[ Act One ]

Tarik was enjoying the hot foam bubble bath in a small but comfortable bathhouse. The room was paneled with massive silver fir planks, and the ground surrounding the tub was covered in finest black marble. The jets caressing his aged back felt amazing, and he let out a satisfied sigh, sinking another centimeter deeper into the hot tub. His short dark brown hair stuck to his head, and the skin of his face was flush from the heat. The wetness darkened his hair and covered up the gray streaks betraying his age. He was completely relaxed, soaking in the tub when suddenly something chirped.

The middle-aged Human opened his eyes, and a shadow of annoyance fell on his face. The chirp sounded again. Tarik took a deep breath. He had been away for not even half an hour and was already again interrupted. Chirp. It seemed he just shouldn’t be able to enjoy a hot tub at least once. Chirp. With a simple mental command, he lifted the communications filter he had set up before he signed off from his duties.

Within a single moment thousands of thoughts, opinions, questions, impressions, and images flooded his mind. His thoughts became again one with those of the rest of the ship’s crew. In the blink of an eye he was given all information about the situation and knew why his break had been interrupted. Long range sensors had detected the sudden appearance of an unidentified vessel, just shy of eighty light-years from their current position.

They were sending out a distress call on a deprecated subspace frequency, and scans indicate that the foreign vessel is in critical condition. It had sustained massive damage to almost all systems, its outer hull had been compromised, and the matter-antimatter reactor was twenty minutes away from breaching, give or take a couple of seconds.

Tarik’s eyes opened wide. “Matter-antimatter reactor?” He mumbled in disbelieve while rising from the tub. A cascade of foamy bubbles ran down over his worn and well-tanned skin and tickled softly when they touched his cybernetic interfaces. “Which museum did those people break in to steal that ship? It should be against the law to fly around with such thing. Matter-antimatter… were they having a death wish?”

With a resigned sigh, Tarik closed his eyes, and the hot tub as well as the surrounding room exploded into a billion shards of light, which quickly faded away into nothingness. The sensations of heat and wetness on his body faded as well, and when he opened his eyes again he was back in his dry and dressed physical body, standing in the same place he had left it in.

He was wearing a simple set of brown cargo pants, a plain red t-shirt, and sturdy black boots. He covered the t-shirt with a sleeve-less black vest with over a dozen pockets filled with generic tools and components, as well as a mobile fabricator panel over the sternum. Tarik blinked a few times, helping his natural right eye with the dark green iris to adjust to the sudden wakening, while his cybernetic left eye with the milky white surface adjusted instantly and projected its data stream into his field of view.

The engineer’s thoughts reached out to the gathered hive-mind of the rest of the crew. [Sphere 272-Theta-8 responding. Changing course to two-two-five mark one-three. Distance to target: 79.44 light-years. Time to intercept at maximum velocity: nine minutes thirty-two seconds.] The choir of thousands of minds worked in perfect unison, and the massive sphere gently turned to the side. It had already changed its heading to intercept the stranded ship even before the sound of the crew’s voices had disappeared.

Thanks to his implants, Tarik could feel the change of energy distribution as the sphere’s subspace slipstream drive turned up to maximum power. Charging through a tunnel of darkness and broken fractal rainbows, the ship raced towards the drifting wreck at 500 light-years per hour.

[Primary Engineering Adjunct [email protected] reporting for duty,] Tarik thought to the hive-mind, signaling that he was ready to participate in what would hopefully be a rescue and not a salvage operation. The rugged looking Human disconnected from his alcove, scratched his perpetual three-day stubble, and made way towards the nearest engineering junction at a brisk pace. While he was walking, with a few thoughts he created a sub-network and added twenty of his fellow engineers to a smaller hive-mind focused on coordinating and performing the rescue of the unknown vessel.

[email protected]’s path was carefully guided by the hive-mind, its perfect cooperation and coordination ensuring that neither he nor any of the other requested engineers were delayed from getting prepared for the rescue. While getting ready, the damage control team was already going over a list of equipment they would need to stabilize the core and prevent a breach. [Equipment required. Mobile gamma-reaction dampener. Mobile containment field generator, class thirty-one. Two reinforcing nanite reservoirs. Four mountable solid matter nanite injectors.]

Tarik checked the list, and mentally agreed with the selection. He was carefully optimistic that the engineering team would be prepared for any situation, even though it had been decades since he last worked on a matter-antimatter reactor. He entered the junction where four of his engineers - two Humans, a Vulcan, and a Ferengi - were preparing some of the equipment.

They all wore the same kind of practical clothing marking experienced technicians and engineers - not too tight, not too loose, and a massive number of pockets filled with tools and parts. One of the Humans wore a visor attachment over her left eye, the Ferengi’s right ear had been removed to make place for an old-school permanently implanted probability processor, and the Vulcan’s head was shaved smooth with visible sub-dermal circuitry.

Tarik asked the ship-wide hive-mind for an update. [Time to intercept: three minutes twelve seconds.] He hated not being able to conduct proper preparations but knew all too well that time was of the essence in this situation. The foreign ship’s reactor wouldn’t wait for him before it went critical, so he had to make haste whether he liked it or not. The gamma-reaction dampener, one nanite reservoir, and one nanite injector were prepared here by his team, while the rest was assembled and primed at several other engineering junctions all over the vessel.

Thinking to the sub-network, he reminded his team to bring their personal modifications. [Team, don’t forget to get your personal gear. Everyone is to wear class two armor. There might be coolant leaks or plasma discharges, and I don’t want anyone’s face getting melted off. Also, I want at least two subspace visors, four plasma flow visor, three phase decompilers, and five interphasic compensators in the team. We don’t know how much of their control systems are still working, and we might need to do some repairs the ugly way.]

He turned around, just in time to see that his team members were done preparing the mission gear, and now moved towards the modification alcoves to get their personal extensions. [email protected] hustled after them with large steps, since they were quickly running out of time. He stood in one of the available alcoves, and half a dozen mechanical arms came to life around him.

One arm attached a subspace visor to his face. The moment the asymmetrical attachment touched the skin around his left eye socket, the wireless interface in Tarik’s cybernetic eye connected to the device and a cascade of visual information about all sorts of energy fields and spatial properties registered in his vision. A second arm connected to an implanted socket in his neck, running diagnostics and ensuring all internal systems were working at peak efficiency with enough reserve power.

The third arm grabbed [email protected]’s left wrist and detached the mechanical forearm at the elbow with a swift and painless twist. A fourth arm swooped in and placed a somewhat bulky phase decompiler extension at the stump, effortlessly plugging it into the socket and securing it there.

[Time to intercept: one minute thirty seconds.]

The engineer felt again a slight change in power distribution as a surge was fed into the communications array. A moment later it started broadcasting a message towards the unknown ship, spoken in tune by a choir of over eight thousand voices and translated to the same language used in the distress signal. [USS Sidereal, we have detected critical damage to your life support, structural integrity, and matter-antimatter reactor systems. Our damage control team will assist you. Stand by for transport.]

By now, the discovery of Sphere 272-Theta-8 had garnered the attention of the primary hive-mind, and billions of minds tuned in to the actions of the sphere’s crew. Tarik could feel it himself - millions of personalities started to share his body, hearing every thought and experiencing every sensation as if they were him.

He considered for a moment to withdraw his permission for consciousness sharing but decided against it. Whatever would happen onboard the other vessel would be an incredible learning opportunity for everyone watching him. It’s not every day you get to work firsthand on an ancient but still functioning warp core.

[email protected] and the other twenty engineers were ready for transport, already carrying their mission gear, when suddenly a young woman wearing black segmented full body armor and holding a black and gray graviton rifle turned the corner and entered the room. The Human girl was just a tad over one meter and seventy centimeters, and the silhouette of the armor hinted at an athletic and powerful body hidden underneath. Her cybernetic eyes with dark blue irises focused Tarik, not allowing him to hide from her gaze, and the blueish-white strands of her otherwise black hair perfectly framed her face.

“Typical of you engineers. You’re so wrapped up in playing with your toys that you forget your own safety. You need an escort, preferably a whole squad, and you know it!”

Tarik faced the woman, his face turning into a slightly soured expression. “Hiora, can’t this wait? We’re almost in transporter range. We don’t have-”

“Time for arguments,” she interrupted him with determination in her voice. “I know. I also know that we must hurry, and I promise to stay in the back and let you do the talking and the working. But if the air gets hot, you’ll be glad to have me with you instead of only your engineers. So, put me on your sub-net and let’s get this over with.”

[email protected] watched his new away team member with a stern look of disapproval, but after a moment he gave up because he knew his resistance was futile. With a mental command he added the soldier to the mission sub-network and notified his team. [Secondary Security Adjunct [email protected] added to the mission as tactical escort. Time to intercept: fifteen seconds. Everyone standby for transport.]

In his mind’s eye he - and the other team members - saw a schematic projection of the ship’s structure. The design was completely foreign to him, never had he seen such a hull. It was a large tapered elliptical disk which apparently housed all the ship’s central systems, sprouting two catamaran arms which extended back and then swooped down to the engine nacelles. There were over a hundred red markers on the schema pointing at destroyed or severely damaged systems, indicating that whatever happened to that ship hadn’t been particularly gentle.

A blue marker was put at the entrance to a large hall on the ship’s eleventh deck - the warp core chamber. Sensors indicated that several simple and relatively weak force fields had been raised around the chamber, and sixty-eight life signs, several of them appearing severely wounded, cowered at the far end of the chamber.

Tarik was irritated, since it seemed that none of the crew were working to try and stabilize their core. He requested a more detailed scan of the foreign crew, but the very moment he wanted to raise his thoughts about the massive number of weapons those people were carrying, the ship was in range.

[Target in transporter range. Commencing dimensional shift.]

Tarik’s visor visualized the massive subspace distortion forced into reality by the sphere’s transporter systems as a volatile vortex of swirling energies raging all around him and his team members. He felt a shiver racing down his spine as the pocket closed a fraction of a second after it formed. The hairs on his neck stood on end as reality turned into a blur for a blink of an eye, and the pocket shifted to its destination ten billion kilometers away, onboard the foreign vessel.

With a bright blue-white flash escaping from the collapsing black void of the dimensional pocket, [email protected] and his twenty-one companions appeared at the entrance of the Sidereal’s main engineering. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he was sure he wouldn’t have expected this. The quickly dissipating sparks of their transport hadn’t even evaporated completely, when suddenly shouts sounded through the chamber and over sixty pairs of arms grabbed their rifles and pistols and trained them on Tarik and his team. “Borg! Borg! Check your range! Don’t let them touch you!”

[Nobody moves. Hiora, don’t engage! Let’s try talking first.] Tarik thought to the sub-network and swallowed. From the corner of the eye he saw [email protected] nodding and slowly lowering her weapon. The other engineers stood rooted in place, nervously exchanging gazes with [email protected], each other, and the foreigners pointing their weapons at them.

Tarik looked at the people in front of him, and he saw a tinge of confusion mixed with overwhelming doses of fear, disgust, and terror. Pure, unabated terror. He looked at the bloodied and bruised faces of the people huddled around and behind the warp core, and how they desperately held on to their weapons. Every single one of them conducted themselves with desperate courage, and Tarik knew that those people thought they had nothing more to lose.

He didn’t know what had happened to this crew, but it was obvious that they were deathly afraid of him and his team. And they had called him Borg, which was even more irritating and confusing to him. Nothing of what was happening seemed to make any sense, and the primary hive-mind’s thoughts seemed to mirror his confusion. The Human started to realize that something was amiss here, and terribly so. But whatever this ship’s mystery was, none of that would matter if the warp core breached in less than seven minutes.

Tarik took another look at the survivors in front of him and noticed one individual wearing a different color not present on any other person. A female of species 3783 standing in the first row whose jacket had white shoulders, and who held a long viscously looking dagger in her left hand and pointed the energy pistol in her right hand directly at his face. She was flanked by a male of species 5618, and a female of species 6691 in body armor, both pointing their rifles at him. He was reasonably sure that this woman was at least a higher-ranking commanding officer.

The engineer took a slow and short step to the front of his team, which was enough to make most weapons shift their target towards him. He slowly turned his normal arm outward, showing his empty palm. Tarik looked the Romulan woman right in the eye as he spoke, “I am [email protected], Primary Engineering Adjunct of Sphere 272-Theta-8. We’re here to assist you and stabilize your reactor. We mean you no harm.”

[ Act Two ]

Sina looked at the drone in front of her and listened to his words, but she couldn’t make any sense of what she was hearing. The Borg were not renowned for their diplomacy or willingness to help others, and she had no reason to believe this man. “Stay away from us, drone! I will not allow you or the others to assimilate my crew!” She shouted at the drone, aiming her phaser pistol at his face with a shaking hand.

The Commander couldn’t tell whether it was her words or her weapon, but something seemed to influence the Borg, since his facial expression changed from uncertainty to irritation. She wasn’t sure if this was an improvement of the situation, though.

[email protected] furrowed his eyebrows and let out an annoyed sigh. First Borg, now drone. He wondered how many more colorful names he would be given by these people. “Look. I don’t know you, neither do I know what happened to you or your ship. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding and we don’t really have to shoot each other. I do know, however, that your reactor will go critical in about seven minutes, unless you allow us to do something about it. So please lower your weapons and let us help you, before this thing vaporizes us all.”

To emphasize his point, he raised his tool arm and pointed at the warp core’s reaction chamber.

Sina looked at [email protected] in utter confusion. None of this made any sense, and her tongue was laced with cynicism and fatalism as she replied to the cyborg. She poured all her despair, all her rage, all her fear into her words. “Why would you of all people help us? All you’ve ever done to the Federation is to kill or assimilate us. The Collective has butchered hundreds of thousands of our people. We know there are worse fates than death, and we’ll rather die here before we become like you. I don’t know what you’re trying, but your trick won’t work on us.”

Tarik raised his arms in a gesture of futile frustration. Federation? Collective? What where those people talking about? “Trick? You think this is a trick? You know what? Let’s play this through.” He became more agitated than he had wanted, but this whole situation was ridiculous beyond description. They were literally standing on a ticking bomb which would kill them all in just a few minutes, and this woman wanted to argue history and philosophy.

“You think we are ‘Borg’ trying to ‘kill or assimilate’ you? If that were true, why would we waste our time talking to you? If we wanted to kill you, we could have just waited until your ship blew up. Why should we bother coming here and talk to you? And if we wanted to assimilate you…”

He made a pause, staring the Romulan woman right in the eyes, even though half of his face and one of his own eyes was still covered by his visor. “Our sphere’s crew outnumbers you more than a hundred to one. I’m sure you can image how that would have ended. Again, why should we bother coming here and talk to you?”

Now the Human male with the dark blonde hair standing next to the Romulan joined their argument. “Maybe you’re just trying something new? Deception over brute force, for a change? Or perhaps you’ve assimilated a planet of lawyers recently?”

Tarik stared at the Human soldier in confounded annoyance for a second, before bursting into a laughing fit. He covered his eyes with his hand while his body shook from the bellowing laughter. After a few seconds the engineer managed to pull himself together and turned to face the man, pointing his normal hand at him. “You, you have one dark and twisted sense of humor. I’ll give you that.” He snickered.

Now it was Niko’s turn to have his face turned into a mask of utter confusion. He helplessly turned to his CO, not knowing how to respond. “Captain, I…”

Sina dropped her arms, lowering her weapons, and took a step towards [email protected] Niko quickly reached out and grabbed her at the shoulder, his gaze quickly traveling between the Romulan and Tarik. “Don’t… it has to be a trick… you can’t trust them!” He implored her, but she simply shook her head. She placed her hand on her XO’s and looked him in the eyes.

“Niko, nothing what has happened here in the last few minutes makes any sense. They don’t behave like Borg. Not at all. And we both know he’s right. If they had wanted to assimilate us, they could have done so minutes ago. I have a feeling that there’s something terribly wrong here, and I’d really like to know what’s going on instead of dying in ignorance.” She turned to [email protected] “Can you promise no harm will come to my crew?”

“You have my word on that, captain.” He had not missed the rank used by Niko to address her. “I promise we will not harm you or any member of your crew in any way.”

Sina nodded and turned her head to address her crew. “Lower your weapons. Make space for them.”

Niko took a deep breath, and mumbled to the Commander, “I only hope you’re right.” He then turned around to the crew who was unsure what to do. Their faces were a combination of despair and relieve, feeling the hope of not dying mixing with the doubt of this being a trap and that they’d been deceived into surrendering. “You heard the captain. Lower your weapons and make a hole around the core. But still don’t let them touch you.”

Tarik looked at Niko and simply shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

[We have less than two minutes to prevent a breach. I want all four injectors deployed immediately. Hiora, take the containment field generator and place it down there next to the antimatter injector. I’ll deploy the reaction dampener. Let’s move it!] Without speaking a single word, the whole group of cyborgs burst into movement.

Moving and working as one, quietly complementing each other’s tasks and movements, the engineering team set out to follow their assigned tasks, while the surviving crew hurried to spread out and make enough space for the strangers to move around. Tarik turned around and closed the distance to where they had put the reaction dampener with a few large steps.

Pulling the simple, one meter long and half a meter wide, gray tube upright and holding it in its position with the help of a small graviton anchor in his tool arm, he twisted the top end with his normal arm. Immediately the bottom part of the device extended into a tripod and rose slightly, and a holographic control panel blinked into existence at the top end. With a few touches against the virtual panel, he activated the dampening field and instantly the threatening blue and red glow of the warp core degraded to a faint shimmer.

Hiora moved her rifle to her back, connecting it to the implanted graviton anchor between her shoulder blades to lock it in place there. She grabbed the unwieldy cuboid device with both hands and walked towards the warp core. At the railing separating the platform of main engineering from the chasm leading down to the antimatter injector she paused for a second. [email protected] looked over the barricade, measuring the distance to the bottom with her optical implants, and then simply shrugged before vaulting over the railing.

One second later Hiora landed on the warp core’s ground floor with an loud thud, her armor suit’s inertia dampener absorbing the energy of the fall while her cybernetic implants in her legs and back allowed her to land on her feet. Not hesitating even for the blink of an eye, she proceeded to deploy and activate the containment field generator to encase the antimatter injector, as well as the storage pods on the same deck in a paraboloid multi-dimensional force field, which could withstand and redirect the raw forces of an uncontrolled antimatter release.

At the same time the remaining members of the away team took the nanite reservoirs and injectors and started placing them around the warp core’s central chamber. This was easier said than done, because for some unfathomable reason this warp core had its reaction chamber one level off the ground floor. The engineers had to climb and jump onto the core before they could start working, and even then, they still needed to pay extra attention to keep their balance and not drop off the chamber.

Once in place, however, the blocky devices easily attached to the chamber’s outer wall and were then connected to the reservoirs with several thin tubes. The moment the injectors were activated, a thin layer of dull gray plating started to grow from the devices. The layer encroached into every crevice and nook, covering every panel and bolt on the chamber, gradually pumping the nanites deep into the matter and structure of the reaction chamber and sealing it into a crust of reinforced plating.

[email protected] moved to inspect the central console in the middle of the engineering area. While the rest of his team dutifully carried out their tasks, he tried to find out about any other potentially dangerous systems they would need to take care of. The interface was strange and foreign to him, but eventually he managed to understand enough of it to get a systems report. Based on what he saw, he could say with utmost confidence that this ship was dead and would never fly again on its own power.

The whole electro-plasma system had been destroyed, the superstructure was deformed, and one engine pylon had been bent out of alignment. The only issue he could fix right now was the failing life support system. [[email protected], the life support system is failing. Check if you can fix it. It only needs to hold together long enough to get us all out of here.] The other engineer looked back at Tarik and simply nodded his understanding, before he went to disappear around a corner and started crawling into a Jefferies tube.

While he continued to read the strange vessel’s barely functioning engineering systems and status displays, Tarik slowly started to understand the configuration of the ship. It was certainly old by his standards, if not completely antique, but it did possess a certain elegance and cleverness. The ship’s systems were efficient and even somewhat sophisticated. [email protected] wondered where this ship did come from, since almost all its used technology was hopelessly outdated by now.

Matter-antimatter reactor, warp drive, multiphasic graviton shielding, nadion particle beam weapons, energy-matter scrambler transporters - all of this was obsolete or outclassed amongst all known space-faring species. Only madmen, eccentrics, or historic ship enthusiasts would voluntarily use such technology.

One by one Tarik received reports of his team about their completed tasks, and he mentally acknowledged and confirmed every single one of them. He checked the console’s readout, and a pleased smile appeared on his face. The warp core was stable, as was the life support system for this deck.

As the members of his mission team gradually returned from their assignments and gathered at the main entrance, they silently discussed their observations they had made in the last five minutes. [Reactor and life support stabilized. Survivors wounded, seven individuals in critical condition. Life signs weakening. Require immediate medical attention. Structural damage severe. USS Sidereal no longer suited for habitation.]

Tarik nodded quietly, agreeing with his team’s conclusions. He turned away from the central console and started searching for the Romulan woman. Many of the crew had dispersed into the two corridors, one port and on starboard, that led away from main engineering. Several, however, had stayed in the central chamber, tending to their wounded. It was with one of those groups in the far back of the room, behind the warp core, where [email protected] finally found the captain.

When he approached, he noticed that the Romulan woman and some of her guards or officers were standing around a wounded dark-skinned Human, who was unconsciously lying on the ground. As he got closer, the blonde Human male with the seemingly pitch-black sense of humor, nudged his captain and nodded in the direction of [email protected] The Romulan turned around and met him a few steps away from where a massive Kalonar, apparently a trained medic, knelt next to the wounded, and desperately tried to make do with the limited options of the portable medkit folded open besides him.

Now Tarik also saw that the injured man was missing most of his right arm and had suffered serious burns on his chest and face. His visor clearly showed the signature residue left behind by high energy plasma burns. It seemed this poor man had been standing right next to an EPS conduit when the grid overloaded and exploded.

The Romulan woman looked at Tarik with a mixture of lingering doubt and careful hope. “And, any news? Are we save?” She asked, while softly holding a cold compress against her right hip. He noticed with a stray thought that the bruised skin of her face and her wild hair, desperately trying to escape from her messy pony tail, had done nothing to detract from her attractiveness. Tarik took a deep breath to focus his thoughts before he responded.

“Yes, captain. The reactor has been stabilized. It is no longer in danger of breaching. However…” He scratched his chin under the beard and shook his head at the Romulan.

“…the rest of the ship had no such luck. Right now, this vessel is a drifting wreck. I had to dispatch one of my engineers to even keep the life support running. The hull has been compromised in basically all outer sections and fourteen percent of all inner sections. A nacelle pylon has been bent out of alignment, and the whole superstructure is deformed and damaged on a subatomic level. The EPS grid is mostly destroyed, and there are eleven plasma fires raging on the ship. I cannot recommend you staying here. Your vessel is no longer suitable for habitation. I strongly suggest evacuation.”

The woman’s head sank at his words, and he could see she was struggling with the situation, trying to come up with a response. Tarik pressed on before she could say anything. “Also, you’ve got several wounded. Seven of them are in critical condition and need immediate medical attention. Until you’ve restored your medical facili-” He stopped in mid-sentence when he suddenly felt an exceptional presence inhabit his body and sharing his experiences and sensations.

A melodic voice rose to speak to the primary hive-mind, a voice so rare and powerful that the whole network fell silent for a moment to listen. [I know their vessel, and I know their uniforms. They do not belong here. I will arrive shortly. Until then, make sure no harm comes to them. Treat them as guests and provide all support they need. They are harbingers from the darkest past of our people.]

Tarik realized that the captain and her officers were staring at him, since he had stopped talking and moving in the middle of his sentence. He looked in their confused faces and cleared his throat. “We have received new directives. The Matriarch is on her way here to meet you. She will arrive in approximately thirty-three hours. Meanwhile she instructed us to treat you as guests and provide all support you need.”

It was extremely unlikely that the Matriarch herself would intervene in a simple rescue operation. This whole situation had just gotten far bigger than he would have ever expected. She’d called the stranded crew harbingers. Tarik didn’t like the connotations associated with that word one bit.

[ Act Three ]

“Abandoning the ship?” Niko asked, trying to keep his voice down. But the tension was still clearly audible. Niko, Rel, and Shori were all standing in a tight cluster around Sina, discussing their options.

Sina rubbed the ridges above her eyes on her forehead and turned to her XO. “You have any better idea? Just look around you. The Sidereal is dead. And If we stay here, we’ll also be that in a few hours.” She sighed and stepped closer to Niko. “I know the risks, but we have no other choice. I would be a terrible CO if I allowed my crew to go down like this.”

The Human drew in a deep breath and nodded his understanding. “I know, I know. It just…”

“…doesn’t feel right? Yeah, I know what you mean.” The Caitian continued. She was showing her head again, the helmet dangling from the armor’s belt. “But I guess we have no other choice. Jeffrey and the others need medical attention badly. Co-Yor’s doing his best, but he said he can only delay the inevitable now. If we don’t get the critical cases into a proper sickbay they have at most ten minutes left.”

“I’ll tell [email protected]” Sina said with determination and turned away from the group. She headed towards the primary console in engineering where the lead engineer and many of his people were gathering. “[email protected]? May I call you that? I discussed it with my officers. We accept your help. Please help our wounded first, they don’t have much time left.”

Tarik faced the Romulan with a smile, glad that at least for now the hostility and distrust had subsided. He still couldn’t tell what the deal was with those strangers, but at least they would accept his help now. “Yes, you can call me that, or Tarik if you prefer a name instead of a designation. We will transport your wounded directly to our medical installations. I promise you they will receive all the help we can give them, and they will not be harmed.”

Tarik mentally contacted the hive-mind of Sphere 272-Theta-8. [Requesting med-evac. Designated individuals require immediate medical attention. Two cases of severe plasma burns, including one partial amputation. Three cases of acute radiation syndrome exceeding fifty gray equivalent doses. One case of severe spinal injuries due to kinetic trauma. One case of severed abdominal artery due to intrusion of duranium fragments into abdominal cavity.]

A fraction of a second later, the seven wounded ones were surrounded by a dimensional pocket, and disappeared in bright blue-white flashes, leaving quickly shrinking clouds of darkness and swarms of dissipating motes of light behind. [email protected] looked at the captain and smiled. “They are safe now. Our medical adjuncts will start treatments immediately.”

Sina nodded quietly, still hoping she had done the right thing. “Thank you, Tarik. The rest of us…”

“Our sphere is not equipped as a diplomatic vessel, so we lack the means to provide appropriate quarters. But we can reconfigure one of our cargo bays to provide temporary accommodations adequate for your crew. We can depart this ship whenever you are ready.” Tarik replied, already pulling up the plans for cargo bay three, which was currently empty, and how to best compartmentalize it for their guests.

“Just a few minutes, okay?” Sina asked. When [email protected] acknowledged her request, she nodded and returned to her crew. The majority had returned by now, partially driven by curiosity to take a closer look at the strange “not-Borg Borg” that had unexpectedly come to their rescue. While several remained leery of their strange saviors, most of the crew seemed to have accepted that something was quite different here. And that this difference warranted a closer inspection.

“I’ve talked with the leader of their team. They will provide rooms for us on their ship. I know this will be difficult for some, if not most of us, but I think for now we can trust them. I think the fact that they were asking us, instead of simply beaming us away shows that they have no hostile intentions, at least currently. As strange as this may sound to you, I think we might even have a first contact situation at our hands, so I ask you all to remain calm and rational.”

“Aye, captain.” The gathered personnel responded almost in unison.

Sina also returned to the group of her gathered senior officers. Niko, Rel, and Shori looked at her expectantly. “We can leave whenever we want. Do you still need anything?” She asked the officers around her.

“No. I hope we can get some new clothing from them, and we can always come back later for some PADDs or personal belongings. Right now, we have to get the crew to safety, everything else is secondary.” Niko said, and the Cardassian and Caitian officers nodded in agreement.

Captain D’raxis took a deep breath and replied. “Okay, then that’s it. See you all on the other ship. Don’t forget to tell everyone to power down their phasers before we leave. Guess we won’t need any weapons over there, and it would make a bad first impression anyway if we tried showing up with guns.” Sina returned to [email protected] “Tarik? We’re ready.”

In the background one could hear shouts telling the survivors to standby for transport. The Primary Engineering Adjunct turned around to face the Romulan and nodded. Again, he reached out to the hive-mind. [Requesting personal transport. Myself and sixty-one designated individuals. Destination: cargo bay three.] He looked at Sina with a smirk, while waiting for the dimensional pocket to form. “This will be interesting for you.”

Before the Commander could reply, the pocket was forming, and reality turned into distorted chaos. Within the blink of an eye, all Federation personnel and Tarik had been transferred into the sphere’s cargo bay. Sina shuddered, rubbing her arms as goosebumps caused by the dimensional shift formed all over her skin, while the sparks and motes from the pocket quickly disintegrated around them. “What was that? That wasn’t a transporter beam?!”

Tarik grinned. “No, it wasn’t. In our empire nobody uses energy-matter transporters any more. They are simply too unreliable and have too many quirks that cause problems. We’re using a fractal dimensional pocket which we can translocate through subspace instantly to distances up to ten light-hours away. It’s faster, safer, and reaches further than any outdated transporter.”

Sina tried to understand what the Human next to her had just told her. She did major in Astrophysics at Starfleet Academy, but still she couldn’t make sense of what [email protected] had just told her. Moving dimensional pockets through subspace had been a theoretical concept that the Corps of Engineers as well as the Vulcan Science Academy had investigated for decades. But nobody had found a way to tackle the hyperphasic radiation blasting the insides of the pocket. Eventually the approach was abandoned as unworkable.

“Hey Sina!” Suddenly came a shout from not too far away. She turned and saw Niko and the others standing in a cluster about ten meters away. Her XO walked towards Sina and Tarik. “Everybody’s accounted for. We’re all here.” He stopped a few steps in front of them and started looking around. Currently the massive cargo bay was empty aside from the people standing in one of its corners. The ceiling towered twenty meters above the ground, and the walls of the quadratic hall were 100 meters apart.

All surfaces were a smooth pale gray metallic alloy, interrupted in regular intervals by blue and green markings. There were also groups of semi-embedded columns along the walls every ten meters, which probably allowed easy arrangement of the bay into smaller ten by ten-meter grids. Right in the middle between each group of columns was a large door, allowing access to every individual outlying grid cell of the whole bay.

Tarik could see the slight confusion in the faces around him. He had promised them quarters, and right now they were standing in an empty hall. [Reconfigure cargo bay. Five-by-ten meter temporary quarters for single humanoid occupant. Arrange in groups of eight in twenty-by-twenty meter blocks. Six blocks single level, three blocks double level. Include personal hygiene and bio-waste recycling units.]

Suddenly the ground on the other half of the cargo bay started to shift and grow upwards. Intermediate walls seemed to materialize first as a thin wireframe only to become more solid a second later. Within two minutes, half a dozen flat ceiling buildings had grown from nothing. Three of them had two levels, the rest only had a single level, but all contained eight sleeping accommodations per level.

Two smaller installations, octagonal in shape, manifested in front of the group of cuboid buildings. Each of them was accompanied by a long table next to it and a double row of simple chairs. Each octagon column appeared to provide access to eight replicator-like trays.

[email protected] waved to his guests, gesturing them to follow him. Slowly the group started to move. “I hope these are sufficient. They are identical but larger versions of our standard emergency quarters. Each has a bed, a table with some chairs, and separate units for bodily hygiene and organic waste disposal. The latter ones are activated with simple voice or touch commands at the devices’ surfaces.”

As they passed between the large columns, Tarik continued. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but our vessel currently doesn’t have sufficient fabricators available to provide each unit with their own device. We simply don’t need as many of them anymore. You’ll find six food fabricators and two non-food fabricators for clothing and such at each of these columns. As with the other devices, simply touch the control panel and state your request.”

“Fabricators? Are they like our replicators?” Sina asked curiously.

The engineer looked at her questioningly for a moment, but once the information filtered into his consciousness he shook his head. “No. They are similar in what they do but are based on completely different principles. Replicators always include a full transformation between matter and energy states for the whole created object. Fabricators use femtometer scale baryonic seeds. Effectively, it’s all about programmable matter. The fabricator activates the seed with pulsed metreon radiation, shaping it into whatever the program demands.”

“This is not only much more energy efficient but also significantly faster. Generally only matter designated for consumption, mostly organic substances, are replicated instead of fabricated. While eating fabricated food isn’t harmful to the body, we consider using the seeds this way a waste, since some of that matter is unlikely to be recycled again.” Tarik finished his explanation with a proud smile, while the surrounding Starfleet officers looked at him with a sense of tentative astonishment.

Niko and Sina were walking close to Tarik, at the tip of the column of Starfleet personnel moving towards their guest rooms. “Thank you.” Sina said honestly, her expression slowly relaxing. The situation was still strange, but for now she felt they were safe. They had a place to sleep and heal, and they had food and clothing. At this moment she remembered to check in on their wounded, but they were probably still being treated. She’d visit them shortly.

She stood at the entrance to her quarters and waved [email protected] over to her before he could disappear. “Tarik, I wanted to thank you for what you and your people have done for us.”

The middle-aged Human shrugged slightly. “No problem. But I am increasingly curious what your story is. Your ship is most unusual, basically an antiquity. I hope when the Matriarch arrives she can shed some light on the shadow of your sudden appearance.”

“This is the second time you mentioned this title. Is the Matriarch your leader?” Sina asked, carefully leaning against her quarter’s door frame.

“The office of the Matriarch is difficult to explain to anyone not a member of the Synergy. The hive-mind elects her every twenty-five years, but it is not only an election in the more common sense. The whole empire discusses her achievements, her goals, and her motivations, and then decides to either renew her office or pass it on to someone else who also has to face the same scrutiny.”

Tarik continued with an enthusiastic smile on his lips. “This process guarantees that the Matriarch not only embodies the goals of the Synergy, but also that all members are willing to follow her when it should become necessary. The Matriarch doesn’t interfere much in our daily affairs. Bound together by the hive-mind, we have managed to create self-sufficient administrative structures on all levels, from a single continent up to whole sector blocks. Usually, the Matriarch works on long-term strategic goals, and on important diplomatic issues with the other galactic powers.”

He noticed that Sina’s expression had become more saddened again. “Did I say something wrong?” He inquired, unsure about his guest’s sudden mood swing.

The Romulan let out a soft breath. “No. Only what you describe doesn’t make sense when I think about the Federation and what we know about the galaxy. I’m…” She looked at Tarik, wondering a moment about the implicitness with which he wore his cybernetic implants, carrying them as if they were the most normal thing in the world.

Sina drew in a deep breath before she continued with a sad overtone. “I’m scared. I’m scared of the truth and what will become of my crew. What did that quantum fissure do to us? Did we go crazy and this all is just an elaborate hallucination while we’re really dying in the wrecked remains of our ship? I don’t know. And I’m afraid of the answer to that question. But I guess that’s our problem and not yours.” She forced a smile as she looked at the man who helped save her and her crew.

Tarik raised an eyebrow. A quantum fissure? Was this the reason for their ship’s condition? He thought about it for a moment, and then reconfigured his subspace visor to extend the scanning band down to quantum realm properties. As he thoroughly looked at Sina, everything seemed normal, until his visor picked up her quantum signature.

It was different.

[email protected] turned his head and looked at other survivors nearby. Every single one’s quantum signature was different. He stared at Sina with a look of disapproval and disbelieve. He now understood what the Matriarch had meant. They do not belong here.

“Something wrong?” The Romulan asked nervously. Something had happened, his facial expression had lost all its previous casual ease. Had he seen something with his implant?

“I don’t know yet. I’m sorry, but I must leave. This cannot wait. I’ll return soon, hopefully.” The engineer turned away and almost sprinted away from her, heading right to the cargo bay’s nearest exit.

Sina looked after Tarik, wondering what had happened to agitate him that much. If it concerned her, she was sure he would eventually tell her. But right now, she was tired. The stress and exhaustion of the last hour’s events finally came crushing down on her. She shuffled to the nearest fabricator column, got herself some casual clothes, and went back to her quarters. She got cleaned, changed clothes, and was out cold a minute after she had laid down on the bed.

[ Act Four ]

Rel carefully peeked into the quarters, softly calling out for his CO. “Commander?” There was no reply, but he did see the silhouette of a humanoid body on the bed at the far end of the room, covered by a layer of simple blue blankets. The Cardassian hesitated for a moment, but then retreated from Sina’s accommodation again, deciding not to wake her since it the report wasn’t that important after all.

So, both the Commander and the XO were asleep. He really couldn’t fault them. The last few hours had been not only been an emotional roller coaster unlike any he had ever experienced before, but they had also faced off against certain destruction. He still didn’t quite understand how Visra managed to come up with the idea of detonating a quantum torpedo, but after all he was glad she had done it. She had saved them all.

Rel was still wearing his slightly worn duty uniform. Before he allowed himself the luxury of some recovery, he had to make sure that the rest of the crew were okay. Most of the survivors had quickly taken to their quarters, cleaning themselves up and getting some rest after they had cheated death by a hair. Co-Yor had replicated a few more medical supplies to treat the non-critical bruises, abrasions, and fractures, and most of his colleagues had just wanted to get some rest afterwards.

Only a tiny group of people were sitting together at one of the long tables in front of their accommodations. “Hey, Lieutenant! Want to join us for a drink?” Shrass, an Andorian astrophysicist, called out to him. The scientist’s rich blue skin was darker than normal for his race, and really stood out from a crowd. Rel thought about it for a second, then started to walk towards them. As he got closer to the table, he saw that the group had replicated a couple of glasses and some bottles of liquid. The Cardassian put on his best “serious” face he could manage and approached the table.

“I hope you’re not drinking on duty, Ensign Th’akianas!” He teased and couldn’t stop the slow spread of a wide grin from ear to ear. He earned a couple of laughs, but they died down quickly when the gravity of the situation came back like an inescapable blanket threatening to smother them all. Rel quietly sat down with the group.

“Well, duty usually implies there’s a ship to do duty on, doesn’t it?” Shrass asked, the others nodding sorrowfully. “To be honest Rel, I don’t like it here. I know, they helped us and saved our lives. And I know what the captain said, but still… something feels odd about this place, about these people. They say they weren’t Borg, but I’ll eat a steaming pile of raw klahz liver if they don’t look and walk like Borg.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.” A female Vulcan Junior Lieutenant replied flatly. She turned her head and focused her Andorian friend, her glossy black hair cut in the distinct Vulcan style. “We should not allow ourselves to be tempted into making hasty judgments based on their appearance. They do use cybernetic implants, but the Borg are not the only species to do so. Even the Federation has a history of using cybernetics to restore lost extremities or treat injuri-”

“But we don’t cut off someone’s arm to put a super powered hyperspanner in the socket or amputate one’s ear to make space for a molecular analyzer, T’Sai. These guys do, and they just don’t seem to care about it. For them having a mechanical tool as a right hand seems to be perfectly normal, and this is creeping me out big time.”

T’Sai shook her head. “I think you’re overlooking some information. I’ve been observing some of their crew as we had been interacting with them. It seems at least some of their cybernetics are modular. [email protected]’s visor was detachable, and he had a normal face underneath it. The eye the visor connected to was presumably blind, but it could also be only a non-standard visual appearance. My assumption is less that they don’t care, but rather that their modifications are not permanent and therefore don’t cause them the levels distress we would be expecting.”

Eventually the Human crewman who so far had just been fidgeting silently with his almost empty glass spoke up. He looked up from his glass, his face distorted into a mask of anger. “I don’t care. I don’t care about them, or what they do, or why. I just want to get home. I think the captain made a mistake putting us all on their ship. We don’t have any way to defend us here, no weapons. Maybe we should try to modify the fabricators to spit out a phaser or two…”

“Haroun, you’re being irrational.” The Vulcan Junior Lieutenant tried to confront the Human’s fears with her logic. It was an exercise in futility. “If they had wanted to inflict any harm on us, they would have already-”

“Yeah yeah, would have already done so. Spare me this trite lamentation. Don’t any of you find it awfully convenient that they were just around the block after our ship got put through the grinder? Has anyone of you thought that maybe that anomaly was a side effect of a new propulsion technology they developed? And that this all is an illusion to pacify and deceive us, like the drone ships used by the Romulans before the war?”

“That’s enough, Crewman Al-Tammar!” Lieutenant Neirrek stood, using his imposing frame to put weight behind his words. He usually avoided doing so, since he attempted to use reason to get his point across instead of intimidation, but he felt that reason would fall on deaf ears with the Crewman. “While I agree that we should stay vigilant and communicate any suspicious or potentially hostile activities by our hosts, we shouldn’t become trapped by paranoia or fall prey to wild conspiracy theories.”

He saw Haroun attempt a retort but wouldn’t have any of it and simply talked over the Human. “I was the first who saw the contact on the sensors. They were not ‘just around the block’, they were over fifty light-years away from us. Any relationship between them and the anomaly that stranded us here is completely unsubstantiated. Remember: extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. And where’s the proof to support your allegations?”

The Cardassian easily stared the Human down. “Thought so. So, no, we will NOT mess around with our only food and water supply to try and create some weapons. And what would you do next, anyway? Imagine you broke the fabricators to get a phaser. Congratulations, now what? Are you going to start shooting everyone? Maybe you remember what Tarik said back onboard the Sidereal. They outnumber us more than a hundred to one. And given the size of this single cargo bay, I tend to believe that their ship can house such numbers.”

Rel took a deep breath to calm his voice which had gotten a tad louder than he had wanted. “Right now, we’re relatively save here. We have shelter, food and water, clothing, and medical supplies. But none of us knows whether that would stay this way if we started trouble with them. I hope I’ve made myself perfectly clear?” He stared Haroun dead in the eyes, waiting for a response.

“Yes, Sir.” The Human meekly replied, visibly upset and on the verge of tears. His frustration and feeling of helplessness were about to burst through any seam available. “I… I didn’t mean to…” He sobbed, his frame shivering slightly. The Andorian and Vulcan also sitting at the table had silently observed what just happened, their wide gazes traveling between Haroun and Rel.

Lieutenant Neirrek sighed, slowly rubbing the ridges above his eyes. “Haroun, don’t think I don’t know what you mean. I also feel helpless. But we must not mess this up. Captain D’raxis thinks this is a first contact situation. I don’t know if she’s right or not, but if we blow this it could get us all killed. We just can’t risk it. So, all of you, keep it together. And I implore you to find me and talk to me, or Niko, or Sina, before you go ahead and do anything stupid. Okay?”

The group at the table nodded silently, and quickly focused on their drinks again.

Rel decided to call it quits since he was also starting to feel tired after this day’s events. Reasoning with himself that right now there was nothing more he could do, as most of the crew were either already asleep or about to go to bed, he excused himself from the table. He headed towards the last building block on the right-hand end of the cargo bay, where his own quarters were, when suddenly a brazen voice addressed him from around a corner, followed by a soft giggle.

“Nice dressing down. I really liked the conclusion. Maybe you should reconsider joining the Diplomatic Corps.”

Rel stopped in his tracks and sighed. “Hello Shori…” He returned, before turning around to face the Caitian. She leaned against the wall of one of the single floor blocks, and cheekily smiled at him. “I’m glad you like my way with words.” Shori laughed heartily and stepped fully around the corner. Rel raised an eyebrow and scanned her from top to bottom and back up again when he noticed she wasn’t wearing her usual armor. Instead, she was dressed in a simple but apparently comfortable dark brown jumpsuit.

“Something wrong?” She asked, slightly tilting her head while her large ears popped up and pointed at him like ancient radar dishes.

“Didn’t know you also came without your armor. I thought you two had already become melded together after all those years.” He chuckled as they slowly continued walking towards the end of the hall.

“Very funny.” She hissed, throwing a pretend clawing gesture in his direction. “But seriously, how’s the mood? Guess you’ve been talking and checking up on most of the crew?”

Lieutenant Neirrek look at the female Caitian and shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s mostly okay, but I’m worried about hot-heads like Al-Tammar. Especially with our counselor out of order, and no other trained professional to talk to, I don’t know how long things will hold up. Sure, I can play ‘angry Cardassian’ for some time, but it’s only going to help so much. We can only hope that we’ll get at least some kind of explanation soon, before people start coming up with their own interpretations.”

Rel drew in a lungful of air, followed by letting out a hearty yawn. “I think the best we can do is keep our troops busy, so that they don’t get complacent and bored. Marshal them for the regular drills, do some PT, the normal stuff. Without anything else to do it will still get repetitious, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Sounds good, and I couldn’t imagine a better qualified drill instructor than you. But I feel you. I’ve been talking with my security team, and they’re holding up okay. Sure, they’re also frustrated and scared, but they seem to have come to terms with the current situation. Without equipment they won’t be able to do much, but they’ll keep an eye open if someone tries anything.” The Caitian seemed confident in her team, and her estimation of the situation.

Her long tail gently swayed from side to side as they continued walking, but it stopped for a moment when Shori sighed. “But there’s one crew member who has me really worried.”

“Hmm? Who?” Rel inquired.

“Visra. She’s not been herself since we got here. Before I came to you, I went to see her. Initially I thought she was just irritated or annoyed. But once I spent some time with her… At first, she barely reacted to my presence. She almost seemed to ignore me on purpose. When I got closer to her she lashed out at me. And I’m serious. She clawed at my face. Then she screamed at me to get out and leave her alone. I’m not a professional therapist by any means, but I think I know that kind of PTSD when I see it.”

By now they had reached Rel’s quarters. The Cardassian leaned against the wall and let out a deep sigh. “You think she’ll do anything to herself? I don’t know if it’s a good thing if I go pester her right now as well, but I’ll keep that in mind and go check on her first thing tomorrow.”

“Don’t think so, she didn’t seem to be such a case. But you can never be sure. Some trigger could initiate a completely different reaction, even though I have no idea what exactly could have caused this trauma. Maybe we should ask our hosts to keep an eye on her through their sensors, just to be sure she won’t harm herself? What do you think?”

“Good thinking. I would really hate to see her harm herself after saving us. We should also try to get some info about our wounded. I’d really like to see them, even if it’s just through a screen. Just to know that they’ll be okay.”

“I know. I’ll go talk with Hiora and ask her about both things.” Shori mentioned, but then hesitated with a big grin on her face. “Speaking of which… what have you done to our liaison?”

Rel looked at her questioningly, not understanding her question. “What do you mean? What have I done to whom?”

“Hiora. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the dagger glare she gives you.”

Lieutenant Neirrek smirked. “Shori, this woman gives the dagger glare to everyone. So far, I haven’t seen anyone who didn’t get figuratively murdered by her gaze, even amongst her own people. I have no idea if this is just her style, some kind of ‘bad cop’ vibe maybe, or if something else’s going on.”

The COS just laughed, and wished Rel a good night, before sauntering off to the other end of the cargo bay where she would be having a “nice” chat with Hiora, trying to convince her of the necessity of her requests.

The Cardassian, however, just entered his quarters, took a quick shower, and fell onto the bed. Now that he was able to have a moment of rest, his body quickly shut down to grab any chance of recovery it could get. Before falling asleep, his thoughts came back to the Human liaison they had to deal with for now. He wondered why she identified herself as [email protected], while others of her crew called her Hiora. Was this designation-name dichotomy a given for all those people? Was it a personal choice? And why did she appear continuously angry at everyone and everything?

Eventually his thoughts dissipated into clouds of tiredness, and he appreciated the quite generous accommodation before drifting off to sleep.

[ Act Five ]

Admiral Hannah Yadav sat in her office in Starfleet Headquarters, silently scrolling through the report in front of her for the third time. She had read the assessment two times already, thinking there must have been a clue she had missed. But she hadn’t, no matter how much she wished for it. Hannah blinked and glanced at the screen, realizing that she’d been staring off and scrolled back to the top of the document. The characters on the display seemed to mock her, taunt her with the terrible truth they contained.

STARFLEET INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES - PRELIMINARY REPORT

SUBJECT: NCC-69765 USS Sidereal

STATUS: Missing, presumed destroyed on stardate 88299.3

CREW: Missing, presumed KIA on stardate 88299.3

She’d been restless and in emotional turmoil ever since she had received the document an hour ago from Starfleet Command. Many people in SC knew the Sidereal and her unusual crew all too well. Especially the ship’s captain was quite a curiosity. Sina Phaio Gallagher-D’raxis was an unexpected fallout of Romulus’s destruction twenty-seven years ago. Nobody would have expected that a Romulan refugee would end up as Commander on a Starfleet ship. But Sina prevailed against all odds, apparently until now.

If only the ship had been destroyed it would be written off as an inconvenient annoyance. Ships are expendable, after all, and can be rebuilt with a bit of time and material. But the presumed deaths of all eighty-two officers and enlisted members of the skeleton crew that should transfer the ship back to Earth turned this accident into a complete tragedy. The destruction of the Sidereal was the greatest non-combat loss of life in Starfleet in the last fifteen years.

What made matters worse was that Hannah had known Sina and her adoptive mother for more than two decades. She remembered the events from those twenty-five years ago as if they had happened yesterday. Yadav, back then the commanding officer of Starbase 39-Sierra, had seen more misery and suffering since the destruction of Romulus than she had ever wanted.

It culminated in a hopelessly overcrowded Talarian freighter, carrying hundreds of refugees, which had docked with the station for refueling. The sanitary conditions on the ship were appalling, and because of this one compartment of refugees had gotten infected with the Terothka virus. Hannah ordered the evacuation of over four dozen sick refugees, amongst them a terrified orphan in serious condition, and had them treated on the station.

The orphan, a little girl named Sina, was in poor condition and weakened to the point of total exhaustion. She took almost two weeks to recover from the infection. The station’s CMO, Doctor Mike Thompson, took pity on the girl and took her in, allowing her to stay with him and his family. Three weeks later the USS Goddard docked at 39-Sierra, and her first officer, Commander Neila Gallagher, upon learning of Sina’s fate, decided to adopt her and take her back to Earth.

Ever since, Hannah and Neila had stayed in close contact, and the Admiral had enjoyed watching Sina overcome the trauma of her early childhood, and grow into a clever, willful, and dedicated young woman. All three had been beaming with pride when Sina announced her intention to join Starfleet, and even more so at her graduation ceremony. But all those happy memories now turned to ash under the SIS report’s menacingly glowing letters. The Admiral knew that there was one thing she now had to do. And she knew she would hate every second of it.

She opened the comm interface on her desk’s console and called her assistant in the office next to hers. “Peter, please search for the next transporter window to ESD.”

A little over half an hour later Admiral Yadav stood in the turbolift and desperately tried to calm her nerves. This has always been the part of her position she hated the most, and no amount of training or counseling could ever really prepare one for it. Even more so when it concerned a good friend. The lift came to a stop and its doors slid open, giving way to the lounge in front of Earth Space Dock’s port master office. The elderly flag officer tugged her black long jacket straight and took a deep breath to gather her courage before entering the lounge.

The gold trim around her uniform’s red stripe of the Command division shimmered softly under the lights beaming down from the hall’s ceiling six meters above. As she walked right towards the front desk at the other side of the lounge, she looked out the tall and massive windows lining the left wall, giving her a magnificent view of Earth’s northern hemisphere at night.

She could see London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk, Moscow. The lights of the cities below glistened like dust of gold and silver. In a few hours, the approaching sunrise would chase the shadows away and birth a brand-new day. And in a few minutes, she would destroy her friend’s hopes.

The flag officer’s head sank at those dark thoughts, her neatly braided plait of light gray hair swinging gently around her neck as she walked. Eventually, she reached the desk. The Human Lieutenant working through his CO’s schedule had kept a nervous eye on the Admiral since she had stepped out of the turbolift. Unannounced flag officer visits were always either a source of bad news or more work, often both combined. The black-skinned man at the desk wasn’t sure which kind of visit this one was. “Admiral.” He greeted the visitor. “How can I help you?”

“At ease, Lieutenant. I’m Hannah Yadav, and I need to talk to Captain Gallagher. Is she available?”

The young man smiled and nodded. “Yes, Admiral. The Captain’s next appointment is in twenty minutes. She’s in her office, please go ahead.”

“Thank you.” Admiral Yadav nodded and turned towards the door leading into the port master’s office, but after a few meters stopped dead in her tracks. She sighed and looked at the Lieutenant. “Lieutenant, cancel all of Captain Gallagher’s appointments for today and tomorrow. She will most likely not be able to attend them. Direct any complains to my office.”

So, it was bad news then. “Um, Sir? If I may ask, why? What’s happening?” The young man asked while reluctantly tapping on the console, bringing up the scheduling interface.

“What’s happening, Lieutenant? The worst part of command duty.” Hannah was already struggling to keep her composure and couldn’t hide the sadness in her voice. “I’m about to go into that room and tell a mother that her daughter will never be coming home again.”

The Lieutenant’s eyes went wide after he heard those words. He had been working for Captain Gallagher since he was an Ensign and had known her and her family quite well during the last two years. He knew that Neila didn’t have children herself but had an adoptive daughter. Sina, one of the few Romulans serving in Starfleet. He had met Sina a few times when she came to visit her mother, and she seemed to be a genuinely good person. He quietly nodded when the finality of the Admiral’s words started to set in.

Silently Admiral Yadav continued towards the doors and entered the modern and spacious office hidden behind them. The middle-aged Captain was sitting behind her desk, tapping happily away at the PADD in her hands. She was well beyond fifty, and her thick auburn hair had started to grow several gray strands. She looked up when the doors opened and smiled as she saw her old friend. “Hannah!” She rose from her chair and put down the PADD, walking around the desk to greet her guest.

“Now that’s an unexpected visitor. What brings you to ESD? Are you finally giving me the gold frame to my pips?” She teased, unaware of the purpose of the Admiral’s visit. Seeing Neila this happy almost broke Hannah’s heart. When her old friend approached to give her a welcome hug, she held out her hands in front of her and shook her head. Neila’s steps slowed down, seeing her old friend’s defensive gesture and the expression on her face, and her brow furrowed with worry. “What’s wrong?” She asked, now standing right in front of the Admiral.

Admiral Yadav took a deep breath and walked past Neila towards the front of the large desk. She swallowed hard in a desperate attempt to make the knot in her throat go away. Then she turned around to face the Captain. “Three days ago, the Sidereal sent out a priority one distress signal…”

The words were like a slap to Neila’s face. The Sidereal. Sina! She followed Hannah to her desk, standing right in front of her, almost getting into the Admiral’s face. Looking in her old friend’s eyes, she saw the sadness and pain, and a dark doubt crawled into her thoughts. Why would an Admiral visit her and tell her of a… distress… Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head, whispering in shock, “Please, no…”

Hannah continued her report with a shaking voice, trying her best to keep it together. “The Sidereal had received orders to return to Earth for an early, rescheduled retrofit. They had loaded off most personnel on Starbase 84 and were only running a skeleton crew. The ship passed through the Norkan sector on her way to Earth, when she apparently encountered a quantum spacetime fissure. Based on the recordings of the distress signal we have, it seems they struck the fissure at warp speed and got partially sucked into it.”

The Admiral turned away and slowly walked to the couch at the other end of the room. Neila just stood there, frozen, motionless, struggling with what she was hearing. “Two Bajoran freighters coming from Benzar and on their way to Cairn, the Mujinu and the Vobrel, were the first to respond. They recorded the distress call and tried to reply but couldn’t get through. The Bajorans changed course to the coordinates of the signal, but they were over four hours away.”

“When they got there…” A weak sob escaped Hannah’s throat before she could continue. “When they got there, they found a localized debris field, but it wasn’t nearly big enough to account for a whole Akira class. The freighter crews continued running sensor sweeps of the area and kept trying to establish communication with the Sidereal.”

Admiral Yadav sat down on the couch, her eyes all watered up. It pained her to have to do this to her friend, but she considered it her own duty and she couldn’t lay that burden on anyone else. Neila deserved to hear this not from a stranger. By now Neila had tears running down her face as she sat down next to Hannah. The Captain already suspected how the Admiral’s report would end, but she still refused to believe it.

Hannah continued, her hands trembling slightly and her voice threatening to falter. “The Newton, an Intrepid class docked at Deep Space 4 at the time of the distress call, also scrambled to respond, and arrived three hours after the Bajorans at the Sidereal’s last known position. When the Newton arrived, over seven hours had passed since the distress call, and still no contact could be established with the ship, nor were there any signs of the vessel or her crew. There was nothing else but the debris. No beacons, no log buoys, no escape pods.”

A pained sob escaped Neila’s throat as she heard those words. She desperately tried to keep her composure, but she was at the brink of failing. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Sina. Her girl couldn’t be dead. She mustn’t be! She had written that she wanted to play with Jack, their Labrador puppy. And she wanted to eat again at Victario’s, her favorite restaurant on Mars.

It had been over a year since they had seen each other in person, and now… and now… Neila couldn’t focus on any thought any more. Everything seemed to happen through a cloudy fog. It had to be a dream turned nightmare, and she had to wake up any moment now.

When she spoke those last three words, their merciless finality made the Admiral’s eyes overflow, and tears now also ran down her own face. “The Newton’s sensors picked up traces of a quantum torpedo explosion near the center of the debris field. Based on the distress call, the spatial distortions at those coordinates, the condition of the debris, and the torpedo traces, we assume the crew of the Sidereal tried to escape from the fissure by detonating a quantum warhead in its proximity.”

“The Newton’s science officer confirmed that under the right conditions a quantum torpedo could have created a shock wave to push the Sidereal out of the fissure and then collapse the rift. But…” Hannah shook her head, the sobbing coming from her friend sitting next to her was like a thousand needles in her heart. Her voice was cracking, and she could only continue in a whisper. “…we can’t tell why it didn’t work. Maybe the explosion was too weak, or not in the right spot, we just don’t know. A team from Starfleet Investigative Services is currently trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

“As far as we can currently tell, the Sidereal was eventually destroyed by the fissure shortly after dispatching the distress signal and lost with all hands. I’m sorry, Neila… I’m so sorry…” The Admiral had barely finished, when the mourning cries of a mother who had lost her only child echoed through the room. Hannah looked to her side, and saw Neila sobbing and weeping, burying her face in her hands. It broke her heart to see her friend like this, and Hannah couldn’t hold back her own tears any more. She put her arms around Neila and pulled her into a close embrace. “I’m sorry…”

The two women silently held on to each other, mourning the part of both their lives that had been ripped away from them. Hannah and Neila stayed for several long hours in the office, consoling each other over Sina’s death. Their tears had burned hot, but eventually dried up. They kept talking about their memories of Sina and the last twenty-five years of her life. Eventually, Captain Gallagher’s shift replacement showed up, and Neila and Hannah continued their talks in private quarters long into the night.