“Another thrilling briefing ahead,” Mo’Lee-Krabreii remarked dryly as she dropped into her chair at the long conference table, her eyes fixed on the holographic display in the centre of the table, which was currently blank.  

The Odyssey’s observation lounge was bathed in the flickering glow of distant pulsars. Through the massive panoramic windows, the view was mesmerising and unsettling—dozens of neutron stars pulsed in rhythmic flashes, their intense radiation crackling along the squadron’s shields. Beyond them, barely newborn stars were forming in swirling clouds of cosmic dust, their light too weak yet to overpower the shadows of their older brothers and sisters.

“As hopeful as ever, Mo’Lee,” Horatio McCallister quipped, sliding into his chair across from her with a mug of tea already in one hand. 

“Always a pleasure, Horatio,” Krabreii crossed her arms, her fingers tapping impatiently against her sleeve. “However, this won’t be much of a briefing.”  

As Niro moved toward the replicator, the holographic displays along the walls flickered, momentarily disrupted by a pulse from one of the nearby neutron stars. The ship’s inertial dampeners compensated automatically, but an almost imperceptible vibration beneath their feet was a subtle reminder of the powerful forces surrounding them.

Niro picked up a freshly replicated coffee mug, the scent of roasted beans briefly cutting through the sterile air.

“Why not?” He asked, passing the mug to the Efrosian captain before sitting beside her.

“I can’t imagine there’s much to report,” Krabreii answered, thanking him for the hot beverage. “All our ships are now repaired, all our crews have been treated and are back on duty, just like the day before and the day before that.”  

“Not enjoying our stay, Mo’Lee?” Corella Banfield asked as she stepped into the briefing room and headed towards the replicator. Ordering a raktajino, the half-Klingon, half-human captain picked up her drink before turning to face her colleagues.  

“Sitting on our hands isn’t a real vacation, Corella,” Krabreii stated before picking up her mug. “Two months stuck in the same patch of space, barely moving a light year, let alone a metre. Our crews are going to become restless.”  

“James has a plan,” Horatio assured her, defending his brother, who wasn’t in the room at that point.  

“Does he?” Krabreii countered quickly. “All we’ve done is sit still.” 

Outside, a developing protostar flickered feebly against the darkness, its chaotic bursts of plasma barely reaching beyond its accretion disk. The Odyssey Squadron hung motionless in the void, caught between the violent flashes of the pulsars and the uncertain glow of the forming stars—stuck between extremes, neither moving forward nor retreating.

“Mo’Lee, all our ships were heavily damaged after Bennet flew us over ten thousand light years from our last known location,” Banfield reminded her. “It’s not as if we’ve just sat by and done nothing for almost two months.

A heavy pause settled over the table. Banfield shifted in her seat, slowly sipping her raktajino while Horatio drummed his fingers against the table’s surface.

The doors to the lounge hissed open, and for a brief second, the overhead lighting flickered as another pulsar emitted a powerful gamma-ray burst in the distance. The Odyssey’s deflectors absorbed the impact, but the ship’s automated systems chimed softly in response—just another reminder that, despite their stillness, they were surrounded by celestial chaos.

Cambil stepped in with her usual confident stride. “Morning, everyone,” she greeted, her voice carrying a forced brightness. “Everything okay?”

Banfield, who picked up her mug, held it close to her lips before addressing Cambil. “We’re just debating whether or not our current status will change?”

Cambil, who, like the others, had gone over to the replicator to get herself a mug of Bajoran Deka tea, turned to them all. “It will,” Cambil assured them. “I spoke with James last night, and he’s been working on our next steps.”

Krabreii exhaled sharply. “About time.”

A few moments later, the final captains arrived. Duncan, Reyas, and Patterson took their seats, and Duncan sighed before offering an apologetic glance around the table.

“Sorry I wasn’t around to greet you all earlier,” he admitted. “Had to deal with a personnel matter.” He exchanged a glance with Reyas, who arched an eyebrow. “Let’s just say some of our younger officers are getting restless. I had to remind a few ensigns that running a ‘zero-g wrestling match’ in Cargo Bay Two is not an appropriate way to pass the time.”

A few chuckles rippled around the table, but the underlying truth remained—being stationary for so long was wearing on the crews.

Before anyone could continue, the doors to the briefing room slid open with a soft hiss. Commodore McCallister strode in, flanked by Commander Gray, who was mid-sentence, gesturing animatedly.

“—what I’m saying, sir, is that the framework is already there,” Gray insisted, his tone betraying both frustration and certainty. “The transition would be seamless if we reinforce the structural integrity grids and recalibrate the phase variance to match each ship’s core output. We could have it operational across the squadron.”

McCallister exhaled through his nose, offering Gray a measured look. “I don’t doubt the math, Commander. But ‘on paper’ and ‘practical deployment’ are two very different things.”

Gray huffed, shaking his head before finally acknowledging the rest of the room. “Captains,” he greeted curtly, taking a seat near Banfield.

McCallister, meanwhile, took his place at the head of the table, scanning the room with a knowing smirk. “I see you all started without me. Should I be flattered or concerned?”

A round of chuckles lightly filled the air before McCallister started the briefing.

“I know we’ve been meeting almost every day since we got stranded here, and I know each of you and your crews are eager to get underway, but we’ve not been in any state to attempt to leave this area,” McCallister spoke with authority. “That was until last night when the final repairs to the Odyssey were complete. I want my thanks to be passed on to everyone for their hard work and effort. Moving forward, as you know, we’ve been trying to use our hyper-subspace communication arrays to send a message to Starfleet without much luck using the nearby pulsars. Commander Gray has an update on this for us.” He gestured for Gray to continue.

Gray sat up straight. The ex-B appeared as exhausted as every other engineer in the squadron, yet he displayed a sense of high energy as he picked up the briefing from the commodore. “Our messages are making their way across the galaxy, but they are being stopped from reaching Deep Space Nineteen.”

“Stopped by what?” Banfield questioned.

“We can’t tell at this range,” Gray answered. “Nevertheless, we can be confident our systems are working, and the fault is not at our end. We are now preparing to adjust the trajectory of our datastreams and point them towards the subspace relay near the Barzan wormhole’s entrance.”

“Are you hoping that Starbase Thirty-Eight will pick them up instead?” Reyas asked.

Gray nodded. “The wormhole should be opening in two days.”

“At least someone back home will know we’re alive,” Niro said, sharing the same relief everyone else was thinking.

“That’s the plan,” McCallister confirmed from his seat at the head of the table. However, we’re going to do more than that.” He pressed a button on the PADD he had brought and placed it on the table before him. It activated the holographic emitters within the briefing room table, showing an asteroid rotating slowly. “Three days ago, the Odyssey’s sensors detected an asteroid laced with benamite crystals.” 

“Benamite crystals?” Horatio echoed before turning to his brother and smirked. “Are you planning to do what I think you’re doing?”

“Quantum slipstream?” Cambil asked next.

McCallister nodded. “Yes. There are just enough crystals here to get us all back to Deep Space Nineteen.”

“Why all the way back to D-S-Nineteen?” Duncan asked. “Surely, if there’s enough, we could get ourselves to the Barzan Wormhole?”

“Time is against us here, Max,” McCallister answered. “By the time we retrofit the squadron and mine the crystals, the wormhole’s monthly cycle would have been gone, and we would be waiting another month or so.”

“And we can’t wait another month,” Gray replied. He pressed a button on his PADD and changed the hologram to show a status report of the fleet from two months ago. As it played, he spoke about the slow time it took to repair every ship. “Due to the amount of damage we all sustained, our supplies are now low, and we are dipping into our reserves.”

“So we really don’t have much choice?” Krabreii asked aloud. 

Cambil turned to McCallister, “Are there any other Starfleet ships this far out? I know we’re deep in the Nacene Reach, but there must be some others we can rely on. I thought the Constellation and her squadron were heading towards the Nekrit Expanse. We’re not that far from it.”

McCallister shrugged. “We’ve not detected them yet, but this cluster of pulsars is not only a good hiding spot for us but also difficult to scan beyond. If we do find Captain Taes and the others, then of course we would head towards them, but we are still far from them if they’ve made their way in this direction.”

“Commodore, are we giving up on trying to determine why Captain Bennet sent us all here?” Patterson asked after a brief lull. 

McCallister took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, Demi, I think we need to realise that whatever Bennet had in mind when he sent us here, we’ve not been able to find a single clue yet.”

“We’ve barely explored this region to see if we can find a clue,” Krabreii remarked dryly. “Zack didn’t send us out here for nothing.”

“If we weren’t so low on supplies, I would have no issue in us trying to work that out,” McCallister admitted. 

“Then, can I make a suggestion?” Cambil asked respectfully.

McCallister nodded.

Cambil picked up her own PADD and changed the holographic display; a map of the Nacene Reach appeared. Key locations appeared, including the former route that Voyager once took through it. “In twenty-three-seventy-two, Voyager made first contact with a warp-capable species, the Rakosans.”

“The Dreadnought missile incident?” Horatio asked for clarity.

Cambil nodded. “The exact one. Voyager’s chief engineer was able to stop a misguided Maquis-acquired Cardassian weapon from attacking the Rakosans. Though sceptical of Voyager, their First Minister welcomed the crew as heroes after the missile was destroyed and agreed to a trade deal with the ship afterwards. Voyager was able to resupply significantly before they went on their way.”

“Are you suggesting we make contact with them again, Bexa?” Reyas asked.

“I am,” Cambil confirmed. “The Delta Exploration Initiative has contacted them once before, and they’ve not turned away any exchanges. We could send one of our ships to get in touch and see if they would help us.”

McCallister considered the idea for a moment. He rubbed his chin before looking at Gray. “Reuben, how long would it take to mine the crystals and build the new drives?”

With confidence and without flinching, Gray answered his superior immediately. “At least a week, sir. And that’s just to refit the squadron. The Bellerophon will need heavy modifications. A ship could reach Rakosa and return before we’re even done mining.”

Horatio exhaled sharply. “They shouldn’t go alone. We’re too close to Kazon and Vidiian space.”

Banfield crossed her arms. “Agreed. The last thing we need is the Kazon reverse-engineering our technology—or the Vidiians harvesting our organs.”

McCallister couldn’t deny Banfield’s point. “Bexa, Horatio, you’ll take the Themis and Constitution to make contact with the Rakosan government. Bring back any supplies you can get your hands on.”

Cambil and Horatio both nodded at their orders. 

McCallister met everyone’s gazes, his voice steady. “I know that I should give some motivational speech at this point, but I can’t think of the right words. We focus on getting home. That’s our priority. While we work on the drive, we can continue to figure out why Zack brought us here.”

Patterson straightened, a flicker of some hope in her eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed,” McCallister ordered.