Chapter Text
There is a running joke amongst Starfleet ships that the Enterprise is the fleet’s lightning rod for weirdness. This joke is fuelled by the truly bizarre mission logs that get passed around in Starfleet administration with hipflasks, disbelief, and rules for a drinking game.
Officially , the drinking game had a stop put to it after a new member of the admin team had to go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Unofficially , it continues.
The weirdness lightning rod effect is also felt by all the other ships in Starfleet through the uptick of strange occurrences which is recorded every time the infamous flagship is out of action for longer than a day.
Captain Picard must have absolutely destroyed her this time; it’s the only explanation for everything the USS Astral has been through on her current rotation of patrols in a supposedly uneventful and unexciting little area of space. Their assigned sector is far away from the Alpha Quadrant’s most infamous troublemakers and persistent risks to interplanetary peace. The worst they usually get is the odd supposedly ‘rogue’ Ferengi vessel trying her hand at piracy, among other similarly mundane breaches of the peace. Sure, they get the occasional planetary disaster, but it’s always solved with time to spare, never the nail-biting closeness of similar missions carried out by the infamous Enterprise . Never has the Astral encountered anything like those mission logs - no omnipotent but childish beings set on creating chaos, no being dragged across galaxies, no bouncing through time. Just… simple, orderly routine. Predictable, logical, mundane. Just as Commander Kravitz, the half-Vulcan first officer of the USS Astral , likes things.
Once upon a time, not even very long ago, his life was ruled by logic.
This was no longer the case.
“Hey thug! What’s your name? I’m about to tentacle your dick.”
…
The morning starts as any other; Commander Kravitz arrives on the bridge his customary five minutes early, accepts the logs of the graveyard shift, and takes his seat to read through them. As ever, nothing had happened, and there was nothing new to be seen. The most exciting thing on the list - by the broadest possible definition of ‘exciting’, even for a Vulcan - is another report of sightings of that bothersome unregistered craft. Not long after, Captain Ra’Venn joins them on the bridge and settles into her own chair.
The moment that sets everything into motion towards chaos is this: a simple order to the helmswoman. Nothing exciting, just a system thought to be harbouring a smuggling ring.
In the long months and years to come, Commander Kravitz will look back on this moment as the last day in which his life truly followed logic.
In the moment, however, he merely watches the viewscreen and pays attention to the goings-on of the Bridge while they draw ever-closer to the verdant moon in orbit around a gas giant comprised of swirling scarlet, umber, and burgandy. According to the readings, if the smugglers are here, they’ve covered their tracks well. The only thing the scans are picking up on is an unusual concentration of rare metals; no sign of people, ships, or cargo. And, of course, no criminal worth their salt is going to come out of hiding with a Federation ship in range. Even so, an away team gathers to scout the surface.
This is the second turning point away from logic and towards chaos.
The away team returns with a report of signs of recent habitation, very recent; impressions on the ground, a recently-made fire pit, and a mess of footprints scuffing the ground around said pit.
The captain makes an executive decision to leave a probe in orbit, disguised as just one more piece of space junk, and to return in a week to see if it picks up on anything of interest. Even if they arrive too late to catch these guys red-handed, they’ll still have more data from the sensor readings, after all, and the reports of mild piracy in the sector are a more pressing concern than this. So they return to their previous heading and begin a discussion of the facts known to them.
“It would be unwise to draw unwarranted conclusions with insufficient data,” warns Commander Kravitz.
He barely finishes before Commander Waxman gives her own view of things. “Either this was just a minor base, or they saw us coming and ran. You can see these traces-” She taps the datapadd emphatically. “Same as I can.”
“Might that unregistered craft be related? That would be the logical step to take, wouldn’t it?” Commander Miller says, a clear jab at the first officer’s heritage.
Captain Ra’Venn frowns. Commander Kravitz does not move, does not allow his expression to change.
“An unregistered craft with no known history isn’t going to have authorities actively searching for it,” he continues.
“I disagree. An unregistered craft is more likely to garner attention from us and from other authorities than an older vessel.”
From long experience, the Captain knows that her senior staff could bicker amongst themselves endlessly, if she gave them the chance. It is interesting to see the alliances that are made, broken, and remade through the course of these discussions, yes, but she has seen some patterns; her Chief Engineer is brash and ready to jump in with potentially risky suggestions. The Science Officer takes any opportunity to make a jab at her First Officer, particularly his heritage - probably due to their less than ideal first meeting. Her Chief of Security will usually back up and encourage her Chief Engineer and if left unchecked, the two of them can get drawn into a feedback loop of daring.
There is more than one planet which has explicitly asked that they take shore leave separately. Few other members of Starfleet have achieved this dubious honour.
The Astral’s mission, because she is not the Enterprise , is carried out with very few hitches and 90% of things over the next few days go according to plan. The few problems they do run into are easily and quickly solved, and the colony comes out unscathed. The mission report may not be anything to write home about, but neither will it be accompanied by a round of shots or a bingo card.
While at the colony, they of course pick up on local gossip. Despite what Commander Waxman would say with a snide glance at three quarters of her department, the gossip isn’t just for entertainment. Many a captain will attest to the usefulness of local knowledge and grapevines, although gossip-gathering is usually a bit more subtle, Julia , than just strolling into the community’s main socialising space, sitting down and proclaiming to the community as a whole “So what’s up with those smugglers two systems over, huh?”
To which, she would retort that she got the information, right? And it was probably useful, too!
They’ve been lightly harassing local vessels; attacks of opportunity more than anything else, and no physical harm has been done as of yet. Signs, however, point to them becoming slowly more aggressive. Sadly for her, Julia’s findings are soon blown out of the water by the announcement of a Security officer that they have a name for the mystery unregistered vessel; the Starblaster .
Half the people in the room snort.
With a name like that? Definitely the toy of someone with more resources than taste.
Barring this minor excitement, the debriefing continues without incident. Kravitz becomes increasingly grateful - and with that emotion comes guilt - that he had stayed on board as far as possible and thus avoided having to spend more time than the bare minimum with the colony’s young leader, Artemis Stirling. According to all accounts, he grew more tiresome the more anyone had to talk to him. The general consensus is that Antonia, the second-in-command inherited from his late mother, is by far the more reasonable person to deal with.
The meeting breaks. They return to their posts. The rest of the day passes without incident.
...
The morning starts as any other; Commander Kravitz arrives on the bridge his customary five minutes early, accepts the logs of the graveyard shift, and takes his seat to read through them. The probe left in orbit around the suspected smugglers’ base has sent an alert; a ship has landed on the moon.
Captain Ra’Venn arrives; Commander Kravitz gives her the precis of the logs. She orders their return to the system in question. The helmswoman makes it so.
The troubles don’t begin until they arrive back at the moon.
On the surface, a silver ship is visible. She is tiny and there is no way of knowing which species built her. The elegant shape of an old Earth sailing ship, complete with masts and sails, suggests human. The powered-down ring at the back indicates a more Vulcan influence.
Red dots are moving around her on the ground. The viewscreen zooms in and they can see these figures more clearly. Humanoid. All wearing matching red clothing, likely a uniform. And then they see the name emblazoned on this vessel’s hull.
Starblaster .
One ensign shoots to another the meaningful look of a wager won. The other ensign appears to be significantly less pleased.
They hail this unknown ship, the Starblaster .
No answer.
“Kravitz, form an away team. Go down there and find out what they’re doing, where they came from, and what they want. Keep an open comm link, and get Avi to pull you out at the first sign of trouble,” the Captain orders.
“Yes sir,” he acknowledges with a nod, standing and heading out. He indicates to Commander Killian to follow him, and once they have stepped into the turbolift, he voices his own orders.
“Choose two other Security officers to join us, but not Svartspindel. His impulsivity may prove to be an obstacle to diplomatic success here.”
“Yes sir.” Killian hides her eye roll, as she has done with all signs of irritation at the First Officer since his arrival a few months ago. His lack of confidence in her knowledge of her department, and especially in her ability to do her fucking job just makes her fantasise about smacking him right between those angular eyebrows.
Because she can be fucking professional, she has yet to give in to these fantasies. It’s come close, though.
She busies herself with contacting her Chosen Two and telling them to join them in Transporter Room One, where Avi awaits. A quick briefing happens, phasers are set to stun, and they beam down.
There has still been no indication of the chaos awaiting them, nor of the path that said chaos would drag Commander Kravitz’s life down. It is still just another away mission. After all, this was not the Enterprise . The most exciting thing anyone is expecting is one of them possibly tripping over an exposed root.
Kravitz is, once they materialise on the edge of the camp in progress of being set up, the first to step forwards into the view of the four humanoids in view. One is a large, muscular human male, the second a male of unknown species but barely more than a metre tall. The final two individuals are identical and of another species unknown to the Federation. And, because it would be illogical to deny the evidence that is plain to his eyes, Commander Kravitz must admit that they are objectively highly visually attractive.
He steps forwards and clears his throat. “Greetings. I am Commander Kravitz, First Officer of the Federation starship Astral , and we are he-”
As soon as the word “Federation” begins to pass his lips, these four beings who had seemed wary to begin with immediately progress to “exceedingly hostile” without apparently passing any of the stages in between. The two identical beings’ long pointed ears pin back and they take defensive stances - the only warning he gets before the human runs at him with-
“ What the fuck is that an axe ?!” Killian yells, already aiming her phaser at him. She misses, aims again, but now she has his attention. The human male is running at her, axe in hand and ready to attack.
One of the identical humanoids is brandishing what appears to be a stick at him. They twirl it between their fingers with a showman’s flourish.
“Hey thug! What’s your name? I’m about to tentacle your dick!” they proclaim, easily loud enough to be overheard through the comm link. They lunge their whole body towards him, towards Kravitz, in a fluid motion that starts with a foot and ends with a flick of the wrist, falling into a classic duellist’s position.
Nothing happens.
“...What the shit?” They smack the stick on the palm of their hand a few times, frowning down at it all the while. It would seem that something had gone wrong.
“Avi! Four to beam out!” Kravitz orders.
The light of the transporter beam envelops them, filling his vision, and he’s back on the Astral again.
How had everything gone this wrong?