Portia grabbed Janith-Lau’s hair, yanked her head back, and stuck the phaser’s nozzle against her neck. “So you’re the one I want to have a conversation with.”

Janith-Lau strove to manage her fear. “We can talk. But I can’t tell you anything but the truth. I found Rakatheema dead. That’s all I know.”

Bertram stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. “Give her to me, Portia. I’ll have her talking soon enough.”

Portia’s eyes widened, as if she were shocked by her own actions. She relaxed her grip, lessened the pressure of the phaser barrel on Janith-Lau’s neck. “No. No, remember your training, Bertram. Intelligence extracted through torture is never reliable.”

“It would be satisfying, though.”

With a disgusted look, Portia shoved Janith-Lau back into an empty chair. “We’re not thugs! That’s what they want people to think we are. We’re soldiers! We’re professionals! We have standards.”

Bertram shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Portia. You say you hate our makers and everything they made us for. Yet you embrace what they made us to be.”

Portia scoffed. “And you keep saying we’re wrong to question their design for us, but you’re the first to suggest defying their standards. And Horatio worships their code but uses it to justify abandoning our warrior nature entirely.

“Maybe none of us really know who we are or what we want. We weren’t given a choice. Which is why we need to fight for the space to figure it out for ourselves—not let them damn us as berserkers. We’re here to exact the truth, not revenge.”

Janith-Lau dared to stand and take a single tentative step toward Portia, catching her attention. She tried to focus on Portia’s eyes rather than the phaser barrel that recentered on her chest. “I want to believe that, Portia. But please… what will it take to convince you that we were not behind Rakatheema’s death, or your framing?”

The bright-eyed Warborn youth struggled with the question. “I will question everyone here. You will tell me of your actions, your whereabouts on that night. We will see if there are any discrepancies, or if certain questions make you nervous.”

“This whole situation makes us terrified. How can you distinguish that from dishonesty?”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

“Let us go, Portia. Let me talk to Captain sh’Deslar, even Admiral Kirk. They can reexamine the evidence, see if—”

“Sh’Deslar wouldn’t hear me before! She swallowed every lie! And Kirk just went along with her.”

Portia closed in on Janith-Lau once more, grabbing her arm and brandishing the phaser. “But he cares about you, doesn’t he? Maybe now he’ll have no choice but to listen to us.”

“You don’t know Jim Kirk very well if you think he’ll back down in the face of a threat.”