Night had come, the darkest of nights, a blackout threatening the fabric of the galaxy itself. Standing in the heart of the astrometrics lab, Admiral James Neidlinger stared at a map of Federation space interpolated with a lattice approximating subspace as carved up by this unprecedented phenomenon. No matter how long he stared at the strange honeycomb pattern, he saw no rhyme or reason, nor any explanation as for how it had come to be. All he knew was that, in an instant, the Blackout had completely crippled interstellar society.

The Blackout’s origin and shape weren’t his top priority though. The top priority was getting the Fourth Fleet functioning again. Within each isolated cell, subspace was mostly intact, but the boundaries were all but impenetrable to conventional mechanisms. No warp drive, no subspace communications, no subspace sensors, none of the basic capabilities necessary for a galaxy-spanning civilization. They needed a solution, and one far more broad than the limited visibility they’d achieved so far with customizations to their sensor suite. Once they had a reliable way to see, to communicate, and to travel across the boundaries, then could worry about how to stop it.

The admiral looked down at his PADD, paging through options his team had assembled, a long list of unconventional superluminal mechanisms that either didn’t rely on the subspace medium or that interacted with it in a way that was unlikely to be impacted. The problem was that each came with complications, reasons why Starfleet had restricted their use.

Lost in his thoughts, the Director of the Fourth Fleet Engineering didn’t notice as the doors hissed open behind him. It was only as he heard the firm footfalls of the boots did he turn.

“I hope you have solutions,” Admiral Alexander Beckett began without so much as a cordiality or a greeting. “Because we are going to need them now.”

Beckett handed a PADD to his colleague, and Neidlinger’s eyes grew wide as he scrolled through it. “Underspace… the Vaadwaur… an invasion?!” He fumbled with his words as he tried to process what he was reading. It was a lot to take in. “Are you certain about this?”

“Is that even a question?” Beckett asked incredulously.

“No, I suppose not,” Neidlinger frowned. The Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence wasn’t one to joke, not even on a good day, and based on what he was seeing now, this most certainly was not a good day. The galaxy was suddenly ablaze, and the Vaadwaur had claimed credit for the Blackout too. “I guess we now know where the Blackout came from, but what the hell are we going to do about this?” It was a full on invasion, and while they might have had a chance in a fair fight, the Blackout had ensured this wouldn’t be one.

“That’s what I came here to ask you about,” Beckett stated bluntly. “The Fourth Fleet, scattered throughout the galaxy, is uniquely positioned to respond, but only if we can organize a response. We need to be able to communicate with our captains.”

“I may have an idea there,” Neidlinger offered. “Just before the blackout, a local research team identified a quantum microsingularity buried deep within a volatilized portion of the nebula, and if we refract a tachyon signal modulated with specific harmonics…”

“Our own version of the Pathfinder Project,” Beckett interrupted, jumping straight to the point. He didn’t need the finer details. He just needed a solution. “How soon can you have it ready?”

“We’ve already built out the necessary tachyon array,” Neidlinger revealed, a twinkle in his eye. For once, he was ahead of Beckett. “Finished it a few days ago.” They’d been working on it as a way of puncturing the Blackout, but now it would be about so much more. Now it would be about organizing the fleet to respond to an invasion.

“You’ve had this for days, and you’re just telling me this now?”

“Well, it hasn’t exactly been tested thoroughly yet.”

“Tested? It either works or it doesn’t, and now’s the time to try,” Beckett insisted. The Vaadwuar were storming the gates, and the gadget man just wanted to play with his toys. “What else are you holding back, James?”

“I wouldn’t call it holding back, but me and the team, we have been toying with some ideas,” Neidlinger replied, somewhat annoyed by the characterization as he passed a PADD of his own to the intelligence chief. “They all come with a price tag though. There’s a reason we have such firm restrictions regarding their use.”

“Quantum Slipstream Drive,” Beckett began to read right from the top of the PADD. “Yes, that could work for some.” The conversion process for a modern ship was relatively straightforward so long as one had access to the requisite benamite crystals, and they did have some tucked away at strategic depots throughout Federation space.

“I worry about what it will do to our benamite reserves though,” Neidlinger noted. That had always been the limiting factor, why Starfleet had restricted the use of quantum slipstream, intent on saving it for a particularly rainy day.

“Those reserves won’t matter if there’s no one left to use them,” Beckett noted. Even based on what little had reached them through the Blackout, there was no doubt in his mind that this was exactly the rainy day for which they’d been saving those reserves.

“I suppose you’re right.”

Beckett looked back down at the PADD to see what else the engineering chief had cooked up. “Graviton catapults, huh?”

“Resource-intensive to build and limited to point-to-point travel only, but actually one of the more promising options,” Neidlinger offered. “An FTL mechanism that doesn’t rely on the subspace medium at all.” His team had already started constructing one to see if they could circumvent the Blackout boundary that surrounded them.

“Can’t fight a war only traveling point-to-point, but I suppose it’s something,” Beckett shrugged. Not as useful an idea, all things considered, but he’d take just about anything at this point. He kept scrolling. “Ah, soliton waves. Now that could have some potential.”

“Very dangerous though if you lose control of them,” Neidlinger warned. “We also have no idea how soliton waves will interact with the highly perturbed subspace medium of the Blackout.” It had been such interplay, even with normally-functioning subspace, that had almost destroyed Lemma II, prompting the fleet to heavily restrict future experiments. “I’d caution against it until we have a better understanding given their potential to destroy a ship or even a colony.”

“You know what is destroying ships and colonies right now?” Beckett asked as his eyes narrowed on Neidlinger. “The Vaadwaur.” The engineering chief was being too reserved in his thinking. They needed these solutions and more if they had any chance of repulsing the enemy.

For the engineering chief, it was only then that the reality of what was happening actually started to sink in. “This really is happening, huh?” Neidlinger asked.

Beckett nodded.

“Alright then,” Neidlinger agreed. “I’ll draw up the authorizations and have my team prep the relevant data briefs. When would you like to try the array to contact the fleet?”

“Now,” replied Beckett. There was not a minute to waste. The fate of the Federation, and possibly the galaxy itself, would depend on what they did from here.

IN PLAY

• The Vaadwaur invasion has begun, but information is sparse, and the Blackout still limits even what Fourth Fleet Command is aware of as it relates to the galaxy at large.
• This story introduces a mechanism, based on Project Pathfinder, by which Fourth Fleet Command may send one-way communications to the captains of the Fourth Fleet, appraising them of the situation and giving them orders. The degree to which such communications are successful for your command itself is at your discretion for your individual story.
• These communications may involve information about your mission’s AOR, drawn from the subspace sensor arrays that Fourth Fleet Engineering have used to pierce the Blackout. This information can mean your ships don’t have to be venturing into an AOR blind, but it can also be limited, hazy, or outright non-existent, depending on your story.
• For the duration of this Fleet Action, the restrictions the fleet has on various FTL technologies have been lifted (this is a “break glass” situation). A command may, for example, pick up benamite crystals from a strategic depot and retrofit their warp core to enable quantum slipstream, or they may leverage soliton waves, graviton catapults, etc. in order achieve the necessary mobility. The degree to which this is helpful for your command is up to you and what your story requires. For more information, see the FTL Technology wiki article.