After 16:47

Posted on Tue Jun 9th, 2026 @ 11:24am by Lieutenant Camryn Shepard

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
1363 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Just a bit longer.

Anthony said it to himself, blinking hard as he tried to push through the monotony of the last stretch. The work wasn’t difficult, but his eyes felt assaulted by the bright console after hours of staring at it.

His fingers swept back and forth across the multicolored screen. He was verifying simple communications data packets. Open one, check the timestamp, skim the contents, then scan a handful of data points along the right side of the display. Most of it was background noise or filtering settings. A message to a loved one. A duty roster for the morning shift. It all blurred together, waves of telemetry that looked exactly the way they were supposed to.

His eyes flicked to the time.

16:47:18

Another fifteen minutes of this and he could head back to his quarters, grab his gym clothes, and take his frustrations out on his thin frame.

Rule number one for surviving most encounters with aliens or the Borg was pretty simple.

“Cardio,” Anthony whispered to himself, already prepping mentally for the 15k run he had planned. He’d been getting decent runs in since settling, if only slightly, into his new home. It still didn’t feel like he had accepted that he was on the USS Elysium. It didn’t really matter. He would probably be turfed out in a year or two anyway, so why get comfortable?

He was about to close his console for the day when something snapped him out of his rhythm.

A packet of data was missing from a stream originating in Engineering.

It was part of a daily report distributed to the crew, usually outlining repairs or system shutdowns. The file itself was pristine, except for a brief loss of integrity in one specific section.

“Section G, Jefferies Eleven,” he muttered.

Confusion gave way to irritation as he re-synced the data. It didn’t fix anything. The report arrived at its intended destinations, but for a fraction of a second, a sliver of information simply vanished within Main Engineering. No matter how many times he rechecked it, the conclusion stayed the same.

“For the love of God.”

The Intel system flagged the issue again, then again, prompting him with escalating alerts. It was becoming painfully clear that there was no way around this. He was going to have to haul his skinny ass into a Jefferies tube and find out what was causing it.

There went his run. His free time was already bleeding away.

Anthony rubbed at his temple, forcing himself to stay calm.

It’ll be a quick fix. How complicated could it be?

He grabbed a PADD and a tricorder, took one last look at the empty office, dimmed the lights, and stepped into the corridor. The turbolift made two stops. At the first, a Vulcan in a medical uniform nodded politely. Anthony returned the gesture and silently thanked whatever gods were still listening that Vulcans rarely made small talk.

The second stop was a bright-eyed ensign who had clearly found their calling in Starfleet. The ensign talked the entire ride. Thankfully, it ended when the doors opened. As Anthony stepped out, the ensign waved enthusiastically, as if they were now clearly best friends.

Anthony held his head for a moment, searching for whatever patience he had left.

The corridors twisted toward Engineering. When the doors finally came into view, he paused, drawing a slow breath and waiting for his professionalism to catch up with him.

The doors slid open as two crewmen exited, sharing a PADD and a conversation. One of them glanced at Anthony briefly, then continued talking as they passed.

He stepped inside and found Engineering alive with motion and overlapping conversations. Consoles hummed, people moved with purpose. A lone ensign noticed his hesitation and approached.

“Need anything, sir?”

Anthony bristled at the word, then reminded himself that the rank technically applied.

“I’m looking for whoever runs this place,” he said, trying to inject a little levity. Maybe if he pretended to enjoy this, he might actually feel it.

The ensign, eager to be useful, rose to the occasion.

“Lieutenant j.g. Camryn Shepard, sir!” They half-pointed, half-guided Anthony toward a woman with prominent cranial ridges.

Klingon… no, probably half. The nose was too rounded. The scars and tattoos, though, suggested she wasn’t someone who tolerated nonsense, which felt appropriate for an engineer.

“Afternoon, Lieutenant j.g. Shepard,” Anthony said politely, briefly wondering if she would dismiss the ensign hovering nearby, who looked like they had just solved world hunger by introducing them.

Working on the console, Cam scratched her head and turned to someone speaking behind her. Her display continued to map out the power distributions and automatically balanced out the equations. Sighing, she nodded, "Sure? Sorry. I normally don't meet everyone on this ship. You are?"

She noted the intel uniform and grew curious. What did she do that drew his attention?

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have met,” he said, a faint grimace tugging at his expression. The minutes felt like they were burning away. Maybe he could call in sick tomorrow. Maybe.

“Lieutenant Cardel. Encryption.”

He didn’t bother elaborating. Intel was a strange department. Half the time, Starfleet officers didn’t trust you. The other half, they blamed you for not knowing something before it happened.

“I’ve got an issue with a file losing integrity when it passes through a Jefferies tube. I’d fix it myself, but I’m the new guy and don’t have the proper clearance.” He lifted the PADD slightly, as if that explained everything. “Probably just a glitch. But I can’t leave it until morning or my department head might get…”

He paused, reconsidered his wording.

“Unpleasant.”

The console behind her beeped, and her eyes did the side-eye toward the LCARS screen. The power levels resumed normal, beeping. Politely letting her know she got this, despite her introverted energy screaming at her. Cam mentally exhaled, rubbing her temples with a finger and a thumb, before replying promptly, "Alright, lieutenant. Show me the file."

It's not that she didn't want to help him; it's a hundred and a million things on her list to do that didn't include his request, but absolutely should do first.

Anthony blinked once, recalibrating.

It was his job to notice patterns. The assistant chief looked like she was one alert away from ejecting the warp core. The temple rub confirmed it.

He stepped closer and angled the PADD so she could see.

“It drops here. Fraction of a second.” The schematic rotated, Section G flashing in red against the blue grid of Jefferies Eleven. “Consistent. Only in this segment.”

He kept his tone level.

“I’d crawl in myself, but it’s my first week and my clearance hasn’t caught up yet.” A faint, dry edge touched his voice. “I’d rather not start by dismantling Engineering.”

He let the display hover between them and waited.

She reviewed his readings, recalibrating. She replied, picking up the toolkit, "It's alright. I'll go check it out."

She walked a bit along the corridor from her station, finding the adjacent corridor to the jefferies tube. Entering it, she opened her tricorder and allowed it to guide her towards the small, inconsistent readings.

Anthony stood there for a moment before clumsily following the engineer, regretting more now than ever coming down here. Thirteen minutes to the end of his shift.

“Sooo…” he began, crouching awkwardly near the opening of the Jefferies tube while glancing down at the PADD in his hand.

“It drops right about eleven metres in,” he said, angling the display toward the opening so she could see the readings if she glanced back. “Four tenths of a second. Then it corrects itself like nothing happened.”

Anthony shifted his weight, already feeling how cramped the space was going to be if he had to crawl in after her.

“It’s consistent,” he added, watching the waveform repeat across the screen. “Every time the packet crosses that segment.”

He leaned lightly against the bulkhead beside the hatch and let out a quiet breath.