Holding The Silence

Posted on 10 Jan 2026 @ 10:50pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin

1,674 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Displaced
Location: USS Arawyn Bridge

// USS Arawyn :: Bridge //

“Captain, I am sending the statistical data now,” Lieutenant Evans reported.

The report came in cleanly, clipped with the faint background hum of Engineering behind it. Sabrina Corbin remained at the center of the bridge, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed forward as the data populated across her peripheral displays.

“We can, in theory, hold the rupture for thirty two minutes before we have to go into power reserves,” Engineering continued. “If we do not discontinue five minutes after that, we risk damaging the shield emitters. The unknown variable remains the creature. If it decides to attack during that window, the ship could be exposed. We are also refining harmonic communications to signal our intention.”

The rupture, now stabilized into a corridor, remained viable only as long as the balance was maintained.

Sabrina absorbed the numbers without comment. Thirty two minutes of controlled stability. Twenty seven of margin. Five of risk. After that, the ship would start paying for every second it remained. It was enough. It was not reckless. It was a chance.

She felt, rather than saw, her executive officer turn toward her.

“The anyons could help keep it more stable as well,” Suzanna Batenburg said. “It could buy us time. How long until the Eirians are ready to move?”

Sabrina did not answer immediately. She studied the forward viewscreen, where the corridor hung suspended in space. It no longer flared or tore at the surrounding void. It narrowed instead, light folding inward in slow, deliberate pulses. Not a wound now. A structure. Something shaped by sustained intent.

She lifted her chin slightly. “Proceed with the anyon saturation. Maintain deflector harmonics at the current configuration. No escalation unless I order it.”

Acknowledgements rippled across the bridge.

The ship had found its balance again.

Not comfort. Not ease. Just equilibrium, the careful kind that followed strain without resolution. Medical reported that hallucination events had dropped sharply across the ship. The headache lingering behind Sabrina’s eyes had dulled to a manageable pressure. Enough to remind her it had happened. Not enough to interfere.

The deck beneath her boots felt solid. Inertial dampeners were nominal. Structural integrity uncompromised. The Arawyn obeyed familiar laws once more.

Ahead of them, the corridor remained.

It no longer thrashed like an open injury in space. Its edges sharpened as light folded inward, narrowing with purpose rather than collapse. This was no longer an accident of physics. It was a passage. Something being supported.

Sabrina studied the corridor for a long moment before turning slightly toward her executive officer. The tension on the bridge had eased, but not disappeared. It had simply changed shape.

She gave Suzanna a soft smile, brief and sincere. “Let’s find out if our new friends are ready.”

“Open a channel to the Eirian vessel,” Sabrina ordered. “Same harmonic carrier.”

The connection unfolded rather than snapped into place. Light resolved gradually into the living architecture of the Eirian bridge, surfaces shifting with subtle motion that still defied easy categorization. Elaera stood at its center, bioluminescence calm and steady, posture composed in a way Sabrina had come to recognize as readiness rather than ease.

“We are ready,” Elaera said.

There was no ceremony in the words. No hesitation. The translator rendered them cleanly, without pause.

Sabrina inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Confirm alignment,” she said. “Navigation, propulsion, harmonic balance.”

“Yes,” Elaera replied. “Our systems are prepared. The path is listening. It will not listen long.”

Science confirmed the assessment without poetry. Harmonic coherence remained strong. Duration did not.

Sabrina allowed herself a breath before continuing. “You should know,” she said, voice steady but gentler than before, “that I regret the circumstances that brought us together. Not the meeting itself. Only that we did not have more time to understand one another.”

Elaera’s bioluminescence shifted, light rippling beneath her skin in a slow, complex pattern. The translator hesitated, then rendered the response with surprising clarity.

“Time is not always measured by length,” Elaera said. “Some meetings are complete because they are brief.”

Sabrina felt the truth of it settle quietly in her chest. “Then I am grateful for this one.”

She straightened slightly, the cadence of command returning without erasing the moment. “You will have our support. Deflector harmonics are locked. You will have one clean window. No course corrections once you begin.”

Elaera inclined her head. The light beneath her skin deepened, layered now with something unmistakable.

“You are holding the sky for us,” Elaera said.

The channel closed.

Sabrina remained still for a heartbeat longer than necessary, eyes on the place where the Eirian bridge had been, before turning her attention back to the corridor ahead.

She let the silence settle before speaking again, her voice low and controlled.

“Science.”

The reply came more tightly than before. “Secondary harmonic fluctuation detected on the far boundary. Massive scale. Signature matches the lifeform previously encountered near the shuttle. The same organism that fed on veriton particles. This appears to be a much larger specimen.”

The words landed heavily.

No one spoke.

Consoles continued to populate warnings faster than they could be cleared. No one asked for confirmation.

The viewscreen reflected the change almost immediately. The corridor tightened, light drawing inward as if pulled by an unseen gravity well. What had once been a narrow band of contained energy now appeared braced from the far side, its boundaries compressing under mounting force. Tactical alerts bloomed across the displays as compression vectors spiked.

Energy density rose faster than projected.

Several predictive models recalculated, then failed.

Collapse.

“Engineering,” Sabrina said.

“Deflector strain increasing,” came the response. “Power draw is climbing sharply. Still within projected limits, but margins are shrinking. Abort windows are narrowing.”

The presence beyond the corridor pressed closer.

It did not surge forward. It did not lash out. Instead, it leaned into the boundary with deliberate pressure. Sensors resolved its outline only in fragments, a coherent mass shaped by the same harmonic principles as the smaller lifeform encountered earlier. There was no complete silhouette. Every attempt to render one exceeded the sensor frame before collapsing back into partial data. The same pattern. The same energy consumption profile. Veriton absorption signatures rippled faintly across the far boundary.

The realization spread across the bridge without anyone needing to say it aloud.

This was not another anomaly.

This was the same kind of being.

Bigger.

The deck vibrated beneath Sabrina’s boots as opposing forces adjusted. The ship groaned in protest, structural members flexing as the deflector held its shape under increasing load. By every Starfleet metric they trusted, the readings were wrong. Compression where dispersion should have occurred. Constraint where release should have followed.

The impulse to disengage was strong.

Withdrawal would preserve the ship. It would restore safety, restore control. It would also sever the corridor while the Eirian vessel was still aligned to it, stranding them between thresholds with no path forward.

Sabrina watched the corridor.

Watched the pressure remain controlled rather than escalating. Watched the way the force distributed itself evenly along the boundary instead of concentrating into a breach. She remembered the earlier encounter, the way the smaller lifeform had responded when its offspring had been returned. Not with aggression. With restraint.

With recognition.

Every protocol written into her command training urged withdrawal. She set them aside.

“Maintain configuration,” she ordered. “No escalation.”

The words cut cleanly through the tension.

Science recalibrated its models. Engineering adjusted output in precise, incremental steps. Tactical stood down from active response, weapon systems remaining cold despite the alerts demanding otherwise.

The data shifted.

Slowly, reluctantly, the interpretation changed. The massive presence was not destabilizing the corridor. It was doing the opposite. The force it exerted counteracted the stress that would otherwise tear the structure apart. The compression was controlled. Directed. Applied with precision rather than force. The veriton signatures were not draining the corridor, but redistributing energy away from its weakest points.

The far boundary was being supported.

Not by machinery.

By something that understood exactly what it was sustaining.

The Eirian vessel began its approach.

As it crossed the threshold, harmonic load spiked sharply. The Arawyn’s deflector flared as the ship dug in, systems compensating in tight, controlled increments. Power draw climbed. Structural stress edged upward, then stabilized just short of redline.

“Tactical,” Sabrina said.

“No hostile action detected. All energies remain directed toward stabilization.”

The presence beyond the corridor intensified, luminous and vast. For a moment, it filled the far boundary entirely, light folding around the Eirian vessel as if cradling it. Then it eased, withdrawing just enough to allow passage.

“Hold.”

The Eirian vessel crossed.

For a fraction of a second, everything aligned. The Arawyn held from this side. The ancient presence held from the other. Between them, the Eirian vessel moved without hesitation. The corridor narrowed into a brilliant, focused path.

Then the balance snapped.

The stabilizing forces vanished the instant the Eirian vessel cleared the far boundary. The corridor collapsed inward, not violently but decisively. Light folded in on itself and disappeared.

The recoil struck the Arawyn hard.

For a heartbeat, the stars were everywhere at once.

The ship was thrown off axis, spinning as the viewscreen smeared into motion. Inertial dampeners lagged just long enough for gravity to tilt and bodies to brace. Sabrina shifted her stance without thinking, riding the angle of the deck the way one learned to stand on the bow of a ship driving through heavy seas. Knees bent. Weight forward. Let the motion pass through rather than fight it.

The moment stretched, weightless and roaring, and then released.

The spin slowed.

The ship steadied.

Silence settled across the bridge.

Where the corridor had been, there was nothing.

No distortion.
No radiation.
No echo.

Just open space.

Sabrina remained at the center of the bridge, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed on the empty stars.

They had held the door.

Long enough.

And then they had let it close.

Captian Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
USS Arawyn

 

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