One Year Earlier - A Sorry State of Affairs

Posted on Tue Feb 24th, 2026 @ 1:10pm by Captain Steven Jenkins

556 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: One Year Later…
Location: Captain's Ready Room, Yorktown
Timeline: T-24 Hours Until Frontier Day

Steven walked into the Captain's Ready Room. Captain Shrak was sat in his chair, looking at the monitor on his desk sternly.

"Understood, Admiral." Shrak nodded "I'll see what we can do. Shrak out."

There was a chirp as the comm. line he was on cut. He looked up at Steven and grimaced.

"Admiral Shelby says the nearest ship that isn't involved in Frontier Day is a week out." Shrak said grimly "Unless Lieutenant Chen can get the Warp Drive back online within 12 hours, we're going to miss the festivities."

Steven grimaced himself. Lieutenant Elena Chen was Yorktown's Chief Engineer, and while she was a borderline miracle worker, what she'd told him during his visit to Engineering wasn't galvanising.

"She estimates at least 24 hours to get us warp two." Steven responded "That's with round the clock work, everyone pulling doubles."

"What happened, Steve?" Shark asked.

"Near as we can tell, the virus we had uploaded wasn't totally purged. It caused a power surge and burned out half the power grid connecting to the warp drive." Steven said "Apparently, we're lucky we didn't receive a core breach."

"So the turbulence from the storm-" Shrak began

"Wasn't from the storm." Steven nodded "We were far enough away, just. The ionisation of the storm, however, engaged the virus again."

"And the status of it now?" Shrak asked.

"It was isolated and purged." Steven replied "That said, Lieutenant Chen advises that we isolate all vital systems before beginning work on the warp drive."

"Make it so." Shrak nodded "This is a sorry state of affairs, indeed."

It was an understatement. Morale would take a huge hit when the crew were informed that they'd miss the celebrations. Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom.

"Subspace comms are still functional." Steven noted "We can still broadcast the celebrations across the ship. Give all non-essential personnel leave for the day. Keep spirits up."

"Keep the troops happy. Spoken like a true Captain." Shrak half smirked "Do it.

"Yes Captain." Steven said, pausing "Permission to speak freely?"

"I thought you already were, number one." Shrak noted "Go ahead. You know we don't stand on ceremony in private."

"I know you weren't too happy with our return to Earth for Frontier Day." Steven said "Why are you so upset by missing it now?"

Shrak looked taken aback by his First Officer's question. Steven seldom asked personal questions like this, but then, given the circumstances, it wasn't to be unexpected.

"My opposition was never to attending the festivities. Quite the contrary; I was looking forward to seeing a number of old colleagues, and some of the speeches. It's just a shame Admiral Picard's was cancelled." Shrak responded "My opposition was to the new Fleet Formation mode and it's unveiling. I feel it needs more testing before being rolled out like this, but Starfleet Command wanted to take advantage of the pomp and circumstance of Frontier Day to unveil it before it's necessarily completed. I was an Engineer before I took Command, remember?"

"Yes sir." Steven nodded "I'd be lying if I said the Security Officer in me liked the idea of that degree of networking. Sounds a little too vulnerable."

"Too right you are, number one." Shrak replied "Now, you'd best head back onto the Bridge. I need to prepare to address the crew."

 

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