“A broken blade is not restored. It is reforged.“
U.S.S. Andúril
The Straits — Season 02 / Episode 18
by Alan Tripp
— 2412 —
((One month after the end of the mission in the Straits))
The Anvil of Argrynus Fleet Yards — Rhya’thor Prime
Operations Group Bastion — Argon Cluster
Writer’s Note — This story is presented out of order as I want to begin writing the
ongoing stories of the U.S.S. Sparhawk, and it’s captain as it moves forward in the wake of the events
currently unfolding in the Straits region and Kolana Dyson Sphere Network.
Chapter One
The Ships That Came Before
The first thing Captain Yrsa Atlantis Sollace noticed was the quiet.
Not the quiet of empty corridors.
The quiet of respect.
The U.S.S. Anduril was still unfinished.
Construction crews moved through the surrounding decks. Plasma welders hissed somewhere beyond the bulkheads. Cargo haulers drifted through open structural bays carrying equipment destined for sections of the ship that had not yet received atmosphere.
The ship lived.
But this place was different.
The Hall of Echoes had been designed to be quiet.
The corridor stretched gently along the inner curve of the promenade district beneath the primary saucer section. Warm amber lighting illuminated dark alloy walls while transparent observation panels overlooked the growing arboretum at the center of the deck.
Crewmembers would pass here every day.
Not because memorials belonged hidden behind ceremonial doors.
Because remembrance belonged among the living.
Yrsa moved slowly through the corridor.
The new captain’s rank felt strange on her collar.
Captain.
The word still felt borrowed.
As though someone else should be wearing it.
As though someone else should be standing here.
Ahead of her stood three alcoves.
Three ships.
Three stories.
Three graves.
The first belonged to the U.S.S. Red Wolf.
Its original dedication plaque had been mounted behind preservation glass. The bronze surface bore scars from the battle that had destroyed her. Beneath it glowed hundreds of names.
Crewmembers who never came home.
The second alcove belonged to the U.S.S. Hiryu.
The plaque had survived better.
The names had not.
An entire wall of them stretched downward beneath the dedication marker.
People.
Lives.
Families.
History.
And then she reached the third alcove.
And stopped.
Because she already knew she would.
U.S.S. SPARHAWK
The words sat quietly beneath soft illumination.
The original dedication plaque had been mounted exactly as it had been recovered.
No restoration.
No repair.
No attempt to make it beautiful.
The right side remained warped and partially melted.
Fire scoring blackened the metal.
One entire corner had collapsed inward.
The damage transformed the plaque into something that looked less like a dedication marker and more like a wound.
Yet somehow the name survived.
U.S.S. SPARHAWK
And beneath it:
“To see beyond the edge.”
Yrsa stared at it.
For a long time.
The bridge module that would become part of Anduril rested only a few decks away.
The bridge where she had stood watch.
The bridge where she had laughed.
The bridge where she had watched friends leave for missions and never return.
The bridge where everything changed.
Her hand rose before she realized she was moving.
Her fingertips touched the scarred metal.
Cold.
Rough.
Real.
The touch shattered something inside her.
The jungle returned instantly.
Humidity.
Blood.
Fear.
Darkness moving between impossible trees.
The sound of something hunting.
Always hunting.
Always watching.
The Straits.
She closed her eyes.
And suddenly she wasn’t standing aboard Anduril anymore.
She was standing beneath a shattered canopy while emergency beacons flashed through rain and smoke.
The captain was down.
Captain Lhenya zh’Vorth th’Raelor.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Barely conscious.
The predators were closing.
The environment was collapsing.
And her comm officer was screaming.
Not from fear.
From numbers.
There were survivors trapped beyond the ravine.
Dozens.
Families.
Engineers.
Security personnel.
Medical staff.
People who would die if nobody reached them immediately.
There wasn’t enough time.
There weren’t enough personnel.
There wasn’t enough anything.
One rescue.
One chance.
One choice.
Save the captain.
Or save the larger group.
She still remembered the silence that followed.
The terrible silence.
Everyone waiting.
Everyone looking at her.
Everyone needing an answer.
Captain Lhenya had given her one final order.
Not spoken.
Not formally.
Just a look.
A look that said exactly what every captain already knew.
Save the many.
Yrsa had obeyed.
The survivors lived.
The captain nearly died.
And despite every briefing.
Every commendation.
Every officer who told her she had done the right thing.
Part of her had hated herself ever since.
Her eyes opened.
The Hall of Echoes returned.
Warm light.
Quiet air.
The Sparhawk plaque beneath her fingertips.
And suddenly another memory surfaced.
Older.
Far older.
One she had spent most of her life avoiding.
Her father.
Alan Sollace.
The day Atlantis died.
The story had followed her since childhood.
Everyone knew it.
Everyone understood it.
The impossible choice.
The moment where only one path remained.
The decision that saved his daughter and cost him his wife.
For years Yrsa had understood the facts.
The logic.
The circumstances.
But understanding and acceptance were not the same thing.
Not until now.
Not until command.
Not until the moment she had looked at dying people and realized there was no perfect answer waiting to be found.
Only responsibility.
Only consequence.
Only the choice.
A painful laugh escaped her.
Small.
Broken.
Human.
For the first time in her life she truly understood her father.
Not as a daughter.
As a captain.
The realization hurt.
And somehow healed.
At the same time.
She looked around the Hall of Echoes.
Red Wolf.
Hiryu.
Sparhawk.
None of them had been forgotten.
Their crews remained part of the ship.
Part of the corridor.
Part of daily life.
Part of Anduril.
Not replacement.
Continuation.
The old ships had become foundations.
The dead had become memory.
The memory had become purpose.
And from those fragments something new had been forged.
Not a shrine.
A future.
Yrsa rested her hand one final time against the scarred plaque.
Then she straightened.
Captain.
The word still felt strange.
But perhaps that was acceptable.
Perhaps command was never supposed to feel comfortable.
Beyond the observation windows, construction lights illuminated the unfinished hull of the U.S.S. Anduril.
A ship built from survivors.
A ship built from loss.
A ship built from continuation.
A broken blade.
Reforged.
Trying not to let the grief tear all the way through her in the middle of the corridor.
Then finally she lowered her head and rested her fingertips once more against the melted edge of the plaque.
Not because it comforted her.
Because it told the truth.
And in the silence of the Sparhawk’s memorial passage, beneath the names of the dead and the scarred remains of a ship that had survived things no vessel was meant to survive, Captain Yrsa Atlantis Sollace stood very still and understood with painful clarity that she would probably carry the Straits inside her for the rest of her life.
But this ship now carried them too.
And somehow… that made continuing possible.
And for the first time since the Straits, Captain Yrsa Atlantis Sollace looked toward the future and did not feel guilty for walking into it.