((Exeter, Bridge))

Back on the Exeter Bridge, Abaroa sighed. Looks like this would end up taking a lot longer than originally planned. But at least it would be time for his break soon, and he could go back to tinkering with his PADD in his quarters, or maybe getting something to eat.

Aloran’s his eyes locked on the primary viewscreen though it showed only the stillness of deep space. His mind sifted through probabilities and contingencies, weighing the implications of the Fraser’s appearance and their crew’s account.

“Chief Traan,” he said calmly, turning slightly toward the chief’s station. “Log the Fraser crew’s preliminary debrief and technical account into a report. Flag it for cross-analysis with the Vaadwaur incursion database. Include telemetry on the quantum filament incident and mark it for review by Starbase Bravo”

Traan nodded, “Aye, sir” as he tapped the notes into his padd and then returned to monitoring the new cadet at the Ops console.

Aloran continued, his voice even, “Given the pattern of spatial anomalies in the wake of recent Vaadwaur activity, I find it statistically unwise to attribute the filament encounter entirely to chance. However, speculation without data is illogical. Have the Oxus initiate a passive long-range sweep of the vector they travelled before recovery. Look for residual quantum distortions or gravimetric irregularities”

There was a short silence. The bridge officers, mostly cadets, were growing accustomed to Aloran’s presence in the chair. A Vulcan not bred for command, but whose precision and unexpected good humour, made for a surprisingly effective interim leader. He did not need to raise his voice or over-explain.

He turned his attention to the helm, “Cadet Abaroa”

Abaroa sat up slightly straighter, hoping he wasn’t somehow in trouble, “Yes, sir?”

“I want you to assist in reviewing the flight telemetry from the Oxus, particularly during the recovery and tow alignment phases. Look for irregularities – minor inconsistencies often indicate greater errors. Precision in towing manoeuvres is non-trivial, especially under stress”

“Yes, sir,” Abaroa replied, eyes now darting toward the secondary displays, pre-emptively pulling telemetry files. Something he was less practiced with, though it wasn’t like he was going to admit that. As far as he could tell, though, everything looked normal.

Aloran moved toward the science station and tapped in a command himself, overriding a training protocol to bring stellar cartography online.

“Chief Traan,” Aloran said, eyes not leaving the holographic projection, “as a diplomatic officer, I do not typically offer tactical assumptions. But I am concerned that the Fraser’s route – combined with its unexplained silence until now – may indicate the presence of a broader navigational hazard in this corridor”

For a simple training cruise, the stakes had risen sharply, and though the crew had performed adequately under stress, Aloran knew that situations like this had a way of unfolding layers that were not immediately visible.

Traan tapped on his console and reviewed the reports from the Oxus again.

“Sir, it appears that one of the Fraser crew had jury rigged a shunt to allow them to coast in towards SBB over 17 days ago. This report states, quote “they only reserved enough power to run minimal life support after shutting the power to the impulse drives. So that would explain their comms silence.. so if they had been coasting towards us at full impulse for 17 days, and we found them at a distance of roughly 8 light days from the edge of the system… then they were certainly beyond the sensor range of our defense net and short range sensors equipped on our fighters that routinely patrol out here.” He reported.

Aloran replied as he tapped on the science console a few more times and returned to the centre seat. ‘Very well Chief. It may be a series of unfortunate events ending with the runabout striking a quantum filament after all. Curious though.’

Traan nodded ‘Agreed, sir. Very weird…but then again, we were running flight training out here near the system rim ice giants, and we could have just been in the right place at the right time.’

Aloran placed his hands behind his back standing near the captains chair, ‘Cadet Abaroa, time to rendezvous with the Fraser?’

Abaroa checked his console ‘About 53 minutes sir.’

Traan gave a nod of approval to Abaroa before he turned back to the helm console.

Not long after this, it was time for Cadet Abaroa to switch out with another older Cadet, so he headed back to his quarters.

(Abaroas Quarters)

He grabbed some mofongo cooked in plomeek broth from the replicator, which was good, but not as good as his dad’s cooking. Then he sat on his bunk and pulled out his PADD. Before doing anything else, he decided to send a text to a friend of his.

‘You would NOT believe what happened on this cadet cruise.’

Epilogue

(Bridge)

Just then the ships ‘Captain’ for this cadet cruise, a 74 year old Professor of Astrometrics and Stellar Cartography and 2 other officers arrived on the bridge. It had been 34 minutes since Traan had noticed the Runabout Fraser on the sensors and 28 minutes since the false yellow alert when the sparrows stumbled upon the rogue simulated BoP, and 26 minutes since Aloran had reinstated the yellow alert, and 24 minutes since their own Runabout Oxus had streaked out of the shuttlebay.

The Captain had been sleeping in his quarters the entire time. And being a person who slept to the sound of concerto music, the low tones of the constitution class yellow alert klaxon had failed to rouse him from his slumber until a few minutes before he had arrived on the bridge. After several moments of briefings explanations and reports aboard the bridge, both Aloran and Traan were relieved, since it was nearing the end of their scheduled shifts anyway. The captain had asked Aloran to file a full report on the incident, adding ‘and please send me all the information about the quantum filament. That is oh so exciting, I just published a study about quantum filaments a few months ago’ with glee.

The senior ops Observer, who had relieved Traan had commended him on his work and also asked for a report. He would need them for his own logs and reports of course. Aloran and Traan then found themselves on a turbo together each heading to deck 3.

“Most eventful half hour of any cadet cruise I’ve ever been on…” Traan said, though he realized he had only been on a grand total of 4 during his quarter century in the service.