Space: The Next Step To Seclusion

Posted on Sun May 17th, 2026 @ 1:35pm by Commander Anastasia Aventnova

712 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Hand That Rocks The Babe
Location: Bridge: USS Agincourt

"Maneuvering thrusters ten percent." Anastasia snapped out from the Captain's chair of the Defiant-class escort vessel USS Agincourt as the launch doors opened in front of them. She had been banished from Dreadnought, she knew, in the guise of being given the task of making sure that no one tried to leave the planet to infect the rest of the galaxy with... Whatever this was.

"Ten percent, aye, ma'am." The helmsman repeated, attentive to his duty, the ship on automatic to ensure that it didn't clip the hull of the ship, "We're clear, Commander. Warspite is following suit."

"Excellent." Ana leaned back in the chair as she watched the viewscreen of Dreadnought being left behind them. This wasn't a short-term mission she'd been put on, the two Defiants were going to be out here for the duration, which wouldn't be a problem even though the small ships weren't designed for extended duration deployments. If needed, they could re-dock for replenishment or repairs. "Set course for the far side of the planet, quarter impulse."

It would take a few minutes for the two ships to reach the directed location and she pulled up the map on her own console. Their first task was going to be setting up a new constellation of satellites, in this case probes that would keep an eye on any traffic in the area as well as being beacons warning all approaching ships to turn around. Commander Beaulieu was going to be arranging around-the-clock patrols by the fighters for close-in sweeps while Anastasia would be taking a deeper space intervention position.

No ships would be allowed out, that was a given, not even a shuttle because this illness was far too dangerous. If it got out into the galaxy, who knew what would happen, who it would infect. Her orders were to do whatever it took, up to and including deadly force. She really hoped it didn't come to that, but the gravity of the situation was just that and she would do her duty, no matter how hard it was to do.

Warspite began to drift away from Agincourt and Ana reminded herself who was in command over there, a Lieutenant Commander with thirty years in the service, who had started off resentful of Ana's own accession to the Executive Officers position, but she'd won him over a fair bit, able to show him that she actually did know what she was doing despite looking like his daughter. He'd do his duty, too, he'd been confident about the mission just as she was.

Ana pressed a button on her armrest, "Agincourt to Warspite, begin deploying the sensor net as soon as you're on station. We anticipate beginning deployment within five minutes."

"Copy, Agincourt." The comm clicked off.

Then it was just a waiting game, that was the curse of being in command of a ship, it was constant periods of waiting for something to happen, followed by brief and usually terrifying seconds or minutes of action in turn followed by more waiting. For a half moment, Anastasia wondered why she ever wanted it in the first place.

But then her thoughts drifted to elsewhere, to the men and women about to go into harms way down on the surface. Would Cassian be going down to help set things up? Would Selene be on one of the away teams to provide her own kind of health support? A shudder wracked her shoulders as those thoughts ran through her mind and she nearly commed them to order them to remain no board Dreadnought, but couldn't bring herself to do it. They too were Starfleet officers, there to do their duty.

A voice echoed through her ears, but she ignored it as it repeated again, then once more in a different variation, "Ma'am? Commander Aventnova? Commander? Ma'am?" The voice was eerily familiar, was it Selene's?

She shook her head sharply and glanced around, the worried face of the Operations officer at her station meeting her eyes. There, that was the voice, "Sorry, mind wandering." She said mildly, then noted the chrono, "Go ahead and deploy the sensor net." Right. She had to focus, had to put everything away but the here and now.

There would always be time later to worry.

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