Yesterday, 11:19 PM
Riley held her station beside the Science rail, the steady vibration of the deck rising through her boots and settling into her shoulders like a second heartbeat. The Bridge was quiet in the way starships are never truly silent—low murmurs, tight responses, the constant thrum of systems running hot but within tolerance. Every sound felt intentional.
The comm broke through—calm, clear. Chief Engineer Jadaris. His voice had that paced, thoughtful cadence, like he was laying out each step as much for the Captain as for himself. He proposed a multiflux gamma burst from the main deflector to throw off the Tusslebout’s impulse regulators, paired with a proton purge to restore the Yeager’s sensor resolution.
Riley didn’t need to be in Engineering to track the gist. The deflector would jam things up—deliberately—and the purge would scrub away the interference. Bold moves. The kind that teetered somewhere between genius and reckless.
Worth it if it buys us clarity, she thought, eyes locked on the forward display. We’ve been flying half-blind since the interference hit.
She kept her posture—hands folded behind her back—but her awareness stayed fluid, sweeping the room. The glow from the Science consoles caught the sleeves of her uniform, shifting as the power fluxed. Readouts pulsed with unstable energy curves, stress metrics edging upward, waveforms she didn’t fully decode but knew well enough to flag as trouble.
Her earlier question to the Science officers still lingered unanswered, caught in the tangle of their focused muttering. She didn’t mind. The way they leaned in, parsing data in silence, told her they were chasing the same problem—just from a different direction.
A light tremor hummed through the deck—subtle, but enough to make fixtures buzz and settle. Riley bent her knees slightly, instinctively adjusting her center. Her gaze slid over the diagnostics to her right—environmentals steady, field integrity solid, no red flags. The ship was flexing, but it hadn’t cracked.
The static on the main viewscreen shimmered on, a white flicker slicing through the Bridge’s dim calm. For a moment, it caught in her eyes—just distortion, but enough to suggest motion. She let out a slow, quiet breath.
Command will decide what comes next, she reminded herself. My job is to keep us steady until they do.
And so she did—anchored, alert, unmoved. A steady point in the storm.
The comm broke through—calm, clear. Chief Engineer Jadaris. His voice had that paced, thoughtful cadence, like he was laying out each step as much for the Captain as for himself. He proposed a multiflux gamma burst from the main deflector to throw off the Tusslebout’s impulse regulators, paired with a proton purge to restore the Yeager’s sensor resolution.
Riley didn’t need to be in Engineering to track the gist. The deflector would jam things up—deliberately—and the purge would scrub away the interference. Bold moves. The kind that teetered somewhere between genius and reckless.
Worth it if it buys us clarity, she thought, eyes locked on the forward display. We’ve been flying half-blind since the interference hit.
She kept her posture—hands folded behind her back—but her awareness stayed fluid, sweeping the room. The glow from the Science consoles caught the sleeves of her uniform, shifting as the power fluxed. Readouts pulsed with unstable energy curves, stress metrics edging upward, waveforms she didn’t fully decode but knew well enough to flag as trouble.
Her earlier question to the Science officers still lingered unanswered, caught in the tangle of their focused muttering. She didn’t mind. The way they leaned in, parsing data in silence, told her they were chasing the same problem—just from a different direction.
A light tremor hummed through the deck—subtle, but enough to make fixtures buzz and settle. Riley bent her knees slightly, instinctively adjusting her center. Her gaze slid over the diagnostics to her right—environmentals steady, field integrity solid, no red flags. The ship was flexing, but it hadn’t cracked.
The static on the main viewscreen shimmered on, a white flicker slicing through the Bridge’s dim calm. For a moment, it caught in her eyes—just distortion, but enough to suggest motion. She let out a slow, quiet breath.
Command will decide what comes next, she reminded herself. My job is to keep us steady until they do.
And so she did—anchored, alert, unmoved. A steady point in the storm.