Between Tide and Stars Part II
Posted on 15 Mar 2026 @ 6:40pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin
1,026 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission: Silent Inheritance
// USS Arawyn :: Captain’s Quarters //
When the channel closed Sabrina remained standing beside the desk for several seconds.
The quiet hum of the ship settled back into the room.
She looked down at the uniform she was still wearing.
Four silver pips.
The weight of command sat comfortably there.
It always had.
But tonight she reached up and unclasped the collar.
The uniform jacket slid free a moment later.
When Evan arrived twenty minutes later, Captain Corbin was no longer waiting in the transporter room.
June was.
When the transporter beam faded, Evan stepped forward from the platform with the faint disorientation most civilians experienced the first few times they traveled that way. He paused instinctively, one hand brushing the rail at the edge of the pad as his eyes adjusted to the bright, controlled lighting of the chamber.
The transporter room felt very different from the terraces he had left behind.
Everything here was precise. Ordered. Designed for function rather than comfort.
Sabrina stood a few steps away from the platform, her hands loosely clasped behind her back. For a moment he simply looked at her, and she could see the slight shift in his expression as he realized she was no longer wearing the uniform he had seen in the council chamber earlier that afternoon.
Charcoal trousers. A soft cream sweater. Her hair loose around her shoulders.
It was the closest thing to the woman he had known as June that the ship would allow her to be.
“Well,” he said at last, stepping down from the platform. “That’s a little different.”
Sabrina tilted her head slightly, watching him with careful neutrality. “You expected a security escort?”
“I expected someone younger,” he admitted. “Probably carrying a datapad and very clear instructions about where I was allowed to stand.”
“The safer choice would have been sending my yeoman,” she said with a faint smirk. “Merrick’s been in Starfleet longer than I have. He would have made the rules very clear.”
“But you didn’t choose that.”
“No.”
Behind them the transporter technician suddenly found something extremely interesting to review on the console.
Sabrina gestured toward the doors. “Come on.”
They stepped into the corridor, and the atmosphere of the ship asserted itself immediately. Officers moved through the passageways with quiet efficiency, conversations brief and purposeful. The soft lighting and muted colors of Starfleet interiors carried a calm, deliberate professionalism that contrasted sharply with the sunlit openness of the colony below.
The first officer who passed them slowed instinctively.
“Captain.”
Sabrina acknowledged the greeting with a small nod and continued walking.
Evan noticed.
A few steps later it happened again. Another officer stepping aside slightly to make room, offering the same brief acknowledgment before moving on with their work.
By the third time, Evan was watching closely enough that she felt the weight of his attention.
“They move for you,” he said quietly.
She kept her eyes forward. “They move for the uniform.”
Evan considered that as another crew member passed, offering the same quick nod of recognition.
“That’s not what it looks like,” he said after a moment.
Sabrina did not answer immediately. It would have been easy to dismiss the observation, but she knew better than to pretend the reaction meant nothing.
“They rely on me,” she said finally. “The difference matters.”
The corridor grew quieter as they moved deeper into the residential sections of the ship. The pace slowed here, the lighting slightly warmer, the atmosphere less hurried than the operational decks they had come from.
Evan glanced around with open curiosity now, absorbing the details of the environment. The seamless walls, the quiet efficiency of the lighting panels, the faint vibration beneath his feet that suggested enormous machinery humming somewhere far below.
“You live here,” he said.
“I command here,” Sabrina replied.
“That’s not quite the same thing.”
She allowed herself a faint smile. “No. It isn’t.”
They passed an observation window set into the corridor wall, and Evan slowed briefly, drawn toward the view beyond the glass.
Lathira IV filled half the frame, its oceans shifting through shades of blue and turquoise beneath drifting layers of white cloud.
“From the terraces,” he said softly, “this ship looks small.”
Sabrina stepped beside him, following his gaze toward the planet.
“It’s nearly seven hundred meters long.”
“Perspective,” he said, “is a funny thing.”
“Yes.”
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then they continued down the corridor until Sabrina stopped outside a set of doors near the end of the passage.
“This is me.”
Evan studied the entrance with quiet interest. “I suspect I’m the first farmer from Kestrel Reach who’s ever been invited into a Captain’s quarters.”
“You’re technically part of the colonial government,” she reminded him.
“That sounds much more impressive than my actual job.”
“It sounded impressive enough when you were explaining soil chemistry to a group of students.”
He laughed softly. “You were watching.”
“I was passing through.”
“Sure you were.”
Sabrina walked through the doors as they opened to her presence.
Warm light spilled into the corridor as the panels slid aside.
Evan stepped inside and paused immediately, taking in the room.
It was unmistakably hers. Organized, thoughtful, touched with small personal details that softened the otherwise disciplined structure of starship living.
His gaze lingered on the wide viewport first, then moved slowly across the books, the carefully arranged desk, the quiet order of the space.
“It’s quieter than I expected,” he said.
“That’s intentional.”
A movement near the couch drew his attention.
Ptolemy emerged cautiously from beneath the furniture, regarded the newcomer with open suspicion, and then, apparently deciding the situation required supervision from a safer elevation, leapt lightly to one of the narrow shelves mounted high along the wall.
From there the cat settled his paws beneath him and watched the room with profound skepticism.
Evan tilted his head upward. “Hello there.”
Ptolemy blinked slowly.
After a moment Evan glanced back toward Sabrina.
“I take it I failed inspection.”
“He’s not used to visitors.”
“That seems reasonable.”
TBC...
Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
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