Aftermath
Posted on Mon Oct 5th, 2026 @ 5:34pm by Lieutenant JG Elen Rell & Lieutenant JG Constance 'Connie' Montoya & Master Chief Petty Officer Julian Trent & Sergeant Jace Morven & Tavrek Harland & Commodore Elias McEntyre & Commander Gil’an Tyris & Commander Cressida Vale MD & Lieutenant Colonel Jesse Moriarty & Lieutenant Commander Declan Malcom & Lieutenant Evy McCauley & Corporal R'Mes & Lieutenant Commander Dr. J.R McEntyre, M.D, F.F.C.S, F.C.E.P & Ensign Vesper Wells
5,117 words; about a 26 minute read
Mission:
Pilot - "The Gate"
Timeline: After the Gate Battle
Commodore’s Log: Stardate 66416.3: After three days at high warp, we’re in polar orbit of an uninhabited Class M world. Our hope is that the magnetic fields will mask our energy signal. As a precaution I’ve order partial grey mode through the ship. We are still conducting repairs Meanwhile, Dr. Vale and McEntyre are continuing their post mortem analysis on our new enemies. Commander Garcia and Mr. Trevak are conducting interviews with our captured enemy combatants
Elias leaned back in his chair at the end of the conference table in the observation lounge. He needed the space to spread out the damage reports and other paperwork he was currently reviewing. They had been in orbit of this world for the last day. Three days of evading enemy sensors (that they knew of) to find this world. So far their new adversary had not found them. Elias was still puzzled on how they navigated space. No Warp signatures had been detected anywhere in range of the Guin’s sensors. It was a puzzle. One he was wanting to discuss with his husband.
He had called him up to speak with him. So far, Gil had been locked in his lab and hadn’t came out and it worried him.
Gil Tyris crossed the threshold into the conference lounge. He has spent literally every waking moment since the Zandaryi encounter deep in analysis mode, looking for cracks in the adversary’s defenses…as well as attempting to formulate strategies to shore up their own. Exhaustion was creeping in on him, albeit slowly; coming from a world with a thirty-one hour day that had twenty two hours of sunlight, his diurnal cycle was a bit different than that of most species. And coupled with his people’s mental discipline, Gil was capable of going up to five standard days without a sleep cycle.
When he made it to the lounge, Elias was looking worried. As Gil had expected he would be. Elias had replicated a pot of jazzo root tea, as well as a plate of sour fruits. After all these years, Elias still knew what Gil needed to recharge his batteries.
“Hello So’baan,” said Gil warmly, using an uncommon Ba’ku term of endearment that literally translates as ‘beloved male companion’.
"Hello, My love," Elias brighten a bit as he came over to stand in front of his husband, a smile on his face. "Have you eaten anything since we got into orbit?" He asked with concern.
Gil shrugged. “I had a power bar yesterday morning. And I have drank about a liter and a half of coffee.” His usual mask of calm deflated slightly. “It’s time for a recharge, though. I can feel exhaustion creeping in.”
Elias pulled his husband into a soft hug. “Then we go home and sleep for a week. Let Garcia run the ship for a bit” The large Caitian said with a coy smirk.
“And yes, there will be cuddling” Elias added for good measure.
“Sleep and cuddles,” said Gil wistfully. “These are a few of my favorite things.”
Elias softly nuzzles the top of Gil's head as they headed for the turbolift.
--
Chief Counsellor's Office
Connie Montoya waited until the door closed before she let herself exhale. Not heavily and not dramatically. Just enough to mark the end of one session and the brief, permitted space before the next. The office was dimmed for grey mode, the softer lighting making the room feel smaller than usual, more enclosed. The teapot sat untouched on the low table, the Assam gone too dark from oversteeping. She had made it forty minutes ago, intending to drink it between appointments. Instead, a young operations specialist she had never met before had sat opposite her with shaking hands and described the sound the hull had made when the first weapons fire struck. She had pressed a glass of cold water into their hand.
That had been happening more often in the last three days. New faces with unfamiliar names because they were drop in appointments. People who had previously passed her in corridors with polite nods and no interest whatsoever in counselling, now sitting in the chair opposite hers, eyes fixed on the carpet, trying to explain why they had not slept.
Connie understood. More than some of them realised. She had been in the mess when the boarding alarms came. The designated civilian shelter area had been where she had ended up, phaser ready in case they got cornered. She had missed her sword. She had not been in sickbay. Knowing what Lex had been through with the Chief Medical Officer there, she was not sure if she felt regret or relief.
Connie picked up the cold teacup, looked at it for a moment, then set it down again untouched. Her eyes closed briefly, before they opened at the chime at her door. Another drop by. She stood, smoothed down her skirt, and her day continued.
--
Bellamy Ghazi's quarters
Bellamy Ghazi sat in their quarters with tomorrow’s lesson plan open on the PADD and a mug of hot chocolate going cold beside them. The ship was in grey mode, which made everything look like it was trying not to draw attention to itself. They understood why and truthfully they even approved of it. It still made the room feel strange, less...real. Like one of those dreams, or like when they had come down with some illness as a child and spent a day in sickbay, half-sedated.
They had changed the lesson plan twice already. The first version felt too cheerful. The second had felt like they were trying to pretend nothing had happened, which was somehow worse. Children noticed that sort of thing. Bellamy had noticed it when they were young, during red alerts on ships where adults used calm voices and somehow completely forgot that children were not stupid.
What they remembered most though was the next day. Class still happened. Not always properly. Sometimes it was reading aloud, or drawing, or sorting things into groups because nobody had the head for fractions, or even tidying up and cleaning the classroom. But lessons still happened. There was still somewhere to go, something to do, an adult who knew their name and did not look surprised when they cried and needed a hug. Bellamy let out a breath and deleted the lesson title again. “Right,” they muttered, mostly to themself. “Nothing too clever.”
They wrote down: Places aboard ship first. That could work. Familiar places. Favourite places. Places you went when you needed help. If the children wanted to talk, they could talk. If they wanted to draw the mess hall with too many windows and no people in it, well, that would tell Bellamy something too.
Their eyes flicked to the chair near the door, remembering the broken stool leg in their hand and how quickly they had decided they would use it if they had to. They opened a separate note and added: Ask Ground Forces about self-defence training. After a moment, they added underneath: And do not let them make it weird.
--
Main Engineering
Getting in orbit around a Class M, affording Engineering some relief. A request was put in to Sciences for a scan of basic materials to begin fabrication of parts, and a urgent request to find the needed ore to repair the shield emitters.
Operations and Engineering personnel had been once again mixed, and a general call for anyone who could figure out how to push a broom or use a simple tool had been sent out. The total damage done was staggering. Several of the surviving staff, Declan included, had taken to using the Chief's office as a makeshift napping location. Bedrolls and cots strewn all over the space for people to use.
Drinking yet another cup of coffee, Declan's attention was focused entirely on directing the teams who were active, ordering people to eat or sleep when exhaustion hit, and working to devise a stronger defense. A glance to the Chronometer showed he was going to have to sleep eventually, two days was pushing his limits.
--
Conference Room 2
At some point, Vesper Wells had decided to move her operations out of her office and into a more spacious conference room. The surface of the table was still half covered with seemingly random belongings, but for the Yeoman, there was a rhyme and reason to all of it.
After the battle, Vesper had hit the ground running. Metaphorically at least. She'd taken her hypo, just in case, to mitigate any bleeding after the attack that had spilled out onto the decks of the ship.
At first, Vesper had played the role of Mercury, running messages by hand between departments where the internal comms had still been unreliable.
When the lines of communication had been restored, she had been free to get more hands on in her efforts to support the clean up. She'd set small tables outside every main hub and in every major intersection, complete with a flask of coffee and Vulcan tea, a canister of cold water and plenty of cups. She could already tell that the crew members dashing between repairs and diagnostics would forget to look after themselves along the way, so the stands were a way to make it easier for them to pick something up on the go. She'd even baked energy bars to add to the tables, to remind the crew to eat, and had made sure to replenish them every hour or so.
After that, she'd turned to the reports that had started to come in. Vesper triaged them all, swiftly but carefully, sending the important ones that needed actioning up the chain whilst meticulously filing the others. She'd offered to finish the reports of officers who had looked too busy or tired to write them up, whipping them into shape from dictated notes. She'd even picked up a PADD on the way through the Ground Forces' deck, having seen Jace toss it onto a table. At seeing the dictated bullet points, she'd wordlessly turned it into a fully written report before dropping it back onto the table and carrying on.
During her rounds of the ship, her cane clicking ever more heavily against the deck, Vesper had done her best to tidy and clear as she went. An abandoned repair kit had been folded up and returned to Engineering. A toppled pile of PADDs had been gathered and returned to its owner. A collection of various uniform parts had been thrown into the recycler. She'd even managed to reunite a lost teddybear with a relieved child.
But now, as she stood at the side of the large, oval table, she had needed to resort to the leg brace to support her hip. She'd clamped it to her leg under the uniform though, to try and make it less obvious.
Vesper held her breath as she watched the collection of items she'd laid out on the table. She'd treated them with the utmost respect, but she hadn't wanted them in her office. She didn't want to remember them there.
She allowed herself a few more moments of just watching without having to act, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
Laid out in front of her were belongings of the 19 crewmembers that had been killed in action. Anything that had needed verifying or registering. She had already checked them all, but now they needed to be packed up.
Vesper finally reached out with a delicate hand, taking the first up, a PADD full of logs, packing it carefully into the box that would be sent to the next of kin.
Slowly but surely, she made her way down the line, every item given one last check before being packed up for its final journey.
Until she reached Commander Rylen Lyo's commbadge.
Vesper took hold of it, pausing long enough to brush her thumb over the delta, her throat tight with emotion. For the man they'd lost. For the realisation of how unfair and unpredictable life on a ship could be.
She forced herself to put it in the box with his name on, letting out a long, shaking breath before checking the item off her PADD.
And with that, the lives of their fallen had finally been sealed.
--
Gym
The gym was quiet in the way the ship was quiet now, dimmed by grey mode and half-repaired systems, every hum lower than it should have been, every light softened as if the Guinevere herself had learned to hold her breath. Jace stood before the heavy bag in his fatigues, sleeves pushed to his elbows, sweat darkening the fabric between his shoulder blades and dampening the hair at his temples until a few strands had worked loose from where he had combed them back. His breathing stayed slow, controlled, but his body knew the work even if the rest of him refused to name what he was doing. Bruises pulled beneath his shirt when he shifted his weight. The scrape along his forearm tightened where the scab had cracked beneath old fabric and fresh movement. His shoulders were warm, his ribs ached in the dull way that meant nothing was broken, and his pulse sat steady under the skin, held there by discipline more than calm. He had wrapped his hands because he remembered Vale’s order well enough, because some part of him had decided that counted as compliance, but the gauze was already dark across two knuckles where the skin had split again. He noticed it only as pressure, warmth, a slight change in traction when his fist met the bag. Nothing important. Nothing that stopped the rhythm. Strike, reset, breathe. Strike, reset, breathe. Violence reduced to mechanics, each impact measured and clean, the sound dull against the padded quiet of the room.
He had gone through the boarding in his head too many times to call it thought anymore. Pod breach, angles...antlers, body mass, stun settings becoming useless once distance collapsed and the ship narrowed itself into corridors, doorways, blood on bulkheads and voices over comms trying to stay calm. Bodies on the floor, but beneath that, the strange relief of knowing who was alive...Elen, Lucy, Vesper, Cressida, Alina, Moriarty...Rook was untouched, which still sat strangely in him, both expected and not. The others became facts, checked and filed, but the order remained under his skin like grit: phasers to stun. He drove another punch into the bag and felt the split open properly this time, sharp and hot across his knuckles. His hand drew back red. For a moment he only looked at it, breathing slow, eyes unfocused, as if the blood belonged to someone else and he was deciding whether it required action. Then his jaw tightened. He wiped his hand against his trousers, squared his stance again, and hit the bag harder.
R'Mes was in the corner, doing sit ups. he couldn't help but think about why he signed up for the ground forces. "Different from sickbay." he thought as he continued
--
Translation Office
Tavrek Harland sat in his office with several audio files open in front of him, each one taken from the boarding. Corridor sensors, helmet recordings, internal pickups where the alarms had not completely drowned everything out. The computer had done what it could to clean them up, but there was only so much it could do with weapons fire, shouting and damaged channels. He had three repeated phrases, one possible command structure and something that might have been a rank marker, or just stress changing the shape of a word. It was not enough, and that was deeply irritating.
He replayed one of the fragments again, listening to the harsh syllables beneath the static. During the boarding he had been with the other civilians in the lounge, barricaded in and safe enough. Safe enough was such an imprecise phrase. It meant he had not been injured. It did not mean the ship had not been hurt, or that others had not died while he listened to the alarms and kept his breathing controlled. The enemy had spoken to each other as they moved through the ship, and Tavrek did not yet know what they had said. He disliked that more than he wanted to admit.
He added another note to the file, then sat back and looked at it for a moment. Possible movement command. Confidence low. His mouth tightened slightly before he let out a slow breath and reached for the cup of tea beside him. It had gone cold. Of course it had. Tavrek looked at it with mild disappointment, then set it down again without drinking. “Once more,” he said quietly, and played the recording again, because frustration was not useful, but repetition sometimes was.
--
Tactical Analysis Room
Master Chief Petty Officer Julian Trent sat at one of the auxiliary tactical stations with three reports open in front of him and another two waiting in the queue. Grey mode had taken most of the warmth out of the room, leaving the console lights sharper than usual against his face and turning the gold of his uniform into something duller. He had pulled damage records from Engineering, casualty movements from Sickbay, sensor fragments from Sciences and every weapon discharge report Tactical had managed to recover from the boarding. None of them agreed neatly with each other, which was irritating but not unexpected. Battles rarely had the decency to organise themselves for the people writing them up afterwards.
A cup of tea sat to one side of the console, untouched long enough that the surface had gone still and dark. Julian had made it with every intention of drinking it, somewhere between the third casualty cross-check and the fifth attempt to match Zandaryi boarding routes with internal sensor failures. That had been over an hour ago. He glanced at it once, registered the loss, then went back to the reports without reaching for it. Cold tea was still tea, technically. Just not tea worth interrupting himself for.
He rubbed two fingers briefly over the bridge of his nose before leaning closer to the display, pale blue eyes narrowing as another sequence resolved on the screen. Pod impact, deck breach, loss of comms, weapon discharge, withdrawal signature. The pattern was there, but not cleanly enough to be useful yet. His mouth tightened as he added another note to the tactical summary, the words spare and blunt because there was no point decorating bad news. Enemy boarding method direct and repeatable. Withdrawal appears tied to armour-based transporter mechanism. Recommend all future defensive planning assumes forcefields and standard armour insufficient against meson weaponry. Julian sat back just far enough for his shoulders to protest, ignored that as well, and opened the next report.
--
Deck 6, Section 14, Starboard Breach Site
Elen Rell had been inside the same section of damaged bulkhead for long enough that she had started naming the components out of spite. The fused ODN junction was Marjorie, because it looked harmless until touched, the ruptured power transfer tap was Sebastian, because it had disappointed her personally, and the half-melted structural brace she was currently trying to persuade back into alignment was, after some consideration, simply Bastard. Grey mode had turned the corridor into a washed-out shadow of itself, all dimmed panels and emergency strips, but the exposed wound in the hull still glowed faintly where temporary force mesh held the pressure seal in place. The breaching pod had torn through here three days ago, punching past the outer hull, the secondary layer, and far too many of Elen’s feelings about sensible ship design. She had not been there when it happened. She had only arrived after, when the boarders were gone and the corridor looked like something had tried to chew its way into the Guinevere and then changed its mind halfway through. It hurt seeing her like this. But they would patch her up. Already the holes were giving way for repairs, sealed together. Perhaps they'd be able to buff out the scars too.
She was lying on her back beneath the opened section now, one knee bent, boots braced against the deck plating, curls escaping from the scarf she had tied around her hair at some point she could no longer remember. There was a mug of coffee beside her hip, cold enough to legally count as punishment to the taste buds, and another slightly newer one balanced on an equipment case a metre away. Both luckily had lids. She had forgotten which one she was drinking from and had decided this was future Elen’s problem. Present Elen had a micro-welder in one hand, a tricorder chirping warnings by her ear, and enough caffeine in her bloodstream to make her either brilliant or briefly able to perceive subspace harmonics. “No, no, sweetheart, we are not doing that,” she muttered as the alignment drifted half a degree out again. “We are being nice and calm and trying not to remember that antlers attacked us, like some creepy children's holo-story. Got it?”
The tricorder gave another shrill complaint, and Elen turned her head slowly to glare at it. “I know,” she said with a soft sigh. “Trust me, I've been here long enough to know that the stress tolerances are...absolutely stressed.” She reached blindly for the coffee, found a plasma spanner instead, accepted this as fate and used it to lever the brace into place while her other hand adjusted the patch sequence. Her thoughts were moving too fast now, jumping from thermal expansion to casualty lists to shield emitter fabrication to whether she had eaten anything that was not coffee adjacent. The answer was possibly no, unless licking biscuit crumbs off her thumb counted as nutrition. Her mind had decided it was going to go all over the place after day two surviving on powernaps. But somehow, repairing wasn’t the problem...her mouth was. She couldn't shut up.
“Lieutenant?” one of the younger engineers asked from further down the corridor, sounding careful in the way people did when they were not sure if she was talking to them, the ship, or a possibly cursed brace named Bastard.
“Still alive,” Elen called back, then paused as a shower of tiny sparks pattered against the sleeve of her uniform. “Mostly. Emotionally questionable. Mechanically inspired.” She tightened the final clamp and held her breath while the patch engaged, watching the readings crawl from catastrophic insult to merely rude. The force mesh steadied. The pressure seal held. Somewhere beneath her palms, the vibration changed, just slightly, the damaged section settling into the rest of the ship again. Elen let out a long breath and closed her eyes for half a second, not enough to sleep, not enough to fall apart, just enough to feel the hope under the exhaustion. Then she opened them again, reached for the cold coffee, and drank it before she could think better of it. Her face twisted. “That is vile,” she whispered, almost awed at it. The repair would hold until the crew got around to sealing it properly with replacement parts. But they were too slow. They were all too slow.
Maybe her more than most.
--
Sickbay
The Guinevere's medical facilities were quiet now. Those who could return to duty were sent on their way. Those who needed bed rest and minimal monitoring were sent back to their quarters. Those few who needed more attention were in the wards, with medical staff ready to take care of them.
And those who did not make it were in the morgue, ready for whatever their final wishes called for.
For the first time in more than a day, Cressida sat alone in her office.
It was quiet.
All she could hear was her breathing. She tried to focus on it. It had always been a solid grounding strategy. Breathe in. Breathe out. It was the only sound in the room. It was all that mattered. In. Out.
In.
Out.
In -- with a stutter.
She wiped a tear from her eye.
She stood up, putting both hands on her desk for stability.
Big mistake. Instant agony. The nurse had done a good job stabilizing her hand but the pain medication was wearing off, and the adrenaline rush had passed. She fell forward, catching herself on her elbows on the desk.
Her right hand went up to her commbadge. "Doctor McEntyre to the CMO's office. Doctor's McEntyre to the CMO's office." She knew he was out of surgery. He wouldn't be far though.
J.R had been in surgery for nearly 32 hours straight when he emerged from the functional surgical bay. He was still in his scrubs, covered in fluids and blood and other viscera when he walked over to the CMO's office.
"Wanted to see me?" He asked as he pushed up his glasses.
"I know you've given more than most today, J.R.," Cressida told him, "but I think I need you to scrub back in." She held up her left hand. "I don't know the extent of the damage but I think it's worse than what an osteoregenerator can handle."
J.R shifted his glasses as he walked over to examine her hand. He removed the dressing making note of the wound he’d seen quite a bit of in the last day or so.
“Shit.” J.R exclaimed softly. “That’s a nasty wound alright.” J.R tapped his commbadge. “Surgical team one to trauma bay, prep for emergency surgery. Sorry boys and girls” he could almost hear the groans of his Beleaguered staff.
“Sorry, team!” Cressida said sheepishly into the open comm line. “Hopefully not too complicated.” When the line closed, she looked her Assistant Chief in the eye. “When this is done, make sure everyone takes a good long break. I know you won’t put yourself in the first group to rest but make sure you’re in the second. I’ll have worn off from anesthetics by then.”
“As you say but this is nothing. During the war, once did 24 hours straight of meatball surgery.” J.R commented.
As they walked together toward the OR, Cressida continued to give instructions. “When we’re both back to one hundred percent, I’ll ask you to lead on a post mortem examination of one of the dead attackers. I’ll supervise and handle notes, you make the cuts. We need to understand these people in every way possible.”
“I’ll get my tools together and we’ll schedule it for when we’re both better”
“Sounds good,” Cressida said as she started getting out of her uniform and into the gown they’d need her in. “See you on the other side,” she said with a wan smile as the anesthesiologist on staff started to prep her….
--
McCauley Quarters
"How was it today?" Arun asked, looking up at his mate as Evy walked through the doors to their quarters, which groaned whenever they moved. Most of their things were put back on the shelves where they belonged, and Evy had done what she could making sure that Oriana was doing okay with everything.
The child was something else. She had spent the day asking all the questions about the attack and had been taking notes about the creatures. Where as the Ekahl were highly xenophobic, this child was not.
"Tired," Evy said out loud. "Hey lil' one."
Oriana burst from her lying on the floor position and ran hard into her mother's stomach and hugged her tight. Evy's hair had come frizzy out of its confined braid. She was covered in dirt and grime. The quarters were dark, the way that they liked it, even though Ori didn't have the same problems that Evy and Arun did.
"How was your day?"
"Long. Lots of work to do to get everything back up and running," Evy replied as she knelt down on one knee and ruffled the child's hair as she leaned in for another hug. ~"Tired enough to sleep without the nightmares."
"I hope."
The attack had dredged up all the bad things for Evy and Arun. Evy lost their first child and still bore the scars from their adventure against the Jem'Hadar all those years prior. They were lucky to even have Oriana as it was. There were many years, stars willing that they'd continue to grow their family if they could. Evy had been plagued worse than Arun. He had been in the aeroponics room when the attack happened. He wasn't trained as a soldier, unlike Evy. While she handled herself during the attack, flashes between their colony ship and the computer core where she had been had been hard enough to deal with without her completely losing her mind. "Go get ready for bed," she ruffled the child's hair again. "You going to be okay after being cooped up all day to work all night?" she asked quietly as Ori skipped her way to her bedroom. She wearily stood.
"Eh," he commented, shrugging slyly. "It's not like we aren't used to days longer than the Federation runs their ships."
She leaned against him and rested her forehead on his. "Takia," she cursed quietly.
"It'll be okay. When things settle, you can get in with the counselor to deal with it," he whispered enjoying the touch of their foreheads. They were passing in the night. "Go get some rest," he said as he kissed her forehead gently.
"Ti-Axar, Arun," she thanked him, kissing him back on his forehead in return.
-------
Commodore Elias McEntyre
Commanding Officer
USS Guinevere NCC- 80518
Commander Cressida Vale, MD
Chief Medical Officer and Second Officer
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Commander Gil Tyris
Chief Science Officer
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Dr. John Ross McEntyre
ACMO
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Lt. jg Elen Rell
Engineer
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Master Chief Petty Officer Julian Trent
Tactical
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Lt. jg Connie Montoya
Counsellor
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Tavrek Harland
Translation Specialist
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Bellamy Ghazi
Teacher
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant, Alpha Squad
Federation Ground Forces Detachment
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Lieutenant Evy McCauley
Chief Operations Officer
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Ensign Vesper Wells
Yeoman
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
Corporal R'Mes
Ground Forces Medic
USS Guinevere NCC-80518
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