The Quiet After the Storm

Posted on 28 Jan 2026 @ 2:03am by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan

2,025 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Lathira Shoreleave
Location: Main Engineering

Elias was woken by a soft chime—not the insistent blare of a red alert, not the urgent summons of a comm channel begging for his attention. Just the gentle wake-up he’d programmed before collapsing into bed. Four hours. Not enough, but more than he’d expected after the night he’d had.

The work planetside hadn’t been grueling in the physical sense—just meticulous, tedious, the kind of detailed grind that wore on patience more than muscle. The damage-control teams had done their job: power restored, substations reinforced, even the offending mag-lift retrofitted with proper buffers and inertia dampeners so it wouldn’t wobble like a drunk on shore leave ever again. He’d stayed until the last panel hummed back online, watching the resort lights flicker to full strength under the rising sun.

All of it replayed in fragments as he sat up, stretching until his back popped in protest. Then his mind circled back to Jorik.

Jorik.

The one problem he didn’t know how to diagnose, let alone fix. Just the sight of the Vulcan had been enough to send his thoughts spiraling, but when Jorik had appeared out of the dawn with that small travel bag—the sandwich with Vulcan-spiced mayo, the thermos of that exact sweet iced coffee blend Elias hadn’t tasted in twelve years—it had stopped him cold.
Maybe it was exhaustion dulling the edges. Maybe it was the bone-deep weariness that left no room for another fight. Or maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t sensible to go off the deep end every time his name came up. Elias didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

After a sonic shower, a quick shave, and a fresh uniform, he felt almost human again. Four hours wasn’t enough—he could’ve begged off more, citing the all-nighter fixing someone else’s mess—but sleeping past noon always made him feel lazy, like he was wasting time the ship might need.

He replicated a breakfast sandwich—egg, bacon, cheese, nothing fancy—and another travel mug of piping-hot black coffee. The bitter heat hit his tongue like a reset button. He exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction.

The corridors were quiet as he walked to the turbolift. Most of the crew was still planetside, enjoying the leave he’d ordered. The few who passed gave him respectful nods—word of the lift incident had spread fast, and no one wanted to test whether the new chief engineer’s patience was as short as his fuse.

“Deck 16, Main Engineering,” he mumbled between sips.

The lift moved smoothly, silently—new-ship quiet. The hum of the warp core grew louder as he stepped out onto the deck, a steady blue heartbeat echoing through the cavernous space. His thoughts were scattered: crew schedules, overdue maintenance, the stack of reports waiting on his desk. He was up to date on the previous chief’s routines and wasn’t in a hurry to tear them apart just to prove he was in charge.

No one barked “Commander on deck” this time. The room was staffed appropriately—skeleton shift, efficient, heads-down work. No frantic busywork. No one trying to look indispensable. They’d heard about the planet. They were carrying themselves accordingly.

Elias stepped into the small office just off the main entrance, one of the perks of a Sovereign-class. Spartan, functional: a desk with a large monitor, two chairs facing it, and a master systems display dominating the wall behind so he could see the entire department at a glance while buried in reports.

He dropped into the chair, set the mug down with a soft clink, and stared at the display.

The core was purring at idle. All green across the board. No alerts. No anomalies.

For once, nothing was broken.

He leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face, and let out a long, slow breath.

Elias leaned back in the chair, rubbing a hand over his face, and let out a long, slow breath that carried the weight of too many nights like the last one.

He flipped on the monitor, pulling up the recent bridge reports—mostly routine, nothing screaming for his attention. He skimmed the acknowledgments on his own submissions: the lift incident, the power outage, the damage-control summary. All marked “read.” No comments. No directives on punishment. Fair enough. The ship was still technically on leave; Captain Corbin would decide when the clock ran out, and until then, the brass was probably letting the dust settle.

He stared at the screen for a moment, fingers drumming once against the edge of the desk.

What did proper punishment look like here?

He tapped a few commands into the small console built into his desk. The large wall display behind him lit up with the department’s current roster, shift logs, maintenance backlog, and equipment status. Everything green. Everything new. The Arawyn was barely broken in—no worn deck plating to scrub, no outdated relays to hand-polish, no jefferies tubes that needed crawling through just to prove a point.

He shook his head, a faint, wry huff escaping him.

Old-school discipline didn’t translate well to a ship this fresh.

Degaussing the transporter room with a micro-resonator? Pointless—the emitters were still factory-calibrated. Scraping carbon scoring off plasma conduits? The injectors hadn’t even had time to accumulate any. Extra duty shifts scrubbing EPS relays? The conduits were pristine; they’d be wasting time just to look busy.

Punishment was one thing. Wasting time was another.

He leaned forward again, scrolling through the junior roster. Ryan Collingway’s name sat near the top—fresh pip, fresh regret, along with the rest of the lift crew. Competent, on paper. Young, in practice. They’d made a dumb call. Not malicious. Just dumb.

Elias rubbed his jaw, feeling the stubble he hadn’t bothered shaving again. He didn’t want to crush them—he wanted them to learn. And he wanted them to remember.

He opened a blank disciplinary form, stared at it for a long moment, then started typing.

Extra duty rotations—targeted, not punitive busywork. They’d pull graveyard shifts in main engineering, shadowing senior petty officers on routine diagnostics. Not scrubbing decks. Real work: monitoring warp-field stability during high-load tests, recalibrating plasma injectors under supervision, logging every fluctuation and explaining it in daily briefs. Make them feel the weight of the systems they’d endangered by being careless planetside.

He added a mandatory review session—once a week, all of them together—with him. No rank, no bullshit. Just honest discussion: what went wrong, why it mattered, how it could’ve been worse. He’d make them read the after-action report they’d write themselves. Force them to put it in their own words.

Elias saved the draft, marked it pending review by the XO and captain, then leaned back in his chair with a slow exhale. The coffee in his mug was still hot enough to sting; he took a measured sip, letting the bitterness ground him.

The door chime sounded—soft, polite, not urgent.

“Come.”

The doors slid open and in stepped one of the junior engineers—one of the two who’d beamed over from the Intrepid with him. He was in uniform, duffel slung over one shoulder, looking like he’d cut his leave short on purpose. Elias recognized him instantly: average height, average build, short brown hair, the kind of face that didn’t stand out in a crowd but carried quiet competence once you looked twice.

“Didn’t I tell you forty-eight hours, Lieutenant?” Elias asked, voice low and even, taking another slow drink from his mug before setting it down. He didn’t stand—just sat back, arms loose on the armrests, watching.

“Yes, sir,” the engineer replied quickly. “But what I took was enough. I have something you should see.”

Elias studied him for a beat, then held out his hand for the PADD the lieutenant carried. “Remind me who you are?”

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Nathan Caldwell, sir. Systems analyst, primary backup for computer and network damage control.”

“At ease, Caldwell. What did you bring me?”

Nathan relaxed fractionally but stayed standing straight. “I’ve been going over the ship’s engineering logs and maintenance records, sir. As I’m sure you have as well. I noticed something that seemed off.”

Elias raised one eyebrow, the smallest flicker of interest breaking through the fatigue. “Not getting any younger, Lieutenant.”

“Sorry, sir.” Nathan tapped the PADD once to wake it. “If you look at the ship trial logs right before she was handed off from the yard, the checklist on the tactical systems appears complete. But if you tab over to the second set of reports—the component-level logs—they indicate systems testing during manufacturer, yet… show no signs of activation or use once installed.”

Elias took the PADD, eyes narrowing as he scrolled. The trial checklist was green across the board—phasers, torpedoes, targeting sensors, all signed off. But the deeper component logs told a different story: power draw minimal to nonexistent post-installation, no live-fire calibration cycles, no diagnostic pulses beyond initial boot-up.

He scrolled again, cross-referencing timestamps and power curves.

“Checked off but never touched,” he muttered, more to himself than to Caldwell. “Someone signed the book without walking the deck.”

He looked up, meeting Nathan’s eyes directly. No anger, just the quiet, focused intensity of a man who’d just found a hairline crack in an otherwise perfect hull.

“Good catch,” he said simply. “How far back did you dig?”

“All the way to the yard acceptance trials, sir. The tactical array was certified at the manufacturer’s facility, but once it was mounted, the logs go silent. No power-up beyond standby. No targeting alignment. Nothing.”

Elias tapped the PADD once, closing the file, then set it down with deliberate calm.

“Alright, Lieutenant Caldwell,” he said, leaning forward slightly. “You just saved us from finding this the hard way—probably during the next red alert when someone tries to shoot and nothing happens. Sit.”

Nathan hesitated half a second, then took the chair opposite the desk.

Elias studied him again—young, bored-looking on the surface, but sharp underneath. The kind of officer who’d rather dig into logs on leave than sit on a beach.

“I’m not going to ask why you’re back early,” Elias continued. “I can guess. You were restless. Good. Restless keeps you alive longer than relaxed does in this job.”

He tapped the console again, pulling up the master tactical diagnostic overview.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You and I are going to walk the tactical array—deck by deck, component by component—starting at 0800 tomorrow. We’ll power it up cold, run full diagnostics, and find out exactly how dead those systems actually are. If they’re as untouched as these logs suggest, we’ll need to schedule a live-fire calibration once we’re clear of the planet. And someone at the yard is going to have a very uncomfortable conversation with Starfleet Oversight.”

Nathan nodded once, a small spark of interest finally breaking through the neutral mask.

“Until then,” Elias added, voice dropping a notch, “you’re back on the clock. Forty-eight hours became twenty-four. You’ll pull first shift with me tomorrow. Consider it your punishment for cutting leave short—and your reward for catching this before it bit us.”

He leaned back again, picking up his mug.

“Any questions?”

Nathan shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Good.” Elias took one last sip, then set the mug down with a soft clink. “Get some rest. You’ll need it. Dismissed.”

Nathan stood, came to attention, and left without another word.

Elias watched the doors close, then stared at the master display for a long moment.

He opened the tactical logs again, already mentally mapping tomorrow’s walk-through. Before he could dig into them a notification popped up.

Commander Batenburg wanted to see him in her office. No time like the present, he took the PADD and left engineering like a man on a mission.

 

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