“There it is again.”  Ensign Jake Shaw muttered as he sat beside his chief, Lieutenant Presley Atega.  He had been monitoring communication signals in the area since they’d fallen out of the aperture in the Gamma Quadrant.  His hands coaxed details from the sensors, “It’s faint…and it’s more of a scientific reading than anything.”  He turned to Atega, concern spread across his face.

Presley did her own tapping across her console, curious.  Shaw was good at his job and had proven himself worth her investment.  Some of the science and communications team lacked what he had – a genuine investigative spirit.  She ran a few more sensor runs, reporting, “Got it locked.  It’s unusual, that’s for sure.  Let’s apply the standard algorithms and interpretation sets and then move to the auxiliary sets.”  She sent the preliminary results to Sadie Fowler at the science console.  Presley stood and walked over to her friend, “Sent you something courtesy of Ensign Shaw.”

Fowler downed the second cup of coffee for the day in one hand and tapped the receive button on the console, “He’s always finding the most…interesting…what the hell is that?”  She set her cup to the side and leaned in, eyes searching the screen.  “It’s a signal, but it’s not a signal.  It’s a reading, but it’s not a reading.”  She cleared her head, focusing her attention on the incoming updates, “Signal is about four hours away.  Could be somebody.”

Presley grimaced, “Could be somebody bad.”  She wasn’t a fan of staying in the Gamma Quadrant much longer.  The aperture might still be open, but they knew so little about it.  It could close anytime it damn well pleased, she reasoned.

Sadie turned in her chair. “Captain Halsey, we’ve got something.”  Leopold stood and walked to stand behind her. She went through the details, crediting Shaw for the detective work. The details continued to update as the sensors reached out as far as they could, gleaning from such a distance.  “Could be a distress call or a signal for help of some kind that we’re not familiar with yet.”

Halsey searched the screen for an answer, desperate for an answer that didn’t require him to take action. It was a stalling technique, and he was sure it was unhealthy.  He would have to come up with an answer to the signal’s question.  The Burden of Command, they called it.  Various commanding officers had written several books under that title – from the famous to the infamous to the forgettable and forgotten.  He wasn’t sure where he’d eventually land, but he hoped it would be under the ‘alive’ category.  “Time to intercept?”

Prentice was at the helm and worked out the calculation, “Four hours at maximum warp – engineering confirms our capacity remains limited to warp 7.”

All eyes turned to their interim captain.  Halsey decided it was time for action, “Engage intercept course.  Lieutenants Atega and Fowler – get your teams up and running on this signal’s known and developing aspects.  Surprises in the Gamma Quadrant are my least favorite kind of surprises.”

“You have something to say,”  Halsey spoke, sitting at his ready room desk as Ensign Alanna Barker stood before him, gently gripping her PADD.  She’d entered the room not long after he’d retired to it.

“You don’t want to be captain.”  She’d watched and listened enough to know something was bothering the XO-turned-CO.

He glanced up from writing the latest report, “I don’t have a choice, Yeoman Barker.”  A tense moment passed.  “I’m sorry.”  Halsey held his hands out, palms up, “I wish I was better at this.”

“You were, sir.  The USS Mercy.  I read the mission files, the ones that were released.  It was brief, but you made an impression on that command crew.”  She spoke carefully, knowing the tightrope she was walking.

“Being the captain of an Olympic class starship is very different from a Constitution III, Yeoman Barker.”  He let out a long sigh, “I’m better at being the support to the captain than I am at being the captain.  And yet here I am.”

Alanna reasoned, “You pushed Captain Walton to get home safely.  You could have just as easily headed home and found a way to quickly get Captain Dread back in the chair.  And yet, you fought to stay behind.”

“You’re saying I want to stay in the chair even if you say I don’t want to be captain?  Pick a warp speed, Ensign Barker.”  Even as he said it, the truth of it was taking shape.

She shrugged, “I’m a yeoman, not a counselor.  What I do know is the chair weighed on Captain Dread’s shoulders, and now it’s on yours, sir.  I think you need to confront your fear of the chair.”  Another shrug, and Barker finished with, “But that’s just a Yeoman’s opinion, sir.”

Halsey weighed and measured her words.  The truth and the shape it was in looked better and worse the more he thought about it.  He managed a, “I’ll take it under consideration, Ensign Barker.  You are dismissed.”  She stood at attention and departed, a sly smile slipping across her lips as she stepped from the ready room to the bridge.

He leaned back in his chair, wondering if everything had a purpose and a reason…what cosmic creator and destroyer had he upset this time?