The bridge of the USS Farragut had never felt so small. For two days, the emergency lockdown had held fast around it, sealing the bridge in a shell of dim red lighting. The great panoramic viewscreen, normally alive with data or the shining drift of stars, was now a cold, dead plate.

Aloran sat in the captain’s chair not because rank demanded it, but because everyone else needed somewhere to rest and no-one else was comfortable sitting in Ayres’ chair. He could hear the quiet rasp of their breathing and the rustle of uniforms. Talk was occasional. There was nothing else. Not the hum of the warp core, not the murmur of consoles, not even the familiar vibration of impulse engines. The Farragut was silent.

Kincaid half-disappeared into an emergency locker, rummaging through its contents. “Two more ration packs,” he said, withdrawing them and tossing them onto the central console. “That’s us for… what, half a day, if we stretch them? Maybe a little longer.”

“Longer,” Aloran said. “Everyone takes small portions and keeps hydrated.” He held up the metal flask in his hand, barely a third full.

Kincaid nodded.

The young helmsman, his previously perfect turnout fraying, sat cross-legged beside the operations console, his posture sagging. He held a ration bar between his fingers but had not eaten it yet.

Jevlak lay on her back under the science station, tools arrayed around her. “The Pilgrims have not tried to breach the bridge, not yet. That makes me uneasy.”

“It makes me grateful,” Kincaid muttered, “but sure, let’s go with uneasy. Those bastards.”

Outside the sealed doors, the corridor was utterly dark. No buzz of emergency lights, no distant footfall. And somewhere beyond that, deeper in the ship’s wounded body, the Pilgrims moved.

Aloran had heard them once, hours ago, dragging something and tapping against bulkheads in a slow, methodical pattern. But no attempt to force entry. It appeared they were in no rush.

He kept his expression carefully neutral. Fear was contagious. “How long since the last sensor reading?” he asked.

Jevlak looked up at her powerless console, then the crude, hand-wired portable unit she had improvised from a PADD. Its surface flickered with faint lights, almost no range, barely functional. “Twenty-one minutes,” he said. “The signatures remain inconsistent. Movement across the hull. Several small vessels. One larger presence is stationary: likely stationed at the shuttlebay fracture.”

“Still no internal communication?” Aloran asked.

“None,” Jevlak said. “What I have constructed can register ambient noise and little else. The internal conduits remain compromised from whatever energy struck us from Orantei.”

“Compromised,” Kincaid repeated, biting off the word. “Whatever the source of their technology, it seems able to almost sing, or shout, our computers to sleep.”

“An infection, a virus?” Jevlak replied quietly.

The dim light caught Kincaid’s expression.The strain etched into the set of his shoulders. He sat on the deck with his back against the tactical console, phaser rifle across his lap, its indicator light the only thing on the bridge that glowed particularly brightly.

“Listen,” he said abruptly, lifting a hand.

They did. Nothing, at first. Then a faint sensation: a tremor passing through the deck plating that was just enough to be felt. It felt like a slow vibration – intermittent – as though something large brushed the hull in passing.

Aloran narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps pressure waves of an external impact?”

No one spoke. The tremors ceased.

Kincaid exhaled a breath he had been holding. “I swear,” he said softly, “I don’t know why they haven’t tried to force the bridge doors. With the number of ships they have, they surely have more than enough people to rush us.”

“To what purpose?,” Aloran said, not stern but steady. “They have access to the ship and have demonstrated a primary objective of scavenging. There is much to salvage without considering our small area of the ship.”

“But for how long until they decide the bridge technology has value?” Jevlak asked. “Another hour? One more day? We have no contact with the captain or Commander Parr.”

Aloran did not answer immediately. He turned slightly in the captain’s chair and regarded the silent screens, the broken reflection of the bridge lights across their dead surfaces. He had been meant to take command of Task Force 72 and now he was rationing water on an inert ship.

“The USS Anthemius should rendes-vouz with us within the coming days,” he said at last. “Therefore we are waiting for relief that will shortly arrive.”

The words were not triumphant, but they were enough. They rested in shifts. They curled against consoles to conserve heat, shared ration bars cut into thirds, and drank measured sips of water.

Once, during the second night-cycle, the tremors returned with renewed strength. Something clamped onto the hull so close that it made the deck vibrate under their chests. The emergency lights dimmed to nothing for a moment. A dull thunk echoed from somewhere on the hull.

On the morning of the second day the entire bridge was illuminated by a faint, flickering blue glow. It pulsed once and they all looked up. The dead screen flickered briefly and then again. A whisper of power returning.

Aloran rose slowly to his feet. “Someone’s out there,” he said. And for the first time in forty-eight hours, the silence around the bridge felt a little less like a grave.

The flicker on the viewscreen steadied for a moment, just long enough for the bridge crew to rise one by one, drawn toward a notion of hope. The faint blue shimmer pulsed again, a breath of power threading its way through the shattered circuitry. Jevlak hurried to her station, hands already moving across the improvised interface.

“There’s a signal latching onto the main display,” she whispered, focusing on routing what power she could to the system. “It’s a strong signal.”

Aloran stepped closer, eyes fixed on the glimmering patch of light creeping across the screen like frost. “External or internal?” he asked.

“External,” Jevlak replied.

The viewscreen spasmed. Light, darkness, static, a harsh buzz of sound. And then, through the distortion, a voice forced its way into the sealed bridge.

“…rragut, this is Captain Odysseus Hardy of the Victory. If anyone aboard can hear me, kindly switch off your transport inhibitors. You’re being somewhat uncooperative.”

Kincaid let out a soft, incredulous laugh that was half relief and half exhaustion. “Music to my ears!”

Aloran had already crossed to the first of the inhibitors, moving quickly. “Lieutenant,” he said, nodding to Jevlak. “Please deactivate those on your side.”

They worked quickly, their breaths fogging faintly where the temperature had continued to fall. Jevlak crawled into one of the detached wall areas, reaching inward to switch off an inhibitor.

Another burst of static. Hardy again, sharper this time.

“Farragut bridge, the area is secure. Bravo for holding out, I’m looking forward to meeting you all.”

The viewscreen steadied.

Hardy’s face – grinning, slightly bearded, relaxed – filled the screen through a haze of distortion.

“That’s better,” he said, looking at the assembled crew. “Captain Aloran, I presume? I’m sorry that this is our first greeting and so close to your own promotion. But in the meantime, we’d very much like to extract you and the crew just in case your ship falls apart. With your permission?”

Aloran did not realise how tightly he had been gripping the console until he forced his fingers to release it. “You have it,” he said.

Hardy nodded once, sharply. “We have you in a tractor beam and are stabilising your systems. Stand by for transport.”

The ship shuddered, gently this time, as the Victory and its engineering teams worked their magic. A steady hum began to fill the bridge, with the unbroken panels flickering back to life. After two days of silence, the sound was a symphony of hope.

Aloran looked once more at the bridge of the Farragut as the transporter field enveloped him and the remaining crew. He exhaled.

Main conference room, USS Victory

The conference room aboard the USS Victory was warm, bright and almost painfully orderly. After the oppressive dimness of the Farragut, it felt too clean, too composed, as though the universe had played a cruel joke: devastation giving way abruptly to polished steel and crisp lighting.

Aloran sat stiff-backed at the table, a thermal blanket still draped over his shoulders despite his protests. Across from him, Kincaid nursed a cup of something hot that steamed in the cool air, his hands wrapped around it more for steadiness than warmth. Jevlak sat at the far end, watching.

Captain Hardy stood with his back to the bulkhead-length window, arms folded, watching the rescued survivors with an expression that managed, somehow, to balance compassion and severity. Behind him, the damaged shape of the Farragut drifted in tractor-lock, her hull visible through the viewport in mottled shadow.

“All right,” he began, voice steady but unyielding. “Let’s start simple. What happened to your ship?”

Aloran leaned forward, fingers interlaced. “We lost power across all major systems. The station, Orantei, released some kind of energy wave that overwhelmed our systems. We were boarded immediately afterwards.”

Hardy’s eyes narrowed. “By the Pilgrims.”

“Yes.”

“Casualties?”

“Unknown at the time,” Aloran said. “We were cut off from the rest of the ship without access to the internal systems.”

Hardy absorbed that without reaction. He looked to Kincaid. “What about the captain? Ayres? And Parr?”

Kincaid’s eyes flicked down to the steaming mug before he answered, voice tight around the edges. “We don’t know, sir.”

“‘Don’t know’ isn’t good enough.”

Kincaid swallowed hard, resisting the urge to anger. “At the moment the wave hit the ship, all the systems shut down. The captain and executive officer were on the station and we lost contact with them.”

Hardy exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh, more a measured release of tension. He paced slowly along the length of the table, fingertips brushing its polished edge.

“What about the fighters?” he asked. “Your squadron. Any chance Ayres or Parr reached the hangar?”

Kincaid blinked. An idea occurred to him. “We heard a launch sequence,” he said. “Early on. The sound was faint, barely there, but, yes. I think it could have been two fighters’ launching.”

Hardy’s expression sharpened. “So someone – possibly your senior staff – got to the hangar and launched.”

“We cannot confirm that, captain,” Aloran said.

“No,” Hardy replied, “but it’s the first bloody hopeful sign I’ve heard.”

Jevlak, who had been silent until now, leaned forward. “Sir, the Pilgrims were still moving around us for hours after the wave. If the captain and Parr reached the fighters, they might have escaped the ship. But into what?”

“Let’s be clear,” he said quietly. “We found half a dozen Pilgrim ships trying to carve your cruiser like it was a feast. We saw signs of forced entry, mass interference with your systems, and an energy signature from Orantei I’ve never bloody seen recorded in any Starfleet database.”

He leaned in. “So if your captain and his first officer launched from that hangar, they knew something we don’t. We’ve found no indications of destroyed or damaged Valkyrie fighters.”

Silence rippled across the room. Aloran’s eyes dropped to the blanket draped around his shoulders, as if he had only just remembered he wore it. Kincaid closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Hardy straightened. “We’re running long-range sweeps. My mission is now to track the Pilgrims, and I consider finding Ayres and Parr a key part of that mission.” He glanced at the window, at the damaged Farragut. “This is only the beginning.”

“Captain Aloran, you’ll be leaving with the Anthemius. Good luck. I’ll keep you appraised of our status,” Hardy looked back at the others. “The Victory was not meant for this mission. We were to wait at Framheim for the rest of my senior staff. However, fate clearly has something different in order. My offer to the rest of you: join me, for now at least, and let’s raze hell on those Pilgrims.”