How it Happens
Posted on Sat Feb 28th, 2026 @ 2:33am 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 JG Jacob Rosen & Lieutenant JG Rowan Hale & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight
1,829 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Beholder
Location: Sunfire / Skygowen
In the prison, the Captain, Olivia and Michael were pinned down, running low on weaponry and options. The defensive system kept firing whenever they moved, designed to keep intruders out and the Vezda well and truly in. Problem was, now the team couldn't leave.
Rhenora caught half of Baldric's message, the rest of it swallowed by static. "We need to move away from the well and the gateways... I think" She said to the small team, and they made the decision to leave their cover. " Weapons down... turn them off even. We need to appear as un threatening at possible"
"What do you have in mind, Captain?," Olivia asked.
"Staying alive....as long as possible" Rhenora grunted, the pain from the energy strike to her back starting to take its toll. They kept their hands open, their weapons on the ground and moved very slowly away from both the well and the gateway.
"Whatever you're gonna do Sunfire, do it now" The Captain grimaced.
Back on the Sunfire, the mighty ship descended through the clouds, leaving a trail of fire and vapor as it did so. They neared the precise point Dean had marked earlier.
"We're really doing this?" Baldric asked one last time.
"Oh, we're doing this." Jenna said under her breath, focused forward on bringing the mighty ship through the atmosphere.
"Commander, I am engaging low frequency waves from the deflector to mitigate the thruster wash." Jacob said, rapidly tapping commands into the Ops console and looking back over his shoulder at the Helm. "You should be able to get close without shaking things up too much for the ground team."
"Good idea" Baldric complemented, "I'm diverting power from non essential systems to the transporters."
"Yes, we're really doing this. We always go balls to the wall, why not now." Dean actually held his breath for the rest of the microseconds it was going to be. Once they were in range and where he needed them to be, he closed his eyes. "And...NOW!" Said to himself as well as to the transporter chief.
The away team stood as still as possible, wounded, in pain but determined not to die on this forsaken planet. It seemed forever, until the familiar tingle of the transporter grabbed them and deposited them in sickbay.
Rowan was already moving before the pattern fully resolved. “Biobed two,” he ordered calmly. “Full cortical monitor. Now.”
A moment later, Batel started screaming. Batel’s scream cut through Sickbay, raw and involuntary. Rowan’s expression did not change.
Aurora, who was standing by monitoring Batel, cringed as Batel screamed. The feedback she was getting was painful to say the least.
“Neural feedback,” he said evenly, reaching for a cortical stabilizer. “The link did not sever cleanly.” He pressed the device gently at the base of her skull. “Captain, you are aboard the Sunfire. You are safe.”
Her neural readings spiked violently across the display. “Sedation, minimal dose,” he instructed without raising his voice. “We dampen, we do not suppress.” His eyes flicked briefly to Sarah. “Monitor for cascade activity. If this propagates, we contain it immediately.”
He adjusted the harmonic filter on the cortical scanner, isolating the frequency band he had warned about minutes earlier. “There it is,” he murmured. The waveform trembled. “Gradual collapse,” he said quietly. “Good.”
Aurora breathed a sigh of relief at the lower input from Batel, now the feedback had been cut to Batel she was able to manage the emotional input better.
Only then did he allow himself a single measured breath. “Report on the rest of the away team.”
Olivia fell to the floor as soon as they materialized in Sickbay. The pain in her thigh was starting to kick in more and getting to her now that she wasn't focused on deflecting the laser bolts being sent her in direction. "You have your work cut out for you this round, sir," Olivia replied.
Back on the bridge the team watched as energy was discharged towards the gateway, careful, precise.
"They are aboard, and we might want to get out of here!" Dean confirmed the transport complete and now there's about to be a cascade of explosions.
"I thought we weren't blowing it sky high?!" Jennifer turned as the explosion blossomed on the viewscreen. The gateway had been obliterated, which confined the Vezda to Vadia 9, but they were still on the cusp of breaking free.
"I believe if no one objects that we depart the area with as much possible speed to insure our safety as well as that of the ship." Savar said looking at the faces of the bridge crew.
"On it." Jenna declared as the Sunfire pulsed into a vertical climb until they were well above the city below, before angling the ship upward and back into space. "I assume our destination is Vadia IX?" she added, already plugging in the coordinates.
"Wait, we have to set up the first energy refraction inverter on Skygowen, unless, um, I mean if the plan has changed..." Bonnie started strong and finished weak with everyone looking at her.
"They were ready for deployment? Will it still work if the gateway here has been neutralized?" Jen was so full of questions as she Sunfire ascended through the clouds.
"Skygowan reports no fatalities, a few injuries though. The area had been evacuated."
Jenna turned, "The ERIs were being loaded for transport before shit hit the fan." She started.
"The ley lines should not be impacted by the gates destruction. The plan should still work. One unit here, the other on Vadia. Synchronizing the startup will be the most difficult part." She half laughed, "I mean DOT is a real thing..."
Jenna caught the perplexed look on Jennifer's face. "She means Distance Over Time. Vadia is light hours away so the timing of the startup sequence has to be coordinated just right for the loopback to occur correctly."
"I trust you two know how to synchronise that accounting for said DOT effect." Jennifer asked " Just checking...."
"Of course, Commander. Leo and Thriss and, um, the team have already worked out the maths." Bonnie admitted.
"We can transport the first team and the ERI to the surface and then make a B-line for Vadia with the second team. Barring any issues outside the Prison, we'll be fine." Jenna declared boldly.
"Fair enough, choose your teams and get cracking" Baldric replied assertively. "This time we WILL maintain full transporter locks on everyone..
Jenna sent a notification through to her chosen team consisting of herself, Leo DaCinci, Rynn Upland and the Security team for two additional officers for the first team. "Leo, make certain to grab the Tachyon injection cannister." She noted as a reminder.
Almost immediately he shot back, "Aye, already in hand Lass, along with a backup should the squirrelies run sideways."
It made her laugh but she did not break on the bridge. Standing, she placed her console at station keeping for her replacement. The second team would consist of Jennifer, Bonnie, Thriss and a handful of security officers, just in case. They would be too close to the prison for comfort.
She nodded at Bonnie as she approached the turbolift. "We'll wait for your call." She said quickly before commanding the lift. "Engineering bay 3."
The Sunfire slid into a high orbit, gracefully circling the planet as the team got themselves sorted. Skygowan reported that people were beginning to return to the Capitol, shaken, but hopeful.
Baldric brought up the specs on the device Bonnie had designed, whilst she didnt need to know the nitty gritty of its operation, a general overview wad always helpful on an away mission.
Jacob watched the other officers depart the bridge, their stations relieved by awaiting juniors. The Commanders consulting notations on their consoles, giving directions. Jacob reorganized his layouts, monitoring the status of the various subsystems as they returned to a more comfortable orbit. This ship and it's crew, there was something here, something intangible. The way they went about their duties in tense situations, seamlessly identifying their roles and best applications of their talents and specialties. It was impressive, incredible, and surprisingly, enviable. Perhaps he could make a spot here, maybe this ship was where he could get back on track. Jacob looked back towards the Command chairs. "Commander, I have dialed in the individual comm badge signatures from both teams to transporter control. You can monitor from your console at your convenience."
"Once we drop off the first team, our ETA to Vadia 9 is 5 hours" Baldric reported, being on the second away team they would have more time.
Jenna stepped onto the platform, scanner on hip, phaser on the other. Her selected team Engineering Team One or ET1 followed suit. She gave only a ready nod to the transporter chief before disappearing in a shimmer of blue light.
The transporter beam released them into the center of Skygowen’s capital plaza where the stone still carried the memory of heat. Smoke thinned into pale ribbons above fractured towers, and recovery crews moved with deliberate focus among support struts and temporary lighting arrays. The scar of the destroyed gateway dominated the far end of the inverted pyramid, an absence carved into architecture that once framed ceremony and commerce. Its edges bore fused stone and collapsed ornamentation, a wound rendered precise through force.
Civilians resumed their work, transport skimmers traced careful arcs overhead, and reconstruction teams continued their steady rhythm. Jenna rose and addressed her team with calm authority. "Let’s move people, we have a job to do."
Jenna stepped clear of the dispersal shimmer and surveyed the field with a navigator’s instinct for alignment and orientation. She confirmed their coordinates against orbital telemetry, marked the ley line convergence on her tricorder display, and signaled for the equipment to be brought forward.
The ERI unit descended from the cargo lock in a controlled gravitic cradle, its surface reflecting the muted daylight in disciplined bands of alloy and field emitters.
Leo DaCinci guided the placement arms with careful adjustments while Rynn Upland monitored subspace harmonics and fed live calibration data to Jenna’s console. Two security officers established a perimeter that blended into the returning civic presence without disrupting it.
Jenna knelt beside the primary housing and secured the tachyon injection canister into its chamber, her movements steady and exact. She ran the final diagnostic sweep, confirmed phase stability across the ley line interface, and allowed herself a single breath to settle the moment into order.
Equipment cases were sealed, readings logged, and anchor point one entered into the mission record as stable and active.
Above them, unseen against the brightening sky, the Sunfire adjusted her attitude thrusters and prepared to depart orbit. Moments later she turned toward her next vector and entered warp, a blue arc drawing away from a world that appeared to be healing while something deeper shifted along lines only a few could feel.
TBC
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