Stars Beyond the Glass

Posted on 16 May 2026 @ 8:46pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin

1,881 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: The Starfall Carnival
Location: SB 369
Timeline: Days After 'The Sparrow Club'

The ready room felt different with stars beyond the glass again.

For nearly two weeks the view had been scaffolding, repair craft, and the enclosed geometry of Starbase 369’s interior bays. Necessary things. Practical things. Corbin understood the value in all of them.

Now the Arawyn rested against one of the station’s exterior pylons, the broad windows behind her desk opening onto open space and the slow drift of station traffic beyond.

Earlier in the day, she had taken a shuttle around the ship herself.

Not for ceremony.

Not for inspection protocol.

Simply to see it.

The Arawyn still carried the visible signs of what had happened in the Shoals. Fresh hull plating interrupted older sections of armor in subtle tonal differences only someone deeply familiar with the ship would notice immediately. There were places where repair teams had done beautiful work quickly enough that most officers would never think twice about it.

Corbin noticed every meter.

The damage itself had looked worse from outside.

More intimate somehow.

Hull breaches always did.

From inside the ship, damage became reports, forcefields, emergency lighting, casualty counts, deck schematics. Systems. Problems to solve.

From outside, it became violence.

The shuttle had circled slowly beneath the dorsal hull while repair crews continued final exterior work. She had watched workers move across the Arawyn’s frame like insects against the scale of a Sovereign-class vessel and felt, not for the first time, the peculiar protectiveness captains developed toward their ships.

Repaired.

Operational.

But not untouched.

She sat now with one leg crossed over the other, fingers loosely wrapped around a mug that had cooled enough to drink comfortably. The lights in the ready room remained low, leaving the stars to do most of the work.

Beyond the windows, civilian traffic drifted around the station without urgency. Cargo tugs. Civilian liners. A pair of Starfleet runabouts angling toward docking control.

Movement without crisis attached to it.

For the first time in what felt like months, the crew had been allowed to breathe.

Not merely stand down.

Breathe.

Corbin had watched it happen slowly after arrival.

At first there had been the stiffness that always followed casualties and extended damage control operations. Officers returning to routine too quickly because routine felt safer than reflection. Crewmen lingering in corridors they normally passed through without thought. The subtle over-politeness that emerged after people had nearly lost one another.

Then the station had started to work on them.

Starbase 369 possessed a gravity all its own. Not physical.

Social.

Operational.

Human.

The Starfall Carnival had certainly accelerated the process.

Corbin had initially viewed the entire affair with measured skepticism. Corporate sponsorship. Excessive lighting. Crowds large enough to keep Security perpetually irritated. The sort of spectacle that looked unnecessary from the perspective of a command chair.

And yet she had watched exhausted officers laugh again.

Watched junior crew spend credits on terrible food and cheap souvenirs as though they had rediscovered leisure itself. Departments mingling outside duty shifts without tension riding beneath every conversation.

Healing did not always happen in sickbay.

Sometimes it happened beneath festival lights and music echoing through station promenades.

Sometimes it happened because people were finally reminded they were still people.

Corbin took another sip from the mug.

Her own time aboard the station had been unexpectedly restorative.

A spa day with Amberlyn still felt faintly absurd when viewed objectively. Had someone suggested such a thing to her during her cadet years, she likely would have stared at them as though they had suffered a neurological event.

And yet she had gone.

The station’s facilities bordered on indulgent by Starfleet standards, but she could not deny the effect afterward. The persistent tension between her shoulders had eased for perhaps the first time in months.

Riah, unsurprisingly, had noticed before Corbin had.

Then there had been Fleet Ops.

In-person meetings with MacLaren carried a different weight than subspace communication ever could. Sidra understood command in the way only long-serving captains truly did. Not academically. Not procedurally.

Practically.

The accumulation of it.

Corbin had spent much of her adult life around officers senior to her in rank but not necessarily in command experience. Starbase 369 altered that equation. Here she found herself seated among captains and commodores who had occupied center chairs since she herself had still been learning formation patterns at the Academy.

There was value in that.

Even in casual dinners and quiet conversations.

Observing how experienced command officers carried responsibility without allowing it to hollow out everything else around them.

Corbin knew she was not particularly skilled at that balance.

The Sparrow Club had perhaps illustrated it best.

Her appearance there had never truly been about attendance. The crew understood that. She did as well.

A captain’s presence mattered.

Especially in places where official approval would never appear in written orders.

The fighting ring had been loud, crowded, and carrying the unmistakable atmosphere of controlled poor decision-making. Corbin had remained long enough to observe the mood of the room, the camaraderie beneath the spectacle, the confidence in the crew.

Long enough for them to know she approved of the release valve.

Then she had excused herself before fists turned bloody and before her continued presence altered the atmosphere too heavily. Officers fought differently when the captain remained too long.

She had no interest in becoming part of the event itself.

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the stars again before settling on the PADD resting near the corner of the desk.

Elias Harlan’s medical status report remained open there.

That situation sat heavier.

Corbin had visited him more than once during the station stay. The physical injuries were obvious enough. The cane. The slower movement. The careful management of pain he attempted not to display openly.

But Corbin suspected the delay in his return to duty had very little to do with the leg itself.

She knew the signs too well.

Good officers often struggled most when forced into stillness.

Especially engineers.

Especially chiefs.

Harlan leaned into humor with the same precision he applied to warp systems. It concealed things effectively enough for most people.

Not all people.

Corbin rested the mug down softly against the desk.

Soon the Arawyn would depart again.

Repairs complete. Supplies replenished. Crew steadier than when they had arrived.

But one uncertainty remained directly beneath her feet.

Engineering.

A Sovereign-class ship without a settled Chief Engineer was not a comfortable thought for any captain. The position sat too close to the ship’s heartbeat. Temporary solutions functioned during emergencies and repair windows.

Not indefinitely.

The ready room doors parted with a soft chime.

Corbin looked up from the PADD as Commander Suzanna Batenburg stepped inside. The Executive Officer carried the composed professionalism she always did, though weeks of damage control operations and station coordination had left the same subtle fatigue around her eyes the entire senior staff seemed to wear lately.

“Captain.”

“Commander.”

Corbin gestured lightly toward the seating area near the windows rather than the desk itself. Less formal. Deliberate.
Batenburg crossed the room and settled into one of the chairs while Corbin remained standing for a moment longer, gaze drifting briefly back toward the stars before finally returning to the room.

The conversation itself was not new.

Only the timing.

Engineering remained the one department aboard the Arawyn still carrying instability beneath the surface. The staff had performed admirably through the Shoals incident and the long repair period afterward, but competence under pressure did not erase the absence at the top of the chain.

They had already discussed the options.

Several times.

Transfers could be requested. Fleet personnel databases could produce technically qualified officers quickly enough if Corbin wished it. Starfleet never lacked engineers.

But qualifications and fit were rarely the same thing.

And both Corbin and Batenburg had reached the same conclusion independently before ever speaking it aloud.

Sometimes the correct decision was not the safest one.

Sometimes command required allowing someone room to either rise or fail honestly.

Corbin moved back toward the desk and rested one hand lightly against its edge.

“He’ll either grow into it,” she said quietly, “or the responsibility will expose the fractures quickly enough for us to intervene before they become dangerous.”

Batenburg gave a small nod.

No disagreement.

No reassurance either.

Just professional acknowledgment of the reality in front of them.

Corbin respected that about her XO.

There was no need to dramatize the decision. Ryan Collingway was not being handed permanent authority over Main Engineering. He was being handed an opportunity and a burden in nearly equal measure.

And both women knew there was risk attached to that.

Corbin tapped the desk console once.

“Have Lieutenant JG Collingway report to the ready room.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The channel closed a moment later, leaving the room briefly quiet again.

Outside the windows, a pair of station work bees drifted slowly along the far side of the docking arm, tiny against the scale of the station itself.

Corbin folded her hands loosely behind her back.

The wait was not long.

The doors parted again with another soft tone, admitting Ryan Collingway into the ready room.

Corbin remained standing.

So did Batenburg.

The atmosphere shifted subtly the moment he entered, the room carrying the familiar weight that accompanied command-level conversations aboard starships. Not hostility. Not ceremony exactly.

Importance.

Corbin studied him for a moment before speaking.

“Lieutenant Collingway.”

Her tone remained even, measured.

“We’ve reviewed Engineering’s performance during the Shoals incident and the repair operations here at Starbase 369.” A brief pause. “Your name came up repeatedly.”

She let that settle on its own.

Not praise inflated beyond usefulness.

Not false gravity.

Simple fact.

“The department has held together under difficult circumstances,” she continued. “And while there have been challenges, there has also been initiative.”

Her gaze stayed steady on him.

“For the time being, the Arawyn requires stability in Main Engineering.”

Corbin reached down to the desk and picked up a small black presentation case that had been resting beside the PADDs.
Not ornate.

Starfleet rarely indulged in ornate things.

She stepped forward once before offering it toward him.

“As of now, you are granted the temporary field rank of Acting Lieutenant and assigned as Acting Chief Engineer aboard the USS Arawyn.”

The words landed cleanly in the quiet room.

Temporary.

Acting.

But real all the same.

Corbin’s expression remained composed, though not cold.

“This is not a reward, Mister Collingway.” A slight beat followed. “It is responsibility.”

Corbin let the silence settle for a moment after the words left her mouth.

Not uncomfortable.

Measured.

Behind Collingway, the stars beyond the ready room windows drifted slowly past, Starbase 369 still hanging massive against the dark while dock traffic moved around it in steady streams of light.

Soon enough, the Arawyn would leave it behind.

The carnival.

The repairs.

The quiet pause between one crisis and the next.

But not yet.

Corbin’s gaze remained on her newly appointed acting chief engineer.

“Take the evening,” she said evenly. “Report to Engineering at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow and begin transition planning with the department staff.”

A brief pause followed.

“This ship will tell you very quickly whether you’re listening to it properly,” she said. “I suggest you pay attention.”

Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer

 

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