As Captain Nassar ordered the crew to control as much as the damage as possible, she tried to sound confident. But, truth be told, it came as both a surprise and a relief when the last shuddering lurch catapulted them out of the subspace anomaly and the ship finally stabilised. Well, stabilised to an extent that Saffiya no longer feared their imminent fate was the ship ending up as a few chunks of debris and a faint warp core signature. The calm that followed was almost eerie, but a welcome change from being thrown across the bridge. No one dared to say a word, but glances were exchanged, and Saffiya didn’t have to be a telepath to know that they all thought the same thing. That, hopefully, the worst was over.

The bridge was bathed in the flickering light of damaged consoles, and the acrid smell of burnt circuitry. Saffiya had returned to her center chair, her knuckles white from gripping its edges. She looked at the view screen, where the chaotic swirl of colour had given way to a dark expanse without stars.

“Where are we?”, she asked eventually, a question that was met with silence. Of course Saffyia assumed no one was responding to her simply out of spite, and she couldn’t blame them. Whatever it was they had encountered, her failure to alert the ship of possible danger had made their situation a hundred times worse. “Where are we?”, she asked again, though her voice sounded a little defeated.


“S-… sorry, sir.”, said the young pilot eventually. Saffiya didn’t even know his name. Had she seriously spent hours on the bridge not giving a damn about the man’s name? “It’s just… I don’t know.”

Saffiya sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Why is that?”, she asked as neutrally as possible. There was no point in reacting any other way than to gather as much intel as possible, and right now she needed to know why they couldn’t get a fix on their location. “Is there a problem with the console?” Which wouldn’t surprise her since half of the bridge’s consoles seemed to have sustained some form of damage.

The young pilot’s fingers rushed nervously over his console.  He glanced back at the captain, his expression contorted in a mixture of confusion and frustration.

“It’s not that I can’t read the instruments, sir,” he began, each word chosen very carefully  “It’s just… there’s nothing out there. No recognizable star patterns, no navigational beacons, nothing that corresponds to our star charts.” He paused, taking a deep breath  “It’s as if we’re in a completely uncharted region of space. Without more data, it’s going to be nearly impossible to determine our exact location”

Saffiya nodded slowly, processing the pilot’s report.  “Thank you, Ensign,” she said, her tone steady. “What about long range sensors?”

Ensign Velix – at least she knew *her* name, spoke. “The sensors are picking up some sort of particulate matter, but it’s not anything we’ve encountered before. It’s interfering with our long-range scans.”

“Right. Keep working on it. We need any information you can gather.”

She turned, wanting to speak to, or at least exchange glances with, Hina. Hina, who was really her only confidant on the ship, and who – despite her complete irreverence for a career progression into the command track – was actually making a pretty good First Officer. Then she remembered that she had sent the woman to Engineering, and her heart sank in her chest.

Before, she had old friends and even older colleagues advising her. Now, she was on her own.

Then again, she wasn’t. She had a several  people around her, and a whole lot more on the ship. She didn’t know if that was comforting or terrifying. But she recognised that she needed people around, and decided that her immediate surroundings would have to do.

“I don’t want to send out a distress signal before we have an idea who it will attract.”, she said, deciding to share her thoughts with the crew rather than keeping them to herself. And then… “I am open for other viewpoints.”

Silence.

But not the kind Saffiya had expected. Not the kind that meant that people simply didn’t want to speak to her, or react to her questions. Instead, people shook their heads. “No, I think that’s wise.”, said Velix, and the others nodded in agreement.

“Okay… “, Saffiya nodded. “I have already sent someone to Engineering and I am expecting a preliminary damage report and an update on our propulsion system to come in within the next few minutes. Ensign Velix, I’d like you to get together a science team. You know the department better than I do, and I trust your judgement. Analyse the particulate matter the sensors picked up.”

Velix looked surprised, but nodded. “On it, sir.”

“I will get Lieutenant Silveira to cover for Keller. We need to keep an eye out for any additional …. Whatever that was.”, she mused, finding that sharing her thoughts out loud helped her think. As an engineer, she had often discussed issues with inanimate objects, and this was… well, not the same, but a little similar.

“And…”, she continued hesitantly. “I will address the crew and tell them what happened. They deserve to know.”

She got up, looking around the mess that was her bridge. She didn’t want to leave, not for one second, but she also didn’t want to address the rest of the ship while on it. She needed a little bit of privacy, even if just for a few minutes. She left without looking back, and once the doors to her ready room closed behind her, finally released the breath she didn’t realise she was holding. And for a moment, she simply screwed her eyes shut and wished herself back to the USS Saint Raphael, where a tenured Captain made sure they didn’t get pulled into some void by some anomaly.

“Computer, open a ship-wide channel.”, she sighed eventually, dreading the affirmative beep that followed. She took a deep breath. How did she even start this? And did it really matter how she did? “This is Captain Nassar speaking. We have encountered a subspace aperture that has pulled us into an unknown region of space. Our helm is working on getting a fix on our location, and our science department is supporting them with this. We have prioritised getting systems back online, and the recreational area is being used as a triage centre for those of you who got injured.”

There was a long pause, and then she continued. “I know all of you come from varying backgrounds, and I regret not having had the time thus far to get to know you better. I still believe that any information, and any suggestion can be valuable, and I want you to know that I am grateful for anyone coming forward with ideas and theories. Nassar out.”

She just hoped that this was the right mixture of asking the crew for help and reassuring them that they would get out of this. Of informing them without scaring them. It seemed like a good little speech, but then, Saffiya wasn’t great at people and they might as well end up hating her even more – or worse, believing her to be even less confident and competent than she already felt.

And then, something stirred. For a moment, Saffiya looked around in confusion, not being able to place the noise.  Then, she noticed the replicator activating, as the machinery hummed to life, and deposited a mug onto the replicator pad. The Captain frowned, approaching carefully. Wisps of steam wafted up to her nose, carrying the stout aroma of…

“Coffee, hot.”, said the computer.