The yellow portal swirled innocently on the viewscreen, its calm undulations belying the universe twisting forces that bubbled beneath its dimly glowing surface. Every few seconds, a bubble of energy would collapse before erupting silently into space with slow wafts of energy.

“Someone, anyone, please explain.” Mellasitoxx narrowed her eyes at the screen. “Is that?”

“An underspace aperture? Yes, Captain.” Maksha confirmed from his den at the science station in the bridge’s corner. “And a small one at that.”

“When you say small?”

“Approximately one hundred metres across.” Maksha summoned a pale blue overlay that fluttered around the extremities of the portal. The numbers wobbled back and forth but always hung around the magic three-digit number.

“Don’t they normally disappear after you’ve gone through?”

“They do,” Maksha answered casually.

Mellasitox threw a sharp look towards the stoic officer, her frustration at his laconic replies rolling in waves like water from a geyser across the deck plates. A slight pressure on the edge of her arm from Sehgali reminded her of her grace; two weeks of warp hopping had put everyone on edge and people’s interpersonal energy was at its limits. As captain, she had to keep her own frustrations under wraps.

“Is there any reason why this one is still open?” Mellasitox pushed a calming breath through her nose as she offered a forcefully polite smile.

“Yes.” The man answered monosylabically.

“Lieutenant-” the captain began before the light jingling of bangles cut across her sharp tongue.

“Perhaps a bit more explanation is in order Maksha?” Sehgali interrupted as she rose to cross the small bridge.

The sharp features of the man cut through the air as he turned towards the teacher-like tones of the senior officer.

“My apologies both, I was… focusing.” Maksha summoned a pop-out image that faded into view, its faint bounding box glowing in a dull grey against the starscape.

“There appears to be a small craft emitting some sort of subspace signal near the mouth of the underspace aperture. It continues to hold the Underspace open.”

On the screen, a dark brown craft with bulbous nacelles and large engines bobbed aimlessly in the void; across its dorsal surface, an angry wound lay open to the airless space. Through the damage, Mellasitoxx’s eyes were immediately drawn to the pair of long, threatening barrels that hung at its mouth.

“It seems to be inactive.” Maksha offered the Captain a head tilt, answering her unspoken question.

“Apart from the subspace beacon?” Sehgali added.

“That appears to have its own power source, possibly some sort of emergency measure.”

Mellasitoxx could feel her teeth grinding against one another in frustration, a dull rumble that reverberated through her skull. Underspace held much promise, stitched tightly together with a myriad of unknown dangers.

“Any idea who they might be?” Sehgali asked as she leant on the nearby railing lazily. “Klingon’s perhaps?”

“That is not a Klingon vessel.” Ad’Nia interrupted from the visitor’s seat at the rear of the bridge. The Klingon woman’s amazonian form made the thin chair appear laughably tiny and flimsy, which was emphasised seconds later by the audible groan of relief as she stood. “We do not operate such vessels, now or historically.”

“Could it be experimental, something developed in secret following the recent events?” Mellasitoxx mused. Despite frosty beginnings, Ad’Nia had been a font of knowledge, shared reluctantly at first but now freely, as their small confines forced familiarity.

“Not to my knowledge. Research interests of the Defense Force have been focused elsewhere.” Ad’Nia took two massive steps forward till she hovered over the captain’s shoulder. “Though I am not privy to all advanced research in the Empire.”

A shudder ran up the spines of the assembled Starfleet officers; the thought of what might lie within the Klingon skunk works didn’t bear thinking.

“Encore, anything from the database?”

The ears of the Caitan tactical officer twitched minutely as their eyes danced across the small console. Two sharp canines poked out from their thin lips as an unfamiliar expression crept across her face, confusion.

“I am unsure,” they finally admitted. “There is something similar in the records, but I require more time to confirm.”

“I do not believe we have that time,” Maksha announced. “The beacon appears to be losing power. It will fail soon, and there is a strong possibility the craft will be drawn into the aperture as it closes.”

“You said a hundred metres?” Sehgali asked, a glimmer of a plan creeping into the corner of her eye.

Maksha offered a nod that caused the commander to bound up the small set of steps to the captain’s side. With a flourish, she fell into her chair and leant close to the woman’s ear.

“There is another option,” Sehgali whispered in a hushed tone.

“I’m listening.” Mellasitox offered from the corner of her mouth.

“Daedalus has an fifty-metre beam, we could…” she tilted her head slightly towards the viewscreen where the yellow disk continued to bubble and broil. “…head in?”

“To underspace?”

“We could ride it all the way home.”

“Or end up on the far side of the quadrant.” The horror stories that her fellow fourth fleet captains had suffered echoed in the back of her mind, bouncing off the walls of her brain with increasingly nausea-inducing volume. “That’s a big risk.”

Sehgali tilted her head from one shoulder to the other as she considered the possibilities; she too had been privy to the reports of the events that had quickly become known as Labyrinth. But Indira Sehgali was naturally optimistic, perhaps dangerously so and the chance to see familiar stars was tantalising.

“Did I ever tell you about the river out the back of my father’s ranch?”

“No. And is now really the right time?” Mellasitox eyed the other officers on the bridge.

“My father said repeatedly that if I jumped into the river, I would float away to the ocean and disappear forever. He managed to convince my mother to perpetuate the tale, and my brothers threatened to throw me in repeatedly after suffering one of my pranks. Said they should send me out to sea to live with the whales.”

“Let me guess, you jumped into the river, everything was fine, and your presence here should be enough to prove that some risks are worth it?” Mellasitox leant over the arm of her chair and drew her face closer to the XO. “It’s not quite the same thing.”

Sehgali let a smile spread across her face as she took a deep breath, drawing in the woman’s rich floral scent that wafted across the tiny gap.

“Actually, no,” Sehgali smirked micheviously. “I did, however, stand on its banks every day and dare myself to jump in. But I never even dipped a toe into the water. To this day, I don’t even know if the river leads to the sea; for all I know, it ended in a particularly dingy lake.”

Mellasitox’s brow contorted as the possibilities began bouncing around her skull again, feeding her indecision; the risks were big, but the payoff might be, literally, stellar.

“I agree with the Commander, you should jump into the river,” Ad’Nia whispered quietly from over their shoulders, causing Mellasitox to turn with a start.

“That would take you further from Klingon space.” Mellasitox reminded the woman.

Ad’Nia chewed her cheek for a moment before crossing her hands firmly across her chest.

“Federation space is preferable to this incessant and infuriating hopping through the gaps in subspace interference,” she finally announced. “As would colliding with the wall of an underspace tunnel.”

Sehgali offered the captain a raised eyebrow. “Well?”

Her brow still twisted with concern, Mellasitox took to her feet and cleared her throat with a short cough.

”Fine. Into the river it is,” she whispered before turning her attention to the crew.

“Helm, plot a course into the underspace tunnel. Maksha, get into it with How, let’s see what we can do to chart a course through the labyrinth. The nearest Starfleet installation is acceptable, K-74 is preferable. Bale, let’s sure up ship systems. We don’t know what the state of play is in there, and Encore, I want a way to make a quick exit if necessary.”

A spatter of nods rippled around the room as the crew set to work. Sehgali took a few short steps to bring herself to the captain’s side and offered her a comforting squeeze of an arm before setting about her own tasks, leaving Mellasitox alone with her thoughts.

‘Honestly, Bullwura, if Indira Sehgali asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?’

Across the small room, the commander leant over a console, her genius mind already discussing the finer points of subspace mechanics with the sharp-faced science officer.

‘I guess we’re about to find out.’