Chapter Text
A man can’t stop the world, no matter how many holes he’s got in his head.
- The X-Files
Starfleet Intelligence, San Francisco, Earth, Sector 001
Stardate 48202.7 (2371)
The grass around Starfleet HQ was picture book green and the ocean air shimmered with rainbows from the sprinklers. Alien birds with white coats and yellow beaks circled over the squat, grey buildings in the late afternoon. If the sun had worn a crayon smile, Grim wouldn’t have questioned it.
Now that he finally stood on solid ground again, his legs carried him unsteadily away from the shuttle. He didn’t look at it. If he ignored the backdraft from its engines that mussed through his tidy hair, he could pretend it was still on the landing pad. The last link in a chain. He could still follow it back to the other side of the quadrant, where dust and sunshine blended together in a golden haze.
A small horde of cadets from the transport pushed past him. One of them threw him a warding “sorry, doc” before running to catch up with the group. Grim stuck his hands into his empty pockets, glad that he had replicated the uniform before leaving Earth Spacedock after all. The last thing he needed was to find a piece of chalk or some half-eaten ration bar in the middle of his debriefing. He still checked his hands. Spotless.
His feet found the way as if he had walked through Starfleet Security HQ a million times. Grim turned into an unassuming wing tucked to the side of the main complex. He met curious faces above golden collars and plain clothes. Broad shoulders, straight spines, firm steps.
There was an extra security checkpoint Grim had to pass through, a visible sensor gate staffed by two petty officers, both Human. He stopped as he took in the openly displayed phasers and the armored vests they wore over their uniforms.
Soldiers.
They were leaning together for a quiet conversation and cast crumbs of their attention into the crowd.
He shouldn’t have frozen up. It made him look guilty.
The younger of the guards called out to him with a friendly smile, his greeting in some local language instead of Federation Standard. The older guard, a chief, stared at his colleague.
Grim’s universal translator caught a whispered reproach from the chief.
“He’s not Chinese, you idiot.”
The younger guard stiffened uncomfortably.
Grim approached, slowly, keeping his hands away from his pockets.
“Chief. Crewman. I’m supposed to meet Admiral Kang.”
The chief held up his PADD like a shield and spoke to it instead of Grim in a professional tone.
“Lieutenant Commander Grim, no current assignment?”
“Doctor.”
The guard nodded smoothly. “Doctor. Step through here for a security scan, please. The admiral’s office is—”
“I know the way,” Grim said, surprising himself.
The guard narrowed his eyes. “Your file says this is your first visit.”
A pulse began to settle in Grim’s temple, radiating down. Beats in a tune, links in a chain. Irrationally, he wanted to reach into his empty pockets for his work pass from Colonial Affairs.
Instead, Grim shrugged off his tension. He relaxed into an unassuming demeanour to allow the guards to come to their own conclusions.
“Is that what it says? Starfleet Intelligence would know.”
The guards didn’t argue.
The whole, excruciating debrief lasted for barely twenty minutes. Grim could tell because Admiral Kang kept a clock in her office. It was an old-fashioned mechanism with a polished brass disc for a pendulum that caught the glare of the low sun on each upswing. Two gleaming metal weights hung serenely from the carved wooden case. The antique wasn’t even there for the admiral’s benefit; she sat with her back turned to it.
No. The way she was quietly studying Grim’s file now, the reports that were strewn over several PADDs on her desk, the silence in her office rationed out in precise intervals by that clock — chop, chop, chop, on and on — was deliberate. This was supposed to unsettle him.
Now that Grim understood what was going on, he relaxed into his chair.
“Are you pleased with yourself, commander?” she asked without looking up.
Grim tensed, but steered his gaze out the window to avoid the pendulum’s lightning reflections. Deep, glittering, infinite blue as far as he could see, Earth’s alien ocean meeting a busy sky by the coastline. In front of him a glass of lemonade, collecting sweat, replicator-cooled and filled with melting ice. Not a single weapon in the office, unless he counted a large, oddly shaped tassel that Kang used as a paperweight. Its complicated knots held a smooth pebble with a crudely drawn, smiling face on it.
There was no danger here, only in the very abstract sense of annoying an admiral of Starfleet Intelligence. He forced himself to relax.
“Ma’am?”
She gave him a look like a warning shot and then mustered him, up and down.
“You have a medical degree, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not as dumb as you pretend. You must know how much trouble you’ve caused out there.”
Grim, knowing when he was being handed enough rope to hang himself with, held her gaze and spared her his practised excuses.
“Ma’am.”
Kang was severe, with fine black hair fastened into a tight bun, put together so precisely that Grim felt dishevelled by comparison, despite the fresh uniform and haircut.
She continued with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t give me that ‘ma’am’ nonsense, commander. In light of all your humming and hawing just now: Do you understand what you did over there, yes or no?”
Grim breathed evenly, and that kept his voice even. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Elaborate.” She fired the command off quickly, making Grim want to reply just as quickly.
He ignored the urge. She had his reports. She had this debriefing. She wanted more, something personal. Something that wasn’t hers. He let the clock measure out five neat flashes of fire.
“If you are asking why I stayed…”
Perfect little drops of condensation on the glass. Perfectly air conditioned office, perfectly insulated, allowing muffled footsteps and the occasional bout of laughter to seep in.
She flicked up her brows impatiently. “Yes?”
Grim spoke to her smiling paperweight, avoiding the glare of the pendulum behind her. The face on the ornamental pebble was drawn by the small fingers of a child, paint lingering in the recesses where the artist had attempted to fix a mistake. Grim’s lips formed the opening of the Federation Charter. He resisted the urge to mumble. It seemed silly here, where the Federation’s stars and peace wreath glared back at him from every surface.
“We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets determined to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, and for these ends to live together in peace with one another.”
Kang took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. She folded her hands on the table. Judging from her expression she would much rather have buried her face in them.
He continued with a frown of spite in the face of her evident annoyance. “That’s why I went to Starfleet instead of staying with the Trill Health Council. Reaffirm faith in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms. All lifeforms, not just the ones we like.”
He opened his mouth to continue and thought better of it. His fingers went to the insignia on his chest. Circling the delta, brushing over it. He took it off his uniform and put it down in front of Kang.
That seemed to surprise her. Grim continued before she could ask her question.
“People see the delta and know that’s the promise: dignity and worth for everyone. We’ll help, no questions asked.”
Grim thought of Larak. Hoping she’d keep her head down. Of Jerod, who would keep his head down because he couldn’t afford principles. Of Eevo, who was probably in a cell by now, one way or another.
“That’s not how the new Cardassian administration works. They’ve drawn their circle. If you’re outside of that, a Bajoran, a dissenter, a threat or just useless, you’re out. I couldn’t leave my patients to that.”
Not technically a lie, just not the whole truth. A slice of it that might satisfy her appetite. Captain Raymond had swallowed it.
Kang nodded thoughtfully, in time with the clock.
“So you wanted to be what? A shining beacon for all the lost souls in the Demilitarized Zone?”
Ridicule? That stung. Grim set his jaw. “Yes, ma’am. Thought that was the whole point of Starfleet, ma’am.”
She looked amused now. “Hackles down, commander. It is the whole point of us. However…”
Kang pointed out her own combadge. She tapped next to it with two perfectly manicured fingers.
“You’re not any more or less Starfleet than the rest of us. Your job is the health of your crew. Leave the reckless adventuring up to Command.”
Grim couldn’t suppress his scowl fast enough. Kang caught it.
“I promise you, we’re Starfleet all the way up. We all swore on the same charter as you.”
Grim studied the mess of PADDs on her desk. When she continued he could hear her smile, a sad one.
“From where you’re standing, we may look like a bunch of desk jockeys with no idea of the real world. But all you could see was one hospital in one town on one planet of the DMZ.” She indicated a PADD. “More people than you report how ugly it is up close. But I promise you: it would have been far worse for far more people if we hadn’t worked on the big picture from behind these nice, cushy desks.”
Grim should have just yes, ma’am’ed her again. Instead he dug in.
“I couldn’t leave.”
She shook her head. “Commander, you overreached. Somehow you got it into your head that you were alone. That’s the kind of thinking that makes perfectly upstanding officers desert or worse.”
Having lost control over his expression entirely, Grim took a drink. About halfway through his lemonade he had to accept that she wasn’t wrong.
“I guess so, ma’am.”
Kang scoffed. “You don’t have to guess, commander, you can trust the person in the red collar to know. You have to find that trust in Starfleet. In all of us.”
Grim was silent. Thoughtful. He decided to risk saying the tactless thing out loud.
“We just left them. Not all of the Federation colonists resettled, and most of the Bajorans stayed. We’ve abandoned them, ma’am.”
That look again. Like she was trying to figure out if Grim really was as dense as she thought.
“The Demilitarisation Treaty ended a war. You know how the Cardassians circumvent it?”
Grim nodded. “Distributing weapons among civilians. Replacing local police with off-world fanatics. Declaring labour camps as reeducation centres.”
“And do you know how we circumvent it?”
Grim looked up, stunned by the fiery glare behind her.
She grimaced as if he had said something stupid. “Good grief, commander, you didn’t know?”
“I thought we played by the rules,” Grim replied. He had been told before that Starfleet Intelligence had yet to find a rule they couldn’t bend into submission. He hadn’t wanted to believe that.
“You think too much for your own good, doctor,” she quipped pettily. “But I’ll answer the question, if only to catch you up to how your own side works: We slip our operatives in when we provide humanitarian aid. Medics like yourself. When you went and refused your orders, even the Diplomatic Corps thought you were one of mine. Damn near ripped me to shreds.”
Chop. Chop. Chop, went the clock.
“Who was the operative?” he asked tonelessly.
She cocked her head. “You must have guessed by now. You know—knew him as…”
Chop. Chop. Chop. Onwards without pause or respite, a little further, second by second. Kang’s gaze briefly wavered, the first time since Grim had entered.
“… Commander David Williams. My condolences. His reports indicated you were close.”
A brief flare of anger, there and gone, made Grim detest the admiral and her sympathy. Without it he could trace it back, the few days on the U.S.S. Tecumseh, stars blurring past, and then already Ramphast’s hot, dry, gritty air in his lungs, sunburn on his cheeks, a larish pie from the Common Ground in his hands.
“He deserted.”
No.
The headache flared all the way down into the marsupial nerve around his stomach pouch.
Again, Kang’s look — pity. “That’s what you should think. It was vital for his mission to not be associated with Starfleet after a point.”
0200, just over a year ago now. His hands felt sticky and his throat dry. Droplets clung to his empty glass. Crayon splotches, reflections of the desk’s microcosm.
“Was he supposed to recruit me?”
The admiral laughed without mirth, as if Grim had told a bad joke. “Oh dear, no. Someone who comes into my office and recites the Articles of the Federation at me? No. You were exactly where we needed you. My Cardassian counterparts from the Obsidian Order took one look at you and realised you’re not what we call intelligence material.”
He stared at her blankly. “What then? Cannon fodder?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “No, a decoy, Dr Grim. Your obvious ineptitude as a spy made your ‘extended stay’ possible in the first place. And it helped cover Cmdr Williams on a number of occasions. But to give you some closure: David Williams never deserted. He loved the Federation just as fervently as you do. And he tried, successfully, to help the citizens of Ramphast — Galochor now — without dragging them into another war.”
With a nod of her chin she indicated his combadge, still laid out on her desk. “Anyway, would you like that back or is this supposed to be your resignation?”
Grim sucked in a breath. If he resigned there would be nothing holding him back. Larak would kill him if she saw him again.
“I’d like that back, ma’am. If it’s an option.”
She barked a laugh. “After this debriefing? I want you where I can give you orders, commander. Take your insignia…”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“… and give me that black pip.”
“Is that all?” The question came from genuine surprise and was out before Grim could stop it. He reached for his collar, undid the third rank pip from the front and put the shiny, black button down on the desk. It felt warm. His fingers lingered on it for a moment, reluctant to let go.
Kang waved his question away. “You can keep the other two for now. They will be your leash, lieutenant. Starfleet encourages independence and out-of-the-box thinking. The occasional act of insubordination is the price we pay for that. Don’t,” she warned him with a finger like a disruptor, “take that as an endorsement to break the rules whenever you feel like it. You could well have started another hot conflict with your stunt in the DMZ, and thank your gods or whoever else is watching out for you that you didn’t.”
She held him in her gaze like a small animal in a trap. Grim had seen that look before and couldn’t bring himself to fear it. He only needed to convince her of two things: that he wasn’t a threat, and that he was useful.
“Understood, ma’am.”
She released him with the barest tilt of her chin, satisfied with what had evidently been the correct response.
“Good. Let’s move on then. Counsellor Tarrser cleared you for duty, and I won’t give you shore leave after going AWOL for a year. You ship out tomorrow afternoon on the U.S.S. Ambassador. She’ll hand you over to the I.K.S. Orantho for transit through Klingon space to the Shackleton Expanse.”
Grim inclined his head. The Expanse was an unexplored stretch of space on the far side of the allied Klingon Empire. Apart from a deep space station, operated jointly by the Federation and the Klingons, there was nothing but empty sky. He could only see one mission profile there, the one every cadet dreamed of when they signed up: To seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one had gone before.
“A five year mission?” he asked, the incredulity plain on his face.
Kang gave him an amused look. “It’s been known to happen in Starfleet. I want you far away from the Cardassians. Will you take it?”
Grim nodded, processing. It sounded like a reward, and therefore, like a trap. “Can I think about it, ma’am?”
Her face hardened at that. “Doctor, you’ve had plenty of time to think about your options. If you want a choice, you can choose to resign or take the assignment.”
It meant that he could lavish the full power of a warp core on a few dozen people. The idea seemed absurd. He almost laughed.
It meant he couldn’t go back.
“Then I say that it sounds fantastic, ma’am.”
She smiled a victorious smile.
“In that case: Welcome to the U.S.S. K’daha Dale, doctor. A little survey ship. They lost their CMO and need a replacement who can handle complications.”