Ripple Effects

Posted on Wed Sep 16th, 2026 @ 10:06pm by Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons & Lieutenant Bailey Good & Ensign Davis Bryad & Lieutenant Irynya & Ensign Mei Ratthi & Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant JG Tamblem Dravor & Lieutenant JG Theodor Wishmore

7,851 words; about a 39 minute read

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 13:20

[Immediately Following The View From the Bridge]

Previously...

The fourth ship in the line of ten or so vessels on the Delta Quadrant side of the wormhole slowly disappeared into the swirling light and the fifth seemed about to do the same when it was, without any clear reason, no longer in line.

In fact, none of the vessels in the line had held their positions exactly, though they hadn’t been thrown far. It was clear that something had happened – something invisible to the naked eye watching on a view screen.

“Ms. Ratthi, Mr. Balsam,” Irynya spoke both of their names to draw their attention as she sat forward in the command seat, “any idea…”

Before she could even voice the rest of her question the ships in the line had shifted again and then the shimmering flowing beauty of the wormhole’s aperture seemed to shudder. Lights that had been moving and a comfortably mesmerizing pace along the edges picked up speed, twisting uncomfortably in a way that even the naked eye could see wasn’t right.

And then, without warning and faster than it had appeared, the aperture blinked once and then winked out.

Noah's panel went wild. Mei's followed suit. Noah's fingers went to check his readings. But he was just moonlight at Ops. And this was a bonafide advanced user problem. He stabbed the comm. "Oh uh... wuh-whoa! Whoa! All decks, uh, brace-brace for impact!" At least the Bridge heard it. But he'd fumbled the wrong button. The last thing he could think to do was stab at the shields and bring them online.

Sheldon—who’d found a soothing calm in the swirling maw of energy’s motion—was soothed no longer. Noah’s warning had been enough spike his anxiety hard, way beyond the redline he and Qo had been discussing as of late. But for the first time perhaps ever, something new happened in the spike’s wake. It was like he’d subconsciously found a dial and quickly spun its knob down.

Not back to baseline in comparison, but his anxiety was dialed back just enough at least to create a split second of buffer space between trigger and reaction. And in that split second, he was able to brace. Sheldon was able to plant his feet and his hands and his brain for what came next.

Good thing, too, because it was then that all hell decidedly broke loose on a bridge filled with junior officers who weren’t supposed to handle a crisis of this magnitude on their own. Yet alone they were and would be, at least in the immediacy.

Irynya trying to keep her seat was the last thing Sheldon saw before the bridge went utterly dark…

[And now...]

Later Irynya would remember the moment as if there had been a long pregnant pause between what they had seen and the first wave of something that had finally reached them a full AU out from Pathfinder Station. The ship shook at the impact, but unlike those they'd seen on the view screen they held their position...mostly.

The lights had, however, gone out thanks to said impact. At least for a few moments, anyway. Power was abruptly restored, though at the engineering station, Sheldon Parsons swore under his breath. He hadn't accounted for a modification apparently made to the ship's power distribution manifold network. This thing between he and Tork--gone largely unresolved since their blow up in engineering over a week prior--was clearly creating issues. Somehow, in the midst of the unfolding crisis, Shelly had time to think about interpersonal dynamic issues in the command structure. With resignation, he resolved to try talking to Tork again at the soonest opportunity. For now, though...said crisis was continuing to bloom like the wormhole once had been.

Iry whirled and frowned. They hadn't bothered assigning someone to Tactical on the Bridge for this flight. The position was empty. She had just managed to get out. "Someone tell me what just hit us?" when the second wave -- stronger than the first -- arrived.

Irynya found herself clutching the arms of her seat, leaning as if doing that alone could correct for the unclear source of whatever had collided with the hull. "Red alert," she called out, wondering almost belatedly if she needed to go over to Tactical to set the alert herself.

"Red alert. All decks red alert." The light dimmed, turning the cool tones of the Bridge scarlet. The cheery retro look of LACRS disappeared in to pulsing reds, grays and whites. "Um... are shields held but they're down to fifty six percent. We've got damage..." Noah trailed off. He shook his head, grimacing, wincing at the data.

"I-I need help Ensign," Noah admitted to Mei. He gestured to the flickering main screen. And a schematic in LCARS style appeared. A massive wave in sparkling blue had just passed over them. "It came from the coordinates of the wormhole... it's-it's a huge disruption in subspace. Almost like... I don't know... the closest I can guess is, like a subspace tsunami."

"Good word for it," Sheldon replied from his station. "Sorry for the power blink. When the shields came online against...whatever that was," his eyes narrowed, still scanning his readouts, "the power relays momentarily folded under the strain. We're back up now though." Uh...no kidding, Shelly. The lights came back on, dummy, a condescending voice at the back of his mind whispered. It was a voice his engineering brain usually kept muffled when actively working on a problem but something about dialing down his anxiety in real time had let it speak openly.

"What do sensors say exactly?" he asked, pushing past his subconscious' self-denigration. On his panel, Sheldon could see the engines drawing more power than should be needed presently. Was something still moving the ship? What the hell just happened out there?

"I'm pretty sure tsunamis are caused by something, but whatever caused this I don't know. I'm not an expert in subspace mechanics. Or . . . wormhole mechanics. There was some sort of waveform, but whether it was caused by the wormhole itself or something else inside it, I can't tell. It felt a little like whatever hit the station a couple of days ago, though."

Mei's bewildered look slowly turned to one of determination, as though she could force the wild readouts make sense through sheer willpower. "I had the computer make a model of the– tsunami from what information we got. It's some sort of waveform emanating from the wormhole. But it's Schrödinger's waveform, because the computer can't decide if it was particles or energy or something… else. If I reset the model to account for one thing or another, it changes the model so it doesn't line up with the sensor readings. I think, though, that I can set up a warning so we can have a bit more warning if it happens again." She glanced up at Noah. "I've sent you what I've managed to organize so far. I'll keep sending updates as I get them."

Noah went to the sensor logs. "There was... OK... um..." He bit his lip and chewed it. "Our sensors regist-" His panel squealed again. "Whoa, we're caught in some kind of wave of heavy inertial displacement. I think whatever hit us is sweeping us in to the atmosphere of the gas giant. About... one eighth impulse. But climbing."

Sickbay, Concurrently

The jolt rippled through Sickbay with enough force to send a tray of sterilized instruments skittering across the deck. Somewhere behind him, a storage compartment protested before its magnetic seal finally caught.

Theo steadied himself against the nearest biobed until the inertial dampers found their rhythm again.

"Report," he called, already moving.

A chorus of acknowledgements answered him as he crossed the department, checking each station in turn.

No serious injuries. One overturned equipment cart. Internal diagnostics still running. Environmental systems holding.

He paused only long enough to satisfy himself that everyone was on their feet and the department could function. His gaze lingered for a moment on the wall display, now pulsing steadily beneath the crimson glow of Red Alert.

Good.

Sickbay was ready.

Theo stepped to the nearest console and opened a channel to the Bridge.

"Sickbay to Bridge."

The connection hissed briefly through the interference before stabilising.

"This is Lieutenant Wishmore. Sickbay is operational and standing by."

A brief pause.

"What exactly just happened?"

Main Bridge

"Uhh we're about to drift in to a gas giant and... um... probably die..." Noah replied. He winced and grimaced at Irynya. "We're losing attitude control."

Irynya had half followed the threads of what Sheldon, Noah, and Mei were discussing. Her brain, however, kept repeating the descriptor Noah had chosen over and over. Tsunami. Tsunami. Tsunami.

Even with the advanced weather technology of Risa stabilizing the planet a tsunami wasn't an entirely unheard of disaster. Rare, certainly. But not unheard of. A bit of a song flitted through her head unbidden and she gritted her teeth at the absolutely incomprehensible uselessness of a child's song designed to teach kids when to get out of the way of bad weather popping up at that moment in time.

There was little she could do with the information that the other 3 were discussing. At least for now. But she could do something about the gravity well. "Mr. Bryad," She called over the sound of the klaxon and the continued patter of voices passing information back and forth. "Full reverse, one half impulse. See if you can pull us out of the gravity well without tearing pieces of the ship please."

Davis was already moving, fingers adjusting their heading and coaxing the engines into equal and opposite force. "One quarter impulse," he called out as they reached that speed. "One half impulse!"

The doctor's disembodied voice came through the comm confirming Sickbay's readiness and then asking the obvious question. A quick tap to her commbadge opened her side of the channel so that the Risian could respond. "Standby Doctor," she answered even as her eyes scanned the space and her feet itched to get up and take over for Bryad at helm. "We're still trying to figure that out."

Sickbay

Theo's grip tightened fractionally on the edge of the console as Noah's assessment filtered through the channel.

A gas giant.

He didn't allow himself to dwell on the implications.

"Understood, Lieutenant," he replied evenly. "Sickbay remains at immediate readiness."

Without another word, he left the channel open and turned back toward his staff, waiting for whatever came next.

Main Bridge

Even as she said it the deck plates beneath their feet shuddered. "One half impulse isn't pulling us out," Bryad reported, "although it's slowed us down."

Iry frowned, brow knitting with frustration. "Increase us to three quarters impulse," she told Bryad. "Slowly please Davis." The first name usage was a slip and she caught it as quickly as it was out of her mouth. Too late, though. She couldn't do anything about it now.

"Mr. Parsons, Mr. Balsam -- anything we can do to support the helm?" she asked, hoping they had some idea for shunting power to the engines or maybe using the shields in some innovative way that wasn't presenting itself to her in that moment.

"Already working on it," Sheldon nodded more to himself than Irynya. As an experienced flight controller, the Risian certainly knew the 'usual tricks' they tried in these situations. Likely her brain was already running through what she would ask for if at the helm, which was what most seasoned conns would probably ask for. Things Bryad should probably learn to ask for, too, maybe?

Sheldon's eyes watched the real time power allocation changes Noah was making from the ops console. The right unnecessary systems were being powered down, which would give more power availability for the engines. But that was only one part of the equation. "Reinforcing structural integrity field now," he called out, fingers already moving. "Boosting to 120% across the ventral hull. That's where we're taking the most pressure." 

"I-I can help you there too, Lieutenant." Noah tried to chime in from his station. He shook his head. He was fluttering in his stomach. Grappling with his only novice training, Noah was trying to not appear as overwhelmed as he was. Structural Integrity boost, he should have seen that. Parsons saved his ass. Noah looked gratefully at him, but his troubled face turned back to the data on his console. "Bussards are um... building up solitons. We can't go to warp." he warned Irynya. "Soliton radiation's saturated the warp coils."

Noah combed through his hair with a jut of his slender fingers. He scratched his bristly chin and cheek hollow, not even a nascent or true beard looked a likely thing on his young face anytime soon. God, why was it so hot? And prickly. Anxiety. Probably not the environmental controls.

Parsons went silent for a beat as a new reading surfaced. "Watching the EPS relays between here and the impulse manifolds." His mind flicked to the earlier modification they'd discovered from Tork, worry over the unexplained change manifesting as cold dread sludging down his spine. "The power reallocation is going to push a lot of energy through those conduits fast." His eyes tracked the numbers climbing faster than he was comfortable with. "Rerouting through the secondary EPS grid on deck seven as a precaution."

"We, uh..." Noah's eyebrows popped. "We're holding steady because we're still in this Tsunami. We're getting saturated by soliton particles in the wave." Noah glanced up at Mei, Sheldon and Irynya. "But the uh, the wave is lessening. I'm detecting a ten percent less flow of solitons bearing 042 mark 331 at um... z-minus two thousand kilometers. Bryad can you drift us down there? It might help?"

The Sojourner jostled again and Noah's panel squealed. "Shields holding." He looked at Irynya. "But buckling, Captain." As he spoke, the turbolift doors swished open and Lieutenant Good stepped within. She immediately approached the Tactical station and nodded at Lieutenant Irynya.

"I think the CONN needs your expertise, Lieutenant." The dark eyed Security Chief pushed her hair behind her ear. "Ensign Bryad. report to the Shuttlebay. Get Spirit and Opportunity ready for launch. Mister Dravor will meet you there with his team." Bailey held her face in a grim line, seemingly unfazed by the constant shimmy and stomach-lurching shift as Irynya tried to regain control.

She glanced up at the screen to see the gas giant still looming, if beginning to turn away.

Iry nodded, trying not to think about the swell of relief that filled her at Good's arrival. She was already out of the chair, turning to Good to hand over command so she could fly. "The Bridge is yours, Lieutenant," she answered and then, after a beat, added. "Thanks."

"Acknowledged." Bailey nodded back at the Lieutenant at CONN without chancing a look up. She was still assessing the situation and her panel began a steady series of urgent notifications. "Computer, recognize Bailey Good, Lieutenant, Chief of Security. Initiate Rescue and Recovery Operations. Ships in distress. Send a ping to all Federation starships within 10 light-years that we require immediate assistance. Authorization Good 29-Royal-Kappa-1-Omicron."

The computer chirped.

The steps from the Captain's chair to the CONN were few and Iry crossed them in fewer than normal, tapping Bryad on the shoulder so that she could slide into the chair and take over the controls as he slid out. It was an interesting maneuver--one taught to pilots at the Academy to ensure stability in flight systems during emergencies.

Hazel eyes flitted over the controls even as her fingers shifted into motion, making minute adjustments to their attitude, speed, and direction to enable the shift that Noah had described. "Better, Ensign?" she asked, peering back at Noah to see if the change had helped the buckling shields.

Noah nodded even as his face was caught in a rictus of concern, brows knit at the bridge of his abnormally large nose. "I need to flush the bussard ramscoops," Noah added. "We're building up soliton particles and we.." He winced again as the ship jostled. "We don't want that."

"Do it." Bailey directed him calmly. Her panels were screeching alert statuses at her. "Lieutenant, try to turn us in to the wave. I'm adjusting our shield harmonics to double front. Once we're clear, set a course for the inner system." She pushed her comms panel. "Bridge, to Dravor."

"Dravor here, go ahead." His voice came over the channel fast and even, the whine of a turbolift running underneath it.

"Coordinate with Flight Control and Operations departments. I'm about to send Medical your way. Initiate your Rescue Operations protocols."

"Copy all. I'll link up with Flight Control and Ops the second I reach the bay and get Spirit and Opportunity prepped to launch on your word." A beat. "Send Medical down; we'll be rigged for wounded and ready to move by the time they arrive. Dravor out."

"Bridge to Sickbay. Emergency Medical Response Teams to the Life Deck, Cargo Bays and Shuttlebays. We're going in to Rescue Operations. Get your Triage stations ready for mass casualties." Her look, the way she shifted her mouth, was grim.

Sickbay

Theo was already moving before the transmission had finished.

"Acknowledged, Bridge."

His voice remained calm, carrying easily across Sickbay.

"Mass casualty protocol. Open the Life Deck and prepare Cargo Bays One and Two as secondary triage. I want every trauma station stocked, surgical teams on immediate standby, and emergency field kits issued to the response teams."

Around him Sickbay transformed almost instantly. The quiet lull vanished beneath purposeful movement as carts rolled free, monitors awakened, and biobeds were prepared for patients who had yet to arrive.

Theo glanced once toward the status display before picking up his medical kit.

"Let's be ready before they need us."

Main Bridge

At the engineering station, the numbers were not good. The EPS relays feeding the impulse manifolds were climbing fast, redlining under the combined strain of 3/4 impulse and the structural integrity field at 120%. Sheldom could get ahead of it maybe but the faster he tried to tap the controls, the faster the numbers spiked as if in taunting-response. He pushed more power through the secondary grid before the primary conduits gave out entirely but there was only so much he could do. They were going to fail and "Sheldon Fucking Parsons" (his thoughts somehow had time to include Tamblem) couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.

Which was why it was a good thing that the primary conduits suddenly didn't give out.

The climb suddenly halted. The readings held, flickering at the edge of critical for three long seconds, and then slowly, incrementally, they began to pull back. Something in the power distribution network had absorbed the spike. Buffered it. Sheldon's eyes moved quickly across his readouts trying to find the source and landed on a modification node he didn't recognize. Tork's work--the same modification they'd discovered and logged earlier.

But that wasn't the extent of the modification's usefulness. The port impulse manifold, which should have been accumulating soliton particles under this kind of sustained thrust, was venting them passively and continuously. No alarm. No manual intervention required. Just a quiet automatic bleed built into the modification itself, cycling away the buildup before it could reach dangerous concentration. It was like a happy little steam engine just whistling its way down the tracks, totally unbothered.

Sheldon exhaled slowly through his nose. "Power distribution is holding," he reported to Good and the bridge at large, his voice steady and clinical. "The impulse manifolds are managing the soliton saturation and power distribution red lines are falling. I wish I could take credit but...this was all Chief Tork." There was a mix of quiet admiration and, oddly, irritation coloring his thoughts. The Ferengi was unconventional as hell, which had apparently been why Kodak and t'Nai had asked him to stay on. But Sheldon had had his doubts. But he had to admit, Tork's secret modifications had certainly been helpful in the current crisis.

"Well done. Keep an eye on it." Lieutenant Good strode with her quiet, calm presence over Sheldon's shoulder. She smelled like gardenia as she briefly hovered over his shoulder and tapped several keys. "I apologize, keep doing what you're doing. I'm releasing emergency energy reserves for Mr. Wishmore's triage centers. I want Balsam focused on what he can do." She muttered to the Assistant Chief. Her hand was gentle, and affirming, on Sheldon's shoulder as she departed. "Mr. Balsam. Transfer reserve power to cargo Bays one and two, and activate the Life Deck. Signal all non-essential personnel to the safety zones on Deck Five, please."

"Transferring now." Noah noted as the ship finally, gratefully, began to shimmy and jostle less. Noah sat back in his chair a moment and cupped his hands over his mouth and nose. Then he shook out his hands. But he had little time to breathe. His dark gaze fell on a loud shriek of controls. "SOS automated beacons are coming in from across the system..." Noah noted. The Adelphi is hailing us. I'm trying to recal... recalibrate the subspace antennae to fight this interference."

The shift was brief, but it was there. One moment, Iry's eyes were on her station. The next on Noah as he reported the SOS beacons and an incoming hail from the Adelphi. Was it Chaali on the other end of that hail? Just as quickly, though, her eyes were back on her controls, the shift in her attention only so long as could be managed without creating a problem for them. "Good girl," she murmured softly at her panel as she tapped a fresh series of adjustments into her controls. "Slow and steady."

Noah's panel squealed- and so did Sheldon's. Urgent, harsh and scolding. It was an intruder alert. Bailey twisted at it in time for Irynya's panel to join with a proximity alert. It was fuzzy and strange, either because the sensors were still trying to adjust, or because of the gravity well. The shape seemed to appear like amber decloaking. It was lean and crystalline. Almost like a beautiful amber seastar that the eye just wanted to slide off of.

Iry's gut clenched as the proximity alert sounded and she swore quietly in Risian and then again in Standard Linguacode. "There's a vessel..." she stammered, unsure how to explain its appearance easily. "It's decloaking off our port bow." Her voice held all of the uncertainty she felt at that characterization, drifting upward until the report was nearly a question rather than a statement. Even then, tan fingers flicked, tapped, and dance across her controls as Iry adjusted their route to avoid a collision.

The Bridge lights flashed and again Noah's panel squealed and protested. "We just had some kind of... beam... penetrate our shields. I-I've never seen anything like-"

"Yes I see that Ensign," Bailey said, rising slowly. her hands were up. Her voice was calm. When Noah looked up, there was a shifting feeling of amber and heat. He'd sensed that days before. He realized he was looking at a Tholian.

A Tholian was on the Sojourner's Bridge. Its upper body was spindly and crystalline, oranges and ambers pulsing with regularity. Four thin arms, like the limbs of praying mantis. Its more abdomen was like a tapering faceted crystal. Eyes glowed whitish gold. It... was so hard to look at. Again, the eyes just wanted- begged- to slide off it as something wholly unnatural to a mammal brain.

It turned to Mei. There were flashes. Burnt toast smell. Ozone. Ozone. Crying child. Convection of milk and tea. A feeling of swirling... vertigo.

Mei closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it. She glanced at the sensor readings– the radiation levels were holding stable for the moment, so she focused back toward the Tholian, concentrating on the sensory information it was projecting and trying not to let the sense of vertigo overwhelm her. If she remembered right, these were the same images Irynya and Noah had reported from the previous encounter. "So what are you trying to tell us?" she whispered.

"I need someone more technical than me to explain why we shouldn't blow this guy back to the Alpha Quadrant," Bailey said with wide, cautious eyes. She glanced at Noah and Sheldon. "Could this be an attack? Are they making a move on the wormhole? Against Pathfinder?"

"We don't attack because it hasn't made any threats toward us," Mei said, loudly enough for her voice to carry around the bridge.

"It just boarded the ship without an invite, through our shields, Ensign." Bailey counter-offered. But the ship's Anthropologist continued.

"It's trying to communicate with us, not attack us. But Tholians don't think or talk like us, so it's… difficult. For both sides." Almost unconsciously, she took a step away from her console toward the Tholian. "A burnt smell– we know that's something urgent, but the ozone? Like . . . like lightning? Storms? Electronics, maybe? But why would you be so urgent about electronics? Unless you're talking about storms and there's a storm of some kind coming? Something unsettled in this area of space? Is that what caused the incidents that shook the station and the ship just now? But what about the other images? A crying child and . . . tea? That's so many questions. I wish we could communicate better, but we're so different, and we've never really tried to talk to each other, have we?" It was hard to tell if she was talking to the Tholian or to herself through most of that, but the final question was definitely directed toward the Tholian.

More images. They beamed in to the minds of the entire Bridge crew. First, the unpleasant vertigo washed over them. An empty plate. Waves of water crashing in to a lighthouse.

Bailey asked having gripped the edge of the auxiliary station to brace against the nausea. She wanted to reach for her phaser but Bailey rallied, "Ok, we'll humor this. Just... keep it busy, Ensign. Do what you can." Her eyes trying to stay on the strange creature. "Lieutenant. Make for Pathfinder Station, best possible speed. Parsons, monitor the Tholian ship for any change."

The Tholian issued another wave of the burnt smell along with a sharp sound, similar to a screech. That was unequivocally frustration. It began to move toward the lower portion of the Bridge, toward the center. Toward Irynya. "Ensign! Tell it to stop!" Bailey's voice warned, crescendoing higher with ultimatum.

Iry had weathered the images better, she felt, than most. Perhaps because it had happened before. Or perhaps because she was starting from a heightened state of alarm. That was conjecture for another time. Still, despite everything, her eyes shifted not merely between the Tholian and her console where she was still easing them out of the last edges of the gas giant's gravity well, but also to Noah.

It was instinctual, as if his reactions to the appearance of a Tholian were as necessary to her as her own deep rooted response.

"No," she said, a firm, though not particularly loud, countermand to Good's order. She slid out of her seat, half turning to face the crystalline alien while one hand remained on her controls. The maneuver resulted in an awkward half bent sideways position that might have been uncomfortable were it not for the urgency of the moment overriding any needs for physical comfort.

Like before, the Tholian was difficult to to look at and she shifted now between trying to watch its approach and setting a course back to Pathfinder as Lieutenant Good had ordered. Doing both was clearly not an easy task.

"It's ok," she said, as much to herself as to those around her, hoping they would follow her lead.

Steeling herself as the last command was entered into her console, she straightened and forced her eyes ahead of her.

"Mei is right, isn't she?"

She spoke directly to the Tholian, though she had no idea if the words had any meaning. What had they done back on the Station. She'd tried to picture things herself. Had, in fact, spoken to it. The memory swam back to the surface of her mind--fractured and incomplete, but there all the same.

And with that memory, Irynya spoke to the creature.

"Question," she said keeping her tone as neutral as possible. "Designate function."

Golden eyes, molten seemed to drift toward the Risian. Images flashed in her mind- it was she, and Noah Balsam. "Designate. Pilot."

Bailey tapped her badge calmly, "Security to the Bridge." She said calmly, then she pointed to Parsons and Balsam, "Lock down our weapons, life support and higher command codes."

Iry heard Good's commands, but as they weren't to her she paid them little attention. Instead she peered quickly to her side where Noah remained at his station. Was he drawing the same conclusions? There wasn't time to ask.

"Designate," Irynya repeated, "pilot." The last time she had identified herself this way the Tholian--possibly this exact same one considering it had sent bee images of herself and Noah that could only have been how they must have appeared during their earlier encounter--had filled her head and senses with so much input that she had passed out. It has done the same to Noah and she wasn't confident that it wouldn't do the same now.

There was no time to think it through. Shutting her eyes she focused on star charts. The mathematics of navigating. Charting a course. The course she had just input into her console. As she did she called out to Mei, hoping she would understand.

"Mei! Question. Designate function. Out loud and in your thoughts."

Meanwhile, the images hit Sheldon the way they hit everyone: vertigo first, then an empty plate, then waves hammering a lighthouse. His stomach pitched. His vision narrowed at the edges. Sounds went muffled and too loud at the same time, and somewhere beneath conscious thought his mouth flooded with that acrid, metallic taste he knew far too well.

That was the horrible part. Not the strangeness. The familiarity.

Because Sheldon Parsons had spent most of his life being ambushed by his own nervous system. Intrusive images, a body flooded with input it never consented to, a mind hijacked mid task and forced to ride it out. Every officer on this bridge was experiencing an uninvited sensory cascade. For some, it might be a wholly new experience. But Sheldon had been rehearsing for it since he was thirteen.

He reached for and found his nervous system’s dial. Spun it down. Not to baseline, nowhere close, but enough to open that split second of buffer between trigger and reaction, enough to keep his hands on the console where they belonged. You’ve done this before, he told himself, forcing air in for four, holding for four, letting it out for four. The flood always recedes. Work the problem until it does.

And working the problem meant translating it into something his brain could hold. Fine. The Tholian was transmitting in parallel: too many channels at once, a data stream far too wide for the serial input buffer of a humanoid brain. That was all this was. A bandwidth mismatch. Somehow, framing the psychic assault as an engineering diagram made it survivable.

“Locking down weapons, life support, and command level access,” he reported to Lieutenant Good, fingers already executing the order. “Isolating those systems from external interface now. If our guest wants to touch anything critical, it’ll have to go through three layers of authorization that no longer accept remote input.” His voice came out steady. His hands only trembled a little.

Then, because he was an engineer and the instinct ran deeper than fear, Sheldon did the obvious thing. The thing any Starfleet engineer would do when an alien stood on the bridge and nobody could talk to it.

He ran a diagnostic on the universal translator.

The results came back in seconds and they were, in their own way, worse than a malfunction. “Translator’s fine,” he said, and there was something hollow in how simple it sounded. “Full function across all bands. It’s listening right now.” His eyes flicked from his readout to the impossible crystalline figure and back. “There’s just nothing for it to catch. None of the normal clicking noises Tholians are known to make. It isn’t that we can’t translate what it’s saying,” Sheldon mused. “It’s that it’s not saying anything at all. Not in any medium we build equipment for, anyway.”

Which meant the flood of images wasn’t interference. It was the message.

Sheldon exhaled slowly and turned back to his board, splitting his display between the lockdown confirmations and the sensor feed from the Tholian vessel holding position off their bow, exactly as Good had ordered. Watching for any change. His right hand ached for the feel of soft red knit that was four decks away.

Mei sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth, trying not to let the dizziness overwhelm her. "Designate science. Understanding." She dragged her gaze toward the Tholian, willing it to begin to understand her in kind. "Please. One thing at a time, in succession. We are not built to communicate like this. It harms us. I know this is urgent, but you are overwhelming our sensory capabilities." She looked back down at the science console; its familiar setup and steady readouts helped ground her. "Is there something in the wormhole that's causing all this? Is that what you're trying to tell us?"

Iry nodded her head slowly and then, suspecting the body language itself was unhelpful to the Tholian, tried to focus on the feeling of agreement. The Tholian was less than a handful of paces from her console now and a tense pressure had begun to build up behind her eyes as she continued to force her gaze to the alienness of the crystaline creature.

"You know what's going on," she said softly. Even with nearly zero evidence to go on it felt right. Like confirming something she'd already suspected. Her hands and arms, held carefully neutral at her side, relaxed slightly.

"Designate. Pilot," she said firmly, pointing to herself. "Designate. Science.... umm..." she tried to find a secondary word that would be more specific. Pilot was so clear. Science... there was so much of it. "Designate Science. Culture Specialist," she said, pointing to Mei. Her arm shifted and she pointed to Noah, including him since the Tholian had put his image in her mind. "Designate. Engineer," she said.

Noah's face was in a grimaced rictus, visibly perturbed. "Hey, uh, e-everyone? I'm not seeing any sign of the convoy on long range sensors." His panel squealed as he shifted his finger attention to another panel. "And I'm not picking up the usual verteron background for the wormhole's event horizon." He blew frustrated breath up into his bangs and scratched as his stubbling chin. "It could be interf- no..." He tightened his lips and shook his head. "I'm not detecting... I'm not detecting the convoy."

Despite herself and the determined way she'd been trying to hold her body language to engage with the Tholian, this caught Irynya's attention and, whether out of habit or instinct, she turned her head to look at Noah. Her expression shifted to concern and the thoughts she had been so carefully trying to focus on related to piloting and navigation... flight plans, speeds, and calculations... all of them crumbled as the memory of the Adelphi's hull crossed mind's eyes.

She opened her mouth to ask the question she would have asked were she still in command of the Bridge--was something wrong with the sensors--but bit back the inquiry instead turning her gaze quickly to Good, then to the Tholian, and then to setting the ship in motion along the course she had already charted and entered.

"I need you to confirm that ASAP, Ensign," Beiley said, pointing at the youth while her other hand was splayed out as if trying to hold the Tholian at bay, "Get it to me in a moment." Her hand moved to Sheldon and Mei. "What's it saying, and is there a way we can communicate with it besides just playing pictiionary." Then her at-bay hand pointed to Irynya, her voice the steady calm of a crisis negotiator. "Lieutenant, best possible speed to Pathfinder Station." Her eyes were still locked on the Tholian. It was hard to stare at, the eye just... wanted to slide off.

The Tholian held its position, automaton crystalline and unmoving save for the strange, almost hypnotic pulses in its chest.

"Balsam. Where's the wormhole." She asked.

Noah had begun to sweat. He felt hot. He knew it was a panic heat. Trapped. Trapped, what if they're trapped? No. Focus. "It's.. it's not there. I don't detect mesons, leptons or tachyons. The gravity well is zero. The aperture is closed." He reported. Bailey opened her hand to stop him when he'd given her the salient details.

"Alright, we're not going to panic. We don't have the facts. We'll gather them. Our next steps are helping any stranded ship and..." Her eyes blinked, "Talking with our guest here." She pointed to Sheldon. "Still locked down?" She asked.

Flashing images. They hit Mei and Irynya. Space. Tunnel. Crying babies. Ice. Tug of war between people? Flash. Pathfinder Station. Designate Science. Designate Pilot. "Coordinate." And then, it began to click and emit a soft keening. The Tholian began to move toward Irynya's console.

"Lieutenant." Sheldon's voice came out quieter than he intended, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Lieutenant Good. Lookdown's tight. But the translator...it has input," he said with heavy surprise. Surprise...and worry at how the Tholian was moving towards his friend. Good would have under control, though: his job was in front of him.

As he watched, the analysis bar crawled, hung, and then returned…nothing at all. No syntax. No repeatable structure. No match against a single database entry logged from a century of contact with the Tholian Assembly. How did they have diplomatic relations with a race for 100+ years and not be able to translate their language? He felt a surge of frustration rising but focused on his box breathing to stretch the moment out and try to breathe through it.

"It's not actually speaking," Sheldon said after checking one more time, exhaling through his teeth. "Not in any sense our equipment recognizes as Tholian, anyway." His eyes flicked to the crystalline shape near Irynya's console. "But it sounds...frustrated maybe? Anxious about something?" He'd know that particular kind of noise anywhere, even coming from something that didn't have a throat. "Try again," the engineer looked towards Mei. "I-I think it's trying to do what you asked it to...maybe?"

"Maybe," Mei said absently. "This is like being back on Betazed. There's communication going on, but I'm missing a major piece of it." She looked back toward the Tholian, letting her gaze slide around it when she could look directly at it. "It's got to be talking about the wormhole, and the crying baby must be a distress symbol. Ice, though? Space is cold. Does the wormhole increase in temperature when it opens? If it does, does the ice mean something is wrong with the way it's opening? And tug of war. How does a Tholian know about tug of war? But anyway. Maybe it means there's something happening at both ends to cause the problem? Or something inside it that's tugging back and forth at the openings?"

Mei looked back down at the sensor readings to get her bearings again. "And then, coordinate. Clearly, all of us here have to work together to find out what's going on. And then find a way to fix it. It must be something major if a Tholian is leaving its environment to try to communicate with us directly."

Bailey nodded, eyes fixed on Mei. Her hand was still raised in pause toward the Tholian and Irynya. "Alright. We'll take a leap of faith here and hope the Tholian meant coordinate and not comply. But be ready for anything." Bailey breathed out through puckered lips. "Lieutenant, please step away from your console." She said with a slide of her gaze to Irynya. "It clearly... they? It?" She shook her head with a frustrated dismissal, her hand re-emphasizing. "Whatever. It wants access to the CONN."

Eyes on the Tholian, Iry nodded her understanding before throwing in a "Yes ma'am," almost as an after thought.

Carefully she stepped back, arms held wide in an open gesture angled towards the console. She held the hand closest to the console out, palm open and fingers pointing to the unoccupied console.

"Designate," she began, opening her mouth and then shutting it again. How did you tell a Tholian that you were giving them the CONN?

She shook her head slightly and added lamely, "Standby Pilot."

Bailey's hip itched. Her phaser was right there. This was a bad idea, she surmised, as her dark gaze followed the Tholian. It seemed to be understanding- or at least responding- to Mei, and Irynya, and the fact that it wasn't dead yet. Bailey breathed a puff up in to her bangs. "Can't believe we're doing this."

The Tholian glacially moved itself closer to the controls. The mantis-like arms moved down to the console. Bailey crossed her arms as if the motion was one of self-containment. Arcs of golden energy zipped from its hands to the console- and the console began to immediately flash. The klaxons squelched out its urgent beeps of warning.

"Parsons... what's it accessing?" Bailey asked over her shoulder.

"Engines," Sheldon said, eyes locked on his console as the amber arcs kept lancing into the systems. "And the navigational deflector." His fingers moved fast, chasing the changes rather than fighting them, because whatever this was, it wasn't sabotage. Not yet. Not that he could tell. "It's not damaging anything. It's recalibrating. Field geometry on the deflector's shifting entirely."

Bailey felt the presence of her phaser yet again. This went against all her training. But she stayed.

The lights began to flicker and the deckplates began to shimmy. More arcs of amber lanced into the LCARS display of Flight Control, some of them from the Tholian's digits, some from its central, thoracic core.

“Power’s being rerouted to the structural integrity field. Inertial dampeners too,” Parsons called out, voice climbing. “It’s not weakening them, it’s…boosting them. Hard.” He ran the numbers again because his brain refused to accept them the first pass. When they came back the same, he stopped fighting it.

What was it doing? Bailey was no engineer, nor was she a pilot. "The minute it accesses our deflectors..."

“Lieutenant, whatever it’s about to do, this is preparation.” The words came out fast and quiet, the calm engineer’s register cracking around the edges. “SIF and dampeners spiking together like this, it’s bracing us. For what, I can’t tell you.” He looked up at Good, Iry, Noah, and Mei, completely uncertain about what was going to happen next.

Noah winced a grimace. He was monitoring from Ops and the readings were bizarre. Like Sheldon's panel, Noah's console had been a cacophony of warnings, bypasses and "unauthorized reroutes" from the CONN position. Just dealing with the intrusion warnings was keeping Noah's fingers busy.

On the main screen the slim, elegant crystalline of the Tholian's ship came squarely in to view. The consoles lit up with warnings- from Sheldon's and Noah's, but also the unmanned Tactical.

"The Tholian ship is activating it's web system." Noah warned. "I'm detecting some... some really strange subspace anomalies around it. We'd call it... a strong neutrino-tachyon phenomenon."

Sheldon's console screamed in agreement, half a dozen new alerts stacking on top of the ones he hadn't cleared yet. "I'm reading it too," he called out, eyes flicking between two displays at once. "Whatever that web's doing, it's not staying contained to their hull. The anomalies are already bleeding into local space around us." His jaw tightened. "If it's building toward something, we're inside the blast radius for it all right. Recommend we brace. Now,” the engineer urgently warned.

"Understood," as Bailey swiveled in to the Executive Officer's chair and gripped the arm rests. She stared at the back of the crystalline being and eyed Irynya to find a brace position. Behind her she could only hope Mei Ratthi had heeded Sheldon's warning. "Hold on everyone..." The screen was beginning to... the only correct term was haze over.

Irynya stood, frozen in a moment of indecision at the call to brace for impact. She had remained near at hand, standing just next to her console and a half step back. Close enough that she could dive back into the chair if needed. Now, though, a drive back to the console might disrupt whatever it was that was happening via the CONN. Her head swiveled, a quick assessment of her surroundings, and then took a few quick steps away from her station, reaching for the ops console as she set her feet into a wider stance.

Flash.

It was bright, but not blinding. Bailey shielded her eyes anyway. The next effect was the strangest- a nauseous wave of deja vu, a weird sense of... multiplicity. Cold. Utterly cold. A burst of something almost salty in the back of the throat. The hazy feeling felt like being in the transporter buffer. Then a hard shunt.

Reality. The red alert was wailing, the light flickering. On the main screen, a colorful purplish swirl of light and the subtle but unmistakable sense of gridding lines forming some kind of... scaffold?

The shift had been fast and painfully slow all at once. Or at least it had felt so to Irynya. She'd stumbled, crashing her hip into the grey exterior line of the ops console before she found her feet again. Her hip ached, but as the bright flash cleared from her vision any thought of being in pain fell away.

"Where..." She started to say, but trailed off, eyes turning instead to the Tholian at her console.

=/\= A Mission Post By =/\=

Lieutenant Bailey Good - Chief of Security

Lieutenant Irynya - Chief Flight Controller

Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons - Assistant Chief Engineer

Lieutenant JG Theodor Wishmore - Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant JG Tamblem Dravor - Assistant Chief of Security

Ensign Mei Ratthi - Anthropologist/Archaeologist

Ensign Noah Balsam - Systems Specialist

Ensign Davis Bryad - Pilot

With a guest appearance from an unnamed Tholian!

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