Digging up the past

Posted on 08 Feb 2026 @ 12:17am by Lieutenant JG Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan

1,288 words; about a 6 minute read

///USS Arawyn///

The repair work had been going on for a few days. Every day he and Commander Harlan had a quick meeting over things happening on the Arawyn. Mostly routine stuff. This meeting, however, was going to be different.

Ryan gripped the datapadd tightly against his chest. He just had to talk to the Commander about his suspicions about the design flaws of the USS Thysia. He did not need to tell him anything else about what happened on that ship. Anything connected to the Benezites was completely seperate from this. He told himself that, over and over again like a mantra.

He nodded to himself, entered Elias' office, and sat down. "You asked me to tell you if anything else was off," he said. "There might be, but I require a favor from you to be sure," he stated. "I need the logs from my last ship, the USS Thysia. It was a small science ship. The ship's production logs should be easily retrieved from Starfleet. The logs connected to it being destroyed...would be harder to get. Starfleet doesn't have them. Benzar does."

Elias looked up from his monitor as Ryan sat down, and immediately frowned. He leaned back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, eyes narrowing just enough to show he was already running the numbers in his head.

“Why would Benzar have ownership of the logs on its destruction?” he asked, voice low and deliberate. “It’s a Starfleet ship. Last time I checked, Starfleet HQ wasn’t on Benzar.”

He let the question hang for a second, then tilted his head slightly, the tired edge in his eyes never leaving Ryan’s face.

"Because a Benzite officer was killed on that ship. Someone I knew," Ryan said flatly. He looked down. "The ship had been attacked by the borg. The whole area was deemed a no-fly zone for at least six months after the initial rescue. Benzar decided to move a little faster and has the wreckage. This just happened recently. I assume they intend to pass the logs to Starfleet eventually after they finish their investigation."

He shifted a little. "Everything happened so fast. It was chaos. Engineering couldn't reach the bridge. But I don't recall a single instance of our ship firing, sir," he explained.

“USS Thysia,” Elias read aloud, then let out a low whistle. “Rhode Island-class.” He scrolled through the information with the touchpad. “Constructed at Antares Fleet Yards…”

He tapped a new query, pulling up the ship’s construction records. His own signature appeared on several engineering sign-offs and walk-throughs—warp systems, EPS grid, structural integrity. Tactical wasn’t his direct lane back then, but he remembered the Vulcan commander who’d signed off on the weapons suite. A precise, no-nonsense officer who’d reminded him too much of Jorik. No way that tactical system had left that Vulcan’s hands unless it was perfect.

Elias shook his head slowly, almost to himself.

“Just by looking at this, I don’t think so,” he said, voice steady but carrying the weight of certainty. “That ship had some of my signatures on it, and I knew the officer who signed off on the tactical system. It’s entirely possible they just got a lucky shot.”

He leaned back again, eyes flicking to Ryan.

“But if you want, I can try to pull the full logs myself—both Starfleet’s and whatever Benzar’s willing to release. If there’s overlap with the Arawyn’s issues, we’ll find it. And if Benzar’s dragging their feet on handing over records from a Starfleet vessel, I’ll make sure someone higher up knows about it.”

"I would like that. Thanks," Ryan said. "I guess once you lose a ship...you want to make sure every stone is turned over. To make sure there isn't anything more you could have done." He breathed a little as he said that. Maybe he was just being paranoid. It was easy to do that. After the Arawyn had design flaws...you inevitably looked towards others.

“That I can understand, all engineers can.” Elias said as he cleared the wall monitor back to it’s default screens. “Losing a ship is never easy, we spend so much of our time fixing, replacing or patching components to the point we know the ship as more than a passing acquaintance. I haven’t experienced the loss of one myself, and hope I never do.”

"It's not easy," Ryan admitted, and hesitated. Elias opening up prompted him to do the same. A little bit, at any rate. "There was an investigation about my actions on board that ship. I was exonerated. It's a matter of public record. But it's probably better that comes from me, before you read it on a data padd."

"I haven't done that deep into staff biographical information, so may as well say it." Elias said with an even tone.

Ryan shrugged, very slightly. Then he met Elias' eyes. "I killed that Benzite officer," he stated. "Due to an error he made. Starfleet has cleared me, as I said."

The air grew a little bit heavier as he said this. Ryan had done his best to be factual and truthful as he could be, while avoiding as many details as he could. If he lied, there was a considerable chance the Commander would see right through it.

Elias raised an eyebrow and blinked. "I think there's more to that particular story. I mean generally officers don't just kill each other."

He paused then rolled his eyes at himself, "unless it's a Klingon ship of course."

Ryan sighed a little. "It's honestly not relevant to my concern regarding the design flaws of the Thysia. The information is in the report. I don't have much to add to it," he said, a tad evasively. He didn't want this conversation to go this way much further. Hopefully the Commander would drop it.

Ryan moved a little in his seat. He realized this nugget of information probably wouldn't improve the CEO's impressions of him much. But he was going to stumble into it anyway if he was looking at the files. And if it meant that the Thysia data could be double-checked, then it was worth it. His reputation didn't matter.

Elias just shrugged off the answer. It wasn't his business anyway. "Understood. I'll see what I can do though on the logs, anything else?"

Ryan placed a data padd on the desk. Daily requests that had come in. More were completed than not. "We're holding things together," he said simply. "It should stay that way for as long as you need."

"I've been keeping track of your progress, and you are handling the job well. I appreciate that, it makes my job a little easier. New estimates from this morning show we're a little ahead of what we were expecting so, as long as both ends of the candle hold together till we are done, it should be okay." Elias paused and thought for a moment, "I'm guessing we got lucky that we stayed in orbit hopefully this will be all done before we need to leave it."

"Very well, carry on Lieutenant."

Ryan nodded, and left. Once he was out the doors he released a slow breath. He hated doing this. But the cost of being truthful was too high. He was blissfully unaware of the fact that Commander Harlan and a select few were keeping a secret of their own, one that was also too costly to tell the rest of the ship.

--

Lieutenant Commander Elias Harland
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

Lieutenant (JG) Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

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