A Grounded Pilot
Posted on Mon Sep 15th, 2025 @ 4:08pm by Captain M'Raz
565 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission:
Collating Data
Location: Starbase 343
Timeline: MD005, 1610 Hours
The corridors of Starbase 343 were not empty. Instead, they vibrated with the heavy footfall of too many boots, too many voices rising and falling in very uneven waves. Everywhere Vexus looked there were uniforms--rumpled, scorched, some still carrying the smell of smoke that clung after a ship died. The air tasted recycled and metallic, the same on any station, yet now it carried something else: the ache of the displaced.
An announcement sounded:
[Transport Tau-One-Six has now docked at tunnel thirteen-gamma.]
He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, tall and wiry, the scales on his arms catching shafts of light as if they'd wanted to distract him from the heaviness inside him. He thought of his parents on Sauria--his father, Venai, with his 'Be prudent' speeches, his mother, Dresa, bent over her workstation.
Safe. Thank the stars, they were safe. They hadn't been anywhere near Earth when the Borg had arrived. Still, the relief sat alongside his own worry, because too many others were unaccounted for. Friends he'd played music with on campus lawns. Classmates who'd joked with him about professors and futures. Those faces could now be ash.
And the Fenrir. He could still feel her tilting under his hands. He could still hear the captain's voice over the klaxons. Darius Korveth had made it--that much he knew. But T'lira? Ensign Dovan? The others whose names he could not shake from his tongue? That station's rumour mill was a very blunt instrument, grinding stories into half-truths, and official reports were classified. The uncertainty he carried was as heavy and overwhelming a slowly expanding stone in his gut.
He slowed as the flow of traffic thickened near the turbolifts. A Tellarite brushed past, muttering curses. A pair of Bolian medics hurried by with data PADDS pressed to their chests. Even here, days after, the station had the same frantic rhythm as a battlefield triage unit. Everyone needed orders. Everyone needed to know what came next.
Captain Arev would have answers, or at least direction. Acting head of the Bureau of Personnel--what a title to inherit at this point in time. Vexus straightened as he walked, the discipline of posture a slight comfort. His appointment time approached, his boots carrying him toward the conference suite where futures would be decided.
He wondered if they could see it on him, the way the helm still lived in his hands, the way his mind's eye couldn't rid itself of the memory of a ship breaking apart. He hoped they could.
A yeoman stopped his approach a few feet away from the conference room door. "Name, rank, and former position please, Sir."
"Vexus," he said, feeling cornered by the yeoman. "Ensign. Flight Control, USS Fenrir."
"One moment, Sir," he said as he consulted his PADD. "Vexus ... Vexus .... Yes, here you are. No need for you to see the Captain. You've been assigned as as Flight Control Officer on the USS Roosevelt under the command of Admiral Stillwell himself. With the current situation, none of the ships are docked so you'll have to report to Transporter Room #2 to get over there. They know to expect you."
She watched the ensign leave and motioned to the next in the queue, a crewman with reddened eyes and a determined look on his face. "Name, rank, and former position please ..."
Ensign Vexus and Yeoman Randi Lee
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