Posted by Lieutenant Conner Reid (Chief of Security) in Side Sim: Alone in a Memory . . .

Posted by Lieutenant Conner Reid (Chief of Security) in Side Sim: Alone in a Memory . . .
In his cabin on the Chimera, Security Chief Conner Reid tossed and turned in the middle of a fitful dream . . .

Ens. Reid had conducted a number of interrogations in his short Starfleet career. He knew the rhythms: denial, deflection, bravado, then the slow erosion of certainty. The brig aboard the USS Invictus smelled faintly of disinfectant and recycled air, just like every other starship brig he’d ever been on.

The prisoner sitting across from him did not fit the pattern.

She was human—or at least genetically human—mid-forties, average build, calm to the point of unsettling. Her name, according to the manifest, was Winnifred Blake, civilian contractor. Arrested after being found alone in a restricted sensor control room, with encryption codes no civilian should possess.

“Computer begin interrogation. Ensign Conner Reid, Starfleet Security. Prisoner is Winnifred Blake.”

Blake smiled faintly. “You won’t need to record for very long.”

“That’s not your decision,” Conner said, folding his hands on the table. “Let’s start simple. How did you access Level-Ten encryption?”

“I didn’t access it,” Blake replied. “I recognized it.”

Conner tilted his head. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one.”

He tried another angle. “You were in a room that monitors subspace fluctuations along the Delphic Expanse. That corridor is classified due to recent disappearances. What were you looking for?”

Blake’s smile faded. “Proof.”

“Of what?”

“That Starfleet is lying to itself.”

Conner felt a tightening in his chest—the sensation that came when an interrogation veered off script. “Careful, Ms. Blake. If you’re going to make accusations, You best have something to back it up.”

“That’s why I was there,” she said evenly. “Because the sensors show something you’re not supposed to see.”

Conner leaned back. “Which is?”

Blake met his eyes for the first time. “That the ships aren’t disappearing. They’re being redirected.”

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the hum of the forcefield. Conner’s combadge chirped softly—an incoming update he ignored.

“You’re suggesting a conspiracy?” he asked. “By whom?”

Blake’s voice dropped. “By Starfleet Command. Or something wearing its uniform.”

Conner stood and laughed. “Computer, pause Interrogation. You’re done talking. Computer stop recording” he ordered and turned to leave.

“Ensign,” Blake said, not raising her voice. “Your brother’s ship—the USS Horizon—vanished in the Expanse three years ago. The ship was declared MIA. No wreck. No debris. No subspace shockwave.”

Conner froze in his steps.

“That information isn’t public,” he said slowly.

Blake nodded. “I know. Because I was on the other side when it arrived.”

Conner spun back, phaser drawn. “The other side?”

Blake added. “Your sensors already know the answer. You just haven’t been allowed to ask the right questions.”

His combadge chirped again, insistently this time. He tapped it without looking away from the prisoner.

=^=Reid here.=^=

The voice that answered was not one he recognized from the ship, but recognize it he did.
It was his brother’s.

“Conner,” it said, distorted but unmistakable. “If you’re hearing this…s he’s telling the truth.”

The forcefield flickered.

Red alert klaxons began to howl throughout the ship.

Blake stood as the field dropped completely. She didn’t run. She simply waited.

Conner lowered his phaser, his training colliding violently with hope he’d buried years ago.

“What are you?” he whispered.

Blake exhaled, something like relief crossing her face. “The one who made it back. And the reason they can’t let you keep me.”

Security teams were already shouting orders in the corridor. The deck vibrated as the Invictus altered course—without a command from the bridge.

Conner made a choice he would never be able to undo.

He stood there, confused.. “Computer—erase interrogation record.”

Then he stepped to Blake’s’s side.

“Let’s hear what the other side is about,” he said.

And for the first time in his career, Starfleet Security escorted a prisoner out of the brig—not as a captive, but as a witness to a truth big enough to tear the Federation in half.

Lieutenant Conner Reid
Chief of Security USS Chimera

The corridor outside the brig was chaos.

Red alert lights washed the duranium walls in pulsing crimson as armed security teams converged from both directions. Ens. Conner Reid felt the deck shudder again—Invictus was accelerating hard, far harder than standard red-alert maneuvering.

“Computer,” he said quietly as he walked, “who has command authorization?”

There was a fractional pause too long to be routine.

“Command authorization currently in effect: Level Omega–Black.”

Conner stopped.

Omega–Black did not exist. At least, not officially.

Blake noticed his hesitation. “That’s the failsafe. When someone figures it out, the ship stops belonging to its crew.”

Security rounded the corner—four officers, phasers raised.

“Ens. Reid!” their leader shouted. “Step away from the prisoner!”

Conner raised his hands slowly, positioning himself half a step in front of Blake. “Stand down. This detainee is now a protected intelligence asset.”

“That order didn’t come from the bridge,” the officer said.

“No,” Conner replied. “It came from me.”

Before anyone could react, the lights snapped out.

Emergency illumination kicked in, bathing the corridor in dull amber. The forcefields along the bulkheads rippled, then collapsed entirely. Somewhere deep in the ship, something shifted—not a sound so much as a pressure, like gravity briefly forgetting its job.

Blake closed her eyes. “They’ve opened the channel.”

The temperature dropped.

Conner felt it first in his teeth, then in his bones. His commbadge chirped again, unprompted.

=^=Conner,=^= his brother’s voice said, clearer now. =^=You don’t have much time.=^=

=^=Where are you?=^= he demanded.

=^=Not where,=^= he answered. =^=When.=^=

The security officers backed away, unease cutting through their training. One of them whispered, “Ensign… sensors are reading a second ship overlapping our hull.”

Blake opened her eyes. They reflected faint, impossible starlight. “The Expanse isn’t empty,” she said. “It’s layered. A fold in subspace where cause and effect don’t line up neatly. Ships fall through it and don’t get destroyed—they get paused.”

“Paused by what?” Conner asked.

=^=By us,=^= his brother’s voice replied. =^=By what we became.=^=

The corridor shimmered, and suddenly there was another ship there—half-phased through the bulkhead, its hull bearing a registry number Conner knew by heart.

USS Horizon.

It looked intact. Powered. Waiting.

Conner’s breath caught. =^=You’re alive.=^=

=^=Yes,=^= his brother said. =^=But not Starfleet anymore. We learned things out here. Things Command decided no one else could be allowed to learn.=^=

Blake stepped forward. “They built Omega–Black to seal the fold permanently. Collapse it. Kill everyone inside. Including the Horizon.”

“And you?” Conner asked her.

“I was sent back to make sure that didn’t happen,” Blake said. “Or to be erased if I failed.”

The deck jolted violently. Overhead, the computer intoned:

“Initiating Expanse Containment Protocol. Time to collapse: four minutes.”

Conner looked from the spectral image of his brother’s ship to the armed officers, to the woman who had walked into his brig as a prisoner.

He tapped his commbadge again. =^=Bridge, this is Ensign Reid. Countermand Omega–Black immediately.=^=

No response.

Blake leaned close. “They’ve locked you out. But you still have one advantage.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re security,” she said. “You know how systems fail.”

Conner’s jaw set.

He turned to the stunned security team. “You have a choice. Follow protocol—or follow me.”

For a moment, no one moved.

Then the officer who had challenged him earlier lowered his phaser.

“Tell us where to aim, Ensign.”

Conner allowed himself one tight smile.

As the USS Invictus began tearing itself apart to bury the truth forever, Conner Reid led his people straight toward the heart of Starfleet’s most dangerous secret—where the line between protector and traitor was about to disappear entirely.

Lieutenant Conner Reid
Chief of Security USS Chimera

Conner led them at a run.

They cut through Jefferies tubes and maintenance corridors the way only Security ever did—through the spaces never meant to be seen, where power conduits thrummed like exposed nerves. Behind them, bulkheads sealed and unsealed out of sequence as Omega–Black tried to shepherd them away from critical systems.

“Containment core is venting subspace energy,” one of the officers called out, reading a tricorder that was clearly lying to him. “Sensors don’t want to tell us where.”

“That’s because it isn’t here,” Blake said, ducking under a low beam. “The core is anchored to the fold. You’re standing inside its shadow.”

Conner skidded to a stop at a sealed hatch. “Computer, authorization Reid–Omicron–One-Three. Open.”

“Authorization denied.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Cut it.”

Two phasers fired in unison, carving a precise oval through the hatch. Heat washed over them as they kicked it in and spilled into the auxiliary astrometrics lab.

The room was wrong.

Stars hung in the air like suspended dust, a three-dimensional map that extended through the deck and ceiling. Time markers scrolled backward along one wall. At the center, a column of dark light pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat.

Blake exhaled. “That’s the anchor.”

Conner’s combadge chirped again.

=^Conner,=^= his brother said, urgency sharpening his voice. =^=They’re rerouting collapse energy through the Invictus’ warp core. If they trigger it, both ships go with it.=^=

=^=Can you stop it?=^= he asked.

=^=Not from here,=^= his brother replied. =^=But you can.=^=

Conner looked at the dark column. =^=How?=^=

Blake stepped forward, rolling up her sleeve.

The skin beneath shimmered, resolving into unfamiliar circuitry—organic and technological at once, etched with symbols that hurt to look at too long.

“I’m not just a survivor,” she said quietly. “I’m an interface. They needed someone who could move between layers. Someone the fold would accept.”

One of the officers swore under his breath. No one raised a weapon.

“If I merge with the anchor,” Blake continued, “I can decouple the Horizon and every other ship from Omega–Black. But I won’t come back.”

Conner’s throat tightened. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t enough time to find one,” she said gently. “That’s the trick. There never is.”

The computer began counting down.

“Containment collapse in sixty seconds.”

The stars in the room started to blur, stretching into luminous threads.

His brother’s voice returned, softer now. =^=Conner, listen to me. You saved us by believing her. Whatever happens next… don’t let them bury it again.=^=

Conner stepped closer to Blake. “If you do this, what happens to the truth?”

She smiled—the same calm, unsettling smile from the brig. “It goes where they can’t lock it away.”

She placed her hand into the dark light.

The room screamed.

Not audibly, but in every instrument and nerve ending at once. The column flared, expanding outward in a shockwave of cold brilliance. The stars scattered, then reassembled—different now, rearranged into branching paths that spiraled outward endlessly.

“Containment protocol failing,” the computer stuttered. “Omega–Black authorization revoked.”

On the far side of the shimmering space, the USS Horizon pulled free, solidifying fully into normal space. Its running lights flared to life.

=^=Conner!!!=^= his brother shouted. =^=We’re clear—get out of there!=^=

Blake turned back one last time. Her outline was already blurring, edges dissolving into light.

“Ensign Reid” she said. “You were never supposed to be the interrogator. You were the witness.”

Then she was gone.

The dark column collapsed inward, vanishing in a silent implosion that knocked everyone to the deck.

Moments later, the emergency lights flickered—and normal illumination returned.

Silence.

Conner pushed himself up, chest heaving. His combadge chimed one final time.

=^=This is Captain Reid of the USS Horizon,=^= his brother said, voice steady, official. =^=We are requesting immediate rendezvous and asylum under Article Fourteen.=^=

Conner smiled. His brother was alive. . . and home.

He tapped his combadge. =^=USS Invictus to Horizon. Request granted.=^=

Outside the hull, subspace folded smoothly back into place, as if nothing extraordinary had happened at all.

But Starfleet Security logs would soon show something unprecedented:

An interrogation that never officially occurred.

A protocol that never officially existed.

And an ensign whose loyalty had just redefined what protecting the Federation truly meant.

Lieutenant Conner Reid
Chief of Security USS Chimera