Collateral Oaths, Part 2
Posted on 11 Aug 2025 @ 6:20am by Gareth Rhys & Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
2,600 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Assignment: Arawyn
Location: Starbase 369
Timeline: SD: 242508.10
Collateral Oaths, Part 2
Starbase 369 — “The Lion’s Den”
The Long Haul ghosted in under a registry she hadn’t worn in eighteen months, “Aegis Hydroponics, Seedstock Wholesaler,” and settled into a civilian slip well clear of the main Starfleet moorings. Even here, under the polished halo of Starbase 369, Gareth felt the old tension in his shoulders, the sense that a man in his line of work should never be this easy to find.
TESSA had argued for a deeper mask: a holo-hull, transponder mimicry, the full vanish. He’d vetoed it. A false name was cover enough; anything more might suggest he had something to hide.
Docking umbilicals locked with the hollow thump of official welcome. Gareth stayed on the bridge long enough to feel the ship’s grav-anchors settle, then rose without ceremony. The summons from his mother still pulsed on his wrist-comm, routing him to Vice Admiral MacLaren, a familiar, unwelcome heat that had nothing to do with its power cell. It could wait.
The decks needed clearing first.
Braxton Greaves and Leah Callahan went off-ship first, walking under their own power but still bearing the gray pallor of recovery. Greaves in particular moved like a man whose mind was still waking from too many days in stasis. Waiting for them at a maintenance airlock was a man in a dockworker’s jacket whose eyes didn’t match his trade.
Gareth didn’t offer names; neither did the contact. One clipped exchange, a discreet handoff of a sealed padd, and the rescued officers vanished into the station’s back corridors like they’d never been there. The contact's eyes darted everywhere but to his.
Good. Anonymity was its own currency.
Malik’s crew went next, under guard and in silence. Station Security took them in pairs, bioscanners humming. Their eyes tracked Gareth as they passed, most with defiance, a few with the kind of calculation that measured escape routes even in custody. He gave them nothing back. Whatever came next for them, whether it be a debrief, trial, or quiet disappearance, it wasn’t his concern. He’d kept his end of the bargain.
By the time the last man disappeared into the turbolift, the air aboard the Long Haul felt lighter, the way a ship always did when the passenger manifest was back to family only.
He found Grak in Engineering, stripped to the waist and already elbow-deep in an access panel. The Tellarite didn’t look up.
“Cloak harmonics are still limping from Yavin,” Grak growled. “You want them tuned before you swan off to your meeting, I need three hours, two if I ignore safety protocols.”
“You’ve ignored them before,” Gareth said.
Grak snorted. “Not when the last set of harmonics kept you invisible under a Tholian lattice. You want me to keep doing the impossible, give me my three hours.”
A low chuckle was Gareth's only assent. From there, he crossed to the medical bay.
Dr. Vess was cleaning his kit, instruments and workspace humming steadily. Vaela stood in the corner, arms folded, eyes sharp.
“They need rest, Gareth,” Vess said without turning. “So do you.”
He gave the doctor a thin smile. “I’ll take it under advisement, Lorian.”
Sora’s voice cut in over comms from the Conn.
“Hull’s got two hairline breaches aft starboard, and I’m putting us on auxiliary life-support until Grak’s done ripping her open. Try not to break anything else before we leave port.”
It wasn’t affection, not exactly, but it was home. Once the ship’s pulse felt steady, Gareth keyed the comm.
“TESSA, log me out. Full crew stand-down. Station protocols until I’m back.”
Her holoform shimmered to life beside the bridge chair, head canted in that almost-human way she had when she didn’t like his orders.
“You’re walking into a meeting arranged by a woman who uses outdated command codes for nostalgia,” she said. “Shall I keep the cloak warm?”
He almost smiled. “Just watch the ship.”
MacLaren’s sector headquarters sat in the still-growing heart of Starbase 369, a crescent of steel and glass surrounded by scaffolding and half-sealed bulkheads. Gareth took the lift as far as it would go before “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” tape forced him into the long walk—through echoing corridors lined with exposed EPS conduits and wall panels still wearing their manufacturer’s stencils.
Construction crews moved around him in fits and starts, some in full EVA harness, others guiding antigrav pallets stacked with plasteel sheeting. The air smelled faintly of ozone, lubricants, and the dry dust of fresh composite. No one stopped him. He walked like he belonged, and that was usually enough. It had been enough on Xylos, right before the ambush. He pushed the thought away, focusing on the glare of a cutting torch in a side bay. No distractions. Not now.
The higher he climbed, the more complete the station became. Raw deckplates gave way to polished flooring, open struts to finished bulkheads. By the time he reached the headquarters level, the hum of construction had faded behind a soundproofed access hatch.
Inside, the outer office was all clean lines and quiet efficiency, a sharp contrast to the raw steel below. A single yeoman sat behind a crescent desk, stylus moving over a padd. She looked up, registered him without visible surprise, and tapped her comm once.
“Commander Rhys is here,” she said into the air. Then, to Gareth: “The Admiral will see you shortly. Please wait.”
He gave a slow nod, eyes flicking once to the closed inner door, and took the offered seat.
The ledger was balanced. Now for the new entry.
=/\= MacLaren's Office, Starbase 369 =/\=
Ensign Quen let her know that Rhys had arrived. She glanced around her office. In the last two days, it had come a long way. She had windows now, and she glanced out of them before turning her attention back to what ships had recently docked. There were a few that could be his. The fact that he slipped in without her knowing irritated her, but it was a testament to the skill of his team.
It had only been a few days since she had contacted Commodore Stiles, and Sidra was surprised he was here already. Sidra let the words settle a beat before she replied, “Send him in, Ensign.”
MacLaren blacked out her console, the LCARS display fading to black, before squaring her shoulders as she watched Gareth Rhys come in, tall and proud. She read his posture but made no attempt to guess at his thoughts..
Sidra didn’t try to fake a warmth that wasn’t there. “Thank you for coming, Mr Rhys.” She avoided using his former rank.
The Admiral’s was the kind that strip-mined a man for secrets. Gareth Rhys met it with a practiced stillness; hands locked loosely at the base of his back in a parade-rest posture he hadn’t willingly assumed in years. He was here because his mother’s friend knew how to look, but it was his mother who knew how to ask.
The summons hadn't been an order; Commodore Alyxendra Stiles was far too shrewd for that. It was simply a quiet, trans-sentient “You’ll go,” broadcast across a thousand light-years with the same immutable weight it carried when he was twelve, hell-bent on skipping his father's symposium to run the forest trails instead. He’d shown up then, muddy and sullen, because it mattered to her. Twenty-odd years later, nothing had changed except the stakes.
He could feel MacLaren assessing him, cataloging him against the file his mother had undoubtedly provided. It was the price of her favors, the collateral on debts only a son could owe. Refusing her was never a matter of censure or credits; it was the quiet weight of her disappointment, a look that suggested he was less than the man she thought she’d raised. That was a price he was still unwilling to pay.
So he stood here, a willing captive in this sterile office. He would listen, he would weigh, and he would offer the Admiral the courtesy she had bought with his mother's influence. But the board remained his. And he never let anyone else play his pieces.
“Admiral,” Gareth said, his voice a flat, neutral tone that offered nothing. “You asked to see me.”
There was only the slightest tilt of her head as she considered his stance. In her eyes, it was a precise, deliberate parade rest. All she knew came from his records, with the occasional whisper of what he’d accomplished beyond Starfleet’s reach; and none of it suggested the man rattled easily.
Her green eyes eased fractionally, the sharp appraisal loosening by degrees. “Please, sit. I appreciate you coming.”
Sidra leaned back slightly, watching the unhurried way he took the chair opposite. Years of reading people made the economy of his movement obvious: smooth, balanced, and deliberate.
She dispensed with pleasantries. “There’s a gap in intelligence gathering across my fleet. It’s an unacceptable risk as Epsilon moves into a new operational phase.”
Her gaze fixed on his — one natural brown eye, the other a bionic glint; and he met it without flinching. “You can reach places my teams can’t, bound as they are by regulations.”
"I want the new flagship to leave port with an extra set of eyes, an ear to the ground. If we can come to terms.” Beneath the desk, her foot began to tap; she stilled it, reclaiming the stillness.
Gareth didn’t answer right away. He let his gaze drift past her, his right eye humming almost imperceptibly as its iris tightened and the HUD overlay bloomed in his vision. Through the office window, the U.S.S. Arawyn filled the berth, all the Sovereign-class’s inherent grace wrapped around weapons that could unmake a city. His cybernetics painted her in layered schematics: shield geometry, phaser arcs, drive core telemetry pulled from the station’s public data feed.
A fine ship. A dangerous ship. And, for him, a cage.
He brought his focus back to the Admiral, the schematics dissolving from his sight.
“Let me be plain, Admiral,” he said, his voice even and devoid of warmth. “The only reason I’m in this room is because the Commodore called. My presence here pays that debt.”
His stance shifted, a subtle repositioning that was less about comfort and more about control. “So yes, I’ll take the job. You’ll get your ear to the deckplates, your shadow in the grey spaces where your regulations don’t reach. But I am not Starfleet. I don’t wear your colors or salute your flag. You point me at the problem; the solution is mine.”
He leaned forward, the motion slow and deliberate, his voice dropping half a register. “And my solutions require unfiltered data. Real-time intel, complete movement logs, everything. If you give me a sanitized map, you’ll get a sanitized result, and I don’t do half-measures.”
Gareth leaned back, the decision made, the terms planted like steel pins in the table between them.
“Those aren't points of negotiation. They are the cost of doing business.”
Sidra didn’t need the price spelled out. At fifty-eight, she’d seen every flavour of operator who promised results “outside the lines,” and she knew exactly what kind of access he’d demand. In her decades here, she’d walked through enough shadow to recognise a useful one. The Traxati alone were a threat most captains underestimated, and they were far from the only predators who’d flourished during Starfleet’s absence from this sector. Those footholds wouldn’t be surrendered without a fight.
Her eyes narrowed, not in challenge but in confirmation. “You’re thirty-four, Gareth. I’ve been doing this job since before you were old enough to see over a briefing table. I asked for you because of what you do, and because I know what it takes to make it work. Don’t mistake my need of you for inexperience.”
The cost of doing business here wasn’t credits; it was security, leverage, and the assurance that her flagship’s captain would see the value in an operator who didn’t wear the uniform.
Gareth’s lips curved into a smile that never reached his eyes. It wasn’t warm; it was the deliberate acknowledgment of a statement of fact. His cybernetic eye caught the office light, for a brief, crystalline moment.
“Point taken, Admiral,” he said, his tone a level of respect. “You know this game far better than I do.”
He leaned forward then, forearms resting lightly on his knees, his voice dropping but gaining an edge of tempered steel.
“But let’s be clear about the piece you’re putting into play. If you want me aboard your flagship, you get us. TESSA isn’t a subroutine I can shelve or a piece of gear I can leave behind.”
He paused, letting the silence underscore his next words.
“She’s the voice in my ear when comms are dark and the net when the floor gives way. She is the partner who has pulled my people out of fires that Starfleet logs would classify as ‘un-survivable.’ The unconventional asset you called for? The man who delivers in places where regulations get people killed? That man doesn't exist without her.”
Leaning back, he let the chair take his weight, the ghost of that smile returning, now sharper, like the edge of a honed blade.
“She's not an accessory to the mission, Admiral. She's my partner. We're a package deal. Full stop.”
Sidra inclined her head in concession to his AI. She’d already reviewed the files on a less sophisticated experimental system recently brought aboard by the Arawyn’s Chief of Security.
“You’ll have the resources you require. I’m confident we can adapt the Arawyn to accommodate them.”
She rose, smoothing the front of her uniform. “I appreciate your willingness to take this on; it stands to benefit us both.” Sidra was under no illusion about his reasons for being here; profit would be part of it. In this region, opportunities for that were plentiful. They were on the Federation’s frontier, where Starfleet’s presence meant holding the line against what lay beyond. Now she needed to bring Captain Corbin around to seeing the value in having him aboard.
Gareth inclined his head, a deliberate motion just shy of a salute. The cool, blue light of his cybernetic eye seemed to absorb the room's ambiance rather than reflect it.
“Then I’ll see to it the benefit runs both ways.”
He stepped back from her desk with the unhurried precision. His boots made almost no sound on the polished deck plating. His tone carried the even weight of someone who could deliver on a promise, and who had already calculated and accepted the cost of doing so.
“You’ll get results,” he said, pausing just long enough for the next words to land like surgical strikes. “And you’ll get the truth, even when it’s the kind that makes a captain lose sleep. Better you hear it from me than from whatever’s coming over the horizon.”
No smile, no parting flourish, only the promise left hanging in the sterile, recycled air. Then he turned for the door, his gaze sweeping the corridor in a flicker of ingrained threat assessment, already shaping his next move.
End Log
Gareth Rhys
Intelligence Subcontractor
Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
Epsilon Fleet Commander
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