From the Ashes a Phoenix Flies.

Posted on 03 Feb 2026 @ 3:10am by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan

832 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Lathira Shoreleave
Location: CEO Office - Main Engineering

Elias hadn’t waited for the official 0800 start time he’d set for the tactical array inspection. Instead, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon buried in shipyard logs and archived reports, chasing threads through layers of classified red tape and outdated filing systems. It would have been easier—infinitely easier—if the Arawyn had been constructed at Antares Fleet Yards. He’d spent the last five years of his career there; he knew every inspector’s handwriting, every shortcut the yard foremen took, every corner they cut when no one was watching. If she’d been an Antares hull, he could have pulled the real logs in minutes and known exactly who’d signed off on the tactical suite without ever walking the deck.

But the ship’s history was eluding him.

Technically, this Sovereign should have been built at Antares. After the Dominion War, Antares had become the Federation’s second-largest production hub, right behind Utopia Planitia. The war had stretched every yard to breaking, and Antares had stepped up—refits, new hulls, emergency repairs. It was the logical place for a post-war Sovereign.

The Federation had dozens of repair facilities, maintenance docks, and orbital yards scattered across the quadrant, but only a handful of true shipyards capable of laying a spaceframe from raw materials. Utopia Planitia had been the crown jewel—until the synth attack of 2385 turned it into a glowing scar that still haunted long-range scans. In the aftermath, Eridani Yard in the Vulcan system had been expanded, and there had been loud calls from Starfleet Command and the Federation Council to build a replacement in the Sol system. A suitable location had never materialized. Mars had been perfect once—geographically, logistically, symbolically. It still was, in theory. But no one knew how long it would take the planet to recover from the damage that had gutted Starfleet’s shipbuilding capacity in a single afternoon more thoroughly than any war or disaster in Federation history.

He was into his third cup of coffee—black, scalding, no sugar—when he finally found it.

The spaceframe serial number. The unmistakable yard stamp. The undeniable truth.

The Arawyn or at least her space frame had been forged at Utopia Planitia. Before the attack. Before the fires. Before the synths turned the greatest shipyard in the Federation into a graveyard.

Elias stared at the entry on the screen, the cold blue glow reflecting off his tired eyes like a ghost light.

The frame had been laid down in early 2384—completed, sealed, and waiting for hull plate outfitting—along with three others. Then the synth attack hit. While the Martian atmosphere burned and rescue teams fought to save the wounded, those four unfinished hulls had been cut loose from their collapsing dock moorings. They floated in low orbit, abandoned, trajectory decaying. Had no one intervened, they would have re-entered and burned up like falling stars.

But someone had intervened.

Surviving records showed construction tugs with emergency tractor beams pulling the frames into stable holding orbits.

After the attack, the surviving paperwork was a mess—fragments of transfer orders, partial manifests, conflicting yard logs. Eventually the frames were quietly moved to secondary facilities. Eridani Yard in the Vulcan system took custody of at least one.

From that serial number, Elias traced the rest.

The Arawyn had been assembled at Eridani. Major components—warp drive, nacelles, structural spars, tactical arrays—shipped in from yards across the Federation. Including Antares.

He remembered now.

Two years into his hitch at Antares Fleet Yards, an unusual requisition order had come through. High-priority components for four Sovereign-class hulls already in frame. He’d helped fill it himself—oversaw the loading of plasma conduits, EPS relays, even the targeting subsystems. At the time he’d wondered why they weren’t being built at Antares like everything else post-Mars. Now he knew.

They weren’t new frames being laid down. They were old frames—rescued from the ashes of Utopia Planitia—finally being finished. The Arawyn wasn’t just a new ship. She was a survivor. One of the four frames that had escaped the fire, floated in limbo, and been born again in another yard.

Elias leaned back in the chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

Saved from re-entry. Saved from scrap. Saved from oblivion. And now she was his responsibility—tactical array half-dead, secrets buried in old logs, and a crew still learning how to trust her.

He took a slow sip of cold coffee, grimacing at the taste.

Some ships were built to last. Others were built to rise from the ashes.

He set the mug down with a soft clink.

Tomorrow he’d start tearing her open.

Tonight… tonight he’d just sit with the ghost of 2385 for a little while longer. Because the past had a way of showing up when you least expected it. And it never came alone.

--

Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

 

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