“It’s a fake!”

The Romulan scientist known only as Ketris slammed her fist down on the bridge’s science console. She glared at the abstractly humanoid form of Automated Commander 74, transmitted onto the viewscreen. Ketris’s mission profile only described her as a botanist. Captain Taes surmised that Ketris didn’t do all her weeding in a garden.

Layered over her sensor controls was the text of a reconnaissance report shared with them by the Pralor-type Automated Personnel Units, whose battleship was being restrained in Constellation’s tractor beam. The report, written by APU spies, detailed their investigation into the development of chronodynamic power modules by engineers among the Trabe flotilla surrounding them.

Before she even realised she was talking, Taes said, “That’s a provocative accusation, considering we just met the Automated Commander.”

These were the days Commodore Ekwueme hadn’t warned Taes about when he recruited Taes to undertake this ongoing mission of exploration in close partnership with scientists from the Romulan Free State. It was assumed the Romulans would be spying on them the entire time. It was a given that the Romulans would take every opportunity to leverage Starfleet resources and then withhold the most basic of their own research and intelligence.

But outright sabotaging a tense negotiation was an outcome Taes hadn’t anticipated. Especially from Ketris. She often proved the voice of reason for Flavia. So much of Romulan behaviour was masks upon masks; which character was Ketris playing today?

With all eyes on her, Ketris affected a demure and controlled demeanour. “This report you received is written in a crude attempt at imitating Pralor rhetoric despite the obvious political misalignment. The lexical biases in the characterisation of the Trabe contradict the minimalist tone of your speech pattern. The allusions to parasites and bloodlines represent semantic drift from your mechanical origins.”

On the viewscreen, Automated Commander 74 said, “Your analysis is acknowledged.”

Taes tilted her chin up at AC-74. If the report really was fake, that meant the APUs were fabricating a reason to attack the Trabe. And if they weren’t, they had been fed false information to make them behave foolishly. Either way, their tentative trust was evaporating quickly.

“Acknowledged or understood?” she asked.  An open challenge.

“Your communication is received,” AC-74 intoned.

Standing behind the tactical console, Commander Ache puffed her chest out and raised a hand. She was clearly preparing to speak but hesitated under AC-74’s watchful gaze. Taes nodded at her.

As if to catch up, Ache spat out her words in burst fire mode. She spoke so quickly that even her facial tentacles wiggled in time with each consonant.

“Captain, we have three incoming warp signatures,” she said.

Taes narrowed her eyes at AC-74, looking for any tells but finding nothing. The APU’s face plate was an immobile slab of molded metal.

“Can you identify them?” Taes asked.

Even through the holographic console between them, Taes saw Ache wince. More than any of her bridge crew, Ache behaved as if any small mistake would instantly kill her.

“…Trabe?” Ache hesitantly said.

Flashes of light caught Taes’s eye through the translucent hologram of AC-74. Three dirigible-shaped raiders burst forth from warp speed among the spread of the Trabe flotilla. Without time for half a sensor scan, the raiders unleashed wild phaser strikes on the Trabe vessels.

“Ah,” Ache sighed. “Kazon.”

The holographic communications channel with AC-74 snapped closed. That gave Taes all the more confidence to turn her back on the viewscreen to confer with Commander Calumn. For his part, Calumn was already barrelling down the stairs towards her with a casual disregard for his own physical safety that spoke to a misspent youth. Given his violent mistreatment at the hands of the Kazon, Taes feel a tempered rage radiating from his bones.

Taes ordered, “Release the tractor beam. Coordinate with Meridian. Protect the Trabe. They’re the only ones willing to parley with us.”

“And our away team is still on their carrier,” Calumn said, agreeing with the priorities. He side-stepped Taes, making his way to Ache’s side. “I’m on it.”

Taes followed him closely enough to softly add, “Take care with the Kazon raiders. At least until I get my crew back.” She grabbed him by the wrist, conveying how imperative it was to retrieve Yuulik and the others.

He blinked at her. “Shouldn’t I be the one reminding you of that?”

Stunned by his accusation, Taes released her grip on Calumn. Momentarily, she wondered what he’d read about her. There were, of course, so many possibilities she could guess at. But Calumn didn’t look back or revel in the taunt as other crew members might have done. He was already giving orders for flight patterns and phaser targets.

As Taes approached her centre seat, Nova announced, “First Maje Vuldu is hailing us.”

“Which one is his ship?” Taes asked, clearly ravenous for clues to Yuulik and Nune’s whereabouts.

Nova was one step ahead of her. “I’ve sent the coordinates to Lieutenant Door.”

As she settled into her chair, Taes gave the go-ahead. Coalescing on the viewscreen was Vuldu’s highly manicured visage, now with entirely new geometric patterns shaved into his hair.

Boisterously, Vuldu said, “Taes, you have proven why you were permitted out of your starship’s breeding pit. You were right.” He spoke in the kind of patronising tone that should have been armed with a phaser and a lecture on protocol.

Lacking a single shard of patience, Taes interrupted, “You have sixty seconds to return my crew members.”

As if he were orating at a conference, Vuldu just kept talking over her. It was more accurate to say he spoke in the kind of patronising tone that had been perfected by Betazoid diplomats.

“The Turei hurled that garbage scow of a Trabe vessel through Underspace. We hunted down the last known location in its nav-computer.”

Taes only waited for him to stop for a breath, when she said, “I told you. The Vaadwaur have taken control of Underspace. You only have fifty seconds remaining.”

“My brilliant new Starfleet engineers identified tachyon residue from where the wreck had been taken. I really must thank you for this gift.”

“Forty seconds.”

“Don’t distract me. We join you in responding to the Trabe distress call — to bring them more distress. Thank you for penning them within a single star system for me. We make for a wondrous team!”

Vuldu had broken out his toothiest smile when his holo-image rippled. and his bridge darkened.  Shortly after sparks showered on him from overhead, Vuldu’s signal cut out abruptly.

“Good work, Ache,” Taes said encouragingly.

Ache bobbed her multi-lobed head from side to side. Then, “It wasn’t me.”

The viewscreen zoomed in on one of the Kazon raiders taking fire from two Pralor APU battleships.

“Four Pralor ships have dropped out of warp,” Ache reported. “I’m picking up three more on an intercept course. Captain, I’m sorry, we’re losing control of the situation. Rescuing the away team may be all that’s realistic before we retreat.”

Snapping her head in Ache’s direction, Nova demanded, “After we rescue Yuulik, right? Right?”

Nova had once doomed Taes’s previous crew for the slim chance of releasing herself and Yuulik from a temporal inversion fold. Hearing that desperate tremor in Nova’s voice reminded Taes of how long it had been since she had to worry about such reckless behaviour.

Offering clarity through the chaos on the viewscreen, Ache said, “Another Kazon carrier has arrived. Meridian is flanking their port side and holding. Barely. Do we redirect them to fend off the Pralor?”

“We can still negotiate with the Pralor,” Cellar Door said from flight control, earnest and beleaguered. “They’re beings of supreme logic with none of our frailties.”

“I haven’t asked for options,” Taes corrected them, her cadence staccato.

As if she was back on stage, singing for the K’ritz, Taes raised her voice to fill the room: “We’re making no plans for retreat. The Alpha Quadrant has been invaded. We will beg, punch or steal whatever it takes to see our homes free. Ache, I want continuous phaser fire until the shields collapse on the–”

Before she could finish, Ketris reported, “I’m detecting dozens of incoming warp signatures. Vidiian, Talaxian, Haakonian, and–”

This was it. The final failure of Taes’s grand experiment. She never should have left the laboratory behind. If she couldn’t even keep her Romulan compatriots in line, how did she ever believe she could unite the Nacene Reach into a Delta Quadrant Federation? Such ego. Such hubris.

Ache exclaimed, “Captain, it’s–”

Heralded by a starburst flare directly to fore, the USS Odyssey sliced through the battlefield, creating a barrier between Constellation and the conglomerate of amassed fleets. The shining hull plates of its chevron section filled the entire frame of the transparent viewscreen.

They weren’t alone.

At this moment, Taes was reminded of why a purely scientific perspective could not meet every need of sentient life. Certainly, it had never been enough for her. Taes could reach for science to tell her how cause leads to effect, but it could never answer the questions of why anything happened. That was where she relied on mythology.  It made for a far more robust framework for depth of understanding.

Surrounded by half the hostile civilisations in the Nacene Reach, Taes could only hope this odyssey wouldn’t strand her with a ten-year journey home.