The ‘foreman’ at Scarix was, in truth, the General Manager. Ji Ye-Seul was a sullen, sharp-faced woman, who greeted the Starfleet away team like they were a professional inconvenience and not saviours come to meet them.

‘I don’t know why you needed a whole party,’ she grumbled the moment introductions were done in the Command Hub’s main transporter room. ‘Get some engineers to juice our shielding and we’re golden.’

‘That’s exactly what we’re going to -’

‘We’re here to help,’ Kharth said, speaking over Thawn, a lot sharper than the engineer sounded like she was about to be. ‘That means more than just slapping some generators on your hull. We have to make sure you’ve got the right resources here for your crew and inhabitants.’

‘You mean,’ said Ji, ‘you’ve got to meddle. Like Starfleet do.’

Kharth wasn’t unsympathetic to this resistance. The possibility that Scarix had been lax in acting on a cosmological phenomenon that could have killed everyone in the system did not, however, give her much patience. ‘There’s about fifteen thousand people in Scarix. We want to be sure everyone’s safe.’

Grumpy though Ji was, the woman was clearly not fool enough to reject Starfleet aid when they were otherwise facing a catastrophe alone. Nor did she have the authority to override Selwyn Dyke, even if the man himself didn’t seem like he was going to dirty his hands with the practicalities of keeping his facility intact.

Kharth had served on enough border cutters and frontier outposts to know how corporations did business outside of the Federation. Dyke Logistics might have been registered on Sol, and were formally subject to the Federation’s business practices and standards, but out here, there was nobody to keep an eye on them. Even crews of ships sent by Gateway had rarely set foot on Scarix, the facility close enough for missions to sweep out and return home with little need for resupply, but far enough that nobody came by without a reason.

The facilities on Asteroid Eirene were carved into the rock and then plated with what what felt, rattling underneath her boots, like the cheapest materials going. It smelled like it, too, the cleaning chemicals and even paint enough to sting the nostrils as Ji led them through the warren of corridors and control stations. All the way, Thawn asked questions – where did people aboard live, what were the biggest population clusters. After a few minutes of it, Ji cast an accusing look towards Kharth.

‘Your engineer seems awfully concerned about the people on Scarix.’

‘I’m not,’ blurted Thawn before Kharth could cut her off, then flushed at the implication. ‘That is, until Commander Airex finishes his scans, it’s difficult to predict what physical shielding will be needed against the flare. What’s more predictable are the radiation emissions. I need to know population levels and distribution for the most efficient rad-shielding setup.’

Ji grunted. ‘Evacuating personnel to one section of the station will make it easier, won’t it? We only have to shield that section.’

‘Absolutely -’

‘We’ll want the processing stations shielded too, then,’ said Ji with a firm nod. ‘I don’t expect we can continue mining during those conditions. But we can keep up ore processing. Give those rad-shielding so the workers don’t miss any shifts.’

Kharth cast a glance at Logan, but before she could butt in, Rivera had spoken, voice innocent in a way Kharth didn’t trust at all.

‘Are the support personnel all housed on Eirene? Administrators, custodians, all that?’

‘Everyone’s housed on Eirene,’ Ji explained. ‘And if you don’t work on a mining platform or ore processing station, you work here, too. Most people are here.’

Kharth forced her voice to sound calm and casual when she piped up. ‘Ms Ji, can you give Commander Thawn the support she needs for the assessment and inspection? If the rest of the job is managing everyone on Scarix to make sure they’re cooperative, then we can take that off your hands. Ensign Kally, if you stay with the commander and work on an information package we can release to the personnel here. Just so people know what’s happening and what’s going to be expected of them.’

Thawn looked suspicious. ‘And you, Commander?’

‘If Ms Ji points us toward the various shift leaders, we can start working up evacuation procedures with them. Keep our protocols as close to Scarix’s own.’ Kharth gave Ji a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Sounds good?’ Ji nodded impassively; Kharth wasn’t sure what she would have liked.

Rivera shared an unconvincing smile, giving the impression she was mocking the whole charade. ‘I’ll stick with Commander Thawn and Ms Ji for now, then. Get the lay of the land.’

If Kharth could open telepathic communication with Thawn, she’d have silently screamed at her to not give the journalist so much as an inch. Kally was a risk, too, far too likely to be trusting and open with someone who’d exploit any weakness she could see. But it gave her what she wanted, at least – freedom to move without anyone looking over her shoulder.

The various shift leaders were a little more welcoming than Ji; less territorial, less suspicious. Kharth didn’t assume this meant they liked Starfleet. It was more likely that they hadn’t been on the frontier long enough for Starfleet to let them down.

‘Yeah, we’ve got about twelve hundred people housed on this level,’ one of the supervisors was explaining to her an hour later as they tromped through a residential section of Eirene. ‘Total capacity is about two thousand.’

‘Two thousand.’ Kharth looked up at Logan. ‘Think that’d make this a decent place to huddle once the storm starts?’

There were several options of where they could cluster the residents of Scarix and shield and reinforce, none of them so massive or comfortable to make the decision clear-cut. But it was not a particularly complicated issue. She’d expected more engagement from Logan than a grunt and a shrug.

‘Whatever you think’s best, Commander.’

When Kharth tore her confused gaze from him, the shift supervisor was looking less welcoming. ‘You’re not going to put us on your ship itself, are you?’

‘We can shelter up to eight thousand people aboard, but it’s a squeeze,’ said Kharth, brow furrowing with consternation. ‘And it’s best if we can shield you against these problems yourselves. But yes, if there’s overflow, we can put people on Endeavour.’

The supervisor gave Logan a careful look, then his eyes snapped back to Kharth. ‘Let’s see about getting this section suitable as an evacuation point, then.’

It was, again, not complex. But the shift supervisor remained cagey even as he cooperated, and Kharth found herself doing the bulk of the discussion and decision-making. It was long hours later before they were done, released into the belly of Eirene’s main station, adrift if only for a moment amidst a crowd of workers and their families still trudging along even though an apocalypse could fall on them in days. Dyke Logistics didn’t miss a deadline just because the sun was trying to kill them all.

For a moment, Kharth thought about saving any rebuke for Logan until they were back on Endeavour. But his expression stayed closed, his eyes fixed on the decks, and in the end she grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him to a distribution corridor a few sections away from the main residential foyer they’d ended up in.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ She’d meant it to sound a lot more concerned than it came out, but in the end, the words spilt from her lips like an admonishment once they were alone.

Logan’s blank expression sank into a frown. ‘Commander?’

‘Don’t give me that. You drop protocol at the first excuse. I bring you along to help manage these people and instead I’ve got to hold up three sides of a conversation?’

‘Yeah,’ said Logan tonelessly. ‘That guy really didn’t want to talk to me, did he.’

‘I don’t…’ It was like blinking brought clarity to her vision. Showed her the things she’d overlooked for so long – stopped seeing a long time ago. Her heart sank. ‘I probably shouldn’t have brought you here.’

‘You need my expertise on the security protocols, I’m your guy.’ He’d softened, but it was like a wilting, not an opening. ‘But I don’t got the kind of face that’ll put these people at ease.’

She’d been so used to Logan, for so long, being a presence on Endeavour that could calm even the most twisted tensions. A quick word, an easy smile, and everyone was set at ease. But that was on her ship, where everyone knew him. That was back home, where the crew didn’t bat an eyelid any more at a man with a Borg implant on his face.

‘Vor,’ Kharth breathed. ‘That was thoughtless of me.’

‘I could have said. I guess I forget, sometimes.’ His brow furrowed at last. ‘Nah, I don’t forget. Hope, maybe. Hope I can walk down a new street and not get them looks.’

‘There’s going to be a lot to do monitoring smallcraft movement across the system. I expect we’d normally put Lindgren on it. You two could swap.’

The frown deepened. It was like the offer of pulling him from the painful situation gave an indignant resilience, and Logan straightened. ‘Where do you need your Chief of Security?’

‘I don’t -’

‘This is me. This ain’t gonna change. You gonna bench me whenever we meet new people? Hide me?’ She shook her head. ‘Didn’t think so. Maybe I can’t put folks here at ease with my face. I can still keep ‘em safe. Might change their minds. Might not. You’re right. I’ve been sittin’ an’ stewin’ an’ not working enough.’

Kharth hesitated. ‘Winning hearts and minds here isn’t irrelevant.’

‘But it ain’t as important as keeping ‘em safe. No doubt Elsa could be charming. She don’t know how to sheepdog fifteen thousand people like I do. Besides.’ He cast a glance back down the dingy corridor towards the lobby they’d left behind. ‘I ain’t the only one getting odd looks.’

She bit her lip. ‘You spotted them, huh.’

‘We shouldn’t be surprised. Loads of Romulans in these parts need steady work. Hell, I bet Dyke picked up a whole shipment of workers off Teros.’

‘I recognise a few of them.’ There weren’t many, but the Romulans on Scarix had clearly clustered together. Perhaps they were now somewhere safe and stable, somewhere they could work and get food and shelter. But there were plenty of tales of refugees taking bad deals because the alternative was starvation and death, and nothing aboard Scarix had given her much faith. ‘Most people from home think I’m a sell-out.’

‘An’ most people everywhere think I’m a murder machine. So how about we save their lives anyway, even if it don’t change a thing? Except they’ll be able to keep on thinkin’ ill of us, ‘stead of thinking nothing at all.’

Kharth swallowed, looking up at him. His eyes had cleared, and guilt twisted in her. He was, in part, being strong because she’d been weak. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, she thought. She should have been there for him. But it was working anyway, and he wasn’t wrong, and they were still in the middle of a job.

She just knew that later, when they were safe and sound aboard Endeavour, she wouldn’t bring it up. She’d run from this issue, ignore it until it eventually became a problem that choked one or both of them. Because to act sooner might split them apart quicker, if she fumbled it. She didn’t trust herself to not fumble it.

‘Like the old man says,’ Kharth breathed after a beat, ‘let’s go save the day.’

She still allowed herself a quick squeeze of his arm. A fleeting, light brush with intimacy, a split second’s relief that brought a searing warmth and comfort and strength she almost resented as they stepped away, back into the buzz and hubbub of Eirene. She shouldn’t get used to it.

After all. It wouldn’t last.