Posted by Lieutenant M’Mera (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim - Bridge
Snip

Elyss bit her tongue so as not to say anything more, but she did not agree with the Captain or Lt Gagnon. What the Lt proposed sounded far too aggressive to send out as first contact to a warrior species. What if they took it as an invitation or a challenge to fight? All she could do was maintain her presence at the science station and hope for the best.

On the other hand, Captain Glen was imagining that Lt. Gagnon would playing something similar to Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring or maybe Modest Mussorgsky’s Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells, while knowing Gagnon, in actual fact, she was probably lining up some post-punk/atmospheric tracks from Southern Death Cult, or environmental psychedelic rock containing ambient/nature samples from XTC, or even some avant-garde electro-pop from Bjork. So, it wasn’t at all clear if Elyss’ concern would not be proven correct.

Thalos remained at his station, listening to the steady flow of discussion across the bridge. The conversation had shifted heavily toward calculations and projections — complex modelling that, while important, was not his area of expertise.

He chose not to interject.

There was no value in speaking without purpose.

Instead, he monitored his console with unwavering focus — weapons systems, internal security grids, and sensor alerts all remained within optimal parameters. That was his domain. That was where he was most effective.

Still, he followed the conversation closely, absorbing what he could. Understanding the broader situation, even outside his specialty, was part of command.

His antennae made a small, thoughtful adjustment as voices overlapped around him.

For a fleeting moment, a different thought surfaced — Elyss, likely contributing with ease to this very discussion.

He dismissed it just as quickly.

This was the bridge.
This was duty.

And Thalos did not allow distractions to take root.

Rana had been waiting for what had seemed an inordinate amount of time. While fact was that they hadn’t been turned into a glowing bunch of space debris, it occurred to him that the aliens might just be trying to figure out the most amusing way to destroy the backward creatures. Finally, he looked to the captain and said, ” It seems an inordinate amount of time since we sent the last signal. Do you think we might try to find a plan B so to speak?”

“Music requires time to unfold, listen, and comprehend,” replied Glen. “Let’s give them enough time for a deeper appreciation. It’s not a visual art that can be perceived instantly, but it has to be experienced fully over time, with repeated listening, patience, and an active engagement to understand its structure and emotional context.”

OOC: My apologies, busy week:)

At first, there was nothing.

Stella’s console continued to scroll with the translated waveform—structured now, intentional—her “music” carried out across the layered distortions of the Caradthian Expanse. The signal bent and refracted along invisible currents, each note stretching into thin harmonic filaments that clung to the surrounding subspace like strands of silk.

Then—

A response.

Not immediate. Not mirrored.

Different.

The Expanse itself seemed to tighten, as if space were drawing in a breath.

Stella’s board flared to life.

Multiple return vectors flooded her display—no single origin point, but several shifting positions dancing along the gravimetric crests. The signal coming back was deeper, denser… layered beyond anything she had sent.

It wasn’t music.

It was architecture.

Her system struggled to translate it. Patterns folded over themselves, recursive and precise, as though the sender was building something—testing structure, testing response, testing her.

On the viewscreen, space rippled. For a fleeting moment, the cosmic-string lattice lit up—thin lines of amber and gold forming a vast, web-like geometry.

And within it—

Something moved.

Not fully visible. Not stable.

A distortion resolving… vanishing… then reappearing closer.

Riding the wave.

Stella’s console chirped again—her original sequence returning, but altered. The melody had been dissected, inverted, compressed into sharp, repeating intervals. Beneath it, a new layer emerged:

A low, resonant pulse.

Steady.

Measured.

Like a heartbeat imposed over her song.

Around the bridge, other stations began to light up with incoming data—readouts cascading across displays as the ship tried to keep pace with what was unfolding.

On the tactical console, sensor returns sharpened—an intermittent contact phasing in and out along the edge of the navigational corridor. Mass readings fluctuated wildly, but each pass refined the silhouette: angular… armored… unmistakably deliberate in its movement as it tracked the Merrimack’s position without fully committing to normal space.

At the science station, the signal resolved further—its structure no longer random. Mathematical relationships emerged between the tones, nested patterns forming fractal-like sequences. Timing intervals adjusted dynamically, as if compensating for delay… or measuring it.

The sender was learning.

Adapting.

The next transmission cut through the noise with sudden clarity.

Gone was the layered complexity.

What came through was simple.

Three tones.
Evenly spaced.

A pause.

Then again.

Three tones.

A pause—

And then a sharp harmonic spike that slashed across the pattern, abrupt and unmistakable.

On the viewscreen, the distortion shifted again. The Shiarian vessel—now partially visible along the crest of the gravitational wave—held position just beyond full resolution, its hull catching flickers of amber and crimson as the Expanse bent light around it.

It was no longer searching.

It was watching.

Another return signal struck Stella’s console—stronger this time. The same three-tone pattern, but amplified… reinforced… no longer exploratory.

Insistent.

At the same moment, a narrow-band energy spike skimmed outward from the distortion—brushing the outer edge of the Merrimack’s shields. Not enough to register as a full attack…

But close enough to feel intentional.

A touch.

A test.

Then—

Silence.

The signal ceased.

The distortion held.

And somewhere within the shifting geometry of the Caradthian Expanse—

The Shiarian Dominion had not only answered the song…

They had begun to define the conversation.

GM Nosferatu
Your Darkest Nightmare

Stella had despite herself grown complacent as the time had seemingly ticked on into eternity. At least in her mind anyway. That was when her mind really began to wander, and she began to wonder if time in this place really had the same meaning that it did back home. Or any meaning at all. And it was there that her mind took a turn as she began to think about a nice pot gumbo with catfish and andouille sausage. All brought together in gumbo sauce poured over rice.

Stella almost missed it. She was recording everything but still the thing if it happened deserved an immediate in person watching. It would be rude after all she thought for someone to say hello only to find the person they were speaking to was taking a nap. Then she happened to look at her board. It lit up. Then it really lit up as if it were a baby demanding attention. That or something way bigger than a baby. She was frightened and elated all at the same time. Her mouth simply huce officer ng open for a moment. She literally could not speak at the immensity of it all. When she regained her training then a bit and stuttered. ” CCcapain sir! We’re getting a response and it’s a whopper! We’re getting stuff from all around us!” Looking over to the Science Stella said quickly. Lieutenant Zavey I’m sending this to you if you arent picking it up. A lot of it seems the sort of mathematics that would have nothing to do with communications.

By this time Stella was so excited that she was taken by the moment. She was reading what was coming through her comms and she opened up not just one extra but three extra tracts to record on. Her eyes grew wide at one moment and she said, ” Isn’t it just wonderful?” Finally getting herself together she reported to the captain. ” Sir I may be wrong, but I think they are using this whole area to broadcast with. The power used for that is enormous. And they were trying to be nice.”

Stella Gagnon Lt.jg. Comms

Captain Glen had the feeling he was weightless and was floating or drifting through the cosmos. He acknowledged the ingenuity of Lt. Gagnon. Her use of those ambient sounds and noises had resulted in something that seemed to be a reflection, and at the same time was much more; ethereal melodies within a soundscape that completely surrounded them, evoking a sense of vastness and mystery, enveloping them in this unique sonic environment.

“It is wonderful!” Glen replied. All of his concerns brought on by the Bolay First Contact fiasco had totally faded away; paled into insignificance. “I have no idea what is happening or how we can hear it broadcast or where that kind of power comes from. You’ll need to ask the scientists and engineers to explain it, but I have the feeling that trying to explain it would spoilt the appreciation of it.”

• Glen, CO**

Before Gagnon spoke, Elyss was already watching the overwhelming information crossing her station. There was no way to interpret it all as the speed it was coming in was too fast. When the Lt forwarded what she thought was mathematics, Zavey’s eyes had difficulty tracking any of the info as it zipped by. She forwarded a lot of it to the labs where they could split the strings of info and try to translate it individually. Everyone seemed happy and positive about the influx but Elyss still couldn’t shake the risk they were taking. Why wasn’t anyone else on edge about it? She was not a Debbie downer, but the possibility for violence was real. They didn’t have enough information about the Shiarians to make an educated guess with any accuracy.

Lieutenant Elyss Zavey
Chief Science Officer USS Merrimack

The sound came first.

Not through speakers. Not through hull vibration. But inside the ship itself—a low, phased resonance that seemed to slip between systems rather than travel through them. Consoles flickered, not failing, but desynchronizing for fractions of a second. LCARS panels ghosted, their displays briefly offset like overlapping realities struggling to agree on a single moment.

Then the temperature dropped.

A distortion—barely visible—formed midair across multiple decks. Not transporter light. Not Federation, Klingon, or any known pattern. This was something else.

The space itself began to layer.

On Deck 5, in Engineering, a ripple of copper-red light folded inward like a lens bending time.

At the Engineering station M’Mera suddenly bristled, every hair on her hide standing on end and a low, vibrating snarl that turned into a low pitched yowl echoed on the bridge.
“Ssirr! Invaderrss in Engineering….” She cut off due to the interference starting on the bridge.

In Sickbay, the air shimmered as though viewed through heat haze—except it was cold, biting, invasive.
In the corridors, crew members felt a pressure behind their eyes, as if their thoughts were briefly out of step with their bodies.

And on the bridge—

The distortion coalesced.

Three vertical fractures of crimson-gold light tore silently into existence, not illuminating the room but replacing it in narrow slivers. Within them, shapes moved—not arriving, but aligning.

Then, with a sharp, almost inaudible snap—

They were there.

M’Mera reacted with the instincts and skills of her past Security background as she easily launched over the side rail and landed between the Captain and the materialized beings. She stood half crouched facing them with teeth bared. Every hair on her body, visible on the outside of her uniform, was raised in instinctual threat mode and to make herself look larger.
⸻

They did not materialize in the traditional sense. There was no beam, no cascade of energy. Instead, the figures resolved as if they had always been standing there and reality had simply caught up to them.

Three Shiarian officers.

Towering.

Armored.

Immovable.

Their presence immediately altered the space—not physically, but psychologically. Predatory. Controlled. Absolute.

⸻

At the center stood Over-Captain Vreth’kan Taruun.

He was larger than the others, his chitinous exoskeleton a deep burnished crimson layered with blackened, ceremonial plating. His armor was not merely functional—it was hierarchical, etched with ridged command sigils that pulsed faintly with bioluminescent gold.

His multi-faceted eyes reflected the bridge in fractured amber, taking in everything at once. There was no urgency in him. No aggression in motion.

Only certainty.

When he shifted, it was minimal—precise, deliberate, like a creature that had never needed to rush.

⸻

To his right stood Weapons Master T’korr Hakis.

Where Taruun was controlled, Hakis was coiled violence.

His armor bore visible scoring and reinforcement—layered plates designed for close engagement. Along his forearms, integrated weapon nodes hummed faintly, their energy cycling in a low, predatory rhythm. His stance was forward-weighted, as if every second not spent attacking was a deliberate restraint.

His gaze locked onto tactical stations, then shifted—measuring crew, distances, threats.

Calculating lethality.

⸻

To the left—

The third figure.

Unidentified.

Unlike the others, this officer’s armor was sleeker, less adorned, with faintly shifting patterns across its surface—bioluminescent lines that moved, not randomly, but in complex, flowing sequences. Where the others felt physical, this one felt… unsettled.

Out of phase, even now.

For just a fraction of a second, their outline doubled—like a shadow misaligned with its source—before snapping back into singular form.

Their role was unclear.

But their presence was not secondary.

⸻

Across the ship, reports began flooding in—

Multiple boarding signatures.
No transporter lock detected.
Internal sensors unable to track insertion vector.
Additional Shiarian units appearing across key systems.

They had not breached the ship.

They had simply… chosen to be aboard it.

⸻

On the bridge, Over-Captain Taruun finally moved.

One step forward.

Measured.

Inevitable.

When he spoke, his voice did not come from a single direction. It resonated—layered, harmonic, as though several versions of him were speaking in perfect synchronization across adjacent moments.

“Federation vessel… Merrimack.”

A pause—not for effect, but for assessment.

“You proceed within contested structure.”

His gaze shifted—landing, unerringly, on the command chair.

“You will cease your advance.”

A faint flicker passed along the edges of his armor, the bioluminescent lines pulsing once.

Not a threat.

A statement.

Behind him, T’korr Hakis adjusted his stance—just enough to remind everyone on the bridge exactly how quickly this could turn violent.

And the third officer—

Watched.

Not the crew.

Not the ship.

But the space between things.

⸻

All across the Merrimack, the same realization settled in—

This was not a boarding action.

This was a demonstration.

The Shiarians had not forced their way aboard.

They had proven they did not need to.

GM Nosferatu
Your Darkest Nightmare

Elyss had a front row seat to the arrival of the Shiarians. This was not good. No one who looked like they did was going to make ‘nice’ with the crew of the Merrimack. Her hands froze over her console and only one word could be heard from her still figure. “F*ck!”

Lieutenant Elyss Zavey
Chief Science Officer USS Merrimack