“Uh, pardon?” Gabrielle asked, looking up from the set of keys, Atlantis’ command totem, that she’d just caught and nearly fumbled.

“You’re in charge while I’m gone,” the captain repeated, an eyebrow raised in a modicum of confusion. “That’s not a problem is it, Commander?”

“Sorry, I’ve missed something,” Gabs admitted. She’d been so intent on their latest survey work that she’d obviously missed something, either from a briefing in the last few days or announced on the bridge in the last five minutes. “Gone ma’am?”

While previous captains might have sighed at her focus and ability to miss things, expressing their displeasure or annoyance, Tikva never seemed to. Why, Gabs couldn’t say. But she suspected it might have something to do with the captain actually understanding she was immediately annoyed with herself for having done so.

After all, no one punishes you quite like yourself.

“The survey is that interesting?” Tikva asked.

“Kinda?”

Atlantis had returned from the depths of the Expanse a few weeks ago and was now thankfully spending a bit more time within easy reach of Deep Space 47. Not quite take a shuttle and jaunt on over to the station for a break distance, but close enough that near-real-time communication was a thing. And the captain, now Fleet Captain, was taking the chance with her new commands to let them all get into the swing of things working together.

One of those cooperative tasks was waving the flag in the space around Free Haven. There was some reason, Gabs was certain of that, but again, she’d not been paying too much attention. Instead, she’d been looking over the targets for their nominal survey work. The squadron was spread out in an arc, each giving a system a thorough and very unsubtle examination. The point was to be seen; she’d remembered that much.

Seen doing Starfleet does best. What she signed up for after all.

Exploring.

“Anything interesting?” Tikva followed up as she approached Gabs’ station. It wasn’t a perfunctory question she’d learned. If the captain asked, it was because she was genuinely interested.

“Respectable deposits of verterium on the third moon of that monster gas giant. And Perseus reported finding some cortenum as well.” Interesting minerals to the engineers perhaps and definitely to some planners back in the Federation eventually, but the geologists aboard Atlantis had merely flagged them as ‘interesting’. “But honestly the geological survey work that’s coming back from the away team is way more interesting.”

“We’re still not calling it Rocky IV,” Tikva said, cutting off any mention of the name for the system’s fourth world that the away team was using. And calling the survey team an away team wasn’t quite right either.

Almost all of Atlantis’ runabouts were deployed on that planet, forming a small outpost as teams of geologists, biologists and the ship’s lone ecologist had gone to survey the verdant orb. Accompanied of course with a number of security personnel and a few engineers for good measure. It had been a mission that Gabs had wanted to run herself, but the captain had opted instead to let Commander Kendris undertake it.

“Commander Kendris has suggested Saithaes,” Gabs said, making sure to enunciate the Romulan word.

The captain’s brow furrowed for a moment, eyes focusing on some undefined point in the middle distance as she mouthed the word a few times. “Tranquillity?” she asked, back in the here and now.

“Tranquil,” Gabs corrected.

“Hmm. Let’s add that to the list,” Tikva said with a smile. “Now, as I said, I’m off, you’re in charge.” The look that came over Gabs’ face was enough of a question. “To Perseus, to meet up with the other captains.”

Then it clicked. The captain was leaving to have a meeting with the other captains of the squadron. She shook her head hoping it would rattle more details loose. “Still don’t understand why they can’t come here.”

“All of their ships are in the middle of survey work too and I did promise the Commodore we’d get the work done promptly.” Then Tikva leaned in just a touch, her volume lowering somewhat conspiratorially. “And let the Breen and Tzenkethi see a bunch of new ships spread out just doing Starfleet things.”

“And bringing us all together might be a bit…provocative?” Gabs asked. “But they could still all come here, yes?”

“See, I’ll get you thinking like a command officer in no time. But as for here, well, Sagan is a bit far out. Rather not have a new captain resenting me for asking them to spend twenty-something hours in a shuttle just for a meeting. Besides, this way, I’m the one most inconvenienced and therefore showing I’m willing to suffer,” the captain said with a grin. “Vilo is an hour away at most by shuttle or a comm call away. And Ra is still nursing those engine tweaks we got.” Tikva turned to look to Tactical, pausing a moment. It was sweet how she looked at Commander Gantzmann when the situation wasn’t dire and professionalism could slip just a touch. “I’m even leaving you with Lin should you need to throw anyone out an airlock.”

“Tempting,” Gabs found herself saying with a bit more harshness than she’d have liked. “Sorry.”

“He’s an ass,” Tikva responded, both of them knowing who the person in question was. “But unfortunately he is good at his job.” Tikva waited, letting her grumble for a second. “You’ll be fine. Besides, it’s just a few days of minding the store while you finish up the survey work. I’ll probably be back before the away team finishes on the surface anyway.”

And then the captain was away after a pat on the shoulder and another spot of encouragement. A quick lap around the bridge, a whispered moment with Commander Gantzmann that left the captain with a slight blush and then she was gone, leaving the bridge to Gabs.

This wasn’t like the officer of the watch shifts she’d done previously, or even more recently with her elevation to second officer. This was something else.

At least it was to her.

She rose from her seat, walking across the bridge while staring at the centre seat. It was just a seat. She’d sat in it plenty of times. But not as the most responsible person on the entire ship. How long had she been staring at it, contemplating the responsibility a piece of furniture entailed? Long enough to be shocked when Gantzmann spoke.

“Shuttle Waihou has departed,” she said blandly. And not from Tactical either, but at Gabs’ side too. How’d she done that?

“Uh, oh, thanks,” Gabs said.

“You don’t have to sit in it,” Gantzmann said, an edge of warmth in her voice. “It is just a chair.”

“The captain’s chair,” Gab replied.

“She does trust you,” Gantzmann said after a moment. “She’d not have made you second officer if she didn’t. Or have left you in charge either.”

“I guess?” Gabs wasn’t sure herself. She knew she’d joined the crew years ago as a near-nervous wreck. Knew she’d grown with guidance from the captain and MacIntyre, now off on his own ship. But had she really?

“Don’t guess,” Lin said. “Know it. She does trust you.” From anyone else, that statement might have just been what you had to say in a situation like this. But from Lin, from the captain’s partner, it meant something else. Carried a bit more weight to it.

That and Gabs knew Lin was a straight-shooter. If she told you something, it was because she believed it or knew it was true. She could trust Lin to tell her the truth.

“Thanks.” She nodded, digesting the affirmation from Lin. “Thanks,” she repeated, more confidently this time. “If I’m in charge, and Ra is busy with engineering, I’m going to need someone nominally as my XO.” The offer, she hoped, was implied.

And it was thankfully. “Certainly Commander Camargo,” Lin said, offering one of her trademark slight smiles.

“Right.” She drew in a deep breath, centring herself and slowly letting it out. “Back to it then folks. But a slight change in plans.” She smiled, watching a few faces turn to her. “Let’s drop a few probes to finish scanning this gas giant. I want to go investigate that gravitational anomaly we spotted yesterday.”

It was supposed to have been a simple and routine investigation.

It was supposed to be the Atlantis parked in a Trojan asteroid field, conducting scans while a bunch of people stared at screens, scratching their heads and postulating ideas. Others would be modelling those scans, running simulations and letting the computer run calculations to test multiple hypotheses.

What a bunch of people might call dull while others would call it confusing, intriguing and with a possibility of a exhilarating thrown in for good measure.

It wasn’t supposed to be whatever this was.

“What the hell?” Gabrielle shouted over the blaring alarms, themselves competing with what could only be described as impact sounds across the hull and the occasional tortured groan of the entire spaceframe.

Sounds that immediately filled the soul with dread.

“Don’t know,” came a reassuring rumble, countering the worst of what the ship was weathering. Rrr’s steady rock-like fingers tapped away at Ops, an imposing finger at the front of the bridge. “But whatever it is, sensors aren’t happy,” Rrr continued.

One moment Atlantis had been plodding along the asteroid belt, with nothing for thousands of kilometres in any direction, sensors groping in the dark for signs of a gravitational fluctuation they’d picked up the day before. A momentary flicker, enough to get Gabs’ attention (and a few of the ship’s resident astrophysicists as well), nothing more.

And then hell broke loose.

Atlantis had been tossed like a cork in a rapid, most on the bridge thrown to the floor as the inertial dampeners had managed to turn deadly lateral accelerations into merely violent. Luck had it that Kelly Tabaaha had only been slammed into the side of her console, not across the bridge, and her quick actions, her continuing actions, were keeping the ship mostly level.

The young woman’s attention was focused solely on her instruments and controls as she tried to keep the ship steady, riding out the tumult around them instead of resisting it.

“Shields coming online,” Gantzmann announced as the steady rain of ‘pings’ and ‘thuds’, some of them uncomfortably close and heavy, came to a sudden stop.

“Breach on deck eight, section three,” Rrr announced. “Forcefields in place, no injuries.”

There was another thud, this one reverberating through the entire ship it felt like and not something merely ‘nearby’. “Sorry,” Kelly half-shouted, hands rapidly manipulating the controls of the ship. “Brace!” she shouted just as another thud went through the ship.

Mercifully it wasn’t that bad a thud. For what was clearly a collision that was.

“Shields at eighty per cent,” Gantzmann dutifully supplied.

“Rrr, viewscreen.” Gabs had managed to work her way to the Ops and Helm, hands gripping either console where they met in the middle, peering between Rrr and Kelly as the holographic screen at the front of the bridge sprung to life. “What the hell?” she repeated, this time quieter and significantly less urgent.

Gone were the inky depths of space, the scattering of white pinpricks of stars, and a few brighter points of the planets of this system. Now it was a dull orange-brown corridor, its undefined wall crackled with angry red lightning. Debris littered the path ahead of them, from unknown wreckage to ruined starships of ages past.

Another thud rattled the ship as Kelly tried to shimmy Atlantis around wreckage that looked like it could have been a Klingon ship, but to which there was no good geometry and the ships met. Age had ravaged one, shields protected the other, as Atlantis ploughed through remains, scattering more debris along its path.

“Wormhole?” Gabs asked. Then rolled her eyes. That question should be aimed at her, not coming from her. Of course, she wouldn’t have an answer, but she’d be busy looking into it, putting disparate data points together and trying to find an answer to the captain’s question.

Her question this time.

“No ma’am,” came a response as Gabs turned to face the science station. Her station. Her station, where a young Bolian man was sitting, eyes flicking from one set of readouts to another, soaking in all that the ship’s sensors could feed him. “Some sort of subspace…thing,” Ensign Trel said, giving the best description he had.

“Wormholes can be subspace things,” Rrr rumbled. They were chastised immediately by another thump to the ship rattling everyone.

“It’s not a wormhole,” Trel said. His attention was still on the readouts. “It’s something else.”

The turbolift doors hissed open, spilling more senior officers who’d hurried when the alarms had sounded. Gabs caught sight of T’Val making her way down the ramp, carefully in the steady rocking that the not-wormhole was imparting on the ship, combined with Kelly’s evasive manoeuvres that were keeping collisions to a minimum. Engineering had sent someone a bit more senior to relieve the poor ensign on bridge duty who looked fit to panic right now.

And then Maxwell Simmons strutted out of the turbolift, or as much as one could when the ship would lurch without warning. He was already glaring at her and she could just taste the disdain the man brought with him wherever he went.

But she didn’t have time for that.

“Kelly, T’Val can take over,” she said to the young lieutenant to her right.

“I got this,” came the response. “I got this.” She never looked up, watching not the viewscreen but her own displays and monitors, all much better suited to the task of flying the ship.

“Very well Lieutenant,” T’Val spoke up, a hand now on the back of the helm station’s seat. Unflappably Vulcan is her simple statement despite the circumstances. “I am right here if you need me.”

“If everyone could let me just fly the ship please,” Kelly continued, “that’d be great.”

With that, the three more senior officers around the lieutenant junior grade had been told.

“Something ahead,” Rrr announced as Gabs was drawing breath. She looked up to see what was a series of branches in the tunnel ahead. All of them bore the same orange-brown walls, the same angry red lightning, though some more than others.

And the least angry was the one straight ahead of them.

There was no other information to work with than some visual representation of whatever the universe was doing to them.

“Steady as she goes helm,” Gabs ordered.

“If she’ll let me,” Kelly responded. “Steady ahead aye.”

The rocking subsided, and the debris cleared as they passed the cluster of branches. But then the motion of the walls around them accelerated, the patterns whipping past them faster and faster. There was no time to ask what was going on before a flash of angry red light whipped out from the tunnel wall and struck Atlantis.

And then it was gone.

Inky blackness once more filled the viewscreen. Stars blotted the void just as they rightfully should.

Just…not as many as there should be.

“Report,” Gabs said, trying her best to sound like the captain.

“We’re back in –“ Trel’s report was cut off by Simmons’ placing a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

“We’re back in normal space,” Simmons declared. Not to Gabs, but to Gantzmann. When Lin merely nodded in Gabs’ direction, he turned and repeated himself.

“I can see that,” she responded, shook her head and then looked to Lin, who gave her report with a simple look and just one nod of her head. We’re fine was the message and would do for now.

“Rrr?” Gabs asked next.

“Couple more breaches, main power is out on deck twelve, a report of a rogue shuttle in the main bay.” The Gaen was flicking through a variety of status reports as quickly as they could, or they came up. “Sickbay is reporting multiple injuries ship-wide. So far seventeen serious.”

“Navigation is a mess,” Kelly followed up. “Sensors aren’t finding anything they recognise.”

“May I?” T’Val asked and finally, Kelly surrendered the helm.

Gabs couldn’t help herself as she reached out and pulled Kelly to her side, an arm wrapped around the young woman’s shoulders, giving her a comforting squeeze. “Nice flying,” she commented. It seemed to mean something as a smile briefly appeared on Kelly’s face.

“Thanks.”

“No navigational beacons, no pulsars, no nearby nebulae,” T’Val rattled off. The first few galactic signposts one could use to roughly establish your bearings all yielding nothing.

“Oh…oh dear,” Rrr said. “I think I know why.”

A few keystrokes and the expansive hologram that made up the ship’s viewscreen shifted from what was ahead of them to one of the many other external cameras dotted along the ship’s hull. The screen filled with the majesty and beauty of a full spiral galaxy on display, well above the ecliptic and looking upon one of the faces of the celestial structure. It was so large that Rrr had to zoom the camera feed out a few factors to fit it all on the viewscreen.

It was a sight you couldn’t see anywhere within the Milky Way galaxy.

And yet there it was.

A galaxy.

A barred spiral galaxy.

Taking up the viewscreen.

Thankfully it was Trel that broke the silence that had enveloped the bridge, and not Simmons. “Good news is that is the Milky Way galaxy.”

“That’s the good news?” Gab asked.

She was rapidly coming to the conclusion she preferred delivering the news to receiving it.

“So, this new captain, good people?” Rachel Garland, captain of the starship Perseus, asked as she stood in the main shuttlebay of her ship next to Tikva Theodoras.

“Oh, you’ll love him,” Tikva answered, smiling broadly but refusing to look at her friend as the latest shuttlecraft to arrive at Perseus pierced through the atmospheric shield. “Spoke with him a week ago. Think he’ll fit right in.”

“She’s up to something,” Charles MacIntyre said from Tikva’s other side. “You can hear it.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “Who’d you say it was again?”

“I didn’t,” Tikva answered.

They watched as the brand-new Type 14 shuttle, the name Pieri in red block letters on it and Sagan-1 in large black block letters aft, hovered over towards the assigned landing spot, spinning on the spot before settling down the deck. In the bays either side sat Atlantis’ and Republic’s shuttles. It only took another minute before the rear hatch opened and a young officer stepped out, scanning around.

“Bit young,” Rachel commented.

“Not him,” Tikva muttered. “I told you to get a yeoman.”

“Dibs on Fightmaster first,” Mac cut in before Rachel could say anything and earning himself a chuckle from Tikva.

“Him,” Tikva finally said as she spotted the visitor they were expecting. Or more precisely she was expecting. “Captain Stenz, a pleasure to meet you in person again,” she roared, closing the distance and leaving her compatriots in her wake.

“Oh fuck me,” Rachel grumbled as she and Mac gave chase in unison.

“PTSD as well?” Mac asked.

Rachel nodded in agreement as she came up alongside Tikva, turning on a welcoming smile. “Captain Stenz, welcome aboard the Perseus,” she announced, extending the formal invitation to the recent arrival. “Hope your trip was gentle enough.”

Martin Stenz was easily the oldest of the four assembled captains, enough to be the father of any of them. His hair had long past gone from streaks of silver and more to any colour left giving a fighting retreat in a doomed conflict with age. While he’d been grim-faced at first, it slowly transformed into an easy smile that just touched his eyes as he stepped off the shuttle and onto the deck, formally passing into the realm of another captain.

“Captain Garland,” Stenz said, his voice solid and with just enough power to be heard clearly by all in the immediate vicinity. “It has been some time since astrophysics 102. Still causing trouble?” What could have been a dressing down from a teacher however wasn’t. Stenz’s inflections were warm and jovial, this smile widening a touch. “And Charles MacIntyre. A promising student who went into operations instead. I believe you still owe me a paper.” The edge was taken off of this comment offered his hand to Mac, giving a warm shake when Mac responded.

“Can I get an extension?” Mac asked, testing the waters.

“Ha!” Stenz responded. “Give me a tour of that fancy new ship of yours at some point and we’ll call it even.”

“Well, glad I don’t need to do introductions then,” Tikva said. “Surprised they got you back in the uniform again, Doc.”

“I retired because of you,” Stenz said to Tikva. “Well, your year to be precise.” He turned to Mac. “Your year was much better behaved.” Then he went back to Tikva. “But after Frontier Day I called up and asked what I could do to help. Turns out Starfleet is in need of experienced officers, so I re-upped. Gave me the Sagan after a refresher course and a senior staff who barely know how to walk.”

“And then assigned you to me,” Tikva continued.

“Indeed they have.” Stenz glanced over at Rachel and Mac, then shook his head, amused at the looks on their faces. “You aren’t cadets any more and I’m not Doctor Stenz, the terror of the physics department any more. You can relax.”

“You uh, left a decent impression, sir.” Rachel took in a deep breath, then let it go before taking a half step forward. “Perhaps introductions are in order then? Rachel Garland, captain of the Perseus.”

“A pleasure captain,” Stenz responded with a proper handshake. “Martin Stenz, USS Sagan.”

The tension didn’t quite evaporate, but it was broken up by the simple ritual. “Now, while I’d love to say my shuttle trip was fine, it was a shuttle trip after all. Perhaps an old man could get a drink before we sit down to any sort of squadron-related business, hmm?”

“Sounds like a tour of Ten-Forward is in order then,” Rachel said, holding out an arm to direct her fellow ship commanders away from the parked shuttle and into the depths of her command.

“Ten-Forward,” Stenz said. “I haven’t been on a Galaxy-class since my lieutenant days. Not many of these beautiful old girls are left around. Now I think about it…”

“Doctor Stenz,” Rachel half-growled as she came up on Tivka’s left at the bar. They’d left Mac and Stenz at the table they’d been sitting at, the two of them getting along rather well, and sought out refills of their particular drinks. “Seriously Bug, Stenz?”

“Wasn’t actually my call,” Tikva said. “I asked for another ship, was offered the Sagan, four-nacelled freak that it is, and was only informed about Stenz when he’d arrived at DS47.”

“Bullshit,” Rachel muttered.

“Go ask the Bureau of Personnel if you don’t believe me.” Tikva took her drink from the bartender and turned to her friend. “It’s been over a decade. You’ve changed, he’s changed.” She leaned in. “He’s not your teacher any more, he’s a fellow captain.”

“Twice retired, twice returned.” Rachel sighed, collected her own drink and started back with Tikva. “Next you’ll be telling me the old Academy groundskeeper is joining your crew in botanical sciences.”

“Oh, no. He’s working the parks on DS47.” And with that Tikva stepped ahead, leaving Rachel to glare a dirty look into the back of her head.

“… and the recent skirmish between the Tzenkethi and the Breen doesn’t seem to have ramped up tensions any more than usual. But there have been a few more reports of those high-speed Breen interceptors we ran into.” Mac finished off his contribution to the squadron meeting and set the padd he’d been reading from down.

In truth, the meeting has been just him and Tikva bringing Rachel and Stenz up to speed, but they’d both been able to give readiness reports of their own ships at least.

The conference room they’d utilised for the meeting wasn’t one of the usual ones used by the crew for their day-to-day, but one reserved for diplomatic services when Perseus was called for such duties. It was near enough to the VIP quarters each of the captains had been assigned to and a damn sight larger than any quarters they had upon their own ships.

“Perks of the Galaxy-class,” Rachel had answered to statements about room sizes.

Yesterday had been introductions and drinks, followed by a break before a short afternoon meeting and dinner. Today had been all work, with a break for lunch where the concept of work had been banned from the discussion, outside of a comment from Mac about finally seeing the benefits of a yeoman and Rachel having to agree as Stenz’s yeoman and Fightmaster had been diligent in ensuring the meeting ran smoothly and attended to all needs as required.

“How are the Tzenkethi dealing with those things?” Tikva asked.

“I’d like to take Republic closer to the borders and watch to corroborate but everything we’ve been told is they’re smacking them down aggressively when they can, or otherwise just blitzing multiple ships in their paths until the Breen get the message and turn around before they lose another ship.”

“Sounds like Jem’Hadar scouting tactics to me,” Stenz said from his seat, taking the chance to push the glasses he wore back up his nose. “One ship screaming in at high speed and either reporting everything it can until it dies or fleeing back over the border where the other side won’t dare pursue.”

“If you’ve got a mad enough crew,” Rachel said, not bothering to finish the statement fully. “What’s the likelihood the Breen and Tzenkethi go to war in the next…year?”

“Unlikely,” Tikva answered. “The Autarchy is after all pretty conservative. Raids over the border though are a near-certainty. And likely happening a few steps down the B-T Corridor and just out of sensor range.”

“B-T Corridor?” Stenz asked.

“Breen-Tzenkethi Corridor,” Mac answered. “Captain Theodoras here –“

“Fleet Captain,” Tikva interjected, a solitary finger raised and wearing a haughty mask at the correction.

“Fleet Captain Theodoras,” Mac continued with a shaking of his head, “is a certifiable lunatic for making Atlantis run the damn thing during the Deneb Crisis.”

“Did it work?” Tikva asked.

“Yes,” Mac agreed.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t any less crazy,” Stenz posited. “Brave, but crazy.” He leaned forward, smiling. “I have a niece living on Deneb by the way. Thank you.”

The mood in the room had sobered quickly at that. “Just doing my job,” Tikva replied. “We all were.” She let it hang for a moment, then continued. “Do I think the Breen and Tzenkethi are going to go to war? No. Do I think they’ll be sniping at each other and testing to see if they should go to war – yes. The Tzenkethi smell weakness and the Breen need to look strong. Or at least the Breen along the border need to.”

“I can see why Starfleet is sending some reinforcements out there then,” Rachel said. “Though Perseus is the old girl of the pack.”

“She’s not that –“ Tikva’s counter-argument was cut short by a gentle ‘thud’ that reverberated throughout the ship. Enough of a shove to slosh coffee out of a cup, send a padd scattering to the floor and for Fightmaster to half-stumble as he’d been walking around to collect empty plates while his colleague swept up any crumbs that had littered the table.

“Garland to the bridge,” Rachel ordered with a tap of her commbadge. “Report.”

“Sorry about that Captain,” came the response. “Small subspace shockwave just washed over us moving at,” there was a pause that stretched on a little long, “warp nine point nine nine eight.”

Mac and Stenz both looked to Tikva at that, who was muttering quietly before she spoke. “Twenty thousand one hundred twelve times light speed,” she said when she was finished with the math in her head.

“Republic can push point nine nine at best,” Mac answered. “That wave was over twice as fast.”

“Sagan too,” Stenz added. “And more like two and a half times as fast. Point of origin?”

Rachel repeated the question to her distant officer. “FH-257 ma’am. Right on top of Atlantis.”

“Hail them,” Rachel ordered as all four captains were on their feet and heading for the door in quick order.

There wasn’t an officer alive aboard Perseus willing to get in the way of four starship captains moving with haste and in silence down a corridor. There wasn’t any brave enough to stay in a turbolift car either, a young lieutenant opting to exit and let his captain and guest commandeer his mode of transportation.

By the time they arrived on the bridge, a young lieutenant was already waiting for them. “We’ve tried hailing Atlantis and gotten no response ma’am. They aren’t showing up on long-range sensors either.”

“Debris? Signs of an explosion?” Tikva demanded as she walked past the young man, heading straight for one of the science stations where a blue-shouldered woman was pushing herself back to allow multiple captains access to her station.

“No ma’am. There’s no sign of them at all. Elevated tachyon count, subspace turbulence in the wake of that shockwave and that’s about it. We only felt the subspace shock because of our warp coils anyway.”

“Alright Mr Sanchez,” Rachel said to the officer who had greeted them. “Helm, plot a course for FH-257, maximum warp.”

“Aye ma’am, maximum warp for FH-257,” came the response from the front of the bridge.

“Engage,” Rachel ordered.

“Ra’s got this,” Mac said to Tikva as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“He’s not on the ship,” Tikva confessed. “I left Gabs in charge.”

Three hours.

Three hours had passed since they’d exited whatever anomaly had spat Atlantis out so far from home. Far enough from home that sitting in the senior staff conference room they could all just look out the window and look upon the disk of the Milky Way galaxy in all its glory.

And just under three hours since Gabrielle had ordered all department heads to count heads, check everything was working as it should and report here. She’d wanted to give Engineering and her own department long enough to have something to report besides ‘we’re still investigating’.

Gérard Maxwell’s expression as he entered, trailing Rrr like a moon does a planet, told Gabrielle not as much as she’d hoped. She’d been hoping for something definitive, but whatever expression he was wearing was one she just wasn’t that used to. She just didn’t spend a lot of time with the man.

“Looks like everyone,” she announced as Rrr and Gérard sat themselves down. She had Adelinde to her left and she’d asked Doctor Terax to take the other. The Edosian looked as he always did – disgruntled and annoyed at being here. “Lin, how’s –“

“Actually can we start with the issue of who is in command right now?” Maxwell Simmons, the most senior science officer after Gabrielle herself and heading up the department for now, hadn’t just spoken up but rose to his feet as well, addressing all assembled like he was at some conference and he’d just taken the podium to deliver some key point.

Simmons’ gaze fell on Doctor Terax, a smirk forming on his face. “With the captain and first officer not present, command would fall to the most senior officer aboard the ship, yes? And that would be you if I’m correct, Doctor?”

Gabrielle shook her head slowly, sighing at the obvious shenanigans Simmons was playing. He hadn’t been happy when he came aboard Atlantis as a mere officer, not the head of the department. He had jostled and vied for the spot for months and months before Captain Theodoras had resolved the issue with a promotion, elevating her above the man in rank. And he’d grumbled even more when he’d found out she’d been moved up to second officer recently, challenging how she’d do the job and be chief science officer despite the second officer across the fleet typically being a department head anyway.

It was like he had a blind spot for how command of a starship was actually structured. Which perhaps he did if it didn’t suit his particular view of things.

“Sit down,” Terax growled from behind a mug that was just shy of his mouth.

“But you do have seniority in grade, yes?” Simmons continued, doing neither of what Terax had ordered.

“It doesn’t matter,” Terax answered. “Commander Camargo is in charge until such time as the captain says otherwise.”

Simmons looked over the assembled figures at the table and on seeing no sympathetic faces to his plight, huffed and sat himself down, verging on being a sulking child as he did.

“Anyway,” Gabrielle said after a moment, letting Terax’s chastisement settle. “Lin, how’s tactical?”

“There’s an issue with the ventral shield emitters preventing the shields from coming up to full strength along the engineering hull, but otherwise we’re good to go.” Adelinde then looked to her left, at Gérard. It was her duty as first officer to move things along after all. Or so the captain and Mac, then Kendris, had established aboard Atlantis. “Lieutenant Maxwell?”

“Not great, not terrible,” Gérard answered. “Main power on deck twelve should be back online in thirty minutes or less. If you wanted warp drive, I can give it to you, but we’re not going to be pushing higher than six point eight until I get a minimum of twelve hours.”

“And afterwards?” Gabrielle asked.

“High nines, but won’t be certain until we do some repairs.” He reached forward, tapping a control and a holographic representation of Atlantis appeared above the table, transparent blue save for three red sub-structures in the nacelles. “A cracked warp coil in both nacelles,” he continued. “Likely from field stresses feeding back into the coils. Not bad, but we’ll need to purge the nacelles and get in there to make field repairs.”

“That only makes two coils,” T’Val spoke up, pointing at the red highlighted coils.

“This one popped off its alignment tracks.” Gérard caused the second red coil in the starboard nacelle to flash a few times. “It’s sitting mostly in place, but we can’t adjust it to generate a field greater than six point eight with the cracked coils.”

“How long to fix just that coil?” Gabrielle asked.

“Twelve hours,” he repeated. “The welding jobs are quicker and easier, so I wanted to try and do them at the same time. But this coil is going to be a pain. We’ll have to kill the grav plating in the nacelle, let it spin down, get the portable tractors in place and wrench it back on its mounting points.”

Gabrielle rubbed at her face, struggling with the choices before her. Keep the warp drive ready just in case, or bring the ship to a halt and make repairs. How’d the captain make such decisions so quickly?

“Anything else?” Adelinde asked.

“The hull breach we suffered only vented a handful of unoccupied compartments. We’ll have it sealed before the end of the day.” Gérard sat back, turning off the hologram. “Aside from that, we’ve got some interesting scratches along the hull and we’re working to get the shield issue resolved as quickly as we can.”

“Thank you,” Adelinde said. “Lieutenant Simmons?”

“Hmm?” Simmons said, his sulking rudely interrupted.

“Anything to report?” Adelinde’s normally passive tone, least when working, finally had an air of annoyance to her. Though Gabrielle did reckon she could have been projecting.

“We’re lost,” Simmons answered. Then shook his head, huffed once, then brought up his own hologram as he stood. All the better to reach over and point at parts of the hologram. “Mind you, we’re not as far lost as say Voyager ever was, but we’re still decently lost.” The hologram was a representation of the galaxy they could make out the window. But it was surrounded by a few rings of stars, bands crossing through the plane of the galaxy in a few places, clumped up here and there.

“These rings are the leftovers of dwarf galaxies the Milky Way has been devouring for aeons. And Atlantis has managed to find itself somehow right around here.” Simmons’ finger intersected one of the larger blobs of dust floating above the galactic plane. Or was it below? “The Canis Major Overdensity.”

“The what?” Terax asked.

Simmons sighed, another shaking of his head. “The Canis Major Overdensity is a still oft-disputed galactic remnant. Roughly a billion stars, located twenty-five thousand lightyears from Sol and forty-two thousand from the galactic centre.” Then he tapped at the controls in front of his seat and the hologram changed to that of a star with a variety of metrics floating around it. “And this right here, Maxwell’s Star, is a little taste of home.”

“Maxwell’s Star?” Gérard asked. “Bit presumptuous, yes?”

Simmons’ ability to ignore criticism was in full force as he continued with his presentation. “The emission lines and metallicity of the star doesn’t match any other star within fifty lightyears of our current location. It’s a dinky little M3V star that does however match stars within our stellar database.”

“What?” Gabrielle asked, leaning forward. Maxwell Simmons might be an ass of a man, but he never made claims lightly, at least in regards to his chosen fields. That he’d just made that claim meant he had evidence to back it up. “Where?”

“A stellar cluster about halfway between the Federation and the Dominion, observed through telescopes for hundreds of years now. A quick simulation shows that cluster of stars being in an interception point with the Overdensity about seven hundred million years ago.”

Gabrielle felt her brow furrowing for a moment. “This star is from the Milky Way? Here?”

“That is what I said.” Simmons’ annoyance was on full display. “Captured by the Overdensity when it passed through and has been trailing along with it every since.”

“Okay…well, as fascinating as that is, what about the how?” Gabrielle asked. “How did we get here then?”

“No idea,” Simmons answered, turning off the hologram and sitting down. “There’s no sign of the anomaly that brought us here and we’re still in the process of analysing all the sensor readings from our two minutes and fifteen seconds of travel through that…corridor.”

Gabrielle nodded, taking a moment to breathe before turning to Terax. “Doctor?”

“Fifty-seven minor and twenty major injuries. Nothing terribly lasting mind you, should have everyone discharged in a few days.” Terax as always was quick and to the point. “In fact, I’d prefer to be there right now, if I could?”

“Oh, certainly, yes,” Gabrielle said, letting Terax go. She waited for him to leave before turning to T’Val at the far end of the table. “Lieutenant T’Val, how’s the shuttlebay?”

“The rogue shuttle, Ithaca, is beyond repair at this time. Warped structural members from impacting one of the ship’s structural members. The bay team has cleared the wreck and is already stripping it for spare parts.” T’Val turned her attention to Simmons then. “I would also appreciate your assistance Lieutenant in helping to recalibrate the navigational sensors with the main sensor array to ensure their accuracy.”

“I don’t think I’ll have time for that,” Simmons answered quickly.

“Make the time,” Lin spoke up before Gabrielle did. “We’ll need navigational sensors to find our way home eventually.”

“If I must,” he answered.

“Okay,” Gabrielle said, focusing attention on herself. Breath in, a breath out. The crew needed orders and it was her job to give them. Her job. No one else’s. “Right…orders.”

“Oh please,” she heard Simmons mutter but chose to ignore him.

“Gérard, go ahead and get those coil repairs underway. The sooner you start, the sooner they’re done. Gantzmann, full shield repairs will have to wait till Engineering is free. Simmons,” she stopped, looking at him and watching the dismissive look on his face, “Help with the navigational sensors, then I want a full spectrum scan of this system. Every probe, every shuttle and runabout is at your disposal. I want to know everything weird and fancy about this system and why we got spat out here of all places.”

She could see his eyes squint, that look that said ‘What’s your game here?’ as she had just given him free rein to do what he likely had been wanting to do. What she knew she’d have been wanting to do in his place.

“Any questions?” she asked after a few seconds. With a chorus of ‘No’ from around the room and silence from one person, she waved. “Dismissed then folks and be about it.”

Everyone filed out, save for Adelinde, who waited, waited some more, and then spoke when the doors closed. “This would be when I would question some of your orders,” Adelinde said quietly, causing Gabrielle’s anxiety to climb. “In private, away from the crew.”

“But?”

“But I have no questions at this time regarding the orders. Just around your decision-making. Thought-out or gut feeling?”

Gabrielle took a moment, looking at the older woman and trying to pry out what answer she wanted from the stoic mask she was wearing. “I just tried to think of what the captain would say.”

Adelinde nodded, then rose to her feet, preparing to leave like the others. “Don’t be Captain Theodoras, be Captain Camargo. That said, every captain is an amalgamation of every commanding officer they’ve ever had. You’ll be fine.” And then she started for the door. “Oh, I also stayed behind to make sure Simmons didn’t try and ambush you. He’s going to be a problem.”

“Oh, I know that,” Gabrielle said, rising to her own feet and following Adelinde towards the bridge. “It’s why I’m letting him disappear into his work. Hopefully, he’ll get too distracted by some mystery to be much of a nuisance.”

“She’ll be fine,” Mac said as he stepped up beside Tikva, offering her a steaming cup of hot chocolate, the aroma blending with the coffee in his other hand.

“Who?” The cup was accepted with both hands, sipped at and then hugged close, letting the heat of the cup seep through her uniform.

“Should I run through the list?” They were both staring out the windows of Perseus’ conference room, the mighty ship racing along at warp speed. Somewhere out there in the void Republic and Sagan were doing the same, but their vastly superior engines would get them on sight well before Perseus. “Let me see. Your heart is worried about Lin. Your mind is worried about Gabs. And together they’re both worried about your baby – Atlantis. So, take your pick.”

“I can honestly say I didn’t expect my ship to go missing while I was away.”

“You didn’t expect me to have a tussle with the Breen and make friends with some Tholians while you were away last time either and that worked out well for us.” Mac nudged Tivka with his elbow slightly, getting her attention and offering a smile. “Kendris called a few minutes ago. They’ve got a shuttle in the vicinity of Atlantis’ last known location and can confirm no debris.”

“They should –”

“Be careful, yes,” Mac interrupted. “They’re already back on the ground and waiting like you asked. Republic will be onsite in an hour and Commander Sadovu has already promised me, what was it she said?” he stopped to think, a finger tapping the side of his mug. “Enough probes to walk from here to DS47 and back again.”

“That’s quite an image,” Tikva answered as she turned slowly to face Mac. “How much of her intelligence packet have you actually seen?”

“Just what you gave me when you bundled me on a shuttle and sent me on my way.”

“Huh.” She turned, set her cup down on the table, and grabbed at the only padd on the empty table. A few keystrokes, a verification, then she handed it over to Mac. “You are going to end up trusting her more after reading that, or not trusting her at all.”

“Do I want to read it then?” he asked, waving the padd.

“I was only able to read the full packet recently,” she answered, waving at the bar under her rank pips while collecting her hot chocolate once more, then turned to brood out the window again. “But if you don’t want her, I’ll have her.”

“Honestly cap,” his use of the informal honorific got a smile from her, “I wouldn’t throw her off Republic easily. She’d have to have done some pretty horrible things to change my opinion of her.”

“And I hear her wife is an amazing chef.”

“You have spies on my ship already? You really are becoming a brass officer.” He was joking, eyes turning to the padd and reviewing the content. “Maybe Admiral Beckett has room after all in his department.”

“Bite me,” she responded and silence settled over the conference room. Five minutes passed before Tikva broke it, snapping Mac out of his reading. “Can’t this ship go any faster?”

“This old damn has hiked up her skirts and is high tailing it as fast as she can and you know it,” Mac answered. “Captain…Tikva…she’ll be fine.”

He could say it as much as he wanted, but she could feel the worry and concern radiating off of him.

Ships didn’t go missing without cause or concern after all.

“This is all that Republic has sent along?” Martin Stenz asked after reviewing the wall-monitor in Perseus’ astrophysics lab for nearly ten minutes in near silence. A silence that was only broken by the odd bit of muttering, head-scratching, and a single near-whispered request for coffee that his yeoman had answered.

“This is what they sent to us after ten minutes of being on-site,” Rachel clarified. “Lieutenant Commander Lake thought it best to get us some information quickly while they’re conducting a proper survey.” Her own science team, all of them fresh-faced and a few of them terrified of Stenz based purely on ancient whispered warnings handed down at the Academy, had been working on it for only a few minutes longer than Stenz himself. “Thoughts?”

Stenz’s face scrunched up for a moment as he flicked at some of the details, then brought up a few of the readings, tasking the computer with building a model of what it was that Republic had seen so far. “Well, it’s not a wormhole,” he answered after a minute and a cheerful little chirp from the ship’s isolinear brain.

Rachel had stepped forward and was looking at the animation the computer had spat out. It looked like a wormhole to her. At least on the surface. Though the two-dimensional plane with the funnel on it was just a dimensionally reduced depiction of reality. “It looks like it, though. On the surface at least.” She rapidly spat the last sentence out to defend her initial statement.

“And when you dig deeper?” Stenz asked, stepping back, collecting his coffee and sipping at it, face twisting. “Oh wow, Hendricks, let’s stick to Earth coffee blends this early in the morning,” he said to his yeoman, who nodded once.

“Well, we’ve really only got two examples of long-term stable traversable wormholes,” Rachel recited, buying time while looking the numbers over. “But the neutrino counts don’t line up with either the Celestial Temple of the Barzan Wormhole.” She mulled another set of figures. “These gravimetric readings are screwy.”

“Screwy, Ms Garland?” Stenz asked, then shook his head. “Captain Garland.”

“Screwy,” she repeated with a smile. “They don’t feel right. And the tachyon counts are over an order of magnitude higher. And the computer modelling of what’s going on subspace is just wrong for a wormhole.”

“That would be correct.” Stenz stepped forward and manipulated the wall-monitor and model on it to show the subspace layer. The computer had rapidly given up but had gotten so far as to show shadows and fuzziness that no wormhole model ever showed. “The model is sub-par because the data was rushed to us. Once Republic starts losing probes though we’ll start getting glimpses, if briefly, of what’s down there.”

“Down there?” Rachel turned on Stenz. “You know what this is?”

“Know with certainty, no. But I’m beginning to suspect because when Voyager got home from the Delta Quadrant, I know some of their findings caused quite the stir.” He reached out, tapping at the screen and bringing up records and models from the depths of the ship’s encyclopaedic memory.

“Underspace,” he announced. “Atlantis has fallen into Underspace.”

“Got a couple of minutes?” Gavin Hu asked as he stepped into the conference room. As always the ship’s counsellor was a clear-spoken man, with a weird non-localised North American accent despite his obvious heritage. That odd accent was a by-product of the melting pot that is Delta Vega and its hodgepodge of settlers early in humanity’s interstellar settlement period.

Changes to the ship’s bridge module during construction years before the ship even had a name had resulted in the conference room being forward facing, placed ahead of the bridge and looking down the slope of the ship’s saucer. And it was there, looking down the ship’s prow, that Gabrielle stood, arms crossed as she contemplated the decisions she’d made earlier.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she answered, watching Gavin in the reflection of the glass as he approached her, then opted to turn a chair around and sit himself down, raising his left foot to rest over his right knee. “How can I help Counsellor?”

“I was actually going to ask you how I could help,” he answered, offering a friendly smile. “First time in command without a safety net and I know we’ve been talking about Simmons for a few months now. Is he causing trouble?”

“Does the day end in y?” Gabrielle answered, then sighed as she realised her own tone. She shook her head a few times, then turned around. “Sorry, that was bitchy of me, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?” Gavin asked in return, chuckling at the displeased look he got straight away. “It was honest to your experiences.” When Gabrielle’s withering gaze continued, he relented. “A little perhaps, but understandable considering how much of a professional pain he has been in the past for you.”

“He thinks he should be chief science officer.” Gabrielle took a moment to pull the seat out next to Gavin, sitting herself down and facing the counsellor. “And since I’m now having to consider the ship holistically, I’m having to trust him in that role.”

“And?” Gavi masked, prompting the follow-up statement she hadn’t spoken.

“And now it seems he resents me even being in command. I’m starting to think he just resents me full stop.”

Gavin nodded along, listening as she spoke and kept doing so for a handful of seconds after she finished. “I know I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating. This all sounds like a Maxwell Simmons issue, not a Gabrielle Camargo issue.”

“Yeah, but I have to live with the consequences of it.”

“So does he,” Gavin challenged. “Think about it. Who was selected to be Chief Science Officer in the first place?”

“I was,” she admitted.

“And who got promoted to solve any sort of rank-pulling shenanigans that someone might try to pull? And because they were a spectacular officer deserving of it?”

“I was.”

“And who ended up being asked to step up to the position of second officer?”

“I was,” she answered for a third time.

“You set out to be the best officer you could be, while Simmons is busy brooding in a corner, thinking he’s the smartest man in the room and struggling to understand why everyone doesn’t recognise that and praise him for it. If he was so smart, why is he still a mere lieutenant?” Gavin unfolded his arms, held his hands out and shrugged slightly.

“To be a good scientist, you need to be intelligent,” Gabrielle answered. “But to be an excellent officer you need to be well-rounded.”

“You need to be able to lead. Simmons doesn’t lead, he directs. And I would wager to be a good scientist you need to be fallible as well. Is Maxwell Simmons fallible?”

“Sometimes,” Gabrielle answered with a huff. Personal experience had taught her that one. The man would demand incontrovertible evidence, and even then he would huff and puff about it.

“Is Simmons going to continue to be a pain for you? Yes.” Gavin leaned forward, locking eyes and offering a friendly smile. “But remember, when things get bad, you’re the boss.”

“And the captain said I could have Commander Gantzmann if I needed to throw anyone out of an airlock.”

Gavin’s laugh was genuine and hearty. “Yeah, that sounds like the captain!”

The informal counselling session had been cut short when Simmons continued his never-ending demonstration of self-importance by summoning Gabrielle to the bridge. It wasn’t an ask, but a summons.

“Commander Camargo to the bridge,” he’d said, not bothering to call her directly but using the ship-wide to make the announcement.

“He’s attempting to establish who controls who,” Gavin had explained as they walked to the short corridor connecting the conference room to the bridge. “Classic power play.”

“Yeah, but I can win that one,” she’d answered, feeling the wicked smile creep across her face, then having to banish it as they entered the bridge on the opposite side from the captain’s ready room.

“Ah, good,” Simmons announced from the bank of stations on the port side that formed Sciences. “You need to see this.”

“Do I?” Gabrielle asked, stopping to make Simmons explain himself. She also was waiting for Rrr to take three large steps from where they had been standing and hand over the keys, being particularly dainty with the artefact of command.

“Yes,” Simmons answered, as if that was clarification enough. And to sell the point, turned back to his monitors. “Long-range sensors have picked up something of interest.”

“What about short-range sensors?” Gabrielle asked, shaking her head with a glance at Rrr, who rolled their eyes and followed in her wake. “The anomaly that deposited us here?”

“Yes, yes, that’s still underway,” Simmons deflected. “Nothing conclusive so far. But this new contact is near-certain.”

“Near-certain or certain?” Rrr asked, their voice a gravel-like rumble.

“Until we go and investigate it ourselves, call it near-certain,” Simmons answered, bringing up the readings on one of the larger monitors. At first it was just the raw sensor data, but quickly resolved into a computer simulation based on those readings. “Somewhere between twenty and thirty cosmozoan contacts located less than two light-years from here. But in proximity to that is a large structure.”

“Space station?” Gavin asked over Gabrielle’s shoulder.

“Larger,” Simmons answered, switching the focus from the lifeforms to the structure. A large ring appeared on the monitor, again just an outline and simulation of what the computer thought. But the readings next to it belied its size.

“Wait,” Gabrielle said, comparing numbers in her head, before leaning forward to confirm them, an action that drew a satisfied smile from Simmons that she didn’t see immediately. “That thing is massive. That’s…on the scale of Corazonia.”

“In the roughest of terms, yes,” Simmons answered. “And I am detecting subspace radio signals from the structure as well. Of particular note is this one.”

There was static, a single brief squeal that raised the hair on the back of Gabrielle’s neck, the result of some sort of distortion no doubt, then silence before a single voice spoke out, confident and clear for any who might be listening.

“We the people of Earth greet you in a spirit of peace and humility. As we venture out of our solar system, we hope to earn the trust and friendship of other worlds.”

More static followed, and Simmons stopped it in quick order. “It’s looping every thirty minutes,” he clarified.

“You’ve had this over for thirty minutes?” Gabrielle demanded of him. “Thirty minutes? You should have reported this immediately.”

“More like two hours. I was waiting for confirmation that I wasn’t hearing rogue signals,” Simmons defended himself. “Like any good scientist should. And besides, warp drive is still offline, so it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Gavin Hu stepped in, his attention on Simmons and not Gabrielle. “Lieutenant Simmons, perhaps you can explain this structure in more detail for me? Corazonia, yes?”

Rrr, picking up on the play, gave Gabrielle a nudge and with a head nod they both were walking to the far side of the bridge. “He’s not wrong about the warp drive at least.”

“Do you recognise that message?” Gabrielle asked, glaring daggers across the bridge and thanking various gods and greater beings for Gaving Hu’s intervention just now.

“No, I don’t,” the Gaen answered.

“It’s from the Friendship probes, launched shortly after First Contact.” She looked around the bridge, then back to Rrr. “Rrr, how did an old Earth probe get twenty-four thousand light-years from Earth across an intergalactic void?”

“Don’t know,” they answered. “Want to find out?” The smile that accompanied the question was full and carried the excitement Rrr was obviously feeling at the prospect of a good mystery.

“Well, we’re explorers, right? Might as well explore?”

“Good news, bad news,” Gérard Maxwell announced as he stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge, still wiping his hands on a rag that had at some point in the past presumably been white in colour. It was now the unfortunate colour swathe of engineering viscera. And aside from Gérard’s hands, it was the only sign he’d been working at all.

“Bad news,” he launched straight into his update without further prompting as he descended the ramp on the port side to present himself to the captain’s chair where Gabrielle Camargo had finally sat herself down. “Still can’t explain why we can’t restore power to deck twelve forward of frame seven on its own circuits.”

“And the good news?” Gabrielle asked, eyebrow and voice rising in question.

“We’ve patched in power from deck eleven via a very dirty EPS extension that most certainly isn’t rated for safety. I’ve ordered the Jefferies tubes and access panels in the area all sealed, so only my power team can access it when they’re working on the issue.”

Gabrielle sighed, shook her head, and then looked at him. “The warp drive Gérard.”

He snorted with a laugh, smiling before giving the information that was truly what the bridge had been waiting for. “The starboard nacelle is charging with warp plasma right now and with the port nacelle already done, we should be low warp capable within minutes and cleared for full speed in fifteen.”

The nacelles had been vented for the repair work, the coils electro-statically discharged and rendered as inert as they could be. The nacelles had in essence gone cold. But with the repairs done, plasma once more coursed from the ship’s beating heart, not just to power the various and sundry subsystems but to energise the warp coils.

A held breath was being exhaled and Atlantis could once more run.

Gabrielle nodded as she stood, trying to imitate the captain’s calm acceptance. Tried for the same affable smile. Then gave up and offered Gérard her best, then a slight shrug. “Want to go see an engineering marvel?”

“Can I have a nap first?” Gérard asked around a laugh.

“Naturally!” she said, laughing in unison with the engineer. “Talk to Rrr, tell him who needs cover and get your people some rest. We’re going to be at least a few hours making our way to this mega-structure anyway.”

Gérard nodded in understanding, half-turned to depart and then rotated back on Gabrielle, brow furrowing. “Did you say mega-structure?”

While the captain might have teased, denying any further information for later as part of a grand reveal, Gabrielle couldn’t help but drag Gérard over to the science stations, currently occupied by a junior officer since Simmons had thankfully decamped to a lab to study some reading or another. The fawning over data was only interrupted a quarter later by Lieutenant T’Val informing them both that Merktin in Engineering had just declared the engines fit to ‘best possible speed’.

A cue for Atlantis to go and investigate what it could, since the anomaly that had brought them here was being stubbornly stealthy, and for Gérard to get some much-needed rest.

Rest that it turned out he’d be grateful for in light of what was on the viewscreen after only a mere few hours at high-warp.

“Sérieux?” Gérard asked as he stepped up beside Gabrielle and Adelinde on the bridge hours later. He looked a lot better for the rest and the coffee in hand than he had after reporting repairs had been completed.

It had been long enough after all for everyone to get some rest before they had arrived at their destination and fresher faces all around the bridge were busy relieving those who had whiled away the boring Gamma shift with nothing to do but watch dials and sensors dutifully doing their duty.

“You weren’t kidding about an engineering marvel,” Gerard continued. “As long as this thing doesn’t start rewinding time, I think we’ll be okay, right?”

“We’re still taking readings from the probes we left at our arrival point, including time stamps, so should notice if that happens,” Adelinde answered. She’d been on watch during Gamma shift and still looked like she’d just come on duty. Gabrielle realised she could count the number of times she’d seen Adelinde look less than ready to do her job on one hand.

“Well, guess that’s a relief.” Gérard stepped forward, closer to the viewscreen. Not that it really did anything to help, being a perfect holographic representation of what was ahead of the ship, but it was such a human thing to do – get closer, even minutely, to something that was still whole astronomical units away.

“Radius is zero point nine AU,” Wy’run Threl announced from Sciences, this time unobstructed by Simmons hovering over his shoulder. The junior science officer, a mere ensign, didn’t seem to have any issues speaking up on the bridge at all. “Interior habitable width is near enough to fifteen hundred kilometres. Which gives an interior surface area of…one point two seven times ten to the twelve square kilometres. Or about two thousand four hundred and eighty-six Earths.”

“Okay, that is one big dumb object,” Gérard said after a drawn-out whistle. “You could move the entire Federation onto that thing and still have room enough for house guests.” He turned to face Gabrielle and Adelinde with a smile. “We’re going to investigate, yes?”

Gabrielle straightened her back, trying to be as commanding as she could be, but with a smile as she spoke. “Mr Maxwell, could you please assemble an Engineering detail with the intent to study and examine the object before us? Liaise with Mr Simmons to ensure Sciences are represented.” 

“Should I take Simmons with me?” he asked.

“If he wants to, yes.”

“I’ll leave Engineering with Jamieson and take Merktin with me if that’s okay?” Gérard asked before turning and leaving after an affirmative nod from Gabrielle.

“Quick suggestion,” Adelinde said quietly, so only she and Gabrielle would hear, aside from the supremely capable hearing of both Rrr at Ops and T’Val at the helm. “Assign Lieutenant W’a’le’ki to the mission personally.”

“Simmons would be an idiot not to take her with him considering her specialities,” Gabrielle said, then shook her head. “Which is exactly why I should assign her because, of course, he knows more than her about a field he has no interest in.”

“I would almost suggest he should remain aboard ship as well to continue studying the readings from the probes we left behind to try and figure out a way home, but –”

It was Gabrielle’s turn to cut Adelinde off. “But the rest of the astrodynamics team might actually get something done without Simmons around constantly badgering them.”

“How would you, if the captain was aboard, handle Simmons at a time like this?” Adelinde asked.

“I’d likely be in the same lab space, supervising the work and acting as moderator for any arguments and discussions. My presence also likely meant others would be more willing to speak up as well, since I could pull rank and get Simmons to shut up.”

“So?” Adelinde prompted.

“So…Commander Gantzmann, I think I’m going down with the away team for the initial survey.” And Gabrielle was just as quick to raise a finger, stopping a protest that wasn’t forming at all. “Ah, not the captain, protocols clearly state the captain.”

“They should state commanding officer,” Adelinde agreed. “I’ll supervise the locating and studying of the cosmozoans we detected on sensors.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Gabrielle confirmed, handing over the ship’s keys. “Find us the source of that Friendship transmission and a nice spot nearby to beam down to, will you?” she asked as she headed for the turbolift.

Once she was gone, it was Rrr who turned around first, a grin on their granite-like face. “Seriously going to let her off the ship?”

“A mega-structure with an old Friendship probe on it somewhere. Engineering and Sciences would riot and she’d be the chief rioter.” Adelinde shrugged ever so slightly. “And she’s right about the protocols.”

“Technically,” Rrr said.

“Technically correct is the best form of correct,” T’Val piped up from the helm.

“Well, guess that settles it then.” Rrr’s admission of defeat was indicated with a return to their work. “Starting scans for the Friendship probe now. And our space-based friends too.”

“Very good Lieutenant. Lieutenant T’Val, take us in please.”

“Aye ma’am,” T’Val answered. “Ahead full.”

Stepping into the transporter room, Gabrielle expected to see whatever team Simmons and Gérard had assembled for the away team. She hadn’t expected Atlantis’ resident Xindi-Insectoid to be present, or a team of security officers. There were enough people to fill the transporter pad twice over and she noted the security personnel were already standing on it, blocking their more academically inclined fellows from ascending.

A collection of backpacks joined leather away jackets, some worn, some merely sitting at the feet of their owners. Some packs were actually cases for scanning equipment – a sign that both Simmons and Gérard were prepared for a proper and serious investigation. The security team however looked prepared for a hunting expedition with their weapons – a mixture of hand and rifled phasers amongst them.

“Oh, hello everyone,” she said, stopping just inside the door. “I wasn’t expecting this many of us to be going down.”

“Commander Gantzmann and I felt it prudent to provide adequate defence for this expedition,” Ch’tkk’va replied, their universal translator masking the clicks and pops of their native tongue.

“The ring is uninhabited,” Maxwell Simmons half-spat out, shaking his head in disgust at having to repeat himself for who knows how many times. “The only signs of intelligence are the ring itself and the transmissions from its surface.”

“That doesn’t preclude any dangers, Lieutenant.” Ch’tkk’va’s truly alien visage made reading facial expressions near-impossible and their translator was always miserable to tones. “Nor does it preclude any natural predators.”

“Well, I for one am grateful for your company, Lieutenant.” Gérard Maxwell smiled as he wound Simmons up with a mere use of words, a polite smile and a welcoming attitude. It never hurt to be nice – save towards the guy who ‘knows better’.

“Alright, alright,” Gabrielle said, cutting off any bickering before it could start. “We’ll take the extra sets of eyes, Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va. Your boys and girls brought snacks?” She was answered by a few slight chuckles from the security folks, a few lofted backpacks to say ‘in here’ and a couple of nodding heads. “Well then, before we start beaming down, who’s seen the scans of the surface?”

Maxwell Simmons naturally raised a hand and so did the man standing next to him – Dimitry Malenkov. Dimitry was the best geophysicist on the ship, so bringing him along wasn’t a stretch of the imagination at all. “It looks rather pleasant down there,” he said.

“Okay, you’re both excluded from the next question.” Gabrielle enjoyed the look on Simmons’ face at the thought he was being excluded from something. “Where the Friendship message is coming from – ziggurat, monolith or temple?”

“Ziggurat.” The answer was immediate, and all eyes turned to W’a’le’ki. The blue-skinned, purple-scaled Irossian had a look of authority to her that withstood the intensity of the eyes turning on her. She was a bubbly, positive individual at the worst of times and the delight of exploration for its own sake that was about to take place was evident in her bearing. Even the sheen of her scales seemed brighter as she smiled. “Trust me.”

Those last two words seemed to settle the issue for everyone else present.

A few more updates, a warning from Ch’tkk’va for all to listen to the warnings of his people, and the first wave beamed down to the ring world. As the scientists and engineers ascended, Gabrielle waited, then stepped up herself. One last check for her phaser on one hip, tricorder on the other, a glance over both shoulders to ensure everyone was ready and she gave the order.

“Energise.”

“Found them,” Samantha Michaels announced to the bridge at large. And with a tap of keys she snapped the viewscreen from the view of the ribbon of land and sea below Atlantis to a patch of the infinite void. A few more commands and the image narrowed in three quick steps to reveal the target of her hunt.

Hanging in the depths of space, riding the currents of stellar wind put off by the star at the centre of the ringworld, were colossal cosmozoan creatures. The central mass of each couldn’t have been much larger than the bulk of Atlantis’ stardrive section, but what made them so large were the truly spectacular wings spreading out to each side of creatures. Iridescent in the light, they shone in a myriad of colours and immediately invoked the idea of butterflies, or moths with the dusting of colours that trailed them as they fluttered in the void.

“How many?” Adelinde Gantzmann asked. Unlike Camargo, she had no qualms about sitting in the centre seat and had taken the chair almost as soon as the acting captain had departed the bridge. It was, after all, just a piece of furniture for her. A piece of furniture that had been too low and that she’d adjusted, despite a warning not to from Sam. Others might fear the captain’s wrath at changing any settings around the captain’s chair. Adelinde did not.

“I’m counting thirty-seven,” Sam answered after a few seconds. “They’re genuine pains to lock on to with the sensors though.”

“Why?”

“Still working on that one,” Sam answered. “I can tell they’ve been in the system easily enough. And roughly in a given direction, but anything more is…hard.”

“I got nothing myself,” Wy’run Trel answered. “We can see them, we can count them, but getting them to show up on sensors is proving difficult.”

Sam spun around from her station, the better to have a conversation. “But now that we’ve found them, we can point all our sensors at them and study what returns we get. That said, would love to launch a few probes at them, see what we can gather from up close.”

Wy’run didn’t answer immediately, instead typing away at his console, waiting, typing some more. “Life sciences agree. They’d love to get a probe nice and close.”

“Who am I to argue, then?” Lin’s rhetorical earned a light chuckle from Sam. “Launch a probe. And find as many people as we can to look over the visual feeds. See if we can’t find any more of these butterflies.”

“Got all those lower deckers for a reason, eh?” Sam asked. “Not the worst task we’ve asked of them.”

“We found a…cave,” Gérard said over the comms. “Though really, that’s underselling it. I could probably park a yacht in the entrance and have room to spare. We’ve got some decent energy readings coming from inside, so going to head in with my people and take a look around.”

“Don’t forget to drop repeaters as you go,” Gabrielle said in response, drawing in breath between each word.

“Will do, Commander. Maxwell out.”

“Lovely day for a climb, isn’t it?” W’a’le’ki said as she marched up along Gabrielle, looking completely unphased by the walk turned arduous mountain hike. “If there is a weather control grid on this ring, it’s subtle.”

“There isn’t,” Simmons stated from up ahead of the two women. He hadn’t taken the lead, letting a couple of the security team members have that honour, but he was at the head of the scientist in their particular party.

“That we could detect,” Gabrielle countered. “There could always be some mechanism we haven’t detected.”

“I doubt that. There are only so many ways of managing a weather system and we’d have detected all of them.”

“Bit closed-minded of you,” W’a said, then turned back to Gabrielle, clearly done with the senior lieutenant. “Not far to the transmission site now.”

“Bit inconsiderate of the builders to lace these hills with magnesite.” Gabrielle huffed the last few meters up the rise, making a mental note to squeeze in more climbing and hiking exercises into her regime. On a flat, she’d have been fine, but this had been exhausting.

“Everything you were expecting?” Simmons asked smugly as they cleared the rise and the tree line to find a perfectly wonderful clearing. Grass up their knees, clear of trees for nearly a hundred meters in diameter around a plinth of obsidian no taller than three meters. And atop it sat a relic of Earth’s old pre-Federation space program, looking the worse for wear after a few centuries, but otherwise in fantastic condition for being so far from home.

“A plinth is a type of monolith,” W’a conceded.

“Or a single-step ziggurat,” Gabrielle added, jostling the woman’s arm with her elbow.

“If you had just let me answer in the transporter room, you’d have known.” Simmons’ attitude had somehow gotten even worse.

“Right, well, we’re here. So, Simmons, see if you can’t access the probe’s memory banks and learn how it got here. W’a’le’ki, see if you can’t find anything left by whoever put it here. The rest of you have your assignments already, so let’s get cracking.”

It took a few minutes before Ch’tkk’va wandered over, stopping beside Gabrielle. “I don’t like this,” they said.

“Like what?”

“This empty ring.” They cast their compound eyes skywards, to the infinite band that reached up and faded into the hazy blue, wrapping around on the other horizon after the glare of the sun. “No signs of its creators, the only message waiting for us being something from Earth well before it could have possibly gotten here. Something is wrong.”

“Best figure out what it is then,” Gabrielle said. “So we can be prepared, yes?”

“Yes.” Ch’tkk’va nodded their head. “We should be prepared.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Time to stop sulking.” Rachel Garland’s words could have come across as pushy as she barged into the darkened room, and perhaps they were, but Tikva could feel the love that came with the admonishment. After all, sometimes the duty of a friend was to kick another up the backside and get them moving again.

“Well, now I just want to sulk some more.” Not that she thought she was sulking. More brooding. Pondering. Worrying.

Giving off the airs of command?

Looking responsible?

Mysterious!

And it’s ruined…

When she had arrived on Perseus, she’d been given the premier VIP quarters aboard ship, which were a near rival for her own quarters on Atlantis. But since learning that Atlantis had gone missing, she’d practically holed herself up in here, save for a few visits to the bridge or lurking at the back of Rachel’s staff briefings.

It had given her way too much time to think about too many subjects.

Nonsense! One of them is super important!

“Tough, Bug.” Rachel hadn’t ordered the lights up, for there was no need. The orange-brown light of the Underspace aperture, only a few thousand kilometers away, lit the quarters up sufficiently through the expansive windows. She had stopped by the replicator at least and when she stepped up beside Tikva, offered a steaming cup of tea to her friend and commanding officer. “We’re all set for entering and following Atlantis now. Or, will be in ten minutes. Engineering and Ops are running around strapping everything down that they can.”

The tea was a welcome thing, an utterance of thanks given before a testing sip. Earl Grey – another joke from their academy days. ‘Drink the drink of captains’ they joked in their lighter moments and only after making sure no officers had been around to hear them.

“What do you make of that?” Tikva finally asked after a few more sips, indicating the yawning portal before them. Not but an hour ago it had spat out another starship, this one a Tzenkethi destroyer that was barely operational when it had stumbled back into real space. An offer of technical assistance had been denied, but a lesser one of beamed power to assist them in repairs had at least been grudgingly accepted.

Though Tikva thought it had more to with Mac’s warning that a handful of Breen ships were on the way that convinced the Tzenkethi that expediting repairs was preferable to being crippled when they arrived and potentially dislodged the Starfleet ships that were present.

“You want me to say one thing, so you can play devil’s advocate and argue the other?” Rachel asked, tilting her head as she studied Tikva. “Or you just needing to sound out some thoughts?”

“Just answer the question.”

Rachel’s chuckle was a carefree thing. “Alright, alright. Geez, promote someone and they get bossy.”

“I’ve always been bossy.”

“No argument.” Rachel stared at the aperture briefly, then sighed. “It’s a mixed blessing, isn’t it? On the one hand, if we could figure this thing out and make it safe, we’d have a magnificent shortcut to just about anywhere in the galaxy. But at the same time, I don’t think I like the idea of Chancellor Toral’s Klingon Empire having the ability to go raiding wherever they feel like, with little to no chance of mounting a defence.”

“Dammit, I hadn’t even thought about the Klingons.” Tikva shook her head at the prospect. “I’m still so used to thinking of them as our dependable allies. I was mentally preparing for whatever the Breen might do, or the Cardassians. Heck, even the Dominion if the Bajoran Wormhole suddenly became irrelevant on the strategic side of things.”

“The trade and exploration opportunities though would be amazing.” Rachel had already played the negative side of her ‘mixed bag’, now she was onto the positive. “We could do those fundamental things Starfleet was meant to do – explore strange new worlds and new civilisations.”

“Right up until the first attack on a major world, someone cries bloody murder and we’re all pulled back and tied down defending worlds because borders mean nothing anymore.” Tikva turned to her friend, face devoid of emotion. “It happened after Mars. It could happen again. Exploration dies another death.”

Rachel’s silence was telling. But then she seemed to summon the energy that Tikva couldn’t herself at the moment. Shoulders rolled back, spine straightened, and she smiled. Enough to bring on to Tikva’s face in pale imitation. Right there in just those simple actions she was reminded why she’d given Rachel her nickname of Rhea – Ray of sunshine. “I said it’s time to stop sulking, Fleet Captain. Those are problems for another day. Right now we need to go be big damn heroes for your crew of big damn heroes.”

“Not you too,” Tikva pleaded as she followed Rachel out into the corridor. “We don’t need the hero worship.”

“Hey, I’m still trying to figure out if the Iron Bitch of Deneb is referring to you, or Atlantis. I managed to watch the sensor playback from one of the ships in orbit…you girl have theatrical power.”

The other aspect of a good friend, it turned out, was embarrassment to keep your ego in check.

“Okay, this is a bit rougher than what I was mentally ready for,” Rachel said out loud as the currents of Underspace and the debris of less fortunate travellers before them buffeted Perseus. Light panels around the bridge of yester-year were pulsing yellow, klaxons silenced prior to the ship entering Underspace at least. The crew hopefully were braced throughout the ship, much like the bridge personnel, as they held onto consoles or chairs to stay in place.

“Would help if we didn’t have a monkey on our back,” Commander Jasper Riggs commented from Rachel’s right. “It’s blocking the stardrive impulse engine.”

As Perseus had been making its way towards the Underspace opening, the Grok’ti had launched themselves forward with perfect timing. No attempt at communications had halted them and the near-fluid like nature of their ship had played perfectly to their apparent motive of hitching a ride through Underspace on Perseus’ back.

“Captain, I’m having trouble here.” The young woman at the helm of the great ship was struggling, wrestling with her controls, with the responses the ship was giving her, and with the changing nature of Underspace as they rolled with the flows of the ship demented subspace realm. “I can’t keep her in the center and if we hit the wall…” She didn’t need to explain any further.

“Do your best Ensign, keep her steady.” Rachel’s words could have been the most inspiring speech of all time for all the good they would do.

“Rhea.” Tikva had sat down to Rachel’s left, in the seat reserved for visitors on the bridge. She’d been good about keeping her mouth shut, letting Rachel run her ship without interference. She valued and treasured her friend too much to step on those toes. Now however she spoke up. Things were too important. “No insult to your pilot, but you need a better one right now.”

“Ensign Barnes is the best rated helmswoman on this ship.”

“Really?” Tikva hissed back. “Really really?”

“You can’t be serious?” Rachel snapped back, the concerns of her helmswoman ignored momentarily. “Tikva, she knows what she’s doing.”

“Rhea,” Tikva said again, perhaps a bit more pleading than she wanted it to come out as.

“No.” Rachel’s one-word answer was firm, immutable. There would be no changing her mind.

Until the universe, in all its glory had its counter-argument heard.

Yellow lights gave way to red, klaxons sounded afresh throughout the ship. All eyes turned to the viewscreen to see what was the issue just as an enormous chunk of debris broke across Perseus’ bow, shields flaring and flickering as the collision shook the mighty ship. Some had been able to grab onto their stations, others braced as best they could. But some hadn’t been able to at all. Both officers at the front of the bridge had been thrown from their stations, tossed to the floor with reckless abandon.

“Collision alert,” the computer announced after the fact. “Collision alert,” it repeated, this time well in advance of the impending collision on screen.

“Barnes!” Rachel shouted at the young woman on the floor, who barely moved. “Riggs, secure her.”

The young man didn’t need to be told twice as he got to his feet and moved to hold Barnes in place against any further turbulence. “Riggs to Sickbay, medical emergency on the bridge!” he shouted after a tap on his comm badge.

Rachel turned immediately to Tikva, her earlier ‘No’ now forgotten. “My bridge, my ship, my orders. Got me?”

“Aye, captain,” Tikva answered before flinging herself out of her chair and across the bridge. It only took her a second to study Barnes’ configuration, to find the most urgent controls and lay her fingers over them.

“Collision alert,” the computer repeated.

“Yeah yeah,” Tikva muttered.

Right, let’s not screw this up, yeah?

Screw this up? We’re the best dammit.

Uh, when did we last fly a ship this big again?

Who cares? It’s like riding a bike.

Ramming speed!

Ignoring that last intrusive thought, Tikva’s fingers danced over the controls, spinning Perseus on one axis, applying thrust, spinning on another. Talent, training and confidence born of years of experience saw her make the large ship dance in ways that it rightfully shouldn’t have. Instead of slamming into the large piece of debris they were bound for, the majority of it a sickly green reminiscent of a Klingon ship, it merely scrapped along Perseus’ saucer, a faint shudder throughout the ship.

“I’ve got an ion trail,” the Andorian at Ops announced, having climbed back into his seat. “Starfleet impulse engines at best guest.”

“Give it to the helm,” Rachel ordered. “Helm, follow that trail, best possible speed.”

“There’s something else up ahead,” the Ops officer announced. The orange-brown of the Underspace corridor shifted, angry red lightning mixed with it, but all flowing in one direction.

“Dammit,” Rachel announced. “Steady as she goes.”

There was a lurch and the undeniable sensation of acceleration as they crossed some sort of threshold in the corridor, flung along its length. No debris was in his part of the network, a function of the natural flow that moved everything along. But before much could be said about it, or sensors studied, Perseus was thrown once more into normal space.

They hadn’t hit the wall and fallen out – they’d hit the end of the line, exiting almost as smoothly as their entrance into Underspace had been.

“Secure all stations,” Rachel announced. “I want damage reports and a check of all decks.” Medical personnel finally arrived, pouring out of a turbolift at the rear of the bridge. “Where the hell are we?”

“No idea,” Tikva said as she checked the helm, the navigational sensors still trying to find anything they recognised to get a fix on. “But we’re on the right track, at least.” Her hands made a command of the ship’s systems and the viewscreen snapped from an unfamiliar starfield to a probe only a few million kilometre away. Another command and the image zoomed as tight as it could get.

And there, for all to see, was a Starfleet delta in modern colours on the side of the probe.

Rachel had stepped up beside Tikva, setting a hand on her shoulder. “Nice flying Bug. But after that, I’m starting to think those tunnels might just be too dangerous.”

“No argument here,” Tikva answered. “At least in this crate.”

“Okay, that’s it, out of the seat. Insult my ship, lose your flying privileges.”

“Nothing?”

W’a’le’ki looked up from her tricorder and offered a slight smile to Commander Camargo to along with the shrug of her shoulders. “Nothing of significance specifically.”

They’d been planetside, no, ringside, now for a few hours and frankly she was much happier to have gotten this assignment than to have gone with Lieutenant Maxwell’s team into the depths of the ring. Here she’d had the joy of working the whole time in the sun, a gentle breeze blowing across the clearing and a mystery before her. And with Simmons and Malenkov both pouring over the records from Friendship 7, she’d had the study of the plinth it was resting on all to herself.

“The outer case of the plinth is indeed obsidian, though the unusually high uniformity suggests manufactured versus natural. There’s a power feed within that leads deep into the ring’s structure that’s been powering Friendship 7 this whole time. But other than that, nothing to help with the writing. There’s just not enough content to start work on.”

Camargo nodded, looking back to the plinth with an unamused look on her face. “Whoever made this plinth covered it in writing and didn’t bother to leave a Rosetta Stone lying around. Talk about frustrating.”

“Especially when they had Friendship 7 right here with an onboard translation matrix.” Inspiration suddenly hit and W’a found herself tapping away on her tricorder. “Rosetta Stone,” she muttered. “Behistun Inscription. The Scrolls of Andor’mesh. They all say the same thing, just in different languages.”

“Yes, I know,” Camargo said. “It’s kind of why I brought it up.”

“I fed all the text into the computer and asked it to start doing analysis, but didn’t give it a starting point, so it’s still working away.” She brought up the input screen and rapidly tapped away a message. “But with a suggestion of what some of the text could be…”

She trailed off, waiting, and was rewarded after only a few seconds by a ding from her tricorder. “Got it!” With a triumphant command, she set her tricorder to display the translation holographically over the plinth. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“What was the key?” Camargo asked as she stepped closer to the plinth, starting to read the translated text that seemed to cover the entire structure.

“‘We hope to earn the trust and friendship of other worlds.’ They put your people’s words at the start.”

“Like the Rosetta Stone,” Camargo said. “I won’t tell anyone how long it took us to come up with that if you don’t.”

W’a couldn’t help but laugh as she stepped up beside her commander to better exam their finding. “What are you talking about ma’am? This was our first idea.”

“Man we’re clever,” Camargo said. “Make the translation available to Gérard. Hopefully he’ll hit a computer before much longer and need it.”

Samantha Michaels, Sam to her friends, was glad her day was coming to an end. It had been exhausting and frankly handing everything over and getting away from work was just the order of the day for her right now. So when Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr tapped her on the shoulder fifteen minutes before her shift was over, they were one of the most glorious people she’d ever seen in that moment.

“Thank whatever cosmic entity sent you my way,” she said with a sigh. “When I say I spent all day counting butterflies, I mean it.”

“I know,” Rrr said. “So have I.” By way of proof, the large Gaen held up a padd, an image one of the space-butterflies on its screen. “What’s the total count up to now?”

“One hundred and fifty-eight confirmed unique entities spread across the entire system. But it’s getting harder to spot any new ones out there.”

“Oh?” Rrr asked.

“Yeah. We’re doing something to attract their attention and it appears all the local population groups are heading our way. In about four hours or so you’ll be able to look out a window and see one of the larger pods.”

Rrr’s brow furrowed, the action reminiscent of tectonic activity, just localised to their face and on a timescale one could appreciate. “When did this start?”

“When we started lighting up some of the nearby ones with all our sensors to try and figure out why they’re resistant to our scans. And yes, before you ask, we stopped when we noticed them moving towards us. It hasn’t stopped them, or other groups we didn’t scan, from coming our way.”

“Other groups you say?” Rrr stroked their chin, a new mannerism they’d picked up recently, and it came with the expected sound of rock sliding on rock. “Well, it proves they communicate somehow.”

“Or there is something else we’re doing that’s attracting their attention. Just what, though, is anyone’s guess.”

“A fair point Lieutenant,” Rrr conceded. “Right, I’ll keep monitoring the situation. In the meantime –”

A repeated ‘bleep-bleep’ from the Ops console stopped Rrr mid-sentence and drew their and Sam’s attention back to the console. Sam brought up the alert and read it. Sensors checked to verify the finding and then she looked up at her immediate superior officer. “Long range sensors have detected a starship, and it’s confirmed by Simmons’ collection of probes at the aperture point.”

“Someone else was unlucky enough to get dragged through? How badly damaged are they, and do they need help?”

“I’ll do you one better.” Sam leaned around to look past Rrr and to Gantzmann, seated in the captain’s chair and busy reading a report or another. “Commander Gantzmann, I’ve got the USS Perseus on sensors and she’s heading our way at warp eight.”

That got the desired response Sam was looking for. Gantzmann looked up from the padd, then set it down before rising to her feet with perfect poise. “Signal Captain Garland and inform her we’re welcome for Perseus’ assistance, assuming they left the door open.”

“All of this equipment, all of these murals, not a single computer console.” Gérard Maxwell had led the engineering team deep into the ‘cave’ they’d identified near Friendship 7 and into the guts of what clearly made this artificial ring function. Or at least some of what made it function. Scans hadn’t been able to penetrate far and being inside of it didn’t help much either.

Large power systems, transit tunnels, field generators and all the other accoutrements of high technology civilisations were all around them and all of them were incredibly brilliant at obfuscating what lay past them or inside of them even. They could tell something was a power generator only by looking at its outputs, but no idea on the how it generated power.

“There’s got to be something though, right, sir?” Ensign Jessica Chu wasn’t Gérard’s first pick for an away team, but the young woman deserved a chance and this had seemed relatively low-risk. And her technical knowledge was impressive. It was her hesitancy to make decisions that annoyed Engineering’s senior officers.

“You tell me how you’d control all of these systems without computer systems and I’ll make sure you have a career at whichever design bureau you want,” he answered. He hadn’t meant for it to come out snippy, but he recognised it immediately. “Sorry Ensign, that wasn’t very nice.”

“Well, all of these systems and their materials are blocking most of our scans, so their computers could be anywhere, just shielded.” She made a good point, he had to admit. “Same for communications systems. Though you’d still need interfaces for maintenance, inspections or just curiosity.”

That had been the real sticking point so far in their hours’ long exploration. No interfaces. The cave had started off with a grand hall; the walls covered in murals the team had been woefully ill-prepared to study. They dutifully snapped images and sent them back to the ship, but moved on. But since then there aren’t been anything of worth to inform them on the functionality of systems, who built the ring, why it was empty or never populated in the first place.

“Found something!” one of the other engineers announced and soon enough everyone from the team was at their side, a few trying desperately to look over the man’s shoulder but all losing out when Gérard arrived and forced them aside. So he could look over the man’s shoulder naturally. “Looks like a holographic projector, and I’d reckon it’s on some sort of standby with the faint charge it’s got running through it.”

The projector in question was about fifteen meters off the floor, mounted in the ceiling and positioned to cover a decent portion of this room. And knowing what to look for, a few more were found soon after. Not enough to make the room a holodeck, but certainly enough to projector monitors and interfaces if required.

“Okay, but how do we turn them on?” Gérard asked.

“On! Go! Light!” The random shouting of words started with one of the security team members that had come with Gérard’s team. The Orion woman, Rosa Mackeson, was one of Ch’tkk’va’s Hazard Team people, but hadn’t come down in that capacity this time. No, she was just here as regular old security. “Sorry, thought that might do it.”

“Worth a try,” Gérard said. “Though maybe try shouting it out in Ringbuilderese?”

Rosa laughed at that. “Left my phrase book back on the ship Gérard,” she answered. “Maybe next time.”

“Umm.” Jessica was studying her tricorder again as she stepped over, pointing at a part of the screen. “I’ve seen this material before. Or something like it, at least.” The part she was pointing at was a component of the holoprojector and appeared to be a small crystal.

“Okay Ensign, where?” Gérard asked.

“Uh…I was studying some old records one night, went on a tangent and –”

“The point Ensign.”

“Scrubble psychic mines,” she blurted out. “Psychic mines that read your thoughts. I think these projectors might need someone to…well…think them on.”

“Hey Brek!” Rosa shouted out as she turned, getting the attention of her security off-sider on this engineering excursion. “Can you think loudly?”

“Can I think…loudly?” the Vulcan asked, eyebrow raised. “Can you speak quietly?”

“Alright,” Gérard cut in, stopping anything from developing more than it needed to. “Lieutenant Brek, could you perhaps try turning on the projectors?”

“I shall attempt to think loudly.” Brek took in a deep breath, let it out, then repeated the action once more. “Though I make no promises.”

“At this point Lieutenant, even failure is a data point to help us try and access the ring’s systems.” Gérard looked around at his people. “Right folks, keep looking. Let the man think.”

“No response from Perseus ma’am.” Samantha Michaels’ announcement wasn’t the most welcome piece of news on the bridge of Atlantis at that moment. “And we’ve just lost communications with the probes around the aperture as well.”

“May I?” asked Rrr, who’d been standing behind their immediate junior officer, taking over at Ops as soon as Sam vacated the seat and headed immediately for one of the secondary stations around the bridge. “Level 5 diagnostic doesn’t show any issues with the subspace transceiver.”

“I’d hope not,” Sam said. “We gave it a once over while Engineering was busy with the warp coils.”

“And it was just working,” Rrr added.

Gantzmann, who’d risen to her feet earlier, stepped up to the part where the helm and operations met. “What about comms with the away teams?”

Rrr’s fingers danced over the console, then stopped after a satisfied little chirp from the computer. “Still good. We’re still getting updates from their tricorders and a system check of the commbadges came through fine.”

Gantzmann nodded, taking a moment to think before looking at the Vulcan at her right. “T’Val, I want you and another pilot to take shuttles to the surface. As close as possible to both away teams and standby. If we lose comms, we’ll lose transporters too. Let’s be prepared, shall we?”

“Aye ma’am,” T’Val answered, signalling for a replacement to come to the bridge before she departed, leaving the ship in the capable hands of automation for a few minutes.

“Rrr, find out what is blocking comms and see if we can’t find a way around it.” Gantzmann then turned on Sam, indicating to the turbolift with a flick of her head. “Before you volunteer to help out Lieutenant, I’m ordering you to go get some rest.”

“No argument from me, ma’am.” Sam complied with her quick exit off the bridge.

Rrr waited for Sam to leave before smiling, looking at Gantzmann with a tilt of their head. “Oh please, this is infinitely more exciting than her entire shift had been. She was just waking up.”

“Adrenaline,” Gantzmann answered as she returned to the centre seat. “And besides, I’d rather let her have a chance to rest some before a crisis draws her back to the bridge.”

“She is proving to be rather keen. Half expecting her to find a posting somewhere else in the fleet and leave me without a trusted junior.” Rrr’s attention shifted back to their console. “Now, let’s see if we can’t find out what is playing havoc with our subspace communications.”

“Lieutenant Tabaaha,” T’Val said by way of greeting as she passed through the main entrance into Atlantis’ aft shuttlebay, the doors already opened by the deck chief in preparation for launch. “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting anyone else when I summoned you.

Beside the American Indian young woman stood what T’Val knew was one of her friends, the vaguely troublesome security officer Ensign Linal Nerys, and Atlantis’ most colourfully haired nurse, Ensign Amber Leckie. Neither of whom were pilots, or had been asked for, but were present and both wielding phaser rifles like they were going somewhere.

“Uh, well ma’am,” Leckie spoke up, stammered momentarily but finding herself quickly. “We were all in Port Royal when you called. And Nerys and I figured both shuttles could do with an offsider naturally, and security trained ones at that.”

“If we’re say evacuating under fire and someone needs to give cover from a door,” the Bajoran security officer spoke up. There was confidence in the way she spoke, unlike how Leckie had started. Confidence and determination that T’Val knew had gone down on Linal’s performance reviews more than a few times as ‘stubborn’ and ‘argumentative’.

“You determined all of this from a request for Lieutenant Tabaaha to report to the shuttlebay?” T’Val asked.

“We may have had a bit more warning,” Kelly Tabaaha added, looking just a touch sheepish. “Lieutenant Michaels messaged Nerys and told her about the comms blackout.”

“I see.” T’Val made a mental note to speak with Lieutenant Michaels about this in the future. And with Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’ball’rrr as well. She wasn’t averse to the outcome, but found she would have appreciated if perhaps Michaels had communicated with her about it first. She knew it was likely she’d have agreed, but then it would have been a mutual decision, not a surprise.

“So we’re good then?” Tabaaha asked.

“We are good,” T’Val answered, the last word leaving her mouth unhappily. She’d never liked that particular phrase, but it would suffice and allow them to move along. “Ensign Linal, you’re with me.”

“I can’t fly with Kelly?” Linal immediately asked.

“No,” T’Val answered. “I won’t have close colleagues flying with each other. And if you disagree, I am certain I can –”

“Okay, I get it,” Linal interrupted, which caused T’Val’s left eyebrow to raise in an uncontrolled display of frustration. The Bajoran woman then turned on Leckie, who as a nurse and in blue looked a little out of place with a weapon, but it had to be remembered she was a member of one of the Hazard Teams aboard ship. “Keep her safe.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Leckie replied with a wink. “I’ll make sure she never leaves the pilot’s seat.”

“If posturing is complete, could we continue?” T’Val asked, eliciting an apology from Leckie and a perplexed look from Linal. “Lieutenant Tabaaha, I will be taking Lesbos down and landing as close to the cave entrance that Lieutenant Maxwell and his team entered. When Gondwana is ready, head for Commander Camargo’s position.”

“Gondwana?” Tabaaha asked as she cast her eyes towards the four older Danube-class runabouts stored aboard ship and specifically the one with a number of deck crew scrambling around. “Right ma’am. We’ll be down there as quick as we can.”

With nothing further to say, T’Val dismissed Tabaaha and Leckie before heading for the waiting Lesbos, kept on standby ever since the captain had left with Waihou only a few days ago now. “Ensign Linal, what are your flight qualifications?”

“You don’t want me flying,” Linal answered.

“That wasn’t what I asked Ensign.”

There was a sigh, edging on petulant from Linal. “6A, 9 and 12,” she finally answered. “And good enough to pass small craft certification, but that’s it.”

“I see.” They continued in silence across the shuttlebay, the Lesbos waiting for them, engines at the ready. “Perhaps Ensign, since we have the opportunity, you would like to learn the difference between the smaller shuttles and the Type-14?”

“Do I have much of a choice in the matter?” Linal asked as she closed the shuttle hatch behind the two of them.

“For the next ten minutes, no.”

Further down in the shuttlebay, Kelly and Amber watched as Lesbos lifted off and exited. Gondwana was still warming up, flight systems being given a once over by the deck crew before Kelly would do her own abbreviated pre-flight. “Good money that Nerys drives Lieutenant T’Val crazy,” Amber said after a few moments, Lesbos a speck of light in the distance before it arced downwards towards the ring’s surface.

Kelly barked a single laugh. “No way. T’Val is as Vulcan as they come. Nerys will be pulling her hair out in short order.”

“She better not,” Amber replied. “I like her hair.”

“Like, or like-like?”

Amber shrugged, offered a smile, and then turned for the runabout. “Haven’t decided,” she answered. “Maybe you can tell me a bit more about her?”

“Oh boy, where to I even start?” Kelly asked as she followed. “Well…”

“I think it’s fair to say that whoever built this plinth didn’t build the ring.” Dimitry Malenkov’s statement cut through the back and forth that Gabrielle and W’a’le’ki had been in the middle of while examining the plinth’s outer surface. It had also bounced off of Simmons’ conversational armour with little effect, the man deep into studying the contents of Friendship 7’s computer logs in the shade of nearby trees.

“Oh?” W’a asked, looking up from the padd she and Gabrielle had been sharing in order to better read their own findings.

“Yes,” Dimitry continued, approaching with his own padd. “The power systems in the plinth that’s keeping Friendship 7 running goes down about fifteen meters, has some sort of join in it and then continues down about a kilometre into the depths of the ring.” Then turned over the padd to Gabrielle. “But the power conduit before and after the joint are two different materials.”

“Doesn’t prove anything though,” Gabrielle challenged.

“True, save that while they’re the same technological principles, the last portion of the power distribution powering our probe is less efficient than the main feed. Likely due to someone adapting it more than a lack of engineering prowess.”

“Kind of like if someone was adapting Starfleet power conduits to fix a Klingon starship?” W’a’le’ki asked, rolling forward when Dimitry nodded. “But why was there a power conduit most of the way to the surface in the first place?”

“I suspect if we ever find the builders, they might shed some light on that,” Dimitry answered. “But aside from this little supposition of mine, there isn’t much more to report at the moment, Commander Camargo.”

“Nothing exciting in the fields of geophysics?” Gabrielle asked with a dose of humour.

“Nothing,” Dimitry answered. “The entire surface of the ring is an exceedingly clever and well put together façade, but otherwise there’s nothing interesting going on here.”

“Because the interesting things aren’t on the ring,” Maxwell Simmons declared as he rejoined the group, showing more than usual curtesy by letting someone finish speaking first. “The cosmozoans are the interesting things here. We need to leave the ring right now.”

“I’m going to need a bit more than just a cryptic warning, Simmons,” Gabrielle said exasperatedly.

The eye roll from the man was enough for Gabrielle to make a mental note to have words with him about such displays later in private, calmer settings. Or maybe she could just put in his transfer paperwork and send him off to a deep space research platform on the Gorn border where his attitude could become the crux of a brand new defence system.

“Of course you do,” Simmons finally conceded, handing over his own padd and making sure to point at a relevant section on the screen, not trusting anyone but himself to actually know how to read properly. “There’s a warning in the data aboard Friendship 7 that equates the images of butterflies in the Earth database with death.”

“Headaches, nausea, withering crops, bubonic plague, hemorrhagic fever,” Gabrielle read the additional links that had been added to the article on butterflies out loud. “Okay, message received. But how and why?”

“This feels like the type of warning that is far more important to get and act on first, then understand fully,” W’a’le’ki answered. “Much like proposed nuclear waste messages from hundreds of cultures throughout history.”

“The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours,” Dimitry recited.

“Exactly!” W’a’le’ki’s ever-present smile faded away. “Commander, someone left Friendship 7 here, broadcasting, so we’d find it. Then made a noticeable change in its database so we’d get this message.”

“It’s pretty damn cryptic. They could have just stated as such.” Gabrielle wasn’t enjoying the deliberate obfuscation that was going on here.

“Could have, perhaps, but maybe it’s a cultural thing for whoever left the warning. Or they wanted it to be universal enough for anyone, with or without an equivalent to the universal translator, to get this message and act upon it.” W’a’le’ki looked upward, as did they all, when a runabout flew overhead in a lazy arc. “That’s as good a message from the universe as I need.”

“Why are they here?” Simmons asked, glaring at the runabout as it started to dip behind some nearby trees, looking to be less than a kilometre away.

“While you were busy examining Friendship 7, the crew back on the ship discovered an issue with long-range subspace communications not stemming from an equipment issue, and Commander Gantzmann is opting for an element of caution.” Gabrielle smiled, enjoying knowing something that Simmons didn’t. It was petty of her to take joy in that moment, but he didn’t bring out the best in her.

“What?” Simmons asked, his attention turning immediately back to Gabrielle. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I had to inform you, Lieutenant Simmons, about every development.” This time Gabrielle didn’t hold back, letting her words carry bite with them. “And those back aboard Atlantis are more than capable of looking into the issue right now.”

W’a’le’ki stepped in, attempting to throw oil on troubled waters, or at least on one part. “Besides, you’d not have found this warning otherwise, right?” she asked Simmons.

“Oh, I’d have found it eventually,” he answered dismissively. “After figuring out what is going on with subspace. Seeing as I am the foremost astrophysics expert, I should return to the ship and get started on this immediately.”

“Excuse me?” Gabrielle shot at Simmons.

“What, I shouldn’t head back to the ship?” Simmons hadn’t even considered he wasn’t the expert at something amongst the crew, so a challenge to that statement wasn’t even worth entertaining.

“Expert?” Gabrielle asked as clarification. He’d gotten under her skin and with that one-word question he smirked, knowing what he’d finally done and achieved.

“Yes. Foremost expert even.”

Dimitry Malenkov chortled at that statement, drawing Simmons’ ire. “Oh, I’ll be telling Starkiller about this,” he said. “Krek is going to have a thing or two to say about this.” Malenkov it turned out held little fear for whatever Simmons might try or do to him.

“Fine,” Gabrielle cut in just as Simmons was opening his mouth to say something. “Go back to the ship.”

That plan was ruined immediately when Simmons went to tap his commbadge and the small device blurted at him angrily. And again and again as he repeated the action, trying to hail the ship hanging only a scant few hundred kilometres above their heads. “Great, guess we’re walking to the runabout then,” Simmons stated, before turning and marching off without another word.

“You know commander,” Dimitry said, quietly as he and W’a’le’ki closed ranks around her and all of them watched Simmons march off, a security officer from Ch’tkk’va’s team falling in with him. “If we hurry, we could just leave him here on the ring. I’m sure no one would mind.”

“Until the locals come visiting and Simmons starts an intergalactic war with people who make Dyson rings,” Gabrielle countered. “Thanks you two for cutting in when you did.”

“No problem, Commander,” W’a said. “But I plan on being on the other side of the ship when Dimitry here tells Krek that Simmons thinks he’s the foremost expert.”

“I think we all plan on that,” Gabrielle answered, Dimitry shrugging.

“I am planning on selling tickets,” Dimitry said. “But perhaps we should get to the runabout and see what is going on with comms, yes?”

“Engineering to the Bridge” was rarely the start of a conversation that had happy outcomes. “We’ve got an additional problem down here.”

Lieutenant Merktin, the resident Tellarite in Engineering and simply one of the best engineers in Starfleet, in the estimation of Atlantis’ command staff, had the ability to make minor issues sound dire and dire issues sound minor. Probably because she displayed her irritation more with minor issues, letting her frustrations be evident.

This was, from her tone, the latter however – something dire.

“What is it Merktin?” Adelinde Gantzmann asked, having opted not to sit, but stand smack in the middle of the bridge, hands clasped behind her back.

“A dozen alarms just fired up down here informing me that it’s rather ill-advised to attempt to form a warp bubble at the moment.” Merktin managed to maintain that tone from earlier, making the failure of the ship’s warp drive into a mere inconvenience. “The subspace field from the driver coils for the impulse drives appears to be unaffected.”

“Very well, Merktin. See what you can do and keep me appraised if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

As the comm line to Engineering closed, Rrr was already turning in their chair. “First subspace communications, now the warp drive. Something is attacking us, Commander, even if we can’t see it right now.”

“Agreed.” Adelinde stood there, thinking for a few seconds. “Take us to red alert. How far away are the shuttles?”

Rrr tapped a quick series of commands and throughout the ship klaxons blared to life, lights changed and frantic actions would have started across all decks. But the bridge was quiet, the only noticeable change being the lighting conditions. “Gondwana is on it’s way back up, but Lesbos is still on the surface. Lieutenant Maxwell did take his team into a cave. And with comms out, could be taking T’Val a bit more to reach him.”

Adelinde nodded to herself, taking in the information. Then she turned slowly to the science station, seeing a young ensign there once more. Not Ensign Trel, who’d been pulling numerous shifts lately, but Ensign Goresh Krek, better known amongst some of the crew as Starkiller for their rather innovative idea nearly two years ago and a starship ago to make a Borg sphere disappear.

“Ensign Krek, is there anything you can tell me about whatever is affecting subspace around us?” she asked, which didn’t distract the ensign from whatever they were doing, but certainly seemed to annoy them with the interruption.

“I’m working on that,” they answered, focused on their displays, eyes darting from one screen to the next. “But honestly, the two best people for this type of work aren’t here right now.”

“I am aware of that, Ensign,” Adelinde said, restraining herself from sighing. “While we wait, perhaps a hypothesis?”

That stopped Krek, sat back in their chair, then turned to face Adelinde, eyes squinting. She was never sure if Krek’s squint was because the young Tellarite was perpetually annoyed with the entire universe for existing in the first place, or if Krek was just the stereotypical Tellarite. Krek’s displays and attitude were more acceptable than say Simmons, because Simmons managed to convey a personal element, whereas Krek was just annoyed with everything.

They stared at Adelinde for a few seconds, sighed, then rocked their head side to side for a moment. “It’s the butterflies,” they finally said. “We can’t see them on modern sensors. We lost subspace radios not too long ago and they’re still closing on us, which has caused us to lose warp drive.”

“Cosmozoans have had interesting effects on starships before,” Rrr added. “Krek could be on to something.”

“Or I’m drawing a bad conclusion based on poor science,” Krek chimed in, dismissing their own argument with their statement and a wave of their hand as they turned back to their sensor readings. “Also, it’s not sixty-seven of the things closing on us, more like six hundred and seventy.”

It was only a few minutes later and a repeat of all their findings to bring Camargo up to date when she had finally made it to the bridge after Gondwana had landed. Lesbos still hadn’t left the surface of the ring and with communications down, there wasn’t much they could do about it.

“Butterflies have crippled the ship just by existing?” Camargo asked, incredulous at the circumstances.

“Space butterflies, if that makes it any better,” Rrr answered, not even flinching when both Adelinde and Camargo turned on them. “Obviously it doesn’t.”

“Can’t call Lesbos, so don’t know what the holdup is. Stick around and we could lose the impulse drives potentially. Leave and we could be stranding half the away team and a shuttle behind.” Camargo rubbed her face with both hands. “Why are the butterflies closing on our position?”

“Don’t know,” Krek answered. “It could be our scans, or subspace transmissions. Or something intrinsically interesting about Atlantis to them.”

“Well, whoever found Friendship 7 and set it up down there was super subtle about linking butterflies and death together for some reason. Which is one reason not to abandon the away team.” Gabrielle spoke through her hands, still covering her face as she wrestled with the dilemma she’d stumbled upon.

“If we are disabled by the butterflies though, we’re no good to anyone,” Adelinde said, quietly enough for Gabrielle to hear, but likely no one else.

“I know.” Gabrielle struggled with the decision some more. “I don’t want to abandon the away team, but at the same time, we can’t all become victims of whatever this is.” She dropped her hands, arriving at a decision. “Ensign Krek, find us the smallest concentration of these butterflies. Let’s minimise our exposure and see if we can’t drag them away from the ring with us. Lieutenant Shven, follow Krek’s course and get us out of here, best possible speed.”

The Andorian at the helm nodded in understanding. Krek snorted in the same. Rrr offered her a nod before returning to their station, leaving just Adelinde, who settled into the XO’s seat at her side as she sat herself down. “We’re just trying to lure these things away. Give T’Val and Gérard a chance on the surface.”

“We still need to warn Perseus somehow. They could warp in and get caught just the same as us,” Adelinde said.

“Dammit, Perseus,” Gabrielle cursed. “How do you signal a starship when subspace comms are down?”

“Flares.”

“Flares?”

“We use the same torpedo idea we used at Deneb – essentially signal flares. Power emitters meant to burn themselves out might just be able to punch over whatever these creatures are doing. A couple of flares should get their attention and, with us not communicating, they should, if following regulations, approach with caution.”

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at Adelinde, then chuckled once, twice to herself. “You honestly expect the captain to ‘approach with caution’ if she thinks her ship is in danger?”

“No,” Adlinde answered rather quickly. “But I do believe Captain Garland would.”

“I wonder why Perseus followed us and not Republic though,” Gabrielle said. “Republic is the better equipped ship after all.”

“We can ask the captain that later,” Adelinde answered. “I’ll go and supervise getting a few signal flares prepared.” No ‘shall I?’ at the end, just a statement of intent. A good officer anticipating an order and going about it before being asked.

“Thanks Commander,” Gabrielle said, acknowledging Adelinde. “Let’s just hope these things can be seen.”

“Commander, you might want to see this.” Coming from tactical, perched above and behind the command seats on Perseus, a statement like that was usually the start of something.

Commander Jasper Riggs was quick to respond to the tactical officer’s request, having been in the rear of the bridge for sometime now, hovering over the shoulders of the young officers at their stations. The man, roughly the same age as Rachel and Tivka, had about as much experience as all the officers around him combined. Which said a lot about the state of the fleet these days.

“Huh,” was Riggs’ response, which graduated to a full “What?” when the console bleeped once more at something the ship’s sensors didn’t like. “Helm, slow us to warp six.”

The change in pitch throughout the ship as the engines slowed was all the summons required to bring forth the ship’s mistress and the squadron commander following behind mere moments later. “What’s up Jasper?” Rachel asked.

“We still can’t raise Atlantis on comms and something ahead is causing merry hell with our sensors as well.” Facts they were already aware of, but the hope had been that continuing to close with Atlantis would have resolved by now. “But someone just fired off…something.”

“Define something,” Tikva ordered.

“It looks like a subspace transmitter set to full power and just broadcasting white noise on as many channels as possible. Kind of hard to miss, but doesn’t really convey much.”

“Hard to miss?” Tikva asked, an internal question that escaped as she looked to the floor in thought. “Signal flare,” she muttered.

“Signal flare?” Rachel repeated. “Wait, like you used at Deneb to get the Dominion’s attention. And everyone else, mind you.”

“The same,” Tikva answered. “Got a fix on those coordinates?” she asked of Riggs, who turned to the lieutenant beside him, who nodded nervously a moment later. “Good.”

“Oh no, not good.” Rachel stepped in front of Tikva. “Inability to establish communications, compromised sensors and now a signal flare. Something is wrong over there.”

“All the more reason to proceed at best possible speed.”

“All the more reason to take things slowly and figure out what is going on,” Rachel countered. “My ship as well, Fleet Captain.”

“I could…” Tikva didn’t finish the statement, trailing off before nodding in agreement with her friend. Instead, she asked, “And if our roles were reversed?”

“I’d be demanding we charge in and you’d be egging me on,” Rachel admitted with a smirk. “But we’re not. I’ve got to think about this ship and crew. And probably our guest still sitting on the hull too.” The Grok’ti had spread itself along the spine of Perseus, blocking the two smaller shuttle bays and still obscuring the stardrive’s impulse engine. And still the only communication with them had just been their name and a general sense of urgency from the few telepaths and empaths aboard Perseus.

“We could get back up to speed and fire off a probe before slowing back down again,” Riggs suggested. “We’re forty minutes out at best speed. The sustainer on the probe should see it through. It’d let us get a better read on what’s going on.”

“Assuming the probe doesn’t fall afoul of whatever has Atlantis.” Tikva sighed as soon as she finished speaking. “Which is even more reason to be careful. Dammit. Good call Riggs,” she said to Rachel’s XO.

“Oh not again,” came the refrain from Ops and all eyes turned to the ensign manning the station. “Junior is moving along the hull again, big time.”

“Guess the Grok’ti don’t like going slow,” Tikva joked with a snort.

“So friends of yours, then?” Rachel asked, stepping up behind her officer and looking over their shoulder. “Well, whoever had cosmozoan, I think, wins,” she reported. “They’ve flattened themselves out and covered nearly a third of the saucer.”

“But moving forward, ma’am,” the ops officer reported. “Kinda like they want to be at the front of the ship.”

“Junior wants to be our hood ornament, they can,” Riggs chimed in. “Tenacious little bugger holding on at warp speed.”

“It’s inside the warp bubble,” Tivka stated. “As long as it stays within fifteen meters of the hull, it shouldn’t have any problems.”

“Well, we can’t really do much to dislodge them unless we want to crack out the phasers and currently it’s not doing us any harm. It’s just hitching a ride with us.” Rachel stood up and turned to face Riggs. “Get a probe ready. Helm, back up to speed for a moment and let’s get this probe launched.”

“Perseus appears to have slowed down,” Rrr announced.

“Good, they got the message,” Gabrielle responded. “How are we looking?”

“Maintaining full impulse away from the ring, ma’am,” Lieutenant Tabaaha answered. “Still a negative on the warp drive at the moment.”

“And we’re closing on some of the butterflies,” Rrr added. “The rest, well, we’re observing at light speed, so hard to say. Some of them appear to be vectoring towards us.”

“What speed are they doing?” Gabrielle asked.

“For space-based lifeforms they’re fast. Some of them appear to be keeping us with us.” Rrr’s answer wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear.

“So we can’t outrun them without the warp drive.” And if they got too close it was likely they’d impact the ship’s impulse engines as well, rendering Atlantis the next best thing to motionless. “Right, we stay this course then.”

“Commander, we may need to consider a more forceful response to these creatures.” Gantzmann’s statement was just giving voice to an idea that no doubt had been sitting in more than a few minds around the bridge by now. And she was more than in the right to state it. It was her duty after all.

“Opening fire on creatures we can’t communicate with, who might just be following natural drives, is a big step.” Gabrielle’s counter felt rote, even to herself. Preservation of life and all. But she was in the big seat now, the ship was hers to protect. “Let’s try a display, shall we? A spread of torpedoes in front towards the nearest cluster. See if we can’t scare them away.”

“Something is definitely weird in front of us and around Atlantis,” Riggs reported a few minutes later. “Like someone is stirring up subspace. Sensors are barely picking up Atlantis and Sciences report that it’s likely enough turbulence to prevent a stable warp field from being formed.”

“I don’t like that at all,” Tikva muttered.

“Neither,” Rachel agreed.

“But,” Riggs continued from the rear of the bridge, “Atlantis is moving and the field effect is following them. Just at the same speed. And it’s shrinking too.”

“How long on the probe?” Rachel asked.

“Another twenty minutes till it should arrive at Atlantis’ location, but I doubt it’ll make it there,” Riggs answered. “But hopefully it’ll give us a look at whatever is after them.”

Just then Tikva’s stomach grumbled, as did the Betazoid’s sitting at Operations. It wasn’t coincidence, as Tikva looked at Rachel. “The Grok’ti. They’re…hungry?”

“Hungry and urgent,” the young man at the front of the bridge expanded. “Kind of like…”

“A hunter facing down a prey,” Tikva finished. “Something is out there that the Grok’ti can sense, and it’s eager to chase it down.”

“Oh…good…”

“The torpedoes don’t seem to have conveyed the message well enough,” Gantzmann reported. “The creatures in front of us are continuing to close.”

“And the ones behind us are still there,” Rrr added. “Sensors are getting more and degraded though as they start to bunch up. I’m having difficulty making out Perseus on sensors, but looks like they’ve accelerated again.”

Gabrielle slumped in the command chair, thinking through the situation before her. They still couldn’t figure out why these creatures were attracted to Atlantis or how to communicate with them. They couldn’t even see them on sensors, but then again, these beings seemed to disturb subspace just by existing, which explained the sensor thing at least. They still needed to find a way to outrun these things and circle back for the shuttle they left behind before leaving the system, hopefully back to the Underspace corridor and find a way to force it open.

“What course is Perseus taking?” she finally asked, needing to fill the space more than anything.

“It would seem,” Rrr started, dragging for a moment to check readings, double check them as well, “they’re headed for the ring directly. Wow. I didn’t know Galaxy-class ships went that fast.”

“Oh?” Gabrielle asked.

“They’re pushing their engines rather ruinously, I think. Honestly, can’t be certain.”

The snort came from behind Gabrielle. “I think the likelihood of the captain being aboard Perseus then is rather high,” Gantzmann explained. “Who else would convince Captain Garland to push her starship to such extremes?”

“I…wouldn’t know,” Gabrielle said. “I’ve only ever met her that one time.” Gabrielle returned her attention to the viewscreen, with its speckling of stars and the flicking of coloured lights that signalled the butterflies ahead of them. “What options do we –“

“Raise the shields!” came a shouted order as the turbolift hissed open and out spilled Maxwell Simmons, followed more sedately by Goresh Krek. “We need to change the modulation as well!”

Gabrielle shot to her feet, turning around and was half ready to try and smite Simmons, the man barging onto the bridge was a clear provocation to her. But then she saw the look on his face, which wasn’t some smug ‘taking command’ look, but more of a ‘startingly discovery that has me very concerned.’ “Lieutenant Simmons!” she shouted. “Explain yourself.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he spat at her, turning to Gantzmann and shoving a padd in her direction. “Change the shield modulations, Commander, or we’re all dead.”

Gantzmann merely took the padd from Simmons, turned it face down and carefully set it down on the tactical arch, her hand holding it flat on the console. “Perhaps, Lieutenant, you had best do as the commander of this ship has ordered and explain yourself.” It wasn’t a request Gantzmann made, but something that verged on a threat, menace edging in on her typically professional tone.

“Oh, give me a break,” Simmons said exasperatedly. “We all know who is really in charge around here!”

“Lieutenant Commander Camargo,” Gantzmann answered, emphasising the word commander in Gabrielle’s rank. “Second Officer of this ship and your department head as well. Remember that.”

Simmons’ eye roll was one for the ages, the sigh that followed similarly. But with no one suddenly jumping to the task he had hurriedly blurted out upon arriving on the bridge, he finally conceded. “We’re wasting time,” he tried one last time. “Fine. Fine! The creatures chasing us are what’s causing the subspace disturbances.”

“We figured that much out,” Gabrielle retorted.

“Well congratulations,” Simmons replied. “But did you figure out that the creatures are also projecting a neurolytic field? Oh, no? You didn’t? Did you also figure out how to block that majority of its effect?”

“Neither did you.” Goresh Krek’s sudden entry into the conversation was perfectly timed. It brought a smile to Gabrielle’s face as Simmons turned on the Tellarite, fury bubbling under his skin. “I figured out the field. Gerald figured out the shield harmonics.” Krek stepped forward to the arch, ignoring Simmons, and addressed Gabrielle directly. “He’s not wrong about needing to do the shield harmonics soon though, Commander.”

Gabrielle nodded, then nodded once to Gantzmann, who responded in kind and started on the change. “Thank you, Ensign,” she finally said to Krek. “Simmons, get off my bridge.”

“It’s not your bri-” Simmons’ protest was cut short as he suddenly slumped forward over the arch, unconscious, with Gantzmann’s hand at the base of his neck – a nerve pinch perfectly executed.

“You can do that?” Gabrielle asked in awe.

“I’ll explain later,” Gantzmann replied, returning to work as Simmons slowly slid backwards before crumpling to the floor at Krek’s feet, who merely watched it happen, stepping back to keep Simmons from falling on their boots. “But his screeching was getting disruptive.”

“I should add,” Krek said, stepping around Simmons, “that the shield modifications aren’t perfect. It’ll delay the effect, not stop it.”

“What type of effect are we looking at with this field and how long have we got?” Gabrielle asked.

“Reduced cognitive capability leading to eventual incapacitation, we think,” Krek admitted. “And with the shield modifications, seventy-two hours or so. Better than the fifteen minutes we predicted for when those things get closer.”

“That’s an insidious hunting method,” Rrr said. “Stop the prey from fleeing, or communicating, then thinking. Then do what you want with them.”

“That’s it, we’re done being prey.”

“New contact, bearing dead ahead,” the ops officer announced. “Starfleet shuttle just launched from the ring surface. Transponder lists it as the Lesbos.”

“Seriously, Bug?” Rachel muttered to her side. “Hail them,” she then directed to her officer.

Soon enough the viewscreen was replaced with the close in confines of a shuttle’s cockpit, Lieutenants T’Val and Gérard Maxwell up front, the rest crammed into the space behind them and more than a few looking a little breathless. “Captain!” Maxwell half-shouted. “Where’s Atlantis?”

“Fleeing at full impulse, being chased by something,” Tikva answered. “What is going on here?”

“Being chased?” Maxwell asked, then realisation hit. “The butterflies! Captain, there’s a cosmozoan species here in the system. We managed to learn they’re responsible for the death of all sentient life on the ring. They’re attracted to thought. The ring builders came up with a weapon against the butterflies, but we couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“What type of defence?” Rachel asked, rising to her feet.

“We didn’t get that far before T’Val ordered us out of the caves we were in.” Maxwell waved off any query about that. “We just got a name – Grok’ti.”

“Repeat that Lieutenant,” Rachel ordered.

“Grok’ti ma’am,” he dutifully responded. “No clues as to what it is, just a name.”

“Did you learn at least how effective it was?” Rachel continued.

“Apparently exceedingly well. But not well enough to prevent the ring builders from going extinct.”

“Captain, Fleet Captain, should I bring the Lesbos to the Perseus?” T’Val asked.

“No,” Rachel answered immediately. “Head for the anomaly that brought us here, best speed. We’ll catch you up when we can. We have to deliver a weapon, it would seem.”

“Understood,” T’Val answered, then killed the comm channel with a confused Gérard Maxwell still on screen.

“Now, can we go recklessly into the fray?” Tikva asked, offering her most charming smile.

“Twice. Twice now I’ve come to the rescue of your ship.” Rachel stepped up to her helm officer, resting a hand on their shoulder. “Set course for the Atlantis, best speed. Red alert folks!”

“Looks like Atlantis is slowing down, but that’s about all I can tell.”

“Coming out of warp now.”

“Visual on the…butterflies.”

The bridge of Perseus was dim now, red light strobing as the Galaxy-class starship raced to the rescue of her compatriot. The viewscreen flicking to life washed those seated at their stations in a myriad of vibrant colours as hundreds of pearlescent creatures were drawn for them to gaze upon. An ecstatic cloud of brilliance that was slowly condensing on something that suddenly barked out in a lance of concentrated orange light that pierced right through the wing of one creature, its wing ripping apart in a shower of glitter dust, but barely hampered.

The bauble of flickering blue light that made itself known, obscured some by the butterflies, however wasn’t so easily ignored as the resulting detonation – a controlled violation of the space-time continuum – ripped the injured butterfly to shreds as all those immediately around it.

“Riggs!” Rachel shouted from her seated position. “Lock targets and open fire!”

“I can’t!” came the response. “Sensors aren’t picking anything up.”

“Then pick a direction and start shooting!”

The kaleidoscope of colours washing over the bridge momentarily disappeared as a black shape filled the viewscreen before colour returned. The Grok’ti, this whole time riding on Perseus’ back, launched itself off the ship’s hull, the shields flickering momentarily in protest as something passed through them in the wrong direction. It no longer resembled the roiling, coiling mass it had back in the Thomar Expanse, or the inky oil stain that had spread itself over the hull. Now it evoked primal earthly fears of deep-sea chthonic horrors – inky black tendrils snaking out behind a central mass as it propelled itself forward somehow against the void, racing towards the butterflies like a fox in the henhouse.

“Maybe not in the direction they’re going in,” Tikva added to Rachel’s order.

“Perseus has dropped out of warp. I can’t raise them on comms,” Rrr announced. “I can’t get a line of light for a laser or radio either. These things are everywhere.”

“Tabaaha, bring us around, straight line to the Perseus. We need to get these shield modulations to them.” Gabrielle really had little idea of what she was doing, relying more on being the director of chaos and letting the experts, or their understudy in some cases, interpret her commands and carry them out. “Gantzmann…” She trailed off, still hesitant to give the order to fire despite having already done so.

“Clearing a hole,” came the response from the German woman behind her. It was accompanied by the staccato thumping of the ships forward torpedo launcher, multiple quantum torpedoes launching forth and eviscerating more of the butterflies with casual abandon.

“New contact!” Rrr shouted. “Dead ahead!” Without a word Rrr zoomed the wildly spinning viewscreen to focus on the new entity, a yellow box drawing around it and then expanding to show what looked like the fabric of space itself, or something so black as to be nearly invisible, ripping into two butterfly creatures with inky tentacles.

The illusion of space itself attacking the cosmozoans was dismissed as the tentacles came away coated in the multi-hued, glittery dust. It went from inky black to a nightmarish children’s party in a handful of heartbeats. And just as it finished ripping apart two of the butterflies, the new creature launched itself at the next closest ones, who had immediately started to try to flee.

But fleeing was too late as phaser beams from Atlantis lashed out, ripping into a wing one on creature and right through the centre mass of another. Another torpedo burst ripped into a cluster of the beasts, their injuries enough to convince them that Atlantis wasn’t easy prey.

“What the hell is going on?” Gabrielle asked.

“Don’t know,” Rrr answered. “But I like this squid thing.” A chirp from their console and Rrr’s closed fist bashed the edge of the console in triumph. The slight cracking sound could be explained later. “I can see Perseus. Transmitting the shield modulation settings to them.”

A moment later, another chirp, and Rrr turned to face Gabrielle. “Fleet Captain Theodoras advises the creatures are breaking. We’re to regroup and, as soon as we can, go to warp. The Grok’ti will deal with the butterflies.”

“The captain is on Perseus? And what is a Grok’ti?” Gabrielle asked. “You know what? I don’t think I care right now. Helm, get us out of here. Gantzmann, keep these things off our back.”

“No pursuit,” Riggs declared as both Perseus and Atlantis continued to speed away from the mauling at full impulse. “At least I think no pursuit.”

“Sensors are starting to clear,” the Operations officer declared. “And so is my head.”

“And my stomach,” Tikva added. “I think we best leave quickly and just let the Grok’ti do what it seems to be made to do.”

“No argument here,” Rachel replied. “Helm, set a course for the anomaly and get us to warp as soon as you can.”

“Aye ma’am.”

A series of alerts, a report of an incoming hail and the bridge of the starship Atlantis was soon up on the viewscreen. Gabrille Camargo launched herself to her feet with a smile on her face that threatened to blind everyone. “Captain Garland, am I ever glad to see Perseus.”

“Saving the day, which for Galaxy-class ships is, I believe, a Tuesday,” Rachel responded. “Pleasure is all mine, Commander.”

“Fleet Captain, kept your ship and crew safe as you told me to,” Gabrielle reported.

“If a little misplaced Gabs,” Tikva answered. “How is my ship?”

“Few new scratches here and there. We’re ship shape and fully operational, but Engineering already asked for a few days at DS47 for some finishing cosmetic work.”

“It’ll have to wait. We need to get back asap.”

Gabrielle hummed, lips pursing to one side in thought. “We lost track of the aperture when we arrived. I don’t think it opens from this side, unfortunately.”

“Oh, it’ll open.” Rachel Garland stepped forward, smiling confidently. “Few of my people have a clever idea, and it requires exactly two starships to pull off.”

“Two?” Tikva asked. “Where are we ever going to find two starships?”

“Don’t know,” Rachel said. “Commander Camargo, got any ideas?”

“One or two,” the science officer answered. “One or two.”

“Dismissed, Mr Simmons.”

Those three words were the finale on a very difficult meeting between one Lieutenant Maxwell Simmons and a very unimpressed Fleet Captain Tikva Theodoras. Though calling it a meeting was being generous.

It had been a dressing down of the man, kicking off just after he had entered the ready room, smug and full of himself. The lack of any chairs opposite Tikva’s desk hadn’t dissuaded him, or given him any sort of warning. He’d walked in at her summons, set a padd on her desk, then stood there, hands clasped behind his back.

She hated disciplinary meetings. It meant somewhere along the line she’d failed to nip a situation before it came to a head. Failed to take the temperature of the crew, failed to have done something proactively.

But with this Atlantis being twice the crew of the old, and far larger than any other command she’d ever had, she was bound to eventually loose that hands on approach. She had to rely on her senior officers.

Not that she was blaming Gabrielle for Simmons’ behaviour. She’d promoted the younger woman exactly in an effort to try and settle any departmental issues and establish a firm hierarchy there.

She had merely sat there, glaring at Simmons for a solid minute, the man slowly withering from the heights of confidence to confusion at her lack of any sort of response. Taking up the padd and reading what Simmons had written on it had killed any attempt at taking it easy on him. It hadn’t been a letter to justify himself, or apologise, or provide a counter-narrative. He had instead opted to deliver a notice of intent to press charges for assault against Lieutenant Commander Adelinde Gantzmann.

And more damningly, a letter signed by just himself that Lieutenant Commander Gabrielle Camargo had lost the confidence of the Science department.

The entire meeting from that point had taken only seven minutes, according to the clock, but had felt much longer from her perspective, and likely longer from Simmons’. She hadn’t let him get a word in edge-wise as she ripped into his behaviour, his treatment of his coworkers, his disrespect for the chain of command.

And then, when she’d said her piece, all without ever getting out of her chair, she dismissed him, opting to brood in silence once he left.

Yes, his charges would be considered, as any such allegation would and should, but she didn’t fancy his chances once any investigation started. Atlantis’ was ill-equipped to handle such a matter internally, since all who could were too close to Lin to handle such without accusations of bias. And she didn’t want to reach out to the other ships in her squadron to sort this out, not this early in their working careers.

So Atlantis, and her squadron mates, were all heading back to Deep Space 47, where the JAG were already waiting.

“Hot chocolate, ma’am,” Stirling Fightmaster declared as he set a cup down on her desk in front of her, breaking the brooding moment. “Chocolate chip or shortbread biscuits?”

“Didn’t Doctor Terax eliminate one of those from my so-called diet after my last physical?” she asked, unable to stop herself from smiling at the offer and Stirling’s presence. The boy knew just when to interrupt, and how to break her out of whatever mental rut she’d worked herself into.

“Yes, he did,” Stirling answered without elaborating as to which. “But I should remind you, ma’am, I don’t work for Doctor Terax.”

“Good answer.” She chuckled, lifting the cup and just taking in the rich aroma. “Chocolate chip. And bring the chairs back in, then fetch Gabs, would you?”

“Aye ma’am.”

A quick bit of quiet pottering about and her office was back to normal. Even the collection of padds that had been on her desk for days, removed for her meeting with Simmons, were back and consuming more real estate than she liked, even when stacked nicely.

And then Gabrielle Camargo was before her. Worry lined the woman’s face. Gabrielle was on bridge duty when Simmons had passed through, after all. And it had been nearly five minutes in total since he’d left before her summons.

But this time things were different, at least from Tikva’s own perspective. And she started it off immediately by indicating a seat. “Gabs, please, sit. Can Stirling get you anything?”

“Cup of tea would be great,” Gabrielle answered, Stirling enquiring about specifics before retreating.

“Captain, about Simmons,” Gabrielle started, then sputtered to a stop by herself.

“Dealt with, at least for now,” Tikva said, trying for reassuring. “I’ve relieved him from duty until we get back to DS47 and charges he has brought up are dealt with by the JAG.”

“Charges ma’am?”

“Not against you, but against Gantzmann.” She shook her head. “Lin told me about the nerve pinch on the bridge when Simmons started getting worked up. Honestly, I’m pissed I didn’t get to see it myself.” That admission brought a vague smile to Gabrielle’s face for a moment, which she tried dutifully to wipe away when Stirling returned with her tea before excusing himself and leaving.

 “I didn’t know she could do that,” Gabrielle admitted.

“Neither. And she won’t tell me where she learned to do it either. But aside from that, I really wanted to talk to you about your rather interesting time in charge during this whole commotion.” She set her cup down and could feel Gabrielle’s emotions ratchet up again, like she was expecting some sort of blow. And Tikva couldn’t help herself as she inserted a dramatic pause.

You are being mean. Stop it.

Oh, come on, this isn’t being mean. It’s a gentle tease, if anything.

Gabs is probably expecting us to remove her from Second Officer.

Torture the underlings! Make them suffer!

Okay, and with that, we’re done.

Awww…

“I’m really impressed.”

With just those three words, she broke Gabrielle’s brain. The young woman just stopped, the subversion of expectations being beyond what she was internally prepared for.

“Gérard only had nice things to say. Lin too. Everyone around you that I’ve had a chance to speak to so far, in fact. And frankly, just further reinforces why I selected you for my crew in the first place, promoted you when I did and asked you to be my second officer.” She’d given Gabrielle time to rally, and the praise was starting to be ingested and processed. So she continued. “It’s why I want you to consider taking a look at command courses. And why I’m making your assignment as second officer permanent as of right now.”

“Ma’am, I…thank you.” Gabrielle set her teacup down and Tikva could see her hand a little jittery as she set it down in her lap. “I’m honestly not sure if command is for me though.”

“Good answer,” Tikva said quickly, interrupting Gabrielle’s train of thought. “No, seriously, it’s a good answer. Questioning yourself is important. But right now, I’m not taking a no on the second officer thing. I barely asked you to take on the role before you got whisked off on an intergalactic adventure. And then Simmons decided he’d finally blow up. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a worst first week on that job outside of Captain Janeway being banished to the Delta Quadrant.”

“Thank the Great Bird I don’t have to do something like that,” Gabrielle muttered before blushing, speaking without intending to.

“Oh, I don’t know Gabs, I think you’d have rocked it. After firing Simmons out of a torpedo tube.”

Now that got a laugh out of Gabrielle, just like it was intended to.

“We’ve got a few days before DS47. And I’m intending for all of us to spend at least a week there. Some R&R, some inter-ship activities to build connections. Get both Atlantis and Perseus fixed up after our little shenanigans through Underspace. Take the time to think about it and you can tell me what you think afterwards.”

Gabrielle nodded, eyes shifting side to side in thought. Tikva could just about hear the cogs churning away before they slowed. “I think I need to talk to a few folks first.”

“Naturally,” she replied, then went for her hot chocolate once more. “Now, the dire matter of your career sorted for now, praise given where it’s due, it’s time we turned to other important matter.” And again she could sense apprehension from Gabrielle, before evaporating as she smiled over the lip of her cup. “Promotions recommendations within your department.”

“Oh,” Gabrielle started, then copied her by grabbing her tea to give her a moment to think. “Well, I’ve got a few ideas…”