Between Tide and Stars Part I
Posted on 15 Mar 2026 @ 6:33pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin
867 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission: Silent Inheritance
// USS Arawyn :: Captain’s Quarters //
The ship was never truly quiet.
It breathed around her in a thousand small mechanical rhythms. The faint hum beneath the deck plating, a vibration she felt in the arches of her feet more than she heard. The distant, steady thrum of power shifting through the engineering grid somewhere deep within the hull. The soft whisper of environmental circulation pushing air through vents and corridors.
For most of her adult life Sabrina Corbin had found comfort in that sound.
It was the heartbeat of the one thing that never lied to her.
Tonight it felt suspended.
They should have been at warp.
By every operational expectation the Arawyn should have cleared the Lathira system days ago, the blue arc of the planet shrinking into a pale marble behind them while the events of shore leave faded into the pleasant blur of a week well spent.
She had done the hard part.
She had said goodbye.
Morning sunlight had washed across the stone path outside the Tide Gardens café, warming the terraces as the colony slowly came to life. The smell of salt and flowering vines had drifted in on the breeze. Evan had stood there listening while she explained, carefully, rationally, why what they had shared needed to end exactly where it had begun.
Short.
Clean.
Temporary.
The way things always were.
She had walked away before either of them could complicate it further.
Clean departure.
Starfleet officers learned that skill early.
But the water beneath Lathira’s soil had started behaving strangely two days later, and the Arawyn remained in orbit while every sensor aboard ship tried to untangle the chemical mess creeping through the colony’s irrigation system.
Now the planet hung outside her viewport like a quiet accusation she couldn’t ignore.
Sabrina stood beside the glass with a PADD in her hand.
Technical data scrolled across the display: filtration models, polymer traces, vaccine scaffolds that refused to behave the way the medical teams expected them to.
She read the same paragraph three times.
Not a single word stayed with her.
Her mind kept returning to a much simpler moment.
Evan standing on that terrace path as she turned to leave.
The look on his face when he realized June was not simply a visitor passing through.
Ptolemy shifted on the couch behind her, kneading once into the moss stitch throw her grandmother had given her when she graduated from the Academy. The blanket had followed her across half the galaxy since then, stubbornly civilian and quietly comforting in a way that shipboard life rarely allowed.
The console chimed.
Incoming civilian message.
Sabrina turned toward the desk.
She expected a report from the colony council. Another request for sensor data or filtration projections.
Instead a single name appeared on the display.
Evan Calder.
She stared at it for a moment before opening the message.
Would you join me for dinner tonight?
The simplicity of it almost made her laugh.
Dinner.
As if they had not already ended this.
As if she had not already explained, quite thoroughly, why that was a terrible idea.
“No.”
The word left her mouth immediately.
Firm.
Certain.
She should ignore the message.
That would be the sensible response.
Instead she opened a communication channel.
The screen flickered to life a moment later.
Evan appeared in warm evening light somewhere on the surface. Behind him the soft gold glow of the terraces suggested the colony was settling into the same easy rhythm she remembered.
When he saw her, the faintest hint of a smile touched his expression.
“Captain.”
The title sat awkwardly between them.
Then his head tilted slightly.
“June.”
“This is a bad idea,” Sabrina said immediately.
He blinked once, surprised by the speed of it.
“Well. Good evening to you too.”
“We already said goodbye.”
“Yes.”
“That conversation was meant to stand.”
“I thought it might.”
A pause.
Sabrina folded her arms.
“So why the message?”
Evan leaned back slightly, resting one shoulder against the wall behind him.
“Because the last few days have been strange,” he said. “Because what is happening down here with the children is a chemical puzzle no one here can solve alone.”
His gaze shifted slightly.
“And because the one person I’d most like to talk to right now happens to be in orbit.”
“That doesn’t mean dinner is a good idea.”
“No,” he agreed easily. “It probably isn’t.”
The calmness of the answer irritated her more than argument would have.
“You’re not helping your case.”
“I’m not making one.”
Sabrina exhaled slowly.
“This complicates things.”
“I figured it might.”
“You and I had a clean ending.”
“We had an honest one.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“Is it?”
She didn’t answer that.
Instead she said, “I’m not coming back down to the colony tonight.”
Evan nodded.
“I didn’t expect you would.”
A moment passed between them.
Then Sabrina heard herself say something she had not planned.
“You could come here.”
He blinked.
“To the ship?”
“You showed me your home.”
Her voice softened slightly.
“It seems fair I show you mine.”
TBC
Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
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