Chapter Text
Elan wakes him. She does it from across the room, calls “Captain!” and he’s up with the phaser pointed at her before he’s fully opened his eyes. Burnham must have warned her, he realizes when thought returns. He has a splitting headache.
“Lieutenant.” His mouth tastes like something crawled into it and died. Not impossible, with the things the biologists bring back on board. “Computer, lights to half.” He lowers the phaser.
Elan has been very still, her antennae stiff, but she takes two steps in his direction after he speaks. “Drinking without me, Captain? You reek.” Her voice is strangely gentle and he doesn’t like it.
“I’m fine. Get the hypo from my bedside table.” Too late, he remembers the state of his bedroom and almost tells her to stop.
But she doesn’t comment, just retrieves the hypospray, hands it to him and waits for him to hiss in relief before she speaks. “We just arrived at a planet with what I’m told is unusual volcanic activity. Science division is asking permission to send a team.”
“Saru didn’t approve it?” He walks toward the shower, Elan trailing.
“It’s not a Class M planet.” Minshara class, he remembers. “The team will need significant protective gear. Mr. Saru believed he should confirm it with you, given how different it will be from previous missions.”
Lorca braces himself. “Tell Saru I’ll be on the bridge in twenty minutes. No one goes anywhere until I’m there.”
“Yes, sir,” Elan says, and she’s still speaking in that gentle tone. “Sir.”
“What is it?”
“You should put down the phaser.”
He looks at his hand and finds he’s still gripping it tightly. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Dismissed.” When she’s gone, he places the phaser on the bathroom counter, undresses again, and steps into the shower to wash off the stink of whiskey.
Fifteen minutes later, he’s on the bridge. He’s braced himself already, and Burnham is there at her station, as expected. Lorca meets her eyes briefly, nods, and walks to the front of the bridge, just as he would have the day before. “Tell me about this planet,” he orders, looking out over it.
It’s small, almost entirely black, dotted with red and gray. “The volcanic activity appears to be continuous,” Burnham says, and she sounds as even as ever. She calls up a scan of the planet and projects it onto the viewscreen, then zooms in on one of the red and gray areas. Closer up, he can sees the ash clouds, the veins of lava spreading from the eruptions. “The planet’s crust is pure silicon, though. There’s no breathable atmosphere, and temperatures on the planet are a minimum of two hundred degrees. Minor radiation.”
“And the science division wants samples. Sounds like a good way to lose a science team.” That might have been too dark for the current mood.
Burnham turns off the projection so that he can see the whole planet again, and he turns. “They’re aware of the risk,” she says. “Our protective gear should keep them safe for at least three hours. At that point, they’ll have to return.”
“Are there dangers beyond the environmental factors?” The science division is only division on this ship that’s generally happy. He’s not inclined to deny them their adventure, but he doesn’t want any deaths.
Saru takes over. “Captain, it does not appear that we would be able to transport anyone off the planet’s surface if something were to happen to the shuttle or if they were unable to return to it in time.”
“And they know that?”
“They do, sir.” Saru, he can tell, thinks this mission is a very bad idea. That’s why he sent Elan to Lorca in the first place, so that he wouldn’t have to be the one refusing.
Lorca walks back to his chair and sits down. “All right, we’ll send two scientists, one security officer. They do as much as they can at the shuttle, and no one goes more than forty-five minutes from the shuttle. I want everyone off the planet in two hours, no matter what.” He can tell that everyone is a little surprised. This is the most that he’s ever restricted a scientific away mission. He adds, “Depending on what they find, we’ll reassess after they’ve returned to the ship.”
Elan doesn’t go. Lorca suspects that she’s worried about him. She’s too professional to openly watch him on the bridge, but he knows that her antennae occasionally curve toward him and away from her station. Detmer holds them in geosynchronous orbit with the planet as the team flies down. “How’s it look down there?” he asks.
“It is as expected,” T’Lac says. She’d insisted that as a Vulcan, she was more accustomed to high temperatures and volcanic terrain, and should be one of the two scientists chosen. “We have begun the planetary scans using the shuttles sensors and I am preparing to approach the caldera.” Their destination was a safe distance from one of the calderas, well out from under the ash cloud so that they can communicate with Discovery.
It's never been so difficult to wait for a mission to return. Lorca walks to the front of the bridge, clasps his hands behind his back so he won’t fidget, and stares out at what looks like a hellscape below. It doesn’t help that Saru is announcing time in fifteen-minute increments. At an hour, the security officer with them radios back to Discovery to confirm that everything is proceeding as planned. At an hour and a half, the caldera erupts further and the shuttle vanishes.
“Discovery to away team, report!” Elan is already trying to reach them even as the shuttle is destroyed, both antennae straining forward toward her station. “Report!”
“Discovery—” Someone coughs badly, the sound stripping their throat. “Discovery, this is Ensign T’Lac. Lieutenant Samuels and I are unharmed. Lieutenant Riley was with the shuttle. But we have no way to return."
Lorca looks at Saru, who shakes his head. “We remain unable to transport them.”
“Captain,” Elan begins, and he knows what she’s about to ask.
“Go,” he tells her. “But take someone else with you.” He can feel Burnham watching him.
Elan rescues T’Lac and Samuels. When Saru reports that they’re back on board, Lorca goes to sickbay to see them. Riley is the first person that Discovery has lost since Landry. He takes care of Discovery’s crew. For all that he’s turned them into soldiers, they’re not supposed to die like them.
In sickbay, T’Lac and Samuels both appear physically unharmed, but their breathing is labored—Culber tells him that the smoke and ash from the eruption temporarily overwhelmed the respiratory protections on their suits. He’s given them both masks and instructed them to breathe slowly. Elan is…angry, now that her fear has dissipated. Culber is checking her vital signs and everything is elevated, even for an Andorian. When he tries to offer her a calming hypo, she glares at him until he goes back to the others.
“I told you to take someone else,” Lorca says.
Elan’s fingers flex on the edge of the bio-bed where she sits. “I didn’t want to risk anyone else.” She and Riley had been close, Lorca knows. He’d almost promoted Riley to chief of security instead, but Riley had encouraged him to choose Elan.
“I’m glad you’re all right. All three of you.” He sees Elan’s eyes flick to T’Lac quickly and then away. “We’ll debrief in an hour, if you’re all ready then.”
* * *
When the debrief is over, he dismisses T’Lac and Samuels with orders to rest. “Elan,” he says. “We can organize a—memorial, for Riley.” He never thought he’d hear himself suggesting it.
“Yes, sir.” She’s still furious at herself.
Lorca can’t let her stew in that. He knows how quickly it turns to poison. “I could use a sparring partner this afternoon,” he offers. “I need to be ready in case we run across more Klingons.” He’s full of too much energy, and hitting something—someone—would help. He thinks it would help Elan too.
“Sir.” Elan’s expression might soften the tiniest bit. “I don’t pull my punches.”
“Neither do I.” He smiles at her, as much as she’ll accept. “Alpha shift is over, Lieutenant. I’ll see you in the gym.”
Lorca doesn’t usually spar. It was an offering to Elan, something he thought she would like, but he begins to regret it as soon as they’re standing on a sparring mat. When he fights, he does it to kill. It had been a struggle not to kill the natives who’d pursued him and Burnham, and he’d only held back because of her. Now, standing barefoot facing Elan, he can feel the adrenaline pumping through him and it’s all he can do to stay still. He’s never fought an Andorian before.
“Nothing permanent, everything else is fair game,” he tells her. “Try not to give me a concussion or Dr. Culber will be angry with you.”
Elan bares her teeth in an almost-grin. “I’ll be gentle,” she tells him. “Ready?”
“Go,” he says. He doesn’t realize how quick she is until he’s flat on his back tasting blood.
“Sorry, Captain.” Elan is unrepentant and it sends a warm rush though him to know that he doesn’t have to hold back, not even subconsciously. She pulls him to his feet and they retreat to separate corners. “Go,” she tells him.
This time he knows what to watch for, and he dodges, hits hard to her solar plexus, tries to sweep her feet out from under her, but she punches him twice, nose and then eye, and he breaks away swearing. They grapple again and she strikes him in the stomach, chops at his windpipe, as he punches her down—she bounces up and sweeps his own feet, then kicks him hard while he’s lying on the ground, twice, and he spares a second to be glad that they’re barefoot. He catches her foot before the third strike, rolls and pins her down, but she flips him somehow, boxes his ears and, while he’s still stunned, presses her elbow across his throat.
“Yield,” he rasps, and Elan pulls him to his feet. There’s blue blood on Elan’s teeth when she bares them in a smile and some of his own red on her hands, and he can feel his eye swelling shut. He thinks his nose is broken and she may have dislocated his shoulder. It’s painful and exhilarating and exactly what he wanted—what she needed too, he thinks.
“Not bad for a human,” she tells him.
“You’re fast. I didn’t realize how fast you’d be.”
“I’m carrying less bulk.” She jabs, hits him in his good shoulder, and even playfully he feels the force behind it.
Lorca turns to find a towel to wipe his face and discovers that the exercise room has filled, ten or fifteen people all watching them. He sees Tilly, Chandavarkar, even Tyler, all in their silly Disco workout shirts. And Burnham. He doesn’t want to look at her, but he can’t help it for a moment; their eyes catch and she scans him up and down before he forces himself to look away. Lorca wonders what she sees—danger? He turns back to Elan and says, “Lieutenant, I think that’s all for me.” She squints at him, nods, and tosses his shoes to him. As he leaves the room, he hears Elan call, “All right, who else wants a beating?”
He goes to sickbay. He must look grisly, because two different specialists scramble out of his way in the halls, then stand at attention and say “Sir!” as he passes. In sickbay, Culber and Dr. Pollard are inside a bio-field working frantically, so Lorca sits on a bio-bed to wait. The pain is annoying but certainly not incapacitating.
“Helloooo, Captain!” Stamets seems to be haunting sickbay. He strolls over to the next bed over and hops up to face Lorca. “You look terrible.”
“Sparring with Elan.” His swollen lip makes it hard to enunciate.
Stamets shakes his head. “Note to self, don’t do that. But I’ve been meaning to talk to you anyway.”
That same dread that he felt with Burnham trickles through Lorca. “Lieutenant?”
“Are we ever going to use the spore drive again?”
He should have been expecting the question, but it throws him anyway. “The spore drive?” he repeats.
“You know, lots of floaty sparkles in the air, needles in my arms, could probably jump all the way home?”
Lorca isn’t sure what his gestures are meant to evoke. “Not until we know this won’t happen again,” he says, and lets Stamets decide what “this” means. “Not anytime soon,” he amends.
“The crew want to get home.” Stamets sounds like he’s testing Lorca. “We have no idea how long it’s going to take us at warp.”
“Better we take months and return with you and the spore drive intact than try to jump again and end up god knows where.”
“Captain, whatever went wrong last time won’t happen again—”
It wouldn’t happen again, because Lorca wouldn’t interfere again. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have the advanced medical facilities that we would need on board before Dr. Culber or I would be satisfied that it was safe for you to jump.”
“Hugh would never be satisfied that it was safe for me to jump.” Stamets looks over at his partner and Lorca can hear the fondness in his voice, even mixed with exasperation. “But you, Captain—” He frowns at Lorca. “One hundred and thirty-four jumps after we engaged the Klingons at Pahvo, and this is the one you’re worried about?”
“What are you looking for here, Stamets?”
Stamets tilts his head. “You asked me about alternate universes, before we jumped. Did you want to go to another one?”
“I wanted to try it, eventually.” That’s as much as he can admit to Stamets.
“Not anymore?”
“We’re wandering in an uncharted part of the galaxy and there’s some kind of incorporeal being living in the cultivation bay,” Lorca says. “We’re already pretty far beyond the norm.”
“Oh, it’s a symbiotic relationship!” Stamets gets distracted by his mention of the creature. “It promotes mycelial growth and it seems to gain strength from the mycelium. We’re still sifting through all the data we’ve gathered—”
“Captain.” Culber’s voice cuts through whatever Stamets was going to say, and Lorca turns to him. “Paul,” he adds.
Stamets rolls his eyes. He hops down off the bed and says “I’ll be in Engineering if you need me.”
“Paul isn’t physically able to jump,” Culber says, once Stamets has left. “Captain, I—”
“I’m not going to ask him to, doctor.” Lorca gestures at his own face. “A little help?”
Culber switches back into doctor mode and begins scanning with his medical tricorder. “What happened?”
“Lieutenant Elan and I decided to work off some energy.” He winces as Culber prods at his nose.
“She did a number on you. Where’s she?” Culber holds the tricorder very close to his eye, which is now swollen almost shut.
“She was…in better condition. She’s probably still sparring.”
“Hmm.” Culber is only half-listening. “You still aren’t experiencing any light-sensitivity?”
“No more than I used to.” Culber turns up the light on the tricorder and the expectation of pain is still there, but it never arrives. “Burnham!” Lorca tenses. Culber must see the spike in his vital signs. “Have you been sparring with Elan too?”
“No. She told me that I should go down to sickbay and make sure that she didn’t give the captain another concussion.” It sounds like something Elan would say, but he’s a little surprised she would send Burnham right now, given how careful she’s been around him.
“I knew she was holding back,” Lorca says. When Culber moves the tricorder from his field of vision, his eyes focus on Burnham, still in her Disco t-shirt and shorts. She’s sweating a little and Tilly is hovering just outside the doors. It looks like they went jogging and decided to stop by. “She could have done a lot more damage when I was down.”
“When Vulcans are learning suus mahna, it’s considered a failure if one’s opponent is injured to the point of bleeding,” Burnham says.
“You didn’t seem worried about it when you fought the other prisoners on your first day here.” Of course, as far as she knows he didn’t see that fight.
“Suus mahna involves precise control of the body. Vulcans have the control that's needed to not use the same amount of force when sparring as in an actual fight. And I’m human.” Burnham’s spine is straight when she talks to him, her face devoid of expression. He wonders if she would argue if he pushed it further.
“Lieutenant Elan and I agreed on the amount of force before we sparred,” he says. He doesn’t want to admit that he’d been worried before the match that one of them might kill the other. “In a real fight, she could have broken my neck.”
“And you couldn’t have stopped her?” Burham is watching him so closely, looking for any sign of—danger? What does she want to see?
Lorca considers his words carefully until Culber tells him “Brace” and pops his shoulder back into place. He chokes the gasp of pain in his throat before it can escape.
“I want a chief of security who fights better than I do.” His own words echo back at him from months earlier. “Elan does.” He doesn’t know if he could have fought back harder without trying to kill her. He doesn’t know if he could have, and he doesn’t want to find out.
“I see. Sir.” He wonders if she’s thinking of Tyler. “I’ll tell Lieutenant Elan that you’re…undamaged.”
When she turns to go, he can’t stop himself from saying “Burnham” in a strangled voice. She stops, but she doesn’t look back. “Dismissed.” It’s the only thing he can say in front of Culber and Tilly and the sedated patient further away.
Burnham and Tilly jog away. Lorca realizes that Culber is looking at him with an expression that could almost be called pity. He hates it. “Are we finished here?”
“A few more minutes,” Culber says, and gives him a hypospray.