Even A Captain, Can Feel.

Posted on Mon Jan 19th, 2026 @ 12:16am by Commodore Lucian Marshall

1,010 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Hand That Rocks The Babe
Location: Bridge, U.S.S. Dreadnought
Timeline: En Route to Velis III

The stars stretched into pale lines as the U.S.S. Dreadnought surged through warp, her massive frame humming with restrained power. From the command chair, Commodore Lucian Marshall sat rigid, hands resting on the armrests though he scarcely felt them. The bridge lighting was dimmed for cruise, casting long reflections across the forward viewscreen where Velis 3 pulsed as a distant marker. A world in crisis. A world running out of time.

“Time to arrival,” he asked quietly.

“Thirty six hours at current warp, Commodore,” the helmsman replied.

Too long, Marshall thought.

The medical brief hovered at the edge of his vision on the armrest display. A fast-mutating pathogen. Airborne. Highly contagious. Already overwhelming the planetary hospitals. Starfleet Medical had used the word cascade, the clinical term for when containment was no longer possible. Millions at risk if aid did not arrive soon. Billions more if the wrong decision was made.

He leaned forward slightly, eyes never leaving the stars.

One wrong move and the Dreadnought herself could become a vector.

Quarantine protocols were already drafted. Transporter biofilters pushed beyond standard tolerances. Shuttle operations suspended unless absolutely necessary. Even so, Marshall knew how thin the margin truly was. History was littered with captains who meant to save lives and instead carried disaster with them into the void.

He tapped his badge. "Doctor Thomas, have your team run the simulations again. I want worst case projections, not optimistic ones.” The bridge returned to its steady rhythm, quiet voices and subdued consoles, but the weight pressing on Marshall’s chest did not lift. None of those decisions he'd faced before had frightened him the way this did.

Phasers could be powered down. Shields could be raised. An enemy could be negotiated with or fought.

A virus cared for none of that.

He stood and moved closer to the viewscreen, clasping his hands behind his back as the warp field shimmered ahead.

“We’re coming as fast as we can,” he murmured, more to himself than to the crew. “Just hold on a little longer.”

Behind him, the Dreadnought thundered onward through the stars, carrying hope in one hand and catastrophe in the other, while her captain walked the narrow line between salvation and ruin. An engagement ring glinted unbidden in his mind. The quiet smile. The laughter that had cut clean through years of war rooms and casualty reports. He had promised stability. A home. Shore leave measured in months instead of hours.

And instead, Starfleet had handed him the Dreadnought.

Command of one of the most powerful vessels in the fleet was supposed to be an honor. It was, on paper. In practice it meant reassignment without negotiation, orders delivered with sympathetic eyes and words like necessity with an undercurrent of pity. It meant telling his fiancée that their planned posting together would have to wait. That her research would need to be relocated. That once again, duty would dictate the shape of their lives.

He had watched her pack without complaint.

That, more than anger, had stayed with him.

He had dragged her off a world she loved because Starfleet needed him elsewhere. Because someone had to command the ship that other flag officers wanted and no one choice could be picked. Where risk was measured not in hull breaches or enemy fire, but in moral calculus and impossible odds.

A medical disaster vast enough to make admirals hesitate. A virus that did not care about shields or ranks or intent. A mission where arriving too late meant millions dead, but arriving recklessly could doom billions more.

He tightened his jaw. If he failed here, history would not remember his engagement, or the nights spent talking about a life that was put on pause. It would remember that a Starfleet commodore carried a plague to the stars. He wondered, not for the first time, whether Starfleet selected its commanders because they were strong… or because they were willing to sacrifice everything else.

A choice that would be far easier to make, without such a personal stake in the risks.

Preparation was only half the battle.

The Dreadnought could be sealed. He could lock down environmental systems, divide the ship into quarantined sections, turn her into a fortress against microscopic invasion. Starfleet engineering excelled at that kind of defense. Protocols could be written. Forcefields raised. Biofilters recalibrated until they screamed in protest.

But the galaxy beyond his hull was not so easily controlled.

Other ships would come.

Civilian freighters answering distress calls. Independent medical transports convinced they could help. Starfleet captains with good intentions and less caution. All it would take was one unshielded shuttle, one transporter cycle, one panicked evacuation—and the virus would no longer belong to Velis 3.

It would belong to the stars.

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

He could not allow that.

He envisioned the perimeter already forming in his mind: long-range sensor buoys seeded across orbital approaches, broadcasting automated warnings. A quarantine cordon enforced not by fear, but by authority. He would request temporary sector control from Starfleet Command and pray bureaucracy moved faster than disease.

If it did not, he would still hold the line.

He would order ships away. Civilian captains first, gently but firmly. Starfleet vessels next, with orders backed by his rank and the Dreadnought’s unmistakable silhouette hanging in their tactical displays.

And if someone tried to force their way through.....

Lucian did not finish the thought.

The Dreadnought was not merely a responder. She was a statement. A wall drawn across space itself.

Better one world suffer alone for a time than watch countless others fall.

The realization sat heavy in his chest. Starfleet taught exploration, cooperation, compassion, but moments like this revealed the unspoken truth behind the ideals.

Sometimes protecting the many meant isolating the few.

Lucian inhaled, steadying himself as the plan crystallized. Full readiness aboard ship. Absolute containment around the planet. No departures. No unscheduled arrivals. No exceptions made under pressure or sympathy.

If hope was to survive this crisis, it would have to be carefully rationed.

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