Captain’s Log, Supplemental:

 

While Constellation orbits the planet Trill, our away team has beamed down to collect all of Doctor Marl Trojet’s artificial wormhole research materials.  Between Fourth Fleet Intelligence and my own confidants from the Trill Science Ministry, we have secured authority to take carriage of the wormhole research until we can be certain the threat of the Lost Fleet has passed.  By our estimates, only a fraction of the Dominion’s Lost Fleet escaped the Bajoran wormhole before Trojet’s artificial wormhole quickly collapsed under its own instability.  

 

Although the Dominion forces in the Deneb Sector have surrendered by the orders of their Founders in the Gamma Quadrant, we have no way to know how much the Lost Fleet learned of the artificial wormhole before they destroyed Trojet’s science ship.  

 

Would the Founders make the same decision again if they knew what size an army remained lost in the Bajoran wormhole?

 

Chief Engineering Pagaloa has requested aid in sourcing deuterium injectors from Starfleet’s facilities on Trill.  Without Commander Rayco by my side, the Constellation barely survived the Battle of Fairpoint.  Even though our next destination is simply a drydock, Pagaloa doesn’t believe he can give me cruising speed above warp three until he can secure replacement parts.

Upon materialising inside the equipment storage chamber with the rest of the away team, Lieutenant Leander Nune expected to find little more than a memory brick of bioneural gel chips and a hand-held scanner or two.  Surely, Doctor Trojet had taken up a storage unit to securely retain the computer records of his controversial research and designs.  Nune hadn’t even thought to clip a tricorder to his hip in the transporter room, because he anticipated his journey to Trill to require only minutes in the single digits.

It had taken nearly an hour to examine every corner of the crowded, windowless, ramshackle laboratory that had been assembled in Trojet’s storage unit.  Although the equipment was modern enough, it had been gathered on a collection of modular furniture that appeared to have been reclaimed from the reception area of a distressingly tedious medical office.  There was even a joyless cot in one corner.

Abandoned on a torturous-looking chair, a miniature deflector dish sat waiting for Science Officer Nune’s inspection.  Its interior was constructed with subspace field coils of a design he’d never observed in his entire previous career as a Starfleet engineer.  Nune took hold of the dish to examine it more closely.  He presumed this was a model of the subspace field coils that were retrofitted into the science ship Sef when it opened the artificial wormhole that released the Dominion’s Lost Fleet.

“Such a little thing, yet such terror,” Nune breathed out, speaking to the miniaturised deflector dish.  He looked up when he felt Laken staring at him.  In Flavia’s absence, Taes had selected Cosmologist Laken ir-Nesthai as the crew’s liaison officer to the Romulan Free State scientists in Constellation’s crew.  Nune could feel a warmth to Laken’s gaze that Flavia had lacked, even if his sharp Romulan eyebrows tended to rest in a patronising position.

Blinking repeatedly at the absurdity of it, Nune said, “One day a scientist designed an innovative twist in a field coil and then I think I’m going to die.  I spent weeks in the Delta Quadrant with psychic ghosts in my head telling me that I was going to die –that I deserved to die– but I never believed it more than when that Jem’Hadar battleship filled our viewscreen at Farpoint.”

Nune winced and he cradled the deflector dish close to his chest.

Laken cocked his head to the left.

“Did you really?” Laken asked, his lips curling.

“When Cellar Door was damaged,” Nune said, nodding for emphasis, “I lost all hope.  I know it takes over a minute for his system to reboot.  The second last thing I expected was for Yuulik to take the CONN.  The last thing I expected was for Yuulik to perfectly execute evasive pattern iota.”

Pursing his lips tightly, Laken shook his head at Nune.  He locked eyes with Nune and he held his gaze without blinking.

“Don’t speak like that,” Laken firmly said.  “Yuulik knew how to run and hide.  Obviously.  You were the one providing tactical coordinates to Commander Ache.  We wouldn’t have destroyed so many Jem’Hadar fighters without you calculating her targets where their engines had been damaged by the Bajoran wormhole’s verteron nodes.”

Nune shrugged.  “An educated guess.  It doesn’t make me brave.”

Laken squinted at Nune when he said that and then he walked away.  Soon after, Laken returned with a storage case that he opened on the floor.  He closed the distance between himself and Nune, reaching for the edges of the deflector dish, where Nune was holding it up.  Laken clasped his hands over Nune’s hands.

“I will assist you,” Laken said.

Between them, Nune and Laken lowered the deflector dish between the protective pads inside the storage case.  They crouched low to push the dish all the way in, their noses nearly touching along the way.

“What does it feel like,” Laken asked softly, “to express vulnerability?  I wouldn’t know.”

Nune breathed out a, “huh,” and he frowned at Lake.  It wasn’t an expression of displeasure, only bemused curiosity.  He closed the flap of the storage case and tapped the side to activate the transporter tag.  After taking a step back, the case dematerialised, beamed up to a cargo bay aboard Constellation.

Squinting at Laken, Nune said, “It’s not something I consciously think about.  I speak aloud whatever I’m feeling, even if it’s weakness.  Growing up on Betazed, radical honesty is all I knew.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Laken pursed his lips.  The way it twisted his face was somewhere between a smirk and a sneer.

“I can’t decide if that sounds like a nightmare or folklore,” Laken said with a shake of his head.  Speaking of his upbringing on Romulus, he added, “My parents used to threaten to ship me off to a colony moon where lying was punished by death.  Clearly, no such place had ever existed in the Star Empire.  Clearly.”

Taking a step closer to Laken, Nune said, “Being expected to hide my feelings, my shame, sounds too exhausting.  Life is too long for all of that.  Celebrating vulnerability is how we empathise with one another.  For myself, it gives me less reason for fear.  I could have battled the Jem’Hadar for another week at Farpoint when USS Atlantis led our allied reinforcements with the rallying cry of: May humanity after victory be the predominant feature of the Fourth Fleet.  Our allies couldn’t have come to our aid if not for the crew of Atlantis telling them: we’re not strong enough without you.”

Eyebrow raised, Laken replied, “Vulnerability is a rare privilege of this Federation society.  Beyond your borders, it’s uncommon.  Untenable.  No one else can afford it.  Most cannot afford the luxury of risking their positions or livelihoods by expressing any thought their superiors despise.  Your strength would cost you everything in Romulan society.”

“So what would it take,” Nune said, the emotion coming through the raspy edge to his voice, “to lower your defences?”

Laken blinked.  “The voice of D’ravsai.  The Great Brothers themselves would have to tell me in their own voices that it was safe to do so.  The way the Jem’Hadar only surrendered to the Gamma Quadrant because their gods, the Founders, told them to do so.  That.  That’s what it would take.”