The Wrong Words

Posted on Fri Jul 3rd, 2026 @ 5:38pm by Lieutenant Commander Aer Feshau-Patton

1,018 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 6 - Candy Leads to Cavities
Location: Jack & Aer'S Quarters - Falton Station
Timeline: MD001 - 0530 hours

Aer woke to an empty bed.

For a few seconds she lay still, caught between sleep and the soft grey light of morning, one hand resting over the gentle rise of her stomach. The room was quiet except for the muted hum of station systems behind the bulkheads, steady and familiar, the kind of sound that usually helped her measure where she was before her thoughts fully caught up. Last night came back to her slowly: Jack’s hands warm against her skin, the tired laughter, the names spoken aloud for the first time as though saying them had given the twins a little more shape in the universe.

Then she turned her head and saw his side of the bed was cold.

That alone was not unusual. Jack’s duty hours had never respected sleep, comfort, or any civilised concept of morning. He was station XO, a Marine colonel, and a Patton besides; if there was trouble anywhere within reach, he tended to move toward it as though gravity had changed. But he usually woke her. Not fully, not cruelly, just enough. A kiss to her temple. A low apology in her ear. His hand on her stomach for a heartbeat before he left.

This morning there had been nothing.

Aer stared at the empty space for longer than she meant to. The room should have held the trace of him more clearly than it did. Some warmth in the air. Some echo of his presence. Something. Instead there was only the low hum of the station and the dull, cotton-thick pressure behind her eyes that had been following her more often lately.

Pregnancy, she told herself.

Pregnancy, too little sleep, too much feeling.

She exhaled carefully and shifted upright, one hand bracing against the mattress as her body reminded her, with considerable lack of subtlety, that four and a half months pregnant with twins was not a theoretical state of being. A faint wave of nausea moved through her, then passed. On the bedside table, her medication case sat exactly where she had left it, neat and innocuous beside her water glass.

The PADD beside it pulsed once.

Aer almost ignored it. Almost.

Then the priority marker flashed amber.

Her expression changed before she reached for it. Not alarm, not yet. The quieter thing beneath alarm. Recognition that the day had decided to begin without asking her permission.

She opened the alert.

TEMPLETON, CANDY ANISE. DETAINED.
CHARGE CLASSIFICATION: TREASON.

For a moment, Aer did not move.

Candy Templeton was many things. Reckless. Infuriating. Far too comfortable with other people’s secrets. She had the particular gift of standing too close to a fire and then describing the burn pattern for an audience. Aer had known that from their first proper conversation, and had respected it more than she probably should have.

But treason carried a distinct pattern.

This did not fit.

Aer read the alert again, slower this time, letting each line settle. Detained under station authority. Pending formal review. Access restrictions applied. Evidence sealed under security classification. No full chain attached.

That last part tightened something low in her chest.

“Of course,” she murmured, though there was no humour in it.

Candy had been dangerous, yes. Useful too. More than useful, if played correctly. She moved through the station and the sector in ways Starfleet could not, gathering truth through gossip, vanity, resentment, fear. People handed reporters things they would never give officers, sometimes because they wanted to be heard, sometimes because they wanted someone else blamed. Candy understood that. Aer understood that.

That had been the quiet little kinship between them, whether either of them would ever have admitted it aloud.

Candy worked in exposure. Aer worked in concealment. Both knew information only stayed clean until someone touched it.

Aer swung her legs carefully over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, breathing through another pulse of pressure behind her eyes. The room felt distant around the edges, the usual currents of place and memory softened into something harder to trust. She rubbed at her brow with two fingers, irritated by the fog more than the discomfort.

Then she reached for the PADD again and opened a secure channel.

Her fingers moved quickly now.

Request full arrest documentation on Candy Templeton. Include original detainment authority, evidence chain, charge rationale, comms capture, broadcast trace, witness statements, custody status, access restrictions, and legal notification record. No summaries.

She paused, eyes resting on the word again.

**Treason.**

Her thumb hovered for half a second before she added another line.

Identify who approved charge classification.

Aer sent it.

Only then did she look toward Jack’s side of the bed again.

He would have known. If not before the arrest, then the moment after. Something this loud, this volatile, this close to the already fraying edge of Faltan politics would not have moved through the station without touching his desk. If he had been involved, she should have heard from him. If he had not been involved, she should have heard from him faster.

Another small wrongness.

Not enough to accuse. Not enough even to name.

Just enough to remain.

Aer rose slowly, one hand settling over her stomach as the twins shifted beneath her palm, faint and strange and real. Her eyes stayed on the PADD, the amber alert still glowing against her skin.

“Not treason,” she said softly.

The room gave her no answer.

By 0542, Aer was in uniform, hair pinned back with more practicality than grace, the last of sleep gone from her face. Whatever softness the morning had tried to keep from the night before had been folded away carefully, not discarded, never that, but placed somewhere private.

Candy Templeton had been arrested.

Jack had left without waking her.

And somewhere between those two facts, a thread had begun to pull.

Aer took the PADD from the table, stepped toward the door, and sent one final instruction to the Intelligence Suite.

Open a private file. Templeton arrest. Eyes only. Mine.

 

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