Chapter Text
Starfleet’s answer to the Pahvo failure is predictable. All starships ordered back behind Federation lines, including Discovery. Yes, the Klingons will destroy Pahvo, but it isn’t worth the Discovery.
Lorca argues with Admiral Terral on the bridge, where everyone can see it, instead of his ready room. Lets them all watch as he tells Terral what will happen, as Terral tells him that Pahvo was a failure and he has to retreat.
“You want me to run from a fight and leave a peaceful species to face annihilation?” His lip curls as he says it. The high-minded rhetoric of the Federation doesn’t mean much, it seems.
“I’m sorry, but the logic is clear. You will jump to Starbase 46. Immediately.” Terral throws all the emphasis on ‘will,’ and Lorca knows that Terral would transport on the bridge and take control himself if he could.
Lorca waits a moment, then tells Detmer to set course, warp five. Saru speaks up, of all the times, and asks for the chance to try to persuade Terral himself. Lorca feels a slight twinge of admiration for him, a Kelpien who wants to argue with an admiral, but ignores him. “At this speed, they’ll be expecting us in three hours at Starbase 46. That’s why we’re warping and not using the spore drive.” He raises his voice to the entire bridge crew. “I have no intention of reaching our destination. But if you’re planning on disobeying a direct order, best not to advertise the fact.” Detmer smiles at that. “So. You all heard the panicked admiral. Starfleet is tired of fighting the Klingon cloaking devices and losing. So am I.” He meets the eyes of every one of the bridge crew in turn. “We have just under three hours to find a solution. If we can, we jump back. Defend Pahvo. If we can’t…” He spreads his hands. “Let’s get to it!”
Detmer and Owosekun grin at each other and turn back to their stations. He calls Stamets over. “I’m going to need some reasonable explanation for Starfleet as to why we’re not currently using the spore drive. I understand you’ve had some trouble with your interface upgrades?”
Stamets has some minimal understanding of subtlety. He unzips his sleeve, rolls it up to display on of the implants. “Now that you mention it, um, it has been a little itchy.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Lorca would have gone with a different word, if he’d been making the excuse, but it’ll be enough. “Get down to medical bay, get a full examination.”
Surprisingly, Stamets balks. “Is…is that completely necessary, sir?”
His resistance makes Lorca nervous for a host of reasons. “It’s obligatory.” It certainly is now. “I want Dr. Culber to run every single test possible. We need the data trail.” And he needs to know if Stamets is falling apart.
* * *
With less than two hours left, Burnham and Saru begin explaining how the cloak works, the imperfections in the gravitational field, the algorithm that could be written using information about those imperfections. Like every scientific plan that anyone’s ever told him about on this ship, there are several giant holes in it.
“We’ll do it by placing sensors on board the Klingon ship to relay data back to Discovery,” Saru tells him.
“On the ship? With…a boarding party? One that has to physically beam over?” It sounds like a suicide mission. “All right, how do we get our people there?”
He’s heard this plan before. Tempt the ship away, and beam on board in the split-second before it has its shields up. He’s lived this plan before. Sometimes it works; sometimes soldiers never re-materialize or have limbs sheared off. And, worse than that, the sensors will take days to get the data they need. But they have the spore drive to help.
The linchpin of this plan—of every plan involving Discovery—is Stamets, and Stamets is sitting in sickbay, white matter trickling through his brain, with Culber trying to persuade him that he can’t jump right now. Lorca takes Stamets from his partner, puts him in the ready room alone, and reveals the plan.
“You want me to make…a hundred and thirty-three jumps?” The color has leached out of Stamets, has been leaching out of him for days now. This might kill him, and Lorca realizes he would regret that. He likes this Stamets much better than his own, though that itself isn’t saying much. “Captain, there has to be another way. You heard—”
“I wish there were.” He walks closer to Stamets, because he does mean it. “I wish I didn’t have to ask you to make this sacrifice, but the Klingons won’t stop until they’ve destroyed everything in their path, everyone. And we can’t stop them without the spore drive. Without you.”
Stamets protests on technological grounds, says the spore drive wasn’t designed to do this, but he doesn’t really mean it. He is the explorer that Lorca says he is, after all. Lorca shows him the map of the mycelial network that he’s developed, the paths into parallel universes, and Stamets says, “Captain, I didn’t know you cared.”
“We have to win this war, but then…”
Stamets laughs a little, staring at the glowing images. “Then the journey continues.” He stands up straighter and turns to Lorca. “If we can save Pahvo, defeat the Klingons, and do all this, one hundred and thirty-three jumps it is.”
Lorca hopes it doesn’t kill him.
“Lieutenant Tyler,” he says as he walks onto the bridge, “Prep a boarding party for the Klingon ship. Two people, in and out.”
“I recommend that Specialist Burnham accompany me, sir.”
Lorca speaks before he’s even registered it. “Out of the question. It’s too dangerous.”
“The effectiveness of our sensors depends on their placement, at the points closest to the Klingon vessel’s stern and bow.” Burnham follows, explaining, as though he doesn’t understand why she would be useful. “But their bridge is roughly four times the size of any Federation ship. I’ve been there. Only one location will work. Lieutenant Tyler doesn’t know how to access it. I do.” She’s so earnest as she says it.
“Then you’ll tell someone else. You’re not going.” He’s losing control of this conversation, if he ever had it. He sits in the captain’s chair, looks away.
“Sir, you offered me a place on this ship—”
“And now I’m ordering you to stay!” Other people are starting to watch openly. “Is that understood?”
“You are the captain,” she says, and she’s confident that she’ll persuade him somehow. “But you are not using the full resources to ensure the success of your mission.” Owosekun and Detmer are staring. “There is no logic to your thinking.” He shakes his head and looks away. “Unless this is about me.” There’s the barest hint of a question under her words.
Lorca’s gut clenches and he turns slowly to look at her, trying not to reveal it, trying to look as though he can’t possibly understand what she means. He sees fleeting triumph on her face.
“I’m here on borrowed time,” she says, the conviction growing in her voice. “When you asked me to stay, it was to help you win this war. Given the time I spent on that Klingon vessel, I’m the most qualified crew member to place those sensors.” She draws a deep breath. “Otherwise, I have no purpose here.”
He knows everyone is watching, wondering. It’s hardly a secret, his professional regard for Burnham, but he’s revealing far more than professional regard by arguing. He has to nod, has to grit out, “Fine. Execute the mission as ordered, and get back here safely.”
“Thank you, Captain,” she says, and he realizes that every word she said forced him into that position, checkmate in three from the moment she first spoke. It’s viscerally satisfying to understand it, to see how she placed the pieces, even as he hates that he has to let her leave.
He opens a ship-wide channel as he sees the video link from the spore chamber—Culber, already grieving, doing anything he can to save Stamets; Stamets, stepping inside like it’s an execution chamber—and says, “We are about to face the most difficult challenge we have ever attempted. Today we stare down the bow of the Ship of the Dead, the same ship that took thousands of our own at the Battle of the Binary Stars. When I took command of this vessel, you were a crew of polite scientists. Now, I look at you, and you are fierce warriors all. No other Federation vessel would have a chance of pulling this off.” No other captain would risk his crew and his ship like this. “Just us. Because, mark my words, you will look back proudly and tell the world you were there the day the USS Discovery saved Pahvo and ended the Klingon war.”
The Ship of the Dead appears on sensors. They jump out of warp and back to Pahvo. In the instant that the monstrous ship decloaks, Burnham and Tyler disappear; after a desperately long second, Saru tells him that they’ve arrived safely.
Discovery leads the ship on a merry chase—bumpy, as Detmer promised. They jolt and lights flash and alarms go off and then Saru tells him Burnham has done it, the second sensor is in place—they fire, jump, jump, jump, Stamets shudders and jerks, Culber begs him to stop, to save Stamets—
and Lorca tells him, “You do whatever you have to do, you keep him alive until he finishes the jumps. Trillions of lives are at stake here. That’s an order, doctor,” and Culber does what he has to, to keep Stamets alive.
It’s beautiful dizzying, the way the stars streak and spin as they jump. Airiam tells him that the jump sequence is complete: Saru has the data, needs five minutes to break the cloak. Owosekun suggests that they jump away until they have the power to see the Klingons.
But it’s eerily quiet for the middle of a starship battle. He stands and walks forward for a better view. “Why aren’t they firing?” He realizes. “They’re thinking of leaving—I would.” He looks to Saru, then to Detmer and Owosekun, says, “We’re not going anywhere ‘til we have Burnham and Tyler back.” They’re out there, on that invisible ship, and he can’t lose them.
It only takes a minute more before Saru tells him that they can penetrate the cloak to transport their people back home, and another minute before Saru says, “Sir, Lieutenant Tyler and Specialist Burnham are safely back on board.” Lorca barely has time to be glad and then Saru finishes, “…along with Admiral Cornwell, who’s been injured, and a Klingon prisoner, who’s been taken into custody.”
“An extra prize. All right.” In this moment, he refuses to worry what Cornwell will do. “Load all available photon torpedoes. Target the enemy ship.” He walks to the front of the bridge
“Target acquired, sir. We can see them.”
He pulls out his eyedrops, injects his eyes. He wants to be able to see this.
“Fire.”
The explosion, and those that follow, are brilliant, blinding. He hears the bridge doors open and turns; there’s Burnham, gloriously illuminated by the flashes, bloodied face beautiful and solemn as she meets his eyes. He’s never felt such satisfaction in victory.
He goes to sickbay because he knows Burnham will be there and he wants to see her again. Dr. Pollard is scanning her with a tricorder and narrating to a nurse, who’s collecting various supplies. “Concussion—ruptured eardrum—numerous contusions—fractured wrist—three broken ribs—” The litany continues.
Lorca crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at Burnham. “All that from placing sensors?”
“They started to leave before the jumps were done,” Burnham says. “I…delayed them. Mission executed as ordered.” There’s the tiniest bit of a laugh in her voice, stifled when the nurse holds a hypospray to her neck. “And you said it would be too dangerous.”
“Are you…mocking a commanding officer, Burnham?” It slips out, overly casual in the relief of victory. He’s drifted closer to the bio-bed where she sits, but he keeps his arms safely crossed so that he won’t be tempted to reach out and touch her to check for himself that she’s healing.
She arches an eyebrow as the nurse prods her broken ribs and says, “Sir, it is logical to identify past errors in thinking to avoid them in the future.” She’s definitely teasing him.
“Maybe we define ‘too dangerous’ differently,” he offers.
The nurse runs a dermal regenerator slowly over the ring of wounds around her neck. “Given Starfleet’s medical advancements,” Burnham says, “only a mission involving a high likelihood of a particular individual’s death would qualify as ‘dangerous’ for that person. A mission that is ‘too dangerous,’ then, could only be a mission in which the acceptable risk of a person’s death was greater than the value of the mission objective.” It’s jarring to realize that he enjoys it when she acts overly Vulcan to tease him.
“And the risk of your death was unacceptable. Whether or not it happened,” he tells her.
Burnham frowns. Her bloody lip splits further. The nurse looks heavenward—upward, at least—in an apparent plea for patience and moves the dermal regenerator back to Burnham’s lips. “That’s highly subjective. It depends entirely on the perspective of the person determining the relative values of a particular person’s life and a mission objective.” Her words are slightly muffled by the device.
“Yes.”
She starts to turn her head, but the nurse grabs her chin firmly and holds it in place. “So it was about me.”
“Burnham.” He can’t tell, but he thinks she’s laughing at him. He hopes she is. “Stop talking and let the nurse fix your face.” He turns to leave, then remembers that he had a question for her. “I hear you brought something back from the ship.”
He means the prisoner, but Burnham opens one clenched fist and stares with wonder at the battered Starfleet pin within. She’s clutched it so tightly that she’s cut her hand on it. “My captain,” she says. Lorca doesn’t take offense.
The nurse sighs heavily and turns up the setting on the dermal regenerator.
* * *
The incandescence of victory lasts only a few hours before the walls begin to close in. Tyler can barely walk straight without flinching at shadows. Cornwell is in surgery at a Starfleet hospital. Terral orders him to return to Starbase 46 with Discovery; they want to give him a medal and probably take away his ship for his “unorthodox methods.” Stamets will only make one more jump.
If he doesn’t go now, it may be years before Starfleet figures out how to run a spore drive without Stamets’ genetic manipulation, and with Cornwell alive, he may never have a ship again, certainly not this one. He has the data now. There’s no reason to wait.
Lorca returns to the bridge. He tells them they’re going home. He calls the black alert, the one he’s been waiting to call for months now. He pulls up the navigation override on his chair and begins to enter coordinates. He can feel Burnham watching, assessing, remembers that tiny laugh beneath her words in sickbay, that she’s grateful to serve under a captain like him. He fumbles the numbers he’s entering, closes his eyes, and tells himself that wherever they land will be destiny. “Go,” he says.
Lorca has planned what will happen next. They will jump. Eventually, someone will figure out where they are, and he’ll insinuate that it was Stamets’s fault, say that they have to stay there and learn to survive as they find a way home, instead of figure out what happened. They’ll find someone or something to tell them what he already knows, that Michael is dead and he’s a fugitive. He’ll feign surprise when Burnham comes to tell him.
He knows what he’ll say to her, when she reveals their own history to him. “Amazing, isn’t it? Different universe, but somehow the same people had a way to find each other. The strongest argument I’ve ever seen for the existence of destiny.”
“I don’t know if I believe in destiny,” Burnham will say.
“Is that so? Sitting in that cell all alone, facing a life sentence of solitude, a future full of misery? A little part of you had to know that wasn’t the end of your story. You were destined for something more.”
“Destiny didn’t get me out of prison, Captain,” she’ll say. “…You did that.” And that’s where the plan he’s crafted so lovingly will start to fall apart. “The Emperor’s daughter,” she’ll say. “Sir. Which emperor was that?” And she’ll start to suspect, start to wonder, how it is that he could say she reminds him of the Emperor’s daughter, when he’s never been to this universe but their fates are intertwined, when he’s the one who plucked her out of prison.
No. He’ll find a way out of it. He’ll say something that she’ll accept, at least long enough. He’ll discover the history of the Defiant, try to subtly present it as their only way out—to pose as Captain Burnham and Gabriel, let Burnham bring him in as a prisoner. Saru will argue against it, unwilling to take the risk but also unwilling to defy his captain.
They’ll find the Shenzhou, because Burnham will need a ship. She’ll cuff him, prepare to bring him out, and he’ll say, “Wait.” He won’t ask her to do it, to make him bleed so the Terrans will believe it; instead, he’ll smash his own face against the wall, once, twice, until he’s appropriately bloody. Then she’ll march him out onto the bridge, push him to his knees, drag her nails across his neck, through his hair, as she presents her prize.
Burnham will struggle to let go of herself and turn into Michael, but she’ll do it. She’ll let him be put into the agonizer. She’ll leave him to scream himself hoarse, past hoarse, until no sound issues from his lungs, until he loses all grasp of time and space. Sometimes she’ll come to him and pull him out for a few fleeting minutes under the guise of interrogation as he twitches and shudders. It’ll be all the worse for that moment of softness when she puts him back inside and leaves him. Sometimes she’ll let him drink a little water—no food, he'll only throw it up—and suggest that they leave, and he’ll have to persuade her that they should stay and that he should suffer more, because he needs her to take him to the Charon.
Eventually, the Emperor’s ship will find them, or they’ll find the Emperor. Burnham will take him and the Emperor will call her “daughter” and Burnham will know, know, then, but it won’t matter. He’ll take the palace. Burnham will fight her way through his soldiers and the Emperor’s alike, and he’ll have to remind his soldiers over and over that they cannot touch her, that they should die before hurting her. Maybe she’ll fight him too, and there is no universe in which he kills Michael Burnham. But he’ll win, and when he’s won everything, he will try to convince her to stay.
She won’t.