Wormhole

Posted on Sun Oct 18th, 2026 @ 9:13pm by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Jennifer Baldric & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Jacob Rosen & Lieutenant JG T'Lar

2,571 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: The Haunting of Deck 12
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Current

The wormhole blossomed like a brilliant emerging flower, spectacularly blue against the black backdrop of space. It was a sight that Captain Kaylen Rhenora never got tired of. A shiver travelling up her arms, the skin prickling under her uniform as the Sunfire advanced towards the open aperture. To travel through the wormhole was a spiritual experience for most Bajorans, and a remarkable scientific curiosity to everyone else.

"Take us in Jenna" she ordered, rising as though the experience demanded her to face it on her feet as a sign of respect to the Prophets.

Aurora smiled as she looked towards Rhenora. “It certainly is a beautiful, awe inspiring sight.”

From his XO's chair, Savar did not share Aurora's sentimental observation. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate beauty and this was an awe inspiring sight, he just didn't feel the need to comment on it other than to say, "Most impressive."

Jenna settled into the helm, her hands resting lightly over the controls as the Bajoran wormhole filled the viewscreen. Even after years at the helm, she could appreciate the sight, a brilliant sweep of blue energy unfolding against the darkness, inviting the Sunfire into the unknown.

At Captain Kaylen’s order, she eased the Akira-class vessel forward, feeding in the thruster adjustments before transitioning smoothly to impulse. The ship responded, though not quite as she expected. There was a slight lag in the turn, followed by a peculiar shudder through the deck as the port-side systems caught up with her input. Jenna frowned at the flight readouts and made a small correction.

“Adjusting our approach, Captain. She's responding a bit sluggish.” She eased the ship onto the prescribed bearing, compensating for a persistent imbalance that felt uncannily like trying to steer a ground vehicle with one wheel buried in mud.

The Sunfire had spent two months in drydock, and at least one of her warp pylons had been replaced. The engineers had done remarkable work getting her spaceworthy again, but new components and freshly recalibrated systems still needed time to settle into their places. Jenna coaxed the ship onward, keeping her inputs smooth and measured as the wormhole’s blue light washed across the bridge.

“Two months of repairs have left her feeling a little stiff.” A faint smile touched Jenna’s lips as she made another fine adjustment. “I’ll try to ease her back into the swing of things.”

"Problems Commander?" Kaylen asked, concerned that a small issue may turn into a much larger one.

Jenna listened to the Captain, as she continued to make fine adjustments at the helm, forcing the Sunfire to respond to each correction. Her expression remained calm, with the faintest hint of a reassuring smile. “Nothing we can’t handle, Captain.”

"Being put to use should remedy the 'stiffness' you state with the Sunfire. The parts in question need to be worked, allowed to find their proper place ." Savar commented.

"Worked in...so long as there are no gremlins. I'm done with gremlins" Rhenora snorted.

Jacob had in his time aboard begun to pick up on the subtle cues of the Bridge Crew, to the level where he could tell whether Commander Ramthorne needed a bit more power or when Commander House was about to load in targeting data from the sensors. He was already responding to the tone from Jenna and sliding more power her way while using the other half of his console to reroute EPS to compensate. Jacob furrowed his brows before looking to her. "It's possible the yard dogs didn't complete full continuity testing and these issues don't show up until the EPS conduits are under load. I'm rerouting for now but it may be a good idea to ask Commander Kla'ren to look into it."

“Looks like we’re being left to work out all the bugs.” Aurora added. “Not exactly what we need when we’re about to enter a wormhole.”

"When all else fails Aurora. It is left to us to see that systems function as expected." Savar added.

Jenna looked left to where Jacob sat and gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment as the additional power came through. The compensation helped smooth out the Sunfire’s sluggish response, though she kept a close eye on the flight readouts and maintained a light, steady touch on the controls. There would be time to investigate the underlying issue once they were safely through.

The Sunfire slipped across the threshold of the wormhole, and the viewscreen filled with swirling ribbons of blue and white energy as the ship accelerated into the passage. Jenna held their course with measured precision, guiding the vessel through the luminous currents while the bridge was bathed in shifting light. A moment later, the aperture closed behind them, leaving the Sunfire to continue her journey towards the Gamma Quadrant.

The blue river catapaulted them thousands of lightyears into the gamma quadrant as easily as a stream carried a leaf with its currents. Rhenora opened her heart and mind listening for anything that the Prophets may choose to share.


Sickbay

Bonnie promised herself she would get a proper night's sleep once the Sunfire was spaceworthy again. Two months of repairs had left her running on caffeine and stubbornness. The persistent tiredness following her around had finally convinced her to stop by Sickbay before the next crisis found her first.

She stepped inside with her medical file pulled up on her PADD, rubbing at one eye as she approached a biobed. “Hi, Doc. I’m here for my annual physical, which I’m pretty sure is overdue, and I thought I’d get a couple of things checked while I’m here.” She glanced down at the PADD, scrolling through the entries with a thumb. “I've been more tired than usual lately. I figured it was probably the repair schedule catching up with me, but I'd rather get checked out than guess.”

Sarah settled her tricorder on the biobed and motioned for Olivia to come over. "You're early for your physical, by about 3 months. Is anything else the matter?" her gut instinct was screaming that Bonnie was NOT indeed here for her physical.

Bonnie shifted her weight, then cleared her throat as she reached the part of the appointment she had been quietly rehearsing in her head. “And could we, um, confirm that my birth control is still working as it should?” She tried to make the request sound as routine as the rest, but her fingers tightened around the PADD. “I’m not planning on adding, you know, any tiny, unexpected crew members to the ship’s manifest anytime soon.”

The joke was followed by a faint, self-conscious smile, though the concern beneath it was harder to hide. Her thoughts had wandered back more than once over the past few months to her time with Dean, and every time they did, her mind helpfully supplied a fresh list of complications. She had enough trouble keeping herself fed and rested while keeping the ship running. The prospect of doing all that while pregnant was enough to make her want to crawl into a Jeffries tube and die.

Meanwhile Commander Baldric walked in, green as they came, and barely made it to the waste unit before emptying her guts into it.

Bonnie tucked the PADD against her side and offered the Doc a slightly sheepish look. “I know, I know. I can handle a lot of things, but working through a crisis while pregnant? That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.” The sudden, unmistakable sound of Commander Baldric emptying her stomach into the waste unit made Bonnie cringe, her shoulders creeping up toward her ears. She glanced over, lost her train of thought for a moment, then turned back to Sarah with a rather queasy expression of her own.

"We can do a few scans to see if you are, or are not." Sarah offered gently, checking Bonnie's medical records to see if her boosters were up to date. "Do you have a preference as to which way you would like that outcome to read?"

“Oh, absolutely not.” Bonnie had turned a faint shade of green, both hands launching into an animated little flurry as she tried to wave the very possibility out of existence. “There's nada, zip, zilch chance I could be, um... no. Not ever. In this universe.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment, fixed somewhere in the middle distance as her imagination apparently ran through every possible disaster scenario at once.

Then she blinked, refocused on Sarah, and pulled herself together with a small, awkward smile. “Um, no. Just hoping everything is normal, is all.” Her hands settled around the PADD, and her voice steadied, as though she could restore order to the universe simply by sounding sensible. She had a sudden sense that Baldrics' presence had just complicated something in her interpersonal relations that she had not planned for.

"You seem very sure of it - yet very unsure at the same time" Sarah quipped as she started running some routine scans. "You realise whatever the outcome, it's your body and you make the decisions."

Bonnie nodded, though her attention kept drifting toward Jennifer, whose ongoing battle with the contents of her stomach was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. She turned back to Sarah, trying to gather her thoughts and keep her expression composed. “I do. It's been months since I was with... anyone, so I'm sure, but that doesn't stop me from worrying, you know?” She gave a small, embarrassed shrug, her fingers worrying at the edge of her PADD. “I suppose my mind hasn't quite caught up with the facts yet.”

Jennifer heaved again, and Bonnie's own stomach clenched in sympathetic response. Her face pinched, and she glanced toward the waste unit before looking back at Sarah with growing concern. “Is... is she okay?” she asked, lowering her voice a little. The question came with a faintly queasy swallow of her own, though she tried to keep her attention on the Doctor, leaving Sarah room to answer both concerns.

"Well, from what I can detect, there is only one of you at the moment, not two of you. But your iron levels are very low, hence the fatigue. Have you been eating and sleeping normally?" Sarah asked as one of the other staff approached Jennifer with a hypo and a tricorder.

Bonnie blinked at Sarah, her expression caught somewhere between relief and concern. The first part of the answer let a little tension out of her shoulders, though the mention of her iron levels gave her pause. “Define normal?” she asked, drawing the words out as she tried to take an honest inventory of the last few weeks. “I eat when I can, sleep when I can, and generally pretend caffeine counts as a food group.”

She shifted, “The last two months have been a bit of a blur, with the reconstruction, trying to get everything back into working order, and sharing rooms.” Her eye gave a tiny twitch as another thought surfaced. “And the constant leg-shaking, thumping noise coming from Rodríguez's side of the room at three in the morning...” Her shoulders crept upward, tension gathering in her posture as she remembered just how little uninterrupted sleep she had managed.

A moment later, Bonnie caught herself and took a slow breath, making a visible effort to settle down. “Why do you ask?” Her eye twitched once more, betraying the lack of rest she had been getting.

"Oh no reason, malnutrition, sleep deprivation, hormones and stress markers all put of whack. You are off duty for 2 days and light duties for the next 5. Doctor's orders." Sarah said firmly, hitting Bonnie with a hypo. "And that's an iron infusion that should level out the imbalance you've got going on. Go eat, sleep, and repeat."

Bonnie stared at Sarah for a moment after the hypo delivered its contents, with a mixture of resignation and mild offense. “Two days off duty and five on light duties?” she repeated, as though saying the words aloud might somehow make them less real. “Doc, I’m an engineer. Light duties are what happen when someone takes all the interesting tools away and leaves me to supervise a... a diagnostic.”

Despite the protest, she knew better than to argue too hard with a doctor, particularly one who had just presented her with a list of bodily complaints she could hardly dispute. Her tiredness had been getting harder to ignore, and the prospect of actual sleep was beginning to sound like a luxury. She tucked her PADD under her arm and gave Sarah a sheepish smile. “Fine. Eat, sleep, repeat. I think I can manage that without breaking anything.” She paused, then added, “No promises though, about the caffeine.”

With a small wave to Sarah and a sympathetic glance toward Jennifer, Bonnie made her way out of Sickbay and into the corridor. The doors slid shut behind her. She had taken only a few steps when the overhead lights dimmed. For one strange heartbeat, the corridor fell into shadow.

Then came the sound. Children giggling. The laughter was faint, high-pitched, and horribly out of place in the quiet shipboard corridor. There was something in it that made Bonnie's skin prickle, a mean little delight that seemed to lurk just beneath the childish sound. It lasted only a moment before the lights returned to normal, leaving the corridor empty and silent.

“Nope,” she whispered to herself, forcing out a nervous little laugh that sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. “Absolutely not.” She glanced once more down the corridor, then started walking again, a little faster than before. The lights remained steady overhead, and nothing else disturbed the silence. Bonnie kept her eyes forward and tried to convince herself that the sound had been nothing more than an exhausted brain misfiring.


USS Sunfire Counseling Suite- Lt.(jg) T'Lar's office

T'Lar was settling in for the day with a pistachio coffee frappe'. She sipped the creamy concoction as she reviewed interview notes in preparation for that morning's slate of appointments. She found herself somewhat distracted, however by present events. It had been two months since she had moved into quarters with Jacob Rosen, and by all accounts their sharing of quarters had gone very well. With repairs to the ship being completed now, however, she found herself no longer in need of temporary shared quarters as hers were fully repaired. Nonetheless, she found that the affinity for cohabitation had grown on her to the point that she very much wished it to continue.

The problem was, neither Jacob nor she had actually broached the topic of continuance once the ship was back in running order. Her affinity for Jacob had grown considerably as well, to the point where the very idea of them living apart caused her not a little disequilibrium. She resolved therefore to formally address the topic at dinner tonight. She was fairly certain that Jacob felt the same as she did, however taking things for granted was not the Vulcan way. She needed clarity. The door hail tweeted as her first appointment arrived and T'Lar became all business once again, ushering a young ensign in with a wave of her hand towards an empty chair...

TBC

 

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