell my counsel to put Garev on the stand. I think Commodore Wallace suspected there was more to the story, he did everything he could consistent with his role as the presiding officer, but I stonewalled him. I stonewalled the whole thing.

I got a formal reprimand and was busted two grades, back to Ensign. I almost got permanently grounded, but my dad pulled some strings and got me assigned to his ship, the Quito. Which is how I started on the path to being Starfleet’s most demerited nepo baby. Which is where I was when you met me.

Once Mariner had finished her story, the two of them sat quietly in the darkness, holding hands, for several minutes.

“I begin to understand,” said T’Lyn after a while, “why you reacted so strongly when I told you how I had been removed from the Sh’vhal.”

“Oh yeah,” Mariner chuckled. “Your story sounded way too familiar. We both saved our ships, and got punished for it.”

“Do you regard what happened as an injustice?”

Mariner sighed, and didn’t answer for a few moments. “I suppose I do,” she said at last, “but I was as much to blame for it as Quinn. If I’d listened to my counsel, if I’d actively defended myself, it might have turned out very differently. I think I wanted to be broken down to Ensign. Put in a place where I wouldn’t have to be responsible any more, where I could be wild and free and no one would expect anything from me.”

“I understand,” said T’Lyn.

Through the fleeting contact of their minds, Mariner sensed the truth of it. T’Lyn did understand, better than anyone else ever had. Better even than her parents had ever understood, Starfleet to the core as they both were. Mariner felt her eyes well up, although they didn’t quite spill over.

“I love you, babe,” she whispered. That’s the first I’ve said that in a long time, she realized. Maybe ever?

T’Lyn said nothing, only leaning forward for a moment to kiss Mariner, feather-light.

Mariner sighed, extricating one hand from T’Lyn’s grasp to wipe away the tears. “The hell of it is, now that I’ve figured out some of my issues and turned my career around, it’s too late. That Board of Inquiry is going to hang over my head the rest of my life. On the books, I crashed a starship. I’ll be lucky if I ever get above full Lieutenant again.”

“Is there no possibility of re-opening the inquiry, on the grounds of new evidence?”

“The odds are terrible.” Mariner shook her head. “Starfleet isn’t eager to re-litigate cases like that, even when there’s new evidence to consider. Not when it’s a very junior officer with a bad reputation asking to change her mind about offering a vigorous defense, six years after the fact.”

T’Lyn nodded, although Mariner suspected she wasn’t going to let it go.

Stardate 59872.5
Standard Orbit over Vashti

If Mariner had to be exiled to the ship, at least she was getting plenty of center-seat time.

Captain Ransom had left her with the conn, taken Boimler, and gone down to the planet to coordinate with planetary authorities. Mariner suspected he was also planning to check out the night-life at Central Station, which was currently in local evening.

Whatever. At least the engineering work is going well, she thought, reviewing the updated Gantt chart for the project. We’ve been here a day, and already we’re ahead of schedule. It might not be all that hard to convince Jack to give T’Lyn and me a little leave time to visit Mom and Dad.

Later she remembered that thought, and kicked herself for tempting fate.

“Sir?” said Ensign Barnes. “Lieutenant Rutherford is calling from the planet’s surface. He says it’s urgent.”

“Put him on.”

Rutherford’s face appeared in a window on the viewscreen, with what looked like a small control center in the background. “Hey, Mariner,” he called. “Can I send some code up to you for analysis? I’ve found something in the colony’s SCADA network that looks kind of weird.”

Mariner glanced over her shoulder, caught T’Lyn’s nod. “Go ahead, Rutherford. Do you want us to keep it in a sandbox?”

“Probably a good idea. This could just be some local engineer building their own solution to do something innocuous . . .”

“Or it could be a malware attack,” said Mariner. “Got it. Stand by.”

She looked back at the science station again. Tendi and T’Lyn were heads-together, low voices in rapid-fire discussion, as they worked the problem. Windows were popping up on T’Lyn’s display at a frantic rate, while she tapped at her console.

“Ensign Barnes,” said Mariner quietly, “contact the captain, let him know we may have a problem. Courtesy copy to the Hiram Roth.”

“On it.”

Mariner waited. Always the hardest part of being in command.

“Ransom to Cerritos.” The captain’s voice was pitched a little loud, the better to carry over the sound of music and many other voices in the background. “What’s the situation?”

Mariner answered, “We’re investigating some weird code Rutherford found in the colony’s industrial-control networks, sir. Given that he’s been working at the power station . . .”

“Ouch. Understood. Beam Mr. Boimler and me up—”

At exactly that moment, the signal from Ransom’s combadge dropped out.

Mariner felt her fight-or-flight response kick in hard. “Transporter room, lock on the captain and Lieutenant Boimler and get them up here now!”

“By the Prophets!” growled Shaxs from his station. “Sir, I’m reading an explosion from Central Station.”

“Malware attack confirmed,” said T’Lyn. “Recommend having Mr. Rutherford shut down the primary fusion reactor and leave Central Station on reserve power for the moment.”

“Did you hear that, Rutherford?” asked Mariner.

“You sure about this?”

“Do it!”

“Okie-dokie . . .”

“Shaxs, where was that explosion?”

“Not at the power station,” said Shaxs. “Downtown, in the commercial district. At a nightclub called Quantum Leap.”

“Transporter room, do you have the captain? Or Lieutenant Boimler?”

“Negative, bridge, we can’t lock onto their combadges.”

“Whoa!” said Rutherford. “Good thing I hit the shutoff. That code just triggered, and it looks like it would have set off an overload in the primary fusion reactor. Wouldn’t have made it blow up, but it would have done a lot of damage to the machinery. We’re okay here, as soon as I can weed out the malware.”

“Stand by, Rutherford.” Mariner looked at Ensign Barnes again. “Get me the Hiram Roth.”

Soon enough, Captain Ren appeared in another window on the viewscreen. “Lieutenant Mariner? Report.”

Mariner stood straight, hands clasped behind her back, trying to look as Starfleet as possible even if her sleeves were currently rolled up. “Sir, my assessment is that Central Station has come under attack by parties unknown. Captain Ransom and possibly Lieutenant Boimler may have been at the nightclub that was just bombed. We don’t know their status. Lieutenant Rutherford was able to prevent a malware attack from taking down the primary fusion reactor, but only by temporarily taking the reactor offline. Request permission to hand off Cerritos conn so I can lead an away team to the surface.”

“Who’s your senior command officer on board?”

“Lieutenant Commander Billups, sir. Our chief surgeon is senior but she’s not a line officer. I’m going to need her dirtside anyway.”

“All right. Get Billups to the bridge and up to speed, and you’re cleared to go.”

Mariner caught Barnes’s eye. The Trill officer nodded and called Billups to the bridge.

“I don’t have to tell you to be careful, Lieutenant,” Ren continued. “You’re already on thin ice with the Commissioner, to say nothing of whatever may be going on dirtside. Keep me informed.”

Mariner bit back a response that would have involved the words all due respect. Or possibly fuck the Commissioner. “Understood, sir.”

As soon as Captain Ren signed off, Mariner strode over to the sciences station. “Shaxs, Tendi, you’re with me. Shaxs, call Dr. T’Ana and a couple of your people to the transporter room. T’Lyn . . .”

A moment of angry rebellion flickered in the Vulcan’s eyes, but then it was firmly suppressed. “I will remain here and coordinate with Mr. Rutherford. There may be more malware.”

“That’s right.” Mariner held T’Lyn’s gaze, but none of what she wanted to say was appropriate for the bridge. Then Billups arrived in the turbolift, and there was no more time.

Chapter Text

Stardate 59872.6
Standard Orbit over Vashti

No one else on the bridge knew it, but T’Lyn was in the midst of a crisis.

No one knew, because she was alone at the science station. Tendi was not present to detect any change in her behavior. No one else currently on the bridge knew her well. In any event, they all had more important matters to attend, the captain and both co-executive officers away from the ship, a sudden crisis erupting on the planet’s surface. No one paid any attention to the Vulcan woman, working as efficiently as ever at her own station.

Her hands were a blur, moving with assurance over the controls. Windows appeared, she glanced at them and assimilated what they had to say, she dismissed them. The cool, logical portions of her mind were assembling a picture, and the shape of that picture was beginning to seem familiar.

All the while, a storm raged beneath the surface.

I am a Vulcan, she reminded herself, over and over again. I am in control of my emotions.

Irritation, that Mariner had left T’Lyn behind. Annoyance, that T’Lyn understood the logic behind Mariner’s decision and had been forced to agree with it. Fear, that the human she was beginning to love was in danger. Frustration, that she could do nothing to help but stand at her station and manipulate data.

Rage, at the adversary who had caused the danger. An adversary she was beginning to recognize.

I am a Vulcan . . .

Another fear lurked as well. A year ago, the last time she had suffered a similar degree of emotional turmoil, it had spilled over to affect the entire ship’s crew. The humiliation of that loss of control, that harm done to her shipmates, had nearly undone her. Had Mariner not been on hand, to offer a profound insight in her uniquely human manner, T’Lyn might have done considerable harm to herself.

I am in control . . .

She was not in control, not truly. Yet, as she spared a moment to glance around the bridge, she saw no sign of the chaos she had inflicted before. Everyone was at their stations, focused and intent. No reports came from elsewhere on the ship, to tell of altered or extreme behavior.

She took a deep breath.

I am a Vulcan. I am in control of my emotions.

The storm did recede. Just a little. Enough for her to reach at least one logical conclusion.

“Commander Billups,” she called, turning to face the command well.

Billups turned. “What’s up, T’Lyn?”

“I have completed part of my analysis of the malware Lieutenant Rutherford found in the colony’s power systems,” she said. “I should be able to assist him in removing it from colony networks. I cannot yet say how the malware was introduced, but I can report with high confidence its ultimate source.”

Billups’s mustache twitched as he pursed his lips. “Go ahead.”

“The malware was Romulan in origin. Specifically, Tal Shiar.”

That sent his eyebrows high in surprise. “You’re sure?”

T’Lyn gave him her own eyebrow gesture in return, as if to rebuke him for the question. “Several segments of code are identical to data recovered from Tal Shiar computers on stardate 59616. I estimate a 96.8% probability the current malware is also Tal Shiar in origin. There is a lower but still significant probability that some of the same individual authors wrote both programs.”

Billups nodded, recognizing T’Lyn’s reference to a classified mission she had participated in three months before. “Send your findings to the Hiram Roth, encrypted for Starfleet channels only, at the appropriate level of classification. That should keep Commissioner Quinn from butting in for a while.”

“Yes, sir.” T’Lyn turned back to her station and sent the necessary files. That may help Mariner, she told herself, permitting a moment’s satisfaction.

“Ensign Barnes,” Billups called. “Any luck getting in touch with the captain?”

“No, sir.” Barnes glanced over her shoulder at him. “And now I can’t raise Lieutenant Mariner’s away team either.”

“That’s good,” said Billups.

“Sir?”

“There haven’t been any more explosions, or any word of another violent attack,” the engineer explained. “If Mariner and her team are cut off too, that means there’s some kind of signal jamming going on. Which is a more hopeful explanation than the one we had for why the captain’s out of contact.”

Barnes nodded in understanding, and turned back to her station.

“T’Lyn, you’re in contact with Rutherford, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered, not bothering to look. “It will take us approximately twelve minutes to complete remediation of the colony networks, after which he will be free to investigate the signal jamming.”

“You’re a step ahead of me, Lieutenant. Good job. Keep me informed.”

T’Lyn acknowledged the order, then threw herself back into the work. Keeping the storm at bay.

Stardate 59872.6
Vashti

Mariner and her team beamed down into chaos.

First impressions: this had been a busy pedestrian street at the height of early-evening foot traffic, well lit, with bars, restaurants, dance clubs and holosuites on either side. The Quantum Leap club must have been the centerpiece of the local entertainment district, but now it was a ruin. The front wall had been blown out onto the street, exposing the shattered guts of the building. Mariner could see injured people, mostly humans, both on the street and inside the club. To the colonists’ credit, many of the uninjured were already doing everything they could to help. Mariner spotted a few colonists wearing khaki uniforms, and guessed they were local police.

“Zinda, his eyes red!” exclaimed Kayshon.

Mariner pointed into the thickest of the crowd. “Dr. T’Ana . . .”

“Way ahead of you, kid.” The Caitian doctor had already picked out the ones most in need of help, and was on her way. Shaxs wordlessly assigned Ensign Haubold to follow.

Mariner tapped her combadge, and heard only a burst of static. “Signals are being jammed. Tendi?”

The Orion woman already had her tricorder out, turning this way and that, eventually focusing on one direction. “Somewhere across the street,” she said at last. “Not too far away, the signal strength isn’t high. Probably a portable jammer, range of a hundred meters or so.”

Mariner nodded. “Lieutenant Kayshon, go with her, see if you can find the jammer and take it out.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Let’s go see if we can figure out what happened here,” she said to Shaxs, and the burly Bajoran nodded.

They picked their way across the street, between stunned and weeping humans and the occasional stoic Vulcan, many of them stumbling along or helping the injured. Up and down the street, more clusters of transporter beams shimmered into existence, as Starfleet arrived in force from Hiram Roth and San Clemente.

As they approached what was left of the nightclub, a dark-skinned human male moved to intercept them. He wore a khaki uniform with a high-peaked cap, and was carrying a civilian hand phaser. “I am Senior Constable Sandhu,” he said. “My apologies, but I cannot allow you to enter. It is not safe.”

“Constable, there’s a chance two of my ship’s officers are in here,” said Mariner, “including my captain.”

“It is still not safe,” said Sandhu, “but I may be able to put your mind at ease.” He pointed down the street. “I saw two Starfleet officers when I arrived, already lending what assistance they could. I believe one of them wore captain’s pips.”

“Big blonde clean-shaven muscular dude? Did he have a skinny guy with purple hair and a beard with him, both of them in red?”

Sandhu nodded. “That does fit their description.”

Mariner took a deep breath in relief. “Shaxs, go see if you can link up with the captain. I’ll be along in a moment.”

Shaxs grunted acknowledgement, his face grimmer than usual, and set out down the street.

Mariner turned back to Sandhu. “Constable, I realize it’s too early for you to know what happened here, but did your people get any warning about this?”

Sandhu shook his head in bewilderment. “None whatsoever. I do not understand. There is very little political or social unrest here on Vashti. Certainly no dissidents who would think to resort to violence.”

“With a bunch of Romulans on their way?” Mariner suggested. “Sure there isn’t anyone who might object to that?”

Sandhu lifted his chin and gave Mariner a hard stare. “We pride ourselves on being welcoming, here on Vashti. The resolution to help Admiral Picard’s effort passed by a wide margin. Not unanimously, no, I suppose no society is ever unanimous about anything. But I assure you, the constabulary has no reason to believe any of our own people would consider something like this.”

Mariner put both her hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay, I get it. You know why I had to ask.”

“Of course,” said Sandhu, relaxing a little.

“I need to go find my captain,” she said. “I’m not in charge, but I’m sure Starfleet will be working closely with your department while we all figure this out.”

Sandhu made a small smile and nodded. “No doubt.”

Mariner made the anjali mudra and exchanged slight bows with the constable, then turned and strode away down the street. As she glanced around, she counted a lot of red, blue, and gold uniforms, not to mention khaki-clad colonists, all hard at work on disaster mitigation.

Can’t fault the emergency response, she thought. Then something caused her brain to skip a step, and the nasty, suspicious part of it handed her an idea she didn’t like. Suppose that was the point of all this? Get Starfleet and the local government focused on one disaster, while the real blade goes in somewhere else?

Suddenly she spotted Shaxs, in the middle of a small knot of people twenty meters or so ahead. Not difficult, given the man’s height and his shock of white hair. Next to him . . .

Thank the Prophets.

Ransom and Boimler were there, and a stranger Mariner didn’t recognize. It was a woman, with skin about the same shade as Mariner’s, dark hair and brown eyes, upswept eyebrows and pointed ears. She wore a sleeved tunic and skirt in dark blue, a hooded cloak, boots and fingerless gloves, and . . .

Is that a sword slung over her back?

“Mariner!” Ransom called as she approached. “Good job, getting boots on the ground so quickly.”

“Happy to see you, Captain. You too, Boims.”

“We seem to be cut off from the ship. Any ideas about that?”

“We found signal jamming in place. Since you and Boims aren’t dead in that bombing after all, I have to guess the jamming was set to start just when the bomb went off. Tendi and Lieutenant Kayshon are looking for the device.” Mariner folded her arms. “Sir, this stinks to high heaven.”

“I agree. On which note, let me make introductions. Mariner, this is Zani.”

The strange woman made a small bow and an odd two-handed gesture, holding both hands palms-together before her, then opening them as if to imitate opening a printed book. “Lieutenant Mariner, it is pleasing to meet you,” she said, with a clear Romulan accent. “I have heard a great deal about you.”

Rather clumsily, Mariner imitated the gesture. “That’s a surprise, because I’ve never heard of you.”

“Mariner!” Ransom rebuked her.

Zani laughed. “I take no offense, Captain Ransom. You will find I appreciate bluntness and candor.”

Ransom shook his head. “If you say so. Mariner, Zani here walked up to us a few minutes ago, looking for members of the Cerritos crew. Specifically, for Mr. Boimler and you.”

“Hmm.” Mariner gave Zani a closer look, and had to admit to herself that she was impressed. The woman’s stance, the alertness in her eyes, the weapon she could clearly draw in an instant, all of it said do not mess with this one. “Well, since I don’t know any Romulan swordswomen, I’m still in the dark.”

“Then I shall provide illumination.” Zani relaxed her stance a little, although she remained alert to everything that was happening around them. “I am a sister in the order of the Qowat Milat. We are not well known even within Romulan society, so it is not surprising if you have not heard of us. We practice a strict discipline of Absolute Candor: the freedom of personal and universal truth, the expression of emotion without filter between thought and word.”

“Not very Romulan,” Boimler observed.

“Perhaps,” said Zani. “We also practice a variety of martial arts, in open-hand and blade-combat forms. It is sadly the case that the truth often requires defense against the violence of those who would suppress it.”

“Huh.” Mariner shook her head. “Romulan warrior nuns. Now I’ve heard everything.”

“I have heard of you,” said Shaxs. “Some of you fought in the Dominion War, in the liberation of Betazed.”

Zani nodded graciously. “There, and elsewhere.”

“Take her seriously,” Shaxs advised his shipmates. “I would not want to face even one of the Qowat Milat in a straight-up fight.”

“Duly noted,” said Ransom. Boimler and Mariner nodded in agreement.

“My order has allied itself with Admiral Picard,” Zani continued, “and is assisting in moving as many people out of the danger zone as possible. I am on Vashti as an advance scout . . . and also as qalankhkai for one of the Admiral’s allies, a man whose name should not be spoken on a public street.”

Ransom tilted his head in puzzlement. “Pardon me, Zani, but my translator just dropped a word.”

“Qalankhkai? In your language, it might translate as free-blade.” She indicated the sword on her back, being careful not to hint at drawing it. “This is the tan qalanq, the weapon of my order. It is part of our tradition that we may bind ourselves to another’s cause and become qalankhkai, to aid and defend them in their quest. Although only those who are desperate seek us out for that purpose.”

“Why is that?” asked Boimler.

“We normally only bind ourselves to lost causes.”

“Huh, that’s actually pretty cool,” said Mariner. “Very Journey to the West, okay, you won’t have heard of that.”

“In fact, I have,” said Zani, smiling crookedly. “I am not certain how to feel about being compared to a monkey.”

“Hey, Sun Wukong is badass. Anyway, I still haven’t figured out why you’ve come looking for Boims and me.”

“My principal is an old acquaintance of yours. When we came to Vashti, he saw your ship was assigned here, and he instructed me that if anything went wrong, I was to seek you out.” Zani spread her hands wide, a Romulan shrug. “Something has gone wrong.”

“An old acquaintance . . .” A sudden thought made Mariner’s eyes go very wide. “Oh, shit. Boims, who have we met that we absolutely can not talk about, who might be involved with the Romulan exodus?”

Boimler went pale. Well, more pale than usual.

“Let me guess,” said Mariner. “You and he were here under cover to help get things set up for the migration. Sometime, oh, about an hour ago, while the local cops and Starfleet were all busy dealing with exploding nightclubs and sabotaged power plants, somebody snatched him.”

Zani smiled. “I am impressed. You are correct on all counts, although too vague on the last. Not someone. The Tal Shiar.”

“Why would the Tal Shiar attack Vashti?” Ransom wondered. “I know a lot of Romulans aren’t happy about the Federation welcoming refugees, but the Star Empire is officially cooperating with Admiral Picard. The Tal Shiar hasn’t tried to sabotage the resettlement effort before.”

Zani shook her head. “The Tal Shiar have factions, the more so ever since Shinzon’s attempted coup. Some of those factions have . . . history with Admiral Picard, and with my principal. They may have seen an opportunity to strike at him. This is one reason we were traveling secretly. Clearly not secretly enough.”

Mariner nodded. “That fits. So what do you want from us? Help finding . . . your principal?”

“You know who she’s talking about?” asked Ransom.

“Yes, sir, and we really need to make sure he’s safe.”

“Without involving the full weight of Starfleet,” said Zani. “If my suspicions are correct, we must use stealth and speed, else those who took my principal may simply dispose of him.”

Ransom stared at Mariner and Boimler for a long minute, weighing factors in his head. “All right,” he said at last. “It sounds like this is your mission, Lieutenants. Who do you need?”

The two of them exchanged a quick glance, then Boimler said, “Tendi and T’Lyn for sure. Can we have Rutherford?”

“He’s pretty important to the support mission,” said Ransom, “and I need that to keep going so we can keep the Commissioner off your backs.”

Mariner growled. “Ugh, I’d almost forgotten about Quinn, thanks for reminding me.”

“Can we do without Rutherford?” Boimler wondered.

Mariner considered the question. “He does have recent experience with the Tal Shiar . . . but yeah, so does T’Lyn, and she’s got the hacking chops too.”

“All right.” Ransom turned to Zani. “You’ll have a team of four. They may be junior officers, but they’re among my best, and they’re all great at being sneaky and underhanded.”

“Hey!” Boimler protested.

“Shut up,” Mariner told him. “Take the win.”

Zani laughed softly. “With such companions, I have no doubt of the outcome.”

Chapter Text

Stardate 59872.7
Vashti

It was approaching midnight, local time, when T’Lyn beamed down to an out-of-the-way street on the outskirts of Central Station. Mariner stepped forward to greet her with the two-fingers-touch gesture, which caused Zani to raise a Vulcan-like eyebrow.

T’Lyn was already in camouflage, carrying a phaser rifle slung over her back. With her came a package of camouflage uniforms, weapons, and toolkits for Mariner, Boimler, and Tendi. It took the three of them no more than a few moments to change out of their duty uniforms and make ready for action.

“Are you, at last, prepared?” asked Zani, an impatient edge in her voice.

“We could have gone right away, if you wanted only part of the team, unarmed, and wearing brightly colored uniforms,” said Mariner. Practicing a little bit of Absolute Candor.

“Hmm. That is fair.”

Mariner checked the rest of her team, who all gave her tense nods. “Let’s go.”

These back streets were not nearly as well-lit as the main thoroughfares in the heart of Central Station. Zani led them through shadows, avoiding patches of moonlight and the occasional street-light as she went. Soon she stopped, pointing toward a detached house sitting atop a rise, about fifty meters ahead.

“That is where my principal and I have been staying,” she murmured.

Mariner assessed the situation. No lights, no signs of activity. No trees or other cover in a wide ring around the house. She glanced around, looking for vantage points where an adversary might have the place under surveillance while remaining hidden. She didn’t find any.

“Did you pick out the house?” she asked Zani.

“I did. It seemed defensible.”

“Unless the bad guys left a team in the house, I don’t think they could be in a position to spot us if we’re careful. What say we walk up and have a look?”

Zani smiled, a flash of white teeth in the night. “Given the losses they took when they attacked us, I doubt they were eager to leave anyone behind.”

The five of them crossed the open ground, quietly but quickly, keeping alert. They met nothing but the sounds of wind and nocturnal animals. Even as they approached the house’s back door, they saw no reaction.

“Goddess,” said Tendi suddenly, stopping short before she tripped over a bundle lying on the house’s back portico. She bent and turned over the bundle. A corpse. Romulan.

Mariner glanced around, found another body lying not far from the door. The door itself had been blasted open.

Silently, they passed into the house, and found carnage.

A few minutes’ work with palm lights turned up four more Romulans inside the house. All of them had suffered wounds from some form of bladed weapon. Mariner glanced at the tan qalanq on Zani’s back with renewed respect.

“So,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down now that it was obvious the Tal Shiar were long gone. “What did happen here?”

“I failed in my vigilance,” said Zani, rather bitterly. “We had meetings with various officials and leaders throughout the day, after which my principal went upstairs to meditate and rest. I had set sensors around the perimeter, so I thought it safe enough to rest as well. I positioned myself in the living area, to meditate and sleep. I awoke to find the house already full of Tal Shiar. They must have found a way to defeat my sensor web without triggering any alarm. I was able to deal with several of them, as you have seen, but I was not quick enough to prevent others from reaching my principal and beaming away with him.”

“Beaming away,” said Mariner. “That suggests a ship, but we would never have missed a ship in orbit. Even if it was cloaked, it would have had to drop the cloak to beam anyone up, and someone on one of the Starfleet ships would have spotted it.”

“Unless the Tal Shiar can beam through an active cloak?” Tendi suggested.

“Unlikely,” said Zani, “and my order is rather expert on Tal Shiar capabilities.”

“In any case, if they could beam your principal undetected onto a ship in orbit, that ship would likely be long gone by now,” said T’Lyn. “It is logical to proceed under the assumption that the transport was to another location on Vashti.”

“Let’s check out our dead Romulans,” Mariner ordered, “and see if we can find any clues.”

The team split up, using palm lights to examine each body closely. Mariner took the two in the main living area, wincing as she saw that one had been completely decapitated, green blood darkening to black across the ceiling, walls, and floor on that side of the room.

Clean cut, too. Wonder if Zani offers lessons?

She turned up nothing in the way of clues, no ID, no bits of personal gear or possessions, only two very dead Romulans.

“Hey, this one’s still alive,” Boimler called from a nearby room.

By the time Mariner arrived in the house’s kitchen, Boimler was standing well back, looking pale, as if he was mostly trying to control his own digestive tract. Tendi was already there, bending over another Romulan, this one a female. Whoever she was, she had managed to prop herself up against an island in the middle of the floor, clutching the enormous wound in her belly that threatened to spill her entrails. She was unresponsive, hardly breathing at all.

Tendi took out a medical scanner and checked the Romulan’s condition. “Alive,” she said, “but barely. Massive blood loss, severe damage to internal organs. We’ve got to get her up to the ship right now, or she won’t survive.”

“How long does she have?” Mariner asked, her voice gone cold.

“I don’t know. A few minutes at most.”

Mariner looked to her side, where T’Lyn had appeared and was calmly looking down at the dying Romulan. “T’Lyn, I don’t want to ask this of you, but there are things we need to know . . .”

T’Lyn raised a hand, as if to ward off more words. “I understand. I can make the attempt, but I cannot guarantee success.”

“Do what you can,” said Mariner, more gently. “Tendi, let’s give her some space.”

“But . . .” Tendi visibly swallowed her objections, setting aside her natural compassion. She rose and took Boimler by the arm, encouraging him to withdraw from the room.

Mariner glanced around, saw that Zani had discreetly stepped away as well, leaving her alone with T’Lyn and the Romulan. She thought about stepping out too, then set her jaw in determination.

If I can ask T’Lyn to do this, I can stay and see it done.

T’Lyn stood with closed eyes, her hands steepled before her, running through a meditative exercise. She had raised no objections to Mariner’s idea, but privately she held significant reservations. She had never engaged in the deep meld with a non-Vulcan before; even her previous contact with Mariner had been on a superficial level. Nor had she ever melded with someone so close to death, which carried its own risks.

None of which is important. Mariner is correct. There is information we need, and no other way to get it.

Cast out fear.

Prepared as best she could, she stepped forward, kneeling in the enormous pool of blood on the kitchen floor, reaching out to touch the Romulan woman’s face. Her fingertips found the nerve clusters, pressed tight. She closed her eyes, murmuring the focusing mantra.

Contact. We are one.

First came the pain of a mortal wound, the shuddering chill of blood loss, the creeping numbness of shock. The distraction almost overwhelmed the link, but T’Lyn permitted each dreadful sensation to pass through her, acknowledging them, dismissing them. The link stabilized, and the woman’s core identity surfaced.

A name. We are Vaehha t’Sei.

T’Lyn had expected resistance. Tal Shiar agents were known to undergo training in resistance to interrogation, even of the telepathic kind. t’Sei was too far gone, her mind already wandering in the borderland between time and eternity. Their minds in tandem, it was relatively easy to lead her to review the information T’Lyn most wanted to know.

Our base of operations?

A blocky building, clearly on Vashti given the style of architecture, the moon glimpsed in the sky above. Other, similar buildings close by. Warehouses? She caught an odd scent in the air, a sense of moisture, the presence of sea life. T’Lyn knew that Central Station was built on the shores of one of Vashti’s larger seas, so it likely had a waterfront district. The part of her that was Vaehha agreed.

How are we to escape with our prize?

A flash of frustration, anger at a mission mounted at the last moment, without adequate preparation. There was no Romulan ship in orbit, not with Starfleet present in force. The part of her that was Vaehha thought of signaling for extraction, then of a Tal Shiar frigate sweeping in from deep space on a high-velocity pass. A sense of time passing, of hours during which the accursed Federation might interfere.

Who assigned us this mission?

A moment of confusion, an answer that was just out of reach.

Who?

Then came a moment of perfect clarity, the two halves of their mind recognizing one another at last. Vaehha t’Sei became aware that she was not alone, but the response was not anger, fear, or revulsion. She welcomed T’Lyn’s presence, at the last moment of her life.

Remember me.

I will.

The Romulan slipped a little further away, out of reach, and the link shattered.

T’Lyn recoiled, breaking the physical contact and rocking back on her heels. She was dimly aware that her emotional control was in tatters. A groan escaped her throat, and for a moment she had no idea what her face was revealing.

At once, Mariner was there, kneeling beside her in the blood, strong human arms holding her close. “T, are you okay?”

Such sudden fear in her voice.

T’Lyn opened her eyes, but for a long moment she didn’t seem to see anything. She realized she was making an expression, right out in the open: horror. She blinked once, twice, and it was gone. She reasserted her mastery, allowing herself only a moment’s solace in Mariner’s embrace. She took a deep breath, centering herself, consciously forcing the return of her usual calm stoicism.

“I . . . will be well,” she said, her voice rough with strain. “I was unable to break the contact before she departed. It was an unpleasant experience.”

“Babe, I’m so sorry. I should never have asked you.”

T’Lyn shook her head. “Do not apologize. I understood the necessity and agreed to the task. I will be fine, and I may have learned something useful.”

“Here, get up now,” said Mariner, keeping an arm around T’Lyn’s shoulders. “Lean on me.”

At the sound of their voices, the others had come back into the kitchen. Zani helped Mariner and T’Lyn rise to their feet.

“They do not have a ship,” said T’Lyn, her voice already more steady. “They were inserted before Starfleet arrived in orbit. Their plan was to call for extraction and be picked up by a ship making a rapid pass within range of the planet, but it will be several hours before that can be done. We have some time, and we may be able to interfere with their extraction plans if Hiram Roth, San Clemente, and Cerritos can be put on guard.”

“On it,” said Boimler, turning away to tap his combadge and place a call.

“Do you have any idea where they’re holed up?” Mariner asked.

T’Lyn nodded. “I saw it. A private warehouse, perhaps, located near the waterfront?”

“Central Station is located on the Red Sea,” said Zani. “There is a small fishing industry which supplies local homes and restaurants. I have never been to the docks district, but I know where it is.”

“Makes sense,” Mariner agreed. “I bet a lot of little businesses like that have small transporter pads of their own, to move goods around. Our Tal Shiar friends wouldn’t stand out by using a transporter.”

“There is more,” said T’Lyn. “She and her team reported to a senior Tal Shiar handler known only by a code name. Thrai.”

Mariner’s eyebrows flew upward with surprise. “That is very interesting.”

“You recognize the name?” asked Zani.

“We had a little brush with the Tal Shiar a few months ago,” said Mariner. “That same code name came up then. We’ve been trying ever since to figure out who it might be.”

T’Lyn drew herself up into her usual orderly posture, clasping her hands behind her back. “Mariner, I am quite recovered. Do we have any reason to linger here?”

“I can tell you that,” said Boimler, turning back toward the rest of them. “I talked to Captain Ransom. The ships will change their orbital pattern, covering the planetary approaches out to a longer distance. That should buy us some time. On the other hand, Commissioner Quinn has gotten word that you’re down here, Mariner, and he’s on the warpath. We’d better hurry, before Starfleet isn’t able to keep him at bay anymore.”

“Ugh,” Mariner growled. “Heard, understood, and acknowledged. We’d better get moving.”

It took the Cerritos transporters only a few seconds to move them five kilometers, from the desert’s-edge neighborhood where the Tal Shiar attack had taken place, to the Central Station waterfront district. At Zani’s advice, Mariner had them put down some distance away from the waterfront itself, to avoid any Romulan sensors that might have been on the alert for transporter activity too close to their hideout.

They made a quick kilometer run, avoiding being spotted by local constables or nocturnal citizens. As they approached their objective, they scaled the side of a three-story building whose roof offered a fine vantage point over the waterfront itself. Lying prone on the rooftop, Mariner took out a pair of binoculars, set them for light-amplification, and scanned a row of warehouses about a hundred meters away.

“Not much activity,” she observed. “They really roll up the sidewalks after midnight on Vashti.”

“The colonists enjoy a relaxed and welcoming lifestyle,” Zani agreed. “I have been considering recommending this planet as a new home for my order.”

“You’re senior enough to do that?”

Zani only nodded, peering out into the darkness with no instruments other than night-adapted eyes.

“T, do you have any idea which warehouse it was you saw?”

“I cannot be certain,” said T’Lyn. “They look much alike.”

Tendi had her tricorder out, scanning in silent mode, but she shook her head. “I’m not picking up any Romulan life-signs within range.”

“Tal Shiar use electronic counter-measures to mess with sensor readings,” said Mariner. “They’re probably here, just under a low-power cloak.”

“Zani, I understand you are reluctant to reveal your principal’s identity until he is secured,” said T’Lyn.

“You have an idea?” asked the Romulan.

“Perhaps. Would you be willing to confirm his species?”

Zani hesitated, debating with herself, and then nodded. “He is Vulcan.”

“I see,” said T’Lyn. “If he is conscious, it is possible that he is attempting to use his telepathy to summon help. One moment.”

T’Lyn composed herself, still lying prone on the rooftop, closing her eyes and resting her head on her forearms. She let her internal quiet expand, reaching outward, as if she was listening for a faint note of music carried on the night air.

Soon, she could open herself to the sense of t’Vath, the Other that resided in all matter and energy, all space and time. She sensed her connections to everything around her, from the solidity of the roof beneath her, to the breeze that ruffled her hair, to the waters of the Red Sea moving restlessly in their basin, to the distant stars shining overhead. Far away, other minds moved like tiny flickering lights in the domain of t’Vath, busy with their small affairs, unconscious of the unity of all things.

One mind, not far away, did not flicker. It was a small but constant flame, like a candle burning in the midst of a darkened room. She could read nothing of its thoughts, it was too distant, but there was no mistaking the flavor of a Vulcan mind. An unusually well-ordered and powerful Vulcan mind, at that.

Hold fast, she tried to send. We are coming.

She raised her head once more, looking off to her right. She could feel the mind she had touched, right there, in that darkened building. Three down from the one directly opposite their current position.

T’Lyn pushed herself to a sitting position, on the edge of the rooftop. “There,” she said, and pointed.

Mariner was watching her with wide eyes. “You’re sure?”

T’Lyn only gave her a cool stare. After a moment, she threw in the cocked eyebrow for emphasis.

“Okay, you’re sure. Zani, how do you want to play this?”

“Do you believe you can defeat any security systems the Tal Shiar have put in place?”

T’Lyn and Tendi exchanged a glance, then Tendi nodded. “We managed it against a full Tal Shiar installation a few months ago. Anything they’ve set in place around that warehouse is probably not as secure.”

“Then let us move up as quietly as we can, and try to achieve surprise.” Zani smiled grimly. “It would be pleasant to turn the tables on them, don’t you think?”

It didn’t take long. They rappelled down the side of the building they had chosen for their vantage point, and moved through the streets. T’Lyn and Zani took point, since they had the most acute senses. Twice the team stopped while Tendi took careful readings, searching for any monitoring devices in place. The second time, she used her tricorder to send a carefully crafted signal ahead, corrupting and blinding the sensors she had detected.

They reached a side door without any sign of a response. Tendi used her multi-key to crack the door’s code-lock, opening it with a soft click.

Mariner made a series of gestures: T’Lyn to follow her and break right, Tendi and Boimler to break left, Zani to do whatever seemed best to a Romulan warrior nun invading the stronghold of her enemies. That last gesture was admittedly somewhat vague. Mariner wasn’t sure she could issue any order the Qowat Milat sister would feel obliged to follow anyway.

The door opened, and everything happened at once.

Mariner saw a standing figure and snapped a shot that took it dead center-of-mass, and that Romulan was down. T’Lyn fired at another Romulan who had been crouched atop a stack of crates, and maybe she hit and maybe she didn’t, but whoever it was fell about four meters to the hard floor and didn’t move. Tendi and Boimler were firing at someone too.

Disruptor fire came lancing back at them, and the Cerritos crew dove for cover.

Zani took no notice. She shouted out loud, in a voice like the cry of a hunting falcon: “Please, friends, choose to live!” Then she charged across the warehouse floor, into the teeth of the disruptor fire, and somehow every single shot just missed.

Mariner’s jaw dropped. Is that crazy woman somehow dodging energy-weapon fire?

“Mariner, look!” Tendi shouted, and Mariner caught it, the tactical opportunity that Zani’s outrageous charge had opened. All the surviving Romulans were firing frantically at the swordswoman, leaving Starfleet in the clear.

“Come on!” she shouted, vaulting over the crates she had taken refuge behind. She charged the Romulan position as well, T’Lyn behind her, both of them firing as they ran. Off to her left, Tendi followed suit. Boimler didn’t charge, he wasn’t a forlorn-hope kind of guy, but he popped up from behind cover and laid down some very effective covering fire.

Fifteen seconds later it was all over, six more Romulans down. The ones who had taken Starfleet phaser fire were thoroughly stunned. The ones who had faced Zani had refused her good advice, and were quite thoroughly dead.

Shaxs was right. I never, ever want to go up against any of Zani’s sisters.

Zani disappeared into a shipping container that had apparently been set up as a makeshift prison cell. An instant later, Mariner could hear voices, and the sounds of someone being freed from restraints.

Then he appeared at the door, with Zani right behind him. A Vulcan, well into his second century, tall, lean, somewhat scuffed and bruised as a result of rough handling, but ignoring his injuries with immense dignity. He looked around at the Starfleet team, picking out Boimler and Mariner in particular, and his right eyebrow went up. His face was impassive, but Mariner had some recent practice in reading Vulcans. She thought what she was seeing was immense satisfaction.

Mariner tapped her combadge. “Mariner to Cerritos. Request immediate reinforcements to this location, to take custody of a Tal Shiar infiltration cell. Ambassador Spock is secure.”

Chapter Text

Stardate 59872.9
Vashti

Naturally, Mariner’s last statement brought Cerritos crew down in force. Within minutes, Captain Ransom beamed into the street outside the Tal Shiar hideout, with Rutherford, Shaxs, and almost the entire Security department in tow. Mariner’s team were able to relax, put away weapons and gear, and change back into their day uniforms while other people policed up the stray Romulans and their equipment.

“Mariner!” called Captain Ransom. “The Ambassador would like to meet your team.”

Mariner nodded and led everyone over to where Spock, Zani, and Ransom had been talking. All the while, she did her best to quash the fan-girl squeeing she could feel bubbling somewhere in her chest. Imitating T’Lyn’s stoic poise seemed to help. She hoped Boimler could refrain as well.

She stepped up before that steady, dark-eyed gaze, struck as Starfleet a pose as she could, and held up one hand in the ta’al. “Ambassador. We come to serve.”

Spock responded with a salute of his own, and a grave nod. “Your service honors us.”

“My teammates, Ambassador. You’re acquainted with Lieutenant Boimler, of course. Lieutenant D’Vana Tendi. Lieutenant T’Lyn.”

Spock acknowledged each of the others with another nod. “T’Lyn. It is most satisfactory to see a Vulcan in Lieutenant Mariner’s circle. Was it your mind that touched mine, 37.4 minutes ago, to advise me rescue was on its way?”

“It was, sir.” T’Lyn made her own ta’al, her voice and face even more stoically calm than usual.

“Your telepathic projection was exceptionally clear and concise. My compliments on your training and discipline.”

“I am honored,” T’Lyn said, lowering her eyes in modesty. Mariner privately concluded her girlfriend would be letting out a squee or two of her own later. In a very Vulcan way, of course.

“I confess to some curiosity,” Spock said to Mariner. “When last we met, you and Mr. Boimler were but ensigns. My congratulations on your promotions. How long has it been, in your subjective worldline?”

“A year and . . .” Mariner paused to calculate. “Five months, give or take a day or two. Not counting the year T’Lyn, Tendi, and I spent in a deep time-dilation field.”

“Whereas for me, it has been one hundred twenty-three years and sixteen days.” Mariner thought she caught a flash of amusement in the older Vulcan’s eyes. “But then, you took ‘the road less travelled,’ as an old friend of mine would have said.”

Boimler grinned. “To be honest, Ambassador, time travel makes my head hurt. I’d be just as happy never to do it again.”

Spock nodded. “As it happens, I have been required to travel in time on no fewer than eight occasions in my career, and I quite concur with your opinion.”

“Sir . . .” Boimler hesitated, but decided to forge ahead. “I didn’t handle our last meeting very well, sir, and I spilled too much information about your future. I’ve worried ever since that I made your life harder than it needed to be. I want to apologize.”

Spock shook his head slightly. “There is no need for apology, Mr. Boimler. If you were indiscreet, the cause was sufficient. In any case, my life has proceeded as it should, and it has offered much more than hardship. As a human might say, I have no cause for regret.”

Boimler turned red and bowed. “Thank you, sir,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Just then, Ransom’s combadge chirped, and he tapped it. “Ransom here.”

“Jack, this is Ren. I’m afraid you had better get up here as soon as you can, and bring Lieutenant Mariner with you. Commissioner Quinn is about to spring a coolant leak.”

Spock cocked his head at that, and raised a hand as if to forestall Ransom’s reply.

“Understood, Captain. Stand by a moment,” said Ransom, tapping his combadge again to pause the call.

“Am I to understand Charles Quinn is causing you difficulty?” Spock asked.

Ransom nodded. “You could say so. He and Lieutenant Mariner have history, and he was not happy to find her assigned to this mission. If he’s learned she’s planetside, in the middle of everything that’s been happening this evening, he may be about to raise an enormous stink with Starfleet Command.”

“Lieutenant, what is the nature of your quarrel with Commissioner Quinn?”

Mariner hesitated, not at all certain she wanted to air her past indiscretions in front of Spock, of all people. Then she caught the ambassador’s eye, and while his expression was not unkind, it was also utterly implacable. She realized no evasion or misdirection would do.

“Sir,” she began, falling into her report-to-a-respected-senior-officer cadence. It wasn’t one she often used. “Six years ago the Commissioner was in Starfleet, in command of the Yosemite, and I was his helmsman. We were investigating a neutron star when it sent a cloud of debris in our direction at about point-four-cee. Captain Quinn ordered a specific course to evade, but I assessed that course would increase risk to the ship. I disobeyed his order and took us on a different course. Yosemite was still badly damaged, and was later decommissioned, although nobody was killed. Captain Quinn blamed me for the damage and the loss of his command.”

“I see. The helmsman of an Oberth-class ship would not normally be an ensign, as you were when I encountered you several years later along your worldline. I infer you were demoted as the result of a Board of Inquiry?”

“Yes, sir.” Mariner frowned. “I . . . already had a reputation for recklessness and insubordination at that point. Captain Quinn brought it before the Board as evidence. I also didn’t try to mount much of a defense.”

“Yes,” said Spock, with just a hint of an amused light in his eyes. “I do recall evidence of recklessness and insubordination when we first met. Still, it was illogical for the Board to punish an officer whose quick thinking may have saved many lives. Captain Ransom, if you will permit me, I may be able to lend assistance in this matter.”

Ransom nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Ambassador . . .” Mariner shook her head. “I can’t ask you to become involved in this. My mistake, my consequences to live with.”

“You have not asked me to become involved, Lieutenant,” said Spock, in a reproving tone. “It is the duty of every rational being to correct injustice when it is discovered. Captain, I would suggest you and your officer proceed to the Hiram Roth. I will join you there shortly. We shall see if we can negotiate a better understanding between Commissioner Quinn and Lieutenant Mariner. For the sake of your current mission, if nothing else.”

“Sir,” said T’Lyn suddenly, “permit me to accompany you. I am familiar with the details of Lieutenant Mariner’s service record, and I may be able to assist you in . . . mustering arguments.”

Spock said nothing, only giving T’Lyn an assessing glance, but Zani leaned forward and murmured something in his ear. For once, Mariner wished she had Vulcan hearing. Whatever he had heard, Spock nodded decisively. “Very well, Lieutenant. You shall accompany me to the Cerritos, and then to the Hiram Roth.”

Stardate 59873.0
Standard Orbit over Vashti
Aboard the USS Hiram Roth

To all outward appearance, Mariner strode through Hiram Roth’s corridors with easy confidence. Inwardly, it was a different story.

Another inquisition, she thought bitterly, led by Charles Enright Fucking Quinn.

Maybe she had been going through some personal growth over the past few years. Maybe she could only hit rock bottom so many times before an idea finally got hammered through her thick skull. Maybe it was a matter of meeting an insightful Klingon. Or falling in love with an uncannily perceptive Vulcan.

You’re not a Kirk. Kirk was confident!

The old self-destructive habits of thought were all in motion once more, telling her to give up the responsibility, blow up her career, get busted down to Ensign where she could forever frame herself as a victim of uncaring superiors. Where she could be alone and self-sufficient and no one would ever look to her for excellence or leadership. Where she could live down to everyone’s expectations.

Mariner, I love you, but you need to figure out whatever’s eating you up inside.

Oh yes, she had figured it out, all right. All those little rats were still there in the maze of her mind, scurrying along to find places to hide, places where she could hide . . . but she saw them, she was aware of them now. She understood where they had come from, why they were there, and what the consequences of listening to them would be.

Honor your friend, slay your enemies, and study your . . . what was it, plants?

She wanted a life in Starfleet. Like Sito had wanted, even though it had been hard, even though it had ended up killing her. Like T’Lyn wanted, even though it might mean exile from her home and her people. A life in Starfleet, as imperfect as Starfleet could often be. A life that would have been worthy of Sito, that might be worthy of T’Lyn. The price of that was excellence, leadership, responsibility. Integrity.

When she stepped through the door into Hiram Roth’s conference room, her back was straight, her head held high, and there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation left in her.

“There you are,” remarked Quinn sourly, from his position at the far end of the conference table.

Captain Ren rather ostentatiously ignored the Commissioner, turning to Ransom and Mariner. “Thank you for coming,” he said. He indicated another officer already seated at the table, a petite woman of Southeast Asian descent, wearing a red uniform and full-commander’s pips. “This is Commander Vang, my first officer. She’s served two tours in the JAG Corps, and I asked her to sit in to provide any . . . informal legal advice we might need.”

“Is this a legal proceeding?” Ransom asked, sounding as if he wanted to be angry but was keeping it tamped down.

“It is not,” said Vang, “but Captain Ren suggested some of us might need assistance in remembering or interpreting the law.”

Mariner felt the sudden urge to scoff in amusement, because she knew exactly who Ren had in mind, but she kept the impulse under control. She didn’t even glance down the table at Quinn as she took a seat beside Ransom.

“Now that everyone has gotten around to giving this their attention,” said Quinn, “I’d like to know why my orders regarding Lieutenant Mariner have been disobeyed.”

“Orders, Commissioner?” Ransom gave Quinn his best playing-dumb expression. “What orders were those?”

“I specifically ordered that Lieutenant Mariner remain on the Cerritos for the duration of this mission. Now I learn she has been directing the shutdown of the colony’s power station, getting involved in the terrorist bombing, generally running around down on the planet, and God only knows what else.” Quinn’s jowly face was turning an alarming shade of pink. “She has been undermining my mission, and I intend to bring her up on charges for it.”

Ren shook his head. “Captain Ransom brings up a salient point. Lieutenant Mariner cannot be accused of disobeying your orders, Commissioner, because you have no authority to issue her any orders in the first place.”

The pink darkened by a shade or two. “Now see here, Captain . . .”

“The captain is correct,” said Vang. “You are not a Starfleet officer, neither do you have the ministerial authority necessary for a civilian to issue direct orders to any member of Starfleet. You may make requests, you may offer recommendations as to how Starfleet can best support your mission, but you may not issue legal orders.”

Mariner had never seen anyone literally emit steam from their ears, but Quinn looked as if he was getting ready to do that.

“Lieutenant Mariner, did any Starfleet officer give you a legal order to remain aboard the Cerritos for the duration of the mission?” Ren asked.

Mariner folded her hands and leaned on her forearms on the table, poised and relaxed. “No, sir.”

“You volunteered to remain on your ship for an indefinite length of time, correct?”

“Yes, sir. To reduce tensions with civilian authority.” Mariner paused, keeping a deadpan expression. “It doesn’t seem to have worked.”

Ransom made a small sound, like a suppressed chuckle.

“As for the specifics of Commissioner Quinn’s complaint,” said Ren, “let’s take them in sequence. Lieutenant, did you order Cerritos personnel at the Central Station power facility to shut down the main reactor?”

Mariner nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Rutherford found malware in the colony’s industrial-control network. If we’d left the reactor running, it would have failed a few minutes later, and the whole colony would’ve been blacked out.”

Quinn leaned forward, for once intent on something other than personal pique. “When was this?”

Mariner looked directly at him for the first time. “The same time the nightclub got bombed. Almost to the minute.”

Quinn saw the implications at once. “Sabotage.”

Mariner nodded. “That was my assumption, sir.”

Captain Ren continued: “A short time later, Lieutenant, you led an away team down to the planet. Why?”

“We’d detected the bombing,” said Mariner. “We’d also lost contact with Captain Ransom and another Cerritos officer who was with him. After getting permission from you, sir, I left Lieutenant Commander Billups with the conn and beamed down with medical and security officers.”

“Which meant she was the first Starfleet officer to put boots on the ground outside the bombed-out nightclub,” said Ransom.

Ren scoffed. “Not by much.”

“Still speaks to initiative,” said Ransom, smiling.

Quinn was listening to the byplay, drumming his fingers impatiently on the conference table, but he was starting to look more thoughtful than angry.

“Now, this is the part where I was a little confused at the time,” said Ren. “Once Starfleet had secured the site of the bombing, and had dealt with the signal jammer in place there, Lieutenant Mariner didn’t return to the Cerritos with the rest of your crew. Why?”

“I can answer that,” said Ransom. “Before Mariner arrived on the street outside the nightclub, Lieutenant Boimler and I were approached by a member of a Romulan organization called the Qowat Milat.”

Mariner was watching Quinn at that moment, and she saw the sudden flash of recognition in his eyes. He’s heard of the warrior nuns.

“This individual told us her partner – a senior Federation official, traveling incognito – had been captured by Tal Shiar operatives while we dealt with the sabotage and bombing. She specifically asked for assistance from Lieutenants Boimler and Mariner.”

“Tal Shiar?” Quinn erupted. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“As of now, sir, you have been.” Ransom shrugged. “We didn’t have proof of it ourselves until less than an hour ago . . . and you seemed concerned with other matters.”

“Watch your tone, Captain,” said Quinn tensely. “I may not be in your chain of command, but you’ll find I can still make your life difficult. Now, why was this Qowat Milat sister asking for your junior officers?”

“Because her partner knew us,” said Mariner.

“And who was this mysterious partner?”

The door to the conference room swooshed open. “That would be me, Commissioner,” said Spock, entering the room with Zani at his side.

Mariner decided that while Vulcans might pride themselves on logic, at least some of them were also secretly fond of theater. She couldn’t resist stealing a glance at Quinn’s face. His sudden expression of slack-jawed befuddlement was balm to her soul.

Quinn stood, his right hand twitching as if he had almost tossed off a reflexive Starfleet salute. “Ambassador Spock! I’m . . . well, I’m surprised to see you here. I wasn’t informed you were on Vashti.”

Hmm, Mariner thought. So that’s what Quinn looks like in ass-kissing mode. Good to know.

“My mission does not overlap with yours, Commissioner,” said Spock, seating himself at the table, Zani taking up a standing position behind him. “It requires I move with discretion. I apologize for bringing some of my own trouble into your area of responsibility.”

Slowly, Quinn sat down again. “No apologies necessary, Ambassador. So, am I to understand Lieutenant Mariner remained on the planet’s surface to rescue you from the Tal Shiar?”

“Indeed,” said Spock, giving Mariner a glance across the table. “Commissioner, it has come to my attention that you and Lieutenant Mariner are embroiled in a long-standing dispute, one which seems likely to disrupt your mission, and which has already harmed her career. May I offer my assistance in resolving this matter?”

Quinn frowned, but he couldn’t find any good reason to refuse. “I’m willing to listen, Ambassador.”

“My understanding is that you find the lieutenant to be an insubordinate and reckless officer. You therefore expect her to disrupt your mission by her mere presence. Yes?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” Quinn set his jaw. “I formed that opinion when she was under my command, and my review of her service record since then has only confirmed it.”

“Well.” Spock glanced across the table at her again, and this time there a definite flash of amusement in it. “My personal experience of Lieutenant Mariner is that she can indeed be . . . disruptive. However, as Captain Ransom will doubtless confirm, she has improved considerably in the past year.”

Ransom nodded. “I won’t deny she came to Cerritos with a full load of issues, but she’s been working hard to overcome them and be a top-notch officer.”

“It has been many years since I served in Starfleet,” Spock continued, “but I remember well the qualities we looked for in young officers: courage, decisiveness, initiative, and sound judgment. I would say this evening’s events have shown Lieutenant Mariner capable of all these. Indeed, I owe her my freedom, and possibly my life.”

Quinn took a deep breath. His shoulders relaxed and his hands unclenched. “All right, I’ll concede that. Now I know the Tal Shiar were active on Vashti . . . I owe Starfleet thanks for dealing with them so effectively.”

Spock nodded. “Now, I understand your dispute has an inciting incident, which took place on stardate 53472.”

Mariner tensed.

Spock touched the surface of the conference table before him, and glanced at Captain Ren. “If I may, sir?”

Ren only nodded graciously.

Spock called up a computer interface on the table, and began to tap and swipe at it while he spoke. “On that date, Yosemite was in close orbit of a cold neutron star when the collision warning sounded. According to the ship’s sensor logs, this was the apparent situation at that moment.”

A holographic display appeared in the air above the table, showing a cloud of debris seconds from sweeping across Yosemite’s position. Velocity vectors and most-likely-density maps made the impending disaster plain. Mariner suffered a moment’s envy: Really cool interface tech, she thought. Better than anything the California-class has. Then she reviewed the details, matching them to her memory of the dreadful day.

“Lieutenant, does this appear correct?” Spock asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Mariner. How in the hell did he get access to these records so quickly?

Oh, right. A certain Vulcan girlfriend of mine must have had a hand in it.

“Commissioner?” Spock prompted.

Quinn stared at the display. “Yes, it fits what I remember.”

“What order did you give?”

Quinn glanced at Mariner, but for once it wasn’t a hostile look. “A full-impulse turn, ninety degrees directly to starboard.”

“Not an unreasonable maneuver, given what you knew at the time,” said Spock. He tapped at his console, and the display animated for a moment, showing Yosemite making a sharp right-hand turn, placing it out of reach of most of the debris by the time it arrived. “However, the debris was moving at a significant fraction of light-speed. Which meant not only that you had mere seconds to react, but that the debris was not where it appeared to be.”

Quinn frowned for a moment, but then the realization hit him. His eyes opened wide, and much of the color drained from his face. “My God.”

You really never thought of it, not in all these years? Mariner thought, but did not say.

Spock worked his console once more, resetting the image, this time placing the debris cloud in its actual position. When he set the simulation to run, the little Yosemite icon didn’t quite pass through the thickest part of the cloud, but it was a close thing.

“I would estimate an 85.3% probability of total destruction of the Yosemite, with the loss of all hands,” said Spock, as calmly as if he was reporting the weather.

Quinn sat down hard, slumping in his chair as if he had forgotten all about his posture. “Son of a bitch,” he murmured. “Son of a bitch. You’re saying that . . . that Lieutenant Mariner saved my ship.”

“I am saying she did her best,” said Spock. “In the event, Starfleet Command decided Yosemite was to be decommissioned, so in a sense she did not save the ship. However, all of her officers and crew survived.”

“None of this was brought up at the Board of Inquiry,” said Quinn, and now he was simply confused. “None of it. Mariner . . . why didn’t you defend yourself?”

For one last moment, Mariner couldn’t quite keep her old anger on the leash. “How was I supposed to defend myself, sir? Against my own captain?”

Quinn flinched, and couldn’t quite hold her gaze.

Mariner took a deep breath, and decided to let go of it. Here was one more person who deserved better from her than an eternal grudge. “No, wait, that’s not right. Sir, I think I have an apology to make. When I came to Yosemite, I wasn’t the officer you needed me to be, and I’m sorry for it. Psychologically, I was dealing with a heavy load of shit from the war, but that’s not an excuse. I should have worked to earn your confidence, and I didn’t. Maybe if we had trusted each other, the way Starfleet officers should, Yosemite wouldn’t have died that day. I guess we’ll never know.”

Quinn nodded in acceptance.

“Commissioner,” Spock asked, “do you still intend to bring Lieutenant Mariner up on charges?”

“No.” Quinn pursed his lips in thought, and then shook his head. “Captain Ransom . . . Mariner. It seems I owe you an apology. Can we start over?”

Ransom and Mariner exchanged glances, then Ransom nodded. “Yes, Commissioner. Cerritos is here to support you and your mission. I’m glad we could clear the air.”

“For that matter . . .” Quinn turned back to Spock. “Ambassador, I believe it’s long overdue I have a word with the JAG office about re-opening the Yosemite inquiry.”

“Sir, that might put your own record at risk,” warned Commander Vang.

“Oh, I doubt I need to worry about that,” said Quinn. “Still, even if I retroactively get a black mark, I’m not in Starfleet any more, and Mariner is. Let’s get her record corrected. Ambassador, would you be willing to weigh in?”

Spock nodded gravely.

“All right,” said Vang. “I can file the paperwork, if you’ll both give me your signed statements. Honestly, I’m not even sure the JAG will insist on holding another hearing. The Court of Military Review may be willing to rule at once on the basis of compelling new evidence.”

“Good.” Quinn stood up, nodded to Spock, nodded a fraction less deeply to Ransom, barely glanced at Mariner. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a very long day and I still have work to do.”

Mariner watched him go, and for once she was no more than wryly amused. I guess it would be too much to expect Quinn to stop being an asshole for more than a few minutes.

“Thank you,” she said to Spock.

The eyebrow went up, and Spock said, “It is not necessary . . .”

“. . . to thank logic,” Mariner chorused with him. “Yes, I know. Still. Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Stardate 59873.4
Standard Orbit over Vashti

At the end of a long and complicated day, the five of them gathered at their usual table in the crew lounge for a meal. Even Rutherford was in no hurry that evening, as Billups had given him the rest of the day off.

“Oh, man, you guys got to meet Ambassador Spock, and I missed it?” he complained.

Mariner grinned at him across the table. “Sorry, dude, luck of the draw.”

“What I want to know is how he knew you and Brad,” said Tendi. “Not to mention that thing about the dates. A year and a half for you, a hundred and twenty years or so for him?”

“Oh,” said Rutherford, sudden realization lighting up his features. “No, think about it, mahal. Stardate 58460. The away mission to Krulmuth-B, when Brad and Mariner got pulled into that portal for a few minutes . . .”

Tendi’s eyes went wide, and she almost vibrated in her seat. “Oh my gosh, was it a time portal? You went back in time? That’s amazing!”

“Well, it kind of sucked at the time, but yeah.” Mariner glanced at Boimler. “I suppose we can tell the story, now that Spock of all people spilled the beans?”

Boimler shrugged. “I don’t see those two guys from Temporal Investigations bearing down on us, so sure. I got pulled through the portal and ended up in 2259, and who’s standing there but Captain Christopher Pike of the Enterprise?”

“No bloody A, B, C, or D,” said Mariner, imitating a Scottish burr. Badly.

“So they had to figure out how to get the portal to turn on again, so they could send me home. Spock was there, but he was a lot younger.”

“Also, kind of hot.”

T’Lyn gave Mariner a rather chilly glance.

“What? I seem to have a thing for Vulcans.”

“We shall discuss this later,” T’Lyn promised.

“Anyway,” said Boimler, recapturing the thread. “Spock was experimenting with human behavior at the time, smiling and laughing at things. Kind of creeped me out. Meanwhile, there was this complication with an Orion science ship. I mean, okay, they weren’t pirates as such, but they did make off with the portal before we could get it turned back on, and Pike had to bargain with them to get it back.”

“Well,” said Tendi, slightly embarrassed. “Even Orion scientists can be kind of possessive.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Rutherford, giving her a fond smile. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“So no sooner do we get the portal back, and turn it on, but Mariner comes charging through. Which uses up the last of the horonium that powered the thing.”

Mariner scoffed. “Hey, I was trying to rescue you, shut up.”

Tendi nodded. “I remember. We were all trying to turn it on from our end, and then it started to activate on its own, so Mariner jumped through, and then it was dead again. Nothing we did worked.”

“It gets weirder,” said Boimler. “Eventually we found enough horonium for one more jump, you’ll never believe where. There was one more run-in with the Orions – oh, Tendi, your great-grandmother was on their ship, so you were right about that.”

Tendi nodded, a satisfied expression on her face. “Told you so.”

“We finally got the portal to turn on, and we came home.” Boimler took a deep breath. “Our first time travel adventure, and I hope it's the last.”

Mariner punched him in the shoulder. “Come on, Boims, admit it. It was fun, meeting Those Old Scientists when they are all still young and wet behind the ears. Not to mention, our acquaintance with Spock was a big help today. In more ways than one.”

“Was the ambassador able to resolve your dispute with Commissioner Quinn?” T’Lyn asked.

“He was,” said Mariner, touching the back of T’Lyn’s fingers where her hand rested on the table. “I gather I have my brilliant girlfriend to thank for that.”

“I was of some assistance,” T’Lyn admitted. “It was a satisfying experience to work with him, however briefly.”

“Yep, there’s the squee. Don’t hold back, babe, let it all out.”

T’Lyn only gave her a long-suffering glance.

“I didn’t hear how the meeting turned out,” said Boimler. “Is the commissioner going to get off your back?”

“Looks like,” Mariner said, suddenly serious. “Not to mention, he and Spock are going to file a petition with the Court of Review. I might be getting a ruling saying I wasn’t culpable for the loss of the Yosemite after all.”

Boimler’s jaw dropped, and then he beamed at her. “Mariner, that’s huge.”

“Think they might give you back some of the pips you lost?” asked Rutherford.

“Doubt it. It’s not like I don’t still have years of being a problem child on my record.” Mariner took a sip of the Risian wine she had been drinking with her dinner. “Still. With that black mark gone, I might even make Lieutenant Commander someday. Which somehow doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.”

Boimler snorted. “No false modesty, Mariner. You’ll have a ship of your own before you know it.”

Mariner shook her head, but something made her glance to the side, where T’Lyn was watching her in silence. “Well,” she said. “One day at a time.”

“Anyway, I’m done here,” said Tendi brightly, taking Rutherford’s hand and rising from the table. “If you’ll excuse us? It’s been a long day, I’ve been shot at, and I need this man to tear all my clothes off.”

Rutherford mock-sighed. “Work, work, work,” he muttered, but he got up and followed Tendi with no evidence of unwillingness.

Mariner grinned. “Aw, look at you two, quoting the classics! Have a good time, kids.”

“Always do!” Tendi called, and then they were gone.

Mariner sighed happily. “I’m so glad they don’t feel like they have to sneak around anymore. Tendi is glowing these days. You think they’re going to take the next step?”

Boimler shrugged. “I know Rutherford’s okay with the idea, but he doesn’t want to push Tendi too fast yet. It’s only been a few months since they finally hooked up, after all.”

“I guess,” said Mariner, “and no, I am not going to start encouraging them. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“It is good to know you can be taught,” said T’Lyn.

Mariner scoffed.

“Besides,” Boimler continued, “as I understand it, Tendi has to think about her family too. She may be out of the direct line of succession for her House, but any marriage she makes is still going to be a big deal. She may not want to complicate matters too soon.”

“Perhaps her family has already considered it,” said T’Lyn.

Mariner glanced at her. “What are you thinking?”

“Our understanding of Orion culture is still incomplete, but their important families do seem to use strategic marriage to form alliances. Is it possible D’Erika regards her sister as an investment toward an alliance between House Tendi and Starfleet?”

“That’s . . . an interesting thought,” said Mariner, as she felt the historian part of her brain going into gear. “D’Erika hasn’t always acted like someone Starfleet would recognize as a formal ally, but from the Orion perspective it might be different. Certainly both sides have benefited from whatever relationship it is we have.”

“If Rutherford and Tendi do choose to marry at some point,” T’Lyn concluded, “my hypothesis suggests her House would be willing to regard it as strengthening an existing alliance. They might be less opposed to the idea than she fears.”

“Well, we’d still better let Tendi make up her own mind,” said Mariner. “We’re all just guessing from the outside.”

“Indeed.”

Struck by a sudden thought, Mariner glanced at Boimler. “How have you been, Boims? I mean, our gang has been pairing up lately, but that leaves you as the odd man out, and I worry about you sometimes.”

“Nah, don’t be concerned.” Boimler watched Mariner intently, probably looking for signs she was about to go into matchmaker mode. “It’s kind of pleasant, having a room to myself. I have my duties and all the rest of you during the day, and at night I can work on my own projects and enjoy the quiet. That’s how my life was before I went to the Academy, and it’s nice to get it back.”

“But what about . . .”

“Women?” Boimler shrugged. “I’m not like you, Mariner, I don’t need a hookup every now and then or I start jumping out of my skin.”

T’Lyn made a small sound, which could not possibly have been a suppressed laugh. When Mariner glared at her, she was as calm and impassive as ever.

“I mean, I like women,” Boimler continued, “and I do want to find that kind of relationship someday, but it’s not urgent. At least, it’s not when I don’t have a neural parasite nesting in my hair.”

Mariner shuddered. “Don’t remind me. That was disturbing.”

“Besides, you remember when we visited my family’s farm?”

“Yeah. Man, I thought you were going to have to fend those girls off with a cattle prod, but it’s like you were completely oblivious to all their hints.”

“Not oblivious,” said Boimler. “Ignoring, maybe, or playing very dumb. Mom and Dad have been throwing girls at me since I was thirteen. It’s like with Billups and his mom, except it’s not a whole planet at stake, only the biggest raisin farm in central California.”

“That’s . . . I don’t know, Boims, I don’t want to speak ill of your folks, but . . .”

“It’s creepy and borderline abusive?”

Mariner nodded. “Yeah.”

Boimler shrugged. “My family has a really odd relationship with history. Living in a post-scarcity society makes some people weird, like they have to lay claim to something unique just to make themselves feel special. Even if it’s something absolutely no one else in the galaxy cares about.” His voice shifted, as if he was imitating someone with a gruff baritone. “Our family has worked this land since before the Third World War, and your generation isn’t about to give it up!”

“Have they considered adopting?” Mariner wondered.

“Hah! That was exactly my argument the last time I went home.” Boimler chuckled. “I’m not concerned. It’s not like with Billups, there’s no way they can make me come home and be a raisin farmer for the rest of my life. You can imagine, though, why I’m a little choosy when it comes to finding someone to date. Also, why I’m in no hurry. Someday the right person will come along, and in the meantime I’ve got my job and my friends.”

Mariner yielded to an impulse, leaning over and planting a sisterly kiss on Boimler’s cheek. “Got it. Believe me, you’re a catch, but I promise I won’t go all Space Yenta on you.”

“It is appreciated,” said Boimler dryly, but he turned a little pink.

Mariner was about to say more, but then all three of their combadges chirped. “Lieutenants Boimler, Mariner, and T’Lyn, report to the captain’s ready room.”

“Huh. Wonder what’s up with that?” Mariner tapped her badge. “We’re on our way.”

When they arrived, the cause was obvious at once. Ransom and Spock stood by the conference table, turning to face the three of them as they entered the room. For his part, Spock looked much better than he had a few hours before, bruises and scrapes gone, wearing a dark grey civilian jacket over black trousers.

“Thank you for coming,” said Spock. “I have come to take my leave of you. My mission on Vashti is complete, and I will be departing for Vulcan within the hour.”

“What about Zani?” Mariner asked. “Will she be going with?”

Spock shook his head. “No. Zani has agreed to remain here and work with Commissioner Quinn to prepare for the arrival of refugees. She intends to establish a new home for the Qowat Milat on Vashti. I have no doubt their presence will be of immense value as the Romulans adjust to life in the Federation.”

Boimler nodded. “If the rest of her sisters are as capable as she is, they’ll have the whole planet squared away in no time.”

“I can attest they are quite capable,” Spock agreed. “It is not Vulcan custom to thank others for doing their duty, however effectively, but I will permit my human heritage to speak today. Thank you for your actions in the matter of the Tal Shiar. Captivity in their hands was not a pleasant prospect.”

“We’re glad we were here to help,” said Mariner sincerely.

“Indeed.” Spock caught Mariner’s gaze, giving her a long appraising stare. “Is it the case that you and Lieutenant T’Lyn are becoming personally involved?”

Zani had sharp eyes, Mariner thought. That must have been what she was telling Spock, before we all beamed up.

Without looking, she held her right hand out at shoulder height, the first two fingers extended. Seconds later, she felt T’Lyn’s fingers touch her own, as perfectly as if they had practiced the gesture for years.

“Fascinating,” said Spock. “I do not need to warn you, I am sure, of the unique challenges involved in such a relationship. My own parents were forced to overcome many obstacles throughout their lives . . . and yet they both found their partnership most rewarding. I trust with careful attention, you will find it so as well.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mariner glanced to her side, and caught her girlfriend’s eyes for a moment as they dropped the finger-touch. She looked for a way to express what she was feeling that a Vulcan might understand. “I value T’Lyn very highly.”

“Good.” Spock turned to pick up a padd that had been sitting on the conference table. “A final matter, before I depart. Zani and the Qowat Milat are bitter foes of the Tal Shiar, and so as a matter of survival they take pains to study their adversary. Lieutenant T’Lyn mentioned a code name to me . . .”

Boimler nodded. “Thrai.”

“Just so. I have consulted with Zani, and we believe we have a hypothesis as to the identity of Thrai.” Spock offered Mariner the padd.

She took it, and looked at the image and file being displayed.

A female Romulan, mature but not very old, in her early forties at most. Blonde, with cold blue eyes. Odd. This is not a common phenotype for Romulans.

Wait a minute . . .

“She is an officer in the Romulan military, but she has often led elements of the Tal Shiar,” said Spock. “In that capacity, she has been involved in a number of schemes to undermine the Federation or the Klingon Empire. In our last encounter, she was rather decisively defeated, and she has been little heard from since. Zani and I suspect she has lost much of her former influence, but she may be engaging in a new set of intrigues, taking advantage of the chaos in Romulan space.”

Slowly, Mariner nodded, scanning the file, especially the given first name.

Sela.

“Wow,” she observed, passing the padd to Ransom. “How sure are you Sela is our girl?”

“I would estimate only a 32.8% probability at present,” said Spock, “but no other candidate rises above single digits. At the least, I would suggest you familiarize yourself with her dossier. You may encounter her again.”

“We’ll be on the lookout.” Mariner sensed the conversation was at an end, so she took a formal pose and raised her hand in the ta’al. “Peace and long life, Ambassador.”

“Live long and prosper,” said Spock, returning the salute, and then he turned and walked away.

Boimler sighed deeply. “Is it weird that I wonder if we’ll ever see him again?”

“No,” said Mariner. “It’s not weird at all.”

“Yet there are always possibilities,” said T’Lyn.