[Backpost] A World with a Bluer Star, Part 4
Posted on Fri Mar 21st, 2025 @ 2:40am by Crewman Mateo Gardel
Edited on on Sat Mar 22nd, 2025 @ 6:40pm
1,031 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission: To Boldly Go
Act One, Part Four: The Fractured Thread
[ON]
The NX-class pod was suffocatingly silent. Not the kind of silence that simply meant an absence of noise, but something deeper, something weightier—the kind that settled between the bones, pressing inward. Mateo could feel it, thick against his skin, coiling in his throat, hanging in the air between breaths.
Finch sat exactly where they had found him, his posture stiff but eerily at ease, as though he had been sculpted into the chair rather than seated there. He hadn’t twitched, hadn’t shifted, hadn’t shown any sign of discomfort, despite the fact that—by his own account—he had been stranded here for six years. The only movement was his slow, deliberate blinking, each one carefully timed, precise, mechanical.
It set Mateo’s teeth on edge.
The final word Finch had spoken still lingered between them.
Dead.
Mateo’s fingers hovered over his tricorder, running yet another scan, though he already knew what it would tell him. The same thing it had told him last time. Human. Healthy. Stable. No signs of prolonged exposure to environmental stressors. No radiation damage. No muscle atrophy. No indications that he had been isolated for any extended period of time.
Everything about Finch was wrong, but nothing in the data could explain why.
Atresh finally broke the silence, her voice measured but laced with curiosity. “You’re sure? All fifty crew members? You’ve had no contact with them?”
Finch blinked again—slow, deliberate. The motion reminded Mateo of a console rebooting—functional, necessary, but not entirely natural.
“…They’re gone.”
The words were the same, but this time, the pause before them stretched just a fraction longer, as if Finch were remembering what he had said before.
Varin, standing tensely near the hatch, exhaled through his nose. “That doesn’t answer the question.”
Finch turned his head toward him, the movement smooth, precise. Mateo caught the subtle tightening of Varin’s jaw—not fear, not yet, but close.
“They’re dead,” Finch repeated. But this time, something had changed.
The first time, it had been too flat, too practiced. This time, there was a beat of hesitation, as if he wasn’t certain. As if he was recalibrating.
Mateo felt something twist in his gut. Finch was adjusting.
Atresh, still locked in scientific curiosity, stepped forward, pulling up her tricorder. “Dead how? Did the crash kill them? Was it the planet’s atmosphere? Disease? An accident?”
Finch’s lips parted, but he didn’t speak immediately. His brow creased—the first real expression he had shown. Then, as if flipping a switch, he answered.
“There was an accident.”
Mateo inhaled slowly through his nose.
Atresh frowned. “What kind of accident?”
The silence stretched, longer than before. Finch’s head tilted slightly, his gaze distant, unfocused. Then, in that same measured voice, he said, “…A systems failure.”
Varin shifted, arms crossing over his chest. “What kind of systems failure?”
Another pause. Then—
“A hull breach.”
Mateo felt it now. The shift. The fraying edge in Finch’s carefully controlled responses. Each answer was just slightly off, like someone putting together a puzzle without fully understanding the image they were forming.
His fingers moved over his tricorder, this time running a neurological scan. The results came back normal. He didn’t believe them.
Atresh’s antennae twitched. “A hull breach should have left damage patterns in the wreckage. Our scans didn’t detect any signs of explosive decompression or external compromise on the Atlantis before it entered the wormhole.”
Another pause. Too long. Then—a flicker of something across Finch’s face. A fractional adjustment. A course correction.
“…The breach occurred after transit.”
Mateo’s stomach dropped. It wasn’t just what Finch was saying—it was the way each answer came just long enough after the question to feel constructed. Not considered. Constructed.
His mind raced through possibilities. Neurological damage? Memory fragmentation from the wormhole’s effects? That might explain delayed recall, maybe even his strange cadence. But it wouldn’t explain the detachment, the pattern, the way he seemed to track his own words.
Mateo swallowed. “What happened to the Romulan ship?”
Finch didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.
Atresh, unconcerned, glanced at Mateo. “The wreck’s only a few hundred meters from here. Its trajectory suggests it entered the wormhole around the same time as the Atlantis. Since you were stranded here, did you have any interaction with them?”
Nothing. Finch’s face remained completely still. Mateo’s pulse thrummed in his ears. The question hung there, unanswered, for too long.
Then, finally, Finch’s head tilted slightly toward Atresh.
“There was no Romulan ship.”
Silence.
Mateo’s grip on his tricorder tightened. “We can see it from here.”
Finch didn’t respond.
Atresh exhaled, shaking her head. “You may have been alone too long. You might not have seen it crash if it came down later—”
Finch spoke over her. “There was no Romulan ship.”
Varin took a step back. “Bullshit.”
Mateo’s mouth had gone dry.
The Romulan ship was there. They had scans of it. They could see the wreckage from the viewport of their own shuttle.
Finch should have been able to see it too. But Finch wasn’t denying seeing it.
He was denying that it existed.
Mateo exhaled slowly, barely keeping his voice even. “You’re sure?”
Finch turned to look at him. For the first time, his gaze wasn’t just tracking. It was assessing.
And then, with that same unwavering, precise tone, he said, “Yes.”
Mateo’s stomach twisted into a cold knot.
Not I don’t remember. Not I never encountered them.
There was no Romulan ship.
[OFF - To be continued in Part 5]
Crewman Mateo Gardel
Hematology Technician
USS Ahwatukee
&
Captain Elias Finch
Commanding Officer
NX-08 Atlantis
[NPC - Gardel]
&
Lieutentant Atresh
Chief Science Officer
USS Ahwatukee
[NPC - Gardel]
&
Lieutenant Varin
Shuttle Pilot
USS Ahwatukee
[NPC - Gardel]
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