‘I just got off the comms with Amadeus Dyke.’ Even the holographic projection of Vice Admiral Morgan, hovering above Valance’s desk, dripped with trepidation. ‘He’s not impressed.’

Valance wasn’t impressed, either. But she tightened her jaw and tried to not let it show. ‘I’d thought something like this would go to an agency for industrial standards.’

‘It’s only appropriate to inform Dyke Logistics of something so critical to one of their operations. I thought we could cut to the heart of the matter quickly.’

A day ago, Valance had sent Airex’s findings back to Gateway. She hadn’t expected to hear back, hadn’t expected the political consequences to impact her mission. Scarix Facility had been over-zealous in their initial mining, hadn’t taken enough care upon arriving at the system, and could potentially become architects of their own downfall. But that was a long-term problem. Or she’d expected it to be, before Vice Admiral Morgan had called her back.

‘I’m glad Mister Dyke is taking it seriously, then,’ Valance said after a beat. ‘There have to be serious holes in his company’s procedures, or at least at Scarix, for something like this to -’

‘You misunderstand, Captain. You’ve barely arrived at Scarix, and your science team has leapt to a conclusion based off the briefest of scans. Amadeus Dyke isn’t the only one unimpressed; I am. I thought you’d be more circumspect before flagging this issue.’

Valance fought to keep her expression steady again. ‘Sir?’ She knew what Morgan was saying, felt it in the sinking in her chest, in the echoed warning of what Jericho had told her back on Gateway. She just wanted him to say it.

‘You’re not here to cast aspersions on one of our most enterprising industrial undertakings in the sector, Captain. You’re here to save lives.’

‘So you’re not forwarding this to industrial standards?’

‘Of course I will. I’m not insisting you’re wrong, Captain, please understand that. But I do think you’ve jumped the gun on this. Focus on protection against the flare, not its origins. That won’t do any good. Remember your mission, Captain. Gateway out.’

Airex was still in the ready room, leaning against the bulkhead with his arms folded across his chest. He looked rather less shocked than she felt. ‘Politicians,’ he drawled.

‘We… they… Scarix did this, caused this, breaching all manner of procedures…’ Valance couldn’t help but sputter as she gestured at the space where Morgan’s projection had been. ‘I suppose I should be grateful he’s passing this onto the standards agency?’

‘After warning Amadeus Dyke,’ Airex pointed out, straightening up. ‘Who can probably make sure this whole issue disappears. They probably played golf together or something back on Earth.’

Valance was not naive. She believed in the Federation’s highest values, but she was aware of the pragmatism that was necessary to enact them, the strong hand Starfleet needed to pursue its mandate. But there were still areas her expertise and experience were lacking, and she was aware of those waters lapping at her feet. She looked up at Airex. ‘The more important Midgard gets, the more this is going to happen.’

‘We’ve got industrial interests, scientific interests, and now the Klingons mean this sector’s more important both strategically and for our relationship with the Republic,’ he mused. ‘Yes. Core World politics are going to start to eke in here. Because what happens here might now affect them.’

She rubbed her temple. ‘I wasn’t ready for this with a Starfleet Admiral out here. Not on the frontier.’

‘This Starfleet admiral hasn’t been anywhere. He’s a bureaucrat. A politician.’ Airex shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. I know his type.’

‘Oh good,’ said Valance, sardonic before she could stop herself. ‘Now we can know what he’s doing even as we’re powerless to stop it.’

‘I’m powerless to stop it,’ Airex allowed. ‘A humble science officer like me. You? Rourke? You’re not powerless. You’ll just have to stay two steps ahead.’

‘When did it get like this again? Fighting our own side as much as anyone else?’

‘When you became the captain of one of the most important ships in the fleet. When you became one of the most important officers in the squadron. It’s always been like this, Karana. You just don’t feel it when you’re the XO of a backwater gunboat.’ His lips twisted wryly.

She didn’t miss those days. There’d been a simplicity to them, for certain, but looking back on that life felt like slipping a blindfold over her head. There was too much work to do for her to want to return to such limitations. ‘Now I get to fight an admiral.’

‘A man like Morgan won’t wield his influence bluntly. Note how he insisted you might not be wrong, you just went about it wrong? He can’t risk being exposed if someone does tell the universe that, well, I’m right. Which I am.’

‘He is right about one thing. We still have to focus on saving Scarix.’

‘We are focused.’ Airex pulled out a PADD and slid it across her desk. ‘Thawn and Kharth are on top of things in the facility. And this information about the flare isn’t just for the long-term. I’ve been brainstorming with Cortez. We’ve been mapping the sun’s magnetic field lines and identifying where’s most prone to instability. We think there’s a way to realign and repair them.’

She picked up and read quickly, grateful for her background in astrophysics whenever Airex was setting off on a project like this. ‘We’d need Endeavour’s deflector array.’

‘Probably,’ he admitted, ‘though I’ve been working on alternatives.’

‘This could reduce the physical emissions of the flare by over fifty percent. It’s worth the investment of resources.’ She looked up. ‘Get me a full model. Good work.’

He nodded, but didn’t leave. She watched as a shoulder slumped, as his fingertips on the desk drummed a quick, hesitant beat. ‘Is someone going to tell the universe about this?’

Valance blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not advocating any course of action. We don’t need to rush. But… there’s a chance this gets swept under the rug. If someone acted on this…’

‘How would we possibly…’ Her throat tightened as realisation sank in. ‘You’re suggesting we leak this to Rivera.’

‘No.’ The speed of his insistence was telling. His denial was not necessarily a lie, but perhaps giving voice to the idea, making it real, made him want to dismiss it. ‘I’m not sure what I was suggesting.’

‘Because I’m not going down that road.’

‘I…’ Airex hesitated again. ‘I think you should be aware of that road if we find ourselves in this kind of contest with Morgan.’

‘Fighting fire with fire gets everyone burnt.’

‘Respectfully, Karana, that’s an idiom. I’m taking about the practicalities of politics.’ His gaze dropped. ‘I know you two are… involved…’

Irritation sparked in her gut. ‘And in what world, Dav, do I, a Starfleet captain, leak my disagreements about my superior officers to a journalist with whom I’m involved?’

‘I think a Starfleet captain trying to win political battles might, yes, benefit from a friendly journalist,’ said Airex, stiffening in response. ‘I don’t know how involved you two are.’

He’d been cagey throughout this, offering political advice but dancing about the point. Airex wanted to help, and had the expertise on Core World affairs to do so. More than perhaps anyone in the squadron save Sophia Hale or John Rosewood. He probably wasn’t coy about that.

She slowed her breathing. ‘Are you frustrated because I’m not taking your advice, or frustrated because I haven’t talked to you about Olivia?’

Now his gaze dropped, sheepish. ‘You don’t have to talk to me about anything.’

‘I didn’t plan to make this a huge secret, Dav. I just… we started… and there are implications. I didn’t want to tell anyone until I knew there was something to tell. Until I know there’s something to tell.’

‘Telling makes it real,’ he allowed. ‘And you owe me nothing.’

‘That’s not true.’ One of the less endearing things about the truth of Airex’s previous host coming out was that it made Dav sometimes cringingly apologetic for existing. It was a phase of his growing emotional accessibility she was not enjoying. ‘Friends tell each other things.’

‘I know you’ve been lonely. I know you’ve found the job lonely. And I can’t imagine losing all of us helped any of that.’

‘And maybe I’m less lonely if I talk to my best friend.’ It was her turn to be sheepish. Valance sighed, leaning back in the chair. ‘I like her. There are massive implications. I don’t know if I like her enough to face them.’

Airex sucked his teeth. ‘This has been going on for a few weeks. Screwing around ends eventually. One way or another.’

‘And we can talk about that,’ said Valance, a little haughtily, ‘just as soon as you talk about how it makes you feel to see Logan and Kharth together.’

‘Okay. Fine. Save Scarix. Then we get beers. This whole “being in touch with our feelings” phase of life is a lot more hard work than I thought it would be.’

‘Greg would be proud.’

Airex scoffed and said something affectionately abusive about Endeavour’s former counsellor that would probably land him with six weeks of appointments in passive aggressive retaliation if Carraway ever learnt about it. She let him go on that, feeling the walls between them a little softened, at the expense of the stability of walls she’d been carefully putting up inside herself.

She pulled the PADD of Airex’s suggested responses to the solar disruption closer, knowing she’d have to read it properly to truly grasp the science underpinning his reasoning. And so long as she was reading that, she didn’t have to look at the report of how Scarix were architects of their own downfall, a report that could cause all manner of good – or chaos, depending on perspective – in the right hands. Or the wrong ones.