Walking back on to the bridge just as quickly as he’d left it for the sanctity of his ready room, Captain Charles MacIntyre stood facing the bridge of his starship, glaring at the Orion woman sitting in the centre seat, with a thumb hooked over his shoulder in silent interrogation. When Commander Sidda Sadovu didn’t immediately notice, he cleared his throat, shaking his fist slightly in emphasis once she looked up lazily at him.

“She’s knackered,” Sidda offered in defence. “And you’ve got a day-bed in there.”

He sighed, stepping forward enough to let the door close behind him before he said anything. “What is she doing on the bridge at all? I ordered her to get ten hours’ rest before reporting to sickbay and getting Blake’s approval before even thinking of coming on duty.”

It had only been a few short weeks after Atlantis had departed the Thomar Expanse for Betazed when everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Subspace interruptions sprung up overnight with no rhyme or reason to them, cutting off planets and sectors with no clear pattern or design. It had been chaos at first, but Starfleet officers were resourceful people.

The network of communication buoys sprinkled around the Expanse formed a web that, with careful interrogation, had revealed some convoluted communication routes. At least with some branches of the network. But clear skies for subspace radios hadn’t been true for warp drives. Perseus had found itself able to shout for all to hear, the older ship’s impressive communication system sensitive enough to hear the faintest whisper and powerful enough to be heard by anyone listening. But she’d gotten stuck inside one of the Blackout walls, as Starfleet had come to call the anomalies, and couldn’t move faster than impulse speed for now. Radio Free Perseus was becoming essential for some ships to stay in the loop it would seem.

Argonaut had been completely cut off until Captain Houston had opted to launch his ship at full warp into one of the bars, carrying as much momentum as he could to cross the distance. He’d been lucky, finding only a thin but powerful wall. Mac wasn’t sure he’d have tried such a stunt, or Tikva either, but Houston had been paired with his ship as a seemingly perfect synergistic blend of ‘charge in head first’ vibes.

There had been no response at all from Sagan, Bismarck, or Osiris to date. But they’d been near enough to each other and were out on a branch of the comm web that wasn’t responding to any attempts right now. Mac just hoped they were fine and looking out for each other.

Republic however had gotten lucky to start with clear skies as far as sensors could see. It hadn’t lasted at all. They’d barely had two days at warp, bound for DS47, before they had their first encounter with the Blackout. Tootling along at warp eight only to be thrown to sub-light with no warning hadn’t been anyone’s idea of fun. What was thought to have been a chance encounter had turned out to be the start of their current misery.

All around them, the Blackout swirled and ebbed. One moment they could travel at warp, the next they couldn’t. Subspace comms were clear, then gone with the same irregularity. Lieutenant Commander Matt Lake had tried to no avail to deduce a pattern, to see if he could find a path through this mess. But there wasn’t, at least on any timescale they’d observed so far.

And into this mess stepped Lieutenant Junior Grade Willow Beckman, their prodigal helmswoman.

“I can do this,” Willow had declared to the bridge on the second day of Republic being stuck, unable to move forward without risking harm to ship and crew with unwanted decelerations. “I can do this,” she had repeated.

“Are you sure?” Mac himself had asked her, deadly serious. He’d seen her party trick of being able to tell when the ship was moving or turning and by just how much without being anywhere near a sensor read out. He’d also seen enough weird things in the universe that he didn’t completely disregard it, unlike his chief engineer, who still refused to believe it.

“Yes,” Willow answered with all the confidence that pilots and the insane could muster.

And so they’d been at the mercy of Willow Beckman and her ruinous intent to defeat this phenomena. She couldn’t explain it, having thrown word-salad at the bridge crew in an attempt to, but she’d seen them further along their intended path than they could have dreamed of without her.

Wild course corrections, sudden decelerations and rapid jumps in speed had become the norm whenever she was at the helm. ‘Faster than light, no left or right’ had gone from a rule to a guideline to completely dismissed as Willow whipped Republic through the maze before them. Enough that no one wanted to be near windows if they could avoid it and nearly a dozen crewmembers had been struck with space-sickness by now.

“She came barging onto the bridge about an hour ago, pushed Cat aside, made a few course corrections, and then announced she was going to be napping in the conference room,” Sidda countered. “I figured hey, you weren’t in your office; she might as well crash out in there. And besides, she got too heavy to carry.”

“My ready room is not her quarters,” Mac said angrily. “Wait, what do you mean she got too heavy to carry?”

“Girl needs some proper rest, so I helped,” Sidda said mischievously.

“You drugged her?” he challenged.

“Only a little.”

“Sidda!”

“Quiet, or you’ll wake her,” Sidda hissed as she rose to her feet, descending the steps from the chairs to meet him. “Slap me on the wrist later, but this ship needs her and she needs some proper rest, so I just gave her a slight push. Besides, I’ve already told Blake, she’s already been up to run a scan and gave me the chief medical officer speech.”

“What, ‘thank you’?” he asked.

“She may have said those words at the end. After a long lecture.” Sidda’s casual expression disappeared. “Yeah, I know, stupid move. But I wasn’t going to have security drag Willow to her quarters. That wouldn’t have worked and you know it.”

“Commander,” he started, quietly, fully intent on giving Sidda a warning to the full extent of the dressing down he’d give her later. But was interrupted by a chirp from the communication station and the confused look on the ensign’s face he could see over Sidda’s shoulder. It had been enough to get her attention as well.

“Sir, ma’am. Priority message from Bravo Command. I can’t explain it, but the time-stamp says it was sent just now. It says ‘Code Forty-seven’ and there’s an attachment for your eyes only.”

“How?” Sidda asked. “How’d they a get a message through to us all the way out here? And from Starbase Bravo?”

“Nevermind that,” Mac answered. “Conference room,” he said to the ensign. “And get Commander Lake up here as well. Misery loves company, after all.”