Between Tide and Stars Part III
Posted on 15 Mar 2026 @ 6:48pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin
1,661 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission: Silent Inheritance
// USS Arawyn :: Captain’s Quarters //
Sabrina moved toward the cabinet near her desk and opened it.
The bottle of Scotch rested on the small sideboard nearby, the amber liquid catching the warm lamplight from across the room. Sabrina poured only a modest measure into each glass, but the scent alone carried something grounding with it. Peat and smoke. The faint sweetness of old wood. Something that belonged to soil and rain and weathered hillsides rather than starships and polished alloy bulkheads.
Evan turned the glass slowly in his hand, watching the light move through it before taking a careful sip. His eyes closed briefly as the warmth settled across his tongue.
“That’s very real,” he said after a moment.
Sabrina leaned back lightly against the edge of the cabinet beside him, cradling her own glass but not drinking yet.
“A civilian intelligence specialist brought several cases aboard during our first mission,” she said. “He believed he owed me a peace offering after learning he’d been assigned to my ship without asking first.”
“That seems like a smart man.”
“He was trying to stay on my good side.”
“And did it work?”
“For the duration of the mission.”
She lifted the glass then, letting the Scotch rest briefly against her lips before swallowing. The warmth spread slowly through her chest, easing tension she had not noticed gathering along her shoulders.
Evan set his glass down and wandered toward the viewport, drawn the way most first-time visitors were. Sabrina watched him go, watched the way his posture shifted as the vastness outside the glass came into view.
The planet filled nearly half the window.
Lathira IV turned slowly beneath them, oceans shifting through layered blues beneath drifting white cloud.
They stood in silence for a few seconds, the quiet hum of the ship surrounding them like distant surf.
Evan tilted his head slightly, studying her.
“You almost didn’t answer my message.”
Sabrina didn’t bother pretending otherwise.
“I called to tell you it was a bad idea.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “Which suggests I was not sufficiently persuasive.”
His mouth curved faintly at that.
“You could have ignored it.”
“That would have been simpler.”
“But you didn’t.”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Outside the viewport the curve of Lathira turned slowly through the dark, blue oceans shifting beneath thin veils of cloud. Sabrina watched it for a moment before speaking.
“You asked me to dinner,” she said finally. “I told you no.”
“Yes.”
“And then I invited you to a starship instead.”
“That seems like a lateral move.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Evan rested one shoulder against the frame of the viewport, turning more fully toward her. The stars beyond him formed a quiet, distant backdrop.
“So why did you call?” he asked.
Sabrina folded her arms loosely across her chest.
“Because leaving things unfinished irritates me.”
“That morning outside the café?”
“Yes.”
“You seemed very certain.”
“I was.”
He watched her for a moment, patient in the same way he had been on the terraces while explaining soil composition to curious students.
“And now?” he asked.
Sabrina exhaled slowly.
“Now the ship is still in orbit, the colony’s water supply is behaving like a chemistry experiment, and you sent a message that assumed we could simply have dinner like nothing had happened.”
“That wasn’t an assumption,” he said mildly.
“No?”
“It was a hope.”
The quiet certainty in his voice made something tighten slightly in her chest.
Sabrina looked away toward the stars again.
“You’re very persistent.”
“I’m a farmer,” he said. “Waiting is part of the job.”
He studied her for a moment before speaking again.
“You said goodbye like someone sealing a hatch before departure,” he said gently. “Clean. Efficient. No air leaking through the seams.”
“That’s how departures work.”
“That’s how starships work.”
Sabrina took another sip of the Scotch, watching the slow curve of the planet rather than his face.
“I live on a starship.”
“That’s not the same thing as living like one.”
She felt the edge of that settle somewhere deeper than she liked.
“You think I hide behind the uniform.”
“I think you built walls so well you stopped noticing they were there.”
Her head turned sharply.
“You’ve known me less than a week.”
“I know the woman who introduced herself as June,” he replied calmly. “The one who stood on a terrace watching the ocean like she’d forgotten there was anywhere else she needed to be. The one who sings when someone dares her to. The one who argued soil chemistry with me half the night even though she clearly didn’t care about irrigation systems.”
The corner of her mouth betrayed her before she could stop it.
“I cared about the logic.”
“You cared about being right.”
“That too.”
His voice softened slightly.
“That woman didn’t look like she was afraid of anything.”
Sabrina turned back to the window again.
“I’m not afraid.”
Evan didn’t answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was quiet.
“You’re afraid of staying still long enough for something to matter.”
The words hung in the air between them.
She let out a slow breath.
“I leave because the ship leaves,” she said. “Because missions end and new ones begin. Colonies stay where they are.”
“Convenient structure.”
“It’s reality.”
“Is it?”
She turned toward him again.
“You’re questioning the career path of a Starfleet captain?”
“I’m remembering something you said.”
“What?”
Evan’s gaze didn’t shift.
“That night when the power went out.”
Her eyes flicked toward him.
The memory surfaced immediately. Darkness. Ocean wind through the balcony doors. His arm warm across her waist while the city below them went quiet.
“I don’t do long arcs,” she had told him.
“I’m built for motion.”
“Eventually the ship always wins.”
“You said that like a law of physics,” Evan continued quietly. “Like gravity.”
“Experience tends to make those things clear.”
He studied her for a moment.
“Or maybe it makes them comfortable.”
She didn’t answer.
His gaze lingered on her mouth for a moment longer than the conversation required.
Sabrina became suddenly aware of how close he was standing. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him through the thin fabric of her sweater, close enough that the quiet rhythm of his breathing had begun to match her own.
Then she felt his hand move as Evan stepped closer, slowly enough that she could have stopped him if she wanted.
His hand settled at her waist, warm and steady, fingers spreading across the small of her back the way they had before, as though the memory of that night on the terrace still lived in his hands. The familiarity of it startled her more than the touch itself.
The distance between them shrank to almost nothing.
“You make this very difficult,” she said softly.
“I’m not trying to.”
“You came to a starship to argue philosophy with the captain.”
“I came because you asked me to.”
His thumb shifted slightly against her back, the subtle pressure drawing her closer. She felt the warmth of his palm through the thin knit of her sweater and hated how immediately her body remembered him.
“You changed out of the uniform before you came to meet me,” he added quietly.
She didn’t respond.
“You poured real Scotch.”
“Senior officers are known to bend regulations.”
“And you’re standing here pretending this is still a polite visit.”
Sabrina exhaled slowly.
“I shouldn’t have invited you.”
“But you did.”
She looked up at him then.
Really looked.
The lines at the corners of his eyes from too much sunlight. The quiet steadiness in his expression. The same patient attentiveness she had seen while he explained irrigation flows to a circle of children on a terrace days earlier.
“You’re dangerous,” she murmured.
He smiled faintly.
“I’m a farmer.”
“You see things.”
“I listen.”
Her hand rose almost without her noticing it, resting against the side of his neck. His skin was warm beneath her fingers.
“You see through things,” she corrected softly.
“Sometimes.”
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then she closed the last inch of distance between them.
The kiss that followed was not uncertain.
His other hand slid up along her back as she stepped closer, fingers spreading across her shoulder blades while the kiss deepened. The warmth of him was solid and grounding in a way the ship never was. Familiar already. Too familiar for someone she had known for a little over a week.
When they parted, her forehead rested briefly against his shoulder. She could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing, feel his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek.
For a moment the ship seemed very far away.
Eventually Evan shifted slightly, turning his head toward the viewport again while his arm remained loosely around her.
“Your view might actually be better than the one from the Reach,” he said quietly.
Sabrina followed his gaze.
Stars filled the darkness beyond the glass. Endless. Brilliant.
She watched them for a long moment.
“It’s lonelier,” she said.
Evan looked down at her.
“Is that why you keep leaving?”
Sabrina didn’t answer immediately.
Instead she reached for the glass again, lifting it slowly while the planet turned below them.
For most of her life leaving had been the easy part.
Departure meant motion. Purpose. The next mission already forming somewhere beyond the horizon.
What unsettled her now was something far more dangerous.
For the first time in years, orbit had given her something she would eventually have to leave behind.
Not a mission. Not a problem to solve. A person.
And for the first time in years, the stars outside the window felt impossibly far away.
Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
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