Ensign Tress Trojet’s personal log, supplemental,

On our first day in the shuttlecraft, we clung to a small fragment of hope. Delivering our two patients to Caelum Station felt not only possible but entirely likely.

A tutor from the Trill Symbiosis Commission taught me mindfulness exercises to avoid losing myself in the memories I inherited from the Trojet symbiont. I used those same exercises to prevent myself from calculating the potential size of the blackout zone and the years it could take to reach normal space on only impulse power.

From my training at Starfleet Academy, I tried to remember the aphorism about how you can withstand anything for ten seconds. The incessant, piercing beeping of the biofunction monitor felt like it was stabbing into my brain in ten-second cycles. Even when I took a nap, that sound haunted my dreams.

Tress sipped at the Senarian egg broth in her mug one more time. She took fortitude from the warmth. From its peppery aftertaste, she took a hit of bravery.

“You can’t keep staring at their vital signs all night,” Tress said. Even though these were the first words she had said in over an hour, her voice projected the heft of determination and finality that only came at the end of a debate. Maybe the debate had only been in her mind, but the emotion it elicited was just as honest.

Savvithra Qelreth didn’t rise to the emotional bait. They had reclined their pilot’s seat to match the sleepy atmosphere in the cabin. The illumination had been reduced to twenty-five percent of normal, and the life support had made the cockpit toasty warm. Qelreth stayed reclined. Their gaze was locked on the overhead biofunction monitors. Even Qelreth’s Andorian antennae were pointed at the floating blobs of light that signified the vital signs of their patients in the aft.

Slowly and calmly, Qelreth said, “You don’t know the limits of my mental acuity.”

Tempering her response to match Qelreth’s controlled way of speaking, Tress retorted, “I know what dangerous paths obsession will lead you down.” –She sipped her soup again– “We’re not doctors. You’re not accountable for their survival. Responsible, maybe, but not accountable.”

“We agreed,” Qelreth said, adding a condescending edge to their measured tone, “You would watch the comms while I watch the patients’ vitals. Are you not holding up your end?”

Tress scoffed. “The computer will alert me–”

“I can’t afford distractions, Tress,” Qelreth said. Only then did they risk two seconds of eye contact with Tress before returning their attention to the medical monitor.

“C’mon, you’re being clever. Not wise,” Tress pleaded. “You’re the first to answer half the questions in every lab. You can afford to turn it down a little.”

Qelreth gently kicked the platform underneath Tress’s chair.

“Please don’t get metaphorical on me,” Qelreth said. “Are you talking about my inherent drive, or are you talking about the biofunction monitor?”

Melodically, Tress said, “I would only dream of asking you to turn down the volume setting of the latter.”

A lie, because she had been talking about both. To maintain the peace in such tight quarters, Tress doubled down on the lie by fawning, “I wouldn’t be motivated to study so hard if you weren’t swimming laps around me.”

“Mmm,” was all Qelreth vocalised at first. Tress could hardly hear it over the life support system pumping air through the cockpit. Judging by their facial expressions, Qelreth appeared to be at rest. Their brow wasn’t quite so furrowed. They tapped at a side control panel, and the volume of the biofunction monitor was reduced by sixty percent.

Then, Qelreth asked, “Is this the end?”

At that question, Tress turned her head. A swell of nausea rose in her. She didn’t want to give Qelreth even a passing chance to see the fear in her eyes.

Worse than the fear of their current predicament, Tress feared that the vindication could be seen in her eyes. Tress locked her gaze out the side viewport.

“Do you mean the end of Starfleet’s new age of exploration?” Tress asked. She tried to sound breezy, but her voice cracked.

“Worse,” Qelreth said, and she sounded resigned. “The end of life as we know it.”

“Brilliant scientists have known this day would come for a long time,” Tress insisted.

Qelreth asked, “The blackout was predicted?  By psychics?”

“By scientists,” Tress stridently said. “The Federation only funds a fraction of research into what it deems fringe science. It only takes three-hundred-and-ninety-two Cochranes of subspace field distortion to cause damage to the outer layers of subspace when a warp field produces incompatible field differentials. Three-hundred-and-ninety-two.  But that’s fringe somehow.”

Qelreth scoffed.

“You say I have all the answers. But how do you know all that?”

Trojet’s personal log, supplemental,

I talk too much. Always have. Joining was supposed to fix that, I thought. Maybe someday I’ll shut up before someone hears the wrong thing.