A Promise

Posted on Thu May 28th, 2026 @ 2:42am by Captain Wilkan Targaryen & Commander Ceara O'Hare & Lieutenant T'Krell & Lieutenant Harris Zim & Lieutenant S'reessa & Vaelira Daro & Elara Jyn
Edited on on Thu May 28th, 2026 @ 2:42am

8,317 words; about a 42 minute read

Mission: Homecoming
Location: Bridge, U.S.S. Sulaco
Timeline: 3190-11-01, 09:30

The transition from the mycelial plane was a violent, seamless snap. One moment, the Sulaco was a ghost in the network of the universe; the next, it was a heavy, metallic reality hanging in the freezing shadow of a massive, ice-clad structure. Wilkan didn’t move as the stars realigned, his hand still clamped like a vise on the arm of the Command Chair. He watched the viewer as the gray, skeletal geometry of Vanguard-9 materialized, its long-range sensor arrays extending like the legs of a frozen insect against the backdrop of the Oort cloud.

Wilkan’s eyes narrowed, scanning the raw data scrolling across the perimeter of the screen. He had expected a firestorm of torpedo locks and proximity alerts with the jagged flare of defensive batteries releasing their devastating payloads. Instead, the station sat in a state of eerie, clinical repose. No weapon signatures flared to life. No corvettes broke their silent running to intercept. The only movement was the slow, rhythmic rotation of the station’s primary communications dish, tracking a silent path through the debris.

Beside the Captain, Commodore Kovich remained a silent, gaunt sentinel beside the Command Chair, his hands clasped behind his back. He offered no commentary, his gaze fixed forward as he observed the Bridge’s transformation from jump-sequence to holding pattern. His presence was merely a weight in the room, a shadow waiting for the first sign of a crack in the silence.

Wilkan stepped down from the dais holding his chair, moving toward the forward arc of the bridge where the Tactical readout dominated the monitors. The lack of hostility was a discordance he hadn't anticipated. To a man who had lived a millennium, a quiet enemy was often more dangerous than a loud one.

"Peaceful," Wilkan said, the word tasting of ash, "A station seized by a splinter cell doesn't sit in the dark and wait for a Federation starship to arrive. They aren't hiding. They're inviting us in." He turned toward his crew, his voice dropping into a colder, more demanding register. "Tell me we’re missing something. Tell me there’s a ghost in the ice I’m not seeing."

Scarlet checked the navigational readouts and the Operations display. "No issues with the jump, and we are in the right place," she reported. "Not seeing anything unusual from where I'm sitting. Which is very odd. From what we've been told, these people are basically terrorists. Surely, they'd have some defenses or something in place?"

"A lack of defense is often the most sophisticated defense of all, Commander O'Hare," Kovich didn't turn his head, his eyes remaining fixed on the slow, mechanical rotation of the station’s dish. "Violence is loud. It invites a counter-response. This silence, however, invites curiosity. It invites us to lower our shields, to send a boarding party, to connect our systems to theirs to find the 'answer' to why they are quiet," he explained, his voice a dry, papery rasp that barely rose above the hum of the air scrubbers.

Wilkan stopped at the edge of the Tactical console in the forward platform, his eyes locked on the skeletal frame of Vanguard-9. He didn't like the stillness. It felt staged, like a predator holding its breath in the tall grass. He looked back at Kovich, whose expression remained as unreadable as a closed book.

"They are following a script, Captain," Kovich continued, his gaze finally shifting to meet Wilkan’s. "The 'Homecoming' movement is built on the premise that the Federation is an intrusive, overreaching force. If they fire on us, they are terrorists. If we fire on a silent station, we are the aggressors they claim us to be. They are not just holding a station; they are holding a mirror ready to show Earth our reflection."

Wilkan turned back to the viewscreen, his jaw set. The political trap was obvious, but the tactical reality was more pressing. He couldn't afford to wait for the station to wake up on its own terms. "I don't care about the optics, Kovich. I care about the broadcast," Wilkan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, clinical register. "If they want us to look in the mirror, they’re going to find it’s made of reinforced transparisteel."

He crossed his arms and looked toward his protege at the Science Station, the cold weight of command settling back into his posture. "Elara, I want a full-spectrum scan of that station. No active pings, I don't want to give them a reason to flip the switch just yet."

"Helm, put us in a standard - but close - orbit of the station. Take us close enough I can peek in the windows if I want to," the former Enterprise Captain directed as his ward got to work.

Scarlet nodded as she took the controls in her hands. "Close enough to look in through the windows, not close enough to scratch the paint. All while flying casual. Sure thing, boss. Any other requests?"

"Captain," Karys’s voice cut through the professional hum of the Bridge, sharp and laced with a deliberate, pointed skepticism. She finally looked up from her console, her eyes locking onto Wilkan with the cold scrutiny of someone sent to find a flaw in his judgment. "With all due respect, putting us in a 'close' orbit of a silent, seized station is a textbook tactical error. We are essentially handing them our hull on a silver platter!" She didn't wait for a rebuttal, "Admiral Vance was quite clear that this mission required precision, not bravado. If we move too close you're trading tactical superior distance for a 'peek in the windows,' Captain. I’d like to remind you that Vanguard-9 was designed for surveillance; they don't need us close to see us, but we certainly make it easier for them to hit us."

Wilkan motioned toward his chair, his expression remaining as flat as the ice outside. "Care to drive, Commander? Afterall, I'm technically just a diplomatic guest on this boat." Beside the chair, Kovich’s eyebrow twitched upward, the closest the Commodore ever came to an outward display of amusement. Wilkan didn't blink; he simply waited for Karys to either take the bait or get back to work.

Karys didn't take the bait, but she didn't flinch either. "If we are going to sit in their lap, then we do it with our teeth bared," Karys replied, her voice tight and professional, redirecting her friction into operational necessity. "Tactical, adjust the shield harmonics to a fluctuating cycle. If they have point-defense arrays designed for asteroid mitigation, they'll be tuned for kinetic impact. I want our envelopes phased to bleed off thermal and ion bleed-through instead. And Zim, pre-target the station’s primary sensor spine, not just the weapons. If they flip that switch, I want them blind before they’re broken."

She turned back to Wilkan, her chin tilted up just enough to signal that she was still watching. "The chair is yours, Guest, but remember that the safety of this ship is my problem long-term, not yours."

"Duly noted, Commander," Wilkan answered, but the tension in his jaw eased. He turned back to the viewscreen, where Vanguard-9 now dominated their field of vision. He looked at Zim, "Carry out her orders, Lieutenant."

Zim stood with his hands at his sides. No expression on his face, and no actions taken while the Captain and Karys exchanged words. In fact it wasn't until Wilkan specified that he should carry the orders out that Zim did anything. All at once the tactical systems of the Sulaco came to life. Harris Zim always thought before he spoke. He valued words not just their meaning but their weight as well. At the moment he thought that Karys was too suspicious for her own good. Coming from a Capellan that meant something. "Everything is online and standing by sir."

"T'Krell," Wilkan turned slightly toward the communications station, "Hail them on all open Federation frequencies. If this is a political mirror, let’s give them a chance to speak. If they don't answer, start cycling through the UEDF emergency bands. I want a recording of every bit of background noise coming off that hull, every whisper of the broadcast they’re supposedly aiming at Earth."

The giant feline nodded, his orange eyes shifted from between the Captain and his ominously quiet station. "Understood," T'Krell replied as stoic as ever and set about carrying out his instructions.

"Vaelira," he called out, his voice projecting across the dark industrial space. "Keep the Spore Drive in a hot-cycle. I want us capable of a tactical micro-jump the second those shields take a hit. Monitor the ship's internal power draw—if there’s any feedback from the station’s direction, I want it isolated and purged before it hits the main grid."

Vaelira’s fingers were already moving before Wilkan finished saying her name, pulling the spore-drive telemetry out of its quieter monitoring layer and bringing it forward across her console. The hot-cycle command made sense, but that didn’t mean the ship would enjoy it. Tactical micro-jumps were ugly little things by nature: less elegant than a full transition, less forgiving, and far more likely to punish sloppy timing. “Hot-cycle readying,” she replied, calm but focused, her eyes moving quickly through the readouts. “I can keep her primed, but micro-jumps are not gentle. If we use one under fire, I’ll need clean timing from Helm and no clever surprises from Tactical unless everyone wants to find out how much of the Oort cloud fits inside our hull plating.”

She adjusted the power distribution, isolating the mycelial hub from the main grid by another layer and setting a purge pathway through the auxiliary buffers rather than letting any hostile feedback ride deeper into the ship. Her expression tightened slightly, not with fear but concentration. “I’m putting a hard break between the station’s direction and our primary power systems,” she added, voice still even. “If they try to send anything back through a scan, a handshake, or a false telemetry response, it dies in the buffer before it reaches anything important.” A small pause followed as the grid settled beneath her hands. “Spore drive is hot-cycling now. She’s ready to run, Captain. She’ll just be much happier if we don’t make a habit of doing it sideways while someone is shooting at us.”

Wilkan’s gaze then moved toward the Chief Medical Officer, "S'reessa, give me an update on the situation on Earth. If that station is as quiet as it looks, I want to know if the pressure on Earth has let up, or if the virus and the plague are still gaining ground. Tell me what we're fighting for right now."

"Scaning now. NO sign of the virus or any type of plague. It looks clean in the regard." her tail flicked as she continued scanning."

Wilkan’s hands returned to the back of the Command Chair, his eyes locked onto the skeletal, rotating dish of Vanguard-9 as the Sulaco eased into its final orbital position. The silence was becoming a physical pressure. He looked back toward his protégé, the cold weight of the mission returning to his eyes.

"Elara," he said, the softness of the name contrasting with the clinical edge of his voice. "Talk to me. What does that energy signature tell you? Is the house truly empty, or is everyone just hiding under the floorboards?"

Elara let her fingers fly over her station's interface. "Sensors tell me that the power output is almost nonexistent. Vanguard 9 should have been emitting thermal radiation from life support and primary reactor. If there's a skeleton crew there, we'd have vastly different intel. The internal energy signature is barely showing. In lack of better wording, it seems like Vanguard 9 is in a coma," she told her surroundings. "If that's the case, I'd like to know why and how it is even possible," she murmured to herself. There was something off about this situation. If she was inside and there were people there, she would sense them. If there was only technology, she could tap into that and learn more. "What the heck is going on?" she whispered.

Wilkan watched the station’s skeletal silhouette, his mind navigating the tactical variables like a pilot threading a nebula. The report of a flatlined power signature didn't sit right, it was too clean. In his experience, a seized outpost was a place of frantic energy and jagged signatures even if their own people captured it. It was never this clinical, refrigerated silence. He stepped away from the Command Chair, his gaze drifting from the station to the gaps between the ice. The Oort boundary was a graveyard of sensor shadows, and Vanguard-9’s silent profile made for a perfect acoustic baffle. He felt a familiar prickle at the base of his neck, the instinct of a man who had survived a millennium by never trusting the quiet.

"The broadcast is still hitting Earth, which means the power isn't gone; it’s being whispered," Wilkan murmured, his jaw tightening. "They aren't just playing dead, they're acting as a blind." He didn't order a Red Alert, but he didn't relax his posture either. Somewhere in the frozen debris, the real threat was likely drawing a breath, waiting for the Sulaco to drift just a few kilometers too deep into the trap.

Slowly but steadily, Scarlet moved the ship closer to the station. "Just tell me how close you want it, Cap," she commented, as Vanguard 9 grew larger and larger on the viewscreen. "Don't think I can get that much closer without actually bumping into it, though. And I'd rather still have a bit of room to maneuver, just in case."

Wilkan watched the station swell on the viewer, its skeletal geometry casting long, jagged shadows across the Sulaco's hull. "That's close enough, Scarlet. Hold us at five hundred meters," Wilkan directed, his voice a low, steady anchor in the mounting tension. "Keep the thrusters hot. I want a 'hair-trigger' response if we need to pivot."

"Nice and close, without getting too intimate. Got it," the young woman at the helm acknowledged.

"They want us to lower our guard," Wilkan murmured, loud enough for the Bridge to hear, "but we’re not here for a reunion. We’re here for a ghost hunt. Elara, look beyond the station. Scan the high-density debris fields at our six and ten o'clock, filter for active dampening fields or localized gravitational distortions."

"On it," Elara said and her hands moved over her station console. "There's gravitational shear in a debris cluster. It isn't natural. It's too... structured to be natural. There's something going on there," she told her surroundings as she worked. "Something, or someone, are trying to make us take their bait," she murmured, "but what bait? And what result would come from that?" She worked on, losing herself in data and systems. There had to be more she could do to sort this out. She took a look around the debris cluster. There. "There is something gravitating around that cluster. That isn't natural either," she said loud enough for her surroundings to hear.

"Folks, we have a problem," Scarlet suddenly called out as the platform continued to come closer. "We're not slowing down." Abruptly, the ship shook as it came to a stop. "Okay, now we've stopped. Holding at, um," she glanced at the displays, "three-fifty." With a frown, she looked over the controls. "Okay, I'm still in assisted manual mode, so the computer should account for momentum and I just set velocity, rather than directly controlling thrust. This should not happen."

Her frown deepened as the young Commander checked the input logs and diagnostic data. "Weird. I gave the input to slow to a stop with precisely the right timing that we'd have decelerated to a halt at the 500 metre mark. And it marks the engine thrust going down to zero at that moment, too. But the logs don't show the reverse thrusters kicking in to compensate for momentum until a second later. We need to run a diagnostic on the helm systems."

Vaelira looked up as Scarlet spoke, her hands already moving across the engineering controls. She didn’t question the pilot’s timing. Scarlet knew her own hands, and if the logs backed her up, then the problem wasn’t at the helm.

“I’m checking it too,” she said, pulling the relevant engine response data onto her screen. “If your input went in clean and the thrusters answered late, then something got between you and the engines.”

Her eyes moved quickly over the readings, the slight crease between her brows deepening. “I’m not seeing anything in the main grid yet, which is good. But there’s definitely a delay in the hand-off. Could be the ship protecting herself, could be something from the station muddying the signal, could be one of our older systems objecting to being told what to do by the newer ones.” She glanced briefly toward the viewscreen, where Vanguard-9 sat far too quiet for comfort. “Either way, I wouldn’t ask her to make the same move twice until we know which one it is.”

"It isn't a system conflict, Vaelira," Wilkan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, clinical register as his hands tightened on the back of the Command Chair. He didn't look at the engineering console; his gaze was fixed on the skeletal, rotating dish of Vanguard-9. The report of the flatlined power signature didn't sit right; it was too clean, a refrigerated silence that felt staged. His mind wandered though to Elara's debris cluster, "Scarlet, you didn't miss your mark. You weren't drifting; you were being pulled."

Before the engineering report could continue, a cascade of alerts flooded the Bridge. Karys leaned into her console, her expression hardening as she fought the interface. "Captain, it’s spreading," the Denobulan reported, her voice tight with professional urgency. "It isn't just the Helm. I’m seeing synchronization errors in the secondary environmental scrubbers and a three-second lag in the internal comms buffer. Redundant systems are failing to engage across the board." She looked up, her jaw set. "The ship isn't just objecting; she’s being suppressed. Something is walking through our firewalls like they aren't even there."

"They aren't looking for a handshake, they're looking for a lobotomy," Wilkan murmured. "Kovich was right, the 'coma' is contagious."

Beside the Command Chair, Commodore Kovich remained a silent, gaunt sentinel, his hands clasped behind his back. He didn't turn his head, but his dry, papery rasp cut through the tension of the failing consoles. "The 'Homecoming' movement does not believe in fair fights, Captain. They believe in the inevitability of our obsolescence. They are not waiting for us to act; they are waiting for us to fail."

Suddenly, the debris cluster at ten o'clock seemed to buckle, the frozen rocks scattering as if pushed by an invisible hand. The space between the ice rippled like a heat haze, and then, with a violent shimmer of displaced tachyons, a sleek, metallic white hull materialized.

It was a United Earth Defense Force vessel. Its disconnected Warp Nacelles glowed with a cold, disciplined light, and its segmented hull gave it the appearance of a predatory ghost surfacing from a deep-sea rift. One of the enlistees announced, "Enemy ship decloaking on a 2-0-7 heading, 800 meters and closing."

Karys checked her targeting arrays, her eyes narrowing as the white ship’s interlaced emitters began to cycle with a terrifying, rhythmic hum. "She's moving into an attack posture," she added. "Forward tubes are preparing firing solutions. They aren't hailing, Captain."

"Red Alert," Wilkan stood his ground as the white ship swelled on the viewer. "Let them come," he said, his voice low and steady. "I want to see if their manual has an answer for a ship that refuses to play dead. Zim, ready our weapons but don't fire. I want them to sweat a little first."

Zim responded in kind to the red alert. He moved to raise the shields, and acquire targets. This is a task that should only take moments. However, it left the Capellan slightly perplexed. "Sir, weapons are online and targets acquired. Ready to fire on your command. However, our shields have lowered by 50%. Appears to be a power drain of some sort. Internal."

Karys leaned into her console, her expression hardening as she fought the interface. "Captain, it’s spreading," the Denobulan reported, her voice tight with professional urgency. "Our tactical grid is losing cohesion. The buffer lag is hitting 10%. If we don't act now, we won't have a targeting solution left!"

Wilkan ignored the warning, his hands tightened on the back of his chair so much that his knuckles went white against the dark upholstery. He kept his eyes on that metallic white hull, a sleek, 32nd-century predator that didn't just want to win, it wanted to erase them. He turned to look at Karys, a dangerous, thin smile touching his lips, "They think they’ve got a thousand-year-old relic caught in a trap, Commander, hold firing solution. I want them to think we’re frozen. Let them close the distance."

Karys hands moved in a frantic dance against her lagging interface, "Their forward launchers are primed. She’s preparing to fire!"

"Hold," Wilkan whispered, his eyes narrowing as the white ship moved into a definitive attack posture. His fingers quickly entering a sequence into the keyboard of the Captain's Chair. Suddenly, the Sulaco groaned with a deep, metallic protest as the deckplates vibrated under a new, localized pressure. Wilkan, however, didn't flinch. "All hands, brace for collision!" He gripped the rail of the forward platform, watching the blue-white flare of a high-yield projectile streak toward them. "Jump!"

The impact wasn't an explosion; it was a violent, electromagnetic shudder that rattled the Bridge to its foundations. Consoles showered sparks, and for a heartbeat, the Bridge went black.

As the lights came back on, Scarlet violently shook her head to regain her senses, before checking the navigational console. "Okay. I can confirm that we have jumped... somewhere. But the Nav can't pinpoint our location." She gestured towards the viewscreen, still showing only darkness. "Visual localisation, as you can see, or rather, can't, also isn't working. In summary, we're not where we were, but I can't tell you where we are now."

She sighed in frustration. "I'm hoping it's only lag from the systems issue and the computer will catch up with us in a moment," she added. "Collision avoidance sensors at least show that we are in open space, no solid objects within a radius of 150 meters."

Wilkan pulled himself up from the tactical rail, the sharp scent of ionized ozone stinging his nostrils. The Bridge was a graveyard of dying relays and red warning lights, the rhythmic pulse of the emergency strobes casting long, jagged shadows against the bulkheads. He didn't look at the viewscreen’s featureless void; his attention was entirely on the tactical reality of a ship that was being hollowed out from the inside.

"Commander O'Hare," he barked, his gaze snapping to the Helm. "I want a manual inertial fix. Use the last three telemetry pings before the snap and calculate our drift. I need to know if we're still in the Oort cloud or if we've been tossed into the deep dark. Elara, work with the Commander. Focus your sensors on the localized gravitational constants."

Elara nodded her understanding and went to work. "The gravity around that debris was intense before this. Now it's just... there, without the debris to hold it, the gravity field seems to be all over the place. It's definitely trying to pull us in", she told the people around her. "Furthermore", she went on. "The whole gravity field seems to originate, not from Vanguard-9, but from something else. But what would that be? Is it temporary? Or permanent? I hate mysteries", the last sentence she muttered under her breath.

Sora put a hand on her chin as she studied the readouts from the displays around her. Luckily, some of the longer-range sensors were beginning to come back online, allowing her to get a better fix on their location. "Right, good news is, we've got some more sensors back. So, I can at least roughly say where we are. There's a solid object that matches the properties expected from the station, about fifteen kilometers away, bearing 065-mark-015. Bad news is, with what sensors we currently have, I don't think it's possible to get there again. Not with the weird gravity around the debris field. Like, um, Elara, was it? Like she said, the gravity field is a mystery, and it'd be a nightmare trying to navigate it blind."

"If we can get our eyes back, flying there on full manual won't be a problem," she added with a confident smirk. "I've done enough full manual flying on other ships, and simulated flights with Sulaco. I can compensate for inertia myself if I absolutely have to. Won't be quite as precise as with computer assistance, but it's doable."

The Captain stepped toward the center of the Bridge, the deckplates still vibrating with the aftershocks of the strike from the United Earth ship. Knowing that their immediate responsibility was finding out where they were, their second priority was dealing with the United Earth warship. Wilkan looked toward Tactical, "Zim, see if you can track down that enemy ship and then switch the weapons over to independent local control. If our tactical grid is losing cohesion, we stop trying to aim with the brain and start aiming with the nerves. If anything moves in that darkness out there, I want it met with a blind spread of Phaser fire."

Zim raised an eyebrow. It was an ambitious tactic for certain, one that he did not agree with. However, Harris was not the Captain. he tapped the commands into the computer and watched the screen on his console. A few intense moments later it had been confirmed. "Enemy found, weapons have been configured for manual targeting. They await your command."

Wilkan’s hands returned to the back of the center seat, his knuckles standing out against the charred upholstery. "T'Krell, scan the sub-space frequencies for a carrier wave. If our enemy is tracking us, they aren't just using traditional long-range sensors to do it. Find our enemy's whisper in the background noise."

The sudden events had the Lieutenant a little shaken. Taking fire or in need of extensive repairs was all part of parcel in the line of duty - to be hounded by an ailed vessel however, was unforgivable and deeply troubling. The notion they were being hunted chilled his blood and in their vulnerable state things could quickly turn grim. T'Krell wafted away a plume of smoke that hung over his console before responding to the Commodore offering him his unwavering commitment: "I'll turn that whisper into a cry."

Turning toward the engineering monitors behind his chair, Wilkan raised his voice to carry over the whine of the alarms and the static emanating from many of the workstations. "Vaelira, get down to Engineering. I want a physical verification of the Warp Core and the Spore Drive. See to it."

Vaelira’s hands were already halfway through isolating the corrupted power pathways when Wilkan’s order cut across the bridge. For a second she looked at the readouts instead of him, not disobeying, just taking one last snapshot of the mess before she left it behind. The ship had not liked that jump. None of them had. The mycelial hub was still ringing with stress, the warp core was throwing back readings that looked too clean in places and too ugly in others, and whatever had crawled through their systems had left dirty fingerprints everywhere.

She logged out of Engineering I with a quick sequence and pulled the active diagnostic bundle onto her portable interface before stepping away from the station. “On my way,” she said, voice tight but steady, already moving toward the aft exit. “I’ll verify both by hand. If the computer’s lying to us, I’ll find out where.”

The deck gave another faint tremor under her boots as she crossed the bridge, and Vaelira’s jaw tightened despite herself. She could still feel the emotional aftershock of the jump, the panic snapping sharp around the room, but there wasn’t time to let any of it in. She narrowed her focus down to the ship, to the damaged rhythm beneath the alarms, to the thing that mattered most right now. The Sulaco had been hit, dragged, and forced through a jump she should never have had to make blind. If the heart of the ship was bruised, Vaelira intended to know before anyone asked it to beat harder.

"S'reessa, get to Sickbay and get me a status on our crew. Continually monitor their biosigns too. This isn't just a technical suppression; if that electromagnetic shudder hit the life support, I want to know the second the oxygen mix shifts. We aren't dying in our sleep."

'Aye captain." she hurried to sickbay and sat in front of a screen to monitor oxygen levels. She was worried but she would do her best to keep her crew unharmed. Oxygen levels were holding steady at the moment but that could change. She had faith in he captain. He would pull them through.

Targaryen turned toward his First Officer, Commander Karys busily working the Spore Drive Operations console next to Vaelira. The Captain leaned against the railing separating his chair from the lower compartment, "Commander, see to things up here. I'm going to go get us some help."

Karys didn't hesitate, her hands already flying across the interface to bypass the command-link lag. "Understood, Captain. I'll keep the bridge together and the buffers air-gapped," she called back, her jaw set with professional intensity. "Go. We’ll be ready for a fight when you get back."

Wilkan double tapped his Tricom, beaming to the one person who knew the computers of the Sulaco better than anyone.

Elara was dead tired of surprises. But she knew her life would be littered with them for a long time. As long as she was tagging along with Wilkan, she would have to get used to them. The moment her station got back to life, she went to work. "There are some signs of that gravity field from before. It's fading there, but there are some signs of another anomaly. Not gravity as you usually would term it. More like... a presence. I don't know what, yet, but if I can find out if it's technological and if it is, I'll tap into it as fast as possible. But it does make me wonder", she told her surroundings. "How in the world did this place... well... seem to have been waiting for us?"

"I don't think they were waiting specifically for us," Scarlet replied, frantically working on getting more of the sensors online. "Seems to me that it was more of a generalised security field to take care of any interlopers that didn't have whatever they use to keep their own vessels safe." She frowned. "Hang on, I think I found something. Parts of the main computer's memory are taken up breaking the encryption of something. And it's taking up tons of resources. I tried to cancel the operation, but it immediately restarts."

With a chuckle, the young pilot shook her head. "Looks like we have ourselves an old-fashioned computer virus. How the hell they got it in through the protections is anyone's guess, though. Recommend a reboot of the main computer, see if that does anything to help."

Karys stepped up from the Engineering platform, her Denobulan eyes scanning the Bridge with a predatory focus. The air was thick with the scent of burnt circuitry, but the rhythm of the room was finally shifting from panic back to professional grit. She didn't need to smile; the set of her jaw told the crew exactly where they stood.

"Belay the reboot, Scarlet," Karys ordered, her voice cutting through the hum of the alarms. "If this is a sophisticated adaptive virus, a reboot might just give it a clean slate to overwrite our core protocols. We don't drop the drawbridge while the enemy is already in the courtyard." She turned toward the Tactical station. "Zim, you heard the Captain. Switch to independent local control. I want the Sulaco's turrets acting on proximity logic. If that UEDF ship decloaks, I want them pelted with Phaser fire before our computer even has time to lag. Elara, stop looking for a 'presence' and start looking for a source. If that gravity field is artificial, find the broadcast frequency. It’s the leash they're using to pull us."

Without looking up from his console Zim responded. "Weapons are on manual. Turrets on proximity confirmed. As I said all that is needed is the order to fire."

Making sure Karys couldn't see her, Scarlet rolled her eyes, before nodding. "No reboot, got it. Which does mean we're basically a sitting duck. With weapons and shields, but still. We won't be going anywhere without sensors."

Elara nodded as she started working her station. "It does seem like a virus, but it is not tagreting anything else nearby. I find several technological items not far from here. None of those are affected. There's a source at the far west on the outside of the of the structure. It's radiating a signal that, from the look of it, is our troublemaker. It's handled from somewhere theinside. Also, I managed to tap into that place's system. It's mostly abandoned, in terms of living beings there. There is a transmitter that is keeping contact and control of that place between what seem to be the handler and the servant", she said. Her voice trailed off. This wasn't good. "The "handler", is in orbit somewhere nearby. Not on Earth's, but within the solar system", she told her surroundings. "And it seems like it isn't just giving us grief. It's adapting".

Karys moved to the center of the Bridge, standing near the vacant Command Chair but not sitting in it. "T'Krell, forget the cry. Filter the background noise for recursive loops. If the virus is communicating with Vanguard-9, there will be a handshake. Find it and jam it." She looked at the viewscreen, where the darkness seemed to press against the hull. "The Captain is in the Core. Our job is to keep this ship alive long enough for him to cut the infection out. Stay sharp."

The ragged ear of the Comms officer flickered as it tracked Kary's across the bridge. "Yes Commander," he glanced briefly towards her. "Switching priorities."

"Well, paint me green and call me an Orion," Scarlet suddenly called out. "I don't know what happened, but the full suite of sensors just came back online." She glanced at the readouts and nodded to herself. "Can confirm our position now, that object is indeed the station. And it looks like that ship we jumped away from managed to track us, they're at ten and closing fast."

Karys’s gaze snapped from the featureless void of the viewscreen directly to Scarlet's console. The sudden restoration of the sensor suite didn't bring her a shred of relief; if anything, the timing was entirely too convenient.

"They didn't track us, Commander, they guided us here, and now they're opening our eyes so we can watch the blade fall," the Denobylan barked, her voice tight and commanding as she stepped up to the center dais. She didn't sit in Wilkan's chair, but she gripped the headrest, her knuckles turning white. "Zim! Forget waiting for an order from the Captain, you have it from me! The moment that UEDF ship enters optimal range, let fly with the manual phaser spreads. Do not let them line up a clean shot on our degraded shields!"

Zim was not entirely convinced that firing was the right answer. However, this was not the time nor was it the place to question a justified order. He obtained target lock and kept his eyes on the target. The minute the enemy was in range they would be fired upon.

She spun toward the science station, her Denobulan brow furrowing as she locked eyes with Elara. "Elara, you heard what's waiting for us if the core logic fails. If that ship closing at ten o'clock is broadcasting the trigger to activate those watchdogs and tank our life support, I want you to flood their approach vector with localized tachyon interference. Blind their telemetry before they can send the kill-switch code!"

"On it", Elara said as she worked her station faster than she had ever done before. She found their sensors with ease. Each had a unique code, but she managed to not only crack them, but also toss some error codes their way. "I've overrun every sensor they have, and I managed to return their "oh so lovely" problem we just had. Sensors are clotted. Their power supply is down. The system itself, needs to be rebooted and filtered for errors if they want to try getting it back. Mind you I gave the errors aplenty. Their ability to contact anything, or anyone, is gone. I believe I made them get a setback for at least 4 hours", she told the others. "There is a possibility that they have someone competent at the science and engineering station. I'm looking to override all of it".

Turning her head toward the communications console, she didn't wait for T'Krell to report. "T'Krell, if those sensors are back, that means the handshake with Vanguard-9 is wide open. Jam the recursive loop now! Don't let the station and that warship coordinate their data streams. We isolate them, or we die in the dark."

"With pleasure," the Catain practically purred. "Jamming the data stream."

She looked back at the main viewer, watching the tactical overlay blink rapidly as the hostile signature swelled on the screen. "Scarlet, thrusters to full manual compensation. If that gravity anomaly tries to drag us into their firing line again, I want you to pivot us on our axis and give Zim a clear angle for a counter-strike. Fly us dirty if you have to, Commander, just keep us moving!"

This was just what the young pilot wanted to hear. With a smirk, she took off her uniform jacket and tapped a few commands into the helm console, reconfiguring the programmable matter controllers into two flight sticks, instead of one stick and a throttle. "Fly dirty, you say? My absolute pleasure." She tilted the two controllers, throwing Sulaco into a drifting roll. "Let's see how good of a shot you are, Mr Zim!"

"Bridge to Captain Targaryen," Karys said, her voice a sharp, disciplined whip over the background hum of the red alert claxons. "We have a situation up here. Our sensors just miraculously snapped back online, which means the enemy is actively feeding power into our arrays to ensure we can see them coming. The UEDF warship is closing fast on a ten o'clock heading."

"I copy, Commander," Wilkan replied, his voice flat, clinical, and completely devoid of panic. "Don't let the timing fool you. They aren't giving us our eyes back out of generosity. They're trying to force us into a panic reaction. What's our tactical status?"

"Zim is engaging on local manual control, and I've ordered Elara to flood their approach vector with tachyons to blind their telemetry," Karys reported, her breath coming fast but controlled. "But you need to move faster, Captain."

"Tell the crew to hold the line," Wilkan ordered, his tone shifting into a colder, absolute register, "The Lieutenant is already plugged into the matrix. He’s peeling back the layers right now. We know it’s a targeted strike, and we know exactly what’s at stake. Keep that warship off our hull and do not let them broadcast a kill-switch code. Targaryen out."

"Target locked and in range. Firing." Zim called from his station. The lances of red colored energy burst from the Sulaco and hit their target with brutal efficiency. "Direct hits. Their shields are lowered by 50% Minor damage to their navigational systems."

Just as Zim finished his report, the main viewscreen began to flicker, and the forward view out of the bridge became visible again, right in time to see the UEDF ship launching two torpedoes at Sulaco.

Scarlet chuckled. "Still playing games, I see," she remarked, as she threw the ship into a complex evasive pattern, causing the projectiles to narrowly miss. "Woo-hoo!," the young pilot exclaimed with child-like glee. "Now this is what I call flying! Got them lined up perfectly, want to return their present and give them a torp of our own?"

"Hold that torpedo," Karys shouted over the roar of the inertial dampeners, her hands gripping the Chair as the Sulaco pitched violently into the drift. "Zim, keep the Phaser pressure on their navigation arrays. If they can't orient their primary launchers, they can't lock a third strike!"

Karys stepped toward the auxiliary systems panel, her fingers quickly checking the status logs Vaelira had left open. She tapped the comm button, this time routing her voice straight down to Main Engineering.

"Karys to Engineering," she barked, her tone brook-no-argument sharp. "Vaelira, if you can hear me over the alarms, I need a hard shunt on the secondary power distribution. Divert all non-essential internal power to the structural integrity fields and the manual tactical buffers. I don't care if the lighting corridors go completely pitch black down there, keep our Shields from collapsing and make sure the pilot has enough muscle to yank us out of the next firing line!"

Vaelira heard Karys through a burst of static and alarms, the commander’s voice cutting into Main Engineering like a blade through smoke. She was already crouched beside an open junction panel near the mycelial hub, one hand braced against the bulkhead while the other worked through the diagnostic bundle on her portable interface. The order made sense. It was ugly, but it made sense. The ship needed muscle more than comfort right now. Karys was asking her to strip the pretty parts out of the body and feed the bones.

“Copy that,” Vaelira answered, raising her voice over the noise without quite shouting. “Hard shunt going in now. Tell Helm they’ll get their muscle, but nobody is going to like what it feels like.”

She pushed herself upright and moved fast to the main engineering console, sweeping aside a stack of half-useful alerts so she could get to the distribution map beneath them. The automatic safeties tried to argue. Of course they did. Sulaco still had enough Starfleet manners left in her systems to object when someone started stealing from life-support reserves, corridor lighting, crew comfort, and every non-essential replicator network aboard. Vaelira overrode the first objection, then the second, then killed the third before it had finished asking politely.

“Non-essential internal power is dropping,” she called to the engineers nearest her, not entirely sure if they were used to taking orders from her yet and not having the luxury to care. “Keep the medical reserve untouched, leave emergency atmosphere alone, and if anyone’s workstation goes dark, use your hands and your memory.”

The room answered in motion. Panels dimmed. Half the overhead lighting cut out in staggered blocks, leaving engineering lit by red alert strobes, console glow, and the cold pulse of the core. Somewhere behind her, someone swore as a tool tray clattered to the deck. Vaelira didn’t look back. Her fingers kept moving, dragging power out of every system that could survive being offended and forcing it into the structural integrity fields first, then into the manual tactical buffers Karys had asked for.

The ship bucked hard beneath her boots as Scarlet threw Sulaco through another evasive motion, and Vaelira caught herself against the console with her forearm. The impact jarred up through her shoulder, but the readouts held. Shields dipped, clawed back, then steadied higher than they had any right to given what had just happened to the grid.

“There you are,” she murmured, more to the ship than anyone else.

She opened the channel back to the bridge, breath a little sharper now but voice still steady. “Karys, shunt is active. Structural integrity fields are being fed directly and tactical buffers have enough power for manual response. I’ve blacked out half the lower corridors and annoyed every comfort system on the ship, but shields should hold longer and Helm should feel the difference.”

Vaelira glanced once toward the mycelial hub, watching the strange soft light pulse beneath its containment housing. The drive was still hot, still strained, still waiting like it knew they might ask too much of it again. She tightened the isolation around it by another margin, just enough to keep the shunt from dragging at the one system they couldn’t afford to bruise any further.

Karys turned a sharp, commanding gaze back to the helm console, where Scarlet was practically wearing a grin. The pilot's wild maneuvers were keeping them alive, but Karys wasn't about to let the Bridge turn into a sandbox, "We aren't here to swap paint or trade blows in a war of attrition. Every aggressive move we make drains power we don't have, and we need every scrap of energy preserved for when the Captain pulls the plug on that virus."

She stepped closer to the forward screen, watching the UEDF ship struggle to recover its bearing after Zim's brutal Phaser lances. "Keep dodging, keep us dancing, but save the heavy payloads. We play defense until the core is ours."

Scarlet shook her head. "And an extended defensive posture is not going to do that?" She turned around in her chair to face the First Officer. "I've seen this kind of strategy many times. They're toying with us, and your orders are giving them exactly what they want. They know as well as we do that that little ship out there stands no chance against our firepower if we actually use it. So they are trying to play cat-and-mouse, annoy us into draining our power reserves. We have some systems back, who's to say they're not going to do something to shut them down again?"

She turned back around and gripped the controls again. "The longer they can observe us like this, the more time they have to figure out some kind of weakness to use against us. Which is what exactly what I would be doing, if I was in charge of that ship. We don't know what other defences they have in place that they can deploy against us once they figure out the best way to hit us hard. So we should preempt that. Blow them to smithereens."

"They are having some trouble with their sensors for the time being. They have tried to get everything back online, but they have not been able to regain much", Elara reported. "I'm fiddling with every piece of technology they have. Their ability to contact anyone is still non-existent. I'm piling problems on that system faster than they can fix them. I might be able to make their sensors a bit wobbly. Let me have a look", she went on as her hands moved like a dancer over her station. "They have some decent safety protocols, but that won't help them now. They are trying to take out our systems again. Did it once. I won't let it happen again", with that she zeroed in on the protocol to send them out into the unknown again. She put moved over a few buttons. "And they should be unable to access most of their systems. I returned the favor", she said with a menacing smile. "Let's see how they appreciate that".

Scarlet turned around to Elara and grinned. "I like you," she remarked. "What a very non-Starfleet move. Love it."

Elara grinned. "I merely gave them the same courtesy they gave us," she said. "They shouldn't dole out something they won't be able to deal with themselves."

Karys watched the interaction between Scarlet and Elara, her Denobulan brow furrowing slightly. The banter was a byproduct of high-stress adrenaline, but as First Officer, her mind remained fiercely anchored to the cold mechanics of their survival. They were surviving on borrowed power and stolen seconds, a tactical reality that left absolutely no room for complacency. She stepped back toward the center dais, her boots clicking against the deckplates as she checked the secondary tactical overlay. "Keep that enthusiasm channeled into your consoles, ladies," Karys intercepted, her voice dipping into a lower, commanding register that effortlessly cut through the brief levity. "Elara, excellent work scrambling their architecture, but don't underestimate them. They’ll adapt. Scarlet, keep us in that drifting pocket. If they so much as twitch a maneuvering thruster, I want us ready to pivot."

The Denobulan looked at the viewer, watching the silhouette of the United Earth vessel. The immediate, suffocating panic of the blind jump had finally receded, replaced by the sharp, focused grit of a crew that had stared down a lobotomy and refused to blink. They had held the line, air-gapped the buffers, and kept the hull intact. Now, all they could do was wait for the hammer to fall from the computer core.

"We've bought the Captain his window," Karys murmured, more to the room than anyone else, her eyes unblinking in the crimson glow of the emergency lights. "Now we hold it open."

 

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