Captain’s log, Stardate 2402.8. We’ve left Breaker’s Quay behind, to not make the locals too nervous, but until we crack open the Glenmore’s computer core, we don’t have our next heading. I’m not too worried about trouble finding us while we take a beat, though: now we have Captain Kovor and the Mat’lor for company.

Or does that mean trouble’s already here?

‘I thought no House claimed authority over the sector,’ Sorren grumbled as he paced about the central panel in the archaeology lab. The computer core sat upon it, its battered, scorched, dulled casing gleaming in the low lights of the scanner and the readouts gently scrolling across the wide display panel behind them.

‘They don’t.’ Pentecost knew she should have been helping him calibrate the equipment, but her eyes couldn’t leave the centuries-old casing, the Federation serial etched in its side. The final letters on the long sequence. GLENMORE.

‘And yet Kovor has come here on behalf of the House of Mokvarn to enforce law. And hijack our research.’

‘If he’s telling the truth, he was hunting a deserter.’ She hunkered down, hands on the panel, eyes level with the case. ‘But if the House of Mokvarn can prove they can and do enforce law in Skaleri… that gives them a strong case for being granted the sector.’

‘Ah, the “fake it til you make it” approach to politics,’ Sorren sneered, pulling manual power couplings out from the base of the analysis panel. ‘I suppose the question is whether it benefits Mokvarn to be seen to complete a joint scientific mission with Starfleet… or to stop us in our tracks.’

‘Knowing Chancellor Toral…’ Pentecost blew an errant lock of hair out of her face, still not rising. ‘But then he could have taken the core. Refused to hand it over. What could we have done? Appealed to Qo’noS that we have the right to find Starfleet wreckage? We’d get stonewalled by diplomatic bureaucracy. There’s more here.’

Sorren hummed. ‘If there’s one thing one can say for Klingons… they value their history. Not the recording of it, of course, nothing so useful. But the memory of it.’

‘The ownership of it, perhaps,’ she mused.

The lab lights dimmed as he connected the power couplings into the core. Systems hummed to life, and moments later, a holographic projection of the core’s visual interface sprang up in the air above the hulk. It sputtered a moment, then settled into sharp-edged lines and blocky fonts, the Neanderthal ancestor of graceful LCARS.

Pentecost could feel the light of the projection fall on her face as she stared up at it. ‘Look at this, Ked. Twenty-second century interfaces! The coloured rectangular buttons! The little circles in the corner!’

‘Yes, it’s very quaint,’ Sorren muttered, consulting the central panel’s controls. ‘It’s also refusing Tempest’s handshake protocols. I’ll have to dig into the archive.’

She pulled a PADD from her jacket and slid it across the panel to him without looking over. ‘Starfleet encryption cycles from the 2160s and 70s. I pulled them from Gateway before we even left.’

Sorren’s sigh sounded judging, but the lack of a comeback meant she’d been too useful for him to snipe. She watched as the interface changed, numbers springing up at his command.

‘This thing,’ she mused, and reached out gingerly to touch the casing. ‘This thing was out in space at the time of Archer and Hernandez. At the birth of the Federation. At our first steps into the Alpha Quadrant.’

‘The Glenmore was a minor scout. You’re romanticising.’

‘I’m an historian. It’s my job. People don’t care about the compounds that went into this casing. They care about… belief.’

The interface flickered as Sorren tried another string. Error. Again, and again. He exhaled sharply, muttering about antiquated systems, and swapped in another code sequence. ‘And yet you judge the Klingons for the concept of owning history.’

Then the hologram stuttered, blinked – and shifted. Lines of jagged text resolved into ship’s logs of rolling timestamps. Sensor telemetry scrolled down one side, the overlays flickering back to life.

‘It’s intact.’ Pentecost sprang up, pulse quickening. ‘You’re in.’

‘I am in.’ Sorren’s voice was dry, but satisfied. ‘Memory degradation… significant, but not catastrophic. We’ll lose fragments.’

‘So long as we keep the right ones.’

The projection expanded at Sorren’s command, the computer spilling its sensor records, combat logs, navigational maps. Moments later, the display shifted over to the map showing asteroid clusters, blue dots of Federation starships, and Pentecost watched, wide-eyed, as the record of the Glenmore’s approach of Blackreef was joined by red signatures blooming at the periphery.

‘Asteroid cover in the belt must have been even more significant to 22nd-century sensors,’ Sorren said grimly. ‘They would never have seen the ambush.’

‘We’ll have to go back at some point and see why they were even in that belt,’ she mused, but stopped to watch. One mystery at a time.

The Glenmore’s outline on the side of the map flashed, blue turning gold as disruptor fire scored across her hull schematic.

‘They crippled her,’ Pentecost whispered, watching. The schematic blinked and stuttered. Hull polarisation failing. Breaches. ‘She was covering the rest.’

‘Indeed.’ Sorren keyed a command, and another screen flared up: navigational overlays, warp trails spiking away from the Belt. A half-dozen Federation signatures arcing in swift lines, red Klingon markers chasing.

‘The task group,’ Sorren confirmed. ‘Warped out, pursued by Klingon ships. Destination vector…’ She saw him not merely consult the Glenmore’s records, but cross-reference it with Tempest’s star-charts, and the map expanded to take in the inky silhouette of a nebula light-years from the asteroid belt. ‘Ketha’s Shroud.’

‘They ran for cover.’ Pentecost’s voice was hushed. ‘And the Glenmore held the line until…’

The projection jittered, the records scrolling with the massive, exponentially growing damage report. Then it stopped.

Sorren’s lips thinned. ‘The Glenmore died. The rest fled. The last record we have is pursuit into the Shroud. After that… nothing.’

Pentecost exhaled, long and shaky, and ran a hand through her hair. ‘But this is everything, Ked. A lead on the rest of the task group. They must have died in the nebula.’

‘There is no “must,”’ Sorren pointed out. ‘And it remains possible we will find nothing there, even if our calculations are correct. Two hundred and fifty years, Evie.’

He only called her that in absolute private, less a demonstration of respect for rank and hierarchy so much as a refusal to let the personal become public. Still she hid a smirk, not drawing attention to his quiet display of camaraderie. ‘Except now we have another line of enquiry: a Klingon who wants to talk to us about what happened.’ She tapped her combadge. ‘Pentecost to bridge. Patch me through to Captain Kovor.’

They turned as the connection from Tempest to Mat’lor, waiting off the Starfleet ship’s port side, was patched through to the wide display screen on the lab bulkhead. After a beat, it came to life to show the dimmed quarters of the bird of prey’s captain. Out of armour, he looked no less impressive, no less refined for a Klingon superior officer, reclining in a tall-backed chair, a curved drinking horn in hand.

‘Captain. You’ve made progress?’

‘The core’s intact enough for us to access its record, though decryption of the database hasn’t been a short process,’ Pentecost began, couching her words carefully. ‘What about on your end?’

Kovor studied her a moment, then huffed. ‘As I said, there are records of a battle with Starfleet for control of this region over two centuries ago. Regrettably, the most extensive records will have been held by the House of Pvarn.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘They will be scattered across the sector by now.’

‘But you have something,’ she cut in, pressing before he could.

‘I do. Records from the House of Mokvarn. Our ships, too, were part of the force that confronted your task group.’ He leaned forward, elbow on his knee. ‘It would do my lords a great service if I brought them proof of our role in conquering this land, in repelling claimants.’

Pentecost swallowed hesitation. Buy-in from Kovor was surely a double-edged sword, but without it, he could dismiss her from Klingon territory in an instant. She opened her hands. ‘Then send me what you’ve found, and I’ll send you what I’ve found – a lead. There was the clash at Blackreef, like we knew. Starfleet fled into Ketha’s Shroud, pursued by the Klingons. Does that match anything in your records?’

His eyes flashed. ‘Nothing I have found has marked the site of battle. The nebula is dense. Perhaps it holds secrets centuries-old. We should proceed and investigate. I will send you the records.’

‘Agreed.’ She brightened. ‘We’ll set a course, and can compare notes while we travel!’

‘I suggest better than that, Captain. It does not escape me that your ship is better-suited to this inquiry than my bird-of-prey. You have the soft hands of the scholar that will be needed for this undertaking, and the best way for the House of Mokvarn to contribute is not merely for our ships to be side-by-side.’ Kovor reached towards the display, pressing something on his control panel. ‘I will be sending my second officer and engineer to join you. They will be part of the research.’

‘I know you have a small crew,’ she stammered. ‘I would not want -’

‘Klingon eyes on Klingon matters? They will be of use.’ He managed to sound overbearing and helpful all at once. ‘They will beam over shortly. Send me your findings, and I will send you mine. Mat’lor out.’

She scowled at the blank screen. ‘Great. The more the bloody merrier,’ Pentecost growled through gritted teeth.

‘He has a point,’ Sorren said reluctantly. ‘This finding matters to his people. We will see everything first. And you have been trying to hide things from him.’

‘You think I should show my entire hand to an ambitious Klingon captain who might bite it off and take it to his chancellor for a prize?’

‘Not at all. But this is what we get for mixing historical research with politics.’

Pentecost pouted. ‘I just want to look at old early-Federation wrecks in peace, Ked. Is that too much to ask for?’

‘You want to make one of the biggest findings of your career,’ he pointed out. ‘You chose to climb this mountain, Evie. Don’t cry to me now you’ve found it’ll be hard.’

‘Fine,’ she grumbled, and turned back to the Glenmore’s computer core, its secrets barely uncovered still. ‘But you’re coming up this cliff with me.’