“Cayde just called. They’ve arrived at Starbase 88.”

“How bad is it?” Vice Admiral Alex Grayson asked. He hadn’t wanted to send the Lincoln away, as it had been the last cruiser left in proximity of the station, but when the distress call had come in, it wasn’t like he had a choice. He couldn’t just leave the crew of Starbase 88 to their fate.

”It sounds like they really took it on the chin,” Fleet Captain Drake reported grimly. “Cayde’s estimating a couple days before they’ll even have life support and structural integrity restored.” And that meant it would likely be a good bit longer before the outpost would be in any state where the Lincoln could consider returning to Archanis Station.

“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s curious that the Vaadwaur didn’t bother to finish her off,” Vice Admiral Grayson observed as walked over to a display hosting the latest map from Fourth Fleet Command, which had been delivered via Admiral Neidlinger’s newly-restarted Pathfinder Project. There were a lot of gaps on it, many places the Fourth Fleet still couldn’t see, but among those systems whose fate was known, few had been shown such mercy. Why had the Vaadwaur gone through the effort of hitting Starbase 88, only to pull out right before the kill? “There has to be a reason, but I’m not seeing it.”

“You and me both,” Fleet Captain Drake sighed as she came up beside him. “No matter how long I stare at this map, there’s just so little of it that makes any sense.” And as someone who had built her career staring at maps like this, it was a hard pill to swallow. But it was true. There was so little they understood about the enemy and their intentions. Hell, until a couple weeks ago, they’d thought that the Vaadwaur were a dead civilization and that the Underspace had left them for good.

“Have we heard anything further from Amit yet?” Vice Admiral Grayson pivoted, hoping that maybe there at least his executive officer would have some good news. The Pacific Palisades, with Commodore Amit Agarwal’s Corps of Engineers detachment in tow, had set out for the Archanis Nebula. From their initial tests, the nebula appeared to have astrophysical properties that limited the Blackout’s effects, and if Fleet Captain Sazra Kohbal and Captain David Dawson were correct, it might be possible to string together a series of subspace repeaters to connect the isolated pockets of space between Archanis and Hecate Stations.

“Unfortunately, nothing yet,” Fleet Captain Drake replied. “But that’s to be expected until they make some real progress on the repeater network.” Not that she was happy about it. She didn’t like any of this. There was so little that was certain, and so much that was out of their control.

Vice Admiral Grayson could see how nervous and stressed she was. The brilliant young woman wasn’t used to this. She was used to having all the answers and being in control. “Relax, Elsie,” he offered in a warm fatherly tone. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

“You can’t promise me that, Alex,” Fleet Captain Drake lamented, looking almost as if she was about to cry. There was no way he could give her such assurances. No one could. “If the Vaadwaur turn their attention towards us, what chance do we really have?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. Not a good one, at least. And that hurt. “I’m sorry, dear.” In a moment of compassion, he reached out his arms and wrapped her in a warm embrace. 

She let it happen. It was nice. It almost made her feel safe. Almost. “Has it ever been like this?” she asked in a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. “You know, it all so uncertain?”

“Not since the Dominion War,” Vice Admiral Grayson offered as a shadow crossed his face. He had been a young lieutenant back then, flying starfighters off the Icarus. He remembered the rotating door of pilots as one would fall and another would take their place, and he never wanted to go back to that. “Those first few months of war, yeah, it felt a lot like this. It’s always darkest before the dawn, when the fog is heavy and the enemy’s plan is still a mystery.”

“I suppose,” Fleet Captain Drake said as she pulled away, straightening her uniform and forcing composure back onto her face. They’d just have to manage their way out of this. It was time to stop commiserating and do what she did best. “So let’s get this sorted.” 

“That we shall,” Vice Admiral Grayson smiled, taking the hint that she was done with the touchy feely moment, ready to get back to work. “So what else have we got on the docket?”

”A couple runabouts headed for Suliban to help with the damage they took from that hit and run,” Fleet Captain Drake recounted. Details such as these, organizing assets and coordinating operations, they were what kept her busy, and the busier she was, the less time she had to sit and stew. “And we’re also tracking a handful of escorts and light cruisers from the Third and the Seventh that are hovering between Pavo and Kantare just in case another shoe drops. Other than that though, all’s quiet on the front we can see.”

The problem, though, was all the fronts they could not see.

“Have we made any progress penetrating the boundary beyond the Elgatis Belt?” Vice Admiral Grayson asked. “It would be nice to have a better than zero sense as to the fate of the rest of our AOR.” The blackout boundary had bisected the Archanis Sector, separating the station from the rimward and spinward colonies within its area of responsibility.

“Captain Dawson assures me that he and the team are pursuing all angles, but so far, no dice,” Fleet Captain Drake shared. The fates of Kyban, Archanis, Haydorian Prime, and the sector’s other outlying colonies were still unknown to them.

“Hopefully, it’s as quiet out there as it is over here,” Vice Admiral Grayson prayed.

“We can hope, but still, why is it so quiet here?” Fleet Captain Drake asked as she glanced out the window, returning to the same question that’d been nagging her ever since the Vaadwaur first arrived. “I mean why not us? Why have they left us so completely alone while the rest of the galaxy has gone to hell in a handbag?”

“Maybe we’re just that insignificant?” Vice Admiral Grayson chuckled. “If I was starting a war with every major power across two quadrants, I wouldn’t start with Archanis.”

“If that’s really the case, why’d they hit Starbase 88?” Fleet Captain Drake countered. That outpost was probably even more insignificant than they were.

As Vice Admiral Grayson debated his response, the turbolift hissed open, drawing them from their thoughts as an old man with a dark gaze and a steely gait stepped out.

Though a member of the station’s senior staff, at least on paper, Captain Kurayami Kioshi was not one to often set foot in the command center, or really any of the bright well-manicured upper levels of the station. He preferred to stay out of sight and out of mind. But here he was.

”Speak of hell in a handbag,” Fleet Captain Drake said under her breath as she turned to greet their shadowy intelligence chief. “To what do we owe the honor, captain?”

“I come with news from Kyban,” Captain Kioshi announced in his usual, gruff tone.

”Oh?” Vice Admiral Grayson raised an eyebrow. Kyban lay beyond the boundary that abutted the Elgatis Belt, and it had been a complete mystery for the last six weeks. “Not that I’m complaining, but how’d you pull that off?”

“Not by any means so acknowledgeable,” Captain Kioshi replied cryptically.

“Cut the cloak and dagger shit, Kurayami,” Vice Admiral Grayson shook his head. “You heard what Neidlinger and Beckett said. Nothing is off limits. All cards are on the table.”

”Your cards may be, but mine are not,” Captain Kioshi said flatly as he folded his arms across his chest. He had no intention of sharing the capabilities they possessed. No one needed to know they had a working spatial trajector tucked away in a basement in Banksy City, nor did they need to know how they had come into possession of it.

”Fine. Keep your secrets, old man,” Vice Admiral Grayson conceded, knowing he’d get nowhere fast with Captain Kioshi even though the old spook was supposedly a part of his command. “But tell us of this news you bring.”

“Kyban has new masters,” Captain Kioshi reported. “The Vaadwaur arrived, just as in so many other places, but over Kyban, not a shot was fired. The civilian administrators took one look at their warships looming overhead, and they simply handed them the keys. Not a bad strategy, all things considered, when you’ve got little more than a Class 1 orbital system and a handful of gunboats as your entire planetary defense force.”

“What’re they doing with the place now?”

“Oh, just putting the citizenry to work,” Captain Kioshi replied. “Honestly, by how my people tell it, it’s not even like all that much has changed besides some soldiers in the street.”

“And what of our people?” Vice Admiral Grayson asked. “We had a fairly substantial presence in Banksy City.”

“We did have a presence there,” Captain Kioshi noted. “The smart ones were quick to chuck their combadges, scrap their uniforms, and go full native, embedding with the populace. The others, the ones that insisted on sticking to their principles, well…”

Suddenly, an alarm began to sound.

They looked over at Commander Mike Owens, the operations chief, who had been sitting quietly at his station throughout the entire exchange. The expression on his face said it all before the words even came out of his mouth. “I’m detecting a highly localized subspace disturbance with intense gravimetric distortions at a distance of four hundred thousand kilometers on the far side of Gorion VII.”

“Is it…” Fleet Captain Drake began to ask as she hustled briskly to a terminal of her own to get a look.

“An Underspace aperture,” Commander Owens shuddered without even waiting for her to finish her question. “I’m afraid so.” And as he continued to stare at his screen, his face became pure terror. “And there’s more. We have incoming. Lots of them.”

Fleet Captain Drake drew up at her station. Immediately, she saw it too. The gates of hell had opened, and its minions were streaming through. There was no time to waste. She tapped her combadge and gave the order. “Red alert! All Starfleet personnel, report to battlestations!”

As lights began to dim and a red underglow subsumed the room, the sleepy command center, deep in the midst of the graveyard shift, suddenly came alive as staff began filing in, drawing up at their stations and running through their checklists. All of them had prepared for this. They knew this day might someday come. They’d just hoped it wouldn’t be today.

In the midst of the chaotic ramp to alert status, Vice Admiral Grayson stepped into the middle of the command island and queued up the station-wide public address system. Officers and crew were rallying to their posts, but Archanis Station was more than just a Starfleet base. It was also the home of 15,000 civilian, and it was those folks he now needed to speak to.

“All hands, this is Admiral Grayson. Moments ago, we detected a Vaadwaur attack group emerging from an Underspace aperture on the far side of Gorion VII. We can only assume they have hostile intent. All Starfleet personnel have been ordered to battlestations. We have prepared for this day, and we are ready, but to everyone else, for your own safety, I ask that you return to your quarters immediately and shelter-in-place until this crisis is over. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”

As the admiral spoke, Fleet Captain Drake looked over Commander Owens. The usually playful operations chief looked anything but playful now. The expression on his face was somewhere between focus and fear. “You ready, Mike?” she asked.

“Do I have a choice?” Commander Owens gulped, asking a question to which they both knew the answer. Time was up. “We’ll do what we gotta do.”

He was right, and her orders followed in a fast staccato.

“Tactical, shields to full, weapons hot.”

“Shields, weapons, aye,” confirmed the tactical officer that’d just settled into his station.

“Security, harden up for boarders.”

“We’ll be ready, boss,” came the response from Commander Kris Eriksson, who was down at the armory gearing up with his men. “If they come for us, we’ll make them regret their choice.”

“Operations, redirect all non-essential power.”

“Already on it, ma’am,” confirmed Commander Owens. There was a lot more to do, frankly, than what she had explicitly asked, but he was all over it.

“Comms, issue a call for assistance, all frequencies.”

“Going out now,” the communications officer nodded. It’d been recorded days ago, just in case something like this came to pass. All he did was press the button. Whether anyone would hear their call though, that was a totally different question.

“Flight ops, launch fighters.”

“All fighters dropping now,” came the response from Commander Ari Skye as she punched the throttle forward, her Valkyrie tearing out of the launch bay alongside the twenty three other identical birds in the station’s complement.

From the command deck, Fleet Captain Drake looked forward as the enemy came into view.

It was time to fight.