The Starfleet hovercar pulled away with a low hum, leaving the Rooks at the edge of the industrial district.

Even now, weeks after the liberation, the scars of occupation were everywhere. Streets scored with the blast of weapons, the patch-job incomplete. Burned signs, only some of them replaced – if there was anyone here to slap a new panel atop them. What had once been a clean hum of Alpha Centauri City’s industrial might had seen some of the worst of the Vaadwaur’s attentions as these resources had been seized and redirected for their war effort, and the recovery was not yet done.

Few eyes were on them as Cassidy led the Rooks down the street; any lingering locals were more focused on the blockade. Two squat security drones hovered above yellow markers, their pulsing lights and a scrolling projected message above telling civilians to stay away. Beyond them, a narrow lane opened up between warehouse walls.

Two officers in uniforms Rosewood recognised as Alpha Centauri Police, grey-and-blue and gleaming new, stood behind the cordon. The older one, a middle-aged woman with dark eyes and a stiff posture, stepped forward as they approached.

‘You’re the Starfleet specialists?’

Cassidy nodded. ‘Commander Cassidy. This is my team. Post-occupation clean-up experts.’

‘Lieutenant Venn,’ she replied. ‘Appreciate the assist. This is… a lot to clean up.’ She turned and gestured them down the alleyway, where anything more to be seen was hidden behind a translucent screen.

‘Bodies were found at 0420 by a municipal drone. Sweet-sweeper, would you believe? We reckon they were dumped during the night, probably post-mortem. No alerts, no flagged movement in the area. Just… there.’

They passed through the forensic screen, the field generators flickering as they broke the barrier. At once came the assault on their nostrils, the metal tang of death and the sterile hit of a decontaminant spray, all layered over the heavier scent of the city.

Three bodies lay side by side, sprawled out against a cracked wall. All of them were still in civilian work attire that didn’t belong in this part of the city: the clean and pressed suits of office workers, and all the kind of quality Rosewood would expect to see from a public-facing job.

That wasn’t where Cassidy was looking, though, his eyes locked on the wall behind them. On the word behind them.

TRAITOR, read the graffiti, scrawled in jagged crimson paint across the concrete wall. Already, the crude letters were starting to run in the morning humidity.

‘Names are Abigail Newton, Corin Castaneda, and Lan Chu,’ Venn said, gesturing. ‘All worked in city government, infrastructure oversight mostly. Newton served on the transitional planning council.’

Aryn already had his tricorder out. ‘Any witnesses?’

‘None. Streetcams covering this sector have been down since the occupation. Vaadwaur tore some down, popped up their own. Bunch of them got torn down in the resistance and liberation. Everything else is privately owned. Warehouses, delivery depots – we’ll need warrants to get our hands on them. Could take weeks.’

Cassidy looked to her. ‘We’d like to take a look around.’

Venn gave a short nod and stepped back, motioning for her officers to do the same. He barely needed to give a word before the Rooks advanced, knowing what was expected of them.

Aryn at once knelt beside the bodies, close enough to see, not close enough to contaminate as he ran his tricorder above them. ‘No sign of a struggle,’ he said at last, voice calm. ‘No defensive wounds, no binding marks. Looks like they were hit with a stun blast on a phaser, then kill shots. Mid-range.’ He leaned in, tapping at the tricorder. ‘They were dead before they were moved.’

Across the alley, Nallera hopped onto a low crate and squinted down the length of the wall. She brought out her own tricorder, a chunkier, engineering-grade device to scan high and low, up and down the alleyway. ‘Camera there,’ she called, pointing to a corner. ‘And another further down. Both dead. Not recently – well, not overnight. Shot out in the last few weeks.’

She hopped down with a grunt and gestured back to the mouth of the alley. ‘If I didn’t want to be spotted, I’d come in from the service lane. Avoids the main road, less city surveillance. The only feeds around here are private.’

Cassidy grunted and looked to the wall. ‘The graffiti?’

Aryn swept his tricorder up. ‘Paint’s industrial-grade. You’d use it for hazard markings. They could have brought it or…’

‘Found it,’ Nallera added. ‘Maybe they dumped it?’

‘We can see if we’re that lucky,’ said Rosewood. He didn’t sound optimistic.

Q’ira stood near Aryn, eyes on the bodies. She hadn’t moved through this process, hadn’t averted her eyes. Then, briskly, she turned back to Cassidy. ‘This was an execution,’ she surmised. ‘They could have shot to kill in the first place. But they wanted it clean.’

It wasn’t news to Rosewood, but the confirmation from a veteran of the Orion Syndicate was enough to sink a chill down his spine. He folded his arms across his chest and looked over to Cassidy. ‘Whoever did this picked this spot. Knew how to avoid being sighted. What was broken. What hadn’t been fixed yet. That takes familiarity.’

It was Aryn who answered, snapping his tricorder shut. ‘Industrial worker locals?’

Nallera scoffed. ‘Yeah, because industrial workers are definitely gonna be the ones to target city planners.’

‘I’m not saying that’s a motivation,’ he stammered. ‘But it’d explain the familiarity.’

Cassidy raised a hand sharply. Then he turned back to Venn, crunching across the alleyway. ‘Bet you don’t get a lot of murders in Alpha Centauri City.’

‘Sure,’ said Venn, eyes guarded. ‘But what’s normal these days? Still. I’m sure it’s something the likes of your unit are more used to.’

Cassidy didn’t correct her. ‘It’s why we were called in,’ he agreed mildly. ‘We’re assuming this investigation under the Starfleet Emergency Reconstruction Protocols. We’ll need your office to keep up the forensics – sweep the area, check out the bodies, basic door-to-door. But we’ll need all the files, comms records, everything you’ve got and you get.’

‘Of course you do.’ Her exhaustion was palpable, but Rosewood couldn’t read an objection in her voice. Just a quiet acceptance. If Cassidy noticed, he didn’t seem to care, gesturing to the Rooks to follow him back out of the alleyway.

The forensic field shimmered anew as they passed it, then reset itself, blocking any view of death from the wider city. As they passed through the cordon, the city opened up, wide and grey, the industrial sprawl humming to life. It had been battered, Rosewood thought, but not beaten. Work and life here persisted.

Cassidy hit his combadge, calling for the vehicle that had dropped them off to circle back around. He didn’t break his stride, leading the Rooks down the pavement. ‘Time to get to work. Chief, I want you checking what surveillance footage we do have of the local area for something that could transport three bodies, and within that time-frame.’

‘An industrial vehicle that could move bodies?’ she asked dubiously.

‘That was around here at 0400,’ he pointed out. ‘I know, it’s a needle in a haystack. Which is why, Aryn: compile every functioning surveillance cam within the five-klick radius. Private, public, anything that gives us eyes on the area.’

‘We don’t have private feeds,’ he pointed out.

‘I’ll handle that,’ said Cassidy. ‘We’ve got the authority local law enforcement don’t. Starfleet investigation during time of emergency rebuilding. Once I know what to requisition, folks are gonna give it over. Then: we watch every inch of that footage.’

‘Yay,’ drawled Nallera.

He ignored her and turned to Rosewood. ‘This was targeted. Three local government aides labelled traitor? You know this city. You know its politics. Find out why.’

‘I doubt,’ drawled Rosewood, ‘this is about historical beef. This is about the war.’

‘Then find out what they did in the war,’ said Cassidy, as if explaining this to a child.

Q’ira’s eyes were sweeping the street. ‘I’ll make myself useful,’ she said vaguely, and Cassidy didn’t challenge her.

There was a beat of silence. Around the corner, the car that had dropped them off swept into view. It was Nallera who broke that silence, not just of the moment, but the silence that had been upon them all since Cassidy had issued the summons.

‘Okay,’ she said, frowning. ‘But… why us? This isn’t an op. This isn’t a warzone, or extracting or neutralising an HVT. Why the hell are we investigating murders?’

The car swooped down. Slowed to a halt. Cassidy watched it, not responding. Only when the door opened did he speak – when there were ears to hear them, Rosewood thought. An excuse to make his response measured.

‘You saw what was on the wall,’ Cassidy said as he slid in the back of the vehicle. ‘Either there’s traitors about. Or a witch-hunt about. I wouldn’t trust the local cops to handle that.’

‘You never know,’ said Rosewood with a levity he didn’t feel, and clambered onto the bench beside Cassidy. ‘We might get lucky.’

‘That this is a misunderstanding?’ said Aryn, doubtful.

‘Hell, no,’ Rosewood scoffed, closing the door behind the Rooks as they boarded. ‘I mean, it might be both.’