(I'll Be) The Only Thing Between You and the Stars at Night 3/9

[mokuyoubi]

Θ

Ryan was always suspicious when he sent out his news broadcast and noticed the ever-growing number of Starfleet officers subscribing. He was inclined to believe they were trying to know the enemy, or something (like Ryan was some dangerous radical—Starfleet had funny ideas about free speech), except since Bajor wasn’t part of the Federation, Ryan could charge for the broadcast. He didn’t charge those who couldn’t afford it, but he always attached a cost when Starfleet officers subscribed. It was strange because they paid it, even though they probably had to go through some ridiculous paperwork to get the credits to do so.

There was a new subscriber for this issue, who’d transferred the credits immediately. Starfleet Ensign B. Urie.

It was suspicious.

He wasn’t pleased with his current broadcast, but he’d been distracted by everything else going on in his life. He’d meant to include an update on the situation on a border dispute on Velos III, but it could wait until the next issue. At least he’d managed to finish the piece he’d done on the farmers in Sahving Valley. Try and get the Federation to put a positive spin on that.

Already his inbox was flooded with letters to the editor and he’d sifted through the regular trash—die hard Federation supporters besmirching the Ross name, pointing out that Ryan’s father had been a Cardassian sympathiser and nothing he said should be trusted—one pathetically hoodwinked Bajoran Starfleet Lieutenant who always tried to explain the situation from a Starfleet perspective and only ever succeeded in making it sound worse—the regular threats and promises for ceasing and desisting, always anonymous—and his favourite, the conspiracy theorists who sent him the most hilarious and ridiculous leads.

He’d sent off some responses and set aside a few of the letters for printing in the Letters to the Editor section of the next broadcast, and by then he’d received another hundred messages. It was late—five minutes until he was supposed to close the store, and meet Spencer at Quark’s for a drink. He was kind of hoping that Jon and Brendon might be there, too, though they hadn’t made any plans.

It was crazy, he mused, as he signed out of the terminal and began to gather his pads, how quickly they’d all become close. Ryan knew he was difficult to get to know, and he liked it that way. Spencer was his only close friend, and he only occasionally hung out with Brent, or Leeta and her friends. It wasn’t that he didn’t want more friends. He was generally indifferent about it. Jon and Brendon made it impossible to be indifferent about them by being generally amazing.

Ryan fought a grin just thinking about them and then thought, why fight it and just grinned like an idiot. He was so eager to see them; he didn’t care if they showed up. He knew the number of Jon’s quarters, he’d call him, and Jon probably knew where Brendon’s were.

It struck Ryan then, that it was strange he didn’t know where Brendon’s quarters were, or even his family name. Jon had told them dozens of stories about himself and Spencer had responded in kind with some of the funnier stories of criminals that were processed on DS9, but Brendon hadn’t said much about his past. It wasn’t in the obvious way Ryan avoided discussing himself, but when he thought about it, he realised that Brendon always deferred questions about his past by asking questions of others.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to expect to know Brendon’s secrets without giving some of his own, but Ryan was curious. He thought everyone on Earth had perfect lives—that was what the Federation told everyone. Then again, Brendon wasn’t anything like the Humans Ryan had met.

The chime on his door rang as he was packing his pads in the little sack Jon had given him the evening before when they’d arrived at his quarters. Jon said it was cute, the way Ryan tried to balance everything, but this was more practical, and Ryan had to agree. And it was a pretty bag—deep jewel tones in an abstract swirling pattern, hand made on Risa.

Out of the corner of his eye he glanced the familiar uniform of a Starfleet officer. He suppressed a groan of annoyance. “I’m closing. Also, no Starfleet officers,” Ryan recited, since the idiot apparently couldn’t read—the sign was in every Federation language, and a few others just to be safe.

It wasn’t usually a problem, because not many Starfleet officers came by. Most of them were ‘above the need for material possessions.’ While he sold other jewellery, his main source of revenue was from the purchase of Bajoran earrings. Every once in a while, though…

Ryan looked up and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, because Brendon was leaning against one of the jewellery cases in a Starfleet uniform, faux pout on his face. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have taken out the subscription for your paper, either, then,” he said sullenly. He didn’t get it. Brendon didn’t get that Ryan had been serious.

“I’ve…I’ve got to meet Spencer,” Ryan muttered. His lips felt numb and useless.

“Yeah, I thought you might be doing that,” Brendon said. “I was hoping I’d catch you here first, though. I really wanted to see your stuff.” He bent over the case, tracing his finger over the glass. “Did you make all of this?”

Ryan stared at the clean lines of Brendon’s uniform—crisp black that made him appear oddly bulky, hiding the curves and planes that Brendon’s usual clothing showcased so nicely. The strip of turquoise over his shoulders meant medical or science and the single gold and black pip on his neck meant he was an Ensign.

“Ryan?” Brendon was looking at him with an expression of concern and Ryan realised he must have been staring a long time. His eyes caught on the Starfleet insignia shining on Brendon’s chest, just above his heart. Brendon had sworn an oath to them.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said, fingering the badge lightly. “I just got off work. I didn’t have time to change.”

“I’ve got to meet Spencer,” Ryan repeated. He walked hurriedly out the door and Brendon followed fast on his heels.

“Yeah, hey, Ryan.” Brendon grabbed his wrist and Ryan jerked back as if burnt.

“Don’t touch me,” Ryan hissed. He turned his back on the destroyed look on Brendon’s face, locking the door.

“Sorry,” Brendon said, and his voice—his voice. Ryan felt like something inside of him died. “Sorry. Um. I should. I have to go. I’m supposed to meet some people on the holodeck. I. Sorry.”

“Brendon,” Ryan sighed, and turned around, but Brendon was already halfway across the Promenade, hurrying through the crowd.

Ryan got through the door of Quark’s, saw Jon and Spencer laughing together and turned around and left. He went back to his room instead and dropped his bag of pads by the door. He had so much work to do but couldn’t care.

He signed onto Starfleet database and realised, suddenly, that he still didn’t know Brendon’s last name. He thought about it a few moments, biting his bottom lip, and just searched Brendon, selecting the rank Ensign, but came up with close to two thousand hits. He went back and remembered Brendon saying he’d subscribed to the broadcast and remembered Ensign B. Urie and tried it. Six hits came up, five containing Brendon’s name in the body of the entry, one with his name at the top.

The picture on his public dossier looked recent, but his hair was shorter and styled neatly, slicked to the side and back. He wasn’t wearing the black makeup around his eyes like he normally did, and Ryan realised he’d been so busy staring at Brendon’s uniform in the store he hadn’t paid any attention to Brendon’s face. In his picture, Brendon looked serious and confident and it made Ryan’s stomach hurt.

There wasn’t a lot of information open to the public, just enough to paint a picture of the kind of student Brendon had been. Finished the four-year programme in three years then finished the two-year command training in one year while simultaneously participating in the prestigious Red Squad internship. He’d been top of his class at Starfleet Academy and in the command programme, captain of the U.S.S. Vermillion for three missions while in the Red Squad.

Admiral Boyd Urie had thinning grey hair and a severe expression on his face, and didn’t look anything like Brendon. His dossier was far more extensive than Brendon’s, obviously, detailing the many posts he’d held and the various diplomatic missions on which he’d been.

Admiral Grace Urie was where Brendon had got his looks. She had long auburn hair and a sharp smile, and didn’t look more than a few years older than Brendon himself. Her dossier was even more impressive than her husband’s, full of famous battles and posts on famous ships, including a nice long stint on the Enterprise-D.

Commander Kara Urie was the executive officer on a medical ship that patrolled the outer planets. Lieutenant Jarod Urie was only a couple years older than Brendon, and was already the helmsman of the Starfleet flagship U.S.S Aucoin. His oldest brother, Clark Urie—and this was where Ryan’s heart stopped and his stomach fell somewhere to his feet—was an ambassador to the Cardassians.

He stared at that word for a long time, his mind just utterly blank. He tried to process it, but he simply could not. After a while he got up and turned off the screen and sat on his sofa, staring out the window. Bajor spun in the distance. Ryan would have preferred being on the side of the station that didn’t have a view of the planet, but he was supposed to be the grateful war orphan, and it wasn’t like he’d got a say in the matter, anyway.

Then the thoughts came. They came too fast, all at once—the look on Brendon’s face when Ryan had shouted at him, the fact that his parents were apparently these Starfleet legends, the fact that Clark Urie lived on Cardassia Prime and was an ambassador to the people who had ruined Ryan’s life. Never mind the fact that Brendon himself was an officer for the people who’d come along as Ryan was putting his ruined life back together and stamped it into a million smaller, more jagged pieces.

His stomach swirled unpleasantly and he was glad he’d been too busy to eat anything for lunch, because he was pretty sure it would be coming up if he had. Only, he couldn’t understand what about the situation was the worst thing.

Brendon hadn’t ever talked about his past. It seemed like something that would come up over the course of a few days of getting to know someone. Brendon knew Spencer and Ryan’s jobs and even some things about their childhood; they knew pretty much everything about Jon’s exploits across the galaxy. But what did any of them know about Brendon?

He’d known that Brendon liked to swim, couldn’t bowl to save his life, had a pretty good knowledge of the Bajoran caste system, and generally looked adorable no matter what he was doing, with an option on hot when he did this thing with his mouth and his eyebrows. Everything important about Brendon he’d just learned from a computer screen, and even that didn’t tell him very much.

This was his first assignment. Shouldn’t he be excited about it and talking about it to anyone who asked? Why was he dressed in a green uniform when he was in the command track? Why hadn’t he worn his uniform in his down time like practically every other officer on the station? How had he made Ryan care so much about him in only a few days without ever revealing anything important about himself?

Because, okay, Ryan wouldn’t feel like this if he didn’t care. If he didn’t care he would have been glad to see Brendon go and he wouldn’t have looked him up and he wouldn’t be sitting here alone on the verge of tears trying to figure this out.

He wanted to say so what his brother is on Cardassia? He wanted to say Brendon isn’t like them. But all he could think was that he’d trusted his father when he was a boy and his father had sold his wife to the Cardassians for a few more years. All he could think was that once upon a time Kira Nerys was his hero, only then she became close friends with Benjamin Sisko.

“Brendon’s different, Brendon’s different,” Ryan said, face pressed close into the back of his sofa. It was hot and damp and he couldn’t tell if it was because of his breath or if he was actually crying. “Brendon’s different.”



I

Spencer had been on his way to meet Ryan when he’d run into Jon on the Promenade. It was the first day since they’d met one another that they hadn’t made plans, at one point or another, to meet, and he’d been just about to break down and send Jon a wave, inviting him to Quark’s.

Jon was easily recognisable in his shades of cream and off-white, bright in the crowd of dark Starfleet and earthy Bajoran uniforms. He was, as usual, wearing those strange Betazoid sandals that were more decoration than protection, but Jon said he liked the air around his toes and Spencer had snorted and tried not to smile, because it was ridiculous that he found everything Jon said and did charming.

“I’m going to start thinking you’re stalking me, Smith Spencer,” Jon said.

Spencer couldn’t help but laugh. “Me? I think you and Brendon have the corner on stalking.” He’d just got off work and hadn’t had time to change before heading out to meet Ryan. Usually he didn’t mind wearing his uniform, though Ryan gave him a hard time about it. Now, however, he was hyperaware of the fact that the uniform was tight and unforgiving, and he wondered what Brendon and Jon saw when they saw him in it.

“Catch any criminals today?” Jon asked.

“Oh, god, please,” Spencer said, and laughed. He hadn’t thought, when he’d first taken the job, that working at the security office wouldn’t be a job that led to any particularly amusing stories. He’d been wrong. Not only did Constable Odo tend to be somewhat unorthodox in his method of criminal investigation and undercover work, but also being at the mouth of the wormhole brought all sorts of colourful characters to DS9.

Today there’d been an easily excitable Betazoid who had, in the course of a drunken argument, removed all of his clothing and when approached by security, refused to abide by the oppressive rules of a prudish government. He was currently sleeping it off in one of the cells, but it had taken all of Spencer’s control to get through the booking process without breaking out into laughter.

He related that story and others to Jon as they made their way down the Promenade, and it wasn’t until they were on their third drink that Spencer realised Ryan should have joined them ages ago. He was just about to start to worry when Ryan came rushing in.

There was dark around Ryan’s eyes that looked like his makeup had been running and his eyes were red from crying. He was toying with the ends of his scarf, a nervous tick he’d developed in recent years. “Hey,” Spencer said, when he saw him approach.
Ryan frowned. “Brendon’s not with you?”

“No,” Spencer said carefully. “Was he supposed to be?” He couldn’t imagine Brendon doing much to make Ryan cry, other than the one, big, obvious thing, and he felt guilty that he’d been having so much fun with Jon and Brendon and the newness of it that he hadn’t wanted to potentially ruin that by warning Brendon about the Starfleet thing.

“I…” Ryan stopped and thought about it. “No. He said he had to meet someone on the holodeck.”

“Probably those guys from the other night,” Jon said in an off-handed way. Ryan shot him a look, then one at Spencer.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he asked, but he sounded more resigned than accusatory. His shoulders slumped even before he’d received affirmation. He hurried off to the bar, and after a quick conversation with Leeta, he began to push through the crowd toward the stairs.

“Come on,” Spencer said. He stood and snagged Jon’s sleeve, leading him after Ryan. There was a dull ache of guilt settling in his chest. He couldn’t just leave this to Brendon.

Just as they caught up with Ryan the doors to the holodeck slid open and roughly a dozen Starfleet officers spilled out. Spencer glanced through the crowd, looking for a familiar smile, and he realised Brendon wasn’t there at roughly the same moment as Ryan did. They looked at each other, and Ryan had a desperate sort of frown twisting his lips.

Ensign Dorios gave them a look up and down and sauntered away from the rest of them. “So, you’ve managed to sweet-talk Urie from us,” she said, but she didn’t seem unduly upset about it.

“Actually, we were looking for him, too,” Ryan said, surprising Spencer with the even, almost cordial tone he managed.

Dorios’ eyes widened a little. “He said he was coming tonight. I just assumed that he got sidetracked by you.”

“No, I—” Ryan paused, looked surprised he was willingly giving information to a Starfleet officer, and then swallowed hard and kept speaking. “I saw him a couple hours ago and he said he was meeting some friends at the holodeck.”

Remsal shrugged. “He probably got a call from Lieutenant Dax; stuff comes up from time to time.”

They didn’t seem very concerned about his standing them up, pushing past Spencer on their way downstairs, chattering loudly about some Federation gossip. Spencer waited until they were well out of earshot before turning to Ryan.

“What did you say to him?” Spencer didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory—Ryan was his best friend, for prophet’s sake, and he knew how Ryan felt about Starfleet. But he was worried about Brendon, too.

The lost look Ryan gave him made Spencer’s anger soften and he reached out to put an arm around Ryan’s shoulders. At the same time, Jon put an arm around Ryan’s waist and they held him close. Jon’s shoulder was warm where it touched Spencer’s hand, Ryan’s skin was soft under Spencer’s palm, Jon’s knuckles brushed Spencer’s hip every time Ryan inhaled and Spencer didn’t like to think very much about how right this felt.

“I didn’t—you could have warned me,” Ryan said, but he didn’t sound bitter or angry, just sad, on the verge of tears. Spencer met Jon’s gaze over Ryan’s bowed head and together they made the silent decision, hurrying Ryan out of the bar, down the hall towards the lift.

“I thought Brendon should tell you himself,” Spencer said, and he knew it didn’t make it any better.

“What did you say to him?” Jon asked, much more gently than Spencer had. He was touching Ryan in little ways that seemed to keep the tears at bay—a hand on his elbow, a stroking touch down his back, fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“I didn’t—” Ryan made a sound in the back of his throat. Spencer knew from many years of experience how difficult it was for Ryan to admit he’d said or done anything wrong. He knew the words ‘I’m sorry’ were pretty much lost—Ryan said them with looks or presents or hugs, but never out loud.

“He just showed up in that uniform and I couldn’t think about anything. I didn’t…he grabbed my wrist, and I didn’t mean to. I told him not to touch me. I shouted it at him, and he. I tried to stop him, but he left too quickly.”

Jon told the lift where to go on the habitat ring and Spencer realised he was leading them to Brendon’s room. Ryan realised it too, lifting his head to stare at Jon. Jon stared back, almost in challenge.

“You’re going to tell him why you shouted at him,” Jon said, matter-of-factly, and Spencer could tell from the way Ryan’s spine straightened that he was putting two and two together and realising that Jon knew, and Jon knew because Spencer had told him.

But Ryan didn’t snap, and after a moment his shoulders sagged and after another moment he nodded his head resignedly.

Only, if Brendon was in his quarters, he wasn’t answering. They stood outside for several moments, Jon ringing the bell repeatedly and insistently, before pressing the comm. link and saying “quit being an asshole, Bden, open the damn door.”

The only answer was silence. Ryan’s shoulders kept sloping further and further down. Spencer stroked his thumb across the skin behind his ear and Ryan shivered and snuggled closer to him. “It’ll be okay,” Spencer said. “He can’t be any worse at pouting than you are.”

He’d expected Ryan to give him a glare, or something, and he wasn’t disappointed. But it didn’t have the normal sting that Spencer expected of a Ryan glare. Jon bumped his shoulder against Ryan’s. “He’s cool. It’ll be cool.”

“Cool?” Ryan echoed, unexpectedly. Spencer was curious, too. It meant something, he knew, the hopeful way Ryan was looking at Jon from under his lashes. He looked so small, despite the fact that he had several inches on Jon.

“Cool,” Jon repeated, and slung his arm back around Ryan’s waist. “It’s Earth slang. Brendon taught it to me. It means good. But you’ll talk to Brendon, when he’s ready, and it’ll be way better than that.”

Spencer believed him, and Spencer didn’t believe a lot of people. Mostly, he believed his parents, Ryan, and Constable Odo. But Jon had such an easy confidence, and even without realising, Spencer had begun to believe him from the first moment they’d spoken.



K

Brendon had fucked up. He knew that. He just wasn’t sure how. He’d replayed the scene in his mind pretty much non-stop since it had happened and he still couldn’t figure out what he’d done. He’d barely even said anything, and Ryan had been in a good mood the evening before when they’d parted ways.

The disgust in Ryan’s voice when he’d told Brendon not to touch him was probably the worst thing he’d ever experienced in his life—including all the times his parents had dressed him down over less than perfect grades.

But still. Shouting and disgust and glaring aside, Brendon couldn’t figure this out.

He remembered it pretty clearly, up until the very end. He’d been too distracted to go to the holodeck, and he’d meant to go back to his quarters and think things over. Halfway there he’d realised no amount of thinking was going to help him understand. He needed outside assistance, in the form of Ryan. And if Ryan weren’t going to talk to him, Spencer would do in a pinch.

Except, on the way back to the Promenade, Ryan had been waiting for him, smiling guilelessly, like nothing had happened, beckoning Brendon from down the hall and disappearing around the curve toward the docking ring.

Brendon remembered something his father said about hindsight being twenty-twenty, and yeah. He should have known something was weird about it. The way even when he caught up Ryan just kept smiling that creepy smile, never offering a response to any of Brendon’s questions.

Then he’d heard the sound of an airlock hissing and a door opening and a British accent saying, “He’s tiny, but he’ll do.”

Brendon didn’t remember the press of a hypospray, but the sting he felt in his neck told him one must have been administered. Whatever it had contained had rendered him unconscious, for how long he couldn’t say, but he was still fuzzy around the edges with it. He could hear the gentle hum of a warp engine and distant chatter, but the voices were too far away for him to understand what was being said.

“Ryan?” he asked blearily. He would figure out what he’d done to make Ryan want to drug him and he’d fix it. He’d fix it, because there was no other option, because he had to be able to fix it.

“Ryan?” another voice repeated. “Is that who you were seeing back there? Ryan.”

“Jesus, what is he, five?” a female voice asked, laced with derision. “I didn’t know Starfleet was so desperate that they were hiring preschoolers.”

“I think he’s growing on me. We should keep him,” interjected another voice.

Brendon tried to open his eyes, but the lids felt as though they were sealed shut. Instead, he groaned and said, “Whuz goin’ on?” because his tongue and lips weren’t working all that well, either.

“I’m giving him another hypo.” Another voice, followed by the cold press of a hypospray to his pulse point. There was a slight sting and then a rush of cool going through him, bringing his muscles back to life.

When he opened his eyes, five curious faces surrounded him, at least two of which were alien. “Yo,” said one of the men. “Welcome to my ship, little Starfleet dude. This is my crew—” Here he gestured around him.

“My chief of security, Victoria.” The woman, eyeing him like he was a potential meal, at first glance appeared to be Trill, but when he studied her markings more carefully, he noted they were shaped and coloured differently, and stopped at her collar bone. Her low neckline made it clear they did not continue down as they would on a Trill.

“Acting second-in-command and communications expert, Ryland.” An exceedingly tall, slender man who possessed no superficial traits to mark him as alien, but who looked entirely too knowing for Brendon’s taste.

“Our trust-worthy navigator and pilot, Alex.” Who had hair like Jon’s, but wasn’t as cuddly looking, and as far as Brendon could tell, not an alien, either, but then again, Jon’s hair had been hiding his Risian marking, so, whatever.

“And our chief engineer, Nate.” This one shimmered like the Butcher had, only more gold than bronze, which was slightly less impressive, and he looked kinda scruffy, too, and like he couldn’t be much older than Brendon, so Brendon didn’t think it was fair that Victoria was making fun of his age.

“And last but not least, me. Captain of this fine vessel, at your service.” He bowed with a flourish and Brendon’s eyes finally focussed on him. He was a Vorta, tall and with the startlingly purple eyes and pale skin that were the trademark of his people. He’d never appreciated until now how much the curved, ribbed extension from jaw to ear resembled the hood of the Earth snake the—

“Holy shit!” Brendon exclaimed, and clapped a hand over his mouth. “You’re the Cobra.” His voice was slightly muffled, but the Captain perked up.

“I see our reputation precedes us,” he said, cocky in a way that reminded Brendon of William.

“I was warned about you,” Brendon said, without thinking.

The Cobra exchanged looks with Ryland and Victoria. Then he swept closer, going down on one knee to get close to Brendon. “Warned?” he purred. “Warned about me?”

“Let me interrogate him, Captain,” Victoria said, in a way that made Brendon’s spine shiver—unpleasantly.

“Who warned you about me?” the Cobra pressed, thankfully ignoring Victoria’s request. He let the back of his fingers fall against Brendon’s cheek.

Brendon had been taught all about withstanding torture and not giving into interrogation and things like that, and he’d always been really good at it when he was with the Red Squad. But none of this had, so far as he knew, anything to do with the Federation, so what could honesty hurt.

“The…the guys on The Academy.” A gasp rippled through the entire crew.

“The Academy,” Cobra repeated, and yeah, this conversation was going to take a while if Cobra was going to parrot everything Brendon said.

Brendon nodded. “Sisky said…he said that I’ll only see what you want me to see…” Brendon spoke with a sudden awareness that explained Ryan’s weirdness in the hallway. Somehow Cobra had made him see Ryan when he wasn’t really there.

“And William said your moves were hot and that you would never stop,” Brendon continued.

Cobra leaned back at that, an expression that could only be described as goofily happy on his face. “Bill said that?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m kinda new to Starfleet, and I’m not sure how long I was out, but I have a shift that starts at 0700 and I don’t think that Commander Sisko will look too kindly on me missing like, my third day of work.” Brendon had been told he had the tendency to babble when nervous. He gripped his hands in his lap and bit his tongue to keep from saying anything else.

“Starfleet?” Cobra said, putting his hand companionably on Brendon’s shoulder. “Can I call you Starfleet?” Brendon considered giving his name, then wondered if that was smart, then decided if Gabe wasn’t asking, he wasn’t offering, and he just nodded his head ‘yes.’

“Good. Starfleet,” Cobra started again, “I’m Gabriel, by the way, but you can call me Gabe. First off, you’ve been out for a good ten hours. It’s 0900 right now, so you’re already late. Second, the Cobra here is part of an armada, and the Admiral of the Fleet has requested some very specific things of us. He’s given us a deadline by which we must acquire and/or perform said things, and that deadline is fast approaching.

“And that’s where you come in, Starfleet,” Gabe said, squeezing his shoulder.

“Me?” Brendon squeaked. This did not sound promising. This did not sound promising at all.

“You see, Pete has this thing for boys in the Starfleet uniform. Like, he wears one himself, most of the time. So I need to have you around, Starfleet. It’ll look good. And besides, I promise you’ll have more fun with us than you would on that Cardassian piece of shit where we found you.”

“B-but,” Brendon sputtered. “But what will he-what will Pete do with me?”

Gabe shrugged. “IDK. Not really my problem.”

Ryland took Brendon on a tour of the Cobra, eyeing him speculatively all the while. It was creepy. In fact, the entire crew was sorta creepy, with the possible exception of Alex, and maybe Nate, but maybe they were just the quiet sort of creepy, or Brendon hadn’t been around long enough.

“You’re free to move about the ship as you please,” Ryland explained, “but I’d advise you against any escape attempts. The Captain does not take well to attempted insurrection.”

Brendon considered pointing out that it wouldn’t technically be insurrection since Brendon was being held against his will, but then he decided that Ryland was a lot taller than him and had a scary look about him, and just left it alone.

The ship was only four decks—the bridge and captain’s quarters on the first deck, crew quarters and mess hall on the second deck, and engineering, Astrometric and holodecks on the third deck. On the forth deck there were two hangers—one large enough to house a small ship and another, smaller one with a missing shuttle (Ryland had said, with a mysterious look, that the XO was currently using it) and storage compartments.

“This is where you’ll be staying.” Ryland led him to a door between the ones he’d indicated as being his own and Victoria’s.

The rooms were opulently appointed and looked like something out of a sketch of a Victorian era townhouse. There was a loveseat and two wingback chairs upholstered in matching patterns, a coffee table and two end tables with actual real, old-fashioned lamps. The only modern concessions were the computer built into the antique writing desk in the corner, and the replicator next to the small, hand carved dining table and chairs.

Most of the bedroom was taken up by a large, four-poster bed. It was dressed in deep purple and cream sheets, more pillows than could ever be necessary, and purple curtains hung around it. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled to bursting, and scattered over the various surfaces of the room were instruments from all over the galaxy.

The bathroom was just as nice—sunken marble tub, glistening gold fixtures, lights that flickered like candles. The towels were longer than Brendon, and looked softer than anything Starfleet issued.

“You guys treat all your hostages this way?” Brendon asked.

Ryland gave him a smirk. “Just the special ones.” Brendon stared him down and Ryland gave in with a sigh. Brendon might admit it probably had less to do with Ryland being intimidated, and more with the fact that Brendon could make his eyes really big and pathetic looking.

“These are the quarters of our XO. But he mainly shares the Captain’s quarters, anyway, so even if he was around, you could probably still sleep here,” Ryland explained. He said it with a sort of fondness.

“Anyway, you’re free to use the kitchen and holodeck at your leisure, though someone usually makes brunch at 1100 and dinner between 1800 and 2000, and every evening at 2200, the crew gathers in the holodeck.”

Brendon wondered if their gatherings in the holodeck were anything like The Academy’s. Or if they were more like the orgies Jon had hinted at. Brendon wouldn’t be surprised, either way.

He caught sight of the bookshelf nearest him and saw dozens upon dozen of books, all with titles written in the Roman alphabet. Most were familiar from school, whether he’d read them or not. “Is your first officer Human?” Brendon asked.

Ryland laughed. “Silly boy,” he said, and left Brendon to his own devices.




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