What the Tide Leaves Behind

Posted on 20 Mar 2026 @ 2:23am by Captain Sabrina Corbin

865 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Silent Inheritance
Timeline: This is two days IC after my last post

// Kestrel Reach :: Outer Walkway //

The air carried the faint scent of salt and stone.

Familiar now.

Sabrina paused at the edge of the walkway, gaze drifting briefly across the settlement below. Movement had returned. Not fully. Not yet. But enough to see the shape of life reasserting itself.

Footsteps approached behind her.

She did not need to turn to know it was him.

Evan came to a stop at her side, hands settling loosely at his hips, gaze following hers out over the colony.

“For what it’s worth,” he said after a moment, “you did it.”

A quiet exhale left her.

“We did,” she corrected gently.

He nodded once, though his expression didn’t quite follow the agreement.

There was a shift in him. Subtle, but unmistakable.

Sabrina turned then, giving him her full attention.

“What is it?”

Evan met her gaze, and for a moment, there was something like the first day again. Easy. Uncomplicated.

Then it steadied into something more resolved.

“I think I understand something now,” he said. “About you.”

She said nothing, allowing him the space to continue.

“There’s… Corbin.” A small, almost self-aware smile. “The Captain. The one who walks into a situation like this and doesn’t hesitate. The one who carries all of it without letting it show.”

His eyes held hers.

“And then there’s June.”

The name landed softer.

“She’s there,” he continued. “I’ve seen her. But not enough. Not in a way that… leaves room for anything else to grow.”

For just a fraction of a second, something in her expression faltered.

Not enough for most to notice.
Enough for him.

Sabrina drew a slow breath, steadying it before she spoke.

“That isn’t untrue.”

There was a quiet weight behind it now.

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”

Silence settled between them, but this time it carried something sharper. Not uncomfortable. Not uncertain.

Just… final.

“I don’t think I fit into that world,” Evan said. “Not the way it exists right now.”

Her instinct, brief and unwelcome, was to answer that.
To adjust the edges of it.
To make space where there wasn’t any.

She didn’t.

Instead, she held his gaze.

“You’re not wrong to recognize that.”

The words were measured.
Careful.
And they cost her more than she allowed to show.

He let out a breath, something easing in the release of it.

“I’m glad I met you.”

A pause.

This one lingered.

“As am I,” she said, quieter now.

Not just polite. Not just true.
Something she would carry.

She knew, with a clarity she would not question later, that if she stayed another moment, she might say something she could not carry forward.

So she didn’t.

Another silence, softer this time.

Then he stepped back.

She felt it before she moved, that subtle shift of distance becoming something permanent.

She did not follow.

“Take care, Captain.”

A faint, almost imperceptible hesitation.

“You as well… Evan.”

He turned first this time, heading back toward the life that remained here, grounded, present, his.

Sabrina watched him go longer than she intended.
Long enough to feel it settle.

Then, with practiced precision, she let it.

And turned back toward the horizon.

// USS Arawyn :: Transporter Room //

The transition back to the ship was seamless.

Familiar.
Controlled.
Expected.

As the light resolved, Sabrina stepped down from the transporter pad. Her posture was already aligned, shoulders squared, expression composed. The rhythm of command settling back into place as if it had never shifted at all.

There would be reports to finalize. Follow-up coordination with Lathira’s scientific teams. Crew rotations to normalize after the strain Engineering had endured. Medical monitoring protocols to maintain.

The work did not end.

It rarely did.

She moved through the corridor without pause, boots steady against the deck, each step carrying her further from the surface, from the conversation she had chosen not to alter.

Not to fix.
Not to fight.

For a brief moment, uninvited, it lingered.

What it might have been.
What she had not made room for.

Sabrina exhaled once.

Then let it go.

// USS Arawyn :: Bridge //

The doors parted with a soft hiss.

The bridge was alive again. Systems stable. Stations manned. The quiet, efficient cadence of a crew returning to normal operations after strain.

Her gaze swept once across the space, taking it all in, confirming without needing to ask.

She stepped forward.

A nod to Commander Batenburg as she passed, brief but acknowledging. The kind that carried both trust and thanks without needing words.

Then her attention shifted.

“Commander Grayson,” she said, tone settling into something lighter, just a shade.

“I hope you’ve identified a suitable patch of asteroids to turn into rubble.”

A faint pause, just long enough for the bridge to register the shift.

“I think we could all do with a change of scenery.”

There it was.

Not dismissal of what had come before.

But forward motion.

Always forward.

She moved toward the center seat, resting a hand briefly against the back before taking it.

“Set course when ready.”

The Arawyn did not linger.

It never did.

Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer

 

RSS Feed