Auditions

ACHEBE(a beat; he's noticed the console)That's the Ben Nevis recording.

ISHARAIt is.

ACHEBEHow many times have you listened to it?

ISHARAThis morning, or in total?

ACHEBEI'm starting to think I don't want either number.

ISHARA(standing; the chair creaks)Forty-three. This morning.

ACHEBEAnd?

ISHARAAnd Merryc Russell was the most unflappable officer I ever served near. In twenty years I never heard that voice rise above a conversation. (beat) Something frightened an admiral, Commander. Let's go and meet it.

ISHARAWith respect, Admiral, a task force of one is just a ship with extra paperwork.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)The paperwork is the point. It gives you authority over every Federation outpost, colony charter and survey claim in the Expanse. You'll need it. The Cardassians have sent "archaeologists," the Orions are running freight nobody has licensed, and I have reports of cloaked vessels that don't match any known signature.

ISHARARomulan?

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)I didn't say that.

ISHARAYou also didn't say not.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered; a pause)Ishara. I asked for you for this command. Not because of the Akira class, and not because of your record in the fleet. Because of the other record. The one I'm not supposed to have read.

ISHARA(carefully)Then you'll understand, Admiral, that I left that work behind for a reason.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)I understand it. I'm asking you to remember it anyway. Find out what happened to Merryc. Okafor-Hill out.

ISHARA(to herself)"Such as it is."

ACHEBEYour mother said I'd find you here.

RORY(not turning)She sent you to talk me round, didn't she? Because I'm young and stupid.

ACHEBEShe said you were stubborn and brave, and both of those are problems. (beat) Whose grave?

RORYMy dad's. Mining accident, three years ago. He's the one who told me about Volan. He was six when they left. He used to say he could remember the smell of the rain.

ACHEBE(gently)I'm sorry.

RORYEveryone's sorry. Starfleet's always sorry. (beat) If we leave, who looks after him?

ACHEBE(slowly; really thinking)When my grandmother died, we scattered her ashes on the Niger. We couldn't take her anywhere, so we took her everywhere. My mother still says goodnight to the river, and she lives in Birmingham. (beat) A place is only as permanent as the people who remember it, Rory.

RORY(a long pause)That's a very Starfleet thing to say.

ACHEBEI'm a very Starfleet person. I'm working on it.

ACHEBEWe paid a smuggler, Captain. With Starfleet property.

ISHARAWe paid him with patterns, Commander. Data. He can copy them a thousand times and sell them to every colony in the Expanse.

ACHEBEThat's rather my point.

LAVIKAnd mine is that there are colonies out here where a child dies of Rigelian fever because nobody can synthesise a four-credit antiviral. If Ghev spreads those patterns out of greed, he still spreads them. I'll take greed that cures people over principle that doesn't.

ACHEBEThat's a very convenient philosophy, Doctor.

LAVIKI'm on my seventh life, Commander. They're all convenient eventually.

ISHARANoted, both of you. Mister Savak, the coordinates.

NANDAKUMAR(a small, nervous laugh)Can I ask you something, Commander? About the captain?

TEY(guarded)You can ask.

NANDAKUMARHer arm. The left one. It makes a noise. I just wondered if—

TEYNo.

NANDAKUMARNo, I shouldn't ask, or—

TEYNo, you shouldn't wonder. Not out loud. Not on this ship. (softer) She's the best captain I've ever served under, Lieutenant. People who've been where she's been have earned their silences. Understood?

DESCHAIN(quiet, driving)You didn't have to come for my son.

TEYYes, I did.

DESCHAINBecause it's your job.

TEYBecause I know what it's like to watch the ground take someone you love.

TEY(slowly)When the Cardassians left Bajor, my village stayed. The soil was poisoned. They'd been dumping mining waste into it for twenty years. Starfleet offered to move us. The Provisional Government offered to move us. My mother said no. This was our land, and we'd earned it. (beat) We stayed two years. My little sister got sick in the first. She died in the second.

DESCHAIN(very quiet)I'm sorry.

TEYEveryone's sorry. (beat) I'm not telling you to leave, Mara. I'm telling you that staying isn't always defiance. Sometimes it's just grief with a flag on it.

KELAnd one Denevan brandy, for the doctor.

LAVIKKel. That's soup.

KELThat's plomeek soup. Every replicator on Deck 7 makes plomeek soup now. Whatever you order. I asked for a spanner earlier and got a bowl of plomeek soup.

LAVIKDid you try asking for plomeek soup?

KELI did. It gave me a spanner.

TEYTen credits, Doctor. Right on the replicators. I'm buying.

LAVIKWhat are you buying?

TEY(dryly)Soup.

LAVIK(a beat; quieter)How bad is it, Ranna? Really?

BRENNANThat's thirty-one, Doctor. Twenty crew and eleven colonists. Most of them on Deck 4, but now there's two on Deck 6 and one on the bridge.

LAVIKThank you, Neela.

BRENNAN(a pause)…It's Aoife, Doctor.

LAVIKWhat?

BRENNANYou called me Neela.

LAVIK(a beat; then, lightly)Did I? Neela was a nurse I worked with. Not in this life. Two hosts ago. On Trill, during the… during the…

LAVIK(slower)…It'll come to me.

BRENNAN(quietly)Doctor. Sit down.

LAVIKI'm perfectly—

BRENNANSit down, Doctor. Please.

BRENNANWhat's your name?

LAVIK(steady)Seren Lavik.

NANDAKUMAR(beat)Can I ask you something?

GRELLYou're going to anyway.

NANDAKUMARWhy do you argue with me about everything? Actually, not just me. Everyone. But mostly me.

GRELL(a genuine pause; the engines hum)On Tellar, if you agree with someone, it means you're not listening. You're being polite. Polite is what you are to strangers and to people you've given up on. (beat) If I argue with you, Lieutenant, it means I think you're worth arguing with.

NANDAKUMAR(quiet; surprised)…Oh.

GRELLDon't let it go to your head. You still fly like a startled Targ.

NANDAKUMAR(smiling)Thank you, Lieutenant.

GRELLThat wasn't a compliment.

NANDAKUMARIt was, though.

GRELL(cheerful through gritted teeth)Right! Everyone strapped in? Excellent. Please keep your arms and legs inside the runabout, and your opinions about my flying to yourselves.

LAVIKLieutenant, my medical kit just went through the ceiling.

GRELLThat's not the ceiling, Doctor. That's the floor. We're upside down.

LAVIKWhy are we upside down?

GRELLBecause the shear is right side up! Trust me!

SAVAK(calm, reading a tricorder)Fascinating.

ACHEBESavak, please tell me "fascinating" means good.

SAVAKIt means the shear is not random, Commander. It pulses. Every forty-one seconds. And it is strongest at a point roughly two kilometres beneath the colony.

TEYBeneath?

NANDAKUMAR(too fast)She's— good, Captain. She's very good. Impulse is steady at one-quarter, approach vector's locked, and I haven't hit anything.

GRELL(from the flight ops station, delighted)Yet.

NANDAKUMARI haven't hit anything yet, Lieutenant Grell, thank you.

GRELLYou're very welcome. Two degrees high on your pitch, by the way.

NANDAKUMARI'm not two degrees high.

GRELLOne point eight. I round up for emphasis.

ACHEBE(amused, low)They've been like this since Starbase 234.

ISHARAI know. I've been reading the betting sheet.

NANDAKUMAR(half to herself, looking at readings)The pulsar came back.

GRELLYes, we all heard. Everyone on the ship heard. People on Earth heard.

NANDAKUMARNo, listen. It went out, then came back, along the leads. It found a frequency the ice liked and rode it, the way a signal rides a carrier wave. Commander Savak's recording has the exact frequency.

GRELLSo?

NANDAKUMARSo if the ice likes that frequency, the opposite frequency is the one it hates. If we invert the pulsar's harmonic and pump it through the Tryfan's warp field—

GRELL(catching up)—The ice pushes away from us instead of closing in. (beat) That's either brilliant or it'll turn us into a very small, very cold star.

NANDAKUMARIs that a "no"?

GRELLThat's a Tellarite "yes." Do it.

ISHARASo was I, once. Mister Savak, what's the Expanse doing today?

SAVAKBeing unhelpful, Captain. Long-range sensors are degraded beyond four light-years. The subspace distortions are consistent with the survey data, except where they are not.

ISHARAThat's a very Vulcan way of saying you don't know.

SAVAKIt is a precise way of saying that no one knows. I considered that more useful.

SAVAKThe coupling is a deflector resonance assembly. Starfleet design, Sovereign-era pattern, used only on ships built after 2375. The serial prefix matches the USS Ben Nevis.

ACHEBE(quietly)Then we've found her. A piece of her.

SAVAKThere is something else. The coupling has been exposed to an energy source I cannot identify. The metal has been altered at a molecular level. And there are markings.

TEYMarkings?

SAVAKBurned into the housing. Not etched; burned, as if by intense, focused energy. They are not Starfleet, not any Federation script, and not any script in my database.

HOLTWe thought it was scorch damage.

SAVAKIt is not scorch damage, Foreman. It is writing.

THE VOICE(filtered; warm, unhurried, kindly)Good evening, Doctor Merek. I hope I'm not interrupting.

MEREKYou always are. That's what you pay me for.

THE VOICE(filtered, amused)Fair. How is our wall?

MEREKLonger than I thought. And stranger. There's a symbol at the base of the lower chamber, a concentric circle. It's repeated here eleven times.

THE VOICE(filtered; a pause, and the warmth sharpens by a degree)Eleven. You're certain?

MEREKI'm Cardassian. We're always certain. Occasionally we're right.

THE VOICE(filtered)Record every instance. Every line. I'll need it all. (beat) And, Doctor. A Starfleet vessel will arrive in orbit tomorrow to evacuate the colony. I'd rather they didn't know what you've found.

MEREKStarfleet? Why would I hide an archaeological dig from Starfleet?

THE VOICE(filtered, gently)Because I'm asking, and I'm paying. And because some doors, Doctor, should only be opened by people who understand what's on the other side.

MEREK(alone; to herself)…And who exactly understands that?

MEREK(from the darkness, unbothered)If you're going to shoot me, Commander, please don't do it near the east wall. It's two hundred thousand years old and considerably more interesting than I am.

MEREKDoctor Ilani Merek. Archaeologist. Cardassian, obviously, as you'll have noticed from the look on your face.

TEYYou don't have a face I'd forget.

MEREKNobody ever does. (dry) You're Bajoran. So we'll skip the part where you pretend you don't hate me.

TEYI don't hate you. I don't know you.

MEREKThat's generous. And also, I suspect, untrue.

SAVAK(ignoring them both; tricorder chirping)Commander. The inscriptions.

TEYWhat about them?

RHIN(cheerful, loud)Captain! Commander! Come and meet the most beautiful weapon in the fleet!

ACHEBE(under his breath)Here we go.

ISHARACommander Rhin, we have discussed this.

RHINWe have discussed it, Captain. You discussed, and I listened with enormous respect. But look at her. Just look.

ACHEBEIt's whining.

RHINShe's purring. The Chain Reaction Pulsar, Commander. Prototype four. One pulse locks onto an enemy's shield harmonics, disables them, and then jumps to the next ship. And the next. In simulations, she took down a squadron of eight Jem'Hadar attack ships with a single shot.

ISHARAAnd what did prototypes one to three do?

RHIN(a pause)Prototype one was very educational. Prototype two, we don't talk about. Prototype three is why the Utopia Planitia weapons lab has a new roof.

ACHEBEAnd this one?

RHINThis one has never been fired. So as far as anyone knows, she's perfect.

ISHARABexa. I appreciate your enthusiasm. It stays offline until I say otherwise, and I am not going to say otherwise.

RHIN(to the weapon, soothing)She doesn't mean it.

KEL(unsurprised)Captain. The Col is closed, officially.

ISHARAAnd unofficially?

KELUnofficially, I'm always open for people who can't sleep. (a glass set down) Andorian ale?

ISHARATea. Something without an opinion.

KELChamomile, then. The most apolitical plant in the Federation.

KELYou've had a message.

ISHARAHow could you possibly know that?

KELBartenders know two things, Captain: when someone's had bad news, and when someone's had old news. You have the face of someone who's had both at once.

ISHARA(a pause; she drinks)Kel, how long have you been tending bars?

KEL(amused)Longer than you'd believe, and not as long as I'd like. (beat) Can I tell you something I've learnt?

ISHARAI have a feeling you're going to anyway.

KELThe people who hurt us most are rarely strangers. They're the ones who held us up when we were falling, because they know exactly where we'll land when they let go.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)Captain sh'Varen. Welcome to the edge of the map.

ISHARAAdmiral. I understand you've been polite for an hour.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered, a dry smile in her voice)I've been polite for thirty-eight years; one more hour won't kill me. I'll be brief. As of oh-six-hundred today, the Snowdon is the lead ship of Task Force 28.

ISHARATask Force 28 was Rear Admiral Russell's.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)Task Force 28 was the Ben Nevis and three support vessels. Two of those have been recalled for repairs, and the third is a tug. You are Task Force 28 now, Captain. Such as it is.

ISHARAWith respect, Admiral, a task force of one is just a ship with extra paperwork.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)The paperwork is the point. It gives you authority over every Federation outpost, colony charter and survey claim in the Expanse. You'll need it. The Cardassians have sent "archaeologists," the Orions are running freight nobody has licensed, and I have reports of cloaked vessels that don't match any known signature.

ISHARARomulan?

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered)I didn't say that.

ISHARAYou also didn't say not.

OKAFOR-HILL(filtered; a pause)Ishara. I asked for you for this command. Not because of the Akira class, and not because of your record in the fleet. Because of the other record. The one I'm not supposed to have read.

ISHARA(carefully)Then you'll understand, Admiral, that I left that work behind for a reason.

KANE(filtered, Welsh, unflappable)I can get a lock, Captain. What I can't promise is that everything I lock onto arrives in the right order. That shear's scrambling the pattern buffers something awful. I'd not put a person through it. Not unless you want them to arrive with their elbows on the wrong way round.