A New Way to Bleed

Posted on Sat Apr 25th, 2026 @ 1:57pm by Commodore Kovich & Captain Wilkan Targaryen & Commander Ceara O'Hare & Lieutenant Harris Zim & Lieutenant S'reessa & Vaelira Daro & Elara Jyn

2,311 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Homecoming
Location: Bridge, U.S.S. Sulaco
Timeline: 3190-11-01, 09:15

The Sulaco’s Bridge was a tiered arena of dark industrial carpeting and high-contrast bulkheads, a space that rejected the warm, domestic aesthetics of standard explorers for a clinical, militaristic edge. As Wilkan Targaryen stepped through the Ready Room doors, he felt the ship shiver - a rhythmic, digital tremor that rattled the deckplates under his boots.

He moved down the central aisle, his gaze sweeping over the circular perimeter where the specialized support consoles hummed with a frantic, blue-light energy. Kovich followed, a silent, gaunt figure who seemed to blend into the shadows of the sleek, high-contrast walls.

"Gather round," Wilkan commanded, his voice a steady, subterranean anchor that stilled the air, "Senior staff, eyes on me."

He didn't take the Command Chair. Instead, he stood on the elevated dais at the absolute center of the room, a 360-degree vantage point that isolated him as the final arbiter of the coming storm. Karys, Elara, Zim, T'Krell, Vaelira, S'reessa, and Scarlet looked up from their tiered stations, their faces illuminated by their workstations.

"I would normally convene this in the Briefing Room," Wilkan said, his hands resting on the back of the Command Chair, "but I'm not sending us down to Deck Two while the world is burning. We brief here. Efficiency is our only currency."

He looked toward the forward arc of the bridge, where the Flight and Tactical stations sat on their raised platform, providing an unobstructed line of sight to the Main Viewscreen. "The situation on Earth is deteriorating," Wilkan began, his voice dropping into a cold, clinical register. "President Sahimi has confirmed that a 'Purist' cell has taken control of Vanguard-9 in a hostile seizure and is using it to broadcast a computer virus into Earth’s infrastructure. If that weren't enough, United Earth are also dealing with a fast-acting respiratory plague affecting the megacities."

"The goal is disqualification," Kovich added, his dry voice cutting through the hum. "If Earth descends into civil war or martial law, they fail the Federation's admission criteria. It is a procedural execution of the 'Homecoming' movement."

Wilkan nodded, his gaze returning to the senior staff. "Since I'm expected at the negotiating table in San Francisco, United Earth's President will notify their Parliament I’m buried in paperwork. In the meantime, Sulaco will jump to the Oort boundary to retake that station and neutralize the broadcast. I need options, Earth needs options, otherwise we can forget the whole enterprise."

Scarlet turned her chair as Wilkan entered, and listened attentively to the Captain's summary of the situation, shaking her head as he finished. "Right old mess there," she finally remarked, as she briefly turned back to her console and brought a map of the Oort boundary up on the main viewscreen. "Right," she continued as she turned back. "We have Vanguard-9 right there. What info do we have on this force that has taken over? Any defenses we need to be worried about?"

Wilkan didn’t answer immediately. He let his gaze drift to the main viewscreen, where the Oort boundary was a chaotic graveyard of ice and long-range sensor ghosts. On the lower tier, Vaelira’s console gave a sharp, discordant chirp - the "friction" Kovich had mentioned, a digital hiccup that felt like a splinter under the skin of the ship’s logic.

"The force is a splinter cell of the United Earth Defense Force," Kovich stepped forward, the blue light of the bridge catching the edge of his spectacles. "Expect the standard protocols, but repurposed. Vanguard-9 was designed for deep-space surveillance, meaning its sensor pallet is sensitive enough to track a single grain of silicate at ten thousand kilometers. They’ll see us coming before we've even cleared the warp bubble, hence the need for your Spore Drive."

"They're also determined," Wilkan said, his voice reflecting the coldness of the vacuum on the screen. "Trained, motivated, and currently in possession of a high-yield array that is a scalpel of a weapon. They aren't just holding a station; they're holding a kill-switch and they're ready to engage."

Vaelira’s attention sharpened at the chirp from her console, her fingers already moving through the readouts as she pulled the fluctuation apart. “The drive can get us there,” she said, calm and plain, without hurrying the words. “What matters is how cleanly we come out the other side. Short insertions don’t leave much room for drift, and Sulaco’s still carrying a little friction from the last jump. Not enough to stop us, but enough that I’d rather not throw her straight into a tight arrival window without smoothing it out first.”

Her eyes lifted then, thoughtful rather than tense. “Give me a few minutes and I can settle the load across the hub and the local power grid properly. Then Scarlet gets a ship that isn’t arguing with her the second we arrive.” A small beat followed as she glanced back to the tactical display, the station hanging there with all its implications. “And if they’re broadcasting a virus instead of just firing on people, then I’d like a closer look at what they’ve built. Anyone can hold a weapon. Designing something that gets into infrastructure and stays there takes a different kind of mind.” She rested one hand lightly against the console. “If we’re lucky, taking the station stops the signal. If we’re not, we’ll need to understand it fast.”

Elara looked at the people around her. "I can hack into their databases. From what I can see from here, they have a solid security system. But I won't bet on them keeping me out", she said. "I have only refrained from doing so out of the consideration to the politics going on", she went on as she studied each person's facial expressions and their emotions and thoughts. While she sensed a lot of things, she was focusing on what was going on at present. All the other things would have to take a back seat for now. Safety and politics were more important than anything. At least, for now. There was plenty of work to do before anyone could be considered safe. With a quiet sigh, she turned back to her station.

Scarlet nodded slowly as she glanced at the map on the viewscreen. "Getting there shouldn't be a problem at all, between the spore drive and my fancy flying. But that only answers half of my question. What about weapons or ships? How likely is it that they'll try to blow us up the moment they spot us, and do they have the means to do that?"

"They don't need to blow us up, Scarlet," Wilkan said, his voice dropping into that subterranean register that signaled the end of deliberation. Wilkan’s gaze remained fixed on the main viewscreen, the flat two-dimensional map of the Oort boundary standing in place of the holographic displays he had long ago stripped from his tactical requirements. He preferred the clarity of a screen offering a singular, focused window into the chaos. "They just need to keep us at bay long enough for the 'unified government' of Earth to dissolve. A single hull breach or a stalled Warp Core gives them the minutes they need to finish the deconstruction."

Kovich adjusted his glasses, his expression as unreadable as a redacted file. "As for the physical defenses, Vanguard-9 is a surveillance platform, not a dedicated dreadnought; however, the Oort boundary is a graveyard of high-velocity debris. The station is equipped with point-defense arrays and long-range torpedo launchers designed for asteroid mitigation. In the hands of the UEDF, those become a localized minefield." He paused, a flicker of cold calculation in his eyes. "Regarding support vessels, our intelligence is currently a void. The relay's primary function is deep-space tracking; if there are ships maintaining a perimeter, they are likely running silent, using the ice of the boundary to mask their thermal signatures. We must assume the space is occupied, even if the sensors currently say it is empty."

Wilkan moved a step closer to the center dais, his shadow stretching long across the dark industrial carpeting. "Engineer, you have your minutes to settle the load but keep the Spore Drive on a hot standby. Elara, the politics ended the moment the Ready Room door opened, so consider your restraint over. I want you inside their network the millisecond we drop out of the mycelial plane. If they have a kill-code for that virus, find it."

"To answer your question," Wilkan turned back to Scarlet at the flight console, "we don't know what’s waiting in the dark, but they've never had to hold a door against a Crossfield with nowhere else to go." The Captain’s hands tightened on the back of his chair, feeling the humming energy of the Bridge, "If there are ghosts in that ice, we need to be ready for a hot transition. I want any targets painted and locked on before they can cycle their weapons. We are going in with the intent to end this before the Federation Council can even draft a letter of protest."

"Captain, I may be able to help. I think it's safe to assume some of the defenses of the station are non-lethal. Designed for neutralizing intruders. I would assume some sort of gas to knock them out. If we can get into their systems and I have full faith we will be able to, I should be able to activate those systems and flood the whole place with gas and at least get a good amount if not all."

Scarlet grinned as she stretched out her fingers individually and did a few movements to loosen up her wrists and shoulders. "Minefields are no problem." She tapped a few commands into the console and turned back towards the others. "Jump destination is locked in. I'm taking us right next to the station, so we should go in shields up. Us appearing out of nowhere should buy us enough of a surprise moment to get the hacking done."

Like most Capellans Harris was a man of few words, he was also a man of big action. Given the situation there was not much to suggest, at least not at the moment. He worked his console without a word. All the Sulaco's weapons were brought into stand by and the station scanned for primary targets. "Captain. The shields have been raised and weapons are in standby. They can be made active upon your command. I have also taken the liberty of choosing primary targets. As you say upon your command the station can be brought inactive before pen to paper." He did all of this while the others conversed.

Wilkan stood as the silent axis of the room, his eyes moving from the tactical updates on the viewscreen to the focused faces of his crew. The transition from diplomatic envoy to a combat-ready strike force was nearly complete, the air on the Bridge thick with the clinical, cold precision of the Crossfield lineage.

"Non-lethal protocols are a sound backup, S'reessa," Wilkan acknowledged, his voice a steady hum against the background noise of the consoles. "But don't count on the Purists playing by the station’s original safety manuals. If they’ve rewritten the infrastructure, they may have turned those scrubbers into something far more permanent. Prepare your plan but be ready to counter-act whatever they might throw back."

He shifted his gaze to the forward platform, where Harris and Scarlet sat ready. The mention of "pen to paper" by the Capellan brought a grim, thin smile to the Captain’s lips. It was a reminder of the farce they were currently maintaining for the Parliament, the ghost of a negotiator while the hunter took the reins.

"Good work, Zim. Keep those targeting locks soft for now; I don't want a pre-fire sensor spike giving away our position the second we materialize," Wilkan directed. He turned back to the center of the dais, the dark carpet under his boots absorbing the faint vibrations of the ship's readiness. Wilkan reached out, his hand finally gripping the arm of the Command Chair, not to sit, but to anchor himself. He looked at Scarlet, whose hands hovered over the flight controls with a predator’s grace.

The Bridge seemed to darken for a second as the secondary power rerouted, the high-contrast bulkheads framing the view of the indifferent stars. "Let’s go see what’s hiding in the ice."

Scarlet smirked. "We're all set, clear to go to Black Alert. Fasten your seatbelts, folks."

The high-pitched whine of the Spore Drive spinning up echoed through the tiered deck as the lighting shifted. Scarlet’s hands danced across her console with practiced ease, her smirk never wavering even as the viewscreen began to distort, the stars stretching into jagged lines of light.

"Black Alert," Wilkan’s voice anchored the room, a final command that felt like the closing of a tomb.

The Bridge didn't just vibrate now; it sang with the high-tensile energy of a ship preparing to slip between the folds of reality. Every officer was locked in, a unified machine of industrial grit and 32nd Century precision. Wilkan’s grip on the command chair tightened, his knuckles white against the dark leather as the Sulaco prepared to vanish from Earth's orbit and reappear in the freezing graveyard of the Oort cloud.

The final, low-frequency thrum of the drive reached a crescendo, a sound that felt more like a heartbeat than an engine.

"Jump," Wilkan ordered.

The viewscreen distorted, stars stretching into jagged veins of light before the ship violently snapped. Space-time buckled, and the Sulaco vanished from Earth’s orbit, slipping into the mycelial plane with a high-tensile shiver that left only silence in its wake. The hunt had begun.

 

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