There was a subtle dissonance swelling on the bridge of Constellation, and Captain Taes couldn’t find an adequate grip on the root to pluck it out.  

There was no outright conflict or calamity between her officers.  Taes couldn’t see it clearly enough to say the words aloud yet.  Sometimes, there was a pause before electroplasma resources were shifted from one system to another.  Other times, there was an order that needed to be repeated twice.  It was tactical and science changing the focus of the same sensor instrument simultaneously.  The disconnection between her senior staff was as elusive as it was fleeting.  

It never happened all at once, but it happened just enough to be noticeable.

Taes had assembled this crew amid the crucible of the Dominion incursion of Deneb.  Despite the manipulations of a Changeling disguised as first officer, the bridge crew had been born in an effortless harmony.  These explorers had pulled together in the unfamiliar world of espionage, desperately fighting for their lives against time lost Jem’Hadar.  Taes had observed that rebuilding the ship ahead of their exploratory mission to the Delta Quadrant had bonded them even closer together.  Only now, as the months in the deep of Delta dragged on, something had shifted.

Losing their way through the nebula had been a prime example.  Flavia had been so engrossed in measuring the subspace harmonics emanating from the tear in subspace that she never got around to warning of its dangers.  Luxuriating in her own voice, Flavia held the bridge as a captive audience to the minutia of her analysis of subspace oscillations.  Once Constellation had been caught up in the gravimetric undertow of the subspace aperture, Ensign Cellar Door was the first to moan about how they would all die.  And yet it was only the axionotic computational power of Cellar’s mind that protected the crew from far greater damage and injury.  He maneuvered the thrusters in a way that allowed them to ride the gravitational waves and tachyon flows rather than crash against them.

On the other side of the subspace tear, there had been a momentary surge of shared immersion.  They had all resonated on the same frequency of curiosity about the network of subspace corridors they discovered.  However, there were only so many hours a crew could spend staring at the whirling amber light on the viewscreen.  The shared energy had dissipated after the first couple days of wandering the corridors with sensors open wide.  There were limits to Taes’ influence on a one-on-one basis.  She gathered the senior staff in the observation lounge to unify them towards a singular purpose.  

What would that purpose be?  She didn’t know yet.  The only way to learn was by stepping into it.

“From our first moments after crossing the Barzan wormhole, I requested access to traverse the Turei Alliance’s Underspace corridors.  Starfleet’s Delta Exploration Initiative has been instrumental in negotiating foundational agreements for Starfleet explorers to navigate Underspace as a shortcut to locales across the Delta Quadrant.  Starship travel through this layer of subspace offers speeds far greater than any warp factor we know of,” Taes said, standing at the head of the conference table.  

Laid out on the table was a buffet of the senior staff’s favourite foods.  Sparkling above the food was a holographic star chart, demonstrating a sparse series of subspace corridors crossing much of the Delta Quadrant.

Taes pinched the bridge of her nose.  “My requests to the Turei were all denied.  While the Turei gave me no tangible explanation, I suspect our initial mission to scout the borders of known-Borg space was deemed too inflammatory.”

Sitting to Taes’ right, First Officer Kellin Rayco nodded at Taes’s words with the same weight as if they were laws of physics.  After chewing on a bite of fenza off the replicated bone, he eagerly swallowed to speak up.

“Considering the damage that’s been done to the Borg’s transwarp network,” Kellin remarked, “Underspace could prove mighty tempting if the collective somehow learned its secrets from us.”

Taes nodded back at Kellin, having suspected the same as one of three possible explanations.  She tilted her head at Yuulik and gave her a wink.  Sitting at the opposite head of the table, Yuulik returned Taes’s look with a toothy smile.  She spread her hands wide to indicate the holographic star chart between them all.

“In comparing all of our sensor readings to Starfleet’s logs, we and the starship Grus appear to have unwittingly found our way into Underspace.  These are the only access points to Underspace the Turei has told about us,” Yuulik said.  With a flick of her wrist, additional points of light appeared over the table.  “Through intelligence gathering and charting the Underspace tunnels, Starfleet has also learned of these access points.  To our knowledge, a centralized branch does not connect the access points.  A labyrinthine series of corridors diverges and intersect with no recognisable pattern.”

Without raising her voice, Flavia interjected, “You’ll notice, of course, there was no known access point in the nebula where we entered Underspace.  Either its location was kept secret by the Turei, or there was a reason the aperture was so gravimetrically unstable.  Because we have no context for where we entered, it remains unclear how near or far we are from Starfleet’s common routes through Underspace.”

Settling into her seat, Taes quickened a sip of tea before she asked, “How goes charting a reverse course back to the nebula?”

Hovering over his chair, Cellar Door dipped his beak-like hexagonal cone in a bit of body language that signalled defeat.

“Bad.  Real bad,” Cellar said in a stew of fear and shame.  “Our short-range navigational sensor assemblies were too badly damaged by the tachyon bursts and gravitational eddies.  We recovered the sensor telemetry from the probes we launched, but they were all destroyed by collision with debris in the network.  Sorry, captain, we have too little data about where we entered.”

“Without a map,” Yuulik added, “we can hardly identify the difference between spatial intersections and the apertures out of Underspace.  Given the tachyon turbulence, Constellation has wildly varying travel speeds as we pass from branch to branch of the tunnels.  Usually, we’re halfway to flying past the apertures by the time we spot them.  As we’re studying the last hourly data packet from USS Grus, their navigational data doesn’t correlate with ours.  They may have wandered down a different path.”

Chief Engineer Pagaloa offered, “We’ve recovered thirty-three percent of the navigational sensor pallets with replicated parts and repairs.  As for the rare detector materials, Captain, I was saving them until we started our loop back to the Barzan wormhole.  But I opened the stores. Repair teams have started the swap-outs.”

Through this, Flavia put her elbows on the conference table and interlaced her hands together in front of her face. She stared down Taes.

“Captain, may I suggest you and I retire to your ready room?” Flavia said.  Despite her choice of words, it sounded like a foregone conclusion.  As mission commander of the Romulan Free State’s scientists among the crew, Flavia was accustomed to great latitude.  She shifted her weight in her chair as if she were about to stand.

Taes gently shook her head.

“I think not,” Taes said.  “Our joint mission is as much about you and me navigating our priorities as it’s about finding our path through wonders like Underspace.  I’m comfortable with my crew hearing anything you need to say.”

“Henh. If you’re comfortable with it…” Flavia said, shrugging when she trailed off. “We have humoured your Starfleet spirit of adventure for long enough, captain. It is time we leave.”

“Tell me more about the method you’ve devised for doing so?” Taes asked.  As much as she tried not to sound condescending, she failed spectacularly.

Flavia leaned back in her chair.  She flopped a hand through the air to emphasise her recommendation.

“Pick a direction,” Flavia languorously said.  “Turn left.  And plow through the radial wall if that’s what it takes.”

Taes sipped at her tea.  She allowed space for the senior staff to receive Flavia’s recommendation and to consider it for themselves.  Kellin’s expression looked intentionally neutral.  Yuulik sniffed as if Flavia had just served a steaming plate of aged taspar.

Almost apologetically, Taes said, “No, I’m not prepared to abandon the Grus yet.”

“You gamble reaching into the penumbra to find a prize, but it may only be hiding wreckage and despair,” Flavia said to Taes.  She sounded exhausted, as she might sound from speaking to a recalcitrant child.  With further argument, Flavia began tearing apart the slice of vix vivax on her place.

“We can leave behind probes to continue the search,” Flavia said.  “A shuttle on autopilot if you must.  However, it’s time for Constellation to escape Underspace and conduct necessary repairs.”

Pagaloa drummed his fingertips on the table.  “That is– She does– that– That’s a good point,” he awkwardly said.  “We haven’t been able to recharge our shields much higher than seventy percent, given the constant barrage of micro-debris pinging our deflectors.”

“If you care not for your crew, might interstellar politics move you?” Flavia asked.  Her rebuttal was quicker now, her eyes tracking Taes with a hawk-like quality.

Taes only smirked.

Flavia explained herself, posing, “This ship is equipped with no cloaking device.  Would you risk endangering Starfleet’s relationship with the Turei by entering their Underspace without permission?”

“Our relationship can’t be that strong if my request was denied,” Taes said.  Instantly, she regretted it.  It was nearly as petty as Flavia’s dig about Taes not caring for crew safety.

After taking a bite of her vix vivax, Flavia spoke while she chewed, showing Taes how little regard she held for this debate.  Clearly, Flavia trusted that she had already won.

“This isn’t two smirking commanders mutually sneaking in on either side of the old neutral zone,” Flavia remarked.  “We could be perceived as invaders.  Couldn’t our presence be interpreted as an act of war?  The Romulan Free State will have no part in your conflicts on the impoverished side of the galaxy.”

“Even if I were to agree,” Taes said, “how do we identify an aperture early enough to change course?  Are your scientists prepared to climb into the Jeffries tubes and put their hands to work on repairing the navigational sensors?”

Flavia’s face darkened, but that wasn’t a metaphor.  Shadow fell over the burnt amber light flooding through the tall observation viewports.  Something was stalking Constellation.