The Quiet Between Heartbeats

Posted on Tue Jul 21st, 2026 @ 7:43am by Captain Marc Steyn & Commodore Charlotte Reyes & Lieutenant Commander Maximo (Max) Vero & Lieutenant Syvar MD

3,344 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Season 1, Episode 1: Ashes of Wolf 359
Location: USS Majestic - Sickbay

Pain returned in slow, layered waves—first as a deep, throbbing pressure behind Commander Marc Steyn’s eyes, then as the sharper awareness of his body itself. His ribs felt as though they had been packed with hot gravel; every breath pulled against something strained and unwilling. His left shoulder ached with a deep, joint-level burn that suggested regeneration and repair rather than simple injury, and there was a faint metallic taste at the back of his throat that told him he had been unconscious longer than his body cared to admit. He lay still for a moment, letting the sterile coolness of the sickbay air settle over him, listening to the soft, rhythmic chirp of monitoring systems and the distant hush of a starship in transit. Memory came in fragments—Wolf 359, the USS Roosevelt, a violent cascade of impacts, alarms swallowed by light—and with it a brief, unwelcome surge of nausea that forced him to swallow hard before it could rise further.

When his vision finally steadied, he turned his head slightly. Another biobed stood beside his, occupied by a second survivor: a man unconscious, face bruised and bandaged, wearing a Starfleet uniform cut in a style that looked unfamiliar only in the way old designs sometimes did when seen out of context. Steyn registered it without alarm, more as a point of curiosity than anything else, before letting his eyes drift shut for a heartbeat and reopening them to the quiet reality that he was alive, and not alone.

He tried to speak but the sound seemed to get stuck in his throat. He tried again and his usual salt of the Atlantic and his softened consonants, and the lilting cadence that bends English as though it learned it first from wind over Table Mountain was not present. It was a hard rasp which shot pain through his neck like hot irons being pressed against his skin.
"Doctor" was all he could manage.

Then is started to hit him in shards, not as a single image but an unfolding inevitability—the kind of memory that refused to stay still. The Roosevelt had been breaking apart around him, the fleet at Wolf 359 reduced to scattered wreckage and dying lights, when he saw it: the Borg cube, impossibly intact amid the ruin, turning away from the carnage with a patient, unhurried certainty, as though the destruction it had caused was no more significant than a course correction. One moment it was there, framed against the debris of a shattered armada; the next it was simply… gone, moving onward without hesitation, leaving behind the silence of a grave yard on a path that pointed to only one place. Earth.

"Doctor" this time his voice found itself, clear, definite and loud enough to rouse the sleeping man beside him.

"Easy..." A firm hand kept him down on the bed, the whirring sound of a scanner coming from the doctor's other hand. Syvar's expressive eyes were filled with concern as he studied his readings. The man had been unconscious for quite some time and he didn't like how confused he appeared. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"Earth... The Borg are heading to Earth... My son!" Panic cracked through Marc's voice as he started to move, pushing away the steadying hand of the Doctor.

Every instinct screamed at him to move, to ignore the agony radiating through his battered body. His injuries held him in place, but his mind was already racing across the stars toward home.

He had already watched his wife slip away, stolen piece by piece by a cruel neurological illness. Helplessness had become a familiar torment as he witnessed the woman he loved fade beyond his reach. He had endured that loss once. He could not—would not—endure another.

Not David.

Whatever it took, he had to reach his son before the Borg did.

Max's eyes stirred slightly as the headache came in full force.

"Che diavolo (What the hell .. ) ...." he muttered squeezing his eyes together, his hand flying up to his nose. He released his eyes and sat bolt upright spotting the other two men.

Turning his head towards the second patient, Syvar almost jumped as the man bolted upright. "Sir...we have your child, he is fine. You may see him soon, but we need to get you better first." Sickbay was littered with injured and unconscious officers, in very ancient uniforms. "And you sir lay down! You were both injured and we still have to figure out who you are and how you got here." He tugged down his uniform tunic then made sure his soft leather gloves were secured on his hands "please..."

"I don't need to lie down," Max said firmly. "I need to know where my ship is?"

Marc seized the opportunity to slip from the biobed while the Vulcan doctor tended to the other patient. Every muscle protested as he crossed the room, but he ignored the pain. He needed answers. Where was his son? What had happened to Earth? Had Starfleet somehow managed to stop the Borg Cube, or at least turn it away? The thought felt increasingly unlikely. He had seen the devastation at Wolf 359—an entire fleet swept aside as though it had never existed.

He reached the nearest console and called up the rescue vessel's data network. The familiar LCARS interface sprang to life beneath his fingertips, but every avenue he tried ended at the same security prompt. He entered his command access code. Access denied. He tried again, more carefully this time, only to receive the same response. It wasn't simply a lack of clearance—the computer didn't recognise his credentials at all.

A cold knot settled in his stomach. Even on a rescue ship, his command codes should have identified him. Instead, it was as though he'd never existed. Frustration boiled over, and he slammed both palms against the console hard enough to make the display flicker. "Damn it," he muttered through clenched teeth, the unanswered questions weighing heavier with every passing second.

"They think I'm dead or assimilated don't they... Is that why my access is denied?"

Max himself was noticing more and more. "This is not sickbay .... what are ... what is all that and ......" he swung himself off whatever he was lying on. It was a bed but it was widely different to the technology on his ship. He dodged the medic suddenly coming closer and headed in the direction of the other man who was saying strange terms.

"What is assimilated?"

"It's a word that if you have never heard off; you are better off not knowing." As she strode through the doors of sickbay, Rochelle was quick to take a survey of the situation. The older uniforms was still causing a mystery of which Starfleet were demanding answers; they didn't care at this moment in time that numerous people were injured. All Starfleet wanted were answers and she was prepared to blow up her communications bay at this point if they didn't back off and let her figure out what it was that happened.

"I can confirm that you are not dead either officer. You are onboard the USS Majestic and in our sickbay. Doctor Syvar..." Rochelle indicated to Syvar before continuing, "...has been treating you and some of your colleagues since the fleet began your rescue."

As she talked, the Captain looked between the two men in remnants of blue uniforms but both different in appearance. Her left eyebrow raised a little at the man standing at the LARCs display, the frustration very clear on his face. "How about we start with introductions? I'm Captain Rochelle Bowe of the USS Majestic."

Marc felt the panic inside him begin to subside, its frantic grip slowly loosening beneath the weight of the Captain’s presence. Her authoritative presence in the room needed no announcement, no raised voice or commanding gesture. It simply existed — steady, immovable — and it did most of the work in pulling him back from the edge, forcing his thoughts into something closer to reason.

He drew in a slow, measured breath, holding it for a moment as he gathered the scattered pieces of his composure. He used the brief pause to clear the noise from his mind, to remind himself that fear would not help him now. Not when answers were needed.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than he expected, but steady.

"Commander Marc Steyn, chief science officer aboard the USS Roosevelt..." He hesitated, the words suddenly feeling heavier than they should have. His eyes remained fixed on the Captain. "Captain... is Earth safe?"

The Roosevelt...the name triggered something in the back of the Captains mind but at this point she couldn't fairly put her finger on it. His question on Earth still had her hesitating, early reports were coming through that the Enterprise had stopped the Borg but not without exceptional losses. Details that didn't matter at this moment.

"Of course Earth's safe. That's not the issue here now though." Rochelle's eyes moved from the newly identified Commander to the man standing at the LARCS station.

"And you might be?"

"Commander Maximo Vero, Captain," Max said the strangeness of the uniforms they both wore hitting him. "Our ship the USS Oberth we encountered some sort of portal but it was .... we were nowhere near Earth. We were pulled through and suddenly in the battle. Every vessels technology was far superior and unrecognisable configurations to us. Our Captain she died as we were hit multiple times. I ordered to get as far away from the battle as possible till we could work out who was friendly but the damage was too severe to be of any help. Your people rescued us I assume.

A horrible feeling was in his stomach. "Captain, what year is this?" he finally asked.

Marc had intended to ask a few more questions, but after hearing the other officers' concerns about when he was, he decided now was not the time. The Captain would likely have insisted all the answers would be forthcoming within the next few hours.

Instead, Marc shifted his attention to the century-old uniform the other officer wore, feeling the familiar pull of duty return. His instinct to help people, buried beneath the confusion and disbelief of the moment, began to surface once more.

"That's the million dollar question isn't it. Give me a second..." Rochelle had held up a finger, indicating a stop for a moment before looking over to Syver. "Doctor, can you brief me on how everybody's doing? And have these two been cleared by yourselves and counselling hey?"

"No captain, they haven't been cleared as they just regained consciousness," Syvar reported, "there are two Vulcans that have not yet regained consciousness and captain...the female is part Orion." The Vulcan doctor paused as he studied the two men. "I do believe they should be told on where they are ma'am, "the sooner the better."

Rochelle took a moment, glancing to the other bios beds where the uniforms were mixed; some matched Max's while others where of a style matching Marcs. While she understood the Doctor's words, she was still concerned about the chaos that would ensue once the people realised what it was that was happening. Chaos was nobodies best friend right now, fixing people up and dealing with what the Borg had left behind was more important.

"Doctor...I'm going to borrow these two and your office if that's ok. I don't want to remove them from sickbay if still not cleared but I need a word in private; a chance to get a better grasp on things while we get a counselling team down here also. These people are going to need support, no matter the year. What they've just been through is enough to screw anybody up."

"Of course captain, the office is at your disposal." Syvar gestured ahead at the empty office. "And I'll be here to offer any medical assistance they may need ."

Max watched the two speaking, the growing pit in his stomach getting bigger. The fact his question had been deflected and not answered straight away meant the Captain was clearly trying to find the right way to answer things. Which meant this was serious.

Rochelle nodded her appreciation to the Doctor before indicating for both officers to follow her. "So Commander Vetri, you found yourself in command of the USS O..Oberth was it?" The name was still foreign to the Captain, a ship she was having trouble recalled as being part of Starfleet. In saying this; she was beginning to wonder if the lack of recollection was linked to the uniform the man was wearing."

"Vero," Max corrected her. "Si the USS Oberth. Formally under the command of Captain Sakara."

"Wait... I know that. Captain!"

Marc was all business now. A scientific mystery lying at his feet was an opportunity he couldn't possibly ignore.

"The USS Oberth—first of her class. Commanded by Captain Sakara of Vulcan. She was launched a few years before the V'Ger incident. Officially, it was said that all hands were lost to some kind of spatial anomaly. The disaster prompted Starfleet to develop additional technology and safety systems, which were incorporated into the next ships of the class. Those improvements helped pave the way for Starfleet's expansion into the early twenty-third century."

The words died in Marc's throat.

Only then did he notice the expression on the captain's face—and the look of utter horror that had fallen over Max.

Marc's stomach tightened.

"I'm... sorry."

The flourish of words that came out of Max was too fast for the universal translator. "Mamma Mia, Ma dai. Davvero. Ma Dicic sul serio?"

His brain was rapidly doing the math as the others round him finally got the translation (My goodness. Come on your kidding. Really. Are you serious?"

"Nearly 100 years," he finally said shaking slightly. "I need to sit down. No I need to .... the others ..... they need to be told ..... Captain It should come from me."

Syvar, who had remained near the doorway swept in to support the stricken officer and pressed a hypospray against the man's throat. "A mild sedative," he explained gently, "there weren't many survivors, and I don't know if they're still searching... There are two here in sickbay with a uniform in the same style as yours that I'm aware of. There may be more incoming or treated on other vessels."

Max nodded feeling the effects of whatever he had just injected him with. It seemed hypo sprays had advanced. He had barely felt that go in. It dumbed the panic, feelings mourning lost crew and anxiety on his thoughts presently and forced his shoulders he hadn't even noticed he was holding taut to relax. "Grazia Doctor," he said simply deciding to just take a seat in case his legs gave out ready to try focus on what he assumed was a debrief to come.

Rochelle rubbed her fingers across her eyes; she'd have preferred had gone a little different, ripping off the bandaid wasn't always the best way to tell somebody they'd time traveled to decades into the future.

Moving across the room, she moved down to her hunkers in order to get at eye level with Max. "Im not going to ask if your ok, it'll be awhile before your even close to it. But yes...this needs to come from you to the rest of your crew. Your now their commanding officer, you need to show them that whatever is to come next; you are all together for it. This won't be easy but you have my medical and counselling staff behind you."

Max nodded. "Thank you Captain."

Marc spoke up from his standing position across the room. His voice was far softer now, carrying a compassion that had been absent for some time, buried beneath the weight of his own despair.

"Anything I can do to help as well, Commander, I'm here for you."

Rochelle moved to her feet as she looked back across to Marc, her hand moving to Max's shoulder as she squeezed it a little in further support. "Marc...the USS Roosevelt didn't make it. Of the forty ships that responded to the attack; only one ship is remaining. Thousands of life's have been lost. From the last update I have; you are the most senior ranking officer of the Roosevelt who's left. You have a crew of your own also who needs you."

The Captain’s words struck with the force of a supernova.

He had seen the devastation through the narrow opening of the Roosevelt’s bridge, but his view had been limited. In those fleeting moments, he had convinced himself that more ships must have survived—that the destruction he could see was only part of the picture.

To learn that only one had made it through was more than a gut punch. It was a blow that left him momentarily hollow.

“Oh my God,” was all he could manage.

Max's mouth opened and closed a few times. He felt for the man in the same situation and he had more knowledge and understanding.

He had a million more questions the main one being who had attacked? And why? What was the alien cube? but there was too much to think about, for all of them to process. That would wait.

Now focused on Marc, Rochelle had watched the play of emotions across his face. Taking a deep breath she couldn't deny she wouldn't want to be in their shoes but every emotion being experienced by both men was going to be replicated across many more. The Captain knew the crews needed anchors and these men needed to be that. "Commander...you've done your command exams. You've been promoted to where you are now because of a belief that you can lead. Right now...you need to lead what remains of your crew and help them with what comes next. As much as you are entitled to the same feelings...now you come second to them."

"Yes."

The word was quiet, but it carried the weight of eleven thousand souls lost in that fateful battle. Even the commander’s usually warm, cheerful South African accent sounded different now—muted, burdened, as though the memory itself had settled into his voice.

"Roosevelt had more than seven hundred officers and crew..." He paused. "How many survived?"

Did he truly want to hear the answer?

Rochelle took a breath but knew that she shouldn't beat around the bush. There was no way to soften this blow and at this point, she needed the man to stand on his own two feet and take the hits; it was only going to get worse from here. "Forty three survived."

Marc couldn't even bring himself to repeat the number. His crew had numbered seven hundred and fifty when they entered the Wolf 359 system. Now, on their return to Earth, that number had been reduced by a terrifying margin.

"Thank you, Captain... for everything. I will..." His voice faltered, the words catching in his throat. He paused, unwilling to break down in front of the others. Drawing in a shaky breath, he steadied himself.

"I need to see my crew."

"Me also," Max stated.

Marc stepped away from the office, Syvar falling into stride beside him, with Max close behind. They walked in silence—two men born centuries apart, yet carrying the same quiet heartaches, each all too familiar with the crushing weight of loss, and the words that never seemed to come easily. The silence between them wasn't empty; it pulsed in time with their heartbeats, heavy with thoughts neither man wanted to give voice to.

Their footsteps carried them toward a conversation neither of them was truly prepared for. Marc searched for words that could soften a truth too cruel to be gentled. No measure of courage, experience, or resolve could make what lay ahead any easier to deliver—or to endure.

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