Acting Captain’s Log, supplemental.

Space, although big, has been entirely accessible since long before I was born. From the first warp drives to the cores of today, the distance between worlds has never been smaller. Until recently. Something dark has struck the galaxy; a strange phenomenon affecting subspace harmonics in a way we have never seen before. Warp drive is limited; subspace communications are next to impossible; long-range sensors may as well not exist. Star systems that were once at arms reach now seem so far away.

We managed to navigate our way to Starbase Sixty-Two thanks to the expertise of the senior staff and their teams, but after further analysis and collaboration by teams from across a number of starships, it seems our situation is far worse than we thought. In the hope of finding our way beyond our sector, we surged toward the Mizar system, but it has become increasingly clear that the path we managed to navigate here has seemingly closed now, too. As we reach the edge of the system, warp drive has been restricted to a minimum. Strategies we used before have dried up: there are no gaps in the barrier: there are no micro-jumps to plot. For many, a stark realisation has brought morale to its lowest ebb since I boarded.

If we want to make contact with the rest of the Federation, with the people we love, then we’re going to have to crawl our way out of here. It will be years, decades even, before we reach the closest Federation system.

Many of us won’t survive that long…

Restless sleep had been a permanent fixture of late. Despite the urgings of Doctor Okan, Noli had so far refused to take any form of medication to help her get some rest, trusting her body to get her through the crisis they faced, and knowing that, eventually, she would crash. That wasn’t tonight though. Tonight, like the three before it, she lay, staring at the ceiling in her quarters, joining up dots that weren’t there and counting ghostly sheep that danced over imaginary hurdles. No manner of warm, soothing beverages had helped, nor had the snoozefest of a Vulcan novel that Tempestava had recommended. Perhaps she was just destined to stay awake for the eighty-odd years it was going to take them to reach the nearest Federation system. Perhaps she would never sleep again.

Thank the Prophets for the replicators. If she couldn’t sleep, the least she could do was eat and drink to sustain herself. Like each of the three that came before, the Bajoran found herself on auto-pilot, sitting up in bed and heading for the shower around oh-four-hundred hours. And as the sonic pulses bounced off her increasingly fragile frame, vibrating away another day’s grime, she found herself surprisingly soothed by the rhythmic hum. She closed her eyes and listened, swaying to the rhythmic pulsing until the blackness grew darker still.

She woke up nearly two hours later, not thanks to feeling rested, or in a particularly natural way as she would have hoped, but by a sudden, and freezing, sensation that gripped her body. It was so cold that she felt like she had stopped breathing for a split second, and that weird sensation jolted her awake. She blinked her eyes several times until she realised what had happened. She wasn’t cold, she was wet. Wet from the water that had been dumped on her by the figure that stood outside the shower cubicle, glaring down at the prone Bajoran, and the only person she’d allow to do any such thing.

“So you are alive,” the figure scoffed, shaking her head slowly and folding her arms across her chest.

“You’re going to wish you weren’t if you do that again,” Noli warned whilst scrambling to her feet. Seconds later, she was hit square in the face by an object, soft and woven, replicated only yesterday. Grabbing the towel before it hit the floor, the Bajoran scowled at the interloper.

“We’ve been called to the bridge,” Prida grinned mischievously, wandering away from the shower cubicle and leaving her friend to gather herself for another long day.

For the first time in millennia, or what felt like millennia, the two Bajoran’s neglected to say a single word to one another. Noli was still smarting for being caught with her proverbials down, whilst Prida couldn’t say anything for fear of laughing at her friend’s vulnerability. Instead, both pondered why they had been called back to the bridge at such an early hour. Emerging from the lift, both were surprised to see such a hive of activity for the early hours of the day. Anyone who was anyone had apparently been summoned, and all were working feverishly. But why?

Spotting the acting Commander step onto the bridge, followed by her engineering friend, Commander D’or lifted his ample frame from his chair and beckoned in their direction. “Commanders,” he called, his voice deep, “sensors have found something…”

“I thought sensors weren’t working?” Prida narrowed her eyes suspiciously, approaching the science station the Xelliat called home.

“We don’t. But we have probes,” the dark-skinned man grinned his toothy smile, “and one detected something that may solve all of our problems.”

Moving around the station, the Commander nodded to the assistant as she vacated the area, and then stood beside Onsas. Stifling a yawn, it took everything within her to not scold him for waking her up with one of his puzzles, but then she saw what everyone else had seen. It was instantly recognisable and not something that they had expected to see anytime soon.

“Are these readings confirmed?” Noli enquired, watching while Onsas took his seat again. As the Xelliat ran his readings again, Noli looked hopefully at Prida, who simply shrugged with her smile. When his readings came through again, the science chief nodded in confirmation. His gesture gave Noli the impetus and energy she needed to focus on something positive for the first time in days. Rounding the station at speed, it was as if the lack of sleep had been forgotten in an instant.

“Send the coordinates to the helm,” she instructed whilst assuming her position in the command chair. “Henry, take us to the distortion; shortest, fastest route you can,” she continued.

“Already on it, Captain,” Flyboy retorted. “ETA is thirty minutes at warp two.”

“Commander,” the Vulcan T’Kir spun on his chair at Ops and looked the Bajoran dead in the eye. “While I appreciate and understand your desire to explore this phenomenon, we have no way of knowing what path it may take.”

“Anywhere is better than here right now,” Noli advised him. “And when did that ever stop us before? If this is what we believe it to be, we could cut our journey down significantly.”

“Agreed, but reckless usage could strand us somewhere entirely more unpleasant,” he warned her, but the look on her face gave him reason to pause. He had learnt quickly that Noli was one to communicate in non-verbal gestures as much as she did words, and the look she gave was one that confirmed she would not be deterred on this occasion. Silently, he spun back to Ops.

Just as silently, Noli acknowledged the elder man’s concerns, but she couldn’t pass up such an opportunity.

The detection of an active Underspace aperture was just the solution they needed. If it proved to be real, that is.