Course of Shadows
Posted on 21 Sep 2025 @ 8:44pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin
941 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Fractured Accord
Location: USS Newton
Timeline: After Jump to Warp
*** Bridge – USS Newton ***
The Newton lurched again, lights flickering, consoles rattling. The warp field was jagged, surging, and collapsing like a heartbeat out of rhythm. The nacelles groaned under the load, never meant to take this strain so soon after repair. The sound was not just metal complaining but something deeper, like a great animal forced back into the yoke too soon, its muscles straining under the whip.
Captain Aditi Rao planted herself at the center of it, a solid figure against the chaos. She was rotund, broad in frame, her uniform stretched cleanly across shoulders squared by years of habit. Her black hair, shot silver at the temples, was pulled back tight, leaving her face bare and honest. Deep lines etched her cheeks and brow, carved by time and duty. Her dark brown eyes were almost black, and they gave nothing away but command.
Where younger captains might have shouted to rise above the alarms, Rao’s voice came low and deliberate, each syllable precise, forcing the bridge to quiet around her.
“Report.”
Terse replies followed.
“Tactical, warp injectors compromised. Speed fluctuating between six and seven.”
“Engineering, nanobots throughout the manifold. Repairs failing under load.”
The words were grim, but her expression did not change. Rao clasped her hands behind her back, pacing toward the forward rail as the deck shivered beneath her boots. The motion steadied her as much as it steadied the crew. She had learned long ago that composure was contagious. If she kept her hands still, her eyes sharp, her stride measured, the panic in others dulled into focus.
She thought not just of the ship, but of her crew: her Chief Engineer in Sickbay, unconscious from the explosion that had crippled them; her science staff scattered, some assisting Arawyn, some still cataloguing debris. The Newton was crewed light by design, built to explore, not to fight. In another circumstance, she might have resented it. Today, she leaned on the officers Captain Corbin had sent across from the Arawyn. Guests by protocol, her lifeline in truth.
The overhead lights dimmed and flared again, straining against fluctuating power. A sharp tang of ozone carried across the bridge, the unmistakable scent of overheated circuits. Rao breathed it in without flinching.
Her eyes flicked to the tactical overlay, stars flickering around their warp path, and she turned toward Tactical, her voice measured.
“Lieutenant, confirm our vector. Are we being dragged toward the asteroid, the one where you traced the Vethari signal?”
A clipped response: “Confirmed, Captain. We are on course for the relay.”
Not random, then. The machines had purpose. Rao let the silence hold for a heartbeat, the weight of it settling into the shoulders of everyone on the bridge. Then she turned back, voice steady as stone.
“Shields, begin harmonic recalibration. Prepare a graviton surge. Hold until my order.”
Acknowledged.
“Engineering, construct a lure. Cargo bay, power cells, anything that burns brighter than the core. When it is ready, isolate it and let them chase it.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Ops, narrow-band hail along our wake. Clean bursts, coded if necessary. The Arawyn will be searching. Make sure she finds us.”
Another clipped reply.
The ship lurched again, warp speed surging erratically. Six-point-eight. Down to six-point-one. Rising again. Each fluctuation pressed her repaired nacelles closer to failure. Rao knew the tolerances. She had seen the readouts. A single misaligned pulse in the injector coils could shear them apart, tearing Newton into pieces across the warp field. She kept her face still.
A younger ensign clutched the rail beside his station, knuckles pale, breath quick. Rao did not reach for support. She stood steady, shoulders square, her weight balanced low, the immovable anchor at the eye of the storm.
Her mind moved even as her stance remained calm. If the nanobots delivered them to the asteroid, what would await? A relay node? A Vethari outpost disguised as rock? If the Combine had seeded Borg-derived machines in the convoy’s path, it was not merely sabotage. It was a test of Starfleet’s reach in this quadrant. The Newton, smallest of the ships, had been singled out. That alone told her enough about their enemy’s calculation.
She had no intention of being paraded as proof of their success.
Her voice dropped lower, a controlled resonance that cut through the alarms without need to rise.
“Crew of the Newton, and officers of the Arawyn. This vessel is ours. We will not yield her to machines. Execute your tasks.”
The bridge moved with renewed focus. Fingers flashed over consoles, terse reports relayed in clipped tones. The hum of effort replaced the edge of panic. Rao allowed herself a breath, slow and measured, the only concession to the weight of command pressing against her ribs.
She returned to the command chair but did not sit. She stood behind it, dark eyes locked on the stars bleeding across the screen, her hands clasped behind her back. She could feel the vibration running through the deck plates, could almost hear the nanobots whispering in the hum of systems they had corrupted. The nacelles might tear themselves apart. The graviton surge might backfire. The lure might fail. But these were risks she would own.
Her crew would see only her stillness, her certainty. That was the duty of command, as much as giving orders: to be the surface upon which the storm broke, never the storm itself.
The Newton might yet be dragged into a trap. But while Aditi Rao stood on her bridge, her eyes unflinching and her voice level, the ship remained theirs.
Captain Aditi Rao
USS Newton
Abp Capt Sabrina Corbin
RSS Feed