Before The Room Fills
Posted on Sun Jul 5th, 2026 @ 9:44pm by Captain Saelira Venn & Commander Vren'desh Son of Rukas
1,484 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Mission 1: Through the Janus Gate
Location: Ready Room - USS Resolute
Timeline: MD001 - 0805 hours
The channel had been closed for less than a minute, but the ready room already felt different.
The Starfleet insignia sat on the terminal again, bright and harmless, while Starbase 421 filled the viewport beyond Saelira’s desk. Docking lights blinked in their tidy patterns. Shuttles moved through assigned lanes. The station carried on with all the calm confidence of a place that had not been told what was sitting in Pakled hands.
Saelira remained seated for a moment, one hand resting near the edge of the terminal.
Vaelis had sent the full packet as promised. Dominion origin. Temporal and subspace instability. Theoretical transdimensional application. Too many careful words arranged around one ugly possibility.
A door.
Not a metaphorical one. Not this time.
She exhaled quietly and brought the mission file up on the wall display, locking it behind captain-and-executive access. The Resolute was still docked, still taking on the last of her readiness reports, still pretending this was the ordinary beginning of a mission.
It was better to let the senior staff hear the shape of it once, cleanly, together.
But Vren’desh should hear it first.
Saelira touched the comm panel.
“Venn to Commander Vren’desh. Come to my ready room when you’re free. I need to speak with you before I call the briefing.”
She closed the channel and stood, crossing to the replicator more for something to do than because she wanted anything from it. After a moment, she ordered water.
By the time she returned to the desk, the wall display had finished decrypting the first page of the mission packet.
JANUS CORE
Cold. Official. Neat.
Saelira looked at the name for a moment, then away.
The door chime sounded a few minutes later.
“Come in,” she said.
Vren'Desh walked into the Ready Room. "You wanted to see me Captain." He had been tending to the final quarters assignments, until the Quartermaster boarded. However, when the Captain called you did not wait.
Saelira looked up as he entered, and some of the tension in her face eased simply because it was him.
“I did. Close the door and sit down, Vren.”
She nodded towards the replicator.
“Get something if you want it. This may take a few minutes. And no, before you ask, this isn’t about quarters assignments. They can survive without both of us for ten minutes.”
There was warmth there, familiar and dry, but it sat beside something heavier.
Once he had the chance to settle, Saelira turned the wall display slightly towards him.
“We’ve been given our next assignment,” she said. “Admiral Thorne contacted me personally. That should tell you I already don’t like it.”
Her gaze moved briefly to the words on the screen.
“I want you to hear it from me before I put it in front of the senior staff.”
Vren'Desh poured himself a glass of water and sat down. "Yes if you would pardon the pun the Admiral is a particular thorn in your side. However, a mission is good. We are meant to be out there not sitting on our laurels." He wondered what could have brought the Admiral himself. Despite the want to get out there, something told Vren'Desh that he was not going to like what Saelira had to say next.
Saelira’s mouth curved despite herself.
“Please don’t let Vaelis hear you call him that. He has survived far worse and still somehow thinks he’s funny.”
The warmth stayed for another moment, then she looked back to the display.
“And I agree. We should be out there. I’d just prefer our next assignment not to arrive from Intelligence with half the answers missing.”
She touched the control on the desk. The file opened beyond the title, bringing up the first set of technical notes and an incomplete schematic. Dark metal. Dominion construction. A central chamber the computer could not quite render cleanly.
“Starfleet is calling it the Janus Core. The name is ours, not theirs. The technology is Dominion.”
She gave him a moment with that before continuing.
“We don’t have a full analysis. What we do have points to temporal and subspace instability, with possible transdimensional application. Vaelis believes it may have been designed to open a controlled aperture between quantum realities.”
Saelira looked back to Vren’desh.
“A door, Vren. Not to another sector. To another possibility.”
She let that sit, but not long enough to become theatrical.
“Current intelligence places the device aboard a Pakled vessel near the Archanis Drift. Command doesn’t believe they fully understand what they have. I’d like to find that comforting.”
Her expression made it clear she did not.
“Our orders are to intercept, prevent activation if we can, and recover or contain the device. The containment plan is theoretical at best, and I don’t want the senior staff hearing that for the first time without you already beside me.”
Saelira leaned back slightly, one hand still near the edge of the desk.
“So. That is our newest assignment. Dominion temporal technology, Pakled involvement, and Starfleet expecting us to prevent it from becoming a major incident.”
"Do we know how the Pakleds came to the technology? Getting it from the Pakleds should be fairly easy. It is wherever they got it from that truly worries me." Vren'Desh crossed his arms across his chest and exhaled sharply through his nose. As the idea of all of this mission did not sit well with him.
Saelira’s expression tightened a little, not at him, but at the question.
“That’s the part Vaelis couldn’t explain clearly.”
She glanced back to the display.
“The best guess is salvage. A Dominion cache, a wreck, a black-market chain somewhere along the Cardassian border, maybe all three by the time it reached them. Pakleds don’t usually find things like this because they know what they’re looking for.”
Her eyes returned to Vren’desh.
“And yes, I agree. Getting it away from them may be the simplest part. Figuring out how it ended up in their hands is what I don’t like.”
"Perhaps a little subterfuge is needed here. If we tell the Pakleds that the technology will assist them in some way, and that we will make it work for them. Perhaps, they will simply give it to us to work on. Once it is in our possession we can secure it and ask where it came from." Vren'Desh formed the plan in a matter of moments. Pakleds were exceptionally gullible and that would lend itself to assisting in the plan.
Saelira considered that, then gave a small nod.
“Possibly. But carefully.”
She looked back to the Pakled vessel on the display.
“Pakleds can be persuaded. They can also become very possessive the moment they think someone is trying to take something from them. If we ask for the Core outright, even dressed up as assistance, they may decide it must be valuable simply because we want it.”
Her gaze returned to Vren’desh.
“So we don’t make the device the prize. We make their ship the concern. Offer help. Suggest the technology may be damaging their systems, or that we can make their ‘strong thing’ work safely. Let them invite us closer if we can.”
A faint, wry warmth touched her expression.
“And if they believe it was their idea, all the better.”
She rested her hand near the edge of the desk.
“It’s a good avenue. Just not the only one. With Pakleds, subterfuge works best when it doesn’t look like anyone is asking them to give up anything shiny.”
Vren'desh smiled. "After all. They are smart."
Saelira gave him a look, then smiled despite the weight of the mission.
“They are,” she said. “And if we forget that, they’ll be the first to remind us.”
She glanced once more at the display, at the hard little shape of the Janus Core and the neat Starfleet language trying to make it manageable.
“They like things that make them strong. We’ll use that if we can. Carefully.”
Saelira closed the open file enough to leave only the title on the wall. JANUS CORE remained there, cold and patient.
Then she stood.
“Come on,” she said, nodding towards the door. “Let’s go ruin everyone else’s morning.”
There was warmth in it, but not enough to hide the seriousness beneath.
A moment later, she touched the comm panel.
“Venn to bridge. Begin departure sequence. Once we’re clear of Starbase control, set course for the Archanis Drift.”
She paused only long enough for the acknowledgement, then added,
“And have the senior staff report to the observation lounge.”
Saelira looked back to Vren’desh.
“Time to let the room fill.”
Commander Vren'Desh
Executive Officer
USS Resolute
Captain Saelira Venn
Commanding Officer
USS Resolute
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