“Engineering to the Bridge” was rarely the start of a conversation that had happy outcomes. “We’ve got an additional problem down here.”

Lieutenant Merktin, the resident Tellarite in Engineering and simply one of the best engineers in Starfleet, in the estimation of Atlantis’ command staff, had the ability to make minor issues sound dire and dire issues sound minor. Probably because she displayed her irritation more with minor issues, letting her frustrations be evident.

This was, from her tone, the latter however – something dire.

“What is it Merktin?” Adelinde Gantzmann asked, having opted not to sit, but stand smack in the middle of the bridge, hands clasped behind her back.

“A dozen alarms just fired up down here informing me that it’s rather ill-advised to attempt to form a warp bubble at the moment.” Merktin managed to maintain that tone from earlier, making the failure of the ship’s warp drive into a mere inconvenience. “The subspace field from the driver coils for the impulse drives appears to be unaffected.”

“Very well, Merktin. See what you can do and keep me appraised if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

As the comm line to Engineering closed, Rrr was already turning in their chair. “First subspace communications, now the warp drive. Something is attacking us, Commander, even if we can’t see it right now.”

“Agreed.” Adelinde stood there, thinking for a few seconds. “Take us to red alert. How far away are the shuttles?”

Rrr tapped a quick series of commands and throughout the ship klaxons blared to life, lights changed and frantic actions would have started across all decks. But the bridge was quiet, the only noticeable change being the lighting conditions. “Gondwana is on it’s way back up, but Lesbos is still on the surface. Lieutenant Maxwell did take his team into a cave. And with comms out, could be taking T’Val a bit more to reach him.”

Adelinde nodded to herself, taking in the information. Then she turned slowly to the science station, seeing a young ensign there once more. Not Ensign Trel, who’d been pulling numerous shifts lately, but Ensign Goresh Krek, better known amongst some of the crew as Starkiller for their rather innovative idea nearly two years ago and a starship ago to make a Borg sphere disappear.

“Ensign Krek, is there anything you can tell me about whatever is affecting subspace around us?” she asked, which didn’t distract the ensign from whatever they were doing, but certainly seemed to annoy them with the interruption.

“I’m working on that,” they answered, focused on their displays, eyes darting from one screen to the next. “But honestly, the two best people for this type of work aren’t here right now.”

“I am aware of that, Ensign,” Adelinde said, restraining herself from sighing. “While we wait, perhaps a hypothesis?”

That stopped Krek, sat back in their chair, then turned to face Adelinde, eyes squinting. She was never sure if Krek’s squint was because the young Tellarite was perpetually annoyed with the entire universe for existing in the first place, or if Krek was just the stereotypical Tellarite. Krek’s displays and attitude were more acceptable than say Simmons, because Simmons managed to convey a personal element, whereas Krek was just annoyed with everything.

They stared at Adelinde for a few seconds, sighed, then rocked their head side to side for a moment. “It’s the butterflies,” they finally said. “We can’t see them on modern sensors. We lost subspace radios not too long ago and they’re still closing on us, which has caused us to lose warp drive.”

“Cosmozoans have had interesting effects on starships before,” Rrr added. “Krek could be on to something.”

“Or I’m drawing a bad conclusion based on poor science,” Krek chimed in, dismissing their own argument with their statement and a wave of their hand as they turned back to their sensor readings. “Also, it’s not sixty-seven of the things closing on us, more like six hundred and seventy.”

It was only a few minutes later and a repeat of all their findings to bring Camargo up to date when she had finally made it to the bridge after Gondwana had landed. Lesbos still hadn’t left the surface of the ring and with communications down, there wasn’t much they could do about it.

“Butterflies have crippled the ship just by existing?” Camargo asked, incredulous at the circumstances.

“Space butterflies, if that makes it any better,” Rrr answered, not even flinching when both Adelinde and Camargo turned on them. “Obviously it doesn’t.”

“Can’t call Lesbos, so don’t know what the holdup is. Stick around and we could lose the impulse drives potentially. Leave and we could be stranding half the away team and a shuttle behind.” Camargo rubbed her face with both hands. “Why are the butterflies closing on our position?”

“Don’t know,” Krek answered. “It could be our scans, or subspace transmissions. Or something intrinsically interesting about Atlantis to them.”

“Well, whoever found Friendship 7 and set it up down there was super subtle about linking butterflies and death together for some reason. Which is one reason not to abandon the away team.” Gabrielle spoke through her hands, still covering her face as she wrestled with the dilemma she’d stumbled upon.

“If we are disabled by the butterflies though, we’re no good to anyone,” Adelinde said, quietly enough for Gabrielle to hear, but likely no one else.

“I know.” Gabrielle struggled with the decision some more. “I don’t want to abandon the away team, but at the same time, we can’t all become victims of whatever this is.” She dropped her hands, arriving at a decision. “Ensign Krek, find us the smallest concentration of these butterflies. Let’s minimise our exposure and see if we can’t drag them away from the ring with us. Lieutenant Shven, follow Krek’s course and get us out of here, best possible speed.”

The Andorian at the helm nodded in understanding. Krek snorted in the same. Rrr offered her a nod before returning to their station, leaving just Adelinde, who settled into the XO’s seat at her side as she sat herself down. “We’re just trying to lure these things away. Give T’Val and Gérard a chance on the surface.”

“We still need to warn Perseus somehow. They could warp in and get caught just the same as us,” Adelinde said.

“Dammit, Perseus,” Gabrielle cursed. “How do you signal a starship when subspace comms are down?”

“Flares.”

“Flares?”

“We use the same torpedo idea we used at Deneb – essentially signal flares. Power emitters meant to burn themselves out might just be able to punch over whatever these creatures are doing. A couple of flares should get their attention and, with us not communicating, they should, if following regulations, approach with caution.”

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at Adelinde, then chuckled once, twice to herself. “You honestly expect the captain to ‘approach with caution’ if she thinks her ship is in danger?”

“No,” Adlinde answered rather quickly. “But I do believe Captain Garland would.”

“I wonder why Perseus followed us and not Republic though,” Gabrielle said. “Republic is the better equipped ship after all.”

“We can ask the captain that later,” Adelinde answered. “I’ll go and supervise getting a few signal flares prepared.” No ‘shall I?’ at the end, just a statement of intent. A good officer anticipating an order and going about it before being asked.

“Thanks Commander,” Gabrielle said, acknowledging Adelinde. “Let’s just hope these things can be seen.”