Sleeping No More
Posted on 10 Dec 2025 @ 2:22pm by Ensign Ryan Collingway & Ensign Mira Quinn
Edited on on 10 Dec 2025 @ 4:50pm
925 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
The Displaced
Location: Eirian Ship
=== Eirian Ship ===
"Batenburg to Collingway and Quinn. The Eirians know the life form as something that follows the 'wounds in the sky and are hungry', this one is small and likely sleeping. Use passive scans only, and keep me informed. Batenburg out."
"Aye, Commander," Ryan said, then opened a direct channel to Mira. "How do you want to handle this?" he asked her. "Our scans are too distorted right now, thanks to the anomaly. We have to either get closer somehow without being too close, or boost the signal."
“Hold on…” Mira said, taking a steadying breath. The emotions stirred by the music still clung to her, and she pushed them aside—hard. Focus, she told herself.
“What can you see about this life-form? Where is it located?”
"From here? Not much beyond that it appears to be a lifeform with a body temperature. It's on Deck 6, near the displacement. Closer to you if you're near the science lab."
Mira turned to Serel. "Do you have... " she showed him her PADD and brought up a diagram of the ship. "Do you have a map?"
"Map?" Serel echoed. He studied the PADD, bioluminescence shifting as understanding dawned. "You want to see... this ship?"
"Yes!" Mira said, relieved. "Can I see the ship?"
Serel approached the nearest wall. As he neared it, the surface unfurled into a control interface —just as the column had opened for him earlier.
A moment later, with no noticeable spoken command, a flowing diagram of the ship appeared. Serel touched a point on the display. “You… we.”
“Okay…” Mira stepped beside him. She studied the display. The entire ship's schematics were on display. It seemed.. fluid. She couldn't be sure, but every once in a while it seemed that the ship's internal contours changed position.
She glanced at the alien next to her, the question already on the tip of her tongue, but then decided to remain on track with the task at hand.
Mira compared the alien diagram to the one on her PADD before focusing back on the console. “The displaced region should be here.” Mira hesitated before marking the area—half-expecting another jolt of pain like the ship's initial scan—but the console remained calm.
"Ryan, can you get this map by you? Can you show me where's the lifeform?"
Ryan obliged, showing her a location of where it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the scanners didn't provide much detail-it was a blob of light and body heat with the occasional static as the displacement field interfered with the scan.
"But this is exactly where we saw the displaced area shrinking," Mira said. "So, when this ship appeared, the lifeform was inside the displaced region, so that's why we didn't find it on sensors...."
"It could be causing the change or being forced out or..." she trailed off as another idea occurred to her. "Whatever this is, it can move between displaced space and regular space."
Ryan looked at the scanner readings again. "Mira, heads up," he warned. The reading was now moving. "If it is sleeping, it appears to have 'woken up'."
Mira could see it on her console. The lifeform was heading in her direction!
A fresh wave of fear rose, threatening to cause her to freeze. She tamped it down, forcing her mind back into focus. "Before it was locked in, now it isn't. We need to-"
Serel had moved aside to let her work on the console, but now he moved back in front of the control panel. He closed his eyes and... hummed? The same layered resonance she’d heard in the Hall vibrated through the air, and the ship responded once more.
This time Mira could see the ship's corridors move on the map. She watched in disbelief as corridors on the schematic flexed and rerouted themselves, hemming the lifeform inside a containment block.
Mira tore herself away from the schematic and looked at Serel.
"We.. are safe," he said.
The creature roared in surprise and anger. Not that anyone could hear it.
Except… Mira felt something. A faint echo. A brief vibration. Shock. Fury.
From his position Ryan detected something. "Mira, I'm detecting something from the creature. Some kind of energy buildup."
“Wait…” Mira tapped at her PADD, her pulse quickening. If she reacted so strongly to the harmonics in the "memory place", how would this lifeform react?
She brought up the waveform of the echo harmonic that they had picked up inside the displaced space and started playing it. The haunting tones of the audio filled the room.
Before she could ask, Serel was already connecting it to the ship's speakers.
Low, guttural sounds rippled through the room—except Serel wasn't reacting. The UT stayed silent.
Mira’s breath hitched. She could hear Ryan speaking somewhere in the distance, but the words were muffled, distant—like he was shouting at her from the far end of a long tunnel.
Then the resonance hit her.
She doubled over, hands pressed to her ears, though it did nothing to block the sound. Anger and sadness crashed over her in a single overwhelming wave, and before she could stop herself, the tears came again — raw, uncontrollable.
Serel stopped the playback, then stepped to her, concern flickering across his bioluminescence.
But Mira was still writhing on the floor.
"Mira? Can you read me?" Growing increasingly concerned, Ensign Collingway contacted Commander Batenburg. "Collingway to Commander Batenburg. I've lost contact with Ensign Quinn."
=/\=
Ens. Mira Quinn
Science Officer
USS Arawyn
Ensign Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
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