Chapter Text
When Sylvia wakes up, Michael is sitting at her desk, reading from a padd and sipping from a cup of tea. Sylvia dresses quietly, and tries to slip out without disturbing her. She’s probably rereading the Shenzhou logs. She does that most mornings.
Sylvia looks back at Michael as she slips through the door. Michael meets her eyes briefly, then the door slips shut, and Sylvia finds herself walking a little too quickly down the hall.
She passes the guest quarters on the way to the mess hall, and finds herself stopping. A digital panel next to one door reads “Tora Ziyal, unknown affiliation”. It is wartime, and the Discovery is not a diplomatic vessel. The other doors’ panels are empty.
Sylvia was restless all night, haunted by dreams of their mysterious alien passenger. Ziyal, crying over an unmarked grave of sand in front of a crimson sky. Dozaria. Teenage years lost to a labor camp when she should have been free, spent in caves and sand when she should have known gardens and sunlight. Ziyal, who knew too much of darkness and only used it as impetus to love. Ziyal, who would know too much more of darkness before the war ends.
Sylvia lets her fingertips brush against the door sign. The panel lights up and chimes, extending a list of menu options. Sylvia jumps, managing not to shriek with surprise, and presses cancel. She lets her fingertips brush against the door instead.
She hadn’t understood what Stamets meant when he referred to Ziyal as a daughter of light, but she fancies she does now. Ziyal shines, brilliantly, like a searchlight into the uncaring void of space. Sylvia could tell that much from one conversation. She can tell Ziyal is special, and knows beyond doubt she is fortunate to meet her.
Sylvia wants to see her again.
Ziyal, who caught herself in the middle of two interstellar conflicts. Ziyal, who Stamets referred to as “the king’s greatest weakness”. Ziyal, on whose shoulders rests the fate of the galaxy. She is only Sylvia’s age, and yet Sylvia cannot begin to fathom what it would mean to be caught in her position. Sylvia, who had lived life well even by Federation standards, with an intact family who love her dearly and treat her well. Sylvia, who had never gone a day without shelter over her head or food to eat or the accoutrements of modern living.
Before she leaves, she taps out a quick message on the door panel, asking Ziyal to meet her for lunch later. She suspects Ziyal could use a friend, now more than ever. The rest of the crew extend their typical Federation sympathy, but they’re suspicious. Maybe it isn’t with the purest of intentions, but Sylvia wants to let Ziyal know she isn’t alone.
In the mess hall, Sylvia orders a concentrated nutrition pack. She needs energy for the debriefing, but her stomach is too queasy to eat real food. All she can think of is Ziyal’s quiet patience, acknowledgement of Sylvia’s hopes and fears and dreams as equal to her own. All she can think of is how much it means to her, how she knows she needs to stand up for Ziyal at any cost.
Sylvia arrives at the debriefing nearly three minutes late, having lost track of time in her reverie. The room is silent and dimly lit. Lorca sits at the head of the conference table, chair swiveled to face the wall. Lieutenants Tyler and Stamets sit on one side of the table. Saru and Culber are on the other side. Sylvia takes an empty seat near the empty end of the table, next to Stamets. He glowers at her. This is normal.
Sylvia is by far the lowest ranked person present. Normally she wouldn’t even be invited to such a meeting, but she is the only person who can vouch for Stamets’ condition after the jump. She is one of the only people Ziyal spoke to. She knows things. She matters here, and that makes her tense. So, she sits a little too straight, rehearses the previous day’s events a little too frantically, counts the seconds before the meeting begins.
Finally, another minute later, Lorca clears his throat, swivels his chair to face the table. “Bajor isn’t able to provide us with the spores we need.”
A collective sigh is let out around the table. Lorca nods to Lieutenant Tyler.
Tyler steps to the console at the head of the table and presses a few buttons. A holographic map appears over the table, with a swath of space at one edge highlighted in red. “Bajor isn’t an imperial power in this sector. Their interstellar reach is small; in nearly a millennium of warp capability, they’ve only created about a dozen colonies, and a similar number of mining facilities. Luckily, Bajoran intel knows of several promising candidate worlds for natural P. stellaviatori growths. Unfortunately,” he presses another button, and a large adjacent portion of the map is highlighted in blue. “They are member worlds of the Cardassian Union, an interstellar empire which has been fighting a war to try to annex Bajor for over a century now.”
Lorca speaks up. “We intend to make a deal with Cardassia to secure access to spores. If they’re not willing to cooperate, the plan is to do a short-range jump to avoid triggering any alarms, take the spores, and jump home. We’ve already been away from the front lines too long.”
“Captain,” Stamets interjects, “we don’t have an adequate spore supply to make even a small jump safely.”
“How long until we do?”
Stamets frowns, runs a set of mental calculations. “Five days, give or take, for a jump less than a parsec.”
“Then we have five days to achieve a diplomatic solution with Cardassia, unless anyone has another idea.”
None of the staff speak.
“Glad that’s settled. Now, there’s the matter of our mycelial hitchhiker. Lieutenant Stamets, you brought her here.”
“Technically I did bring her aboard,” Stamets replies, “but I couldn’t tell you exactly how or why. There was… another consciousness. In the mycelial plane. It’s what made me bring her here. It… knows. Captain, whoever that girl is, she’s important. The fate of the entire galaxy depends on her.”
Lorca squints at Stamets. “The fate of the galaxy?”
Stamets clenches his teeth, defiantly meets Lorca’s judgmental gaze. “I don’t know who she is, or why they brought her here. But she is extremely important, and as long as she’s here we have a duty to find out why she’s here and what she’s needed for.”
Lorca’s gaze doesn’t falter. “Because some mushroom entity told you so,” he says with a sneer.
Stamets tilts his head, furrows his brow. When he speaks his voice is harsh, defiant. “There’s a lot that we don’t know about the mycelial network. But given how the tardigrade communicated with it, and my own experiences communicating with it, it’s not unrealistic to assume that the mycelial network might be sentient. If so, it’s a lot older than us and absolutely knows things we don’t know.”
“They’re mushrooms, lieutenant. They can’t be sentient.”
“They aren’t like any mushrooms we know. This network is ancient, and extensive, and exists in an entirely different plane of existence than we do. Just because it isn’t humanoid doesn’t mean it isn’t a life form, and doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hear out what it has to say.”
Lorca lets out a breath, says nothing to Stamets, just moves just his eyes to look at Sylvia. “Cadet Tilly, you spoke with our new passenger. What exactly does she want from us?”
Sylvia shifts uncomfortably. She hadn’t expected to be put on the spot; she was told that Lieutenant Tyler’s interview with Ziyal was the only one of actual importance. Her voice cracks when she first speaks. “I-I don’t think she wants anything from us.” They need to know what you know. Tell them what you know. “According to her, Tora Ziyal – Tora is her family name, in the Bajoran custom – was brought into our timeline from the year 2374. I don’t think she had any say in the matter; she had just been shot when she materialized here. Either way, Starfleet temporal displacement policy demands that we return her to her own time and—"
“I’m well aware of Starfleet temporal displacement policy,” Lorca interrupts. “Mr. Stamets here seems to think she’s critical to the fate of the galaxy. I agree that her materializing here wasn’t an accident. Since she’s a Bajoran citizen, it sounds like the most prudent option is to leave her for the Bajoran government to deal with.”
Leaving her in Bajor’s hands might as well mean leaving her with an enemy. Sylvia can’t let them go through with this, and so she speaks up. “She’s half Cardassian. Hybrids like her have never been treated well—”
“I didn’t ask you, cadet.”
Sylvia bites her tongue, clenches her teeth. Military discipline. Respect the chain of command, no matter how awful that chain might be. “Right. Sorry, sir.”
Lorca sighs. “Lieutenant Stamets, exactly what you do with her is up to you, but I expect you to have her off our ship before we return home. Cadet Tilly, help him however you can.” He looks at the various faces around the table, then pushes off the table to stand up. “Dismissed. Saru, with me, please.”
Lorca and Saru walk out the forward door, toward the bridge. Tyler appears to be busy typing on his console. Stamets and Tilly stare at each other for a moment, then stand up and head to the aft door. Culber chases after Stamets, and manages to accost him at the door, so Sylvia walks alone to engineering to begin her duties for the day, letting her quick stride betray her unease.