He’d had his hands tied at first since the damn Cube would only talk to the former captain, but from the reports he’d been reading other members of the science team and even the administrative staff had been able to develop a rapport with the machine. Wolfe had far overstepped his authority when he had taken Pike on a tour of the facility and even included him on classified communiques. He had enough to actually prosecute him, but he’d settle for just kicking him off the project and yanking his fat director’s salary away from him. How could one man so consistently cause so much trouble?

His ruminations were interrupted by an insistent beeping from the secure com link that was sitting on his desk. He picked it up and keyed in, checking the message and frowning as he read it.

“Emergency?” he mumbled, trying to do the math in his head as to when they were supposed to expect word from the taskforce executing the Ushin operation. The message stated he would need to come down to the secure com section to be briefed, another slightly unusual request given that his office was one of the most secure locations on the station. He slowly put on his suit jacket, having opted for civilian clothes as he had been going down to meet with the President as Chief of Staff and not a Fleet Admiral, and secured all his com equipment before heading out the door.

His aide fell in behind him as he walked through the front of his office area, her trusty tile clutched firmly at her side as she followed him through the station. Marcum made sure he walked with a purposeful scowl planted on his face and moved at a brusque pace. He’d found early on after getting his first star that people tended to want to catch him in the corridor to sign off on something minor that they couldn’t get an appointment for. If he looked like he was heading somewhere quickly and pissed off, people cleared out of his way like he was on fire.

“You’ll need to wait here, Lieutenant,” he said, nodding to his aide as he began the absurdly convoluted procedure to get into the secure com section. When he was passed through, and after a five-minute argument after which his comlink was confiscated, he was led down to one of the intelligence briefing rooms. When he walked in he saw that Pike was standing at one corner of the room looking pale and a bit sick. He was about to tear into the agent for wasting his time yet again when he saw the looks on the faces of the other analysts in the room.

“What’s happened?” he asked instead.