Starfleet Calls

Posted on 28 Jun 2026 @ 8:10pm by Ensign Cael Maz

386 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: General Sim Postings
Location: Shuttlebay
Timeline: Late at night

ON:

The subspace transmission was a call Cael Maz couldn't ignore, though it arrived at a moment of profound transition. He stood on the shuttlebay of the Tomcat, staring out at the starfield as the ship drifted, feeling the hum of the engines beneath his boots—a sensation he was about to trade for the sterile, high-security corridors of Starfleet Intelligence.

The order was a recall: Earth awaited, but it wasn't for leave. It was for Command School, a specialized track for those whose talents didn't quite fit the standard naval mold. Cael felt the Maz symbiote shift within him, a low, inquisitive vibration against his own consciousness. Even the symbiont seemed to sense the gravity of this exit.

He had spent enough time on the Tomcat to know its rhythms, to memorize the way the lights dimmed during red alert, and to understand the unspoken camaraderie of the crew. But he also knew the feeling of being a puzzle piece forced into a board where he didn't belong. He was too passionate, too eccentric, a man who navigated the storms of his own biology while balancing a centuries-old consciousness. Starfleet Intelligence didn’t want "standard." They wanted specialized. They wanted the kind of unpredictable edge that Cael and Maz offered.

As he gathered his final belongings, the weight of his rank pips felt heavier than usual. Stepping off the Tomcat was more than a transfer; it was a severance of the life he had attempted to build. He was being shaped into a weapon, a commander, and perhaps, a ghost. The void had called, and for the first time, Cael didn’t feel like an outsider looking in; he felt like a necessary component of the architecture. The Tomcat faded in the distance as his transport vessel engaged warp, and with it, the final trace of a comfort he could no longer afford to keep.

"All set?" asked a crewman who had poked his head out of the shuttle.

"Aye, all set to go." Cael said as he placed an earpiece in his ear and began to play Euclid by Sleep Token and then stepped off the ship for the second time.

OFF:

 

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