Persona Non Grata

Telamon System, Salem Sector, Ten Days Ago:

The drones moved with measured choreography, dragging components through space to preprogrammed destinations, while other drones fastened pieces together, and still more floated outside the assembly area, unpacking more from the cargo modules recently transported to the area, cargo modules emblazoned with the corporate logo of Zorin Interstellar: a stylised Z in emerald green.

Nearby, the Sabre-class vessel USS Tangshan, part of Sabre Squadron One, sat and observed, their curiosity personified by the crew on the Bridge, watching via the main viewscreen. 

At the helm, the ship’s Second Officer and Chief Helmsman Lt Irina Velkovsky suggested, “A new type of automated refinery. ZI can bring in the ore from Scesity, at far less expense than shipping it to Marcos XII or Deep Space Twelve.”

“No,” Ensign Galaxena, the petite Bolian Science Officer, added, pausing to rub distractedly at the ridge bisecting her bald blue head. “It’s an experimental long-range communications array. Now that Starfleet’s managed to make contact with Voyager out in the Delta Quadrant, it’s been proven that trans-quadrant communication can be practical, so everyone’s getting in on the act.”

“Do we really want to be making contact with the rest of the Galaxy?” Lt Bellamy asked from Tactical, “Look at what happened when we ran into the Borg. And the Dominion. Or how about that weird God thing they say lives inside the Great Barrier? Personally I think after the War they’re gonna be focusing on weapons research. This will be some planet-killing device.”

“What a horrible notion,” Ensign Anros Drimu breathed from Engineering, opposite the Science Station. The young Trill female’s spotted face creased. “That Starfleet might become some militaristic organisation because of our experiences in the War. That’s not what I signed up for.”

“We’ve always been militaristic, Anros,” Bellamy countered, “Look at the ranks and regulations and the Academy and all the wars we’ve had to fight-”

“You know what I mean, Frank. Fighting has always been our last resort. If we start building weapons of planetary destruction on the off-chance of meeting another major threat-”

“-Then we’ll have a better chance of surviving than we did with the Dominion.”

At his seat in the centre of the Bridge, First Officer Commander Glerr wrinkled his Tellarite snout in disdain and turned to his Captain on his left. “Are you going to let this prattle continue, Sir? We have a mission to perform here; we should encourage discipline.”

The elongated Kelpien towering over him – and everyone else onboard – never looked away from his work on his duty PADD, but his flat, noseless face widened with a smile from his lidless mouth. “I prefer a more flexible approach within the workplace, Commander Glerr… as long as debate doesn’t degenerate into fisticuffs.

And as far as I can discern, we are performing our mission: monitoring the activities of Zorin personnel at Telamon… and determining what they might actually be constructing here.”

“They filed an application with the Federation Science Council,” Glerr pointed out. “For an ‘Experimental Transportation Project’. Whatever the Hell that means.”

“Indeed,” Captain Neheru conceded. “But given the recent events at the Ucarro system by Zorin personnel, Commodore Hrelle lacks trust in them, hence our current assignment.”

“And you think he’s right, and not just being senile?”

Now Neheru looked up from his PADD at his First Officer. “I have known the Commodore for seven years now, from when he was a Captain, and gave me the opportunity to change my life for the better on the Surefoot. He is an individual of instinct… and he has been proven consistently correct throughout.” He laced some steel into his subsequent suggestion. “He is also our overall commanding officer; you may wish to keep that in mind, before you question his competency so bluntly again.”

Glerr harrumphed, focusing his beady black eyes on something else. “I was merely speculating, Captain, Sir. No offence intended.”

“Glad to hear it, Commander; as loathe as I am having to endure the stench of your pelt, I’d find it marginally more execrable to have to train a new Number One.”

Glerr chuckled at the Tellarite banter – then snapped to attention at the sound of an alert from Ops. “Report, Mr Sellek.”

From behind them, the young Vulcan moved his hands over his controls. “We are picking up a distress signal from outside the Telamon system. It is a vessel, experiencing life support malfunction. No response to our hails.”

“Identification?” Neheru asked.

Sellek offered what for a Vulcan would be a deep frown. “The Sigil, an Antares-class freighter, Corvallen registry. Its submitted flight plan is to Nepenthe… but its current location suggests a more likely destination is Kzinti or Orion space. Still no response.”

Glerr looked back at Neheru. “Corvallens are non-aligned. It’s a trick, a means to lure us away from our mission. Maybe set by Zorin? Or perhaps even a trap being set by the Kzinti?”

Neheru steepled his long, slender fingers in contemplation. “If so, it is an effective one, given that we cannot ignore it. Ms Velkovsky, set a course for the source of the signal, Warp Nine, engage when ready. Mr Sellek, take us to Yellow Alert, inform Salem One as to our diversion, and request an updated confirmation on the flight plan of the Sigil. Mr Bellamy, Ms Drimu is quite correct, an armed response should always be our last resort… but if it does end up being a response at all, ensure it’s a damn good one.”

“Aye, Captain.”

He nodded, looking ahead at the Helm, where Lt Irina Velkovsky sat, glancing sideways at him and offering a slight, conspiratorial smile, one he returned. His command of the Tangshan had been the longest assignment of his career, and with a large crew. There were very few Kelpiens in Starfleet, and his people’s reputation for timidity was better known, so he accepted that some of his new crew needed time to be reassured that Neheru could be relied upon. And this assignment in the Salem Sector is giving them – him – ample opportunity to prove it.

Sometimes, I amaze myself. Thank you, Commodore Hrelle. I learned more from you than I could ever quantify.

It wasn’t long before they entered sensor range, allowing Sellek to report, “Captain, sensors confirm it is indeed the Sigil. Its warp core is offline, it’s drifting, and there appears to be a rupture in the hull following a plasma explosion.”

“What about lifesigns?”

“Twelve, humanoid, faint- Captain, the life support malfunction might be critical-”

Neheru rose to his feet now. “ETA at present speed?”

“27 minutes, Sir,” Velkovsky replied, already programming her station in anticipation of his next order.

He didn’t disappoint. “Take us to Maximum Warp. Mr Sellek, alert Sickbay, have them prepare to receive the occupants. Our new ETA, Irina?”

“6.4 minutes.”

As the ship increased velocity until a whine of protest came from the spaceframe, Neheru remained standing, outwardly calm but inwardly fighting an unaccustomed impatience with how long it was taking to reach their destination, even at over 9,000 times the speed of light. He remembered some words of wisdom from the Commodore: ‘When you’re in the Big Seat, seconds will feel like hours, either because there’s nothing going on, or too much. Just don’t show it.’.

And then, before he realised it, they were dropping out of warp, Velkovsky reporting, “Entering transporter range.”

“Get those occupants to Sickbay.”

Moments later, Sellek announced, “Occupants onboard, initial reports indicate minor respiratory issues, all being treated-”

Suddenly Neheru’s combadge chirped, as the voice of their CMO caught the Captain’s attention. “Dr Enderby to Captain Neheru: would you come down here please, right away?”

Neheru’s face creased in curiosity, as he glanced at an equally-bemused Sellek before responding, “Is there a problem, Doctor?”

“I’d rather discuss it in person with you, Sir.”

Neheru felt his pulse quicken – and if he still had his Kelpien threat tendrils at the back of his skull, they would be engorged and visible. “Very well, Doctor. I’m on my way. Neheru out.” As he closed the channel, he ordered, “You have the Conn, Mr Glerr. Arrange for an Engineering crew in exosuits to beam on board the Sigil and effect repairs.”

The journey to Sickbay took forever, despite his long, long legs.

Inside, activity was focused around the biobeds, where people, mostly Corvallens, lay or stood by, while being treated or guided elsewhere. Near one biobed, Dr August Enderby, a middle-aged human with crinkly copper hair and a narrow nose stepped away to greet him. “Captain, thank you for coming. As reported, the crew are all being treated now for oxygen deprivation and smoke inhalation, and some minor injuries from turbulence from the explosion.”

Neheru nodded. “I take it that you didn’t ask to see me personally in order to repeat yourself.”

“No, Sir. One of the crew is a human male, listed on the supplied manifest as David Banner, a Medical Technician. However, his genetic signature appeared in our own database with a different name: Ensign William T Beaudine.”

The name made his heart skip a beat, and he looked past the doctor to the human. “Are you sure?”

“Confirmed twice, Sir.”

“Is he conscious?”

“He’s coming round now. But perhaps you might want to give him some time-”

Neheru walked around him to the biobed, the medical staff parting to reveal the figure lying down, but now stirring. Yes, it was definitely him: the same freckled face, broad nose, narrow chin… and the hazel eyes, as they opened to look up at Neheru.

Neheru tapped his combadge. “Captain to Security: please send a detail to Sickbay.”

The young man opened his eyes wider as consciousness returned fully, along with recognition. His voice was raspy as he finally responded. “Lieutenant Neheru?”

The Kelpien struggled to force down the storm of emotions threatening to burst from him at this unexpected, and unwanted, reunion with the former cadet from Gamma Squad on the Surefoot. “Captain Neheru, now, Mr Beaudine; much has changed in the last few years.” So very much, he added to himself, accepting his next duty, as distasteful as it was.

Louder now, for the record, he announced, “Ensign William Beaudine, you are under arrest for Homicide, Misbehaviour Before the Enemy, Conduct Unbecoming a Starfleet Officer, Misuse of Starfleet Vessels and Equipment, and being Absent Without Leave. You are not required to give any statement until your formal indictment, where you will be given access to legal counsel beforehand, but do you wish to say anything at this time?”

Beaudine looked up at him, his face as taut as a wire as he shook his head.

*

Station Salem One, Commodore’s Quarters, Level 01, Today:

“‘Cuddle Monkey’?”

Sitting at the head of the table, Commodore Esek Hrelle rolled his eyes. “I was never called that.”

Around him, the rest of the party stopped eating – except for his youngest daughter Sreen, busy shovelling mashed potato into her muzzle, or Sasha’s boyfriend Lt Mru Mori, the Caitian male keeping his head down and not getting involved – to look at him with varying degrees of amusement, Sasha smirking as she repeated. “‘Cuddle Monkey’?”

He reached for his glass of wine. “No, Captain Godleski is misremembering.”

Opposite Sasha, his wife Kami smiled, purring. “‘Cuddle Monkey’?”

“No, that would obviously be a Lieutenant Esek Hrelle from another quantum reality, not me.”

Next to his mother, Misha, dressed in his favourite minikin Starfleet uniform, gripped his fork and frowned. “What’s a Cuddle Monkey?”

“It’s nothing,” Hrelle assured him, glaring good-naturedly at their guest at the opposite end of the table. “Captain Godleski is clearly intoxicated. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Sonia Godleski smiled guilelessly at him: the petite, copper-haired human woman retaining the same wry expression he remembered from the time they served together on the Limaari many, many years before. “Begging your pardon, Commodore, Sir, but I haven’t touched a drop tonight.”

“She’s right,” Kami assured him, smiling and looking at the Captain of the Prospero again. “So, how long did you and my husband date when you were posted to the Limaari?”

Godleski made a show of considering her answer, screwing up her button nose. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘dating’. There were a whole bunch of us who always hung out together, the Magnificent Seven: myself, Esek, Marvin Blum, Weynik, Meridian Jones, Grabthar, Rahn Toxa… Esek and I would drink the rest of them under the table, and usually ended up…. getting together.”

Misha nodded knowingly. “You had sex!”

Most of the adults laughed, but Kami rested a paw on her son’s arm as she told the others, “You know, someone has a tenth birthday coming up. He’s going to have a party with all his friends, but he hasn’t told us what he wants for a present.”

“Ask for a pony,” Sasha suggested, comically ducking as Hrelle looked like he was going to throw his beer at her.

“A starship?” Godleski teased, offering a concealed middle finger at Hrelle’s glare.

“How about your own moon?” Weynik added, looking to Hrelle and smiling. “Come on, you cheap jerk, give him a moon somewhere.”

Hrelle growled, looking to his son and saying gently, “Think about what you’d like. Ignore what anyone-”

“I wanna go fly with you, Papa!” his son declared, smiling, his eyes wide. “Just you and me! A Starfleet Adventure! In space!”

He blinked. “Well, I’m sure we can book one of the station Holosuites-”

“No! A real adventure! Just us two males! Fighting Zeenti and blowing up things!”

Hrelle looked around, feeling his skin heat up under his fur at the scrutiny. “Yes, well, Warrior Prince, you know I’m very busy now here on Salem One and-”

Misha’s deflated, defeated expression cut him to the quick.

Kami took over again. “I think you’re finished here, Cub of Mine. Why don’t you go to your room and finish your homework, and when you’re done, you can come back for some fruit?”

“With ice cream?” he added, smiling and purring.

Kami remained resolute, however. “With more fruit. Now go.”

Sreen pointed her spoon at Misha, for a moment her voice sounding remarkably like her mother’s. “Yeah, you go now, Cub of Mine!”

“You be quiet, Baby Sreen.” The male cub hopped off his chair, but not before walking over to Godleski, taking her hand in his paw, purring and saying formally, “Thank you for visiting our humble home, Captain. Please do not be a stranger here.”

Godleski flushed and grinned. “I won’t be, Misha. And it was such a pleasure to meet you.”

“Yes, it was!” he agreed, turning and rushing into his room, laughing all the way.

Godleski looked to the others, eyes wide. “What a little cutie!” She reached for her wineglass and smiled at Hrelle. “If you’d had half his charm on the Limaari you’d have gotten into my pants a lot sooner than you did.”

As his wife and older daughter laughed, he harrumphed. “I was charming!”

“There was no room for charm, you were too full of that Ancient Race bullshit!”

Sasha reached for her carbonated water. “What Ancient Race bullshit?”

Godleskli smiled, and in a deep, familiar baritone with theatrical hand gestures mimicked, “‘We Caitians are an ancient race, Sonia, deeply rooted in our primal instincts. We hunt, we fight… and we mate. There is no denying it. We must follow as our hearts dictate’.”

Sasha guffawed, giving her father the thumbs up. “Classy lines, Dad!” She nudged Mori. “If you ever tried that on me, I’d have laughed you into a hard-off!”

Kami smirked at Hrelle. “How did you manage to get me pregnant twice?”

He looked around them, lifting up his own glass. “You remember that I outrank all of you, right?”

Now Sreen pointed her spoon at her father. “Cuddamonkee!”

Hrelle saluted his daughter. “You get to call me that, Princess, not these disrespectful fools.”

Now Mori spoke up. “For what it’s worth, Commodore, I’m sure it sounded much better when you said it. You have a stirring, inspirational voice that brings out the best in all of us.” 

“Nice tail kissing, Cub,” Hrelle replied, smiling and winking at him, before sobering. “Now, shall we move onto another subject?”

Godleski smiled, seemingly satisfied with the level of teasing she had inflicted to date. “I heard about your run-in with the Kzinti. How’ve you been handling it?”

“Fine.” He drank. “Well, that subject’s exhausted. Let’s move on again.”

He saw some of the others exchange glances, but left it at that – his ‘run-in’ had shaken him, something he could only admit to Kami, and he was happy to let it quiet down in the back of his mind before dealing with it – but then Godleski continued. “Any word about the Deserter?”

This time, Hrelle wasn’t the only one to react, and he wished he could steer the talk back onto his past romantic embarrassments, or even the Kzinti. “His name is Ensign William Beaudine… Bill. He was one of the first generation of cadets we had onboard the Surefoot. After graduation he was assigned to the Destiny and the Seventh Fleet, and I lost track of him after that, until word came out about what happened on Kalandra VII. Maybe if I’d kept in touch-”

“It wasn’t your responsibility to do that,” Kami reminded him gently, wiping mashed potato from Sreen’s muzzle even as the cub was trying to do it herself with her tongue. “You offer them all the wisdom you can when they’re under your influence, and then set them forth into life.”

“So what did happen?” Godleski asked. “I heard he was a deserter, but also a POW?”

“As I understand it, he was part of an Away Team on Kalandra, investigating a captured Dominion facility. The Jem’Hadar returned, members of his team were wounded, his Away Team Leader called for him to provide medical assistance. Instead, he took off and left them behind. They were killed, and he was captured in space later and taken to a Dominion POW camp.

When the War ended two months ago, and the POWs were released, his shuttle was located, the logs retrieved, and Bill’s actions were discovered. He was summoned to Starfleet to explain himself, but he fled instead.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t believe Bill deserted,” Sasha declared, staring down soberly into her glass. “I saw him in action with us on the Surefoot, staying cool under fire against Nausicaans, Orions, Klingons, before we even graduated. He was too strong, too in control.”

“It’s been over five years since that time, Sasha,” Kami reminded her, lifting up Sreen to her shoulder, settling her and purring her to sleep. 

“And the Destiny and the rest of the Seventh Fleet saw the worst of it in the War,” Weynik added. “At Tyra, Sybaron, the Tibor Nebula, Kalandra. We thought we had it bad at Khavak and Cardassia Prime, but what they faced was a different level entirely. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to run from that nightmare.”

“But not everyone ran, Weynik,” Godleski pointed out. “Most stayed, even if it cost them their lives. And it’s not just about desertion, either; there have been other cases that occurred during the War. But because he ran, and wasn’t there to provide medical aid to the wounded or evacuate them, people died.”

“Where are they taking him?” Kami asked Hrelle.

“The Tangshan rendezvoused with the Minotaur, who are now taking him to Deep Space Twelve to face his court martial there.” Hrelle finished his glass. “I’ll keep an eye on the proceedings, see if he needs anyone on his side.”

“He’ll definitely need it,” Sasha agreed.

*

It was the middle of the night, long after the party had broken up and all good souls should have been in theirs – or other’s – beds, when an alert dragged Hrelle out of his and back into the living room, activating the desk intercom with a growl, “This had better be good.”

The voice of his Station Master, Captain Sternhagen, remained typically unapologetic. “What the Hell’s ever good at 0500 Hours, Esek? The Minotaur will be arriving in four hours.”

He rubbed his eyes, feeling a sense of déjà vu. “The Minotaur? What’s it coming here for? Was there trouble?”

“No trouble, as far as I know. Might have something to do with the Priority Message we received at the same time from Starfleet Command, Commodore’s Eyes Only.”

He grunted; he could have it relayed here, but sensed he wouldn’t just be able to climb back into bed afterwards. “I’m coming up there right now.”

“You’re going to be dressed, right? Have those Low Hangers of yours tucked away?”

“Just have a pot of coffee ready, Smartass.”

*

In another set of quarters on the same deck, an alert and a flashing light broke the darkness and the silence. Seconds later, a female voice announced, “Computer: Lights.”

Sudden illumination triggered curses, as Lt Zir Dassene struggled to extricate herself from the tangle of bedsheets – and the Bajoran male sharing her bed. Finally she rolled herself over him, apologising as her knee accidentally pressed down in places it should never normally go, before scrambling naked to her nearby desk, the ruby-haired, olive-skinned Orion forcing herself to focus on accessing the source of the alert.

Lt Arik Rhov sat up, rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his ribbed nose. “What’s wrong?”

She made a noise, before reaching for her clothes. “The Commodore’s received a Priority Alert.”

Arik watched her. “And he called for you?”

“No, but he’ll read the Alert in Ops rather than disturb his family, so he’ll need me there.” She slipped into her bra and ponytailed her hair before slipping her red turtleneck shirt over her head. “Computer: Hrelle Special Number 5.”

Nearby, her private replicator conjured up a plate of hot, fat butter-glazed croissants.

“Number 5?” Arik echoed, smiling. “How many Specials did he make up for himself?”

Zir reached for her socks and boots, breathing in deeply. “Ten- no, twelve. And he didn’t make them up, I did, depending on the time and potential situation.”

“Right.” He yawned, and then kicked off the sheets and sat up, reaching for his own clothes. “Such dedication to your work.”

She glanced up at him, smiling. “You’re not jealous, are you? You don’t have to go. I might be right back… and maybe looking for some more of one of your Specials.”

He smiled back. “I’m not jealous, but I think I’ll be better off heading back to my place for actual sleep before I start my own shift. Go on, run off to see the Other Boyfriend.”

Zir stopped and stared, for a moment wondering if he was making fun of her, knowing how ridiculous her devotion to Commodore Hrelle, who had done so much to support and protect her, might seem to others.

But no, Rhov wasn’t really mocking her. For which she was eternally grateful, because he had turned out to be the next best thing to have happened to her since the Commodore – even if she had decided that they had to keep their relationship a secret, to prevent gossip and accusations of undue influence. 

When Zir finished dressing, she drew in, bent down and kissed him hard, before pulling back, her head spinning as she recalled their night before. “Yes, get back to your own bed; you’ll definitely need to recharge your batteries for when we’re off duty again.”

*

Five minutes later, she entered Operations, carrying the croissants and moving straight to Hrelle’s office – until Sternhagen intercepted her, staring at the food. “Mmm, I’d better test these for poison or something.”

Zir resisted the urge to slap the Terran’s hand away and stop messing up the arrangement she had made; Sternhagen was a superior officer, after all. “Is he here?”

From his adjacent office, a roar came through the door.

The older Terran woman made a sound as she bit into the croissant she had pilfered, and swallowed. “Come on, let’s go find out what’s rubbed the Cat’s fur the wrong way.” She started, before moving to one side. “Best if you lead with the snacks.”

They found Hrelle behind his desk, coffee mug in paw, glowering at the now-black viewscreen before him. “Get that plate over here and stand back.”

Zir rushed up and set it down, stepping away quickly despite his obviously facetious warning. He reached out and tore into one of the croissants, speaking between bites and chews. “We have new permanent staff coming, who’ll need appropriate quarters, and office space on Deck 7.”

“Deck 7? The Security Level?” Sternhagen asked. “Who would want offices down there-” She frowned. “Are we finally getting the JAG staff we’ve been asking for all these weeks?”

“Yes. And speaking of Security, alert them to prepare to accept a prisoner into custody.”

“Prisoner, Commodore?” Zir echoed.

“Ensign Beaudine, maybe?” Sternhagen opined. When Hrelle nodded, she added, “I thought he was being taken to Deep Space Twelve for his court martial.”

“That was the plan… but given the notoriety behind his case, and the fact that he was arrested in our sector, it was decided it would be more appropriate to bring him here for his trial. And as the Minotaur was delivering replacement JAG staff to DS12 anyway, they decided to kill two birds with one stone and assign them to us instead.” He washed down his croissant with the remains of his coffee, slamming the mug down on the desktop and making Zir jump. “Sorry.”

“There’s more to this mood than the ungodly hour,” Sternhagen noted now.

He nodded. “Our new Senior JAG officer is Captain Phillipa Louvois.”

She whistled in response. “Louvois? Really? That can’t be a coincidence. I thought the Universe had been done stabbing you in the back, Esek.”

Zir looked back and forth between the other two officers, obviously sensing the significance behind that name. “Who’s Captain Louvois?”

Hrelle was growling and reaching for another croissant, leaving Sternhagen to explain. “A famous JAG officer… well, notorious. Nicknamed the Mugato, for those people who don’t prefer her four-letter nicknames. Censured as much as commended, she’s even resigned in protest more than once before returning to duty. She likes to stir up trouble just to see what happens, or to make a name for herself, and she definitely likes to win, no matter the consequences.” 

She reached out for another croissant from the plate, until Hrelle growled at her. She took it anyway, adding, “Years ago, she tried to prosecute a certain furry Starfleet Captain who had returned from years of slavery within the Orion Empire.”

Zir felt her skin turn a darker shade of green, as she turned back to Hrelle. “You, Sir?”

He grumbled, not looking at her. “It was technically for the loss of the crew of the Furyk. Standard procedure.”

“Bullshit,” Sternhagen countered. “Everyone knew it wasn’t your fault, but all she cared about was winning her case. She took it way too far, even tried broadcasting those damned Orion Deathmatch videos they made you participate in, in order to win her argument. But then that’s the Mugato’s style: No Holds Barred.” She glanced at Zir. “Move the bitch into a utility closet. Or an airlock.”

Hrelle set down the rest of his next croissant. “Enough; no matter my past with her, she’s here now, and part of our crew, and I expect everyone here to behave in a professional manner. Myself included.”

Sternhagen crossed her arms. “Of course.” Then she frowned. “Is Louvois going to prosecute Beaudine in the court martial?”

Now he looked up at her, eyes wide with the possibility. “The orders assigned her here as Chief JAG Officer; I know they’re always allowed a great deal of flexibility, but more likely she’ll lead the panel as Chief Judge, and have a couple of her JAGoffs do the prosecution and defence. Lieutenant, I put the list of new arrivals in our shared drive; I want those personnel quarters ready and the JAG Annex on 7 up and running before they get here.” 

He turned back to the viewscreen. “I’ll review the orders received.” Blindly he reached out and retrieved the remains of his latest croissant. And then another. “Get those things away, Lieutenant, they’re bad for me.”

*

Broadway, Deck 4:

Sasha looked around the cluttered Emporium, examining the eclectic range of goods on the many shelves and racks around her, hanging on Mori’s arm, walking off the big breakfast she had treated herself to in the Commissary. “I remember when I was Misha’s age, living on the station, and this was a repair shop. You could bring in any device from any planet, and they could get it up and running in no time… or so it seemed...”

Nearby, a pudgy, lime-green reptoid with stubby red ridges running over the eye sockets and up along the skull in tight rows stood near the counter, his hands tucked into the billowy sleeves of his golden robes. “Would that Sirizo possessed such laudable skills. Alas, he must be content with what humble talents his parents gave him.”

Standing beside the couple, the station’s Chief Nurse Eydiir Daughter-of-Kaas raised her chin. “Go on, Paserak. Demonstrate.”

Mori looked at her now. “Demonstrate what?”

The dark-skinned Capellan woman sneered at Sirizo, though it was more challenging than derisive. “His ‘talent’. He claims he can look at anyone who walks into his Emporium and determine the perfect object for them to purchase.”

Sirizo hissed, unfurled his arms and held out his open clawed hands. “Sirizo was successful with you, was he not?”

Eydiir grunted in reply, prompting Sasha to smirk and regard her friend now. “What did he ‘determine’ for you?”

The Chief Nurse scowled now, reluctantly replying, “A… A leather bandolier with adjustable hooks for my Capellan throwing blades.” As Sirizo hissed again in amusement, she added peevishly “A lucky guess! One cannot be consistently perspicacious!” She pointed at Sasha. “Go on! And if you are successful, I will purchase the item for her!”

Mori leaned into his lover, mock whispering, “Before or after she pummels him?”

Sirizo drew up to Sasha, tucking his hands back into his sleeves, his throat colours shifting, in a manner that reminded Sasha of her other friend and colleague, Kit, still serving on the Surefoot. The Paserak merchant, however, was older, stockier, clearly an expert at sales and public relations, as he made a show of sizing her up. “You are a Warrior- no, a Paladin, a Champion. You know combat… but are not enamoured of it. Many owe you their lives.”

She felt herself flush, even as she acknowledged that it was an old trick; her reputation was public knowledge, inside and outside of Starfleet. Maybe she should have just stuck to her original intention on entering here to find a present for her little brother’s imminent birthday?

“You fight daily,” he added, “If only against your own demons. But you do not live for death. You believe in Life.

“Uh, yeah, look-”

“And you are from an ancient Terran tribe,” he noted, moving to a nearby shelf, and an ornate jewellery box on a higher shelf, taking it down and opening it, his claws sifting aside the cluttered nest of gold and silver chains. “With a rich history- ah yes, here we go.”

He curled one thin gold chain up from the rest around the claw on his forefinger, lifting it up from the rest to dangle it before Sasha – revealing a pendant hanging from the chain: a gold symbol resembling Pi, or the profile of a four-legged animal.

Sasha felt her pulse quicken with recognition as she stared at it. “Son of a…”

“What is it?” Mori asked.

“It’s- It’s a Chai Pendant. The symbol represents ‘Chai’ – ‘Life’ – and it symbolises the value of life.” She reached out, almost touching it, but still holding back. “It also represents the will to live, and serves as a reminder to live and protect life.”

Eydiir frowned. “I have seen you wear one like this when we were cadets.”

“Yes, but I gave mine to a Caitian cub on the Motherworld, after the Occupation.” She looked past it to Sirizo. “Where did you get this one?”

“It was part of a salvage lot from the wreckage of some early Starfleet vessel recently discovered: the USS Horizon. I am told that the pendant was fashioned many centuries ago.” He extended it closer to her. “Would you be interested-”

In response, she accepted it from him, slipping it over her neck and underneath her uniform.

Sirizo closed the jewellery box, turning to Eydiir with a broad, triumphant smile. “And now, shall we haggle?”

Minutes later, the three young Starfleet officers emerged back onto Broadway, Eydiir grousing. “You could have replicated one of those talismans easily enough if you wanted a replacement.”

“When your Capellan short swords were damaged fighting the Vlathi, why did you repair them, when you could have replicated replacements easily enough?” Sasha patted her breastbone, where she could feel her new pendant. “This has history. I can feel it, even if the story about it coming from the Horizon was bullshit; there’ve been almost as many stories about that ship as Kirk’s Enterprise. This needed rescuing from being stuck and forgotten in the bottom of a box.” She smiled at her friend. “Thank you for buying it for me. I’ll pay you back.”

“Try it and I’ll disembowel you with my swords. And then heal you. And then maybe disembowel you again.”

Sasha smiled and leaned in against Mori. “She needs to get laid.”

The Caitian grunted. “You want to have a threesome with her?”

The two women snorted simultaneously at the notion, before Eydiir asked, “How long will the Katana be at the station?”

“Another three days, while they clean the Shiprot we picked up. I wanted to supervise it, but Weynik ordered me to stop working and have fun.”

“We could still have that threesome,” Mori suggested.

Sasha was about to smack him, when her attention was drawn to Broadway’s Concourse, where the rest of Salem One’s businesses met the central turbolifts in the core, while the outer perimeter walls were taken up with observation windows and airlock extensions for larger vessels that might dock at the station. She took note of the sight of a Centaur-class starship parked at Docking Arm One – with scores of cadets, Starfleet personnel and civilians surrounding the station side of the airlock. The atmosphere was electric, as if a celebrity was disembarking from the starship outside- except that the electricity was laced with indignation.

Then they saw the airlock open, albeit only the top of it was visible, and then the ugly chant began: “Flinch… Flinch… Flinch…”

“What in the Seven Hells…” Mori muttered.

Sasha glanced out again at the starship, saw the designation, recognising it, her heart pounding now. Oh shit, no… She raced forward, sensing Mori and Eydiir following directly behind unquestioningly.

She forced her way through the crowd, emerging in front of the personnel emerging from the airlock: several Starfleet security guards, surrounding- “Bill?”

She was right, it was him, looking gaunt, haunted, like he was being marched to the gallows, clad in restraint manacles one would expect on an unruly Nausicaan or Gorn. One of the Security guards, a tall, beefy Suliban with mottled yellow-brown skin and Lieutenant’s pips, suddenly stepped in between them, sneering at her. “Move aside, Lieutenant Commander.”

She stood her ground, feeling her face burn with outrage. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Our job,” he rumbled. “Taking this prisoner to the Station Brig.”

“What? Through a public place? Are you crazy? You could have beamed him directly there!”

Now something like a smile lifted one side of his lipless mouth. “The public has a right to see what a coward, a murderer and a traitor to the uniform looks like.” He reached up to take her by the arm. “Now move aside-”

She reached up as well, twisting his own arm by the wrist to make him release her and force him down.

The other guards stepped forward now to restrain her- until Mori and Eydiir joined the fray. The escalation triggered shouts of encouragement and excitement among the surrounding crowd-

A sharp, unignorable clap seemed to crack the very air itself.

Sasha’s ears rang as she released her hold on the guard and rejoined her friends, jumping as the air cracked again, like a thunderbolt.

She and everyone else turned to the source of the sounds: a knee-high wall surrounding a tri-sided map of the station, and a massive grey-hided pachydermoid in a modified Starfleet uniform that stood on the wall, bringing hands bigger than Sasha’s head together to clap once more, in case the first two sonic claps he generated didn’t get everyone’s attention already, as he raised his broad muzzle and flared his open round nostrils, bellowing, “THAT’S QUITE ENOUGH, COMRADES!”

Beside him, a tall, sturdy, spade-jawed, dark-skinned human stepped forward, seemingly resistant to the handclaps, glaring at the party. “Lt Arcanis Salvo, Station Security Chief.” She half-glanced over her shoulder at her gargantuan colleague, loudly ordering, “Ensign Kaldron, arrest anyone still on Broadway in sixty seconds’ time!”

The crowd evacuated like air through a hull breach.

Then Salvo turned to the Suliban officer. “Identify yourself.”

He drew up to her, looking more enthusiastic at meeting a fellow Security officer. “Lt Nizig, on Captain Louvois’ staff. We are delivering-”

“It is obvious who you are delivering,” the Nova Roman sneered, not even looking in Beaudine’s direction. “Less obvious is why you should neglect Starfleet Security protocols and cause a disturbance on my station. Return to the airlock.”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed in the direction they had come, speaking more slowly, as if to Pakleds. “You and your minions will leave the prisoner, return to the airlock and await permission to board.”

Nizig blanched. “We- We-”

“If you need a weewee, do it on your side. Now go, before I have Ensign Kaldron crush you beneath his feet.”

He stiffened, before offering Sasha a dirty look and departing, making deliberately wide orbits around Beaudine as they did so.

Sasha ignored them, looking at Salvo. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m-”

“I recognise you, Lieutenant Commander, from the many garish images your father indulgently displays in his office. And I don’t give a damn about your relation or your rank, there will be no fighting on my station.”

“Your station, huh?” Sasha turned back to Beaudine along with Eydiir and Mori, trying to control her own reaction to how much he had changed, from the vivacious, romantic soul she remembered. “Are you okay, Bill?”

He could barely look at her or the others, shaking, but nodding blankly in reply.

Eydiir faced Salvo. “He needs medical attention. I’ll take him to the Infirmary.”

Salvo crossed her arms. “No, I’ll take him to the Brig. If you wish to have him examined, it will be done there… when I say it will be done. I’ve had enough of you presumptuous plebeians interfering! Now, begone!”

Sasha remained defiant, pointing at Salvo. “You treat him properly, Lieutenant, or I’ll send you to your people’s Underworld!”

Salvo bared her pearly teeth. “I do not accept orders from the Commodore’s Brat – or threats. If you wish to make good on the latter, however, and meet me in the Gym’s Combat Ring-” 

“-You’ll lose,” Eydiir and Mori answered simultaneously.

Salvo grunted at that, signalling to Kaldron. “Ensign! Deal with the prisoner!”

Kaldron hopped off the wall and approached Beaudine, but looked to Sasha and the others, his voice a gentle contrast to his huge, intimidating size. “No harm will come to him, Comrades. You have my word.” As if to demonstrate, he turned to Beaudine and offered, still gently, “Please come with me, Comrade Ensign.”

Beaudine nodded again, following like an automaton.

Salvo turned back to Sasha. “I look forward to that meeting in the Ring, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Futue te ipsum,” the younger woman replied, punctuating the insult with a raised middle finger and provoking an unexpected raucous laugh from the Nova Roman.

*

Hrelle had been ready to leave his office and meet the Minotaur party at the airlock – until his wife arrived, sniffing and dusting the remains of his croissants from his jacket. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, you’re not going down there to face her head on. That’s not how it’s going to look. These are not dignitaries or VIPs; you get Louvois to meet you here, in your territory, on your terms. I’ve already sent Zir down to escort her here.”

He frowned. “How did you know what-” He shook his head in defeat. “I don’t know why I bother, sometimes.”

“I don’t know why you bother, ever.” She took his paw in hers, purring as she added, “I’ll visit Bill once he’s settled, make sure he’s okay. In the meantime, I’ll be here with you when Louvois arrives.”

He let his tail snake around to stroke hers at the tip. “Oh? Are you worried I’ll bite her head off?”

“On the contrary: I think you might overcompensate, and she’ll take advantage of it.” She turned and faced the office door beside him, her tail smacking sharply against the front of his desk.

An action that, like her change of scent, couldn’t be ignored by him, as he remembered Kami’s presence during his court martial, following her help in his recovery and preparation for his return to life in Starfleet… and how Louvois dismissed Kami’s assessment of him as his Counselor, and in fact questioned Kami’s own professional credentials. “Should I be worried that you’ll bite her head off?”

She never answered.

Then both of them heard the activity outside, and seconds later the doors parted, as Zir stepped inside. “Commodore, this is-”

Before she could complete the introduction, a tall, gaunt, Terran female in her fifties, with a short burr of chestnut-brown hair strode past her, assuring her, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant, I’m sure the Commodore and his Counselor remember me, even after all these years.” She smiled affably, standing casually, her hands behind her. “Captain Philippa Louvois, reporting as ordered, Sir.”

“Captain,” Hrelle responded curtly, looking past her to Zir. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Please ensure Captain Louvois’ belongings reach her quarters, and have medical and security briefings scheduled for her and her staff.” As the young Orion woman departed and the doors closed, he continued, with a little more growl. “Captain Louvois-”

She smiled, not very ingenuously. “Please, Commodore, call me Philippa. We’ll be colleagues now, after all.”

“Captain Louvois, this change of orders, bringing you, your staff, and your prisoner here, was unexpected, to say the least.”

She nodded. “For us both, Commodore. There I was, getting myself all settled in ready to enjoy what I am told is an excellent Spa at Deep Space Twelve once I dealt with Beaudine, and then-” She made a gesture of something flying away. “I might be overqualified for the work required on this little outpost of yours.”

“But it’s not all about you, is it, Captain?” Kami observed acidly. “Though it may usually feel that way in your eyes. You’re also here because of Ensign Beaudine. I want to visit him, in my capacity as Chief Counselor of this little outpost of ours, to ensure his mental and emotional well-being.”

“He’s already been seen on the Minotaur when we collected him and conducted the Indictment. He’s fit to stand trial, but I’ll forward you their reports.”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Captain,” Hrelle interjected. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten this is my station, and you’re under my command now.”

Louvois’ expression steeled. “And perhaps you’ve forgotten the addendum included with the orders I know you received: you are specifically ordered not to interfere in any way with the judicial proceedings for Ensign Beaudine. It’s to ensure the transparency of the process.”

Now she looked between husband and wife, acting as if she was summoning up her case. “Counselor, the orders on the Commodore do not apply to you, so of course I will allow you to visit Ensign Beaudine, once he’s been settled in the station Brig and meets with his defence counsel-”

“He hasn’t even met his counsel yet?” Hrelle snapped.

She started at his reaction, but quickly recovered. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have a full complement of JAG staff with us on our way to Deep Space Twelve when we were diverted to collect him. I will, with Mr Beaudine’s participation should he choose, select a senior officer from the available, and qualified staff here, to act as counsel.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Yes,” she replied, leaving it at that.

*

On the deck below, a set of Holodeck doors opened, allowing four Roylans to emerge: two adults and two children, the older of the children leading the way, bouncing happily. “That was great, Poppy!”

“Yes,” agreed the older of the adults. Professor Tallus reached behind her and worked the muscles in her back. “Liyoral the Crystal City, constructed thousands of years ago by Bantik the Builder, a member of the Roylan Pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. It’s magnificent even in holographic form… but also exhausting climbing the Parapet. I’ve been stationbound too long, I can’t wait to get back in the field.”

Beside her, holding his infant son Jaxan, Captain Weynik grunted at his mother, happy to have had the opportunity to see his children’s reactions to one of the great wonders of their homeworld. Happy to have had any recreational time with his family, really. Since the War’s end, and the loss of his leg and reassignment to Salem and the Katana, he felt like he hadn’t a moment just to relax and enjoy life. “You have a new assignment?”

She nodded. “The newly-discovered underground sites on Axylus have produced some fascinating artefacts, and the Federation Archaeological Team based there need help identifying and cataloguing from the dig.”

“Jax and I will come with you, Gramma!” Naida offered, looking back at them. “I’ve still got my shovel and bucket from the beach trip!”

“That’s very generous of you, Sweetheart,” Weynik told her, adjusting his hold on his sleeping son. “But you and your brother will be going out on the Katana with me for a few days once the Shiprot is cleared.”

“Why can’t I stay with Misha? He can fart a whole song!”

“He’s talented, like his father, but I can’t impose on his family all the time-”

“Captain Weynik?”

He turned, startled at setting another Roylan, a female, who rushed up towards them. He didn’t recognize her, at first. She wore a Starfleet uniform like his, including Captain’s pips on her maroon collar. “Yes?”

“You probably don’t remember me,” she said, taking a second to catch her breath. “I’m Captain Tamati.”

He nodded in recognition. “Yes. Weren’t you the Tactical Officer aboard the Endeavour?”

“I was. I got promoted and Admiral Tattok sent me out here to Salem Sector,” Tamati smiled. “In command of the Minotaur.”

“The supply ship?” He remembered that a Centaur-class ship was currently docked with the space station. It had been the command of Ed Haney during the Dominion War when he had been the Captain of the Ajax. Haney had ruined his career because of his feelings toward Esek. The last thing that he had heard about him was that he had been transferred to a ground assignment and subjected to mandatory Counseling.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I envy you. The Minotaur has her scars and she’s a good ship.”

“I envy you, sir,” Tamati said, turning her head to one side. “A Saber-class command after a Defiant-class ship. What’s the chance of that?”

“Being friends with the Sector Commodore might have its perks but he only gives those out to his wife,” Weynik replied with a slight chuckle.

Tallus made a sound of clearing her throat.

Prompting him to say, “Oh, sorry. Captain Tamati, this is my mother, Professor Tallus, and my daughter Naida and son Jaxan.”

As she greeted them, albeit only with a cooing sound towards the still-sleeping Jaxan, he took a deep breath and exhaled. “So, what can I do for you, Captain?”

“I actually wanted to ask you if you have time for a drink later, Sir.”

“Can the ‘Sir’, please,” the Katana’s captain told her. “And a drink?”

“Unless you’re busy, Sir?”

Weynik was about to respond, when Tallus moved in and collected her grandson. “He’s not, in fact. These ones are going back for a nap.”

He watched his mother take charge, before shrugging at Tameti. “It appears I’m not busy.”

“So, a drink, Si – Uh, Captain?”

Weynik started to walk alongside Tamati. “Sure, and please call me Weynik.” He looked back at his family. “See you later.”

“Take your time,” Tallus assured him, smiling. 

*

Don’t lose your temper, Mori had warned her when Sasha had been summoned to the station’s new JAG Officer – and when Sasha learned who the new JAG Officer was.

To be fair, she never promised she would follow her lover’s advice.

Still, when she entered Louvois’ office and stood at attention before her, it was all she could do to force back the memories of watching the court martial, watching how this bitch tried to paint her Dad as some sort of murderous, traitorous animal, a monstrous killing machine responsible for the deaths of everyone on the Furyk and on Salem One – including her Mom.

She forced back the memories of how shaken Dad, still recovering from his ordeal, had been from her efforts. She forced back the memory of the look of glee Louvois wore. She forced back her own hatred for this nasty, nasty bitch and what she did to her Dad.

And how she was currently sitting there, pretending to be distracted by the contents of the PADD in her nasty thin hands. “I’ll be right with you, Lieutenant Commander.”

Eat shit. “Yes, Captain.”

Behind Louvois, Lt Cmdr Xan Maraud stood, watching her. He was about her age, his Efrosian heritage clear with his tangerine skin, cranial ridges, bright irises and white hair, though this one lacked the long moustaches and goatees that she’d seen on other males. She couldn’t gauge what he was like – but if he was on Louvois’ staff, then he couldn’t be much good.

Another few seconds, and finally Louvois set aside the PADD and looked up, smiling politely. “Lieutenant Commander Hrelle, effective immediately you will be acting as Defence Counsel for Ensign Beaudine.”

Sasha blinked. “Excuse me?”

“On the authority of the Judge Advocate General’s office, you have been temporarily assigned to act as his legal advocate for the duration of his court martial. You are now officially on Judicial Duty, and your previous duties as First Officer of the Katana will be taken up by the next officer in line.”

The younger woman broke her formal pose, and damn the consequences. She had expected her being called here to receive some sort of reprimand for interfering in her staff delivering Bill onto the station the way they did, but not this. “Is this a joke?”

“I never joke about my work, Ms Hrelle. I was originally assigned to Deep Space Twelve, where I would complete my staff and then court martial Mr Beaudine there once we collected him. But the orders came down that the trial, and myself, would be transferred here, to avoid a media frenzy that would be generated in a larger, more important environment.

I will be chairing the panel as President of the Court, with two command-level officers yet to be selected joining me on the panel, and I already have a Prosecuting Counsel with me in the form of Mr Maraud here. But the accused needs a Defence Counsel.”

Sasha felt her face heat up from the very idea. “But I’m not a lawyer! I’m not certified!”

Louvois smiled. “You don’t have to be; JAG Regulations allow for anyone to act as a legal representative in these proceedings.”

“But why choose me?”

The older woman rose to her feet and stepped around the desk. “I’ve done my research on you. Your coursework on Starfleet and Federation Law at the Academy was satisfactory, you’re matched in age and rank with Mr Maraud, and from what I understand, your actions earlier this morning confirmed your personal support for the prisoner. And, perhaps most importantly: Ensign Beaudine asked for you.”

She swallowed. “He did? Why?”

“Why don’t you visit him in the Brig and find out for yourself? You’ll have full Security clearance in and out, at any time, though of course he’ll remain there except when taken to the adjacent Courtroom for his trial.”

Sasha turned away, trying to see if this was some prank her Dad was playing on her- no, that was stupid, even for her. “I- I can’t do this, I’m sorry-”

“Lieutenant Commander, face me.”

She did. Louvois folded her hands behind her as she regarded Sasha with a steely expression. “Ms Hrelle, you’re not being asked to do this. You’re being ordered to do this. If you refuse, two things will happen: one, I’ll make a summary ruling on Ensign Beaudine, which I promise you will not work in his favour in any way; and two, I’ll file formal charges of Dereliction of Duty against you, which I promise you will not work in your favour in any way.

And before you think to run to Daddy about this, you should know that he’s under orders not to get involved in any way with the court martial. If he so much as makes a comment about it, he’s finished, I kid you not.”

Sasha felt her face tighten. Fucking bitch was enjoying this. “I can fight my own battles, Captain, without my father’s help… and I’ll fight Bill’s, too.”

*

Moments later, she was walking down the corridor with Maraud, the Efrosian stopping at a doorway and prompting her to stop as well. “This office will be available for your use, Lieutenant Commander, along with access to all the files, the testimony and evidence, and the hearing schedule. I would advise reviewing the Court Martial process; I’ve provided some helpful texts on the subject.”

She stood there, looking in and nodding blankly. “Thanks.” Then she noticed his expression. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? About what?”

Now Maraud smiled. “That your first taste of the law is going to be as a glorified mannequin, against me, with no chance of victory. It’s a bit like having your first tactical lesson be the Kobayashi Maru. It’ll be a hell of an ego bruise.”

She bristled. “I don’t care about my ego, Mister. Just my friend.”

He seemed to consider her words, glancing around the area in case someone was listening, before he replied, “Well, Lieutenant Commander, look on the bright side: I spent four hard years at Starfleet Academy’s Legal Division, learning my craft.” He smiled and pointed at her as he walked away, adding, “What you’ll learn from it won’t take anywhere near as long.”

*

After that, she found herself in Beaudine’s stark cell in the station Brig, while he sat on the side of his bunk, his manacles removed but almost hunched over as if still weighted down by them. “Yes. It’s all true.”

Sasha felt her pulse quicken, and for a moment, she didn’t know how to react, expecting a denial, or a declaration of ignorance about the incident. Not this. “What happened at Kalandra?”

Beaudine dropped his gaze. “You must have heard the reports, seen the news.”

“Yes… but I want to hear it from you. The Destiny was sent there with the rest of the Seventh Fleet to retake the system from the Dominion. You were part of an Away Team shuttled to the tenth planet. What was that about?”

He nodded numbly, clearly reluctant to relive his memories, but pressing onward nevertheless. “The Fleet was fighting in the system, driving back the Jem’Hadar, and there were reports that the Dominion had set up some sort of ground-based facility, on an outer planet that didn’t seem to have anything of strategic or material value. Admiral Quinn wanted to know its purpose.

We had to take a shuttle, due to the polaron interference making transporter use unsafe. Lieutenant Lincarnos led the Away Team, and there was me, Science Crewman Shelby, Engineering Crewman Rosen, and Security Crewmen Arvan and Otaktay. I piloted the shuttle, and would offer medical support if required. 

I was… I was glad. Glad to be on the mission. The Dominion had seemingly abandoned the facility, so I thought we would be safe, as opposed to being in space, on the edge of death all the time.” He made a pained sound. “I can’t believe, after all I’ve been through, that I could still be so naive.”

She saw him tense. “Did you discover the purpose of the facility?”

“It- It was some sort of automated refinery, processing… something. I- I don’t know what. All this time since, I never figured it out. I was at the edges, near the shuttle.

It didn’t matter. Before we knew it, the Jem’Hadar emerged from all around us, waves and waves of them, endless, relentless, merciless… and so silent. Not like Klingons or Nausicaans- at least they don’t act like mindless robots…”

Now Beaudine looked up again, trembling now from the memory. “They came at us. Like they did at Tyra, and Sybaron… and in my nightmares, before and since. No matter how many we killed, there were more, always more, to take their place. We were all separated, cut off from each other, pipes were cracking open and walls were coming down, there was gas and noise and confusion and we were all fighting to stay alive, doing our best… but our best wasn’t good enough, not against those monsters.

I was closest to our shuttle, and Lt Lincarnos was screaming at me over my combadge; we had wounded, they needed medical aid. I- I got to the shuttle… but all I could think about was getting away… getting away…

Before I even acknowledged it to myself, I was in orbit, and heading away, trying to get back to the Destiny. But it had been driven off, leaving only the Dominion… 

Five colleagues, five friends… five good, decent people who might still be alive today… died. Because of me…”

Sasha stared at him, feeling her stomach twisting. Ever since the news broke about Beaudine’s actions, a part of her was waiting to find out… the truth. That everyone had gotten it wrong, that he’d been captured, or brainwashed, or framed for it. It was too much to accept as reality, not for anyone who knew him.

And he must have seen something in her eyes. “If you don’t want to represent me now, I’ll understand-”

She forced down her shock and dropped to one knee before him, capturing his attention as she took his hands in her own, her voice soft, sympathetic. “I’m not going anywhere, Bill; you have me in your corner, and you always will. But… when you were released from the camps after the War ended, why didn’t you come forward, and tell the truth? Why did you run when Starfleet found the shuttle and read the logs?”

Beaudine’s eyes welled with tears. “Fear, Sasha. Always the fucking fear. It feels like it’s a part of me forever. Inescapable-”

“Well, there’s a surprise.”

Sasha and Beaudine looked up to see Lt Nizig, leaning against the side of the cell doorway, arms folded and looking inside with cruel amusement as he added. “At least you’re honest about your cowardice, Flinch.”

Anger galvanised Sasha’s limbs, making her straighten up and face the guard. “What the Hell are you doing here? This is meant to be a confidential meeting! I’m his defence counsel!”

The Suliban smirked. “Talk about Mission: Impossible. You should call in sick on this lost cause, Lieutenant Commander. As for you, Flinch: better for you and everyone else if you’d died with the rest of the team you murdered.”

Sasha looked back at Beaudine. “Don’t listen to him, Bill. I’ll be back soon to check on you.” She strode up to the doorway, until the invisible forcefield made a warning noise, her expression one of taut fury. “Let me out, Mister. Now. That’s an order.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

But he still took his time.

He barely had a chance to restore the forcefield before she dragged him away by the elbow, practically pushing him against a wall. Indignation crossed his own features at her actions. “Keep your hands off me!”

She stabbed a finger in his face, gritting her teeth. “You stay the Hell away from him! I don’t want you talking to him, I don’t want you anywhere near him!”

Nizig sneered at her now. “You don’t have any authority over me! I take my orders from Captain Louvois!”

“Yes! And she wants Ensign Beaudine to have a fair trial! What do you think she’d say if I raised a complaint – a public complaint – against you for harassing him, and for interfering in the duties she appointed me to?”

The Suliban kept sneering – but clearly listened to what she had to say. “Well, far be it from me to interfere in the mechanisms of Justice. If you feel that strongly about a traitor’s feelings, Lieutenant Commander, I’ll keep my distance.” But before he departed, he added, “Good luck finding people that don’t feel like I do, though.”

*

“This is a load of shit,” Weynik declared.

Standing nearby, feeling like a visitor despite the office being on his station, Hrelle was grateful that his friend didn’t look to him for support, but instead focused his ire on Louvois, who sat behind her new desk as if she’d been there for years, smiling up at him. “Care to specify, Captain, or is this just a diatribe on life in general?”

Standing beside Captain Godleski, Weynik pointed a finger in the JAG officer’s direction. “First you press-gang my XO into Judicial Service without prior consultation, and then you include me as well in all this?”

Louvois folded her hands onto her desk. “I should remind you, Captain, that Lt Cmdr Hrelle is not in my service, but the service of the Judge Advocate General’s Office… and more particularly, in the service of Ensign Beaudine. I recognise that I was assigned here at extreme short notice, and ordered to conduct a court martial with immediate effect despite lacking a full legal staff. 

But my orders also grant me authorisation to employ any I believe qualified and capable to help me fulfil that task. Unless of course you think Ms Hrelle is not up to the challenge?”

Now the Roylan crossed his arms. “If I gave you my uncensored opinion of that notion, your ears would be burning for a week.”

Louvois smiled. “Don’t worry about that, Captain; after all the years at this job my ears have become fireproof. As for you, if it’s any comfort, you weren’t my first choice to be part of the Court Martial panel, precisely because of your personal connection to her… and her father.” She glanced past the other Captains at Hrelle. “But I have been assured by the Commodore that you can act objectively in these proceedings. Is he correct?”

“Yes,” Weynik declared unequivocally.

Louvois nodded, looking at Godleski now. “And how about you, Captain? Do you have a problem with this assignment?”

The other woman shrugged. “Well, I have my own personal connections with Commodore Hrelle, but I doubt if our drunken fumblings from thirty-plus years ago will be weighty enough to make me recuse myself. And my crew will certainly be pleased with the extension to their shore leave.”

“Well, inform them, and all your loved ones, that the two of you will be sequestered for the duration of the proceedings, with no access or communications to influence you, but we’ll get this wrapped up in just a day’s time.”

“Why the rush?” Hrelle asked suddenly, capturing everyone’s attention. “Ensign Beaudine has only just had his counsel assigned to him.”

Louvois regarded him again, smiling once more in that insufferable way of hers. “Nothing’s being rushed, Commodore, I can assure you; but the legal process is no longer the prolonged marathon that it once was centuries ago. Starfleet just wants this stain on our reputation wiped away as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

“Nevertheless,” Hrelle continued to protest. “As much as Starfleet wants to resolve this, Ensign Beaudine still deserves a fair trial.”

Louvois smiled now, leaning back in her chair. “Tell us the truth, Hrelle: isn’t all this Grumpy Cat attitude from you just your ego smarting, because one of your former cadets’ crimes has sullied your personal reputation for producing superlative young officers?”

Hrelle kept staring at her, his tail smacking against the wall behind him as he scented the reactions from Weynik and Godleski, before he finally growled back, “Captain Louvois, you forget yourself; we are not peers, we are not equals, and we are certainly not friends. 

I’ll give you one window of opportunity to withdraw that remark, before I file formal charges against you for Disrespect Towards a Superior Commissioned Officer – charges that I’m sure will be corroborated by the other two officers present.”

“Damn right,” Weynik muttered angrily, as Godleski grunted in the affirmative. 

Hrelle took a step forward. “That window is closing very rapidly, Captain.”

Louvois dropped her smirk and straightened up, though she also appeared to be doing it under protest. “Consider it withdrawn. I regret making such a baseless remark… Sir.”

He made a disbelieving sound.

*

Beaudine sat on the edge of his bunk, trying not to flinch as Eydiir passed the tricorder sensor wand around him, the Capellan’s demeanour uncharacteristically soft. “You’ve kept yourself in good shape, Bill.”

He nodded, before realising how it might affect her readings. “There’s not much else to do in a POW camp. I still remembered the callisthenics programs you ran for all of us on the Surefoot.” He looked up at the other occupant of the cell: Kami, sitting across from him, silent, studying, her tail swishing behind her. “I heard you’ve had another cub, Counselor.”

The Caitian nodded back affably. “A female. She’s called Sreen, she’s three years old, with a pair of lungs on her that I hope she soon puts to better use than bursting out in spontaneous song in the middle of the night.”

He offered a slight smile back, his eyes glazing with memory. “I remember when Lt Shall had Misha help the Security cadets on a training exercise, having them try and track him down through the Jefferies Tubes. He was the Surefoot Phantom, howling up and down the shafts to put them off the trail. Atiaro and Glenqom were cursing him out for making them look foolish… only Neraxis knew to set a trap for him and flush him out, with some fried shuris pieces.”

Kami smiled back. “That trick still works.” She looked up at Eydiir. “Well?”

The Chief Nurse glared at her tricorder, as if it was somehow refusing to do as she demanded. “Evidence of minor but long-term neurological trauma, between 1-2 years old, residual respiratory and circulatory damage from decompression-” She focused on Beaudine. “Any idea about the cause?”

His face tightened with pain. “Y-Yes- when I- when I was in space, and the Dominion ships had attacked me, they- they caused a hull rupture- it- it-”

Kami shifted in her seat. “I think you’ve obtained enough data here, Eydiir. You mentioned accessing Bill’s records from the Starfleet Medical Database?”

Eydiir met her gaze… and then reluctantly complied, closing her tricorder and resting her free hand on Beaudine’s shoulder. “Be brave, Bill. We will decipher the truth.”

Beaudine looked ready to say something in reply, but just nodded back, waiting until she was let out of the cell, and then he rubbed his eyes. “‘Be brave’. If it had been as simple as that-”

“She means well,” Kami noted gently. “She wasn’t mocking you.”

“I know,” he confirmed wearily, still rubbing his eyes, if only to delay meeting his former Counselor’s ever-piercing, ever-perceptive own. “She’s changed, too; she’s softer, more confident. She used to scare me.” Now he sighed, staring at Kami with a half-smile. “You used to scare me, too. I dreaded our Counseling sessions when I first started them.”

“I remember,” she admitted. “Most people new to Counseling, and new to what they may learn about themselves, can be afraid. I used to say that peeling back layers of ignorance and self-denial to get to the truth within can be painful.”

His smile turned bitter. “Well, there’s no pain now, Counselor. I know the truth within. I’ve seen it myself. I’m a coward, and I’m a killer.”

Kami leaned forward. “Do you remember what else I used to say, about the value of objective viewpoints? ‘Before you select an outfit, always have someone you can trust there to see how it actually looks on you’.”

*

Salvo raised one of the new phaser compression rifles up in both hands, gazing through the scope down the length of it as she aimed and fired at the target at the far end of the tunnel, silently invoking the goddess Diana for continued accuracy. Not that she genuinely believed in her people’s deities, or in anything really, except her own strength and skills…

“Lieutenant?”

The voice was audible from behind her, but Salvo continued firing, adjusting the strength of the phaser pulses. There was something more viscerally satisfying about the pulse setting as opposed to the traditional steady beams. And the noise it made allowed her the pretence of not hearing the intruder.

Until Louvois drew up to her side, hands behind her back, staring down at the target. “Is there a problem with the gun? It looks like you only hit the target once.”

Salvo sneered. “I have hit the target fifteen times... all in the bullseye. If you are disturbing me because I chastised your Security officer for his actions with the prisoner-”

“No, no, I understand, and I have admonished Nizig for his zeal. But I am here regarding the prisoner. What’s your opinion of him? His actions?”

The Nova Roman sighed, deactivated the rifle and set it on an adjacent table, rolling her neck to loosen her muscles as she turned to the other woman. “I have none.”

“Really? As I understand it, your culture is based on many of the principles of Earth’s Roman Empire. They hold a high regard for courage, duty and loyalty-”

“-And brevity. Did you come down here to sate some petty curiosity on your part about my opinion, or is there something more substantial?”

Louvois smirked. “I appreciate your candour. I have an assignment for you, backed by my authority and by the authority of the Judge Advocate General’s Office. Commodore Hrelle has been ordered to keep his snout out of the court martial of Ensign Beaudine, and not to interfere in any way with it. Given his… singular nature… I fully expect him not to follow those orders. You are to secretly monitor him, and Lt Cmdr Hrelle, and report immediately on any violation. From either party.”

Salvo’s gaze narrowed like phaser beams on the other woman. “Is that right?”

“Yes. Monitor the station computer networks, combadge frequencies, track their locations, conversations, no matter how private-” Louvois paused and regarded her. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

“What? Following orders? No, Captain.”

Louvois nodded at that. “I read up about you. You used to be a decorated Lieutenant Commander; Commodore Hrelle demoted you. Humiliated you. You catch him in the act, and you’ll get those pips back, as well your revenge on him. I guarantee it. Take any steps necessary. Do we understand each other?”

Salvo scowled and nodded back. “Perfectly, Captain. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off duty now.”

“Fine, fine. Like I said, keep me informed-”

But Salvo was already picking up the rifle and striding towards the Armoury.

*

Federation Commissioner Ryo Nam-Seon sat formally in Hrelle’s office, sipping from the ornate ceramic tea cup as she viewed the data on the wallscreen. “I’ve approved the colonisation request for Axylus III from the Ferengi Alliance.”

Hrelle kicked himself mentally for not focusing on the task at hand, and set aside his PADD. “Really, Commissioner? Ferengi?”

She smiled. “You don’t object to having Ferengi around, do you? I know they’ve had a history of issues with sales ethics and gender rights among their own people, but there’s been a great deal of recent improvement since Grand Nagus Rom took over.”

“I have no problem with them, Commissioner. As I understand it, Axylus III is a hot, rain-thrashed swamp world anyway, not salubrious for most races, but almost identical to Ferenginar. And Ferengi do tend to stimulate commerce wherever they go. I’d rather have them around than Zorin Interstellar, to be honest.”

She looked at him more challengingly now. “Do you still have a problem with my allowing Zorin to establish more projects in the sector, Commodore? I thought we’d settled all that already.”

Hrelle considered his reply. Nam-Seon was young but she had some steel in her, was growing more confident with her responsibilities, and he didn’t want to discourage her, or muddy their working relationship. “Forgive me, Commissioner; I don’t have any problem with your decisions, and nothing you’ve done so far has given me any actual cause for concern from the point of view of Starfleet. I’m just distracted by this court martial – and the fact that I can’t kibitz.”

“Kibitz?”

He smiled momentarily. “Back seat piloting. The accused was a former cadet of mine on the Surefoot. And my daughter is defending him. I can’t stop wanting to help both of them out. I think I used to have more freedom to get things done when I was just a Captain.”

Nam-Seon set aside her teacup and saucer and smiled sympathetically. “The grass is always greener, isn’t it? I wish I could offer your daughter or your former cadet some assistance, but with it being a Starfleet matter-”

“Of course, I understand. Then there’s my son.”

She smiled back warmly. “I met him this morning as he was coming out of school. He’s assured me that when he joins Starfleet and works with his Papa here, he’ll protect me the way you protect me.”

He made a sound.

“You don’t have a problem with him protecting me, do you?” she teased gently.

“No… I have a problem with him being so fixed on joining us in the first place. He was born on a starship, spent almost his entire cubhood around people in Starfleet, he’s been put in danger… he’s even been wounded as a result of that life. We’ve let him wear miniature Starfleet uniforms and call himself Captain Misha and never once gave him the idea that he could do something else. Something that won’t kill him, or leave him disabled or traumatised or facing a court martial or…”

He sighed, rubbing his eye sockets. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to load all that onto you. You have better things to do than listen to this old cat mewl about his family problems.”

Nam-Seon set aside her teacup and saucer and smiled sympathetically. “Well, I don’t have children of my own, but I recognise good, loving parents when I see them. And there’s a few years to go between now and when he reaches adulthood. If I’d stuck to the plans I had for a career at Misha’s age right now I’d be performing Swan Lake at the Shanghai Ballet. Badly, I might add-” 

Suddenly Hrelle’s office door slid aside, and Darren Kolchak, the resident civilian journalist from the Federations News Service, strode in. “Commodore! A moment of your time, if you don’t mind…”

Hrelle rose to his feet, as Zir appeared directly behind him. “Mr Kolchak, I told you the Commodore was busy!” She looked to Hrelle. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

The middle-aged Terran male with the receding hair, hangdog expression and taste for baggy light-coloured suits patted Zir on the shoulder, his recording remote hovering beside him like a fat hummingbird as he smiled with insouciant charm. “Don’t blame the kid, Commodore, but I’ve got a deadline to meet about this court martial case-”

“That’s certainly a problem, Mr Kolchak,” Hrelle interrupted, “But it’s not my problem. And it doesn’t excuse you bursting in here. Especially as I’m not involved in the court martial in any way.”

“How can you say that, with your own daughter defending a former cadet of yours? Speaking of which, I’ve got extensive interviews with Captain Louvois and Lt Cmdr Maraud, but your daughter’s turned me down, so I was hoping you could approach her and make her change her mind?”

Hrelle stepped around his desk. “No.”

“Then how about a personal quote about the court martial itself? It was one of your own cadets who got people killed, after all…” At his cue, his recorder floated around and drew closer to Hrelle-

-Until Hrelle shot out his paw with lightning speed, catching the softball-sized object and smashing it on his desktop, letting the pieces fall out of his paw to the floor.

“Hey, that’s private property! You can’t do that!” Kolchak complained.

Hrelle stepped up to him. “Your head would spin with the knowledge of what I can do, Mr Kolchak… and I’ll remind you that you’re present on Salem One at my sufferance.

Lt Dassene, escort Mr Kolchak back to the nearest public deck, and ensure his access is restored to him tomorrow – for the Courtroom on Deck 7 only.” He leaned in. “Unless you want to get on my bad side, Bubulah?”

The journalist blinked… and then stepped back, smiling again in concession. “The last cat I annoyed was my ex-wife’s, and I still regret it; I’m not in a hurry to repeat that mistake with a larger-sized version of Mr Whiskers.”

As Zir escorted Kolchak out, Hrelle turned back to Nam-Seon. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Commissioner.”

She was putting away her PADD and other materials, smirking. “Given that the last time I was here, when another civilian annoyed you and you ended up urinating on his jacket, I think today’s encounter was an improvement…”

*

Sasha had been readying herself to spend an hour perusing the records of the Away Mission on Kalandra… only to find it took five minutes – with four of those minutes looking for the rest of it. “What the frick-”

Across from her in her temporary office, Mori stopped fulfilling his role as Acting Senior Officer of the Katana ship and crew to glance up. “What’s wrong?”

“The Away Mission on Kalandra is classified. I’ve got the bare bones, the basic facts, the audio recordings from the Away Team, but everything else: the reason for their mission, what they found down there, even the autopsies of the bodies they recovered later… they’re redacted. Heavily redacted.”

“Classified? Now, with the War ended? Why?”

“I don’t know. Bill didn’t know anything about it being classified at the time.” Sasha frowned. “Starfleet Security Code 47: Disclosure to Relevant Flag-Level Officers Only.”

“That high? Which officers?”

“It doesn’t say. No specific individuals, no specific office.”

“Admiral Quinn commanded the Seventh Fleet,” he reminded her. “Maybe he’s the relevant officer? He would have given the orders to send the team to Kalandra, after all.”

Sasha ground her teeth. “He seems to have disappeared into a black hole. I’ve been trying to reach him, to see if he would be willing to offer a character witness for Bill, but I can’t find him anywhere.” Sasha rose to her feet, tapping her combadge. “Computer: Locate Lt Cmdr Maraud.”

“Ltr Cmdr Maraud is in his office.”

She grunted. “Stay here and carry on.” She stormed towards the office door-

-Stopping only when Mori reached out and grabbed her hand. “Count to Ten before you walk in there. A cliché, I know, but it’ll help, I’m sure.”

*

“Yes, I know it’s Classified. And?”

Sasha had followed Mori’s advice, and it did calm her down. But Maraud’s admission, and his attitude, threw her. “Why was it Classified?”

The Efrosian male shrugged, leaning against the front of his desk and crossing his arms. “The reasons for it being Classified are Classified.”

“But who’s responsible?”

“The identities of the flag officers who marked the account of the incident as Classified are-”

“Let me guess…” She rolled her eyes. “You really don’t know anything about it?”

“Nope – I’m as much in the dark as you are, and the account I have is identical to yours.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

Maraud offered a slight smile. “What, you’ve never performed a mission where you weren’t told everything?” He uncrossed his arms and held out his hands. “After all, the reason for the Away Team being on Kalandra doesn’t matter, does it? Only what Beaudine did.”

“Allegedly, actually.”

His smile broadened. “‘Actually’, actually. He offered a Statement at the Indictment, confessing to everything; tomorrow is just a formality for sentencing purposes. I told you this was your legal Kobayashi Maru.”

“So you did. I was trying to contact Admiral Quinn for a supporting statement, but I can’t reach him anywhere.”

Maraud nodded. “I reached out for him as well. He retired at the end of the War, location unknown.”

“Terrific. And Bill’s the only surviving member of the Team, and was only providing medical and shuttle support and wasn’t briefed on the reasons.”

“Like I said, why they were on that planet doesn’t matter.” He rested his hands on his desk now, nodding with sympathetic approval. “Is your friend seeing anyone?”

“Who, Bill?”

He smiled. “The Head Nurse, Eydiir. She’s Capellan, right? A Warrior Nurse sounds… interesting. Is she available? Do you think she’d go out for some dinner when all this business is over?”

Sasha stared at him enigmatically. “I’ll pass on your interest to her.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me just yet.” She departed without further comment, her mind already moving onto her next move… and the next person she could turn to for advice that wasn’t involved in this meshuggeneh case.

*

“Commander Haluk?”

The older Vulcan male with the beard peppered with specks of iron grey had been walking towards the wall of drinks replicators in the Cadets’ Common Room on Deck 5, when he stopped and turned, straightening up formally. “Lieutenant Commander Hrelle, a pleasure to meet you again.”

Sasha stopped, feeling herself moving to attention as well like she was still one of the cadets now surrounding them, despite the years since she studied under him in her Post-Graduate Tactical Training on Vulcan. “Commander, I hope I’m not disturbing you unduly-”

“What would you like to drink? It is my round.”

She paused, before replying, “Coffee, any blend, as long as it’s strong and sweet. I’m going to need it tonight.”

She watched him order, passing her a blue ceramic cup, before following him to a set of seats nearest the entrance, the two officers sitting opposite each other, Haluk taking a seat facing the rest of the Common Room, making a show of surveying the cadets.

It attracted her attention. “Are you looking for someone in particular?”

He continued his apparent scrutiny. “No. But on occasion it serves to allow cadets to believe so.” Then he raised his glass, as if making a toast. “I offer my congratulations to you, on your promotion and position.”

She felt her face flush, and let her fingers take in the heat from the cup. “Thank you, Sir. But I know that if the War hadn’t occurred I wouldn’t have progressed as far as I have in such a short time.”

“Perhaps. But the fact remains that it did occur, you have more than fulfilled the potential I have seen in you, and I have every reason to believe that you will continue to do so. Now, how may I assist you?”

Sasha attempted a smile. “What, can’t I just be here to help you intimidate some Squabs?”

Haluk made no reaction.

She put down her drink, and her smile. “Normally I’d turn to my Dad, or Captains Weynik or T’Varik or Neheru for advice, but they’re unavailable for various reasons.”

“It is comforting to know that among your confidants I am at least in your Top Five,”

“Only on certain subjects,” she quipped. “I’m afraid for romantic advice you’re not even in my Top Twenty.”

“For which I will express my ineffable gratitude. Please, continue.”

She cleared her throat. “I’ve been appointed to defend Ensign Beaudine at his court martial. Captain Louvois thinks I can do it.”

“Your tone suggests you believe otherwise.”

She breathed out audibly. “I’ve never performed in a judicial setting. A friend’s freedom is at stake. I don’t know if I’m up to the task.”

“Life is filled with challenges, and many with even greater stakes than a man’s liberty. And in my own humble opinion, I believe you are eminently suited to act as Mr Beaudine’s advocate: beyond your academic skills, you possess an admirable sense of empathy and loyalty to others… and you have also served extensively in combat, unlike many of those who would condemn apparent cowardice. You know it is not as simple or straightforward as it might appear. Our travails take their toll on even the seemingly strongest of us.”

She considered his words. He was right. She was heavily trained in combat, in tactics, she’d been in more fights than she could count. 

And yet… “The War, the Occupation of Cait, it- it affected me. Left me with issues I’ll probably be dealing with for the rest of my life. None of us are invulnerable. Any of us could have done what Bill did, given enough trauma.”

Haluk nodded. “There is an ancient Terran expression: ‘There but for the grace of God, go I’. And it is ironic that those with the least experience of such trauma are typically the most vocal in their condemnation of individuals who have experienced it, and who have succumbed to it.” He glanced around again. “Mr Beaudine is the primary subject of conversation among the cadets – a significant achievement, given it is a topic of a non-sexual nature.”

“Yeah, there was quite a few of your Squabs on Broadway this morning when he was brought onboard, gawking at him like some sideshow attraction, name calling-”

He looked back at her again. “What type of name calling?”

She couldn’t keep the disgust from her face. Or wanted to. “They were chanting ‘Flinch’.”

The Vulcan offered as stern an expression as one could expect from his race. “That will not happen again, Lieutenant Commander. I give you my word on that.”

“Thank you.” She leaned back in her seat. “And what’s worse, I’m going in half-blind. I don’t have access to the full details of the incident on Kalandra. They slapped an SSC-47 on it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? That is atypical.”

She shrugged. “I’m told I have enough to do my job, that it’s obvious he’s guilty. He even admitted to it.”

“Again, your tone suggests otherwise.”

Sasha breathed out heavily, staring down into her coffee. “I have an idea. But I don’t know if I want to run with it because it’s the right thing to do for Bill, or because it is something I’m doing out of stubbornness, or anger or pride because I don’t want to lose.”

“What is your idea?”

She told him.

Haluk considered it. “You should of course discuss this with Ensign Beaudine before you attempt it, and ensure you are precise in your interpretation of the law. You will also inevitably become the object of ire among certain aforementioned parties, but I do not believe this will matter to you in the slightest.

Trust your instincts. This advice is not logical, but that does not abrogate its truth.

And I offer this: the outcome of any trial, any experiment, any battle, is never obvious. There are always other circumstances to be considered.”

*

Salvo struck out.

Hrelle blocked her, twisting her arm and flipping her back to the mat. Again.

The Nova Roman spun around and fluidly returned to her feet, taking another defensive stance, conceding, “You are very good, Commodore…”

He smiled, his tail swishing lazily behind him, his loose white workout clothes a contrast to his dark mahogany furred body, mirroring her stance. “You mean, for someone as old and fat as me?”

“Of course.” She charged, striking and kicking with ferocity. She had engaged regularly with her commanding officer since taking this post… and each time, her respect for him grew, despite herself and her initial hostility at his treatment of her. He was good… and not just for someone as old and fat as he was. After his recent experiences with the Kzinti, she had expected him to cower away and avoid future conflict with them, or anyone else. 

Instead, he doubled his efforts to hone his skills and build up his strength. He reminded Salvo of her father… if her father went without shaving for a few decades and grew a tail, of course. “I thought you would have taken the morning off, to watch your weakling daughter make a disgrace of herself defending that wretched coward.” She struck out again.

He dodged her latest strike, but this time reached out and grasped her by the wrist. She drew in instinctively, grappling with him fully, hoping her strength and youth would suffice to topple him.

It almost worked. His hot musky breath was on her face, his gleaming sharp teeth bared… and it was at times like this that she was reminded of how easily, how very easily, he could win the fight, with his fangs and claws. But he maintained control.

More than she did, it seemed at times. And Hrelle had been forgiving of her, and true to her. Was that why Louvois’ orders to spy on him secretly gnawed at her insides like a rat?

Her thoughts distracted her enough to have him drop her to the mat again, as he stood over her, cracking his knuckles. “Bill Beaudine is no coward.”

She grunted. “The events detailed in the news tell a different tale.”

“There is far more to that young man than what happened on Kalandra VII. Examine his record. Read his achievements. One act, however critical, should not be allowed to define a whole man… or woman. Many, like Louvois, dismissed me as a traitor and renegade, for being captured and enslaved by the Orions. Some have dismissed you as an ignorant barbarian, for being demoted.”

“Demoted by you,” she reminded him. “I am driven by the Nova Roman virtues of Duty, Courage, Tenacity. What Beaudine did goes against those.”

“There are other Nova Roman virtues,” he reminded her. “Mercy, Compassion, Humanity. They are of equal value.” He held out his paw to her. She grasped it, letting him lift her back to his feet. He breathed out. “And I wanted to compliment you on how you handled the incident on Broadway with the prisoner… and how you’ve performed overall. That won’t be forgotten, Lieutenant.”

He left her at a momentary loss for words, before settling for, “Who has dismissed me as an ignorant barbarian?”

“I’ll never tell.” He clasped a furry paw on her forearm. “Another good workout, Lieutenant. Thank you.”

She worked the muscles in her neck, silent for a few heartbeats, before she raised her chin defiantly. “I will defeat you one day, Commodore.”

He smiled. “I have no doubt, Lieutenant. But not today.”

*

Salem One, like most facilities in space, by necessity operated continuously, typically on a three-shift pattern. But not every feature onboard did the same. And some, like the Starjammers, wore different hats at different times and different days, acting as a cafe, a bar, and a dance hall.

Tonight, the bar was open, with off-duty personnel, midshipmen and civilians crowded around the bar and the surrounding tables, while generic music played in the background.

Near the entrance, Maraud sat, nursing his drink, his Efrosian eyes enjoying the reduced lighting here. Less so the background noise.

Or his uninvited company: Louvois’ Security Officer Lt Nizig and some of his cronies. The Suliban male had fastened himself onto Maraud since intercepting Beaudine and bringing him and themselves here, offering his uninvited opinion on it, and most everything else. “You should push for the death penalty.”

Maraud paused, making the remains of his drink swirl in his glass, not even going to dignify the advice with an answer. He had hoped for a short break, to get a sense of what his new posting had to offer, in peace. Clearly it was not to be.

“Seriously,” Nizig continued, at the prompting of his cronies. “You need to make an example of that Flinch.”

“Yeah,” supported one of Nizig’s anonymous minions. “I bet we’ll be at War again in a year’s time, against the Romulans or Klingons or someone else. People have to know what’ll happen to cowards.”

Nizig leaned in, adding reassuringly, “Anything you need, anything at all, we’ve got your back.”

“Thanks.” He finished his drink and set the glass down, rising. “I’d better get some sleep.”

He barely stepped outside and down the curved corridor to the lifts and the station quarters, when he stopped at the rapid approach of the station’s Chief Nurse, her bright blue eyes flaring with anger. He stopped and smiled, in what he hoped would be a de-escalating gesture. “Good evening… Eydiir, isn’t it?”

“Not to you.” She stopped before him, her stance aggressive but still carefully controlled – she was a warrior, everything he had heard about her – as her nostrils flared. “It is ‘Chief Nurse’ to you, or ‘Lieutenant’, or preferably nothing at all, as you stay away from me unless absolutely necessary.”

“Oh? And what has prompted this hostility?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“My friend tells me you are interested in… intimacy… with me.”

He grinned. “Well, technically I said ‘dinner’, but that’s usually a start-”

“It will not happen!” she declared defiantly. “I do not associate with those who seek to harm my friends!”

Maraud frowned in confusion, before responding with, “You mean Ensign Beaudine? Chief Nurse Eydiir, I can assure you that I hold no personal malice towards your friend, or any feelings at all in fact; I’m simply doing my duty. I was assigned to prosecute him, and I’ll do so, to the best of my abilities. If I had been assigned to defend him instead, I would be doing that with equal vigour.”

Now she sneered. “So, you are merely a legal weapon, a drone, with no feelings as to your target or purpose? How laudable.”

He smirked in response. “Do your Capellan thigh muscles help you leap to such incredible conclusions? Because if they’re that strong, that offers some intriguing possibilities.”

She crossed her arms, scowling. “You’ll never find out; I have standards. I only associate with people of integrity.”

Maraud nodded. “So, if I prove to be a man of integrity, that means you’ll… associate with me?”

Eydiir growled, turned on her heels and stormed off.

He watched her depart… deciding to not press his luck and let her get some distance before returning to his quarters. 

*

Hrelle sat on his couch, half-perusing the screen on the PADD in his paw and half-watching as Misha played Purr-Prowl-Pounce with his minder, Sre Gyver Timbrel, the black-maned equinoid deftly holding the round playing cards in his hooves, setting down one of his cards onto the table, his voice soft and velvety as always. “I believe my option at this point would be to declare Prowl.”

Misha chuckled, clutching his own hand like a veteran gambler on Argelius. “Yes, you do that!” He reached out with his paw and retrieved the card, studying his hand, rearranging it… and glancing up every so often at the wall chrono.

“You will still be going to bed at 2100 Hours, Master Misha,” Gyver reminded him. “Regardless of how long you might delay this game.”

The cub growled. Hrelle chuckled. “You know, you still don’t have to remain, Mr Timbrel. I’m here, and their mother will be home soon.”

“Thank you once again, Commodore, but I see you continue to work. I must maintain my oath of fealty to my duties.” He set down his cards. “Pounce.”

Misha grinned and set his own cards down. “I have Full Paws! I win! You see, Papa? You see?”

Hrelle looked in their direction. “Congratulations. You win a good night’s sleep in your bed, now go and claim it.”

The cub’s look of victory quickly dampened into a grumble, but he hopped off his chair, walked around and hugged Gyver. “Nanight, thank you for minding me again.”

“My pleasure, Master Misha.”

Then he rushed over and hugged his father, reminding him, “Send Mama in to say Nanight!”

“I will. Good night, Warrior Prince.”

As the cub departed, Hrelle set aside his PADD. “Thank you again, Mr Timbrel. You have been invaluable to us since we arrived here.”

The equinoid rose to his feet, adjusting the sleeves of his preferred white robes. “I am most pleased to be of service. Misha has spoken at length of his prior minder, and has compared me favourably to him.”

Hrelle smiled. “Jhess Furore.” His thoughts returned to the spotted Caitian male, who had remained behind on the Motherworld to be reunited with his estranged family, and help rebuild the Militia following the Occupation. “Both of my cubs loved him dearly, and I’m glad that you’ve been equally embraced.”

“Yes – though I have been told that my predecessor engaged Master Misha and Miss Sreen with many songs, a talent I fear I do not possess. But I could still try-”

“No. Be yourself. You deserve to be unique.” And I deserve not to have so many cub songs earworming into my brain again. “Would you care for a drink?”

“Thank you, no, I will leave you for the evening.” He bowed slightly. “Good night, Commodore.”

“Good night, Mr Timbrel.” He walked the young Paladel male to the door, before returning to the couch. But he wasn’t settled for more than a few seconds before the door to his cubs’ quarters slid open again, and he expected Misha, mooching for a late night snack or drink.

He didn’t expect Sreen waddling out – how did she get herself into her exoframe and out of her crib? Misha must have done it, probably to give himself some peace and quiet – and dragging the bag that normally carried her diapers and cleaning kit… but was now stuffed with what appeared to be her favourite plush shuris toy. She zig-zagged across the length of the living room, the outer portions of the exoframe that helped her overcome her Neurodystaxia visible on her paws and feet as she moved from furniture to furniture, pausing for breath and to get her bearings.

Hrelle watched her curiously for a moment, before asking, “Are you going somewhere, Princess?”

“Yes.” She gritted her teeth and toddled towards the table now, babbling something that sounded suspiciously like Klingon profanity as she reached it and almost tipped over.

“May I ask where?”

“Gamma and Gampas! I make new song for them!”

Hrelle nodded sagely. “All the way back to sing to them on Cait, huh? That’s quite a distance. Do you want me to pack a lunch to take with you?”

“No time, Cuddamonkee! Sreen go now!” Her stubby tail wriggled with effort as she pointed herself towards the door to their quarters and began waddling towards it. He smiled with pride, knowing that the doors wouldn’t open for her, but wanting to see how far she would get.

As she neared her destination, and he was ready to rise and retrieve her, the doors parted first, and Kami entered, stopping, squatting and sweeping up her daughter before the cub could topple over in surprise from her mother’s return. “And where do you think you’re heading off to at this time of night?” She drew up to Hrelle, untangling the bag from Sreen’s grip and dropping it, while directing her subsequent questions to him. “When she should be in bed, instead of wandering around to Mother knows where?”

Hrelle set aside the PADD. “She wasn’t wandering, she was going to Cait to sing to her grandparents. She told me so.”

Kami stood there for a moment longer, before silently taking Sreen away, the young cub pleading to him, “No! Help me, Cuddamonkee!”

He waved to her, smiling. “Good night, Princess.”

Moments later, his wife returned. “Don’t.”

He leaned forward and picked up his beer. “Don’t what, Sugartail?”

“Don’t put Bill’s trial at risk by being caught disobeying orders and interfering. Don’t even ask me about it.”

He sipped his drink. “What makes you think I’d do something like that, Sweetheart?”

She grunted, reaching out and retrieving his PADD, examining it and frowning. “Performance Reviews?”

He drank again. “Yes, I’m catching up with them. You know I have to deal not only with the station personnel, but the Captains of all the Sabres. And while we’re on the subject, I wanted to bring up the idea of recruiting more civilian Counselors to help with the crews-”

“You’re actually doing work?” she asked incredulously. “Not poking your snout into the trial and how Sasha and Bill are doing?”

“I was ordered to stay out of it.”

She set down the PADD again. “And since when has that ever stopped you?”

He finished his beer and sighed. “Since I had to accept that you were right, and I can’t be Papa Cat to all the cadets for the rest of their lives. And that Sasha is old enough not to need me fighting her battles.” Now he set aside his glass. “Without giving away any nasty and terrible legal secrets… how is she holding up?”

Kami dropped her reproving glare to offer a more sympathetic, “She’s doing well, actually, though I think she’d rather be charging against a Pride of Kzinti with a sword rather than arguing with Louvois and Maraud. She has a new strategy, one that Bill and the rest of us agree upon. It’s ballsy… but then that’s your daughter.”

“And Bill?”

Her expression sobered more. “He needs further Counseling. The accumulated trauma of the War, the incident at Kalandra, the POW camp, becoming a fugitive, the court martial-”

“If he’s that bad, then why aren’t you declaring him unfit to stand trial?”

“Because he’s not that bad, and despite our more enlightened age some people still downplay how much our mental health state can affect us. The fact that all this occurred 18 months ago doesn’t help-”

She stopped as she saw his face. “You need a break. You need to get away from here for a while and avoid the temptation to interfere. And your son needs some Quality Time with his Papa for his upcoming birthday.”

He looked up at her. “You’re serious?”

“Yes. Sasha’s flyer is still sitting unused in the Shuttlebay of the Katana, I know she won’t mind you borrowing it – as long as you and Misha don’t go in her cabin and uncover Mother Knows What.” She walked around the table and joined him on the couch, curling up against her husband, letting them take in each other’s scents more closely, as her voice dropped to a more confidential tone, “And we both know you have things to get off your chest and tell Misha while he’s still this age.”

He reached out and stroked her mane. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here without both of us for a day or two?”

“I’ll be busy with the court martial and supporting Sasha. And I’ll get to have some Quality Time with Sreen; there’s a few things I want to check on with her. Go in the morning.” She began purring. “Now, come to bed for a while, Cuddlemonkey.”

*

Sternhagen stood in Ops, in a position that gave her a clear view of the lifts, expecting the inevitable arrival-

One opened, just in time to see Zir and Lt Arik part from an embrace and straighten themselves out before emerging, the Communications Officer moving to his own station, and Zir drawing up to Sternhagen. “Captain, something’s wrong.”

The human looked at her, resisting the urge to comment on the obvious relationship between the Orion and the Bajoran. “Yeah, I don’t see any croissants on you.”

“No, I mean the Commodore’s missing!”

“He’s not missing, he’s off the station, gone on a trip with his son. They’ll be back in a day or two.”

Zir’s olive skin darkened. “B-But he didn’t let me know he was going!”

“Yeah, that’s one of the advantages to being the Commanding Officer, he doesn’t have to explain himself to any of us. I’ll be covering for him in the meantime, for anything that doesn’t need Commodore’s pips or a fat furry ass. Now, what does he have scheduled?”

Zir frowned in thought to herself. “Well, he had outstanding Performance Reviews, but I can file requests for extensions to the deadline on them. Then there’s the Security briefing with Captain Blum at 1300 Hours, the subspace channel meeting with Starfleet Logistics at 1400 Hours, and then there’s the inspection tour of the Drydock Support Deck to confirm the Shiprot infection on the Katana has been cleared, and then-”

Sternhagen guided her towards Hrelle’s office, patting her on the shoulder. “You get everything ready, and I’ll be along shortly… and don’t forget about those croissants, either…”

*

“Hey, Sleepyhead!”

Misha stirred in the darkness, smelling strange scents, feeling the bed shift. Was the station under attack? He threw off the covers on top of him and rose up from an unfamiliar bed, confused, his vision allowing him to adjust quickly to the darkness. “Papa?”

“Come on!” urged the familiar voice.

“Lights,” he told the computer, blinking as he found himself in a stark quarters like on a starship, and moved to the door, peering out as the door slid aside. “Papa?”

Then he recognised his surroundings: he was on Sasha’s flyer, the Tailless! Why?

“Misha? Where are you?”

He stepped out, looking down the main corridor towards the cockpit, seeing the dilated tunnel of warp space – and rushed up. “What’s wrong, Papa?”

Papa was sitting there in the pilot’s seat, working the controls and smiling at him. “Nothing’s wrong, my Warrior Prince. You wanted an Adventure for your birthday, just you and me… well, you’re gonna get one!”

Misha’s jaw dropped in disbelief, and he stared ahead. “What are we gonna do, Papa?”

“Well, I’m gonna teach you some basic flight moves using the joystick, show you how to navigate to places, send probes-”

“Can we fire phasers?” he asked, his eyes lighting up.

Papa looked reluctant now. “We’ll see. And there’ll be games and movies and talk. But first, a good, big breakfast  –  anything you want. After all, we males need to keep our strength up, right?”

Misha felt like he was going to burst with joy, and he leapt up into his Papa’s lap to hug him.

*

Sasha thought she had been ready. Not physically; she had barely slept or eaten, worrying Mori silly, despite her assurances. But she thought she had at least been mentally ready, bringing Bill a breakfast and dress uniform, and a final briefing on the course she would be taking the proceedings. She’d almost convinced herself.

Then they entered the Courtroom: a domed enclosure in an extension to the main body of the station, laid out like a theatre, dominated by the Judges’ Table, where Louvois sat, flanked by Captains Weynik and Godleski, even as the Judges’ Table was flanked by the Prosecution and Defence tables.

But her attention was drawn to the semi-circle of tiers facing the Tables, and the spectators that filled up every seat, sitting there like it was some sort of entertainment, and the recording devices over the guarded doorways.

She sat Beaudine down and approached the Captains. “Excuse me, but is it necessary to have an audience for this?”

Louvois gave her a smug look. “Yes, as a matter of fact, Lieutenant Commander; there is a need for transparency. Starfleet needs to see justice done.”

“I must also question the redacted nature of the evidence provided. Without full disclosure-”

Louvois raised a hand now to cut her off, “I’ve been told that Mr Maraud has already made the situation regarding the classified status of the evidence quite clear to you. Drop it.”

Beside her, Weynik looked up at his First Officer. “I don’t like it either, Sasha, but it’s out of our hands.”

“Captain Weynik,” Louvois interrupted, “Please don’t address the Defence Counsel except during the legal proceedings.” She focused on Sasha again. “Now, would you mind returning to your place? And while you’re at it, remembering your place?”

Sasha stiffened. “Yes, Your Honour.” Once she did, eyeing Lt Cmdr Maraud along the way at his own table, she leaned in close to Beaudine, murmuring, “You sure about this, Bill?”

He nodded. “I trust you, Sash.”

She breathed in. Oy Vey…

There was the sound of an old-fashioned military bell, rung four times in succession, as everyone present but the judges rose, and Louvois addressed them. “This court is now in session. I am Captain Phillipa Louvois, and I will be acting as Chief Judge and President of the Court. I have appointed as members of this Court Captains Weynik and Sonia Godleski, Lt Cmdr Xan Maraud as Prosecuting Counsel, and Lt Cmdr Sasha Hrelle as Defence Counsel. Ensign Beaudine, I direct your attention to the fact that you have the right to ask for substitute officers if you feel any of these names harbour any prejudiced attitudes to your case.”

Beaudine swallowed as he stood there, visibly struggling to remain at attention as he replied, “I have no objections, Ma’am.”

“Very well. Ensign William Beaudine, you have been charged with the following violations of the Starfleet Code of Military Justice: five counts of Negligent Homicide under Article 134; one count of Cowardly Conduct under Article 99; one count of Failure to Obey an Order under Article 92; one count of Conduct Unbecoming an Officer under Article 133; one count of Wrongful Appropriation of a Starfleet Vehicle under Article 121; and one count of Being Absent Without Leave under Article 86.

Specifically, that on Stardate 52636.13, during a military engagement on Kalandra VII, you willfully deserted your post in a Starfleet shuttlecraft, disobeying the orders of your superior officer Lt Emil Lincarnos to assist, and that as a result of your actions, five of your fellow members of Starfleet – Lt Lincarnos, Science Crewman Belle Rosen, Security Crewman Dinat Arvan, Security Crewman Otaktay, and Engineering Crewman Susan Shelby – unlawfully died. What is your plea?”

Beaudine looked to Sasha, who answered, “Not Guilty.”

The room seemed to hold its breath. Sasha resisted the urge to look at the audience behind her, instead focusing on the three Captains before her, as Louvois frowned and asked, “Excuse me?”

Sasha cleared her throat, reinforcing more loudly, “Not Guilty, Your Honour.”

“To which charge?”

“All of them.”

Now the room erupted in a flurry of noise, until Louvois banged her gavel. “Both counsels will approach.”

Sasha stepped around again to comply, joined with a bemused-looking Maraud, Sasha noting the equal confusion from the flanking Captains as Louvois focused on her and asked, “What do you think you’re doing, Ms Hrelle?”

“You asked for my client’s plea, Your Honour. I provided it.”

Maraud turned to face her, his expression incredulous. “Did you miss the part in the Indictment records where he freely provided a Statement to me on the Minotaur? He admitted his guilt! You’re supposed to confirm it, that and nothing more! All we’re doing today is just a formality!”

Sasha faced him back. “To you, perhaps. But any Statement my client might have made to you at the Indictment is not admissible, as you didn’t follow correct legal procedures.”

The Efrosian’s tangerine skin darkened even as his white irises flared. “You’d better be prepared to explain that.”

Sasha remained unintimidated. “I am. According to Article 39A, Section 1.2 of the SCMJ, before a Statement can be legally accepted, the accused must first be formally declared physically and psychologically sound by a fully-qualified Medical Officer and Counselor.”

“He was! By Doctor Richard Kimble, the CMO of the Minotaur!”

She shook her head. “I checked Dr Kimble’s records. He has Chief Medical Officer qualifications, of course, and basic Counseling training for emergency purposes – but no full Counselor qualifications. His status, or rather lack of it, was confirmed for me by this station’s Chief Counselor, Commander Kami Hrelle.”

Maraud started, before lifting up the legal PADD in his hand and almost frantically accessing its contents to obviously check for himself, while Louvois watched him, her face incredulous and her voice slow and deliberate. “Mr Maraud? Is this true?”

The young JAG officer stared hard at the PADD, swallowing visibly as he reluctantly looked up again, not quite meeting anyone’s expectant gaze. “There does appear to be a slight discrepancy in the initial background processing of the Indictment, Your Honour.” He faced Sasha again. “He was cleared yesterday by Counselor Hrelle.”

She crossed her arms. “Which would be fine, had you waited until you arrived here and had him cleared by her before conducting and filing the Indictment.”

Louvois turned back to Sasha. “Well spotted, Ms Hrelle; one would think you’d spent all your time at the Academy studying Law instead of Mr Maraud here. And there you were in my office, claiming you weren’t suitable for this task. False modesty on your part?”

“No, Captain,” Weynik answered for his First Officer, looking up at Sasha with pride. “Genuine modesty. She surprises everyone around her with her potential, including herself.”

Louvois made a sound, still fixed on Sasha before proceeding with, “And so can we assume that you will continue to surprise everyone around you, by providing us with a cogent reason behind the collective plea of Not Guilty?”

Sasha raised her chin. Here goes everything... “Yes, Your Honour. The charges raised against my client are directly based on his alleged ‘willful’ actions. I intend to demonstrate that his actions were not by definition willful, but in fact were the result of extenuating circumstances which affected his judgement… factors caused by negligence.”

“Negligence? From whom?”

“From Starfleet.”

The room erupted again.

Louvois glowered, banging her gavel again until the Courtroom quieted down once more. “Lieutenant Commander Hrelle, I want to see you alone in my office, right now.”

She started to rise from her chair, but Sasha responded, “I must respectfully decline, Your Honour. Article 39A, Section 14.1 restricts private communications between any Judge and any active member of a legal proceeding following the commencement of-”

“I will not be lectured on the law by the likes of you!”

Godleski looked up at her. “Do you need a break, Captain? Given that there’s an audience here?”

“An audience you insisted on?” Weynik reminded her.

Louvois flared her nostrils, visibly calming herself down before finally responding. “Lt Cmdr Maraud, given this unexpected turn of events, do you require time to prepare?”

The Efrosian glared at Sasha, even as he answered Louvois. “No, Your Honour. I can handle anything the Defence can throw at me.”

“You might also want to keep a copy of the SCMJ Articles handy as well,” Weynik quipped. “You seem a little rusty in that department.”

Maraud winced, before returning to his table.

“As for you, Ms Hrelle,” Louvois added, focusing on Sasha, her expression recriminating, “I’m warning you, here and now: if this is some showboat play on your part to impress your father, then your friend will suffer for it when sentencing is passed on him. Is that understood?”

Sasha paused. Before now, there had been a part of her that doubted whether or not this was the right course for Bill… and yes, herself. Maybe she should have ignored the discrepancy she had found in Maraud’s approach, should have gone with the flow and plea bargained a lesser sentence for him.

Now, however, Louvois’ words helped phaser that doubt out of existence. “Your Honour, I’m here for one reason alone: to advocate on behalf of my client to the best of my ability. Now, may I please proceed?”

*

In the Cadets’ Lounge several decks above, forty or fifty cadets were sitting or standing watching the main viewscreen, the usual musical concert or sporting event replaced by the Courtroom proceedings.

Collected together in one corner, Macbeth Squad stood, drinks, snacks or PADDs in hand, watching with varying levels of interest. Engineering Cadet Gela, a squat Ferengi male, tapped furiously on his PADD. “The odds of Lt Cmdr Hrelle winning the case have just shot up to 100 to 1!”

Beside him, Science Cadet Hesh C’Rirr, a mahogany-furred Caitian male, slapped the back of Gela’s head. “What were you told about trying to run another gambling operation?”

“First of all, Ouch! Second of all, this is not gambling! This is just a collective exercise in probability mechanics among us more academically-minded intellects!”

“Involving credits,” Medical Cadet Denek, a slim Vulcan female, noted, between drinks of orange juice.

“Only as an administrative fee- Ouch!” Gela bared his crooked yellow teeth at his friend… stopping when the Caitian bared his own gleaming fangs and growled.

“It’s wrong all around,” Command Cadet Rachel Nash, a petite, pale-skinned, red-haired Terran, declared. “This involves the life of a fellow member of Starfleet, someone not much older than us.”

“A coward,” Flight Ops Cadet Janusz Spychalski dismissed, looking to Gela. “Put me down for ten credits for the Prosecution.”

“Done!”

“Janusz!” Nash chided. “Don’t encourage him!”

“He does not appear to require much encouragement,” Denek pointed out, peering over Gela’s shoulder at the contents of his PADD. “Given the large number of bets – apologies, ‘administrative fees’ – he is now collecting from our fellow cadets.”

“What do you think Lt Cmdr Hrelle means,” C’Riir asked, staring up at the screen. “About negligence on Starfleet’s part?”

“She must know something,” Nash opined. “Something went wrong during the incident. She’s an intelligent officer.”

“She is unparalleled.” This crisp critique came from the normally-laconic Security Cadet Ange Boladede, a bald, muscular Terran male of Nigerian descent, standing like a statue in front of them, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Magnificent.”

Nash glanced at C’Riir, who gestured silently at the back of their colleague. She didn’t believe it when the Caitian had approached her in confidence, his senses apparently suggesting to him that Boladede had some sort of infatuation with Lt Cmdr Hrelle, with whom they had served for a time on the Katana, and ended up in an engagement with the Kzinti. She didn’t believe him at first; didn’t Boladede and Hrelle spend half their time together trying to beat each other in combat training?

On the other hand, maybe it was Boladede’s idea of flirting?

“It’s an insult!”

All eyes turned to the nearby group, another sextet of cadets from Othello Squad, led by Command Cadet Shrys Th’kirat, an ever-scowling Andorian male with his azure skin darkened and his antenna pointed at the screen. “How dare she try to blame Starfleet for the perfidious actions of some gutless Flinch Pinkskin?”

“Hey!” Spychalski snapped. “That’s racist!”

“And uncalled for,” Nash followed angrily. “We don’t know the full story about what happened!”

Beside Th’kirat, Othello Squad’s Security Cadet Cirdo Melnetjhe, a burly-looking Bajoran male, stabbed a finger at the viewscreen, his wrinkled nose creasing further. “It’s been in all the news since Beaudine’s cowardice was discovered!”

“It is not logical to judge the events based on limited media accounts,” Denek pointed out.

“It is obvious enough,” Othello Squad’s Engineering Cadet T’Ro, an unusually tall and gaunt olive-skinned Vulcan male, countered, “The audio logs of Ensign Beaudine’s commanding officer repeatedly calling for him to save their wounded colleagues, and being ignored, have been verified.”

Melnetjhe sneered. “Even your Ferengi wouldn’t be stupid enough to bet on Beaudine being acquitted!”

Gela grunted, never looking up from his PADD. “True – and also, screw you.”

C’Riir’s tail twitched behind him as he aimed a claw at the Bajoran and bared his teeth. “Watch it, Mister! Nobody gets to insult my little buddy but me!”

“Why are you all so eager to excuse cowardice?” Th’kirat demanded angrily. “We are the first and last line of defence for the Federation! Hundreds of worlds, billions of people, need to know they can depend on us to protect them, even if it costs us our lives! They deserve no less!”

“No one is saying they don’t,” Nash reasoned, feeling the tension boil in the room as all focus moved from the viewscreen to their argument. “But that doesn’t mean Beaudine deserves the hate everyone seems to want to pile on him. Maybe if we listen to what Lt Cmdr Hrelle has to say about it-”

Th’kirat grunted. “Don’t even speak about her! That traitorous bitch is just as bad for what she’s doing to save that Flinch!”

Boladede had made a visible effort not to react to Othello Squad’s jibes or the resulting heated debate. Now, however, he faced them fully, an uncharacteristic fury galvanising his defensive stance. “Retract that insult against her!”

Othello Squad formed a defensive line around Th’kirat, even as Macbeth Squad did the same around Boladede – while Nash pleaded, “Stop this! Everyone, stand down, now!”

“You don’t give us orders,” Melnetjhe reminded her.

“No,” agreed a new, familiar voice in the room. “That is my task.”

The crowd that had surrounded both Squads parted like curtains, allowing Commander Haluk to approach. He glanced up at the viewscreen. “Computer: End Transmission.” As the screen blackened, he looked to each group in turn, but obviously spoke to all present. “Effective immediately, all cadets on Station Salem One are forbidden from viewing, attending or discussing the court martial of Ensign Beaudine without prior permission from myself. Also effective immediately, all cadets are forbidden from utilising the slur ‘Flinch’, under any circumstances.”

He turned to focus on Th’kirat as he added, more harshly, “In lieu of formal disciplinary measures, Othello Squad will spend the next two weeks performing additional maintenance duties on the Drydock Deck, thanks to their Squad Leader’s reference to a superior officer as a ‘traitorous bitch’. A repeat of this act of gross disrespect will result in immediate expulsion from Starfleet Academy, without right of appeal.

Dismissed, all of you - except for Macbeth Squad.”

As the room cleared like an airlock had blown out, he turned to Macbeth Squad, gazing at Gela and silently holding out his hand. The Ferengi gave up his PADD, hastily explaining, “Commander, I’ve been working on an exercise in probability mechanics-”

Haluk quickly perused the data on the screen, never looking up as he asked, albeit mildly, “Do you really wish to insult my intelligence by carrying your lie to its illogical conclusion, Cadet?” 

The Ferengi shut up, leaving Nash to offer, “Commander, I must accept responsibility for my squad’s actions.”

The Vulcan still didn’t look up as he replied, “If so, then you must also accept responsibility for your commendable attempts to de-escalate the situation that had arisen. There are always other circumstances to be considered.” He handed the PADD back to Gela. “You have just donated the credits you collected for your ‘exercise’ to the Station’s Civilian Support Fund. Your generosity is appreciated.

Do not repeat it, however. My appreciation for such generosity will only go so far. ”

*

“Your Honours,” Maraud began, moving around the Courtroom. “Members of the Court, the facts of the case are straightforward: that the accused, Ensign William Beaudine, abandoned his duties to Starfleet in the midst of a military operation, an abrogation which cost the lives of five members of Starfleet, men and women who depended upon him, as Starfleet depended on him to do his duty, as part of the ongoing War against an enemy which threatened to annihilate the Federation and everything it stands for.

The Defence will, I am sure, talk at length about the reasons why Ensign Beaudine abandoned his duties to Starfleet, to the Federation. I will counter that these reasons are irrelevant… but the consequences are not. And the families of the five people who died on Kalandra VII deserve to see justice done.”

He returned to his table, as Sasha rose from hers and approached the centre of the Courtroom, ignoring the audience and the cameras and focusing on the Judges. “The Prosecution speaks of the duties my client holds to Starfleet. These are duties we all share. We are made aware of them, reminded of them every day we put on these uniforms, every day we wear this.” She reached up and pointed to her combadge without actually touching it.

“But he neglects to mention the duties that Starfleet, the Federation, have to us. We are not drones, we are not servos or statistics or parts of a great machine. We are people, with names and lives and strengths and weaknesses. We are not indestructible. And we rely on each other for support and oversight, for those times when we fail, or threaten to fail.

And just as there is a diagnostic network in place in vessels and facilities for monitoring mechanical systems, to identify potential problems and treat them before they become serious, there is a diagnostic network for monitoring the mental and emotional health of people, and treating those before potential problems become serious. 

No one will argue that Ensign Beaudine’s actions on Kalandra VII didn’t happen. They did. And people died as a result. But I will argue, and hope to demonstrate to the Court, that due to the failure of duty of care to him, he should not be held responsible for those actions and the consequences of them, any more than you can hold a warp coil for malfunctioning, when it could have been treated beforehand.”

She felt the tension in the audience behind her at her words… and ignored it, returning to her seat. Here goes everything…

*

Sternhagen and Zir were in Recreation on Deck 6, completing mandatory visual inspections of the airlocks, when a disturbance drew them over to a public monitor by the Theatre broadcasting the court martial, in time to witness a heated argument between off-duty personnel, until Sternhagen shouted, “This had better stop right now or I’ll call the Hippo Guy from Security to start sitting on people!” She turned away. “What the Hell’s going on?”

Zir checked an update on her PADD. “She- Lieutenant Commander Hrelle changed the expected verdict for Ensign Beaudine earlier to Not Guilty. She’s claiming diminished responsibility, and blaming Starfleet for lack of care towards him.”

Sternhagen glanced around, catching the surprise and resentment. “Screw this.” She tapped her combadge. “Sternhagen to Ops: cancel the live feed for the court martial to all the public screens.”

Lt Arik’s voice returned. “Captain, those orders from the JAG Office-”

“People can still watch in the privacy of their own quarters if they’re that hungry for the drama. But it’s generating public disorder out here. I’ll take responsibility for it.”

“Whatever you say, Ma’am. Ops out.”

Abruptly the viewscreen dropped the image of the Courtroom in favour of the default sector map and itinerary of events. People made noises of complaint but began dispersing.

Go find some cute tribble videos to occupy your time. “What’s next, Kiddo?”

Zir had a quick check on her PADD. “The briefing with Captain Blum regarding possible Highwaymen activity at the Border.”

“The Highwaymen?” She grunted as they headed to the lifts. “They’re out of their normal territory. Come on, let’s see what the Fat Cat keeps in his secret snack stash under his desk.”

*

“Ensign Beaudine! We need you down here! We’re dying! Scott’s bleeding out! Help us! Goddammit, where the Hell are you?”

It was strange, seeing a hologram sitting in an identical chair to the one currently sitting in the Salem One courtroom, projected over the real one. The hologram, a real-time transmission was of a stocky, middle-aged human male of Asian origin, with receding black hair peppered with grey, and a trimmed, matching moustache and beard, and Commander’s pips on his Starfleet uniform, nodding and frowning as he, and the Courtroom, continued to listen to the audio logs of the Away Mission on Kalandra.

Sasha listened as well, though it had been for what felt like the fiftieth time, she devoted some attention and concern for Beaudine, sitting beside her. But he seemed to be handling re-listening, and the reactions they could hear and feel from the live audience behind them.

Then it ended, and Maraud rose and approached the chair, aware that the cameras were transmitting his own image to the location of the Commander’s body. “Commander Yaichiro, in your capacity as a Records Officer for Starfleet Administrative Operations, you were responsible for collating and categorising the logs and related records for the USS Destiny for Starfleet Command. This included the logs of the Away Mission to Kalandra VII. Can you confirm that what we just played is genuine and unaltered?”

Yaichiro nodded. “It is, Lieutenant Commander, genuine and unaltered. I examined the recordings and timecodes for the recordings received by the Destiny during the Away Mission, from the original shuttle that the criminal had taken-”

Sasha rose to her feet. “Objection, Your Honours: my client remains accused, he’s not been convicted.”

Yaichiro’s hologram looked at her smugly. “Yet.”

“That’s quite enough, Commander,” Weynik chided. “Ensign Beaudine’s counsel is correct.”

“Yes,” Louvois agreed – though she sounded a little reluctant to support the admonishment. “Please continue, Mr Maraud.”

Maraud nodded. “Yes, Your Honour. Finally, Commander, having studied the incident on Kalandra, what is your assessment of the situation?”

Now Yaichiro looked in Beaudine’s direction, his disdain clear. “Detestable. In all my years in Starfleet, I have never encountered such a blatant display of cowardice. It mocks all of the sacrifices the rest of us have made in ensuring the survival of the Federation against our enemies. And I hope Ensign Beaudine is thoroughly ashamed of himself.”

She sat there and stared at Yaichiro a moment longer, before picking up her PADD and running a quick check, as Maraud concluded, “Thank you, Commander, no further questions. Lt Cmdr Hrelle, your witness?”

Sasha nodded and rose, approaching. “Commander Yaichiro, have you seen the unexpurgated version of these logs?”

“I have.”

“Would you care to fill us in on the reason behind the Away Team Mission?”

Maraud had started to rise, presumably to object, but Louvois banged her gavel first. “Ms Hrelle, the details of the mission are classified, and irrelevant to these proceedings. I thought this had been clearly explained to you.”

She faced the Judges’ Table now. “Then, Your Honour, I formally ask that the charges be dismissed, on the grounds that lacking the complete picture of the circumstances behind the events, you are unfit to judge my client.” 

Louvois glared at the younger woman. “Request denied… and I’ll overlook your contemptuous implication this time. Your question is not permitted. Do you have anything else to ask the witness?”

“Yes, Your Honour.” She turned back to the hologram. “Commander Yaichiro, tell us about yourself.”

“Myself?”

“Yes. How long have you been in Starfleet?”

He smiled proudly. “Nineteen years. It’ll be twenty in July.”

“Congratulations. And how many of those nineteen years have you been in Starfleet Administrative Operations?”

“All of them.”

“On Earth?”

“Yes, mostly at the Mount Diablo Archives outside of San Francisco.”

Sasha nodded gravely. “So… no combat experience as such, then?”

He frowned. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve not been posted to any starships or starbases that have seen combat, am I right?”

He frowned, looking at the judges. “Is this relevant?”

Louvois turned back to Sasha. “A good question. Commander Yaichiro is here to confirm the authenticity of the recordings only.”

Sasha indicated Maraud. “Then the Prosecution shouldn’t have asked for his opinion on my client’s actions during the incident at Kalandra. By doing so, he declared the Commander a de facto expert on combat and military operations, and I have every right to challenge his opinion.”

Weynik and Godleski nodded on either side of Louvois, leaving her to finish with a nod to Yaichiro. “Please answer the questions, Commander.”

Yaichiro displayed some discomfort now. “No, Ms Hrelle, I haven’t been posted to any starships or starbases that have seen combat.”

“But you have earned decorations, haven’t you? Someone with your redoutable length of service must have earned many achievements, am I right?”

“I- Well, of course-”

“Name them.”

He was flustering now. “I really must object to this-”

Sasha raised the PADD in her hand. “Allow me to assist you then, Commander: You have the medals for Good Conduct, and Five, Ten and Fifteen Years’ Service… presumably with the Twenty Years’ Service medal to come in July.” She lowered the PADD. “You have access to Ensign Beaudine’s record there. Please read for the court his list of medals.”

Now his brow was darkening with anger. “I will not! I didn’t agree to attend this to be humiliated by some junior officer!”

“Would you rather face charges of contempt of court?” Godleski countered.

“Hate for you to have to return that Good Conduct medal,” Weynik quipped.

Yaichiro blustered… but picked up a PADD at his end of the transmission, swallowing and delaying his response as long as he could. “Ensign Beaudine has received medals for Five Years' Service; Starfleet Distinguished Service; Combat Action; Shuttle Flight Operations; Extended Tour; Starfleet Purple Heart, awarded twice; Khavak Sector Campaign Service; Tyra Sector Campaign Service; Small Arms Expert Marksmanship…” His voice trailed away, and he didn’t quite meet Sasha’s eyeline..

Allowing Sasha to follow up with, “You forgot the Starfleet Medal of Commendation for Exceptional Valour, that he received while he was still a cadet.”

“I believe you’ve made your point, Ms Hrelle,” Louvois noted archly. “Have you anything further for the Commander?”

Sasha focused on the hologram. “No, Your Honour… except of course to personally thank him, for the sacrifices he’s made by keeping our archives in San Francisco up to date.”

Yaichiro’s image scowled at her. “I don’t appreciate sarcasm, Lieutenant Commander.”

She remained unintimidated. “Then, with respect, Sir, don’t invite it.”

“If I’m not careful,” Weynik muttered to no one in particular, “My First Officer might end up transferring to the JAGoffs.”

*

The image of the older bearded Terran male with the aquiline nose and the Starfleet uniform filled the office screen. “We conducted a thorough enough search of the transport ship, their manifest and registry all checked out: a straightforward drop of supplies and equipment to Elba II. No contraband found, no anomalies in the crew records. All Clear.”

Sternhagen nodded. “So what’s raised your hackles about them being Highwaymen, Marvin?”

Captain Blum frowned. “The transport ship had undergone a number of designations and planetary registries. Nothing new about that… except some of those past designations have been associated with Highwaymen criminal activity. And… my Betazoid First Officer doesn’t like their feelings.”

She made a sound at that, looking to her left at Zir. “The Commodore will want a report on what’s at Elba II.”

The Orion nodded, as Sternhagen sipped her coffee and looked back at the screen. “Now, the big question is: What Would Hrelle Do? Well, in between stripping fried shuris pieces to the bone, I think he might remind you that you still have a full complement of Class 8 probes: prep one or two to shadow the transport ship just out of their sensor range, while you make a noisy retreat to the al-Razi, Lucille needs those spare torpedoes.”

Blum smiled. “Will do, Kate. How’s the Big Seat?”

She leaned back and put her boots up on the desk, moving the chair slightly this way and that. “I could get used to this; the Fat Cat will have to pry me out of it when he gets back. Salem One out.” The screen went black. “So, what’s next-” She paused as she saw the expression on Zir’s face. “What?”

The younger woman was staring with disapproval at the older woman’s boots on the desk, but otherwise remained silent. Sternhagen drank her coffee. “How long have you been away from Orion?”

The question seemed to catch Zir off guard. “Uh… six, almost seven years.”

Sternhagen nodded at that. “A long time to be out of contact with your family. Sorry to hear about it.”

“How did you know about that?”

“The Commodore. Don’t worry, nothing too personal… and definitely nothing uncomplimentary. He’s very fond of you, and very impressed with you – but this need for you to prove yourself by being the Perfect Adjutant isn’t necessary, or healthy for you. You don’t have to be getting up in the middle of the night to be there for him; if he needs you, he’ll call.” She shrugged. “Then maybe you and Arik can get a full night together.”

Zir’s skin turned a darker shade of green. “Uh… how did you know about that?”

“Hrelle picked up your mingled scents about a week or so ago. Then it became obvious once we all started watching you. But don’t worry, we won’t embarrass either of you.”

“Thank you.”

Sternhagen drank again, before asking, “So, the whole Bajoran ribbed nose thing… does it appear on any other body parts?”

*

Kami sat up straight in the witness chair, keeping her tail behind her still as she continued. “Ensign Beaudine was directly involved in over twenty combat engagements involving the loss of life of colleagues, and the risk to his own life, in a period of over 18 months prior to the incident on Kalandra, with a deficit of Counseling sessions afterwards, and almost no shore leave to rest and recover.”

Sasha stood beside her, in the space between her and the Judges’ Table. “Is it standard Starfleet procedure to allow personnel to endure such an extended period of trauma without sufficient Counseling or recovery time?”

“Absolutely not. The timecodes of the sessions, the cursory notes taken, all demonstrate little to no proper treatment offered despite the obvious signs of rising issues within Ensign Beaudine.”

“And what will be the psychological impact of such an extended period of time without the opportunity to recover from repeated trauma?”

“An erosion of mental stability, affecting memory, coordination, and especially judgement.”

“And would this erosion be significant enough to account for the acts to which he has been accused of, on Stardate 52636.13 at Kalandra?”

“Yes, it’s very likely.”

“Thank you, Counselor.” Sasha took her seat beside Beaudine.

Maraud took her place. “Commander Hrelle, how long have you been a Counselor?”

“Thirty-one years.”

The Efrosian nodded. “An impressive amount of time; you’ve been a Counselor longer than I’ve been alive.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take that more as a reflection on my experience than your youth.”

He smiled. “I’d appreciate that. You served as a Counselor during the War. Did you not find that there were periods when the needs of Starfleet did not allow you to implement the types of treatment you would have preferred for your patients? After all, as much as we all would have liked to take shore leave when we needed it, the Dominion and its allies remained a threat.”

“There is a difference between shore leave for recreational reasons, and therapeutic leave for those in danger of mental and emotional collapse.” She eyed him. “Did you serve on the frontlines, Mr Maraud?”

He offered a controlled smile. “How about you leave the questions to me, Counselor, okay? And while I accept your argument about the difference between recreation and therapy, the principle of Necessity During Wartime stands. Many continue to serve even with serious wounds they have no time or opportunity to treat.”

“Yes… and many fall.”

“And at one point you were Counselor to the accused when he was still a cadet?”

“Yes, for three years.”

He orbited slowly around the centre of the courtroom, in contrast to the stationary stance taken by Sasha. “Like many of us in Starfleet, his first experience with Counseling would have been during his years at the Academy, already a stressful and anxious time for young people. This is the time when a good Counselor would establish both the mental strength of a cadet, and lay the groundwork for their continued strength. Would you agree?”

Kami nodded. “Yes, Mr Maraud.”

He drew up to her. “When I was at the Academy, I was taught about the importance of the Mirror. Could you explain the significance of that?”

She shifted slightly, her tail swishing slightly. “The Mirror involves developing a sense of self-awareness, an objective knowledge about one's own strengths and areas in need of growth, within your personality. In therapeutic terms, this perspective allows one to question their thoughts, feelings, and biases. It helps us to become better decision-makers, gives us more self-confidence, allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives and frees us from our assumptions and biases.”

“And it helps us to recognise when we need help with problems we can’t cope with on our own, and to seek out such help?” Maraud prompted.

Kami regarded him more closely now. “Yes. But there are times-”

He raised a hand to her. “Please, Counselor, if I may continue? The Mirror, a self-awareness tool, is there not just to protect the individual, but those around them, so if they feel like their mental health is compromised, then they can excuse themselves from active duty. Is that right? Yes or No?”

“In theory, yes, Mr Maraud, but in practice-”

He shook his still-raised hand to cut her off. “This isn’t your first court-martial, Counselor. Just answer with a straight Yes or No.”

She blinked, her gaze fixed… and predatory. “Yes.”

“And while there is evidence that Ensign Beaudine continued to perform his duties on the Destiny without any appreciable problems, there is no record of him using the self-awareness tools you taught him to excuse himself from active duty on grounds of mental health. Is there, Yes or No?”

“No,” she replied curtly.

“And your own more recent assessment of Ensign Beaudine confirms that, despite all he has undergone, not just with seeing combat but surviving in a Prisoner of War camp, without the benefit of Counseling therapy there. Which suggests, despite the efforts of the Defence, that his overall mental strength was not so compromised as to adequately explain away his actions on Kalandra.” Another pause, and he finished with, “Unless your own abilities are not as great as your reputation would suggest? Which of course I would never wish to imply.”

*

Tallus opened her door, holding her grandson Jaxan in her arms. “Captain Tamati?”

The female Roylan stood there, dressed in off-duty civilian clothes, immediately smiling at the sight of the youngster. “Professor, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“I was about to change this little monster’s diaper; that’s not a disturbance, it’s a blessing. You are aware that Weynik’s still working on that court martial and is incommunicado?”

Tamati reached out and tickled under Jaxan’s chin, making him gurgle. “Oh, I know, he left an apology message cancelling our, uh-”

“Date?” Tallus suggested, smiling now. “Let’s call it that. I know it’s been a thousand years since he’s been on one, but it’s a good label. So what brings you here?”

Tamati’s fingers danced up to Jaxan’s nose. “Well, our people are few and far between off our homeworld, I haven’t seen any since… well, since I last ran into Weynik years ago. And now here’s a whole family.” She grinned. “It makes a change not straining my neck looking up at all the giants around us.”

The Professor chuckled. “That, I can understand. Why don’t you come in? I have some Roylan delicacies I keep in stasis onboard, and you can help me play with my grandchildren while I tell you a bit more about Weynik. That’ll give you a headstart, because you’ll find he doesn’t open up much since his wife died.”

Tamati’s smile dropped. “He’s a widower? He never said when we met for lunch before he was roped into this court martial business.”

“Then here’s your chance to catch up and shock him with your prior knowledge when he’s released from Judicial Duty…”

*

Eydiir continued her testimony in her usual crisp, formal manner. “Ensign Beaudine has suffered from long-term physical trauma: neurological, circulatory and cardiac degradation, exhaustion, malnutrition, and numerous injuries with barely the chance to heal.”

Sasha drew closer. “And these multiple acts of trauma you have detailed resulted from battles that took place prior to the incident at Kalandra? And not from his time immediately afterwards in the Dominion POW camp?”

“No. The Dominion quickly became aware of his identity and role in Starfleet and did not need to torture him for classified information. There was mild malnutrition, of course, and extended confinement, but ironically, compared with his time prior to Kalandra, Ensign Beaudine’s time in the camp gave him an opportunity to rest and recover.”

“And as a medical professional, can you confirm that these physical traumas can contribute to a temporary loss of judgement such as Ensign Beaudine experienced on Kalandra?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

Sasha was briskly replaced by Maraud, drawing up to the witness. “Chief Nurse, did you have the opportunity to examine other medical records within the Seventh Fleet besides Ensign Beaudine’s?”

She frowned at him. “No.”

“Not even general statistics?”

“No. Why do you ask this?”

Maraud shrugged. “Well, you just seem like the thorough type. On the other hand, I compared the medical records of the fourteen ships of the Seventh Fleet, including those of Ensign Beaudine’s vessel the USS Destiny. Would it surprise you to hear that 384 personnel had suffered injuries comparable to or even greater than his during the course of the War? Not counting those killed outright, of course?”

Eydiir stiffened. “It… It would not surprise me. The War has devastated our numbers.”

“And what would you say about the fact that, of those 384 others, no one else besides Ensign Beaudine exhibited erratic behaviour that led them to desert their posts when they were most needed?”

She raised her chin towards him. “I would say nothing.”

“No? But wouldn’t it suggest to you that the argument that the Defence has proposed, that the system of monitoring the mental and emotional health of Starfleet personnel had broken down, was not in fact true? Otherwise more would have reacted like Ensign Beaudine?”

She crossed her arms. “It would not. You mention the others suffered ‘comparable’ injuries. This is meaningless. It is the circumstances causing the injuries that determines how one is affected by them. A burn on your arm can be the result of an accident, a deliberate act of self-harm, or an inflicted act of torture, and psychologically you will react differently to each scenario.”

Maraud nodded at that, now asking, “You’re Capellan, aren’t you?”

“I am from Capella IV. What of it?”

He walked around, in a lazy saunter, but never taking his eyes off her. “I’ve been reading up on them: a Pre-Warp race exposed to the concept of other worlds just over a century ago thanks to the Klingons, but who have managed to retain the integrity of their strong, austere, martial culture.”

“Is there a point to your meandering babble?” she demanded.

Sasha rose to her feet again. “I have to agree, where is this leading?”

Maraud raised a hand. “It’s leading to this: Chief Nurse Eydiir, your people utterly condemn the concept of cowardice as weakness. How do you reconcile this with defending Ensign Beaudine’s base actions on Kalandra?”

“Objection, Your Honours,” Sasha declared. “Chief Nurse Eydiir’s culture is not on trial here.”

“That’s right,” Maraud agreed. “It’s about Ensign Beaudine. So I will ask one more question, in your capacity not as a Capellan but a Starfleet medical professional: in your examination of Ensign Beaudine and his medical history, did you find any physical anomaly that could directly, definitely account for his actions on Kalandra VII?”

Eydiir stiffened, before finally replying, “No.”

*

Hrelle’s stomach somersaulted as the Tailless did another sharp drop. Misha, dressed in his uniform and gripping the Manual Steering Column as he practised manoeuvring, kept whooping in delight, seemingly unaffected by the twists and turns. Hrelle kept checking the surrounding space; he had chosen an area with absolutely nothing to crash into for literally billions of kilometres… but a part of him still expected the unexpected. “Have you had enough already?”

“No! I wanna blow something up now! Like Starfleet does! It’s fun!”

Hrelle leaned forward at his station and resumed control, bringing the flyer to a stop. Misha frowned at him. “Hey, no fair, Papa! It’s my birthday!”

He turned in his seat to face him now, unbuckling his belt and leaning forward, his voice soft but firm. “Cub of Mine… Starfleet is about a lot more than blowing things up. We explore, we learn, we rescue, we bring people together in trade and cooperation, and a whole lot more. Fighting is the last thing we want to do, it’s not fun and it’s not nice. You remember all those people we saw who had been wounded when we were fighting the Jem’Hadar? When your Mama was almost killed? They didn’t think it was fun. And if you try and get into Starfleet just to blow things up, you will not be allowed in. Is that understood?”

Misha dipped his head. “Sorry, Papa.”

Hrelle reached up and stroked his son’s head. “You don’t have to be sorry, you just have to listen and learn-” An alert on his board drew his attention, and he checked it.

Misha watched him. “What is it, Papa?”

“Incoming transmission from Salem One… probably just Zir or your Mama checking up on us.” He looked at him, smiling. “Why don’t you go replicate us some lunch, and then afterwards you can show me how good you’ve gotten at Purr-Prowl-Pounce?”

The cub’s eyes brightened. “Yeah!” He unbuckled himself and raced to the back of the flyer.

Hrelle turned, recognising the classified carrier wave behind the incoming signal and switching on his own signal scrambler. 

A bearded Vulcan male appeared on the miniature screen beside him. “Commodore.”

“Commander. I am assuming that your signal is undetectable to Station Security?”

“You assume correctly, Sir. Are you free to speak?” 

“Yes. How has the court martial been going?”

“Lt Cmdr Hrelle’s tactic is bold… bold enough to possibly work, however without more concrete evidence on the side of the Defence, it will be subject to interpretation by the Judges.”

He nodded at that. “And have you been able to run an audit on the origin of the SSC?”

“With limited success, Commodore. It appears to be tied into a Starfleet Intelligence operation that existed prior to the Away Mission on Kalandra. An operation code-named Richard 343.”

Hrelle frowned, not recognising it – and why should you, Esek? Are you the Head of SI or something? – and turned away, as if focusing on the subsonic frequencies he was detecting from some of the older embedded systems. “Greg Quinn commanded the Seventh Fleet during the War. His name was on the orders for Bill’s team to investigate the Dominion facility on Kalandra… who ordered him?”

“That cannot be officially confirmed… but given Admiral Quinn’s previous assignment in Operational Support, its ancillary work with both the Intelligence and Security services, and the efficiency by which certain datastreams have been filtered, I suspect this ‘Richard 343’ operation is at a relatively high, and potentially unsanctioned level. A level beyond my own reach… official, and unofficial.”

Hrelle felt his tail twitch through the hole in the back of his seat. “Unsanctioned? As in Section 31 related?”

“I have sources which indicate that with the death of Section 31’s leader, Admiral Ian Trenagen, many of his agents have gone to ground, and past and ongoing operations have been purged. If Richard 343 is connected, it may have been purged as part of the clean-up operation.”

Hrelle ground his teeth. He thought he had seen and heard the last of that illegal organisation, which went against everything he stood for. “And Ensign Beaudine is the victim of this Cloak and Dagger bullshit.”

“Assuming Section 31 is involved. If not, it may be possible to uncover the details of the operation from a Senior Intelligence Officer… should the officer choose to come forward. And preferably for all concerned to allow no direct connections to Lt Cmdr Hrelle. Beyond the obvious consequences of a ruling against Ensign Beaudine, I believe some might take offence to your daughter’s stance, and take unofficial punitive actions. I would not wish anything like that to affect her future.”

The Caitian eyed him with regard. “Haluk, I know of your past association with my wife’s clan, and with the various intelligence agencies – the official and unofficial ones – but I want to thank you in particular for what you’ve done for Sasha, watching over her when she was under your supervision on Vulcan. And probably on Salem One, too, if my suspicions are right.”

“It is my honour to serve. I did not expect to ever mentor someone on the List.”

“List? What List?”

Haluk raised an eyebrow, and illogically, unnecessarily lowered his voice as he continued. “There is a List in Starfleet Command Headquarters. You will not find it in any official file or folder, but it exists, and has for many, many years, accessible only to those at the highest levels. It is a list of names of young people, officers and enlisted personnel, who have attracted the attention of Starfleet Command.

They are the ones who step forward when others might hesitate. They are the ones who don’t just do their duty, but who go above and beyond, who take on responsibilities far beyond what would be expected for them. They are the ones who inspire others, the ones who will risk their lives and face seemingly impossible odds… and the ones who are tenacious enough, fortunate enough, to survive.

You may guess at some of the names that may have been on the List over the years. Some will be famous, most will not, but all will be considered redoubtable, and requiring protection and encouragement, in order to help them achieve their full potential… without the burden of knowing they are on this List, with so much expected of them.”

Hrelle stared back, knowing how highly he had always thought of his daughter… but never expecting such regard to be shared at such levels. He didn’t know what he thought of it. “You’ve done everything you can, and I appreciate it. Leave the rest to me.”

*

Sternhagen was back in Hrelle’s office drinking with Salvo, looking up through the transparent aluminium to see Louvois enter Ops, peer in their direction, and stride inside without asking. Sternhagen poured herself another shot of whiskey. “What can I do for you, Phillipa?”

Louvois stopped before the desk, shooting a look at Salvo, one that was returned… and spoke volumes to Sternhagen. “Where’s Hrelle?”

“Well, I don’t have specifics at this time, but knowing them, I’d say Counselor Hrelle is somewhere talking about people’s feelings, Lt Cmdr Hrelle is punching somebody for insulting her Dad, Sreen Hrelle is in her quarters filling a diaper-”

“You know who I mean!”

Sternhagen blinked, then made a show of comprehension. “Oh, Commodore Hrelle: he’s off-station, on a father-son trip. With his son.”

“Doing what?”

Sternhagen shrugged again. “I don’t know, whatever Caitian fathers do with their sons: fishing, drinking beer, talking about boobs, assuring him that tail size doesn’t matter. I’m in charge in the meantime, so I’ll ask again: what can I do for you, Phillipa?”

“Commodore Hrelle had orders from the Judge Advocate General’s office to make the court martial of Ensign Beaudine public. But now I hear he turned them off.”

Sternhagen drank. “He didn’t. I did. My orders are on record.”

The JAG Officer’s expression tightened, and her stance grew more formal. “Those orders applied to his subordinates. Your actions could be considered Misconduct by some.”

Sternhagen delayed responding, as if deliberately considering the argument. “I see. Well, some could consider that, but they’d be wrong. Anyone can view the court martial broadcast in the privacy of their own quarters, for whatever salacious purposes they might glean from it. But I don’t intend to make a circus of it… despite all the clowns that have arrived here recently. Lieutenant Salvo, did you not have to quell a disturbance already about it when the Minotaur arrived?”

The Nova Roman nodded, looking a little amused by the conversation. “Yes, Captain.”

Sternhagen looked back at Louvois. “And I’ve received reports from Commander Haluk of disturbances among the cadets stationed here. So, in my capacity as Station Master, I made a Health and Safety decision and stopped the public broadcasts.”

“Restore them,” Louvois insisted.

Sternhagen leaned back and put her boots on the desk. “No.”

The other woman blinked, waiting for more, before responding, “Is that all you intend to say?”

“No, I’ll also tell you to go fuck yourself.”

Louvois' jaw dropped, her eyes flaring with outrage. “Excuse me? How dare you speak to me like that! My authority with the Judge Advocate General-”

“-Means absolute shit to me. I’m not some poor scared Ensign you can rake over the judicial coals because he fucked up fighting in a War to protect your sorry behind-the-lines ass. I’m older than you, I have more seniority than you, I have a higher position at this facility than you, and I don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s dick about you or your JAGoff buddies. I can probably also knock seven shades of shit out of you if you keep pissing me off. So, if you want to file charges against me for my attitude, you go right ahead, Bitch, I know how much all that legal jargon gets your panties wet.”

Louvois stood there, looking petrified with disbelief at the outburst, until Sternhagen pointed towards the door with her shotglass and an extended middle finger. “Go on. Come back when you can’t stay so long.”

Finally she turned and stormed out, so quickly she almost banged her shoulders into the sliding doors before they fully parted.

Salvo regarded the older woman with a mixture of apprehension and awe. “You really do not fear retribution from her?”

Sternhagen shrugged. “I have a distinct advantage over Louvois: I’m not a political animal out to make Admiral before I’m sixty. I’m only back in Starfleet because I owed one to Hrelle. Salem One will be my last assignment, and I’m happy to spend my golden years here working under the Fat Cat. At least you know you can trust him… unlike that bitch.”

Salvo stared in the direction of the door. “She offered to get my Lieutenant Commander’s pips back, if I caught Hrelle breaking his orders to stay out of the court martial.”

“Yeah, that’s about her speed.”

“What you said to her about Beaudine… you actually have sympathy for him?”

Sternhagen sat up again and poured another shot. “I’m not saying I’d throw him a party for what he did, but I’m not nailing him to a cross, either. He wasn’t a soldier, he was a medic, and he had a hell of a record before Kalandra-” Now she faced Salvo again. “You’re not gonna take Louvois up on her offer, are you?”

Salvo stared into her glass. “He humiliated me.”

“You deserved worse than you got. Papa Cat could have just dropped you like a turd, like just any other Commanding Officer would have. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

The Nova Roman shot her a look, but otherwise didn’t respond.

*

The message beep from Mori’s PADD drew Sasha’s attention, as she watched him lift it up and read from it silently, until she prompted him with, “Well?”

He set it down again. “Nothing, just the usual Starfleet updates, confirmation of crew returning from shore leave on Nepenthe, typical Acting CO duties. Nothing you need worrying your pretty little head over-”

She reached out and smacked the back of his head. “I’d kill you, but then I’d worry about who Louvois would assign to defend me in my court martial.”

Sitting at the table set up in his cell with Sasha, Mori and Eydiir, Beaudine looked up from the playing cards in his hand and quipped, “I'll do it. I’ve picked up some experience.”

She looked over at him and smiled. It was the first time he had shown any humour since they were reunited. “Yeah, well, I’ll be glad to see the back of that bitch Louvois.” 

“Yes,” Mori added mildly, tossing some chips into the pot. “And get back to dealing with less troublesome foes, like Kzinti.”

“Louvois is a harridan,” Eydiir declared, giving her own hand a surly look. “I understand the Commodore has had to spank her more than once for her impudence.” At Sasha’s reaction, she amended, “Figuratively spank her.”

Sasha grunted. “I don’t know, Dad’s kind of kinky. The things I heard from his and Mom’s bedroom when I was growing up…” She looked up again at Beaudine, winking. “Not as kinky as when you and Charlie Ingalls were an item on the Surefoot, though…”

Beaudine smiled wistfully. “Just Exploring Strange New Worlds…” His smile dropped. “I lost track of Charlie after graduation. Did he survive the War?”

“He returned to the Academy for post-graduate courses in Genetics,” Eydiir informed him. “And just before the War commenced was assigned to the Darwin Research Station on Gagarin IV, to assist in the rehabilitation of some young people who had been victims of a scientific accident in 2365 damaging their immune systems. He is safe… and married one of the Station engineers last year.”

“Oh. I’m glad to hear that.”

Sasha looked up at him, then glanced at the others. “How about we wind this up for the night? I want to have a word with Bill alone. Mru, check up on the progress of the Katana refits.”

The others nodded in assent, cleared up the cards and chips and table and left.

Once the others were released from the cell, Sasha drew her chair closer to him, her voice low. “I’m sorry you heard about Charlie like that.”

Beaudine frowned in bemusement, and then waved off her concern. “Don’t worry, Sash, I’m not holding some unrequited love for him. He was my first, and you never forget your first, but you grow on… I bet you feel the same way about Giles.”

Sasha smiled, despite the situation, and nodded in concession. Then she asked, more soberly, “You haven’t heard back from your family yet?”

“No. Probably because I didn’t contact them.”

“What? Why not?”

He rubbed his eyes. “I carried the guilt of what I did at Kalandra through the POW camp, and then when I was released and sent home. Everyone was just so glad to have me back… and I was trying to work out what to do. Do I tell someone, bury it deep and live with the guilt? Then it all came out… and I panicked and ran. I- I can’t face Mom and Dad now. Can’t deal with the betrayal I know they’ll be feeling now at what I did… what I’m doing now…”

Sasha looked away, trying to imagine what she would have to feel to not want to contact her family. Even during her worst moments, when she wanted nothing more than to dig herself into a hole and cover it up behind her, her Dad and Kami and her brother and sister and all the Shall Clan back home were always present, tethered in the back of her mind, and she knew she could always turn to any of them.

She leaned in close, taking his hand in hers. “Bill… they deserve to hear the whole story. Not from the media, or from Starfleet, but you. No matter what happens tomorrow with the verdict, I want you to think about contacting them, okay?”

Beaudine breathed out, before finally nodding. “Okay. So… one way or another, it’ll be over tomorrow? After I testify?”

“Well, you’ll take the stand, Maraud and I will question you, then we’ll give our closing statements, and the Judges go off to deliberate. I have no idea how long they’ll take for that, but if it’s quick, then it’s either very good for you, or-”

“-Or very bad.” He swallowed, nodding slightly. “And you still think it’s a good idea for me to take the stand?”

Sasha shrugged. “I know, it’s a gamble, and if there were still jury trials, we wouldn’t do it at all, and risk having a prosecutor destroy your credibility in cross examination. He still could, though, so you need to keep calm, no matter what questions he throws at you.” She looked around. “You’re not regretting asking me to be your Counsel, are you?”

He smiled. “No, Sash. I couldn’t imagine having anyone else doing it. Even if I end up going to the stockade.”

“Well, don’t get yourself ready for that cell just yet,” Sasha told him, with an assurance she wished she actually felt. 

*

Elsewhere on the same deck, Maraud was dictating a variation on his closing statement on his PADD when his office door chimed. “Enter.”

He always imagined that he was a master at hiding his feelings in front of others. Still, he felt his face tighten in irritation as Nizig entered. “Lieutenant, I’m extremely busy, I don’t have time for drinks tonight.”

The Suliban was grinning, his mottled green skin brightening like some lamp in response to the lateness of the hour. “I’d have to agree, to judge with how Hrelle knocked you for one in court today. What happened, Buddy? I thought you were the trained Law Dog here, and she made your witness look like an idiot.”

Maraud struggled to keep his gaze fixed on his PADD, hoping the intruder would take the hint. “Lt Cmdr Hrelle did exactly what I would have done in her place. My mistake  –  more than once  –  has been underestimating her, and assuming she would be a pushover. But the trial isn’t over until it’s over. Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

Nizig came around to the side of Maraud’s desk and leaned his rear against it, holding a PADD of his own as he looked down at the Efrosian. “Hey, I get it: you’re smarting, Buddy. It’s all anyone’s talking about in the Starjammers. Though some are even saying you’re doing it deliberately.”

Now Maraud looked up. “Doing what deliberately?”

“Building up the tension. Letting her have a few shots, building her up so it’ll be all the sweeter when you finally knock her down again. You know, a big dramatic finish.”

Maraud bristled. “This isn’t a drama, Lieutenant. Now, please leave.”

But instead Nizig held out his own PADD to him. “You’ll be a lot more appreciative when you know what I found on her.”

“Her? You mean Hrelle? What the Hell are you talking about?”

“I did a little discreet exploring through her personal files – nothing official, of course.” He winked. “Beaudine’s not the only one who’s been fucked up by the War.”

Maraud scanned the contents of Nizig’s PADD, his pulse quickening. “These- These are her medical records…”

The Suliban nodded smugly. “Emotional instability, addiction, self-harm- maybe you can get her dismissed on the grounds of incompetence?”

Maraud rose to his feet, feeling like he’d left his stomach behind him, clutching the PADD. “This is very important; you’d better follow me.”

“You got it. Where are we going?”

Maraud didn’t respond, departing from his office, Nizig in tow, until they reached the nearby Security office, where Lt Salvo and Eydiir stood, discussing something. He drew up to the Capellan, holding out the PADD. “Chief Nurse, can you identify these records?”

Eydiir accepted the PADD with initial confusion, reading it, her gaze quickly narrowing and her face tightening as she looked up again, demanding, “What are you doing with these?”

“Can you confirm that the records, allegedly belonging to Lt Cmdr Sasha Hrelle, are genuine?”

“Yes!” she declared loudly. “You are not authorised to access these!”

“I didn’t.” Maraud turned to Salvo. “Lieutenant, please arrest Lt Baan Nizig for violation of UCMJ Article 123: Unauthorised Access of Personal Information from a Starfleet Device.”

“What?” the Suliban exclaimed in disbelief. 

“You’ll find a digital trail on the PADD,” Maraud continued, ignoring him, “Confirming Lt Nizig used his Security authorisation codes to access the records, but I’ll also have a formal statement prepared and sent to you within the hour.”

“That will be sufficient.” Salvo walked around to the other male, reaching up and removing his combadge.

Nizig glared at Maraud with a look of stark betrayal. “I did it to help you!”

Maraud shot him a disgusted glare. “You did it because you’re a nasty little shit stirrer. I never asked you to do a damn thing for me. I certainly never asked you to break the law in order to help me uphold it. Now shut up, until you’ve been formally made aware of your rights.”

“A good idea,” Salvo agreed, taking Nizig by the elbow and guiding him away, reciting, “Speaking of which: you have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say…”

They left Maraud alone in the Security Office with Eydiir, the Efrosian assuring her, “I had no idea that he would do something so heinous.”

She set the PADD on an adjacent desk, never taking her intense gaze off him. “I believe you. That’s not the issue for me right now. The issue is what you intend to do about the information you learned about Lt Cmdr Hrelle.”

“I intend to forget about it, and say nothing outside of my efforts to ensure that creep Nizig is punished for his crime.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding dubious.

He nodded. “I’ll even include with my formal statement a Non-Disclosure Declaration, making my confidentiality legally binding. I respect Lt Cmdr Hrelle, and I respect the Law, too much to do otherwise. And for the record, I hold no personal malice towards Ensign Beaudine. When I win, I’ll fight to ensure he receives a merciful sentence. He deserves compassion, not punishment.”

She considered his answer, before concluding with a grudging, “That’s… laudable. But you have not won yet. Sasha is a warrior, no matter the battleground.”

He made an amused sound. “You know, Chief Nurse, I believe you.”

*

Misha stared out of the cockpit window in wonder at the swirling miasma of colours in pink and purple and lavender and blue, rotating languidly around its own irregular axis, occasionally flashing here and there from some internal bursts of energy particles. “Is it really alive, Papa?”

Hrelle smiled as he leaned forward as well, taking in the beauty of the phenomenon. “Yes. It’s made of many exotic gases and energy particles that have combined to become alive… and it’s intelligent.”

“What’s its name?”

“It doesn’t have one… at least, not one that we know. A long time ago, when Sasha was littler than you and I captained the Furyk, I came here because the Deertail Nebula had appeared in this sector from out of nowhere, not acting like any ordinary nebula, capturing and eating ships that tried to cross through it.”

His son gasped, his eyes widening. “A monster…”

“Well, that’s what many people thought. And they wanted me to come along and… blow it up.

But I didn’t want to think like that. I wanted to see if there was another way. So, we studied it, thought about it, and finally tried to communicate with it. And it worked: the Deertail Nebula wasn’t a monster, it was a child, who had stopped here to have a nap, and every time a ship tried to pass through it, they were waking it up, in fact they were hurting it, and it was only doing what was natural to protect itself.”

He pointed to the nearest of a necklace of navigational beacons. “So I told the Deertail that it can stay here and finish its nap, and I set up all these beacons to keep people away until it was ready to wake up and move on. That was one of my best missions with the Furyk crew, ever. Because I didn’t have to fight, but because I got to meet a brand new lifeform, and I got to solve a problem without anyone getting hurt.” He smiled. “Now, do you still want to join Starfleet if you don’t get to fight all the time?”

Misha nodded.

“Why?”

“Because you’re in Starfleet! And Mama, and Sasha, and Godmama T’Varik and Cousin C’Rash and Uncle Weynik and Aunt Sonia-”

Hrelle raised a finger to cut him off. Aunt Sonia? “But you know you don’t have to join Starfleet just because so many of your family are in it, don’t you? There are so many other things that you can do in the Galaxy as well.”

Misha frowned now. “You don’t want me in Starfleet?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…” He paused, leaning back in his seat and inviting his son onto his lap. As Misha accepted, curling up against his belly, Hrelle continued. “There’s something I never told you. My family were fisherfolk back on Cait, and my Papa and uncles and aunts expected me to do the same. And when I was your age, I was keen to grow up and go out on the waters with my Papa. But then later, I changed my mind and wanted to join Starfleet.”

“I know all that!”

He nodded patiently. “Yes, but what you don’t know is that when I told my Papa, he got angry. He was hurt that I would change my mind and leave him behind and go off into space. And… he never spoke to me again, even after I came home and tried to make peace with him.”

Misha frowned. “That’s not nice! I go talk to him!”

Hrelle stroked the cub’s head. “You can’t; he died when you were still a little seed growing in your Mama’s belly. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters now is that you know that there’s more to life than Starfleet, safer things, on Cait or elsewhere, and if later on you think you want to do something else, your Mama and Sasha and the rest of the family and I will love and support you no matter what you choose to do. Okay?”

Misha nodded against his father’s chest.

Hrelle patted him. “Now, I have a mission for you.”

He sat up, enthused again. “What?”

“Well, I have a few things to do here, I want you to go into the cabin, pick up your PADD, and make a list.”

The enthusiasm beamed away. “Homework?”

“Not quite. I want a list of five jobs that you would do if you couldn’t get into Starfleet. Have a good think about it. Then take a sonic shower, and we’ll decide on supper and what movie we’re gonna watch on the way home.”

Misha’s eyes lit up. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?”

“That one again? You’ve seen it a hundred times.”

“Yeah!” He slid off his father’s lap, looked to the Deertail Nebula and waved, “See ya, Cloudy!” before racing to the aft compartments.

Hrelle smiled, turning to face the nebula once more… before focusing on covertly accessing the nearest beacon, a sceptre-shaped automated array with little-used onboard subspace communications facilities.

Hrelle moved more carefully now, aware of the internal security features, confident about everything… except how the final chapter will play out. And it’ll be entirely dependent on the response of the one at the other end of-

The viewscreen beside him came to life, as an older, pale-skinned human with receding sandy hair, broad nose and dimpled chin appeared, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Who the- Commodore Hrelle?”

Hrelle turned to face him. “Admiral, sorry to contact you- and at this time of night- assuming that it is night right now on Starbase 74?”

William Arrington’s brow creased. “0135 Hours, but never mind that- what’s wrong, Commodore? Is it Giles? Has something happened?”

“Nothing, Admiral. Giles is a fine Second Officer on the Surefoot, and T’Varik has nothing but praise for him-”

The human’s brow creased further. “Wait- why does the ID coding on this transmission say you’re Commander Austin Powers calling from the Starfleet offices in London, England?”

“This is being filtered through a little toy from the Caitian Secret Services. Because… I’m not officially calling you. This has to be strictly off the record, William. If you feel you can’t or won’t continue with this, please let me know now.”

Arrington regarded him. “You’ve saved and protected my son more times than I can count, Esek; I can’t pay you back enough.” He paused, before reaching for something offscreen. “There, I’ve activated a little toy of my own on this end. Now, Commodore, continue.”

“Thank you. I’m calling about another former cadet of mine: Ensign Beaudine.”

Arrington nodded in recognition. “Yes, I’m sorry to hear about him. I know our offices supplied all the related data on the incident in question- but I suspect, given the unofficial way in which you contacted me, that you need more?”

“You suspect correctly. I need to make sure that there’s nothing that remains classified that could have an effect on his court martial. Or rather, I need you to make sure. You don’t have to tell me anything specific, I’ll trust you to have a sniff around. The unexpurgated version of the data has been slapped with an SSC-47, involving an SI operation code-named ‘Richard 343’.”

Arrington frowned now, turning slightly to his left, his hands moving off-screen. Hrelle watched him work away, unable to resist asking, “Have you heard of it?”

“Yes – well, the code name anyway. It was one of Admiral Trenagen’s wartime operations, trying to find a biological weapon to use against the enemy.”

“The Founders?” Hrelle knew that officially, the Dominion’s Founders had contracted a lethal morphogenic virus native to the Alpha Quadrant, one that threatened their entire existence, until a cure was discovered by Starfleet scientists, helping to bring about an end to the War.

The unofficial, unspoken truth was that Starfleet Intelligence – or more accurately, Section 31, once headed by the late Trenagen – was directly responsible for the virus, with the Federation Council giving them its secret blessing, such was the fear that the Founders would win the War.

“No,” Arrington responded. “In this case Trenagen was targeting the Jem’Hadar, trying to find a chemical or biological augment that could affect them without affecting others. ‘Richard 343’ apparently refers to a quote from Richard III, Act 4, Scene 3: ‘The tyrannous and bloody act is done, the most arch deed of piteous massacre that ever yet this land was guilty of.” He paused and, at Hrelle’s expression, elaborated, “It’s from Shakespeare-”

“I know. I’d just forgotten what a pretentious twat Trenagen had been when he was alive.” He frowned. “Have you accessed the files? Is there anything I can bring to Sasha?”

“There are the full logs taken from the Away Team examining the Dominion site on Kalandra, including the data they had collected, and there are the autopsies of the bodies found much later at the site when the War ended.

But you can’t reveal any of it…”

*

Beaudine kept swallowing as he continued his testimony from the Witness Stand. “The bombardment of communications, the calls from the rest of the Team, was overwhelming… I was- I was desperate to drag a medical kit back from the shuttle to get to the others… and then… then I felt like my heart was going to burst from my chest… and I found myself racing back to the shuttle, unable to stop, unable to think about anything but getting away… I couldn’t hear anything more… 

I found myself sitting in the cockpit of our shuttle, ascending from the planet, looking for the Destiny… but it had moved away, trying to evade a Dominion Battleship that had arrived… the Battleship had caught me, broke down my shields, beamed me onboard- I-”

Sasha resisted the urge to reach out and clasp his shoulder, instead offering a sympathetic voice. “Thank you, Bill. Do you need a break?”

He shook his head.

“Ms Hrelle, I’ll be the judge of when or if a break is needed,” Louvois announced dryly. “Literally. Now, are you done mollycoddling your client?”

Sasha glanced over at her, replying tightly, “Yes, Your Honour. No further questions.”

She returned to her seat, as Maraud took her place. He approached Beaudine, Sasha watching him, daring him to be a prick.

Instead, the Efrosian managed an almost… benign mien, standing near, hands folded behind him. “Ensign Beaudine, I will endeavour not to add more unnecessary suffering to you, and so will keep this as brief and painless as possible. It must be traumatising, having to listen to those recordings of your colleagues, having to face the events on Kalandra. How are you coping with it?”

Beaudine breathed in deeply, swallowing. “I’m- I’m coping, Sir. I’m very grateful to Counselor Hrelle for her support, and Lt Cmdr Hrelle and Chief Nurse Eydiir for theirs.”

Maraud nodded empathically. “And before you were arrested, how did you cope with it while you were a fugitive from Starfleet? And when you were a Prisoner of War? Did you ever feel like you were, say, in serious danger of self-harm? Or of harming others?”

Beaudine looked up. “No, Sir. No, it never felt as bad as that.”

“So… you feel you were mentally competent enough not to harm yourself or others? But you certainly felt guilty over what you had done, yes?”

Sasha rose to her feet. “Your Honours, I object to the use of the word ‘guilty’, it’s inflammatory and self-incriminatory, and I must insist on the question being withdrawn.”

Louvois looked irritated. “Ms Hrelle, you’ve been given a lot of leeway during these proceedings because of your lack of experience, but now you’re leaning perilously close to Contempt-”

Maraud raised a hand. “I’m more than willing to rephrase my question, Your Honours.” As Sasha sat down again, he asked, “Ensign Beaudine, did you feel regretful over what you had done?”

Beaudine glanced at everyone in the Courtroom as he responded, “Yes, very much so. Every day.”

“And your memory of the events remains strong and clear in your mind?”

“Yes. Yes, it does. I’ll never forget it.”

“That’s understandable. And so you would say that your mental and emotional health has been strong enough to help you cope with it?”

“Y-Yes, Sir.”

Maraud paused in deliberate consideration before continuing. “And would you also agree that piloting a shuttle is a complicated procedure?”

Beaudine blinked, as if not expecting the question. “Yes. Yes, I guess I would.”

Maraud nodded. “Astrogation, course plotting, engine and power flow balancing, inertial dampening, structural integrity… just a quick glance at the Operations Manuals involved made my head spin. It would take a clear, rational mind to successfully pilot a shuttle… especially in the midst of a battle, such as at Kalandra. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Y-Yes, Sir.”

“So, you’ve testified that you possessed a clear and rational enough mind to pilot your Team to Kalandra VII, and a clear and rational enough mind to pilot away from Kalandra VII, and you have been able to recall the events in question throughout your captivity, your liberation, and then your attempted escape from justice… but that for some reason, this clarity of mind just happened to fail you during the mission itself?”

Beaudine’s face was reddening. “I- Yes, I know how it sounds-”

“We all know how it sounds, Ensign Beaudine. I have one more question for you: what would you say to the next of kin of Emil Lincarnos, Belle Rosen, Dinat Arvan, Otaktay, and Susan Shelby, if they were here now? The families of your colleagues and crewmates, who were counting on you to help them?”

The young man trembled. “I- I wish- I’m sorry- I wish I could- I could go back and do it all over- I’m sorry- I’m so sorry-” He looked like he was going to break.

And then he did.

“I’m declaring a recess,” Godleski announced suddenly, looking at Louvois. “Now. Bang your stupid little gavel.”

*

Sasha ignored the Alert awaiting her on her desktop computer when she returned to her office, so focused was she on ensuring Kami went into Bill’s cell to counsel him first. Then she was pacing around the desk. “That son of a bitch, ripping him apart like that… I could tear him a new one…”

“Calm down, Sash,” Mori urged. “This isn’t going to help anyone.”

“Yes,” Eydiir added. “I believe he is more honourable than I had first believed.”

Sasha kept pacing. “Oh, I fucked this up big time. I should have gone for the plea bargain. Louvois hates me, so she’ll take it out on him.”

“Your instincts were sound,” Eydiir assured her. “And Louvois is not the only Judge. The others must agree on the sentencing. They at least are honourable, and have both served in combat, and understand-” She made a huffing sound. “Respond to that Alert, it’s giving me a migraine.”

Sasha sat down behind her desk and responded, as information filled up the screen before her.

She leaned forward, her eyes widening, her mouth going dry. Holy shit…

Mori saw the change in her mood. “What’s wrong?”

Still reading, she quickly keyed in some commands. “Eydiir, examine the records I’m forwarding to your PADD. I need a medical assessment as quickly as possible. Draft whomever else from the Infirmary or the Science Labs you can trust to help, anyone who can quickly run up official reports, the more the better. Mru, get Kami out here to read this. I have to talk to Maraud, and hope he’s not as big a dick as he seems.” 

*

He put down his sandwich and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Are you serious? You are aware that introducing last-minute surprise evidence is the stuff of ancient courtroom potboilers?”

“This isn’t deliberate, it arrived while Bill was on the stand. I’m here to fulfil Legal Discovery.” She stood there, arms crossed challengingly. “Now I’ve done it.”

Maraud smiled. “It doesn’t work that way. Discovery is there so both sides have ample time to examine the evidence presented. I could contest this, have it thrown out-”

“And I can appeal, yadda yadda, ad nauseam. Just read what I sent you first before you start picking fights.”

The Efrosian accepted her invitation.

His smirk quickly dropped, and he sat back. “This- This is incredible-”

“Is it enough to decide the case in Bill’s favour?”

Maraud rubbed his chin. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but if our positions were reversed, and this was handed to me, I’d already be planning my victory party. I’ll look like a rank amateur, losing to you, someone with little or no legal training-”

“If you lose, it’ll be to the evidence, not to me. And that’s assuming you care more about looking good than about justice for one of our own.” She shrugged. “If you want, you can reveal this yourself, take all the credit. I don’t care.”

He looked up at her, his irises brightening. “You really mean that, don’t you?” He chuckled. “I don’t know whether to try to win you over to a permanent position in the JAG Office, or kick your ass back to your starship. How much time do you need to prepare?”

*

“Ensign?”

Kami had been in Beaudine’s cell, sitting behind him and counseling him, when she looked up to see Salvo standing on the other side of the invisible security screen. The Caitian looked up warily. “Is there a reason you’re here, Lieutenant?”

Salvo paused; she had been under the Counselor’s supervision since her assignment on Salem One, and the Commodore’s wife had proven to be a cut above the insipid plebeians who had tried to decipher Salvo’s psyche. Kami Hrelle knew her, from the start, and had shown herself to be as formidable mentally as Hrelle himself was physically. 

Their sessions had been… cutting… and thankfully for Salvo remained confidential. Kami had promised that she would reveal nothing to Hrelle. Salvo believed her. “Forgive me if I am interrupting, Counselor. I… I just wished to say something to Ensign Beaudine.”

Kami looked hesitant, and Salvo could feel her penetrating, perspicacious gaze once again. “Maybe now is not the time-”

But Beaudine shook his head. “It’s okay, Counselor.” He looked up at the doorway. “What did you want to say, Lieutenant?”

Salvo straightened up, continuing to feel the Counselor’s unspoken warning regarding the young man in her care as she put together her words. “Ensign Beaudine, I am from a people who place a high regard on duty, loyalty, and especially bravery. It is pounded into our beings, becoming an essential part of us… perhaps too much so-”

“Lieutenant,” Kami warned.

Salvo persisted, before she lost her nerve. “I recognise courage in others. I see it in you now. I confirmed it already in your Starfleet records, in your achievements, in the testimony of your friends and allies… but I see it in your eyes now. Do not let unthinking fools tell you otherwise. Whatever happened to you on that planet does not take away all that you have done before, or all that you can do after.

When you return to the Courtroom to face judgement, I will be your escort… not to intimidate you, but any others who might not show you the respect you deserve.”

Beaudine looked at a loss for words, but quickly recovered. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Kami seemed to regard Salvo in a new light, but before she could say anything, Mori rushed up beside the Security Chief, tail swishing behind him with excitement. “Counselor, you need to come out here and read this…”

*

Louvois banged her gavel to commence… stopping as Sasha rose. “Your Honours, since we last met, new evidence has come to light which I wish to present to this Court.”

“Your request is denied, Ms Hrelle.”

Weynik looked at Louvois. “What? Why?”

Louvois kept glaring at Sasha as she answered, “Because it’s clearly a dramatic, desperate act on her part, one that the Prosecution won’t allow at this late stage because of the restrictions of Discovery-”

Now Maraud rose. “The Prosecution will allow it, Your Honours. The Defence provided sufficient time to fulfil the Discovery process.”

Louvois shot him a look of incredulity, before facing Sasha once more. “What is this evidence?”

Sasha tapped on the PADD in her hand, displaying collated lists of data. “I received this data package earlier today from Starfleet Intelligence: the unexpurgated files on the Away Mission to Kalandra VII, now declassified and provided for us-”

“Nonsense!” Louvois declared angrily.

Sasha stared back at her, keeping her own cool. “With respect, Your Honour, it’s not. Item 1.3 is the Certificate of Declassification Authorised by Admiral William Arrington of Starbase 74.”

“Admiral Arrington,” Louvois echoed tightly, eyes burning with recognition at the name. “Who I believe is the father of Lt Giles Arrington, another one of Commodore Hrelle’s former proteges… and a former lover of yours. Did you contact him and ask for this?”

Sasha felt herself flush at the public admission of her former relationship with Giles – how the Hell did she know about that? – but she still kept composed. “No, Your Honour, I did not, nor did anyone who has assisted me, to the best of my knowledge, a fact I am certain can be confirmed using a Security check. And with respect, my former relationship with Lt Arrington has no relevance here, and your implication otherwise is insulting to all parties concerned.” 

“And he just happened to have declassified all of this for you in time for the conclusion of this trial? And sent it to you of his own volition?”

“If you believe that there has been collusion here, Captain,” Godleski advised. “You can always pause matters to contact his office and accuse the Admiral directly?”

“And can we all be there to see you do it?” Weynik asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone’s career implode before my eyestalks.”

Louvois looked to each Captain in turn with disdain, before suggesting, “Perhaps in light of this revelation, we should clear the Courtroom, cease the broadcast and continue proceedings in private?”

“If you do that, Your Honour, I will lodge a formal protest with the Judge Advocate General,” Sasha warned. “Given the deleterious effects this public trial has had on Ensign Beaudine’s reputation.”

“Excuse me?” Louvois snapped. “Who the Hell do you think you are?”

“I think she thinks she’s the Defence Counsel for her client,” Weynik opined, leaning in as if to impart some confidential advice. “Fighting on his behalf. Don’t know where she got that idea from.”

“And I will fully support my colleague’s protest with one of my own, Your Honour,” Maraud added. “The defendant deserves consistent treatment throughout the judicial process.”

Louvois scowled at both counsels, before concluding with, “Present your evidence.”

Maraud nodded to Sasha, who proceeded. “Ensign Beaudine’s Away Team was sent to Kalandra VII on orders from the late Admiral Ian Trenagen, at the time the Head of Starfleet Intelligence.” She paused, seeing the reaction from Weynik, knowing of his own past encounters with Trenagen. “As part of an overall operation codenamed ‘Richard 343’. The purpose of this operation was to develop weapons to employ against the Dominion’s soldiers, the Jem’Hadar, weapons that would target the Jem’Hadar without harming other races.

I will not engage in a debate on the ethics of such an objective, but instead will focus on its relevance to the events on Kalandra. The Dominion facility that Ensign Beaudine’s Away Team found there was a refinery to process Ketracel White, the nutrient and drug the Dominion uses to maintain control over their soldiers.” She called up chemical formulae now on the screens and the Judges’ PADDs. “The Dominion chose Kalandra VII because it contained tri-nucleic fungi, which could be broken down to produce yridium bicantizine, one of the active ingredients in Ketracel White.”

Now she called up recordings and transcripts. “Given that the Dominion forces in the Alpha Quadrant had been cut off from the Gamma Quadrant and could not obtain fresh supplies of Ketracel White, the Jem’Hadar naturally did their damndest to take back the Kalandra facility. There was damage to storage tanks and pipes, releasing unprocessed fungal particulates that the Away Team aspirated, in varying amounts.”

Now she brought up more chemical symbols. “In their unprocessed form, the fungal particulates contain highly potent, toxic sulfolipids, which trigger the fear circuitry in humanoid brains that orchestrates defence mechanisms in response to environmental threats.”

Now images of combadges with flanking data, along with more chemical symbols. “Due to the classified nature of their Mission, all of the Team’s combadges were covertly calibrated to monitor and record their bioreadings, and the bodies of the Away Team were recovered later and examined. Ensign Beaudine was far away enough to have received a limited amount of these particulates, just enough to trigger an uncontrollable flight desire without affecting other cognitive functions. 

Those nearer to the battle, too wounded or pinned down by the Jem’Hadar to try and escape, received greater amounts of the contaminants, enough to trigger toxic shutdown of the involuntary biological systems..

I’ve had the readings examined by Salem One’s Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Masterson, along with one of the on-station Science Officers, Ensign Stalac, and Chief Counselor Hrelle. All have filed reports attached to this evidence, confirming that the Away Team’s toxic exposure would have been untreatable with the limited medical supplies and equipment available on the planet.” 

She turned to face Beaudine now, grateful to be able to inform him, “There was nothing you could have done to save them, Bill. Even if you could have controlled yourself enough to have returned to them, you would have just died as well, from toxic exposure or the Jem’Hadar.”

Beaudine stared up at the readings, and then at Sasha, disbelief melting into a wellspring of emotion that he could just about contain.

“When Ensign Beaudine was contaminated,” Sasha concluded, facing the Judges once more. “He was not in control of his actions, and therefore by definition the actions he undertook on Kalandra VII could not be considered ‘willful’. I therefore respectfully request that all charges are dropped, and that his record is cleared with immediate effect. Thank you.”

She sat down, trying not to be seen catching her breath or gripping the arms of her chair.

Louvois looked to Maraud. “And what does the Prosecution have to say about this revelation?”

The Efrosian rose to his feet again. “Your Honours, the Prosecution agrees with the Defence’s request… with one exception. I request that the one count of Being Absent Without Leave under Article 86 remain applied. This refers to the period after Ensign Beaudine was released from captivity, and did not respond to the summons from Starfleet Command to appear and respond to the charges against him. There is no evidence to support that there was still any contamination within them to account for his AWOL status.”

Sasha shot him a dirty look, but recovered quickly.

“Very well,” Louvois concluded. “We will sequester to examine and consider all the evidence presented to us, and reconvene as soon as possible.” She banged her gavel and rose, along with Weynik and Godleski.

*

The recess wasn’t long.

“Ensign William Beaudine,” Louvois announced, as all parties rose to their feet at attention, her face wearing a sour expression. “In the light of the evidence that has been submitted at the last minute by your Counsel, it is the judgement of this court that all of the prior charges raised against you are dropped, with one exception: the aforementioned count of Being Absent Without Leave under Article 86.

As for punishment, we have decided, in the light of your past record, that you will be sentenced to time already served while in custody following your arrest on the USS Tangshen fourteen days ago. You will remain stationed here on Salem One and continue Counseling before you are reassigned. I now rule this Court to be dismissed.”

She banged her gavel, before rising and leaving as quickly as possible.

Beaudine turned to Sasha and hugged her. “Thank you, Sash. Thank you so much for everything.”

She felt overwhelmed, as much by the emotion as by the relief that it was all over. “Surefooters have each other’s backs, Bill.”

Mori, Kami, Eydiir and others approached to offer their own congratulations, all heartily accepted… and then Sasha turned to Maraud, who was still standing there, smiling. “Congratulations, Lieutenant Commander. Well fought.”

“Thanks. I wish I could say sorry that you lost.”

He shrugged. “Who says I lost? I’m here to apply the law in a fair and impartial manner. It was applied, as far as I can see.”

She smirked. “You still managed to get one charge to stick on him.”

“A legitimate charge… and I figured the judges would be merciful… well, two out of three of them, anyway. Louvois has been out for blood with Beaudine since we heard we would be assigned to his case; I think she was planning on prosecuting him herself.” He breathed out. “I’m not looking forward to the inevitable meeting with her after this.”

“Well, now I am sorry. And thanks, for what I learned from you.”

He held out his hand. She shook it.

“You,” Eydiir announced, striding up and staring at Maraud.

Sasha started to comment, before thinking twice, turning and walking away.

The Capellan stuck out her chin. “You have ended up behaving honourably. You are not as execrable as I first surmised.”

Maraud smiled. “That’s literally the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She crossed her arms. “Given my earlier declaration, I am now obliged to accept your invitation for dinner.”

The Efrosian regarded her for a moment, before announcing, “Nope.”

She frowned. “Nope?”

He shook his head. “Not on obligation. You call me when you really want to have dinner with me.”

Then he departed, Eydiir staring at the back of him as she muttered, “Swine.”

*

Salvo had been on her way back to Security when Louvois rushed up to her. “Lieutenant! Have you got the proof?”

She stopped and turned to face the other woman, standing formally. “Excuse me, Ma’am?”

“The evidence! Of Hrelle’s interference! That little Deus Ex Machina his daughter pulled off must have come from him! I ordered you to watch him and get me proof! I offered you the chance to earn your old rank!”

Salvo scowled, her face and stance tightening. “I found no evidence… and Commodore Hrelle was off-station for most of the proceedings anyway.” She leaned in closer and added with a hiss through clenched teeth. “And I cannot be bought, at any price. Now, if you will excuse me, I am in the midst of finishing my report on your former Security Officer Nizig for his crime. Perhaps he will consider a plea bargain if it turns out he had received similar secret orders from someone?”

*

Hrelle walked into his quarters, a sleeping Misha slumped over one shoulder like an overcoat as he smiled at Kami, his voice soft. “Hello-” He stopped and frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Shh…” She was kneeling on the floor, with Sreen on her back on her changing mat, the infant clad in a top and diaper but with her exoframe beside her, looking like an Art Deco scorpion sculpture or a miniature version of a Drydock cage. Kami was cooing, “Go on…”

“Mama!” Sreen growled. “Pick me up!”

“No… go on, do it… you’ve done it before… show your Papa and me…”

“Show us what?” Hrelle asked.

“Cuddamonkee!” Sreen called out angrily. “Help me!”

“No, Princess,” Kami told her gently. “Cuddlemonkey isn’t going to help you. Now go on, show Papa and me what you can do.”

“Kami, what in the Seven Hells-”

Suddenly Sreen screwed up her stubby muzzle in impatience, in a voice that was uncannily very much like her mother’s, ordered, “Engage Frame!”

The adjacent exoframe dutifully lit up, scittering towards the infant like an insect, gently manipulating Sreen, sliding under her clothing and touching the appropriate pressure points. Once sufficient neural connections were made, Sreen rolled herself onto her belly and started helping herself up.

“Mother’s Cubs…” Hrelle whispered. “How- How did she do that?”

Kami watched her daughter, a wealth of emotions in her voice and eyes. “In order to give users full independence, exoframes have verbal command abilities, and are attuned to their users’ bioreadings so they can always find them. I programmed her frame to respond to my voice, testing it, and letting it help me get her up in the morning when I was in a rush. It never occurred to me that she would be watching, listening, all this time… and probably testing it herself when she was alone in bed at night, trying to get the pitch and tone just right.”

“But she sounded almost exactly like you! It was uncanny!”

She nodded, watching as Sreen crawled to her father’s feet, chuckling to herself at her triumph. “When Jhess first mapped her brain after she was born, he noted a very strong vocal, linguistic and musical acuity. We’ve mostly seen it manifest in her singing; now we know she can do more… when she wants something bad enough.”

Hrelle bent down with a grunt and lifted up Sreen in his free arm, purring against her. “And it let her climb out of her crib?”

“With her Neurodystraxia, we never really secured that crib the way we might for ordinary cubs her age.”

He felt Sreen wrap her arms around his neck, and he smiled as he breatehd in her scent. “Well… it’s reassuring.”

“Reassuring?”

“Yeah – to see that she’s not the helpless little bundle of fur that some might imagine when they first see her. Nothing’s gonna stop her from getting what she wants.”

“That’s what’s going to keep me up at nights.” She rose back to her feet. “Come on, let’s get them to bed… and from now on, I’ll switch off the voder interface on the exoframe.”

Minutes later, they returned to the living room, Hrelle moving to the drinks cabinet. “I saw on the updates that Bill’s court martial went well for him. I knew Sasha could help him. All of you. He was in good paws here.”

“Hmph.”

He glanced at her with a look of innocence while he poured them both some Spican flame whiskey. “And he’ll be based here? Good.” He returned to the couch with both glasses.

She accepted it. “He still has a long road ahead: the experiences during the War, during captivity, the court martial, the revelations about Kalandra. He might not stay in Starfleet after he gets his head together.”

“Well, at least that’ll be his choice.” He raised his glass to her in salute. “Thanks to Sasha and you and everyone else who helped.”

“Yes. Everyone else who helped. Speaking of Starfleet, how was our son’s Birthday Adventure?”

“Successful, I think. He learned to fly dangerously, we ate bad foods and watched inappropriate videos…” He paused to sip at his drink. “I told him about my Papa, and the choices that could be out there for him if he someday chooses something other than Starfleet.”

Kami breathed in the strong scent of the whiskey. “And did he make that List for you?”

“Oh, yes. If he didn’t go into Starfleet, he would be happy to be: a Kaetini warrior, a wild shuris rider, a rescue pilot like his older brother Mirow, something called a ‘fart expert’, or a Song and Dance Cat.”

“I’m glad he took the exercise seriously.” Kami smirked. “Well, Papa Mi’Tree will be happy at that last one, knowing he’s inspired his grandson.”

“Actually, I think Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang inspired him. He had excellent timing for a human.”

Kami made a sound and set aside her glass, curling up against Hrelle. “Speaking of timing, you showed some yourself, getting that information to Sasha.”

He drank again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

*

Weynik breezed into his quarters, wanting a break after the last couple of days, and a chance to be with his family again… only to see an addition to it all. Even as Naida and Jaxan ran or toddled to him, he focused on Tamati, sitting on the couch with his mother, while home videos of the family – in particular Weynik as a boy – played on the wallscreen. “Captain? What are you doing here?”

Tamati smiled. “‘Captain’? I thought we’d gotten past that.”

Tallus smiled as well at her son. “You’ll definitely have to get past that, after I’ve given away all your secrets… ‘Spunky’.”

*

Elsewhere, in a darkened bedroom, an alert chimed from a nearby desktop.

In the bed, Arik Rhov paused. “What the-”

Under him, Zir Dassene muttered, “Commodore’s back on the station. Never mind.”

“Oh? But don’t want you to-”

With a burst of her remaining strength, she manoeuvred him around until she was on top. “I’m off duty. If he needs me, he’ll call…”

*

Sasha stood in the middle of the unoccupied Courtroom, looking at the flags of Starfleet and the Federation flanking behind the Judges’ Table.

“Here you are!” a very familiar voice boomed in the empty surrounding space.

She turned and smiled as Hrelle drew up and hugged her. “And here you are, Fat Cat, back after gallivanting around the Galaxy with my baby brother getting into all sorts of mischief, I’m sure.”

“Well, I wanted to, but Misha’s far too mature for that sort of thing.” He pulled back to smile at her. “Congratulations on your triumph here. Not that I didn’t think you couldn’t manage it-”

“With a little help from my friends.” She gave him a sly smile. “And you, no doubt, making some discreet calls to Admiral Arrington.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked around as well, his expression sobering. “I heard about Louvois’ Security Officer breaching your personal records; I’m so sorry.”

She grunted, feeling her temperature rise. “Forget it, Dad. He’s resigned his commission, and will get a Misconduct Discharge that’ll follow him into the civilian sector, so at least there’ll be no trial. Have you gone to see him?”

Hrelle’s expression shifted, grew darker. “No. No, Sash, that wouldn’t be wise. That wouldn’t be wise in the least. I might end up back here, and one court martial per lifetime is enough.” He looked around as well now. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Bill and the others might want to throw a victory party.”

She sighed, admitting, “It was mooted… but Bill wasn’t feeling up to it, and I thought it would be a dick move to want to go and throw myself a party. Besides, I just want to go to bed and sleep for a few days before shore leave ends.”

“Then why are you here? Thinking about switching professions?”

“No.” She looked around again. “You know they used to make entertainment shows out of trials? They’d have audiences cheering and booing and setting odds and arguing on social media and spouting their bullshit opinions like it was some fictional show instead of real life… and real death. It was dressed up to be ‘educational’, ‘informative’... but it wasn’t anything much different from the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. I thought we’d outgrown all that. What do you think?”

Hrelle set a reassuring paw on her shoulder. “I think you should put all this behind you and move onto more important matters… like what you’re gonna get your little brother for his tenth birthday.”

She smiled and reached inside her jacket. “Oh, I’ve got that all sorted out already, courtesy of Sirizo’s on Broadway.” She produced a small, slim box with controls on one side. “Check this out.” She activated it, and it made a loud raspberry sound, as she grinned. “A Fart Machine. Recordings of a thousand different fart sounds from every known race. Do you think he’ll like it?”

As it continued to make various obvious noises, Hrelle looked dubious. “Well, ‘Fart Expert’ is one of his alternative jobs. His Mama and I will be cursing you for weeks to come.” He reached out and switched it off. “Come on, we both have work to do.”

*

Cadet Boladede was on Broadway, following the rest of his Squad towards the Commissary, when he saw Sasha at the far end, seeing her part from her father to speak with some station personnel. She remained beautiful, powerful. He had secretly watched the rest of the trial, disobeying Commander Haluk’s orders. It was worth it. She had been magnificent, as formidable in the Courtroom as on the Battlefield-

“Ange?”

He started, mentally kicking himself for allowing himself to be distracted by Sasha enough to have someone sneak up on him, even if it was his Caitian colleague C’Riir. “What is it?”

C’Riir drew up to him, glancing down at the far end of Broadway before lowering his voice. “Ange… you need to let her go.”

The Nigerian felt his jaw tighten. “I do not know what you’re talking about.”

C’Riir tapped the tip of his own nose. “This is one of my people’s most treasured gifts. With a little practice, we can not only track someone by their scent, but know their emotional states, even their relationship statuses. I’ve scented your attachment to Lt Cmdr Hrelle. Sorry, but it’s never gonna happen.”

Boladede faced him, burying his embarrassment and vulnerability. “You know nothing. You are as much a fool as that Ferengi you choose to befriend.”

C’Riir remained sympathetic, unmoved by the insult, as he nodded in Sasha’s direction. “She’s older, she’s a senior officer who will not get involved with a cadet… and perhaps most importantly, she’s bonded with Lt Mru Mori.”

Despite himself, Boladede glanced down again at Sasha, seeing her joined now by her Caitian colleague from the Katana. Embracing him. Nuzzling him.

Giving him all the things that Boladede deserved from her. “Bonded…”

“Yes. Caitians – and humans who live around Caitians long enough – become accustomed to the scents of loved ones. They bond. Any Caitian who met the two of them would know they were bonded, and unavailable to others. It’s not a casual thing, it’s a ‘Til Death Do You Part thing. Let her go.” C’Riir smiled. “Now come on, let’s catch up with the others before Gela spends all our Squad credits on grub worms.”

Boladede forced himself to look away from Sasha and her paramour, nod as if in agreement and follow his fellow Squad member. “I… appreciate your insight. Please do not speak of this to anyone else.”

“Of course not,” the Caitian confirmed.

The human composed himself. C’Riir had been correct, of course. Boladede would never be able to claim Sasha Hrelle for himself.

Not while her current lover lived.

*

Hrelle re-read the report on the Highwaymen from Captain Blum. “Anything more on them?”

Zir didn’t immediately respond, prompting Hrelle to glance up at his Adjutant. “Lieutenant? Problem?”

She blinked, flushing with chagrin. “Sorry, Sir, I, uh, didn’t get much sleep last night. I, ah, had a lot of work to do.”

Her scent, and the smirk from Sternhagen, sitting beside them in his office, spoke volumes, and he suppressed a smirk as he noted, “Zir, I’ve told you before, you’re working too hard.”

“Yes,” Sternhagen agreed with more open teasing. “You need to lie back sometime and let others do the work. Maybe Lt Arik could help you with that?”

Zir shot her a dirty look, as Hrelle raised a paw to cut off further banter. “The Blum report, Lieutenant?”

“Oh, uh, yes, Sir: they’ve reported the suspected ships have returned to the regular shipping lanes, matching the submitted flight manifests. And I’ve prepared a report on the current facilities on Elba II, as per orders from Captain Sternhagen: it was formerly a restricted facility for the treatment of mental illness, before being shut down and abandoned. There is a private orbital transit station for starships there, nothing of note on any reports from Starfleet Security.” 

He nodded. “Forward the report on the Highwaymen to Starfleet Security, and ask them for a Class III Investigation on the Transit Station. Now that the court martial mishigas has passed, we can focus on existing problems.”

“Fine by me,” Sternhagen agreed, adding, “Speaking of the court martial: well done on that last minute intervention from SI you pulled.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked up to see Louvois enter Ops, see him through his window, and approach. “We’ll finish this later. Dismissed.”

The women rose as one, Sternhagen seeing Louvois as well. “I’ll give you a year’s salary if I can stay and listen.”

“Dismissed.” He leaned back in his chair and watched them depart, Sternhagen offering Louvois a look as they passed each other. 

The JAG Officer ignored the other women and entered, standing formally before him. “Commodore, you asked me to come see you?”

He remained behind his desk, reading from a PADD as he replied, “No, Captain. I ordered you to come see me. For someone so vocal these last few days about my following orders, you show less consistency applying such diligence to yourself.” He held up the PADD in his paw. “I’ve been busy catching up on Ensign Beaudine’s court martial via your report… including the comments you added about Sasha’s participation.”

He read from it. “‘Lt Cmdr Hrelle showed potential in the performance of her appointed legal duties, with a talent for rhetoric that helped compensate for her ingrained flaws in areas of experience, discipline, maturity and respect for authority’.” He set the PADD down again. “Coming from you, that’s practically a love letter, Captain.”

Louvois eyed him suspiciously. “Are you ordering me to amend my report to present your daughter in a more complimentary light, Commodore?”

“Not at all; Sasha would be the first to admit her faults… unlike some. And anyway there’s enough evidence in your history to show that your opinion isn’t taken seriously by anyone.”

“Excuse me… Sir?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Your personnel record was released to me, as your new Commanding Officer, but I’ve only had the chance to examine it in detail. You’ve been praised by your previous CO’s for your aggressive zeal when prosecuting  –  not surprising, really, you don’t get a nickname like the Mugato by being passive, do you?  –  with almost equal criticism for not knowing where to stop, and a petulance whenever you lost a case… things not exactly unknown to me already, having been on the receiving end. 

You’ve also been censured for a lack of interest in low-profile cases, ones that might not garner you the attention you feel you deserve, and get you closer to those Admiral’s pips you’ve probably had your eye on since you were a cub holding Teddy Bear Court in your bedroom.” He looked up at her directly. “Comment, Captain?”

Louvois stared back, asking, “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

He waved a paw at her. “Be my guest.”

He noted the shift in her stance and scent, allowing herself an unleashed aggression. She leaned forward over his desk, resting her fists on the surface, her voice silken and venomous. “I don’t give a damn what other people think of me  –  including you. I certainly won’t apologise for having ambition, a goal, one greater than being here in this… pesthole of an outpost, under the command of a murderer, a monster.”

“Sweet talker.”

Her eyes glared. “I haven’t forgotten those videos of you in the Orion Deathmatches. I haven’t forgotten the Beast.”

Hrelle stiffened, the memories still strong despite the years. “Neither have I, Captain. Neither have I. But surely my achievements since then must count for something in your eyes?”

She scowled in disdain. “They should never have reinstated you to Starfleet. You can’t be trusted, not after all you’ve done. They should never let you have access to cadets, to children!”

His gaze fixed on her. “You should take a moment, Captain. Take a moment and thank whatever deities you might hold dear, that my wife wasn’t present to hear you say that last part.”

“I know you disobeyed orders and interfered in the court martial-”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She persisted, relentlessly. “I know you contacted Arrington and somehow convinced him to declassify the files on Kalandra VII. I know that you just couldn’t resist getting involved when it had something to do with one of your precious former cadets… or your disrespectful bitch of a daughter.”

Her determined glare narrowed. “Well, Hrelle, if you think this is going to be the end of it, you can think again. I’m going to devote all my time here to uncovering the Truth.”

Hrelle seemed to consider her words, before rising slowly from his chair. “You should be careful about doing something like that, Captain. The trouble with uncovering the Truth is you can never predict what else might be dug up along the way.

The War, and your own failings, stalled your plans at renown and promotion for a time. But then you somehow earned a plum assignment at Deep Space Twelve: a large, prominent position, with the potential for some high-profile cases that would finally get you noticed in a favourable light by the Judge Advocate General.”

He walked around his desk, never taking his eyes off of her. “And then Ensign Beaudine was arrested, and I bet your heart grew three sizes that day when you thought you would be prosecuting him, an ostensibly notorious criminal responsible for the deaths of his crewmen. Until the JAG decided to move him, and you, here, to minimise the publicity and exposure, with you acting as Judge instead of Prosecutor.

That wouldn’t do for you,  Captain,  would it? That wouldn’t do at all. What, stuck here, at this little outpost of mine, and under my command too, a constant reminder of one of your more prominent failures? How could you salvage the situation?”

He took a step forward, his voice lowering. “Well, for starters you can accentuate the publicity of the court martial. You can order public broadcasts and give interviews. You can get your Strongarm Lt Nizig to parade Beaudine through a public area like some prize. You can secretly order my Station Security Chief to spy on me, to find evidence to use against me... imagine getting a second shot at the Beast, as well as crucifying Beaudine.

And you can contrive to assign an inexperienced officer like Sasha as the Defence Counsel, someone less likely to win the case, because a win for Beaudine, no matter the justification, wouldn’t be popular in your eyes… not to mention having the petty satisfaction in making my daughter squirm. 

Or so you thought would happen, because you didn’t reckon on Sasha having a hundred times your strength and integrity… and a massive set of balls, to boot.” He paused and asked, “Did you order Nizig to breach data security protocols and access her medical records, to find something to use against her?”

She offered him a look of bare indignation. “What? How dare you ask me that?”

“I dare very well, Captain,” he countered, his voice a low growl now, “I’m very good at it. So… did you know?”

“I don’t have to answer that, Hrelle.”

He bared his teeth, his eyes narrowing. “You just did.” He raised his paw, pointing a finger with an extended claw at her. “Were you aware of the contents of the classified data on the Kalandra VII operation before it was revealed by Sasha?”

Louvois bristled. “How could I know? I don’t possess the required level of security to view it!”

He lowered his paw again, pacing now around his office. “No, but as Chief Judge you would have had the authority to request that a Flag Officer with sufficient Security clearance view it, in order to determine if it would have a bearing on the case, and if it did – as it certainly did with Beaudine – you could have made a summary judgement before the court martial even began.

But that wouldn’t have suited you: a low-profile ending, and one that would have generated ill feeling despite the obvious evidence that he wasn’t responsible for his actions.”

“I deny having such information beforehand, Hrelle, or making any request to obtain such information!”

He faced her again. “Oh, I see, then you weren’t acting in a criminal manner, you just couldn’t be bothered to do it? You were just lazy and negligent? Oh, that’s so much better.

I really don’t care about your reasons, to be honest. I do care that you put a young man, a decent man who had undergone much, through unnecessary suffering.”

He took a step forward, teeth bared again,  all of his claws extended. “I really, really care about that.”

She took a step back, before visibly fortifying her stance, her eyes flaring with righteous anger. “You’ve made some highly slanderous accusations, Commodore, but you have no proof to back them up, do you?”

“No. Any more than you have proof that I interfered in the court martial. Nor will you ever find any.”

She offered him the hint of a cold smile. “Then I guess we’re at a stalemate then.”

Hrelle stepped back,  retracting his claws again. “Not quite, Bubulah. One of the advantages of being me is that along my merry way you get to make a lot of friends as well as enemies. 

For instance, did you know that when I commanded the Surefoot during the Battle of Khavak, among the survivors that we rescued from the USS Iberia was a Commander Lydia Bennet, the daughter of Rear Admiral Patrick Bennet?” At her reaction he added, “I see you recognise his name from the top of all those reports you get from JAG Command Office.

Well, while I am normally loathe to call in favours for selfish purposes, in your case I couldn’t resist, so I asked Bennet for your immediate transfer to… well, anywhere, really. You could be shipped to the Andromeda Galaxy to set up office among the Kelvans, for all I care.

Funny that, when I asked him to get rid of you, he didn’t seem all that surprised. As if it wasn’t the first time such a request has come through.

Your staff can stay; your Lt Cmdr Maraud will replace you as Salem One’s Chief JAG Officer, as I’m told that he is conscientious and honourable, so clearly you were never an influence on him.”

Louvois made a sound. “Well, then, I’m glad I haven’t unpacked… and I’ll be glad to see the back of this place, and you. Has it been decided where I’m going from here?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact: Deep Space Twelve  and then JAG Headquarters on Starbase One.”

Something like a smile returned to her. “Really? Starbase One…”

“Yes… but you’re not being assigned there now. Apparently my request has been the final proverbial straw, and prompted Bennet to suspend you from active duty pending an investigation into your past casework, looking for irregularities, reasons why you don’t play well with others, that sort of thing.”

The smile dropped.

He looked past her through the window, catching Salvo’s eye and prompting her to approach and enter. “There’s a transport ship taking the former Lt Nizig to Deep Space Twelve within the hour, and you’ll be accompanying him there, so you’d better get your bags.” To Salvo, he added, “Make sure she doesn’t get lost or steal souvenirs or anything else.”

The colour drained from Louvois’ face. “This isn’t over, Hrelle. I’m very, very persistent.”

He nodded in agreement. “Most irritants are. But if you have any sense, you’ll know not to cross my path a third time, because twice was two times too many, and I have precious little patience with irritants.

Dismissed… forever.”

*

Beaudine sat amidst the lush green foliage in the station’s Arboretum, certain he could identify the bird that was currently chirping like a malfunctioning combadge in one of the larger trees behind him, but the breed eluded him. So he just leaned back against another tree, breathing in the lush scents and touching the fresh moist grassy soil under his fingers, as peace seemed to seep into his body, despite his mind remaining tumultuous. It reminded him so much of the park near his house in Louisiana. That seemed like a hundred lifetimes ago-

“Bill?”

He opened his eyes, hastily helping himself up. “Captain- I mean, Commodore! I’m sorry!”

Hrelle walked along the narrow, snaking path to approach him, smiling. “For what?”

Beaudine stepped onto the path, self-consciously dusting himself off as he faced the Caitian formally. “For- For sitting down and closing my eyes-”

Hrelle’s smile widened. “You’re off duty, and if you want a place to sit down and close your eyes, this is probably the best place.” He closed his own eyes, turning slightly as he breathed in through his snout. “Yes…” When the bird chirped again, he opened his eyes and looked up at the tree. “Betazoid Starwings. Every time I hear them, I feel the need to check my combadge to see if I’ve spilled sauce on it or something.” Now he looked at Beaudine, approaching further and offering his paw. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to greet you sooner, but I was ordered to stay away and offer no official help.”

The young human accepted the paw, remembering the heat and the carefully-controlled strength behind the grip. “I understand, Sir, Sasha told me everything.” More confidentially, he added, “Thank you for your unofficial help.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is it with people asking me that? I always mind my own business, never interfere…” Hrelle stepped back and looked around again. “I’m sorry, Bill. I’m sorry about all the terrible things that have happened to you, all the hardships you’ve faced, the guilt and fear you’ve carried all this time. I wish- well, I could go on wishing all year long about that for everyone, for all the good it would do.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’m… I’m glad I made it through, more or less. So many others didn’t. I’m lucky.” He tried to sound convincing, if only to himself.

Hrelle began moving slowly along the path, silently inviting Beaudine to accompany him. As they walked together, Helle continued. “From now on, you’ll focus on healing: on coming to terms with what you’ve experienced, what you’ve faced and learned, about yourself and others. Kami will be your primary Counselor; I know from personal experience how proficient she is at that.There’s no rush for you to get back to Active Duty.” He paused and clarified, “Assuming you wish to stay in Starfleet. No one would blame you in the slightest if you had second thoughts.”

Beaudine breathed out, admitting, “I have had them, Sir. I mean, not because I want to go, but… I can’t imagine any commander who’d want me under them.”

“Well, then, you’re not being very imaginative. I would, for one.”

Beaudine let his gaze drop to the path. “That’s very nice of you to offer, Sir-”

“Nice? I’m not being nice, I’m being smart! I know all of my Cubs’ skills and talents, and I know that any commander would be privileged to have you under them, so I’m just jumping the line!” More soberly he continued, “We also have support groups running here, for those who have looked into the Abyss, feel the guilt clinging to them like a parasite, and need to know that there are others who have their backs.”

Hrelle stopped them at one point, turning to the side to indicate a large plaque mounted on a wall unhidden by foliage. Beaudine saw the inscription and the list of names below. “The USS Furyk?”

The Commodore nodded. “A former command of mine, based here. Fifteen years ago, it was attacked by a criminal organisation, I was captured and sold to the Orions. All hands onboard were killed. And so were people on the station, including Sasha’s mother.”

The Ensign’s eyes moved across the names. There were so many. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

Hrelle continued to stare. “I spent nearly seven years in slavery, before escaping. When I did escape, though, I was still trapped by the thoughts that I had lost everything. My wife, my ship, my crew, my daughter’s childhood. At the time, I felt like my life was over, too.

But my life wasn’t over. Only a chapter or two of it.”

He faced Beaudine directly, holding out his arms. “Now, all these years later, I command here, and am about to go attend my son’s tenth birthday in a Holosuite, in what I am certain will be a raucous, sugar-ridden affair. At my lowest point, I never would have guessed at where my life would end up. That’s how it works. You never know what you’re going to encounter ten years from now… or ten seconds.” He looked past Beaudine and smiled. “Ah! We’ve been waiting for you! Bill, this is Ensign Peter Boone, your Station Liaison. He’ll show you around, get you settled, get you anything you need.”

Beaudine turned, seeing a tall, lanky… very attractive blonde-haired man with bright blue eyes and a rugged chin draw up, smile and hold out a hand. “Great to meet you, Bill.”

He smiled back and shook the offered hand. “Great to meet you too, Mr Boone.”

“‘Pete’, please.”

Hrelle nodded at the two men… scenting the initial attraction between them. “I’ll let you two get to know each other better. I’d better go while there’s still birthday cake.”

Hrelle turned and departed, letting his smile broaden uncontrollably.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE SUREFOOT UNIVERSE WILL CONTINUE