Fiery tendrils of plasma danced towards an impossibly black void, one that swallowed even the light itself. They looked almost majestic, if not for the grim reality that those brilliant accretions were the fuel for the subspace singularity that would soon swallow a planet whole, and with it, the millions who called it home.

The math had borne fruit. They’d proven that the menacing spacetime aberration at the center of the Vespara system was rooted in the Underspace. Typically, those compressed foliations within the fabric of subspace ignited the adventurer’s spirit, offering the opportunity to venture into some far off place. But not this time. Not in this system. It was like the Underspace had gone mad, and while they knew the face of their enemy, they knew not how to stop it.

The deck rattled beneath Admiral Reyes’ feet, a reminder of the indefatigable gravity well just beyond their bow. It was taking full burn from the engines, full power to the shields, and full engagement of the inertial dampeners just to hold the ship stationary, fighting frame dragging and, even more critically, a fall over the horizon. In normal times, they’d never have parked a cruiser in the ergosphere of a supermassive black hole, but these were not normal times.

Admiral Reyes knew that even the slightest lapse, the failure of a single impulse engine or a momentary flux in the shield matrix, could be their end. It was for that reason that she’d left the USS Polaris in orbit of Vespara Prime and, with only absolutely essential personnel, brought the USS Ingenuity to the edge of oblivion. Even its captain had been left behind, for the highest and best use of Commander Lee was not on their bridge, but down on Vespara Prime, presiding over the final buildout of environmental shelters. The only crew present were a skeleton staff to keep the ship from breaking and the researchers to conduct the experiment.

“Ma’am, assembly configuration holding steady and deflector control at the ready,” reported Dr. Akil al-Qadir, the particle physicist from the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity who was supervising the test. “On your order.”

“Execute.”

He pressed the button, and then, nothing happened. Or at least, it didn’t look like anything had happened. The exotic byproducts of the heavily modified matter-antimatter reaction within their warp assembly were not like conventional particles. They didn’t interact with the EM spectrum, and so there was nothing to see. Nonetheless, if focused right, they’d create the sort of negative energy density effect that was posited to hold the gravity of stable Underspace apertures at bay. At least, that was the theory. Pure mathematics didn’t always net out in the real world.

“Any effect?”

“Registering a faint shift in the gravimetric gradient,” reported Dr. Tom Brooks from what, under normal circumstances, would have been the communications station. For this mission though, there was no communications officer, and instead it served as an additional science station. Indeed, besides Ensign Elyssia Rel at the conn and Ensign Kellan Seltzer at operations, everyone else on the bridge was a scientist. “Amplification factor has fallen… slightly.”

“How slightly?”

“Six percent,” Dr. Brooks replied. “If we held this position indefinitely, we’d buy the planet another two days.

Two days was better than nothing, Admiral Reyes knew. It would buy them time to save a few thousand more – maybe even tens of thousands, if additional support came to their aid. There was no promise of that though, and tens of thousands was still a far cry from the total they needed to evacuate. “How do we increase the amplitude of our exotic matter output?”

“I’ve got some ideas on how to increase catalyzation,” Dr. al-Qadir offered. “It’ll probably take five or six hours to make the modifications if you want to back us away from the singularity until we’re finished.” He loved the thrill of dangerous experiments as much as any experimental researcher, but that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize their presently-precarious position.

“Can we continue to operate the beam while you make your modifications?” Admiral Reyes asked. She had no interest in backing off, unless it absolutely couldn’t be helped.

“Yes, we can make the modifications with a bypass on the primary reactant flow, if you wish,” Dr. al-Qadir replied. “I’d only raised it as an option on behalf of ship’s safety.”

“This ship is going nowhere,” Admiral Reyes replied firmly. Even though the impact they were having was minimal, it was not zero. “Every hour we maintain the beam, even at these limited levels, we add time to the clocks of every life on Vespara Prime.” Only a couple minutes an hour, she knew, but those minutes would add up. And hopefully, Dr. al-Qadir would find a way to dramatically increase the reaction effect.

“Understood ma’am,” Dr. al-Qadir nodded as he relinquished his station and headed for the turbolift. “We’ll get it done as quickly as we can.”

Once he was gone, silence again settled over the bridge. Not the related form though, but rather the silence of complete and total focus. Ensign Rel was carefully managing the ship’s attitude via micro-adjustments to ensure the Ingenuity’s impulse engines continued to exert maximum resistive force, while Ensign Seltzer’s eyes were glued on the master systems display, watching for even the slightest variation that could signal a threat to the engines, the shields or the inertial dampeners. As for the ASTRA scientists, they too had their attention completely focused on their displays, not for their survival though but rather to study the telemetry pouring in.

Admiral Reyes found herself staring out the main viewscreen, her mind wandering about. She’d defeated the Lost Fleet at Nasera. She’d survived the Borg over Earth. She’d overcome a plot by the Borg worshipers of Beta Serpentis. But what could she do against a subspace singularity gone wild? Neither six percent, nor sixteen, nor even sixty was an acceptable outcome. They’d need to achieve nearly one hundred percent belayment of the aperture’s gravitational effects. Anything less would mean that a not-insignificant portion of Vespara Prime’s population would not survive.

“You heard him, boss,” Dr. Brooks said as he stepped up onto the command island. His voice was quiet enough that only she could hear him. “It’s going to be five or six hours. I’ll keep an eye on things up here while you grab some shuteye.”

“Huh?” Admiral Reyes asked as she snapped back to the present. What was it he’d said? He was saying she should go below deck for some sleep? Who was he to try and relieve her? This was her mission. She was the one asking each of them to burn the midnight oil, and she was the one asking each of them to risk their lives for an experiment that, from the outside, would be considered batshit insane. She needed to be here on the bridge. Leaders ate last, she always said. And that meant she couldn’t just go take a nap. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“You are now, but how about in five or six hours?” Dr. Brooks countered skeptically. He could see the bags under her eyes. “You haven’t slept since 0500, yesterday,” he pointed out. “And you haven’t stopped moving since we arrived eight days ago.” There was a look of concern on his face. He knew she, just like he, wasn’t getting any younger, and that the midnight oil fizzled out far faster at their age. They weren’t in their twenties anymore. “There’s nothing that’s gonna change between now and when Akil finishes with the grease monkeys.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a theoretician, Miss Reyes,” Dr. Brooks chuckled dismissively. “I just play on my whiteboard and take naps whenever I want – sort of like a lazy cat – while you’re running around building evacuation shelters, coordinating airspaces, organizing evacuations, liaising with colonial governments, and the billion other things you super duper important many-pipped redshirts do.” He had a grin plastered across his face. “If you ever want a change of pace, my gig, it’s a pretty sweet deal, all things considered.”

“But…”

“No buts, Allison,” Dr. Brooks shook his head, his appeal personal. “Besides, if anything exciting happens, I assure you that you won’t be of any help anyway.” It wasn’t an insult, they both knew. It was just a fact. So precarious was their entanglement in the ergosphere that, if anything went wrong, they would have to recover mere seconds to recover. Either the systems and the crew would react correctly, at once and without instruction, or the 700,000 metric tons of their cruiser would fall into the singularity before anyone could blink.

Admiral Reyes debated arguing with the old man, he wasn’t exactly the sort who would yield to authority. And besides, he was probably right. “Very well. Thank you Tom.” In her tone, there was a hint of gratitude for, even if her natural instinct was to refuse the offer, she did dearly appreciate it. “The bridge is yours, Commander Brooks.” 

He might have been a former inmate of the New Zealand Penal Colony, but Thomas Duncan Brooks was also a full Commander in Starfleet with more experience than many on the crew put together. The bridge would be safe with him for a few hours. And so the Admiral took her leave. 

Making her way down to Deck 3, Admiral Reyes could feel the exhaustion taking hold. A moment later, she stepped up to a door, one with a name placard that read: 

CDR C. LEE

It slid open instantly, welcoming her into the inner sanctum of the ship’s captain. Admiral Reyes would never have imposed like this. She would have just taken guest quarters. But Commander Lee had insisted.

“Computer, lights, forty percent.”

As the lights came up, Admiral Reyes was greeted with the unexpected. On Commander Lee’s table sat a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild, a box of fine Alderbaanian chocolates, and a neatly folded silk robe. Next to the robe sat a thin piece of paper. The Admiral reached for it, and a smile crept across her face as she read the short note inked in a delicate, refined cursive:

For our polaris, our north star,
As diligent as you may be,
May you find some serenity 
on my ingenuity.

With love,
Cora

What class, Admiral Reyes thought to herself. How had Cora Lee found the time for such a heartfelt gesture while managing the rushed build out of environmental shelters for six million? And it wasn’t like the Commander had done it at the expense of the mission either. At last report, Commander Lee and Commodore Agarwal just finished digging the large caverns into the heat-resistant subsurface strata. Those caverns would allow the colonists to hide from the heat as the surface became inhospitable – an eventuality now only two days away.

As Admiral Reyes slipped into the soft silk robe and took a sip of the deep ruby red Pauillac, she wondered how Fleet Captain Devreux was doing with the colonists. Vespara Prime had been built on the concept of a simple, sustainable lifestyle, one free of technology and heavy industry. Their present predicament was antithetical to everything they’d ever known. Only technology could explain what was happening, and they’d only survive the weekend as a result of heavy machinery drilling into their pristine utopia. Still, as fires raged unchecked, crops wilted under the sun, and ambient temperatures raced ever upward, they had no choice.

At least Commander Lee and Commodore Agarwal had forestalled the inevitable by twenty two days. And tonight, they’d added to that. A little bit. If they could hold their precarious position in the ergosphere for the next three weeks, they’d buy the planet another two days.

In the end, it wouldn’t be enough though. Not unless Dr. al-Qadir could amplify the negative energy density reaction by orders of magnitude, or Dr. Lockwood, back on the Polaris, devised something else altogether. 

The inevitable was still racing towards them. If that time came, she would face an impossible choice: who would live, and who would they leave for dead? She could not shake that feeling that, even with their recent successes, still they stood at the edge of oblivion.