Failure Point

Posted on Sat Sep 19th, 2026 @ 5:39pm by Captain Marc Steyn & Lieutenant Commander Maximo (Max) Vero & Lieutenant Vireya Talvaren & Lieutenant Syvar MD & Lieutenant Reruk & Lieutenant JG Charlie Johnson

2,983 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Season 1 Episode 2: The Garden at the Edge of Night
Location: Conference Room - Deck 1

ON

It had happened.

For one terrible instant, flashes of what remained of the Roosevelt emblazoned themselves across the Captain’s mind—the fire, the chaos, the helplessness. Thankfully, this was on a far less severe scale, but his body had reacted before his mind could catch up. It took him a moment to steady himself, to force the memories back into whatever dark corner of his mind they belonged in. He could only hope no one had noticed.

He scanned the bridge.

Reruk and Vireya were feverishly working their consoles, coaxing whatever information they could from systems that seemed determined to remain silent. Ensign Hale was battling with the flight-control station, attempting to breathe life back into it with little success. At his own station, the Captain had fared no better. The engineering display had gone dark, extinguished as completely as the ship’s engines, leaving him with nothing but a blank screen and a growing sense of unease.

He needed answers.

More than that, he needed to understand why this had happened.

And the silence from his Chief Engineer was more than a little worrying.

The Captain pushed himself away from the console, rising to his feet. Soot streaked one cheek, his uniform bearing the marks of whatever had just happened, but he barely noticed. There was no time for appearances. Not now.

He tapped his combadge.

“All senior officers report to the conference room. On the double.”

His voice allowed no room for argument, no hesitation and certainly no excuses.

He was already moving before the words had finished leaving his mouth.

Crossing to the rear of the bridge, he keyed the door and forced it open when it failed to respond immediately. Beyond lay the short corridor connecting the bridge to the conference room. He stepped through, the door hissing shut behind him, and made his way to the far end.

The Captain dropped into the chair at the head of the table.

For a moment, he simply sat there.

Exhaustion weighed heavily on him now that he had stopped moving, but he refused to let it show. Whatever had happened out there, whatever had crippled the ship and silenced her systems, they were going to find out.

He leaned forward, resting his hands against the table.

And waited for his senior officers to arrive.

Having ascertained that the Lieutenant was ok in sickbay, Ensign Peters entered the conference room. He gulped, not having been around the senior staff much. "The Chief sends her apologies, Captain....She is... indisposed in sickbay. I'm here to represent engineering, make notes and respond on her behalf."

Reruk didn't bother to wipe the sweat or grime from his brow as the Captain’s summons cut through the tense quiet of the Bridge. Stepping past the jammed doors and into the conference room, he took his seat, his mind still racing through the residual telemetry as he tried to figure out what had happened. The incident had been sudden, devastating, but entirely spatial - likely not an attack - as he held to the cold logic of the numbers. Yet as his eyes flicked to the Captain's soot-stained face and then to the nervous Ensign filling in for Engineering, a familiar knot tightened in his chest. Convincing himself of the data was one thing; convincing a shaken crew would be another entirely.

Max almost felt like a new man after his back having been treated but he was still a little apprehensive about transporters with the ship in this state, and the first 3 turbolifts he tried not even opening there doors meant he had to climb up several decks and made his way to the bridge via the Jefferies tubes.

“Captain,” he nodded as he joined them a little breathless. “Several turbo lifts are out of action. I’ve come from sickbay. Dr Syvar was being treated when I left. I assume he will be following the same route up I did once cleared. I need to speak to you in private after the meeting if possible.” The mention of having come from sickbay meant everyone could connect the dots that he likely needed to speak to Steyn about Lt. Johnson, especially as he had headed from the bridge to engineering earlier but Max hadn’t been there when Ensign Peters had arrived and explained what he did.

Max took a seat next to the engineering Ensign who he would also be speaking to the Captain about how he had stepped up.

Marc's expression darkened, a surge of anger held tightly in check by sheer force of will. He could already see the most likely culprit: the collection of spare parts and components that had been used during Genesis's construction in place of the standardised systems and engineering templates normally employed aboard Galaxy- and Nebula-class vessels. He had known from the outset that the compromises forced upon the ship could create unforeseen problems. What he hadn't expected was for those problems to manifest quite so catastrophically—and quite so soon.

His frustration, however, was directed squarely at his Chief Engineer. This was not about assigning blame. Accidents happened, systems failed, and Genesis was operating under circumstances none of them had encountered before. But precisely because of that, his Chief Engineer should have been here. She should have been taking ownership of the situation, coordinating the response, and ensuring everyone understood what needed to be done. Accountability did not mean blame; it meant being present when the ship needed you most.

'Where the hell was she?'

Marc caught himself before the question could become anger spoken aloud. From the corner of his eye, he could already see Max stepping into the gaps, taking on responsibilities that should have belonged elsewhere. For the moment, Marc decided to hold his tongue. There would be time enough for questions later.

He turned his attention back to the ensign.

“Report, Ensign” all eyes in the room falling to the one person who shouldn't have been present.

Peters shifted uncomfortably. "Sir, it looks like what happened initially was an overload of the plasma grid, which blew out the relays on deck 20 due to the..." He paused as he tried to find the right words without throwing Charlie to the wolves. "Unstable configuration of the main power grid, which led to a sympathetic resonance in the plasma flow and the conduits. To put it simply, the EPS system almost tore itself apart. On paper, the configuration was sound, but it wasn't intended to be used by components from different classes of vessels, as we've been forced to adapt on the Genesis. The overload fed back into the warp reaction chamber and collapsed the warp field, locking the warp coils in a feedback loop. We managed to successfully shut down the warp core, but the damage was... quite extensive.

Impulse engines should be restored within the hour, as will main power. Restoring power to the shield and weapons will take a little longer, but the warp drive is a different story. Not only will the dilithium matrix have to be recalibrated and re-initialised, but we're also going to have to repair the plasma conduits on deck 20. Structural integrity on that deck has been compromised; I recommend we evaluate it as a precaution. Then..." He took a deep breath. "The warp coils in both nacelles have partially melted and are fused beyond repair. They're going to have to be rebuilt. We had to vent superheated plasma through them. It was the only way to prevent a core breach."

It took forever, and extreme effort but finally a very exhausted chief medical officer made it to the bridge. He was clearly injured, the way his dominant arm was secured to his body. Sweat was pouring down his face as he unsteadily got to his feet. "Sickbay is in pieces," he reported, "we have injured staff and not the means to heal people as fast as normal. We're resorting to archaic methods for the moment. The chief engineer is currently unconscious and being tended to."

Vi had taken a seat without doing much more for the cut on her cheek than wiping away the worst of the blood. What remained had dried into a thin dark line beneath the emergency lighting, and the ache along her side had settled into something she could ignore provided she didn’t move too quickly. There had been no time to find whoever Max had intended to patch her up. Marc’s summons had come almost as soon as the bridge had stopped trying to fall apart.

She listened to Peters without interrupting, the scale of the damage getting worse the longer he spoke. The EPS grid was bad enough. The warp coils being partially melted was something else entirely. Genesis had barely left Earth and already both nacelles needed rebuilding. Vi’s attention stayed on the ensign, though the thought of how exposed they were sat stubbornly at the back of her mind. No warp, no shields, no weapons, limited sensors and Sickbay struggling to treat the people who had already been hurt.

Syvar’s arrival pulled her eyes towards the door. He looked considerably worse than when she had last seen him, one arm secured against his body and exhaustion written plainly across him. Vi felt the strain coming off him before he had even finished speaking, and the news about Sickbay did nothing to improve the mood around the table. She resisted the urge to touch the cut on her cheek again. Compared with what Medical was dealing with, it could wait.

Her gaze returned to Peters. “When you say shields will take a little longer,” she said, her tone calm but more intent now, “how long are we actually talking?”

Peters did some manual calculations in his head. "Weapons and shields should take about eight hours. The warp drive and everything else...... If we were at a space dock with a dedicated repair crew, 5 days. Out here..... Just us...... twenty days, and that's every engineering team pulling double shifts."

As she spoke, Syvar's attention was drawn to the security chief and he noticed the injury she had suffered. "Has that been looked after?" He asked, worry replacing his own pain and exhaustion in a heartbeat, "is anyone else injured? Can someone get me the medkit stored on the bridge?"

"Those repair estimates are an optimistic calculation if structural integrity is actively compromising the primary power routing," Reruk cut in, not bother to offer sympathy to the bleeding or the exhausted. "We're floating dead in space on Impulse power alone while sitting atop an unstable plasma grid," he leaned back, "and if those fused Warp Coils cause a secondary thermal spike before we isolate deck 20, none of us will need Sickbay."

“Well I for one do not believe the gods hurtled me into the future just to die on our first trip out, so let’s be a bit more positive Si,” Max stated. “What about the plasma grid? Can anything be done to make that more stable?”

Marc listened, taking in every word and carefully weighing the information being presented. Despite himself, he found himself commending the young Ensign for the composure he had maintained in the face of overwhelming circumstances. Peters had been thrust into the middle of a crisis, with a senior officer apparently incapacitated at precisely the moment she was needed most, and had then been forced to stand before the ship's senior officers and explain why their first voyage had nearly killed them all.

That took no small amount of courage.

"Ensign, I want you to understand something. We appreciate everything you've stepped up to deal with. You've done exactly what was needed, without hesitation, and you've represented Engineering well."

Marc then turned his attention to the rest of the table.

"And that applies to all of you. No one is to blame for what has happened here. We knew there would be... teething problems," he added, the faintest hint of irony touching his voice given the scale of the disaster. "The Genesis was assembled using mismatched components and systems from different classes of starship. We knew there were risks."

He paused, allowing that statement to settle.

"So I want to make this absolutely clear: there will be no blame assigned for this. Not now, and not later. I expect every one of you to make that equally clear to your people. We solve the problem first. We can worry about lessons learned once we're safely home."

Marc took a slow, steadying breath.

For the briefest moment, his eyes drifted around the room. His first command was barely underway, and already the ship was crippled, her crew injured and her mission hanging precariously in the balance. It would have been easy to let the weight of that settle on his shoulders.

He couldn't afford to.

"We also have an away mission to complete."

His gaze settled on Commander Vero.

"Commander, once the immediate dangers aboard ship have been dealt with, I want you to take the runabout and a properly equipped away team. I'll remain aboard the Genesis and oversee the repairs."

A faint, tired smile touched his features.

"We can at least salvage that part of the mission."

That, however, was the easy part.

Now came the harder decisions.

"Before we do anything else, we need to restore life support across every deck."

He looked towards Reruk.

"Lieutenant Reruk, I appreciate that this falls outside your usual area of expertise, but I can think of no one better suited to getting a job done when the odds are against us. Coordinate whatever resources you need and get those systems back online."

"I'm a scientist, not an engineer," Reruk protested, his voice dripping with his signature biting, arrogant edge. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as if to physically push back against the assignment. "Routing environmental power through a compromised, Frankenstein grid isn't a matter of theoretical physics. It's basic spatial plumbing, and frankly, my talents are entirely wasted re-wiring life support when our primary sensor arrays need complete re-calibration to ensure we aren't drifting blind into a plasma wake."

He shot a sharp, cynical glance toward Peters, offering the nervous ensign zero slack. "If Engineering's current solution to a plasma overload is venting superheated gas through the nacelles and melting our only way home, I shudder to think what happens when I let them handle environmental distribution alone."

Despite the sharp complaint, Reruk was already reaching for his PADD, quickly studying the primary environmental schematics with practiced, hyper-vigilant efficiency. He wasn't about to let the ship suffocate just to prove a point, no matter how much he disdained the manual labor.

"I will stabilize the life support matrix on decks one through twelve first," he conceded, his tone flat, pragmatic, and entirely devoid of enthusiasm. "But if Deck 20’s structural failure shifts and cuts main bio-filters, I am shutting down auxiliary power to the lower mess halls without asking for a committee vote. We prioritize breathing over hot meals."

Marc's attention shifted to Talvaren.

"Lieutenant Talvaren, do what you can for our defensive systems. Shields, weapons, sensors—whatever you can restore. But propulsion takes priority. I don't want anything compromised that could delay getting our engines back into service."

Vi gave Marc a small nod. “Understood. I can start with the hardware and see what survived the overload, but until Engineering can spare us more power there’s only so much I can bring back online.”

Her mind was already moving through the tactical systems she could reach without asking anything more of the ship. The bridge console itself, local relays, weapon-control interfaces, shield distribution links, anything she could physically inspect or isolate before power returned. It would at least mean they weren’t discovering fresh problems eight hours from now when somebody finally tried to energise the shields.

She glanced briefly towards Syvar at his question and touched two fingers to the dried cut on her cheek. “Not yet. It looks worse than it is.” There were people aboard who needed him considerably more than she did, and she had no intention of adding herself to his list unless the cut started doing something more interesting than bleeding.

Vi looked back to Marc. “I’ll get everything checked and ready. Once Engineering gives me something to work with, I’ll bring sensors up first, then shields. Weapons can wait behind both of them unless we find a reason they suddenly can’t.”

The Captain's his eyes moved to Syvar.

"Doctor, speak with Reruk and get anyone that can spared from the science teams to support Medical. I don't care what their usual assignment is. If they can hold a scanner, administer treatment or follow instructions, put them to work. Any resources you need are at your disposal."

The young Vulcan nodded slowly. "I could use the lieutenant in sickbay but he's needed more where you assigned him," he acknowledged, not wanting to overwhelm the alien officer any more than he would anyone else. "I have Doctor T'Chiara to assist were needed. She's very competent despite her time displacement."

Finally, Marc looked towards Peters.

"Ensign Peters, I'm going to make Commander Vero available to support you in Engineering. Until the Chief is back on her feet, however, you're assuming command down there."

His tone left no room for doubt.

"Keep the teams focused. Keep them safe. And if something doesn't look right, you stop. I would rather lose another hour than lose another officer."

Peters stood. "Aye Sir, and thank you. With your permission, I'll return to engineering."

Marc pushed himself to his feet.

"Doctor, I'll accompany you to Sickbay. Commander, walk with us!"

"Si Captain," Max said simply.

Marc's expression hardened slightly.

"I need a word with our Chief Engineer."

END

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