Alura in the Red
Posted on 30 Mar 2026 @ 12:37am by Alura Ryn
1,110 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission: Arawyn’s Itchy Trigger Finger
The first impact had come without warning.
One moment, the quiet, familiar hum of the ship beneath her feet. The next, a violent lurch that sent everything off balance as the Arawyn listed hard to one side, the sound of stressed metal rippling through the decks like a living thing. The red alert klaxons followed an instant later, sharp and unrelenting, flooding her quarters with pulsing crimson light.
Alura Ryn had not made it far.
She had been in her quarters when it hit, the sanctuary she had so carefully shaped into something softer, warmer than the steel corridors beyond. For a heartbeat, she had simply stood there, frozen in the shift between normal and something far more dangerous. Then instinct, raw and untrained for this kind of moment, had driven her down to the floor.
Back pressed against the side of her bed.
Knees drawn in tight.
Arms wrapped around herself as if she could hold the world steady through sheer will.
The ship shuddered again.
And again.
Not the smooth, controlled vibration of engines or maneuvering thrusters, but something jagged, uneven. Wrong.
There were explosions. Distant, but not distant enough. Each one carried through the structure of the ship, a deep, concussive thud that she felt more than heard, traveling up through the deck plating beneath the soft weave of her carpet. The Arawyn had always felt alive to her in the best way, a steady heartbeat beneath her feet.
This felt like that heartbeat stuttering.
For a moment, fear took her completely.
Not the kind she could laugh off or wrap in ribbon and hand back to someone else with a smile. This was quieter. Tighter. The kind that settled in her chest and refused to be charmed away. She didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t know where it was happening. And, worst of all, didn’t know if there was anything she could do about it.
That helplessness was the worst part.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her forehead briefly to her knees, breathing shallow and quick. Somewhere in the chaos beyond her walls, people were moving, responding, doing what they had been trained to do.
She wasn’t one of them.
“I’m not Starfleet,” she whispered to herself, the words barely audible over the alarms. “Okay. Okay. That’s fine. That’s… fine.”
Another shudder rolled through the deck, lighter this time. Then, slowly, the lighting shifted.
Red… fading.
Amber.
Not safe. Not even close. But not immediate catastrophe either.
That was enough.
Alura drew in a breath, deeper this time, forcing it to steady. Her grip on herself loosened, hands falling away as she pushed her hair back from her face, fingers lingering there for just a second longer than necessary.
If she couldn’t stop what had happened, she could at least stop sitting here.
“That’s better,” she murmured, more to convince herself than anything else, as she pushed up from the floor. “We can work with ‘not exploding right now.’”
The doors parted at her approach, the corridor beyond bathed in that uneasy amber glow. It felt different out here. Charged. People were moving quickly, voices lower, sharper, carrying fragments of information that never quite settled into a full picture.
Alura stepped into it anyway.
She didn’t run. Didn’t panic. She moved with purpose, even if she had to build that purpose one step at a time. She caught the attention of the first crewman she recognized, a hand briefly on his arm, offering a quick, reassuring smile that she didn’t entirely feel yet.
“Hey—what happened?”
Pieces came in fragments.
An impact.
Unknown source.
Engineering hit.
Multiple injuries.
She moved on before she could become a distraction, catching another, then another. A lieutenant she’d shared a laugh with two days ago. An ensign who’d helped her carry supplies for a morale event. Each one gave her a little more, the shape of the situation forming in uneven edges.
Engineering had taken the worst of it.
There were injured.
Some… hadn’t made it.
That one settled differently.
For a moment, the corridor seemed a little too bright, the amber lights too sharp against her eyes. She swallowed, the instinct to soften it, to reframe it into something gentler, rising and failing all at once.
No ribbons for that.
No easy fix.
Alura exhaled slowly, grounding herself the way she had learned to do in quieter crises. This wasn’t about making it better.
This was about showing up.
“Okay,” she said under her breath, a small nod to herself as her steps shifted direction. “Okay, we can still help.”
She forced herself to think practically. Not emotionally. Not yet.
What did people need?
Medical had their systems. Command had theirs. Engineering…
Her lips pressed together briefly, then curved, just slightly.
Engineers ran on coffee.
Real coffee.
Not replicated approximations tuned to perfection, but something just a little imperfect, a little stronger, a little more human. It wasn’t going to fix the damage. It wasn’t going to bring anyone back.
But it might keep someone on their feet a little longer.
That was enough.
By the time she reached one of the service areas, she had a plan. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t polished. But it was something she could do with her own two hands, and right now, that mattered more than anything.
“Okay,” she said softly as she worked, gathering what she needed with quick, practiced movements. “Hot water, real grounds… we can make this happen. We are absolutely making this happen.”
The cart came together piece by piece. Not her usual ribbons and bright touches, not this time. This was simpler. Functional. Focused. But even so, she adjusted one cup slightly, straightened a container that didn’t need it, small habits she couldn’t quite set aside even now.
Then she pushed it out into the corridor.
The closer she got to Engineering, the more the damage made itself known. The air felt different. Warmer in places, tinged with the sharp, metallic scent of stressed systems and something faintly burned beneath it. Crew moved with urgency here, voices tighter, expressions drawn.
She kept going.
If anything, her steps steadied.
By the time she crossed the threshold into Engineering, she had found it again—that part of herself that refused to let fear be the loudest thing in the room.
Her eyes lifted immediately, scanning for Commander Harlan.
She didn’t find him.
Instead, the door to his office slid open, and Ryan Hollingway stepped out.
And he did not look okay.
Alura Ryn
MWR Director
RSS Feed