By Richard Woodcock
USS Fortitude, Main Bridge:
The stars were behaving themselves tonight.
That alone made Miles uneasy.
From the command chair of the USS Fortitude, the galaxy lay arranged in neat, predictable vectors no quantum shear, no flicker of false parallax, no whisper of something that shouldn’t be there. After a lifetime of wars, incursions, and realities bleeding into one another, calm felt… provisional.
He checked the chronometer.
Two hours to midnight, shipboard.
Once, New Year’s Eve had meant champagne in San Francisco, laughter spilling out of Starfleet Academy halls, and the arrogant certainty that the future was something you charged toward.
Now it was a quiet bridge, dimmed lighting, and a crew that felt less like subordinates and more like family he’d watched grow into themselves.
Miles rested his hand on the arm of the chair his chair, for now and let himself breathe.
Five Fortitudes.
Five commands.
How many versions of himself?
He wondered briefly, treacherously how many more New Years he had left here.
Commander Teshla Phyhr, XO’s Station
Commander Teshla Phyhr stood with the stillness of ice that had learned patience.
The bridge hummed around her, consoles murmuring in disciplined harmony. She catalogued readiness reports with practiced ease, but her thoughts were elsewhere on Andoria’s long nights, on Imperial Guard drills where celebration was weakness, and on how much she had changed since choosing to remain at Llewellyn’s side.
She had declined command three times.
Starfleet personnel files called it “loyalty.”
Her clan would have called it choice.
Teshla glanced toward the command chair. The Admiral looked older tonight not frail, not diminished, but… reflective. She recognized the look. She had seen it in Guard commanders before they stepped aside for the next blade in the line.
Whatever came next, she would not let the ship stumble.
Not on her watch.
Commander Penny White — Main Engineering
Engineering smelled faintly of ozone and orchids.
Penny White stood near the warp core, arms folded, watching the containment field shimmer with quiet perfection. She had tuned it herself earlier unnecessary, perhaps, but rituals mattered. Especially on nights when memories had a habit of surfacing uninvited.
There had been a time when the hum of a core had sounded too much like Borg resonance. When every flicker made her heart race.
Not anymore.
The Fortitude had helped heal that.
Her staff laughed nearby soft, careful laughter, the kind engineers shared when systems were stable and ghosts were kept at bay. Penny allowed herself a small smile. She had built more than engines here. She had built trust.
Midnight would come.
The ship would shine.
And tomorrow, they would keep flying.
That was enough.
Commander Rose Harrington, Operations Station
Rose Harrington’s console glowed with logistics readouts, but her focus lingered on the crew manifest.
So many names.
So many stories.
She had coordinated refugee evacuations under fire, rerouted fleets through collapsing corridors of space, and watched friends come back changed or not at all. Yet nights like this reminded her why she stayed.
Because someone had to make sure the ship worked not just the systems, but the people.
She queued the fireworks protocol, double-checking safety margins and sensor interference. Everything had to be perfect. Not because Starfleet demanded it.
Because the crew deserved it.
Lieutenant Commander Neku Langi, Science Lab
Neku Langi adjusted the spectral filters and frowned.
“Interesting,” she muttered.
The stellar radiation profile near their position showed faint harmonics nothing dangerous, nothing anomalous enough to report. But it was… curious. The universe, it seemed, had a sense of timing.
She logged the data for later review and allowed herself a rare indulgence: wonder.
Temporal mechanics had taught her one thing moments mattered. Some echoed longer than others.
Tonight felt like one of those.
Commander Akadia Nilona, Tactical & Intelligence
Akadia Nilona watched threat projections she did not expect to change.
Old habits died hard.
The Romulan in her distrusted peace; the Starfleet officer accepted it cautiously. Around her, the ship prepared not for battle but for celebration. It was still strange, sometimes, how much she had come to value that distinction.
She thought of joint operations, shared bloodshed, alliances forged in crisis. Of standing shoulder to shoulder with officers who had once been enemies.
If this was what the future looked like…
She could live with it.
She deactivated half her alerts.
Just for tonight.
Lieutenant Commander Twimek Vodokon, Sickbay
Twimek Vodokon finished his final rounds with gentle efficiency.
Crew stress levels were elevated, expected. Anticipation often mimicked anxiety in biological terms. He made notes, offered quiet words, and accepted a cup of tea from a junior medic who smiled too quickly.
He understood that smile.
Healing was not always about wounds. Sometimes it was about permission to rest, to feel, to remember without breaking.
Tonight, he would allow himself that too.
Lieutenant Commander Fasu Lira, Security Office
Fasu Lira leaned back in her chair, boots on the edge of her desk, eyes half-lidded as security feeds rolled by.
No threats.
No intrusions.
No temporal nonsense.
“Suspicious,” she murmured with a smirk.
She had lived too much life to trust easy nights but she had also learned when to let the crew breathe. She adjusted patrol rotations to minimum readiness and sent a message to her teams:
Enjoy the evening. I’ll keep the universe honest.
Lieutenant Sieneth Th’rel, Helm
Sieneth “heard” the stars tonight.
Not literally though some would argue semantics but the subtle rhythm of subspace flow sang beneath her fingertips as she rested them lightly on the helm. The Fortitude felt balanced, content, as if the ship itself sensed the approaching moment.
She recorded a single line in her Braille journal:
The stars are holding their breath.
Dr. Aiyana Blackhorse, Observation Lounge
Aiyana Blackhorse stood alone for a moment, palm resting against the transparent aluminum, watching ancient light reach modern eyes.
New Year’s rituals had existed on Earth long before warp drive fires, stories, promises whispered into darkness. Across cultures, across millennia, the meaning remained constant.
Continuity.
She felt honored to witness how this crew carried that tradition forward not with superstition, but with shared memory and intention.
The past mattered.
So did what came next.
Lt. Commander Jaxon Reeve — Hazard Ops Bay
Reeve had seen men celebrate like they’d stolen something from the universe—loud, reckless, desperate to prove they were still alive.
Zulu Team didn’t do that.
Not because they were joyless. Because they understood better than most that survival was rarely a solo achievement. It was a chain. A hand grabbed in the dark. A shouted warning at the right time. A medic’s fingers moving too fast to follow.
He ran a final pre-event check anyway, because that was who he was: the man who assumed the worst so the rest could have a night off.
Across the bay, Ch’korrak was arguing with a diagnostic drone.
Nalora was sharpening a blade she didn’t need to sharpen.
Drevik had brewed something that smelled suspiciously like herbal optimism.
Velra stood at the edge of the group, half-present, as if the idea of celebration required a translated manual.
And Ssa’kith… Ssa’kith was simply there like a wall that had decided to be kind.
Reeve’s hand brushed the small slate he kept locked in his kit names, dates, the ones who hadn’t come back in earlier years. He didn’t open it. He didn’t need to.
He looked at his team and felt something unfamiliar, something dangerous.
Peace.
“Alright,” he said, voice calm, steady. “You’ve got thirty minutes before we head up. Try not to break anything.”
Ch’korrak snorted. “That’s discriminatory.”
Reeve’s mouth twitched. “It’s preventative.”
And as the laughter started quiet at first, then warmer Reeve realized the strangest truth of all:
They weren’t just a unit anymore.
They were… a family that had learned how to keep going.
Lieutenant Ssa’kith, The Weight of a Quiet Night
Ssa’kith watched the humans celebrate with a kind of studied patience.
In the Hegemony, marking time had been a brutal thing victories, dominations, the tally of conquered worlds. It had been noise and blood and certainty.
Here, aboard the Fortitude, the ship prepared for light.
Fireworks. A harmless ritual. No enemy. No prey.
He had once believed this softness would make them weak.
Now he understood: it made them harder to break.
Nalora approached and offered him a small packet some Andorian confection he couldn’t pronounce.
Ssa’kith accepted it carefully.
“It is… sweet,” he rumbled after trying it, as if offering an official assessment of a ration.
Nalora’s antennae dipped in amusement. “Try not to look like you’re being poisoned.”
Ssa’kith stared at her a moment longer than necessary.
Then, slowly deliberately he let the corner of his mouth lift.
It wasn’t quite a smile.
But it was closer than he’d ever been.
Ensign Drevik, Morale is a Medical Discipline
Drevik’s medkit was immaculate.
His people were not.
That was the trade.
He floated between them like a cheerful emergency protocol checking bruises from training, handing out warm cups, offering unsolicited encouragement.
“If anyone feels an overwhelming urge to confess feelings tonight,” he announced, “I’m available. For clinical reasons. Totally.”
Velra glanced at him. “That is not clinical.”
“It absolutely is,” Drevik replied. “Emotional suppression can cause stress-related inflammation. I’m basically preventing swelling.”
Ch’korrak barked a laugh and muttered something about Denobulans being “biologically allergic to silence.”
Reeve shot Drevik a look that said don’t push the commander into an emotional moment.
Drevik nodded solemnly then immediately passed Reeve a cup anyway.
Reeve took it without comment.
That was progress.
Drevik made a note in his head: Captain-level acceptance of morale beverages a major breakthrough.
And beneath the humor, beneath the bright tone he wore like armor, Drevik felt something real:
For the first time in his career, he didn’t feel like the medic tagging along with the fighters.
He felt like the heart in the center of a small, stubborn constellation.
Ensign Velra T’Laan, Logic, Instinct, and the Space Between
Velra stood slightly apart, observing.
She always observed.
It was safer.
Romulan instinct urged vigilance. Vulcan training demanded control. Starfleet asked something harder: trust.
She did not find trust logical.
Yet here she was watching Ch’korrak tune a device that would project refracted deflector light into patterns, watching Nalora’s attention subtly track every exit, watching Ssa’kith remain motionless in a way that meant he was ready to become a shield at a heartbeat’s notice.
And Reeve Reeve was the anchor. The center.
He was not impulsive. He was not cruel. He was not careless with lives.
He was… consistent.
Velra’s fingers brushed the small strip of Romulan poetry she kept hidden in her gear case. She had written it down years ago to remind herself she was allowed to feel something even if she didn’t know what to do with it.
Tonight, she didn’t read it.
She simply stayed.
And that, she decided, was a form of growth.
Lt. JG Nalora zh’Khev, A Blade Can Be a Promise
Nalora checked her knife because it was what her hands did when her mind refused to settle.
This ship this crew had changed her in ways she didn’t talk about.
She had come to Starfleet to fight. To restore her clan’s honor. To live at the edge of violence where certainty was sharp and clean.
Instead, she had found something messier.
People.
Reeve had given her purpose without demanding she become someone else.
Ssa’kith had taught her that strength could be quiet.
Drevik had proven that courage could smile.
Velra had shown her that conflict didn’t always need to explode outward.
Ch’korrak gods help them had demonstrated that arguing with the universe could sometimes be a love language.
Nalora looked around at them and realized a truth she would never say aloud:
She was no longer fighting to restore her clan’s honor.
She was fighting to protect this.
This team. This ship. This strange little pocket of belonging.
Her antennae flicked toward Reeve.
“Kaleth’rev,” she said softly Shield-Brother.
Reeve looked up, surprised by the gentleness in her tone.
“What is it?” he asked.
Nalora sheathed the blade with a precise click.
“Nothing,” she said, and meant the opposite.
CPO Ch’korrak, Engineering is Arguing With Physics Until You Win
The fireworks display was, in Ch’korrak’s professional opinion, ridiculous.
Also elegant.
Also dangerously tempting.
He’d been asked politely, infuriatingly politely to assist Operations in deploying sensor drones to cast prismatic light patterns across the Fortitude’s silhouette. No explosives. No volatile charges. No “fun.”
So he’d done what any responsible Tellarite combat engineer would do.
He’d upgraded it.
Not enough to violate safety protocols he wasn’t suicidal but enough that the light would bloom in layered, spiraling geometry instead of bland “officially approved sparkle nonsense.”
He muttered at the drone rack as he worked. “There. That’s art. That’s engineering. That’s”
Drevik leaned in. “That’s you secretly caring.”
Ch’korrak paused, then growled, “That’s me preventing you from embarrassing the ship with amateur hour.”
Reeve walked past, glanced at the readouts, and after a beat nodded once.
A simple nod.
But it hit Ch’korrak like a medal.
He watched Reeve’s back as the commander moved away and felt something he hated admitting:
Pride.
Not in himself.
In them.
In the fact that a team built for disaster could still take time to paint light across the stars.
Zulu Team didn’t talk about love.
They talked about protocols. Loadouts. Angles of approach.
But tonight, as they headed up from Hazard Ops toward the gathering decks, the truth moved with them through the corridors like a quiet formation:
They had become the kind of people who could survive the worst and still show up for the moment the year turned.
USS Fortitude: 00:00 Shipboard Time
The lights aboard the Fortitude dimmed not abruptly, not dramatically, but with the gentle confidence of a ship that trusted its crew to understand what came next.
Across decks and duty stations, conversations trailed off. Glasses were lowered. Hands found railings, shoulders, bulkheads. Somewhere in the ship’s core, a chronometer ticked toward a boundary humans had invented and yet never stopped needing.
On the bridge, the stars ahead seemed to hold their alignment.
“Mark,” said Commander Rose Harrington softly, fingers poised above the console.
The Fortitude did not count down aloud.
She never had.
The Ship
At the exact moment the year turned, the Fortitude came alive.
Not with weapons fire.
Not with alarms.
But with light.
From launch bays and maintenance ports, a constellation of sensor drones bloomed outward in precise geometry. Deflector harmonics refracted across their hulls, casting prismatic arcs that spiraled, unfolded, and reformed color without heat, brilliance without violence.
To those watching from inside, it looked as though the ship itself had decided to breathe out.
No sound reached them.
Space kept its silence.
But the crew felt it all the same.
USS Fortitude, Main Bridge
On the bridge, Admiral Miles Llewellyn stood.
No one ordered him to. No protocol demanded it. He simply rose from the chair as the first wave of light swept across the forward viewscreen, painting the bridge in blues, golds, and soft greens.
Commander Teshla Phyhr stood beside him, posture immaculate, antennae angled slightly forward an unconscious sign of attention, of presence.
For once, neither spoke.
They didn’t need to.
The Fortitude was steady beneath their feet, every system precisely where it should be. Not because the universe was kind but because the people here were ready.
Miles felt the weight of it then.
Not the burden of command.
The completion of it.
USS Fortitude, Observation Lounge
In the observation lounge, crew members lined the transparent aluminum in quiet clusters.
Dr. Aiyana Blackhorse closed her eyes for a brief moment as the light patterns unfolded, thinking of ancient fires on Earth, of stories told to mark endings and beginnings. This was the same ritual, she realized—just written in a newer language.
Nearby, Lieutenant Commander Twimek Vodokon observed subtle shifts in posture, breathing, heart rates then allowed himself the rare luxury of not recording them.
Healing, he knew, sometimes required being a witness rather than a clinician.
Commander Penny White stood with Rose Harrington, shoulders nearly touching. Neither spoke. Both engineers, in their own way, appreciating the impossible elegance of controlled energy made beautiful.
“Ch’korrak’s fingerprints are all over this,” Penny murmured.
Rose smiled. “I know.”
Zulu Team: Together, Not Separate
Zulu Team watched from a lower gallery, unarmored, unarmed, deliberately so.
For once, they were not an edge.
They were part of the whole.
Ensign Drevik’s eyes were wide, reflecting the shifting colors. “Okay,” he said quietly, “I rescind every complaint I’ve ever made about Starfleet ceremony.”
“That’s going in your medical file,” Ch’korrak grumbled, though his gaze never left the view.
Nalora zh’Khev stood rigid at first then slowly relaxed, antennae lifting as if tasting the moment. Ssa’kith loomed behind her, vast and immovable, a presence that no longer needed to prove itself through force.
Velra T’Laan watched the patterns analytically… until she realized she’d stopped analyzing them at all.
Reeve stood at the center of them, hands clasped behind his back.
For the first time since he’d formed Zulu Team, he wasn’t thinking about contingencies.
He was thinking about tomorrow.
And he found unexpectedly that the thought didn’t weigh him down.
USS Fortitude, Helm Station
At the helm, Sieneth Th’rel tilted her head slightly.
The light show wasn’t silent to her not entirely. The deflector harmonics, the micro-adjustments in subspace pressure, the elegant symmetry of it all resonated like a held chord finally resolving.
She smiled, just a little.
“The ship’s… happy,” she said softly, mostly to herself.
No one contradicted her.
Between the Lights
They did not plan it.
That was the thing Teshla would later remember most clearly.
One moment she was on the bridge, posture immaculate as the first wave of refracted light washed across the viewscreen and the next, she found herself stepping away under the pretext of a systems check, trusting the bridge to hold without her for precisely sixty seconds.
Sieneth felt it instantly.
The ship shifted not in vector, not in thrust, but in attention.
She keyed in a course hold, confirmed stability, and followed without asking.
They met in a narrow observation corridor rarely used outside of maintenance rotations. The transparent aluminum viewport stretched floor to ceiling, offering an uninterrupted view of the Fortitude’s hull as the drones traced spirals of light around it gold, blue, violet silent fireworks blooming against the dark.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Teshla stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching the reflection of the ship ripple faintly across the viewport. Sieneth leaned lightly against the rail, head tilted as if listening to a song only she could hear.
“It’s louder out there,” Sieneth said softly.
Teshla glanced at her. “Space?”
“The moment,” Sieneth corrected. “It resonates. Like the ship is… remembering something.”
Teshla nodded once. “On Andoria, we mark the turning of cycles with ice lanterns. They float until the heat of the day takes them.” A pause. “We watch to remind ourselves that endurance doesn’t mean permanence.”
Sieneth turned toward her then, pale eyes catching the reflected starlight. “You’re thinking about endings.”
“I’m thinking about change,” Teshla replied.
Outside, the Fortitude bloomed brighter light cascading along her hull in slow, deliberate arcs. The ship looked impossibly graceful, as if she were aware she was being watched.
Sieneth stepped closer.
Not hurried.
Not uncertain.
Just close enough that Teshla could feel the warmth of her presence, the subtle shift of air between them.
“I don’t hear endings,” Sieneth said. “I hear… continuity. Like a melody changing key.”
Teshla exhaled, the tension easing from her shoulders. “You always did hear things the rest of us miss.”
Sieneth lifted her antennae gently, brushing them against Teshla’s in a gesture that was intimate even by Andorian standards shared sensation, shared emotion, no barrier between.
For an instant, the world narrowed to that contact.
To trust.
To choice.
Teshla’s hand rose hesitant only for a fraction of a second before resting at Sieneth’s wrist. Grounding. Steady.
“This stays ours,” Teshla said quietly. Not a request. A promise.
Sieneth smiled, soft and sure. “Of course.”
The final cascade of light unfolded outside slow, elegant, almost ceremonial before the drones began their return, brilliance fading back into honest starlight.
As the universe reclaimed its darkness, Teshla leaned forward and rested her forehead briefly against Sieneth’s.
No kiss.
No witnesses.
Nothing that needed explaining.
Just two officers standing at the turning of the year, choosing each other in the quiet between duty calls.
Somewhere deep within the USS Fortitude, the inertial dampeners adjusted perfectly balanced.
Sieneth smiled.
“She approves,” she whispered.
Teshla did not argue.
The Moment Passes
The drones completed their final arc, spiraling inward as the light softened, then faded each returning smoothly to recovery vectors. The stars reclaimed their familiar dominance, cold and endless and unchanged.
But the people watching them were not.
Conversation resumed, quietly at first. Laughter followed. Somewhere, a glass clinked against another. Somewhere else, a hand squeezed a shoulder and didn’t let go right away.
On the bridge, Miles Llewellyn exhaled.
The year had turned.
And the Fortitude was still here.
USS Fortitude: Main Bridge
The bridge was on night rotation sparse, hushed, alive only with the low murmur of systems and the distant heartbeat of the ship.
Commander Teshla Phyhr lingered near the command well longer than duty required.
Lieutenant Sieneth Th’rel noticed, of course. She always did.
“You’re pacing,” Sieneth said softly, fingers still dancing across the helm with effortless precision.
“I am considering,” Teshla replied, though she didn’t deny it.
Sieneth smiled faintly. “That’s pacing with better posture.”
Teshla allowed herself a quiet huff of amusement and moved closer close enough now that she could feel the subtle warmth of Sieneth’s presence, sense the minute shifts of her antennae as the ship adjusted orientation.
“You’ve been flying differently tonight,” Teshla said. “Looser.”
“Only because you’re here,” Sieneth answered, without looking up.
The honesty of it landed between them like a held breath.
Teshla studied her profile the calm focus, the unguarded openness so rare among Aenar who ventured into Starfleet. She had seen Sieneth guide the Fortitude through spatial turbulence that would have rattled veteran pilots, all while speaking of stars as if they were old friends.
“You trust me,” Teshla said quietly.
Sieneth finally turned her head. Her pale eyes met Teshla’s without hesitation. “Yes.”
No qualifiers. No deflection.
Just truth.
“And I trust you,” Teshla said, the words chosen with care. “With the ship. With the crew. And…” She paused, antennae angling forward in a gesture that among Andorians meant vulnerability. “…with myself.”
That drew a soft, surprised breath from Sieneth.
“I was worried,” Sieneth admitted, voice barely above the hum of the consoles, “that what I feel would be… inconvenient.”
Teshla smiled slow, restrained, unmistakably Andorian. “I’ve spent my life being inconvenient to tradition.”
They stood there, close enough now that the space between them felt intentional rather than empty.
Sieneth reached out not with her hands, but with her antennae, brushing them lightly against Teshla’s in a gesture that was deeply personal, deeply Aenar. A sharing of presence. Of emotion. Of now.
Teshla stilled, then mirrored the motion.
The bridge seemed to recede around them.
“This doesn’t change the chain of command,” Teshla said, professional even now.
“No,” Sieneth agreed. “But it changes how the stars sound.”
Teshla leaned in then just enough to rest her forehead briefly against Sieneth’s.
No witnesses.
No announcements.
Just two officers choosing each other in the quiet between duty rotations.
Somewhere deep within the Fortitude, the inertial dampeners made a micro-adjustment—smooth, precise, perfectly balanced.
Sieneth smiled.
“See?” she whispered. “She listens.”
USS Fortitude: Observation Lounge
The observation deck was dark enough to feel private, but not so dark as to hide from memory.
Admiral Miles Llewellyn stood at the viewport of the USS Fortitude, pipe cupped in one hand, the other resting lightly against the rail. The stars had returned to their honest, unadorned places no fireworks now, no ceremony. Just the long view.
He keyed a discreet command into the console at his side.
“Fire suppression local loop standby,” he murmured.
The system acknowledged with a soft chime.
Miles smiled to himself. Command privileges have their uses.
He struck the pipe and drew in slowly. The smoke curled upward, thin and polite, dispersing just shy of where the environmental sensors would grow offended.
Behind him, boots approached.
“You know,” said Colonel Dan Dare mildly, “on at least three ships I’ve served on, that would’ve triggered an inquiry.”
Miles didn’t turn. “On at least three ships I’ve commanded, that inquiry would’ve mysteriously vanished.”
Dan chuckled and stepped up beside him, producing a pipe of his own older, darker wood, the kind that had been repaired more times than replaced.
“Mind if I?” Dan asked, already knowing the answer.
“Be offended if you didn’t,” Miles replied.
They lit up together, a small synchronized ritual born of long familiarity rather than planning. Dan took a thoughtful draw, nodded approval.
“Good leaf,” he said. “Earth?”
“Wales,” Miles replied. “Old friend sent it years ago. Been saving it.”
“For a special occasion?” Dan asked.
“For a quiet one.”
Dan reached into his coat and produced a squat, well travelled bottle. He didn’t offer it at first just set it gently on the rail between them like a peace treaty.
“Single malt,” he said. “Pre-Spacefleet distillery. Older than either of us.”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “Smuggled?”
Dan smiled. “Rescued.”
Miles disabled another system replicator audit trace, just for a moment and conjured two simple glasses.
He poured carefully, respectfully, as if the act itself deserved ceremony.
They clinked glasses once. No toast.
The whisky burned pleasantly on the way down.
“That,” Miles said, “is dangerous.”
Dan nodded. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
They smoked in silence for a while, the kind that didn’t itch to be filled. Outside, a distant star flared faintly and then settled, as if the universe itself had finished stretching.
“You’ve been thinking about Lazarus,” Dan said eventually.
Miles exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke. “I’ve been thinking about after.”
Dan turned slightly, studying him. “That’s new.”
“No,” Miles corrected. “Just… louder.”
Another sip. Another draw.
“Lazarus needs someone who knows how to sit still,” Dan continued. “How to listen. How to let others do the running.”
“And Spacefleet,” Miles added dryly, “needs a flag officer who speaks Starfleet without needing subtitles.”
Dan smiled into his pipe. “You’d be good at it.”
Miles didn’t deny it.
“I won’t vanish,” he said. “I won’t leave them feeling abandoned.”
“You never do,” Dan replied. “You leave them ready.”
That landed harder than any argument.
Miles tamped the pipe gently, eyes still on the stars. “I don’t know when.”
Dan raised his glass. “No one ever does.”
Elsewhere: Main Bridge USS Fortitude
Commander Teshla Phyhr noticed the anomaly first.
Not the smoke she had better discipline than that but the absence of a warning she absolutely should have received.
Her antennae angled forward almost imperceptibly.
Commander Rose Harrington followed the diagnostic thread a heartbeat later, fingers pausing over her console.
“Interesting,” Rose murmured.
At Tactical, Commander Akadia Nilona glanced up, eyes narrowing slightly. “Fire suppression loop… overridden?”
A beat.
Another beat.
Penny White’s voice came over the channel from Engineering, dry as old steel. “Before anyone asks, no. It’s not a system fault. And yes. I noticed.”
Silence stretched.
Sieneth Th’rel, at the helm, tilted her head and smiled faintly. “The ship sounds… indulgent.”
Teshla straightened.
“Well,” she said calmly, “if the universe isn’t ending and the ship isn’t on fire…”
Rose finished the thought. “…then it’s not our business.”
Akadia’s mouth curved just enough to be dangerous. “Officially.”
Penny’s voice again, amused now. “I’ll pretend my sensors need recalibrating.”
Sieneth added softly, “I’ll keep us steady.”
Teshla nodded once. “Then we’re all agreed.”
No log entry was made.
Back on the Observation Deck, USS Fortitude
The bottle was half empty now. The pipes were cooling.
Miles leaned back against the rail, the lines on his face softened by whisky and truth. “You know,” he said, “if I do take Lazarus… I’d like you there. At least at the beginning.”
Dan met his gaze. “Flag exchange or not?”
“Either,” Miles replied. “I trust you.”
Dan considered that, then raised his glass again. “Then wherever you end up, Admiral… you won’t be alone.”
Miles clinked his glass against Dan’s.
“Happy New Year,” he said.
Dan smiled. “Happy New Year, Miles.”
Outside, the Fortitude held her course quiet, watchful, and very deliberately looking the other way.
NRPG:
Well Could not let a new year go by with one last special before we kick off a new season 😉
This one is more thoughtful not as much lower decks but more the thought of a duty and the cost that not everyone realises when they don the uniform.