Echo of the Crossing
Posted on 10 Dec 2025 @ 11:04am by Ensign Mira Quinn
722 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
The Displaced
Location: Eirian Ship
=== Eirian Ship ===
One moment Mira was standing on the transporter pad, and the next — reality shifted around her. They were aboard the alien ship. Eirian ship, she corrected herself.
A thin thread of fear wound tight in her chest, but she kept her expression neutral as the XO introduced them—this was first contact, not the time to show nerves.
Before she could get her bearings, the introduction ended, and the XO was already being led away.
Ryan glanced at her. “If you need anything, just holler,” he said.
Mira offered him a tight smile, hoping she didn’t look as terrified as she felt. “Will do.”
The Eirian called Serel turned to her, his bioluminescent patterns shifting softly. “Follow.”
The ship was dark—only the faint bioluminescent veins along the walls, Serel’s soft internal glow, and Mira’s own flashlight kept the shadows at bay. The beam of light glinted off odd, alien contours that rose and fell unpredictably around them, as though the ship had grown rather than been built.
Serel navigated the darkness without hesitation. Mira followed, whispering the mantra silently to steady herself: You lead, we follow.
Walking alone into an alien vessel was terrifying, no matter how she tried to frame it professionally. She watched Serel navigate a partially collapsed bulkhead and accepted his offered hand with hesitation she hoped he didn’t notice.
After what felt like an endless trek through twisting corridors, Serel stopped beside a sealed door and pushed it open with some effort.
Beyond it lay a large, open chamber—vast, silent, and entirely unexpected. The edges of the space disappeared into darkness, the light from Mira's flashlight unable to penetrate it
“What is this?” she asked quietly.
Serel’s luminescence shifted into a deep red and Mira forced herself not to interpret it as danger.
“Where we… are kept,” he said.
“I don’t understand…” Mira glanced around. Columns—if that’s what they were—rose in uneven intervals, seemingly placed without logic.
Serel spoke again, his native voice resonant and layered. The UT faltered, recalibrated, then finally offered: “Memory place.”
Mira stepped further into the chamber. Her flashlight felt laughably small in the vastness of the hall; its beam barely illuminated the nearest structures, leaving the towering columns to loom like silent sentinels in the dark.
She approached one of them and rested her hand against the polished surface. It was warm. Warmer than it should have been. And beneath her fingertips she felt—she thought she felt—a faint rise and fall, as if the column were breathing.
Before she could pull her hand away, the hall’s lights surged to life.
Then, without warning, pain lanced through her skull—white-hot, blinding. The floor shuddered beneath her boots, and she staggered, leaning heavily into the column just to stay upright.
When it finally eased, she looked up at Serel, breath trembling in her chest. He hadn’t reacted at all.
“What did I do?” she managed.
“Ship… adds you,” Serel said gently. “You may touch its memory.”
“Touch its memory?” Mira echoed, still shaken. “I don’t understand.”
Serel walked to the column she had steadied herself against. As he approached, the structure unfurled like a flower, petals of pale bioluminescent material opening in a slow, deliberate arc.
Instinctively, Mira stepped back—but Serel reached out gently, guiding her hand to rest atop one of the glowing petals.
The moment her skin made contact, she felt—more than heard—music. Haunting, like the harmonic echo she had played back in the science lab, but layered, richer… different.
Her scientific mind tried to seize patterns, to categorize and compare, but the effort slipped away. She was letting go before she even realized it.
She had no idea how long she’d been standing there.
When the last note faded, she realized her eyes were wet.
Mira stepped back, hastily brushing the moisture from her eyes. Embarrassment tightened her throat. Starfleet officers didn’t fall apart because of… music.
Especially not in front of an alien in a first-contact situation.
“What was that?” she asked, forcing her voice toward something more controlled.
Serel blinked slowly, as if listening to something only he could hear.
“Echo of the crossing,” he said.
=/\=
Ens Mira Quinn
Science Officer
USS Arawyn
RSS Feed