The bridge hummed with the quiet focus of its crew conducting delicate operations. Pentecost had settled in the command chair an hour ago, when survey work shifted from collecting data through scans to study and interpretation. Now she sat with one leg crossed over the other, reviewing data on her armrest display, one eye on the viewscreen’s feed.

The nebula swirled through the view. Green and gold gases curled through the haze, backlit by starts clawing to be visible through the clouds. Through it all, the wreckage drifted, silent remains of a battle fought long before anyone’s great-grandparents had even been born.

‘Captain.’ Sorren’s voice carried the note of satisfaction she knew meant he’d found something interesting. ‘I’m seeing a pattern in the debris distribution and radiation trails that’s giving me a hypothesis of how the battle panned out.’

Pentecost glanced up. ‘Show me.’

The viewscreen shifted to show the three-dimensional map of the battlefield, blue Federation markers scattered among vivid red Klingon signatures. Sorren’s analysis traced paths through the chaos: attack vectors, evasion patterns, settling into the final resting places of ships as they fell.

‘The Glenmore went down at Blackreef,’ Sorren began, highlighting the distant, isolated marker. ‘The rest fled here, into the Shroud. But look…’ His hands moved over the controls, and the Klingon markers changed, showing approach vectors. ‘They didn’t just pursue. They herded. Drove the Federation ships deeper into the densest part of the nebula where sensor interference would work against them.’

‘Starfleet ships thought they could punch through interference better and have an edge.’ Pentecost studied the pattern. ‘Instead, they went too deep and were blinded, losing their advantage.’

‘It isolated them. They lost cohesion.’ Sorren zoomed in on the battle site proper. ‘The Mercury and two escorts made it furthest. Tried to make a stand here, backs to the densest gases. Bought time for…’

‘Nothing,’ Pentecost surmised grimly. ‘They all died.’

The simulation played forward, Mercury’s outline flaring as she took hit after hit, the escorts dying one by one, until there was nothing left but wreckage and silence. Pentecost watched it unfold with the detached fascination of an archaeologist reading another site of an atrocity. After two hundred and fifty years, the visceral violence was gone, leaving only the story.

‘A pretty picture,’ she concluded, ‘but you’ve made some big jumps based on these scans.’

Sorren looked unabashed. ‘I’m confident that when the away team extract records from the Mercury, my simulation will be supported.’

‘Of course you do,’ she said wryly. ‘You just want your diagrams on the publications. Beef up your citations.’

‘You want a book -’

‘We’re being hailed,’ cut in the relief tactical officer. ‘It’s the Mat’lor. Captain Kovor says it’s urgent.’

‘This was an urgent academic bicker,’ Pentecost protested, but sat back in the chair. ‘Punch him through.’

The projection dissolved to show the bridge of the Mat’lor, dimmer than the Tempest, all harsh angles and shadows. Rather than seated at his command throne, Kovor stood, looking like he’d pace at any moment.

‘Captain Pentecost,’ he said, and bared his teeth in an excitable smile. ‘We have found it.’

She kept her expression neutral and resisted the urge to tease. ‘Found what?’

‘The flagship. Our flagship.’ Kovor gestured sharply, and his tactical display expanded to fill half the screen. The outline of a 22nd-century Klingon battleship gleamed bright, and she consulted her own maps. They were much further at the perimeter of the battle site. ‘IKS Cha’vak. And more…’

The image zoomed, focusing on hull plating where battle damage couldn’t quite obscure the sigil emblazoned there: the same that could be found on the hull of the Mat’lor.

‘The crest of the House of Mokvarn.’ Kovor’s voice carried wonder and excitement by now. ‘This ship was commanded by General Kevork, son of the Lord Mokvarn at the time himself. He led the assault that broke your task force. He – my house – secured Skaleri for the Empire.’

Pentecost leaned forward, studying the wreckage. Such a battle cruiser would have outgunned anything in Eurus-7’s complement. ‘That’s quite the discovery, Captain.’

‘More than a discovery.’ Kovor’s fist clenched at his side. ‘Proof. Physical evidence of my House’s glory. The House of Pvarn must have taken credit for the victory after the flagship fell – no doubt scuttling away as surviving cowards when braver warriors fought to the last. I will retrieve sections of the command module with our tractor beam – the bridge, the general’s quarters. The High Council will see what happened here.’

Her archaeologist’s instincts howled at the thought of ripping the wreck apart with such blunt force, but this was a Klingon wreck. Kovor had the right to handle it as he wished, however much he destroyed. She swallowed her objections. ‘Alright. We’ll continue our scans. Tempest out.’

There was a beat on the silent bridge before Sorren started, ‘He’s going to -’

‘I know.’ Pentecost rubbed her temple. ‘He’s going to take a tractor beam to a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old wreck and tear chunks off it like he’s salvaging scrap metal.’

‘The structural integrity of those hull sections will be compromised,’ Sorren said, voice tight with the particular frustration of a scientist watching data get destroyed. ‘Any computer cores, personal effects, historical artifacts – they’ll be damaged or lost entirely when he rips the modules free.’

‘It’s his wreck,’ she said unhappily. ‘We’ll have to rely on what we can find from Federation debris.’ She tapped her combadge. ‘Tempest to away team.’

‘Valois here, Captain.’ His voice carried the reverb of speaking inside a helmet. ‘We’ve restored partial power to the Mercury’s bridge. Working on accessing the main computer now.’

‘Good. How’s your timeline?’

‘Another hour, maybe two. The systems are heavily degraded, but Sergeant Jodrak thinks he can coax more power from the emergency grid.’

‘Do what you can. Be aware that Captain Kovor is about to begin… aggressive salvage operations on the Klingon flagship. He’s identified it as a Mokvarn vessel, so that’s pretty special to him. Should be well clear of you.’

‘Understood. We’ll keep our heads down and focus on the work. Valois out.’

She settled back into her chair, watching the viewscreen as the Mat’lor manoeuvred into position near the bulk of the Cha’vak. Even at this distance, the battleship was imposing, big enough to dwarf even the modern Klingon and Starfleet ships alike.

‘They’re beginning tractor beam operations,’ Sorren reported. ‘Locking onto a section of the Cha’vak’s command module.’

Pentecost winced. ‘How much damage is this going to do?’

‘To the target section? Considerable,’ said Sorren without looking up. ‘But the beam lock looks stable. They’re applying gradual force, trying to separate the module at natural stress points.’

‘At least they’re not just yanking it free,’ she muttered.

For several minutes, nothing much happened. The Mat’lor held position, her tractor beam a distant, gleaming cone of light. On sensors, the targeted section of the Cha’vak showed stress readings as it began to separate from the main hull.

‘Wait,’ said Sorren after a beat, voice low. ‘I’m reading a resonance cascade forming in the nebula gases around the tractor beam. It’s interacting with charged particles in the cloud, causing a feedback loop -’

An alert went off on his console just as an explosion blossomed from the tractor beam emitter of the Mat’lor. The bird-of-prey spun back, reeling out of control, nebula gases roiling around her.

Pentecost was on her feet. ‘Report!’

‘Their shields are down,’ reported Tactical. ‘Reading hull breaches, significant power fluctuations.’

‘Hail them!’

‘Interference is heavy – audio only -’

The channel crackled to life. ‘…damage to bridge… casualties reported… power grid fluctuating.’

‘This is Pentecost,’ she said sharply. ‘What’s your status?’

Silence for a beat. Then the Mat’lor steadied herself on the viewscreen, impulse engines firing. After a moment, the viewscreen flooded to life with a connection made to the battered, smoking bridge of the bird-of-prey, Kovor gripping his chair’s armrests tight.

‘This damnable nebula!’ he swore. ‘My tactical console overloaded! We have sealed hull breaches and restored control of our systems and ship.’

‘Do you require assistance, Captain?’

His lip curled. ‘My first officer is in Sickbay. We have extracted the hull module… we will endure.’

‘Captain.’ Sorren’s voice cut across the exchange. ‘We have a bigger problem. The explosion didn’t just take out the Mat’lor. The energy discharge destabilised the Cha’vak’s debris field. Multiple large fragments are now in motion.’

Pentecost turned to look at him with the sinking sense of dread that more bad news awaited. ‘In motion how?’

‘They’ve accelerated beyond their previous drift velocity. New trajectory – Captain, the debris is on a collision course with the fourth planet.’

The pre-warp world. Pentecost swallowed. ‘Time to impact?’

‘Eight hours, twelve minutes. But that isn’t the issue.’ Sorren pulled up the trajectory on the main screen, a companion to the Mat’lor’s stricken bridge. ‘Most of the debris will burn up in the planet’s atmosphere. But it’ll be visible.’

Pentecost was back on her feet. ‘A light show in the sky. Bright enough for a pre-warp civilisation on the nightside hemisphere to see. And if they get the chance to identify surviving debris…’

‘Hull fragments from alien starships rain down on watchful eyes.’

Pentecost closed her eyes. Then turned back to Kovor. ‘We have to deal with this, Captain. If you don’t need disaster relief…’

Kovor looked a mixture of unimpressed and disinterested. ‘Go coddle vassal species from the wider galaxy if you must. We will continue our work. Mat’lor out.’

She let him go, looking to Sorren. ‘Can we intercept?’

‘Yes. But we’ll have to position ourselves ahead of the debris field. Use our tractor beam to slow and redirect every significant fragment. At a certain distance, we can destroy minor debris. But this is hours of precision work.’

‘Then we do it.’ She was already returning to her chair. ‘Helm, plot an intercept course for the debris field. Best speed.’ A pause. She grimaced, and rubbed her temple. ‘Get me the away team.’

‘Valois here, Captain,’ came her XO’s voice a moment later. ‘We’ve got enough of sensors up to detect some sort of explosion out in the field. Is everyone alright?’

‘The Mat’lor had an accident with their transporter beam. They’re damaged but managing. More importantly, the explosion’s sent debris from the flagship towards the pre-warp world. We have to intercept it.’

A pause. ‘Understood. The Prime Directive comes first.’

‘Can you continue operations on your own? It could be eight to ten hours before we’re back.’

‘We’ll manage, Captain. We can monitor the local area with the Mercury’s systems, and we’re close to accessing the computer logs.’

Pentecost nodded, chest easing. The mission wasn’t gone. ‘Good. Carry on. Regular updates. We’ll be back as soon as the debris situation is resolved, and can send the Caliban for support if needed.’

‘Acknowledged. Good luck, Captain. Valois out.’

She settled in the chair and looked to Hargreaves. ‘Take us out, Lieutenant. Maximum safe speed.’

The Tempest came about, leaving the ancient graveyard behind as she accelerated towards the debris field tumbling through space over the unsuspecting world below. On the tactical display, Pentecost watched as the markers showing her people and their allies grow smaller and more distant.

Two of her people, alone in the dark with only reeling Klingons for support amidst the weight of history pressing down.

While she had to race elsewhere to preserve a future.