Slipping the Hook

Posted on Sun Feb 15th, 2026 @ 10:55pm by Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Ensign Aidan "A.J." Reid & Ensign Kevin Mitchell
Edited on on Sun Feb 15th, 2026 @ 11:00pm

4,973 words; about a 25 minute read

Mission: Not All Orders Are Easy
Location: Outer Solar System of current Mission
Timeline: current

The corridor to the runabout dock glimmered with a fresh polish, a faint antiseptic tang threading the recycled air. Lieutenant J.G., Kate Kono led the column, her shoulders squared and hair pulled into a bun, high and tight. The curved bulkhead amplified her voice as she called back, “Mitchell, if you miss our launch window I will personally recommend report duty until the heat death of the universe.”

Ensign Jessica Cockburn and Ensign Christian Smiter struggled to keep up, their standard-issue Type-3 phaser rifles bouncing awkwardly against their backs with each hurried stride. Cockburn's auburn ponytail swung wildly as she adjusted the strap digging into her shoulder, while Smiter's face had reddened from the exertion, sweat already darkening the collar of his gold operations uniform.

Ensign Kevin Mitchell’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing while he picked up the pace behind Kate and AJ. AJ Reid, bringing up the center, whistled low, the sound echoing along the deck plates. “She mean business, starboy,” he said, holding up a hang-loose symbol with his thumb and pinky as they briskly walked the corridor. “You don’ get up and run, is you or me who get clean all them night-soil filters.”

Mitchell gave a nod, letting the banter pass over. He watched the back of Kono and Reid’s heads as they marched, calculating angles and timing. Reid: sharp, loud, always two steps ahead with a joke or an answer, but not the type to question the chain of command until he had the ammo required. Mitchell: a wild card, by reputation.

They reached the outer lock, the glossy hull of the USS Bahamut gleaming behind a transparent aluminum blast door. Kono keyed her code and the lock cycled, hissing open on a metallic sigh.

“Home sweet home for the next hour and a half,” Kono said, stepping up to the Bahamut’s hatch. She thumbed the panel, then ducked inside, footsteps brisk on the deck. Mitchell took a half-step to follow, then paused. He let his gaze linger on the hull’s seam—specifically, the maintenance panel for the primary EPS conduits.

Reid’s voice, a patois blend of song and sarcasm, filled the corridor again. “Why you starin’ at the pretty metal, Mitchy? Get inside before Kono puts your ass in traction.”

Mitchell forced a half-grin. “Just wondering how much of a beating this crate can take, that’s all.” He ducked inside, letting the access panel imprint itself in his memory for later.

The Bahamut was a Type-10 long-range runabout—faster than a standard shuttle, equipped with a proper warp core and an engineering compartment barely larger than a janitor’s closet. Kono was already at the pilot’s console, running checks. She barked over her shoulder, “Mitchell, take systems. Reid, prep sensors.”

Mitchell slid into the right seat, the worn faux-leather creaking beneath him, and keyed up a systems diagnostic with three practiced taps. The holographic display flickered blue-green before stabilizing—a reminder that the Bahamut's OS was due for an update two patches ago, like an old Earth car running on fumes. He kept his gaze fixed on the scrolling data matrices, his expression carefully neutral, but his mind ticked off the steps ahead with military precision. Kono and Reid would get absorbed in launch prep for the first few minutes, their attention consumed by the ritual dance of pre-flight checks. That narrow slice of time was his window.

There was the added complication of Smiter and Cockburn. The two junior Ensigns hovered in his peripheral vision like anxious birds—Smiter with his perpetually furrowed brow and Cockburn with those sharp, observant eyes that missed nothing. Two more witnesses that could ruin everything if they caught him tampering with the subsystems. His palms felt slick against the console as he contemplated the delicate sabotage required to delay their pursuit of whoever had been foolish enough to flee the Revenant during Reid's date with his Vulcan girlfriend—a romantic evening that had unexpectedly yielded those damning sensor readings.

The hum of the hatch cycling shut punctuated the tense quiet. Reid, from the back, rattled off sensor calibration numbers, the rhythm almost musical. “We got green all ‘cross the board, boss lady. I see one, two, tree—aye, all four starboard thrusters online.”

Kono didn’t turn. “Mitchell?”

“Power’s good, navigation responsive. Computer’s slow but nominal.”

“Nav is locked in. Our mystery shuttle left a hell of a trail—no attempt at masking. Odd for a Starfleet vessel, isn’t it?”

Reid piped up, “Maybe they want us to follow. Maybe it’s bait. Or maybe they lazy, just like my cousin on New Kingston who got fired for sleepin’ in the chicken plant.”

Kono grunted. “Whoever it is thought we would be too busy with our current mission to be looking at the outer solar system. If your girlfriend didn’t sweet-talk you with sensor information on your date, we’d have never known,” Kate said to Reid.

Mitchell’s hands hovered over the controls. “Could be a decoy. There’s a dozen ways to run a false drive signature.”

Kono’s fingers danced on the nav panel. “That’s your department, Ensign. Let me know if you see anything off in the logs.”

The hum of the runabout’s systems felt loud in the close air. Kono was at her best when she had a mission, and she pushed the Bahamut through the launch checks with the precision of a surgeon. Reid, for all his bluster, worked sensors like a virtuoso, coaxing data out of finicky subspace bands. Mitchell’s job was to keep the ship running—and, if all went to his secret plan, make sure it stopped running at exactly the right moment.

He needed an excuse to step away. He manufactured a cough. “Warp field calibration’s reading high. I’ll check the coils.”

Kono waved him off, still intent on the console. “You’ve got two minutes. Then we’re moving.”

Mitchell slipped into the cramped corridor, threading past the tiny galley to the engineering cubby. The overhead lights flickered, then stabilized—a sign of aging relays, or maybe just nerves. He closed the door behind him, then knelt in front of the EPS conduit access. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, palming the slender isolinear chip from his thigh pocket. He cracked the panel open and slotted the chip into the data port, letting the viral payload upload itself into the Bahamut’s core command buffer.

Cockburn's steel-gray eyes had followed him like targeting sensors when he'd slipped away, her lips pressed into that thin line that security officers perfected at the Academy. Mitchell's pulse throbbed in his temples as he worked, each heartbeat a countdown. Any second now, those boots would appear in the doorway—Cockburn with her perfect posture or Smiter with his perpetual scowl—peering over his shoulder at hands that trembled ever so slightly against the access panel. He inhaled slowly through his nose, forcing his fingers to steady. No official suspicion rested on him. Not yet. The only real evidence against him was written in the sweat beading at his hairline and the unnatural stiffness in his shoulders.

He checked his wrist, a discreet tap activating his tricorder in passive mode. The upload would take seven seconds—then a timed detonation on his signal, via his own tricorder. He programmed the shutdown sequence to look like a random systems failure, the kind that happened twice a week on a ship this old.

He closed the panel, wiped a nonexistent smudge off the outer casing, and straightened. He counted to five, then exited the compartment with a bored yawn.

Reid was watching him from the sensor station, one eyebrow cocked high. “You good, Mitchell? Look like you wrestlin’ with ghost in there.”

“Just making sure we don’t end up spinning in circles at warp eight,” Mitchell said. “Wouldn’t want to embarrass the crew.”

Reid grinned, showing teeth. “Oh, I embarrass myself plenty. Don’ need your help.”

Kono’s eyes flicked up from the console, cool and appraising. “Engineering drama resolved?”

“Diagnostics cleared. We’re set.”

She nodded, then called up to the computer. “Bahamut, open comm to shuttle bay control.”

The comm hissed, then crackled to life. “Bahamut, you are cleared for departure. Good hunting, Lieuten—”

Kono killed the line before the pleasantries started. “Hands on, boys,” she said, as the runabout’s thrusters fired and slid them out into the velvet dark of space.

They watched the hull of the USS Washington drop away behind them, its gleaming saucer ringed with the blue-white glow of shield harmonics. The Bahamut’s nose tipped toward the coordinates the shuttle had last broadcast, and Kono throttled up to three-quarters impulse. The inertia dampers stifled all but the faintest tremor.

Reid leaned forward, voice soft for once. “Who you think they sendin’ after us?”

Kono’s jaw worked. “It’s not who. It’s why.”

Mitchell kept his eyes on the main display, but his mind buzzed with the programmed countdown. If the mission went as expected, they’d intercept the shuttle in thirty minutes. If not, the Bahamut’s engines would cut at exactly the point where help was close enough to save them but too far to salvage the chase.

He allowed himself a small, private smile. Everything was set.

The Bahamut knifed through the cold dark, engines piping hot and precise. The runabout’s control cabin was a shoebox compared to the plush command center of a starship, and every little sound, every beep, every vibration, carried that much sharper. AJ Reid’s chair faced the aft sensors array, but his voice always carried forward. “You seein’ the same as me, Kono? Target is runnin’, but not tryin’ hard to hide.”

Kono kept her eyes glued to the heads-up overlay, the icons updating in real-time as the Bahamut closed on the blip ahead. “It’s like they want us to see them. Or they’re too desperate to care.”

Mitchell sat at the co-pilot’s seat, ostensibly running comms and environmental. He stared at the display, blinked, then rubbed a palm over his brow. “It could be a trick,” he muttered, almost to himself.

AJ cackled. “Ah, you a paranoid man, Kev. That’s why they put you on this gig. Me? I think it’s a lover’s quarrel, Starfleet style. Maybe they got caught with their hand in the honey pot and now they make a run for it.”

Jessica Cockburn leaned against the bulkhead, her security uniform creasing at the elbows. The overhead lights caught the singular pip on her collar as she tilted her head, lips curving into a half-smile that never quite reached her eyes. "You guys really think someone would stage some dramatic lover's farewell straight out of those dog-eared romance novels Reid keeps under his bunk? Hijack a multi-million credit shuttlecraft just to sail off into the sunset?" Her laugh was soft but sharp, like the glint of a blade being unsheathed in the dark.

A flash of teeth in the rear monitor told Kono that AJ was half-joking, half-fishing for a reaction. “That’s your theory? That some captain’s side piece is making a break for it in a stolen shuttle?”

“Stranger tings happen in the Black, yeh?” AJ swiveled to tap a few icons, overlaying the projected intercept. “You got less than forty minutes before they go to warp. But if you boost impulse, we cut that to twenty.”

Kono nodded, jaw tightening. “I don’t want to burn out the reactor unless we have to. Engineering’s held together with spit and hope.”

“That’s true of half the fleet,” said Mitchell, and Kono caught the slight shake in his voice. The ensign looked paler than usual, beads of sweat forming at his temples despite the climate controls.

She filed that away, keeping her own tone steady. “We’ll pace them for now. If they zig, we zag.” She toggled a display to share. “Look at the telemetry. They’re leaking power on all bands.”

Kate tapped the sensor readout with a fingernail that had been bitten to the quick. The display glowed blue against her face, highlighting the faint scar that ran along her jawline. "They really didn't think we'd have any sensors facing this way," she said, her voice carrying the quiet confidence of someone who'd seen enough battles in the past year to recognize when fortune had smiled on them. "We lucked out. Plain and simple."

Mitchell licked his lips, not taking his eyes off the console. “Maybe it’s a drone. Or a ghost signal. You can spoof registry tags if you know the right codes.”

Kono risked a glance sideways. Mitchell was trembling now, ever so slightly, his knuckles bone-white on the armrest.

Reid, who noticed everything, piped in with practiced ease. “Kevin, you got the shakes or what? Dis’ is easy chase work. You ain’t fresh out de Academy, are you?”

Mitchell managed a weak smile. “Didn’t sleep much.”

“Yeah, and you was there in the closet, cuddlin’ up to that bottle of Andorian coffee,” said AJ. “Kono, this man is a machine. You wanna keep him runnin’, you gotta top up his fluids. Science, that’s all.”

Kevin looked up to find Ensign Smiter's steel-gray eyes fixed on him, narrowed slightly at the corners—the kind of analytical stare that peeled away layers of pretense. A muscle twitched in Smiter's jaw before he exchanged a lightning-quick glance with Cockburn—a silent conversation in a language Kevin couldn't decipher. Their eyes flicked away in perfect synchronization, suddenly absorbed in their consoles as if they'd never been watching him at all. The hairs on Kevin's neck prickled. That wasn't random curiosity—it was the calculated assessment security officers perfected during those brutal surveillance courses at the Academy, the ones that taught them to read guilt in the smallest twitch of a suspect's finger.

Kono let them spar, but she was watching Mitchell now, looking for signs. His logins checked out, and he hadn’t been left alone with critical systems, at least not that she’d seen. But people who panicked on routine ops sometimes made mistakes.

“Nav, status on intercept?” she asked, voice sharp.

Mitchell jerked to attention. “On track. Minor deviations—wait.” He leaned forward, squinting at a new alert. “Target just increased velocity. Half a tick, but it’s there. Looks like a manual override, not a pre-set course.”

AJ hooted. “Maybe they heard us talkin’ about them and now they tryin’ to make a run for it! Push it, Kono.”

Kono checked the power curve, then throttled impulse up a notch. The hum of the Bahamut’s drives deepened, and they all felt the shift in their bones.

“Reid, anything from comms? Are they hailing?” asked Kono.

“Dead air, boss lady. But…” He cocked his head. “I pick up a coded pulse on a tightbeam. Very old school. Maybe tryin’ to get a message out without anyone else hearin’.”

“Decrypt and record. If they’re talking, I want to know what about.”

“Yessir,” said AJ, already working the console like a concert pianist.

Kono risked another look at Mitchell, who was dabbing sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “If you’re sick, I need to know now, Ensign.”

“I’m not sick, Lieutenant,” he said, but the words were flat, automatic.

AJ snorted. “He just afraid you gon’ catch him slackin’, Kono.”

She shook her head, but made note. The little things always gave away the big problems.

Outside, the stars smeared by, the bow of the Bahamut aimed dead center at the distant flare of the rogue shuttle. The Washington, now a pinprick behind them, the planet they orbited glowed faintly blue and gold. It was a sobering thought: out here, if something went wrong, there was only what they could fix with their own hands.

AJ called, “You wanna hear this pulse, boss?” He patched the audio to the cockpit. A staccato chirp, almost like old Morse, echoed through the speakers.

Kono listened, frowning. “Mitchell, can you run that against the fleet codebooks?”

Mitchell's hands trembled over the keys, leaving damp fingerprints on the glossy surface. His index finger slipped twice before he managed to bring up the cross-reference, the holographic display casting a sickly blue glow across his pallid face. "It's... not Starfleet code," he said, voice cracking on the last syllable. "It quit transmitting anyway after receiving a packet from an unknown source." While the others focused on Reid, Mitchell's eyes darted to the corner readout—a flashing amber authentication code with the unmistakable Starfleet delta embedded in its encryption pattern. Three quick keystrokes, executed with surprising precision given his shaking hands, and the damning sensor log vanished from the system, leaving only the generic error message: "DATA CORRUPTED: RETRIEVAL FAILURE."



Reid whistled again, long and low. “Now we cookin’. That’s a probable pirate’s signature, or I never watched my mother run black market off the back of a freighter.”

“Pirates with a Starfleet shuttle? What the hell is going on out here,” said Kono. “This is standard shit just to throw us off. That’s totes Starfleet.”

Mitchell’s reply was so quiet she barely heard it. “Maybe not all pirates are born. Maybe they’re made.”

AJ whooped. “Philosophy hour! You full of surprises, Kevin.”

The banter rolled off Kono this time. “Focus. We close the distance, we go in silent, and we get that shuttle’s information. No heroics. Just clean, by-the-book intelligence.”

Reid nodded, then leaned close to the console. “Copy that, Cap’n Kono.”

The next twelve minutes was a blur of micro-corrections, calibration, and half-spoken commentary. Kono stayed on task, eyes like searchlights. AJ kept up the running play-by-play, his accent thicker the more excited he got. Mitchell grew more and more withdrawn, hunched over his console like he could curl into it and vanish.

It was during a routine systems check that Kono noticed the streak of sweat running down Mitchell’s cheek. She pretended not to, but the image stuck. She tried to remember his file—stellar scores, cool under fire in drills, the kind of recruit you built a crew around. Yet here he was, falling apart on a shuttle chase.

“Mitchell,” she said, more softly this time. “Level with me. Are you sure you’re fit for this?”

He looked up at her, and for a second she thought he might say something real. But he just nodded. “I’m good, Lieutenant. We’re… good.”

AJ, never able to leave a silence untended, filled the gap. “Next time you feel like faintin’, Kevin, just tell me. I bring you sugar water. Or maybe real rum, if Kono lets me stash it in the galley.”

The three shared a laugh, tension momentarily eased. But Kono’s mind was racing, replaying every moment since launch. Something wasn’t right with her co-pilot, and it wasn’t just nerves.

Outside, the mystery shuttle burned brighter, their prey almost in reach. Kono let the tension coil inside her, and made a silent promise: she’d find out what was eating Ensign Mitchell, because something just didn't seem right.



The distance between the Bahamut and its quarry collapsed to single digits. Every station hummed at the edge of redline; Kono’s hands rode the stick, AJ’s chatter kept a running tally of meters and seconds, and even Mitchell—his nerves splayed open, sweat stinging his eyes—was locked in, calling out corrections as the shuttle’s drive signature bloomed across the scopes.

“Five thousand kilometers,” said AJ, voice tight for once. “You want me to try hailing?”

Kono flicked her eyes to the comms. “Do it, but be ready for evasion. Mitchell, prep phasers, just in case.

Mitchell’s voice was a dry rasp. “Aye, sir.” He toggled the firing solution, hands shaking so badly he had to clench the armrest to steady them.

The cockpit filled with the high, synthetic wail of an alert: proximity warning. AJ’s hands flew over the controls, plotting a predictive intercept. “They’re going to break—hard to port! If you—”

The world jerked. For a split second, Kono thought they’d been hit, but the impacts came from inside: the runabout’s lights guttered, the displays blinking to black and back. Kono’s seat restraints cinched down as the inertial dampers fluttered. Every system alarmed at once, a screaming discord of error codes.

“Mitchell, report!” Kono snapped.

But Mitchell was already half out of his seat, eyes wide, fingers jabbing at the manual resets. “It’s the EPS! We’re losing power on all main lines…"

“Backup is online!” yelled AJ, but the panel was running on battery, systems barely crawling.

Kono’s first thought was sabotage, but the rational part of her brain filed it under ‘bad timing.’ She thumbed the emergency protocol, tried to keep the nose on the retreating shuttle. The target was already spooling up for warp—if they lost pursuit now, there was no way to catch up.

“AJ, get me a last fix on their vector,” Kate said, voice stone.

AJ’s console flickered, the sensor array slurring into static before stuttering back to clarity. “Got it. They’re lining up for a warp jump—coordinates locked. But they’ll be gone in ten seconds.”

“Kev, can you give us impulse?” she barked at Mitchell.

Mitchell, white as a sheet, punched the sequence. “Rerouting, but… I don’t know if it’ll hold.” His voice was a dry, trembling thread.

The Bahamut limped forward, drives coughing back to life. AJ whooped, “We in the game, boss! You got one shot—"

“Zoom in on the registry!” Kate demanded.

“Missed them,” said AJ, voice gone hollow.

Kono sat back, every muscle in her body clenched. She looked over at Mitchell, whose hands were frozen on the panel, eyes fixed on the dead space where the shuttle had been.

“Power’s coming back online,” said Mitchell. “I… I don’t know what happened.”

AJ was already running diagnostics, his face drawn tight with disbelief. AJ's eyes narrowed as he studied the readouts. "We jus' drop everyting at di exact moment, Kono. Like somebody flip di breaker, y'know? Di whole ship go dead."

Kono’s mind churned. It could be a coincidence. On a ship this old, power failures happened. But the timing. The timing.

She closed her eyes, then keyed the subspace transmitter. “Bahamut to Washington. Shuttle lost. Returning to base.”

Washington’s reply was brisk: “Copy, Bahamut. Proceed with caution. Report when you dock.”

“Affirmative,” Kono replied.

Kate's lungs burned as she sucked in a ragged breath, her boot connecting with the brushed metal console in front of her with a hollow thud that sent her and the chair she sat in skidding backward two inches across the deck plates. The impact vibrated up through her ankle, a small pain she welcomed. Even AJ's usually animated face went still, his dark eyes tracking her with something between concern and recognition.

AJ slumped back against his station, sweat beading along his temples as exhaustion hit him like a physical weight. "Dat was some wicked bad luck, y'know? Mi never see a systems crash like dat before. Di whole ship jus' go limp like somebody cut all di strings."

Mitchell swallowed, voice barely above a whisper. “Maybe the shuttle hit us with a power surge. It’s… possible.”

Kono's voice cut through the recycled air. "Is it?" she said, turning her chair to face Mitchell directly. Her dark eyes narrowed beneath straight black brows, the harsh overhead lighting casting half her face in shadow. She didn't blink as she stared him down, her lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. Mitchell felt pinned by that gaze—like an insect under glass—and couldn't tell if the accusation he read there was real or projected from his own guilt, which sat heavy as a stone in his gut, making his palms slick with sweat to the point of having to discreetly wipe them along his uniform.

Mitchell met her gaze, and for a heartbeat, it was all there—the fear, the guilt, the secrets he’d brought onto this mission. But then he looked away, busying himself with the recovery checklist.

They limped back toward the Washington, impulse engines at half. The runabout’s systems snapped back one by one, almost as if nothing had happened. AJ tried to break the tension with a joke, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Maybe next time, we fly a shuttle that don’ have mold growin’ in the ODN relays,” he said.

Kono smiled, but it was tight and humorless. “Maybe next time, we bring a mechanic who isn’t half-dead.”

The Washington loomed up ahead, docking rings glowing like angry eyes. As they approached, Kono kept one eye on Mitchell. He was performing every procedure by the book, but his hands still shook, and every so often, he’d shoot a glance at the systems panel, like he expected it to betray him again.

AJ noticed too. “You good, Kev? You look like you just ran the Kingston Marathon.”

Mitchell’s reply was automatic. “Just tired.”

Kono called up the debrief template. “Let’s log everything. Every fluctuation, every error. I want to know exactly what happened!”

AJ shrugged. “I tell you what happen. We get outfoxed by a ghost in a Starfleet shuttle. Maybe next time, we ask the Captain to chase ‘em himself.”

“AJ, don’t let the Captain hear you say that out loud.” said Kono, but her mind was elsewhere. “I think he likes you so don’t blow it.”



Docking was smooth, the runabout’s seasoned frame fitting back into the cradle of the Washington’s bay. The airlock cycled open, and the three of them filed out, the adrenaline crash hitting like a hammer.

Kono paused in the gangway, turned to Mitchell. “I’ll need your incident report in thirty minutes. Full systems log.”

He nodded, not meeting her eyes. “You’ll have it.”

Reid lingered, then put a hand on Kono’s shoulder. “You did good, boss. Even when it all went sideways. We got back alive.”

“Not good enough,” she said, voice flat. “We lost the shuttle. We lost whoever was inside it.”

AJ grinned. “Everything gon’ be alright.”

“Yeah,” said Kono. “Maybe next time.”

But she was already thinking about Mitchell, and the split second where his face had said everything she needed to know. She’d get to the bottom of it.




The group of five stepped out into the belly of the Washington’s shuttle bay, the vastness of it swallowing the battered Bahamut whole. The ambient noise—docking clamps locking, overhead cranes shifting, the ever-present murmur of life support—felt thunderous after the hush of the runabout.

Mitchell walked ahead, face down, arms stiff at his sides. He didn’t pause at the bay’s security checkpoint, didn’t stop when a petty officer called after him. He just melted into the arterial corridor, gone in a blink.

Kono watched him go, jaw clenched. Next to her, AJ shrugged theatrically, then muttered, “Dat man move like he runnin’ from death itself.”

Kono grunted. “You saw the logs. You saw how every system failed at the same instant.”

Reid nodded, lips pursed. “And you see how he freeze up when you ask him about it? I ain’t sayin’ nothing, but I’m sayin’—you don’ need a tricorder to spot a rat.”

The two security officers from the runabout approached Kate and AJ, their faces unreadable. Kevin paused mid-stride and glanced back. For a moment, their eyes met across the bay—his colleagues, his friends maybe, now watching him with expressions that flickered between concern and suspicion. Kate's hand twitched toward her communicator, then fell away. AJ's usual easy smile had vanished, replaced by something Kevin couldn't quite name. He wanted to turn back, to explain, to make some joke that would dissolve the tension—but instead he kept walking, his shoulders hunched against accusations no one had yet voiced.

They started toward the debrief station, the path winding through a gauntlet of maintenance crews and returning officers. Kono set a hard pace, barely speaking until they reached a quiet alcove overlooking the bay. From up here, the Bahamut looked harmless, a toy bobbing in its birth.

AJ leaned on the railing. “You gonna tell the XO?”

“I’ll file the report,” Kono said. “But without proof, it’s just suspicion. And that’s not enough.”

AJ grinned, a flash of teeth, voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. "So yuh investigate. Quiet, like. Me now, mi good at quiet when mi ready."

Kono snorted, but there was a fondness in it. “You couldn’t keep quiet if your vocal cords were cut.”

“Watch me,” said Reid. He glanced back at the corridor where Mitchell had disappeared. “You think he did it? Or you just don’ like the look of him?”

Kono stared at the Runabout, replaying every detail. “He did something. I just don’t know what. Yet.”

AJ patted her on the shoulder, then peeled away, whistling a low, complicated tune. Kono watched him go, then turned her gaze back to the Bahamut. The memory of the power loss, the way the ship had shuddered under her hands, made her skin crawl.

Kate’s blood thrummed with purpose now, each heartbeat a vow. Mitchell was hiding something, and she would tear this ship apart bulkhead by bulkhead until she found it. They'd launched into the void seeking answers and returned dragging a writhing nest of suspicions instead.

 

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