Chapter Text
She’d forgotten what darkness could look like.
The submersible hummed with a dissonant pleasantry as they descended, its searchlights doing little to puncture the murky water surrounding them. Michael Burnham smoothed her thumb across the tiny bottle still hanging by its chain around her neck, rolling it between her fingers as her gaze searched for anything recognizable in the scene outside the sub.
“You’re doing it again, Captain Burnham.”
In the copilot’s chair, Commander Saru gave a disapproving click, though he never removed his attention from his task. The submersible leaned starboard as the Kelpien finessed it around a stalk of plant matter materializing from somewhere below. It wasn’t the first time they’d nearly become entangled, and Michael knew she wasn’t alone in wanting to avoid a repeat.
She glanced down at the bottle in her fingers, then let it fall back to her chest.
“What’s our ETA?” Michael asked. She saw Saru angle his head in the precise, exacting kind of way that meant his disapproval had grown stronger, but he seemed to know better than to press the matter.
The sonar pinged.
“You have your answer,” Saru told her, pulling back gently on the yoke until the craft slowed to a crawl.
Michael sat forward in her chair, peering into the gloom. An object drifted across the lights, but its shape was indeterminate. A number of smaller shadows followed it, each less identifiable than the last.
“Debris,” she decided after a few seconds of watching. “Can we confirm its origins?” Her hand reached upward toward the glass bottle again, but she stopped herself before the habit could take hold. She clenched her fingers into a fist instead, the dread in her gut growing thicker as something like a cable glided past.
“Scanning now, Captain,” Saru answered, and a pulse of blue shot out from the nose of the sub. It flickered over the expanse ahead of them, outlining the smaller pieces until it hit something larger.
The sonar pinged again.
Michael’s eyes closed, shutting out the familiar form.
“It appears to be part of a saucer,” Saru said. Michael opened her eyes to study him, the contours of his face and the way his lips parted as they always did before delivering bad news. Still, Michael knew he wouldn’t say more until she asked, that he would still attempt to shield her wherever he could.
“Any identification?” she asked, and Saru tapped at the screen.
His shoulders sagged a bit.
“USS Cayuga, Captain.”
“Survivors?” Michael inquired. Sometimes she didn’t know the answer. This time, she did, but it was her duty to ask the question anyway.
“All escape pods still in their stations,” he replied. “No life signs. Scans reflect open bulkheads across all decks.”
The lack of sensation as the words hit Michael wasn’t new. Even that traitorous sense of relief no longer pricked at her. How many helpless vessels had they been sent to recover these past three years? How many had they watched turn once found?
The dead were a mercy. Safer for Discovery. Anyone who had been lost, but lived, was a risk. A threat. Another decision Michael didn’t want to make.
Better in ruins than fettered in Rot.
Michael leaned forward, covering her face with her palms and then rubbing circles against her temples. Her hands slid down her cheeks to steeple in front of her lips as she analyzed the scene.
“They tried to ditch,” she said quietly, shaking her head. Saru looked at her, solemn. Michael met his eye when he nodded. “It must have already been in the ship when they did. She hit the water at full impulse–nothing else could have broken her apart like this.”
“And then it flooded her for good measure,” Saru added, and Michael thought she saw one of his hands quiver on the yoke. “Just in case anyone survived the crash.”
The nausea in her gut was shared by her copilot–Michael could tell by the way his expression transformed as he spoke.
“Nine ships,” Saru continued, shaking his head. His eyes, piercing and blue, landed on the Captain’s.
Michael’s jaw grew tense. She stared out at the remnants of USS Cayuga drifting aimlessly in front of them, at the way the tall stalks of plants tangled around the components like they’d tried to do to the submersible. She blinked away the tears threatening to spill over, digging her fingernails into her palms.
There was no satisfaction in crying these days.
And she, of all people, had no right to try to glean such a luxury as that release.
“Eight,” Michael said to Saru after the pause, correcting him. He looked at her again, lips parted. “Franklin found Hood earlier today. And God knows how many dead officers.” She exhaled, wiping a palm across her face again and then fumbling for the bottle. She turned it between her fingers, watching the grains of sand shift and then level again.
Such a stupid little thing. A trinket kept for the memories it held of a person she’d never even known–a loss she’d never endured and one she would never understand. It wasn’t meant for her, but she kept it because Airiam had.
“I shouldn’t have hesitated,” she said.
Saru pushed the yoke forward, steering the submersible back toward the surface. The engines chirred, bubbles forming to either side of the windows, and the inky black of Cayuga’s wreckage slipped downward until it became just another shadow in the depths. For a long moment, there was silence between the pilots save for the creaks of their seats as the sub bumped over the currents.
“To act without hesitation would have been worse, Captain Burnham,” Saru said, the somberness still present in his voice, but reassurance was bleeding through. “It was an impossible choice.”
An impossible choice.
Her hand clung to the bottle, leaving depressions in her palm.
She hated that defense. That justification. As if giving up had been rational. Like it was acceptable that she’d killed Airiam for nothing.
“It was the wrong choice,” Michael said. The bottle dropped back to her chest. “She was begging me to open that door, and I waited. Now look what it's cost us.”
“She was your partner,” Saru reminded her. Natural light was beginning to return to the cockpit as they moved upward.
“And this is why personal relationships between crew are a danger,” she said.
Michael almost didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice. It was dry, despairing–like a part of herself had gone that day, too. But it was level, and calm, the way a captain’s should be.
“You cannot shut yourself away, Captain Burnham,” the Kelpien replied, clicking again. “The Federation needs you now, more than ever. Discovery needs you. But I fear that we’re losing you, too.”
The sub trembled as it broke the surface, the hull popping a bit as the pressure was relieved. They bobbed there for a few seconds, and Michael closed her eyes at the sway, inhaling through her nose.
When she opened her eyes again, the ebony black shuttle was already swooping forward to collect the submersible back into its belly.
“You’re not losing me, Commander,” she reassured him, but the blue of his eyes appeared dull. He didn’t believe her.
She wouldn't try to convince him.
The bottle was back in her grasp again, rolling between her fingers. It was warm where it had laid against her neck, the glass smooth like Airiam's hands had been.
“She would have hated seeing you–” he said.
“Don’t,” Michael snapped, cutting him off and dropping the trinket.
The clamps latched onto the sub and it wobbled once it was free of the water and rising upward into the shuttle. Michael hated this unsteadiness. She braced against the armrests, blowing out a breath.
“She would have forgiven you,” Saru pushed.
The underbelly doors of the shuttle swung closed, and Michael unbuckled her restraints with a bit more force than necessary. Saru swiped at a panel and the doors to the submersible slid open.
Michael’s combat boots splashed in the water pooling on the floor, the clamps retracting back into the ceiling and sending droplets of more water down on top of her head. Her palm swept across her hair, flinging the liquid away.
“Captain Burnham.”
When Michael pivoted, Saru had come around the front of the sub, his fingers drumming against the sides of his hips as if thoughtful. His head tilted and his lips pursed as she met his eye.
“I know this is a hard day for you,” he said finally, folding his palms together in front of his waist for a moment. “If there’s anything I can do…anything at all…”
“Your job, Saru,” Michael replied, reverting to his name for effect. Once she might have appreciated his concern, the way he always cared, no matter what. Now, though, his concern was aversive, the notion of care something she tried not to acknowledge.
“But…if there is anything else…” he continued, his tone a somber blend of reassurance and hope. “You will tell me, yes?”
The way her lips curved upward was more automatic than forced, but it was no less artificial than any other time she’d used it to end a conversation she was no longer interested in having. Still, with Saru, she knew better than to let it grow too big, too wide, or he’d see through it.
Years serving alongside him had its benefits as much as it had its troubles.
“I’ll tell you,” she promised, and even if she meant it, she knew she wouldn’t need to tell him anything. Saru seemed satisfied enough. He dipped his head, excused himself, and headed towards the stairs to the upper level as the shuttle tilted slightly and began to move.
Michael watched him go, one hand gripping a rail on the nearby bulkhead to steady herself. The other hand found the bottle again. She lifted it, tilted it until the sand collected against the cork plugging the top.
It was three years to the day since Control had taken Airiam.
And now, only eight Federation vessels remained.
She bowed her head, pressed the glass against the clammy skin of her forehead.
Why couldn’t I just open the door?