Two weeks before their deployment to the Shackleton Expanse, Counsellor Dhanesh had taken a leave of absence for family affairs. Valance hadn’t been concerned at the time, anticipating a deep-space exploration mission defined more by surveys and diplomatic meetings than trauma and threat.

Now she sat at the head of the table in a conference room with an empty chair, hands clasped before her, and surveyed her gathered senior staff and guests. Beyond the tall windows to her left, the asteroids of this accursed belt hung in space, still and steady, distant rocks and dust and death.

‘I assisted Lieutenant Jain in his sweep of the ship,’ Commander Walker was saying, voice light as he explained how he’d stepped in to support the leaderless Security Department. ‘We confirm what sensors have said: there is no sign aboard of Commander Logan.’

Valance’s gaze flickered to Kharth, sat at her right hand. Her XO was still and stiff, pale and silent, vivid marks at her throat visible under the uniform collar. The summons to a briefing had made it clear her presence was optional. Valance wasn’t sure what else to do beyond that.

‘This was a great time,’ growled Caede, ‘for Lieutenant Qadir to take up that Starfleet Advanced Tactical training course.’

Walker looked over sharply. ‘Personnel isn’t the issue, Centurion. Commander Thawn confirmed internal systems and sensors are all operating perfectly.’

Thawn grimaced. ‘I – yes.’ She, too, looked tired and pale, and it took Valance a moment to remember her Chief Engineer hadn’t so much as left the ship. ‘There’s no sign of transporter activity or anything, either.’

‘People don’t just disappear,’ snapped Caede. ‘Someone’s not looking hard enough.’

Airex cleared his throat, and while Walker was bristling, that was enough to silence the table. ‘Research by myself and Lieutenant Beckett into these “Vezda” offers some answers.’ He glanced between Valance and the main display. ‘May I?’

She nodded and watched him as he stood, body language ginger. His gaze kept flickering to Kharth. She’d seen him approach her in the corridor before the meeting, only for Kharth to visibly brush him off.

But as he spoke, his stance settled into the collected professionalism she knew and relied upon. He ran through a swift summary of the USS Enterprise’s encounter with Vezda, admitting some details were classified, of murky relevance, or poorly substantiated at the time.

‘With regards to the fissure, at least, the involvement of the Vezda is illuminating,’ he continued. ‘The Vezda were masters of technology that affected interdimensional space, and what we know of it in both design and aesthetics matches the array in the facility.’

Cortez nodded, looking more settled as they focused on the investigation rather than Logan. ‘Yeah,’ she piped up. ‘It matches if the Vezda gave these aliens the blueprints for the array, and they built it following the exact schematics. They didn’t need to understand what they were doing, not fully. Which explains why the facility’s so primitive, and the array… isn’t.’

Valance looked down the table at her. ‘Any progress in identifying these builders?’

She looked abashed. ‘Still trying to crack the freighter’s systems. I’ve gone for ripping out key components and bringing them aboard. This might take a while. But…’ Cortez hopped to her feet and went to join Airex. ‘The Vezda involvement explains one other thing: the beacon. Or, the weird geography of all this.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Airex nodded, and swiped the display over to their subspace map. ‘The USS Enterprise believed that the Vezda operated through what were referred to as “ley-lines” – subspace folds. They could travel through these ley-lines across vast distances.’

‘Vezda use ley-lines. Subspace folds are ley-lines. This facility is on a fold, the beacon is on a fold, Vadia is on a fold,’ Cortez summarised quickly. ‘Maybe they couldn’t build the facility where they built the beacon? That’d take construction of an entire deep-space station from scratch, and these guys don’t seem very advanced.’

Valance’s lips pursed. ‘To what end?’

The two exchanged looks. Airex grimaced. ‘It’s unclear. I’m not yet sure what the fissure was supposed to do.’

‘Maybe just go boom.’ Cortez shrugged. ‘Records say there’s an interdimensional prison in the Vadia system? Perhaps this was a jailbreak.’

‘I want to point something out,’ piped up Beckett. He sat with PADDs laid out before him, his jaw tight as he looked up and down the table. ‘I’ve read up on the Vezda. As much as we have. They’re powerful and they’re malevolent. Interdimensional beings brought into our space who used their harmful influence so vastly that cultures across the galaxy view them as a… a primordial evil.’

Airex nodded, relaxing a little – not, Valance thought, at Beckett’s words, but because he agreed. ‘They are clearly intelligent. But we should not presume them to have a predictable set of motivations. They are deeply alien.’

‘Potentially beyond our comprehension,’ Beckett carried on, nodding. ‘There are theories that they literally feed on the emotions of suffering; that pain and torment of sapient beings sustains them -’

‘I don’t give a fuck.’

All eyes snapped down the table towards Kharth. This was the first time she’d spoken, and her eyes were locked on Airex, bright, accusing. ‘How do we find this thing? How do we find Jack?’

Airex froze. Valance saw him exchange a quick glance with Beckett, who slumped down in his chair, before he cleared his throat. ‘Sae…’

‘Commander Airex.’ Kharth’s expression didn’t shift. ‘You have theories.’

He swallowed. ‘As the records say. We believe the Vezda are capable of traversing across ley-lines. Even when… inhabiting someone. The Enterprise reported a Vezda able to reconstitute its embodied form over a distance of dozens of light-years.’

Valance frowned, unsure what was wrong-footing her about his words, but Kharth pressed on, leaning forward.

‘So it teleported through subspace folds. And you can’t trace it?’

Airex worked his jaw. ‘No,’ he admitted at length. ‘I don’t know how.’

‘This facility,’ ventured Cortez gingerly, ‘sits on several subspace folds. If this thing could jump across them, it could be… we don’t even have a full mapping of subspace in the Expanse…’

Kharth looked up and down the table coolly. ‘There’s something else,’ she said at length. ‘Something you’re not -’

‘Commander.’ Airex sounded pained.

‘Beckett looks like he’s going to piss himself -’

Valance raised her hands. ‘I think that’s enough for now -’

‘Tell me.’ Kharth glowered up at Airex.

Valance had never seen Airex look so trapped before. But under her withering, desperate glare, he swallowed, straightened his uniform, and said, ‘Jack Logan is dead.’

Silence met his words, humming through the conference room. Cortez took a slinking step away, closer to the windows, out of the centre of attention. Airex shifted his weight, then turned smoothly to the display screen and started scrolling through files. ‘All indications from the Enterprise’s records are that the process of Vezda possession is fatal. Ensign Gamble was reportedly dead by the time he was beamed aboard.’

Kharth stared for a beat more, then turned in her chair to look down the table. ‘Starik?’

The Vulcan’s expression did not move. ‘I would need to review this additional information further,’ he said. ‘However, the medical readings of Commander Logan were… inexplicable. Odd neurological functions. The failure of the ocular regeneration equipment to function would align with a complete collapse in biological processes -’

‘You said it was weird because he’s Borg.’ Kharth’s head snapped up and down. ‘This is from one incident, a hundred and fifty years ago, on a normal human – you can’t write him off…’

‘I was trying to talk to you about this,’ Airex said in a low voice, ‘before the briefing…’

But she wasn’t listening, eyes on the scrolling reports. ‘Gamble was shot,’ she pointed out a moment later. ‘It’s impossible to be sure -’

‘Enough.’ Valance stood, and was relieved that this meant she didn’t have to raise her voice. All eyes fell on her, the gazes of her senior staff a mix of relieved, horrified, apprehensive. She drew a slow breath. ‘Endeavour will proceed to the rendezvous with the rest of the squadron. Along the way, we’ll try to trace the facility’s builders. That’s our next best lead to make sense of this.’ She looked down the table, and her chest tightened. ‘Commander Walker. We’re short-handed at Tactical. I’d be obliged if you stepped in for the time-being.’

The young officer gave a level nod. ‘Whatever I can do to help, ma’am.’

Valance hesitated. There were more questions. Torkath, the fissure, how far Enterprise’s records went. Instead, she said, ‘Dismissed.’ They had days to dig through data. Days to process.

As the staff stirred around her, she leaned towards Kharth, who stood with her hands planted on the table, unmoving. ‘You’re off duty until we get to the rendezvous.’

Kharth’s eyes flashed. ‘I don’t -’

‘You are not an expert on the anthropological investigation of the builders or the Vezda,’ said Valance, voice low and flat, knowing she was relying on the rest of the staff’s dwindling presence to keep things civil. ‘Or the engineering team’s investigation of the facility’s technology. And this isn’t a request.’

At the venomous look she got before Kharth walked briskly out, Valance wondered if her XO would ever forgive her. She closed her eyes, bracing on the table, and let out a slow, quivering breath now she was alone.

Then Cortez, who’d stayed in the corner and not moved, cleared her throat. ‘Uh. You don’t need my validation. But that was the right call.’

Her eyes snapped open, and she turned. ‘Commander.’

Cortez grimaced, hands raised apologetically. ‘I weren’t trying to hide. I just – I wanted a second.’ At Valance’s wrong-footed stare, she shifted. ‘I’m sorry. For calling you by your first name over comms. When shit was going down at the facility.’

It would have been a lie for Valance to pretend she’d not noticed or forgotten. She shook her head. ‘There was a lot going on.’

Cortez gave a ginger nod. ‘I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Torkath in this. You talked him down, but… you know, it’s my fault? I’m the one he’s blaming? He wanted me to crack the doors open when Logan and Brok’tan were trapped in there, not try to mess with the power containment…’ She faltered. ‘If it was actually a Vezda trapped in the core, or something… maybe he was right…’

‘You’re the best engineer I know,’ Valance said bluntly. ‘I’d trust your judgement in a crisis with unknown technology over anyone. Especially Torkath’s, when he’s hurt and mistrusting and furious and looking for someone to blame.’

There was a pause as Cortez nodded, her crestfallen expression wavering. She sounded more guarded when she said, ‘And Sae is gonna blame him. He interfaced with the core containment systems right when that thing… woke up.’

‘When, maybe, this was nothing we understood or could understand,’ Valance said softly. ‘And maybe this was nobody’s fault but the Vezda’s.’

‘Maybe.’ Cortez grimaced. ‘But maybe he did wake it up. And maybe I let it out. And maybe we don’t just got a dead friend, and an interdimensional telepathic monster on the loose.’

Valance cocked her head. ‘No?’

‘Maybe,’ said Cortez, voice taut, ‘we also got ourselves a blood feud.’