The corridor was bathed in red.

The ship was on red alert. Something was happening.

It pulsed, slow and steady, like the heartbeat of a dying creature. The emergency lighting flickered across the metallic walls, casting jagged shadows that bent and twisted with each rhythmic flash. The siren’s wail was low and distant. It echoed somewhere far down the corridor, muffled, distorted, as if the ship itself were submerged in water.

Corbin moved forward carefully. His boots struck the deck plating with dull thuds. “Bridge, report,” he said, his voice cutting through the silence. But no response came. The combadge on his chest chirped faintly, then emitted nothing but static.

He frowned and pressed it again. “This is Captain Corbin to anyone.”

The static hissed, then died entirely.

He looked around. The corridor stretched endlessly in both directions, lined with the familiar curves and panels of the Atlas, yet it felt wrong. The air was heavier. Thicker. There was a faint hum underneath it all, deep and resonant, vibrating through the deck plates like the low growl of something ancient and unseen.

Then he saw them.

His crew. Dozens of them.

They stood motionless, lining both sides of the corridor, shoulder to shoulder. None looked at him. Each faced the wall, heads bowed, their hands covering their faces. Their uniforms were immaculate, their postures rigid, but the silence was unbearable.

Corbin froze. He couldn’t sense them.

“Crewman?” he called gently, taking a step closer to the nearest figure, a young woman in operations gold. She didn’t move. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

No answer. Only the soft, rhythmic hum of the siren in the background.

Something deep in his mind then prickled. It was that familiar empathic instinct, the one that sometimes warned him before words ever reached his ears. He felt something. Was it grief? No, it was not grief; it was guilt. Crushing guilt. It was radiating from them like heat.

He stepped closer to the young woman and reached out a tentative hand. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

Her shoulders twitched.

The faintest sound came from her throat. It was a soft whimper, muffled by her palms. Corbin froze.

“Pardon? I didn’t hear you. What did you say?” he urged. He was now starting to get annoyed and frustrated. What was happening to his crew? Why weren’t they responding to him? “Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.” He almost begged.

Then, all at once, every crewmember down the corridor exhaled. It came like a single, unified sigh. It was a release of air so heavy it made the lights flicker again. It was a low murmur, followed by dozens of voices whispering the exact incomprehensible phrase in unison.

“The Deep Light protects us.”

The words crawled across his mind like cold fingers. He stepped back, heart hammering, eyes darting from one figure to the next.

“What did you say?” he demanded, his voice cracking through the thick air.

No response.

Only whispers.

Endless whispers.

Then one of them moved.

A single officer at the far end of the hall, tall, broad-shouldered, slowly turned his head. Corbin’s stomach dropped when he recognised the profile. Alkos.

“Reon?” Corbin breathed, relief flooding him. “Thank the four deities. What’s happening here?”

But Alkos didn’t answer. His movements were too slow, too deliberate, as if fighting through invisible resistance.

He turned fully toward Corbin, and when he did, the breath caught in the captain’s throat.

Alkos’s eyes were gone.

Two black, cavernous holes stared back at him, rimmed in blood. His hands trembled at his sides, slick with a dark substance. When he spoke, his voice emerged warped, layered with distortion; it was as if several voices were speaking through him at once.

“You need to see it, Captain.”

Corbin stumbled back. “Reon, what’s wrong with you? What’s going on? Where are your eyes?”

“See it,” the voice commanded again, louder this time, until the words became a scream. “See the Deep Light!”

The red alert siren flared into a deafening crescendo. The corridor began to warp, walls twisting like molten metal, and Alkos lurched forward. His mouth stretched unnaturally wide, his scream tearing through the air—

And Corbin woke up.

He jolted upright, his breath catching in his throat. The scream that had been tearing through the corridors of his dream still echoed faintly in his mind, like the dying ring of a struck bell. His chest heaved, bare skin slick with sweat that glistened in the soft amber light spilling across his quarters. The sheets clung to him as if reluctant to let him go, still heavy with the heat of his nightmare. For a long, suspended moment, he just sat there. He was completely motionless. His pulse thundering in his ears, eyes flicking across the shadows as though something might still be there. But there was only silence except for the gentle hum of the Atlas.

He dragged a hand through his damp hair, the movement sharp with frustration and fatigue. The air felt too still. Too empty. The empathic quiet pressed in around him like a vacuum. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet sinking into the thick, soft carpet. The gentle texture against his skin grounded him, a small, tactile reminder that this room, this ship, this moment, it was all real.

Corbin pressed a trembling hand to his face, dragging it down slowly. “Just a dream,” he whispered. “Just a damn dream.”

But the echo of Alkos’s scream still rang in his head.

Corbin stripped off his sleep bottoms and crossed to the sonic shower.

The circular enclosure hummed softly as he stepped inside.

“Activate sonic shower, standard massage intensity,” he ordered.

The invisible waves pulsed through the chamber, vibrating faintly against his skin. For a moment, Corbin closed his eyes and just breathed. The hum of the sonic field masked everything else.

But still, he felt it. It was a faint, residual sense of something watching.

Corbin shook his head, trying to dispel the thought. His hands clenched slightly at his sides. “You’re fine,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re fine.”

The ship wasn’t under attack. His crew wasn’t mutilated. Alkos wasn’t screaming at him from the dark.

He was fine.

And yet, as the sonic waves thrummed, he swore he could hear a whisper. Barely audible.

“…the Deep Light protects us…”

Corbin’s eyes snapped open. He stared straight ahead at nothing. The sound faded instantly, replaced by the faint mechanical purr of the sonic shower.

He stayed there a few seconds longer before finally exhaling and deactivating the shower.

The air felt cooler as he stepped out, retrieving a clean uniform from the wardrobe. The fabric was crisp and reassuring beneath his fingers. Every movement from pulling on the undershirt to sealing the jacket, adjusting the collar pin, became part of a quiet ritual. It gave him focus. He pushed his feet into his boots, and Corbin felt grounded.

When he finally looked in the mirror, the face staring back was composed again. Mostly. The faint tremor at the corner of his jaw betrayed the rest.

“Computer,” he said softly, his voice steadier now, “lights to forty per cent.”

The warm illumination filled his quarters gradually, chasing away the last traces of the shadows he thought were there.

He crossed to the replicator and exhaled deeply. “Jestral tea. Hot.”

The replicator shimmered and produced the mug in a swirl of gold light. He took it, feeling the familiar weight of it in his hands, and carried it to the sitting area.

The first sip scalded his tongue slightly, but the taste, that earthy sweetness, grounded him. It reminded him of being home on Betazed, or of quiet mornings aboard the Columbia before the day’s chaos began.

He leaned back into the sofa, letting the warmth sink into him. The nightmare still hovered at the edges of his thoughts, elusive and mocking.

He’d had empathic dreams before. Visions that felt like echoes of others’ pain. But this… this had felt different. Sharper. Closer. As though something or someone had reached out through the dark and brushed against his mind.

The door chime broke the silence.

Corbin glanced up from his tea. “Come in,” he said quietly.

The doors parted with a hiss, and Nelson stepped through, a PADD tucked under her arm and a faint, determined smile on her lips. Her uniform was pristine despite the early hour.

“Morning, Rome,” she greeted, crossing the room with the easy familiarity of someone who had known him for years. “I hope you haven’t eaten yet, because I brought company,” she waved the PADD in the air before putting it back under her arm, “and I’ve got a whole list of updates Ortega wanted to share before the day gets away from us.”

Corbin gestured vaguely toward the replicator. “You’re safe. I’ve barely started.”

Nelson smirked, setting the PADD down on the coffee table before ordering her own drink. “Coffee. Black.” The replicator chimed obediently. She picked up the mug and turned to him. “Good news for once, the engineering teams have managed to restore power to the I’Shathren. Ortega says the hull fractures have been fixed, allowing us to attempt a controlled tow. With a bit of luck, we’ll have her under tractor beam by midday and ready for us to get back on the road to Ivalis.”

Nelson sat opposite him, scrolling through the PADD as she spoke, “Merrendis still wants to reach out to the Ivalis Union before we get underway. I told her we’d discuss it first thing this morning.”

Corbin nodded faintly, staring into his tea. He wasn’t hearing most of it. The words from earlier were still lingering in his mind. He understood them, but they were almost slipping past him like vapour. The image of Alkos’s hollow eyes remained at the edges of his mind, impossible to shake.

“Rome?”

He blinked. Nelson was watching him now, brow furrowed slightly. “Are you even listening to me?”

He hesitated, then exhaled through his nose. “Sorry, Liz. I didn’t sleep well. Terrible dream.”

She tilted her head, concern softening her features. “Want to share?”
He shrugged it off, not trusting himself to explain. “Just one of those nights. I was up late reading reports.”

Nelson studied him for a second longer before choosing not to press. Instead, she slid the PADD across the table toward him. “Well, in that case, I’ll give you something else to focus on. Reon managed to access the I’Shathren’s final bridge log entry before her systems went dark. We’ve got the captain’s last transmission.”

That caught his attention. Corbin straightened, taking the PADD. “When was it recorded?”

“From what we can tell, about an hour before the ship’s primary computer core went down.”

He nodded once, thumb brushing the display. The PADD chirped, and a moment later, a voice filled the quiet room. It was a soft, trembling, distinctly feminine.

“This is Captain I’Virella of the I’Shathren. Our situation is deteriorating. My crew… they’re not themselves. I’ve sealed the bridge, but I can hear them in the corridors. They say things I don’t understand. I’m recording this in the hope someone on Ivalis Prime receives it. Please tell them…”

Static flared for a few seconds, then the transmission resumed, her voice now strained with panic.

“They said we mustn’t look. That ‘they told us to look away.’” Her breathing hitched, and there was a long pause, punctuated by the faint hum of a failing console. “And they said… the Deep Light protects them.”

The audio cut abruptly.

Corbin froze.

The phrase struck him like a physical blow. His fingers tightened around the PADD until his knuckles whitened.

The room suddenly felt colder, smaller. His breath caught in his throat as the words from his dream echoed perfectly.

“Rome?” Nelson’s voice was soft now, uncertain.

He didn’t respond. He was staring past her, eyes unfocused, mind still trapped somewhere between the nightmare and the log.

“Rome?” she repeated, a touch louder this time.

He finally looked up. But he didn’t say anything.

The PADD slipped from his grasp and landed softly on the carpet as the last line of static faded into silence.