“Never a dull day on Polaris, is it ma’am?” asked Captain Bishop as the turbolift raced towards the bridge. He’d come aboard with the new year, and it’d been non-stop ever since.

“I promised you adventure, didn’t I, Titus?” Admiral Reyes smiled. “I swear I don’t seek this shit out. Somehow, it just always seems to find us.”

Captain Bishop wasn’t so sure. There were plenty of admirals sitting cozy in San Francisco, and there were plenty of commanding officers charting nebulas in distant corners of the galaxy, but neither of those described Allison Reyes. No, she had to be in the thick of it, whether it was hunting terrorists across the Meronia Cluster or pursuing anomalies threatening entire planets or, as they were doing presently, diving deep into the lion’s den to poke it in the eye.

The lift drew to a stop, and the doors whisked open. 

As they stepped out, Admiral Reyes’s eyes went to the main viewer, where a larger-the-life image of General Kloss was present. She and the general had just gone a few rounds in the ring down on K’t’inga. Was he ready to go again? Or was this about the subspace anomaly? Either way, he appeared quite disgruntled, while Lieutenant Commander Mattson looked quite relieved to yield the bridge to Admiral Reyes. 

Admiral Reyes stepped into the center of the command island, flanked by Commodore Larsen, while Lieutenant Commander Mattson hurriedly scuttled back to her station at operations and Captain Bishop took up his station at tactical.

“General, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Admiral Reyes asked discerningly. “Did you have a change of heart after reviewing the data we shared earlier?” She was fairly certain that wasn’t it, but she couldn’t help herself. Just because they’d broken for the day didn’t mean the matter was resolved. She wouldn’t be leaving until it was.

“Most certainly not,” General Kloss replied with a sharp stare. The admiral was lucky she could hide behind their inconvenient alliance. If not for that, he’d have shot her out of the sky already. “We can save that for another day.” He had no intention of discussing it further now. Not until he could speak with the others, and right now he had no way to do that. Swiftly, his eyes darted to the commodore by Reyes’ side. He didn’t know her, but he knew what her pips and the teal collar signified. “I assume your people have briefed you on the situation?”

“Situation?” Admiral Reyes asked, unwilling to show her hand before he showed his. “Whatever might you be talking about?” It was all a game though.

“Don’t play games with me admiral!” General Kloss snapped. “Is this your doing?!” His eyes grew red and the ridges on his forehead swelled. “Did you cause this blackout? If you did…” 

There was no need to let him finish his sentence. There were a half dozen graphic things that might’ve followed, but none were becoming of the moment. So instead, she interrupted him with equal parts calm and firmness: “No, General, I assure you that we are at a loss as much as you.” That probably wasn’t exactly accurate though. She had some of Starfleet’s finest scientific minds aboard the Polaris, while the Klingons had relegated theirs to Mempa V, far from K’t’inga. “Commodore Larsen was just bringing me up to speed when you called.”

“And you and your people, you had nothing to do with it?!” General Kloss demanded an answer. He wasn’t of the old guard. He didn’t trust the Starfleet as they did. And he was certainly no fan of this admiral. Not after what she’d shoved in his face.

“Even if we had the technical capabilities to black out subspace, the Klingon Empire is one of our longest and strongest allies,” Admiral Reyes pointed out. “Plus, this affects us, same as you. I’m sure your scientists confirmed as much.”

The Klingon looked unconvinced.

“For just a moment, General Kloss, try to put your thinking cap on,” Admiral Reyes urged as she tapped the side of her skull with her index finger almost mockingly. “If we were targeting you, it’d be pretty damn stupid to do it while we’re all alone out here, a good many parsecs from our nearest reinforcements. Not exactly a wise tactical move, would you think?”

General Kloss paused for a moment. The Starfleet admiral had a point. That would be pretty dumb of her to do, and while he had a good many adjectives to describe her, dumb wasn’t among them. “I suppose…” His rage-filled face began to shift, replaced by something else. Discomfort, maybe? General Kloss was a man used to being in control. They’d seen that in chambers when Admiral Reyes had cornered him with evidence of the Empire’s malfeasance, and now they were seeing it again. “If we are truly in this together, admiral, what do you know so far?” he asked, his tone more measured.

“Not much,” Admiral Reyes admitted. And it was true too. “All we know at this time is that our subspace communications signals appear to be getting swallowed within the folds of subspace.” She glanced over at the commodore. “Let me introduce Commodore Olivia Larsen, Managing Director of the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity, our unit that has been looking into this since the anomaly was first detected.”

“Good to meet you, sir,” Commodore Larsen offered as she stepped forward into the center of the island. “Based on our findings so far, the loss of cohesion in the subspace medium appears to vary by vector, but, as far as we have identified so far, there exists some distance in all directions where the signal is lost.”

“Our people have reported much the same,” General Kloss confirmed.

“By treaty, we are permitted to pass our carrier signal through specifically-agreed transceivers within your territory, so we tested Qo’noS, Beta Penthe, and B’Moth, of which only Beta Penthe is still communicable, but we are limited in our ability to determine the dimensions of this anomaly with any greater degree of fidelity,” Commodore Larsen explained, hoping she might be able to enlist the general’s reach to improve their analysis. It wasn’t as though they had a bunch of ships to ping to see whether or not they were still within a communicable distance. “This is your territory though. You have hundreds of assets out there. Do you have a better sense of what is still communicating with us?”

“Ummm… not so far,” the general answered. It was a good idea though, he had to admit, and one he’d not thought of yet. “But yes, we could arrange that.” So far, all they’d done was furiously attempt to reestablish the connection with Qo’noS. The general looked behind him and snarled something in Klingon at a young soldier, who nodded and then scurried off the bridge to see it done. He then turned back to the viewer. “What else have you got for me, commodore?”

“A mission,” Commodore Larsen replied with a twinkle in her eye.