Ali knew she shouldn't be there. She knew that she was probably breaking a dozen or more regulations by her mere presence let alone any further work she was participating in.

It was a mess of rubble and rent metal work surrounding them as they worked to recover what they could. In the time it had taken them to travel back to earth the rescue efforts had been completed and the survivors extracted. Some bodies were yet to be recovered but their technology was sophisticated enough to know that there was no one left to save.

Up until half an hour ago she'd been desperately clinging onto denial and hope. Her father was a kentarian diplomat on earth. She couldn't know that's what the pain had been, how could she? She'd never experienced the loss of a tetnar like that before. She had been unconscious the last time and any feelings toward the man in question had long since soured. She had been clinging to some idea that her father was just injured somewhere and unconscious, that could explain the disruption. The rational part of her brain had argued that she knew what that felt like. That she had experienced.

On arrival she'd gone straight to the warehouse they were using as temporary storage until the bodies could be formally identified - either in person or by DNA - and returned home for their proper customs. She had stood there for a whole five minutes unable to retract the sheet enough to reveal her father's face to her, until the empathic but ultimately over-worked warden had finally done it for her. She didn't know how she'd been able to hold face to nod and confirm that it was Vaa Kutad. She didn't know how she'd got out of the warehouse. In fact she didn't really know how far she'd walked until finally she couldn't hold it in anymore and she collapsed to the floor in a curled up ball and cried her eyes out into her knees on a street corner.

Eventually she had pulled herself together and turned back to the embassy. No one questioned her as she walked through the cordon and pulled out a scanner. Some scaffolding had been erected to stabilise what was left of the building, but Ali knew that it wasn't exactly safe.

"You shouldn't be here."

Ali didn't even turn. "Should you?"

Grey grabbed her arm to make her pay attention, Ali glared at the hand before she turned to face him. If it weren't for the combination of emotions - grief, hate, fear, anger, exhaustion - making her feel sick she'd have probably found the double take he did at her amusing. She must look terrible if she took him off guard. "Ali, you don't have to do this. None of us expect you to continue as normal right now."

Ali held his gaze for a moment as if she believed she was capable of still managing a stern look, then she sighed and closed the scanner. "Believe it or not, I'd rather be busy right now."

Grey's expression softened and the hand on her arm gentled before falling away. "Yeah, I can't blame you." Ali nodded in understanding as she raised a shaking hand to wipe at her face again. "It's going to get worse, you know that, right?"

"What happened?"

Grey almost chuckled at the fact that even distracted and discombobulated from grief she was still capable of piecing things together. He unhooked a small tablet from his own belt and passed it to her. Ali gave him an inquisitive look before pressing play on the queued up video file.

However bad she'd felt before didn't compare to the pit in her stomach as she watched the newscast. A report on the demands from the anonymous group claiming responsibility for the bombing and threatening to continue their work in the event of non-compliance. All of the demands pertained to hybrids. According to this group hybrids were a real and imminent threat to species and culture, therefore they needed to prevent more from being born. Ali scoffed, hybrids were a rarity as it was and were no more of a danger to anyone than evolution. Hell, Ali didn't even know if she'd be able to have children herself - it'd never come up so she'd never investigated - and it was common for hybrids to be infertile. Suddenly anger flared within her for even allowing them to reduce her worth to that. As far as Ali was concerned this was just straight up bigotry and discrimination. Though the group emphasised that they were not against interspecies relationships - citing that those couples could adopt as an example of their understanding - but Ali knew it was all about control. It was always about control.

By the time the clip from the group ended Ali's breath was shaky and she had to make a deliberate effort to control herself before she could speak. "Permission to go and blow these bastards to pieces?"

Grey would've smiled if he hadn't detected the razor thin boundary that was the only thing keeping her together. "Unfortunately I'm going to have to deny that request."

"Probably for the best," Ali said as she nodded to herself.

"Not from choice. Admiral Witworth has ordered us to the Forum."

Confusion flickered over Ali's face before it drained into her fatigue. "Why?"

"I don't know, " Grey admitted, "officially it's because you took part in the undercover op. Honestly, though, it's more likely to do with your heritage. The Forum is scrambling on how to deal with this."

Ali took a steadying breath. "Okay," she paused, "why are you bringing me this message? Such orders would normally have been communicated via Rila."

"I might've intercepted her. I figured this might be better coming from me on the off chance you… bad mouthed a superior officer."

Ali laughed - despite everything that was wrong with her life right now - and, weirdly, that gave her hope.

~-x-~

Trepidation wasn't something Ali felt much. Honestly, right now having something to focus on was a good thing, yet as they approached the Forum she found herself oddly nervous at what was about to unfold.

Put simply the Forum was a large spaceship that toured the sector with a convoy of defensive and commerce vessels that was designated as the political and trade hub. The ship itself was named in all the languages of the species who had signed up to the initiative of the same name. This was where all the big political, economic and other decisions for the sector were made. It was what both USEP and Security Core ultimately reported to. Planet-side embassies had become focused on their citizens living on foreign planets and their needs rather than politics.

Colloquially "the Forum" was used to refer to either the administration, the ship itself or the whole flotilla depending on context.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Ali was called into an official Security Core debrief not long after they arrived. It was all rather standard and was mostly just her going through the data that she had already presented to them. She tried to ask them what had happened afterwards, but they just kept repeating that "was outside the scope of this debrief".

She left that meeting in a foul mood and nearly took it out on the poor lackey sent to summon her to Admiral Witworth's office. Thankfully she just about managed to retain control of herself.

When she arrived at his office he was already pouring some expensive looking alcohol, and still looking every bit the stereotypical image of a man put out to pasture at a desk when he refused to retire. "A toast to the fallen," he said as he offered her a glass.

Ali took it with a suspicious look at the contents. "I'm on duty, sir."

Witworth offered her a polite chuckle. "I think, given the circumstances, discretion is permissible."

Ali held his gaze for a moment before lifting her glass towards him. "To the fallen," she repeated with a polite smile that she certainly didn't feel and he clinked his glass against hers. She took the smallest sip it was possible to take to honour her toast to those who had lost their lives.

A brief respectful silence passed before Witworth asked, "shall we get down to business?"

"I assume this is about the demands made after the embassy explosion?" Ali asked as she subtly put her still full glass onto his desk.

"The Forum leadership is currently trying to determine the way to minimise further loss of life," Witworth explained as he took a seat back at his desk and indicated for Ali to have a seat of her own. She glanced at it as she weighed up whether or not to take it, before deciding to sit as it might help her reign in her frustrations. "They are considering issuing temporary injunctions to give S-Core time to do their job."

Ali leant into her hands as she rubbed at her temples. "You've gotta be kidding me." This was so not what she needed to be dealing with right now.

"Ali -"

"Don't 'Ali' me on this," she snapped. So much for helping to calm her temper. "You're trying to tell me that our leaders are willing to outlaw people like me because S-Core dropped the fucking ball on this."

"As a temporary -"

"Don't you dare," Ali warned in a low and dangerous voice as she finally raised her head. This was not the time to push her and if this meeting was really just to kick her out of USEP a second time she was willing to make it easy for him.

Ali had had enough dealings with Witworth in the past to know that he had a good poker face, after all he had been an admiral long enough to have seen his fair share of insubordinates, not to mention the years he had worked with politicians. "You would rather risk thousands of lives? We know they will strike again and S-Core needs time to eliminate the threat. There are - what? - a few hundred of you?"

Ali saw red and she really wanted to hit something. The only reason she didn't was because she could - somehow - hear the advice her father used to give her about controlling herself; no matter how bad it was, no matter how deserved it was, you can always let rip later, when it doesn't matter. "Us? What, you think we have a book club or something? We're people, just like you." Witworth looked like he was about to say something else but Ali wasn't finished. "So where was S-Core's intel? Didn't they hear any chatter about this? They were running bloody assessments and their operatives knew enough that this kind of thing was coming! They really dropped the ball on this one."

"We don't know yet."

Ali repeated that phrase under her breath in a mocking tone. "So we don't know how they screwed up but you're willing to curtail liberties to give them more time to do - what, exactly? Screw up again? If it wasn't for my sham of a court martial I wouldn't really believe that this was actually happening."

"Your court martial has nothing -"

"Bollocks!" Ali interrupted, unable to sit in her chair any longer, "the charges were baseless and you were holding my medical records over my head as a bargaining chip. Don't you dare try and tell me it wasn't a sham."

Witworth didn't look fazed by her outburst, as he cooly regarded her from his own chair, but he knew better than to stoke the flames. "Then what do you suggest?"

"We're supposed to be better than this? Equality for all and everything? Well, this - right here! - is when the Forum proves it. Anything else is the thin end of the wedge and we'll all know where we stand afterwards."

"You don't sound like you believe those principles?"

Ali scoffed. "You misunderstand. I believe in those principles, I don't know if I believe that's what our leaders believe in."

"Of course we do."

"Then prove it."

~-x-~

After a couple of days with the Forum Ali was starting to wonder what the point of politicians was. They had spent their time arguing around in circles, making no progress but at least - for now - they had abandoned the idea of temporary measures. It was a minority arguing for them so with no way to win over enough people they had stopped pushing. Though Ali was under no illusions that if the tide changed that it would likely come back with a vengeance.

By now the shock had started to wear off, taking the edge off the raw feelings in her gut. The fact that she was starting to be able to get some sleep again probably helped. Though only bits at a time and only when she was able to hold on to a strangely familiar, comforting feeling that told her she was strong enough to get through this. It didn't lie and tell her it would stop hurting, simply that each day would get easier. It was enough to get her focus back. She could do that, she could focus on the problems at hand until it was the right time to break down.

Security Core had wrapped up their investigation into what happened at the embassy, but they had refused to release the intel with the "threat to security operations" excuse that Ali suspected was a cover up for incompetence. All of their press statements were about how they were increasing their presence and coordinating with local forces - Security Core didn't have jurisdiction on planets that were part of a single species' territory. Ali was just glad she'd been able to get some data from the scene, no matter how small, and had given it to Olkant to follow up on if it became relevant.

The Faraday had been ordered to remain with the Forum for the time being. Admiral Witworth wanted to keep Ali close by for her "unique insight" into the issues at hand. How she resisted punching him through the jaw when he uttered those words she had no idea. It would be worth the court martial. The Endeavour was still there for an entirely different reason. One Ali also had a personal interest in.

She had taken up residency just outside the meeting room, leaning casually against the wall and was perfectly content to wait it out. A couple of administrators had tried to move her on but she had fixed them with her best hard stare and they had backed down.

Grey finally strode out of the meeting room with such purpose and single mindedness that he didn't see her at all, not until she shouted his name and hurried to catch up to him. "I take it I can guess what the answer was?"

Grey rubbed at his temples with a sigh. "Not here."

Ali nodded and followed him through corridors and turns to a beamer and went with him back to the Endeavour. She had to admit that by the time they arrived at his ready room that she wouldn't have been surprised if they'd have stopped at the lounge instead. "Well, what bullshit reason did they give?"

"Ali…" Grey warned tiredly but he clearly didn't have the willpower to properly scold her.

"What? We're in private now," Ali said as she shrugged, clearly unrepentant, until a teasing smile found its way onto her face, "unless you think they've bugged your office, in which case you've definitely spent too much time around me."

Grey did manage a wry chuckle at that. He wasn't that bad, yet. "They simply said that they don't have the resources at this time. If they go in without… they fear they will undermine their own operations by revealing an asset."

Ali knew from his tone that he didn't believe a word of it, he was just repeating the excuses he'd been fed. "And we're supposed to accept this?"

"Dare I ask what you suggest instead?"

"That we go break the poor sod out of prison," Ali said as if it were obvious. Really, it was. Grey didn't have to ask her to know what her thoughts on the matter would be. Someone she owed her life to - admittedly he'd shot her to do it, and she'd already saved his beforehand - was currently being abandoned by the people who were supposed to be looking out for him. As far as she was concerned there wasn't a choice.

Grey scrutinised her for a moment before finally saying, "do you have a plan, then?"