Holding the Door
Posted on 01 Jan 2026 @ 11:33pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin
896 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission: The Displaced
The bridge had settled into a watchful stillness, the kind that followed restraint rather than relief.
“Shuttle Golau is secured,” Operations reported. “Ensign Zodeil is clear and uploading sensor logs from the encounter.”
Sabrina nodded once, eyes still on the forward viewscreen. The rift hung ahead of them, no longer violent, no longer feeding. Its edges breathed with slow, deliberate pulses, light folding inward instead of tearing outward. Stable, by every metric Starfleet trusted.
And yet.
“Science,” she said softly. “Confirm status.”
Lieutenant Commander Sorvak did not look up from his console. “The corridor remains coherent. Harmonic structure is sustained. Temporal shear is minimal. The lifeform’s signature merged fully with the rift before disappearance.”
It had not been consumed.
It had completed something.
Sabrina folded her hands behind her back and took a single step forward. She remembered the moment the decision had been made to draw the creature back toward the wound, to keep it fed, to keep it calm. The only path that had preserved lives. The only choice that had existed.
Still, she could not shake the sense that they had not merely guided it.
They had answered it.
“Open a channel to the Eirian vessel,” she said. “Use the harmonic carrier we established earlier. Translation matrix adaptive.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The signal did not snap into place. It unfolded.
The Eirian bridge resolved into view, light and shadow flowing across living surfaces. Elaera stood at its center, bioluminescence shifting in patterns that now felt familiar to Sabrina’s eyes. The translator took a fraction of a second longer than usual, then settled.
“Captain,” Elaera said. The word carried more weight than it once had. “You stand where the sky listens.”
Sabrina did not smile, but something eased in her chest. “So do you.”
She allowed a breath before continuing. “From our instruments, the corridor is holding. It no longer behaves like a wound. But our sensors cannot see what yours can.”
Elaera’s light brightened, then softened. “Your machines hear the echo. Ours remember the song.”
The translator hesitated, then rendered the next phrase with surprising clarity.
“This path has a shape. It bends toward where we were before the sky broke.”
Home, without the word ever being spoken.
“Is it stable?” Sabrina asked.
“For now,” Elaera replied. “It is balanced. Balance does not last unless it is held.”
Sabrina glanced briefly toward Sorvak, then back to the viewscreen. “Do you intend to walk it?”
“Yes,” Elaera said simply.
There was no poetry in that answer. Only certainty.
Sabrina felt the decision settle fully into place. This was no longer a question of observation or containment. It was a request, whether spoken or not.
“Then we need to speak plainly,” Sabrina said.
She turned slightly, voice carrying across the bridge. “Commander Batenburg.”
Her XO stepped closer without a word.
“Helping them cross may destabilize the corridor,” Sabrina said aloud. “It may strand us. Refusing would leave them here, indefinitely. This is not interference with development. This is a question of whether we abandon someone we have already engaged.”
Batenburg nodded once. “An edge case,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” Sabrina agreed. “And edges are where command lives.”
She faced the viewscreen again. “Elaera, our ship can reinforce harmonic stability for a limited time. Our deflector was not built for this, but it can hold a resonance. Your drive can provide thrust, but not structure.”
Elaera’s bioluminescence deepened. “Alone, we fall. Together, the path may remember itself.”
The translator rendered the phrase almost perfectly this time.
Sabrina exhaled slowly. “I will not promise success. And I will not proceed without preparation.”
“Preparation is respect,” Elaera replied.
Sabrina turned back to the bridge.
“Engineering,” she said, voice firm now. “Begin feasibility modeling for harmonic stabilization using the deflector. No power coupling yet. I want limits, failure modes, and abort windows.”
“Aye, Captain,” Evans replied.
“Science,” she continued, “coordinate resonance timing with Engineering and Eirian data. I want to know how long this corridor can be held before it begins to shear.”
Sorvak inclined his head. “Understood.”
A subtle tremor passed through the deck plates, barely perceptible.
“Captain,” Ops said carefully. “Minor temporal variance on internal sensors. Crew reporting brief disorientation. Seconds lost. No injuries.”
Sabrina did not look surprised.
“Medical,” she said, “begin neurological monitoring. Watch for hallucinations, time skips, and sensory bleed.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Security,” she added, “increase presence in high-traffic areas. Calm, visible, steady.”
She returned her attention to Elaera. “We will speak again once preparations are complete. When we do, it will be to decide whether we commit.”
Elaera inclined her head, light flowing in a pattern Sabrina now recognized as gratitude layered with resolve.
“We will wait,” Elaera said. “The sky is patient. But not forever.”
The channel closed.
Sabrina remained standing, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed on the corridor of light and memory suspended before them.
They had drawn a hungry thing back toward a wound and hoped they understood it well enough to keep it calm.
Now they were being asked to hold a door open for people who had already lost everything else.
Sabrina remained still, hands clasped behind her back, aware of Batenburg’s presence at her side without needing to look.
Outside the viewscreen, the corridor pulsed again, balanced and waiting.
Not for permission.
For commitment.
Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
USS Arawyn
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