The Refugee Part I
Posted on Wed Feb 25th, 2026 @ 1:07pm by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren & Major Edmund Merrick & Maren Malbrooke
Edited on on Fri Feb 27th, 2026 @ 7:09am
2,442 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
The Mysteries of Maren
Location: Eight Lightyears From The Carlson Rift
Timeline: MD001 1000 hrs Prime Timeline
The bridge lighting was still set for temporal operations when space in front of the Herodotus tore open.
It wasn’t dramatic at first — just a distortion, a ripple in the fabric ahead of them. Then the rift snapped wide with a violent surge of chroniton discharge, spilling out a battered civilian shuttlecraft as if it had been spat from somewhere that did not want it back.
The shuttle tumbled once before stabilizing on instinctive thruster correction. It looked twenty years old at least — a patchwork hull of mismatched plating, Klingon venting welded over Cardassian struts, Federation conduits running exposed along one flank. The outer skin was scorched and pitted, fresh impact scoring visible even from the viewscreen. Dominion weapon signatures flared faintly across the damaged hull.
Internal shields snapped up the moment their sensors tried to penetrate. Opaque. Sealed.
The bridge hummed sharply as proximity alarms engaged.
Hastios was already moving.
“Red Alert.” His hand struck the console before the words had fully left his mouth. The ship’s lighting shifted, klaxons cutting through the air.
He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Temporal rift, directly ahead. Civilian shuttlecraft emerging with heavy combat damage. Dominion weapons signatures confirmed.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Internal shielding active. We cannot scan occupants.”
A beat.
“Range minimal. If that hull fails, debris impact is likely.”
He turned slightly toward the command chair.
“Captain — unidentified vessel has arrived on our bow.”
The shuttle was dying slowly.
Maren could hear it in the uneven rhythm of the failing systems — relays clicking without purpose, plasma conduits whining under stress, insulation somewhere behind the bulkhead giving off the sharp scent of scorched polymer. The emergency lighting flickered irregularly, casting the cockpit in pulses of amber and shadow.
She moved toward the forward console and the deck tilted slightly under her weight. Structural integrity was holding — barely — but the stabilisers were gone. The main display stuttered, lines of corrupted data crawling across it like static.
Then the computer crackled to life.
“…pro…prox… prox— imity… alert…”
The voice garbled, distorting mid-syllable before cutting out entirely.
Her head snapped toward the viewport.
Outside, space did not look like Dominion-occupied territory.
No patrol formations. No sector grid overlays. No familiar ship silhouettes.
But something was there.
A vessel — larger than the shuttle — emerging against the starfield. Its profile was unfamiliar. Not Dominion. Not Cardassian. Not Jem’Hadar attack configuration.
Her pulse surged anyway.
Her senses flared outward instinctively, uncontrolled.
She braced for the cold discipline of Jem’Hadar presence, for the tight emotional uniformity of Dominion command crews.
Instead—
Emotion.
Layered. Varied. Open.
It hit her without filtration. Surprise. Alertness. Concern. Curiosity. The emotional field was broad and undisciplined compared to Dominion crews — not suppressed, not uniform.
It overwhelmed her.
Maren staggered, gripping the edge of the console as pressure built behind her eyes. Her pupils dilated rapidly, breathing shortening without permission. The hum of the failing systems seemed to amplify around her.
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head sharply. “Not now.”
She forced herself back into motion.
Hands moved over the damaged interface, fingers flying across dead panels. She tried auxiliary power routing. Nothing. Attempted impulse restart. The console sparked in response, throwing a shower of light across her knuckles.
She flinched but didn’t stop.
“Come on,” she hissed. “Come on, move.”
The shuttle shuddered faintly as another subsystem failed. The proximity alert attempted to re-engage, warping into unintelligible static.
Outside, the unknown vessel adjusted position.
Not firing.
Not locking weapons.
But close enough.
Too close.
Her empathic field spiked again as adrenaline flooded her system. The emotional signatures from the approaching ship intensified with proximity — not hostile, but focused. Directed.
Her instability fed into the shuttle’s already damaged systems. A nearby light panel burst with a sharp pop. The console display distorted momentarily before stabilising.
She froze.
It wasn’t coincidence.
Her jaw tightened hard enough to ache.
“I am not doing this,” she whispered, anger replacing fear. “You don’t get to take me.”
She glanced toward the emergency storage locker and moved for it, limping slightly. If they boarded, she would not be unarmed. Not compliant.
The viewport filled more fully with the silhouette of the unknown ship now — sleek, structured, unmistakably not Dominion.
Which almost made it worse.
Because she didn’t know what it was.
And uncertainty was more dangerous than a known enemy.
Behind her, the shuttle groaned — metal contracting under strain.
Ahead of her, an unfamiliar vessel loomed closer.
Maren squared her shoulders, blood still drying along her temple.
If they were coming in, they would find her standing.
And if her control slipped again—
She wasn’t sure what would happen.
That frightened her more than the ship outside.
Thorrin, for the first time in recent memory was actually surprised. He stood from the command chair. "Sound Blue Alert throughout the ship." The klaxon continued but the red alert screens changed to 'Alert Condition Blue.' That alert ordered the crew to battle stations and prepare for any effects to the Prime Timeline. "Commander Sandoval, kindly work the sensor problem. I would like to know who or what is inside. Major Eilfaren activate the chronal shielding. If this person is here to cause harm I want to know it. Also, lets knock shall we. Kindly open a channel."
"Yes, sir," Marisa replied, carefully examining the the puzzle. Under other circumstances she would find it fascinating, but right now she had to find a way through or around it. If there was someone on that shuttle--and there must be--they had to get a lock on them before it was too late.
Like a puzzle, she began to dissect the shielding.
Hastios didn’t hesitate.
“Aye, Captain.”
His fingers moved across the console, routing power with practiced precision. The hum of the Herodotus shifted as the chronal shielding engaged, a low-frequency vibration rolling through the deck plates.
“Chronal shielding coming online. Phase variance holding steady. Temporal containment within acceptable parameters.”
He glanced back up at the viewscreen, eyes narrowing slightly as the battered shuttle drifted unevenly in front of them.
“Captain… that vessel is barely holding together. Hull integrity is fluctuating across multiple sections. I’m reading structural fatigue along the port strut and residual Dominion polaron scarring. Whatever it went through, it wasn’t minor.”
A beat.
“If it loses internal pressure, we’ll have seconds at most.”
He lifted his chin slightly toward Operations.
“Channel ready on your mark.”
When the channel was open Thorrin continued. "Attention commander shuttlecraft. I am Captain Thorrin of the USS Herodotus. You have crossed a temporal barrier into another universe. Please lower your shields and prepare for assistance. We will return you to your place of origin."
The comm panel burst into static.
“…attention… shuttlecraft… Captain Thorrin…”
The rest garbled into nothing.
Maren’s jaw tightened. Temporal barrier. Another universe. Lower your shields. The words felt rehearsed. Too smooth.
Outside, the ship held position. Large. Patient.
Her hands moved fast over the shattered console. Most of it was dead, but the weapons grid flickered when she forced auxiliary power into it.
One torpedo.
Ancient. Manual. Barely powered.
She armed it anyway and fired.
The shuttle convulsed.
The launch wasn’t clean. The torpedo ripped free in a crooked burst and the cockpit detonated in feedback. A conduit blew above her shoulder, spraying sparks. The display surged white-hot, then collapsed into darkness. The deck lurched hard enough to throw her into the side panel.
Her ears rang. The air filled with the smell of burnt circuitry.
Outside, the torpedo streaked toward the larger vessel, small against its hull.
Inside, something deep in the shuttle gave a metallic groan as another system failed.
Hastios saw the spike before the launch flash.
“Captain— weapon discharge.”
The torpedo tore free from the shuttle in a crooked, unstable burn, wobbling on approach as if it barely trusted its own guidance systems.
“Impact in three… two…”
The torpedo struck the Herodotus’ shields and blossomed harmlessly across the blue-white barrier, energy dispersing in a ripple that barely registered on the tactical grid.
“Minimal shield impact. No structural damage,” Hastios reported calmly.
His eyes flicked to the passive telemetry scrolling across his display.
“Origin signature confirms it was a Starfleet torpedo. Configuration matches late 2360s issue. Manual launch profile. Guidance instability suggests degraded systems.”
He looked back toward the battered shuttle on the viewscreen, drifting and failing by the second.
“That wasn’t a coordinated attack,” he added evenly. “That was desperation.”
"And that desperate act gave us an opening," Sandoval said, taking advantage of the weakened internal shielding. "Picking up one life sign. Female. Permission to transport her over while we still can."
Thorrin stared at the viewsceen, his look was intense, he scrutinized the scene as if the answers would sprout out of nowhere. His brain calculated all the possibilities all at once. It was why he had this command, this mission. He could see possibility, this was a talent that came with age and with his anatomy. Being El Aurian helped more than he was willing to admit. "2360s technology, Dominion polaron scanning. Now that is something. Permission granted. Have security bring our guest to the Conference Room." Thorrin continued to look at the ship on the viewscreen it appeared as if cobbled together. "Now, you show me your clues. Where and when have you come from?" He said more to himself than anyone else. At the moment the distinct possibility that he looked at something from his future struck the Captain.
The shuttle’s lights flickered unevenly as smoke curled along the ceiling, and the computer crackled back to life in a broken monotone.
“…trans—porter… sig… sig—nature… detect… external lock…”
The words glitched and repeated, the tone warping as power fluctuated. A faint shimmer crawled across the deck plating near her boots, barely visible but enough.
Maren swore under her breath and lunged for the auxiliary grid. Most of the shielding controls were dead, but she forced what little power remained into the internal interference field, overloading the emitters until the console spat sparks in protest. The hull vibrated as the strain travelled through damaged relays.
“…pattern… un—stable… lock… fail—”
The shimmer collapsed.
The shuttle groaned, systems dipping dangerously low as she leaned over the smoking console, chest heaving. Whatever that ship was, they were trying to pull her out of here—and she wasn’t letting them.
"Transporter was blocked," Marisa reported, although the information on the viewscreen made it obvious. She watched as the internal sensors came back online--and the resultant damage to the rest of the shuttle. If they could protect the shuttle itself...
Hastios watched the transporter lock collapse on his display, the interference spike flaring and then vanishing as the shuttle forced power into its internal emitters.
“She’s fighting the beam,” he said quietly, more observation than criticism. His eyes tracked the structural readout that was now flashing amber across multiple sections of the hull.
“Captain, that shuttle won’t survive another systems surge. Hull integrity is down to thirty-one percent and falling. Internal power redistribution is destabilising the frame.”
He made a decision before waiting for the obvious follow-up.
“Recommend tractor beam, low yield. We stabilise her structurally first — compensate for the weakened port strut and dorsal plating. If we match her vector and dampen rotational drift, we can tow her into Shuttle Bay Two without breaching the hull.”
His fingers were already hovering over the control grid.
“We’ll keep the chronal shielding active and maintain Blue Alert protocols. Once secured inside the bay, we can cycle atmosphere and cut her power from the outside.”
A brief pause.
“She doesn’t trust us. Fine. We take away her ability to fall apart instead.”
He looked toward Thorrin.
“Tractor beam standing by.”
All at once the decision was his. Thorrin had to decide between the person in that shuttle and the sacred timeline. There was a moment that he was inclined to allow the shuttle to break apart and at least there would be no change to this timeline. But the loss of life, there should be none, and what of the Dominion. "Without delay Major if you please." Thorrin's proper speech patterns and honeyed accent always hid the emotions that roiled underneath. "Hastios, Marissa you are with me. I think it time we meet this guest and find out exactly why they do not want our help." He tapped his comm badge. "Bridge to Doctor Talbert. Kindly meet us in Shuttle Bay Two. Bring a med kit if you please."
"On my way, Captain." Addison replied, her mind filled with curiosity.
It didn't take her long to grab the medkit, she was on her way to the shuttle bay. Addison feeling goosebumps run up and down her arms. Whatever this was, and the need for a medkit, made her pace hasten.
Hastios was already on his feet before the sentence finished. The chair gave a faint scrape as he stepped away from the console.
He tapped a control to transfer tactical to the officer at the adjacent station. “Lieutenant Ral, you have the board. Maintain Blue Alert posture and monitor chronal variance.”
Ral slid into place without hesitation.
Hastios keyed the final command himself before disengaging. “Initiate tractor beam. Low yield, stabilisation protocol. Match shuttle velocity and vector. Bring it in slow — Bay One.”
The deck gave a subtle vibration as the beam locked on, the battered shuttle steadied within the glowing field.
“Hull stabilising,” he confirmed. “Towing to Shuttle Bay One.”
He cast one last look at the viewscreen, then turned toward the turbolift, falling into step behind Thorrin and Marisa.
“Let’s go meet our guest.”
"We must tread with care," Marisa said. "I expect her to fight until she realizes we are not her enemy." Or shoot herself. Hopefully, they could prevent that particular outcome.
A Joint Post By:
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer, USS Herodotus
DTI-30656
Commander Marisa Sandoval
Executive Officer, USS Herodotus
DTI-30656
Major Hastios Eilfaren
Chief Security & Tactical Officer/Second Officer, USS Herodotus
DTI-30656
Lieutenant Addison Talbert
Chief Medical Officer, USS Herodotus
DTI-30656
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian, USS Pioneer
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