Bridge – Aft Conference room

The conference room aft of the bridge, while not as spacious as those provided on Galaxy class starships, certainly provided for a pleasant view of the rest of the ship, its warp trail effect. Tiberius stood facing the aft of the vessel with his back to the table and the doors that fed into the conference room. Some cultures might view this as showing weakness, but presenting his back to them, but in this case, he wanted to put his guest at ease.

A few moments later, Doctor Venrith escorted their guest in. The doctor pulled a seat out and gestured for her to have a seat.

“I’m Captain Tiberius Rain. I understand you’re the one who sent us that distress signal. Can you explain why?”

The woman nodded, glancing around nervously. Like she’d heard whispers over her shoulder or something.

“My name is Evira. I settled her with my younger brother shortly after the colony was founded. Initially everything seemed ok, but then we started noticing strange things. The other colonists could hear our voices, and the Prophet would convene for long periods of time with the Great Nest.”

“What exactly is the Great Nest?”

“It’s a being the Prophet speaks to that can link us all together. We don’t have much at the colony, so everything we do is for the communal good.”

Tib nodded. “Okay. So what instigated the message then?”

“Lately, things have been tense. The Prophet’s actions have grown more and more urgent. And the Nest? It feels wrong when it connects with us. Or me at least.”

“Wrong how?”

“Well, before it used to not feel like anything. But we could hear the voices of others in our minds. But now it’s like there’s someone looking over our shoulder. And headaches. I heard the prophet mentioning something about a great ascension to the clergy and I was worried what that might mean.”

“So you aren’t sure exactly what it is?”

“No, sorry.”

“Do you want to go back?”

Evira shook her head. Tib would have to be blind to miss the fear in her eyes.

“I can’t go back. If I do, I’ll lose myself. Even here the voices are still there, just… subdued.”

“I can administer some beta blockers to reduce the residual psychic noise.” Dr. Venrith offered.

“Would that be okay?” Tib asked Evira.

She gave him a nod.

“Yeah. I think that would be okay.”

“After that, we can get you assigned some guest quarters so you can get some rest. In the meantime, we’ll try to figure out what’s going on so we can determine how best to protect you.”

“Thank you, captain. I’m sorry for putting you through all this trouble.”

Tib shook his head dismissively. “It’s why we’re out here. Just let the good doctor take care of ya and we’ll handle the rest.”

Dr. Venrith rose and held a hand out for Evira to take and the two women left the conference room as Lt’s Jel’kan and Vossk stepped in around them. Evira gave polite nods, while the Dr. spoke to her softly. The doors hissed shut clamping off the conversation and plunging the room into total silence. Tib gestured to the empty conference room table.

“Gentleman, sit. Please. What’s on your minds?”

“Updates. Of a sort.”

“Oh boy. Anything good?”

“Unfortunately not. We’ve lost contact with the subspace network. The last transmission we received was just a few minutes after we arrived in system. Since then, no data has gone in or out of the Thaloran system.”

“Are we being actively jammed? By the surface perhaps?”

Jel’kan and Vossk shook their heads no together, but Vossk deferred to Jel’kan. The Thraarken cleared his throat before speaking.

“I did a full tactical sensor sweep, and had Mr. Vossk check the data. There’s no tactical threat. On the surface or in system. Whatever is causing this, it didn’t originate in this system.”

“Okay. So no immediate danger of attack. Mr. Vossk, what else can you tell me?”

“Well, only that we know it spread out and is behaving much like an energy black out. Transmissions and complex energy fields like warp bubbles either fail outright or breakdown rapidly.”

“Meaning we’re stuck here until the cause abates or fades.”

Tib leaned back, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Times like this, he wished they had an alternative to the standard warp drive propulsion system. He knew Danny had something in the idea phase that he wanted to pitch to Daystrom, but he’d convinced his brother it might be wise to play that one close to the chest. Now might not be a bad time to start running field tests, though.

“Any ideas or signs this might be short-lived?”

“Unknown, sir. Only that everything energy wave wise breaks down much more rapidly. It’s like standing before a black hole and wondering if it will stop soon. We just lack the data to make an educated deduction.”

Tiberius folded his arms as he leaned back, thinking about their next move. He didn’t want to make the assumption that if they could go far enough, they’d get free of whatever the effect was. To say nothing of any world stuck inside it. There were going to be a lot of very worried people soon when they figured out what was happening.

“Okay. Let’s table this for now. There’s not much else we’re going to be able to figure out anyway, and we’ve got a more immediate situation we can do something about. I need to run some intense scans of the surface. Find out for me what this Great Nest is. Is it some kind of cosmozoological being? Is Q up to some new brand of nonsense? Is it all a hoax? I need answers, and I need you guys to get them for me. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll figure out our next move. Dismissed.”

Jel’kan and Vossk stood, following each other out of the conference room. Tib stood and approached the aft view port. The two large sensor pylons boxed in the upper corners, leaving the rest of the rear view of the Rubidoux unobstructed. He sighed, clasping his hands behind his back.

Life was about to get very interesting, very soon. Of that, he was sure. Then the console on the far wall flickered. And the dim lighting in the room itself died out. He sighed, making a mental note to reach out to Chief Dex about it. No doubt the engineer was hard at work trying to ram more power into the warp drive to create a stable field bubble. He was going to have to get ahead of this before things got out of hand.

He left the conference room, passing through the bridge and getting a nod from Commander Kael as she “kept his chair warm” for him. The others were hard at work on their tasks. Having the issue with the Great Nest to tackle kept them busy enough that he could figure out how he wanted to address Federation communications going dark, along with being unable to form stable warp fields.

He stepped into his office, dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh, pulled his desktop terminal up and logged in and leaned back. How best to approach this? How best indeed…