She found him as they had always found one another these past few weeks: alone in the dark, with only strategy plans and intelligence reports for company in the deep nest of the Rookery.

‘Come to also tell me why I’m wrong?’ Rosewood didn’t need to turn around to know it was her. He stood over the projector, hands on the panel, shoulders hunched, face closer to the display than he needed. In truth, he wasn’t reading much.

He heard Ranicus pause in the doorway. Could imagine her calculating, doubtless wondering how far she could push, whether he would snap and lash out again. The thought wearied him more than he’d expected.

Then she said, ‘What are you wrong about?’ and his shoulders locked.

Rosewood rocked back and scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘Everything.’

She advanced slowly, moving not quite to his side. Near, but he would have to turn to see her as more than a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t move. Not yet.

‘Not just wrong, then.’ Her voice was light, but he heard the edge. ‘Arrogant and wrong.’

His jaw set. ‘Okay, I wasn’t actually signing up for more kicking -’

‘Wrong about everything, Rosewood? That’s a tall order. Wrong about your priorities and how you’ve been treating people? Perhaps.’ She paused again. ‘No, definitely wrong. But that’s not everything.’

He turned at last, nausea coiling in him. ‘Thanks. Very reassuring.’

Her gaze was less sharp than he’d expected. ‘Did you want reassurance?’

‘I want…’ The void opened up before him. He pinched the bridge of his noise, and turned back to the display. ‘I want this over. And it will be, soon. But first, we need to not fuck up this plan.’

‘Sit down.’

‘What?’

‘You’re exhausted and useless like this – sit down.’

That was a commander’s voice, the voice of a woman accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed. Clumsily, Rosewood stumbled to one of the comfortable, battered armchairs of the Rookery, and sank down. At once, his muscles called out in surrender, desperate for rest, and he knew he would not easily rise again.

Ranicus stood before the display, the bright files and images bursting a halo around her raven-black hair. ‘Pity and self-doubt won’t help you. They never have. You’ve been pushing through them with brute force the last few weeks. I’m not surprised it’s caught up with you.’

His lips twisted. ‘I know, I know – I spat in your face when you told me I was focusing too much on Drehm -’

‘Before that. When you agonised about launching this mission. After we saw Drehm flatten those homes. You did what a soldier needed to do, and you pushed it to one side and did the job. And I gave you space to do it. Something else to focus on.’

Rosewood blinked. Where others had either abandoned him to his brooding or attempted to make him talk, engage – coddled him, to his reckoning – she had given him space to work. To be useful. To keep moving. He just hadn’t realised how aware she’d been of what she was doing.

‘It’s like,’ he said, his mouth feeling thick, ‘you were the XO of a starship for years. And know how to handle people.’

‘It is, indeed, like I know how to handle people.’ She followed through by handing him a bottle of water.

When he drank, he realised how parched he was. He drank some more. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, because he meant it and because he couldn’t say it right then to Aryn.

‘You’re not the first officer to block out perspectives he didn’t want to hear. Couldn’t hear.’

Rosewood glanced up. ‘Was this how it was last year?’ he asked. ‘At Izar? With Jericho?’

Her mouth set. ‘I fought you harder than Jericho.’

‘I wasn’t apologising just for that, though. But for what I said. I was -’

‘Trying to shut me out by hurting me. It’s not an original play.’ Ranicus hesitated. ‘That doesn’t make it ineffective.’

He sighed and slumped. ‘I don’t have time to feel like this.’

Gingerly, she pulled up another seat. He noted she eschewed the battered, comfortable old furniture or bean bags one would sink in, for one of the hard-backed chairs. ‘Saying that for too long is a fine way to break at a time you can least afford to.’

‘I was wrong. We were wrong. I made Drehm into this… this monster, the focal point of everything, the sum of all evil, because then – if he was all of that, then he could be destroyed. And then the evil goes with him. But this is more than that. Bigger than that.’ Rosewood pressed the cool water bottle to his right eye, feeling it soothe a persistent throb. ‘The Vaadwaur are both like nothing we’ve ever faced before, and… the same. Even if we push them back through Underspace, blockade the damned thing, banish them to the Delta Quadrant… there’ll be something else. Klingons. Cardassians. Dominion. There’s no easy solution.’

‘Not for everything,’ she said. ‘Which is why you put one foot in front of the other. Right now, you don’t have to save the galaxy. You don’t even have to save Alpha Centauri.’ When he looked at her, he found her eyes on the display in the middle of the room. ‘You just have to blow up one more thing.’

A smirk tugged at his lips, unbidden. ‘That easy, huh?’ He shook his head wryly. ‘You’ve made it that easy, you know that? When we’ve all been losing our heads and chasing shadows, you’ve kept our operations tight. Our briefings focused. Our plans effective.’

She shifted her weight. ‘That’s my job.’

‘And you deserve a better one than this.’ His eyes raked over the gloomy closeness of the Rookery. ‘Penned in on a scout ship with a group of semi-disgraced operators.’

‘You’re not semi-disgraced,’ she pointed out. ‘You could have had your own damned ship instead of this, Rosewood. But you’re here.’

He heard the unspoken question. Normally, he would have let it lie, avoided any answer unless he had absolutely no alternative. The masks and evasion felt even more exhausting, though.

Rosewood shook his head. ‘That’s the stupid thing. I wanted to get my hands dirty. Step away from the big picture for a while. Focus on what’s right in front of me. And here I am, wondering about the fate of the whole galaxy, instead.’

‘Once this is over, you could probably say one word to Rourke and he’d get you a new assignment. Liberty needs a new XO, after all.’

It should have been tempting. He wasn’t sure why it wasn’t. ‘Maybe,’ he said, evading this time not just with her, but himself. ‘But the team’s already down one for this mission. And I don’t know who I trust to have our backs in the field when the stakes are high.’

‘Do you trust Jakorr?’

He grimaced. ‘Jakorr wants to prove himself and his way too badly. I trust him behind the Blackbird’s guns. Probably even running the Blackbird. But not with a rifle by my side. Not… not now. Not for this. Not yet.’

She nodded, gaze thoughtful. Then she said, ‘Do you trust me?’ As he looked at her, surprised, her lips quirked. ‘For this. One foot in front of the other.’

‘You’ve been with us this far.’ It felt right, more right than he’d expected. Rosewood gave an awkward nod. ‘Why not til the end?’

She nodded. Tiarith Ranicus was not prone to smiles, but something glinted in her eyes, some amusement or satisfaction. It was fleeting, though, as she stood and turned back to the display. ‘Then we need a plan so it’s not our end.’

Rosewood got to his feet, his shoulders feeling a little lighter. ‘Let’s get to work.’