The USS Vallejo had that scent that all Starfleet officers knew, that mix of fresh sealants, cleaning agents, and new deck plating that only newly repaired ships had. The corridors gleamed with sterile perfection, every panel aligned, every scuff polished away.

Captain Day Renora walked through these corridors with a practiced calm, thinking to herself that a thirty-four-year-old ship should not look this new… She nodded to a passing ensign, who offered her a tight smile. The young woman’s uniform was new, but her eyes were shadowed and worn.

So many new faces… and so many missing ones.

Seventeen lives. Their names were etched into a plaque that stood on the bulkhead outside the Back Nine. A small gesture, but not enough. Not for what they had endured during their capture by Kaela Orin. What should have been a routine mission in the Kavaria system had spiraled them all into a nightmare of loss and pain.

The crew had been given downtime while the extensive repairs were conducted at Avalon Fleet Yards. They were provided medical attention and counseling as needed, but their rest and recovery had not brought everyone the healing they needed. Seventeen… She could see it in their eyes, the way some crew would hesitate at intersections. The quiet glances at stations being manned by new crew members. The way conversations would abruptly end when a fallen crewmember was mentioned.

Survivor’s guilt wasn’t something that was cured in a month over shore leave.

Day reached the turbolift and stepped inside. “Bridge.”

The doors closed, and for just a heartbeat, she allowed her composure to waiver. The ship still felt… off. Not just from the trauma they endured but something deeper, a wrongness. They were en route back to Deep Space 47 to resume their mission in the Thomar Expanse. Exploration. Pathfinding. It should have felt like a new beginning. Instead, it felt like an anxious wait for something else to go wrong for this ship and her crew.

She stepped off the turbolift and onto the bridge. Commander Mehta stood from the command chair and greeted her with, “Captain on the Bridge.”

She smiled at her old friend. His actions, as well as those of the entire crew, saved her life. Saved the ship. That was something to remember. This crew was a family and would fight like hell for each other.

“At ease, Commander,” she replied, “I’ll be in my ready room.”

She walked forward to the starboard section of the bridge, resting her hand on her Ardanian Chief Science Officer Lieutenant Asha Kellan’s shoulder as she passed. As she entered her ready room, she could already hear her terminal chiming with a new transmission. Likely more reports of systems and outposts affected by these blackouts.

Day sat down at her desk slowly, steepling her fingers as she began to read the transmission from Starfleet Command.

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The senior staff had assembled in the conference room in near silence. Commander Mehta was reviewing crew rotations on a data pad as the rest of the crew slowly filed in. Across the dark wooden conference table, Lieutenant Valis sat ramrod straight, her Vulcan detachment more apparent than usual. Dr. Pell, the ship’s Tellarite CMO, leaned back with arms folded, watching everyone with weary eyes. Commander Rax, grizzled and barrel-chested, tapped a stylus against the blue skin of his left palm in rhythmic bursts, his anxious energy evident.

Operations Officer Geral Loran sat next to Lieutenant Kellan, offering a stark contrast to her impeccable hair and posture. While she took perfection to another level, he sat slumped, his red-orange hair disheveled and hanging over his green forehead. It was a wonder they had become such close friends and colleagues. Counselor Marin sat beside Ambassador Tilis, both looked like they would rather be anywhere but there.

Lieutenant Ilias Amir was the last to join them, and as he took his seat, Captain Day stood and tapped a few controls on her keypad at the head of the conference table.

“Command has asked us to take a little detour. Nerathis IV,” she said, pulling up a star chart relevant to the Vallejo’s current position. “It’s home to an archaeological research team studying recently discovered ruins of an ancient, unknown civilization. There are thirty-two personnel, including Starfleet and civilian specialists. Last communication was fourteen days ago; they’ve missed their last two scheduled check-ins.”

Rax frowned. “Nerathis? That’s just outside the Mcallister Nebula, cant Fogg Station send a ship to check on them?”

“The blackouts,” Valis interjected.

Day nodded. “The comms disruptions we’ve been seeing since leaving Avalon, they’re spreading. Starfleet has still not been able to identify the cause, but it is massively widespread. It’s not stellar interference, subspace instability, or any known stellar phenomenon. Some ships have been able to escape these pockets by various means, but they reported full signal loss, comms, telemetry, and even internal systems failures. There is no clear pattern or defense right now.”

“Sabotage?” asked Loran.

“Not enough is known to even speculate,” said Mehta. “But there is no evidence of Cardassian, Breen, Klingon, or Romulan involvement. They are all reporting the same issues we’re hearing about. Remarkably, we haven’t been affected yet.”

“Natural phenomena?” Marin asked. “Cosmic strings, subspace folds even?”

Valis spoke before Day could answer. “All dismissed. The blackout pockets have even shifted locations. That indicated possible intelligent interference or a systemic breakdown in the fabric of subspace.”

“That’s the part that scares me,” Amir muttered. “You don’t fix subspace.”

Dr. Pell leaned her stout framed body forward, placing her hands on the surface of the table. “Assuming the research team is alive and well, are we prepared to extract them?”

“We are,” Day replied. “That’s the plan, but there is no guarantee we will be able to communicate with Command once we approach Nerathis if it is in one of these blackout zones. Valis, I know you’ve been keeping an eye on all the available reports coming from Command, thoughts?”

Expressionless, the Vulcan tapped a few controls on the small padd in her hand and adjusted the holo-display above the conference table. “Lieutenants Vex, Bjornsen, and I have been working on the issue in anticipation of the Vallejo encountering one of these pockets. We think we can construct a low-warp envelope. A controlled ripple effect that keeps us out of traditional warp fields but still allows propulsion at FTL, although rather slow by our usual standards. Short bursts, with recalibration between jumps.”

Ambassador Tilis blinked. She rarely spoke at briefings, but something about the conversation obviously interested her. “Like… Skipping stones across a pond.”

“A crude analogy,” Valis replied. “But yes.”

“We are likely to lose comms the moment we enter the system if it is indeed in one of these zones,” Day said. “This will likely be a dark approach, no backup, no support. Whatever the research team is dealing with, we’re the first ship Starfleet can spare.”

Kellan spoke up. “Captain, what if we lose more than comms? What if these blackout zones start affecting all our systems?”

“That is a possibility,” Day said honestly. “We’ve flown blind before, this crew… this ship has proven that together we can get the job done.”

Seventeen names on a wall.

“We’re not broken, Day said softly. “Things are different now. But we have lives at risk that may need us.”

“I see no reason to wait,” Mehta said, turning his datapad over on the table, indicating that the discussion was over, at least as far as he was concerned.

“I’ll begin configuring the warp solution,” Valis added.

“I want med protocols in place for possible radiation or any other possible injuries we might find when we reach the research team,” Day said, nodding to Dr. Pell and Marin. “Rax, weapons hot and ready. Loran, work with Renn and Valis, and plot jump vectors with fallback and exit points just in case. And Asha…”

“Monitor all spectral bands for anomalies, yes Sir,” Kellan said with a small nervous grin.

Day smiled faintly. “Let’s do this right. Get in, get the research team, get out.”

With that, the assembled officers stood as the meeting ended in quiet efficiency. As the room cleared, Day remained behind for a moment, staring at the shifting star chart above the table. Nerathis IV shimmered at the edge of the map. Hopefully this would be just a brief detour, but she thought again about the names on that plaque, the weight they all carried forward. Whatever they faced, she vowed, they would come home whole.