What Happens

Posted on Mon Feb 23rd, 2026 @ 3:28am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Jennifer Baldric & Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Micheal Stevens & Lieutenant JG Rowan Hale & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

1,987 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Sunfire

The team departed the Ready Room, concerned for the lack of time and the enormity of the task again. Rhenora handed over to Commander Savar for the next few hours - needing to A-eat and sleep, and B - have a conversation with Captain Batel about what exactly they were dealing with. She pulled up what little information they had about the Vezda, short videos, limited data and next to no intel from the last two hundred years. It was like fighting a foe you had no information about. This wasn't going to be easy.

---

The next morning at 0600 the team were to reconvene, except the Captain was on the planet below with a small away team taking further readings from the prison well, leaving Commander Savar in charge. Commander Baldric strode into the briefing room - unhappy with this turn of events.

Thriss entered shortly after. He had been extra busy with engineering duties the past few weeks that he had found himself needing to be filled in later. The stakes of this mission were high enough that he had no choice but to divert his attention from Main Engineering for a few moments. He hadn't fully processed that Marie Batel was alive. He had read her name from Starfleet history. A career starship Captain who was lost in the line of duty, now alive again. He had only heard of two other people with being frozen in time and all; but they weren't Starfleet and they had only been found in the past year. He didn't think anything of that coincidence however, as people fell victim to timey wimey shenanigans all of the time.

Thriss nodded to Baldric as he sat down. "Commander" he greeted.

"Thriss, it's good to see you" Baldric smiled, and she truly was happy to see him. Engineering had been keeping him far too busy for far too long.

The Andorian gave a light smile. "Likewise ma'am."

They waited for the rest of the senior officers to file in, noting that Dr Hale, Dr Voight, and the Captain were all absence. Jennifer rose and grabbed a strong coffee from the replicator, wondering what shenanigans their Captain was into this time. "They're still on the planet aren't they?" She asked, firing up the monitor on the wall and patching the visual relay from the prison up on it.

Savar entered at precisely that moment, "Yes, they are." He stated in reply to Baldric's question even as his eyes went to the wall monitor. "So, far nothing unusual to report." He noted.

Aurora had followed Savar into the briefing room, with everything that was going on she wanted to be available to keep a close eye on Captain Batel. Thankfully they now had T’Lar to cover those in need of counselling while Aurora was busy.

Jenna strolled boldly into the room, her face reflecting the late night of fabrication. They had only just finished the units down in the Engineering fabrication bay. "Sorry if I'm late. We were told 0800 hours. The Engineering team pulled an all-nighter and just finished up a few minutes ago. They are loading them for transport to Vadia and Skygowen as I speak." She reported. "I assume we'll have to take the long way to Vadia?"

As they gave their updates around the table, the Captain reported in, having discovered residual tachyons, biosigns and other tell tale data indicating there may have been interference in the prison. As she spoke, the comm signal crackled, static overtaking the end of her words.

Dean was 'late' as well. He'd been dealing with a few other things before moving off and into the Briefing Room. First giving a glance to Jennifer. Look.. he was being a good boy. He didn't immediately rush to Sickbay just because she was there and potentially hurt. "There's a few ways we could take to shave a bit of time off, but not by much without alerting them."

A glance was given as the comm signal chimed in. "What in the world?" Dean grabbed a PaDD quickly and accessed the tactical sensors, as well as comm frequencies. "Uh.. There's a problem at the prison."

The static continued but the telemetry feed was still coming through. Jennifer tapped the padd in front of her and frowned at the outcome. "There's some kind of interference - we can't beam them out"

"Kinda noticed that..I think we should move this meeting to the Bridge." Which that being said, Dean turned around and onto said Bridge. Taking his station. Starting on frequency scans of what could be jamming their transporters.

The rest of the senior staff followed, taking their respective stations - Commander Savar in the Captain's chair, Jennifer to his right as his 2IC. She punched the telemetry into a portion of the main viewscreen, including the pixelated visual that was coming through. Olivia was propped up against the well, clearly injured, and the Captain was firing at something - or someone.

On the secondary display, Sickbay’s feed showed Doctor Hale at the central console, Batel upright behind him, her neural activity fluctuating in synchronization with the weapon discharge.

"Sickbay, what does this mean? Is Captain Batel still linked with the planet somehow? " Baldric noted the correlation and called it for what it was.

“I think the Captain is more linked with the planet than we really realized.” Aurora offered from where she sat. “She’s still mentally, if not physically linked even though she’s here aboard ship.”

Rowan didn't look up with his sight still focused on the telemetry. "There is harmonic resonance between Captain Batel's neural activity and the containment structure," he offered evenly. "It's not active control. But it isn't incidental."

Jenna took her station at the helm and assisted by providing telemetry. It was all she could do at the moment to 'help'.

Bonnie piped up from her console, "Confirmed, I am registering a strong Beta Wave signal coming from Sick Bay, aimed at the gateway. I can only assume Captain Batel is the source as it appears the signal is traveling both directions simultaneously."

“As much as I hate to suggest it, is there a way we could interrupt that signal?” Aurora added. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but it may be the only way to help the away team.”

"Sure, but we have no idea what effect that will have on Captain Batel or whatever is happening down there." Bonnie offered. "Using the shields as a scattering filter should block the signal."

“Is there a way to tell if Batel is helping our away team?” Aurora offered. “I would try contact myself but the doctor has already ruled out any telepathic contact.”

"Proximity? Do we take the Sunfire into a lower orbit? Park it in top of the gateway? Do we amplify these beta waves?" Baldric shot off rapid fire suggestions as they popped into her brain. "Not to mention we need to retrieve the away team. Ahh crap" her words trailed.off as the defence system in the prison activated, adding more energy discharges to the away team trying to seal the well.

Through the static, the Captain was seen being struck in the back by an energy beam, half falling into the well and losing her weapon. The visual signal cut out as an orange explosion blossomed.

Rowan’s voice cut through the bridge static. “Sickbay confirms structural variance,” he reported evenly. “The harmonic pattern has shifted. It is no longer presenting as a defensive response.” A beat. “We are observing adaptation.”

"Like the Borg adapt?" Baldric asked, incredulous. "We need to get our people out of there and those bastards neutralised now" there was a venom not often heard in the mission advisor's voice. "Now how do we do that before the Captain and her team are minced meat or Vezda stew?"

"You're not going to like it," Dean looked up from his console. "So essentially, we fire directly on their position. Rotate frequencies, varied levels of warhead yield for the torpedoes. At the exact same time that shield goes down, we beam them up. Just a microsecond off and they are all dead."

Jennifer paled at the thought of firing on their team. "There is NO room for error there. One millisecond off and they're toast"

"Pretty much." Dean glanced down and then back up, having checked the coordinates. "Weapons, locked."

"Can we warn them before we potentially fry them?" Baldric hesitated, looking at Dean and then at Savar who would ultimately order the weapon to fire.

"We can signal, but there is no guarantee they will hear or be able to respond. And if any of those weapons hit the gateway instead of the prison inside the gateway, we're risking the lives of civilians." Bonnie warned from her station at the back. She knew Dean's pertinacity for using weapons and creating explosions but could not condone the use of weapons in this situation.

Savar listened to the back and forth from House, Baldric and Bonnie. "Have weapon frequencies been double checked as well as warhead loads for the torpedoes?" He knew they would be but wanted to hear it.

"What if we sent a shuttle down?" Thriss piped up after he had been monitoring the conversation, in addition to the engineering systems.

"With an armed away team? Shoot our way in, extract the Captain's team and get the hell out, then Commander House can blow it up. Or Kit and Bonnie can shove the Vezda into their eternal loop of misery." Baldric commented, noting the weapons fire still on the viewscreen. "Any further options?" She addressed everyone on the bridge.

The CMO's voice sounded through comm's. “Interrupting the resonance abruptly may induce neural trauma,” he said evenly. “Captain Batel’s cortical activity is synchronised to the structure. If you sever that link without modulation, the shock will propagate both directions.".

A pause, “Whatever course you take, avoid sudden harmonic collapse.”

"So....don't blow it up?" Baldric asked cautiously.

“I am not advising against action,” he said evenly. “But if you strike, do it gradually. Do not trigger a full structural collapse. If the link snaps violently, the Captain absorbs the shock.”

"That's not going to happen, is it Dean.... whatever it is you're planning isnt going to collapse the prison, just enough to retrieve the Captain's team, right?" Baldric looked at House with questions in her eyes. "Then we do the eternal loop of doom?"

Without waiting for orders, knowing time was of the essence as their people were being fired upon, she began plotting coordinates. Jenna activated the impulse engine control and launched the ship out of its planetary orbit towards the surface.

"Alright, Mr House, I'll bring us in close and line us up. You'll have one shot, don't blow it up. We'll get our people out. I hope whoever is working the transporter has quick reflexes." Jenna piloted the ship through the upper layers of the atmosphere, already scanning ahead for the temple that was her target.

Once the Sunfire cleared the cloud layer, there was a shift, like an afterburner, and she picked up speed. From the ground, the people could feel the shockwave the ship created, like a sonic boom resonating across the cityscape. She aimed the nose at the temple, and for a moment it appeared as though she were going to play chicken. At the last possible second, she veered around, bringing the ship to a standstill nose to temple, aiming her right at the mouth of the gate. "Don't miss."

"It's a surgical strike, should work exactly as intended." Dean nodded and dropped any other attention around him focusing on what he was doing.

"Captain, if you can hear me, move way from the gateway and the well" Baldric slapped the comm system as the Sunfire ripped through the atmosphere.

TBC

 

RSS Feed