Back Into Focus

Posted on 06 Jan 2026 @ 7:42pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin & Lieutenant Commander Riah Amberlyn XMD

969 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Displaced
Location: Arawyn :: Bridge

// Bridge //

As soon as the headache started and the hint of nausea presented itself, Immediately, she realized something was not right. It was subtle, but the doctor knew the signals and she spoke quickly to the Medic. "Have medical deliver those meds to the bridge, STAT.

"Yes Ma'am."

The Doctor then shifted her gaze to the Captain and quickly around the room, looking for signs of the malady in others. As her eyes crossed over the Comm Officer, who's expression was pained, the Captain let out a cry and fell backwards. Riah hurried and knelt beside her, still rejecting her own pain and illness. "Captain, relax. I've got meds on the way."

The Captain rallied and shrugged off any effort at assistance. Still, Riah stayed by her side. "Meds are on the way to the Bridge," she informed the Captain. "I'm feeling it too. Has the dizziness and nausea passed, or still building?

Sabrina had been breathing to regain her composure, her awareness of the bridge slowly coming back into focus. The lightning strike of pain that had ripped through her thoughts dulled into a manageable headache. Her eyes swept the bridge, and it became clear that the moment had not been hers alone.

It took a few more seconds for her to fully process what the Doctor had asked. She turned her gaze toward Riah, piecing together the words she had heard and reforming the question in her mind. “It’s passing,” she said quietly.

This was not the first time Corbin had experienced a temporal hallucination. The years had softened her memory of the effects, even if the echo of it lingered. Part of her wanted to go back to what she had just seen, to linger there and understand it more fully. The more logical part of her mind set that aside, storing the moment away like a strange dream. Interesting, but not something to dwell on now.

“Helm,” she ordered, her voice settling back into its familiar cadence, “back us off the rift a bit until we are ready to engage.”

Her hand came up in an automatic motion to smooth her hair back into place, though barely a wisp had moved. Sabrina looked again at Riah, concern clear in her expression. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Just breathe through it.”

Riah took the Captain's suggestion as an order and stopped doing anything except breathing. Three breaths and her stomach felt distinctly better, but the headache lingered intensely, almost as though the breath were feeding it. She closed her eyes and without any sort of line of demarkation she was soaring, flying ... no swinging on a swing hanging from a tree branch. Looking down she found herself delighted and giggling like a child, which she was, for her body was small, and her feet wore little blue sneakers. Wind swirled around her, more wind than a swing should have produced. A loud roaring began to fill her entire consciousness, and she wanted to stop swinging. Fear gripped at her and she watched as the darkness surrounded her, lifting her too high. Screaming at her. She screamed back and her voice seemed to spin the swing in a merciless spiral. And then, with a sudden jolt, like a strike of electric energy, she was back aboard Arawyn, seated firmed on the floor of the Bridge, with Medic Lane Karadine kneeling beside her. She struggled to pull all of her senses together.

Taking a ragged breath, she could feel the solidity of the deck beneath her. "That was interesting," she said. Karadine offered her a little bubble pill pocket, which her fingers were too shaky to open. Without shame, she handed it back to him to open. She placed the little blue wafer under her tongue, it dissolved almost instantly. "Make sure everyone on the Bridge gets one of these," she said.

"Done Doctor," replied Karadine.

"Of course it is," she replied. She moved cautiously to standing, a bit embarrassed that she had succumbed to whatever was causing these hallucinations and its side effects. The headache was subsiding and the nausea was no longer a threat to the senses of everyone on the Bridge. "Is everyone else okay?"

"For the moment Ma'am," replied the Medic.

"I'm sorry Captain. I had hoped to get the drugs up here before any of us fell victim. I'll get back to my station and check the status of the distribution. The meds should continue protection for as much as 24 hours."

Sabrina had watched the Doctor’s return with careful attention, relief settling in once Riah was back on her feet and fully present again. When the apology came, it earned a faint curve of amusement at the corner of her mouth.

“You did exactly what I would have expected,” she said calmly. “You recognized the problem, acted immediately, and got solutions moving. Unexpected does not mean unprepared.”

Her gaze flicked briefly to Medic Karadine, then back to Riah. “And thank you for getting the medication up here as fast as you did. That response likely spared us a much rougher few minutes.”

With the bridge steadying, her focus shifted smoothly back to the larger problem. “While Medical continues distribution, I need an update.”

Her eyes moved to the engineering and science stations. “Engineering, where are we on feasibility modeling for harmonic stabilization through the deflector? I want projected limits, failure modes, and clear abort windows.”

Then to Science. “And Science, how is coordination with Engineering progressing? Based on the Eirian data, how long can this corridor be held before we start seeing structural shear?”

She settled back into command posture, voice even and deliberate. “Let’s bring the unknown back into something we can measure.”
~~~

Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
USS Arawyn

&
LtCmdr Riah Amberlyn, XMD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Arawyn

 

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