USS ANUBIS - Mission 27
The JELOVAAN System
The JELOVAAN System
POST INDEX
| Post # | Character | Title |
| 001 | Maya | The Jelovaan Paradox Maya digs into the system's odd dynamic |
| 002 | Gemma | Echoes Through Static The IGC reviews the transmission |
| 003 | Lopez | What Hides Beneath Erik visits Adriana |
| 004 | Morningstar | Unexpected Signal, Part 2 Mission briefing |
| 005 | Val'Bruxa | Calculated Risks Drayk and Satella discuss the mission |
| 006 | T'Lara/Bruxa | Medical Concerns T'Lara and Satella discuss the mission |
| 007 | Lopez/Ya'Han | Emotional Progress Ya'Han speaks with Adriana |
| 008 | Shar'El | Reflections in the Dark Shar'El speaks with Christie and Cristhiane |
| 009 | Stark | New Light Jayson reassures Ya'Han |
| 010 | Enel | Accept Chaos Zub and the MACOs prepare |
| 011 | Maya | Harmonic Enigma Maya analyzes the system |
| 012 | Val'Bruxa | Subverting Chaos Drayk manually adapts the shields |
| 013 | Gemma | Through the First Veil Gemma, in the IGC, studies the outer shell |
| 014 | A'Janni | The Push of the Unknown The ANUBIS makes it through the outer shell |
| 015 | Lopez | Echoes Within the Shell Adriana speaks with Amanda |
| 016 | T'Lara | Echoes of Stillness T'Lara and Satella make observations |
| 017 | Ya'Han | Still Waters Ya'Han and Ya'Jun speak in the holodeck |
| 018 | Enel | Deeper Still Zub struggles with the sense of peace |
| 019 | Shar'El | Uneasy Sense of Ease Shar'El shares the sense of uneasiness |
| 020 | Gemma/Bruxa | One to All, All to One Contrast between Gemma and Satella |
| 021 | Maya | Blind Among the Stars Maya deals with the lack of sensors |
| 022 | Stark | Light Footed The ANUBIS loses power and artificial gravity |
| 023 | Enel | Stay Zub reacts to the unexpected situation |
| 024 | Val'Bruxa | The Weight of Responsibility Drayk faces the loss of gravity on the ANUBIS |
| 025 | Lopez | Unwelcome Memories A deep sense of dread washes over Adriana |
| 026 | Ya'Han | Remembered Pain Ya'Han deals with painful memories |
| 027 | Shar'El | Echoes Without Silence Shar'El is overwhelmed by others' memories |
| 028 | Gemma | Emptiness of Self Gemma's nanites go offline |
| 029 | T'Lara | Emotional Collapse T'Lara deals with her unexpected emotions |
| 030 | Val'Bruxa | The Silence Between... Drayk fights against the situation and his fears |
| 031 | Enel | Hail Some systems return to active status |
| 032 | A'Janni | Gravity’s Design The ANUBIS is on a collision course with the planet |
| 033 | Gemma/Bruxa | Restoring Control Erik is down, Gemma takes over ExO |
| 034 | Shar'El | Not According To Plan The ANUBIS reaches the planet |
| 035 | Morningstar | The Final Countdown Senior staff situation briefing |
| 036 | Ya'Han | A Helping Hand Jayson speaks to Ya'Han about the away teams |
| 037 | Val'Bruxa | Precision at the Edge Satella visits Drayk in Main Engineering |
| 038 | T'Lara | First Team The first away team is set up |
| 039 | Gemma | Through The Static The ANUBIS visually tracks the first away team |
| 040 | Shar'El | No Turning Back The first away team is on the planet |
| 041 | Ya'Han | Unwelcome Peace Ya'Han struggles with the planet's artificial peace |
| 042 | Enel | Second Team The second team arrives on the surface |
| 043 | Maya | First Impression Maya is taken aback by the world around them |
| 044 | Gemma | Voice of Peace, Words... The away team encounters someone |
| 045 | Val'Bruxa/Bruxa | Timely Argument Drayk, Satella and Erik have a discussion |
| Post # | Character | Title |
| 046 | Lopez | Paths Chosen, Paths Waiting Adriana speaks with Ya'Jun |
| 047 | Morningstar | The Third Team Erik sends the next away team |
| 048 | Shar'El | No Turning Back Shar'El and the others arrive at the settlement |
| 049 | T'Lara | Peaceful Meeting of the... The wide variety of species stuns T'Lara |
| 050 | Y'Han | Broken Harmony A shockwave spreads through the settlement |
| 051 | Val'Bruxa | A Break In The Design The shockwave affects the entire planet |
| 052 | Enel | Respite The away team digs into the society's core |
| 053 | Lopez | When the Calm Breaks The shockwave hits the ANUBIS |
| 054 | Morningstar | The Machine's Answer Erik speaks with Ani |
| 055 | Gemma | Considered Reaction Gemma tries to recenter herself |
| 056 | Lopez | Focal Point Adriana confronts Erik |
| 057 | Shar'El | The Shattered Calm The inhabitants behave differently |
| 058 | Val'Bruxa | Convergence The third away team arrive at the settlement |
| 059 | Ya'Han | Awaiting the Unseen The away team inside the Grand Hall debates |
| 060 | T'Lara | Memories of Feelings... T'Lara tries to understand the telepathic woman |
| 061 | Morningstar | The Shape of Things to Come Erik's team encounter Threll |
| 062 | Enel | Future Past Zub starts to figure out what is happening |
| 063 | Maya | Alignment Protocol Maya discovers a temporal element to the system |
| 064 | Gemma/Bruxa | Regouping The three away teams regroup |
| 065 | Lopez | Time Travel Erik's team travels on a strange path |
| 066 | Shar'El | Below the Calm The teams venture into an odd passageway |
| 067 | Ya'Han | Future Family That Never... Ya'Han and Jayson see their daughter |
| 068 | Maya | Timely Analysis Maya scientifically analyzes the time distortions |
| 069 | Val'Bruxa | One's Own Master Drayk analyzes the situation |
| 070 | Lopez | What Time Remembers, Pt1 Erik and the others arrive at the main settlement |
| 071 | Morningstar | What Time Remembers, Pt2 Erik and the others are at the transmitter |
| 072 | Enel | Eternity in Retrospect Zub experiences a shift in perception of time |
| 073 | Gemma/Bruxa | Regrouping in Motion Gemma and Bruxa deal with the temporal issues |
| 074 | T'Lara | Looking Forward, Moving... T'Lara confronts Auraliseth |
| 075 | Val'Bruxa | Unsettling Times Drayk sees the transmitter |
| 076 | Shar'El | What Time Remembers, Pt3 The teams gather at the transmitter |
| 077 | Morninstar | What Time Remembers, Pt4 The ANUBIS is saved, but at a cost |
| 078 | Gemma | Time to Think Gemma struggles with Erik's departure |
| 079 | Ya'Han | Time to Fight Ya'Han and Ya'Jun spar in the gymnasium |
| 080 | Lopez | Time to Talk Adriana speaks with Shar'El |
| 081 | Enel | Time to Renew Zub worries about Gemma |
| 082 | T'Lara | Time to Feel T'Lara and Satella talk |
| 083 | Maya | Time to Grieve Maya is visited by Adriana |
| 084 | Stark/A'Janni | Time to Consider Jayson and A'Janni discuss the ExO position |
| 085 | T'Lara | Time to Reflect T'Lara considers the ExO position |
| 086 | Ya'Han | Time to Re-Evaluate Ya'Han and Jayson talk about the future |
| 087 | Val'Bruxa | Time to Focus Satella goes to see Drayk in Engineering |
| 088 | Shar'El | Time to Accept Shar'El is shown a message from Erik |
| 089 | Lopez/Bruxa | Time to Question Satella visits Adriana |
| 090 | Ya'Han | Time to Stand Ya'Han speaks with Shar'El |
---
"The Jelovaan Paradox"
(Previous Post: "Unexpected Signal, Part 1")
---
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Stellar Cartography
Stardate: 45032.1140
Maya sat at the main console, Captain Morningstar standing just behind and to her left, while Christie occupied the auxiliary station to the right. The vast curvature of the multi-level display surrounded them, its sweeping expanse projecting the illusion that they were adrift in open space rather than within the confines of the ANUBIS' Stellar Cartography laboratory.
"Very little verified data exists on the JELOVAAN SYSTEM," Maya began, her tone caught between academic fascination and sheer disbelief. The holographic projection expanded, the system in question rendered with as much fidelity as long-range scans allowed, the scale adjusting in incremental precision. "This lack of information is not due to a lack of curiosity, but rather the extreme conditions within the system itself. Radiation levels emitted from the multiple asteroid fields are abnormally high, and the magnetic interference from the twin stars at the center makes it nearly impossible for sensors to function with any degree of accuracy."
Christie frowned, her fingers moving quickly over her console. "The radiation interference is off the charts. These readings make no sense."
"None of it does," Maya replied, almost gleefully. "The system violates nearly every principle of stellar mechanics we understand. The asteroids are not confined to a typical equatorial plane. Instead, they form multiple concentric spherical strata, orbiting the binary stars as though confined within invisible containment fields. Each layer maintains consistent distance and velocity parameters, a state of equilibrium that should collapse without continuous external modulation. The equilibrium required to sustain such a structure naturally exceeds the limits of known gravitational stability."
"In simpler terms," Christie offered, glancing toward the Captain, "that region of space should not exist."
"Quite correct," Maya said, without the faintest hesitation, "and yet, it does."
Morningstar folded his arms. "And no one has ever gone in to take a closer look."
"None who tried have returned," Maya confirmed. "Probes sent into the region have all failed. Their inertial guidance and telemetry arrays became erratic, leading to terminal trajectory deviations that invariably resulted in collisions with the surrounding asteroids. Several of those asteroids, by the way, are nearly the size of small moons. The last Starfleet attempt was nearly eighty years ago, and the final transmission of the probe that was sent in lasted only 3.2 seconds before being lost in static. Since then, the system has been considered a navigational hazard. Even civilian vessels are warned to avoid it at all costs."
"So how did we get this?" Christie asked, calling up a file. The distorted image of a static-filled transmission appeared briefly on the main display. Though unclear, it was unmistakably a visual signal.
"The origin of that transmission has been triangulated to within the system," Maya explained. "It is a continuous visual transmission, subspace-modulated across multiple frequency bands. Whoever or whatever is transmitting it clearly possesses technology capable of compensating for, or possibly exploiting, the interference patterns produced by the system’s magnetic and gravimetric distortions. The content, as far as the science division has been able to ascertain, is a form of visual broadcast consistent with pre-digital Terran television. No audio component is present, but the imagery appears to depict multiple individuals of different species gathered in what could be a common space. That alone implies the existence of an organized, multi-species civilization within the system."
"That cannot be possible," Christie whispered, staring at the hazy, flickering shapes on the display.
"Unlikely, yes," Maya said, "but not impossible. The JELOVAAN SYSTEM defies our understanding, yet it persists in a state of measurable equilibrium. The twin stars appear magnetically phase-locked, their combined magneto-gravitic fields generating oscillatory standing waves that ripple through the surrounding medium. Those resonant wavefronts could, at least theoretically, create stable nodal regions where particulate matter becomes suspended and gradually coalesces into spherical orbital shells. The asteroids are not conventional silicate bodies. Spectral readings indicate dense paramagnetic crystalline matrices, possibly functioning as natural amplifiers for the surrounding magneto-gravitic flux. The result is a kind of natural containment shell that traps radiation and energy while preventing any external signal from easily escaping."
"Except for this one," Morningstar observed.
"Exactly," Maya replied, her eyes alight with fascination. "The signal somehow bypassed the interference. It should have been diffracted or absorbed within the first field boundary, yet it reached us intact enough to identify both its subspace carrier and its visual pattern. That indicates either a transmission source with extraordinary power output, or one precisely tuned to exploit some form of harmonic resonance within the interference pattern. Either possibility raises as many questions as it answers."
Morningstar took a slow breath, his gaze fixed on the shifting display of overlapping orbits. "So we are venturing into a region that breaks the rules of known physics, where asteroids orbit in spherical shells, probes crash, and something or someone inside is broadcasting old-style television."
Maya nodded, utterly unfazed by the apparent absurdity. "Precisely, Captain. The JELOVAAN SYSTEM represents what I would classify as an astrophysical paradox... a region where the known laws of nature appear to have negotiated terms with the improbable. Whether this configuration is sustained by magneto-gravitic resonance, quantum field stabilization, or some unrecognized stellar phenomenon remains to be seen. What we do know is that a signal exists where no signal should, and that alone justifies our investigation."
Christie shook her head in quiet amazement. "You make it sound almost alive."
"All complex systems display emergent behavior when pushed beyond conventional limits," Maya said, her voice softening slightly. "Perhaps what we are seeing is not chaos, but balance: an equilibrium so precise that even our equations cannot yet define it."
Morningstar allowed himself a small smile. "Then I suppose we will have to see what lies inside this paradox for ourselves."
Maya turned back to the display, her expression showing a distinct scientific curiosity. "Indeed, Captain. And I, for one, am most eager to discover which law of the universe will choose to contest our understanding first."
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"Echoes Through Static"
Previous post: "The Jelovaan Paradox" by Jessica
Setting: USS ANUBIS, IGC
Stardate: 45032.1245
Gemma stood at the central analysis console; the ambient lighting of the IGC dimmed to emphasize the shimmering holographic display hovering over the main table. The Captain had entered quietly, as he often did when visiting her domain.
Morningstar entered without ceremony, his eyes already fixed on the central display.
"Report," he said, his voice low but steady.
Gemma straightened, her posture as precise as the data columns flickering around her. "The transmission from the JELOVAAN System has been thoroughly analyzed. Unfortunately, due to magnetic and gravimetric distortions within the system, only the visual portion of the broadcast survived. The audio data appears to have been entirely lost, possibly erased by phase variance during signal propagation, if there was even one to start with."
She tapped a control, and a looping fragment of the transmission appeared. Distorted figures moved through what looked like a cobblestone marketplace filled with mechanical contraptions powered by steam or winding gears. The air shimmered faintly with haze, but not the synthetic kind Starfleet sensors were used to reading.
"From what the IGC team has reconstructed, the society that originated the signal operates under conditions resembling a medieval socio-technological framework," she continued. "However, we also noted distinct traces of mechanical engineering and industrial craftsmanship inconsistent with that era. Primitive by Federation standards, but impressive within their environmental limits. They appear to adapt functionality to reliability, constructing only what can endure."
Morningstar studied the footage. "So they have a kind of hybrid civilization."
"It would appear so. A blend of rustic architecture and mechanical ingenuity. The culture seems to have evolved from multiple influences, possibly over centuries of isolation. There are visible signs of at least a dozen distinct cultural aesthetics, likely remnants of separate ships or colonies that became trapped within the system and merged into a singular society."
Gemma changed the angle of the holographic feed, highlighting specific still frames. "Several recurring symbols appear throughout the broadcast, displayed on banners, shields, and uniforms of apparent leadership figures. Many of those designs correspond closely to known emblems, some bearing striking resemblances to established institutional insignias."
Gemma called up several side images, extracts from the main feed, each showing a different symbol.
Morningstar exhaled slowly as the images rotated above the console. "Vulcan Science Institute... Romulan Tal'Shiar... Gorn Elite Strike Force... Orion Mining Federation... and even the Ferengi Grand Acquisitions Authority." He shook his head slightly. "That's an unstable mix for any world, let alone one lost to isolation."
"Conflicts are depicted, but all combat appears limited to hand-held bladed weapons. No projectile, energy, or even ranged kinetic weapons were observed. The absence of functioning high-energy technology aligns with the hypothesis that advanced systems fail to operate reliably in the region."
Morningstar folded his arms. "And the people themselves?"
"That is where things become more complicated," Gemma replied. "The IGC identified a wide variety of species present within the footage. Some individuals display reptilian characteristics consistent with Gorn physiology. Others possess refined features similar to Vulcans or Romulans. We also identified several physical traits belonging to Caitians, Orions, and several hybrid variations. It is not a single-species civilization. Rather, it appears to be a multi-species collective, functioning with surprising harmony under the constraints of their technological limitations."
The Captain's expression tightened slightly. "You mentioned the signal itself. Anything unusual in its origin?"
Gemma hesitated a fraction of a second before replying, "The carrier wave analysis confirmed Admiral Koniki's preliminary assessment. At least part of the transmission originated from an Orion Syndicate subspace transmitter. The encryption header and resonance pattern match a Syndicate design registered to smuggling operations from roughly fifteen years ago. How that technology came to be in the JELOVAAN System remains unknown."
"Could the Syndicate be trying to exploit this civilization?"
"That is one possibility," Gemma acknowledged. "Another is that the device was salvaged or recovered unintentionally. Given the apparent limitations of the local population, it seems unlikely they would understand its full function. However, the precision of the transmission suggests someone, or something, does. Admiral Koniki believes the transmitter may contain residual data from earlier Syndicate communications. If so, retrieving it could reveal unknown aspects of their operations in this sector."
Morningstar regarded her for a long moment. "And your assessment?"
"I suspect the Admiral knows more than he has shared," Gemma said evenly. "The pattern of selective information, the timing of the transmission's release... it bears his particular signature: minimal data, maximum control. He may already have an idea of how the transmitter arrived in that system. Our orders will almost certainly include the retrieval of that device."
The Captain gave a slight nod. "And how difficult will that be?"
Gemma's gaze shifted to the pulsing image of the JELOVAAN System displayed on the wall. "Given the radiation and magnetic interference, it will be nearly impossible to isolate the transmitter's exact location. Even with the ANUBIS' enhanced sensors, we are looking at field saturation levels that obscure nearly all trace signatures. My team will continue to review the visual feed for any additional clues. We have also established a passive monitoring array tuned to detect any new signals from the system."
She paused briefly, her expression ever so slightly relaxing. "The footage does not appear to have been intentionally sent beyond the system. The broadcast seems to function as a local transmission, perhaps a form of entertainment or communication. Whatever allowed it to escape the surrounding interference may have been a coincidence."
Morningstar exhaled slowly. "Coincidence or not, we are going in after it."
Gemma nodded. "Understood, Captain. We will determine a method to locate and retrieve it."
The holographic display continued to flicker in silence, the faint images of a forgotten civilization moving endlessly through static... a world both ancient and mechanical, unknowingly calling out to the stars.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"What Hides Beneath"
Previous Post: "Echoes Through Static" by Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office
Stardate: 45032.1330
The soft burble of the small waterfall filled the Counseling Office, lending a sense of stillness to the room. It was an intentional choice in design, one Adriana had made early on in her posting aboard the ANUBIS. Counselors, she believed, should be surrounded by calm, even when chaos lurked just outside the bulkhead. The lighting was low, warm enough to soften the sharp edges of the day, and for a moment she allowed herself to breathe with the sound of the water.
She had barely settled into reviewing her last session notes when the door chime sounded. Unannounced visits were rare, and when they happened, they usually meant someone was standing on the other side of that door with an urgent personal or emotional storm in tow.
"Come in," she called.
The doors parted to reveal Erik. His posture was relaxed, but Adriana had served under him long enough to read the subtleties others might miss. He carried the quiet weight of a captain in the hours before something big. His steps were measured, his hands loosely clasped behind his back, the way they often were when he was thinking through possibilities no one else could see.
"Counselor," he greeted lightly as he stepped inside.
"Captain," she replied with a small, familiar smile. "I was just about to make some tea. Would you like some?"
"That would be nice, thank you," Erik said as he took the seat opposite her desk rather than the couch. The choice of chair was telling. This wasn't a personal visit. It wasn't strictly official either. It was something in between.
Adriana rose and moved to the small replicator. "Risian Tea Latte?" She offered, already knowing the answer.
"You know me too well," he said with that quiet amusement that came so naturally to him.
She returned with two steaming mugs and placed one in front of him before reclaiming her seat. He didn't speak right away, which was not unusual. Erik Morningstar never rushed a conversation. He let silence shape the space around him until words felt earned rather than given. It was a leadership quality Adriana had come to respect more than she could ever fully express.
Finally, he placed a small PADD on her desk. "I wanted to get your thoughts on something before the briefing," he said. "Off the record."
She arched a brow, taking the PADD but not looking at it yet. "Off the record usually means I'll regret agreeing to it later."
"Have you seen Maya's preliminary report on the JELOVAAN system?"
Adriana's eyes widened. "From what I was able to understand from her notes, that system is an enigma wrapped inside an impossibility... a dream come true for Maya."
He gave a quiet chuckle, then nodded toward the device. "The IGC finished processing the transmission from the JELOVAAN system that Admiral Koniki sent to us. Gemma and her team have been cross-referencing some of the emblems shown on banners and shields with known organizational databases. There are some... interesting overlaps."
"Banners and shields?" Adriana started to grin, expecting a joke. One look at Erik's face told her he wasn't joking.
"I took the liberty to isolate specific frames of the video feed," Erik added, pointing to the PADD.
Adriana tapped the screen, and the first image filled the display. It was a grainy, distorted capture from an analog broadcast that by all rights should not have survived the system's interference. The picture quality was poor, colors washed and edges smeared, but the shapes were unmistakable. A banner. A circular emblem. Jagged symbols etched onto cloth that still managed to look proud, even through decades of distortion.
She swiped to the next image, then the next. The emblems were not exactly the same, but the similarities were beyond uncanny. Vulcan Science Institute. Romulan Tal'Shiar. Gorn Strike Force. Orion Mining Federation. Ferengi Grand Acquisitions Authority. Each one slightly altered, as if time and distance had warped them, but the core iconography remained disturbingly familiar.
Her breath caught just slightly. "These are not just random designs, are they?"
"No," Erik said softly. "They're not."
She leaned back slowly, absorbing what she was seeing. A society formed of echoes. Symbols of power, trade, science, and control from a dozen worlds, stitched together in a place no one was supposed to be able to reach. A culture built out of fragments.
"I thought Gemma was handling this," Adriana said finally, her tone light but curious. "This seems more her field than mine."
"It is," Erik admitted, watching her closely. "But Gemma gives me intelligence assessments. I need perspective."
She suspected there was more behind the question than mission parameters, but if Erik wanted her insight, she'd give it, and more importantly, she.d trust him to use it wisely.
Following a short pause, he continued. "And you're better at seeing what's beneath the surface without expecting treason or worse."
It was a kind thing to say. Also a deliberate one. Adriana knew Erik well enough to recognize when he was steering the conversation toward something he needed rather than wanted. He could have left this with Gemma. He chose not to.
She tilted her head slightly. "You want to know what kind of people we might find inside that system."
"Exactly," he said.
The next image flicked to a wide market scene. Dozens of individuals moved through a cobblestone square, their features indistinct but varied enough to be recognizable. Vulcanoid ears. Orion skin tones. Caitian ears flicking in motion. Others bore hybrid features that spoke of generations of blending. And through it all, those banners, hanging from stone arches, watching.
"It’s a multi-species society," Adriana said quietly. "And not one that evolved together. This looks like a merging of cultures that were never meant to coexist in isolation."
"And yet they do," Erik said. He leaned forward slightly, hands clasped loosely between his knees. "Gemma's team suspects the Orion Syndicate may have played a role in establishing or influencing this place. Maybe not recently, but enough to leave their fingerprints behind."
She glanced up at him. "You think this could be a Syndicate outpost?"
"I don't know." His honesty was steady and unflinching. "But if the Syndicate had access to this system years ago, and if someone has been transmitting from there, then we may be walking into a situation with more layers than we realize. I trust Gemma to find the facts. I need to understand the people."
She let her gaze linger on the images. There was a strange kind of order in them. Flags hung with intention. Merchants moved with familiarity. Faces that, even through distortion, spoke of belonging to something. A society, no matter how fragile or fractured, was still a society.
"People don't build symbols like this unless they're trying to hold on to something," Adriana said at last, her voice soft but certain. "These banners aren't just decoration. They're identity. Memory, maybe even faith. A way to anchor themselves to a past that might no longer exist. If the Syndicate was involved, maybe they gave them the means to survive here. But survival under the Syndicate, or any similar organization comes with a cost. Control. Dependency."
"Which means whoever's inside might not see us as rescuers," Erik said.
She nodded. "They might see you as the people coming to upend their world. And depending on how long they’ve been isolated, they may not even know what the Syndicate really was. It could have become myth. Religion. Power structure."
Erik let that sink in, the faint hum of the environmental systems filling the quiet. He didn't have to say what they were both thinking. Encounters with insular societies rarely went smoothly, even under the best of circumstances. This was a civilization shaped not by exploration or diplomacy, but by accident and necessity.
"Admiral Koniki hasn't given us the whole story," Erik said quietly.
Adriana's smile was faint, tinged with something like fond exasperation. "He never does. That said, based on those images, I doubt the Orion Syndicate built this culture. If they had, would they really allow the symbols of rival powers to fly so openly? The Syndicate doesn't share authority. They take it."
"I see your point."
"It is evident that this culture has been influenced by external elements, several in fact, and it is likely that the Orion Syndicate is only the latest to find themselves involved in whatever is happening inside the JELOVAAN system. Things may not be as we might expect them to be."
He huffed a quiet laugh. "We'll deal with that when we have to. First, we have to reach that planet."
She met his eyes then. This wasn't just about strategy. This was about the weight Erik carried, the weight of every decision, every possible misstep, every life on board. She trusted him completely, and she knew he wouldn't have come to her unless it mattered.
"If this place was touched by all of those organizations, including the Orion Syndicate, then what you'll find won't be just a lost civilization," she said softly. "You'll find a legacy. One that's been simmering for years, maybe decades. It could be broken, or it could be something entirely new. Either way, Captain, they'll have their own truths. And they may not match ours."
He nodded once, a silent acknowledgment that was both agreement and resolve.
"Thank you, Adriana."
"Anytime," she answered, her tone steady and sincere.
He rose, leaving the empty mug on the desk. His hand brushed lightly against the back of the chair, a small, grounding gesture, before he turned for the door. As it slid shut behind him, Adriana let her eyes drift back to the still images frozen on the screen. So much history embedded in so little clarity. Grainy, fragmented, but full of story.
Somewhere inside that impossible system, an entire civilization was living a reality entirely its own. The mission ahead was clear, but the weight of what waited there: a culture shaped by fragments and shadows, could not be ignored.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
#######
"Unexpected Signal, Part 2"
Previous post: "What Hides Beneath"
##########
"Life is hardwired to survive, adapting in ways that most cannot even begin to imagine."
— Professor Zalhaaresh, Exo-Biology specialist, Starfleet Academy
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Observation Lounge
Stardate: 45032.1545
The Observation Lounge was quiet when the Native American Captain stepped through the doors. The low hum of the ship filled the silence as the senior officers took their seats around the long conference table. Beyond the panoramic windows, the streaking starlight hinted at the ANUBIS' urgent velocity.
Captain Morningstar moved to the head of the table, his expression calm and measured. He set a data PADD before him, glanced at the faces of his officers, and began without preamble.
"Fourteen hours from now, we will reach the JELOVAAN system. Our objective is clear: locate and retrieve the Orion Syndicate transmitter believed to be the source of the anomalous broadcast first reported to Admiral Koniki. We are to avoid all interference with the local population. That directive is not negotiable."
He let the words hang in the air for a moment before continuing.
"Before we discuss approach options, you should all be aware of the situation as it stands. The system itself is… unique." Erik paused as a holographic projection of the JELOVAAN system shimmered to life over the table. "The twin stars at its center generate such intense gravitational and magnetic interference that standard sensors fail within a few thousand kilometres of the outer asteroid shell. Until now, all recorded data on the system was based entirely on visual observation. The asteroids form concentric spherical strata, each one stable, suspended by forces we cannot yet explain. Maya's analysis confirms that this configuration should not exist, and yet it does."
The Shillian gave a small nod. "Every model I have run ends in collapse. The equilibrium of that system appears to require continuous modulation, almost as though it is being maintained. Whether this occurs through artificial means or a natural resonance phenomenon remains to be determined."
Erik continued. "From inside those layers, deep-space telemetry has picked up a single, persistent signal: an analog visual transmission with no audio component. Gemma's team has verified that the broadcast originates from within the system, likely from the surface of a previously unknown populated world. The transmission content shows a society of mixed species: Vulcanoid, Gorn, Orion, Caitian, and others, all living under conditions resembling late-industrial or early-mechanical development. The visual feed shows steam-driven devices, wind-powered contraptions, and an apparent absence of energy weapons or advanced technology."
Gemma's voice was cool and precise. "A closer analysis indicates the use of banners and insignias consistent with known emblems from at least a dozen major powers: Federation, Romulan, Gorn, Ferengi, Orion. These are not identical to their originals, but rather variations, evolved or distorted over time. The civilization appears to have inherited or adopted these symbols as cultural markers."
A low murmur passed among the officers before the room quieted again.
"Why was this signal only discovered now?" Zub asked.
"The current working theory," Gemma replied, "is that the inhabitants only recently obtained or integrated the Orion Syndicate transmitter into their broadcast network.
Adriana leaned forward slightly. "Assuming the transmitter is on a planetary surface, how close will we have to get before sensors can lock on through the interference?"
"Too close for comfort," Gemma replied evenly. "Based on current readings, the signal degrades exponentially past the inner asteroid shell. We'll need to penetrate at least three layers before the ANUBIS can isolate the source. Even then, it may require line-of-sight triangulation."
Jayson nodded, but his expression remained tight. "That close, we'll be threading a needle in a magnetic storm. Transporters will be useless, and shuttle telemetry unreliable. We'll have to rely on manual flight and short-range beacons for coordination." He hesitated before adding, almost reflexively, "Ya’Han would've insisted on a secondary retrieval plan, redundant routes in and out. I can work up a version of that for Zub's team."
Morningstar gave a small, approving nod. "Do it."
A'Janni's ears flicked once, betraying his focus. "The inner strata move independently. Even a minor shift between the layers could close a corridor faster than we can react. The helm will need to be directly tied into Maya's gravimetric models to anticipate those changes in real time."
"Granted," Erik said. "Bridge control will be yours once we begin our entry into the system."
Drayk spoke next, his tone low and deliberate. "Engineering can stabilize structural integrity fields for short intervals at those depths, but it will strain power management. We’ll need to divert energy from both the primary and auxiliary systems to reinforce shields and hull integrity. That means limited tactical readiness, no holodeck, no secondary replicators, and no long-range sensor sweeps. The ANUBIS will be running at minimal operational output."
The holographic projection flickered once, the image wavering as if the system itself objected to the strain being proposed.
"Understood," Morningstar replied. "Do whatever it takes to keep the hull intact."
Satella's soft voice followed. "The radiation density within the inner strata is severe. Even with field compensation, a landing party would suffer radiation exposure in a very short time. Extended exposure beyond an hour could become dangerous."
"We should be able to develop an improved portable field protocol to mitigate exposure," T'Lara offered. "That could double or even triple safe surface duration."
"Prepare accordingly," Erik said. "I don't plan to leave anyone down there longer than necessary."
Zub Enel leaned forward, his tone pragmatic. "Without active sensors or transporters, we'll be flying blind once the team's on the ground. I recommend deploying tethered relay drones, short-range transponders that can act as breadcrumbs for navigation and extraction."
"Coordinate those with Gemma," the Captain said. "We'll integrate them into the retrieval plan."
Maya folded her arms thoughtfully. "Even with the transmitter at full strength, tricorder range on the surface will be severely limited."
"That aligns with our data," Gemma added. "The carrier wave analysis shows a weak and fluctuating source. Locating it will require manual fieldwork and close-range triangulation."
Drayk leaned back slightly. "If it's using subspace modulation to punch through the interference, we might still be able to reduce the search grid to a few kilometres."
Erik let the discussion flow, absorbing every detail. The dialogue around the table was crisp, technical, and filled with quiet tension, the kind born from a crew facing a problem that could not be solved by force or diplomacy, only precision.
When the exchanges began to overlap, he raised a hand for silence.
"We have our work cut out for us," Erik said evenly. "The JELOVAAN system is a labyrinth that punishes even the smallest mistake. Our mission is simple: retrieve the transmitter, analyze it, and secure it aboard the ANUBIS. Nothing more. Every step will be calculated, deliberate, and reversible. No unnecessary risks. No detours. No interference."
His gaze swept the room, resting briefly on each officer in turn: Shar'El's silent composure, Gemma's analytical precision, Maya's scientific curiosity, T'Lara's calm logic, Satella's compassion, Drayk's steady pragmatism, A'Janni's disciplined readiness, Zub's reliability, Jayson’s restrained emotion, Adriana's insight.
Shar'El finally spoke, her tone even but edged with thought. "Given what we know of Admiral Koniki's methods, we should also be prepared for an unexpected secondary objective. He may not have told us everything. It wouldn't be the first time he's withheld key details for 'operational necessity.'"
Morningstar's expression didn't change. "Then we’ll be ready for that as well."
A brief pause followed, filled only by the hum of the ship and the distant whisper of the stars.
"Are there any further questions?"
None came. Even Jayson's earlier frustration had cooled into quiet resolve. Around the table, the crew exchanged subtle nods, the unspoken acknowledgement that they were heading into something no one fully understood, but would face it together.
Erik straightened, his tone final. "We arrive in just under fourteen hours. Dismissed."
With that, the meeting was adjourned. Chairs slid back, officers gathered their PADDs, and quiet conversation resumed in low tones as they filed out. The Captain lingered a moment longer, his eyes fixed on the twin stars of the JELOVAAN system glowing faintly within the holographic display before him.
Somewhere within that impossible system lay a forgotten world shaped by fragments of countless civilizations, broadcasting its existence through static and time. Whether the ANUBIS' arrival would bring answers or consequences, none could yet say.
But for now, the course was set.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"Calculated Risks"
Previous post: "Unexpected Signal, Part 2" by Francois
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Corridor -> Main Engineering
Stardate: 45032.1610
Drayk and Satella moved down the corridor toward Main Engineering, steps in perfect sync, the rhythm less coincidence than calibration. Mates by design, officers by purpose, neither spared a glance for the other. Their focus remained on the PADDs in their hands, the Captain's directives still resonating like a standing wave in the mind.
The doors to Main Engineering parted with a hiss of compressed air. The rhythmic pulse of the warp core filled the chamber: a living heartbeat of containment and precision. Drayk Val'Bruxa entered at a measured pace, Satella matching stride beside him. The displays of their respective PADDs shimmered with fluctuating radiation graphs and gravimetric readouts that refused to stabilize for more than a few seconds at a time.
"The JELOVAAN system's gravitational harmonics are unlike anything I've seen," Satella murmured, eyes scanning the cascading data. "And the radiation distribution makes no medical sense. The density rises and falls in perfect periodicity, like a pulse. If it were biological, I'd call it an arrhythmia. It is as if someone, or something, is conducting them."
"Conducted implies control," Drayk replied, voice flat but absolute. "This is maintenance, not music. No natural system sustains equilibrium this long. Something is enforcing order, and once we cross the boundary, that order will include us."
"Maya called it an astrophysical paradox."
"She would, and she's being polite," Drayk muttered. "What we're approaching is engineered chaos, interference so violent it should tear itself apart, yet it endures. That isn't paradox, it's confinement. The question isn't how it holds… it's why something wants it to."
They moved along the catwalk toward the auxiliary power stations. Satella's expression tightened as another spike of radiation scrolled across her PADD. "At these radiation levels," Satella said, scanning the readouts, "T'Lara will need full rotation protocols just to keep medical personnel within safe exposure margins. Field dampeners will delay damage, not prevent it. Cellular degradation will start before structural fatigue does."
"Forty-two," Drayk interjected, not looking up. "Static coefficients understate drift by twenty-eight percent. You're using static field coefficients. We'll need to dynamically tune integrity modulation to the gravimetric pulse of each asteroid layer. That means recalibrating shield harmonics in real time: no automation, full manual oversight. A'Janni will not be the only one with his hands full once we enter the system."
She exhaled quietly. "You mean you'll have to adapt the shield harmonics by feel?"
Drayk allowed the faintest curve of a smile. "That system was built on precision. It will take precision to survive it." He met her gaze, unblinking. "I am that precision."
They reached the central console. Engineering teams moved with subdued urgency around them, fully aware of what the mission demanded. Satella's hand brushed lightly across the edge of the console as she studied the schematics. "If this system was, as you suggest, created by design, could the interference be artificial? A defense grid? A quarantine? I've seen radiation profiles like this only in controlled containment environments: biological or otherwise."
"Possible," he admitted. "The patterns are crude, functional, not artful. Whoever built this wasn't protecting territory; they were stabilizing an equation. Something volatile. Whatever shaped those orbital strata wasn't trying to keep people out. It was trying to keep something stable."
Satella looked up at him, eyes narrowing slightly. "You think it's alive?"
"I think," he said, meeting her gaze, "that balance of this magnitude demands intent. And intent implies intelligence. The JELOVAAN system is not a natural phenomenon."
They stood in silence for a moment, the warp core thrumming between them.
"The Captain will push through regardless," she said softly.
"As he should," Drayk said. "Courage without calculation is suicide. Awareness keeps ships and crew alive. We'll ensure his faith doesn't outpace our mathematics."
Satella smiled faintly, a mixture of affection and resolve. "And you still think perfection is attainable."
Drayk's tone hardened just slightly. "Perfection isn't an ideal, Satella. It's a design parameter. You know this as much as I do."
Her answering glance carried both admiration and warning. "Then let's make sure the universe doesn't object to our parameters."
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Medical Concerns"
Previous post: "Calculated Risks" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Sickbay
Stardate: 45032.1655
Sickbay was quiet, the kind of quiet that existed between preparation and inevitability. Equipment was neatly arranged on sterilization trays, portable field units lined along the counter, and the faint rhythm of the environmental systems mixed with the steady cadence of her breathing, creating an uneasy calm. Every display counted down the same figure: 12 hours and 49 minutes until they arrived at the enigmatic JELOVAAN system.
Doctor T'Lara stood at the central biobed, reviewing the cellular exposure models that scrolled across the monitor. The radiation profiles defied logic, their harmonics rising and falling in rhythm with the gravimetric shifts of the system itself. It looked less like radiation and more like something alive, something breathing through the interference, fascinating and deeply troubling in equal measure.
Satella stepped into Sickbay with the careful calm of someone who needed it to be calm. The door sealed behind her, muting the world outside. In one hand, the familiar weight of a med-kit; in the other, a PADD heavy with numbers that refused to behave. Her mind was already running simulations before her feet had even stopped moving.
"Doctor Bruxa," T'Lara said, her tone even. "You requested my review of the field compensation matrix."
Satella nodded, a faint smile flickering across her tired features. "I did. Engineering stabilized the shield harmonics, but the biological models aren't keeping up. The radiation's doing something unpredictable, almost personal. Even with full shielding, exposure past a few minutes starts breaking the body down one cell at a time."
T'Lara moved to stand beside her, eyes scanning the data displayed on the PADD without expression. "Your models assume standard radiation distribution. That assumption does not apply to the JELOVAAN system. The interference appears to be organized, not random. It fluctuates according to harmonic resonance. If we adjust the frequency modulation of the bio-field emitters to align with that resonance, exposure duration can be safely extended by a factor of three."
Satella blinked. "You mean sync the protection field to the radiation pattern itself?" The conversation sounded oddly similar to the one she had just shared with Drayk in Main Engineering.
"Correct," T'Lara replied, tapping a control sequence on the console. "By aligning the emitters to the oscillatory waveform, the interference becomes part of the shielding rather than an opposing force. It is counterintuitive, but effective. Similar methods were employed during the KETA Nebula evacuations."
Satella listened, feeling the clean edges of T'Lara's logic scrape against something softer inside her. "It might work," she said finally, her voice quieter than before. "But nature always collects its debt, one way or another. Shielding them now might only delay what’s coming. If this energy touches the genome itself, adaptation could twist into mutation before we realize what we’ve traded away."
T'Lara looked up from the console, meeting Satella's gaze. Her expression was calm, but her eyes carried weight. "Theoretical concerns are valid," T'Lara said evenly, "but irrelevant. We have documented evidence that adaptation and survival are possible, but only through control, not chance. We cannot eliminate risk, only manage it. Precision and preparation will reduce variables. Emotion will not."
Satella crossed her arms, not defensively but to ground herself. "You make it sound simple," she said, though her tone carried both respect and quiet defiance, the kind of pushback that came from caring too much, not from doubting logic.
"It is not simple," T'Lara said quietly. "It is logical. The complexity lies in maintaining composure when logic conflicts with instinct."
She paused briefly, her gaze drifting to the countdown timer on the wall. "We have less than thirteen hours. Fear is a luxury the crew cannot afford."
"You sound like Drayk," Satella said with a quiet laugh.
"Efficiency and logic are not unique to Engineering," T'Lara replied. "They are essential to survival."
The silence that followed carried a strange comfort. Satella watched T'Lara work, her movements deliberate, her tone steady as she entered new calibration data into the emitter array. For all her Vulcan control, there was something almost fierce in the way she approached the task, as if failure were an equation she refused to allow.
Satella let out a quiet breath that wasn't quite a sigh. "When I asked to serve under you, I thought I'd be learning new medical techniques," she said, a small smile ghosting across her lips. "Turns out it's something harder: learning how to stay steady when everything else isn't. And apparently," her eyes softened, "that lesson has more than one teacher."
T'Lara paused, her expression as Vulcan as could be. "Discipline is not the absence of emotion, Doctor Bruxa. It is its containment. Your concern for the crew is admirable, but efficiency is the most reliable expression of compassion under these circumstances."
Satella allowed herself a quiet smile. "Spoken like someone who has seen too much of both."
"Experience refines judgment," T'Lara added. "And judgment saves lives."
The monitors chimed as the new field model completed its simulation. The results appeared stable, within acceptable safety margins for surface exposure lasting up to fifty-seven minutes.
T'Lara straightened. "Satisfactory. Continue refinement of the secondary model for extended surface duration. I will inform the Captain that medical readiness is proceeding as scheduled."
Satella nodded, but her eyes lingered on the timer once more. 12 hours, 42 minutes. "Understood. I'll keep running adaptive models until then. With luck, the next update will be more forgiving."
"Luck," T'Lara said, her tone neutral, "is an unreliable constant. We will rely on preparation instead."
Satella's gaze lingered on T'Lara a moment longer than propriety allowed, Drayk's voice echoing faintly in memory through the CMO's precise words. Then T'Lara turned and left, the soft buzz of Sickbay equipment filling the quiet she left behind.
The silence lingered, heavy but strangely peaceful. Satella turned back to the monitor, the radiation harmonics pulsing in a rhythm too alive to ignore, a heartbeat caught between order and chaos. For all T'Lara's control, Satella knew some things couldn’t be solved, only endured. And somewhere in that uncertainty, she found the kind of calm that logic could never teach.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
"Emotional Progress"
Previous Post: "Medical Concerns" by Dawn & Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office
Stardate: 45032.1810
The soft sound of running water filled the Counseling Office. It was a quiet rhythm Adriana had come to rely on between sessions, something steady when everything else aboard the ship shifted from moment to moment. She had just begun reviewing her notes from the last crew rotation when the door chime interrupted the calm.
She didn't need to check the panel to know the person on the other side. Some presences carried weight long before they stepped into a room.
"Come in," Adriana said.
The doors parted, and Ya'Han stood there. The way she held herself was careful, not the commanding stance of the ANUBIS' Chief of Security, but of someone who had learned that strength could also mean restraint. Her hair, a graceful cascade of black, reflected not defeat but acknowledgment, a visible reminder of how far she'd come and how uncertain the path ahead still felt.
Adriana didn't smile right away. She didn't need to. Instead, she gestured to the seat opposite the couch, the same seat she offered to those who carried invisible burdens.
Ya'Han crossed the room with measured steps, every movement controlled as if control was all she had left. She sat, but the tension in her posture never eased.
"I wasn't sure if I should come here," Ya'Han said finally, her voice low.
"I can imagine that all of this is not easy for you," Adriana gently offered. "But the fact that you are here, on the ANUBIS, shows that there is hope."
"I can still feel the glances... not hatred, maybe, but doubt. And maybe that's worse."
"People will remember more than they'll forget," Adriana replied softly. "But that's alright. Redemption isn't about being forgotten; it's about being seen differently."
Ya'Han gave a faint, humorless smile. "Then maybe I'm still learning how to see myself differently. The darkness wasn't someone else's doing: it was mine. But maybe… it doesn't have to define everything I am."
"I don't believe that's true. If your genetics had really been in control from the start, you wouldn't have become the woman who stood between us and danger, time and again."
"I did what I believed needed to be done," Ya'Han said as she lowered her head. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel anymore: guilt, anger, relief. I just know that silence makes it worse. So… I came here."
Adriana leaned forward slightly, resting her forearms on her knees. "Then you made the right choice."
Silence settled again. Outside the office, the ship moved steadily toward the JELOVAAN system, everyone on board preparing in their own way. For some, preparation meant duty. For others, like Ya'Han, it meant facing the space between action and inaction.
"They're getting ready for something big," Ya'Han said. "Every deck, every department has that focus before a mission. And me?" She gave a short exhale. "I'm on the sidelines, and maybe that's where I'm supposed to be. I just don't know how to be there yet."
Adriana watched the way Ya'Han's hands folded tightly in her lap, the same hands that once gripped a blade with unflinching certainty. Even in stillness, the instinct to act was there
"You're not sidelined," Adriana said gently. "You're recalibrating. Even warriors need to remember who they are when the fight pauses."
Ya'Han shook her head. "That's just it. Everyone keeps saying I've done enough, that I should rest, that I should let others handle things. But that doesn't feel like enough. Not for me. I've spent my life fighting. Protecting. Leading. And now all I can do is sit and wait for a fight that might never come. And if it doesn't… then I've just spent all this time doing nothing."
Her voice caught slightly on that last word, not in weakness but in the quiet frustration of someone used to being strong.
Adriana nodded slowly. "Maybe you're measuring worth by the fire you bring to a crisis," she said softly. "But strength isn't only forged in fire. Sometimes it’s measured in what remains when the flames go out. You are not just the person who fights. You are also the person who stands between danger and the people who need you. Even now, your presence means something. It always has."
Ya'Han's jaw clenched. She wanted to believe it. She didn't.
Adriana didn't push. She let the silence settle like a steady current, allowing Ya'Han's emotions to surface without being forced. It wasn't the kind of conversation you rushed.
"When I joined Starfleet," Adriana continued quietly, "I thought my value was measured in what I could fix. How many people I could help, how many crises I could defuse. But some days, the hardest part isn't stepping in. It's learning to step back. Trusting others to carry the fight."
Ya'Han's hands loosened slightly, but her shoulders remained tense. "That's not easy."
"No," Adriana agreed. "It isn't."
Another pause. This time Ya'Han's breathing softened just a little, the sharp edges of her frustration easing as she let the words find their place.
"Part of me keeps waiting for someone to say they need me," Ya'Han admitted. "But no one does. And I hate how that makes me feel."
"That doesn't make you weak," Adriana said. "It makes you human."
Ya'Han looked at her for a long time, as if testing the truth of those words. "What if the fight never comes, Adriana? What if I've spent all this time being ready for nothing?"
Adriana held her gaze. "Then maybe the fight isn't where you’ll be needed next. Maybe it’s somewhere you can't see yet. Or maybe it's not a fight at all. Your worth doesn't vanish because the battle doesn't happen."
For the first time since entering, Ya'Han exhaled fully. It wasn’t peace, not yet, but it was a step closer to it.
Adriana leaned back slightly, letting the tension in the room settle on its own. "You don't need to prove anything to anyone, Ya'Han. Not to the crew. Not to the Captain. Not to me. And definitely not to yourself."
Ya'Han didn't answer right away. But when she finally spoke, her voice was quieter. "That's the part I don't know how to believe yet."
"That's alright," Adriana said gently. "Belief doesn’t have to come all at once."
The room fell into silence again, the sound of the small waterfall filling the space between them. Outside, the ship moved toward the unknown. Inside, Ya’Han sat a little less rigid than before. Adriana observed the shift, small, but real. Not healed. But, for the first time in a long while, Ya'Han was no longer running from herself.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
and
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Reflections in the Dark"
Previous post: "Emotional Progress" by Marissa and Hanali
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Black Hole Lounge
Stardate: 45032.1845
The Black Hole Lounge was crowded but strangely quiet. Conversations were subdued, laughter absent, replaced by an unspoken current of anticipation that pulsed beneath the surface like a shared heartbeat. The crew was together, yet every mind was turned inward. Eleven hours from now, the ANUBIS would arrive at the edge of an impossible system, and every officer and specialist on board could feel the weight of what waited for them there.
Shar'El sat near one of the broad viewport tables, a glass of water held loosely in her hands. Beyond the transparent wall, the stars streaked past, their light bending through the warp field until her own reflection seemed caught between motion and stillness. She took a slow breath and forced herself to focus on the quiet hum of the engines. It was a grounding sound, one that spoke of order, control, and routine in a universe that seemed intent on defying all three.
The mission felt as though she stood before a paradox: a system that should not exist, a planet that defied every physical law, and a civilization born from fragments of a dozen worlds. The data made no sense, the images even less so. And yet, the evidence was there, as real as the drink in her hand. Somewhere inside that chaos, people were living.
As the ship's Executive Officer, her thoughts reached further than curiosity. Every detail mattered, every life aboard mattered more. Erik had been clear: the objective was the retrieval of the Orion transmitter. But Shar'El knew better than most that in missions like this, objectives had a way of shifting. Admiral Koniki's orders often carried subtext, and the unexplained always came with consequences. Her role was to see those consequences before they arrived.
Her gaze moved slowly across the lounge. The crew appeared calm, but the air was thick with unspoken tension. Fleeting memories brushed against her awareness: Adriana's quiet reassurance, Ya'Han's struggle for balance, Jayson's confusion at being alive again, Satella's unspoken guilt. They came and went like whispers in a storm. She did not reach for them. It was not her place to look deeper.
Still, she could sense the unity forming out of shared uncertainty. Whatever waited inside that system, the ANUBIS would meet it together.
The soft flicker of a nearby monitor drew her attention. One of the displays showed the visual feed from the mysterious transmission. The soundless images looped again and again: a crowded market beneath a hazy sky, banners rippling in the wind, faces of different species moving side by side. Vulcanoid, Gorn, Orion, Caitian, and others whose lineage blurred the line between one race and another. It was hauntingly ordinary in its rhythm, yet everything about it screamed impossibility.
Christie was seated a few tables away, hunched over a small data PADD with the same focus she brought to Stellar Cartography. The glow of the screen reflected in her eyes as she cross-referenced the symbols captured from the broadcast. Across from her, Cristhiane kept watch over Nathan, who sat quietly beside her with a sketchpad, his attention caught by the same repeating images on the monitor.
"You are still trying to make sense of it?" Shar'El asked as she rose from her seat and approached their table.
Christie looked up, startled but smiling faintly. "Trying, yes. Understanding it... that may take longer. Maya believes the broadcast was strengthened by harmonic resonance patterns in the asteroids' magnetic field. Honestly, for me, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what we’re seeing in those images."
"An impossible enigma wrapped in an older mystery," Shar'El said, her tone thoughtful rather than poetic.
Cristhiane glanced at the monitor, her voice soft. "Based on the images alone, it feels like they all are living something completely natural. No fears. No concerns beyond the daily grind of a normal life. I envy them."
Nathan paused in his sketching, his small voice cutting through the quiet. "Do you think they know we're coming?"
For a moment, Shar'El had no answer. She met the boy's gaze, then turned her eyes to the monitor again. The people in the image continued to move, unaware that far beyond their skies, a starship was racing toward them. Or perhaps not unaware at all.
"I think," Shar'El said quietly, "that whoever they are, they have been waiting a very long time for someone to notice."
The words lingered in the air, and for a moment, the three of them watched in silence as the scene played again. The banners, the marketplace, the impossible world beneath a sky that should not exist.
Shar'El set her empty glass down on the table and gave a small nod. "Whatever waits inside that system, we will be ready for it."
As she turned to leave, she caught her reflection again in the glass wall of the lounge. The streaks of light outside blurred into a pale wash of motion, the stars themselves bending around the unseen weight of something vast and unknown.
The ANUBIS moved on, silent and steady, toward a world that defied understanding.
Shar'El watched the stars blur into white fire and let resolve settle quietly beneath her calm exterior. Whatever the Jelovaan system held, truth, illusion, or both, she would face it head-on.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"New Light"
Previous post: "Reflections in the Dark" by Tiffany
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 2, Ya'Han and Jayson's Quarters
Stardate: 45032.2000
The lights were low when Jayson stepped inside. The room felt still... too still... a kind of quiet that pressed against the air between them. Ya'Han sat on the couch, hands folded in her lap, eyes somewhere past the wall in front of her. She didn't look up right away, but when she did, there was no surprise. Just a faint, weary calm.
"I spoke with Adriana earlier," she said as she turned her head, sending her black hair cascading over her shoulder. Her voice was steady, but it carried something brittle underneath. "She's right, you know. I hate this feeling... sitting here while everyone else prepares, waiting, doing nothing. It's not who I am."
Jayson set his jacket over the back of a chair and moved closer, keeping his voice quiet. "You've never been one to sit still," he agreed. "That's what made you so good at your job. You see a problem, you move. You never hesitated."
"Maybe that used to be true." She looked down at her hands. "Now it feels like everyone's just keeping me out of the way. Like I'm a liability they're afraid to unleash again. And maybe they're right."
He crouched beside the couch, meeting her eyes. For a heartbeat he saw the same defiance that had once scared him... tempered now by doubt. "That's not it."
She held his gaze, as if testing the words. "You think so?"
"I know so," he said. "The Captain's going to need people he can count on when we reach the system. Sensors won't be worth anything once we're inside. Tricorders either. That means feet on the ground. Eyes that know what to look for. You have more field experience than anyone on this ship when it comes to tracking Syndicate tech. If anyone can help find that transmitter, it's you."
She shook her head. "Morningstar will never allow it. Not after everything that's happened. I am still shocked that he allowed me to stay on the ANUBIS."
"Morningstar's focused on the mission," Jayson said. "And Koniki's not telling him everything. He knows it, we all do. When it comes time to make that call, the Captain will listen to the people he trusts."
Ya'Han's expression softened, but her voice stayed low. "And who would trust me enough to say I belong out there?"
He didn't hesitate. "Me."
The word hung in the air between them, simple and absolute.
Her eyes flicked over his face, searching for something he wasn't hiding. There was no resentment there. No trace of the pain that could have been. Only quiet certainty.
"You don't have to do that," she said, almost whispering.
"I'm not doing anything I don't believe in," he answered. "You made mistakes. So have I. But I don't hold you responsible for what happened. Not any of it."
Her breath caught, and for a moment the silence felt heavier than the gravity beneath them.
He rose and sat beside her. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him without needing to move. "You still matter, Ya'Han... To this ship, to him, to me. When the time comes, you'll be exactly where you need to be."
She didn't answer. She just leaned back, the faintest exhale escaping her like a weight she hadn't realized she was carrying.
Jayson watched her eyes drift toward the viewport, the stars sliding by in quiet rhythm. For the first time in what felt like forever, she wasn't trying to hold herself together. She just let go, resting against him.
For him, that was enough.
=-=
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant Jayson Stark
Chief of Operations
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
“Accept Chaos”
Previous post: "New Light" by Jayson
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 20, Marine Mess Hall and Training Facilities
Stardate: 45032.2015
Sparks, the blue Andorian Marine combat engineer, swayed wildly and ducked as four tethered DRONEs careened toward his head like silver-plated cantaloupes. Inside a shimmering containment field temporarily set up in the back of the Marine mess hall, his trained reflexes allowed him to dodge the heavy probes. They didn’t collide. Their self-preservation systems brought them to a halt, hovering in a tetrahedron, their indicators flashing angry red. He stood wrapped in the tether cables.
Viper, the strike team’s top sniper, looked up from her work on a pellet-thrower and chuckled at Sparks’ predicament.
Sparks scowled. “YOU try to control these things! They're not made to fly in all these crazy magnetic fluxes and gravimetric shifts.”
She shrugged. “Not my job down there. Phasers won’t work, so I need this rock-thrower to do the job.”
The engineer glared at the PADD he was using to control the DRONEs. “We’ll never find our way in, out, or across any terrain with these things. Sarge, are you sure the holographic projectors have the flux right?”
Sargent Mi’teh, a towering bald Lurian with a downturned mouth, said from a pile of rations on a nearby table, “The emitters are duplicating in real time the exact conditions of the JELOVAAN system as we approach.” He stuffed more rations into the combat packs.
The blue engineer loosed a deep sigh.
Mi’teh’s deep voice was loud enough to make Sparks wince. “Belay that! Focus on completing the mission in your head. That way, you will complete it on whatever crazy world or asteroid we end up on.”
“You’ve gone all ‘wise’, Sarge.” Sparks’ two white antennae jiggled as he unwound himself from the probe cables. “Okay, explain something else to me.”
Stuffing the combat packs, Mi-Teh rumbled, “There aren’t words small enough.”
The Andorian engineer persisted. “Our mission is to find and secure that Orion Syndicate transmitter and bring it back with us without disturbing the natives.”
The Sargent nodded.
Sparks held the probe control PADD with both blue hands. “So, the natives use that transmitter for whatever it is they’re doing with it. Surely our grabbing it away will be noticed. Isn’t THAT disturbing the natives?”
Viper said in a drawl, “Hell! Our mitter’s stole!”
Mi’teh swiveled his big domed head toward their tall and scaly commanding officer, Lt Zub Enel, who was seated nearby. When the big lizard man looked up from his PADD, the Lurian said, “Skip, our pale blue dot’s got a point.”
Zub had been listening, despite being distracted by looking up universally tradable items. He swept the Marines with his golden-colored eyes. “The official scuttlebutt on the transmitter is that the Orion Syndicate used it for smuggling operations 15 years ago. No matter how it is being used now, the Admiralty wants it for possible Syndicate intel.”
Sparks snorted. “The Syndicate steals everything and tries to sell it back. How much more intel does the Lord High Admirals need?”
Viper shook a curved metal box containing small pebbles for the compressed-air gun. “We don’t know how these people will react to our theft. They might be desperately poor, and this transmitter is the most valuable thing they have. We might have to ‘interfere’ quite a bit to get out of there and back onto the ship.”
Sparks' navigation DRONEs whirred to life in the containment field and rose in a shaky liftoff, their stability beset by holographic radiation, magnetic, and gravimetric distortions arriving live from the approaching JELOVAAN System.
Zub Enel said over the whir, “The Captain expects us to interfere as little as possible. If the transmitter is vital to their culture, we do have exceedingly bright senior officers who can figure out a substitute. If the substitute works the same, the users may not care that much.”
Viper clicked the pellet magazine into the rifle. “What if they care a lot, Skip?”
Zub frowned. “Evade and de-escalate. We run away like Tellurian Jasper Jacks. Above all, we do not kill them. To avoid that, we may have to let them capture us.”
Sargent Mi’teh said, “If they capture us, they’ll enslave us.”
Viper laughed, “Sparks as some Orion slave girl’s slave.”
Sparks smiled at that. A moment later, the nav DRONES caromed off each other and began spiraling, wrapping up the four cables into an ever-tighter skein.
.
Zub Enel shook his head slowly. “We have to get all this sorted in less than 9 hours.”
The Andorian leaned back as he got the waggling and swaying DRONEs to unwind in a set of palsied circles. “They’ll be ready, Skip. We can dead reckon if this tech fails.”
Viper watched the janky flight of the nav probes before returning to her pellet rifle. "These’ll sting even a Gorn but won’t kill." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "What if they use blades and clubs? We’d better pack a few of those, right, Skip?”
Mi’teh looked more morose than usual as he packed rations into the bags. “Energy sources may not work there. We’ll have to eat this cold.”
Enel grimaced as his stomach knotted. He felt they were all preparing blindly. Despite Gemma and Maya’s skill at gathering intelligence and data, anything could be awaiting them as they tried to steal from clever, adaptable, and possibly desperate people. The ANUBIS crew would need to be at their most mentally flexible. Starfleet had trained them to be so, but reality always has surprises. This was especially true in the chaotic JELOVAAN System.
As the DRONEs whirred in their containment field and Viper’s gun clicked and Mi’teh’s combat rations rustled, Zub caught his own reflection in the PADD he was using. He wondered if any Voths had somehow become marooned in that crazy system and had blended in. He seriously doubted that. He’d stand out, likely as a monster to the JELOVAANIANS. He sighed. He’d been a monster before and managed to become accepted.
He returned to studying potential trade items in case the Away Team could pass themselves off as traders. They’d need wares that didn’t violate the Prime Directive. He smiled. Not that stealing their Orion Syndicate transmitter wouldn’t give the Directive a big shake.
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.”
- Zig Ziglar
---
"Harmonic Enigma"
(Previous Post: "Accept Chaos")
---
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Stellar Cartography
Stardate: 45033.0530
The Stellar Cartography laboratory was quiet except for the rhythmic tapping of fingers across the control console and the faint hum of the holographic projection that filled the room. The immense display of the JELOVAAN system surrounded the Chief Science Officer and her assistant like a sphere of living light, the shifting illumination casting moving patterns across their faces. Christie stood a step behind Maya, momentarily silent, her expression caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. Maya, meanwhile, leaned forward, large Shillian eyes following every flicker and shadow the projection dared to reveal, as though the image itself might divulge its secrets under sufficient scrutiny.
The ANUBIS had dropped out of high warp and was now coasting toward the outer boundary of the mysterious system. Every sensor, every instrument, and every scan was being pushed to its operational limit, yet the data that returned defied logic as much as it confirmed it. Christie moved to a secondary console, her hands hovering uncertainly over the controls before resting on the edge of the station. "The readings are fluctuating again," she said quietly, almost as though afraid to disturb the fragile symmetry on the display.
The holographic image shimmered with interference, but what could be seen was enough to leave even Maya breathless. A perfect sphere of asteroids, orbiting with mathematical precision, encased the barely visible twin stars at the centre like a celestial shell.
=/\= Bridge to Stellar Cartography. =/\= The calm voice of Captain Morningstar felt like an emotional anchor. =/\= We are approaching the outer edge of the system. =/\=
"Already analysing the preliminary sensor data, Captain," Maya replied immediately, her voice betraying both excitement and disbelief. "We are now within twenty-seven million kilometres of the outermost layer of the asteroid field. The ANUBIS is already experiencing measurable gravimetric fluctuations, though they remain within tolerance levels for the moment. The configuration of the field is... unlike anything I have previously encountered, not merely unusual but actively counterintuitive to established gravitational models. The data suggests a form of equilibrium that should not exist in a natural system, and yet it persists, almost mockingly, as though gravity itself has agreed to new terms of operation."
Christie glanced at her, brow furrowed. "You make it sound sentient," she murmured.
Maya finally looked up, the faintest glimmer of excitement in her expression. "Not sentient, merely... cooperative. Which may be an even rarer condition for matter to achieve. It is not an asteroid belt in any traditional sense, but rather a complete spherical shell. Every object within it appears to maintain its orbital position relative to both suns and the other asteroids around it. The synchronization is absolute. It should be collapsing under its own irregularities, yet it remains perfectly stable."
=/\= Perfectly stable? =/\= Morningstar asked. =/\= Meaning we are heading toward something holding it together? =/\=
"Precisely," Maya replied, her voice quickening as her fingers danced across the controls. "Preliminary readings suggest the presence of resonant gravimetric harmonics extending across the entire shell structure. The frequencies are oscillating in direct resonance with the magnetic emissions of the binary stars, which in turn appear to modulate each other through a feedback loop of alternating reinforcement and interference. The result is an intricate web of localized zones of equilibrium where the opposing forces cancel out just enough to hold each asteroid in place. It is not merely a coincidence of orbit but a symphony of physics, every note precise, every measure balanced. Imagine thousands of intersecting wavefronts, each one forming a point of balance where the asteroids reside. If one of these harmonics were to shift, the entire structure could collapse inward. Yet it does not. It adapts. It self-corrects. It is... alive in its balance."
=/\= That would explain the instability on our sensors,=/\= Shar'El observed from the bridge. =/\= The readings keep fluctuating between solid mass and open space. The system is distorting our telemetry faster than the computer can compensate.=/\=
=/\= Engineering is reporting minor shield fluctuations,=/\= Jayson added. =/\= Energy output across the forward grid is spiking three percent every thirty seconds. It is not dangerous, but it is climbing. Drayk is on the case and will manually calibrate the shields as we move closer.=/\=
Maya smiled faintly. "Of course it is. The gravimetric harmonics are interfering with the shield modulation frequencies. The shields of the ANUBIS are designed to stabilize against singular gravitational distortions, not a complex lattice of intersecting harmonics. The effect is analogous to maintaining structural integrity while passing through the interference pattern of a harp being played by two stars, each string vibrating at a slightly different frequency, each note colliding with the next."
Christie exhaled softly. "A harp played by two stars," she repeated, half to herself. "That might be the most terrifyingly beautiful thing I have ever heard."
"Exactly," Maya replied, already buried in another sequence of readings. "Terrifying because the music it produces could tear a ship apart, and beautiful because it does not. It is like attempting to maintain structural integrity while passing through the resonance nodes of a harp being played by two stars."
=/\= That analogy is both poetic and concerning,=/\= Morningstar replied. =/\= How close before the harmonics begin to impact structural integrity?=/\=
"At our current speed, approximately ten minutes," Maya said without hesitation. "But if we continue to adjust the shield harmonics dynamically to match the local frequency variations, we can maintain structural integrity and minimize radiation absorption. I am transmitting new parameters to Operations and Engineering now."
=/\= Received, =/\= Jayson confirmed. =/\= Adjusting the modulation pattern. =/\=
"May I also suggest introducing an anti-gravimetric resonance polarity into the bio-regenerative hull matrix. This adjustment could provide the ANUBIS with an additional compensatory layer against both the ambient radiation and the rapidly oscillating gravimetric shifts that I am attempting to quantify."
=/\= Zub? =/\= Morningstar said, acknowledging the suggestion.
"I can use the frequency provided by Maya for this modification and extend it to the shields as well," the acting Chief of Security and Tactical officer stated.
"The shifts may be happening too quickly for that," Maya noted. "I suggest alternating the additional resonances between the bio-regenerative hull matrix and the shields; this will double the effectiveness as each defensive layer will be able to address a different gravimetric wave anomaly."
The massive holographic image in front of Maya shifted as she enhanced the visual feed. Even without clear sensor data, the symmetry of the outer shell was undeniable. The asteroids were arranged with such impeccable uniformity that they appeared, at first glance, to be the product of deliberate construction. Yet their orbits, their micro-rotations, and the faint spectral traces of plasma drifting between them revealed a dynamic balance more consistent with natural forces than with design. Still, the precision was too exact, the harmony too perfect. If this was natural, then it represented a form of order that nature rarely grants freely.
Christie leaned closer to the console. "The patterning reminds me of crystallization at a molecular level... self-assembly through harmonic resonance," she said, almost uncertain whether she believed her own words.
Maya looked pleased. "An apt comparison. It may be that this system is following a similar self-organizing principle, only on a scale magnitudes greater than anything we have previously documented. It is molecular behaviour expressed through celestial architecture.
"Captain," she said softly, almost to herself, "this configuration should not exist. The laws of gravity demand chaos, not order. Yet what I see here is a state of perfect equilibrium. It is as though every force within this system knows precisely where it belongs."
=/\= We are reading increasing magnetic interference, =/\= A'Janni reported just as the ship shook, his deep voice steady. =/\= The helm is compensating, but the ship is starting to drift one point two degrees off course. Adjusting for the gravitational pull of the leading edge. =/\=
"That is not a pull," Maya countered, her eyes widening. "It is a push. The leading asteroids are emitting a measurable radiation field that interacts with the magnetic flux of the binary stars. The effect is repulsive rather than attractive. The outer shell may be a containment barrier rather than a natural boundary. It may have been designed to prevent intrusion into the system, though by what mechanism or intent I cannot yet determine. The geometry suggests that the barrier operates as both a filter and a stabilizer, allowing certain energies to pass while reflecting others. It is as though the entire structure is maintaining an equilibrium not for its own sake, but for the preservation of whatever lies within. Whether that is a planet, an anomaly, or something yet unclassified remains beyond our current capacity to detect."
=/\= Are you suggesting it is some kind of cage? =/\= The voice of the Voth Chief of Security cut through, pragmatic as always.
"Not intentionally," Maya said. "But the physics are identical. The dual stars emit overlapping gravimetric waves, creating alternating zones of attraction and repulsion. The asteroids, being rich in paramagnetic crystalline material, align to those waves. What results is a self-sustaining field of containment that maintains perfect symmetry. It is natural, yet it behaves as though it were engineered. The closer we get, the more the system resists our intrusion. It is fascinating."
=/\= I am glad you find it fascinating, =/\= Morningstar replied dryly. =/\= Because I suspect the rest of us will be too busy holding the ship together to enjoy it. =/\=
The expression on the face of the Shillian scientist softened into what could only be described as academic reverence. "Captain, I assure you, I will keep us as intact as the laws of physics allow. But I must confess... I have never seen anything quite like this. It is as though the universe itself has decided to amend its own equations, to demonstrate that our understanding of its laws is merely a convenient approximation of something far more intricate."
The holographic projection flickered suddenly, the image distorting for a fraction of a second. The lights in the lab dimmed, then stabilized. Maya’s eyes darted across her instruments.
"Gravitational fluctuation detected," she announced quickly. "A transient shift in the harmonic frequency of the outer layer. It passed as quickly as it appeared, but for a moment, the entire field resonated in unison. It was almost as if..." She stopped, uncertain how to phrase the thought. "As if the system acknowledged our approach."
=/\= That will be enough of that kind of talk, =/\= Zub said, his tone serious but not unkind.
Her lips curved in a faint smile. "Of course, Lieutenant. I will confine myself to the observable phenomena. For now, all readings suggest that the JELOVAAN system remains stable, though the equilibrium is beginning to shift in subtle but measurable ways. The further we advance, the more the system seems to adjust to our presence. I cannot say how, or why, but it is responding, somehow."
=/\= Understood, =/\= Morningstar said after a pause. =/\= Continue monitoring all parameters and coordinate with Engineering to maintain shield stability. We will proceed on thrusters. Keep me updated on any further shifts in the field. =/\=
"Aye, Captain," Maya said, her eyes fixed on the glowing projection before her. The dual suns flickered faintly through the interference, two points of light wreathed in shadow and energy.
She lowered her voice, speaking almost to herself. "You are as magnificent... as you are impossible. Let us see what secrets you are willing to share."
As the ANUBIS crept closer to the outermost boundary of the JELOVAAN system, the light within Stellar Cartography shimmered again, dimming for a heartbeat before recovering. On the display, the twin stars pulsed once in unison, their combined light flickering across the holographic field.
Christie’s hand slowly lowered to the console. "Did that just... respond to us?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
Maya did not answer immediately. Her eyes remained fixed on the projection, unblinking. "Perhaps," she said at last, her tone a blend of reverence and curiosity. "Or perhaps it is we who have finally entered its awareness."
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"Subverting Chaos"
Previous post: "Harmonic Enigma" by Jessica
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0535
Main Engineering pulsed with the rhythm of strain. The warp core's steady thrum was now a deeper note, resonating against the ship's hull like the heartbeat of a trapped creature. Drayk Val'Bruxa stood at the central console, his presence radiating control in a chamber on the edge of disorder. Every system protested, every display showed red, and every technician moved with the silent urgency of those who knew a single mistake could tear the ship apart.
The gravimetric harmonics from the JELOVAAN system's outer shell were pushing the ANUBIS to its limits. Energy distribution grids fluctuated, power relays surged, and the structural integrity field shifted between oscillation and overload. What should have been a calculated entry into a complex system had become an exercise in survival through precision.
Drayk moved from one console to another with surgical calm. Commands were issued in clipped tones that left no room for hesitation. Auxiliary plasma flow rerouted to the warp nacelles. Magnetic field stabilizers recalibrated on a .04-second modulation. The dynamic shielding pattern shifted to match the gravimetric pulse as it rippled through the hull. The anti-gravimetric resonance folded seamlessly into the bio-regenerative shell, dulling the system's edge. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The system obeyed.
"Engineering reports shield modulation at ninety-one percent synchronization," one of the junior officers called.
"Insufficient," Drayk replied without looking up. "Recalculate using harmonic inversion and align to the secondary phase pulse. The stars are not pulling us apart. They are testing our alignment."
His hands moved across the console again, adjusting shield frequency as if sculpting a living equation. Where others saw chaos, he recognized design, not random, but deliberate. The pattern of gravitational waves, the rhythm of radiation, the oscillation of magnetic flux, all of it moved with purpose. This was not the wildness of space. It was order disguised as turbulence. A system enforcing its own equilibrium.
He studied the data stream as the outer field began to stabilize, the ship’s vibrations fading to a low hum. Radiation spikes diminished, containment fields held. Every adjustment he had made registered as both correction and provocation. The system had responded, as though acknowledging the intrusion and choosing to adapt.
"Stability achieved," the same officer announced, relief slipping into his tone.
Drayk allowed the faintest nod. "For now."
He watched the holographic display above the central console as the asteroid shell shimmered in the ship's external sensors. The pattern was perfect. Not random. Not natural. The spheres of rock moved as if tethered to invisible anchors, their motion synchronized by complex forces, unseen but deliberate.
Perfection was not an ideal. It was a command executed without error. Yet here, perfection existed without a hand to shape it, a truth that demanded investigation.
He leaned closer to the console, analyzing the gravimetric flux patterns. The harmonics were recursive, each correction the ANUBIS applied echoed back, inverted and amplified, forcing new adjustments. It was like playing chess against an opponent who mirrored every move to reveal intent.
Drayk's voice was quiet, almost to himself. "No natural order maintains itself this long. Maintenance demands intelligence. Control demands purpose."
He saved the harmonic logs to a secured file, noting patterns he would later discuss with Maya. Her mind would see what others could not, and he trusted that insight. But now, the task was containment. The system had tested them and relented. Temporarily.
He straightened, eyes following the diagnostic overlay as the next wave of harmonic interference approached. The readings were stronger this time, deeper in tone, almost anticipatory. As if the Jelovaan system were aware of their persistence.
The corner of his mouth curved, the ghost of a smile that held no warmth. "Then let it test us again."
He entered the final command sequence, the shield harmonics shifting once more to meet the approaching resonance. The ship shuddered, adapted, and held.
Precision had prevailed, for now. But even in that fleeting balance, Drayk understood the truth that logic could not disguise. The outer shell was not a boundary. It was a gatekeeper.
And something beyond it was waiting.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Through the First Veil"
Previous post: "Subverting Chaos" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, IGC
Stardate: 45033.0545
The IGC was alive with motion and noise, though none of it human. The low beeps of consoles, the soft murmur of telemetry feeds, the occasional pulse of red warning indicators streaking across darkened panels, it all blended into a rhythm Gemma had long since matched her breathing to. Around her, six technicians worked their stations in quiet urgency, adjusting sensor filters and stabilizing relay patterns as the ANUBIS edged closer to the outer shell of the JOLEVAAN system.
Static rippled across the holographic main display, a shimmering wall of distortion that flickered between clarity and chaos. Gravimetric waveforms shifted unpredictably, each peak and trough distorted by the invisible hand of the surrounding field. Gemma stood at the elevated command station, her gaze fixed on the scrolling telemetry, her thoughts flickering faster than the lights that surrounded her.
"IGC to Engineering. Picking up a massive polarized gravimetric wavefront heading our way."
=/\= Got it. =/\= Drayk's voice carried the same cold precision as the data streaming across her screens. =/\= Manually adjusting shield harmonics to compensate.=/\=
Gemma's eyes narrowed. "You are compensating too aggressively. That'll create resonance feedback between the primary emitters."
=/\= Safety margins are for people who don't trust their own hands,=/\= Drayk replied evenly. =/\= The margins move when I say they do.=/\=
"You're forcing synchronization faster than the gravimetric variance allows," she countered, her tone sharper now. "If the next wave hits at phase conflict, the forward shields will..."
=/\= Hold.=/\= He interrupted before she could finish. =/\= The adjustments align with the gravimetric trough. It's not recklessness, Lieutenant,=/\= Drayk said, his voice low, precise. =/\= It's control... refined through necessity.=/\=
From the lower stations, a young ensign glanced upward nervously, sensing the shift in tone but wisely staying silent. Gemma exhaled slowly, forcing her focus back to the readings. "Precision implies predictability, and this field has none," Gemma countered. "You're making a wager against physics itself."
=/\= Calculated risks,=/\= Drayk said, tone level but unyielding. =/\= Executed faster than you can process. Understanding is optional.=/\=
For an instant, the room around her seemed to contract. Jinx's voice whispered from somewhere deep in her mind, curious and amused. "He thinks he’s faster?"
Then Gwenvel spoke, calm and measured. "He trusts his hands more than his instruments. It's not arrogance, it's faith in his own personal design."
Abrasivnyy scoffed. "Or ego. He's daring the universe to slap him for it."
Gemma's jaw tightened as the ship shuddered, a low vibration that rippled through the deck plating beneath her boots. The holographic display warped, briefly consumed by static before reconfiguring into something even less coherent.
"Engineering, status," she demanded.
=/\= Forward shields stabilized. Structural integrity at ninety-four percent. Minor hull abrasion detected along starboard dorsal plating. Ablative armor already being repaired.=/\=
"Your definition of minor is optimistic," she said dryly. The data confirmed it, a pulse of high-energy radiation had struck the outer hull during the last distortion wave, penetrating through the weakened armor layer before the external replicators compensated. Internal reports began scrolling across her peripheral screens: Medical dispatched to Deck 24, Navigational Main Deflector Control Room. Two crew members were exposed to secondary radiation leakage.
Finnja's voice broke through softly. "They'll be fine. The hull will heal. The people will heal."
Ema's voice followed, light but knowing. "Satella's already there. Some lives never stay buried."
Gemma didn't respond. The ship trembled again, a deeper rumble this time, and the main holo-display blurred into streaks of distorted light as the ANUBIS pressed through the final kilometer of the first asteroid stratum.
The IGC filled with light, red and gold and violet as radiation bursts struck the shields like waves on a storm-tossed sea. Sparks danced across one of the side consoles, forcing a technician back a step. Gemma's hand shot out, deactivating the affected panel before it could overload.
"Maintain sensor locks," she ordered sharply. "Feed stabilization data directly to helm and Engineering. Do not lose the telemetry thread. We are nearly through."
=/\= Already compensating,=/\= Drayk's voice came again, steady despite the roar of alarms behind him. =/\= You'll have stable readings in ten seconds.=/\=
The next wave hit like a blow. The IGC lights dimmed, the air filled with a low, electric hum, and for a moment it felt as if the entire ship had been swallowed whole by the gravity well of the universe itself. The distortion cleared as suddenly as it came. The static dissolved into clarity.
"Layer one breach confirmed," reported one of the techs, relief obvious in his voice. "External radiation levels dropping. Hull temperature normalizing."
Gemma leaned forward, studying the residual patterns still rippling across her displays. The ANUBIS had emerged scarred, but intact. Data feeds stabilized, and the sound of the ship's structural field returned to its familiar, steady rhythm.
=/\= Outcome as designed,=/\= Drayk said simply. =/\= I don't gamble, Lieutenant. I adapt.=/\=
Gemma almost smiled. Almost. "Not bad for a miracle that shouldn't have worked."
He didn't answer. The channel closed with a faint crackle of static. The ILO closed her eyes for a brief moment as she thought of the Mikulak man now in charge of Main Engineering. There was no hesitation in his voice. Only that maddening certainty that belonged to people who saw the universe as an equation they'd already solved
In the silence that followed, Gemma let the tension drain from her shoulders. The holographic map of the JOLEVAAN system flickered before her, the inner layers of the asteroid shell pulsing faintly with unreadable energy.
Arika's voice surfaced last, low and amused. "Maybe he's right. Precision's just instinct wearing logic's uniform."
Gemma didn't reply. She simply watched the endless distortion patterns ahead, the faint glow of the next gravimetric barrier already forming like a storm on the horizon. For all her intellect, for all her speed, there was no denying what her instincts told her.
The first layer was behind them. The hardest parts were still waiting.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"The Push of the Unknown"
Previous post: "Through the First Veil" by Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0555
The deck shuddered under A'Janni's boots as the ANUBIS emerged from the turbulent veil of the first asteroid shell. For a moment, everything went still: no tremors, no rattle of hull plating, just a profound and improbable calm. On the main viewscreen, the stars had vanished. In their place stretched a field of glittering stone suspended in motionless perfection.
"Outer layer cleared," he reported, his voice steady though his fur bristled along the back of his neck. "Structural integrity holding at ninety-eight percent. Radiation levels decreasing… slightly."
Morningstar gave a small nod from the command chair. "Well done, everyone. Maintain one-quarter thrusters. Let's see what waits for us inside this paradox."
A'Janni's paws danced lightly over the helm controls, adjusting for the faint drift still tugging at their bow. The Caitian's one remaining eye followed the cascade of readouts across his console, the numbers almost mocking him with their stability. By all rights, the ANUBIS should have been shaken apart by the interference, yet the interior of the first shell felt… serene.
He exhaled slowly. "If this is what the inside looks like, I can't imagine how anything could have survived here without shields, without hull reinforcement." His gaze flicked to the viewscreen again, where the endless array of asteroids ahead formed a perfect sphere, each one orbiting in silent harmony. "And yet, they did."
Shar'El looked up from her station. "You’re thinking about the broadcasted images."
He nodded once. "Caitians. Among them. Not just one... several. Living, working… adapting." His claws tapped absently against the edge of the flight control console. "How could they endure this? The air, the radiation, the gravity shifts, even with primitive technology, it shouldn't be possible."
Morningstar's voice was calm, but not without curiosity. "And yet, they found a way. That may tell us more about what we're walking into than any scan could."
Before A'Janni could respond, a faint vibration rippled through the deck plating, subtle but distinct, an echo beneath the ship's natural rhythm. He glanced at his instruments. The inertial compensators were stable. Thrusters unchanged.
"Captain," Jayson said, brow furrowed, "our velocity just increased by two percent. Helm didn't input the command."
A'Janni checked the console. "Confirmed. No change in throttle, but we’re accelerating."
Zub's voice carried from Tactical. "Could we be caught in a gravity well?"
"Negative," A'Janni replied, his fingers moving quickly. "The readings don't match a pull. It’s the opposite. We're being pushed... the field behind us is fluctuating, creating an anti-gravity pulse."
Shar'El's eyes narrowed. "A recoil effect?"
"More like an inversed wavefront," Jayson said, his tone tight. "The harmonic frequencies from the outer shell are reversing phase. Whatever energy held it in balance is rebounding outward, directly behind us."
The Captain's gaze moved to A'Janni. "Can we counter it?"
"Not easily," the Caitian said, his tail twitching once. "Any thrust correction risks destabilizing our trajectory between the layers. The safest course might be to ride the current, for now.”
Morningstar considered, then nodded once. "Proceed."
A'Janni eased his grip on the controls, watching as the ship continued to drift forward faster, carried by a force no engine could replicate. The sensation was strange: weightless and powerful at once, like being caught in the breath of a living thing.
He kept his voice low. "It's guiding us, Captain."
No one answered. The bridge was silent except for the soft hum of systems straining to interpret the incomprehensible.
Then, on the main viewscreen, the darkness began to shimmer. The outline of the second strata. Like the first, it was a lattice of motion and stillness, impossibly uniform, impossibly alive. The asteroids within it glowed faintly with magnetic luminescence, forming geometric patterns that pulsed in quiet rhythm.
A'Janni's fur stood on end. "The same precision," he murmured. "The same balance. Whatever this is, it's not natural."
Shar'El looked to the Captain. "Then who... or what... built it?"
Morningstar remained silent. He simply watched as the ANUBIS drifted toward the waiting sphere, the push behind them still growing.
The Caitian adjusted the helm one last time, his claws hovering over the manual thrusters. "We're being drawn deeper whether we want to or not."
On the screen, the second shell shimmered brighter, as though aware of their approach.
A'Janni's ears flicked once, a reflex born of unease. "Question is," he said quietly, "what else is waiting for us beyond that second shell, and what's keeping everything together?"
The ANUBIS slipped forward, swallowed by the light of the next impossible orbit.
=-=
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant JG A'Janni
Flight Control Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Echoes Within the Shell"
Previous Post: "The Push of the Unknown" by Jayson
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office -> Corridor
Stardate: 45033.0620
The soft burble of the waterfall filled the Counseling Office, but the sound felt different now. It no longer soothed; it pulsed. The rhythm matched the faint vibration that ran through the deck plating, an almost imperceptible heartbeat beneath the ship's skin. Adriana tried to ignore it, but the pulse slipped into her breathing, uninvited and steady.
She exhaled and looked down at the notes she had been reviewing. In the last hour, since just before the ANUBIS dropped out of warp, she had seen five crew members from different departments. The first two, before their arrival, had mentioned growing unease and anxiety, an understandable reaction given the uncertainty of their current mission. One crew member had come to her in a panic during the crossing through the outer asteroid field, but it was the last two who unsettled her most. Both described the same eerie calm, as if something inside them had simply... quieted. There was no anxiety, no fear about their approach into the JELOVAAN system, only quiet acceptance. Even those normally prone to stress had reported feeling at peace. It should have been reassuring. It was not.
She leaned back in her chair, eyes following the soft glow of the wall light. "Harmony," she murmured, testing the word. It sounded wrong in the stillness, almost foreign.
The door chime startled her. "Come in," she said quickly.
The doors parted, and Amanda stepped in, her expression curious... and far too calm. "You feel it too, don't you?"
Adriana hesitated. "The vibration?"
Amanda nodded. "It's everywhere. The air feels heavier, but not in a bad way. Like everything's... balanced." She hesitated. "I heard the power conduits in Stellar Cartography shift earlier, and it sounded almost like music." She smiled faintly. "You think maybe that's why everyone seems so calm?"
Adriana studied her sister for a moment. Amanda's tone was easy, her body language relaxed. Too relaxed. It reminded her of the early days after Amanda's rescue, when sedation had dulled every response. The same placid stillness, the same absence of tension that made it impossible to tell what was real and what was imposed.
"I think this system is affecting more than the ship," Adriana said carefully. "Maya's report mentioned harmonic resonance patterns powerful enough to bend gravity. If it can do that, imagine what it could do to a brain, to a mind."
Amanda frowned slightly. "You mean... it's making everyone calm?"
"Maybe not deliberately," Adriana said. "But if the field can maintain stability across entire asteroid layers, it might also impose that same stability on living organisms. Emotional equilibrium as a byproduct of environmental balance."
Amanda crossed her arms, thinking. "That would explain why the people down on the planet are able to live together. All those different species, all those competing instincts... maybe the system itself keeps them in tune. Like they're part of the same song."
Adriana nodded slowly. "It would fit the data we've seen. Harmony enforced by resonance." She paused. "But if that’s true," Adriana said slowly, "why are they still carrying weapons? Harmony doesn't need blades."
Amanda blinked. "Maybe they don't need to use them. Maybe they're just symbols now."
"Or maybe the harmony isn't perfect," Adriana said quietly. "Maybe it only works as long as no one challenges it. A fragile peace held together by something none of them understand."
The two sisters stood in silence, listening to the low hum that seemed to vibrate through their bones. Somewhere deep in the hull, the sound shifted pitch, like a breath being drawn.
Adriana closed her PADD and rose from her seat. "Let's take a walk," she said softly.
They stepped into the corridor. The usual background noise of the ship was gone. Conversations were quieter, movements slower, as if everyone aboard the ANUBIS was unconsciously moving to the same rhythm. The lights along the bulkhead flickered once, then steadied, pulsing faintly in time with the vibration beneath their feet.
Amanda looked around, her voice hushed. "It feels... alive."
Adriana met her eyes, her expression uneasy. "According to you, so did the Yautja Training Matrix."
That silenced them both. They walked on in silence, the ship's pulse guiding their steps, every light flicker marking the beat beneath their feet, the quiet harmony of the JELOVAAN system resonating through every wall and every heart aboard the ANUBIS.
Adriana could no longer tell where peace ended and control began.
And deep down, she suspected that was the point.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
"Echoes of Stillness"
Previous post: "Echoes Within the Shell" by Marissa
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Sickbay
Stardate: 45033.0645
Sickbay was quiet, but it was not the silence of absence. It was a living stillness that seemed to breathe through the walls, resonating faintly with the same subtle vibration that hummed through the ship since their emergence from the first asteroid shell. For those crew members who had been brought in from the Navigational Main Deflector Control Room on deck 24 with mild radiation exposure, their vitals were stable, but their demeanor was anything but typical.
Doctor Satella Bruxa stood by the central diagnostic biobed, scanning one of the affected officers. The monitor showed faint fluctuations in neural activity, patterns so smooth they bordered on unnatural. T'Lara observed from the opposite side, hands clasped neatly behind her back, her gaze shifting between the monitor and the patient.
"Cellular regeneration is proceeding normally," Satella said, voice soft but distant, as though she too were reluctant to disturb the atmosphere. "No signs of necrosis, no neurological degradation. Cerebral activities are... quiet."
"Quiet," T'Lara repeated, her tone measured. "An imprecise term, but contextually accurate. Synaptic activity is lower than baseline, yet there are no signs of sedation or fatigue. His vitals are optimal." She studied the monitor another moment before adding, "Emotionally, he appears at ease."
Satella tilted her head slightly, watching the patient's slow, rhythmic breathing. "More than ease. It's like the noise inside them has been turned down. The same goes for those waiting on the other biobeds. They're all calm. Maybe too calm."
"The radiation exposure could have temporarily altered neurotransmitter regulation," T'Lara suggested, though her tone carried less conviction than usual. "Serotonin and dopamine levels are slightly elevated, while cortisol has dropped by nearly forty percent. The result would be an induced but temporary sense of tranquility."
"But that doesn't explain why the others feel it too," Satella countered. "Crew members who were never exposed are showing the same patterns. No radiation markers, no biochemical irregularities. Just... calm."
T'Lara's gaze flicked toward the secondary biobed where another patient sat upright, eyes half-lidded but awake. He smiled faintly when Satella approached, the kind of unguarded expression one rarely saw in the middle of a mission. There was no anxiety, no discomfort, only serenity. It should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt wrong.
"Perhaps," T'Lara said after a long moment, "this calm is not a symptom, but a reaction. A form of resonance, emotional rather than physical. Exposure to the same harmonic frequency that caused the radiation imbalance may now be influencing neural rhythms across the ship."
Satella leaned against the console, considering the idea. "Like the crew's emotions are syncing with the frequency itself?"
"A crude but serviceable analogy," T'Lara admitted. She turned to the medical display and adjusted the readout to show wave harmonics. "Notice the oscillation in the alpha band. It corresponds with the vibration amplitude currently detected in the ship's superstructure. The synchronization is imperfect but measurable. If the frequency interacts with neural pathways through low-level magnetic entrainment, it could induce a mild, sustained emotional equilibrium."
Satella let out a quiet exhale. "Equilibrium. Harmony. The system doing to us what it does to itself. Making balance the default state."
"Balance is rarely achieved without cost," T'Lara replied, though her words lacked their usual sharpness. "Emotional equilibrium may dull necessary responses. Fear, anger, urgency... these are not weaknesses. They are evolutionary imperatives that ensure survival. Without them, one risks complacency."
Satella smiled faintly. "You're not wrong. But maybe a little less fear and anger is exactly what that world we are heading toward needed to survive. If they've been living under the same resonance for generations, maybe it's why their society didn't destroy itself. They learned to coexist inside the calm."
"Coexistence built on suppression is inherently unstable," T'Lara countered, though something in her tone wavered. She looked again at the calm faces of the patients. "Logic requires clarity of thought, not its softening."
"And yet," Satella said, meeting her eyes, "doesn't clarity sometimes come in silence?"
T'Lara did not immediately answer. The ship's faint vibration filled the pause, brushing against her thoughts like a steady heartbeat she could no longer ignore. For a moment, her usual internal vigilance dulled. The tension she carried, that ceaseless discipline that kept her emotions buried beneath Vulcan control, eased into something dangerously close to stillness.
She became aware of her own breathing matching the rhythm that surrounded them. It was subtle, but it was there, a synchrony she had neither intended nor approved.
"Perhaps," she said finally, her voice lower, "this calm is not an affliction but an adaptation. The harmony of an environment that has learned to temper chaos without erasing it."
Satella's smile softened. "Maybe. Or maybe it's just reminding us what peace feels like."
T'Lara regarded her for a long moment, unable to dismiss the thought entirely. The medical readings offered no logical explanation that satisfied her. The calm was incomplete: neither absolute nor artificial. It soothed without erasing, restrained without controlling. Like a whisper of logic touching emotion.
When Satella turned to tend to another patient, T'Lara remained where she was, watching the pulse of the biobed monitors blink in gentle rhythm. The Vulcan/Romulan hybrid allowed herself to relax, not opposing the quiet that settled over her thoughts.
It was unsettling in its serenity.
And yet, somewhere deep within, a part of her, the part she never allowed voice, almost welcomed it.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Still Waters"
Previous post: "Echoes of Stillness" by Dawn
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Holodeck
Stardate: 45033.0700
The sound of gentle waves filled the air, washing over sand that shimmered with the faint lavender hue of a NYLAAN sunset. The sky stretched wide and calm, the twin moons low on the horizon, their silver light rippling across the still ocean. It was the shoreline outside the royal palace on NYLA IV, recreated without guards, expectations, or the weight of titles.
Ya'Han stood barefoot at the edge of the water, dressed simply, her hair stirring in the soft breeze. It remained black, unchanged since her return to the ANUBIS, no longer shifting with emotion or focus. It simply was, and that still unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
"You remembered this place perfectly," came a familiar voice from behind.
Ya'Han turned slightly. Ya'Jun approached, her barefooted steps light but unhurried. Her own hair, also black, caught the faint silver of moonlight as she came to stand beside her twin.
"It is easy to remember the places that felt like freedom," Ya'Han said quietly.
Ya'Jun's gaze lingered on the horizon. "We were never free there."
"Not truly," Ya'Han admitted. "But when I stood here as a child, I could pretend it was enough."
Silence settled between them, broken only by the slow rhythm of the waves. For a long while, neither spoke. The calm should have been comforting, but instead it felt fragile, as if any movement might shatter it.
Ya'Han was the first to break the stillness between them. "When did you stop hating me?"
Ya'Jun looked down, tracing a line in the sand with her foot. "I never hated you. I hated what I thought you represented. You escaped, and though I understood why, I still felt abandoned. After your departure, I endured Father's rage for years which nearly killed me. When Fenix offered escape, I took it, maybe for the same reason you once did."
"And now?"
Ya'Jun hesitated before answering. "Now I think you were brave enough to do what I could not. You ran because you knew staying would destroy you. A realization that came much later for me."
Ya'Han exhaled slowly, her voice softer now. "I felt guilty for leaving you behind," Ya'Han said softly. "But I could not stay and be given to Ardax as Father planned. I did not think of anyone else, only myself. I was selfish, a reality that I struggled with every single day."
The words hung there, quiet and true.
"Maybe we were both trying to survive the same father in different ways," Ya'Jun said.
"Maybe," Ya'Han replied. "And now look at us. Two commoners with nothing left to prove and no colors left to show."
Ya'Jun smiled faintly, though it did not reach her eyes. "Maybe that is the point. Without the colors, without the titles, we can finally decide who we are without anyone telling us."
The former Chief of Security tilted her head, studying her sister. "Do you truly believe that?"
"I want to," Ya'Jun said. "But belief and acceptance are not the same. We spent so long trying to earn every color, to prove we were worthy: of them, of Father. Now they are gone, and we must find out who we are without them." She paused, her tone softening. "That means letting go of who we were. You are not the runaway, or the warrior, or the protector. You are simply Ya'Han. Maybe that is enough."
Ya'Han let her gaze drift across the waves. The water reflected the moons, two circles of light that rippled and merged before separating again. It felt right, somehow. Two reflections, always near, never identical.
"I do not know how to live quietly," Ya'Han said.
"Then do not," Ya'Jun replied. "Just live. For once, let calm be enough."
The sisters stood together in silence again, the surf washing softly over their feet. Neither spoke, neither moved. The simulated sun dipped lower, painting the sky in violet and gold.
Ya'Han no longer felt the urge to run, fight, or hide, an unfamiliar calm that felt almost fragile. The stillness was not punishment; it was space, wide and uncertain, waiting to be filled.
When the program ended, both sisters remained motionless for a moment longer, reluctant to let the illusion fade.
As the shoreline dissolved into the quiet grid of the holodeck, Ya'Han turned to her twin. "Maybe this is where redemption begins," she said softly. "Not with forgiveness or duty, but with peace."
Ya'Jun gave a small nod. "Then let it begin here."
The doors opened, and together the sisters stepped into the steady light of the corridor, leaving the illusion of the waves behind but carrying their calm with them.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
“Deeper Still”
Previous post: Still Waters?” by Hanali
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0705
A little over an hour had passed since the ANUBIS breached the first sphere of crystalline asteroids. At the Tactical station, Zub Enel had expected to feel the scales rise on his neck as the ANUBIS, deliberately adrift, continued to accelerate toward the second sphere of asteroids, swept along by a form of gravimetric recoil from their first penetration into this strange system.
His Tactical station’s sensors and readouts were interrupted by momentary power transfers that he guessed were part of the silver-haired Mikulak Chef of Engineering’s orchestration of shields and hull integrity to protect the crew and shield it from lethal radiation. This interference with Zub’s ability to continuously search for threats and guard the ship should have annoyed him, but it didn’t. Being reduced to “hoping” he’d detect any outboard threat in time to react to it should have rankled him. It didn’t. He understood Drayk Val’Bruxa’s need to tap into critical defense systems for power occasionally. He felt at peace with it. All the same, Zub knew he shouldn’t.
He puzzled over his unnatural sense of calm. Captain Morningstar had decided, as a way to conserve energy and protect the crew, to let gravitational forces guide them toward a highly organized sphere of beautiful asteroids—rocks large enough to be deadly to the ship if they crossed the same point simultaneously. Logically, trusting physics in such a chaotic system should have worried Zub on some level.
He sat up straighter and forced himself to scan the Tactical console, even though he felt there was no threat. He said to the Captain, “Sir, I detect no ships between us and the second sphere. In fact, I don’t detect debris. This area appears swept clear of anything that isn’t an orbital layer.”
Captain Morningstar said quietly, “Except us.”
Zub was still confused by the unusually clear space between the spheres. Even the best-maintained space lanes had some debris. Space was a dirty place, which is why deflector shields were necessary.
He vividly pictured a one-celled spherical plankton beating its tiny cilia, sweeping in small nearby particles to eat. He wondered if this JELOVAAN system was designed to utilize any debris or ships. Sweep it in. Tear it up. Consume the useful bits. Excrete the rest.
That chain of thoughts should have made him uneasy. Still, Zub noticed he stayed calm. Not drugged calm, but unruffled. This was a time when logic told him to be alert to imminent danger.
Enel touched a spot on his head crest just between his eyes. His fingertip felt cool, but not the icy sensation of fear. The ANUBIS had just navigated through the first layer of asteroids with all its tangled fields. The ship buffeted as if by storm waves. Then calm followed, as if a tempest had broken over the ship, raged for a while, and then subsided. It seemed to him that the residual feelings from surviving this storm or penetration, or whatever it was, should have been strong: relief, gratitude for the crew's expert handling of a chaotic situation, or even pride for doing so well against forces that changed in fractions of a second. Or growing dread for what might be far worse coming next. Instead, he felt at ease.
He didn’t like it. Peace wasn't the right feeling for exploration and survival.
Though feeling completely safe, Zub trusted habits sharpened by years of combat experience. He scanned the approaching sphere for energy weapons. There was so much interference and clashing energy fields that an entire battle fleet of dreadnoughts could hide undetected there with fully charged weapons.
He suddenly remembered an arachnid on Betazed, a t’nmchec, that built a pit covered with a firm, silky top like a dead leaf. Insects crawling by the “leaf” would stop and start cleaning themselves. The arachnid would dart out, bite with venomous fangs, and drag the helpless creature into the pit. It was determined that this arachnid sent telepathic signals over a short range that made any passing insect feel safe at that specific spot. Its common name is the boudoir spider.
This spider’s attack method, coupled with a starship being swept toward an unknown fate, should have raised at least one scale on his hide. It didn’t. He felt mild bemusement at making such a horrific connection between two seemingly unrelated events.
Intellectually, he knew he felt unaccountably lulled. He considered whether he should admit his observations out loud to the Captain and XO. If they relieve him, who’s going to take his place?
He decided he shouldn’t trouble them with this observation, which made him all the more certain that he should. Pride could kill.
“Captain, I am having trouble feeling the danger of our situation. I can force myself to defend us out of habit, but I wonder if you or anyone else on the bridge is experiencing the same difficulty.”
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“I said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet. Oh, dear.”
- The Simpsons - A Star is Burns (S06E18)
"Uneasy Sense of Ease"
Previous post: "Deeper Still" by David
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Black Hole Lounge
Stardate: 45033.0710
The bridge was quiet, almost reverent. For Commander Shar'El, the calm felt wrong... and she sensed the others felt it too.
From her station on the command deck, she watched the readouts scroll with mechanical precision. The ANUBIS drifted forward, carried by invisible forces toward a wall of crystalline giants. Each one moved with unnatural grace, their pale light refracting across the viewscreen in slow, mesmerizing arcs. Beautiful, yes... but beauty could be deadly.
Below her, Captain Morningstar sat motionless in his chair, eyes forward, his expression unreadable. The only movement came from the soft pulse of the command lights and the steady rhythm of the ship's systems keeping time with the strange gravity around them.
Zub’s voice broke the quiet like a fault line.
"Captain, I am having trouble feeling the danger of our situation." He said, "I can force myself to defend us out of habit, but I wonder if you or anyone else on the bridge is experiencing the same difficulty."
The words settled like dust in the air. Shar'El turned her gaze toward him. The Voth's ridged brow was furrowed, his large hands resting on the Tactical console, his posture too still.
And in that stillness, something brushed against her mind. Not a deliberate intrusion, not a memory pulled, but a broadcast: raw and unguarded.
A pit in the ground. A leaf that was not a leaf. The faint vibration of movement beneath it. The sudden strike of fangs. A mindless calm before the end.
The image flickered through her thoughts as if someone had whispered it in her ear. Zub's memory. The Betazed spider trap.
Her stomach tightened, though her face gave no sign.
He was right. This peace was not peace at all. It was sedation... a lullaby whispered by something vast and unseen. Even her heartbeat seemed content when it should have been racing.
"Your observation is noted, Lieutenant," Shar'El said quietly, her tone even. She met his eyes for half a second, just long enough for him to know she understood. "Maintain focus. We may be under an environmental influence. Until we know more, keep your routines active. That should help counter it."
"Aye, Commander," Zub replied.
She turned back to her console, fingers moving across the controls. The data ahead confirmed what instinct already knew. The second strata was no longer distant. The ANUBIS was being drawn in faster than predicted. Gravimetric readings fluctuated wildly, the numbers rising with each passing minute.
"Captain," she said, forcing her tone into professional steadiness, "the pull from the inner field has increased by twenty-seven percent. The gravimetric push from the outer shell is accelerating us faster than projected. We've reached the midpoint between the two strata ahead of schedule."
Morningstar leaned forward slightly. "Debris?"
"None," she replied. "Everything between the two layers is being swept inward. The space between them is completely clear. Perfectly clean."
For a long moment, there was only the faint murmur of instruments and the deep, rhythmic pulse of the deck beneath their feet. The air itself seemed heavier, as if the ship were gliding through invisible resistance. No one spoke. Even the normal background chatter of bridge operations had faded, replaced by a silence that felt almost... imposed.
"Captain," A'Janni said at last, his voice breaking through the stillness. "I've been reviewing Maya's analysis of the gravimetric forces along the first asteroid shell. On the outside, we experienced a pull. The instant we crossed through, it reversed into a push. Now, we're detecting that same pull again from the inner strata." He hesitated before adding, "It feels like the system was built to draw things in and make sure nothing ever leaves. Like a trap... deliberate, precise, and patient."
The silence returned, thicker now.
"Let's not mention this to Drayk," Jayson said with a forced chuckle. "He'd call it proof of higher design and purpose instead of a natural phenomenon."
No one laughed.
Zub's eyes stayed fixed on his console. "There's nothing natural about this," he muttered. "Not the structure, not the movement... and not how it makes us feel. It's as if the system wants us calm. Willing. Accepting a fate no one should."
A ripple of discomfort passed across the bridge. No one spoke, but every motion, every glance, seemed just a little too deliberate, as if awareness itself had grown heavy
Shar'El's hands stilled over her controls. She could sense it too, something subtle, not quite telepathic, pressing against the crew's awareness like a slow, measured breath. "There are still many unanswered questions," she said, her tone steady. "But our orders stand. We find the Orion Syndicate transmitter."
Morningstar's reply came after a long pause. His voice was quiet, deliberate. "Then we proceed carefully. No course corrections unless necessary."
He leaned forward slightly, eyes on the silent wall of asteroids ahead. "Let's see where this current intends to take us."
Shar'El gave a small nod and refocused on her console. Her reflection shimmered faintly against the glass—calm, collected, convincingly human.
Inside, the echo lingered: fangs in the dark, serenity before the strike.
The calm would have to be her armor. Whatever waited beyond the inner strata would not find her unaware.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"One to All, All to One"
Previous post: "Uneasy Sense of Ease" by Tiffany
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck A-4, IGC
Stardate: 45033.0725
The IGC went completely still.
Barely a breath of silence. Barely a pause between screens updating, yet the sensation hit Gemma sharper than any alarm. The data feed from the outer strata simply vanished. Not garbled. Not degraded. Gone. A white noise wash that drowned everything except the one single transmission from the unseen world ahead.
Faders of static. Frozen analytic threads. A room full of specialists who no longer had anything to work with.
Gemma looked at the wall of unresolved code, then spoke with quiet certainty.
"Keep monitoring that transmission," she said as she rose from her seat.
One way or another, the answers had moved to the bridge.
And she knew she was being drawn toward one person in particular.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Sickbay
Stardate: 45033.0725
Sickbay was empty. All of the officers who had required radiation treatment had been treated and released.
The sense of accomplishment hung in the air, joined by the unnatural calm that had settled over the ANUBIS.
Satella looked at the stoic Chief Medical Officer, then spoke with quiet certainty.
"I am going to check on Drayk and his staff," she said as she took one of the field medical kits in hand.
She felt the need to be by her mate, to make sure that he was alright, even though she knew that he would be.
Drayk would not allow anything, not even death, to get in the way of the purpose they shared, and he had already proven this once before.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0730
She stepped off the lift into the controlled tension that filled the command deck. The atmosphere of the ship felt different here. More aware. More braced. A storm coming, and everyone could sense it.
Zub was at Tactical, hands moving with steady purpose across a console that refused to cooperate cleanly. The magnetic interference was already making their precision bleed at the edges, and he was forcing the systems to behave anyway.
Gemma took two steps toward him, then stopped just close enough to feel the faint echo of his heartbeat through their nanite link. His calm was not real calm. Beneath it she felt the tight coil of calculation and uneasiness, his emotional core doing its best impression of neutral.
He did not look up, there was no need to. He felt her presence as he had done several times before. A sensation that transcended physical awareness.
**We are not ready,** he thought at nobody and at her, and she caught the shape of his thoughts like a reflection against her skin.
She stood beside him, professional, self contained because the ship needed eyes and judgment at the point of command. That was the truth.
But she was also here because she wanted to be exactly next to him when the impossible arrived.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0730
Satella held the railing above the primary field modulation coils while Drayk adjusted a harmonic spread that should not have worked and was working anyway. It was almost beautiful, the way he moved through numbers no one else would dare trust.
She knew his mind better than any instrument. She knew when he was excited, when he was guarded, when he was silently translating impossible physics into stable edges. She also knew that he had brought her back from nothing not because he was programmed to want her, but because he chose her.
That was the difference.
She was not here because Main Engineering needed her. She was here because Drayk was here, and because his focus on precision was his version of love. And because she would follow him into any storm, not because she was made to, but because she willed it.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0732
The static on the forward display pulsed, as if the asteroid shells themselves were breathing. Gemma leaned forward slightly, narrowing data on a side panel while the sensors struggled for footing.
This level of distortion meant the IGC was blind and likely would remain so until they crossed a threshold that could not be mapped.
She could feel Zub's shoulders tighten a fraction as he adjusted the tactical display to match Maya's last predicted harmonic alignment. He was already thinking in worst case paths. Already preparing for the possibility that the only way forward would be through chaos, not clarity.
She should have been thinking the exact same thing. Instead the tension in him stirred an answering pulse in her chest. She did not fight it. That was the surprising part. No denial. No compensation. Just acceptance.
She stayed beside him because here, beside him, she could anchor the chaos inside her to something steady.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0732
The coils hummed as if alive. Satella felt the slight vibration through the deck plates, watched Drayk measure the new resonance like a conductor listening for the moment the orchestra falls into perfect time.
She was concerned for the entire crew, deeply so. Radiation at this level was not a trivial threat. The exposure windows she and T'Lara had fought to stretch were already more fragile than anyone on the bridge would be ready to admit.
And yet.
Her first concern was him.
Not because her design demanded it.
But because devotion, when freely chosen, expands outward.
If she could keep Drayk safe, she could keep everyone safe.
Her skills, knowledge, and care would extend outward from him to everyone.
That was love that radiated outward.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0732
She watched the static flicker, felt the stars bend, sensed Zub's pulse shift by a shade.
She was here for the ship. She was here for him. Her focus narrowed from the many to the one.
That was a logic that made no sense to the ILO, and she refused to fight against it.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
---
"Blind Among the Stars"
(Previous Post: "One to All, All to One")
---
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Stellar Cartography
Stardate: 45033.0730
The holographic sphere surrounding the Stellar Cartography laboratory flickered uncertainly, its once brilliant display of the JELOVAAN system now reduced to an erratic blur of static and light. Streams of distorted data crawled across the consoles, each one conflicting with the next. Where once the system had appeared as a precisely balanced network of celestial layers, it was now little more than a storm of interference and noise.
Maya stood before the primary display, arms crossed, her expression caught between irritation and fascination. "High-phased harmonics... Crystalline matrix amplification... Bi-directional gravimetric forces," the Shillian muttered to herself in frustrated admiration. The faint shimmer of the outer asteroid shell danced across her eyes, fading as another sensor relay failed. Christie sat at the secondary console, her fingers motionless above the controls as she stared at the diagnostic reports that had long since stopped making sense.
"Short-range array three is offline," Christie said quietly, her tone resigned. "Array one is reading phantom echoes, and array two is locked in a self-correcting loop. Even the internal telemetry grid is starting to register false returns. The ship might as well be blind."
"It is not blind," Maya replied, though her tone lacked conviction. "It is merely... severely myopic." She adjusted the control surface, trying once more to stabilize the image, but the holographic field flickered and collapsed into a cloud of static light. "The interference from the gravimetric harmonics has overwhelmed every compensatory algorithm we possess. Radiation, magnetism, and subspace resonance are not merely overlapping; they are phase-locked into a standing pattern of interference. It is not random distortion, it is structural coherence... a resonant network so dense that every wavelength amplifies the next until signal and noise are indistinguishable."
"Meaning?" Christie asked, glancing over.
"Meaning the distortion is not a byproduct of the system," Maya explained, her voice gaining that familiar rhythm of deep analysis. "It is the system. The interference is woven into its very fabric. Every layer of asteroids amplifies the distortions generated by the twin stars. Each harmonic echo refracts through the next layer, forming a cascading interference lattice that scrambles phase integrity across every frequency band. To our sensors, that means space itself is returning contradictory information faster than the computer can interpret it. It is as if the system was designed to conceal itself, a self-sustaining labyrinth of harmonics that punishes curiosity."
Christie frowned. "Then even the ANUBIS cannot see through it?"
"Not effectively," Maya admitted. "Our sensor resolution has collapsed to a radius of only a few hundred kilometers, and even that bubble is shrinking with every passing minute we come closer to the twin stars. At this rate, the ANUBIS will soon be navigating by sight alone. Soon, even that will be gone. We are forced to rely upon short-range visual detection systems and navigational readings that can barely define our own trajectory. Every piece of modern technology we depend upon is being rendered inert by the very phenomenon we seek to study. It is... magnificent." Her fingers drummed against the console, the gesture caught somewhere between wonder and irritation, as if the universe itself were taunting her curiosity
Christie blinked. "Magnificent?"
Maya turned toward her, the corners of her mouth curving in reluctant admiration. "Yes. Imagine a naturally occurring environment so complex that it defeats every sensor, every algorithm, every means of observation at our disposal. It is as though the universe itself has constructed a sanctuary for its own secrets. Unfortunately, it is also a sanctuary from which escape may not be as simple as entry."
The younger woman stared at the blank display. "You think this was intentional?"
"That depends on how one defines intent," Maya said softly, returning her attention to the projection as it attempted to reinitialize. "The physical conditions are too precise to be accidental, yet too elegantly chaotic to be purely artificial. If this configuration is natural, then nature has devised the perfect snare... a closed-loop equilibrium where radiation, matter, and even graviton flow are trapped in perpetual circulation. No signal escapes because every frequency eventually folds back upon itself. Nothing leaves this system easily. If it is artificial, then its creator was a master of restraint, understanding that control through balance is far more enduring than control through force."
Christie's voice lowered, almost a whisper. "That would explain the signal. The civilization inside might not be transmitting out deliberately. The system could simply be holding everything in, like a bubble."
"Precisely," Maya replied. "What little we have seen may be only the faintest leak through an imperfection in that containment. The JELOVAAN system is not simply an astronomical anomaly. It is a boundary condition... the event horizon of understanding itself. And we have already crossed it. Whether it was meant to imprison or to preserve, I cannot yet say."
The lab grew quiet, save for the faint buzz of the environmental systems compensating for the ship's slow roll through the gravimetric field. The holographic projection flickered one final time before fading completely, leaving only the pale illumination of the consoles.
Christie sighed. "So what now?"
"We adapt," Maya said, her tone steady though her expression betrayed frustration. "We will have to rely upon prior telemetry, visual observation, and logical deduction. If sensors cannot pierce the interference, then we shall proceed as our ancestors once did: through pattern recognition, analysis, and inference. It is hardly ideal, but necessity has often proven to be the mother of rediscovery."
Christie gave a small, weary smile. "Old-fashioned detective work, then."
Maya inclined her head, her eyes fixed on the darkened projection. "Indeed. And it would appear that the JELOVAAN system has left us no other choice."
The two women stood in silence for a moment longer, the quiet hum of the ANUBIS filling the void where the stars should have been. Outside, the layers of the system shimmered unseen, their silent motion folding around the ANUBIS as it slipped deeper into the maze... a vessel of light adrift in the dark geometry of an impossible sky.
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"Light Footed"
Previous post: "Blind Among the Stars" by Jessica
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0750
The quiet vibration beneath the deck plates had become a constant companion. It wasn't the usual rhythm of the ANUBIS in motion but something deeper, heavier, like the ship was dragging its way through the heartbeat of a dying star. It didn't want to be here, none of them did, but their orders gave them no alternatives.
Jayson sat at Operations, his fingers hovering above a console that fought him with every input. The readings flickered, warped, and realigned faster than the computer could compensate. Magnetic interference was spiking again, every system screaming to be heard through the static.
"Helm, report," Captain Morningstar ordered, his voice sharp but steady from the center chair.
A'Janni's single eye narrowed at his console. "Gravimetric shear increasing by twelve percent. Attempting to adjust velocity, but the thrusters are already past the redline."
Jayson felt the deck tremble beneath his boots as the ship accelerated, not by choice but by force. The inner layers of the JELOVAAN system were pulling them in. He saw the speed indicator climb, the readout barely coherent through the distortion.
"Confirmed," Jayson called out, glancing up from his flickering display. "Speed is up another point-two warp equivalent. The gravimetric gradient is compounding, Captain. We're losing maneuvering authority."
"Compensate," Morningstar ordered.
Jayson tried, rerouting power to the lateral thrusters, but the console’s interface flashed a warning and went dark for a second before coming back, half the readings scrambled. He could feel his pulse matching the flicker.
Shar'El moved closer to the command rail behind the Captain, her dark eyes fixed on the main viewer. "Sensors?"
"Range is now well under a hundred kilometers, and dropping fast," Jayson said, shaking his head. "After that, it's all noise. We're effectively blind."
Zub's voice cut through the tension. "Forward shields are holding at eighty-two percent, but the magnetic flux is overloading secondary emitters."
A'Janni turned slightly toward the Captain. "Gravimetric force is increasing again. Inner strata compression reading off scale. Speed is rising on its own."
"Can you compensate?"
"Not for long," the Caitian pilot replied. "It's like being pulled by two different tides at once."
Morningstar leaned forward. "Reinforce shields and ablative armor. I want..."
The rest of his order vanished into a deafening crack that rolled through the bridge as sparks filled the air. The lights snapped out. Every console went dark. For an instant, everything stopped.
Jayson's breath caught as the world around him fell into silence. The ship's heartbeat, the hum of systems, the faint vibration through the deck, all gone.
Then the weight left him.
He rose from his chair without meaning to, drifting as though the air itself had stopped believing in gravity. His outstretched hand found nothing but emptiness where his console should have been. No red emergency lights, no display glow, no sound of power cycling. The ANUBIS was blind and voiceless, suspended in darkness.
"Captain?" Shar'El's voice cut through the black, distant but steady.
No answer.
"A'Janni?"
"Still here," came the low growl from the helm. Metal creaked as his hand struck a dead console. "No helm control. Artificial gravity's offline."
Jayson forced a slow breath, steadying himself. "It appears the inertial dampeners are still operational," he reported. "If they weren't, we'd all be smeared against the aft bulkhead by now. Celocity's still climbing."
The silence that followed was almost heavier than the dark itself. He pushed off gently from his chair, drifting toward the right bulkhead. Every instinct screamed to act, to fix, but the consoles were lifeless slabs of metal. He tried rerouting auxiliary power from memory, nothing. Not even a flicker.
His breathing grew louder in his own ears, syncing with the echo of his pulse. Somewhere below decks, Ya'Han would be in the dark too, maybe trying to reach him, maybe thinking the worst. The thought hit harder than the blackout.
"Ops to Engineering," he said automatically, knowing the comms were gone. "Drayk, if you can hear this... I could use a miracle right about now."
The words vanished into the dark.
The hull groaned, a deep sound from somewhere within the structure: not motionless, not safe. The ship was still moving, dragged deeper into the JELOVAAN system's crushing gravity, and they had no eyes left to see where.
Jayson floated in silence for a long heartbeat, the cold absence of light pressing close. He'd faced failure before, but never like this. No escape simulation, no second chance. Just the dark.
He turned toward where he thought the Captain's chair stood.
"We're dead in the water, sir," he said quietly. "At the mercy of whatever current has us now."
Nothing answered back. Only the quiet drift of air as the ANUBIS rushed deeper into the unknown.
=-=
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant Jayson Stark
Chief of Operations
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
“Stay”
Previous post: “Light Footed” by Jayson
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0751
Zub Enel had a scowl of concentration as he struggled with the flickering tactical controls. He tensed and hunched over the controls. The weapons arrays, sensors, and even the ablative armor were giving off crazy readings in the flux of energy and gravity as they tumbled ever faster toward the second sphere of asteroids.
Beside him, Gemma’s hands had been flying across an auxiliary console she’d brought up on a section of Tactical nearest her. There, she was overseeing all intelligence matters.
Then, as if the bridge ceiling had suffered an unseen disruptor hit, there was a sharp crack. Sparks showered down, and amber bits of molten metal bounced on the floor. Every instrument and console on the bridge went dark. The lights went out.
Artificial gravity failed. Zub’s tension in his legs shot him out of the chair into pitch darkness. As he reached up, hoping his hands would hit the ceiling before his head, he noted the emergency lights hadn’t switched on. They were on a triple-fail-safe circuit that should have allowed them to power up. Nothing.
A hand closed firmly around his ankle. He recognized the zus of his tiny constellation of nanites interacting with Gemma’s full complement. Her nanite-enhanced speed and strength had allowed her to instantly anchor herself as everything else on the bridge went weightless.
Her grip was firm but seemed to linger an extra moment on each handhold as she lowered him by his leg, then his hips, and then his stomach into his seat. He felt her firm backside slide over his thighs as she jammed her legs under the Tactical station console. Her body was warm as she used it to wedge him into his seat.
“Sit and stay,” she whispered playfully. Zub was sure from her tone that she was smiling in the dark.
He could sense her thoughts, but not with enough clarity to know what she was thinking. He sensed that she was calculating what had happened and was working on scenarios to find a way to get the power back on. So, while this coppery-haired beauty sat on his lap in the dark, she was all business inside.
Zub reached a long scaly arm around her athletic shoulder and pressed a three-fingered hand on the tactical oconole. It was completely inert. He knew somewhere far away, the Chief of Engineering was working on sending power their way. But for now, the ANUBIS was deaf, blind, and dumb; hurtling like a rock toward the second layer of a system that had just stolen all that made a starfship tick.
Surprisingly, Gemma leaned into his arm. He smiled, thoroughly enjoying such a rare show of intimacy. Then it occurred to him. The ANUBIS’ fate was entirely out of both his and her hands. The hull could be ripped apart. The ship could hit an asteroid. The radiation of the JELOVAAN system could fry them. Some completely automated process could start slicing up the ship. He and she faced 10,000 ways to die any second.
He worked to accept that he faced death in the dark with Gemma on his lap, ostensibly to keep him at his station for the moment the power was restored. He might have to react instantly to a threat. He held his breath. His nanites thrummed with hers. They sat together, at least for now, facing fate - tense, watchful, and close.
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.”
- Zig Ziglar
"The Weight of Responsibility"
Previous post: "Stay" by David
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0755
The lights were gone. Not dimmed, not flickering. Gone. The heartbeat of the ANUBIS had stopped. What remained was the low groan of strained metal, the sound of a living machine forced into stillness. In the center of Engineering, the inert warp core stood dark, its containment rings dead, the blue pulse that once defined it now nothing more than memory.
Drayk Val'Bruxa drifted above the deck, boots untethered, every motion deliberate. The silence around him was the kind that judged weakness. His gloved hands moved over the main console, the screen cold beneath his fingers. No power. No response. The systems that should have answered him refused even recognition.
He braced himself against a bulkhead as the ship listed slightly, gravity having lost its argument with physics. Emergency power indicators blinked once, then died. It was an unsettling sight to see the ANUBIS was without a pulse, a voice, or control.
Across the compartment, Satella drifted toward him, the motion more instinct than decision, drawn by the silence as much as by him. Her eyes caught the faint blue glint of the dormant core, then his.
"Main power is offline," Drayk said without looking up. His tone was precise, the way a surgeon would name a fatal wound. "Auxiliary feeds are unresponsive. Magnetic containment failed in stages, not sequence. The system is cannibalizing itself."
Her voice softened. "Then the ship is dying."
"Ships do not die," he replied. "They fail. And failure can be reversed."."
She nodded, her tone even. "Life support?"
"Residual oxygen from sealed decks will hold for now. Environmental systems are dead. The ship is bleeding heat faster than we can retain it."
The hull creaked again, a reminder that momentum had not yet surrendered. Through the darkened observation pane, faint red light bled in from outside, reflected from the asteroid fields that circled the twin stars. They were being drawn in.
"The gravimetric field is collapsing," Satella said, scanning the static on her handheld tricorder. "If the asteroids are as dense as Maya reported, collision would be terminal. We need propulsion."
"We need power first," he replied. "And propulsion without containment is suicide. The warp core is inert, but not cold. If we can reinitiate the primary injectors through direct plasma feed, we might be able to restart containment."
"Manually?"
"Obviously. Automation requires logic circuits, and those are dead."
He pulled himself toward the main engineering console and began prying open an access panel, the cold air sharp against his hands. The auxiliary relays inside were dark, the plasma conduits flickering faintly from residual charge.
Satella steadied herself beside him, one hand on the cold frame of the console. "If you can stabilize containment, I can reroute the medical sensors through Sickbay's reserve grid. I can track radiation leaks, maybe buy you more time."
He didn't look up. "You will buy the crew more time. I will buy the ship the same."
"Drayk," she said quietly, "I should stay. If something fails..."
"If something fails, you will need to treat the result," he interrupted. "Your place is not here."
Her eyes lingered on him, the stillness between them more binding than words. "You always make it sound like duty replaces choice."
"Duty is choice," he answered simply."
For a long moment, neither moved. Then Satella reached for him, her gloved fingers finding his arm in the dark. The contact was small, human, and enough to anchor them both against the weightless void.
"You always stand between us and the fall," she whispered. "Just... stand long enough for me to come back."
His eyes flicked to hers, unreadable. "I will hold the ship."
"You always do," she said, and let go.
She gave a short nod and pushed gently away, her silhouette gliding into the dark. Her form vanished into the corridor beyond, the sound of the hatch sealing behind her swallowed by silence.
Drayk turned back to the panel. The warp core loomed in front of him, a monolith of precision betrayed by failure. He connected the first manual bypass to the plasma feed, sparks flaring in the vacuum of still air. A thin pulse of light ran up the conduit before fading again.
Not enough. Not yet.
He adjusted the alignment, rerouting power through a secondary coupler. For a heartbeat, the warp core responded, a faint blue flicker along its base before dying once more. He froze, every calculation rebuilding in his mind, weighing energy against containment, time against survival.
There were possibilities. None certain. All dangerous.
His reflection stared back at him in the black glass of the warp core housing, silver hair catching the faint blue residue of failed ignition.
"You will not die here," he said to the reflection, or perhaps to the ship itself.
The silence gave no answer. Only the faint vibration of the hull as the ANUBIS drifted closer to the unseen pull ahead.
He reached for the next conduit, calculating new parameters even as the lights flickered faintly for a second time. A heartbeat. Then darkness again.
Drayk allowed himself the smallest breath of acknowledgment. The system was listening.
It was not enough to live. It was only enough to continue.
"Perfection," he murmured, eyes on the dead core, "is endurance measured in failures."
The lights flickered once. He did not look up.
Somewhere beyond the hull, gravity waited.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Unwelcome Memories"
Previous Post: "The Weight of Responsibility" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office
Stardate: 45033.0800
The darkness was almost absolute. Only the faintest flicker of red emergency lighting cut through the black, each pulse barely enough to shape the outlines of furniture against the walls. The usual hum of the ANUBIS was gone: no life support whisper, no soft vibration beneath her feet. Only silence.
And yet, beneath that silence, something else stirred. A strange calm. It seeped through the still air, dulling the edge of panic that should have been sharper. Adriana could feel it in her chest, an unnatural sense of ease that did not belong here. The same influence that had been spreading through the crew since they entered the JELOVAAN system: soothing, steadying, but wrong in ways she could not define.
She floated slowly above her desk, the absence of gravity turning every small motion into a drift. Her fingertips brushed against the chair, sending her turning in slow, unsteady circles. For a heartbeat she almost surrendered to the weightless calm, the part of her that wanted to believe nothing could hurt her here.
Then her right leg twitched. Pain surged like a spark through the dark. Phantom, but real enough to steal her breath. The same leg that had been broken aboard the KROGEN so many years ago. The memory flared before she could stop it.
Flashing lights. Smoke. The smell of burning metal.
The distant sound of screaming through a fractured hull.
And her own voice, calling for help that never came.
She clenched her jaw, trying to stay in the present. This was not the KROGEN. The ANUBIS was not under attack. She repeated it under her breath like a mantra, but the calm that surrounded her only made it harder to fight. The system's influence wanted her still, passive, unfeeling, safe in surrender.
But she remembered too well what stillness had meant back then. Death waiting between the decks. Blood cooling in the shadows. The certainty that she would die alone in the dark.
Except she hadn't been alone.
(Flashback)
"You can't stay here forever," a familiar voice said.
Ensign Lopez blinked several times to bring her sight back into focus in order to see the hallucination of her sister looking down at her.
"You know," Adriana grimaced through the pain, "This is borderline insanity."
"Some people talk to themselves, others pray to some unseen power in the universe that may or may not exist," Amanda said with a chuckle. "You, you get a pep talk from the sister you haven't seen in years, I think you're ahead of most."
"So am I to gather that I can count on seeing you hovering over me like that until I get myself out?"
"Call it incentive," Amanda replied in a very serious tone. "You are stuck in-between decks on a ship where power is at minimal; don't expect anyone to find you on the internal scanners. If you are to survive, you need to get yourself out."
(End of the flashback)
Adriana's hands trembled as she reached toward the faint glow of the inactive console. She had spent years telling herself those voices were hallucinations, just a mind grasping for survival. But she knew now they had not been. Amanda had reached her somehow from within the Matrix, describing corridors Adriana hadn't even seen, warning her of danger she couldn't have known.
The realization both comforted and terrified her. Because now, drifting alone in the dark, she almost wanted to hear that voice again. To feel Amanda's presence guiding her, telling her what to do, how to move, how to live.
She hated herself for that wish.
Amanda was here now, alive and real, somewhere on the ship. But the weight of old fear made it hard to remember. The Jelovaan calm dulled her thoughts, blurring the line between memory and dream. Her pulse quickened against it, trying to break free.
She pushed off the wall too fast. The movement sent her spinning. Pain flared again in her leg, sharp enough to make her cry out. She clutched it tight, the Counseling Office twisting around her like the broken corridors of the KROGEN.
Her breathing came quick, uneven. Every flicker of light warped into shadowed shapes, forming silhouettes that her mind painted with memory.
Her chest tightened. "Amanda?" she whispered.
No answer. Just the soft hum of the system's quiet influence, whispering calm where she needed fear.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe, to resist the unnatural serenity pressing at the edges of her mind. This was the ANUBIS. She was safe. But safety felt distant, foreign, unreal.
"Adriana!"
The call broke through, faint, muffled, but real. A scrape of metal followed as the door's manual release was forced open. A narrow beam of light sliced into the room.
Two figures drifted inside. Ya'Han, her movements controlled even in zero gravity and holding a manual torch. And behind her, Amanda.
For an instant, Adriana thought her mind had given in, conjuring another vision to comfort her. But then Amanda's hand reached out, warm and solid, catching hers before she could drift away.
"Hey," Amanda said softly, her voice trembling but real. "You're not alone, sis. I'm here."
The words undid her. The fight left her body as she reached for her sister. The embrace was clumsy in the weightlessness, but none of that mattered.
The system's false calm gave way to something real. Love. Presence. Connection.
Adriana buried her face against Amanda's shoulder, a shaky breath escaping as a sob and a laugh all at once.
"I thought I'd lost you again," she whispered.
Amanda held her tighter. "You never will."
Ya'Han remained near the doorway, silent and steady, watching as the emergency light flickered one last time and dimmed again. The Counseling Office returned to shadow, but the darkness no longer felt empty.
This time, Adriana wasn't alone in it.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
"Remembered Pain"
Previous post: "Unwelcome Memories" by Marissa
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office
Stardate: 45033.0805
Ya'Han floated just inside the doorway of the Counseling Office, surrounded by the darkness and silence that had settled over the room, her gaze fixed on the dim emergency lights that pulsed in soft red intervals. Adriana and Amanda were together again, but the air still carried a strange, lingering tension. It felt as though the walls themselves had absorbed the echoes of what had just happened.
She should have left. There was nothing for her to do here. But something about the stillness rooted her to the spot.
Her breathing slowed, her body instinctively aligning to the faint oscillations in the air. She could feel them through her skin, through the very core of her being. The JELOVAAN system's interference was not just a sensor problem; it was alive in a way she could not define. Rhythmic, pulsing, almost like... resonance.
A whisper of static brushed through her thoughts, and for an instant she thought she heard her own name.
Then the lights flickered.
When she blinked, the room shifted. The Counseling Office dissolved into the cold opulence of Imperial Nylaan decor. The air was thick with the distinct scent of blood and death. Her heart raced, and she already knew where she was before the memory fully formed.
Her mother's retreat, hidden high in the mountains overlooking the Imperial Palace. The place where three lives had ended in their own tragic ways: her mother Na'Rin, her lover Jayson, and the dark woman she had once believed she was meant to become.
Her throat tightened. She remembered this moment with painful clarity. The death of her mother... the battle with Ya'Jun and the fatal Lokustaar strike on Jayson. That was the moment everything changed.
"Jayson!" she called out before she could stop herself.
The sound of her own voice echoed through the stillness. She saw him across the chaos, the Lokustaar claw piercing his chest in a grotesque and sickening manner. His final whispered words were for her alone, a declaration that he would love her... forever.
There was no time. One heartbeat, one breath, and he was gone. Her darkness-fueled rage had instantly vanished leaving nothing but the helplessness that currently echoed through the ANUBIS. Ya'Han suddenly became very aware of the way her black hair floated around her in the same unnatural manner it had when she had embraced the darkness within, but unlike then, the feeling disgusted her now. She remembered the silence of her thoughts as she witnessed his death, the kind of silence that burrows into your bones and never fully leaves.
Now, in the barely-lit Counseling Office, she felt that same silence pressing down again. The same helplessness. The same loss. The JELOVAAN energy around her pulsed in perfect sync with her heartbeat, feeding the memory until she could no longer tell where the past ended and the present began.
Her breathing quickened. Her fists clenched. For a single heartbeat she wished she still possessed the power to let her hair reveal what she felt inside: red, for the rage she carried toward the person she had once allowed herself to become.
It took a long moment before she realized she was crying.
"Ya'Han! Are you alright?" Adriana called, noticing the sudden tension in the former Chief of Security's movements.
The black-haired Nylaan drew in a slow, shaking breath, forcing herself upright. The JELOVAAN radiation was doing something to them all. It was not just interference; it was painful, forgotten memories forced to resurface. Adriana had been pulled back into her trauma. Now Ya'Han had been dragged into hers.
She wiped the tears from her face, straightened her posture, and forced herself to breathe through the trembling. "We are stronger than this," she said quietly. "We have survived worse and come back from it. We need to find the others before this takes hold. No one can be allowed to fall to their darkness, their fears, or their memories."
Her voice sounded steadier than she felt, but that was enough. She turned toward the door, her gaze catching the faint shimmer of her reflection in the darkened console glass. For a brief second, Ya'Han saw the person she had been before her soul was corrupted by the Lokustaar darkness.
Whatever was happening in this system was reaching into them, finding the cracks, the buried pain, and dragging it into the light.
She exhaled once more and pushed off gently from the doorway, gliding into the corridor. Whatever this was, she would face it the same way she had faced everything else before... head on.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Echoes Without Silence"
Previous post: "Remembered Pain" by Hanali
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0805
The darkness that had swallowed the ANUBIS was no longer empty.
Shar'El drifted weightless, one hand grazing the cold edge of a lifeless console. The emergency systems pulsed faintly, then dimmed out again. Gravity gone. Even the red standby lights had died, leaving only the hull's low groan under unseen pressure to prove the ship still lived.
Her breathing stayed measured, each exhale a fragile anchor. It didn't hold. The boundary between her and the others dissolved, and alien memories pressed inward, sliding through the fractures of her discipline like water through broken glass.
She had spent her life mastering control, shaping her Ullian gift into a precise instrument. A look was all it took to open or close the door. But now, the door was gone. The entire bridge was inside her mind, and she was drowning in the flood.
A'Janni's fury struck first, fierce, wild and instinctive, but beneath it pulsed the deeper rhythm of fear. He had seen too many crews die in silence, too many ships drift into the void. His thoughts clawed for order, his instincts demanding movement, but the weight of helplessness smothered him. The roar of his frustration filled her ears even though the bridge was silent.
Then Zub. Calm, measured, his mind a fortress of logic, now fractured by guilt. He had sent others into danger before, and most had returned. But not all. The JELOVAAN resonance pulled at him, dragging memories to the surface: the thunder of battlefields, the acrid sting of energy fire, the moment he knew no reinforcements would come. Shar'El could taste the bitterness of his fear despite the iron control that still clung to him: sharp, metallic, and impossible to ignore.
Her own mind trembled beneath the weight of theirs, and before she could brace herself, another memory broke through... Jayson's pain. It struck like a blade through her chest. She had been there, witness to his last breath, but now it consumed her as if the claws had torn through her own body: the sudden cold, the desperate inhale that never became an exhale, the disbelief that this was the end. It was not sight or sound but the raw imprint of terror and regret, echoing again and again until she could not tell if it was his heartbeat or hers that had stopped.
Shar'El twisted in the air, eyes wide though the darkness offered nothing to see. The JELOVAAN system was amplifying everything, magnifying every thought, every fear, every pain into a storm that tore through the barriers of her mind. She could feel it resonating through the hull, a rhythm just below hearing, the psychic echo of something vast and awake.
Her hand brushed against the console again. The metal was cold, slick with condensation, as though the ship itself were sweating. She could sense the others scattered across the decks, their minds dimming and flaring like distant beacons, each one trapped in their own private torment.
The bridge creaked. Somewhere below, the structure moaned under rising gravitational tension. The silence between the sounds felt alive.
A faint tremor rippled through the deck plating, followed by another. At first she thought it was her imagination until a soft thud echoed through the dark. Then another. The ANUBIS was drifting into the inner strata. The first asteroids grazed the hull, soft taps that deepened into slow, deliberate beats, like a storm finding its rhythm.
Shar'El forced herself to move. Her muscles resisted, disoriented by the absence of gravity, but instinct drove her forward. She found A'Janni still gripping the edge of his station, eyes open but unfocused, lips moving in a whisper she could not hear. Zub hung motionless near the tactical console, body limp but breathing shallowly.
And at the center, near the captain's chair, Erik Morningstar lay still.
For a moment, she could not tell if he was alive. She reached for him, her fingertips brushing his shoulder. The moment her fingers brushed his uniform, the flood returned: his memories striking like a wave against stone. Duty. Loss. Orders given and disobeyed. The echo of a ship torn apart beneath his command. Each one was a scar he carried quietly, and now the JELOVAAN field was forcing them open.
She gasped, her own breath catching as she tried to pull back, but the link held fast. The resonance had made her a conduit, and Erik's mind was collapsing inward under its weight.
"No," she whispered, barely a sound. "You have to fight it."
Her hand pressed harder against his chest, grounding herself against the rising static in her mind. She reached inward, not through focus, but through desperation. The bridge, the ship, the universe around her fell away until there was only him, a flickering light buried beneath the storm.
For a heartbeat, she thought she heard his voice. Not words, just intent. A command. "Hold."
The hull shuddered violently. A rain of small impacts struck the outer armor, each one a sharp, hollow echo that filled the silence.
The ANUBIS was falling deeper. Across the decks, Shar'El could sense minds flickering in and out of consciousness, each one tangled in its own nightmare. There were too many voices now, too much emotion; even silence had a shape.
She clung to the captain, her body trembling, her mind barely her own. The JELOVAAN resonance pulsed again, and the ship breathed with it. The silence pressed close, alive and listening. Somehow she understood that this was not chaos but design. The system was not attacking them; it was searching through them.
The next impact was stronger. Then another.
Shar'El closed her eyes, whispering into the dark, "We've come too far, fought too hard, to end like this."
The hull answered with a low moan, and the uncertain silence around her devoured her words, alive in its own frightful way.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Emptiness of Self"
Previous post: "Echoes Without Silence" by Tiffany
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0805
She could still feel his shoulder against hers. Same weight, same warmth. And yet their connection had died without warning. Not softened. Not faded. Dead silent, like every other voice she had grown used to tolerating even when she resented them.
The bridge existed in a kind of sensory vacuum. No gravity. No sound. No color. Only the soft, choking black.
Gemma stood near Zub. Physically. Close enough to touch him. Yet she had never felt more separate.
He was folded into his own memory collapse, eyes unfocused in that inward way that told her the past had him by the throat. If she had been whole, she would have known what to do. Which persona to bring forward. Which tool, which face, which skill.
But the nanites had gone silent.
There was no shifting. No cascading personalities pulling toward relevance. No tidal wave of options fanning out like a tactical net across her thoughts.
There was simply nothing.
Not a single voice. Not a single whisper.
Her mind was a black room with no walls.
She could no longer feel the quiet background pulsing connection to Zub that the nanites normally allowed. That tiny, almost imperceptible link between their perception of each other was gone. He could have been a million kilometers away. And she would have felt the same.
Gemma swallowed, not because she was afraid, but because she did not know what to feel about this emptiness.
Was she even her?
She moved her gaze toward Zub, studying the tension at the corners of his eyes. He was hurting, drowning in old agony. She recognized the posture, the telltale lines in his jaw.
She used to know which of her would step forward here.
The diplomat.
The warrior.
The lover.
She reached inward for them.
There were no doors.
She reached deeper. Nothing answered.
No shape.
No voice.
No identity.
Just complete and absolute nothingness. A silence so total it had weight, effortlessly crushing everything else.
Then, behind the silence, like a flicker of a holo trying to bootstrap itself into coherence, something shimmered.
Not a persona.
Not one of her constructs.
A flicker of light in the black.
GAMMA.
GAMMA was not the nanites. GAMMA was not a program. GAMMA was not a mask she wore.
She was the thing the nanites were designed to keep locked away.
Gamma had no defined face. Just an outline, suggestion more than substance. A person-shaped gap where memory should have been. A construct built out of incomplete recall, half-forgotten details, and blocked memory.
She mentally stared at her, echoing the silence that surrounded them.
She stared back through time, space and memories she never knew were there.
For the first time in her existence, Gemma had no programmed identity to stand behind. Nothing to hide inside. Nothing to switch into.
No parameters.
No protocol.
Just her.
Whoever that was.
Her voice sounded different in her own head. Like an echo coming from a deeper chamber she had never entered.
"Who am I?" she asked.
The shadow flickered. It did not speak. Could not speak. The nanites used to manage his presence, filter her, control her. With them offline, she existed only as a basic neural ghost.
A hint. A possibility.
She raised no answer.
But she did not vanish.
Gemma felt her breath leave her lungs in a slow, deliberate exhale. Not fear. Not panic. Something quieter. Something that felt like truth.
Maybe she had never been any of those faces. Maybe she had only ever been a function, not a self.
She turned her attention back to Zub. His pain was real. His torment was real. He was trapped in his past. Through the darkness, she managed to see Jayson and A'Janni, both appearing lost in the same mental trap. That realization offered no comfort, instead proving that she had no past of her own to be trapped by. Her memories were stored through bio-engineering means, out of reach of whatever was happening on the bridge and likely through the rest of the ANUBIS.
She could imagine exactly how the others would react. Anya proud of the unexpected failure in the enemy's plan. Jinx delighted by a unique immunity. Wimdalli quietly hungry for a puzzle she could not unravel.
But there were no voices. No emotions. Not even the shadows of fears never before encountered.
She reached out and brushed her fingers against Zub's ridged arm, surprised by how steady her hand seemed. If anything could return first, she wanted it to be the connection between them.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Emotional Collapse"
Previous post: "Emptiness of Self" by Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Sickbay
Stardate: 45033.08010
Sickbay had fallen into the kind of silence that felt alive. No whispers of systems, no pulse of life support... only the absence of breath itself. The ship's gravity had failed, and everything drifted in quiet disarray: medical tools, data padds, even thin threads of sterilization vapor curling like ghosts through the air. The room no longer obeyed physics or reason. Neither did she.
T'Lara floated near the central examination biobed, one hand braced against the edge, though there was no real "down" to speak of. The emergency lighting had failed minutes ago, leaving only the dim red pulse of auxiliary power panels that flickered in and out like a dying heartbeat. Her mind registered every detail with the precision of habit, but her focus was splintering.
The resonance from the JELOVAAN system was not sound, not light... it was pressure. A pulse without a source, threading through her consciousness, sinking into the quiet spaces between thought and breath. It rippled through her Vulcan discipline like fractures racing beneath a frozen surface, each one a warning that the ice was about to give way. For a fraction of a second, she had thought it external, an environmental effect, radiation interference, perhaps, but then she felt it inside her, prying at the barrier she had built between logic and chaos.
Her grip on the biobed tightened. The room spun, not physically, but perceptually... the edges of the world blurring between what was real and what was simply felt.
A weak groan came from one of the biobeds, one of her patients stirring in the dark. Another monitor blinked faintly, registering unstable vitals, but she could not make her hands respond. Her fingers twitched against the edge of the bed, frozen between instinct and paralysis.
"You will not lose control," she whispered, but even her own voice betrayed her: too sharp, too Romulan. The tremor in her tone made her stomach twist with shame.
Her Vulcan self demanded stillness. "Breathe. There is no emotion. There is only the discipline of thought."
Her Romulan blood hissed back. "Feel it. Do something. Fight the dark before it swallows you."
Logic commanded her to steady her pulse. Instinct ordered her to move. Both voices clashed until neither sounded like her own.
The contrast was unbearable. Logic told her to control her breathing, but instinct told her to scream: to feel the terror clawing at her chest. For years she had buried that side of herself beneath control, ritual, meditation. But the resonance didn't care. It found the fault lines and pressed until they fractured.
A loose medical scanner drifted past her face, its surface reflecting her eyes... green, too bright, too alive. The reflection shifted... her father's face flickered where her own should have been. The same sharp features, the same green fire behind the eyes. "Control is survival," his voice echoed from memory, steady as stone.
But even the word control fractured, dissolving into a whisper she couldn't hold onto. Survival was just another theory... one more thing slipping out of reach.
Her breathing quickened. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and the resonance deepened. It was as if the JELOVAAN system itself were inside her mind, amplifying every suppressed emotion she had ever hidden beneath Vulcan calm. Fear became clarity, clarity became despair, and despair became rage... until the line between them ceased to exist.
A sudden flare of blue light split the darkness. The shock tore through her composure... she flinched, gasped, her muscles seizing in a rush of panic. Her body slammed against a drifting medkit, vials bursting free, scattering like glass stars around her. The sterile smell of alcohol filled the air, sharp and stinging, grounding and unreal all at once.
Her voice broke, a whisper choked between two selves. "Control... must be maintained..." But there was no control, only the void.
Then, through the drifting haze of silence and panic, a faint light flickered near the entrance. A shadow glided through the open doorway, graceful, slow, and deliberate. The air shimmered faintly around her as the ship's main systems sputtered back to partial function.
"Doctor T'Lara!"
Satella Bruxa's voice echoed across the room, her tone steady despite the floating debris. Her body drifted toward the CMO, the Mikulak woman moving as if the laws of physics answered to her resolve alone. She reached out, her hand catching T'Lara's wrist, grounding her with the simple contact of skin against skin.
"T'Lara," Satella's voice cut through the dark, not loud, but real. "Look at me. Breathe."
The words struck her like gravity returning all at once. Her mind reeled against the pull, but it anchored her anyway, dragging her from the hollow silence where logic and fear had been fighting to the death.
"I... cannot," T'Lara managed, her voice rough. "The resonance... it..."
"I know," Satella said, tightening her grip. "But it's not stronger than you. You just need to hold on until it passes."
Logic screamed that the statement was irrational, yet something in Satella's calm made it real. T'Lara forced herself to breathe... inhale, exhale, focus on rhythm rather than meaning. The tremors in her hands lessened. Her pulse steadied, though barely.
Around them, gravity flickered back to partial function. A few instruments clattered against the floor as the room found orientation once more. T'Lara caught herself on the nearest rail, steadying both her body and her voice.
"I... am functional," she said, though the lie was thin.
Satella's expression softened, but she didn't press. "Then let's make sure everyone else is too."
T'Lara's gaze swept the room, the silent patients, the faint blue glow of diagnostic displays returning to life. The resonance still lingered in her thoughts, a pulse beneath her calm. But now it was contained. Barely.
She turned back to Satella, her voice quieter than before. "Containment... requires discipline... How?"
Satella smiled and nodded. "Discipline requires heart."
For a moment, neither spoke. The silence between them was not emptiness but fragile understanding.
When T'Lara finally turned back to her duties, every motion was deliberate... Vulcan calm restored, Romulan fire banked but still burning. Beneath the surface of logic, emotion trembled like a heartbeat she could never silence. Control had returned, but it was fragile, and for the first time, she understood that it was never meant to be a victory.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"The Silence Between Impacts"
Previous post: "Emotional Collapse" by Dawn
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0815
Main Engineering convulsed in flickering light and fractured sound. The warp core's pulse had become a slow, guttural stutter, the ragged breath of a dying machine. Red beacons flared and faded in broken rhythm, painting the chaos in slow-motion violence. Gravity surged, collapsed, surged again, hurling bodies, breaking order.
Drayk Val'Bruxa stood at the central console, his boots magnetically locked to the deck to counter the instability. Around him, engineers struggled to move, some caught in loops of panic, others frozen in place by the psycho-resonance that had flooded the ship. The system's harmonic pulse was no longer confined to the asteroid field outside. It had invaded the ANUBIS, bleeding through hull plating, power grids, and minds alike.
The vibration crawled behind his eyes: a rhythm too precise to be random, too invasive to ignore. It threaded through thought and muscle alike, an algorithm wearing the mask of music. Stillness was surrender, and surrender meant entropy. The ship required motion. He existed to enforce it.
He forced his focus back to the console. Artificial gravity flickered between eight and zero percent. Environmental controls were unresponsive. The secondary EPS grid was fluctuating wildly, sending power surges through already damaged conduits. He rerouted what little control he had left to auxiliary stabilization nodes, his fingers steady even as his vision blurred with the resonance's pull.
Another impact rattled the hull. The sound rolled through the deck like thunder trapped inside a coffin. Dust shook free from the ceiling. Drayk's head lifted slightly, eyes narrowing. The impacts were coming closer together. The inner asteroid shell was upon them, the ship forced therein while the harmonic frequencies crippled their systems and minds alike. The ANUBIS was no longer intruding into the JELOVAAN system. The system was consuming it.
The air reeked of burned circuitry... the scent of failure. He ignored it.
"Hold," he said. Not a request, but a command. "You will hold because I said you will."
His hand trembled briefly before he crushed the motion into stillness. Fear was a feedback loop, and he could not afford it. He adjusted the stabilizer frequencies again, aligning the modulation to a narrow range between gravimetric distortions. The console spat sparks. Readouts cleared for a moment, then failed entirely.
The dead console mirrored him in red light, precision fraying under pressure. Eyes ringed with fatigue, hair damp, control absolute only by choice. The pulse in his chest was not panic; it was warning. A reminder that failure was still statistically possible.
Another impact. Louder this time. The deck beneath his boots shuddered, and for a moment the artificial gravity died completely. Tools and debris drifted upward in silent, graceful arcs. Drayk caught himself against the console, muscles tightening as he forced his mind back into alignment. He had been designed to function beyond emotion, but the resonance did not care about design. It reached deeper, to where logic met purpose.
"Satella." The name slipped through the static, anchoring him. A thousand probabilities ended the same way: her death, his failure. Unacceptable.
"No," he said. Not plea. Verdict.
He slammed his hand against the emergency control, forcing power through the manual relays. The console hissed, metal heating under his touch, but the gravity steadied. Weakly, unevenly, but enough to pull debris back to the deck. He exhaled once, sharp and controlled.
Somewhere deep in the hull, another explosion echoed, not catastrophic yet, but close. The ablative armor was starting to buckle. He felt the vibration through the floor, through his bones, through everything he was built to deny. Fear existed. That was irrelevant. Unnamed, it remained contained.
Failure was not an option. It was a concept for the uncalculated, the unprepared. He would stabilize the ship. He would not allow the ANUBIS to fall, not after what he had already done to save it.
The red lights dimmed, then flared again, painting the room in pulses of blood and shadow. Around him, the engineers remained paralyzed, their breathing shallow and erratic. Drayk didn't look at them. He couldn't. To acknowledge their helplessness would mean acknowledging his own.
He keyed the manual overrides one by one, forcing the ship to respond through sheer will. Gravity at twelve percent. Power redistribution holding for six seconds at a time. Structural integrity still degrading. Not good enough. Never good enough.
Another tremor shook the deck. He braced himself, jaw tight. The resonance was still there, pressing at the edges of thought, whispering that he could let go, that failure was inevitable. He ignored it, eyes locked on the flickering readout.
"Perfection," he said, calm and exact. "Not ideal. Parameter."
Another impact struck, deeper, closer... the system closing its fist around them. He met the sound with silence. It would learn the same lesson as every force that tested him.
The system would break first.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
“Hail”
Previous post: "The Silence Between Impacts" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, bridge
Stardate: 45033.0817
Zub Enel frowned. He had somehow lost track of what he was doing. He felt weightless, unmoored. Inside, as if the loss of gravity aboard the ANUBIS had allowed the lid to drift off a time capsule long buried deep in his mind, he vividly remembered being trapped on a derelict starbase, but armed with bloodied blades in a packed gladiatorial arena, fighting alongside A’Janni.
They were a real crowd pleaser. Both Zub and A’Janni had sparred endlessly aboard ship. Hands and blades—everything was academic, just what-if scenarios, all in the name of maintaining skill. Suddenly, all of it was necessary.
A crowd of station denizens roared and booed as each opponent faced off against him or the Flight Control Officer. It was blood sport. Arena fighting. Elimination matches. Fight increasingly stronger opponents until death. Eventually, the highlight of the event was supposed to be Zub and A’Janni fighting each other.
As a spectacle warmup, the first victims were vendors selling wares from the rickety promenade or minor officials who had offended someone in power and ended up on gore-streaked sand holding a sword or spear in front of a towering lizard man or a massive white tiger man. These common folks had to fight to survive. If they refused, dropped their blades, or faced the crowd with defiance, they were instantly vaporized by court snipers. A stark choice. Fight or die. Or rather, fight to the death.
Zub, too, would have been vaporized if he nobly refused to engage these hapless “warriors.” It sickened him to end their lives so easily; their defense was so feeble and useless—the pleading for mercy in their eyes—the inevitability of their demise plain on their strained faces as he approached. He forced himself not to think of spouses and sons and daughters. He had to keep fighting. These ‘contestants’ were merely the opening act for a deeper, more violent slaughter. He pressed on so he and A’Janni could end up facing each other and find a way to improvise an escape from this madness. He suppressed the stomach-churning guilt from choosing to kill the helpless to save his and A’Janni’s skins - in bitter irony of his duty in Starfleet to protect the victims who fell to his blade.
He drifted alone in darkness, surrounded by disembodied guilt that wreathed his chest and heart like choking smoke. He heard distant thuds and thumps, as if against the thatched roof of a hut during a hailstorm. Bearing up but beginning to splinter. A louder bang. A crunch. A crash. Like a hut weathering a rockstorm. This idea of a storm troubled him. He tried again to gather his thoughts. He was supposed to be doing something. Something important. Vital. Anything other than floating in otherworldly guilt over pointless killings from years long past.
He took in a deep breath and held it to focus his thoughts. Something was not right about this situation, clearly indicated by the ever louder thudding and banging. Once more, he was aware that he was not as completely alarmed about his chowder-headedness as he should have been. He felt like an odd calm spot, like a moored balloon in a gale on an otherwise storm-wracked sea. He hung serenely and unperturbed above wind-torn waves that slammed together, boomed, and sprayed icy water. He felt the meaty whack against his dangling legs of hapless fish that had risen too high to see what all the commotion was about.
He felt as if his thoughts had become slippery like sea foam. He couldn’t hold them firmly enough to haul them closer and see what they were. Something about the waves. Something important about the hailstorm. Something he was missing that was crucial. He gritted his teeth. He squinted his eyes. He craned his neck forward. He reached out and flailed. The identity of that vital task bobbed, sank, rose, and scooted in the wind just beyond his reach.
From the sea, a hand with delicate nails and the sleeve of a Starfleet uniform rose. It gripped his arm firmly. Cool skin. Small fingers. Strong, but not crushing. Athletic. Firm. A steadying grip, offering aid to help him regain his footing.
He winced as the lights on the bridge flickered, flared brightly, and then stayed on. Gravity pulled him harder than the hand could hold him up, sending him into a fall. His wits returned. He realized he had been floating above the Tactical station. He spread his arms but one bounced off distinctively female curves. He fell backward into his chair. The chair creaked sharply under his weight and rocked back. His long legs thudded over the top of the console and hung over the edge. His boot heels thumped against the front of Tactical. Gemma stood beside him. She expertly checked his arm with both hands as he instinctively flailed to regain his balance. He finally came to rest, his head and neck angled up the back of his seat, shoulders on the chair, with his rump on the console.
Responding to gravity, her coppery curls fell from an angelic cloud of red to bounce and dangle near her face. She said with a bemused smile, “Any landing you survive...”
A loud crash sounded, nearly knocking Zub onto the deck. “The ablative armor,” he said. He quickly regained his balance and checked the console, which was now alive with images, gauges, and bar graphs. He announced, “Armor down to 15%. We can only take one or maybe two more hits of that size before we suffer a hull breach.”
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis
"Gravity's Design"
Previous post: "Hail" by David
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0820
The pounding had stopped, leaving behind a hull that still shuddered with the memory of impact. For what felt like an eternity, the ANUBIS had weathered a storm of stone and fear, the inner asteroid shell hammering at her ablative armor until every deck plate groaned in protest. Even now, A'Janni felt the faint vibration beneath his boots, like an echo that refused to fade.
Gravity held steady now, heavier than before, as if the ANUBIS herself were exhausted. Loose tools and fragments of debris clattered to the deck, rolling toward the forward bulkhead while the ship settled into uneasy silence.
Panels pulsed weakly to life, diagnostics crawling across half-functional consoles. The lights steadied into a dull amber glow, painting the bridge in weary shadows. The air still carried a metallic tang of ozone and smoke, but it was breathable.
"Power flow stabilizing," Jayson reported, voice steadier now. "Main systems holding; secondary relays still cycling."
"Status?" Zub's gravelled voice carried across the bridge, more command than question. The light from his console caught the edge of his features, sharp against the dark.
"Minimal control," A'Janni replied. "Main power is cycling through restoration protocols. Propulsion still offline. Sensors... limited." He adjusted the interface as it fought to update. "Range just under twelve kilometers," A'Janni said. "The inner shell's pull has faded, it feels like we're being nudged forward now."
Zub's nostrils flared. "So what's pulling us now?"
A'Janni leaned forward, his single eye narrowing at the dim readings. "Definite gravity well ahead... strong, stable, planetary," A'Janni said. "We're being pulled toward a world orbiting the binary stars. Likely our intended destination."
Zub stepped closer, one hand bracing against the rail. "So the system drags us in, strips our power, and now gently guides what's left to the planet.”
The Caitian gave a low growl, not of anger but understanding. "A lure," the Caitian growled. "Everything here's built to pull ships in, to disable, not destroy."
"Lovely," Zub said. "The asteroids batter you, bleed your systems dry, then pass you along. By the time you reach that planet, if you make it through, you're broken. Harmless."
A'Janni considered the logic of it, the cold precision. "You're suggesting this entire configuration was designed to disable ships without killing their crews."
Zub's gaze swept the dim bridge. "It is a possibility. Like catching flies without crushing the wings. Whatever built this didn't want complete wreckage; it wanted survivors."
The words lingered between them, heavy as the returning hum of the power grid. A'Janni's ears twitched at the distant crackle of relays engaging through the decks below. The ship was far from recovered, but it was alive.
He turned toward the command chair. The faint glow from a nearby console revealed Shar'El kneeling beside the Captain, her expression controlled but sharp with concern. Morningstar lay still, motionless, his breathing shallow but steady.
Zub was already moving. "Doctor T'Lara," he called sharply over the comm, his voice cutting through the static. "Report to the bridge immediately. The Captain's down."
A faint hiss of interference answered before the channel stabilized. "Acknowledged. On my way," came the calm reply.
A'Janni exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders easing just enough to think. Around him, the ship was finding its rhythm again, one flickering light at a time.
The ANUBIS had survived the passage through the inner strata better than most would have, but A'Janni's instincts told him survival was only the first step. The system wasn't finished, it was guiding them toward whatever waited within.
He rested a hand against the helm console as the displays brightened another fraction. "We're moving under gravitational drift," he murmured to himself. "Course holding steady toward the planet."
Behind him, Zub's low voice rumbled, almost thoughtful. "Then maybe we're right where it wants us."
A'Janni's jaw tightened, his single eye fixed on the dark sphere forming in the haze. "Then let's find out what it wants from us."
=-=
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant Jayson Stark
Chief of Operations
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Restoring Control"
Previous post: "Gravity's Design" by Jayson
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0825
The doors to the bridge parted slower than usual, releasing a faint hiss as T'Lara and Satella stepped into the dim light and thick air. Panel flickered in uneven rhythm, proof that the ANUBIS was alive yet struggling to restore itself. The same could be said for her crew.
Erik Morningstar lay motionless near the center of the bridge, his uniform torn at the shoulder where he had struck the deck plating. T'Lara was beside him in an instant, her tricorder already active, its blue glow dancing across his features.
"Pulse is steady," she reported, her voice calm and precise. "Respiration shallow but stable. No cranial trauma. He is unconscious but will recover."
Satella crossed the deck toward Shar'El, her medical scanner already active but her concern not purely clinical. The Ullian stood frozen, her breathing shallow, hands trembling just enough to betray the turmoil still gripping her. Satella recognized that look too well; it was the expression of someone whose mind had gone somewhere it was never meant to go.
"Commander," Satella said softly, standing beside her, gently taking hold of her arm. "Shar'El, look at me. You are safe. The resonance has passed. You are here, now."
The words seemed to take a moment to reach her. Then, slowly, the First Officer blinked and turned her gaze toward the doctor. Her voice, when it came, was hoarse and low. "He saw too much... and I followed him in. It was chaos, Satella. Every memory he ever buried."
Satella placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. "The Captain is safe, and you are back now. Focus on the present."
T'Lara looked up briefly from her patient. "The Captain will require observation. He cannot resume command in his current condition."
As if in quiet defiance, Erik stirred. A faint groan escaped him as his eyes flickered open, still unfocused but conscious. "Status...?" His voice was rough, each word forced through the weight of exhaustion.
"The ship sustained multiple power failures and partial systems collapse," Jayson reported, as expected by his role on the bridge.
T'Lara briefly glared at the Operations Officer before focusing on her patient still laying on the floor. "You are not fit to resume command, Captain."
Erik struggled to push himself upright, his tone clipped but resolute. "I have to..."
"No," T'Lara interrupted, her voice firm but calm. "Shar'El can manage. Your presence here is an unnecessary risk to both you and the crew."
He met her gaze, seeing the unshakable logic behind the Vulcan's words. It was enough to make him realize that there was no room to argue.
With a quiet nod, T'Lara summoned Satella. Together they moved with silent coordination, each taking one side of the unsteady Captain. Satella slipped her arm under his, her other hand guiding his weight as T'Lara adjusted her hold. Between them, they managed to get him upright, though every step toward the turbolift felt like a battle against gravity itself.
"Keep her steady," Erik managed as the doors closed behind him.
As the turbolift doors closed, the bridge sank into silence. The sound of partial power filled the air, an uneasy heartbeat marking the ship's fragile recovery. Then Shar'El exhaled, a breath that steadied her trembling hands. She looked at the empty command chair for only a heartbeat before lowering herself into it.
Behind her, Gemma was already in motion. The faint shimmer beneath her skin signaled the nanites' return to full function, restoring both color and control. Her movements carried a renewed precision, an undercurrent of quiet purpose as the familiar chorus of her inner voices aligned with the same thought: act. She slid into the First Officer's station, fingers brushing the console as its interface flickered reluctantly to life.
"Sensors at limited range," Gemma reported, her tone sharp but controlled. "Twelve kilometers at best. Visual and magnetic alignment show planetary proximity increasing fast." Her hands moved in swift synchronization with her words. "Gravity vectors confirm descent. Unless we regain thrust, impact is inevitable." She paused only long enough to add, quieter, "The ANUBIS feels heavier than it should. The planet's field is pulling unevenly."
"Confirming," A'Janni said from the helm, his tone tense. "Control is sluggish, but the trajectory readings match. We're on a collision course."
Zub's voice came from Tactical, sharp and unwavering. "Impact in six minutes, maybe less, unless we regain propulsion."
Shar'El's fingers tightened around the armrest of the command chair, her mind clearing as instinct replaced disorientation. Around her, the bridge crew moved in controlled urgency, each console flaring back to life one after another.
Gemma's jaw tightened as she studied the erratic power flow across her screen. "Main power routing is unstable," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper meant for herself as much as anyone else. "I can reroute through auxiliary relays, but it will drain emergency reserves. If it fails, we lose everything, not just propulsion."
Shar'El drew in a steadying breath, the echoes of Morningstar's memories finally fading enough for her own thoughts to surface. The ExO turned just enough to meet the ILO's eyes. "Do it."
Gemma nodded once and began the sequence. As the power rerouted, Gemma felt the tingling beneath her fingertips, not just circuits reviving, but the ship itself answering her call.
The deck shuddered as the planet’s gravity tightened its hold. The lights dimmed, consoles flickered, and the ANUBIS groaned under the strain of forces no starship should endure.
Through the forward viewport, the planet loomed large and unyielding, an inescapable hint of what was to come unless a solution was quickly found.
Shar'El’s voice cut through the chaos, steady and commanding. "We still have time. Make it count."
The ANUBIS shuddered again as it strained against gravity, every console alive with cascading data and flickering light.
The question hung heavy over the bridge.
Did the ANUBIS still have enough strength left to pull away from the grip of an impossible world?
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Not According To Plan"
Previous post: "Restoring Control" by Rachel
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.0830
Shar'El sat in the Captain's chair. It was not the first time she had given orders from this position, but this time felt different. The seat carried a weight she had never noticed before, as if it remembered every decision Erik Morningstar had ever made. She knew what was expected of her: to command, to decide, to protect. She had done all of that before. Yet now, with the echoes of Erik's darkest memories still flickering through her mind, every breath and every word felt heavier. The bridge was the same, the duties unchanged, but she could feel the difference in her bones and in the shadows of someone else’s past whispering behind her eyes.
The deck vibrated beneath Shar'El’s boots, a low and steady reminder that the ANUBIS was fighting for every second it had left. The readouts around the bridge blurred into motion. Her hands moved without hesitation, issuing commands before thought could slow them.
"Alright, report," she said sharply, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"Structural integrity down to sixty-eight percent and falling," Jayson called from Operations. "The portside deflector grid is fried. We lost two shield emitters in the last shockwave."
"Engineering?" she demanded, already knowing Drayk would have heard.
=/\= Warp core is offline. Antimatter containment is highly unstable. Engine restart is out of the question, =/\= came his steady reply through the comm. =/\= We can give you limited thrust through the maneuvering thrusters, but impulse power is still locked out. We are running on reaction control only. =/\=
A'Janni's claws hovered over the helm controls, the fur along his neck bristling with tension. "Using Zub's calculations, we are five minutes from atmospheric entry. At our current velocity, impact is unavoidable."
Zub's voice followed, grim but precise. "Ablative armor is in bad shape following the multiple asteroid impacts. It is highly unlikely we will survive an uncontrolled atmospheric entry."
Shar'El took in the information, every number, every warning flashing across her console, and forced her breathing to steady. She had been here before, in memories that were not hers. Erik's. A thousand shades of failure, loss, and determination whispered in the back of her mind. His memories bled through her focus like a ghostly echo, but she could not afford to let them in. Not now.
"Options," she said, the single word heavy with expectation.
Maya's voice came through the open channel from Stellar Cartography. =/\= The gravitational harmonics of the upper atmosphere are fluctuating. If we can angle the deflector field to a forty-seven degree pitch against the leading edge, the pressure gradient might push us outward instead of down. =/\=
"That is not an orbit, that is a ricochet," Zub said.
"The problem is that the main deflector array is inoperative," Gemma pointed out. "If we even try, we risk blowing up the forward section of the main hull along with the lower decks of the saucer section."
Shar'El's eyes flicked toward the main viewer. The planet filled it now, clouded and immense. "Do it," she ordered. "A'Janni, do everything you can to adjust our pitch to match the vector Maya provided. Jayson, reroute what power you can from all systems including life support to the deflector grid. Drayk, reinforce structural integrity across the dorsal frame."
The pause that followed said enough. The idea of tapping into life support was being questioned, reconsidered, but everyone knew the truth: either way, their lives were at risk. At least this way, there was a shadow of hope.
=/\= Understood, =/\= Drayk answered. =/\= But we will not have enough power for more than one attempt. =/\=
"We only need one," she said.
The bridge trembled as the ANUBIS adjusted its attitude. The distant asteroid field danced in silence as the horizon of the planet rose like a tidal wave. Warnings flared in crimson across every station. The sound of the hull groaning under stress filled the air.
"Without sensors, estimating distance at roughly ten thousand kilometers and dropping fast," A'Janni growled. "We are entering upper drag. Thermal readings climbing fast."
"Hold course," Shar'El ordered. "Deflectors to full forward. Zub, deploy remaining ablative plating to the ventral sections. We'll need every available piece of that armor to save the ship... and ourselves with it."
The ship lurched as the atmosphere caught them. The inertial dampeners screamed against the shift, the lights dimming to emergency levels. The deck tilted. Metal strained. A sharp crack echoed through the hull.
"We are losing attitude control!" Jayson shouted. "Forward thrusters unresponsive!"
"Compensate manually," she snapped. "Feed auxiliary plasma to the starboard RCS. A'Janni, use the torque vectoring to pivot us ten degrees up."
"That will burn the reserves," he warned.
"Then we burn them!" she countered.
The bridge filled with heat and noise. The viewscreen flared white as plasma peeled off the forward shields, streaking past like molten fire. For a heartbeat, the ANUBIS felt as if it would split apart.
Then came the shudder.
A violent, teeth-rattling impact. The planet's atmosphere slammed against the hull, the deflector field collapsing inward for a fraction of a second before stabilizing. The ship bounced, pitched violently, then leveled. The curved planetary horizon began to shrink on the main viewscreen.
"Trajectory stabilized," A'Janni reported, disbelief edging his voice. "We are in orbit. Shallow and decaying, but orbit."
Cheers didn't come. The silence that followed was thick and disbelieving.
Shar'El leaned back in the command chair, her pulse pounding in her ears. "Status."
"Shields are completely gone," Zub said. "Ablative armor almost depleted, maybe a dozen plates still functional. Hull fractures across sections three through seven, but holding. We are alive... somehow."
=/\= Engineering here. We had to vent the antimatter to avoid a catastrophic reaction. We have no warp capability, no impulse, no shields, and no long-range sensors. =/\=
"Copy that," she said quietly. Her voice softened, not out of calm but out of exhaustion. "Maya, confirm orbit parameters."
=/\= Using visual data and basic computation, I can confirm that we are in a mid-orbital pattern, which places us well below the geostationary altitude needed to maintain position. Current orbit will decay within sixteen hours due to gravitational interference from the binary stars and the planet itself. Without propulsion, we will not be able to maintain this altitude. =/\=
Sixteen hours. It was time, but not safety.
Shar'El exhaled slowly, letting the weight of what they had just survived sink in. Her hands trembled slightly as she rested them on the armrests of the Captain's chair. She could still feel the remnants of Erik's mind brushing against her thoughts, dark memories of loss and guilt blending with her own fatigue.
"Bridge to Sickbay," she said, forcing steadiness into her tone. "Status on the Captain?"
=/\= Stable, =/\= T'Lara replied. =/\= Doctor Bruxa is monitoring him. =/\=
Shar'El nodded to no one. "Understood."
The viewscreen shifted, the planet below looming in half-shadow, its surface obscured by thick clouds and a strange aurora that shimmered faintly in the upper atmosphere. Somewhere down there, the transmitter was still active. Somewhere down there was their only way to call for help.
She sat quietly, listening to the subdued hum of damaged systems and the fading tremors of the ship’s hull. Everything was the same; the commands, the responsibilities, the crew, yet everything felt different. The weight of command pressed down like gravity itself, steady and inescapable.
"Gemma," she said finally, her voice soft but sure, "begin surface visual scans. Use whatever trick you have to narrow down the location of that Orion Syndicate transmitter. It is our only way home."
Gemma met her gaze across the bridge, nodded once, and turned to her console.
Shar'El looked back to the planet. The clouds shifted, revealing the faint glimmer of light where none should be.
"All that matters now," she whispered, "is down there."
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
#######
"The Final Countdown"
Previous post: "Not According To Plan"
##########
"The avalanche has started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
— Ambassador Kosh
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Observation Lounge
Stardate: 45033.0850
Shar'El drifted toward the chair beside the Captain's, his chair, then stopped. Sitting there on the bridge was routine; sitting there in the Observation Lounge, with Morningstar in Sickbay and the ANUBIS slowly dying beneath them, felt wrong. She remained standing as the senior staff filed in, her posture steady, but the weight of command a heavy presence at her shoulder.
"How is Captain Morningstar?" Shar'El inquired in a whispered voice as T'Lara walked past her.
"He's resting in Sickbay, sedated," the Romulan/Vulcan Doctor unemotionally replied.
"There is no time to waste," Shar'El began as soon as everyone was seated. "We have 15 and a half hours before the ANUBIS falls out of orbit and crashes down on the planet's surface. Currently, the only plan that I can think of is for us to go down to the planet's surface, locate the Orion Syndicate transmitter and use it to contact NEW ALEXANDRIA.
"There may be another purpose to locating the transmitter," Maya announced, her tone slipping into the eager cadence that usually preceded a scientific monologue. "Contacting NEW ALEXANDRIA to dispatch the HATHOR, even with its remarkable space-folding Blink-Drive, is not, strictly speaking, a guaranteed solution. Our navigational telemetry through the system was incomplete at best, and the JELOVAAN star system itself appears intentionally structured to retain matter rather than allow it to leave. Which means that even a fully repaired ANUBIS could still be unable to exit. And of course, the HATHOR is far too small to evacuate the entire crew, which, logistically, ethically, and practically, forces us to consider an entirely different approach.”
She finally paused long enough for a breath, only to continue immediately.
"Now, the Orion Syndicate transmitter operates on an extremely narrow-band transphasic subspace frequency, fascinating in its own right, which explains how its signal was able to penetrate the otherwise relentless harmonic interference of this unusual system. That same frequency, if properly modulated, could theoretically be inverted to produce a low-amplitude resonant shockwave. Not destructive, unless improperly calibrated, but sufficient to create a directional vector of force… essentially a controlled push against the ANUBIS from a distance."
Silence spread through the room as everything absorbed the extensive plan proposed by the Shillian Chief Science Officer.
"In other words," Gemma said, smoothing Maya's torrent of information into a single line, "we could use the transmitter to nudge the ANUBIS into a higher orbit."
She paused, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Assuming this wasn't something Admiral Koniki already anticipated."
"Or it could flat out destroy us," Zub countered in a slightly raised tone. "No shields. Ablative amor is next to useless, and the ship's hull is not exactly intact. Any miscalibration of this inverted wave would seal our fate."
"Either way," Shar'El sighed, "locating the transmitter appears to be our only goal at this time if we are to figure out a way to save the ANUBIS."
The doors hissed open and Captain Morningstar appeared, leaning slightly on the frame as if steadying himself. T'Lara rose instantly, Satella a half-step ahead of her.
"You should not be out of Sickbay," Satella whispered, already at his side.
"I'm aware," Erik said, voice soft but edged with exhaustion. "This is still my crew. My place is here."
His attempt at a reassuring smile faltered, but he allowed Satella to guide him to the empty chair. Shar'El's eyes briefly met hers in wordless understanding.
Once the Captain was sitting, Gemma continued with the briefing. "Following a quick visual scan of the planet's surface, we were able to identify numerous crash sites along with eight settlements surrounding a larger, central one. We can only guess that the transmitter is somewhere there."
"With the push into a higher orbit, or with the assistance of the HATHOR, we would have more time to effect repairs," Jayson said. "That would give us more time to explore a greater number of options."
"Effecting repairs is not that easy," Drayk noted. "The ANUBIS generates barely enough power to stay in orbit, so there is no way for us to replicate the parts needed."
"What about salvaging from ships that have previously fallen into this system's trap?" Shar'El said with a hint of hope.
"Based on the vegetation growth around the observed crash sites, most of them appear to be decades old, if not more. The few more recent ones do not seem to offer much hope of us finding any usable parts. Whatever might have been useful has likely already been scavenged by the local inhabitants."
"Looks like there is no way to avoid going down there and searching for parts and that transmitter," Shar'El unhappily admitted.
"If time is against us, which it clearly is," Adriana said carefully, "we need all available hands. But we also need to be mindful of what we're stepping into. The civilization we saw in the transmission is real, functioning, and likely unaware of what that transmitter actually is. If it has become integrated into their mythology or governance, even an accidental intrusion could cause irreparable cultural harm."
"The fewer people we send," Jayson countered, "the greater the odds that we will not be able to reach our mission objective in time to save both the ANUBIS and ourselves. We have highly skilled and knowledgeable non-officers who could greatly help." He didn't have to say her name, but it was evident that Stark had been referring to Ya'Han and maybe even Ya'Jun if not Christie and Cristhiane.
"Adriana is right in that we need all available hands," Gemma said. "The central settlement may be relatively small, but it would take a standard away team days, if not weeks, to search through it for the transmitter or any parts that could be useful."
Zub leaned forward, claws tapping the table. "If the transmitter is integrated into their society, as some sort of cultural artifact, taking it may be seen as theft. We should prepare for misunderstanding… or conflict. Non-lethal options only."
"Then we send who we must," A'Janni said with a low huff, "and hope the situation on the ground allows it."
"Transporter power is limited," Drayk warned. "And the interference below is scrambling sensor locks. We can barely send people down; we just can't guarantee we can bring them back up."
"Could we adapt some beacons to use the same transphasic signal that the Orion Syndicate transmitter uses?" Gemma offered. The ILO, in full form, was figuring out alternate possibilities to whatever issues they faced.
"Doable," Drayk confirmed. "Portable beacons would have to be manually modified and would have a single charge. So no beaming back and forth."
"Do it," Shar'El instructed before turning her attention to their sitting Captain.
Morningstar's tired smile flickered. "You have a plan. Good. Set up the teams. As soon as those modified beacons are ready, we start sending people down."
He paused, gaze drifting to the window where the edge of the planet barely held steady.
"Dismissed," he said, steady but drained.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"A Helping Hand"
Previous post: "The Final Countdown" by Francois
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Ya'Han's and Jayson's Quarters
Stardate: 45033.0900
The doors parted with a soft hiss and Jayson stepped inside, letting them close behind him. For a moment he remained still, allowing the quiet of their quarters to settle around him. The dim lights revealed the subtle damage the ship had suffered. A hairline crack along a wall panel. A faint flicker in one of the ceiling strips. A soft, rhythmic groan from somewhere deep in the ship's wounded frame.
Ya'Han looked up from where she sat on the floor near the couch, knees pulled close, arms resting loosely around them. The black hair that had once been a choice, then a punishment, now simply a reality, lay over her shoulder in a smooth line. Her expression was calm, but her eyes revealed the truth. She had been listening to the ship. It was something she had always done.
"How bad is it?" she asked softly.
Jayson exhaled as he crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor in front of her. He did not answer at first. He simply reached out and took her hand, his thumb brushing over her knuckles, slow and steady. The touch made her breath catch. She had not expected him to do that. She was not sure she deserved it.
"The ANUBIS is holding," he finally said. "But we have less than sixteen hours before she falls out of orbit. We are sending teams to the surface to find the Orion Syndicate transmitter. It is the only chance we have to call for help or to try something that might push the ship into a safer orbit."
Ya'Han nodded slowly. Her gaze lowered for a moment, then lifted again. "I could tell we were close to losing orbit. The vibrations in the structural supports changed. And the temperature shifts in the deck plates mean life support is fighting to keep up." She hesitated. "The ship feels tired."
Jayson stared at her, not with surprise but with something like pride. "You figured out all of that without hearing the briefing. Without access to data. Just by being who you are."
"Just by listening," she corrected. "The ANUBIS has always spoken. Sonja used to remind me that I could understand this ship in ways most people never would if I only listened. Truly listened. And I have been."
He tightened his hold on her hand. "That is why I asked the others to include you in the away teams."
She inhaled sharply. Not a gasp, not shock, but something deeper. "Jayson, I am not supposed to be anywhere near command areas. I am not supposed to be part of anything. You know why."
"I know what happened," he said gently. "I lived through it. And I died because of it. But even then, I never stopped believing you would find your way back." His voice did not break, but the weight of the truth sat between them. "And I would do it again if it meant you would come back from what they turned you into."
Her eyes widened, her breath trembling. He lifted his free hand and touched her cheek, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She did not pull away. She leaned into the touch, barely, as if afraid she might break the moment if she moved too much.
"I asked for you to be included," he continued, "because we need you. Because you know how to adapt when everything falls apart. Because you have more experience in impossible situations than the rest of us combined. And because I trust you. I trust you with my life. I always have."
The tears that filled her eyes did not fall, but they shone like stars caught in twilight. "I don't know if I deserve that," she whispered. "Not after what I did. Not after what I allowed myself to become."
"You are not that person anymore," he said firmly. "You fought your way back. You kept fighting even when you thought you were lost. The ship needs you. The crew needs you. I need you."
A faint sound came from the bedroom. A shift of weight on the floor. YaHan looked up sharply, and Jayson turned at the same moment.
Ya'Jun stood in the doorway, her posture straight but her expression softened in a way few ever saw. She had been listening for longer than either of them realized.
"Jayson is right," Ya'Jun said as she stepped into the room. "We have let the past define us for too long. We carry our mothers' secrets, her exile, the darkness forced onto us, the choices that were never truly ours. But none of that helps anyone now."
Ya'Han looked down again, her voice barely audible. "I do not know if I have earned the right to help."
Ya'Jun dropped to one knee beside her twin, placing a hand on her shoulder. "This is not about earning anything. The ship is dying. The people here are in danger. Our past cannot change that. Only what we do now matters."
Ya'Han swallowed, her breath unsteady. Jayson kept her hand in his, grounding her, reminding her through touch that she was not alone.
"You recently told me that we were born together for a reason," Ya'Jun said softly. "Not as light and darkness, but as balance. Whatever our mother intended, whatever the Lokustaar hoped for, they did not get what they wanted. We survived. We chose our own path. And right now, that path leads to the surface of that planet."
Ya'Han finally looked up at both of them. Jayson with quiet, unwavering love. Ya'Jun with fierce, steadfast resolve.
"I will go," Ya'Han said. "If they will have me, I will stand with the away team. I will do my part."
Jayson squeezed her hand again, relief softening his features. "Then we will get through this. One step at a time."
Ya'Jun nodded. "Together."
For the first time since their arrival in the system, Ya'Han felt the faintest flicker of something she had long believed lost.
Not hope. Not yet.
But for the first time since losing everything that once defined her, she felt the possibility of it.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Precision at the Edge"
Previous post: "A Helping Hand" by Hanali
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.0910
Main Engineering was breathing in broken rhythm. The lights flickered between a sickly red and the dim amber of emergency power, shadows stretching and collapsing like the heartbeat of a dying machine. Gravity dipped in irregular pulses, each one a reminder that the ANUBIS was holding together through force of will more than engineering.
Drayk Val'Bruxa stood at the primary workbench, the modified transporter beacon opened before him like a mechanical puzzle waiting to be solved. The transphasic node was still pulsing at irregular intervals, its harmonics refusing to settle. He adjusted the calibration with precise movements, every gesture efficient, deliberate, and stripped of anything unnecessary. There was no time for reassurance. No time for pride in what they had survived. The ANUBIS had less than sixteen hours before the decaying orbit surrendered completely, and the ship slipped into the gravity well that had claimed so many before them.
Satella entered quietly through the half-lit doorway. The soft hiss of the hatch felt out of place in the tense stillness. She crossed the room with steps light enough to avoid disturbing his focus, holding two field medical kits against her hip. Her voice was gentle when she spoke, slipping past the noise and fatigue that filled the air.
"The medical kits are ready for all away teams."
Drayk did not look up immediately. He adjusted the final micron shift in the node alignment, watching the flicker stabilize to something resembling obedience. Only then did he turn his head slightly toward her.
"I do not need a medical kit," he said, deadpan. "If something punctures me, it will not live long enough for you to treat it."
Satella's faint exhale might have been a laugh or a sigh. She stepped closer, close enough that the dim red glow caught the edges of her face and the silver of his hair. Her voice softened.
"Then maybe your pride can carry one instead." A pause, quieter. "Why are you not staying on the ANUBIS to help with the repairs? If anyone can steady the systems, it is you."
He closed the casing on the beacon, securing it with a decisive snap. "Because repairs alone will not save the ship. Not in sixteen hours. The ANUBIS suffered too much damage and we do not have the parts to rebuild what was lost. Keeping us in orbit is not a matter of repairs. It is a matter of buying time. Maya's projection for adapting the Orion Syndicate transmitter is the only viable path to gaining that time."
He turned fully then, his expression controlled, sharp, and unyielding. "She is brilliant, but her knowledge of subspace field architecture is theoretical. Modifying that device requires someone who understands its precision, not just its concept. I need to be there. There is no other logical choice."
Satella held his gaze, searching for anything beyond calculation. "And that is the only reason you insist on going down there?"
She knew him better than he ever admitted, a consequence of their engineered design. She reminded him of variables he could not control, the ones that refused to fit into mission parameters.
"No. I will not send you to an unknown world alone. I cannot accept that. If you are going to face whatever waits down there, I will be beside you. Protecting you is not optional. It is responsibility. And it is a choice I make every time the situation demands it."
The emergency lights flickered again, gravity dipping just enough that both of them unconsciously steadied their footing. Satella stepped close enough for her hand to brush his. Not a plea. Not a distraction. Simply an anchor.
"Then we go together," she said.
Drayk picked up the completed beacon, its harmonics steady at last, and set it with the others. Five ready. One ship failing. One path left.
"Together," he confirmed.
In the silence that followed, the ANUBIS groaned around them, as if the ship herself understood the razor-thin line she balanced on.
He returned to work without hesitation. Sixteen hours was already far too little.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"First Team"
Previous post: "Precision at the Edge" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Transporter Room 3
Stardate: 45033.0915
Transporter Room 3 felt brighter than usual. The lights had not been adjusted; the power fluctuations made them flicker with the uneven rhythm of a room holding its breath. The chief at the console kept his stance rigid, his eyes locked on the readings that jittered in quiet protest across the console. He did not look anxious, but the slight tightening at the corner of his jaw said enough.
T'Lara stepped through the doors without altering her pace. Her presence cut through the unsettled atmosphere like a stabilizing weight. She paused just inside the threshold to assess the room, noting the subtle tremors in the deck plating that corresponded to another shift in the gravimetric harmonics. Engineering was compensating, but not comfortably.
Her gaze moved to the away team equipment laid out beside the pad. Three sets of gear, precisely arranged. Jayson had done what he could to triple check everything despite the power fluctuations, but some responsibilities could not be delegated.
T'Lara approached her pack, lifting the portable bio-field emitter with a familiarity born from repetition and necessity. Its internal harmonics pulsed in soft, uneven intervals, still not fully synced to the pattern she and Satella had modeled. She adjusted the calibration with small, controlled motions, aligning the emitter to the oscillation she had mapped from the most recent telemetry.
The device hummed and then settled. A steady, clean rhythm.
Acceptable.
Behind her, the doors opened. Shar'El entered with the composed determination she carried into every mission, her eyes already sweeping the room for signs of readiness. There was no need for greetings. Both women understood the urgency, and both held a mutual respect that made words unnecessary.
T'Lara handed her the secondary scanner output as Shar'El reached the pad. "Bio field emitters are now aligned to oscillation pattern seven," she said. "Engineering reports the gravimetric shifts are increasing. Atmospheric composition is unknown, and sensor interference remains obstructive. Once we arrive on the surface, I will complete chemical and particulate analysis immediately."
Shar'El accepted the information with a single nod. "Understood."
T'Lara continued, her voice steady. "There may also be non atmospheric variables to consider. Radiation pockets, microbial anomalies, or harmonic distortions similar to those surrounding the asteroid strata. I recommend we avoid direct contact with water sources or exposed mineral formations until analysis is complete."
"I trust your judgment," Shar'El answered. Her tone was even, but her eyes were sharp. "Anything tactical I need to be aware of before we go?"
T'Lara looked toward the transporter pad for a brief moment, replaying the last forty eight hours of data in her mind, then returned her attention to the ExO. "The environment may respond to our presence. The system has demonstrated behavior consistent with reactive harmonics. It is logical to assume the surface conditions may shift in subtle ways. Not actively hostile, but unpredictable. Movement should remain deliberate."
Another nod, deeper this time.
Ya'Han and Jayson entered next, quiet, focused, each settling into their role without breaking the tension in the room. T'Lara acknowledged their presence with a slight inclination of her head, nothing more. She checked the med kit Jayson carried as he stepped past her, confirming every item by sight and weight.
Shar'El stepped onto the pad first. T'Lara followed, taking her position slightly behind and to the right. She could feel the faint tremor in the deck beneath her boots, a reminder that the ANUBIS was fighting the system with every breath.
The transporter chief spoke up, his voice tight but controlled. "Field stability at eighty four percent. Pattern buffers compensating. Be forewarned that this is going to be a bumpy ride and maybe even a rougher landing. The best we can do without sensors is an educated guess about the distance between us and the planet surface. Command Maya has provided the results of her calculations, which are scarily precise, but there is no way to know if she's right. If you want, I could shave a few measures off her numbers to make sure you don't materialize into the ground."
Shar'El met T'Lara's eye. Brief. Grounding. "We trust Maya's calculations... First team is ready."
T'Lara stood perfectly still, her breathing even, her mind dissecting the unknowns they were stepping into. She reminded herself that this was no different from any deep-cover insertion she had survived before. Unknown variables did not change her purpose. Fear, instinct, doubt, logic. Only one of them held value now.
She focused on that one.
"Engage when ready," Shar'El instructed.
The chief's fingers moved across the console. The pad began its low rising hum, power struggling to hold the pattern steady but not yet failing.
"Energizing."
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Through The Static"
Previous post: "First Team" by Dawn
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge -> Turbolift
Stardate: 45033.0917
The bridge felt smaller than usual, pressed in by flickering consoles, failing power feeds, and a stillness from the sensors that created the kind of silence that only came when systems were fighting to stay alive. Gemma stood at the First Officer's station, her posture steady despite the feeling of instability running through the ship. With the sensors slipping in and out of usefulness and the power grid fluctuating wildly, the ANUBIS did little more than hang above the planet, drifting on impulses too weak to stop the gravity pulling at her battered frame.
Static rippled across the main viewer, a wash of distortion that obscured most of the surface. Only when the interference dipped for a fraction of a second did four silhouettes appear, blurred shapes barely distinguishable from the shifting haze.
Zub leaned over tactical, squinting through the visual noise. He had always been good at reading what others missed, and today was no different. "Confirming four figures at the beamdown coordinates," he said, certain enough that Gemma did not question it. "That has to be Shar'El's team."
"Can we contact them?" Morningstar inquired, hope held in tight check.
"Due to the damaged communication's array, the outbound com signal is exceptionally weak, easily distorted by the phased interference before it even gets close to the planet's atmosphere where it gets completely scattered," Gemma reported.
"In other words," A'Janni softly growled, "What we see is what we get."
A quiet pause followed.
A ship's bridge was never meant to feel helpless. Yet that was all they were now, watching a planet they could barely see and a team they could no longer reach.
Inside her mind, the voices stirred again. Not chaotic, not overwhelming, but present in an ordered flow she had missed more than she cared to admit.
Za'Ran whispered first, cool and sharp. "We are blind. Stealth becomes meaningless when the environment hides everything."
Anya followed, all ice and precision. "Then we rely on calculated risk. Waiting gains nothing."
Lireen's curiosity pushed through next. "The system reacted to our arrival. The planet may do the same with us. Better to witness it directly. It may help to understand it more than we do right now."
Gwenvel smoothed the edges of the others with quiet reassurance. "Focus. The course will reveal itself if we stop grasping for what we no longer control."
And from deeper in the mental corridor, Gabrielle Wolfe offered a technician's perspective. "If the first team cannot signal at all, the source of the interference is likely more widespread. We go down, we find it, and we stop wasting time."
Gemma breathed out slowly, relieved to feel them again. The earlier silence had been almost peaceful, but it had also left her strangely hollow. Without them she had not known exactly who she was, and she had no time now to linger on that uncertainty.
Beside her, Zub shifted. The brush of her shifting thoughts made him sway, a brief dizziness he tried to hide. He said nothing. He never did when he sensed her internal shifts, but the way he watched her was different now. Protective. Wary. Far too aware. She missed the fleeting smirk that Seksa formed inside her mind, a silent little grin that made Gemma glance toward him for half a heartbeat before refocusing.
Captain Morningstar sat solidly in his chair, back where he belonged now that Doctor T'Lara was no longer on board to argue him out of it. His voice cut through the bridge with quiet decisiveness.
"We need the next away team down there. Direct contact is our only option. Gemma, assemble your team."
The decision was immediate. Time was bleeding away. With less than sixteen hours before the ANUBIS lost the last of her ability to stay aloft, hesitation was a luxury none of them could afford.
Gemma straightened. "Zub and Maya will accompany me. Tactical, security, and field science. We need to relay the comm limitations and begin the search for the transmitter. If we are lucky. we might find another way to communicate with the ANUBIS once we make contact with the inhabitants of the central settlement."
Maya, drawn to the conversation like gravity, stepped closer. Even in the dim bridge lighting, the spark in her eyes was impossible to miss. "I'll gather the portable science units, they should come in handy to better identify the sources of the interference, be them natural or artificial. I just hope that this same interference does not render some of my instruments inoperational."
"Some? Try most," Gemma kept her tone gentle. "We rely on visual readings and passive observation. Anything electronic is likely to fail. We already suspected this based on the mechanical technology displayed in the intercepted video feeds from that world. The transmitter is the anomaly as far as tech is concerned, not the rule. We need to get down there and move quickly."
Some of the voices quietly murmured in approval. Others pushed for urgency. All agreed on the need to act.
On the main viewer, the silhouettes flickered once more before static swallowed them completely. Gemma narrowed her eyes. She caught faint variations in the static, tiny distortions along the ridge line beyond the silhouettes. Nothing she could define yet, but enough to tighten her focus. She saw more than most. She always had.
"Captain, with your permission..." she said.
Morningstar gave a single nod.
Gemma turned toward the turbolift, Zub falling into step beside her. His presence felt unusually focused, almost tense, but she kept her attention forward. There would be time to unravel the subtle changes in him later, once the away teams were safe and their path home was far clearer than it was now.
For the moment, she needed only leadership.
As the turbolift doors closed behind them, she drew a final steadying breath. The voices settled, aligned with her purpose.
They had lost their sight, their sensors, their communication, and half their strength.
They would make do with what remained.
"Transporter Room 3," she ordered, unshaken.
The lift rushed toward the transporter room; the shaky vibration of its descent acted as a reminder of the urgency they all faced. Gemma centered herself, voices aligned, purpose sharp. Ready or not, they were past the point of turning back.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"No Turning Back"
Previous post: "Through The Static" by Rachel
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.0920
The sharp crackle of residual energy and the brief flash that made the world flicker around them were already fading from memory. In their place came a sense of calm that felt too smooth, too ready, as if the landing had been staged for them. None mentioned it, but all felt it.
Shar'El exhaled slowly. They had made it, though the static-laced shudder in the transporter cycle had been enough to make even her grip the handle of her tricorder a little tighter.
The clearing stretched out around them, wide and strangely pristine. The grass held an even hue, as though grown from a single careful design, and the light that spilled across the landscape had a soft, filtered quality. The twin suns overhead cast overlapping shadows that moved in ways the wind did not. Nothing felt random here. Nothing felt alive in the way life usually announced itself. Instead, the planet seemed arranged... engineered.
Behind her, Jayson stood two quick steps away from the residual glow of their beamdown location. He looked around, scanning the distant treeline before tapping his combadge.
"Stark to ANUBIS, we have arrived on the surface."
Silence answered. He tried again. Same result. His brow creased, but only lightly.
"We have no link to the ship. Figured as much. The interference is heavier than expected," he said, the steady ease in his voice at odds with the situation. He raised his tricorder, and SharEl watched the readings flicker and collapse into static after only a meter or two. He huffed, not frustrated so much as accepting.
"Range is barely three meters. Maybe less. But we will figure something out."
That small, almost casual confidence struck SharEl. The urgency of their fifteen hour limit should have shown in his voice, yet instead she heard a calm that did not belong on this mission. She felt it too, humming at the edge of her thoughts like a faint lullaby. A quiet, steady reassurance that was not hers.
Ya'Han had already moved into a slow, careful survey of the clearing, her expression focused, almost severe in its professionalism. Black hair, a symbol of failure for any Nylaan, framed her features, but she held herself with deliberate control.
"No signs of movement," she reported. "No structures. No energy traces. The only thing of note is a scent on the wind. Something floral... peaceful."
Shar'El caught it a moment later. It was faint, bright, and wrong for the open field they stood in. It carried no direction, only presence, as if the air itself wanted their attention.
T'Lara moved with calm precision, her medical tricorder chirping softly before it too succumbed to the short range limitation. She did not appear bothered by it.
"Readings confirm what Lieutenant Stark has reported," she said. "Electronic function is heavily dampened. The phased interference is present even at ground level. It creates a localized suppression field affecting all high frequency devices."
Shar'El watched her for a moment. There was something almost too measured in the Vulcan's voice. Not forced, but balanced with a kind of ease that did not feel like T'Lara at all. Her Romulan heritage, which usually made her wary of forced calm, should have resisted this. Instead she seemed even more composed, as if the serenity had slipped into her balance rather than disrupted it.
The planet was affecting them. SharEl felt it clearly now: the quiet that pressed instead of rested, the order that soothed rather than comforted. As if the world itself were aware of their arrival. A presence without shape or voice, observing without intruding. The longer she stood there, the more the reassurance pressed against her thoughts, telling her there was nothing to fear. Telling her to breathe. Telling her to let go.
No. She forced her attention back to the mission.
"We hold position," Shar'El said, her voice steady. "A second team should be arriving soon. We wait for them before moving toward the settlement."
Ya'Han opened her mouth as if to argue, but only nodded. Even that was unusual. She would normally insist on recon, on movement, anything but stillness. But the world seemed to press that stillness into them, smoothing the edges of every instinct.
The air around them remained quiet. No wind, no birds, no distant rumble of life. Only the faint floral scent and the soft, overlapping shadows that shifted with every heartbeat.
Shar'El lifted her gaze to the distant treeline. The branches held perfectly spaced leaves, as though sculpted rather than grown. The two suns hung above them in an unnatural harmony, their light blending into an amber wash that softened the horizon until distance lost meaning.
It should have been beautiful. It was beautiful. And yet the beauty felt rehearsed, arranged, purposeful.
She took a slow breath and allowed the calm to pass through her instead of into her. Fifteen hours to find a transmitter on a world that operated like an idea rather than a place. With failing equipment. Without support. Under the gaze of something she could not name.
Shar'El let her fingers brush the edge of her tricorder, grounding herself in its weight.
No turning back now.
This was the quiet before something. She could feel it. And as much as the planet urged peace on her, her instincts whispered a different truth.
Nothing this perfect had ever been safe to trust.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Unwelcome Peace"
Previous post: "No Turning Back" by Tiffany
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.0922
Ya'Han moved a few careful steps away from the group, just far enough to begin a slow, controlled perimeter sweep, but close enough to return within seconds if needed. She kept her movements deliberate, her breathing even. Every instinct told her she should feel alert, coiled, ready for danger.
She did not.
The calm pressed harder now. Not a soothing presence anymore, but something heavier, like warm hands on her shoulders gently pushing downward. Her thoughts blurred around the edges, drifting toward stillness she could not afford.
"Focus. You have to focus," she muttered to herself.
Her steps made no sound on the grass. Even that felt wrong. The ground accepted her weight without resistance, as if it wanted her there. As if the planet itself approved of her presence.
Too perfect. Too welcoming.
She crouched, running her fingers lightly along the unnaturally even blades of grass. No insects. No soil variation. Every blade matched the next. Perfect height. Perfect spacing. Like it had been placed by hand.
She stood once more, pulse quickening but not as much as it should have. The faint floral scent brushed against her again, drifting through the air without source or direction. It made her want to breathe deeper. To relax. To stop questioning.
She forced herself to look beyond it.
The trees at the edge of the clearing stood in immaculate rows, each trunk aligned with the next as if someone had measured the spacing with precision tools. The shadows cast by the twin suns shifted in unison, following a pattern that did not match the light.
"Nothing in nature is that uniform," she reminded herself as unsettling memories of the Lokustaar surged up, only to be gently smothered by the strange calm pressing in on her thoughts.
She swallowed hard, pushing down the rising haze in her mind. Her black hair slipped forward over her shoulder, a constant reminder of what she had lost. Once her hair could have flared red with instinctive readiness, a physical call to awareness, a surge of focus she had relied on since childhood. But now it hung dark and silent, offering no anchor and no strength.
The black was an unwelcome reminder of the darkness woven into her from birth, a mark meant to shape her path long before she chose her own. It recalled the shadow-touched version of herself she had once embraced, and the price she had paid for it. Yet even this familiar pain felt dulled now, softened by the planet's unnatural influence.
Behind her, she heard Jayson shift slightly. The sound was small, but enough. She turned in a half circle, watching him as he looked out toward the tree line, his eyes too relaxed, shoulders too loose.
He should have been tense. He should have been scanning the horizon like she was.
Instead, he blinked slowly, a faint smile forming without reason.
"You feel it too," she whispered, her voice barely above breath, as if the planet itself might be listening. **Maybe more than I do,** she added silently.
She returned to his side, just close enough for her presence to ground him.
Jayson exhaled softly. Peaceful. Too peaceful.
Ya'Han leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Something is wrong. You feel it, don't you?"
He hesitated, confusion flickering across his features. "I feel... fine. Calm. It's strange but... not bad."
That scared her more than anything.
Her hand brushed his forearm, a protective gesture she did not fully register until she felt the warmth of his skin. The connection sharpened her awareness for a moment, almost like a jolt.
"Stay with me," she whispered.
He nodded, though slowly, as if her words were sinking through deep water.
She turned back to her scan, fighting to keep her mind organized. The perimeter held no visible threats. No movement. No sound. Nothing out of place except the perfection of everything.
Which meant everything was out of place.
faint pressure gathered behind her eyes, like cool fingertips gliding along the edges of her thoughts, trying to smooth them into stillnes. It was gentle, almost loving. The same way a parent might quiet a restless child.
No. Not again. Not like the palace tutors. Not like the Lokustaar influence twisting through her mind. Not like the years she spent pretending calm while planning escape.
Her breathing hitched. The shadows at the edge of the clearing blurred, bending in soft spirals before snapping back to their original lines. The floral scent deepened, swirling around her like a comforting embrace.
Let go, the calm seemed to say.
She clenched her jaw. "No."
Her knees wavered for a brief second before she forced them steady. Her eyes swept the clearing again, harsh and precise, refusing the softness that wanted to settle over her vision.
"Something is watching us."
She did not hear it. She felt it. Like a presence just beyond sight, too faint to pinpoint, too patient to reveal itself.
She stepped closer to Shar'El, lowering her voice. "We cannot stay still too long. This place... it is pushing us toward something."
Shar'El met her gaze for a brief moment, and in that moment Ya'Han saw the same fight, the same resistance behind the Ullian's eyes. But the XO's focus snapped back almost immediately to her tricorder and the silent treeline.
"We wait for the second team," Shar'El replied quietly.
Ya'Han nodded, falling back into position. Her body remained steady, but inside every part of her trembled with the effort of staying alert.
The calm deepened.
This time, it did not simply press. It flowed inward, sliding cold and smooth along the edges of her thoughts, searching for cracks, for wounds, for old trauma lines it could slip through. And she had many. Too many.
Her father's voice. The forced training. The betrothal she fled. The Lokustaar genetic extraction. Jayson's death. Her hair turning black forever. Every memory she tried to bury rose like a tide, one by one, as if offered back to her by the planet itself.
Ya'Han's breath caught.
"No. No, you do not get to rewrite me. Not again."
But the influence kept coming, soft and relentless.
She stiffened, her hand brushing the hilt of the blade at her hip. Her fingers trembled until she forced them still.
"I am still me."
Behind her, Jayson swayed slightly, the calm pulling him deeper.
Ya'Han stepped closer again, protective, steady, unwilling to let him fall into whatever the planet wanted from them.
The air grew warmer. The scent thickened. The calm pulsed once more, like a heartbeat that was not hers.
Ya'Han felt her control slip, the calm working its way into the cracks left by past wounds and pushing against the instincts she depended on.
She clenched her fists, grounding herself in pain. In will. In the simple need to keep the away team safe.
"You will not take this from me," she whispered under her breath.
But the planet whispered back, not with words but a wave of emotions and an overpowering feeling.
Let go.
The clearing shimmered at the edge of her vision, its perfect lines warping like heat haze.
And the calm kept pushing.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
“Second Team”
Previous post: “Unwelcome Peace” by Hanali
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 7, Transporter Room #3
Stardate: 45033.0925
Zub Enel trailed Maya and Gemma from the turbolift, following his habit of staying protectively close behind two of the smartest females he knew.
Transporter Room 3 was lit more brightly than usual. The glare enhanced the flickering as power fluctuated. The decking pulsed with an uneven rhythm. Zub held his breath.
The chief at the transporter console kept his stance rigid, his eyes locked on the readings. He said calmly, “The first team has arrived safely, or so it would appear.” He glanced at Lt Cmdr Maya, the Shilian Chief Science Officer. “Your estimated coordinates were spot-on, sir.” He looked back at the console. “Interference should clear in a few moments for long enough for a beam down. Please take positions.”
Maya said as she stepped on the transporter pad, “I should have been on the first away team since there was a considerable set of error bars on my calculations. The gravametric waves are especially difficult to separate from the planet’s own gravity and that from the twin stars and other sources. I was trying for millimeter precision but had to do more guesswork than I am comfortable with.”
Faint beeps came from the console as the operator set up for beam down. “If you had been wrong, you could have been lost, sir. You wouldn’t have been here to correct whatever error was made so that another team could beam down. We’d be trapped in orbit. So…” He trailed off.
Gemma had already stepped onto the platform. She wore her game face — a trained assassin and infiltrator, deadly at first contact.
Zub assumed a position behind Maya and her. A flutter came from his tiny constellation of nanites as they reached out to link with her full complement. Her head turned slightly toward him, as if acknowledging that she felt their link. He caught the faintest breath of a feeling from her. It was buried under layers of professionalism.
Worry.
The operator said, staring intently at his console, ”A stable window for transport is approaching.”
Zub stood straighter. Gemma was not one to worry. He was certain she wasn’t worrying about her own abilities to adapt and survive on this unknown planet, nor his.
He heard himself say, “Nathan.”
Gemma's head turned enough toward him that she could give him a sidelong glance around the coppery curls of her hair.
He said, “He’s probably helping Satella or Drayk more than they ever hoped.”
Gemma didn’t smile, per se. The corners of her mouth rose a fraction. She pointed her head back forward. She said, her tone clear and commanding, “Energize when you deem it is safe.”
The operator raised his elbows as his fingers worked the controls. “Energizing. Good luck.”
The transporter sang and warbled various notes as it started the transfer sequence. The room's lights brightened and flickered. The room grew indistinct behind an ever-thickening curtain of shimmering stars. As if through a slowly lifting fog, a rough outline of a circle rose. Details built up. Grass. A field. Woods beyond. The first Away Team is standing in a ragged line watching.
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.0928
Zub’s boots dropped through the air. Just as his arms flew out to catch himself, his boots plopped against grass and soft soil.
Maya said in self-deprecation, “Miscalculated by about 3 centimeters. At least I was high.”
The air held a pleasant scent, but Zub saw no flowers. Relief and calm washed over him for being successfully transported instead of being rematerialized in a rock.
The three of them were in a clearing that seemed strangely holographic in its uniformity. Grass looked wild but freshly mowed. The trees forming the woods beyond were the same height and shape, evenly spaced, like fence posts.
“Did we go through a tesserat?” He asked, not sure of the source of the word.
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis
---
"First Impression"
(Previous Post: "Second Team")
---
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.0930
The moment Maya stepped onto the pristine green grass, her breath caught in her throat. It was not shock, nor fear, nor even delight. It was something far more difficult to quantify. The world before her was perfect. Not in the casual, aesthetic sense used by artists or poets, but in the strict, unforgiving language of mathematics. Every angle, every curve, every placement of flora and stone obeyed a symmetry so precise that her scientific mind recoiled before leaning back in with hungry fascination.
"Commander, everyone... this is extraordinary," Maya said, her voice rising with the same energetic pitch she used whenever science itself dared to surprise her. "The environment displays a degree of structural exactness that should not be possible in a naturally occurring landscape. The curvature of the tree line, the uniformity of the ground slope, even the chromatic consistency of the grass blades all fall within a margin of variance that approaches absolute equilibrium. It is as if the entire clearing were drafted by some cosmic architect intent on demonstrating the purest form of harmonious geometry."
No one interrupted her. No one even shifted. The air around them felt thick with calm, a sensation that settled on their shoulders like a warm, invisible cloak.
Maya blinked several times, her large Shillian eyes widening further as her attention shifted from what she saw to what she felt. There was a vibration beneath her feet, far too gentle to be called a tremor, yet unmistakably present. A harmonic resonance pulsed in perfect rhythm, not through the ground alone but through the air, through her lungs, through her very nerves. It was as if the planet itself were alive.
"I am experiencing a harmonic sensation," she announced, stepping further into the clearing. "An oscillatory pattern that appears to be interacting directly with the nervous system. It is subtle, exceptionally refined, and entirely pervasive. My tricorder is only able to acquire readings within a radius of one meter, which suggests that the interference patterns saturating this region remain active even at close range. The resonance itself appears to mirror the binary stars above. Their overlapping magneto-gravitic pulses must be propagating through the crust and atmosphere of this world in a synchronized pattern."
She paused, confused by her own stillness.
"I should be alarmed by this," she admitted aloud, though her tone did not match the words. "I should be overwhelmed by the gravitational phase variances, by the lack of long-range sensor capacity, by the geological impossibility before us. Yet I am... calm. Exceptionally calm. Unnaturally calm."
Her tricorder emitted a soft tone as she turned its sensors toward herself.
"Fascinating. My parasympathetic nervous system is responding to the ambient harmonic frequency as though it is a natural stabilizing agent. It is reducing my stress response, diminishing my sense of urgency, possibly even influencing higher cognitive prioritization. This is deeply counterintuitive. The suppression of instinctive curiosity should alarm me, but instead I find the sensation... pleasant."
She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. The air was flawless. No particulate matter, no biological irritants, no thermal inconsistencies. Yet there was movement, an invisible flow that carried a floral aroma not represented by any plant in sight.
"There is airflow without wind," Maya continued, her voice drifting as she extended both hands outward. "A perfectly balanced distribution of thermal and aromatic elements. The flora present consists solely of trees and grass, yet the aroma suggests a wide range of flowering vegetation. The filtration characteristics resemble that of a controlled environmental dome, but the readings do not support artificial containment. Everything is stable. Everything is pure. Everything is so very..."
She hesitated, an emotion stirring behind her scientific front.
"It feels like home," she whispered, the word escaping with a weight far older and deeper than the mission itself. "Not Shillia, of course. That world is gone. But this place carries a sensation of belonging that I have not felt since before the destruction of my people. This calmness, this serenity, this... acceptance. It is as if the planet itself is attempting to soothe burdens I have carried for far too long."
For several seconds, she allowed the feeling to exist without examination.
Then, inevitably, curiosity returned with renewed force.
"This is an unnatural biological silence," she declared, her voice snapping back into its usual cadence. "There are no insects, no birds, no movement within the trees, and yet the ecosystem presents as vibrantly alive. It is abundance without activity. Life without motion. Balance without competition. The geological structure beneath us is equally improbable. Seismic readings indicate no tectonic tension at all. None. The crust is in a state of absolute equilibrium. There is no volcanic pressure, no atmospheric variance, no thermal instability. A planet with this degree of stasis should not exist, particularly beneath the continually shifting gravitational influences of a binary star system. Something is maintaining this condition, either consciously or as an emergent property of a larger phenomenon."
Her voice levelled, drifting into something softer, almost dreamlike.
"And yet, I do not feel compelled to challenge it. That is the part that troubles me most."
Her gaze lifted toward the shifting sky. The dual stars cast overlapping hues across the atmosphere, creating gradients that refused to settle into any single colour. Rose shifted into gold, gold into violet, and violet into a crystalline azure that seemed to pulse in harmony with the resonance beneath their feet.
"This world is a symphony," she said. "A precise, deliberate symphony. Every wavelength, every frequency, every gravitational pulse is guided toward a singular state of... serenity."
She suddenly stopped speaking, not because she had run out of words, but because someone was walking toward them.
"Commander Shar'El," Maya said quietly, "there is an individual approaching."
The figure stepped out from the distant tree line with unhurried ease, hands visible, posture relaxed. No weapon, no tension, no sign of caution or fear. Just a calm, steady walk toward the team as if this meeting were entirely expected.
Maya took several steps forward before she realized she was moving. Not with caution, not with analysis, but with an instinctive and untroubled acceptance that did not feel like her own.
"I am... going to greet them," she murmured, the calmness washing over her again. "It seems the most reasonable course of action."
Behind her, no one protested. No one even shifted in warning. The serenity wrapped around them all like a soft, invisible hand.
Maya moved toward the approaching stranger, curiosity and tranquillity twined tightly together, each feeding the other in an impossible loop as the perfect world watched in silence.
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"World of Peace, Words of Chaos"
Previous post: "First Impression" by Jessica
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.0935
For a long moment, no one breathed. Or maybe they did and simply did not notice. The calm pressed in too smoothly, too warmly, turning every instinct into softened echoes. The stranger remained little more than a silhouette against the immaculate tree line. Yet with every unhurried step they took, the serenity thickened, as if their presence deepened the calm around them.
Maya remained perfectly still, chin lifted, eyes wide and studying. It was the kind of focus she normally reserved for molecular anomalies, but now it came with none of her usual brightness. She simply watched, calm and curious, as the stranger approached. The sway in the woman’s steps hinted at someone deeply at peace, carrying herself with a quiet, unmistakable femininity.
Gemma felt the shift before anyone else did. A warmth along the spine, a curl of pressure across the skin, a tingling under the skull where the whispers of her other selves usually stirred. Except now those whispers were muted, hovering at the edge of silence. The quiet was so unnatural that it scraped at her nerves.
It took effort to make her jaw move.
"Zub," she murmured near his shoulder, her voice low and tight despite the serenity curling through her mind, "your tesseract, or being transported to any other dimension, would have been easier to understand than this."
Zub gave the smallest nod, but even that seemed slowed, softened. The calm was not just emotional anymore. It felt physical, as if something in the air wanted them all to drift toward harmony.
Ya'Han glanced between them, her usual readiness drowned beneath the same warm haze. None of them so much as touched a weapon. The idea of doing so felt wrong, like trying to strike at a friend.
Fifty meters dwindled to forty, then thirty. The woman's steps made no sound on the grass. She moved like someone who had walked this path a thousand times, confident and unhurried, certain they would meet her halfway.
When she became clear enough to see properly, the details came with quiet surprise. Long blonde hair shifted as though caught by a wind that did not exist. Her ears carried the tapered elegance of Vulcan or Romulan ancestry, yet her smile held an expressive warmth neither species usually displayed. Age touched the corners of her eyes, but only enough to emphasize the depth of it. Everything else about her radiated youth in motion, a joyfulness woven into every step.
Her clothing was unlike anything in Starfleet records. Layered fabrics in warm tones, stitched with clockwork-like accessories, polished brass, soft leather belts that held no devices at all. An aesthetic born of a world with no working technology, yet crafted with pride and precision.
She stopped a few meters from Maya.
The Shillian did not retreat, nor advance. She studied the woman as if standing within the eye of a gentle storm. Even the harmonic resonance beneath their feet felt aligned with the stranger's arrival, as though the planet itself leaned in.
Shar'El took a step forward, and the others followed, slower than their training would have dictated. Her voice, when it came, was soft, almost tender.
"We mean you no harm."
The words floated between them, enveloped by the same serenity saturating the air.
The woman’s reply drifted back like music, gentle and melodic, yet impossible to understand. Her language shimmered between sounds, shifting dialect mid-word, blending familiar phonetics with patterns that did not exist in any known tongue. Ancient, soothing, and entirely alien.
Jayson frowned faintly. "The universal translators are linked to the ship's computer. With comms down, it makes sense that nothing is working."
T'Lara's brow lifted. "I do not recognize any Romulan or Vulcan root. Some elements sound nearly familiar, but they do not match any dialect I know."
Gemma exhaled slowly as Tahlia's diplomatic instincts rose from within her, steady and clear despite the resonance smothering everything else.
"She is speaking a fusion of languages," Gemma said quietly. "More than a dozen. Even if we had operational translators, I doubt they could parse that."
The woman smiled at them. Not a broad smile, but one filled with a radiance that warmed the chest and softened every thought that might have led to hesitation. She turned, took several graceful steps toward the distant unseen settlements, then looked back with expectation. No gesture. No words. Only a warm invitation carried in her stance and her eyes.
And somehow, that was enough.
The team moved, without any debates, objection or instruction. They accepted the invitation for exactly what it felt like: a welcoming.
Not quickly. Not cautiously. Simply moved, drawn forward by the same serenity that pulsed through the ground and air and heart. Even Zub accepted the motion without protest, and Ya'Han’s usual alertness melted into quiet acceptance.
Gemma hesitated a heartbeat longer. The voices in her mind remained muted, their guidance distant, as if cushioned by the same impossible calm pressing into her thoughts. She needed them, not that she would ever openly admit it. She needed their sharpness, their contrast, their grounding. Yet the peace around her pressed in like a tide, patient and inevitable.
She followed the others, feeling the calm creep deeper, knowing that if this continued much longer, even she would stop fighting it.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Timely Argument"
Previous post: "Voice of Peace, Words of Chaos" by Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge -> Turbolift
Stardate: 45033.0940
There was an odd silence latched onto the command deck as Drayk and Satella stepped out of the turbolift. There was no hesitation in their steps as they approached Captain Morningstar, sitting in the central chair, his gaze locked on the visual display on the beam down area which now stood empty. The lighting flickering subtly as if the ship anticipated what was to come.
Drayk didn't slow as he approached. "Third team is ready. Issue the order."
"Thank you," Erik acknowledged, never taking his eyes off the main viewscreen.
Satella stepped smoothly into Drayk's path, one hand lifted in a quiet, deliberate halt. His momentum was all urgency, all reflex, but hers was measured caution. “Captain?” She kept her voice soft, but there was a searching edge beneath it. Something in the air felt wrong, and she wanted the next few seconds to slow down enough for her to understand why.
"Both of the away teams are being escorted by an unknown individual to the nearby settlement," Morningstar spoke as if distracted by some private reverie, his cadence drifting into something too calm, too lyrical for the circumstances. Satella felt the first prickle of unease at the base of her neck. A ship under threat usually sharpened him. Now he sounded detached, almost entranced. "Without sensors or communication, there is no way to know, but based on the way everyone followed, it was a peaceful invitation which they graciously accepted."
"That only increases the risk of delay. While they walk, we fall behind. We go down now, and reassert control of the mission."
"The transmitter remains our only safeguard if the ANUBIS is to stay in orbit," Satella said. She kept her tone even, but her eyes didn't leave the Captain. His posture, his breathing, the slackness around his eyes, all suggested a level of ease completely out of sync with the situation. He should have been keyed up, calculating, already three steps ahead. Instead, he looked as though the urgency hadn't quite reached him. Her medical instincts filed that away instantly.
Erik's delay in responding was subtle but unmistakable. Satella watched the flicker of confusion pass behind his eyes before recognition finally settled. She leaned in a little, lowering her voice. “Captain, are you all right?” It wasn't a challenge; it was a clinical check, the kind she used when a patient didn't yet realize something was wrong.
"I want to make sure people can return to the ANUBIS if the need arises," he answered as he pushed himself up from the chair. Satella studied his movement, noting the slight hesitation, the way his focus didn't fully land on either of them. Her concern sharpened. Whatever was influencing him, it was subtle, not dramatic enough to raise alarms, but unmistakably off.
Satella stepped back just enough to give him room, though she didn't stop watching him. Relief didn't quite settle; she wasn't convinced his clarity would hold. But for now, he sounded like Morningstar again, and that was enough to follow his orders without protest.
"Hope isn’t a strategy. Without the transmitter, the ship dies. Beacons won’t save anyone. Time is the enemy. We take the transmitter. Everything else follows."
"You are right," Erik said. "Ani can take care of any last minute transporter issues, but getting the ANUBIS into a higher orbit has to be our priority. Head down to Transporter Room 3 and wait for my orders. I will not be long."
Drayk gave a curt nod. “We'll be in Transporter Room 3. Preparation will be complete before your hesitation is."
They stepped into the turbolift together, the doors sliding shut behind them with a soft thud. The moment the bridge was sealed off, Satella let out the breath she'd been holding.
"Deck seven."
The lift began its descent, humming with an indifferent calm that felt at odds with the storm gathering in her thoughts.
Satella angled her head toward him. "You felt it too."
Drayk didn't look at her right away. His jaw flexed, a small sign of agitation coming through the cracks of discipline. "Morningstar hesitated. That’s unacceptable."
"That's not what I mean." Her voice stayed low, steady. "Something shifted in him. His speech pattern, his affect. It was almost like he was listening to something we couldn't hear."
The Engineer's brow tightened. "Speculation wastes time. The transmitter solves the only problem that matters."
She studied him for a moment longer. "It wasn't distraction."
His eyes flicked to her then, sharp and assessing. "Define it."
"I don't know yet. But I'm not ignoring it," she paused. "I am worried about him."
Drayk's jaw tightened. "Worry changes nothing."
The lift slowed as they reached their destination. The doors slid open, washing the small space with brighter corridor light.
Drayk stepped out first. "Mission first. Everything else waits. Until then, stay focused."
Satella followed, her gaze lingering for half a heartbeat on the closing doors before turning toward the transporter room.
"I am focused," she murmured under her breath. "That's why I noticed."
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
and
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Paths Chosen, Paths Waiting"
Previous Post: "Timely Argument" by Scott
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counseling Office
Stardate: 45033.0945
The Counseling Office had settled into one of its rare moments of absolute stillness. The soft trickle of the small waterfall offered a gentle background presence, as if encouraging the room to breathe. Adriana usually found comfort here, but this time the calm felt sharper, more deliberate, as if the ship itself was holding its breath while the lights flickered overhead.
Adriana glanced to Amanda, who sat curled on the couch with her knees loosely drawn up, trying to look at ease and failing. Their shared connection hummed between them, not words, not thoughts, but a faint emotional echo that had become stronger since leaving the Yautja Matrix behind. Amanda felt the tension before Adriana even spoke. That was becoming common.
Ya'Jun stood near the small fountain, her posture relaxed, her hands loosely clasped in front of her. The blue and white of her outfit softened in the room's gentle glow, making her appear almost serene. Adriana had sought her out, and Ya'Jun had accepted without a hint of hesitation.
"Thank you for meeting with us," Adriana began. Her voice came out calmer than she felt. "I wanted to ask you something. Something... difficult to put into words."
Ya'Jun gave a small nod. "Then you chose the right place. Words do not always behave. Sometimes they need a moment to gather themselves."
Amanda let out a quiet breath. Adriana felt it ripple across their bond like a whisper.
"It's about destiny," Adriana said. "Do you believe in it?"
Ya'Jun's expression did not change, but something thoughtful settled in her eyes. "That is a question that has shaped entire cultures," she said. "But I am curious. Why ask it today?"
Adriana hesitated. She searched for the correct professional phrasing, the neutral, Counselor-approved way to express the feeling that had been gnawing at her since their arrival in the JELOVAAN system. But the veneer cracked almost immediately.
"Because something feels wrong," she admitted softly. "Or maybe not wrong. Just... larger than us. Like events are already moving, and we are only catching up to them."
Amanda straightened, her brow tightening. She felt her sister's unease as clearly as her own heartbeat.
Ya'Jun considered this for a moment before she approached the couch, choosing to sit in the chair opposite the twins. She leaned forward slightly, but not in a way that pressed. "I have walked many paths people called destiny," she said. "Some of them were forced upon me. Others were illusions created by men with more ambition than compassion."
Amanda blinked. "Like your father."
There was no judgment in the question. Just truth.
"Yes," Ya'Jun replied. "He believed he was shaping our destinies. Mine, my sister's. Every step, he tried to turn into a path he had chosen for us. A future he decided we were meant to live."
Adriana nodded lightly. "And yet you changed that path."
"Many times," Ya'Jun said. "Destiny is often described as if it is a fixed road waiting to be walked. I have learned that it is more like a direction. A pull. One that we can follow or resist, sometimes more than once in our lives."
Amanda shifted, restless. "But how do you know which is which? A pull you choose or one someone put in your head?"
Ya'Jun smiled gently. "You do not always know at first. But you learn. You listen. And when the moment arrives, you feel the difference. The decision becomes your own."
Amanda hugged her knees a little closer. "I lived in a place where everything was designed to manipulate my choices. Every path was a trap. Every instinct was something they wanted from me. I don't know if destiny means anything to someone who spent twenty years in a place where every choice was engineered."
Adriana's hand moved halfway toward her sister, then hesitated. Amanda felt the intention anyway, and her own quiet assurance pulsed back. It steadied Adriana enough for her to speak.
"I always knew I would find you," she said. "Not because it was destiny. Just because... I knew."
Amanda looked up at her, eyes wide and shining, caught between disbelief and gratitude. "You weren't even sure I was real," she teased with a smile.
Ya'Jun watched them both. "And that is precisely why destiny is not a cage," she said. "If someone had told you that you were required to find your sister, the meaning would change. But you chose that path yourself. Again and again, despite your beliefs that she might never be found. A choice can look like destiny from the outside, but it remains yours on the inside."
She let that settle. Then added softly, "Just as my sister and I made our choices. Some called us daughters of light and darkness. Roles written long before we were born. But neither of us accepted those roles without shaping them to our own will. Destiny can only guide. It cannot force a step."
Adriana let the words sink into her. She wanted them to soothe the unease building in her chest, but the sensation only shifted, coiling into something more focused. Not fear. Not anxiety. Something closer to recognition.
As if something unseen was aligning around them.
Amanda caught her breath at the same moment, mirroring her sister's reaction through their bond.
Ya'Jun noticed. "You feel something?"
"I don't know," Adriana said. "It feels like... something is waiting. Watching. Preparing for the moment to reveal itself."
Amanda swallowed. "Like someone is walking toward the center of something without realizing it."
"The way the ANUBIS has been pulled and pushed toward this world," Adriana added. "Everything about this feels like it is much more than we were told."
Ya'Jun nodded thoughtfully. "That is often how destiny works. A person may step toward a path without realizing the ground has been preparing for them."
The room grew still. Not tense. Just aware.
A soft chime sounded. The doors to the Counseling Office parted, and Erik Morningstar stepped inside.
He paused when he saw them, sensing the atmosphere but not understanding it. The quiet shifted just enough to raise the hairs on the back of the neck, as if the air itself had leaned in to listen.
Adriana, Amanda, and Ya'Jun exchanged a brief look.
"Am I interrupting something?" Erik asked.
No one answered right away, but he sensed that something important had just been spoken into the room, even if none of them fully understood it yet.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
#######
"The Third Team"
Previous post: "Paths Chosen, Paths Waiting"
##########
"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us."
— Commander Susan Ivanova
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Corridor outside the Counsellor's office
Stardate: 45033.0950
The Native American moved quickly, his stride clipped and focused. Ya'Jun kept close, matching his pace. The silence between them was not awkward; it was loaded, stretched thin by urgency and the countdown everyone felt but no one dared voice. Whatever Erik had said earlier had been brief, but it was enough for the sister of their former Chief of Security to understand that her presence was needed, and needed now.
"Captain... with all due respect, this feels rushed. Are you certain this is the path you want us taking?" Ya'Jun asked as the turbolift doors opened with a soft hiss.
"I am," Erik answered, motioning for the black-haired Nylaan woman to step inside.
--==/\==--
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 7 Corridor to Transporter Room 3
Stardate: 45033.0951
"Captain?" Christy exclaimed as the doors stuttered open, the panels hesitating just long enough to hint at another subsystem faltering. The sound alone was enough to tighten her chest. "I received your message, but..."
"Follow me," Erik said, brushing past her without breaking stride.
Christy shot a quick whisper to Ya'Jun as they moved. "What is going on?"
Ya'Jun smiled just enough to be reassuring. "In short, the time for debate is over. The Captain has chosen our course."
Nothing but the echoes of their footsteps filled the corridor.
They stepped into the transporter room and found Drayk and Satella already there, their posture tight, eyes fixed on the door as if they expected the worst kind of news. Before either of them could speak, Erik addressed the assembled officers.
"Lieutenant Val'Bruxa, your words made one thing unmistakable. Our window is closing, and we cannot lose a single minute. That is why the four of you will head down to the planet under your leadership. Ya'Jun will serve as security. Her combat skills have been witnessed and praised by Shar'El and others. Christy will act as your science specialist, which will allow Satella to focus entirely on medical concerns. I trust your precision and determination to keep your team safe while you search for the transmitter or any other solution that can save the ANUBIS."
Drayk and Satella exchanged a brief, worried look. It was Satella who spoke. "Captain, we thought you would be coming with us."
Erik shook his head. His voice was calm, but there was steel behind it. "I would be with you if I could. But the ANUBIS is falling and failing around us, and I will not leave her bridge until the last option is gone. My place is here. Your place is down there. That is why Ya'Jun and Christy will accompany you. Your mission is simple. Do whatever you must to save the ANUBIS."
Drayk gave a firm nod and handed out the modified personal beacons, each calibrated for emergency transport once their task was complete. He ushered everyone onto the platform.
Erik gave the slightest nod to the transporter chief. The hum of the system built unevenly, flickering once in a way that made everyone tense, before the beam finally took hold. The four officers dissolved in a cascade of unstable light. Adriana and Amanda entered just as the last spark faded.
"Captain... please tell me you are certain about this?" Adriana asked quietly.
Erik exhaled, the weight of command settling heavily on his shoulders. "We have fourteen hours left before gravity finishes what the asteroid fields started. If the away teams do not find the transmitter, the ANUBIS dies. It really is that simple. Drayk is right. The more people searching for that transmitter, the better our chances."
Amanda tilted her head. "And if their mission fails, it means fewer people to evacuate. A difficult choice, Captain. But if this were a Yutja survival simulation, your decision would be flagged as optimal under catastrophic-loss parameters. Trust me, I should know."
"Thank you," Erik replied with a small nod. "But I am not ready to surrender this fight."
"Then we keep fighting," Adriana said. "All of us, until the final second."
"Good," the Captain said, a strange calm settling over him. "I have a question for you... Do you believe in destiny?"
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"No Turning Back"
Previous post: "The Third Team" by Francois
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, Forest path
Stardate: 45033.0950
The branches around them swayed in a slow, synchronized motion, even though the air was completely still. The worst part was how little it bothered Shar'El. It should have unsettled her far more than it did. It should have bothered everyone.
The woman walked ahead of them with a steady, unhurried stride that somehow set the pace for both away teams. She never looked back to check if they were following. She didn't need to. There was something about her presence, quiet and assured, that made falling in behind her feel natural. Too natural.
Shar'El kept close, matching the woman's pace more tightly than she normally would. On her other side, Gemma did the same, as if the two Intel officers had instinctively collapsed into a narrow formation around their guide. This alone should have raised alarms. Instead, the awareness drifted somewhere out of reach, as if her mind had been wrapped in soft cloth.
The forest stretched in all directions with identical precision. Every tree stood the same height, spaced at perfect intervals, each trunk marked with the same pattern of bark and the same angled branches. Jason had noticed first, muttering something under his breath, but even that mild concern faded almost immediately. The symmetry bordered on unnatural, a pattern too exact to be organic. It should have set the group on edge. Instead, the forest felt peaceful. Comforting. Intentionally arranged.
Shar'El forced herself to focus. There was purpose here, and it wasn't coincidence.
Their guide's mind felt easy enough to reach. Too easy. The Ullian took a careful breath, then opened the path between them.
Memories spilled forward, soft and unguarded: walking this same trail, carrying baskets of vegetables; the warmth of small hands tugging at her sleeves; laughter at a communal fire; the honest joy of returning home after a day's work. Nothing secretive, nothing dangerous. It felt pure. Almost painfully pure.
Shar'El almost withdrew, struck by a strange guilt. She shouldn't feel bad for doing her job, yet a gentle, inexplicable calm pressed down on her, coaxing her away from suspicion. She pushed through it and dove deeper.
The calm shimmered. For a heartbeat, everything behind the woman's memories dropped away. Not shielded. Not concealed. Just absent, as if a page had been torn from a book. A blank pocket of nothing. The moment Shar'El noticed it, she felt the same soothing warmth pull her away again, smoothing the concern before she could anchor it.
She blinked hard. Gemma glanced sideways at her.
"You felt it too," Gemma murmured, voice low enough that the rest of the group wouldn't hear.
"I felt and saw something missing," Shar'El replied. "Not dangerous. Just absent."
"Nothing about this place is nothing," Gemma said. She kept her eyes forward, but her posture had shifted. The calm wasn't settling into her the way it wanted to. If anything, the forced serenity was making Gemma more tense. "The language she spoke earlier. You noticed it."
Shar'El nodded. "It wasn't a single language. It was a patchwork of structures that should never fit together. Vulcan and Orion grammar, Romulan cadence with moments that slipped into Gorn patterns. Terran-shaped words that meant nothing. None of it should be able to coexist."
"I should be in full Intel analysis mode," Gemma said. "Alert, calculating, paranoid. Instead, I feel like we're out for a walk in a park. And I hate it."
Shar'El didn't have to read her to understand the discomfort. She felt it too, buried under the sedating atmosphere that shadowed every step.
Behind them, the rest of the team followed quietly. Zub's usually sharp gaze drifted lazily from tree to tree. Maya seemed almost entranced by the uniform canopy overhead, her scientific curiosity softened into a strangely gentle interest. Even T'Lara's disciplined composure looked subtly relaxed, as if logic itself had been lulled by the forest's symmetry.
The guide hummed under her breath. A simple tune. Happy. Familiar to her. Shar'El caught a flicker of the memory behind it: children imitating the melody during chores, neighbors smiling as they passed. It was all so ordinary. Comforting. And it wrapped itself around the away teams with the same quiet ease.
They walked like that for several minutes, the air heavy with peace that didn't belong to them.
Then the trees opened.
Shar'El stepped forward first, her breath catching. The forest parted with the same unnatural precision, revealing a settlement spread across the valley beyond. It was bustling with movement, but no chaos. People worked at brass-fitted machines, gears spinning in perfect rhythm. Steam hissed in soft bursts from pipes woven through rooftops. Mechanical carts glided along tracks that seemed assembled from a dozen eras of technology, all adapted and repurposed with practiced hands.
It shouldn't have been possible. Not with the technological suppression they had already confirmed. And yet the entire community pulsed with life, with invention, with a structured charm that spoke of decades, maybe even centuries of adaptation.
Everything moved smoothly. Peacefully. Too peacefully.
The guide paused at the forest's edge and turned back to them, smiling with simple, welcoming joy. Shar'El felt the echo of that joy in the woman's mind, radiating outward like warm sunlight.
Shar'El didn't realize how close she had drifted toward the woman until Gemma touched her arm. The simple contact cut through the soft haze she hadn't noticed gathering around her thoughts.
"This is wrong," Gemma whispered. Not loud enough to alert the others. "Beautiful, but wrong."
Shar'El exhaled, slow and measured. "I know."
But the calm was already sliding back into place, urging them toward the settlement as if it were exactly where they belonged. As if this had been their destiny all along.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Peaceful Meeting of the Mind"
Previous post: "No Turning Back" (#048) by Tiffany
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, Settlement
Stardate: 45033.1000
The woman who guided them along the forest's unnervingly straight path moved with a quiet confidence that reminded T'Lara of elder priestesses she had observed in the monastery. Her features carried unmistakable Vulcanoid structure, softened by Romulan undertones. She said nothing as she led them toward the settlement, her steps steady, her posture composed. She never looked back to confirm Shar'El, Gemma or the others were following. Their presence seemed already accounted for.
The trees had thinned, giving way to a clearing where thick wooden gates stood open, framed by a border of interlocking brass and copper gears. Steam hissed from vents carved into the adjoining stone walls, each release measured, almost rhythmic. As they crossed the threshold, a faint tightening drew across T'Lara's shoulders, as if an unseen presence had brushed her thoughts.
The settlement beyond the gates was smaller than expected, more village than town. Narrow walkways curved between stone dwellings and market stalls. Suspended platforms floated gently above the ground, tethered by chains that pulsed with faint electrical currents. Banners hung from the higher rooftops, their symbols distorted echoes of familiar emblems: a stylized Tal'Shiar raptor rendered in soft green, an Orion gear-and-spire crest altered into an agricultural motif, a Vulcan IDIC reinterpreted as a communal wheel. The meanings were unknown, but their origins were unmistakable.
T'Lara paused just inside the gate, studying the people who moved through the square. Vulcanoid cranial ridges softened by Orion pigmentation. A Caitian with scaled forearms. A Gorn whose posture and ear structure suggested distant Andorian genes. Hybrids that should not have been genetically compatible walked beside one another with no sign of infirmity or instability. Some of these combinations would have demanded advanced laboratory engineering. Others should not have been viable under any circumstances.
Yet they moved with perfect health. Perfect ease.
Her gaze drifted upward. No towers. No signal dishes. Not even a rudimentary comms spire. Nothing in this village could produce a signal strong enough to reach orbit, let alone punch through the concentric asteroid shells above them.
Her logical mind filed each detail into orderly patterns, exactly as it had been trained to do. Her Romulan instincts resisted, whispering that the calm blanketing the settlement was too uniform to be natural. Something was guiding all of it. The people. The mood. The land. Perhaps even the system itself.
It should have been impossible. But so was the system.
Shar'El moved slightly ahead, her expression composed, though T'Lara sensed the same quiet unease beneath the XO's calm. Gemma walked beside her, gaze sharp and calculating, noting everything while revealing nothing.
Behind them, the away team spread out in a loose formation. No one drew attention. Not that attention needed to be drawn. The villagers saw them, noted them, and simply continued with their routines.
Indifferent, as if the arrival of strangers was simply another part of their daily rhythm.
A few offered small nods or gentle smiles. Welcoming. Accepting. Utterly calm.
Too calm.
T'Lara kept her tricorder lowered to avoid drawing focus, though its limited readings told her little that her senses had not already reported. There were no elevated stress markers among the locals. No signs of fear. No fluctuations in respiration or heart rate. The harmony extended beyond mood. Even their physiology reflected it.
A controlled balance.
"Doctor," Shar'El said quietly without turning, sensing T'Lara's hesitation more than seeing it. "Thoughts."
"The diversity of genetic lineages is notable," T'Lara replied, her tone neutral. "Several individuals display hybridization patterns that should not occur naturally. Yet they appear stable. Healthy. It suggests a guiding mechanism behind this environment."
Shar'El gave a faint nod. "I am getting the same impression."
They reached what appeared to be the center of the village, a wide circular plaza paved in dark stone. At its heart stood a tall structure shaped like an inverted cone, gears rotating along its sides. It emitted no signal. No power signatures strong enough to mask advanced technology. Only residual magnetic fluctuations that blended seamlessly with the planet's atmospheric field.
Still no transmitter.
T'Lara's eyes narrowed. There was no logical location for it here. The feed reaching the ANUBIS had not been weak. It had been precise. Purposeful.
So why hide the device?
Their guide slowed to a stop, turning to face them. She bowed her head slightly but did not speak. Before anyone could ask, another figure stepped forward from the adjoining street.
A Terran woman. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties, her features carrying the ease of someone long accustomed to stability. There was a vitality in her posture that hinted at a youthfulness that time had not dulled.
She smiled in greeting, and the shift in atmosphere was immediate. A subtle warmth brushed the edges of T'Lara's consciousness, like the first ripple of telepathic contact before true connection. It was gentle, deliberate, and startlingly intimate.
"Welcome," the woman said.
The word landed in Terran Standard, but T'Lara did not hear it with her ears.
She felt it. Shaped in Vulcan. Echoing in Romulan. Whispering through half a dozen languages simultaneously across the team.
Gemma stiffened. Shar'El’s pupils tightened. Several others exchanged startled glances, each one hearing the greeting in their own tongue.
Telepathic. Clear. Controlled. Precise.
T'Lara focused her thoughts out of instinct, shielding without being obvious. Yet the woman's presence did not push. It simply waited.
"We have been expecting you," the woman said, still without sound. "Though some among you are still missing."
The words settled unmistakably inside their minds.
And despite every effort toward control, T'Lara felt her heart rate rise.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Broken Harmony"
Previous post: "Peaceful Meeting of the Mind" by Dawn
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Outside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1005
The sense of peace had wrapped itself around Ya'Han like a warm, invisible shroud from the moment the away team set foot on the surface. It had softened every edge inside her, dulled every instinct honed through years of discipline, combat, and survival. She had almost welcomed it. Almost. The feeling was so unlike anything she had ever known that part of her had struggled against it, unsure whether to trust it or fear it. Now, standing at the threshold of the grand hall and surrounded by the quiet, curious JELOVAAN people, she understood why.
Nothing this absolute could ever be natural.
The telepathic woman who had first greeted them walked ahead, her steps serene even as the calm around them felt like a heavy blanket pressed against their skin. Ya'Han forced herself to stay alert, to keep her eyes moving, but that effortless tranquility kept tugging at her focus, urging her to relax, to surrender, to let someone else worry for once.
A part of her had almost obeyed. Glancing at Zub, she could tell that he felt the same way. They all did. Giving in would require no effort at all, just a quiet acceptance like the serenity reflected in the faces of this surreal world's inhabitants.
Then the shockwave hit.
It came without warning, slamming into the settlement like a silent thunderclap. The ground quivered beneath their boots, a deep, resonant vibration that Ya'Han felt in her bones. The calm shattered instantly. The air, once thick with serenity, snapped like glass. Every breath stabbed cold into her lungs.
Her black hair whipped forward as she staggered, catching herself just in time. Behind her, several members of the away team cried out. Shar'El turned to check the others, her expression sharpening as she sensed the rising confusion around them. A heartbeat later, as the crowd's memories surged back to life all at once, she collapsed to her knees, overwhelmed by the sudden flood of foreign thoughts. Gemma swore under her breath. Zub's eyes widened, golden and sharp, as though something dormant inside him had been thrown awake.
Around them, the JELOVAAN people froze. Confusion rippled across their features, replacing the serene smiles they had worn only seconds earlier. Some gasped and backed away. Others clutched at their chests, afraid, disoriented, whispering questions that carried no answers.
And then a few turned angry.
The language they spoke was still beyond comprehension, but their body language was unmistakable. Their serenity vanished, replaced by raw, uncontrolled anger they no longer seemed equipped to manage. A Klingon shouted from somewhere in the scattered crowd, grabbing a discarded branch and pointing it directly at the away team. Although the language was impossible to understand, one accusatory word came across loud and clear: "Federation!"
A sharp cry cut through the chaos. The guide, the first JELOVAAN woman they had met upon arriving, staggered as a stone struck her just above the temple. She crumpled sideways, catching herself with one hand but unable to rise. Blood trickled down her cheek, startlingly bright against her pale skin.
"Zub!" Ya'Han called out.
The Voth was already moving, intercepting another thrown stick as he reached the injured guide. He crouched beside her, shielding her with his body. T'Lara had already moved to assist. "She is hurt," the Romulan/Vulcan doctor reported. "Head wound. She needs medical attention."
The telepathic woman gasped, her composure fracturing for the first time. She reached toward the injured guide with trembling fingers but could not get close as another barrage of stones forced her to recoil.
**This is wrong,** her thoughts echoed in Ya'Han's mind. **She should never have been harmed. None of us should.**
Ya'Han quickly assessed the wound as she moved to help. It was not life-threatening, but the blood flow was steady, and the impact had clearly disoriented the guide. The Nylaan slipped one arm around the woman's back, lifting her with practiced care.
"We're moving," Ya'Han ordered. "Keep her covered and fall back!"
Voices joined that of the angered Klingon, scattered at first, then louder, fueled by the sudden return of emotions they had not felt in who knew how long.
"Commander," Zub growled, bracing himself. "More incoming trouble."
Rocks struck the ground near their feet. Another sailed past Ya'Han's shoulder. The black-haired Nylaan shifted immediately, instincts flaring back to life now that the oppressive calm had fallen away. Her stance lowered, centered, ready. It felt like breathing again.
"Stay close," Ya'Han called out, training taking over as her voice cut sharply through the chaos. "Defensive posture only. Do not escalate."
Zub and Gemma moved to her sides without hesitation, forming a protective arc around the telepathic woman, who clutched at her temple, eyes wide with shock but not fear. She remained strangely composed despite the chaos erupting around her.
**This should not be happening,** the woman's voice echoed across their thoughts, trembling in a way that felt deeply wrong coming from someone who had seemed so steady moments earlier. **The peace is gone. It has never been gone.**
Another stone struck the ground. Then another hit Jayson across the forearm as he shielded Maya from a group of enraged JELOVAAN charging forward. Nothing deadly. Nothing precise. Just the raw release of emotions long suppressed.
Ya'Han felt the impact of a rock against her shoulder but barely registered the pain. Her focus was on Shar'El, still on the ground, overwhelmed by the sudden flood of memories around her. A single motion of the Nylaan's head sent the Voth to her side, lifting the Ullian by the arms.
"I've got you Commander."
Shar'El gasped, eyes unfocused. "So many voices... all at once. I cannot shut them out..."
"Grand hall," Ya'Han said firmly, forcing her own breathing to steady. "We fall back. Now."
The others echoed their agreement. The open courtyard was no place to remain exposed.
Sticks and stones continued to rain down as the away team tightened around each other. No one retaliated. No one even reached for a holstered weapon. Phasers would not work here anyway, and the last thing they needed was to ignite a battle they had no intention of fighting.
As they moved, Ya'Han kept the telepathic woman and their guide in view, ensuring their safety as best she could. The JELOVAAN guide looked pale now, her composure cracking just enough to reveal the depth of her fear, being injured was already a huge unexpected twist, but feeling was was visibly something she had never before experienced.
**None of this should have been possible,** the other woman telepathically murmured. **Your presence should not have caused this. Something is wrong.**
Ya'Han met her gaze, seeing genuine distress there. "We did not mean to harm your people," the black-haired Nylaan offered.
The visibly troubled woman nodded her head, accepting the claim.
Another stone struck the wall beside them as they reached the grand hall entrance. Ya'Han glanced back. Most of the JELOVAAN were retreating, frightened and unsure. Only a handful remained aggressive, and even their rage seemed newly awakened and poorly controlled.
But one fact was unmistakable.
Whatever this world had been using to keep its people complacent, harmonious, and pacified... it could break.
And something had broken it.
Inside the dim interior of the grand hall, Ya'Han finally allowed herself a moment to breathe. The team moved quickly to assess injuries. Minor cuts. Bruises. A possible sprain. Nothing life-threatening, but enough to remind her that they were vulnerable here.
Zub growled quietly, scanning the entrance for further threats. "That was not a natural reaction."
"No," Ya'Han said. "And neither was the calm before it. This confirms what we have all felt. Something is shaping this world. And whatever it is, it is not infallible."
She looked down at her hands, still steady despite the chaos. For the first time since arriving, she felt entirely like herself again. The weight of the imposed peace had fallen away, leaving her instincts sharp and her purpose clear.
But even as she welcomed the return of clarity, a colder thought pushed its way in.
If the shockwave had reached the surface, then whatever caused it had to be powerful enough to tear through whatever balanced the entire JELOVAAN system.
And something told her this was only the beginning.
Ya'Han squared her shoulders and turned to the team. "Secure the hall. Tend to the injured. Once Shar'El stabilizes, we figure out what comes next."
Outside, the shouting faded into uneasy silence.
Inside, the air pulsed with questions no one yet knew how to answer.
And above them, unseen through layers of interference and harmonic shielding, the ANUBIS hung in its unstable orbit, unaware and unable to offer any assistance in this unexpected turn of events.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"A Break In The Design"
Previous post: "Broken Harmony" by Hanali
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.1005
The landing zone had been silent when they arrived, the kind of silence that felt engineered rather than natural. Satella noted the absence of animal life with clinical concern. Christie tested the air twice, unsettled by wind that refused to behave like wind. Ya'Jun stared upward, pupils narrowing to slits, her instincts tracking something the others had not yet recognized.
Drayk felt it too. Not peace. Not calm. Something closer to suspension. An entire world held in place by a system that believed motion was a problem to be solved. He did not trust any environment that attempted to soothe without justification. Anything that hid its purpose usually had one.
He was already stepping forward to take a reading when reality stumbled.
His boot touched the ground, and a fraction of a second later his weight followed. A precise, unnatural lag. A disruption in the relationship between mass and gravity.
He shifted immediately to stabilize, but the world continued failing to cooperate. The ground beneath him rose and fell in a slow, unnatural wave, flexing like an organism struggling to decide whether it was asleep or waking.
This was not tectonic movement. The soil lacked the sharp resonance of shifting plates. This was harmonic displacement, the world flexing as if tuned to the wrong frequency. Something massive had slipped out of tune.
"Did you feel that?" Christie asked, though her own stagger already answered the question. The scientist reached instinctively for her tricorder as another pulse rolled under them. The device crackled, flashed white static, and then died again.
"Motion without impact," Satella said through clenched teeth. The doctor had dropped to one knee, fighting a sudden lurch in her balance. "It's like the planet is breathing."
"Planets do not breathe," Drayk replied. "Not unless something is forcing them to mimic the act."
Then the shockwave hit in full. No sound. No wind. No force they could brace against.
The air compressed in on itself so quickly that Drayk felt pressure clamp around his ribs before his instincts could react. Dust froze midair as if the world had paused between heartbeats. Light fractured across the landing zone. For an instant everything was drained of color, as if they stood beneath a star that did not belong here.
And then the shadows doubled.
A second outline peeled away from every object, displaced just far enough to be unmistakably wrong. Satella froze when she noticed her own. "That should not be possible."
"It is not," Drayk said. "Which is the point."
Ya'Jun hissed as another lag snapped reality back into place. The secondary shadows blinked out. The dust fell. The planet exhaled with a low vibration that felt like the groan of a system under strain.
The shockwave did not stop at the surface. It radiated outward, bleeding into the upper atmosphere and through the harmonic distortions that had already crippled the ANUBIS. Drayk could feel it in the same instinctive way predators sense when the rules of the hunt have changed.
"This event was not local. It was not accidental. The harmonics on and above the planet just went unstable. That kind of imbalance does not settle. It hunts for something to break next."
Satella stood slowly, checking Christie and Ya’Jun before dusting her palms. "If this reaction scales with distance, the ANUBIS might have destabilized the system the moment it entered orbit. This could be the point where the equilibrium collapses?"
"Not collapse," Drayk said. "Collapse implies fatigue. This was forced. Something struck a system that believed it could not be struck."
Christie looked up at him, pale but steady. "How can you tell?"
"Because survival teaches you what perfection tries to hide. Redundant systems expect to fail. Perfect ones never anticipate impact. This one never imagined anything could reach it."
He turned his gaze toward the distant settlement barely visible beyond the haze. Even from here he could see silhouettes stumbling, dropping to their knees, clutching their heads as emotions returned to them in uncontrolled force. The shockwave did not just break the calm. It shattered the architecture that produced it.
"Is this going to happen again?" Christie asked.
"It already is," Drayk said. "The pulse we experienced was only the first fracture. The rest of the cycle will follow."
Ya'Jun straightened, eyes narrowing. "Then we should move."
"Correct." Drayk began walking, his steps precise despite the terrain's continuing tremor. "We regroup with the others. We assess the damage. And then we identify which part of this design broke."
He paused, scanning the distorted horizon with a mind already calculating consequences.
"Perfect systems do not shatter without cause," he said quietly. "Something did this. Something powerful enough to override an entire world's equilibrium."
He did not say the rest aloud. He did not need to. He looked upward to the ANUBIS's last known position, calculating what the next fracture might tear away.
Whatever had broken the peace was not done yet.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
“Respite”
Previous post: "A Break In The Design" by Scott
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1010
As the wounded were laid out and attended to on the polished wooden floor of the Grand Hall, Zub picked up two of the stoutest of the thrown sticks in his three-fingered hands and stood just inside the double entry doors. He held the sticks point up at the ready, puffed out his chest, and set his scaly face to his most intimidating look.
The villagers stood with rocks and stones at their feet, but they were conversing, a babble to the tall Voth’s ear, but fear and confusion were plain in the words they used.
There was a nearby clunk loud enough to make Enel defensively crouch and cross his sticks. He guessed someone had thrown a rock. Instead, wooden doors on either side of the entryway rumbled together horizontally. Metal gears spun and guided them as they slowed to less than a finger's width apart and then softly met without a sound. Zub was impressed with their precision.
He looked around. Along the front wall of the hall, Jayson stood in front of a bank of metal levers, his hand on one of them. He raised an eyebrow at Zub and pulled another lever. Shutters descended over the windows and folded themselves against the frame. Darkness settled in despite the sunny day, twice as bright with two suns.
There was a click in the darkness. A throaty hiss of gas. A rasping and then showers of sparks. Gas torches burst to life, sending warm amber light through the hall. Jayson, still at the lever bank, was grinning. “Clever.”
Gemma slinked with catlike grace and silence around the perimeter of the hall, which was lined with well-crafted cabinets under sturdy shelving full of stacked plates and cups. She was searching for other points of entry. There were alcoves, but they were empty of tables and benches. Where the side walls met the back wall were single doors, both closed. Gears glinted, turned gold in the gaslight.
As Gemma looked around the hall, Ya’Han was standing at the opposite side door, clearly having done the same scouting for exits. Ya’Han’s hair, black as coal, gleamed in the light. Her eyes flashed as she swung her gaze off Gemma’s and looked forward toward Jayson.
Jayson had been studying the levers. He pulled down another. There was a rumble between Gemma and Ya’Han. A hexagonal column made of light colored, polished wood rose from the floor. The side nearest the back wall was missing. The column stopped about chest level. It appeared to be a lecrturn.
He yanked another lever. The floor vibrated as a section in front of the lectern flipped up. Gears spun. A pair of parallel benches with backs unfolded, leaving a gap for an aisle. Another section of the floor closer to where T’Lara was ministering the wounded began to rise. It appeared she had laid her patients out in the path of mechanically deployed seating. “Shut it off!” she said.
Unneccessarily. Jayson had already sussed out the impending disaster and let go of the lever. The vibration stopped with the second row of benches angled up only partway. Under the pressure of people staring at him, Jayson stepped away from the levers, put his hands together, and let them hang.
Maya held her tricorder, now useless, with both hands. A habitual posture. She stared at the benches. “There was some ancient, ancient song titled, Days of Future Past. That’s what this place is. An artifact of a mechanistic society. These are not hunter/gathers or herdspeople who discovered how to build things. These are all things that existed for spacefaring people who have had to make do in an environment that doesn’t support electronics, magnetism, and quantum manipulation.” She waved a hand. “Doors that shut themselves. Adjustable indoor lighting. A podium. Seating on demand.”
As the Shilian scientist, her face alight, drew breath, Gemma cut in. “We know all of this. A population of marooned space travelers. Of course they rebuilt what they knew. What about any of this is new? What about this shockwave or whatever it was that cleared everyone’s head?”
Maya appeared not the least bit offended by being redirected. Her quicksilver intellect focused anew. She waved her hand in the general direction of everywhere. “Whatever that was, I believe it was unprecedented. A glitch in whatever is keeping everything so calm and running smoothly. Stunning as it was in effect, I am not completely surprised by it. Any system, even one as sophisticated as this, has to contend with the fluctuations of gravity, radiation, subspace distortions, and all manner of perturbations from those two central stars. This is a system that, for whatever purpose, is maintaining an esquisitely tuned equilibrium all balanced on a knife-edge. I think some unexpected change occurred, threw everything off kilter.”
Jayson asked her, his voice a notch high, “Do you think the ship is okay?”
Maya raised her tricorder, but read only static. She dropped it back on its strap. “Unknown.”
Ya’Han looked around the sealed Grand Hall with its flickering gas torches. “Do you think it will happen again?”
Maya shrugged, “Unknown.” She added, “A physical system as chaotic as this makes anything possible.”
T’Lara, her face a study of Vulcan calm, felt her Romulan emotions cranking up her heartbeat. Whatever strange wave had passed had removed the soporific calm from everyone, including the villagers. She wrestled her emotions back under control. She asked Zub Enel, who was still hulking by the closed door, “Can you tell what the villagers are doing now?”
The tall lizardman listened at the doors. “They were quieter, but are now more agitated. I think they see the third away team.”
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis
"When the Calm Breaks"
Previous Post: "Respite" by David
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.1010
No sensors. No communications. Only the slow, suffocating quiet that had wrapped itself around the ANUBIS the moment it entered the JOLEVAAN system. Somewhere below, the senior staff hunted for a device that might keep the ship from plummeting into the planet's surface, a hope that felt thinner with every passing minute.
Had the system not smothered her nerves beneath its enforced tranquility, Adriana knew she would already be shaking. Her mind wanted to panic, should have panicked, but the unnatural serenity held her in place like invisible hands pressed against her thoughts. Instead, she just watched the main viewscreen as the Captain sat in his chair and her sister stood next to her. The region where the away teams had been deployed filled the main viewscreen, everyone's thoughts bouncing between their fate and the ship's own.
The countdown to atmospheric entry hovered over everyone’s thoughts... fourteen fragile hours left. Less time than that, Adriana feared, if the system threw something else at them.
"It actually looks so peaceful," Amanda said, her voice soft… too soft, as though the strange calm still clung to her words even while her eyes betrayed something else entirely. Like everyone else, she was still wrestling with the artificial calm imposed upon the crew.
"Peaceful looking is usually a sign of..." A'Janni began, his words trailing into silence as he noticed something strange on the view screen.
Something rippled across the planet's crust, subtle at first, then unmistakably wrong. A distortion, like the ground itself had exhaled. The bridge went silent as every officer leaned forward without realizing it, drawn toward the impossible sight crawling across the viewscreen.
"What is that?" Adriana gasped.
"Best guess... nothing good," A'Janni replied. "Whatever it is, it's going to hit us," the FCO added as the main viewscreen showed a wave distortion that was moving away from the planet.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" The captain's voice cut through the lingering serenity like a blade, giving the crew barely a heartbeat to grab hold before the shockwave slammed into them.
The shockwave tore through the ship, knocking anyone not strapped in or seated to the deck. Adriana's first instincts were to check on her sister, now on the floor with her.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm... not sure," Amanda replied. Adriana reached for Amanda... and froze. The link between them flared, raw and unfiltered, as the imposed calm shattered all at once. The peace that had muffled her thoughts for hours vanished in a single breath, replaced by a sharp, rising panic that made her feel abruptly exposed.
"Status report," Erik demanded as he stood from his chair and gave the two women on the floor a quick once over making sure that neither was hurt.
"Without sensors, it's impossible to know what that was," the Caitian offered, frustration lacing his every word.
The deck lurched again, harder this time. Not a random hit. A pull. Adriana felt her stomach drop as the ship began sliding toward the planet in a slow, unmistakably deliberate drag.
"What’s happening? Is something pushing us?" Adriana forced out. Her voice cracked, actually cracked, a sound she hadn't heard from herself since childhood, now no longer protected by the artificial calm.
"Not pushing... pulling," A'Janni reported. "Looks like a localized shift in the gravitational field of the planet. It's pulling us in."
"We had fourteen hours!" The Counselor pleaded, as if her words could convince the universe to undo what had just happened.
"HAD," the FCO snapped. "Whatever that wave was, it stole nearly half our window. We're down to eight hours... maybe less. And if another one of those waves hits us… we might not have hours left at all.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
#######
"The Machine's Answer"
Previous post: "When the Calm Breaks"
##########
"Some journeys are chosen. Others claim us, regardless of our will."
— Carved inscription (translated) found on the main altar of the Iconian Temple of Time
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 45033.1020
The trip from the bridge to Main Engineering felt longer than it should have. The ship was no longer fighting to maintain a decaying orbit. Now, after the shockwave had struck them like a cosmic hammer, the ANUBIS was sinking. Eight hours of buffer. Maybe less. Systems that had once screamed in protest were now whispering, as if conserving what little strength they had left.
The Native American stepped into Engineering. The temperature felt a degree colder. The pulse of the warp core, usually a soothing thrum, was dull and uneven. The air carried a tension that no environmental system could filter.
Ani stood near the central display hub, her robotic form quietly steady amid the controlled chaos. She was reviewing telemetry at a pace no living being could match. Her eyes tracked lines of scrolling data faster than a tricorder could decode them.
"Captain Morningstar," she greeted without turning. "Your presence here is statistically unexpected."
"Unexpected," he repeated faintly. "That's one word for it."
Only then did she face him, her expression neutral but her posture attentive. She knew something was weighing on him. He could sense it.
"I came because I need a different perspective," Erik said. "A logical one. Something untainted by fear or instinct or... whatever force has been tampering with our minds."
Ani tilted her head. "The forced neurological calm experienced earlier has not returned. With its absence, emotional volatility among the crew has increased by 37 percent. Your own stress indicators have risen by 42 percent."
"That would explain the headache," he muttered. "Ani... what is happening? This system herded us here. It dragged us in. It held us. And now it is pushing us to crash. A star system cannot be angry. And yet the timing of that shockwave..."
"It suggests intentionality," Ani completed. "But intentionality requires a mind."
He exhaled slowly. "Exactly. I need your interpretation. Not the crew's fears. Not my instincts. Yours."
Ani went still, processing. Several displays behind her adjusted simultaneously, as if feeding her something deeper than raw data.
"The JELOVAAN system should not be behaving this way," she said. "No known natural phenomenon matches its pattern of behaviour. It is not random. It is not mechanical failure. And it is not passive environmental reaction. The system is responding to stimuli."
"To us," Erik said.
"Correct. And for some reason, you believe that some of this is specifically targeted to you."
He blinked. "... me?"
Ani stepped closer, studying him with unsettling precision. "You asked for an unbiased, logical perspective. External sensors may not be fully operational, but the internal ones are. I have been monitoring the crew's physiological responses to the system, including yours. Your baseline vitals have not been as consistent as in previous missions. The ANUBIS has faced worse situations, such as the Lokustaar foothold, but you never took any of it personally. This time, you are. I have not yet identified the reason for this, though."
Erik felt the floor tilt beneath him, though the deck was solid.
"I honestly do not know why," Erik admitted. He knew better than to argue with the ship's avatar, but something deep within him resisted even his own uncertainty.
"You believe that the system is aware of you."
The words landed with far more force than any falling starship ever could.
"Ani... that makes no sense. I am just one officer."
"Incorrect," she replied without hesitation. "You are the commanding officer of this vessel. You are the individual who chose to hold orbit despite the system's apparent design to prevent such. You are the variable that does not match its expectations."
A beat of silence hung between them.
"So the system identifies and focuses on the Captain of whatever ship it drags in?"
"Logical analysis suggests that the system's behaviour is influenced by external inputs." Her voice softened. "The fact that you feel this more personally may be by design... or caused by something else, something that cannot register on the internal sensors."
He swallowed hard. "Let's say that I am being specifically targeted? For what purpose?"
"I cannot answer that," Ani said. "But I can provide a logical inference."
She paused, letting the moment settle.
"You have always placed the safety of the ship and crew above your own. You have always worked on finding a solution, even when it seemed well outside the realm of possibility, as long as it ensured the safety of ANUBIS and those aboard. Maybe, this system has managed to overwrite this core mechanism in you, allowing you to see a more personal outcome."
Erik looked past her toward the warp core, battered, flickering, stubbornly alive. The ANUBIS depended on him. Always had. The idea of leaving her in this condition tore at him.
"Ani... if I go down there, you will be in command of a ship that might not survive the next eight hours."
"Yes," she replied. "That is a probable outcome. And yet your departure remains the statistically optimal choice."
"You said that very calmly."
"I am an android, Captain. Calm is my default state."
He almost smiled.
"But," she added gently, "I am also the ANUBIS. I exist to protect her and her crew. If one of us must face the unknown, logic dictates it should be you."
"Logic," he repeated, but the word tasted different now.
Ani stepped closer. "Captain Morningstar... Erik, right or wrong, you believe that the system has chosen its focal point. You. And whether by fate, design, or statistical anomaly, the next step of our survival is not here. It is down there. On the planet."
He drew a slow, steadying breath.
"Then I guess it's time I stop avoiding what I already knew."
Ani inclined her head and smiled, a genuine, human smile.
He placed a hand on the railing, grounding himself. Then he looked at her fully.
"Ani..." He paused, letting the weight of it settle. "You have the ANUBIS now."
The android watched him turn for the exit. As he reached the threshold, her voice followed him, soft but precise.
"Good luck, Captain."
He hesitated for the briefest moment. Something in the deck plating, the pulse of the struggling core, the ship itself seemed to hold its breath. Then he stepped forward, leaving Main Engineering behind as the ANUBIS groaned quietly around him, the sound echoing like a farewell only he seemed able to hear.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"Considered Reaction"
Previous post: "The Machine's Answer" by Francois
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1020
The rumble of the mechanical benches faded into an uneasy quiet. The gaslight still flickered along the walls, throwing restless shadows that made the room feel smaller and more crowded than it was. Gemma paused near the back door, her gaze narrowing on the seam in the frame as if expecting it to pulse again with that unseen force that had rattled through her only minutes earlier.
Her skin still tingled. The shockwave had hit them minutes ago, but the aftershocks inside her mind had not faded. Not from danger. From the personalities pushing forward again, louder than they had been in months. The shockwave had cracked whatever balance her restored nanites had been helping her hold. She braced a hand on the cabinet beside her, posture tightening for a heartbeat.
Zub shifted a step away from the double doors, just far enough to close some of the distance without giving up his position entirely. The heavy crunch of his footfalls approached, but he kept a careful distance. Enough to respect her space. Close enough to react if the villagers outside made a move.
"You all right?" he asked quietly, his voice pitched low, as if speaking too loudly might cause the walls themselves to react.
She answered without looking at him. "Not yet." The voice was Gemma's, but the cadence carried a faint edge of Za'Ran, sharper, ready to strike. Her eyes shifted, catching the torchlight in a way that made their color seem momentarily different. Zub stiffened, not in fear, but in recognition. He had seen her fracture like this back on the station. He knew what it meant even if she had never explained entirely.
Shar'El, who had taken up position near the benches to keep an eye on both teams, stepped closer, her gaze flicking between them. "Teams One and Two need to consolidate. We need to agree on our next move before the villagers decide on theirs."
From the far side of the hall, Ya'Han gave a crisp nod while keeping watch near the shutters. "They are still gathering outside. I don't think they plan to break in. Not yet."
Maya drifted closer to the lectern Jayson had accidentally uncovered. She tapped the polished surface with two fingers. "This whole place feels wrong. Not dangerous. Just wrong," she said, but her eyes still tracked the mechanisms with the same fascinated spark she had shown earlier. "I think whatever hit us disrupted more than the locals' calm. It might have destabilized whatever equilibrium they have been living under."
"Great," Jayson mumbled. "A broken system we can't scan and a crowd we can't calm."
T'Lara continued her work at the far end of the hall, tending to the wounded in the narrow space left untouched by the half-deployed benches.
Gemma pushed off the cabinet, straightened, then faltered for a second as another presence surged upward inside her. Lireen. Curious, bright. Wondering about the doors, the gears, the craftsmanship on the shelves. It bled into her expression before she reined it back with visible effort.
Zub reached out a hand as if to steady her, then pulled it back before touching. "You're feeling it again," he said. Not a question. Not an accusation.
She met his eyes. For a moment her composure slipped just enough that he could see the strain she usually hid. "It's louder than before," she admitted. Then, softer, "And you're worried. About me. About Nathan."
The truth of it hit him harder than a thrown rock. His jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it. "Something is happening on this planet we don't understand. You felt the shockwave more than any of us. If it happens again..."
"It won't break me." That was Gemma speaking. And then, without warning, another voice lunged upward before she could stop: Abrasivnyy, raw and impatient as always. "But the next idiot who pulls a lever without asking might get snapped in half."
Jayson lifted both hands. "Noted."
Shar'El kept her focus steady. "Gemma. We need you centered. Even partially. Can you manage that long enough to help us coordinate?"
Gemma drew in a slow breath. The flicker of personalities tugged at her shoulders, her stance, the pitch of her breath. The shockwave had rattled all of them. But she forced her attention outward, toward the doors where the villagers murmured, their voices rising and falling like a tide.
"We don't open those doors," she said. "Not until we know whether they are reacting to the third away team or something else entirely. Something specific. We need to find out what without letting them flood in."
Zub shifted his grip on the makeshift weapons. "I could try talking to them again. They listened before, kind of. Maybe I can calm them enough for Shar'El to get a read."
She considered him carefully. The concern in him was palpable now that her inner walls were cracked wide enough to let it through. It wasn't just protective instinct. It was tied to her. To Nathan. To whatever impossible triangle they had stumbled into without meaning to.
"Not alone," she said. "They might see that as weakness. Or opportunity."
Zub nodded once. "Then we do it together."
The words pulled at something inside her. Not a persona. Not a fracture. Something startlingly simple. Trust. It made the back of her throat tighten in a way she didn't like.
She stepped forward, reclaiming command even as stray threads of her other selves tugged at the edges of her mind.
"Shar'El, take Team One to the benches and keep eyes on the exits. Maya, stay with Jayson and see if there is any way to manually prevent further mechanical triggers. Zub and I will approach the doors and try to... negotiate."
Ya'Han raised a brow. "Negotiate? That must be Tahlia talking."
Gemma shot her a look that was pure Assassin, one eyebrow lifting with predatory patience. "No. If Tahlia were in charge, we'd be inviting the villagers in for tea."
A few members of the away teams exchanged glances. They could tell she was not entirely anchored. She could feel it too.
As she and Zub moved toward the sealed doors, the shadows along the walls twisted with the flicker of the gaslight. The air felt charged, as if the shockwave had left something invisible hanging there, waiting. Watching.
Zub glanced down at her once more. "Tell me if it gets too much."
She almost laughed. "If it gets too much, you'll know."
Together they reached the doors. The murmuring outside shifted. Grew sharper. Expectant.
Gemma lifted her hand to the seam, palm hovering. Her reflection wavered in the polished wood, and for a fraction of a second she saw not one face, but several layered over each other like translucent masks.
Her breath hitched.
Then she steadied herself and whispered, "Let's see if this place is willing to talk back."
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Focal Point"
Previous Post: "Considered Reaction" by Rachel
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.1025
The bridge had settled into an uneasy quiet after the last tremor. The consoles glowed dimmer than usual, their responses sluggish, as if the ship itself were conserving breath. Adriana had been reviewing damage reports at the Operations station, trying to focus, trying to keep Amanda calm by sheer example. But the air had shifted in a way she could not explain. The vibration under the deck no longer felt like machinery; it felt like intention. A pressure nudged the edge of her awareness, the kind that made instinct stand up before reason had time to catch up.
She did not like any of it.
The turbolift doors opened with a soft hiss.
Erik Morningstar stepped out.
He walked with a steadiness that made her stomach tighten. Too calm. Calm in a way that did not belong on a dying starship. His face steady, his breathing measured, as if he had reached a decision that should have shaken him but instead had settled over him like a cloak he did not question.
Adriana shot to her feet.
Amanda followed a heartbeat later.
A'Janni straightened at the helm, his whiskers twitching in a subtle display of concern.
"Captain," Adriana said, each syllable sharp with restrained tension. "Something is wrong."
Erik paused, genuinely surprised. "Lieutenant Lopez... I assure you, I am fine."
"No," Amanda said quickly, stepping beside her twin. "You feel wrong. You look calm when you shouldn't be. The ship is dying. Eight hours at best. And you look like you just came back from a quiet walk."
Erik met their eyes one at a time, and something flickered behind his. Not fear. Not conflict. A quiet, unsettling certainty.
"I went to Engineering for answers. Ani helped me reach a conclusion. One I should have seen earlier."
Adriana's pulse quickened. Suspicion rushed through her so fast it left her fingers tingling. It felt like static and cold air and the sense that something had already moved three steps ahead of them. "What conclusion?"
"That the next step is not here. It is down there. On the planet."
Silence hit the bridge like a dropped weight.
A'Janni hissed under his breath, ears leaning back. Amanda tensed beside Adriana, confusion and alarm tightening her shoulders.
Adriana stepped forward, her voice barely above a whisper. "You are abandoning the ship. Now. When it needs you most. That is not your decision. Not without explanation. Not without a very good reason."
Erik drew a slow breath. "The system is not reacting to physics anymore. It is reacting to us. I do not know how or why, but Ani confirmed what my instincts have been screaming. That somehow I am involved on a personal level, that I am a focal point. Whatever is happening down there, the away teams still believe they have 14 hours. They don't, and someone needs to inform them and find a solution to save the ANUBIS."
Adriana felt something move inside her. A pressure. A pull. A whisper without sound, as if the JELOVAAN system pressed against the edge of her awareness. Not a thought. Not a word. A direction.
Her breath hitched.
Amanda's eyes widened the same instant, her hand reflexively grabbing Adriana's arm. Their inhale synchronized, an old childhood rhythm returning without warning. A flicker of something old and unfinished snapped between them, sharp enough to steal half a heartbeat. Not a memory, not fully, more like a fragment shoved into the wrong moment.
For a heartbeat, Adriana smelled smoke and metal.
Amanda saw a horizon crack with lightning.
Matrix. Not Matrix. Something older.
"Adri..." Amanda whispered. "Did you feel that."
Adriana swallowed hard. "Yes."
Erik watched them with a look of careful understanding. Not patronizing. Not cold. Simply certain. "This is bigger than any of us. The answers are not up here."
"Then you are not going alone," Adriana said instantly.
His expression tightened. "Lieutenant, that is not advisable."
"I am not asking," she replied. Fear sharpened her voice despite her best effort. "I will not stay here and wonder if the ship took you. Or the system. Or whatever is happening down there. If you are going, I am going."
Amanda nodded firmly. "And so am I. I know that feeling. It's the same wrongness the Matrix had when it pushed me beyond myself. Not the same place, but the same shape. Like something recognizes me. I have been... farther than anyone else here. Even outside time, sometimes. Something down there matches something from the Yautja Matrix. I can feel it."
A'Janni exhaled through his nose in a low rumble. "Well, I suppose someone needs to keep the ship from falling apart while you three go explore cosmic mysteries. Besides, this might be my one and only chance to sit in that chair without someone barking at me to move."
Erik actually smiled at that.
It was small. But real.
"You have the bridge, Lieutenant," he said.
A'Janni placed a hand on the console with exaggerated pride. "I accept this responsibility with all the seriousness it deserves. Which is not very much at all."
Adriana breathed once, trying to steady the tremor running through her.
Erik stepped closer, keeping his voice low. "Are you certain you want to do this?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I'm not staying behind again. Not to wait. Not to imagine the worst every second until the comm cuts out. If you're going, I'm going."
Amanda slipped her hand into Adriana's. "And not without me."
The quiet vibration beneath the deck pulsed again, almost like an acknowledgment.
Erik nodded. "Then we do this together."
They moved toward the turbolift, the damaged lights flickering above them in a rhythmic pattern that felt almost deliberate. A'Janni watched them go, tail flicking with a mix of worry and resignation.
As the doors closed behind the three of them, he muttered to himself:
"Try not to break anything important before I get my full five minutes in the captain's chair."
The bridge doors sealed shut.
Erik, Adriana, and Amanda stood silently as the turbolift pod made its way toward Transporter Room 3. The ship groaned around them, the sound low and uneasy, almost like it resented letting them go. Adriana felt Amanda's shoulder brush hers, both of them breathing a little too fast, both knowing they were moving toward something that already felt aware of them.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
"The Shattered Calm"
Previous post: "Focal Point" by Marissa
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1025
The great copper-reinforced oak doors groaned under pressure, a sound that echoed with the strain of the mob outside, unnatural in its rhythm yet disturbingly unified.
Commander Shar'El stood near one of the perfectly crafted tinted windows, her mind an open conduit, trying to sift through the rising chaos she could see through the distorted memories of those outside. The artificial calm she'd sensed earlier was gone, broken into jagged fragments she couldn't piece together. Something had shifted, something woven into the very nature of this world.
"Jayson, Maya... Any ideas as to what might have caused this shift in the inhabitants? Could it be our presence?" Shar'El's voice was taut. She ignored the pain in her skull, focusing on the immediate threat.
The Chief of Operations and Chief Science Officer were wrestling with trying to understand something that they could not scan. "Commander, the JELOVAAN interference is still making any attempt to scan our environment impossible," Maya reported as she closed her tricorder, her expression caught somewhere between scientific curiosity and sheer frustration. "There is no way to know for certain what the cause is, but the timing does support your offered theory that we may, in some way, be responsible for whatever is happening out there."
"Well," Jayson sighed. "Might be a good idea to figure out whether we triggered this, and if so, how to reverse it. The locals are definitely not in an overly welcoming mood at the present."
Gemma, braced against the shuddering main doors with Ya'Han and Zub, studied the room and those inside, trying to find something that would give them a tactical advantage. Zub, on the other hand, had his gaze fixed on the auburn haired ILO. "We need to figure out a way to get out there and help the third team."
Shar'El already knew this. The problem was risking the grand hall to be overrun by the settlement inhabitants, threatening the team and their injured guide. Yet, she also understood that The third team was capable, yes, but not immune to misunderstanding or escalation. What frightened the First Officer the most was the language barrier. The language used by the inhabitants was a baffling, unintelligible mix of multiple known languages, which might shift any misunderstanding into a full-blown physical conflict, and that had not been the intent. The mission had been meant to be a covert search for the transmitter. Now, it seemed that the goal had become, at best, a case of de-escalation, and at worse, one of survival.
"T'Lara, prepare to evacuate the wounded," Shar'El ordered, moving toward the rear alcove. "Gemma, I know there's no clear explanation for what's happening, but I need you positioned and ready to assist Drayk. You and I will do our best to de-escalate the situation. We need to help these people, not corner them into reacting. Zub, you will be offering security for T'Lara and Maya as they move to the maintenance tunnel behind the tapestries. Ya'Han and Jayson will stay here as a secondary line of defence. If things get out of hand out there, we will call for you. Other than that, your task is to make sure no one follows the medical evacuation team."
Every move was a calculated risk. Without functioning tricorders or communicators, they were blind and deaf. Their only reliable asset was the sheer willpower of the crew, led by Shar'El, whose mental anguish was the price of command.
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Outside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1026
The third away team to arrive on the planet stood a mere three hundred meters from the grand hall, studying the unfolding chaos from the eerie main square of the settlement.
"Are you sure the others are in there?" Christie asked of Drayk, the newly appointed Assistant Chief Science officer still trying to make sense of the scene before them.
"Yes," Drayk coldly replied. "Shar'El would have sought a defendable position to keep people safe. It's the only reason the inhabitants would be focused on that building."
"Should we not try speaking with them?" Satella inquired. "There has to be a better way than us fighting our way there."
"I've been trying to understand what they are saying," Christie admitted. "I cannot make any sense of it.
"Look at the way they move," Ya'Jun pointed out, evidently speaking from experience. "They are more confused than angry. A true mob would rush the doors with everything they have, not caring about their own people being trampled." Ya'Jun paused, the memory of such a mob rushing her father's position during an imperial visit to a labor outpost taking her back many years to her early childhood. "Whatever anger they feel is an after effect, not the driving force. So we have to respond in kind."
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1027
The murmuring outside shifted again, no longer chaotic, no longer confused. The cadence was changing. Not becoming calm, but aligning. Shar'El stiffened. The patterns she had been trying to decipher were no longer random.
Something was trying to shape them.
T'Lara felt it too, though she could not name it. Her jaw tightened, a flicker of her Romulan side slipping through. The wounded stirred, not awake, but restless, as if caught in the same unseen current.
"Commander?" Zub whispered, the makeshift weapons lowering an inch. "It feels… different."
Shar'El didn't answer immediately. She reached out, the thrum of thoughts brushing her mind like fingertips against a sealed door. Not words. Not emotion. A contour. A direction. A pull.
"They're not focused on anger anymore," she murmured. "They're focused on something… here."
Gemma turned, eyes narrowing. "Something in the hall?"
"No," Shar'El whispered. "Below it."
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Convergence"
Previous post: "The Shattered Calm" by Tiffany
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Outside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1028
The air around the grand hall vibrated in a pattern too regular to be wind. It carried no sound at first, only a pressure on the lungs, a faint tightening across the skin. Drayk noticed it before the women beside him did, not as a feeling but as an interruption in the background rhythm of the settlement. A shift in the equation.
"Stop," he said quietly.
Satella froze at the authority in his voice. Christie, already tense, followed suit. Ya'Jun stopped as well, her stance tightening on instinct.
Ahead of them, the mob had not surged. It had not acted with anger or violence. It simply held its shape... until one figure peeled away from the mass.
The Jelovaan male moved with alarming fluidity, not like a man deciding to act, but like a body following an internal command. His gait was too steady. His focus too direct. His eyes did not fixate on Drayk, Satella, Christie or Ya'Jun. They locked onto a point beyond the team, aligned with something inside the grand hall rather than any of them.
"That is not targeting behavior," Satella whispered. Her tricorder, though half-blind from the interference, gave one sharp chirp before going dead. "Heart rate steady. No adrenaline spike. No aggression indicators. This is... physiological alignment. As if something is regulating him."
"Regulating," Drayk echoed, eyes narrowing. "He is not acting. He is being driven."
Christie stiffened. "Driven by what? Did we cause this?"
Drayk did not answer. The ground beneath his boots pulsed once, a faint tremor barely perceptible. Not seismic. Not natural. Timed.
Every four seconds. Too precise for natural geology. A system, not a tremor.
The symmetry sharpened his focus. Precision always revealed its designer.
"Something beneath this settlement," he murmured. His gaze shifted briefly toward the settlement gate. Dust drifted across the gate’s opening, bending along an invisible contour. Not a barrier. A boundary response triggered by the same pulse. "Something built to contain or control the population when required."
Satella looked at him sharply. "A failsafe?"
"A containment protocol," Ya'Jun said as she readied herself to deal with the approaching threat. "I've seen similar set-ups on a few worlds, including my own. Small towns are isolated from everything else. Controlling the spread of panic. Or infection. Or disobedience. Whatever this world is balancing, it does not allow chaos to propagate."
Drayk nodded slightly. "Exactly. Sector isolation. Efficient population control."
The Jelovaan man suddenly broke into a run.
Not toward them. Past them.
Straight at the gate.
"Ya'Jun," Drayk said.
She moved before the words were finished. The control in her motion was unmistakable, the same brutal elegance he had once observed in Ya'Han, although tempered by discipline rather than rage. She intercepted the Jelovaan with a sidestep so smooth it looked almost gentle. Her arm hooked around his center of mass, redirecting his momentum without striking him, turning an attack into a controlled collapse. He hit the ground uninjured but thoroughly immobilized. The entire scene played out like a perfect dance of redirected motion. Not Starfleet combat. Childhood training, drilled into the royal children long before they earned the right to claim a hair color.
Christie exhaled in awe. "That was beautiful."
Ya'Jun kept her grip firm but nonlethal. "He is not fighting. His muscles are active but not resisting. This is not conscious movement."
Satella knelt beside the Jelovaan man, medical instincts overriding everything else. She ran a scan with the tricorder, though it flickered repeatedly. "Neural activity is elevated in the motor cortex. Suppressed in cognitive centers. He is following a signal. Except... nothing external. No transmitter. No implant. No neural interface."
"You will not," Drayk said. His gaze drifted upward to the mob gathered at the entrance of the Grand Hall. Their posture had shifted. Not hostile. Not afraid. Just reoriented. All looking inward, toward a point beneath the hall they could not see.
All waiting for the same command.
"They are responding to something environmental," he continued. "A stimulus originating below the structure. A pulse or harmonic pattern the nervous system interprets as instruction. It is not telepathy. It is entrainment."
Christie frowned. "Entrainment? Like synchronization?"
"Exactly like synchronization," Drayk replied. "A population aligned under a unifying directive. Controlled synchronization to prevent cross-settlement contamination."
Satella looked up at him, startled. "You think this is a control system for the entire planet?"
"I think this is how you manage a world designed to survive the impossible." His voice remained calm, analytical, contemptuous only of inefficiency. "Whether biological, mechanical, or something between, this is not instinct. It is programming."
The ground pulsed again. Four seconds. Then four. Then three.
The interval was changing.
Meaning something beneath the hall was accelerating.
"The others need this information now," Christie said.
"Agreed," Drayk replied. "And we will tell them. But first, we join them."
He stepped past Ya'Jun and the immobilized Jelovaan man, eyes locked on the Grand Hall. His voice dropped, low and precise.
"Move carefully. The next tremor will be stronger. And whatever is beneath that hall is done waiting."
Satella rose, tightening her grip on her medkit. Christie adjusted her stance, steady as any officer, civilian or not.
Ya'Jun released the Jelovaan gently. He did not flee. He simply stood, turned, and drifted back toward the mob like a leaf returning to its branch.
Drayk watched him go.
"Behavior without consciousness," he said. "A mind can resist. A body cannot. That is the organism we have stepped into."
He looked at Satella and Christie.
"Stay close. We are entering a system that corrects its own chaos. And its corrective cycle has already begun."
With that, Drayk led the team toward the hall, every step calculated, every sense primed, every pulse of the ground a reminder that the settlement was not reacting.
It was responding to them.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Awaiting the Unseen"
Previous post: "Convergence" by Scott
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1030
The Grand Hall felt different the moment Gemma and Shar'El exited the building. Ya'Han couldn't tell why, but she could feel it. It lingered at the edge of her consciousness, as if a veil had been drawn over her senses. The air still carried that strange calm, that whispering quiet that did not feel natural, yet something in it had shifted. The stillness no longer soothed. It pressed in around them like a breath held far too long.
Ya'Han's gaze swept the hall in slow, controlled motions. Columns carved with symbols she almost recognized, forming a written language she could not decipher. The gathering of Jelovaan outside the Grand Hall hung in her thoughts, their presence felt even from inside the building. She turned her gaze into the cluster of officers and uncertain allies, each one feeling what she was in their own way.
Jayson stood against one of the far columns near the back of the room, breathing steadily but still pale from the strain of the earlier psychic wave. The movement of her black hair drew his attention and his eyes met hers. She forced a reassuring nod, but the familiar ache twisted deeper. Protecting him had once been as natural as breathing, but now every instinct carried the sharp reminder that she had failed him before. Failed terribly. And if something went wrong here, she might fail him again.
Maya hovered close to the Guide, offering gentle support while T'Lara sat next to the woman who had telepathically greeted them, the mental whisper of her earlier greeting still echoing in Ya'Han's mind. The injured native inhabitant sat with her shoulders trembling beneath the thin fabric of her clothing. Her eyes were open but unfocused, staring at something no one else could see.
Zub shifted next to Ya'Han. "We should reposition," he murmured. It was not an order. It was an invitation to weigh in, as if he still wanted to lean on her judgment, even if he could not say so aloud.
"Closer to Jayson," Ya'Han suggested quietly. "And make sure the Guide stays between us and the nearest exit. If the inhabitants outside lose cohesion again, this hall will funnel them straight to us."
Zub gave a small nod. He accepted her advice, but she could see the caution behind his eyes. Not fear. Uncertainty. She could not blame him. After everything she had done while under the Lokustaar influence, trust needed time to regrow.
Before either could move, the injured woman suddenly stood. Not out of panic or fear, but in response to something only she could perceive.
T'Lara tried her best to usher the woman back down for fear that she might suddenly fall, but she remained steady as a smile slowly crept onto her lips. **He steps upon the path at last,** the woman whispered into their minds.
Ya'Han exchanged a look with Zub. "Gemma and Shar'El were already headed out. Are they returning?"
**No,** the telepath said, her mental voice thin but certain. **Not them. Someone we have been waiting for.**
The room seemed to tighten around the words.
"Not unsettling at all," Jayson sighed.
Ya'Han stepped closer, not touching the woman but ready to catch her if she collapsed. "Can you identify the presence?"
The woman shook her head slowly, eyes distant. **A shadow that is not a shadow. A memory who has walked through the fabric of time and space. He is here but does not know what he is.**
Zub stiffened. "That is not helpful... and does it have to be a shadow? I have had my fill of those."
"Is *he* responsible for what we have witnessed happening with the inhabitants of the settlement?" Ya'Han asked, forever analyzing the situation through a tactical lens.
**Yes... No...** The reply drifted away, fading into a silence that felt older than any of them.
The peace field. The sudden unrest outside. The disjointed calm inside the hall. The broken rhythm of the Jelovaan population.
Ya'Han felt it now more acutely than ever. The air around them no longer calmed her. It stirred something instead. Warnings. Instincts. The echo of danger.
Another pulse washed outward. Jayson flinched even though he tried to hide it.
Ya'Han moved beside him. "Easy. Whatever it is, we will handle it." Her voice softened as she added, barely above a whisper, "I will not let anything happen to you."
His hand brushed hers for a moment. Not by accident.
Zub cleared his throat gently. "We need to prepare for this unknown presence. Whatever or whoever the woman sensed might be disoriented. Or hostile."
Ya'Han turned and met his gaze. "What do you need?"
He hesitated only a second. "Watch the main door. If anything enters, I want you to call it before it gets within twenty meters."
It was a task she would have given herself. But hearing him say it meant he trusted her enough for that responsibility. Even if he did not trust her with the full weight of command. Not yet.
She nodded and moved to the position he indicated.
The telepathic woman inhaled sharply once more. **The long circle will finally close. He returns to the place he has never seen before.**
Ya'Han felt it then. A shiver in the air. A ripple across the mind. A presence brushing against the edges of awareness. Not hostile. Not peaceful. Searching.
Whoever had arrived on the planet had been at the center of what was happening, and Ya'Han knew that nothing would remain the same.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Memories of Feelings That Never Have Been"
Previous post: "Awaiting the Unseen" by Hanali
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1032
The telepath's breathing changed first. It was shallow and fast, out of rhythm with her stillness. T'Lara adjusted her position on one knee, her hands poised in the calm, precise readiness of a Vulcan physician. But her mind was not quiet. Without the peace field dampening her senses, something raw slipped into the open. A low, sharpening pull at the base of her instincts that she did not entirely welcome. Her Romulan side stirred beneath the discipline she fought to maintain.
The woman's eyes drifted upward, tracking something invisible.
**He again walks the path... for the first time,** she whispered inside their thoughts. Her mental voice trembled like a wire pulled too tight.
"Please elaborate," T'Lara said. Her tone stayed even, but there was an edge beneath it she did not bother hiding. "Is this entity approaching the settlement? Or the Hall?"
**No.** The thought brushed gently across their minds. **He is close, but not here. His steps move at the boundary. He stands where the line has not yet been drawn.**
Zub shifted, arms folding across his chest. "Closer how? Who is he? What is he?"
The woman's expression tightened. **He is not who he is. Not yet. But he has been. And he will be.**
T'Lara felt something flicker inside her. Something subtler, like the memory of an emotion without its name. Her Romulan instincts sharpened again, searching the air for a detail or a pattern that logic could not yet define.
"Maya?"
"I felt it too," the Shillian said. "Felt like a temporal displacement," she added quietly.
The woman did not understand the words, but she answered anyway. **Time remembers him in circles. Forward and backward. Broken and complete. He returns to the place he has not yet known.**
Ya'Han glanced toward T'Lara, a flash of genuine fear crossing her face. "Describe this presence. Is it dark? Cold? The shadow of an evil as old as the universe itself?"
The telepath hesitated before answering. **He seeks connection. A thread unbroken. A life changed.**
"That does not sound like the Lokustaar," Jayson offered, knowing exactly where Ya'Han's misgiving originated.
The woman's gaze drifted, uncertain but drawn toward a point beyond her sight, close enough that she could still feel its presence.
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Outside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1033
Christie froze, her breath catching. A hundred memories of her mother flashed through her mind at once, including some she could not remember ever having lived.
Satella, noticing the sudden shift in the young woman, stepped closer. "Are you alright?"
Christie took a small step back, confusion tightening her features. "I don't know. I saw something that I cannot explain. Memories, some that I remember, some that I know are mine but that I have not yet lived through."
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1033
The woman winced, as if her own thoughts were somehow hurting her. **A darkness that is no more, yet always present. Timeless, and forever in conflict with life.**
A ripple crossed the Hall, not physical but unmistakable. It drifted across the edges of their awareness like a half-formed thought moving past them. Unsteady. Curious. Undefined.
T'Lara's gaze shifted to the main doors. "Whatever she is sensing has to be out there, beyond those doors."
**No,** the woman said, drawing a slow breath. **Closer, and further. Echoes of what once was, fragments of past and future woven together.**
Ya'Han held her breath. The sensation clawed at memories she had spent years trying to bury, memories only two other people alive could understand. "It can't be."
Zub and Jayson rushed to Ya'Han's side. Each driven by a different instinct, but both wanting to help.
The telepath suddenly reached for T'Lara's arm. Her grip was cold and urgent.
**He does not know who he is,** she whispered. **He does not know what he carries. And he does not know he has already changed what must be.**
Her fingers loosened and she sagged forward. T'Lara caught her and lowered her gently to the bench. The woman's breathing steadied, but she looked drained and fragile.
The CMO instantly defaulted back to her training and checked the woman's vitals as best she could without a working medical tricorder. "Is he a threat?" she asked softly, hoping for even the smallest insight into what they were facing.
The woman's answer came as a faint whisper, barely audible.
**Not yet.**
The woman's eyes drifted upward, tracking something invisible.
**He again walks the path... for the first time,** she whispered inside their thoughts. Her mental voice trembled like a wire pulled too tight.
"Please elaborate," T'Lara said. Her tone stayed even, but there was an edge beneath it she did not bother hiding. "Is this entity approaching the settlement? Or the Hall?"
**No.** The thought brushed gently across their minds. **He is close, but not here. His steps move at the boundary. He stands where the line has not yet been drawn.**
Zub shifted, arms folding across his chest. "Closer how? Who is he? What is he?"
The woman's expression tightened. **He is not who he is. Not yet. But he has been. And he will be.**
T'Lara felt something flicker inside her. Something subtler, like the memory of an emotion without its name. Her Romulan instincts sharpened again, searching the air for a detail or a pattern that logic could not yet define.
"Maya?"
"I felt it too," the Shillian said. "Felt like a temporal displacement," she added quietly.
The woman did not understand the words, but she answered anyway. **Time remembers him in circles. Forward and backward. Broken and complete. He returns to the place he has not yet known.**
Ya'Han glanced toward T'Lara, a flash of genuine fear crossing her face. "Describe this presence. Is it dark? Cold? The shadow of an evil as old as the universe itself?"
The telepath hesitated before answering. **He seeks connection. A thread unbroken. A life changed.**
"That does not sound like the Lokustaar," Jayson offered, knowing exactly where Ya'Han's misgiving originated.
The woman's gaze drifted, uncertain but drawn toward a point beyond her sight, close enough that she could still feel its presence.
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Outside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1033
Christie froze, her breath catching. A hundred memories of her mother flashed through her mind at once, including some she could not remember ever having lived.
Satella, noticing the sudden shift in the young woman, stepped closer. "Are you alright?"
Christie took a small step back, confusion tightening her features. "I don't know. I saw something that I cannot explain. Memories, some that I remember, some that I know are mine but that I have not yet lived through."
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1033
The woman winced, as if her own thoughts were somehow hurting her. **A darkness that is no more, yet always present. Timeless, and forever in conflict with life.**
A ripple crossed the Hall, not physical but unmistakable. It drifted across the edges of their awareness like a half-formed thought moving past them. Unsteady. Curious. Undefined.
T'Lara's gaze shifted to the main doors. "Whatever she is sensing has to be out there, beyond those doors."
**No,** the woman said, drawing a slow breath. **Closer, and further. Echoes of what once was, fragments of past and future woven together.**
Ya'Han held her breath. The sensation clawed at memories she had spent years trying to bury, memories only two other people alive could understand. "It can't be."
Zub and Jayson rushed to Ya'Han's side. Each driven by a different instinct, but both wanting to help.
The telepath suddenly reached for T'Lara's arm. Her grip was cold and urgent.
**He does not know who he is,** she whispered. **He does not know what he carries. And he does not know he has already changed what must be.**
Her fingers loosened and she sagged forward. T'Lara caught her and lowered her gently to the bench. The woman's breathing steadied, but she looked drained and fragile.
The CMO instantly defaulted back to her training and checked the woman's vitals as best she could without a working medical tricorder. "Is he a threat?" she asked softly, hoping for even the smallest insight into what they were facing.
The woman's answer came as a faint whisper, barely audible.
**Not yet.**
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
#######
"The Shape of Things to Come"
Previous post: "Memories of Feelings That Never Have Been"
#######
"Since space and time are curved, the infinite sooner or later bends back upon itself and ends up where it begun. And so have I."
— Commander Susan Ivanova
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.1035
The world came into focus one breath at a time. The shimmer of the transporter faded more slowly than it should have. Erik exhaled, already aware that something in the air felt wrong. Not threatening, but unfamiliar in a way that felt subtly unnatural. Shadows stretched in subtly incorrect directions, misaligned with the dual suns above. Adriana, Amanda, and Cristhiane stood around him, each trying to piece together their surroundings with senses rather than instruments. No readings. No tricorder chirps. No commbadge acknowledgments. Silence.
The Native American tapped his communicator again out of habit. Nothing. He could not even hear the click of inactive circuitry. As expected, but still troubling nonetheless.
Around them, the air stirred like a waking dream. Perfect grass stretched from their footsteps, swaying to a wind that was not there. The distant treeline appeared equally flawless, each tree matching its neighbours in height and shape. And beneath the tranquil scene, there lingered a presence at the back of their minds, an inaudible voice speaking a language they somehow half-recognized before realizing they did not understand it at all. None of it made sense, and yet Erik and the others knew that this world was not a dream but as real as could be.
Amanda whispered, "That almost sounded like Orion. And then... something else."
Adriana's gaze shifted between faces, her brow tightening. "This is more than a language blend. It’s... evolution by necessity. Shared survival forcing cultures together. It's remarkable, but how did we hear it? There is no one around."
Cristhiane tapped on Erik's shoulder, her expression alert. "There is someone, look."
Erik turned and looked in the direction the mother pointed toward. A single figure had appeared where none had been before, casually walking towards them, the colour of their skin as evident as the grass beneath their feet. The presence in their minds flickered the instant he appeared, as if his arrival interrupted a sentence spoken in a language they would never understand.
"Orion it is," Adriana nervously grinned, accepting what she saw as being anything but a coincidence.
The man who approached was Orion by physiology, but older, leaner, with none of the swagger the Syndicate tended to cultivate. His smile stretched nearly ear to ear as he folded his arms. "Name's Threll. And you must be very lost."
Adriana's eyes widened in mild relief. "You speak Terran?"
"Of course I do," he replied cheerfully. He examined them one by one, gaze lingering on Erik last. "Let me guess. You’re here about the transmitter."
"I don't trust him," Amanda whispered to her sister, the green-skinned man's presence making her skin crawl.
Erik held the man's eyes for a moment. "Yes."
Threll's smile widened. "You have the look of people out of place, chasing something you don't fully understand."
Amanda glanced at Erik. "How does he know about the transmitter?"
Threll answered as if the question had been directed to him. "Simple. You're not here to trade, and you're definitely not here for sightseeing." He tilted his head, as though listening to the sounds of nature, though none existed here. "People are brought here against their will and searching for meaning. You are here searching for answers, and that's unique in this world."
Adriana and Amanda simultaneously raised an eyebrow, their mirrored reaction unsettling in its synchronicity. Cristhiane's thoughts instantly went to her daughter, her unspoken questions being about her safety over her own.
Erik nodded once. "Our ship is in orbit, and we need to find the transmitter. We believe it may be our only hope of saving it."
Adriana blinked. "Captain..."
The light around them flickered, as though the world itself considered responding.
There was no time for diplomacy or to play word games, so Erik opted for the most direct approach.
Threll’s expression sharpened with interest. "I know." Then his tone brightened again as if he had decided something. "Come with me. All of you. I know the quickest way. You'll want to avoid the outside settlements; the people there can be somewhat distracted and distracting at times."
Before anyone could speak, Threll gestured enthusiastically toward a narrow path between two stone pillars. "This way. The main settlement is some distance out. Too far for most folk to wander without reason, but you look like people with reasons."
Adriana hesitated. "Captain, we have no way to know if the others will be there."
"We do not have the time to second-guess ourselves," Erik said quietly. "We can only hope they will be there, or that we can find the solution on our own."
Cristhiane frowned. "Captain, if they are not there and we are unable to figure out how to use the transmitter to save the ANUBIS..."
"Then, I suspect, that it will already be too late," he said. He did not elaborate. He did not need to.
Their breathing fell into an unnatural rhythm, timed with the silent pulse they could all feel beneath the world. For a moment, Adriana studied him in silence, searching his face for something. He met her gaze without flinching. Whatever she found there, it only deepened her concern.
Threll clapped his hands once in impatience. "Come along, pink-skins. The transmitter won't find itself."
He turned and started down the narrow path without waiting.
Erik stepped forward first.
There was no hesitation. No backward glance. He was a man on a single-minded mission to save his ship.
Only the steady stride of a man who already knew the path he was walking, even if no one else did.
"Stay close," he said quietly to the others as they followed.
Adriana fell into step beside him, worry threading her voice. "Captain... are we not being a little too quick to trust this man?"
Erik kept his eyes forward. "Suspicion and hesitation are luxuries we cannot afford right now."
A simple answer, but one that sent a shiver down Adriana's spine.
The narrow path stretched before them, shifting subtly at the edges of their vision, as if deciding what shape it wanted to take.
Without fanfare, without alarm, they stepped onto the path, each feeling an odd, yet familiar tingle coursing through their bodies. The ground hardened beneath their feet, as though the world itself were holding its breath.
Everything about this world was strange, but time was something they all sensed could have a mind of its own. This was not the place to challenge whatever primal cosmic force shaped the landscape around them. Whatever it intended was far larger than any single one of them... and it was already in motion.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"The Shape of Things to Come"
Previous post: "Memories of Feelings That Never Have Been"
#######
"Since space and time are curved, the infinite sooner or later bends back upon itself and ends up where it begun. And so have I."
— Commander Susan Ivanova
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, open clearing
Stardate: 45033.1035
The world came into focus one breath at a time. The shimmer of the transporter faded more slowly than it should have. Erik exhaled, already aware that something in the air felt wrong. Not threatening, but unfamiliar in a way that felt subtly unnatural. Shadows stretched in subtly incorrect directions, misaligned with the dual suns above. Adriana, Amanda, and Cristhiane stood around him, each trying to piece together their surroundings with senses rather than instruments. No readings. No tricorder chirps. No commbadge acknowledgments. Silence.
The Native American tapped his communicator again out of habit. Nothing. He could not even hear the click of inactive circuitry. As expected, but still troubling nonetheless.
Around them, the air stirred like a waking dream. Perfect grass stretched from their footsteps, swaying to a wind that was not there. The distant treeline appeared equally flawless, each tree matching its neighbours in height and shape. And beneath the tranquil scene, there lingered a presence at the back of their minds, an inaudible voice speaking a language they somehow half-recognized before realizing they did not understand it at all. None of it made sense, and yet Erik and the others knew that this world was not a dream but as real as could be.
Amanda whispered, "That almost sounded like Orion. And then... something else."
Adriana's gaze shifted between faces, her brow tightening. "This is more than a language blend. It’s... evolution by necessity. Shared survival forcing cultures together. It's remarkable, but how did we hear it? There is no one around."
Cristhiane tapped on Erik's shoulder, her expression alert. "There is someone, look."
Erik turned and looked in the direction the mother pointed toward. A single figure had appeared where none had been before, casually walking towards them, the colour of their skin as evident as the grass beneath their feet. The presence in their minds flickered the instant he appeared, as if his arrival interrupted a sentence spoken in a language they would never understand.
"Orion it is," Adriana nervously grinned, accepting what she saw as being anything but a coincidence.
The man who approached was Orion by physiology, but older, leaner, with none of the swagger the Syndicate tended to cultivate. His smile stretched nearly ear to ear as he folded his arms. "Name's Threll. And you must be very lost."
Adriana's eyes widened in mild relief. "You speak Terran?"
"Of course I do," he replied cheerfully. He examined them one by one, gaze lingering on Erik last. "Let me guess. You’re here about the transmitter."
"I don't trust him," Amanda whispered to her sister, the green-skinned man's presence making her skin crawl.
Erik held the man's eyes for a moment. "Yes."
Threll's smile widened. "You have the look of people out of place, chasing something you don't fully understand."
Amanda glanced at Erik. "How does he know about the transmitter?"
Threll answered as if the question had been directed to him. "Simple. You're not here to trade, and you're definitely not here for sightseeing." He tilted his head, as though listening to the sounds of nature, though none existed here. "People are brought here against their will and searching for meaning. You are here searching for answers, and that's unique in this world."
Adriana and Amanda simultaneously raised an eyebrow, their mirrored reaction unsettling in its synchronicity. Cristhiane's thoughts instantly went to her daughter, her unspoken questions being about her safety over her own.
Erik nodded once. "Our ship is in orbit, and we need to find the transmitter. We believe it may be our only hope of saving it."
Adriana blinked. "Captain..."
The light around them flickered, as though the world itself considered responding.
There was no time for diplomacy or to play word games, so Erik opted for the most direct approach.
Threll’s expression sharpened with interest. "I know." Then his tone brightened again as if he had decided something. "Come with me. All of you. I know the quickest way. You'll want to avoid the outside settlements; the people there can be somewhat distracted and distracting at times."
Before anyone could speak, Threll gestured enthusiastically toward a narrow path between two stone pillars. "This way. The main settlement is some distance out. Too far for most folk to wander without reason, but you look like people with reasons."
Adriana hesitated. "Captain, we have no way to know if the others will be there."
"We do not have the time to second-guess ourselves," Erik said quietly. "We can only hope they will be there, or that we can find the solution on our own."
Cristhiane frowned. "Captain, if they are not there and we are unable to figure out how to use the transmitter to save the ANUBIS..."
"Then, I suspect, that it will already be too late," he said. He did not elaborate. He did not need to.
Their breathing fell into an unnatural rhythm, timed with the silent pulse they could all feel beneath the world. For a moment, Adriana studied him in silence, searching his face for something. He met her gaze without flinching. Whatever she found there, it only deepened her concern.
Threll clapped his hands once in impatience. "Come along, pink-skins. The transmitter won't find itself."
He turned and started down the narrow path without waiting.
Erik stepped forward first.
There was no hesitation. No backward glance. He was a man on a single-minded mission to save his ship.
Only the steady stride of a man who already knew the path he was walking, even if no one else did.
"Stay close," he said quietly to the others as they followed.
Adriana fell into step beside him, worry threading her voice. "Captain... are we not being a little too quick to trust this man?"
Erik kept his eyes forward. "Suspicion and hesitation are luxuries we cannot afford right now."
A simple answer, but one that sent a shiver down Adriana's spine.
The narrow path stretched before them, shifting subtly at the edges of their vision, as if deciding what shape it wanted to take.
Without fanfare, without alarm, they stepped onto the path, each feeling an odd, yet familiar tingle coursing through their bodies. The ground hardened beneath their feet, as though the world itself were holding its breath.
Everything about this world was strange, but time was something they all sensed could have a mind of its own. This was not the place to challenge whatever primal cosmic force shaped the landscape around them. Whatever it intended was far larger than any single one of them... and it was already in motion.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
“Future Past”
Previous post: "The Shape of Things to Come" by Francois
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1040
Zub Enel towered over Jayson and Ya’Han with his long, scaly arms out in a loose, protective stance. He’d meant to shield Ya’Han from whatever force was causing ripples through the building, the crowd outside, and everyone inside. Since the force penetrated everything, he deemed his stance useless and dropped it.
Ya’Han seemed to have recovered from whatever caused her to shout, “It can’t be!” Any loss of control by Ya’Han threatened everyone, especially Jayson, whom she’d killed before. Despite that, Jayson stayed close to her, showing concern and acceptance. Zub admired his devotion to a woman once so completely evil she’d gutted him.
A series of rapid pulses through the wooden plank flooring of the Grand Hall warned Zub that the planetary-level entrainment/containment system below was about to erupt another of its manipulations of neurology and behavior. His deep voice hitched up a notch, “Brace yourself.”
He felt it less as a wave, but more like a disruptive sphere emanating outward, not just through the building and people but through atoms, through the root of existence, even through the present moment itself. He was jarred by memories from before he joined Starfleet, as well as memories as an elderly man—long retired, cold, in a sweater, suffering stabbing pain in his ankle from a Denebrian Slime Devil attack in his teens.
Spreading his boots to keep his balance against the wave's force, Zub glanced at Ya’Han’s hair to gauge her mood. Instead of crimson or vermillion, her hair remained jet black. An ancient alien artifact had stripped not only the darkness from her body and soul, also whatever made her distinctly Nylaan: kaleidoscopic hair. Now, her moods were only as visible as she allowed them to be. Right now, she had set her face as if she had endured but controlled whatever the latest wave had triggered.
She squinted at him. “I’ll guard the front doors to keep the villagers out and our guests - her gaze flicked to the two injured villagers — in.”
Zub Enel nodded. “I wonder if this latest ‘wave’ has informed the villagers of a new tactic for getting in here.”
“I plan to disappoint them,” Ya’Han said. She assumed a defensive stance between the partially deployed benches and the Grand Hall's front double doors.
Zub knew her hand-to-hand skills were deadly. He hoped she wouldn't need to.
He turned to the Ops Officer. “Jayson, I need your engineering talents.”
Jayson nodded, his gaze following Ya’Han as she redeployed.
Enel waved a three-fingered hand at the panel of levers along the front wall. “Whatever this effect is, it comes from below the hall. Maybe it was damaged by that initial shockwave and is trying to get someone down there to perform maintenance. Is there a way down from inside the hall?”
Jayson smiled. “Maybe we should just let the villagers in and see how they get down there.”
Zub shook his head. “They might set up a banquet instead.”
Jayson frowned. “Doubtful. This thing or these things controlling these people want them in here, but do we? We might be a nuisance to be rid of. We might BE the banquet.”
“True. Would you analyze any levers you haven’t already pulled? You might figure out one that gets us below.”
Jayson, expression intense, approached the bank of levers.
Zub stepped over to the cabinets along a side wall. Each cabinet was a pale wood like Terran oak or Andorian W’nn. The grain pattern on each cabinet was repeated along the entire wall. All looked precisely like the one next to it, all with closed doors.
The shelves above, made of the same wood, also ran the length of the wall. Loaded with platters, bowls, and mugs, each set looked identical, as if one design had been replicated as many times as needed. Zub doubted replicators worked. He made a mental note to count the cups, as that might help estimate the village’s maximum population, but he was more interested in what was in the cabinets.
His clawed fingers slipped behind the edge of a cabinet door. He pulled. It didn’t budge. He gave the door a little push. Metal gears engaged with a click. There was a whir as gears spun. The double cabinet doors eased out and then moved laterally to either side. Blankets made of thick, light blue fiber sat neatly folded inside. He brought one to his nose to sniff for cleanliness. They smelled of dried grass.
Zub carried a couple over to T’Lara and Maya, who were tending the injured guide sitting in shock, and the telepath who had once again fallen silent mentally. He said, “These are clean and amazingly soft.”
Maya’s gaze fell on the blankets. “That’s a very well executed weave. So regular. Like from a loom. They likely twilled the yarn beforehand from plant fibers. Maybe from the grass in the field we beamed down in.”
T’Lara accepted both blankets from Zub. She laid one partly unfolded across the lap of the injured guide before gently placing the guide’s hand on it. The guide stopped staring. She looked down and smiled.
The ever-serious Romulan/Vulcan doctor tenderly wrapped the other blanket around the telepath's shoulders and let it close in front of her like a robe.
Jayson, by the bank of levers, announced, “I just had childhood memories. They were me, but not from my childhood. It was like I remembered growing up somewhere completely different. But I didn’t.” He scowled.
Maya offered, “That confirms, at least anecdotally, that we are experiencing temporal disturbances. This mechanism is more than a planetwide force. It is distorting time, space *and* dimensional integrity.” She frowned fiercely. “And I have no instruments to study the effects!”
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis
---
"Alignment Protocol"
(Previous Post: "Future Past")
---
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Inside the Grand Hall
Stardate: 45033.1042
The pulses did not stop.
They did not intensify either.
They simply continued, steady and deliberate, as though the Grand Hall itself were breathing at a pace chosen long before any of them had arrived. The wooden planks beneath their boots carried the vibrations cleanly, not as a tremor but as a patterned transmission, each oscillation identical to the last. It was not forceful. It was insistent.
Maya stood near the cabinets Zub had opened earlier, her attention no longer on the injured or the levers or the gathering tension at the doors. Her large, dark eyes tracked the interior of the hall with an intensity that bordered on reverence. She had gone very still, her head tilting slightly as if she were listening to something no one else could hear.
Her gaze moved from cabinet to cabinet, shelf to shelf, beam to beam. The account given by Jaysn of a childhood memory that had never occurred suggested the presence of a temporal variable at play. Without instruments to confirm or refute the hypothesis, Maya defaulted to the only option available to her. Observation. Not of the obvious, but of the overlooked. Structures. Materials. Repetition. Systems built so consistently that even the smallest deviation might reveal intent.
Everything repeated.
The same grain in the wood. The same spacing between structural supports. The same curvature in the ceiling ribs. Even the imperfections were consistent, copied rather than grown. It was not merely uniform craftsmanship. It was templated reality.
She took a slow step forward.
Then another.
The pulses rolled through again, and Maya frowned, her expression sharpening. Her eyes fixed on a section of the far wall, just left of the lever bank where Jayson worked. At first glance, it matched everything else. The same pale wood. The same grain. The same height and width.
But it did not repeat.
The grain pattern did not align.
It was subtle. Anyone not conditioned to look for deviation would never have noticed it. The wood there curved in on itself ever so slightly, the lines looping in a way that did not match the rest of the hall. It was not damage. It was not wear. It was not age.
It was intentional.
Maya stepped closer, her breath shallow now, her thoughts spilling outward as words without any awareness of audience.
"No. No, that is incorrect. That panel is not misaligned. It is divergent. The repetition pattern is exact everywhere else, even accounting for natural variance in organic material. This is not organic variance. This is a deliberate offset. Physical or temporal in nature. An aberration preserved outside the original replicated reality."
She lifted one hand, fingers hovering just short of the surface, as though touching it might collapse something fragile.
"This hall was not built. It was instantiated. Replicated repeatedly from a stabilized template, over and over, with no drift. Except here. This section was excluded from synchronization. It exists adjacent to the template rather than within it."
The pulses rolled again, and this time Maya felt it in her chest. Not discomfort. Recognition.
"Of course," she breathed. "You cannot anchor something outside of time if it is subject to time. You isolate it. You let past and future overlap until they cancel out motion."
She leaned closer, eyes tracking the grain, the join lines, the microscopic imperfections that did not age forward or backward but simply remained.
"It is not hidden," she continued, voice gaining speed. "It is unchanging. Which makes it invisible to anything that expects progression."
She raised her voice without realizing it.
"This is not a door in the conventional sense. It is a temporal discontinuity expressed architecturally. This panel has never moved, and it has always been open and closed simultaneously. The pulses are not trying to force it. They are synchronizing us to it."
"Maya?" Jayson gasped but Maya did not hear him, her mind and thoughts figuratively lost in another time and place of her own creation.
"The mechanism is not mechanical," she said, stepping fully into the space before the panel. "It is conditional. It responds to presence, not action. The village is not being compelled to come here for maintenance. They are not being compelled. They are being included. Brought into phase. Witnessing is simply a side effect of alignment."
"Maya!" Zub’s voice was closer now.
"This place is acknowledging and reacting to our presence, just like the system did when the ANUBIS entered it. We assumed the response to the ANUBIS was defensive. A countermeasure. But it may have been an invitation. A request for synchronization rather than withdrawal. It would explain the interference frequency shifts, and why we felt at peace when we accepted the alignment instead of fighting against it."
The next pulse passed through the hall, and something changed.
There was no visible movement. No seams parted. No panels slid or rotated. Instead, the air itself seemed to deepen. The space before Maya folded inward, not collapsing but receding, as though depth had been introduced where none had existed before.
Sound followed.
It rose slowly, a single tonal presence that was not a tone at all. It was layered, countless frequencies compressed into one sustained resonance. It carried structure. Grammar. Pattern. The echo of language without words.
Maya froze, eyes wide.
"It is speaking," she whispered. "Not to us. Around us. This is not sound as communication. This is sound as architecture. A linguistic field. Every voice that has ever passed through it remains present. Not recorded. Integrated."
The resonance deepened, rolling outward from the newly revealed space, brushing across the hall like a tide.
Zub reached out and caught Maya by the arm. "Maya. Step back."
She blinked, startled, as though waking from a dream. Her breathing was rapid now, her focus snapping back to the room, to the others, to the reality of bodies and injuries and danger.
"I am sorry," she said quickly, though her eyes never left the space. "I was not aware that I had stopped responding."
Jayson stared at the opening, jaw tight. "We can hear it. But we cannot see anything."
"That is correct," Maya replied, her voice steady again, controlled with effort. "The interior is phase shifted. It is not obscured. It is temporally misaligned. We are perceiving its effects without occupying its frame of reference."
"Are you certain of this?" Ya'Han asked.
"I'm," Maya hesitated. "No, I am not. I have no concrete scientific basis to base this theory upon, or any valid data to support the offered conclusion. All I have is an intuitive certainty that predates evidence. And that should concern me more than it does."
The resonance continued, patient and unhurried.
Whatever lay beneath the Grand Hall had been waiting.
Not for centuries.
For alignment to occur.
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"Regrouping"
Previous post: "Alignment Protocol" by Maya
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, courtyard
Stardate: 45033.1045
The courtyard felt wrong in a way that none of them could name. The air carried a dense weight, as if every breath moved through something unseen. Satella registered it in the way people shifted around them, the odd mix of vacant stares, frightened glances, and simmering anger beneath the surface. A few townsfolk stood frozen, unable to decide whether to flee or confront. Others muttered to themselves, pacing with the restless cadence of animals startled out of their den.
The settlement did not fall silent.
It hesitated.
The villagers froze in mid motion as though caught between breaths. Raised voices dulled into murmurs. Hands that had been clenched loosened, fingers uncurling without purpose. The pressure that had driven them into agitation did not vanish, but it receded just enough to leave confusion in its wake.
She felt it immediately. The pause was wrong. Not relief. Not calm. A held moment.
"This is our opening," she said softly.
Drayk stood rigid beside her, his stance wide, eyes fixed on the Grand Hall. His instincts screamed that pauses like this were precursors, not conclusions. Everything in him demanded movement, decisive action, anything but waiting.
"They are not recovering," he said. "They are being reset."
Ya'Jun said nothing, her attention focused on the patterns in the crowd. No one advanced. No one retreated. The population hovered in a shared state of uncertainty, as if awaiting instruction that never arrived.
Christie pressed her hands together, grounding herself. The air vibrated faintly, not audibly, but with a sensation that crawled along her awareness. Time felt layered here, thin in places, thick in others. She glanced toward the Grand Hall, her gaze drawn upward without conscious thought.
On the landing above them, Shar'El stood motionless, her silhouette sharp against the doors. Gemma was half a step behind her, posture coiled, weight balanced forward. Even from this distance, Satella could sense the difference between them. Control and restraint holding something far more volatile in check.
Christie’s eyes drifted to Ya'Han, who now stood in the opened doorway, her body angled defensively. There was something mirrored there. Not in posture, but in awareness itself. Ya'Han felt the vibrations too. Christie could see it in the tension around her eyes, the way her breathing unconsciously aligned with the subtle rhythm pulsing through the stone beneath their feet.
Drayk followed Satella's gaze upward. "They are waiting."
Satella nodded. "So are we."
Another villager stumbled forward, then stopped, head tilting as if listening to something beneath the ground. Fear flickered across their face, but it did not escalate. Whatever had been driving them earlier had loosened its grip.
Ya'Jun spoke quietly. "The disturbance is centered on the structure. Courtyard agitation appears to be secondary. Proximity effect."
That aligned with what Satella felt. The closer one stood to the Grand Hall, the more the air seemed to hum with latent pressure. Not threatening. Expectant.
Drayk shifted his weight. "If this starts again, we may not get another pause."
Satella did not answer immediately. Her attention remained fixed on the doors. On the unseen space beyond them. She felt it now too, that strange sensation of being slightly out of sequence, as if the moment ahead had already occurred once and was now waiting to happen again.
She paused for a moment then raised her gaze to Shar'El.
Their eyes met. The silver-haired Mikulak woman lifted her hand and made a single, deliberate gesture. Two fingers extended, then a slow inward curl. The signal for entry.
Shar'El did not respond right away. She glanced back at the doors, then at the Intel Officer. Gemma's jaw was tight, her focus unwavering. Several instincts warred beneath the surface, but she remained still, awaiting command.
The two women looked at each other, then nodded once. No words had been spoken, yet everyone understood what needed to happen.
Christie exhaled shakily, not from fear, but from recognition. "It feels like we are late," she murmured. "And early. Both."
Ya'Jun gave her a sharp look, then returned her attention forward. She did not disagree.
Satella stepped forward first, her pace unhurried but deliberate. Drayk fell into position at her side without being asked. Ya'Jun took the rear. Christie followed between them, casting one last glance at the villagers who still lingered in uneasy suspension.
The closer they drew to the doors, the heavier the air became. The vibrations sharpened, resolving into something almost like rhythm. Timing without sound.
Shar'El shifted aside as they reached the landing. Gemma's gaze flicked briefly to Satella, assessing, measuring, then returned to the doors.
No one spoke.
The Grand Hall waited.
Not like a place being entered for the first time, but like a moment repeating itself. Again. For the first time.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson <racheljackiejohnson@gmail.com>
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson <racheljackiejohnson@gmail.com>
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Time Travel"
Previous Post: "Regrouping" by Rachel
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, nature path
Stardate: 45033.1045
The path should not have existed.
Adriana was certain of that.
Twenty minutes earlier, there had been nothing between the clearing and the distant treeline except flawless grass and the same unnervingly identical horizon in every direction. Now a narrow trail cut through the landscape with deliberate precision, stone and compacted earth forming a corridor that felt less discovered than permitted. It curved gently forward, never quite revealing where it led, as though the world preferred anticipation over clarity.
She followed a half step behind Erik, her eyes never leaving the ground for long. The surface beneath her boots was firm, too firm, lacking the minute inconsistencies of real terrain. No loose gravel. No subtle give. Each footfall landed exactly where the last should have, as if the path already knew the rhythm of her stride and corrected for it.
That was what unsettled her most.
The trees lining the trail stood perfectly still. Every trunk matched the next in height, width, and spacing. Their branches were frozen in place, leaves caught mid-motion without the courtesy of a breeze to justify it. Even light behaved strangely here, shadows stretched at angles that shifted only when she looked directly at them, then snapped back into place as if corrected.
Time felt wrong.
Not slower, not faster. Just misaligned.
Adriana became aware of it gradually, the way one noticed a headache only after it had settled in. Her breathing said they were walking at a normal pace. Her muscles agreed. Yet her senses insisted otherwise. The scenery advanced too quickly. Each bend in the path arrived before she felt she had earned it.
Beside her, Amanda slowed half a step, then quickened again, her brow furrowed in concentration. Adriana noticed immediately.
"You feel it too."
The realization tightened something in her chest.
Ahead of them, Threll walked with easy confidence, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed. He did not look at the path. He did not look at the trees. He walked like someone moving through a familiar room in the dark.
"So," Threll said lightly, breaking the unnatural quiet, "you are feeling it now, yes?"
Erik did not hesitate. "Yes."
The answer came too quickly for Adriana's liking.
Threll smiled, glancing back just enough for Adriana to see the expression without being certain it was meant for her. "Most do. Eventually."
"Most of who?" Cristhiane asked, her voice tight. She kept looking past the trees as if expecting someone to step out at any moment. Or someone small to be standing alone among them, waiting.
Threll shrugged. "The newer arrivals."
That did nothing to ease Adriana's concern.
Erik, on the other hand, looked almost thoughtful. Not alarmed. Not defensive. Curious, in the same quiet way Maya looked at anomalies that refused to break apart under analysis.
"It feels aligned," Erik said slowly. "Like walking inside a rhythm instead of against it."
Adriana turned her head sharply toward him. "Aligned with what?"
Threll laughed softly. "Ah. You hear that? He is listening to the place instead of fighting it."
That bothered her far more than the temporal distortion ever could.
She studied Erik from the corner of her eye. His stride was steady, untroubled. If anything, he looked more at ease with every step they took. As if the path were removing something invisible from his shoulders.
"This is not natural," Adriana said, unable to keep the edge from her voice. "Nothing here is."
Threll glanced at her then, truly looked at her for the first time. His smile did not fade, but something sharpened behind it. "Natural is a flexible term, Counselor."
Amanda stopped walking.
Not abruptly. Just enough that Adriana felt the break in rhythm like a pulled thread.
Amanda crouched slightly, her fingers brushing the ground. Her expression had gone distant, unfocused, the way it did when memory and instinct blurred together.
"This place," Amanda said quietly, "it feels constructed. And I do not mean built in a physical sense."
Adriana's heart skipped.
"In the Matrix," Amanda continued, lifting her hand as if feeling the air rather than touching it, "things were designed to respond. Not immediately. Subconsciously. You moved and the world adjusted so you never noticed the seams."
She looked up at Adriana, eyes dark with recognition. "This place has seams."
Adriana moved closer without thinking, placing herself just within Amanda's peripheral vision. "What kind of seams?"
"The kind that correct you if you drift," Amanda replied. "The kind that wants everything to fit."
Threll's smile widened, delighted rather than disturbed. "You lived in something like this, did you?"
Amanda straightened, her posture defensive. "Something that pretended it was real, yes. But it imposed its version of reality on me an the others trapped inside. This place is different. It adapts to fit, not to impose."
Erik turned back toward them then, concern flickering across his features at last. "Amanda?"
"I am fine," she said quickly. Too quickly. "I just recognize the architecture. Do not worry, this is not another matrix, but the core principles are too similar for my liking."
Adriana felt a cold clarity settle over her thoughts. This world was not simply strange. It was intentional. Not hostile. Not welcoming. Evaluative.
Cristhiane's voice cut through the moment. "How far is this central settlement?"
"Not far," Threll replied easily. "We are nearly there."
Adriana frowned. That was impossible.
She had memorized the orbital visuals before beaming down. The main settlement was tens of kilometers from the clearing. Even with perfect terrain, even without obstacles, the distance should have taken hours.
Then her gaze snapped forward.
The path ended abruptly ahead of them, opening onto a gentle rise. Beyond it, stone structures rose from the landscape in clean lines and measured spacing, banners hanging motionless in air that refused to move. The settlement stood complete and waiting, exactly as she had seen it from orbit.
Erik slowed, eyes narrowing in recognition. "This is it."
Adriana stared at the distance behind them, then at the city ahead. Her legs felt no fatigue. Her breathing was steady. Her body insisted this walk had been ordinary. Her mind, on the other hand, knew better.
Twenty or so minutes had passed according to her internal perception of time. As a Counselor, it was a skill she had been forced to cultivate. Being able to judge the passage of time without a clock was an asset. Here, on this planet, that skill pointed to an inescapable anomaly: on foot, across the anticipated distance, the journey should have taken most of the day. But here they were, standing at the entrance to the central settlement. Nothing had happened... yet.
And that, more than anything else, told Adriana that something already had, whether they recognized it yet or not.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
"Below the Calm"
Previous post: "Time Travel" by Marissa
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground
Stardate: 45033.1050
The passage beneath the Grand Hall did not descend so much as it slipped sideways out of expectation.
Stone gave way to a surface that looked like neither metal nor mineral, smooth but not reflective, matte yet somehow luminous without a visible source. The walls curved gently inward, not enough to feel confining, but enough to make distance difficult to judge. The corridor stretched ahead of them in long, seamless arcs, repeating patterns that never quite aligned the same way twice, as if the structure resisted being fixed in a single moment. It felt less constructed than remembered, as if the space itself was recalling how to exist rather than being built.
Footsteps echoed, but not consistently. Sometimes the sound lagged behind its owner. Other times it arrived early, as if memory were anticipating motion.
Shar'El felt it immediately.
The moment they crossed fully beneath the Hall, the mental pressure surged. Not a single voice, not even a chorus, but a flood. The memories of her team rose into her awareness without invitation, layered and raw, stripped of the softening distance time usually provided. Regret, fear, longing, love, grief. Not impressions, but lived moments, sharp enough to bruise. All of this without her directly looking at any of them, without intent, without consent.
She faltered, her breath catching as Ya'Han's disciplined control fractured into flashes of battle and loss, as Gemma's fractured mind erupted into a kaleidoscope of selves all speaking at once. Maya's relentless curiosity burned beside a deep seated doubt. Zub's loyalty pulsed with the steady weight of responsibility. Even T'Lara's iron restraint trembled, Romulan emotion pushing against Vulcan logic with relentless persistence.
Shar’El pressed a hand to the wall, steadying herself. Her Ullian discipline strained under the sheer density of it all. These were not memories drifting on the surface, not fragments or impressions. The corridor itself seemed to pull them forward, drag them into the open, as if the place existed to remember what others tried to forget.
"This place…" Gemma murmured, her voice distant, unfocused. "It feels like it already knows us," she said, with a certainty that unsettled even her.
Shar'El did not answer. She could barely separate her own thoughts from the tide pressing against her consciousness. Time itself felt unstable here. Moments overlapped. The present blurred with what had been and with something else, something not yet realized but disturbingly present all the same.
Then the pressure eased.
She knew it would.
The woman moved closer without sound. The same figure who had welcomed them to the settlement now stood at Shar'El's side, her expression serene, her presence anchoring in a way that defied logic. Shar'El felt the shift before the touch happened, a subtle folding inward, as if a future decision had already been made and was simply catching up to the present.
The woman raised her hand.
Shar'El did not pull away. She, somehow, already knew what would happen next, the certainty settling into her thoughts before the moment arrived.
Her fingers rested lightly against the side of Shar'El's head, just above the temple. The contact was gentle, intimate, and absolute. Order flowed outward from that point, not forcefully, but with quiet authority. The chaos inside the Ullian's mind did not vanish. It aligned. Memories slid back into place, boundaries reasserting themselves with invisible precision.
At the same instant, the rest of the team slowed, then stopped.
A breath passed through the corridor that did not belong to any of them.
For a heartbeat that stretched far beyond its allotted span, everyone saw something they had not yet lived. Paths unwalked. Choices unmade. Losses and victories flickering like reflections on water. It was not prophecy. It was proximity. Futures pressing close enough to leave an imprint.
Then the woman lowered her hand.
The weight lifted.
Time resumed its familiar shape, leaving behind only the echo of what had been briefly known.
Shar'El exhaled, unaware she had been holding her breath. Gratitude welled up first, instinctive and unguarded. Then understanding followed, unsettling in its clarity. This place did not observe time. It held it. Curated it. Allowed access only when it served a purpose.
The woman met Shar'El's eyes.
Her voice entered Shar'El's mind without sound, calm and composed, threaded with meanings that bent backward and forward all at once.
"You walk where you have always walked. You arrive where you were never absent."
Images accompanied the words. Cycles folding in on themselves. A system sustaining itself across eras, adapting, elevating its chosen, preserving what must endure. The settlement above was only a surface expression, a story told to survive. What lay beneath existed to endure.
"The light of a new day is near," the woman continued, her thoughts brushing gently against Shar'El's. "Returning to where it has always been."
Shar’El felt the implication more than she understood it. A return, not an arrival. A correction, not a change.
As the woman stepped back, one final fragment slipped through the imposed boundaries, offered rather than taken.
A name.
Not spoken. Remembered.
Auraliseth.
The shape of it carried age beyond language, a meaning rooted in continuity rather than origin. One who remains. One who witnesses the turning.
Shar'El straightened, steadier now, but aware of the invisible constraints settling into place around her mind. The corridor ahead remained unchanged, endless and patient.
They were expected.
They always had been.
And whatever awaited them deeper within the JOLEVAAN system was not reacting to their presence.
It had been waiting for them.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Future Family That Never Was"
Previous post: "Below the Calm" by Tiffany
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground
Stardate: 45033.1055
The corridor did not change.
That was what unsettled Ya'Han the most.
After what they had just seen, after the way time had folded in on itself and let something impossibly intimate slip through, the space around them remained patient, unmoved. The walls still curved. The light still had no source. The floor still remembered their footsteps better than it obeyed them.
Ya'Han had not moved.
Her hand was still half lifted, fingers curled as if she had been about to reach out, to steady something, or someone, who was no longer there.
Her breath hitched before she realized she had stopped breathing at all.
Beside her, Jayson stood just as still. His posture was careful now, not tactical, not alert, but restrained in a way that spoke of someone afraid that motion might shatter what little sense he had left of the moment.
She leaned closer to him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. When she spoke, her voice was barely sound at all.
"Did you see that?" She swallowed. "Did you see her?"
Jayson did not answer right away. His jaw tightened, then eased. When he finally nodded, it was slow and deliberate.
"I did."
Ya'Han swallowed. Her throat felt tight, dry, like she had been holding back words for far longer than the last few seconds.
"The girl," she whispered. "She looked at us. She smiled. She called us Mom and Dad."
The word Mom lodged somewhere deep in her chest and refused to move.
Jayson turned slightly toward her. His expression was gentle, grounded, the way it always was when he was trying to keep her from spiraling without making her feel like she was breaking.
"I saw her," he said softly. "All of it."
A pause.
Then, quieter still, "I think we just saw our future," he said, as if testing the words and their implications aloud.
The tightening in Ya'Han's abdomen sharpened at that. Not pain, not exactly, but pressure. A familiar, unwelcome weight that made her draw a shallow breath instead of a full one. Her hand dropped to her side, fingers pressing lightly against her uniform as if that might help anchor the sensation.
"No," she said, the word slipping out before she could stop it.
Jayson blinked, caught off guard. "Ya'Han…"
"It does not feel like that," she insisted, and even to her own ears the certainty sounded fractured. She shook her head, black hair brushing against her shoulders. "She is grown. I know what that means. I understand time well enough to know what that should mean. But this..." Her voice faltered. She pressed her lips together, searching for something solid to grab hold of. "There is something wrong. Something out of place."
Jayson frowned slightly, concern deepening. "You think it was not the future?"
"I think she is," Ya'Han said, then winced as the words contradicted each other even as she spoke them. "But I also think she is from my past."
Silence stretched between them. Ya'Han’s hand drifted to her belly, holding, rubbing as if something had once been there.
Jayson studied her face, not dismissive, not alarmed, but trying to reconcile the impossible with the woman he trusted more than anything. "We never had a child," he said gently. "If we had, I would know. I would remember."
"I know," Ya'Han replied, her voice unsteady now. "That is what frightens me."
The pressure in her abdomen pulsed again, sharper this time, stealing her breath. It was not just a sensation, but memory without images. A body recalling something the mind refused to touch. A presence that had once been there, undeniable, intimate, and now violently absent.
She wrapped her arms around herself, more instinct than choice.
"I recognized her," she whispered. "Not because she looks like us. Anyone could see that. I recognized her because some part of me already knows her. As if I have always known her."
Jayson reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, grounding them both. "Time is not stable here," he said, careful but sincere. "We have already seen that. Maybe this place let something through that has not happened yet."
Ya'Han wanted to believe that. She wanted it to be that simple.
But the certainty remained, heavy and unyielding.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze.
Shar'El stood a short distance away, perfectly still. Too still. Her posture was composed, her expression serene, her Ullian control flawless to the point of rigidity. She looked untouched by what had just passed through the corridor, as if time itself had chosen to leave her unmarked.
Ya'Han locked eyes with her.
In that instant, the certainty sharpened into something colder.
Shar'El knew something.
Ya'Han did not know what. She did not know how. She did not even know why the conviction had taken root so firmly in her chest.
Only that it had.
And that whatever had been taken from her, whatever her body still remembered despite her mind's silence, stood somewhere in the space between Shar'El's composure and the echo of a daughter who should not exist.
Yet the girl with the flowing purple hair had smiled at her as if she always had.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
---
"Timely Analysis"
(Previous Post: "Future Family That Never Was")
---
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground
Stardate: 45033.1055
Maya had already begun cataloguing the corridor before the pressure lifted.
Not with instruments. That would have been pointless. The tricorder hanging uselessly at her hip was little more than comforting weight. Whatever field permeated this space rendered conventional sensor input not merely unreliable, but fundamentally irrelevant. Temporal interference was not a byproduct here. It was a structural component.
She turned slowly in place, dark eyes tracking the subtle curvature of the walls, the way the surface absorbed light rather than reflecting it, the way its texture refused to resolve into a single material state. Not metal. Not mineral. Not organic. Or perhaps all three, expressed sequentially depending on the temporal position of the observer and their relative point of view to the structure itself.
The intervention had been precise.
She felt it still, the afterimage of it moving through her body like a recalibration ripple. As a Shillian, she was intimately aware of every system that composed her physical form, cellular configuration, metabolic modulation, neurological feedback loops. This had not been invasive in the crude sense. No disruption. No force. Something had simply reached into the overlapping layers of her physiology and cognition and realigned them along a more stable axis.
Her thoughts were clearer now. Too clear.
That alone was alarming.
The corridor had not changed. But Maya had. Or rather, something about her relationship to the corridor had shifted. Before, her mind had been racing faster than it could organize itself, impressions stacking atop one another in unfiltered succession. Now, the data flowed with unnerving coherence.
She flexed her fingers, watching the way their motion seemed to precede itself by a fraction of a second, then lag behind, then resolve into synchrony again. Time here was not linear. That much was obvious. Past, present, and future were not sequential states but overlapping probabilities, coexisting within the same spatial framework.
Which immediately raised the question of whether her recognition of that fact was itself occurring once, or repeating. If she had already reached this conclusion before, then this thought was not discovery but recall. And if it was recall, then the original moment of realization was already lost somewhere behind her, folded into the same probability stack she was now attempting to map.
Or worse, this could be the first instance, the initial inflection point, the moment where the loop began and would continue to begin again, each iteration indistinguishable from the last unless one knew precisely where to look. And if she did not remember previous iterations, then awareness itself was a controlled variable.
A quantum stabilized spacetime fold, she thought. But not a localized one.
Systemic.
The corridor was not an isolated phenomenon. It was an expression.
Her gaze lifted, tracing the length of the passage as it arced away into itself, repeating patterns that never quite repeated, geometry that resisted fixation. This was not reacting to them in real time. It had already reacted. The interaction had occurred before they arrived. Before they had known to arrive. Possibly before they had existed in any configuration recognizable as themselves.
It had accounted for them. Which implied inevitability. Or recursion. Or design so vast that free will was not eliminated, merely absorbed, each choice becoming another parameter the system had already solved for. The unsettling part was not that their presence was expected, but that expectation did not appear to constrain outcome. It merely ensured participation.
That realization sent a thrill through her that she did not attempt to suppress. On the contrary, she welcomed it. Mystery was fuel. The greater the unknown, the stronger the drive to dismantle it piece by piece.
The JELOVAAN system had never behaved like a conventional stellar configuration. Asteroid shells instead of rings. Gravitational anomalies that contradicted mass distribution models. A civilization that should not have been technologically viable given its apparent developmental stage, yet functioned with impossible cohesion. Steampunk aesthetics masking engineering solutions that bordered on the anachronistic and the absurd.
Organized chaos.
No. Not chaos. Balance... which implied intention, but not direction. A system could maintain equilibrium without progressing toward an endpoint, endlessly correcting deviations without ever resolving them. Which meant resolution was not the goal. Continuity was. And continuity, by definition, required repetition
A system existing outside linear causality could not evolve in the way Federation science understood evolution. It would not progress forward. It would iterate. Correct. Fold back upon itself when deviation exceeded tolerance thresholds.
Her breath caught, just slightly.
If the system was self correcting, then something had gone wrong.
Something had been displaced. Or removed. Or never placed where it belonged in the first place. Which raised the deeply uncomfortable possibility that error here was not accidental. That the absence itself was the catalyst.
And absence, once introduced into a closed temporal system, could not remain singular. It would echo.
Her eyes snapped toward the woman standing a short distance away.
Auraliseth.
Maya had noticed a change in her even before the intervention completed. There had been a shift in probability density around her, a subtle anchoring effect that stabilized the corridor in her immediate vicinity. Temporal custodian was the closest available classification, though it was woefully insufficient.
And yet... The woman had been injured. Struck by a stone. A blunt force impact to the head that she had not avoided. That single fact undermined every simplistic assumption Maya could make. If Auraliseth perceived time non linearly, she should have seen it coming, because in some temporal form, it had already happened. Which meant either her perception was constrained, selectively gated, or deliberately blinded at specific junctures. Or the event was required.
Not unavoidable, but necessary. A fixed point introduced not to prevent change, but to anchor it. A reminder that even custodians were subject to rules they did not author.
Unless she was constrained.
Unless her awareness was not absolute, but bounded by rules as strict as any physical law.
Or unless the injury itself was necessary.
Maya exhaled slowly, mind racing ahead of her conclusions faster than she could comfortably follow. The corridor. The settlement. The system. All of it functioned as a temporal organism, maintaining equilibrium across eras rather than moments. Which meant causality here was metabolic, not mechanical. Inputs were digested. Outputs recycled. Excess discarded only to be reintroduced later when conditions required it.
And organisms, by necessity, remembered.
And the ANUBIS.
Her thoughts brushed against the ship reluctantly at first, then returned with insistence. The interference they had encountered. The sensor distortions. The way the ship itself seemed to exist slightly out of phase with local spacetime. What if the ANUBIS was not merely affected by the system.
What if it was entangled with it?
What if it had always been?
And if that were true, then the ship was not an intruder but a component. Not an observer but a variable. Inserted, removed, reinserted across different points in the system’s lifespan until alignment was restored. Which implied that the crew, herself included, were not just present now, but present repeatedly. Acting, failing, adjusting, refining.
Iterations of people believing themselves unique. A corrective agent. Or the disruption that necessitated correction. Or both.
She did not realize she was speaking aloud until a familiar voice cut through her spiraling analysis.
"Maya," Gemma said, sharp but not unkind. "You are doing it again."
Maya blinked, head snapping slightly to the side. "Doing what?"
"The rambling thing," Gemma replied, gesturing vaguely. "You were theorizing out loud about temporal organisms and system level self correction and something about us being part of the problem."
Maya frowned, then paused as she replayed the last several seconds of her own speech. Yes. That did appear to be accurate.
"I was simply organizing my thoughts," she said, already turning back toward the corridor. "This place does not permit passive observation. If we do not actively conceptualize what we are experiencing, we risk missing critical patterns."
A beat passed.
"She is not wrong," Satella added from behind them, tone thoughtful. "But perhaps we should keep some of those patterns internal for the moment."
Maya nodded absently, though her attention had already drifted back to the walls, to the way the corridor waited with inexhaustible patience.
This system was not reacting to their presence.
It was realigning around it.
And the unsettling certainty settled deeper with every passing second.
She had been here before.
Not as she was now.
But as she would be again.
And the most disturbing realization of all settled quietly beneath the others, unexamined but persistent.
If this was not her first time reaching this conclusion, then the moment she stopped thinking about it, the loop would continue uninterrupted.
And if it was her first time, then the system had just learned something new about her.
Either way, the corridor remained patient.
It always has been. As it had always been.
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"One's Own Master"
Previous post: "Timely Analysis" by Jessica
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground
Stardate: 45033.1100
The corridor had resumed its waiting.
That alone told Drayk everything he needed to know.
It did not press. It did not pursue. It did not react. It simply remained, as if whatever correction had just occurred had already been accounted for and filed away. The system had finished with them for the moment.
He stood slightly apart from the others, posture steady, arms relaxed at his sides. To an external observer, nothing about him suggested disruption. His breathing was even. His gaze was forward. His presence was composed with the precision of something engineered to endure instability without broadcasting strain.
Internally, the echo had not yet finished collapsing.
The messenger's face had been younger than he remembered. Not the words. Not the report. The face. Too young for the weight it carried. Too unprepared to deliver the sentence that had ended a designed future.
"She is gone."
The corridor had not shown him the death. It had shown him the moment after. The moment he had accepted the information as fact. The moment calculation had replaced grief. The moment the universe had become an equation with a single unacceptable variable.
Satella, dead.
And everything that followed. The Engine. The violation. The refusal to accept the outcome as final. The act of bending causality until it broke and reformed around his will.
The echo had slammed into him with physical force, memory and sensation aligned too precisely to dismiss as hallucination. Loss remembered at full fidelity. The severing of a bond that had never been optional.
His body had reacted before his mind allowed it. A tightening across the chest. A brief failure in internal regulation. Less than a second. Long enough.
Then correction.
She was alive.
She was here.
He had corrected the error.
That truth had reasserted itself like a blade finding its sheath.
Whatever force governed this place had dragged the memory forward without context or consent, but it had failed to account for one thing.
Drayk Val'Bruxa did not experience his past as immutable.
He experienced it as precedent. And precedent existed to be revised.
He became aware of Satella beside him only when she spoke his name.
Not aloud. Quiet. Controlled. Close enough that the word did not carry.
"Drayk?"
He did not turn immediately. He did not need to. Her presence registered with the same certainty as his own pulse.
"I am fine," he said.
It was not reassurance. It was a statement of status, and Satella did not accept it.
"I did not say you were not," she replied. Her voice was calm, but there was a precision to it that cut through pretense. "You went out of phase for a fraction of a second. Not with the corridor. With us."
He turned then, finally meeting her eyes. Silver to silver. Two systems calibrated to recognize deviation in the other.
"You felt something that did not happen," he said. "That is the nature of this place."
"That is not what I felt," Satella replied. "I felt something that already had."
He did not respond immediately. Silence was often the most efficient way to prevent a line of inquiry from advancing.
She did not press. She waited. That was her strength. She knew when patience was leverage.
"What did you see?" she asked at last.
"An error," Drayk said.
Her expression did not change, but her attention sharpened. "An error you corrected."
"Yes."
"And it unsettled you."
"No," he replied. "It reminded me."
"Of what?"
"That inevitability is a false construct," he said flatly. "Used by systems that lack sufficient force to impose outcomes."
Satella studied him, then glanced briefly toward the others. Maya was still observing the corridor. Shar'El stood composed, unreadable. Ya'Han and Jayson remained close, contained within their own quiet gravity.
No one was listening.
"Do you believe this system is one of those?" Satella asked.
Drayk's gaze returned to the corridor. The walls. The light without source. The geometry that refused to resolve.
"No," he said. "This system is intelligent. It sees across time. That gives it knowledge we do not possess."
"And that does not concern you?"
"It does," he replied. "But knowledge is not control."
Satella folded her arms slowly. "Maya believes the system exists outside linear causality. That actions here may already be accounted for. That choice may be nothing more than a temporal illusion."
Drayk's lips curved, not in amusement, but in recognition of a flawed premise.
"Choice is never an illusion," he said. "Only constrained by incomplete understanding."
"And if we are already inside the constraint?"
"Then we widen it," he replied. "Or we break it."
Satella held his gaze. "And if we already have?"
"Then this is simply the part where we remember doing so."
She exhaled quietly. "That is an uncomfortable acceptance."
"It is not acceptance," Drayk said. "It is acknowledgment."
A beat passed.
"You are keeping something from them," Satella said.
"Yes."
"And from me?"
"No."
She tilted her head slightly. "Then say it."
Drayk did not hesitate.
"This place can see time beyond our scope," he said. "But it cannot dictate my response to it. Whatever paths it believes are stable, I have already proven that stability is negotiable."
Satella watched him carefully. "And if interfering again carries a cost?"
"Everything carries a cost," he replied. "I decide which ones are acceptable."
The corridor remained silent. Patient.
Satella nodded once. "Then we proceed."
"Yes," Drayk said. "We proceed."
He turned forward again, posture settling, presence recalibrated. Whatever the JELOVAAN system believed it had accounted for, whatever futures it curated and preserved, it had made one miscalculation.
It had shown him a past it assumed held power over him.
It did not.
Nothing controlled his destiny other than him.
And if this place intended to test that assertion, it would find him prepared to correct the result. As he had done once before.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"What Time Remembers, Part 1"
Previous Post: "One's Own Master" by Scott
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, Main Settlement
Stardate: 45033.1110
The settlement should have felt louder.
That was Adriana's first thought as they crossed beneath the stone arch marking its outer boundary. There were people here, she could see them, moving between buildings, tending to machines that hissed and clanked with uneven rhythm. Steam vented from exposed valves. Brass fittings caught the light in dull, worn reflections. Everything bore the marks of constant use, of a society that repaired rather than replaced.
And yet, the air carried no true noise. Sounds existed, but they arrived late, overlapping one another, footsteps echoing seconds after they were made, voices drifting past as if detached from the mouths that formed them.
Time did not pass here. It folded.
Adriana walked at Erik's side, her pace steady, her posture composed, but her mind worked relentlessly, cataloging every inconsistency. The buildings were close together, narrower than the structures she had seen from orbit, and yet the space between them felt vast. A street that should have taken moments to cross seemed to stretch, then abruptly end, depositing them somewhere new without transition.
She was fairly certain they had already passed this section. Twice. The third time, she stopped trying to count.
Threll moved through the settlement as if nothing were amiss, greeting the inhabitants with easy familiarity. His voice carried clearly, perfectly enunciated Terran words cutting through the layered murmur of the crowd.
"It is all right. They are not here to take anything. No harm will come to you."
The response was immediate and unsettling.
People stepped back. Conversations ceased. Eyes dropped. Those nearest the group pressed themselves against walls or slipped into doorways, fear sharp and unmistakable on their faces.
Adriana felt her unease deepen.
They were not afraid of them.
They were afraid of him.
The language that rippled through the settlement was impossible to follow. It was not simply unfamiliar. It was overwhelming. Syllables from a dozen linguistic families collided and reformed mid-sentence, consonants stretching, vowels compressing, meaning reshaped by necessity rather than structure. Even with her training, Adriana could find no anchor, no pattern to grasp.
Amanda frowned slightly, listening, her head tilting as if tracking something just beyond hearing.
"It is not random," she murmured. "It is adaptive. Like the place itself."
Adriana glanced at her. "You understand it?"
Amanda shook her head. "No. But I understand why it exists. In the Matrix, worlds had to adapt instantly. If they did not, people died. This place does the same thing. Just differently."
That answer unsettled her more than ignorance ever could.
Ahead of them, Threll laughed softly, saying something to Erik that Adriana could not hear over the delayed echo of her own footsteps. Erik responded with a nod, his expression calm, almost relaxed. He looked like he belonged here, like a man walking through a city he had visited many times before.
She did not like that.
As Ship's Counselor, she had learned to read the subtle signs of stress, the microexpressions that betrayed uncertainty or fear. Erik showed none of them. If anything, he looked steadier here than he had on the ANUBIS. The temporal instability that clawed at her senses seemed to slide past him entirely, leaving him untouched.
Or welcomed.
She tried to recall when they had turned down the last street.
The memory surfaced briefly, incomplete, then slipped away again as if it had never belonged to her.
A sudden wave of vertigo washed through the group. Cristhiane stumbled, her hand flying to her temple, breath catching sharply in her throat.
"I was here," she whispered. "Running. Hiding." Her voice faltered. "I was younger. But I knew where I was going as if I had already been there."
Adriana reached for her instinctively. "Cristhiane?"
The woman blinked, the moment passing as quickly as it had come. "Nothing. Just... a memory."
Adriana knew better. The look in her eyes had not been nostalgia. It had been recognition.
Threll slowed then, stopping before a broad set of stairs descending into the ground. The structure was older than the rest of the settlement, its stone darkened with age, symbols carved deep into its surface. Guards stood at attention on either side of the entrance, their robes heavy, their expressions solemn.
Adriana did not remember walking here. She was certain of that.
They should not have arrived so quickly. The settlement had stretched endlessly before them moments ago, and now they stood at its heart without transition or effort.
One of the guards lifted his head.
His eyes found Erik immediately.
A smile spread across his face, warm and reverent, like that of a man greeting an old friend long thought lost.
"Welcome back," the words pressed into Adriana's mind, steady despite the fractured telepathic echoes that followed, sounds folding into one another in sounds she could not understand.
Erik stiffened. Just slightly.
Adriana felt her breath catch.
She looked from the guard to Threll, who watched the exchange with quiet satisfaction, his attention never leaving Erik for more than a heartbeat.
In that moment, the truth settled into her with chilling clarity.
This world was not merely reacting to Erik.
It knew him.
And whatever linked the two of them, whatever resonance bound Erik to this place, it was older, deeper, and far more deliberate than he realized.
Time did not flow here.
It remembered him.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
#######
"What Time Remembers, Part 2"
Previous post: "What Time Remembers, Part 1"
##########
"The price of saving the present is often paid elsewhere."
— Captain Antares, USS PARADOX
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, Main Settlement, Subterranean Structure
Stardate: 45033.1115
Erik had known this place before he saw it.
That, more than anything else, troubled him.
The certainty settled in him the moment they crossed the threshold into the underground chamber, stone giving way to metal, old conduits threaded through walls that bore the scars of repeated modification. It did not feel discovered. It felt returned to, as though the act of arriving had merely completed something already in motion.
The familiarity did not alarm him. It clarified things.
The Orion Transmitter dominated the chamber, a towering lattice of brass, crystal filaments, and mechanical housings that should never have worked together and yet clearly did. Steam bled from pressure seams. Energy pulsed in uneven intervals, not flowing so much as circling back on itself, each surge feeding the next. Erik felt the rhythm in his bones, the same way he had once felt the heartbeat of the USS PARADOX while standing in her temporal core.
He exhaled slowly. This was not new... It was remembered.
Threll watched him closely, green skin drawn tight with exhaustion that had nothing to do with age. The easy cheer he wore above ground had cracked here, revealing something raw beneath it.
"You recognize it," Threll said, bitter amusement curling through the words. "I was hoping you would."
Erik nodded. "I do."
Threll laughed then, short and sharp, the sound of someone who had tried too many times to change the outcome and remembered every failure. "Good. That makes this easier."
Erik stepped closer to the transmitter, eyes tracing the alterations etched into its structure. Federation design principles layered beneath alien logic, the unmistakable signature of Starfleet problem-solving written into a machine that predated it by centuries.
"We did this," Erik said quietly.
Threll inclined his head. "You and your people. You saved your ship here. You always do. The way you leave is the only variable."
That statement should have unsettled him more than it did. Instead, it aligned with everything he had been feeling since setting foot on the planet. Time was not moving forward here. It was folding back on itself, looping, reinforcing outcomes until they became inevitable.
On the PARADOX, he had learned the difference between what could be changed and what could not. Some events resisted alteration not because of force, but because they were structural. They were load-bearing. Remove them, and everything else collapsed.
This felt like that.
"When the ANUBIS arrived in the system," Threll continued, "it was already happening. Already happened. Already going to happen again. Time is stacked rather than sequenced. Your arrival initiates the chain. You coming here is part of it."
Erik turned to face him fully. "And you?"
Threll's smile faltered. "Yes. Me."
He gestured sharply at the transmitter, bitterness seeping back in. "I am trapped in a prison built out of moments. Every loop ends the same way. I bring you here. You save your ship. You leave."
There was an awkward pause as the Orion man drew a long, deep breath.
"Not this time," Threll added, the words pressed tight with hope that had survived far longer than it should have. "This time, I want to leave with you."
Erik studied him, seeing past the bravado to the truth beneath. Desperation. Fatigue. A man ground down by repetition, by a world that refused to let him move on.
"You want me to break the loop," Erik said.
Threll shook his head. "No. I want you to finish it differently."
Adriana's unease hovered at the edge of Erik's awareness, her distrust of Threll a constant, steady presence. He did not dismiss it. He shared it, even now. But understanding temporal trauma the way he did, he could not ignore the cost of being locked in recurrence without relief.
"If I do this," Erik said carefully, "it will not end here. You leave this place with me. There will be no half-measures."
Threll's eyes widened, hope flaring bright enough to hurt. "Yes. I follow you. I leave this place, finally."
Erik nodded once.
It felt unavoidable.
That, too, felt familiar.
Kindness, too, played its part. Erik had seen what time could do to people. As a Native American, raised with an understanding that time was not merely a line but a cycle, he had always believed that being trapped in one without purpose was a kind of spiritual erosion, a slow forgetting of self.
"I am going to need the rest of my crew to understand this, to fix it, and to save my ship," Erik said.
Threll bowed his head, relief washing through him. "Thank you. Your people are already on their way here. They will fix it. Always have. Always will, then we leave... all of us."
The words settled uneasily in Erik's chest.
A quiet doubt. A temporal echo. A sense that agreeing to this had already changed something fundamental, even if he could not yet see how.
Time folded around him, patient and watchful.
Waiting... Remembering.
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us came because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"Eternity in Retrospect"
Previous post: "What Time Remembers, Part 2" by Francios
=-=
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground
Stardate: 45033.1116
Unsure why the strange, silent woman in the corridor had touched Cmdr Shar’El’s head, Zub Enel edged closer. He noted that the XO had not stiffened at the touch. Her posture remained upright and relaxed. Both she and the woman she allowed to touch smiled, as if sharing an understanding.
More a feeling than a sound, a breath exhaled through the subtly shifting arches of the corridor. He wondered at it. Was it a breath of relief? A breath of beginnings? A final breath before committing to the void?
Zub hunched his tall, scaly form as if braced against a gale. The breath buffeted him with a headwind of memories, an unbidden storm that blew down his long-erected mental walls. He tightened his three-fingered fists, lashed with the torn branches and ripped leaves of recollections stinging with a vividness of feeling he was unaccustomed to. Memories that felt elicited for inspection. Memories called up for study—each raw with naked emotion.
Trying to slow the tempest from bursting his skull, he touched his forehead, fingertips cold. He willed himself to focus, to grab one image from the building tide.
He sat naked and wet in cold air under low but warm lighting. Air whistled in and out of his open mouth as he filled and refilled his lungs. Over the bent, torn edges of his birth egg, nestled around him, lay the jiggling and croaking eggs holding a brood of brothers and sisters still unemerged. He stared, took everything in—sharp, crystalline curiosity. Everything was bright, deeply textured, beautiful. He thrummed with a feeling that he’d later learn is awe.
For the billionth time, no, the septillionth time, he was late to school. He’d be looked reprovingly by instructors, “Yes, again” written on their unsmiling faces. At the Voth Institute of Higher Futures, the motto about timeliness was: Early is on time; on time is late.
He rushed along, his little shoes banging on the metal walkway. He trembled with rage. He puffed out clouds of discontent. The unfairness of it all. Why was it always him who had to feed his siblings, send them off to school, and clean up after them before grabbing his PADD and rushing off? Always him. He was only a few minutes older than any of them. They were just as developed, just as capable of preparing meals and gathering their things. Why didn’t one of them volunteer to help him? Ever? Feed him? Send him off?
Locked out of the Intelligence Gathering Center, he heard the turbolift whirring, on approach, growing louder, its single note sliding up the musical scale. Gemma? How would she react to his concerns about her little machines rushing through his body? She’d given him some of hers to save his life. Would she be insulted? Helpful? Dismissive? His heart thumped faster with the lift’s rising Doppler shift. His three-fingered hands closed into wet fists. He held his breath.
As he waited for her, odd thoughts came, like an echo of a memory not fully recalled. A mental argument grew more intense. Just before he could catch its drift, it stopped.
The turbolift door opened to reveal Gemma. Her coppery curls flared in the turbolift lights. Her jaw was set with determination, but her lips sagged at the corners. Her eyebrows were slightly drawn together. Her eyes, blue and steely as ever, were underlined by dark rings. Her usually squared-off shoulders drooped.
He smiled. Even worn out, she remained a beauty. Enigmatic. Guarded. Superspy. Host of myriad personas, some quite dangerous. But all of them, and she, are beautiful.
Zub Enel had unintentionally blocked her path to the IGC. She scowled and said in a voice on the verge of a bestial growl, “I have zero time. Move aside.”
Zub stayed put. His concern for her grew. “You look exhausted. You are no good to anyone that way. Come on. Take some rest.” He reached out a friendly hand, meaning to take her arm to support her.
Gemma stiffened. In a blink or two, her curls morphed to waves. Her hair shaded redder. Her face grew leaner, meaner. She molded into the deadly assassin Anya. Her Russian accent carried menace, “Touch me, I kill you.” Her eyes blazed a lethal challenge. Her lips twisted into a smile of anticipated sadism.
Zub lifted his reaching hand in surrender, palm out. He stepped against the wall of the IGC by the hatch. Adrenalin burned, readied his muscles for defense.
“Coward!” The Slavic warrior spat the word, bending at her waist to hurl it, her blood-red hair snapping forward.
Zub grimaced. That insult pierced any allusion of love, a saw-edged sword plunging through him so deeply that he instinctively covered his heart with his hand. He struggled to move aside, laboring as if under 13,000 Gs of dismay. He mutely waved his other arm for Anya to pass.
Zub shivered in his domicle despite the thick faux wool sweater. Preferring an old-timey walking stick to a prosthetic aid, he limped toward his favorite chair, facing an expansive, sunny view of the verdant IXINI SWAMP with the Denibrian moon ZEO hanging like a golden eye above the green trackless serenity and clouds of tasty insects.
“Computer, raise ambient temperature 10 degrees.”
=/\= Ambient temperature already at the maximum. =/\=
The door chimed.
Voth smiled and turned himself about despite the revisit of excruciating ankle pain from a Denebrian Slime Devil attack in his teens. He hurry-hobbled to the door. “Enter.”
Gemma stood smiling, holding a brightly wrapped package. The sun glinted off her coppery curls. “Z,” she said.
“G,” he said, waving her into his home.
She walked partway toward his chair before stopping. Insects attracted by his indoor bug light, used to attract snacks, buzzed around her hair. She smiled without batting at them. She watched him limp toward her. “Still bothering you?”
“No,” he lied emphatically.
She smiled broadly and held out the package. “It is truly a puzzle. What does one buy for a 174th birthday?”
His eyes alighted on the wrapped box. “Let’s see how close you came. Thank you in advance, just in case.”
He was stuck how Gemma looked exactly the same year after year, decade after decade, and now even at least one century later—the power of her nanites' relentless work keeping her body in tiptop shape. In fighting trim, he reminded himself. Always ageless. Always beautiful.
He, on the other hand, looked and felt exactly like a long-retired Commander from Starfleet. He never wanted to be an Admiral, and fortunately, they never made him one. Security crews had been born, grown up, retired, and died of old age under his tenure. Yet Gemma remained eternal, ever serving Starfleet.
A sudden wave of vertigo set him swaying. He blinked rapidly. Commander Shar’El and the strange woman stood nearby in that peculiar, shimmering hall. He had a strong feeling of devu vu. He felt certain that he had felt that silent breath before. Maya and Gemma had stopped talking, as had Drayk and Satella. Somehow, it all seemed familiar: the hall and its effects, this had happened the same way, but never exactly the same way.
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis
"Regrouping in Motion"
Previous post: "Eternity in Retrospect" by David
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground Corridor
Stardate: 45033.1120
The corridor refused to behave like a corridor, even after Auraliseth's 'intervention' to calm their minds.
It stretched forward in a way that suggested distance, yet the walls carried subtle inconsistencies that made judging progress impossible. No breaks in the paneling, no way to show if their steps were taking them forward. Footfalls echoed once, twice, then not at all, sound swallowed by a thickness in the air that felt more temporal than physical.
Gemma noticed first that her internal timing was off.
Not disorientation. Not vertigo. Something more precise and far more troubling. Her nanites responded to temporal drift the way a compass reacts to magnetic interference, not failing, but constantly correcting, never allowed to settle. Tiny adjustments cascaded through her nervous system, creating a low, persistent pressure behind her eyes.
She flexed her fingers, watching the micro tremor that came and went without her permission.
Zub Enel slowed half a step to match her pace. He did not look at her right away. He did not need to.
"You are compensating too aggressively," he said quietly. "Your nanites are overcorrecting."
Gemma exhaled through her nose. "They are responding to conflicting timestamps. Local time is folding back on itself."
"So is yours," Zub replied.
She glanced at him then, sharp and assessing. He met her gaze without flinching. The bond between their nanites thrummed faintly, a shared awareness she usually kept tightly partitioned. Right now, the corridor made that separation difficult to maintain, and that bothered her. The link between her and Zub had become a stabilizing constant, whether she acknowledged it or not.
"I felt it when the last pulse hit," he continued. "Not the physical effect. You."
Gemma's jaw tightened. She had been aware of his feelings for a long time. Acknowledging them would have required choosing a version of herself that did not fit neatly into her operational parameters.
"This environment is destabilizing my internal hierarchy of control," she said, keeping her voice even. "Personality containment relies on linear sequencing. Cause before effect. Here, those rules are inconsistent. I am reacting to things that have not yet happened, and things that may already be over."
Zub considered that. "You are afraid you will not remain you."
"I am afraid I will remain all of me at once."
The corridor rippled ahead, the distance between two wall sconces briefly compressing before snapping back into place. Gemma felt a flicker of something else rise to the surface, a sharper instinct, less patient, less restrained. She forced it back down, but it did not fully recede.
Zub reached out, not touching her, but close enough that the gesture itself mattered. "Alignment does not mean loss of self," he said. "It means shared direction."
She studied him for a long moment. Logic told her that he was right. Emotion complicated the conclusion.
"For now," she said quietly, "stay close. If my timing slips, I will need a fixed point outside myself."
Zub inclined his head. "I am not going anywhere."
Ahead of them, the corridor continued to rearrange itself, unconcerned with their conversation, as if time itself were listening and adjusting in response.
=-=
Satella walked with her attention divided between the corridor and Drayk at her side.
The space unsettled her in a way she could not clinically define. It was not fear of collapse or attack. It was the sense that moments no longer flowed forward cleanly, that the boundary between before and after had thinned to something permeable.
She had died once. That memory was not distant here. It felt close, reachable, like a page time might decide to turn back to.
The knowledge surfaced unbidden as the corridor subtly shifted length, the floor beneath them briefly feeling farther away than it should have been. If time could loop, if causality could blur, then what anchored her existence to the present at all?
Drayk noticed the change in her breathing immediately.
"You are spiraling," he said, matter of fact.
"I am considering variables," she replied, though her voice lacked conviction. "If time here is unstable, then the conditions that allowed my return may also be unstable."
Drayk did not slow. Did not hesitate. The corridor could twist itself into any configuration it pleased and he would still move forward.
"You were brought back because the conditions were understood," he said. "Energy. Structure. Will. None of those are diminished by temporal distortion."
Satella swallowed. "What if I am an anomaly?" she asked quietly. "A correction time has not finished making?"
Drayk finally looked at her then, his expression calm, unwavering. "Then the universe would have corrected you already."
The corridor ahead elongated, the end retreating by several meters before settling again. Drayk did not even glance at it.
"You are here because you belong here," he continued. The pause that followed was deliberate. "Time does not undo outcomes it requires. And it does not take back what is defended."
She let his certainty settle over her like a steadying weight. Drayk's worldview had always been brutally simple, and it had saved her life. She had learned to trust that simplicity when everything else failed.
Satella reached for his hand, just briefly, grounding herself in something undeniably real. "Then we keep moving," she said, trusting him to keep her anchored if time did not.
"Always," he replied.
Around them, the corridor pulsed with restrained energy, the sense of something vast and patient unfolding ahead. Two conversations, two approaches, one shared direction.
They were walking toward alignment, aware enough to know it mattered, uncertain enough to know they had never truly had a choice.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Looking Forward, Moving Backwards"
Previous post: "Regrouping in Motion" by Rachel
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Underground Corridor
Stardate: 45033.1122
The corridor narrowed as they moved deeper into the settlement, seamless walls closing in with a quiet inevitability. The light was perfect even without any obvious source. It was everywhere, casting no shadows. It was not the brightness that unsettled T'Lara. It was the sense that the space itself was not entirely present.
Auraliseth walked ahead of them, unhurried, bare feet soundless against the smooth floor. She did not lead so much as exist in the direction they were already moving.
T'Lara fell into step beside Shar'El, her posture composed, eyes tracking everything at once. She said nothing, but the First Officer was keenly aware of her presence, a steady counterpoint to the growing dissonance pressing at the edges of Shar'El's thoughts.
The temporal stabilization Auraliseth had imposed earlier still lingered, like a hand that had steadied a spinning instrument without stopping its motion. T'Lara could feel it in the precise alignment of her thoughts, her emotions held in disciplined suspension by Vulcan training and sharpened further by Romulan mental conditioning. She was stable. That did not mean she was unaffected.
"Auraliseth," Shar'El said at last, her voice measured, deliberate. "You intervened to stabilize us. That implies intent. Purpose. Why now?"
Auraliseth did not turn around.
**Now has already happened,** she replied, calmly. **So has before. So will again.**
T'Lara felt the familiar urge to correct the statement rise and fall within the span of a single controlled breath. Logical refutation would be meaningless here. Instead, she focused on the structure beneath the words.
"You perceive causality differently," T'Lara said. "Not as sequence, but as state."
Auraliseth inclined her head slightly, as though acknowledging something that had already been agreed upon.
**States are forms locked in time,** she telepathically said. **Here, there is no state, only time.**
Shar'El exchanged a brief glance with T'Lara. The look was subtle, but it carried unease. As a former intelligence operative, Shar'El was trained to dismantle ambiguity. Here, ambiguity was the environment.
"You speak as though this path is predetermined," Shar'El said. "Are we following something that has already occurred?"
Auraliseth slowed, finally turning to face them. Her eyes were unsettling, not because of their color or shape, but because they focused without focusing, as though Shar'El existed among many versions of herself.
"You are going where you have already been," Auraliseth said aloud. "As you always do."
The actual sound of her voice took everyone by surprise, not only because of its physical presence outside of their thoughts, but because of the echo that preceded and followed her words, as if multiple versions of herself were speaking together.
The words settled heavily in the corridor. T'Lara felt a tightening in her chest that she recognized immediately and suppressed just as quickly. A sensation without clear cause. That alone was troubling.
"That is not possible," T'Lara said evenly. "We retain continuity of memory. No such location exists in our recorded experience."
Auraliseth studied her then, truly looked at her, and for the briefest moment T'Lara had the uncanny impression of being seen across more than a single instant.
"Your memory is not the measure," Auraliseth said gently. "Only your limit."
Shar'El exhaled quietly through her nose, the smallest sign of disturbance. "Then explain the purpose of this convergence. If we have already been there, why return?"
Auraliseth turned away again, resuming her pace.
**To see the light of dawn,** she telepathically said. **As has happened. As will.**
The phrase struck T'Lara with unexpected force. Not fear. Recognition without reference. Her mind reached instinctively for structure, for context, and found none.
Shar'El stopped walking.
"The light of dawn," she repeated. "Are you taking us back to the surface?"
Auraliseth paused, but did not turn back.
**The beginning. The ending,** she mentally noted. **The light that arrives when darkness believes it has completed itself.**
T'Lara felt Shar'El shift beside her, tension coiling beneath her controlled exterior. The answers Auraliseth was providing refused to resolve into anything usable.
**The light does not pass through this place. It remains.** She crypotically added. **The light knows this place as home before it ever learns the word for it.**
"This language is symbolic," Shar'El said. "Or evasive."
**It is insufficient,** Auraliseth replied. **Your language fractures time to make it simpler, narrower.**
T'Lara closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, grounding herself. Vulcan logic demanded linearity. Romulan discipline demanded adaptation. Neither could fully compensate for a framework that denied sequence entirely.
"We cannot interrogate a system that does not share causality," T'Lara said quietly. "Any attempt to extract certainty will produce distortion."
Auraliseth glanced back at her, something like approval passing briefly across her features.
The corridor ahead sloped downward now, the walls and floor changing texture, not gradually, but as if they had always been this way. Even the memory of their former appearance faded from their minds as if it had never been there to start. The air felt heavier, charged with a pressure that was not physical.
Shar'El resumed walking, though her hand hovered near her side as if expecting resistance. "And what waits at the end of this path?"
Auraliseth did not answer immediately.
**What waits has already been seen,** she said after a short pause which felt like an eternity. **And will be seen again, for the first time. And the last.**
Another moment of silence filled with thoughts and images that could not be identified as being either past memories or future visions.
**What belongs here does not experience return as loss.**
T'Lara's steps faltered for the briefest instant. Not from doubt, but from pressure, as though the corridor itself had subtly narrowed around her chest. The sensation passed almost immediately, discipline reasserting itself, but the echo of it lingered, heavy and unplaceable.
They continued forward, deeper into the rock, following a guide who was not guiding, toward a destination that existed outside their ability to define it.
Behind them, the corridor stretched into nothingness, unchanged yet entirely different.
**We will be where we have already been. The light stops looking forward when it understands where it already stands.**
Ahead, time itself seemed to bend inward, patient, expectant, and entirely unconcerned with their need to understand.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Unsettling Times"
Previous post: "Looking Forward, Moving Backwards" by Rachel
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Transmitter Chamber
Stardate: 45033.1125
They followed Auraliseth. Their telepathic guide, who seemed to be much more, and yet no one of significance. They did not question the direction, only the continuity of it. One moment there was a corridor. The next, they had arrived.
The chamber opened into scale.
Not grandeur. Not awe. Scale was a function of intent, not beauty, and this space had been built to contain something that did not behave unless watched. The Orion transmitter rose from the stone floor like a misremembered idea of engineering: brass latticework fused to crystalline filaments, pressure housings bolted where symmetry should have existed, steam bleeding from seams that should never have held stress in the first place.
It worked.
That was the problem.
Drayk Val'Bruxa stopped mid-step. The rest of the chamber existed only as peripheral irrelevance. The machine consumed the room, not through size, but through violation. Energy did not flow through it. It looped. Folded back on itself. Each surge fed the next in a closed causal circuit, like a thought that refused to end.
Functionally impossible systems do not operate.
Unless causality has been damaged.
Drayk's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. This was not Orion design. The Syndicate optimized for profit, redundancy, and disposability. This construct did none of those things. It was inefficient. Fragile. Precise in ways that offended good engineering. The only reason it remained intact was because something external enforced its continuity.
That made it hostile by definition.
He stepped forward.
He was not alone.
Others stood within the vast chamber, their positions fixed relative to the transmitter, their attention locked on the same impossible construct. They saw Drayk clearly as he advanced, saw the stillness in his posture, the deliberate focus that narrowed his world to a single object. To them, he was present, tangible, unquestionably real.
But even as they watched him, the moment did not align. His movements did not arrive where they expected them to be. The space between intention and action stretched or collapsed by imperceptible degrees, enough to register only as unease.
To Drayk, the chamber contained only the machine.
No tricorder response. No ambient hum from Starfleet systems. Even the faint vibration of his boots against the stone seemed muted, as though the chamber was remembering sound rather than producing it. The absence of function was not random. It was localized. Deliberate.
Auraliseth's presence registered only as atmospheric variance. Background noise. Whatever she was, she was not relevant to the machine. And therefore not relevant to him.
Drayk circled the transmitter slowly, eyes tracking junction points and stress fractures. The steam vents were not cooling mechanisms. They were timing releases. Pressure equalization tied to intervals, not load. This was not a generator.
It was a clock.
Not one that measured time. One that enforced it.
He reached out and placed his hand against the brass framework.
The metal was warm. Not from heat, but from friction against reality itself. The instant his palm made contact, something inside his mind clicked into alignment. Not sensation. Recognition.
He had done this before.
The thought arrived fully formed, complete with the certainty of withdrawing his hand a fraction of a second later, fingers curling as if burned. The recollection carried weight. Finality. And the unmistakable clarity of an experienced event.
Except his hand was still resting on the frame.
That discrepancy registered with surgical calm. Temporal contradiction confirmed.
Drayk did not pull away.
The machine responded, not by changing output, but by stabilizing. The erratic pulses smoothed into a tighter loop, as though his presence had resolved a tolerance error. The transmitter was not broadcasting outward. It was anchoring inward, locking a specific sequence of events into place and preventing deviation.
A lure, then. Or a calibration point.
Not for ships. For outcomes.
The Orion Syndicate had not deployed this. They had stumbled across it, used it without understanding, and left fingerprints that led here. The trap was older than them. Smarter. Patient in the way only time-bound mechanisms could be.
This planet was not broadcasting a signal.
It was holding one.
Drayk finally withdrew his hand. This time, the motion matched the memory. His fingers curled exactly as he remembered them doing. The satisfaction of that alignment was cold and precise.
Whatever this machine anchored, it required observers. Participants. The ANUBIS had not arrived by coincidence. It had been permitted. Possibly required.
He looked up at the crystalline filaments, noting microfractures that had not been there moments before.
Or had not been there yet.
"Perfection is not an ideal," he said quietly, the words grounding the chamber rather than echoing in it. "It is a design parameter."
The machine continued its work, indifferent to his judgment.
Drayk stepped back, already adjusting internal models. This was not a problem to be solved. It was a constraint to be survived. And somewhere ahead of this moment lay an action he remembered taking, an action he had not yet chosen.
That disturbed him more than the machine ever could.
Satella said his name.
Her voice carried across the chamber, sharp with concern, stripped of its usual composure. She was closer than before, close enough that she should have been impossible to ignore. There was urgency in her tone, and beneath it something rarer. Fear. Not of the machine, but of what it was doing to him.
Drayk did not turn.
To her, he had paused, standing too still for too long, his attention locked on a device that should not exist. To him, the sound never arrived. Her words belonged to a moment that no longer intersected with his own.
=-=
Scott Grant [tryanasazi111@gmail.com]
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"What Time Remembers, Part 3"
Previous post: "Unsettling Time" by Scott
-=-=-
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Transmitter Chamber
Stardate: 45033.1130
The chamber accepted them. Without transition.
One step carried them through the corridor. The next placed them inside scale, pressure, and intent. Shar'El did not stumble. She adjusted. Years of intelligence work had trained her to absorb dissonance without reaction, to catalog anomalies while continuing forward. This space demanded compliance.
It demanded attention.
The transmitter dominated the chamber, not visually at first, but cognitively. Her mind kept sliding toward it, as if something inside her recognized its function even while refusing to name it. The sensation was deeply uncomfortable. Ullian memory sense relied on contact, on direction, on consent or intrusion. This respected none of those boundaries.
This was proximity.
The first flash hit without warning.
She was standing on the ANUBIS bridge. Not now. Not recently. The lighting was wrong, calibrated for a moment that had not yet occurred. The air carried a stillness that belonged to endings rather than operations.
Erik was there, or something shaped like him, composed of intent rather than detail, facing the viewscreen. His posture was formal, precise in the way it became only when a decision no longer required witnesses.
He addressed her without turning.
There were no words. Only the sensation of something being placed in her care, heavy with purpose and already concluded. The meaning arrived intact, severed from language, as if speech itself had been left behind.
Loss. Not grief. Acceptance without appeal.
Shar'El severed the impression instantly, mental barriers snapping into place with practiced precision. She kept walking.
Around her, the crew fanned out instinctively, each reacting in their own way to the chamber’s pressure. Gemma's attention fractured and recomposed in rapid cycles. Zub's posture stiffened as if bracing against a remembered pressure. Satella paused, hand briefly touching Drayk's arm, grounding herself in something undeniably present. Jayson and Ya'Han stood together, yet separated by a memory that neither could remember. T'Lara remained outwardly composed, though Shar'El could feel the strain beneath her disciplined calm. Then there was Maya, the eternal scientist, lost in her own admiration of her inability to fully understand what they were all experiencing.
Another flash intruded.
Satella again, but older. Laughing. The sound carried an unfamiliar warmth that tightened Shar'El's chest before she could stop it. The image fractured before context could form, leaving behind only the certainty that the moment mattered.
She forced it down.
This was not time for meaning. Whatever this place was doing, she would not allow it to dictate her focus. She had led teams through psychic battlefields and memory ruins. She would not unravel here.
And yet.
A third impression slipped through before she could fully reinforce her shields.
Ani's voice. Calm. Resonant. Not the ship as it was now, but as it would be then. Listening.
"I have been found worthy."
The words were not hers. They were Erik's. Spoken with quiet certainty, not as a declaration but as a conclusion already reached. The emotional resonance struck harder than the phrase itself. It carried judgment. Not condemnation. Assessment. Acceptance.
Shar'El stopped.
The realization unsettled her more than the flashes themselves. She had not chosen to pause. Her body had done it for her. That frightened her more than the words.
Auraliseth turned slightly, her attention shifting without urgency, without surprise. Her expression was serene, almost pleased.
Shar'El drew a slow breath and resumed moving. Whatever this place was offering her, she rejected it. Future memory without context was a liability. She would not let it distract her from the present.
Still, something had changed.
The sense of danger she had expected never materialized. Instead, there was a calm beneath the distortion, a deep and steady certainty that this convergence was not a mistake. It had weight. Purpose. The kind of inevitability that did not threaten but simply existed.
Then she felt him.
Not through telepathy. Not through emotion. Through alignment alone.
The temporal noise that had pressed at her thoughts since entering the chamber shifted, subtly reordering itself around a fixed point. The flashes did not stop. They clarified.
Erik was here. In this room. At this time.
She did not look immediately. She did not need to. The chamber itself seemed to acknowledge his presence, tension redistributing as if a missing component had been returned to its proper place.
Auraliseth turned fully now.
Her smile was not one of greeting. It was recognition without novelty. Satisfaction without surprise.
Shar'El followed her gaze.
Erik stood at the far edge of the chamber, Adriana and Amanda by his side, Christiane slightly behind, and a green-skinned Orion Shar'El did not recognize. That was the strangest part. Their attention fractured between the impossible machine and the woman who should not have been there and yet clearly was.
For a single suspended instant, time tightened.
Shar'El felt the echo of sadness again, sharper now, threaded with understanding she still refused to accept. Whatever path led from this moment, it was not one of loss alone. It was one of completion.
Erik looked up.
The moment his eyes met Auraliseth, he froze.
Not in fear, but in recognition that had already happened.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Executive Officer
USS ANUBIS
#######
"What Time Remembers, Part 4"
Previous post: "What Time Remembers, Part 3"
##########
"Time is a ruthless, unforgiving mistress. And yet, every now and then, it allows something to happen that makes you believe that somewhere, somehow, it remembers."
— Commander Erik Morningstar, EXO, USS PARADOX
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Transmitter Chamber
Stardate: 45033.1135
For a fraction of a second, Erik forgot how to breathe.
The chamber was full of people, full of motion and pressure and converging timelines, yet all of it fell away the moment his eyes found hers. She stood beside the transmitter as though she belonged to it, pale light threading through the crystalline lattice behind her, her presence impossible and undeniable all at once.
"Liz?"
The name left him as a whisper, shaped by disbelief and a certainty he had refused to accept for years. It cracked something in him. Adriana saw it instantly. The rigid control Erik carried like armor slipped, just enough to reveal the man beneath it. Not fear, but recognition. And something dangerously close to relief.
Auraliseth smiled.
"Hello Erik," she softly replied, in perfect English, her voice warm and familiar in a way that made no sense to anyone else in the room.
Shar'El felt it then, the subtle shift in gravity that had nothing to do with mass. This was not a first meeting. Whatever history existed here, it ran deeper than linear time would allow. The way they looked at one another confirmed it. This was not reunion. It was continuation.
"You are early," Auraliseth said gently, a trace of amusement threading through the words.
Erik shook his head once, a quiet breath leaving him. "Or late."
Her smile widened, affectionate, almost proud. "You remember what I have not yet said."
Understanding stirred at the edges of his thoughts, echoes of conversations aboard the USS PARADOX, of theories he had once voiced aloud and then dismissed as impossible. Liz had never been bound by forward motion. She had told him that, in her own way. He had simply lacked the context to believe her.
Until now.
Around them, the transmitter pulsed, its rhythm shifting as if responding to their alignment. Threll stepped back instinctively, awe and fear mingling across his features. The chamber no longer felt unstable. It felt resolved.
Shar'El moved to Erik's side. "We are running out of time."
Erik nodded. He did not look away from Auraliseth. "I know. In fact, we have even less time than you believe. The ANUBIS was pulled deeper into the planet's atmosphere. That is why I came."
His gaze swept the room then, lingering on each member of his crew. Shar'El, Gemma, Zub, Ya'Han, Jayson, Adriana, Amanda. All of them familiar faces anchored to a future he was doing everything to protect. He held their images carefully, committing them to memory without indulgence. Time would not allow more. It never did.
"Captain," Shar'El said quietly.
Erik turned to her fully now. Whatever she had suspected, whatever doubts lingered behind her composed exterior, he did not soften the truth. He met her eyes and spoke with calm certainty.
"Take them back. The adjustments will take time. Drayk, Threll and I will take care of everything. I will follow once the ANUBIS is safe."
She studied him for a long heartbeat. She did not argue. She only nodded. "Understood."
As the crew began to withdraw, pulled gently by the transmitter's growing resonance, Erik reached out and caught Shar'El's attention one last time.
"Commander," Erik paused for a single heartbeat which echoed into eternity. "When you return to the ANUBIS," he said, "I have a message for you to give to Ani."
Shar'El straightened instinctively. "What message?"
"In accordance with the judgement scales of ANUBIS, I have been found worthy."
She inhaled sharply, recognition flickering behind her eyes. "Captain?"
"Just give her the message, word for word," Erik replied. "She will understand."
The chamber flickered prompting the crew to move, going back thought the corridor that had brought them here.
"Liz... Make sure they make it back to the surface safely."
Auraliseth smiled and nodded her head. "It has already been done," she said, reminding the Native American of her unique temporal perception, and of things she had said to him many years ago.
Adriana lingered, just for a heartbeat too long as the others began to leave. Her eyes searched Erik's face, not for reassurance, but for permission to say something she knew there was no time for.
Erik did not look back.
She followed Auraliseth in silence, already knowing she would need to speak to him the moment he returned to the ship. Somehow, the certainty of that thought frightened her.
"Threll, we need access to the primary control system," Morningstar said taking charge of the situation, both his words and actions feeling like echoes of things he had already done. "Drayk, we are going to need every ounce of power we can draw."
"Captain," Drayk said, his brow furrowing not in fear, but in recognition. "I have walked battlefields older than memory. I know the weight of places that have not yet happened. I understand design better than anyone else. This feels like one of them. A point in space and time that was always meant to be."
Erik nodded once, slowly.
"Yes," he said. "That is because this moment is not forming. It is arriving."
He looked at the machine, then past it, as if seeing something only he could perceive.
"It was explained to me a long time ago," he added quietly. "I simply refused to listen. And she knew I would."
--==/\==--
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Main Settlement
Stardate: 45033.1145
The skies overhead had turned dark, as if the sun itself had somehow dimmed.
"Commander, we should not be leaving the Captain behind like this," Adriana objected.
"Drayk is with him," Shar'El countered. "Plus, I suspect that we would only be in the way. The captain is doing what he always has done, that is to put the safety of the ship and crew first." She turned to look at Auraliseth who just looked back before suddenly vanishing as if she had never been there.
"Commander?" Zub questioned, the Voth ready to rip the entire settlement apart if needed.
"Engage your emergency beacons... The captain knows what he's doing."
--==/\==--
Setting: UNKNOWN PLANET, JELOVAAN Settlement, Transmitter Chamber
Stardate: 45033.1155
Time folded into itself in unpredictable ways, the three men working as fast as they could for what had felt like hours, or maybe even days, yet only seconds had passed, judging by their bodies.
"Done... I think, just need to..." Drayk offered before being interrupted by Morningstar.
"Threll and I will finish things here. Go and join the others. The ANUBIS is going to need your expertise now more than ever."
Drayk hesitated but complied when the captain motioned for him to go.
Auraliseth reappeared and only spoke again once Threll was on the opposite side of the transmitter.
"I have been waiting for you, Light of Dawn. To return for the first time. To the end of the beginning."
The words carried weight. History. Destiny fulfilled rather than imposed.
Erik closed his eyes, and for the first time, truly saw. Time opened to him, not as a sequence but as a whole. He understood the nickname she has given him, a name he had then believed to be nothing more than the misunderstanding of his last name. Now he understood that it had never been a mistake. Nothing that had happened between then and now, if such a thing did indeed exist, had been a mistake. This is where he had been destined to be.
He opened his eyes and let out the breath he had been holding.
"I see it now," he said softly. And for the first time, he did not feel the need to change it.
"You always did," Auraliseth corrected, extending her hand to touch his face. "Welcome back... Light of Dawn."
Erik smiled as he let his gaze pass over where his crew had been mere moments ago, the absence already feeling complete.
He had not memorized their faces. He already carried them.
This was not goodbye. It was acknowledgment.
--==/\==--
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 45033.1215
=/\= Transporter room 3, Lieutenant Val'Bruxa has just returned... Alone. =/\=
Shar'El turned her gaze to the main view screen, her heart froze as the image of the planet began to shimmer.
Ani, who stood next to Shar'El felt it without sensors, without confirmation. Space shimmered, then quietly corrected itself. A system unanchored, relocated, remembered only by those who had been part of it.
"The Captain is still on the planet," Ani said, a mixture of a question and statement.
Shar'El stood on the bridge, hands turning into fists by her side. "He asked me to relay a message to you... that he had been found worthy."
A pause.
"Were those his exact words?" The ship's avatar asked.
Shar'El hesitated. Just long enough to realize that if she altered even a syllable, the moment would unravel.
"In accordance with the judgement scales of ANUBIS," she said evenly, "I have been found worthy."
Ani closed her eyes for a brief moment, reopening them, a solemn expression on her artificial features. "What are your orders, Captain Shar'El?"
--==(/\)==--
Francois Charette
Captain Erik Morningstar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
--
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us came because we actually deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
"Time to Think"
Previous post: "What Time Remembers, Part 4" by Francois
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck A-4, IGC
Stardate: 46112.1400
Gemma sat at her station within the IGC, hands resting idle against the console while the ship around her slowly came back to life. The moment the JELOVAAN system had shimmered out of existence, operational sensors across the ANUBIS had snapped back online. Data flowed again. Readings stabilized.
Answers did not.
What had happened to the planet? To the system? To their captain?
The ANUBIS was still badly damaged. Val'Bruxa had been clear about that. Weeks, at minimum, before the ship could even attempt a return to NEW ALEXANDRIA. Time enough to search. Time enough to analyze. Or maybe just enough time to sit with the weight of what they had lost.
Her eyes drifted again to the time display hovering at the edge of her peripheral vision. The numbers still felt wrong, like a bad translation she could not quite reconcile. The ANUBIS had been lost in the JELOVAAN system for just under a year and three months. Once free of the temporal distortion embedded in the asteroid shells, the computer recalibrated its central clock with clinical precision.
The ship had adjusted. She had not.
"Lieutenant," one of the IGC techs called out from behind her. "Latest sensor sweep still shows no signs or traces of the JELOVAAN system."
Gemma's jaw tightened. "Then scan again," she snapped, the edge in her voice cutting sharper than intended. A flicker of awareness followed. She was not maintaining the control she demanded of herself.
She did not apologize.
"Let me know the moment you find something," she added, already pushing back from her station. "Anything."
She was halfway to the exit before the chair finished sliding back into place, leaving the IGC behind her as she sought motion, distance, anything that did not feel like waiting.
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Corridor
Stardate: 46112.1410
The corridor lights were dimmed to emergency levels, panels half repaired and scarred from overloads that had not yet been fully traced or corrected. The ship felt wounded. Gemma felt it with every step.
She moved fast, boots striking deck plating with a rhythm just short of reckless. Voices followed her in fragments from behind, security updates, damage reports, people trying to sound steady. She ignored all of it. She needed motion. Motion kept the thoughts from settling.
Loss had a way of doing that. Settling. Sinking its weight into places she had long since sealed off.
She turned a corner and nearly collided with a wall of scaled muscle.
Zub caught her by the shoulders before she could react, hands firm but not aggressive. The sudden stop sent a sharp pulse through her chest, irritation flaring instantly.
"Let go," she snapped, eyes already hardening.
"Not until you slow down," Zub replied. His voice carried authority out of habit, but there was something beneath it that did not belong to rank. Concern. Worry. Something dangerously close to fear.
Gemma shrugged out of his grasp, stepping back just enough to reclaim space. "I am perfectly capable of walking through a corridor without assistance."
"I know," Zub said. He did not move aside. "That is not what this is about."
Her jaw tightened. Of course he knew. Security always knew. Angry operative storms out of the IGC, raised voices, snapped orders. Enough to get the acting Chief of Security moving.
"Then say it," she replied. "Or get out of my way."
Zub studied her for a moment longer than protocol required. The flicker in her eyes was familiar to him now. Not rage exactly. Fracture. Too many reactions fighting for the same expression.
"You are not alone in this," he said quietly.
Something twisted in her chest at that. Not comfort. Pressure.
"That is a mistake people keep making," Gemma answered. "Alone is what I am best at."
Zub shook his head once. "You have not been alone for a long time. That is why this hurts."
The words landed too close. Her fingers curled slightly at her sides, tension rippling through her posture before she caught it.
"This ship lost its captain," she said flatly. "Everyone is hurting. I am not special."
"You are different," Zub countered. "And you know it."
She laughed once, short and humorless. "That is not the endorsement you think it is."
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the low hum of strained systems. Zub exhaled slowly, then shifted his stance, less like a guard blocking a path and more like a man standing with a friend.
"Shar'El is captain now," he said, carefully. "That means there will be changes. Vacancies. New responsibilities."
Gemma's eyes narrowed. "Get to the point."
"I think you should consider ExO," Zub said.
For a heartbeat, she simply stared at him. Then the disbelief broke into sharp laughter.
"You cannot be serious."
"I am," he replied. "You see the ship clearly. You anticipate problems before they form. People listen to you even when you do not ask them to."
"That is because they are afraid of me," she shot back.
"That is not true," Zub said without hesitation. "They respect you."
She stepped past him, then stopped herself, shoulders stiffening. When she turned back, her expression was tighter, more controlled, but something underneath had cracked.
"You would be better at it," she said. "You already are."
Zub blinked, surprised. "That is not what I said."
"It is what you meant," Gemma replied. "You hold people together. You care if they break. You can stand in front of them and mean it when you say follow me."
"And you think you cannot?" he asked.
She looked away.
"Command is not in me," she said quietly. "No matter which version of me you ask."
Zub took a step closer, lowering his voice. "Leadership is not about being whole. It is about choosing to stay."
Her gaze snapped back to his, sharp and warning. Whatever vulnerability had surfaced vanished just as quickly, sealed behind familiar armor.
"You should take the job if it opens," she said. "The ship would be safer."
With that, she turned and walked away, boots echoing down the damaged corridor, leaving Zub standing alone in the dim light while the ANUBIS continued to mend itself around them.
=-=
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant Gemma
Intel Operative
USS ANUBIS
[The fun is getting to wear multiple disguises and getting to explore multiple personalities and bring them to life.] - Jenna Fischer
"Time to Fight"
Previous post: "Time to Think" by Tiffany
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Gymnasium
Stardate: 46112.1420
The gymnasium was quiet in the way only empty spaces could be. No background chatter. No running drills. Just the unsteady noises of damaged ship systems and the soft echo of bare feet against the mat.
Ya'Han moved with precision out of habit rather than intent. Her stance was perfect. Balanced. Controlled. Every motion clean and economical, as if the muscle memory refused to acknowledge everything else that had been taken from her.
Across from her, Ya'Jun mirrored the posture. Similar height. Similar build. The resemblance between them was unmistakable, even now. Especially now. Black hair framed both of their faces, damp with sweat, clinging to skin that no longer carried any visible sign of what they once were.
Royal. Chosen. Something more.
The first exchange was measured. A testing strike. A block. A pivot. Neither sister spoke. They did not need to. This was familiar ground. Violence as language. Motion as truth.
Ya'Jun struck again, faster this time. Ya'Han deflected, countered, and stepped inside her sister's guard without hesitation. Too fast. Too sharp.
"You are not holding back," Ya'Jun observed.
Ya'Han did not answer. She reset her stance instead, jaw tight, eyes dark. Her black hair fell forward, obscuring part of her face before she brushed it aside with an impatient motion.
They moved again. The pace increased. Blows landed harder. The sound of impact echoed through the empty space, controlled but no longer gentle. Ya'Jun adapted quickly, but there was a difference between them that had always been there. Training. Discipline honed beyond tradition. Starfleet and the Lokustaar had refined Ya'Han into something lethal. Not whole. But effective. Focused.
Ya'Jun felt it when a strike slipped past her guard and knocked the breath from her chest. She recovered, but her eyes narrowed.
"This is not sparring anymore," she said.
Ya'Han exhaled sharply. "Then keep up."
The next exchange was brutal. Ya'Han pressed forward with relentless precision, forcing Ya'Jun back step by step. A sweep sent her sister crashing to the mat. Before Ya'Jun could fully recover, Ya'Han was on her, forearm pressed against her throat, weight centered, control absolute.
For a heartbeat, the gym felt too small. And for the first time since everything had been taken from her, that felt right.
Ya'Jun did not struggle. She looked up at her sister instead, eyes steady despite the pressure. "Is this how you are dealing with it?"
Ya'Han's grip tightened before she realized it had. Something in her expression fractured, control slipping just enough for the truth to surface.
"He saw me," Ya'Han said, the words forced out between clenched teeth. "He trusted me. When no one else did. When everything about me should have been a liability."
Ya'Jun swallowed hard but did not look away. "And now he is gone."
The words landed like a blade.
For a fraction of a second, Ya'Han considered staying where she was. Then she pulled back suddenly, scrambling to her feet as if burned. She turned away, pacing once before stopping short, hands curling into fists at her sides. Her shoulders shook once. Then again.
"I lost my mother," she said quietly. "I lost who I was. I lost the one thing that made the anger useful. And now him too."
Her voice broke on the last word.
"I was supposed to protect him," she added, the regret sharp and immediate the moment it left her mouth.
Silence followed. Heavy. Final.
Ya'Jun sat up slowly, watching her sister with a mix of pain and understanding. "You cannot carry every loss as a failure. You are not the only one who lost her mother," Ya'Jun said quietly. "You are just the one trying to bleed alone."
Ya'Han shook her head, breath unsteady. "Do not tell me what I cannot carry."
The words were out before she could stop them. The instant they hung in the air, her stomach tightened. She had said worse things before. This one hurt because it was aimed at the wrong person.
Ya'Jun stood, saying nothing. She only nodded once, the motion small and tight, before stepping back to give her twin sister space she no longer knew how to accept.
Ya'Han remained where she was, staring at her reflection in the mirrored wall. Black hair. Dark eyes. No color left to claim. No title to anchor her.
For the first time since everything had been taken from her, she did not know who she was supposed to be without it.
And that terrified her more than any enemy ever had.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Time to Talk"
Previous Post: "Time to Fight" by Hanali
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counselor's Office
Stardate: 46112.1630
The door chimed softly.
Adriana looked up from the padd in her hands and set it aside before straightening. She had requested the meeting under the guise of a personnel issue, knowing full well that Shar'El would not have come otherwise. Too much to do. Too many systems offline. Too many people looking to her now, whether she invited it or not.
"Come in," Adriana said.
Shar'El stepped inside, her posture crisp, her expression composed in the way only long habit could make it. The faint tension in her shoulders was unmistakable, though. It was the posture of someone who had not stopped moving since the moment command had settled onto her shoulders.
"Counselor Lopez, you said this was urgent," Shar’El said, her tone clipped and distant, already glancing toward the couch opposite Adriana, calculating time rather than comfort.
"It is," Adriana replied calmly. "But not in the way you are expecting."
Shar'El paused, then sat. The moment she did, the room seemed to exhale. The quiet murmur of the waterfall and the softened lighting settled around them, encouraging stillness without demanding it.
Adriana took a breath of her own, steadying herself.
"This is not about a crew dispute," she said. "Or performance concerns. I asked to see you because you are the commanding officer of this ship. And because you just lost someone important."
Shar'El's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"I do not have the luxury of unpacking that right now," she said. "The ANUBIS is damaged, badly. The crew is shaken. Ani is still recalibrating priority systems, and Drayk is trying to keep us in one piece. I am needed elsewhere."
"I know. You are everywhere right now," Adriana said gently. "That is why this moment matters."
Silence stretched between them, taut but not hostile.
Adriana folded her hands together in her lap, grounding herself before speaking again. "You stepped into command within minutes of losing Captain Morningstar. Erik." Adriana let the name settle before continuing. "Not because you wanted it. Because he trusted you enough to leave it with you. That alone would be enough to unsettle anyone."
Shar'El's eyes flicked up at the mention of his name. Just for a heartbeat. Then her gaze hardened again.
"He made a choice," she said. "A necessary one." She paused for a heartbeat. "For him. For us. At least, that is what I have been telling myself."
"Yes," Adriana agreed. "And that does not make it any less painful."
Shar'El leaned back slightly, crossing her arms. "You are projecting, Counselor," she said evenly. "You are concerned about the crew. About stability. About morale. That is appropriate. But do not mistake that for concern about me."
Adriana met her gaze without flinching. "I am concerned about all of it. Including you."
That earned a reaction. Not anger. Something closer to surprise.
"You were the ship's counselor under Erik," Shar'El said quietly. "You supported him through crises that would have broken less capable officers. You do not need to extend that role to me out of habit."
"This is not habit," Adriana replied. "This is choice." She hesitated only a moment before continuing. "I keep thinking about the way he used to look at the stars. The way he would go onto the ship's hull just to be there, to be part of the universe that surrounded us. As if he was listening to something the rest of us could not hear. I noticed it as we entered the JELOVAAN system. I also noticed that something had shifted on the planet. And I chose to ignore it because stopping would have meant accepting what it implied."
The admission sat heavy in the room.
Shar'El's eyes narrowed, not in accusation but in focus. "You are carrying guilt," she said. "And you are using it to fuel your resolve."
"Yes," Adriana said simply. "Because if I stop moving, as you have had to, I will dwell on it. And if I dwell on it, I will fail the crew. I will fail you."
Shar'El inhaled slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. "Do you realize what it is like for me right now?"
Adriana shook her head. "Not fully. That is part of the reason why we are here."
"I am Ullian," Shar’El said quietly. "Even if I do not appear as such," she sighed. "That means every corridor I walk through is saturated with him. Memories. Conversations. Confidence. Doubt. Laughter. He is everywhere. And I cannot afford to let any of it surface." She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. "And now I sit across from the ship's counselor, who is holding herself together by recalling him. You are thinking of him, recalling specific moments, even as you tell me to move forward."
Adriana did not deny it. "Because he believed in this crew. In you. In what the ANUBIS represents. That belief did not leave with him."
Shar'El looked at her for a long moment. The composed exterior finally cracked, just enough. "You are asking me to accept grief as part of command," she said.
"I am asking you not to see it as weakness," Adriana replied. "The crew will look to you for strength. But strength does not mean pretending he never mattered. It means showing them that loss does not end us, even when it changes us."
Shar'El straightened slowly. "And you," she said. "What does this cost you?"
Adriana allowed herself a small, honest smile. "Everything I can afford. And nothing more."
Another silence followed, different this time. Softer.
Shar'El rose to her feet. "Very well," she said. "Then we proceed. Together. You will help the crew process this. And you will remind me, when necessary, that command is not diminished by memory."
Adriana stood as well. "I can do that."
Shar'El paused at the door. "For what it is worth," she added, without turning around, "Erik trusted you deeply. I see why."
When the door closed, Adriana remained standing for several seconds, breathing steadily through the familiar weight in her chest.
Grief did not weaken command.
And neither would it weaken them.
Yet, she still found herself missing him more than she could acknowledge.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
“Time To Renew”
Previous post: “Time To Talk” by Marissa
=-=
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck A-4, Corridor connecting IGC
Stardate: 46112.1635
It had been over an hour since Zub Enel watched Gemma stride away from him near the IGC. Though aided by his small cadre of nanites that linked automatically to her mother lode, the halo of her internal thoughts faded with distance. Even so, he had recognized her turmoil: grief, isolation, and self-doubt. Certain she had erred by insisting on recovering alone, he’d instinctively taken a few steps after her.
Enel had halted. At 7 feet tall, with an enviable stride, he could have caught up with her, but what else would he have said? Like the rest of the ANUBIS crew, she wouldn’t believe she *wasn’t* somehow responsible for the loss of Captain Morningstar. Rather than accept the possibility of leading the ship as the new XO, she wanted to turn away, curl up, maintain the status quo by remaining the ILO, hiding out in the IGC, or accepting an Intelligence mission that would take her farthest from the ship. Her belief in her ability to help lead an entire starship had been severely rattled by the Captain’s apparent abdication of that role to stay on the temporal nexus that was the JELOVAAN SYSTEM.
Hoping she might have returned to the IGC, Zub returned to the corridor after a strange encounter with a replicator that loudly swore at him in Gorn and gave him a cup of a suspiciously yellow liquid he was sure wasn’t Terran apple juice.
The lights overhead flickered, went out completely, and then lit the corridor with a steady, dim glow. He felt a sudden chill. The ship gave a jolt that sent him reaching for a wall to steady himself.
The alert indicators in the corridor ceiling changed to lurid red. ANI, the ship’s avatar, announced, =/\= Red Alert! Life Support is inoperable. General Quarters. Proceed to duty stations. =/\=
Zub pivoted toward the Bridge. He had to get to Tactical. He knew the ship held plenty of oxygen for the time being. The temperature was another matter. Environmental suits were available if the air became toxic or the temperature dropped below freezing. Both would take time to reach dangerous levels. He resolved to stay at his station, suited up or not.
He’d taken three steps before the ceiling alert indicators flashed amber. =/\= Red Alert is canceled. Life Support is online. Secure from General Quarters. =/\=
“Thank you, Mr. Val’Bruxa,” he said to no one in particular. The Chief of Engineering was on top of everything when it came to repairing the damaged ship.
Zub realized that Gemma was much like the wounded ANUBIS. The ship mirrored Gemma's internal state: dimmed lights and half-repaired panels echoed her fractured composure and need for repair. He turned once more in the direction of the IGC. He wondered if she would let him near her. Gemma was stubborn and highly dangerous if riled.
The corridor lights flared and then dimmed to about half their usual brightness. Air exchangers roared. Warm air swirled around him, tugging at his scales. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with oxygen. All this was a reassuring sign to him that the Chief Engineer and crew were performing miracle repairs minute by minute.
Zub turned his back to the corridor wall and stepped back against it so he wouldn’t impede anyone traveling to or from the Bridge. He had to sigh several times and deliberately relax his broad, scaly shoulders, stretch out the fake kinks in his neck, before he could unclench a mental fist around his heart.
Captain Morningstar was gone. Not dead. Elsewhere. In a time loop of his own construction. The effect was the same. Gone forever. Or at least gone for the foreseeable future, in this dimension, this timeline. Zub felt each heartbeat as if it were too sore to beat again. Morningstar had been Zub’s leader since they met in an arboretum on the USS BASTET over a decade before; a constant, steady presence, and not only personally, but as the ship running in calm, perfect order, in his image and likeness.
Enel flattened his three-fingered hands against the corridor wall. Captain Shar’El was highly competent in her own right. Morningstar had chosen well. The ship would go on. The mission would go on. Only without their original captain. Zub tried to reframe Morningstar’s loss and Shar’El’s gain as a necessary field promotion amid battle. Like in battle, he was duty-bound to prioritize completing the mission. Captain Morningstar would have expected no less. Captain Shar’El expected and deserved no less.
He pushed himself upright. He put his boots together and his hands at his sides as he stood at attention. He shoved thoughts and raw feelings about Gemma and the loss of Morningstar down deep into a leather vault that only he had the key to. The wounded ship needed his full attention. Captain Shar’El needed his full attention. He could heal later. He headed for the Bridge.
=-=
David Michael Inverso
Lieutenant Zub Enel
Acting Chief of Security/Tactical Officer
MCO
USS ANUBIS, NCC 18501
"Grief is just love with no place to go.”
- Jamie Anderson
"Time to Feel"
Previous post: "Time to Renew" by David
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Sickbay
Stardate: 46112.1645
Even with the unsteady power flow and the occasional medical system going offline, Sickbay had returned to its usual rhythm, but the cadence felt forced, as if the ship itself were following procedure out of habit rather than conviction. Most monitors remained dark. Biobeds stood empty, their readiness almost accusatory.
T'Lara stood at the central console, reviewing data she had already memorized. Vital signs. Stress markers. Cortisol equivalents across multiple species. The numbers confirmed what she already knew. The crew was unsettled. Not impaired. Not incapacitated. Simply off balance.
She catalogued the sensation in herself with the same precision. Elevated heart rate earlier on the transporter pad. A delay in controlled breathing that had taken longer than optimal to correct. She had corrected it. Of course she had. Still, the fact that she had needed to correct it at all troubled her.
Satella sat on the edge of a biobed nearby, hands clasped loosely in her lap. She was not attempting to hide her grief. Tears had come and gone, leaving behind a redness around her eyes and a fragile tightness to her expression. T'Lara noted it without comment. Grief, openly expressed, was not a failing. It was simply not her way, and watching it unfold created an unfamiliar pressure behind her eyes.
"He said he would follow," Satella said quietly, her voice catching despite her effort to steady it. Not accusing. Not questioning. Simply clinging to a truth that no longer had a place to settle.
T'Lara inclined her head a fraction. "That was his intention at the time it was spoken. I heard that much in his voice."
Satella let out a short, unsteady breath. "He always sounded so certain. Even when he knew the odds were bad."
"Certainty and probability are not the same," T'Lara replied, the words precise and carefully neutral, as if accuracy alone could stabilize the moment. Then, after a pause, she added, "He was aware of that distinction."
Her fingers hovered over the console, then stilled. She became aware of the faint tension in her shoulders and consciously released it. Erik Morningstar had been many things. Predictable in command presence. Meticulous in preparation. Always operating several steps ahead. Those traits had appealed to her sense of order. To logic.
What unsettled her was the memory of his final choice.
"He placed the crew above the mission," Satella said, her voice thickening. "Above himself."
"Yes," T'Lara said. A fraction of a pause followed before she added, "It was consistent with his character, even when it conflicted with optimal outcomes."
"It still feels wrong that I am here and he is not."
T'Lara turned slightly, enough to meet Satella's gaze without fully facing her. "Survival guilt is an illogical construct, but a persistent one. Its presence does not imply fault."
Satella shook her head faintly. "Knowing that does not make it stop." She drew in a slow, deep breath before she gave a weak, humorless smile. "You say that like it is a diagnosis."
"It is," The Romulan/Vulcan Doctor said. "One I am familiar with."
Silence settled between them, not uncomfortable, but weighted. T'Lara found her thoughts returning to the moment on the planet. To leaving with Shar'El. To the certainty that the captain would follow as promised. That expectation had been reasonable. Statistically sound. And yet, it had been wrong.
That realization lingered like an unresolved equation.
"The crew will adapt," T'Lara said at last. "They always do." The statement was logically sound, yet it failed to reassure her.
Satella nodded, though her expression suggested the words brought little comfort. "Command will change. Everything will."
"Yes."
Satella hesitated, then asked, "Have you heard anything about a new First Officer?"
T'Lara felt the question land with more weight than it should have, triggering a reflexive assessment before she consciously allowed it. Her pulse responded before her discipline corrected it. Interesting.
"No," she answered evenly. "Speculation would be premature."
"But you are thinking about it."
That earned Satella a brief look. Not reproachful. Assessing. "Any alteration in command structure introduces variables. It is prudent to consider their potential impact."
Satella studied her for a moment, then nodded. "That sounds like you."
T'Lara accepted that without comment. Her curiosity was already organizing itself along familiar lines. Compatibility. Decision making under pressure. Ethical flexibility. Loyalty to crew versus doctrine. She did not resent the process. What unsettled her was the absence of a known constant against which to measure it.
Erik Morningstar had been that constant, more than she had anticipated.
"I should return to my office," T'Lara said. "There are reports that require completion."
Satella slid off the biobed. "Thank you. For staying. For talking."
"It was… acceptable," T'Lara replied.
As she turned and left the main treatment area, her stride remained steady, posture precise. No one would have noticed the subtle delay before her breathing fully evened out, or the way her thoughts circled a loss she could not logically justify but could not dismiss either.
Order would reassert itself. She believed that.
She was simply less certain than she had been before, and for once, she could not immediately identify the variable that had changed, save for the most obvious one.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
---
"Time to Grieve"
(Previous Post: "Time to Feel")
---
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 13, Stellar Cartography
Stardate: 46112.1710
The JELOVAAN system no longer existed.
Maya knew that with a certainty so absolute it should have ended the matter. The sensors agreed. The navigational records agreed. Ani agreed. Every instrument she trusted, every methodology she had ever relied upon, every carefully calibrated array confirmed the same impossible conclusion. Space had corrected itself. Time had folded, aligned, and closed. The system was gone as if it had never been there at all.
And yet Maya remained. Defiant. Unyielding. As if refusal alone might force the universe to reconsider.
She stood at the central console of Stellar Cartography, hands braced against the edge as the holographic projection replayed the final recorded bridge view. Stars shimmered. Light bent. The system trembled, then quietly unraveled, the way fabric did when pulled apart thread by thread. No explosion. No violence. Just absence asserting itself with the cruelest of precision.
She ran the scan again for the hundredth time, and the data populated exactly as it had every time before. Clean. Empty. Final.
Maya swallowed and forced her fingers to move. Another diagnostic sweep. Another temporal variance analysis. Another attempt to introduce noise into a silence that refused to break. She told herself that repetition was not desperation. It was verification. It was diligence. It was science.
She told herself many things.
The truth pressed in regardless.
This was not unfamiliar. The memory crept in despite her never-ending efforts to keep it buried in a past she had spent a lifetime trying not to revisit.
She had stood on another bridge once, much smaller, much older in design. She had watched another world die through reinforced viewports while alarms sounded and officers shouted orders she no longer remembered. Her father had remained behind, his final transmission clipped and calm, focused on equations and delays and probabilities. A necessary sacrifice, he had called it. Time bought with life.
She had believed him. As the last Shillian, she had to.
That did not stop the memory from clawing its way back now, sharp and merciless, overlaying itself atop the image before her. Another system collapsing. Another man she trusted remaining behind so that others could escape. Another quiet calculation that concluded her survival was worth the cost.
A selfish thought intruded before she could stop it, sharp and unwelcome. She had never allowed herself that perspective before. It felt wrong. Indulgent. Grief framed around herself rather than the enormity of what had been lost. But it was there now, raw and undeniable. Two fathers. Two sacrifices. Two voids left behind that no amount of brilliance or dedication had been able to fill.
Erik Morningstar had never said goodbye.
That, more than anything, refused to settle.
He had intended to return. He had said so without words, with certainty so unshakable that Maya had never questioned it. He had walked into the unknown because that was who he was. Because the universe, to him, was something to meet head on rather than retreat from. He had trusted time to unfold in his favour.
What if it had not. What if this was not choice, but consequence. What if he had stayed because he could not leave.
Maya inhaled sharply, the breath catching halfway as her eyes burned. She turned back to the console and initiated the scan yet again, forcing her focus onto the numbers, onto the equations that no longer led anywhere. Time was a variable. It always had been. The cause and the solution. The force that took and the mechanism that could give back.
If she could just understand it well enough.
If she could just find a trace.
A residual echo. A temporal scar. Anything.
"Maya."
The voice came softly from behind her, carefully measured. Not startled. Not urgent. Just present.
Maya stiffened. "I am busy, Counselor."
Adriana Lopez did not retreat. Her footsteps were quiet as she moved closer, stopping just short of encroaching on the space Maya occupied. "You have been busy for several hours on the exact same task."
"I am close," Maya said, too quickly. "The data is consistent, which means I am missing something. Consistency implies structure. Structure implies intent."
"Maya," Adriana said again, gently this time.
The Shillian did not turn. She could not. If she did, she would have to stop pretending that this was just another problem to solve. Another mystery to unravel. She stared at the projection instead, at the place where a star should have been and was not.
"There has to be something left," she said, her voice thin with strain. "Time does not simply erase itself. It leaves imprints. Causality does not vanish without residue."
"Maya," Adriana said quietly, "the JELOVAAN system is gone."
The words landed with devastating precision.
Maya flinched as if struck, her hands tightening against the console. Her mouth opened, ready with a rebuttal, a theory, a protest grounded in logic and probability. Nothing came. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
"And so is Captain Morningstar," Adriana added, feeling the full weight of her own words while simply refusing to let the truth remain unspoken.
The dam broke.
Maya turned, finally, her composure shattering in an instant. The tears came without warning, hot and relentless, blurring her vision as her breath fractured into uneven gasps. She pressed a hand to her mouth, as if that might contain the sound, but it escaped anyway, raw and broken.
"I cannot accept that," she whispered. "I will not."
Adriana did not interrupt. She did not reach out. She simply stood with her, bearing witness.
"He was supposed to come back," Maya said, the words tumbling over one another now. "He always came back. He did not choose this. He would not leave us without reason. Without explanation." Her voice faltered. "Without saying goodbye."
Her knees gave way and she sank onto the edge of the console, shoulders shaking as years of restraint collapsed under the weight of this moment. "This is what happened before," she said, the admission tearing free at last. "My father stayed behind so I could live. I watched my world die knowing he was still there. And now it has happened again."
She looked up at Adriana, eyes red and pleading. "What kind of equation demands this twice from the same person?"
Adriana swallowed, her own eyes shining. "One that values you being here."
The words only made it hurt more.
Maya shook her head, a sob breaking loose. "I do not want to be the constant," she said. "I do not want to be the one who survives while everyone else becomes memory."
The words echoed in the vastness of Stellar Cartography, sounding wrong simply because they had been spoken at all. Maya folded inward, arms wrapping around herself as if that might keep the universe from taking anything else. Her breathing came in sharp, uneven bursts, each one dragging another fragment of control away with it.
"I keep solving the equation," she whispered, staring blindly at the projection. "I keep finding the answer that lets everyone else go on while I remain. That cannot be coincidence. That cannot be the only outcome that exists."
Adriana stepped closer then, not abruptly, not urgently. She placed a steady hand on Maya’s shoulder, grounding rather than restraining.
"Erik stayed because he believed in you," Adriana said softly. "In this crew. In what comes next."
Maya let out a broken laugh that held no humour at all. "That is what my father believed," she said. "That if he stayed, if he delayed the collapse long enough, then my survival would justify his absence." Her voice cracked. "I did not ask for that. I never asked for either of them to choose me over themselves."
Her knees trembled, and she leaned forward again, pressing her forehead briefly against the cool edge of the console as if seeking something solid, something immutable. The stars did not oblige. They never had.
"What if this is not belief," Maya said hoarsely. "What if it is inevitability. What if the universe simply requires someone to remain behind every time I am meant to continue forward."
The thought terrified her more than the loss itself.
Adriana did not argue. She did not offer reassurance wrapped in certainty. She simply stayed, her hand still there, unwavering.
Maya closed her eyes. His face rose unbidden in her mind, not from the last moments on the planet, but from quieter ones. Conversations in passing. A calm voice in the midst of chaos. The unspoken confidence that had made the impossible feel survivable.
"He stayed so we could live," Maya said at last, the words dragging themselves free as if they weighed far more than language should allow. "Just like my father did."
The realization did not bring peace. It burned.
Tears spilled freely now, unchecked, as she straightened with visible effort. She wiped at her face, the gesture mechanical, insufficient. The holographic projection behind her continued its silent replay, uncaring, absolute.
"I do not know how to live with this," she admitted, her voice barely audible. "I only know that they both believed I would."
She drew in a slow, shuddering breath.
"I do not think I can do this alone," Maya said, the admission torn from her before she could stop it. "I survived my world because someone stayed behind. I survived this because someone else did the same. I do not know how to continue when that keeps being the cost."
Her hands trembled openly now. She did not try to hide it. There was no energy left for pretense.
"I do not know how to be the one who remains," she whispered. "I do not know how to carry them both."
Adriana quietly sighed. Her hand tightened slightly on her shoulder, not in restraint, but in solidarity.
"You are not alone," Adriana said quietly. "You have never been alone. Even now." She paused, allowing the words to settle before continuing. "We will continue. All of us. Not because it is easy. Not because we understand it. But because that is what they wanted for us."
Maya shook her head weakly, tears blurring the stars beyond recognition. "That feels insufficient," she said. "That feels like a hypothesis without proof."
Adriana did not smile. She did not argue. "Then we will treat it as one," she replied gently. "And we will test it together, the way he would have wanted."
The words were never meant to fix anything, how could they? But still, somehow they managed to help.
Maya drew in a ragged breath and let herself lean, just slightly, into Adriana’s presence. Not for answers. Not for strength. Just for the undeniable truth that someone else was still there.
Stellar Cartography remained filled with light and absence, with data and grief intertwined so tightly that Maya could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
And for the first time since the loss of her world, she mourned not as a scientist, not as an officer, but as the last of her kind, no longer standing entirely alone beneath stars that had taken yet another father from her and left her alive to remember them both and carry them forward.
---
Jessica Solarik
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
"Time to Consider"
Previous post: "Time to Grieve" by David
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 46112.1730
Three and a half hours after return.
The bridge no longer sounded like a ship in motion.
It sounded like a machine being kept alive by discipline.
Jayson stood at the operations console with his hands folded loosely behind his back, eyes moving between layered power flow schematics and the scrolling damage-control readouts. Primary EPS Grid A was still offline, severed in three places along the dorsal trunk. Grid C was holding, barely, its load redistributed well beyond design tolerances. He had already flagged two plasma regulators for imminent failure and rerouted auxiliary feeds twice in the last ten minutes to prevent a cascade shutdown.
He spoke without raising his voice.
"Engineering, Ops. I am pushing an additional four percent through secondary trunk seven. You will see elevated thermal bleed near frame one eight nine. You have a twelve minute window before I have to pull it back."
Drayk Val'Bruxa's reply came almost immediately, edged with controlled urgency.
=/\= Confirmed. We are already compensating. Hold that feed, I will bring life support distribution back to nominal on decks five through nine. =/\=
Jayson did the math in his head. He did not like the margin, but he accepted it anyway. Drayk had proven more than once that he could, somehow, bend systems to his will.
"Make it ten minutes," the Ops Officer replied. "After that, I am reallocating regardless of status."
=/\= Understood. =/\=
The channel closed.
Jayson exhaled slowly through his nose and adjusted the routing tables again, fingers precise, movements economical. He did not glance toward the center chair. He already knew its status. Empty. The space where command traffic usually converged remained functionally silent, authority redistributed into a dozen smaller decisions made across the ship.
He looked up to see the main viewscreen empty. Not black. Not star-filled. Empty in a way that sensors could not quite contextualize. A corrected absence. A place where data insisted something should exist and did not.
His gaze lingered there a second longer than necessary before returning to his console.
Across the bridge, A'Janni remained at Flight Control, posture steady, one hand resting near the helm inputs even though the ANUBIS was dead in space. Attitude thrusters were locked. Navigational plotting was theoretical at best. Still, the habit remained. Someone had to be ready if the ship was suddenly asked to move.
His one visible eye flicked toward Jayson briefly, then back to the instruments.
"Structural stress along the ventral spine is stabilizing," A'Janni said. "If Drayk can reinforce frame clusters forty through forty four, we might regain limited maneuvering within the hour."
"Might," Jayson echoed. He adjusted a display, isolating a power trunk highlighted in amber. "Only if I can keep power flowing long enough for them to finish. Grid C will not survive another spike."
A'Janni nodded once. No commentary. No false reassurance.
For a time, that was all there was. Systems. Numbers. Controlled damage.
Eventually, A'Janni spoke again, his tone unchanged.
"Command is going to need to formalize an Executive Officer soon."
Jayson did not look up, keeping his thoughts to himself until he offered, "Commander Shar'El will not carry both roles indefinitely."
"She cannot," the Caitian said flatly. "Not without breaking something."
Silence returned, punctuated only by the quiet cadence of status alerts.
A'Janni turned slightly in his chair. "Have you given thought to candidates."
Jayson paused his input for a fraction of a second. Then he resumed.
"Some," he said. "None without consequence."
"That was also true of the last one," A'Janni replied.
Jayson acknowledged that with a shallow nod.
"T'Lara has the rank and the discipline," Jayson said. "Her judgment is sound. But moving the Chief Medical Officer into an ExO role would fundamentally alter how this ship responds to crises. Medical ethics would begin influencing command decisions by necessity."
"Not inherently a flaw," A'Janni noted.
"No," Jayson agreed. "But a change in mission posture. As an intelligence vessel, the ANUBIS could be required to eliminate a target without attempting to preserve every life involved."
A'Janni accepted that.
"Maya," Jayson continued, bringing up a fresh diagnostic. "Also qualified. Also brilliant. But her priorities are discovery-driven. The ANUBIS would slowly become a research platform, not an intelligence asset. Its sensor array is the most sophisticated in the fleet, but it is optimized for covert surveillance, not open-ended scientific analysis."
"She would not even notice a tactical shift until it was done and over with," A'Janni said.
"Exactly."
They let that sit, the silence that took over the bridge echoing feelings that neither was ready to voice.
"Gemma?" A'Janni offered.
Jayson's fingers hesitated. Not stopped. Slowed.
"She would be effective," he said carefully. "And terrifying. Her adaptability is unmatched. Her instability is not imaginary. Command needs predictability, even when dealing in deception."
A'Janni did not disagree.
"Zub Enel?" A'Janni said next.
Jayson considered. "Strong leadership. Clear chain of command. But his instincts are escalation-based. Sometimes that is exactly what is required. Sometimes it closes doors that should remain open. As an intelligence vessel, the ANUBIS routinely operates on the margin between what can be done and what should be done."
"Marines tend to kick first," A'Janni said. "Ask questions after."
"Or ensure there is no one left to question."
A'Janni turned his chair more fully now.
"There is also you."
Jayson looked up sharply.
The suggestion did not land as a compliment. It landed as weight, one that took his breath away.
"I do not have the mind for command," Jayson said immediately. "I deal in power distribution and resource allocation. Not people. Certainly not politics."
"You coordinate half the ship already," A'Janni countered. "You understand systems, people, pressure."
"I understand operations," Jayson clarified. "That is not the same thing."
"Command is operations under stress," the FCO pressed.
"No," Jayson said, more firmly than he intended. He corrected his tone. "Command is responsibility for lives beyond equations. I am better where I am."
A'Janni studied him for a moment, then inclined his head.
"Then who."
Jayson's gaze drifted, unbidden, back to the viewscreen.
"Ya'Han," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
A'Janni did not respond immediately.
"She has command experience," Jayson continued. "Tactical insight. Field leadership. She understands both restraint and force."
"She is currently relieved," A'Janni reminded him.
"I know," Jayson said. "And she would likely refuse. Not now. Not with everything unresolved. But her own personal history, her dealings with the Lokustaar and ability to evaluate threats before they become an issue would be a perfect fit for that position. A perfect fit for the ANUBIS as it has always been." There was something in his voice then. Subtle. Personal. He did not elaborate.
"Honestly," he added after a short pause, "most would agree that she would be worthy of the role. Under different circumstances."
A'Janni accepted that assessment without comment.
The bridge settled again into quiet labor.
Jayson rerouted power one final time, then paused. He lifted his head and looked at the empty space beyond the hull. At the place where a system used to be. At the silence that had replaced it.
The ANUBIS was still operational. Still in one piece, for the most part. Still able to move forward in every way that mattered. And yet, something fundamental was gone.
Jayson turned back to his console and continued working. Stopping was not an option, and neither was staring too long into the emptiness, whether it lay beyond the hull or at the center of the bridge.
=-=
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant Jayson Stark
Chief of Operations
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
and
Jayson Sousa
Lieutenant JG A'Janni
Flight Control Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Time to Reflect"
Previous post: "Time to Consider" by Jayson
Setting: USS ANUBIS, T'Lara's Quarters
Stardate: 46112.2110
The door to her quarters sealed with a muted hiss, and the ship receded into silence.
T'Lara stood where she was for several seconds longer than necessary, hands folded neatly behind her back, posture precise. Alone, at last. No eyes to observe, no expectations to manage. Here, she could allow her thoughts to settle into order.
Controlled calm came easily in solitude. Vulcan logic provided the framework, Romulan discipline enforced it. Emotion was acknowledged, cataloged, and placed firmly aside. The first thought to surface was the same one shared across the ship. Captain Morningstar was gone.
The fact registered cleanly. There was no spike in heart rate, no disruption in her breathing. She had anticipated the outcome long before it became official. Logic dictated that command transitions, even abrupt ones, were survivable. The ANUBIS had endured worse.
Still, the ship felt altered.
She moved to the viewport, gazing out at the steady drift of distant stars. Reflection stared back at her faintly, a layered image. Vulcan poise. Romulan sharpness. A Starfleet officer shaped by both, yet fully claimed by neither.
Shar'El now held command.
That, too, was correct.
T'Lara respected her. Shar'El possessed clarity, restraint, and the capacity to lead without illusion. The crew would require that now. They would require structure, predictability, and a steady hand to anchor them after loss. Logic and command discipline were not opposing forces. Together, they formed stability.
And stability required support.
The thought surfaced unbidden, then refused to retreat.
First Officer.
She did not react immediately. Instead, she examined the notion with the same care she would apply to a surgical procedure. Was the position necessary? Yes. Was she qualified? Objectively, yes. Did the ship benefit from her experience in intelligence operations, crisis response, and moral triage? Undeniably.
This was not ambition. It was assessment. A role existed that needed to be filled, and she was capable of filling it.
That realization unsettled her more than she expected.
She turned from the viewport, braid shifting against her shoulder as she paced once, then stopped. The reflection followed her, distorted by the room's lighting. Dual heritage. Fractured certainty. The distance between who she believed herself to be and what she was already preparing to do.
She had not planned to consider command. Yet command had a way of finding those who could not look away from responsibility.
Her thoughts shifted, as they inevitably did, to Sickbay and the last encounter before she left. A simple visit from a mother and daughter that proved to be far more than that.
Cristhiane's quiet anxiety had been unmistakable, contained but persistent. Christie's awareness had been sharper still. She was young, yet burdened with experience, perceptive enough to grasp the weight of Erik's departure. He had been the one who allowed them to remain. That bond mattered.
T'Lara had approached them as a physician for obvious reasons. They had come to her, in her domain. The mother was concerned about the young boy, Nathan, and how he was coping with the shadow that hung over the ANUBIS and its crew. The daughter was more specific, her fears focused on Maya, the Shillian having withdrawn from Stellar Cartography into her quarters, something the young woman had never seen the overly eager scientist do before.
Her reassurances had begun with medical certainty. Vital signs stable. Recovery progressing. Risks managed. But somewhere in the exchange, her words had shifted. They had taken on the tone of command, of promise. Not merely that bodies would heal, but that they would not be abandoned. That Nathan and Maya would be safeguarded beyond the limits of clinical care.
She had offered certainty where none could truly exist.
And they had believed her. The memory lingered.
She returned to the viewport once more, studying the faint outline of herself in the glass. For a moment, she searched for the precise variable that had altered her internal calculations. The answer presented itself with quiet finality.
Erik was gone.
She was simply less certain than she had been before, and for once, she could not immediately identify the variable that had changed, save one.
The crew would adapt.
They always did.
The statement was logically sound, yet it failed to reassure her.
That, more than anything else, told her the truth.
She had already stepped beyond the role she claimed to occupy. The realization arrived fully formed, unexpected, and impossible to dismiss. She may not have known herself as well as she had always believed.
Logic demanded acknowledgment.
Responsibility demanded action.
All that was left to do was to seek out Shar'El and offer her this newfound resolve. For the ship. For the crew. For herself.
=-=
Dawn Bohr
Lt. Commander T'Lara
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Time to Re-evaluate"
Previous post: "Time to Reflect" by Dawn
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Ya'Han and Stark's Quarters
Stardate: 46112.2115
The doors silently hissed closed, as if even that sound risked breaking what little the ship had left. The quarters were quiet in the way only exhaustion could create.
Not the comfortable quiet of rest, but the brittle stillness that followed too many hours of holding things together by force of will alone.
Jayson sat on the edge of the small table near the viewport, uniform jacket discarded over a chair, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. There were faint smudges of polymer dust still on his hands that he had not fully scrubbed away. He had spent the day moving from console to console, junction to junction, refusing to step back while the ship still bled power and stability.
Ya'Han stood near the far wall, bare feet planted on the carpet of their quarters. Her breathing was slow, controlled, but there was no mistaking the tension in her posture. She had spent her day the only way she was still allowed to. Training. Pushing herself until her muscles burned and her thoughts dulled enough to stop circling the same losses.
Neither of them spoke at first.
Eventually, Jayson broke the silence, his voice low, tired.
"Erik should have been here." Jayson flitched at the sound of using the Captain's first name. It somehow felt wrong, yet referring to him as Captain Morningstar felt even worse.
Ya'Han closed her eyes.
The name landed hard. A lifetime of memories surged forward, not just of him, but of all the moments she had wished he had been there instead of her real father. All the moments when she had been small, and no one had stepped in. No one had held her. No one had stopped what came next.
"He always said the ship sounded wrong when it was hurt," Jayson continued quietly. "Like it was trying not to scream."
Her hands curled into fists at her sides, then loosened again, as if she had not decided what she wanted to hold onto.
"He would have walked the corridors," Ya'Han said. "Hand on the bulkheads. Muttering about pressure tolerances and stubborn engineers." Her voice wavered, then steadied. "He did that after every major engagement."
"Before we reached the planet. Before the first away team beamed down, he was talking about rebuilding sections that were not even damaged yet," Jayson added. "As if he knew what was going to happen."
A silence followed, heavier than the one before.
"He was a father figure to many on the ANUBIS," Ya'Han said. After a beat, quieter, "Especially to me."
Jayson nodded once. He did not argue. There was no need.
"He would hate how empty this ship feels right now," Jayson said. Then, after a moment, "He hated waste," he added. Then, quieter, "And he would hate this. You turning it on yourself."
That finally made her turn.
Her black hair fell loose around her shoulders, unchanging, unmistakable. She did not bother to hide it.
"You do not know that."
"I do," he replied. "Because he never once doubted you," Jayson said. "Even when it would have been easier to."
Ya'Han let out a bitter breath.
"That did not stop everything that followed."
Jayson stood and crossed the room slowly, stopping a respectful distance from her.
"I spoke with A'Janni today," he said.
She stiffened.
"About command," he continued. "About the vacant ExO position."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "And?"
"I told him I believe you would be right for it."
The words hung between them.
Ya'Han laughed softly, without humor.
"I am suspended," she said. "Relieved. The crew barely trusts me. Some of them never will. And you think command is appropriate."
"I think command is necessary," Jayson corrected gently. "And I think you understand this ship better than most." His voice softened. "Erik thought so too."
She shook her head.
"They replaced me," she said, the sting sharp in her voice. "Zub is doing my job now. Because I failed."
"He is filling a gap," Jayson said. "Not erasing you."
"It still happened," she replied. "And it matters."
She gestured toward her hair.
"Look at me. I cannot even hide what I am anymore. To my people, I am nothing. A commoner. The darkness they always warned about, made permanent." Her voice lowered. "The crew sees it too. Even if they do not say it."
Jayson did not look away.
"They wanted you to lead worlds," he said. "Not because you were weak. Because you were effective. Because you understood them."
Her jaw tightened.
"They broke me." She swallowed, hard. "They took everything I had. Everything I was. And left me like this." Ya'Han hissed as she grabbed a fistful of her own hair.
"And you survived," he countered. "You understand the Lokustaar better than anyone on this ship. Their methods. Their temptations. Their lies. That is not a liability. That is insight earned at terrible cost."
She turned away, arms wrapping around herself.
"Insight does not erase shame," she said. Then, quieter, "That my personal history would cloud my judgment."
"All command is personal," Jayson replied. "The difference is whether someone acknowledges it. You do."
She was silent for a long moment.
"Shar'El would need convincing," Ya'Han said finally.
"She would listen," Jayson said. "But the first person you would need to convince is yourself."
Ya'Han closed her eyes.
That truth hurt more than any accusation.
"I do not know if I can," she admitted.
Jayson stepped closer, hesitated just long enough to be noticed, then rested his forehead lightly against hers.
"You do not have to decide now," he said. "Just consider it."
She nodded faintly.
"I promised myself I would listen to you," she said quietly. "More than I ever have. Your judgment. For me or against me."
His voice softened.
"It will never be against you."
She did not respond, but she did not pull away either.
The idea settled in her mind, unresolved, heavy, carrying both weight and possibility. Another loss. Another test. Another chance. One she was not sure she deserved. And yet, there she was, listening. Not agreeing. Not deciding. Just listening. Because the one man who had always been right about her was gone, and the one standing in front of her had never been wrong either.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Time to Focus"
Previous post: "Time to Re-Evaluate" by Hanali
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Main Engineering
Stardate: 46112.2255
Main Engineering no longer screamed. That alone was deceptive.
The deck plating still vibrated under controlled strain, a low harmonic tremor running through the ship's spine like a held breath that had gone on too long. Consoles flickered between steady output and deferred failure states. Power conduits had been rerouted so many times that their original schematics were now historical suggestions rather than functional truth.
Drayk Val'Bruxa stood at the center of it, hands moving with precise economy, attention split across half a dozen overlapping diagnostic layers. His posture was straight. His breathing controlled. His mind sharp.
Exhaustion was present. It had been acknowledged. It had been overridden.
That, more than the damage itself, was what triggered Satella's arrival.
She stepped into Engineering without announcement, carrying a small thermal cup in one hand and a sealed medical packet in the other. She did not wait for a pause that would never come. She crossed the space directly and placed the cup on the edge of the console Drayk was actively reprogramming.
"Drink."
He did not look at her. "Not now."
"That was not a suggestion." Her voice was firm, her posture challenging even if she stood more than a foot in height lower than him.
His fingers continued to move for another two seconds, executing a final command sequence and locking it in place. Only then did he turn his head slightly, steel-grey eyes cutting sideways toward her. "You are interrupting a cascade prevention loop."
"Yes," Satella replied evenly. "That is why I am here. I see signs of a biological cascade failure happening right now," She used his words against him. It quietly pleased her.
She stood her ground, already shorter than him, aware that sitting would make her ignorable. She did not raise her voice. She never needed to.
"The tea is medically prescribed," she continued. "Laced with Mikulak stabilizers tailored to your metabolic profile. You will drink it now, or you will drink it after I escalate."
Drayk exhaled once through his nose, a controlled release rather than a sigh. He reached for the cup and took a measured swallow. The taste was sharp, layered with the unfamiliar warmth of spices that were not replicator-safe and had never been meant for anyone else.
"You designed those blends to be irritating," he said.
"I designed them to work," Satella corrected. "Your irritation is a side effect I accept."
She handed him the packet. Energy bars. Nutrient dense. Approved. Non negotiable.
He took them without comment, consuming one with the same efficiency he applied to power flow recalibration.
"You are consciously overriding internal warning thresholds," she said. "Again."
"Correct."
"That is what I was designed to stop," Satella admitted, a faint smile touching her lips.
"That is what you were designed to attempt."
Her gaze sharpened. "You are not inevitable, Drayk. No matter how hard you try."
He finally turned fully toward her then, looming not by intent but by nature.
"When this universe collapses," he said calmly, "something always remains. Entropy does not erase design. It reveals it. I will remain. And so will you."
Satella did not flinch. She had heard versions of this before. She believed him. That was the problem.
"And yet," she said softly, "even inevitability requires maintenance. Rest."
Silence stretched between them, filled by the hum of machinery that had not yet decided whether it would live.
Drayk turned back to the console. "I am not finished."
She did not smile. "T'Lara may be considering the ExO position."
It was meant as a distraction. Something to rattle that perfectly designed stubbornness.
He paused. Just briefly, and then resumed his work.
"I do not care."
"That was expected," Satella sighed. "It was not the point."
"The Executive Officer exists as a political buffer," Drayk continued aloud, voice carrying without effort. "A lightning rod between command intent and crew consequence. An expendable body inserted into risk vectors so the captain remains intact. It is not leadership. It is insulation."
He executed another command, rerouting auxiliary power through a system that should not have survived the attempt.
"Morningstar forgot that," he added. "Or chose to ignore it. He placed himself where doctrine says the ExO belongs. The result was predictable."
Satella watched him closely. "You blame him."
"I assign responsibility," Drayk bluntly clarified. "There is a difference."
"The ship survived because of his choice," Satella countered, defending the lost captain without hesitation.
"The ship nearly died because of it," Drayk fired back. "I am correcting that failure now. His sacrifice does not absolve the error. It merely raises the cost of repeating it."
She did not argue. She never argued when his reasoning was structurally sound, even when it was emotionally barren.
"T'Lara would be competent," she said instead. "As ExO."
"Competence is irrelevant. The position is designed to absorb damage. Political, operational, mortal. If she accepts it, she will be used accordingly."
"And if she does," Satella said quietly, "it will push me back into a role I am not certain I am ready to resume."
That earned another pause. Longer this time.
Drayk looked at her, really looked at her, as if recalculating a variable he had assumed was static.
"Then that," he said at last, "is a discussion for later."
She arched a brow. "That is not reassurance."
"It is prioritization."
The ship shuddered faintly, then settled. Several warning indicators downgraded themselves without ceremony.
Drayk straightened, shoulders easing by a fraction so small it would have gone unnoticed by anyone else.
Satella noticed.
"You will rest," she said.
"Briefly."
"You will sit," she added, matching his tone and delivery.
He considered the console. The data streams. The absence of imminent collapse.
Then, without ceremony, he stepped back and lowered himself onto the edge of a nearby support strut.
A concession. Subtle. Absolute.
Satella allowed herself a quiet breath. She pulled up a chair and joined him, sharing a few seconds of indulged silence and peace.
=-=
Scott Grant
Lieutenant JG Drayk Val'Bruxa
Chief Engineer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501
"Perfection is not an ideal. It is a design parameter."
"Time to Accept"
Previous post: "Time to Focus" by Scott
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Bridge
Stardate: 46113.0100
The bridge was quiet in the way only early morning silence could be. Not abandoned, not asleep, but resting. Systems hummed at reduced output. Consoles glowed softly, their light muted as if the ship itself understood that this hour was meant for breathing rather than command.
Shar'El stepped onto the bridge and slowed, not because she needed to, but because her body recognized the space before her mind allowed it. She had not slept. She had not tried. She had filled the hours with movement, with inspections, with presence, anything that delayed the moment when stillness would finally catch up to her.
She did not look at the center chair.
"Where is everyone?" The Commander asked.
Ani stood near the command well, her posture composed, attention divided between structural diagnostics and repair coordination flowing invisibly through the ship. "I sent everyone to rest," the avatar replied. "I am monitoring those teams that are still working, everyone else
"I could not sleep," Shar'El said quietly. "More accurately, I did not want to."
"I know," Ani replied. "I have been tracking your movements throughout the ship since the away team's return.”
There was no accusation in the statement. No concern. It was simply fact. Ani was the ANUBIS, and the ANUBIS always knew where its commanding officer was, even when that officer had not yet fully accepted the title.
Shar'El moved further onto the bridge, hands clasped behind her back, gaze fixed anywhere except the chair.
Ani paused. Not a delay caused by processing load, but a deliberate interruption.
"While conducting a comprehensive systems review," Ani continued, "I encountered a file indexed under your name. The origin marker identifies it as having been created by Captain Erik Morningstar."
Shar'El stopped.
"I cannot determine when it was recorded," Ani added. "The temporal stamp is absent. The file does not appear to have been concealed, yet it has not been detected in any prior audit. I elected not to bring it to your attention while shipwide repairs were ongoing."
The words settled heavily.
"May I see it," Shar'El said, the request sounding careful even to her own ears, as if the wrong inflection might cause the moment to fracture.
"Of course," Ani replied.
Shar'El drew in a slow breath and held it.
The hologram resolved at the center of the bridge.
Erik stood there as if he had never left. Not in uniform formality, not behind a desk or issuing orders, but relaxed, hands loosely folded, expression open in a way he rarely allowed himself to be while carrying command. He smiled when he saw her. Not the polite curve reserved for officers, but something quieter and more personal.
For an instant, she forgot how to breathe.
The hologram shifted as she moved, adjusting its orientation with unsettling precision. He was watching her. Following her. As if he had always known where she would stand.
Her instinct reacted before thought. She reached outward, attempting to touch memory, to sense the echo of a mind behind the image.
There was nothing.
No impressions. No emotional residue. No thoughts to follow.
Only absence.
She lowered her mental shields slowly, forcing herself to stay present.
"Shar'El," Erik said gently. "If you are seeing this, then I suspect you are exactly where I expected you to be. Unable to sleep. Doing everything you can to avoid standing still."
His smile softened.
"None of what I am about to say will be new to you. You already know it. You always have. Right now, you just need to hear it from someone else."
He shifted slightly, pacing a half step, as if the bridge were still his to walk.
"I have made mistakes. More than I care to admit. Some of them still weigh on me. Some of them always will. But choosing you was not one of them. Promoting you. Trusting you. Stepping aside so you could step forward. I never doubted that choice."
Shar'El's jaw tightened. She remained silent, listening.
"Do not let the errors of the past dictate the decisions of the future," Erik continued. "You know which ones I mean. You see the whole board, not just the last move. Trust that. Trust yourself."
He stopped pacing and faced her fully now.
"The ANUBIS is more than hull plating and systems integrity. You have always understood that, even when you pretended otherwise. This ship is the people who serve aboard her. Their fears. Their hopes. The things they are running from and the things they are trying to protect. Command is not just about keeping the ship operational. It is about seeing them. All of them."
The bridge lights dimmed almost imperceptibly, then steadied. The hum of the ship shifted, subtle and responsive, as if listening alongside her.
Erik's expression grew thoughtful, but warm. Then he hesitated, just briefly, as if listening to something she could not hear.
"There are some vantage points," he said quietly, "where perspective stops behaving the way we expect it to. Where beginnings and endings stop insisting on their order."
He turned slightly, his gaze drifting toward the stars beyond the viewscreen.
"The ANUBIS has a way of being noticed," he added. "It always has."
He turned a little more, angling his body toward the main viewscreen, the holographic image becoming ever so slightly transparent.
"And Shar'El," he added, glancing back at her one last time, "the center chair is yours. Do not be afraid to take it."
The hologram did not end immediately.
Erik turned fully toward the stars, hands clasped behind his back, posture calm and unburdened. For a lingering moment, Shar'El allowed herself to believe that he could still see her. That somewhere, somehow, he knew she was standing there.
Then the image faded.
Silence reclaimed the bridge.
Shar'El stood alone, stronger than she had been moments before, grief still present but no longer unanchored. Slowly, deliberately, she turned toward the captain’s chair.
She approached it without rushing.
When she finally sat, the ship seemed to exhale.
Ani said nothing, and neither did Shar'El, as they both looked at the same stars Erik had moments before. As he always did.
=-=
Tiffany Reeve
Commander Shar'El
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS
"Time to Question"
Previous Post: "Time to Accept" by Tiffany
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Counselor's Office
Stardate: 46113.0945
The soft illumination of Adriana's office felt dimmer than usual, as if the room itself had not yet adjusted to the absence left aboard the ANUBIS. The ship continued to function, repairs ongoing, duty rosters shifting, voices still echoing through corridors that refused to stop being lived in. Life moved forward whether anyone was ready or not.
Satella stood near the window, her arms loosely folded, her posture composed but not rigid. Adriana remained seated on the couch, hands resting loosely together, attentive in a way that went beyond rank or responsibility.
Neither of them mentioned Erik at first.
It was Satella who finally spoke, her voice steady, deliberate. "I wanted to speak with you before decisions begin to crystallize around me."
Adriana inclined her head slightly. "About the open position."
"Yes." A pause, hesitant, measured. "And about me."
Adriana waited. Counseling was often about allowing silence to do its work. Right now, the silence felt crowded with what neither of them was ready to name.
"I do not wish to return to the role of Chief Medical Officer." She paused. "Saying that out loud matters."
Satella said it plainly, without hesitation. The words did not tremble. If anything, they sounded relieved to finally exist outside her thoughts.
Adriana's fingers curled subtly against the edge of her knees. "That will surprise some people."
"I am aware." Satella turned from the window then, meeting Adriana's gaze. "Including myself, at one point."
Adriana exhaled slowly. Less than a day ago, Erik Monrigstar had walked away from this ship, leaving behind trust, responsibility, and a crew still trying to understand how absence could feel this loud. Everything since had felt provisional, like the universe had not yet decided what shape it wanted to settle into.
"You are afraid this is about Drayk," Adriana said gently, not as an accusation but an opening.
"I am afraid it might not be," Satella replied.
That earned a reaction. Adriana leaned back slightly, studying her. "Then help me follow," she said. "Because I am clearly missing something."
Satella did not rush. "We were designed to balance one another. His pragmatism against my emotional perception. Order and meaning."
A breath. "I do not function well without that balance, I see that now."
Adriana nodded. She knew this history. What mattered now was how Satella felt standing inside it.
"When I died," Satella continued, "Drayk refused to accept it. He challenged laws that were never meant to be challenged. He bent reality itself to bring me back." Her voice remained even, but something tightened behind her eyes. "I live because he refused to accept a reality where I was gone." A quieter beat. "I am still learning how to carry that."
Gratitude. Deep, enduring, and terrifying in its permanence.
Adriana felt the familiar ache in her chest. Different circumstances. The same wound. Guilt, gratitude, and the quiet terror of knowing what survival demands from those who remain.
"You believe stepping back from command responsibility is safer," Adriana said.
"I believe repeating the same path could endanger us both," Satella replied. "I cannot ask him to break the universe twice, especially given that I never asked him to do it the first time. Not that I am complaining." The silver-haired woman forced a faint chuckle at that.
Adriana pushed back then, carefully, deliberately. "And Erik?"
Satella's composure flickered. Just enough.
"This ship has lost its center," Adriana continued. "Not structurally. Emotionally. And you are not immune to that."
"No," Satella admitted. "Nor are you."
That landed harder than either of them expected.
Adriana did not look away. "Maybe so," she said evenly. "But you are still rationalizing."
"Yes," Satella said. "And I am choosing it anyway."
"Good," Adriana replied quietly. "Then we can talk honestly."
The silence that followed was heavier, but cleaner. Satella lowered her arms, shoulders easing a fraction.
"I do not want to return to being Chief Medical Officer," she repeated. "Not because I no longer care. But because my purpose has shifted." Her voice softened, but did not waver. "That matters more to me now than command authority. That is why I want T'Lara to remain where she is most effective."
"What about Ya'Han?" Adriana said.
Satella grinned. The ANUBIS was a ship of secrets, which is why everyone knew about that particular development. "Yes." She allowed herself the faintest hint of candor. "Selfishly so."
Adriana almost smiled, the reflex catching before it could surface. "There is more to leadership than rank and experience," she added after a moment. "Shar'El is living proof of that."
Satella inclined her head. "Survival changes priorities."
Adriana felt the truth of that settle into her bones. Everyone aboard this ship was redefining themselves, whether they admitted it or not.
"I will make sure your position is understood," Adriana said. "Not as avoidance, but as a conscious, grounded choice."
Satella released a breath she had not realized she was holding. Emotionally lighter than she had expected to feel.
"Thank you," she said.
As Satella turned to leave, Adriana's gaze drifted, unbidden, to the stars beyond the viewport. She remembered how Erik used to look at them, as if seeing something more. Something beyond space and time. As if he knew.
Grief did not weaken command. It clarified it.
Yet, she still found herself missing him more than she could acknowledge.
-=-=-
Marissa Montonera-Lombardi
Lieutenant JG Adriana Lopez
Ship's Counselor & Junior Ambassador
USS ANUBIS
and
Rachel Jackie Johnson
Lieutenant JG Satella Bruxa
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
[Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain]
"Time to Stand"
Previous post: "Time to Question" by Marissa and Rachel
-=-=-
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Observation Lounge
Stardate: 46113.1015
The Observation Lounge was quiet in the way command spaces often became when decisions were waiting to be made. The entirety of the ANUBIS felt this way, but right now, this was the proverbial eye of the storm.
Stars hung motionless beyond the viewport. The ANUBIS floated where the JELOVAAN system once stood, waiting for what would come next because that was what it had always done, regardless of who stood on the bridge or who no longer did.
Shar'El stood near the large windows, hands clasped behind her back, posture composed in an almost Vulcan way. The Commander had chosen this place deliberately. Neutral ground. No official desk. No command chair. No sense of hierarchy to hide behind.
Ya'Han entered without ceremony. She did not acknowledge the woman with whom she now permanently shared the hair color of night. She did not ask permission to speak. She stopped a respectful distance away and waited until Shar'El turned to face her; long enough for the silence to settle, long enough for the weight in her chest to remind her that nothing about this ship felt stable anymore.
"You wanted to justify your offer," Shar'El said calmly. Not unkind. Not welcoming either. Too much had happened to be ignored or forgotten.
"Yes," Ya'Han replied. "And I will be direct. We have both gone through too much for me to play some sort of political game with you."
Shar'El studied her for a long moment, eyes searching not for posture or tone, but for absence. Influence. Distortion. Anything that did not belong.
"Proceed," Shar’El said.
Ya'Han nodded once. She knew that her words, as well as her memories would be on display, analysed and reviewed in every way possible by the Ullian Commander.
"I am not the highest-ranking officer available," she began. "We both know that. And we also both know that I am not the safest choice either."
Her heart beat a fraction harder as she said it. Not from fear, but from memory. How the shadows had influenced her thoughts, her actions, leading to the death of one of their own... the man she cared for more than anyone else, not that she had acknowledged this at the time.
"But I am the necessary one," Ya'Han added with conviction.
Shar'El did not react.
"I have served aboard the ANUBIS longer than some with higher rank," Ya'Han continued. "I know its systems, its limitations, and its strengths. I know how far it can be pushed before something fails quietly… and before something fails catastrophically."
Her voice remained level. No defensiveness. No pride.
"This ship is not a battleship. It was never meant to be. And yet our mission profile has placed it in direct combat situations more often than many frontline vessels. That is not coincidence. That is reality.”
Shar'El inclined her head slightly. Acknowledgment, not agreement.
"The Lokustaar are a recurring threat," Ya'Han went on, drawing in a breath that was longer than it needed to be; controlled, measured, and not entirely successful. "Not hypothetical. Not academic. Repeating. Adaptive. Relentless. Like a shadow that stays just on the edge of your senses."
She did not emphasize their name. Did not give it weight. Some things grew stronger when named too loudly.
"The ANUBIS has engaged them multiple times, often without external support. We survived because we anticipated escalation rather than reacting to it. Because we planned for what they wanted us to become."
Shar'El's gaze sharpened, something colder flickering behind her eyes.
"And you believe your personal history with them grants you unique insight."
Ya'Han did not answer immediately.
"I believe experience does," she said at last. "And I have experience that goes beyond observation."
A beat. Her jaw tightened, just perceptibly.
"Personal history only matters if it interferes. Mine does not."
Her eyes lifted to meet Shar'El's fully now; open, unflinching.
"It informs," she said again, quieter. "Because I recognize the pull before it becomes a command. I know the language before it becomes belief."
Silence stretched between them as Shar'El let her awareness drift along the edges of what Ya'Han's words had unlocked: not images so much as gravity, a pull toward dominance, absolute certainty, and annihilation.
Ya'Han's breath hitched once. She did not retreat nor did she look away.
"You are concerned that my judgment may still be compromised," Ya'Han said evenly. "That some influence may remain."
Shar'El did not deny it.
"So am I," Ya'Han added, without hesitation. "Every day. Which is why I do not act alone. Which is why I build redundancies into every decision. And which is why I am offering to step up, not consolidate power."
That earned a flicker of interest.
"My current post can be filled immediately," Ya'Han continued. "Zub Enel is more than capable of assuming Sec/Tac. He is level-headed, disciplined, and less inclined to default to force. In many situations, that will make him better than I was."
Shar'El turned fully toward her now.
"You are surrendering a position you fought to earn," Shar'El said.
"I am handing it to someone who will hold it well," Ya'Han replied. "That is not the same thing." She paused. "I fought all my life to earn a position, a hair color," the Nylaan woman said, fingers briefly tightening in her dark strands, "the acceptance of someone who could not have cared if I lived or died."
Her hand fell back to her side.
"Now," she said quietly, "I fight for what matters."
A breath passed.
"I fight first," Ya'Han said bluntly. "Or rather, I prepare to fight first. I always consider combat solutions, even when they are not used. Especially when they are not used." Her eyes met Shar'El's without challenge. "That tendency has been a flaw," Ya’Han said.
A beat.
"It has also kept this ship alive. And sometimes," she added quietly, "those two truths exist at the same time."
Shar'El said nothing.
"Command requires balance, and I fully understand that," Ya'Han continued. "Doctors preserve life. Diplomats seek alternatives. I see the battlefield before it exists so that others do not have to stand in it unprepared. As ExO, my role would be to present those unpleasant options clearly, early, and without hesitation... not to enact them without consent."
She took a breath, steadying herself.
"This crew has lost its center," Ya'Han said quietly.
Her voice caught, just enough to be noticed, before she forced it steady again.
"Not because someone failed. Because someone left. We are all adjusting to that absence." She did not name him. She did not have to. "The ship needs an anchor who understands what it has already survived… and what is most likely coming next."
Shar'El's voice, when it came, was measured. "You have much to prove."
"Yes," Ya'Han said simply. "To you. To the crew. To myself." A pause. "He kept me aboard because he believed I could become something better than what I was. I am asking for the chance to prove that belief was not misplaced."
The stars continued their silent watch beyond the viewport.
"I am not asking you to trust me blindly," Ya'Han added. "I am asking you to use me where I would be most effective."
She straightened, subtly, then inclined her head.
"And if you decide otherwise," she said, voice steady, grounded, unbroken, "I will accept that decision without protest. I will serve where you place me. Fully. If at all," she finished, the words softer than the rest, not fearful, but honest.
Shar'El regarded her for a long time.
Not as a commander weighing rank.
Not as a counselor evaluating trauma.
But as a leader deciding whether a blade belonged in her hand... or remained sheathed.
"No decision will be made lightly," Shar'El said at last.
"I would be disappointed if it were," Ya'Han replied.
She did not wait for dismissal. She turned, respectful, controlled, and left the Observation Lounge behind.
The universe would keep going.
So would the ANUBIS.
With or without her at its side.
-=-=-
Hanali Han
Lieutenant Ya'Han
Chief of Security / Tactical Officer (Not!)
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501