A New Assignment

Posted on Mon Aug 3rd, 2026 @ 9:48am by Commander Elias Mercer & Lieutenant JG Zorell & Lieutenant Commander Elysia Theron & Lieutenant Commander Sevek & Lieutenant Callum Cowan & Lieutenant JG Lars Swenson

3,885 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Silence at Ulysses
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: Mission 1, Day 1, 0700

Deck One - Conference Room

One hour had passed since the start of Alpha shift. Three hours since Mercer had woken from the nightmare. Yet somehow, he felt more awake than he had in weeks. More alert. More alive.

While he enjoyed the usual routine work that the Ithaca performed, mapping unknown stars and exploring the frontier, they had just been given a new mission. A mission of mystery and purpose, something that would allow his crew to show how well they can perform together. An opportunity.

Mercer had spent most of the morning in his ready room, reviewing reports, checking departmental readiness, and making certain the ship was prepared for whatever waited ahead.

Now it was time to brief the rest of the senior officers and department heads, time to get the mission underway.

Grabbing a P.A.D.D from his desk, Mercer stood up and left his compact office behind. The door slid shut at his back as he stepped into the narrow main corridor of Deck One.

The ship felt different now than it had earlier that morning. When Elias had first woken, the corridors had been quiet, almost subdued. Now, with Alpha shift fully underway, crew members moved briskly through the passageways, heading for duty stations, carrying repair kits, exchanging clipped updates as they passed. The Ithaca was awake.

As Mercer made his way down the corridor, the crew greeted him with polite nods and formal acknowledgements. Some stepped aside to give him room, a gesture of respect for the rank he carried and the responsibility that came with it.

He returned their greetings as he walked, but did not stop. His mind was already in the briefing room and the meeting that lay ahead.

A few moments later, he entered the Deck One conference room.

The room was one of the few spaces aboard the Ithaca that could comfortably hold the entire senior staff, though only just. A long table dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by high-backed chairs. Along the outer wall, wide windows looked out into the deep black beyond the hull, offering a clean view of the stars scattered across the void.

Mercer set the P.A.D.D down in front of his chair at the head of the conference table and wandered over to the small replicator unit built into the far wall.

"Large coffee, latte, smooth roast, double sweet", he requested from the unit.

The replicator answered with a brief shimmer of light and a soft mechanical hum. A large mug materialised in the alcove, steam curling from its surface.

Mercer took the coffee mug and brought it to his lips. Taking a sip of the coffee, Mercer winced at the temperature of the liquid as it hit his lips. 'Serves me right' He lowered the mug and decided to give it a minute.

Returning to the head of the table, Mercer tapped on his combadge and opened a ship-wide channel. "All senior officers, report to the conference room for a briefing. Mercer out," He tapped the badge again, closing the channel.

Then he sat, one hand wrapped around the too-hot coffee, the other resting near the P.A.D.D., and waited for his staff to arrive.

Somewhere between Decks 2 & 3

Zorell crawled belly-first through the access conduit. The conduit was one of dozens threaded through the ship’s maintenance spaces: a cramped, ribbed artery, with stale air and exposed junctions. Environmental controls were reduced in these sections to conserve power, which meant the tight space was hotter than the rest of the ship

Zorell hated the too-warm space and much preferred the cold. He was Aenar, after all.

To make matters worse, he had been dragging a toolkit around with him as he crawled.
The bulky toolkit got caught on a conduit frame again.

Zorell stopped, exhaling loudly through his nose.

“Wonderful,” he muttered to the empty crawlspace. “New holographic systems. Revolutionary technology. Starfleet’s bright future. And where is that future? Jammed under Deck Two with my shoulder wedged against a plasma relay.”

Giving the strap a vicious tug, the case came loose with a hollow metallic clatter that echoed around the conduit.

The engineer continued forward, with the toolkit scraping behind him once again.

For the better part of a week, Zorell had been upgrading the ship’s holographic projectors as part of a new holographic system that was being added.

The problem was that the Ithaca wasn't designed to run large holographic systems; they didn't even have a holodeck. So the upgrades had been extensive and required a large amount of work to get right. To make matters worse, shipyard crews were apparently too busy building half the fleet from scratch to handle the retrofits themselves.

But Starfleet wanted to test new holographic technology aboard a working vessel, and Commander Mercer agreed.

So naturally, the job had fallen to Zorell.

"If they want to test it, why do I have to be the one crawling through the bowels of the ship?" Zorell asked the empty conduit.

The conduit offered no reply.

As he reached the midpoint of the access conduit, Zorell's combadge chirped, and Commander Mercer's voice echoed through the crawlspace.

"All senior officers, report to the conference room for a briefing. Mercer out"

Grunting at the sound of Mercer's voice, "I guess that would be me then", Zorell said. Currently, the Ithaca didn't have a Chief Engineer, so he had been filling the role while that post was vacant.

He would have applied for the role himself, but Zorell knew his application wouldn't have been approved. After all, he had only just returned to Starfleet after resigning during the Andorian & Aenar fertility crisis back in '83, it would take some time to work off that black mark.

Zorell crawled on until the access conduit opened into a vertical shaft. He pushed the toolkit into the terminus with his boot and left it there. He would need it again soon enough.

An access ladder ran up the height of the shaft, which allowed for easy traversal up and down the ship. Zorell stepped onto it and began to climb up towards Deck One. For another officer, it might have been an awkward ascent. For Zorell, it was nearly pleasant. Mountains on Andoria had been less forgiving than this.

At Deck One, Zorell reached out, found the hatch release, and hauled it open. The panel swung outwards into the deck and startled a few of the crew who weren't paying attention to the crawlspace access.

Zorell climbed through the hatch with all the grace available to a man emerging from a maintenance shaft, which was none. His shoulder caught briefly on the frame. One antenna bent against the edge before springing back with offended dignity. He planted one boot on the deck, then the other, straightened his uniform jacket, and sealed the hatch behind him.

Zorell turned his milky eyes toward the closest one. He did not need vision to know the young crewman’s expression: startled, embarrassed, and trying very hard not to look as though he had just watched an engineering officer crawl out of the wall.

“What?” Zorell said.

The crewman blinked. “Nothing, sir.”

“Good. Resume doing nothing somewhere useful.” Zorell barked at the startled man.

The crewman found a sudden interest in being elsewhere.

Zorell set off for the conference room. While not a long walk, the access hatch that Zorell emerged from was on the opposite side of the deck from the conference room, so it took him a few moments to reach his destination.

The conference room doors parted as he approached.

Upon walking into the room, Zorell saw that he was the first person to arrive, other than Commander Mercer. Zorell gave him a curt nod, "Commander", he said by way of a greeting.

“Lieutenant Zorell,” Mercer said, warmth in his voice. “Good morning.”

Mercer hadn't worked much with the Aenar engineer, but he always felt that the other man didn't like him very much. Elias couldn't understand why, though; he couldn't think of any moment where he could have offended the Engineer.

Pushing that thought aside, Mercer pointed to the replicator on the far wall “Please, help yourself to a beverage. We’re still waiting on a few others.”

Zorell continued to the replicator unit, "Peppermint tea", he said simply to the device. Peppermint tea was not a traditional Aenar drink. Zorell had been introduced to it during his years in the Academy and enjoyed it ever since. The cup materialised in the alcove, steam curling upward. Zorell took it carefully.

No one else had arrived yet, which meant Zorell had free rein on his choice of seat at the conference table. The seats to the left and right-hand side of Commander Mercer were always reserved for Commanders Sevek and Theron, as they were the most senior officers besides Mercer.

Zorell chose a seat halfway down the table instead. He set the tea down, lowered himself into the chair, and waited for the rest of the crew to arrive.

The briefing announcement arrived just as Cal was considering a second coffee.

Naturally, he interpreted this as a sign he should acquire one before attending.

Five minutes later he found himself walking through Deck One carrying a fresh mug and wondering when exactly he'd become one of the people expected to attend senior staff briefings.

The answer, unfortunately, appeared to be several weeks ago.

The thought still felt slightly ridiculous.

For most of his career there had always been somebody more senior nearby. A squadron commander. A flight leader. Somebody whose job it was to make the important decisions while Cal concentrated on flying whatever happened to be underneath him at the time.

Now he was Chief Flight Controller.

The title still felt like something that belonged to somebody else.

The corridor curved gently toward the conference room.

Crewmembers passed carrying padds and coffee of their own. Most offered polite greetings as they went. Cal returned them automatically, taking a sip from his mug and immediately regretting the decision.

Still too hot.

He should have known better.

The conference room doors slid open before he reached them.

Commander Mercer was already seated at the head of the table. Lieutenant Zorell occupied a seat further down, a steaming mug of tea resting in front of him.

The Aenar looked as though he had recently fought the ship and lost patience with it.

Cal suspected this was probably his natural state.

"Morning, Commander. Lieutenant." The room was still mostly empty.

A handful of chairs remained scattered around the long conference table. Through the viewport beyond, stars drifted silently against the black. For a moment he simply stood there.

A briefing.

A proper mission.

His first aboard Ithaca.

The thought produced an unexpected flutter somewhere in his stomach.

Not fear.

Not exactly.

Excitement, perhaps.

The sort that appeared before a launch.

The sort that arrived when something unknown waited beyond the next horizon.

It had been a long time since he'd felt that without an evacuation order attached to it.

Choosing a seat a few places down from the others already present, Cal settled into the chair and wrapped both hands around the coffee mug.

The ceramic felt pleasantly warm against his palms.

One by one the remaining officers would arrive.

The meeting would begin.

The mission would start.

Simple enough.

And yet, sitting there watching the stars beyond the viewport, Cal found himself feeling strangely aware that this was exactly the sort of moment he'd spent years hoping to reach.

Not an emergency.

Not a rescue.

Not a crisis.

Just a starship preparing to go somewhere nobody had gone before.

For reasons he couldn't entirely explain, that felt far more significant than any briefing had a right to be.


----------------------------------


The door opened. Elysia entered through the threshold, coffee in hand and a PADD under her arm. Without immediately acknowledging the present occupants of the room, she walked straight for the chair close to the captain. Specifically hers, without it being tagged with her name on it. Sitting at the table, she placed the PADD face down and clasped her hands together. With her braided ponytail flowing over her shoulder, it hung loosely on her chest. A septum piercing remained clasped under her nose.

Keeping her thoughts private, her El-Aurian Betazoid senses compartmentalized, she quietly listened to a playlist humming in her earbuds. Keeping herself detached, cold and on mission, Ely focused on the mission briefing and silently rehearsed her internal voice while waiting for the meeting to start. She quietly waited to be called upon.

Mercer looked up as Theron entered the room and took her seat at the table. There was a certainty to the way she moved, a sense of purpose that Elias found quietly impressive. He almost greeted her, a simple good morning, perhaps, or a polite question about how she was, but then he noticed the earbuds and decided against it.

The meeting had not started yet, so Mercer did not mind her being tucked away inside her own thoughts. If anything, it made him curious. What sort of music did she listen to? What did the rest of the crew listen to?

Perhaps they should organise a concert in one of the cargo bays, Mercer mused, lifting his coffee now that it had cooled enough to drink.

Seven had just finished the recommended roster for a ring department heads when he entered the room. The Vulcan XO noticed that almost all the senior officers were present. Although he was one of the last to arrive, it did not bother him. He took the seat next to Commander Mercer. “Captain.” He said emotionlessly.

Lieutenant JG Swenson walked into the conference room. "Sorry I'm late, Captain; won't happen again." He walked over to the replicator and ordered a sweetened iced tea in a tall glass. When it materialized, he picked it up and walked to the table and took a seat.

“Now that we are all here,” Mercer said, “we can begin this meeting.”

“Earlier this morning, I received a new set of orders from Admiral T’Lara.” Mercer rested one hand on the edge of the conference table as he spoke, his eyes moving from officer to officer. “One of our long-range monitoring stations has gone quiet. According to the admiral, it has been silent for some time.”

Mercer keyed a sequence into the desktop control panel.

A moment later, a holographic projection flickered to life in the centre of the table: Ulysses Station, suspended in pale blue light. The image rotated slowly, showing off every aspect of the compact station to the assembled officers.

“Ulysses Station,” Mercer said. “A long-range monitoring post, positioned near the edge of The Vesper March.”

He let the projection turn once more before looking toward his second officer.

“Commander Theron,” he said, “if you would,” Mercer said, looking over to his Second Officer. He knew she had already prepared her own assessment of the station and the surrounding region, and, more importantly, he knew she would deliver the briefing with more precision than he could manage off the cuff.

Elysia looked up and nodded. "Our mission, as it states from Rear Admiral T'Lara of Task Force 74. Ulyssus Station failed to report in, and we are the closest vessel. She ordered us to investigate and reactivate the station. We are to assess its operational status and re-establish communications, as well as identify the cause of the blackout."

Zorell turned toward Theron, his antennae angling in her direction. “Has Starfleet given us anything useful, or just that?” he asked, gruff as ever. “A blackout is not a diagnosis. It is a symptom with a thousand possible causes.”

His antennae twitched.

“What do we know about the station? The system? Any recent solar flares, radiation bursts, power fluctuations, maintenance failures?” His mouth tightened. “Because at the moment, we have less than nothing. Nothing would at least be honest.”

Mercer looked over at the engineer. “That’s as much as we know,” he said quietly. He glanced around the table at the assembled staff. “Starfleet has given us very few details about the situation, because they have very few details themselves.”

He paused, taking a sip from his coffee before continuing. “Which means we’ll have to do some good old-fashioned investigation and exploration,” Elias added with a faint smile.

“Lieutenant Cowen,” Mercer said, turning to the Ithaca’s Chief Flight Control Officer, “how long will it take us to reach Ulysses Station from our current position?”

Cal glanced briefly towards the holographic station before answering.

"From our current position, approximately sixteen days at our normal cruising speed of Warp Six."

He paused for a moment.

"If the situation warrants it, we can sustain Warp Eight and reduce that to around six days."

His gaze settled briefly on the slowly rotating projection.

"Assuming, of course, the approach is as straightforward as Starfleet believes it to be. At the moment we don't know whether the station's silence is confined to the station itself or whether there's something in the local environment that contributed to it. If we encounter unexpected navigational hazards or have to reduce speed on approach, those estimates will obviously change."

Cal looked back towards Mercer.

"But barring unforeseen complications, those are the transit times I'd be planning around."

"But things don't always go as we hope, Captain." Swenson took a sip from his glass. "I recommend we go to yellow alert when we get closer, and be ready for red alert, sir." He hoped he wasn't overstating the obvious.

"Good thinking, Lieutenant. I was going to make the same recommendations." Mercer said, nodding at Swenson's suggestions "We have no idea what we are getting into, so your security teams will need to be prepared for anything. Use the transit time to start drilling them on station-boarding procedures."

Swenson nodded. "Aye, sir."

Turning to Cowan, Mercer continued, “Starfleet has cleared this mission as top priority. Set a course for the Ulysses sector, maximum warp.” His eyes shifted to Zorell just as the engineer drew breath to object. “I know the ship isn’t built to sustain high warp for long. We’ll have to ease her down every few hours, let the engines recover, then push again.” His tone softened a fraction. “Do what you can to keep the warp drive steady under the strain.”

Zorell’s antennae angled slightly. “I’ll keep her together as long as I can, Captain. But I won’t promise miracles, and I won’t promise we can hold maximum warp for more than twelve hours.” He gave a curt nod. “We’ll do what we can, and I’ll keep repair teams on standby.”

“I know you’ll do your best, Lieutenant. That’s all I can ask,” Mercer said with a warm smile. He then turned his attention to Lieutenant Commander Sevek. “Commander, begin high-intensity long-range scans of the Ulysses Sector and the station. I don’t want us going in blind. Redirect whatever assets you need, and suspend any nonessential studies to free up the sensor bandwidth.”

Elias's gaze moved briefly to Elysia. "Work with Commander Theron and keep us all updated on the situation"

“Yes, Captain.” Seven said. He had been running scans as a precaution already, but no sense in telling them that. He sent a command through his PADD to the science teams. Looking back up at the Captain, “Science teams are suspending studies, sir. Some will take some time. Will begin scans as soon as the bandwidth is available.

Mercer nodded at Sevek’s response. “Thank you, Commander. Please do what you can.”

Elias turned back to the assembled officers. “Any further questions or concerns?”

He gave them a few moments to respond. When none came, he continued.

“Lieutenant Cowan, set a course for Ulysses Station, maximum warp. Lieutenant Swenson, prepare your security teams for action. Everyone else, see to your duties and prepare for our arrival.”

Mercer looked at each officer in turn, a warm smile on his face.

“Dismissed.”

Cal inclined his head.

"Aye, Captain."

Rising with the rest of the senior staff, he gathered up his coffee and PADD before pausing for the briefest moment to glance once more at the slowly rotating image of Ulysses Station.

Six days at maximum warp.

Whatever had happened out there had already been waiting for them for some time.

Turning toward the door, he mentally began working through departure procedures and the adjustments Flight Control would need before they pushed the Ithaca to maximum warp.

Swenson stood, gathered his PADD's and headed to the door. He was going to have a conversation with his second, one that he didn't really want to have.

Elysia nodded, gathering her PADD. All the notes she added, she memorized it. The mission could go either way. Making her exit, she headed towards her office for one quick pickup.

Zorell waited until the rest of the crew had filed out of the briefing room. He needed a moment of Mercer’s time, preferably without an audience.
When the doors closed behind the last officer, Zorell approached him.

“Commander,” he said in his usual blunt tone. “I’ll need you in Engineering later. Just for an hour, assuming you can spare it.”

“For what?” Mercer asked, raising an eyebrow. The crew had been stretched thin lately, but he could not imagine what Zorell might need him for in Engineering.

“The new CSH hologram is ready. Stelek is bringing it online later today.” The Aenar’s antennae inclined towards the Commander. “I thought you might want to be there when he does.”

Mercer’s expression shifted with understanding. He knew Zorell and Stelek had been close to completing the necessary upgrades and infrastructure changes, but he had not realised they were this close.
“Of course, Lieutenant.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be there when you flip the switch.”

Zorell gave a single nod. “Until then, Commander.” He turned and walked out of the briefing room, leaving Mercer alone.

Mercer stood at the conference room windows, staring into the field of stars beyond the glass. The Ithaca was about to embark on its first official mission, something beyond the routine survey work that had been their standard until now.

The thought stirred an uneasy mixture of apprehension and excitement in him. Whatever awaited them at Ulysses Station, it would mark the beginning of something new.

Mercer studied the stars for another moment.

“Well,” he said to the empty room, “there’s only one way to find out.”

He turned from the windows and walked into the corridor, ready to begin the Ithaca’s next adventure.

END

Mission Post By:

Commander Elias Mercer
Commanding Officer
USS Ithaca

Lieutenant Commander Sevek
Executive Officer & Acting Chief Science Officer
USS Ithaca

Lieutenant Commander Elysia Theron
Second Officer & Chief Strategic Operations Officer
USS Ithaca

Lieutenant Callum Cowan
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Ithaca

Lieutenant JG Lars Swenson
Chief Security & Tactical Officer
USS Ithaca

Lieutenant JG Zorell
Acting Chief Engineering Officer
USS Ithaca

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