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This was a room built for secrets.
Chamber 7A sat deep within Floor 19 of Starfleet Headquarters, a large building of layered alloys and crystalline data-veins that rises over the capital like a fortress of glass and shadow. The building itself was a hybrid of Federation architecture and building techniques from the Old-Core worlds; the Vulcans, the Andorians, and a few others could be seen. And every hallway hummed with quiet surveillance.
Its walls were a matte obsidian alloy that swallowed light rather than reflected it, and the air carried the faint hum of dampeners, both sonic and psionic. The latter were new, a precaution recently implemented in this wing, where telepaths, empaths, and other ‘sensitive’ personnel were quietly monitored after several unauthorized intrusion incidents. The dampers didn’t block any psionic ability; they muddied it, turning any attempt at mind-reading into static.
A single circular table dominated the chamber's center, its surface etched with runic circuitry that pulsed with the energy powering the room. The runes were not decorative, but part of an ancient technomantic interface system from the pre-Federation era on Earth, capable of binding holographic data to the user’s neural and biometric signature.
Above the table hovered a holographic file:
Merlin Emerysson - Xenolinguistics Specialist, Fringe Colony Origin.
The rotating projection cast pale blue light across Morgana’s face, sharpening the angles of her cheekbones and turning her eyes into reflective shards. They had worked too hard and too long perfecting every detail of his file, every line of data entered into the Federation databank, every falsified record, all carefully burying the truth of Emrys.
Agravaine lingered near the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, posture stiff in the same way you see someone who has spent far too long under High Command scrutiny. His voice, when he finally spoke, was low, “Uther approved it. He thinks the boy is harmless.”
Morgana didn’t look away from the hologram; a glint of anticipation flickered in her eye, “He’s not harmless; I can’t wait for his first report.”
Agravaine hesitated. Morgana could hear it: the soft intake of breath, the faint shift of his boots on the floor. His doubt and fear, his loyalty stretched thin.
Morgana stepped closer to the table. The hologram brightened as if responding to her presence, illuminating the faint silver circuitry woven into the cuffs of her uniform. The pattern marked her rank as Intelligence Admiral, but it also served another purpose: the circuitry was laced with micro-inscribed seals that suppressed psionic resonance. Her mother’s lineage was carefully hidden. The cuffs themselves masked part of her neural signature, ensuring that even the most skilled telepath would read her as a baseline human, if somewhat gifted with telepathic tendencies.
“Look at him,” Morgana murmured.
Agravaine approached reluctantly. Merlin’s personnel file expanded: biometric scans, aptitude scores, linguistic matrices, a brief note about his cognitive ability, “He’s young,” Agravaine muttered, “And mostly untrained. If Uther discovers—”
“He won’t.” Morgana finally turned, her gaze sharp enough to cut, “The Camelot begins its mission today. Arthur may be loyal to Uther and Starfleet, but he’s not blind. He’ll soon see the rot in High Command.”
She tapped the hologram. Merlin’s face froze mid-rotation, wide-eyed, earnest, and a little innocent. The kind of innocence that made people underestimate him, “Merlin will help him see it faster.”
Agravaine swallowed, “And Uther?”
Morgana’s expression shifted into not a smile, but something colder. Almost more certain. The smile that suggested she had played out every possible future already and chose the path herself, “My father won’t suspect a thing.”
The lights dimmed further, the hologram flickering as the psionic dampers cycled around the room, the blue of the light shifting. Somewhere deep in the building, an alarm chimed, signalling the pre-launch sequence for the crew’s ships. Headquarters always observed the departure, in part, but this launch was different. The Camelot was not a simple science vessel nor a diplomatic courier, but a long-range exploration cruiser assigned to investigate the Outer Veil, a region of space where most signals started to warp, where ships vanished off their radar. They could only begin to guess at what was out there. About how dangerous this mission could be.
And Arthur Pendragon, the Fleet Admiral’s son, had been chosen to command it. Officially because of his tactical brilliance and ability to lead. Unofficially, because Uther wanted his ‘heir’ far from the political turbulence brewing on Earth.
Morgana dismissed the hologram with a flick of her fingers. The file collapsed into a single point of light, then vanished. “Everything is in motion,” she said softly.
Agravaine nodded, though unease still clung to him like static.
Morgana stepped past him toward the exit. As an admiral herself, she was expected at Uther’s side when his son departed the planet. Her silhouette was framed by the glowing threshold of the seal door, and for a moment, she paused, listening and calculating silently. Then she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, “Let the galaxy believe Merlin Emerysson is harmless. It will make it all the more powerful.”
The door slid shut behind her.