— USS Andromeda, Main Engineering —

Commander James Young had been an engineer his whole life. One of his earliest memories had been taking apart a shuttle that his parents owned and trying to reassemble it before his father noticed that it was in pieces in their yard. To be an engineer he had to rely on certain elemental realities such as for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. Now though that seemed to have been suspended, or at least everything that he had ever been taught about subspace communication and warp travel.

His former assistant chief engineer’s face was on the view screen. Lieutenant Murf had transferred to the USS Falcon after being offered the chief engineer role there, and now she was facing the same questions he was. How to make things work in a universe that no longer was playing by the rules.

“After tests with our runabouts we can reach warp three,” Murf said, “I think the captain is going to take that and warp to Federation space, and find an outpost. See if there’s even a Federation anymore.”

Young was not a fan of admitting defeat and accepting that the new limit on warp speed was warp three. Still it was not like they had any real alternative. Both engineers had fiddled with their ships to alternate frequencies, harmonics, and more and nothing seemed to be working for them. It was as if the entire concept of warp speed was just a fictional idea and had always been. He made a face to show his displeasure, and nodded, not happy but accepting of the compromise. The Falcon was not his ship, and eventually, he knew he had to realize that the Andromeda was going to have to bend to the whims of the universe as well.

Hours went by and Young and his team took pieces out of the warp core, reassembled them, and tested it again and again. It was as if he could just fix everything by turning it off and turning it back on again, which proved not to be the case.

“You ever leave this room?” a female voice asked, and Young looked up from the UPS conduit that he was examining to see Lieutenant Commander Diya Acharya standing above him. The ship’s Chief Diplomatic Officer had been in negotiations all day, and if she was here it was likely later than he realized. 

“It’s, umm, not working,” Young pointed out, the understatement of the century.

“Get food, you need to eat, and more,” Acharya touched his face, her hand soft and her eyes concerned. 

Young did not want food, he did not want anything to interrupt his process until he’d figured out this seemingly unsolvable problem. He had a one-track mind, and right now the track was not leading him anywhere. He thought about arguing, but the Phoenix wasn’t built in a day and if even Zephram Cohrane needed to eat, then he did too.

“Food okay,” he nodded, still trying to puzzle out a solution to this madness. 

Intertwining her fingers in his Acharya smiled, “You make it sound so romantic.”

“Hmm…” Young said wondering if a new warp coil assembly might help.

— USS Andromeda, Captain’s Quarters —

Aboard the Andromeda-class ship the commanding officer’s quarters were larger than any that Captain Olivia Carrillo had ever had in her entire life. Those aboard the USS Luna had been nice, designed as they were to make do on an extended deep space voyage, and even the science ship the USS Selene had fine quarters but these were even better. Even sharing with her husband Lieutenant Pierre Lambert and their adopted daughter Aimée, the quarters were well beyond those she’d had on earth growing up.

With the Andromeda going nowhere fast, there was not much for her husband, a flight control officer, to do. A dutiful officer he’d spend his shift sitting at his station on the bridge, but for now not only was the ship dead in the water (as it where) but the shuttles and runabouts were not going anywhere either.

“Where’s Aimée?” Carrillo asked of the alien orphan that they had adopted. Apart from Carrillo herself the family was a small collection of castoffs. Lambert had been trapped in a time bubble and brought forward in time from Kirk’s era aboard a ghost ship the USS Boson. Aimée’s people had been being studied by the Selene, as a pre-warp world, and then massacred by a warp capable civilization of hunters. Aimée, nobody knew her birth name, had hidden aboard a Starfleet shuttle and by the time she was discovered there was no people left to return her to.

Lambert smiled, “You hired a teacher remember?”

Their daughter was the only child aboard the Andromeda currently, but as a ship created with an eye toward the past of the Galaxy-class a teacher had been allocated to school the young children who would eventually be onboard. 

“So it’s just us?” Carrillo asked as she removed her command top.

“Until the bridge calls you with an emergency,” Lambert said standing and crossing to her.  He undid her black uniform slacks, making it clear what they should spend the free alone time doing. Carrillo brokered no argument and began to work on the removal of his uniform.