At just before four in the morning, a low but incessant beeping filled the darkened bedroom. The tone was not in itself an urgent one, but the fact that it continued unabated until answered implied its importance. The prone figure on the bed gave a long, low, growl of resignation.

“What is it?” The deep voice was tinged with the implied threat that by waking him in the middle of the night, this had better be something pretty damned important.

“Sir, we’ve had a report that the Paulson Nebula storm has enveloped one of our colony worlds. Communications have been lost. USS Ramses was ordered to investigate but we’ve… well, we’ve lost communication with Ramses as well.”

Fleet Captain Tom Church, Fourth Fleet Deputy Director of Intelligence sat upright in the darkness, considering the information he had just heard. They’d been aware of the storm for just over a week, but the risk assessments had all predicted that it would pass harmlessly through the sector without making contact with any planetary bodies. If the storm had come into contact with one of their colony worlds, then the bloody thing had changed course.

He remembered the initial briefing – it was an ion storm, wide-ranging but highly dispersed. The storm interrupted subspace communications and there had been reports of it causing the warp fields of starships to collapse – he recalled that two civilian freighters had been stranded for a number of days until the storm had passed and they had finally been able to reinitialise their warp cores and continue on their way.

“Alright,” Church spoke softly now. “I’m coming up.”

—————–

“FNN already has it,” reported Commander Stannus as Church entered the bustling briefing room, several minutes later. The Tellarite intelligence officer handed over a padd which showed the Federation News Network’s coverage of what they were already calling the ‘Century Storm’. The red ticker-tape with bold white text scrolled across the bottom of the screen detailing how it had subsumed the Federation colony of Coronal and all communication with the colonists had been lost.

“How the hell?…” Church began angrily.

“We’re working on it,” Stannus replied. “Walsh?”

“Yes sir.” A young lieutenant nervously pushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear as she began to address Church. “Sir, we received this partial communication from Ramses a few minutes ago.”

The holographic image of the head and shoulders of Ramses captain appeared above the centre of the conference table, the man’s antennae twitching as he spoke.

“…science officer has determined that the proximity of the ion storm has caused particles of the nebula… bond with the planetary atmosphere which in turn has started to become toxic… matter of days before the entire planetary atmosphere… unbreathable. Ramses will evacuate as many colonists as we are physically able, but… collapsed our warp field… must send additional support… We need more ships to evacuate the planet or thousands will die…”

The holographic image vanished.

“That’s all we got sir,” Lieutenant Walsh said quietly.

“What’s the population of Coronal?” Church demanded.

“Thirty-seven thousand,” Stannus replied.

Church raised his eyebrows. “Then we’d better start working. Collate all the information we have on Coronal, the Paulson Nebula, Ramses, our closest fleet assets and where we think this ‘Century Storm’ might go next. I want an initial briefing ready to go in thirty minutes.”

Staff members nodded and set about their tasks. Church glanced at his Tellarite chief of staff. “And you’d better wake Admiral Beckett.”

Stannus’ eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Sir?…”

Church sighed. “Alright. I’ll do it…”

‘We apologise for the delay, Captain Garza -’

Miguel Garza’s jaw tightened as the comms officer’s voice pierced the hours-long wait in his cockpit. ‘I don’t want an apology, Ensign. I want permission to depart.’

‘And as I’ve explained, I don’t have authority to grant that. But I’m patching you through to my superior now.’ The communications officer didn’t sound particularly apologetic, and before Garza could press his complaint he heard the faint hiss of being put on hold.

‘Great,’ he mumbled, kicking back in the pilot’s chair again. ‘Another pencil-pusher.’

His freighter, the Pygmalion, had been due to leave Starbase Bravo three hours ago, only for departure permission to be unceremoniously revoked with no explanation. That time had been spent badgering docking staff and trying to keep his rowdy crew, eager to be underway, in check. With the Pygmalion nestled at one of the external docking ports, Garza could peer through his cockpit canopy and see the many ships buzzing about the behemoth of a starbase. But he’d done this run before, and even without his own predicament, he knew something was wrong. Starfleet ships were moving, civilian auxiliary craft were moving, but too many big vessels like his were stuck.

His commline crackled with a new voice. ‘Mr Garza? Your patience is noted, however -’

‘My patience?’ Frustration bubbled in his chest. ‘Look, lady, all my paperwork is in order, so I don’t know what you’re playing at. I don’t need platitudes, I need someone with actual authority to release these docking clamps!’

There was a long silence. Then his communications display flickered as the officer on the other end patched through a video link, and Garza came face-to-face with a woman in the uniform of a Starfleet captain.

‘My name is Captain Styre,’ came the cool, collected voice, Betazoid-black eyes locking on him. ‘Chief of Staff to the Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence. I’m aware your heading was Alpha Centauri. You should be receiving orders now directing your ship and crew instead to join the next evacuation fleet headed into the Paulson Nebula.’

‘Orders?’ Garza echoed, wrong-footed by the sudden escalation of authority, indignant enough at the prospect. Before he could press this point, the next screen lit up with the inbound file, and his eyes skimmed the contents. ‘Starfleet’s grown awfully fond of invoking its authority over the Merchant Marine, huh.’

Styre’s flat expression didn’t change. ‘The Century Storm is a threat to all people living in the Paulson Nebula. Colonies require evacuation, and which means marshalling all available ships. Your vessel has an emergency capacity of three thousand. That’s three thousand lives you’ll be saving.’

‘And three months ago,’ Garza said through gritted teeth, ‘you all had me deviating four light-years from my course down near Beta Antares, no explanation given, no apology given. Not just me – I’ve spoken to dozens of captains who had their whole flight routes upended by Starfleet. How much do you expect you can push us around or press-gang us at the slightest convenience?’

‘Legally? With hundreds of thousands of lives on the line? With you and your ship licensed as you are? Endlessly, Mr Garza.’ Captain Styre glanced at something off-screen. It did not seem to alter her demeanour. ‘You have your orders. They will tell you where to report. Follow the instructions of your group leader, enter the Paulson Nebula as directed, and worry more about the lives of your fellow citizens than your next party on Alpha Centauri.’

‘My crew have lives. They have family commitments, personal freedoms -’

‘And in times of crisis, all must serve, Mr Garza. Starbase Bravo out.’

The screen went blank, leaving Garza with only blackness to glare at. On the other side of the cockpit, a panel chirruped in confirmation of the station’s systems giving him authorisation to depart and releasing the docking clamps.

He turned back to the documentation he’d received, as if reading it more would change the simple truth that Starfleet had him and his crew over a barrel. With a sigh, Garza flicked the comm systems to open up a ship-wide channel.

‘All hands, this is the captain. The good news is that we’re getting underway. The bad news is there’s been a change of plans…’

—————

If dealing with a freighter captain was a source of consternation to Captain Velora Styre, she did not let it show as she left her office. Talking to Garza directly was technically beneath her, but he was a well-known figure among the spacers of the Mellstoxx Sector. He would talk to other captains, and thus the slightest pressure from her office would ripple outwards.

This was not a time for half-measures or personal complaints.

Styre had only been in her position a matter of weeks, installed once Admiral Beckett had successfully shunted Captain Reyes to the command structure of Starbase Bravo itself. Already she had implemented changes, getting more staff in the bullpen of the main office, keeping them close and collected so she could keep an eye on them. It had not been well-received, but Reyes had always preferred to act as a buffer between the staff and the admiral. She preferred to act as an extension of his will.

She found him now in his office, the window dimmed to block the view of Bravo’s arboretum, the low lighting rippling off the old-fashioned wooden desk and bookshelves. He did not dignify her with a greeting, merely lifted his head from his console screen and arched an eyebrow.

‘The first evacuation convoy will be underway within the hour,’ Styre reported crisply. ‘The bellyaching of the local captains has been seen to. SCE are confident in their recommended engine modulations for ships to maintain warp bubbles.’

‘Good.’ With the flick of a finger, Beckett moved the view on his screen to a holographic projection, and the three-dimensional map of the Paulson Nebula burst to life between them. ‘If we can’t find more ships soon, we’ll have to make some hard choices.’

‘That’s inevitable, sir.’ She shrugged. ‘We can’t evacuate everyone in the nebula. We can’t guarantee our ships will maintain warp bubbles in the densest regions, and communications from those sectors remain disrupted. And the unpredictability of the Century Storm means stable regions can become unstable seemingly within hours. We have to focus on those we know we can save.’

‘Mn.’ Admiral Beckett tapped his finger to his chin, staring at the map rather than her. ‘Requisition more teams in auxiliary craft to patrol those areas. By the time they’re ready to leave, we should have the results of field tests with these subspace anomalies. If we’re confident on how to close them, I want runabout teams on rapid response to deal with any which manifest near our evacuation efforts. We cannot remove people from a planet, only to fly them straight into the latest gust of the storm.’

Styre nodded. ‘I’ll inform you the moment we hear from the Odysseus or the Caliburn on their results. Success or failure.’ Starfleet Science seemed confident in their theory that a starship’s main navigational deflector could be modified to emit a dekyon beam that could manipulate and, theoretically, close the subspace rifts whose appearances across the nebula were believed responsible for the Century Storm’s irregular and unpredictable manifestations. But Styre was not one to trust a task so essential as eliminating those rifts to mere theory. It was her job to hold the line against wishful thinking.

Beckett’s expression flickered, and he rose from the desk to turn to the window. The press of a button ended the glass’s dimming, and the early-evening lighting of the arboretum, set to station time, crept into the office as if it did not quite dare venture into such a lair.

‘There had best be success, Captain,’ Admiral Beckett rumbled. ‘Or we’re about to see the first massacre of the century.’

One of the things Vice Admiral Seagraves had learned early on in her tenure as Director of Fourth Fleet Operations is that there was no “normal” when it came to Starfleet, not when the positioning of a hundred or so starships operating out of a dozen or so stations to accomplish two or three hundred missions at a time came down to a game of tri-dimensional chess. More often than not, she found herself not only playing against the crisis du jour but her own complex priorities. Finding the proper starship (in terms of position, capabilities, size, and speed) and the right crew (in terms of experience and specialization) for every mission was a delicate balance of compromise. Maybe a California-class utility cruiser would need to show the flag against a group of Orions testing Starfleet’s patience in the chaos the Century Storm approaching, if there wasn’t a Manticore-class heavy escort to be had, or a Sovereign would have to flex her medical muscles in the absence of a better-equipped Obena or Odyssey, for instance.

The delicate ballet of ships going to and fro across the Federation space was represented by dozens of blue deltas moving ever so slowly (in terms of absolute distance) between the stars on a map in the Operations Center. Out of an abundance of caution, she’d been ordered to decamp to the secure bunker buried beneath Starbase Four’s shore facilities, which was shielded against electromagnetic radiation and all kinds of other exotic dangers like subspace anomalies and temporal rifts. That way, if something were to happen to the orbital facility, at least part of the Fourth Fleet’s command structure would remain intact. The large room was supported by graceful duranium beams, and Starfleet had even fitted it with a holographic ceiling display to simulate the sky above, even though they were nearly a kilometer underground.

So far, ships were getting where they needed to go, and their missions were being accomplished well. Each hour, another dozen reports ended up in Seagraves’s inbox, filtered down from the hundreds that ended up in Captain Bancroft’s, and while there were challenges, the Fourth Fleet was acquitting itself well. She didn’t envy the task that was mounting for the Department of Temporal Investigations to clean up once the storm had passed, but that was thankfully beyond the scope of her role. All in all, the Stormbreaker Campaign was proceeding to plan, and they didn’t even have to violate interstellar law to accomplish that mission! She wasn’t fully satisfied sending a few of their smaller ships on missions a little too big for their capabilities, but even their Ravens were acquitting themselves exceptionally well.

Seagraves was sitting on a rather luxe couch in her temporary office; all of the senior flag officers had accommodations in the bunker because if the Borg or Voth showed up in orbit, they deserved to at least have something leather to sit on while awaiting destruction, right? She hated reading off of holos, so one of the few affectations she would admit to was a preference for reading paper reports. As luck would have it, though, the hologrid could accomplish exactly that function without sacrificing confidentiality or classification levels by allowing her to mark up the latest ship movement proposals with her red pen on simulated paper, all of which ended up in the computer automatically.

The glasses she wore were less of an affectation, though, and more an artifact of stubbornness. She didn’t want to go through yet another round of Retinax, not when she could still mostly see fine, especially with the black-rimmed “cheaters” she’d replicated for herself. Dr. Delacour would find it difficult not to be smug, anyway.

The door chimed, and she didn’t even glance up as Captain Bancroft entered, not waiting for her summons. They had settled into an excellent routine in their nearly two years together, and she would be sad to see him go, even though he’d earned a change of scenery.

“After all of this time, who would have thought that I’d end up in the secret bunker while Admiral Beckett remained free to roam above ground?” Seagraves quipped as she finished the last scribbles and changes on the deployment sheet.

“It’s unclear whether he’s a holographic projection or not at this point,” Bancroft retorted. He accepted the paper document from her, and it disappeared into the ether when he laid it on top of his own PADD, technological advancement indistinguishable from magic. “Admiral Dowd’s office has been having trouble getting through some of the interference still, but I’ll have these sent out right away.”

“There’s one more on the desk,” Seagraves noted, nodding over to a physical PADD that she’d left in the center of the desk. She gestured at the padfolio she was working from to summon another report, pretending to read it as Bancroft grabbed the PADD and started to leave. The captain was nearly out the door before he paused. “Something wrong?”

Bancroft stepped back into the room, letting the door close again. “I… I’m grateful, Admiral. I didn’t realize I was even in contention,” the young man said, trying to contain his glee visibly.

“You have put your time in, Marcus. Between myself, Knox, and Hayden, you’ve been a chief of staff for over three years now. You deserve a command of your own, and the Cerastes needs a captain,” Seagraves replied, standing up from the couch. “I want to make sure you’re taken care of before I retire.”

“Retire?”

“What, haven’t I earned it by now?”

“Of course… I just didn’t see you as the type to slow down, sir,” Bancroft replied.

Seagraves shrugged. “I don’t know if it’ll stick, but I’ve been an officer for 38 years. It’s time for a step back,” she replied, crossing her arms. “Vice Admirals Belvedere and Kominek, along with Rear Admiral Hayden, are all in the running, but at that point, you’ll be on your own bridge and won’t have to deal with whatever in-fighting is left here.”

“The place won’t be the same without you, sir,” Bancroft replied. “I appreciate your faith in me,” he added.

The admiral chuckled. “I don’t do ‘faith,’ Marcus. I do trust, which is quite different. Faith is taken blindly, while trust is earned by proving yourself, which you have done,” she noted. “Once things have calmed down to as close as we can get to ‘normal,’ we’ll get you on that ship.”

Bancroft grinned. “Normal. The 32nd of Never-ary. Got it.”