Deja vu. That gnawing sensation in the pit of one’s stomach when they find themselves retreading a path achingly familiar and yet apprehensively new at the same time. Kara Nakuto had made this journey before - from the technologically safe confines of Starfleet headquarters, to be spat out into the midnight void of the beta quadrant and the USS Viking. And already, even with lightyears still to traverse in the small passenger shuttle loaded with its single occupant, she could feel the massive starship waiting, looming like some great and terrible beast, to swallow her once again.

At the helm of the craft, the powerful hands of the half-Klingon moved across the control panel with a grace and delicacy seemingly at odds with her muscular physique. It was her sister, Mirai, who had been the pilot of the Nakuto clan. But Kara was practiced enough to fly the bird herself and, with Starfleet’s permission, would be donating the older but still functional craft to the Viking’s crew. A peace offering from up on high, a placation after years of apathy towards the accursed starship by those who held the power to make all of their lives so much more comfortable. But for their own reasons, reasons that Kara still bore no insight towards, chose to do naught.

At Starfleet HQ, their questions had been intrusive and insistent, their reactions ranging openly from incredulity to fears about her mental stability. The Viking’s former Captain had told them everything, had described in painstaking detail the shadows and the rappings, the cold spots and the disembodied voices. She had recounted the mission to the inverted pyramid and their eventual, narrow escape with their lives barely intact. She had described the stowaway from that mission that was, presumably, still now fused to the bow of the ship like some perverted, grasping figurehead. Over endless months of tests and evaluations, Nakuto had sketched, both verbally and on paper, the various creatures she had encountered in the murky shadows of the massive starship - the entity in the shuttle bay control booth, the rogue scientist and his living experiments, the saboteur that they still had not, to her own now meagre knowledge, gained an identity for. She even revealed the continual interference by one James McHarrie and his ramblings on Reman imps. That one, at least, had drawn a few raised eyebrows from the crowd.

And finally, they had discussed the portal, the seemingly infinite corridor that had appeared on the ship and swallowed a large number of her crew. Hundreds of scientists and doctors had gathered to witness her testimony on this event but not a single scientific explanation was returned to her. Instead came the official, heart-wrenching declaration - Lt Commander Majandra Guerin and Lt Commander Akirel Ros were declared Missing in Action, presumed dead.

But eventually the assembly of esteemed minds grew tired of the rambling, terrified half-Klingon and delivered their assessment - a diagnosis of acute PTSD but otherwise fit to return to duty with a stipulation of regular psychological assessments from her ship’s counselor. To Kara Nakuto, failed captain and Klingon without honour, there was a sense that Starfleet were washing their hands of her - a sense that was confirmed when she was given her new duty assignment - The USS Viking. She was to return to her former crew as a consultant, her orders stated, to provide guidance and assistance wherever it might be needed. Deep down, she had expected nothing else, for since the moment she had first stepped onboard, so many years ago, Kara Nakuto had become bound to the USS Viking, united in eternal and mutual torment until one finally claimed bitter victory over the other.

At the helm of her shuttle, Kara Nakuto could feel it. Minutes before her instrumentation panel chirped its confirmation, she knew, could sense it with every screaming, straining nerve in her body, that she had arrived. A hesitant glance out of the forward viewport and her stomach plummeted to the bowels of Gre’thor as she found herself gazing once again at that most terrific and terrifying sight - the gigantic, battered, rusting starship - the USS Viking - its lower decks still swallowed by darkness, upper levels showing sporadic lighting through its many windows like a thousand, winking eyes.

Taking a deep breath in the hope that it would steady her voice, Nakuto thumbed at the comms switch and announced, with every ounce of courage that she could muster: =^= USS Viking, this is the passenger shuttle Veðrfölnir. Permission to dock with one passenger, myself, Kara Nakuto. =^=

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant, former CO)