Between Duty and Denial Pt.1
Posted on Tue Dec 2nd, 2025 @ 1:57am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Jadizon Enor & Petty Officer 1st Class Kael Draven & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ronan Drake
Mission:
Lower Decks
Location: Enlisted Briefing Room |Deck 5 | beneath the Upper Shuttlebay
Timeline: After Last Mission Before New Mission
The room always felt too small after a mission. The walls hummed with the steady vibration of the ship drifting back into its post-operation rhythm, the hum of processors and power feeds threading through the metal like a heartbeat. The lights overhead cast a soft, sterile glow across the table, bright enough to work under but dim enough to remind everyone that the next crisis could begin before this one had even ended.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Jadizon Enor stood at the head of the table, hands clasped tightly behind his back. The Tial mission was over, the shuttles stowed, the crew shaken but alive. Diplomacy had survived by inches. The crew had survived by grit. And Enor himself had survived by sheer refusal to die when something beyond the veil tried to drag him under.
He pushed that thought aside as the door hissed open.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Ronan Drake strode in first, uniform crisp but eyes carrying the weight of someone who had been running nonstop since the first Tial warship appeared on sensors. He nodded once to Enor, a gesture halfway between respect and lingering frustration.
Right behind him came Petty Officer 1st Class Kael Draven. Quiet. Steady. Present in a way that made everyone around him feel like the floor beneath them was less likely to shift. Kael took his seat without a word, hands folded calmly on the table.
Chief Gerro Hennik from Security marched in with the posture of a man who had slept in full gear on too many red alerts during the mission. He gave a stiff nod toward Enor and dropped into his chair with a controlled exhale.
Crewman Alera Vorin slipped in next, clutching her padd close, her expression determined but still shaken from the volatile sensor readings they had all wrestled with in Tial space.
Crewman Sorell Jann from Medical entered quietly, jaw tight, clearly running through casualty reports still fresh in his mind.
Yeoman Talis Rhee from Diplomatic Corps glided in with the composed silence of someone who had spent the last several days watching diplomacy teeter on a knife edge.
Last through the door came Staff Sergeant Malek Torez, acting First Sergeant, boots heavy, expression unreadable. Marines were still on high alert even though the mission had ended. Some habits never died, and neither did the expectation of trouble.
The door sealed. Enor looked at each of them in turn.
“Take your seats.”
The command was simple but grounded the room immediately.
Once everyone settled, Enor began.
“We are here to go over the system instability incidents that occurred during and immediately after the Tial mission. Grav-plates. Power fluctuations. Sensor interference. The ship needs to be fully operational before the next assignment.” His tone made it clear this was not a suggestion.
He turned to Ronan Drake. “Flight Control.”
Drake already had his report open and waiting. He spoke without hesitation. “Shuttle operations were disrupted twice during the reentry from Tial airspace. Grav-plates flickered for about three seconds in Upper Shuttlebay areas, Deck 5 and Deck 6.” His eyes flicked toward Enor as if challenging Engineering to contradict him. “We got through it because my people know how to fly. But this is the fourth grav-plate misalignment in forty-eight hours.”
Hennik scoffed quietly. Drake heard it and shifted forward. “Got something you want to share with the class, Chief?”
Hennik did not back down. “Just noting that Security had to stop two crew from panicking during those flickers. Maybe if Flight Control stopped dramatizing every blip, crew morale would improve.”
Drake leaned back, hands out in disbelief. “You want to come stand under a shuttle that suddenly drops two meters and tell me I am dramatizing?”
“Enough,” Enor said, voice cracking like a snapped cable. Both men backed off, their glares lingering but contained.
Enor nodded to Kael Draven.
Kael rose, tapping his padd once. “Operations tracked the grav-plate fluctuations. They originated near secondary power distribution on Deck 10.” He glanced around the room. “That lines up with the turbulence and sensor distortion we encountered when passing through the Veil of Asta. The Tial system’s magnetic anomalies caused a measurable strain on several of our systems.” He paused. “None of the failures were random.”
The room shifted as that sank in. Not sabotage. Not operator error. Something environmental. Something vast.
Alera Vorin took her cue. “Science detected lingering shear effects in subspace around the Chimera. Minimal, but the timing matches every power fluctuation.” She swallowed before adding, “It may still affecting our sensor resolution windows.”
Enor listened carefully. So far everything matched the after-mission predictions. Still, something pressed at the edges of his awareness. A quiet pulse. A breath that was not his.
He ignored it.
Next came Medical. Sorell Jann sat forward. “No injuries from system failures. However, several crew reported chest tightness, shortness of breath, or spikes in anxiety during the grav-plate disruptions.” He hesitated. “Counseling has opened several extra blocks for therapy sessions.”
That quiet pulse in Enor’s mind grew colder.
Talis Rhee cleared his throat. “Diplomatic Corps has no formal concerns. However, the Tial envoys witnessed the final grav-plate malfunction during their departure. Their commentary suggested they believed the ship to be strained.” He paused. “We do not want the Tial Hegemony believing our starship cannot maintain internal stability.”
The pulse deepened. The air felt thin.
Torez leaned in. “Marines do not care whether it is subspace interference or fancy dust from a stellar nursery. If the grav-plates keep flickering, then the next time we are deployed on a hostile deck we are going to be crawling instead of running.” He locked eyes with Enor. “So whoever needs to fix it should fix it yesterday.”
Hennik snapped his gaze toward him. Torez ignored the unspoken challenge.
Enor opened his mouth to respond, but the cold pulse bloomed into something sharper.
A voice slipped into his thoughts like a blade sliding between ribs.
Jadi…
His hand twitched. The lights above seemed to flicker at the same instant, though no one else reacted. His breath caught for a moment. He forced the sensation down and spoke.
“We are evaluating three primary possibilities. Environmental interference. Post-mission system strain. Or internal system decay.” He looked around. “There is no evidence of sabotage.”
Hennik lifted his chin, validating his earlier claim.
But Torez countered. “Mechanical decay does not explain the timing. Not unless the universe got very lucky.”
Drake added, “Or unlucky.”
Alera Vorin started to speak again, but Enor’s vision blurred for half a second as the voice returned, colder now.
You slipped from me once. You will not slip again.
He blinked rapidly, jaw clenched. His fingers curled slightly at his side. Kael, observant as always, noticed the flicker of pain cross his face.
Draven frowned. “Senior Chief?” he murmured, quiet and meant only for Enor.
Enor straightened, forcing the tension from his shoulders. “Continue,” he said.
The meeting resumed, but his pulse was uneven. The room’s hum grew louder as though every conduit on the deck was resonating inside his skull.
Drake gave an update on flight readiness. Hennik confirmed Security sweeps. Rhee listed diplomatic fallout risks. Torez listed Marine readiness concerns. The voices around him blended into a steady stream, but the cold whisper began weaving through the sound again.
Come to me.
Enor’s breathing hitched. His hand rose instinctively toward his temple, fingers pressing as if trying to push the whisper back into whatever dark corner it escaped from.
You belong—
The pain spiked, sharp and electric. His vision tightened around the edges. His body swayed.
Kael stood so fast his chair scraped the deck. “Senior Chief.”
Drake shot out of his seat. “Enor.”
Hennik’s hand went to his phaser, unsure what threat he was reacting to. Vorin covered her mouth. Jann half rose from his seat. Torez moved with military instinct, ready to catch a man twice his size.
Enor grabbed the table, knuckles white. His eyes squeezed shut. The voice pressed harder.
Come back.
His teeth clenched. His breath rasped through his throat. Then with a surge of will that felt like ripping a tether from his bones, he shook his head sharply, forcing the entity’s presence out of his mind like a man breaking free of a drowning grip.
His breath steadied. The room snapped back into clarity.
He straightened slowly.
“I am fine,” he said in a low, stubborn growl.
No one believed him. But no one pushed him in front of the others.
The silence was heavy until Enor forced the meeting back on track.
“Engineering will run a full diagnostic on all secondary power distribution systems on Deck 10 and Deck 12. Flight Control is to suspend all nonessential shuttle operations for twelve hours. Science will isolate residual particle interference patterns. Security will sweep for system decay or tampering triggers. Marines will prepare deck stabilization protocols.”
He exhaled slowly, regaining control.
“We hold this ship together. Always. Whatever the Veil left behind, whatever this system strain is, we handle it as one crew.”
The tension softened. Heads nodded. Even Drake seemed steadier.
“Dismissed.”
The room moved into motion again. Chairs scraped. Boots thudded. Crew filtered out in a loose line.
Drake paused at the door, studying Enor as if debating whether to ask the question burning in his eyes. He chose not to, for now, and stepped out.
Kael stayed longer than the others.
“You sure you are okay?” he asked softly.
Enor forced a small half smile. “Good enough.”
Kael did not believe it for a second, but he respected the boundary and left the room with a final look.
When the door closed, the Enlisted Briefing Room finally fell silent.
Enor braced both hands on the table and let his eyes close.
The whisper came again, faint but unmistakable.
Not finished.
His pulse hammered once, hard.
He opened his eyes, straightened his uniform, and walked out of the room.
Whatever waited on the other side of consciousness during surgery was not done with him.
But neither was he done with it.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Jadizon Enor
Chief of the Boat
Petty Officer 2nd Class Ronan Drake (PNPC)
Chief Support Craft Pilot
Petty Officer 1st Class Kael Draven (PNPC)
Boatswain
Chief Gerro Hennik (NPC)
Security Section Chief
Crewman Alera Vorin (NPC)
Science Technician
Crewman Sorell Jann (NPC)
Medical Corpsman
Yeoman Talis Rhee (NPC)
Diplomatic Aide
Staff Sergeant Malek Torez (NPC)
Acting First Sergeant, Marine Detachment
