Between Throttle and Thought

Posted on Sun Oct 26th, 2025 @ 5:58am by Commander Steven Greco & Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Tollan Yara & Commander Calvin 'Cal' Maraj & Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris & Lieutenant Dezarac Talvon & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou & 1st Lieutenant Kes Th’relnal & Lieutenant JG Koaruh Avestro

2,910 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Year One: The Point of No Return
Location: Bridge, then Conference Room, USS Moore
Timeline: MD01 - 0855 hrs

The ready-room doors hissed open and Cal stepped out into the bridge glow, Betazed-blue replaced by the clean lights of Copernicus drifting past the viewscreen. The ship felt coiled and ready; you could hear it in the way people breathed.

He took the centre seat without breaking stride. “Helm—bring us off the pylons. Set course for Starbase Five-One-Four, best speed that won’t get us a love letter from Traffic Control.”

Stewart smirked as she took over the helm at Cal's assessment. "Aye sir, initiating de-docking procedure."

The Moore slipped out of it's bearings with ease. She cut through the various ships at the dry dock into open space with grace, a fluid transition from the chaos of the shipyards towards the edge, primed to leap back into the stars.

"Course for Starbase Five-One-Four laid in. Ready to engage warp engines on your order, Commander." Stewart announced confidently across the bridge.

“Ops, signal the Yards we’re departing. Keishara, keep our profile quiet—no drama, no headlines. If anyone so much as sneezes on our vector, I want to know before they inhale.”

“Acknowledged.” Keishara responded with a nod.

Cal tapped the arm of the chair once, then rose. His voice carried, warm and clipped all at once. “All senior staff to the conference room in five. That’s five. We’re wheels-up and talking while the paint’s still drying.”

He paused, eyes sweeping the bridge.

He let his gaze sweep the stations. “For the log: Science is presently without a department head. Ops, tag someone from the science department to come up. Intelligence billet is open; Security will act as liaison until Command sends a body. Keishara, coordinate with Ops and Medical on any sealed handling.”

“Understood.”

He let the bridge have a heartbeat of silence—the kind that tells a crew you trust them to fill it with competence.

“Alright, ladies and gents—let’s look sharp. Helm, engage.”

Stars tilted; Copernicus fell away like a slow exhale, and the Moore took the lane.

Cal turned for the aft doors, the faintest thread of Trinidad in his cadence as he called back over his shoulder: “Conference room in five—bring your brains and your best manners. We’re carrying something fragile, and I intend for us to keep our balance.”

The doors parted; he was already shifting into brief mode, the ship under his feet humming that old, familiar note that meant work worth doing.

Once Stewart settled the controls she handed them off to the relief Ensign and gave a curious look to Maraj and the rest of the group as she headed with them to the conference room. She found the notation in the log of shifting roles odd but knew well enough to keep quiet about it, especially on the bridge. Quietly, she took her seat in her usual spot and waited for further explanation.

One of Dashku's officers took over her station, it was a young officer who was relatively green but she'd taken a liking to him and he was receptive. The two of them had a quick, quiet exchange about some ship business before she left the Ops station and shuffled after Stewart into the briefing room. Considering there were only a couple of people in the briefing room, she stopped at the replicator and ordered a cup of black hot coffee and took her usual seat at the briefing table.

Greco silently followed the senior staff, bringing up the rear of the group as it were as he followed them in. He knew Commander Maraj had gotten a transmission from Admiral T’Siran not long before he stepped onto the bridge. He folded his hands behind his back as he filed in, blowing out a heavy breath through his nose as he pondered over what the news was before he took his normal seat near the front of the table with quiet resolve.

Unlike ship staff, the marines didn't have much of a duty list while at dock aside from keeping their own area clean and reporting any issues. That meant they thought they had free time. Kes allowed it for the most part. Everyone could sense the tension around them and if he pressed them too hard they'd snap. So he'd allowed their fun as long as training and drills were done. He was happy there had only been one minor scuffle over a game of cards. Nothing that had even got him brought in front of the Commander.

Now, Kes walked into the briefing room, standing tall and proud with his jaw locked and tense. His antenna waved around as he entered the briefing room before settling forward and moving with his eyes to scan over the other senior officers. He took a seat part way back along the table and clasped his hands in front of him as he waited for the briefing to begin.

Lt. Talvon approached the open Briefing Room door. Pausing, he examined the room tentatively. He had barely been on the Moore a day and was already being summoned for a mission briefing. Taking a moment, he could feel eyes on him. Whose eyes, he couldn’t say—everyone was a stranger. This should be fun, he thought, taking long strides into the room and claiming an empty seat.

Koaruh slipped in with the early wave, a steaming mug cradled in one hand and a slim PADD in the other. He took a seat midway down the table where he could see faces, not just rank pins, and let the room’s temperature settle through him: Greco’s contained resolve, Kes’s keyed-up readiness, Stewart’s curious restraint, Keishara’s taut stillness—and under it all, Cal’s calm wrapped around something sharper.

He didn’t speak over the silence Cal was building. He just set his mug down, flicked his PADD to a blank notepad, and met the captain’s eye with a small, steady nod that said he was reading the room and ready to help hold it together.

Keishara slipped into the briefing room just behind the others, the soft hiss of the doors sealing behind her. She moved without hurry but with purpose, taking her usual seat near the top of the table — opposite Greco, close enough to read the captain’s expression without needing to look directly at him.

The hum of the warp field still thrummed faintly through the deck, but the energy in the room was heavier, taut. She could feel it — the unspoken tension that sat just beneath the surface, threading through each person in their own way. Unease. Curiosity. A touch of fatigue.

Then there was Cal.

His emotional weight stood out against the rest — calm on the outside, but shadowed underneath, a slow pull of anticipation and something sharper. Worry, maybe. Resolve. She couldn’t tell yet, but it pressed faintly at the edge of her awareness like the ghost of a headache.

Kei sat back slightly, folding her arms as her eyes lifted to the man at the head of the table. She said nothing. Whatever this was, it wasn’t the kind of meeting where you filled the silence — it was the kind you let breathe until the truth broke it.

Her dark eyes swept the room once before quickly taking an empty seat near the end of the table. She inclined her head politely to Commander Maraj, then folded her hands on the tabletop.

Cal took the head of the table and let the room settle around him. Faces he trusted, each for a different reason: Greco’s spine when the room needed a straight line; Keishara’s eyes that could read a crowd three moves ahead; Stewart’s hands that made hard flying look easy; Kes’s steel, quiet until it needed to ring; Koaruh’s knack for catching the crack before it became a fault. A good crew. His crew.

He pulled the chair in, laid a palm on the tabletop. “Alright,” he said, voice easy, the island lilt just at the edges, “let’s get to work.”

His gaze slid down the table to the unfamiliar face. “First—welcome aboard, Lieutenant Talvon. You’ve joined us at a sprint. We’ll give you the tour en route to Starbase Five-One-Four.” A small nod, warm but business-like. “For now, assume full charge of Engineering. If something rattles that shouldn’t, I want to hear it from you before I hear it from the deck plates.”

He looked back to the room. “The rest of you—thank you for the clean launch. We’ve got a delicate one on our hands. I’ll walk you through it.” He tapped the PADD once, then met their eyes, one by one. “Questions at the end. For now, listen close.”

Cal set the PADD down, fingers resting on it like a paperweight.

“Here’s why we’re in this room,” he began, voice steady, warm at the edges. “Starfleet has tasked the Moore to proceed to Starbase Five-One-Four, take custody of Commodore Anjar Tevon, and deliver her to Starbase Twelve for court-martial. It’s a high-visibility transfer whether the press see it or not. Eyes are on us from a dozen angles. We keep it quiet, clean, and by the book.”

He let that sit a beat. “Context some of you may already know: Anjar diverted relief to starving Federation worlds at the detriment of Romulan refugees. The Council is split. Some call it conscience, some call it betrayal. We don’t get a vote. Our job is safe, dignified transport. No headlines with our name on them.”

“Departmental roles are as follows,” he continued, cadence tightening. “Security—Keishara, you own custody protocol and movement routes. No parade, no spectacle. Ops manages comms discipline and external coordination with 514 and 12; if it isn’t mission traffic, it waits. Helm/Conn keep our profile dull as dishwater—predictable lanes, nothing fancy. Medical—Tollan, have a discreet exam package ready at embark; we treat a flag officer with the same calm we treat a crewman. Marines—Kes, standby as a quiet backstop, not a show of force. Science is headless; Ops will tap Acting Science for any sensor overlays we need. Intelligence billet is also vacant; Security serves as liaison for any sealed handling.”

He glanced around the table. “Inside this ship we speak to one another with respect. Outside this ship we say nothing we wouldn’t want transcribed. No stray comms, no corridor commentary. If you’re asked for an opinion, you direct it to me or Commander Greco. If something feels off—timelines, escorts, visitors—you flag it early.”

He let a hint of the islands creep into the last line. “We take her aboard properly, we carry her safely, and we hand her over exactly as we found her. That’s the mission, now for questions.”

"The mission makes sense. The Moore is a fine ship, but why us?" Dashku arched one of her brows as she considered her question carefully. "We're an attack cruiser with a new Captain and a crew that's still getting to know each other. This seems a little too high profile for what we are."

Cal met her look, the corner of his mouth ticking. “Because we’re fast, clean, and not married to anyone’s politics,” he said. “Command wants quiet competence, not a parade. And the admiral who handed this down—T’Siran—I’ve worked with her before. She knows how I run a ship and she trusts me to keep it tidy. By proxy, that’s a bet on all of you.” He tipped his chin. "We’re a new mix, sure—but we’ve kept our nose down, our drills tight, and our record boring in all the right ways.”

He leaned in a fraction, tone easy but firm. “An escort that can move quick, hold its own if pushed, and won’t leak a headline? That’s us.” A faint, wry smile. “And if anyone tries to make it high profile, they’ll find we’re very good at being uninteresting.”

He nodded to her console. “We’ll make it look simple because we’ve done the hard thinking first. That’s why us.”

Despite the way the hair was standing up on the back of her neck, she liked Cal. His sense of order was something she could appreciate. She wasn't sure yet if he was playing the dutiful captain and keeping his cards close to his chest or he was naive, but either way she didn't like it. Her mother showing up unannounced was a surprise, this was something else, more like foreboding.

None of this, however, played out in her emotional state or her face. She remained the calm, cool Chief of Ops she'd been since stepping aboard the ship. "Understood, sir."

Stewart shifted in her seat, glancing at the senior staff before looking at Cal. “It’s all over the FNN. Her arrest is causing a lot of controversy both within Starfleet and amongst the Federation. I can’t say I blame them. It feels wrong court-martial an officer for feeding Federation citizens.” She said, speaking what no doubt more than one officer at least thought in the room.

Greco looked at her steady. “She violated orders, Lieutenant. It’s not our place to question allocations like this. The second we undermine orders, everything falls apart and we are no longer Starfleet.” His voice was a trace firmer than perhaps necessary but the situation was tense on its own. He didn’t need his senior staff start spreading dissent.

Keishara’s gaze had stayed fixed on the PADD before her through most of the briefing — expression neutral, posture composed — but the subtle shift in temperature between Stewart’s words and Greco’s reply rippled through the room like static. She didn’t have to be Betazoid to feel it.

Her fingers tapped once against the edge of the table before she spoke, her voice measured but carrying that soft edge of conviction that made people listen without quite realising why.

“With respect, Commander,” she began evenly, eyes lifting to Greco, “orders are the spine of Starfleet — but they’re not its heart. We’re not transport drones following a script; we’re people carrying another officer who made a choice between two evils. Right or wrong, that choice deserves to be recognised for what it is.”

She shifted her attention back to Cal, tone cooling again into something more practical. “We’ll do this by the book. But…” her gaze flicked to the others around the table, “we’d be blind not to acknowledge what it means. If Command’s made a symbol out of her, we’ll be the ones carrying that weight. The crew will feel it, and they’ll talk, even if they shouldn’t.”

A small pause — a slow, deliberate breath. “I’ll make sure they keep discipline. But I won’t tell them not to feel something about it.”

Then, quieter, the faintest trace of dry irony tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Even for Starfleet, conscience isn’t always convenient.”

Stewart glanced at Greco, not able to help herself. “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept, Commander.” She said coolly to make her point that this situation wasn’t so cut and dry and Starfleet maybe a bit heavy handed.

Steve’s eyes snapped to the pilot’s. His jaw twitched with the effort to restrain himself. The last person who had the right to lecture him about ethics and duty was Stewart.

"It has always amazed me the hoops Starfleet will jump through to try and convince itself it's not a military force, and then you'll make an example out of an officer for not following orders." Kes sighed. "The Imperial Guard wouldn't have given such an order in the first place, and even if an officer did something heinous enough to be removed from a command... we don't pretend we're not a military force."

The burly Andorian wrapped his knuckled on the table. "But our orders are to walk quietly with a big stick, we can do that easily enough sir."

Cal let the room settle, then spoke plain.

“Alright—I hear you. Orders matter. So does what this means to people. Anjar made a hard call; some of you see the mercy, some the harm. Both can be true. Our part is simple: we move her with respect and we don’t turn this ship into a debate hall.”

A breath; a hint of the islands softened his tone. “Feel how you feel—just don’t spill it on the decks. If something’s eating at you, bring it to me in private.”

A small nod. “You know your jobs. Do them well, do them quietly. Any mission-critical questions—ask them now. Otherwise, we'll adjourn here.”

Dez glanced around the room, gauging the temperature the best he could. He was new, coming in on something that already threatened to be divisive. It made no difference to him. His job was to keep the engines running, not debate politics. They needed to be somewhere and fast—that he could do. This conjecture on orders—right vs. wrong—he’d happily leave that to others to decide. He nodded his affirmation, ready to get to what he knew.

 

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