Shadows and Steel
Posted on 25 Sep 2025 @ 1:04am by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
1,157 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Fractured Accord
Location: SB 369
OOC: This was posted on Sunday, the 21st, in Fleet Ops. I wasn't going to post this on Arawyn, but I'm writing a post right now where some of this ties into that log.
*** Fleet Commander’s Office - SB 369 ***
The office was finally hers.
For weeks, it had been a hollow space, walls bare, furniture functional, the kind of compartment that could have belonged to anyone. She had passed through it each day, sat at the desk to sign her name to orders, but it had never felt rooted. Only now, with the last crates hauled away and her choices in place, did the room breathe with presence. Not clutter, she had no patience for clutter, but deliberate weight.
The Bat’leth drew the eye first. Mounted on the wall to her left, its curved blade gleamed faintly in the station’s filtered light. It wasn’t ornamental; the balance was too perfect, the edge too honest. Pla’kor Gonai had forged it for her long ago, not bought, not replicated, but hammered into shape with his own hands. She still took it down for workouts, still felt the steel hum in her grip. But it had never belonged in the home she now shared with Stephen. Too many shadows in its curve, too much of a life that had ended when she returned from captivity, changed. She had ended that marriage herself, respect, not bitterness, but the Bat’leth carried that chapter, and so it belonged here, among the tools of duty.
Across from it, on a shelf, stood a model of the USS Archer. Her first command. Sovereign-class lines sleek under the light, every contour familiar. She had gone from green ensign to captain aboard her, had felt the ship’s hum through her bones for more than a decade. The Archer was her crucible, and the model reminded her of what it had cost and what it had given. Beside it sat a framed holo from the commissioning: Ensign Sidra MacLaren standing stiffly between Captain Salek and Commander Chesek, eyes wide, uniform crisp, still believing that courage alone was enough.
Another holo anchored her present: Stephen and Will at Loch Lomond, bundled against a Highland wind, both laughing at something out of frame. Will was nearly as tall as his father now, his auburn hair catching the light in ways that startled her still, so much of herself in him, and yet wholly his own. That image grounded her more than anything else in the room.
Her chair bore a tartan throw, a touch of home woven into the stark lines of Starfleet standard issue. The room smelled faintly of fresh paneling, still too new, but with her things in place, it was no longer just a compartment. It was hers.
The door chime broke her reflection.
“Come,” she said.
Quen Lyra entered, padd in hand, posture careful. The Bajoran still carried that earnest energy of someone trying hard not to stumble, every movement deliberate. “Admiral. Message incoming from Captain Corbin. Priority.”
Sidra inclined her head. “Put it through.”
The screen lit, Corbin’s face filling the room. The message was recorded. Her voice was steady, but Sidra could hear the strain beneath the command tone. Reports came in clipped sentences: the convoy disrupted, the Newton damaged, an explosion in her nacelle. And then the word that stiffened Sidra’s posture: nanobots. Infestation. Containment uncertain. The Arawyn already moving in pursuit.
When the message ended, the screen went dark. The silence was heavier than before, as though the air itself had drawn in.
Nanobots.
Sidra’s jaw tightened. They were the kind of enemy you couldn’t face across a field, couldn’t outfight with fists or steel. Invisible until it was too late. She hated that helpless edge. It was the same hollow feeling she’d carried on Eternity during the Klingon-Romulan conflict, when the skies rained fire and her orders to evacuate civilians felt like whispers against chaos.
She rose and paced once. The Bat’leth caught her eye, gleaming with the promise of a fight it could never deliver against this kind of foe. She wondered, fleetingly, what Gonai would have said, blade first, always. Stephen, though, would urge her to widen her view, to wield the fleet as both sword and shield.
And Corbin, she trusted Corbin to be exactly where she was needed, steady in the storm, making the right calls in the moment when the margins were thin. That trust didn’t lessen Sidra’s burden, but it tempered it, a reminder that command was never carried alone.
She stopped before the Archer’s model, fingertips brushing the curve of the saucer. Cold, unyielding, steady. She had weathered storms before. She would weather this.
“Admiral?” Quen’s voice was quiet, careful.
Sidra turned back, her green eyes sharp. “Ensign, take this down.”
Quen straightened, padd ready.
“First: dispatch a science vessel to the buoy sector. Their mission is confirmation that the nanobot presence has been fully neutralized. If not, they will contain it. That entire region is to remain flagged on heightened alert until further notice.”
Quen nodded quickly, fingers moving.
“Second: compile a complete workup on the Verathi. I want every scrap of data: intelligence reports, diplomatic files, fleet science notes, even rumor. No detail too small. Have Blokpoel coordinate with Intelligence and deliver it to me within twenty-four hours.”
Another nod.
Sidra moved back to her desk and sat, leaning forward on her elbows. “Prepare memos. To Vice Admiral Blokpoel: she is to lead the scientific workup and oversee the dispatched vessel’s investigation at the buoy site. To Commander Hawk: she is to review and strengthen security protocols fleet-wide, with special emphasis on Verathi contact. Both are to report back immediately.”
Quen’s stylus scratched across the padd.
“And one more,” Sidra added. “Draft a fleet-wide advisory. All captains are to exercise extreme caution in dealings with Verathi ships or technology. Language clear, tone firm: until further notice, assume the Verathi are an active threat. No ambiguity.”
Quen hesitated, then asked, “Urgency flag, Admiral?”
Sidra’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yes. Mark it urgent, and effective immediately.”
Quen gave a brisk nod and withdrew, leaving the office silent again.
Sidra leaned back, eyes closing for a breath. The Bat’leth gleamed on the wall. The Archer’s model stood steady. The holo of Stephen and Will glowed faintly in the dim light. Past, present, and future, all of it gathered here.
The Verathi had caught them unawares once. That sting she felt keenly, the edge of humiliation at having been blindsided. But vigilance was forged in moments like this. She would not allow complacency again, not while Epsilon Fleet looked to her hand on the helm.
Her eyes opened, sharp once more, and she spoke into the empty room.
“Not again. Not on my watch.”
VAdm Sidra MacLaren
Fleet Commander
Epsilon Fleet
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