The team moved.
Mercer went with them.
The tunnels swallowed them almost immediately.
Within thirty meters, the cavern where Mercer had faced the monster was gone behind two bends in the rock. Their lights swept across black walls, narrow passages, abandoned equipment, and the occasional glint of mineral deposits buried beneath the stone.
Nobody said anything about the shot.
That was worse than if they had.
Rainer moved ahead on the right.
Hale kept checking the passages branching away from the main tunnel.
Ox brought up the rear.
Kane walked near the front, communicator in one hand, phaser in the other.
Mercer stayed where he had been told.
And kept moving.
The monster was somewhere ahead of them.
Or behind them.
Or beneath them.
The mine had stopped feeling like a place built by people. The farther they went, the more it seemed to consist entirely of passages leading into other passages, black rock closing around them while the air grew hotter.
Mercer kept seeing the shot.
Center mass.
Nothing in the way.
His finger easing off the trigger.
He tried to decide whether he had hesitated.
That word bothered him.
Hesitation was what happened when somebody couldn't act.
Mercer could have acted.
He had chosen not to.
At least he thought he had.
That bothered him more.
They reached another junction.
Kane stopped.
His light moved over three openings.
“Rainer.”
“Right.”
“Hale.”
“Left.”
Hale glanced into the passage.
“Why do I always get the one that looks like it wants to kill me?”
Rainer looked at hers.
“They all look like that.”
“Mine looks enthusiastic.”
Ox leaned slightly to see past him.
“She's right.”
“Thank you, Ox.”
“I meant they all look like they want to kill you.”
Hale stared at him.
Ox smiled.
Kane pointed toward the passages.
“Look.”
They looked.
Mercer almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the communicator in Kane's hand crackled.
“—security teams, hold positions.”
Kane stopped.
So did everyone else.
Static filled the tunnel.
The message repeated.
“All Enterprise security teams, hold positions. Suspend search operations. Repeat, suspend search operations.”
Rainer turned.
“Well, that's new.”
Kane raised the communicator.
“Kane to search control. Confirm suspend.”
“Confirmed. Hold your present position.”
“Reason?”
A pause.
Static.
Then:
“Captain has made contact with the creature.”
Nobody spoke.
Mercer looked down the tunnel.
The creature.
Not monster.
Not yet anything else.
Just creature.
Kane's expression didn't change.
“Status?”
Another burst of static.
“Stand by.”
The channel went quiet.
Rainer looked at Kane.
“That's it?”
“For now.”
“We've been chasing this thing through half a mountain and now we stand by?”
“Yes.”
Rainer opened her mouth.
Kane looked at her.
She closed it.
Ox shifted his weight against the tunnel wall.
“How long's stand by?”
“As long as it takes,” Hale said.
“I know what it means.”
“Then why'd you ask?”
“I was hoping Starfleet had changed it.”
Hale considered that.
“Fair.”
Mercer said nothing.
He kept looking down the tunnel.
Somewhere in the mine, the creature he had allowed to escape had found another Enterprise team.
The captain was with it.
Mercer felt something cold settle beneath his ribs.
Rainer must have been thinking the same thing.
She looked at him once.
Quickly.
Then away.
Nobody said it.
They didn't have to.
If someone was dead—
If the creature had attacked—
If Mercer had been standing thirty meters back with a clean shot and had simply—
The communicator came alive.
Kane had it up before the first word cleared the static.
“All security teams. Creature is not to be fired upon. Repeat, do not fire.”
Mercer stared at the communicator.
The voice continued.
“Contact has established the creature is intelligent.”
Hale slowly lowered his phaser.
Rainer didn't.
Neither did Kane.
The transmission broke beneath a wash of static.
Then returned.
“Additional: creature is female. She is protecting her young.”
Mercer stopped breathing.
Female.
Her young.
The tunnel disappeared.
Rain touched his face.
* * *
The cemetery had no color in his memory.
That wasn't true.
There had been color.
There must have been.
Grass was green.
Earth was brown.
The flowers beside the grave had probably been red and yellow and white.
His father's suit had been dark blue.
Mercer knew these things because the world did not stop containing color merely because somebody died.
But when he remembered the day, everything was black and white.
Rainwater shining on polished shoes.
Dark coats.
Pale faces.
Bare trees beyond a low stone wall.
A line of automobiles parked along the road like something from an old photograph.
Umbrellas turned against the weather.
Mud gathering around the edges of the grave.
His mother's coffin.
Mercer stood with his brothers and sisters beneath a gray sky that seemed too low.
He had been home for three days.
Three days of people arriving.
Three days of food appearing in the kitchen from neighbors who didn't know what else to do.
Three days of doors opening and closing.
Three days of hearing his mother's name spoken in voices lowered by grief.
Three days of walking into rooms and expecting to find her there.
He had done that twice.
The first time in the kitchen.
The second in the back room.
Both times his mind corrected itself before his body did.
That was the cruel part.
The body could still expect somebody after the mind knew better.
His uniform felt stiff beneath his coat.
He had debated whether to wear it.
His father had ended the debate without really having one.
“Your mother was proud of it.”
That had been all.
So Mercer wore the uniform.
Now rain gathered along the shoulders of the coat over it.
Nobody spoke.
The minister did.
Mercer remembered the movement of his mouth.
He remembered the cadence of words.
He remembered hearing his mother's name.
He remembered almost nothing else.
His youngest sister stood beside him.
Not young anymore.
Not really.
But some part of Mercer still expected to look down and see the girl who used to steal food from his plate and deny it while chewing.
Her hand found his.
He held it.
On the other side of the grave stood his father.
Mercer had seen his father exhausted.
Angry.
Bruised.
Sick.
Laughing so hard he couldn't breathe.
He had seen him come home from work covered in dust and sweat, shoulders bent beneath responsibilities his children had never understood.
He had seen him lose friends.
Lose work.
Lose money.
Lose arguments with Mercer's mother and pretend afterward that he had won.
He had seen the man cry before.
His father had never been ashamed of tears.
That was one of the things Mercer hadn't understood until he was older.
Strength, in his father's house, had never required pretending something didn't hurt.
But Mercer had never seen him like this.
His father stood beside the grave with both hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
Rain ran down his face.
So did tears.
He didn't wipe either away.
The minister said something.
His father made a sound.
Small.
Broken.
One of Mercer's brothers stepped toward him.
Their father raised a hand.
Not to stop him.
Just—
Wait.
Please.
A moment.
He looked down at the coffin.
And whatever he had been holding together ceased to matter.
His shoulders folded.
His face tightened.
Then the man who had carried six children, a household, bad harvests, long workdays, injuries, bills, and every ordinary catastrophe life could deliver simply wept.
Openly.
Helplessly.
Mercer stared at him.
Not because the sight embarrassed him.
Because for one terrible moment his father looked lost.
His father had never looked lost.
Not to Mercer.
Even when Mercer had grown old enough to know better.
His father reached toward the coffin.
His hand stopped short of touching it.
“Goddammit,” he whispered.
The minister fell silent.
Nobody corrected him.
His father took a breath that shook on the way in.
“You weren't supposed to go first.”
Mercer's sister tightened her grip on his hand.
He could hear crying now.
His brothers.
His sisters.
Himself, perhaps.
He couldn't tell.
His father finally rested one hand against the coffin.
The gesture was almost casual.
The way he might once have touched his wife's shoulder while passing behind her at the dinner table.
The way people touch somebody after forty years because they no longer need a reason.
For an instant Mercer saw them there instead.
His mother at the table.
His father coming through the door.
Children everywhere.
Noise.
Laughter.
His father's tired smile.
The feeling children mistake for forever.
The cemetery returned.
His father's hand remained on the coffin.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.”
Mercer had no answer.
None of them did.
One of his older brothers crossed the grass.
The same brother who had once stood alone beside a broken fence, hammer in hand, furious at the universe because an eight-year-old couldn't hold a post still.
He put an arm around their father.
This time their father didn't ask him to wait.
Another brother joined them.
Then a sister.
Then another.
Mercer felt the youngest sister release his hand.
She went too.
Mercer remained where he was.
For half a second.
Maybe less.
Then he stepped forward.
His father saw him.
There was no pride in the old man's face.
No reassurance.
No effort to become the father Mercer remembered.
Just grief.
Mercer put his arms around him.
His father's forehead rested against Mercer's shoulder.
Mercer held on.
So did everybody else.
Six children around one old man beside one coffin in the rain.
There had been a time when Mercer believed his father held the family together.
Maybe they had all believed it.
Standing there, Mercer understood something he wished he didn't.
His mother had been holding part of it too.
A part none of them could simply replace.
His father began to cry again.
Mercer closed his eyes.
And held him.
* * *
“Mercer.”
Kane.
The rain disappeared.
Black rock surrounded him again.
Mercer looked at the communicator in Kane's hand.
Nobody had moved.
Rainer's phaser was down now.
Ox stared at the floor.
Hale leaned against the tunnel wall.
Mercer looked into the darkness ahead.
Female.
Her young.
Thirty meters back, he had called her a monster.
He had aimed at the center of her body.
He could still feel the trigger beneath his finger.
Kane lifted the communicator again.
“Kane to search control.”
“Go ahead.”
“Orders?”
“Remain in position. Search is suspended pending further instructions.”
“Understood.”
Kane closed the communicator.
Rainer let out a long breath.
“So.”
Nobody helped her.
She looked at Mercer.
“You lucky bastard.”
Mercer looked at her.
Rainer's face changed almost immediately.
Not apology.
Rainer rarely looked built for apology.
But something near it.
“I mean—”
“I know.”
She nodded once.
Hale looked back toward the tunnel they had come through.
“We almost killed her.”
Mercer said nothing.
Hale glanced at him.
Then corrected himself.
“I almost wanted you to.”
“Everybody did,” Ox said.
Rainer looked at Kane.
“You didn't.”
Kane's expression remained flat.
“I wanted the threat stopped.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It wasn't a question.”
Rainer frowned.
Then seemed to decide she had reached the limit of what Kane intended to give her.
Mercer watched him.
Kane was looking down the tunnel.
Not at Mercer.
Not at anyone.
Just looking.
Mercer wondered what he saw.
The communicator remained silent.
And Mercer remembered another room.
* * *
The yeoman did not look up when Mercer entered.
That irritated him.
Not because it was rude.
Because Mercer had spent the previous fifteen minutes preparing himself for the conversation.
He had expected an officer.
Maybe a commander.
Somebody with a file on the desk.
Questions.
A review board.
A formal decision about whether Thomas Mercer deserved to continue wearing a Starfleet uniform.
Instead there was a yeoman behind a desk with three PADDs open, a half-finished cup of coffee beside one hand, and the distracted expression of a man trying to make six personnel problems fit into four available berths.
“Mercer?”
“Yes, sir.”
The yeoman tapped a screen.
“Thomas E. Mercer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another tap.
“Security.”
“Yes, sir.”
Now the yeoman looked up.
“You're going to wear that phrase out.”
Mercer didn't answer.
The office hummed softly around them.
Somewhere beyond the closed door, a shipwide announcement called for an engineering specialist to report to docking control.
The yeoman studied Mercer for a moment.
Not suspiciously.
Just checking the man against the file.
Mercer knew what the file contained.
He knew the wording.
Negligent discharge.
Field casualties.
Command review.
Temporary removal from away-team rotation.
Remedial tactical instruction.
Psychological evaluation.
The words were cleaner than what had happened.
Official language usually was.
The yeoman looked back down.
“You missed the *Rowland* deployment.”
Mercer blinked.
“Sir?”
“She pulled out this morning.”
Mercer stared at him.
He had known the deployment date.
Of course he had.
He had simply—
No.
That wasn't true.
He hadn't allowed himself to think about it.
“Where?”
The yeoman glanced at the screen.
“Border patrol rotation. Six months.”
Mercer said nothing.
The *Rowland* was gone.
Danner's bunk would be empty.
Someone else would have it now.
Somebody would eventually move into the space.
Put boots beneath the rack.
Hang a uniform.
Complain about the mattress.
Life aboard the ship would close around the absence because ships could not leave empty spaces forever.
The yeoman continued.
“Your hold status cleared after she received departure authorization.”
Mercer looked at him.
“I thought I was going back.”
“You're not.”
The words landed harder than Mercer expected.
The yeoman turned one of the PADDs around.
“Personnel reassigned you.”
Mercer looked down.
For a moment the name meant nothing.
Then it did.
USS *Enterprise*.
Mercer frowned.
“The *Enterprise*?”
“That's what it says.”
“Why?”
The yeoman shrugged.
“Because Starfleet has ships, ships need people, and apparently you remain people.”
Mercer looked at him.
The yeoman's expression didn't change.
Maybe it was a joke.
Mercer couldn't tell anymore.
“Security complement has an opening,” the yeoman continued. “Transfer orders are effective immediately. Report aboard by sixteen hundred.”
Mercer read the screen again.
USS *Enterprise*.
He knew the ship.
Everybody knew the ship.
That somehow made it worse.
He wasn't supposed to be there.
He was supposed to be aboard the *Rowland*.
He was supposed to finish what he had started.
He was supposed to find some way to become the man Danner had believed he might eventually be when he'd told him to stay close.
Instead the ship was gone.
The people who survived his first away mission had left without him.
Mercer swallowed.
“Can I appeal it?”
The yeoman looked up.
“You can appeal anything.”
Hope rose before Mercer could stop it.
Then the yeoman added:
“They'll deny it.”
Mercer looked back at the transfer order.
“Why?”
“Because the *Rowland* is already underway and Enterprise needs a security crewman.”
The yeoman leaned back.
“Sometimes personnel assignment is less philosophical than people hope.”
Mercer almost laughed.
He didn't.
He handed the PADD back.
The yeoman took it.
For a moment neither man spoke.
Mercer expected something else.
Advice, maybe.
A warning.
A remark about the incident.
Everybody knew about the incident.
At least everybody who mattered.
The yeoman simply returned to his work.
“Report to Docking Section Four. They'll route you from there.”
Mercer stood.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned.
The door opened.
Mercer walked out.
That was it.
No tribunal.
No speech.
No pronouncement.
One ship left without him.
Another needed a security crewman.
The door closed behind him.
* * *
The tunnel was quieter when Mercer came back.
He could hear the mine around them.
Water somewhere in the rock.
The low mechanical vibration of equipment far away.
Ox shifting his boots.
Rainer tapping one finger against the body of her phaser.
Mercer looked at Kane.
Kane was still looking into the darkness.
Mercer wondered what he saw.
The communicator crackled.
“All security teams, stand down. Repeat, stand down. Return to surface staging areas. Creature is not to be engaged.”
Kane raised the communicator.
“Team acknowledges.”
He closed it.
“Back the way we came.”
Rainer holstered her phaser.
“Finally.”
Hale pushed away from the wall.
Ox turned back toward the tunnel.
Mercer started after them.
He made it two steps before looking back.
Kane had not moved yet.
His right hand hung beside his leg.
A phaser rested in it.
Mercer turned away.
The phaser disappeared quietly into its holster.
“Mercer,” Kane said.
Mercer looked back.
Kane was already walking toward him.
“Move.”
Mercer moved.
The team headed for the surface.
Behind them, the tunnels returned to darkness.