"How many meals have you skipped that you've actually remembered dinner?" Spud joked as she arrived at their table with her own tray of food. Mishri happily reclaimed one of the data-pads strewn across the surface to allow her space to join them.

Ali shrugged where she had a fork in one hand and a tablet in the other. "Long enough for me to have finally trained Mishri how to make a proper cup of coffee."

"Not that long, you basically take coffee, plus coffee, plus another coffee," Mishri retorted, making a point of rolling his eyes. Spud giggled into her food as Ali grinned. She remembered the first time she'd worked with Mishri when trying to recapture Barker, back then he'd been so new in his role as head scientist that he'd barely known how to react to her jokes and downright unprofessionalism. Now he'd grown into the role, his experience had given him a confidence that allowed him to lighten up because he no longer worried that putting one foot askew would result in him being demoted.

"So, have you two got anywhere?" Spud asked.

The two scientists shared an unhappy look at the engineer's question. "Nothing we didn't already know," Mishri admitted with a sigh.

Before either Ali or Spud could follow up on that the hustle and bustle around them in the mess quietened to hushed whispers, making the three of them look up to see what was happening. Lartyne had just entered the room in search of her own dinner, clearly self conscious as she coiled her arms close to her torso and her eyes darted around the room, initially freezing before resuming her walk to get some dinner.

Spud cursed under her breath. "Not this again, I thought we'd dealt with this already."

"The crew thinks she was involved?" Ali asked.

Spud made an angry gesture as she frowned, before nodding once. Mishri was still watching Lartyne select her food when he said, "comm officer would be a good place to put a spy…"

"Mishri!" Spud scolded.

"I don't think she did!" Mishri replied quickly. "I'm just saying…"

Ali rolled her eyes. "If she were in on it, they'd be pretty damn stupid to leave her behind as the obvious inside man," she said, her voice just loud enough to carry whilst still sounding conversational. As if she were unaware the rest of the room could hear. "They'd have taken her too to avoid suspicion, and believe me, the double bluff would not be worth the extra scrutiny."

"Something you know from your freelance days?" Spud teased, but she knew what Ali was doing.

"I have done my fair share of infiltration," Ali agreed. "Maybe they should be suspicious of me? After all I'm the one with an outstanding arrest warrant for treason."

"Might've gone too far there," Mishri warned. "Unless you wanted to plant the idea of handing you over to the authorities into someone's head."

"Actually, because we're still off-grid, all comms have to be approved by Rear Admiral Grey," a quiet voice cut in, and they turned to see Lartyne standing nearby. "Can I join you?"

"Of course." Spud didn't even hesitate as Ali and Mishri made to clear more of their devices out of the way.

"Thank you for defending me, I think," Lartyne added before she started tucking into her dinner.

Spud chuckled to herself. "Ali does have unique methods."

Mishri chuckled at Spud's wry observation, but Ali was uncharacteristically frowning at the glib remark. Before anyone could ask what was wrong she'd reached for one of the data-pads, her cutlery abandoned on her half finished plate as she quickly navigated to the info she wanted. "Krekt," she muttered to herself. "Grey is gonna kill me when I suggest I follow up on this…"

"What?" Spud prompted.

Ali turned the tablet to face them all. "Admiral Witworth is the lead signatory on my current arrest warrant, and on the one that lead to my previous court martial."

"That doesn't technically prove anything," Mishri said, unsure if he was trying to reassure himself or the rest of the table.

"True, it's hardly a surprise he has it in for me," Ali agreed. "But right now it's a coincidence too far for me to want to ignore. Damn it, if I'm right about this, it's suddenly a lot more complicated than we realised. If they have the kind of reach - whether shared ideology or coercion - then we need to tread extremely carefully."

"As troublesome as Witworth can be, he is only one admiral…" Spud reminded them.

Ali was less than convinced. "If they have enough resources to find dirt to blackmail one admiral, they have the resources to repeat the trick. Assuming it's even blackmail. If they've found an admiral who agrees with them, he facilitates a network of important people who agree."

"And it's realisations like that, that make us drink so much," Spud muttered into the last mouthful of her meal.

~-x-~

After two days lost in amongst reports, briefings and minefields of data, the sterilised calm of the med bay was strangely comforting. "Ali, how can I help you?" Narla called almost as soon as the door had slid shut behind Ali. She turned to the jetran, unable to keep the smile from her face as she greeted an old friend.

Ali had thought how to describe the issue her entire journey to the med bay, but even so, she wasn't sure where to start. "I keep getting these recurring headaches, and I know, that doesn't sound like an issue. But they are really frequent, and really annoying," she explained. "And I think it's getting worse."

Narla regarded her for a moment, and somehow Ali felt incredibly small under the gaze, even though she knew Narla wouldn't judge her. It was because she felt stupid for making a big deal out of something so trivial. Narla had insisted on running a check up when she'd arrived after her stay on Gooli, the doctor would've found something then if it were cause for concern. "You think it might be related to your telepathic abilities?"

She shrugged hopelessly. "Maybe? I don't know… I guess I've never really thought about how any of that affects me much beyond how I use it."

Ali fidgeted under the weight of Narla's fuchsia gaze. The doctor's tentacles swam around her head, for jetra reading emotions was a natural part of their communication, as ingrained as body language. "There's only one way to find out," Narla assured the younger woman.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

She smiled gratefully as Narla led her to a bed. They started with the normal scans, because it was never a bad plan to check nothing had developed in the meantime so it now showed up. It just confirmed the results from a few days ago, Ali was as physically healthy as she always had been. Possibly more so given that she wasn't currently sporting an injury or hangover.

That left them only one other explanation if it wasn't just a normal reaction to stress. Narla instructed Ali to relax as best she could, and took a seat nearby to allow herself the ability to completely focus on the task.

Ali always found it a strange and disconcerting experience having her mind examined like this. She trusted Narla, and the doctor was always gentle about it, but it was like someone was gently pressing against her brain and invoking subtle emotional or neurological responses. Like the reflex knee test but for the mind. It wasn't really a physical sensation, but it was difficult to describe it in other terms. Like using a contrast solution to see the different areas of the brain light up when scanned, only feeling the results telepathically which gave the medic a more instinctive understanding of which part of the response caused the reaction.

Eventually Ali felt Narla's consciousness pull away from her own. "There's definitely something… tangled," Narla said as she relaxed deeply into her chair as she let the effort take it's toll now that she could relax.

"Are we going back to my string analogy?" Ali quipped.

"The infamous analogy that meant nothing to those who haven't experienced telepathic interactions and everyone who has believed was woefully inadequate?" Narla teased. Then her voice hardened and she added, "to find the cause we'll need to work it over a few sessions. It could take weeks."

"I don't know if time is the one thing we do or don't have," Ali admitted with a sigh. Though, if she were honest, it was a relief that she wasn't going crazy, that there was a cause for this that might have a cure, even if it required work.

~-x-~

If anything the initial sessions made the headaches worse, though Narla had warned Ali that would happen. She got some pain killers to take the edge off it, but it remained a dull persistent nuisance as Ali tried to focus on the reams of data they had to go through.

Ali tapped the data-pad she held against her other hand as she waited on permission to enter Grey's ready room, the door slid open pretty quickly and she stepped inside. "Ali, how're you getting on with your data mining?" Grey asked.

Ali took a breath before holding out the tablet for him to take. "You're not gonna like what I'm about to say," she warned.

Grey chuckled as he tapped the screen on. "Do I ever?"

"I want to go after Witworth."

That made him stop, and if Ali weren't worried about what was about to go down she'd probably have laughed at the surprise that registered on his face. There was a reason she had waited this long to tell him. "You want to do what?"

"I want to talk to Witworth," Ali said as slowly and carefully as she knew how. Diplomacy had never been one of her skills. "He's the only - admittedly tenuous - link we have to any of this."

Grey decided he better have a look at the data she'd handed him, and resumed scrolling. "Are we sure there's no better leads? And just how do you plan on doing that without getting arrested?"

"The only other leads will involve me going fully underground and trying to bully some of my old contacts into giving up some of the intermediaries Cosmos' Champions have been using. Given that I don't have any definite links to any of my known associates, I don't fancy my chances."

Grey didn't voice the fact that the last time one of his crew went undercover in the less savoury dealings in the sector, the officer had ended up in jail and they had to run a prison break. Ali wasn't officially under his command again, in fact she hadn't even bothered trying to get ahold of a new USEP uniform when she met back up with the Endeavour. As if she'd resigned herself to a certain result of her court martial already. "But you think you can get Witworth to talk?"

"Honestly? I have no idea," Ali admitted. Despite knowing that it would probably get her grounded - unless she ran away - she'd known and respected Grey too long to start lying to him now. "But I have more chance, and I know how I can get to him."

"How?"

"Politics requires him to be based on The Forum, but he still has a home on Earth which he frequently visits. We missed his last one, but he's not far off another."

"It would be easier to get access to him away from The Forum, but Earth…"

"We know the patrol routes and I'm pretty certain I have - or can get access to - a few pesky programs that'll scramble our signal for a while. Or I can take the Mule, they don't know it's associated with me yet. Unless they've got eyes on us… But if they did then I can't believe they haven't done anything with that yet."

She knew that he was familiar with how she operated and therefore he would know she had already sketched the outline of a plan to access Witworth. She had made sure she was confident she could come up with a plan before going to him with this information. She wouldn't be suggesting it if it weren't possible. She just hoped he believed her. "Okay, draw up a plan, then bring it to me." he decided, holding the tablet back towards her. "That's not a yes, it's a maybe. I'll listen."

"Thank you, sir," Ali said with a relieved smile as she picked up the tablet.

Grey resisted sighing. "You can trust me, Ali," he promised. "I know it's not that easy, and I know you're all too ready to run away to protect us, but even you can't do this one alone. Nor can we stay hidden out here forever."

Ali nodded her thanks because she didn't trust her voice, then turned to leave, she had an appointment to keep with Narla.

Even now, after multiple sessions, Ali still found the feeling strange and a little disconcerting. Narla was trying to delicately pick apart a tangled web of conflicting emotions and experiences that hadn't fully processed due to their situation and the various stresses that Ali's life had placed upon her. Narla knew she had to be careful, but it also required Ali to be strong enough to confront things she often rather wouldn't. Stress wasn't the only reason she'd buried some of these things.

In an ideal universe, Narla would have preferred a kentarian to be the one doing this. Just like physiology, the neurology of each species was different, and that extended to the subtleties of their telepathic abilities. Narla was well educated and experienced with kentarian telepathy and it's uses and limitations, but that wasn't the same as someone who was brought up with the first hand knowledge and experience of that culture and species. However, this also required someone that Ali trusted, and there wasn't anyone that both Narla and Ali trusted enough to stand in for the jetran.

Their session that afternoon was brought to an abrupt halt when Ali screamed in agony. Her body seizing and Narla withdrew her mind as swiftly as would be safe to do so for both her and Ali. But she was still on her feet and scanning Ali before any of her staff had managed to rush to peek past the curtain. Narla didn't even turn but requested a pain killer and sedative as Ali's body relaxed on the bed in front of them. "Ali?" Narla asked as she continued to scan. Ali's vitals were returning to their normal levels, but there was no doubting that the pain she had experienced had been real.

"I…" Ali gasped as her mind grasped for an explanation. "Liquid fire beneath my skin," she managed to say as one of Narla's staff returned with the requested drugs.

"A memory?"

"Not one of mine," Ali admitted. "Wires, sensors, maybe monitoring responses… There wasn't anything else."

Narla considered what Ali told her as she held the dosers with the medication in them. "I want to keep you in overnight," she said. "If you want I can give you these to help you sleep, but that's up to you."

"I don't get to convince you to let me go sleep in my quarters?" Ali tried bargaining, though her expression betrayed her opinion of her chances.

"I know you'll go back to your data and work until you fall asleep on your desk," Narla retorted. Ali nodded as if she had expected that answer, and instead negotiated permission to get something more comfortable to sleep in.

As the hours ticked on, Ali was starting to regret not accepting at least the sedative, but she was too worried about being trapped in her own mind and unable to wake up. She tossed and turned for a long time as she tried not to analyse what she'd seen and felt, but unable to stop herself. With fitful bursts of imageless sleep in-between.

She was dozing - in denial of the time and her lack of sleep -, when another of her all too familiar headaches started to form a pressure against her temple again. Her eyes squeezed shut as if she could will it away if she concentrated and she rubbed her temples to try and alleviate the discomfort without resorting to more pain relief. She was just about to give in to the temptation of medication when the throbbing pressure gave way into a coherent thought.

Ali, we're still alive.