Almost a week had passed since the darkness had receded, depositing its former captive, wounded and confused, at the heart of the USS Viking. The days since her return had passed in a frenzy of food, bloodwine, healing, catching up with old friends…and avoiding Commander Akorem.

She was no longer in charge here. Captain Kara Nakuto had been stripped of her command and her vessel and left as empty and barren as the DuHoH Desert. They had allowed her to keep her title as a final mockery. A captain without a ship. Without a post or remit or singular reason to continue her existence.

And yet still she was trapped on this godsforsaken ship. A spectator. A silent observer, impotent and irrelevant, doomed to watch another at the helm of her ship, at the head of her crew.

And he had allowed it to happen. Akorem Nevin. Her second in command. Her right hand. Her ally. He had stepped back and waved another into her seat. Had he relished the opportunity to be rid of her? Had he been involved in the planning of such a mutiny? It was a conversation that Kara had no desire and yet an all-consuming need for it to take place. And now, finally, she felt her strength sufficiently restored to take on the task.

Marching towards the ready room, her body still shaking off the weakness but her confidence almost fully returned, Nakuto attacked the doorchime with such vigour as to almost leave a dent.

“Commander Akorem,” she roared through the metal barrier blocking her entrance. “Are you in there?”

Kara Nakuto