With strengthened resolve, she walked out of the conference room and back towards the bridge. She’d find a way to get the Icarus back home safely and bring CENTCOM any intel she could glean in the process that would help in what was looking like an inevitable war.

****

“Good morning, Cube,” Jackson said as he walked in. The other technicians and researchers were already getting up and preparing to leave the room since recently any time the director came down to talk to the research subject it was always of a highly classified nature. “Thanks, everybody.” Jackson nodded to his people.

“What would you like to discuss today?” Cube asked after the hatch to the cargo hold clanged shut.

“I want to expand on our previous talks about the species that calls themselves the Darshik,” Jackson said, rolling a chair over to where he could see the lit terminal on the Vruahn machine and sitting down. “In light of recent events I’d like to move away from the more abstract information in your database and see if you can’t dig up something a little more practical.”

“The Darshik have moved against you. I warned you of this.”

“You said that they were militaristic,” Jackson corrected. “As far as we knew the Darshik only knew of us through their connection with the Ushin. The Phage connection was just a theory of yours.”

“What’s happened, exactly?” Cube asked. Jackson pursed his lips and thought hard about what he was about to say next. The news of Starfleet’s engagement against the Darshik-held worlds, and what appeared to have been a disastrous ambush, was highly classified. He didn’t think telling an alien machine would be the wisest thing to do, but the rub was that out of every intelligent being in Terran space the Cube was the only one that had ever even heard of either species.

“Fleet sent a taskforce out to two systems the Ushin claimed were theirs and the Darshik were occupying.” Jackson decided to go for broke. “The first system ended up being an overly elaborate trap that only dumb luck allowed most of our ships to escape from. I need to know if we can expect some sort of retaliatory strike or if you can provide any context as to why the Ushin would apparently help the Darshik.”

“I have told you everything my memory holds on both species,” Cube said simply.

“But you and I both know that sometimes different lines of thought will jar loose some facts in there you may have failed to mention the first time I asked,” Jackson said.

“Your tone of voice and body language implies you think I deliberately withhold information from you.”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jackson said. “Come on. Give me something useful.”