<snip>
Dariusz Pokorski had been finding the last few hours challenging. While the other officers discussed tactics, he had been handling both Navigation and Helm alone, while space itself changed shape all around them.

“Lt. ch’Sorel,” Glen told the recently joined junior officer who had just entered the Bridge, “Please assist Lt. Pokorski and take over at Helm.”

At Helm, the two trajectories pulsed—one stable, one unraveling.

Taruun’s gaze fixed on Glen.
“You seek return. Return requires continuity. Continuity requires choice.”

The Aperture pulsed closer, its rhythm now felt through the ship itself. This was no longer navigation, physics, or diplomacy. It was existence.
And for the first time—the Merrimack understood what it was about to decide.

Zavey listened as she watched the numbers flow across her console. “Whatever you’re going to decide, Sir, you need to do it now. We’re almost out of time to make our own choice.” What a horrible position to be put into, she thought, as she waited for the decision that would affect every man and woman on the ship.

At her station, the harmonic readings spiked—not outward, but inward. The Aperture’s frequency tightened, locking onto the Merrimack with increasing precision.
Science displays updated rapidly: coherence window critical, collapsing. The system no longer showed branching possibilities. It showed deadlines.

Then as almost to punctuate Lieutenant Zavey’s point the call from Sickbay came through. =^= Sickbay to bridge, we’ve got an increasing number of patients coming in with neurological symptoms, scans are reading that their neuro-activity is spiking and showing signs of desynchronising.=^=

At every station, data began to cross-link automatically—neural variance, phase drift, anchor instability—all converging into a single, unavoidable conclusion.

There was a pause.

=^= Captain, if my readings are correct then we only have seventeen minutes before we start to suffer total neural collapse. =^=

Stella sat at her station with her fingers very close to the touchpads in front of her. She was drawn taut with nervousness though, so she had begun to silently tap her fingernails across the surface. She listened to Zavey though and wholeheartedly agreed. Stella herself felt like the time they had been here had stretched on forever. Quite frankly she was more than a bit ready to throw something at those big crayfish with flashing lights. She didn’t like their manners.

The bridge did not outwardly react.
But the ship did.

At Communications, Stella’s console dimmed slightly as the harmonic interference she had introduced continued to echo faintly through the system. Though her hands hovered over the controls, the waveform lingered—a ghost in the signal.

” Sir?” Rana said to Glenn. Do you know the story of Christmas Carol and how the spirits showed old scrooge his possible futures and past? As odd as it sounds, I think that may be what’s going on here. The damaged Merrimac may not exist but could exist. If we leave the place where we came from. We could cause that. Not to ourselves but to multiple people in various dimensions or whatever. The thing is how to get back? A simple case of navigation or something else?” He then abruptly shut up. That was the only way he could explain things to himself let alone anyone else. He did now that it it had been said that it would be a bad thing to try to cross into different places like this.

Rana spoke, his analogy imperfect, but not wrong. For a fraction of a second, Science confirmed it—multiple temporal outcomes observed, collapsing, selected.

The clock was ticking for Glen to make a decision. He had recovered from the shock he had felt at learning the future he knew; the timeline he had battled to preserve, might not be permanent after all. Now he was back in the present with only the dual choice of options available. His crew appeared to be as split over this choice just as much as he was internally himself. His gut told him that for all their brash and unfriendly manner, the Sharians had their best interests at heart. They clearly wanted them to cross the threshold and enter their own dimension. That would mean that it was safe to do so, if the Sharians understood what was safe for them, and comprehended what might be dangerous. Alternatively, they could continue to diverge using Lt. Gagnon’s harmonics and hopefully they could escape the clutches of the Vey’lan Aperture without being torn into pieces by the gravimetric forces and ceasing to exist. His mission statement was clear - An Exploration Priority One mission, but with full tactical discretion - one that meant the safety of the crew was less important and the mission had a higher priority. For some reason, he believed M’Mera that it was possible to adjust the anchor and go with the Sharians on whatever journey that took them.

“Lt. Gagnon, please cease your harmonic disruptions,” Glen said. “I’m going to follow the Sharians and take us through the dimensional folding. Instead of fighting against them, we will engage with them and align with their path. I don’t know where we are going now but we are on our way, and we’ll know when we get there!”

The instant the order was spoken, Taruun’s armor flared—not violently, but in recognition.

Stella upon hearing the captains’ orders tried to maintain a professional demeanor. But in fact, just trusting oneself to go somewhere that they didn’t know about, with creatures who appeared to be anything but friendly tended to curdle her milk a bit. She took a deep breath and forged ahead as she spoke in her sweetest voice. ” Aye captain.” She almost said honey to tease him but thought better. She pressed the off pad and reported. ” Harmonics are shut down sir.”

Her console registered the command, paused briefly, and then executed it across both command pathways. The Merrimack’s interference signal dropped cleanly and completely.

“Sorry Stella, that wasn’t a reprimand,” Glen told his downcast Communications Officer. “You have been exceptional in gaining the attention of the Sharians with your musical harmonics… But now we must complete our mission of First Contact; now we have reached the ‘kindly take us to your leader’ part. And if Lt. Grahams calculations are correct, we don’t have enough time left to waste on any further contemplation!”

Thalos listened in silence, eyes fixed on the tactical display as the Captain’s decision took shape.

He hoped it was the right one.

If it was not, their first contact mission could come to a very abrupt end.

His antennae angled forward slightly, registering the subtle shifts in energy readings and sensor returns. Every instinct he possessed urged caution—unknown species, superior technology, incomplete understanding.

Not ideal.

And yet… he had no better alternative to offer.

That was the reality of it.

He remained at his station, posture steady, expression controlled. Whatever reservations lingered beneath the surface, they stayed there. Doubt, when unaccompanied by solutions, served no purpose on the bridge.

So he did what he always did.

He prepared.

If the Captain’s decision led them into danger, Thalos would ensure the USS Merrimack was ready to meet it.

Elyss heard the CO’s decision and gave a small nod. At least their path had been determined now. There was nothing left, but to follow it. Wherever the Shiarians were leading them, the crew would all go together. Rolling the part of the tension out of her shoulders, she perked up and prepared for the change the Merrimack was about to undergo.

The effect was immediate.

At Science, the chaotic harmonic readings simplified. Where there had been interference, there was now alignment. The Aperture’s frequency and the Merrimack’s systems began to synchronize, the difference between them narrowing with each passing second.

At Engineering, M’Mera’s console surged. Her ears snapped forward, tail stiffening as the shared interface reacted more strongly than before.

“Captaain—!” she called out, her voice tighter, urgency sharpening her natural slur. “It’sss locking in—fassterr than beforre!” Her claws moved rapidly over the interface, not issuing commands but modulating the response. “We arre being pulllled into theirr ssstate—full synchronnizzation imminent!”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Glen told M’Mera.

=/\= All Decks! Prepare for… err… prepare for synchronisation! =/\= Glen announced to the ship.

At Helm, the impossible resolved into something even stranger. The two remaining trajectories became one. Vector returned—but not in any direction the Merrimack had ever traveled.

“Helm reading… stable?” Dariusz’s console struggled to define it. Velocity: zero. Position: fixed. State: transitioning. At Tactical, Thalos’ display changed. Targeting solutions locked. For the first time since the Shiarians had appeared, they were fully trackable—not because they had slowed, but because the Merrimack had caught up to them.

The advantage had not been lost. It had been shared.

Then the call came through from Lieutenant Grahams =^= Sickbay to Bridge: We have signs of stabilisation amongst the crew. I will keep them here for close monitoring until I am confident they will remain stable but I am optimistic, =^= it would seem things too were stabilising there.

=/\= Thank you Doctor Grahams =/\= Glen replied.

The Science station chimed again. Alignment was occurring across all systems! The Merrimack would no longer be partially phased but be fully integrated into the Shiarian frame of spacetime.

Taruun stepped forward. This time there was no flicker, no duplication. He existed in a single, stable moment. “You choose continuity. Now, we can speak.” His voice no longer strained. It resonated cleanly, fully synchronized with the environment around him.

Thalos watched as the events unfolded, it seems the Captains decision had been the right one, now they could communicate with the Shirarians , hopefully now they could make progress on their mission which had now turned into a first contact situation,

Lieutenant Thalos ch’Ravik
Chief Of Security
USS Merrimack

Rana was quite simply nonplussed at the happenings in front of him. One minute these creatures had been less than friendly and seemingly withholding any information and now they had suddenly turned friendly! He had to give credit where credit was do. The captain was surely following some sort of gut feeling. Some instinct which Rana himself lacked. This was his appraisal of the affair at any rate. And it irritated him! He looked to the captain and spoke in a cal voice tinged with a bit of awe and said. ” Good show captain. Good show.”

Rana Singh Number One

Glen acknowledged his XO’s words of encouragement, though inwardly he still wasn’t certain he had made the right choice. At least the ship was now stable, and he did have a gut feeling that the Sharians were not an aggressive species. If they had wanted to attack the Merrimack, they they had been a sitting duck earlier when they were at the bottom of the gravity wave.

Rynak’s paws moved quickly across the helm controls, long white fingers dancing over the yellow-and-red guidance disk with a precision that belied his youth. The moment synchronization began, every instinct in him wanted to look up—to stare at the impossible geometry unfolding on the main viewer, to witness history as it happened.

But Helm came first.

His semi-floppy ears twitched sharply at each new alert tone, one ear dipping while the other stood half-raised in concentration. He swallowed, forcing down the nervous energy that raced through him. The navigation board no longer displayed headings in any sense he understood. There was no port, no starboard, no bearing, no warp vector. Instead, symbols shifted in layered spirals, coordinates rewriting themselves into equations that seemed to anticipate his thoughts.

And somehow… he understood just enough.

“Captain,” Rynak said, voice tight but controlled, “helm control is responding differently. It’s not asking where we want to go… it’s asking how stable we want to remain.”

“I want is to fully synchronise us with the Sharian vessel,” Glen replied. They could think about getting home again later. Now they just needed to reach safety.

He blinked twice, reading the display again to make sure he hadn’t misspoken.

“No—correction, sir. It’s asking which version of our course we wish to preserve.”

“The stable course Lt.” Glen replied, “What the Sharian said, the path to ‘Continuity’, we don’t have time left now to be concerned about how we get back again.”

His tail, usually lively, had gone rigid behind his chair. Yet there was excitement there too—bright, unmistakable excitement. Fear and wonder tangled together in the chest of a young officer standing at the edge of the unknown.

As the Merrimack aligned with the Shiarian state, the tremors through the deck plating ceased. The helm controls smoothed beneath his paws. Readouts clarified.

For the first time in long minutes, the ship felt like one ship again.

Rynak exhaled in a rush he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Stability increasing across all navigational systems,” he reported, faster now, confidence returning with each word. “Relative drift has dropped to zero. We are… stationary, sir.”

He tilted his head, ears lifting.

“Though I’m not sure ‘stationary’ means what it usually does anymore.”

A few muted chuckles broke the bridge tension.

“This present state of play is something we will take time to wrap our heads around,” Glen told his Bridge crew.

Rynak’s tail gave one cautious wag before he straightened again, cheeks warming beneath his fur. He hadn’t meant to be funny in front of the senior staff.

Then new data cascaded over his panel—stellar cartography unlike anything in Federation databases. Constellations twisted into shapes he did not recognize. Distances bent inward. Pathways formed where empty vacuum should have been.

His eyes widened.

“Captain Glen… I think we’re seeing navigational lanes. Not space lanes—state transition corridors. If these readings are accurate, the Shiarians don’t travel through space at all. They travel between probable positions.”

He paused only a beat before adding, unable to contain himself:

“Sir… this could redefine astrogation theory.”

“I’m already on it!” added Astrid Murdock.

Yet discipline followed immediately after.

He centered his paws back on the controls, posture straightening.

Captain Glen replied, “Acknowledged Lt. ch’Sorel, but look at the fractured nature of this region - the Spatial Rifts, the Red Mist Shoals and the Gravemire Clusters. The Minkowski Space-Time Continuum had been broken beyond repair within the Caradthian Expanse. To capitalise on the Sharian technology we’d likely have to do the same to the rest of the quadrant too!”

There it was—that earnest brilliance, the hunger to learn shining through every syllable.

“Awaiting helm orders, Captain. Current course is holding with the Shiarian lead vessel. And…” his ears perked toward the viewscreen, “…whatever happens next, I think they’re finally about to show us where they come from.”

Lieutenant JG. Rynak ch’Sorel
Helm Officer
U.S.S. Merrimack - NCC-2346 (Mariner Class)

“Ordinarily, my order would be a ‘Dead Stop’,” replied Captain Glen, “but in these circumstances… whatever you see fit to keep us stable and whole.”

• Glen, CO