“The Next Night”

Posted on Fri Nov 14th, 2025 @ 4:00pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Kara DeSotto

Mission: Season 6: Episode 6: Conglomerate
Location: Crew Lounge Two, USS Elysium
Timeline: MD3 02h00
777 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure

The lounge lights were low again. Outside the wide viewport, the stars hung unnaturally still — as if the void itself were holding its breath.

Kara DeSoto sat at her usual table, coffee in hand, uniform jacket neatly folded beside her. She had told herself she wouldn’t come back to this lounge tonight. That she’d go straight to her quarters and actually sleep. She didn’t make it past the corridor.

She wasn’t alone for long. The door sighed open and in came Lira Hovan, shoulders tense, eyes shadowed from lack of rest. She gave a quick nod, pulled a chair out, and sat heavily. “You heard it too, didn’t you?”

Kara didn’t answer right away. She stirred her coffee once, twice. “Everyone’s heard it,” she said finally. “Deck Six claims the long-range sensors picked up something at 0400 hours. Deck Eight says the Captain’s already planning battle drills.”

Lira rubbed at her face. “I just finished rewiring the auxiliary grid. Half the conduits are still patched with scrap metal. If they come back now…” She trailed off.

“Then we’ll do what we did before,” Kara said softly. “Survive.”

The door opened again — Jalen Cross, looking worse than both of them combined. Grease streaked his collar, his eyes red from hours in the nacelle crawlspaces. He grabbed a drink from the replicator, didn’t bother specifying what. “Heard the same rumor on Deck Seventeen,” he said, sliding into a seat. “Ops says it’s nothing. Engineering says it’s everything.”

“Engineering’s right,” came a gravelly voice. K’Trin lumbered in behind him, tossing a hydrospanner onto the table. “I checked the sensor logs myself. Something was out there. Whether it’s them or not…” He shrugged, his tusks catching the dim light. “Let’s just say, I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Devon Price arrived next, quiet as always. He didn’t bother sitting at first, just stood near the viewport, arms crossed, eyes scanning the stars as if he could spot the enemy with sheer willpower. “You all look like ghosts,” he said finally.

“Better ghosts than corpses,” Lira muttered.

The room’s atmosphere shifted slightly when Thala zh’Renn stepped in, medical teal crisp despite her exhaustion. “I just finished another rotation. Two patients relapsed. Nerves, mostly. Half the ship’s on edge.”

She dropped into a seat beside Kara. “We should be sleeping.”

Kara gave a wry half-smile. “You first.”

“Couldn’t even if I tried.”

The lounge filled slowly, as if by gravity — Marta Velin appeared with a tray of tea this time, shyly setting it in the middle of the table. Rix Tal slipped in behind her, muttering something about comm interference and false sensor echoes. Fin Dorran arrived last, yawning into his hand but alert beneath it, empathy shimmering faintly in his eyes.

Vira Tenn was missing. It wasn’t until halfway through the conversation that she finally stumbled in — hair disheveled, flight jacket unzipped, the faint smell of coolant clinging to her. “Sorry,” she said, dropping into a chair. “The shuttle bay’s on lockdown. We’re recalibrating the bay doors in case we have to scramble again.”

“Any sign of what’s out there?” Rix asked quietly.

Vira hesitated. “They wouldn’t tell us. But I saw the sensor readouts when I passed Flight Control. There’s… movement. Faint, like ripples. Not debris.”

A long silence followed. The kind that hums.

Kara finally broke it, voice calm but low. “Rumors feed panic. Panic gets people killed. Until the Commodore says otherwise, we treat it as noise.”

“Noise that killed thirty people two days ago,” Jalen said bitterly.

She met his eyes — steady, unflinching. “And still didn’t kill us.”

Lira looked up at her. “You really think we can do it again?”

Kara exhaled slowly, glancing toward the stars. “I think that’s what we do. We adapt, we brace, and we hope Command has a miracle left in the tank.” She picked up her mug, now cold. “And until then — we sit together, because the alternative is sitting alone.”

Fin nodded faintly. “Together’s better. Fear spreads slower that way.”

Thala reached for her cup, her antennae dipping slightly. “Then here’s to together.”

They raised their mugs — coffee, tea, synth-ale — whatever was left to hold onto.

The stars beyond shimmered faintly, and somewhere deep in the hull, the ship’s sensors gave a faint, almost imperceptible ping.

None of them mentioned it.

They just sat — ten weary souls in the 2am half-light, pretending, for a few precious minutes, that the sound had been nothing but the ship’s heart beating.