“Computer. Time?”

Standing directly at the heart of the bridge, right in front of the command chair, the abnormally tall Bolian woman had her hands on her hips, glaring at the ready room door.

“The time is fourteen hundred forty-two hours.”

Commander Noli had disappeared into the ready room almost twenty-five minutes ago. That was twenty-five minutes that the relief officers on the bridge had been kept in the dark, and about twenty minutes longer than her usual updates to command. Fyhya wanted to believe that the delay meant something positive, but she’d hoped for that before and had been disappointed, so she had to remind herself not to get her hopes up now constantly. But something felt a little different this time.

“What’s going on?”

Snapping her head to starboard, the beautiful, bald, blue-skinned woman noted the arrival of her department head.

Hand in one pocket, the other grasping a steaming mug of coffee (the ‘elixir of life’ as he called it), Commander Henry Mitchell had been the only person who seemed to come out of the Zaran disaster with any shred of credibility and had earned himself a promotion as a result. Not that being a Commander in charge of piloting a ship that wasn’t going anywhere was any kind of real promotion, though. Still, if anyone could see the positives in a situation, it was Henry. He’d taken the opportunity to enjoy every type of restaurant and entertainment establishment Bravo could throw at him, including the somewhat shady ones. But after six weeks, even he was getting tired of sitting around.

“She received a communique,” Fyhya frowned, turning back to the door, hands still on her hips.

“Ah,” Henry nodded between sips of his scolding beverage. “She won’t be long.”

“She’s been in there for twenty-five minutes,” Kiras clapped back.

Henry had to double-take as his junior turned to look at him again and offered an ‘Mm-hmm’ as confirmation that he’d heard her right. “Probably just talking about the completion of the refit,” he shrugged, lifting his cup to his lips, only to stop mid-lift at the sudden appearance of another two senior officers from the port turbo lift.

One, a greying Vulcan and the second, a significantly taller Bolian who looked older than his kin in red, made their way down the ramp towards the two officers from Flight.

Henry raised a curious brow at the sight of his colleagues. “To what do we owe the pleasure?” It had been weeks since he’d seen so many of the senior staff on the bridge at the same time. There was very little reason for them to be there while the ship was in dock.

“She called you, too?” Linn Mora, the older Bolian in operations yellow and wearing two solid, silver pips looked at his Human friend.

“Called me?” Henry looked at Fyhya and then back at the two newcomers, shaking his head in confusion. “No, she didn’t call me. It’s my shift on the rota,” he explained, referring to his shift as Officer of the Watch.

“I hope it’s not more drills,” Linn frowned, tucking his hands into the pockets on his trouser legs.

“Perhaps it would be prudent to avoid second-guessing,” the ever-wise Vulcan operations chief suggested.

“She’s been in there for half an hour now though…” Ashrin called down to his own department head from the safety of the tactical rail.

“Half an hour?!” Linn responded to his junior, lifting his hands from his pockets and folding them across his chest. “That’s some update…”

“Indeed…”

Spinning towards the owner of the voice, the three seniors and their able deputies locked eyes on the XO, who had finally emerged from the ready room, giving her their undivided attention.

“Everything okay?” Henry asked sheepishly between sips of his cooling drink.

“Just fine,” Noli retorted, making her way towards the command chair and looking down at it wistfully. She’d not sat in it since she’d come aboard, vowing that it would remain vacant from a command perspective until they had new orders. Everyone knew it, especially those who had frequented the bridge over the last six weeks. So, when she eventually lowered her nimble frame onto the comfy leather and adjusted for comfort, the tension in the room was palpable, the looks on faces more than a little expectant.

Locking eyes with the youthful Andorian who had joined the staff at the front of the bridge and his Bolian counterpart from Flight, Noli finally yielded and gave them the satisfied grin of confirmation they wanted. Unable to contain their excitement, Ashrin and Fyhya started fist-bumping and high-fiving whilst the seniors expressed their own, muted sense of joy between each other. Except T’Kir of course, he remained steadfast in his demeanour.

“Linn,” Noli took a deep breath and smiled, “recall all personnel and cancel remaining shore leave. T’Kir, liaise with engineering and prepare the ship for departure. Henry…” she paused among the sudden bustle of excitement as the officers began to head off to their respective duties. “Inform the crew that standard operating shift patterns are in effect, effective immediately. Condition Green across the board,” she instructed Flyboy, who was more than happy to pass off his drink to his subordinate.

Watching as the officers responded to their tasks, the Bajoran beamed with pride once again, but deep down, something gnawed away at her, something she couldn’t reveal just yet.

Meanwhile, across the ship, as people went about their boring, mundane, day-to-day business, the sounding of the automated boatswain’s whistle caused both young and old, Starfleet and civilian, to stop dead in their tracks. Science labs fell silent. Mess halls stopped serving. Environmental controls doubled in effectiveness as the crew collectively held their breaths. The whistle was a sound they had not heard in weeks, a sound they had anticipated, even dreamed of, for so long. A ship-wide announcement, and surely one of importance.

“All hands, hear this. All hands, hear this.”

There was no chance the crew were missing this message from the computer. There wasn’t a sound to be heard anywhere on the ship, with even the warp core remaining dormant under the supply of energy from the station umbilicals.

“All personnel to departure stations. Condition Green is now in effect.”

Across the ship, bulkheads threatened to give way under the strain of a thousand-strong collective sigh of relief. Once the news had been digested at different rates for different people, the ship suddenly became a hive of activity again. Systems across the ship powered up and came online for the first time in almost two months. It didn’t matter where you were on the ship, feeling the pulsating of the warp core, hearing the musical tones of fingers dancing across LCARS panels, listening to the lively chatter of people with a purpose, it was hard not to feel alive again in that exact moment.

More importantly, Columbia was alive again.