Is this the Road to Recovery?
Posted on Wed Jan 21st, 2026 @ 7:20pm by Commander Daynah Ral & Commander Rhupert Tyree & Ensign Nyx Calder
1,958 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Avan's Colony
Location: Avan's Colony, Quatral Prime
Timeline: After Postmortum
The low hum of electronics filled the air, but without the comforting vibration of engines or thrusters. The SS Adelaide was parked neatly on the colony’s small landing grid, tucked under the atmospheric shield like a well-behaved shuttle in time-out. Systems were dialled down to the essentials: minimal power, sensors ticking over, comms listening in case the universe sneezed.
Nyx sprawled at the helm anyway, like the ship might suddenly decide to take off without her.
The view out the forward ports was all landing pad and faint shimmer of the shield, no stars, no motion — just stillness. Too much stillness.
Her fingers started tapping.
First a lazy rhythm on the side of the console. Then a roll across the LCARS strip. Then both hands, palms and fingertips drumming out a full beat pattern on the helm like it was a percussion kit instead of flight controls.
Tap-tap. Pa-pa-tap. Tap-tap-tap-thump.
She let her head loll to one side, blue-green eyes half-lidded as she stared at a status display that hadn’t changed in ten minutes.
“We are officially a very expensive lawn ornament,” she muttered. “If I sit here any longer, I’m gonna start naming the dust on the landing pad.”
Another drum fill on the console.
“Hang in there, girl,” she told the Adelaide under her breath, patting the panel. “Soon as they give us the word, we’re dancing again.”
A telltale began flashing on Nyx's console, which opened to reveal Adelaide's security sensors. A knot of colonists were making their way toward the freighter.
Nyx’s fingers were mid–drum roll when the telltale flashed.
She froze, then slowly wiggled her fingers above the console like she’d summoned something.
“Well, that was fast,” she muttered. “Ask the universe for fun, get a crowd.”
She brought up the security feed, eyes narrowing as the image resolved into a knot of colonists heading straight for the ship. She zoomed in, checking faces, posture, anything that screamed pitchforks and torches instead of neighbourly visit.
“Okay, nobody’s on fire, that’s a start,” she murmured. “But that is not a ‘hey, can we borrow a cup of sugar’ formation.”
Her hand went to her combadge.
“Voss to Rix,” she said, tone light but clipped around the edges. “Got a group of colonists heading for the Adelaide’s front door. Looks organised, not panicked. Want me to stay pretty and watch, or start locking things down?”
Daynah was not about to have a mass of scared colonists rush aboard the ship. She tapped her commbadge. "This is Rix put the ship on secure lockdown until you hear from the Captain or myself. Out."
Nyx blinked at the abrupt sign-off, staring at her combadge for half a second before snorting softly.
“Wow,” she murmured, already moving to comply as her fingers danced over the controls. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the symbiont this morning.”
She initiated the lockdown with practised ease, hatches sealing and internal sensors shifting modes. As the confirmation chime sounded, she glanced back at the security feed, lips quirking.
Outside, several of the Colonists had positioned themselves at Adelaide's personnel hatch and two of them were busy, starting to work a panel loose to get at the emergency access.
Nyx watched the panel give another unhappy creak and sighed, rubbing her forehead with two fingers.
“Wow,” she said to the empty bridge, “guess manners really are a lost art.”
She slid out of the helm seat and keyed the internal security controls, reinforcing the hatch seals until the metal frame hummed in protest. Then she patched the external audio straight to the personnel hatch and leaned casually against the console, like she was about to address a rowdy bar.
“Hi,” Nyx said brightly, voice carrying through the hull. “Just so we’re all clear, this ship is currently closed for walk-ins, inspections, spiritual guidance, and whatever DIY project you’re doing to my door.”
She tilted her head, listening to the muffled sounds outside, smile sharpening.
“Now. You can step back, take a breath, and we can talk like reasonable people… or you can keep yanking on that panel and I promise the ship will win.”
A beat. Then, cheerfully:
“Your move.”
"We want off this rock. Open up and we won't get creative with you and your ship," an encounter-suited individual ground out through the comm's." As the figure spoke, docking tractors lanced out from the landing grid and secured the Adelaide. "We can easily turn those beams to pull your ship apart. Cause, well...we're dying anyway."
Nyx snorted, leaning closer to the console like she was gossiping with it.
“Okay, hold up. Time out.” She tapped the mic with one finger. “You just said you’re dying anyway. Which means ripping my ship apart to take a joyride through space feels a little… inefficient? Like stealing an ambulance to get away from a paper cut.”
She tilted her head, eyes flicking over the tractor readouts. “And don’t get me wrong, I respect commitment. Truly. But if you’re already at the ‘welp, we’re doomed’ stage, why add explosions? Explosions make everything worse. Trust me, I’ve tested that theory.”
A beat. Then, softer but still sharp.
“So let’s rewind before someone gets squished. You don’t actually want off the rock. You want something you think I’ve got. Medicine, answers, leverage, a miracle in a crate.” A crooked grin crept in. “If you’re dying anyway, then you don’t need my ship — you need a reason this doesn’t end ugly. So start making sense.”
"You ever get tired of everyone having it in for you and you're powerless to do ANYTHING about it. This is about doing SOMETHING to take back a little power for us." Then the voice, was it male or female...probably male, rasped, "Power. Heh. Right now we just want to live. So open up the ship. Get us OFF this hell hole and drop us at an unaffiliated port. You staying locked away in your ship, playing god on who lives and dies? No. Better we all die here then."
Nyx’s grin held steady as the colonist finished talking, all righteous fury and end-of-the-line desperation.
Behind her eyes, the bridge lit up with a priority ping.
>strong>INCOMING: COMMANDER RAL
REQUESTING IMMEDIATE TRANSPORT
Nyx didn’t look at it right away. That was the trick. If you looked too fast, it meant something mattered.
She kept her gaze on the security feed instead, thumb idly tapping the console like she was bored at a party she absolutely was not enjoying.
'Okay, she thought. That’s the XO stuck planetside. Cool cool cool. Love that for us.'
She flicked the message open with a lazy swipe.
No lockout codes. No scramble. Just one ugly line of status data underneath:
TRANSPORTER INTERFERENCE: LOCALIZED. SURFACE-SIDE.
Nyx’s smile widened a fraction.
“Ohhh,” she murmured to herself. “You sneaky little rock.”
She glanced back at the colonists crowding her hatch, tractor beams latched on like angry leeches, and leaned into the mic again, voice bright enough to be irritating.
“Okay, listen,” she said, sing-song and sharp. “I hear you. I really do. Powerless, angry, dying, want off the planet — very relatable vibe. Ten outta ten for emotional honesty.”
She rocked back on her heels, eyes flicking to the environmental schematic of the landing grid.
“But here’s the thing,” Nyx continued. “You cracking my door open? That doesn’t get you freedom. That gets you a very awkward conversation with internal security and maybe a headache you don’t remember earning.”
Her fingers danced across the console now, quick and light. She rerouted power from secondary life support — just a breath of it — into the grid’s atmospheric shield emitters, then twisted the phase variance like she was tuning a busted instrument.
Transporters didn’t like unstable harmonics.
They hated sudden ones.
“See, I’ve already had a long day,” she went on, cheerfully. “And I am not in the mood to play ‘who gets to live’ with a bunch of people holding my ship hostage. That’s above my pay grade and frankly terrible for my skin.”
The transporter console chimed — once, then again — as Nyx manually slaved it to the ship instead of the colony’s grid, riding the interference instead of fighting it.
She grinned.
“There we go. That’s the sweet spot.”
She keyed the mic again, tone dropping just a notch. Not threatening. Not kind. Honest.
“So here’s what’s gonna happen. You step away from my hatch. You let go of the tractor beams. And nobody has to find out what happens when I get creative with environmental controls.”
A beat.
“Because trust me,” Nyx added lightly, eyes glittering, “I’ve been holding back. And I am very good at improvising.”
Behind her, the transporter pad powered up — unstable, ugly, but working just long enough.
“Last chance,” she said sweetly. “Make a good choice. I’m rooting for you.”
Within the stable (if thin) atmospheric dome that covered the colonies landing grid and primary docking area, the shield sparked as the Adelaide's transporters twitched the area's gravity. Two of the shield projectors sparked and blew spectacularly at the overload, The remaining three projectors stuttered as they attempted to compensate, but not before dumping most of the atmosphere it had been holding in.
A klaxon began sounding over the landing area and within the colony itself and the colonists attempting to break in all scattered, running for the shelter of the colony proper, leaving tools behind, even as they're taxed bodies tried to function on very much reduced (if poisoned) air.
Most of them even made it to shelter.
Two bodies however, abandoned by their fellow colonists, twitched as they asphyxiated crumbled to the deck.
Thirty seconds later, the beam halyards holding the Adelaide in place stuttered and flashed out as well, freeing the freighter. Over the comm, a panicky voice said, "Fine fine. Kill us yourself. Two shield generators are offline and the atmospheric plant just red lined."
Nyx stared at the feed for a long second after the tractors dropped, the Adelaide’s systems humming back into a comfortable, movable kind of silence.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay, good. We’re free. Love that.” She exhaled, shoulders loosening as her fingers skimmed the helm, steadying the ship like it might bolt if she blinked.
Her eyes flicked back to the landing grid. The bodies. The alarms. The mess she’d made.
The grin didn’t come back this time.
“…I didn’t want that,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. Not regret exactly. Just a line drawn, acknowledged. She swallowed once, jaw tightening. “I warned you. I really warned you.” A beat. Softer. “You don’t get to force my hand and then act surprised when it hurts.”
Nyx straightened in the chair, already moving on because that’s how you survive moments like this. Care too long and you crack. Care too little and you turn into something else entirely.
She tapped her console, bringing systems fully online. “Adelaide,” she murmured, hand resting on the panel. “Let’s go.”
Then, under her breath, like a confession she’d never repeat:
“I hope the rest of you make it.”
END
A Joint Post by:
The colonists of Avan's colony,
written by GM/Tyree
Ensign Nyx Calder
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Valiant, on board SS Adelaide
Commander Daynah Ral
Executive Officer/Science Officer
USS Valiant on board SS Adelaide
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