Plunging the Briny Deep

Posted on Tue May 20th, 2025 @ 12:48am by Lieutenant JG Ryland Dedeker & Gunnery Sergeant Roderik Kos & Lieutenant Teejay & Master Warrant Officer Alexei Sokolov

1,284 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: S1E6: Where Skies End
Location: Kraken (Limbo II) | Limbo system
Timeline: MD 8

The Phantom drifted in the upper atmosphere of Kraken, Limbo II—a writhing, storm-wracked ocean world where corrosive pressure and toxic lightning storms masked their descent. With the MARS system disabled due to atmospheric interference, they were flying blind and naked in the eyes of anything watching from beyond.

But it wasn’t Kraken that had Ryland worried.

The subspace shockwaves—from not one, but three coordinated warp core breaches—were still resonating through the system like ripples through a pond. But these were no ordinary tremors.

They were dinner bells.

A console chirped. Then another. A sensor anomaly—massive gravimetric distortion. Then another. Rodi’s fingers flew across Tactical. “Inbound... contacts. Four, maybe five.”

“No transponders?” Ryland asked tightly.

“No ships,” Rodi said, voice low. “It’s them... the Archons.”

On the viewscreen, space itself seemed to twist as the first of the Archons emerged—a titanic, cosmozoan monstrosity, its tendrils slithering between dimensions, flickering in and out of visible space like a nightmare dragging itself into reality. It was a living singularity, surrounded by a corona of subspace lightning and gravitational distortion. The glow of its multi-layered, light-devouring maw pulsed like a dying star as it sensed the Phantom’s presence, drawn by the ripple of warp energy still leaking through the system.

Ryland was already on his feet. “Beam Calvain and Calliope back—NOW!”

“Transporter lock established,” Sokolov said, working fast. “Initiating emergency beam-out—”

The freighter’s hull buckled onscreen. A lash of subspace tendrils coiled around it, piercing bulkheads as if they weren’t there. With a silent, horrific shudder, the vessel was yanked sideways into subspace—vanishing from physical reality in the blink of an eye.

“Energizing!” Sokolov shouted.

Calvain and Calliope rematerialized in a tangled heap on the transporter pad just as the Archon dove fully into Kraken’s atmosphere, hunting for the source of the remaining echoes.

“We're exposed!” Rodi growled. “That thing is sniffing us out!”

“MARS is useless down here,” Sokolov barked. “We need altitude or we’re next!”

“Helm!” Ryland snapped. “Punch us vertical, max sub-impulse. I want us out of this soup and back into orbit!”

The Phantom's engines roared as the ship clawed its way skyward. Around them, Kraken’s lightning storms went wild, caught in the Archon's gravity well. The entire planet churned like a stirred cauldron, as if trying to shake free of the intruder violating both sea and sky.

The Phantom broke the clouds and hit the exosphere. Behind them, the Archon let out a deep, resonant pulse, felt more than heard.

“They’re not chasing,” Rodi confirmed grimly. “But they’re still... watching.”

Ryland stared at the screen, jaw tight. “They don’t need to chase. That one didn’t come alone.” He tapped the console, bringing up a subspace schematic. “They're triangulating like pack hunters. These weren’t random attacks. They're reacting to the warp signature from the detonation.”

The tension hadn't quite lifted. The Phantom's hull still groaned faintly from atmospheric stress, and the sensors continued to register spatial distortions well beyond the fringes of the gas giant Avalon. Ryland stood at the helm, knuckles white on the controls, eyes flicking between telemetry and the subspace pulse echoing behind them.

“Still no pursuit,” Rodi reported, uncertainty wrinkling his brow. “They just… stopped. That doesn't track.”

“It’s not just that they stopped,” Sokolov said from Engineering. “It’s like they never saw us at all.”

Ryland frowned. “That’s not possible. We were lit up like a beacon. MARS was down. They should’ve seen us clear as day.”

That’s when Calvain, seated awkwardly against a bulkhead and massaging a burned wrist, let out a low, awkward laugh.

“You Starfleet lot reckon yerselves so smart and so clever. And yet none of you ever asked the most obvious question.” He jerked a thumb at the figure silently standing near the starboard sensor station. “Why hasn’t she said a word since the Archons showed up?”

All eyes turned to Calliope.

The "Breen" hadn’t moved since rematerializing on the transporter pad. Her suit—the battered, patchwork armor that passed for a second skin—sat silent and inert, her usual bursts of digital trilling absent. The violet glow of her visor pulsed faintly, but it was not in the standard Breen diagnostic rhythm. It resonated, subtly, like a... hum.

Ryland stepped forward slowly. “Calliope…?”

She didn’t answer.

Calvain sighed, rising unsteadily to his feet. “Look. I didn’t think I’d have to spill this, but we’re past the point of secrets now. You want to know why the Archons didn’t tear us out of the sky?” He looked around at the crew, then back to her. “It’s because she’s not a Breen.”

Silence.

Rodi raised an eyebrow. “She’s not—what?”

“She’s the last of the N’Chwaer,” Calvain said. “Children of Harmony. She just wears the suit so you don’t all go screaming and reaching for phasers.”

Calliope slowly turned her head toward the others. Her helmet hissed, then lifted—and what emerged was not remotely humanoid. Her body unfolded with an eerie grace, like origami made of bioluminescent cartilage and glistening tendrils. Her "face" was a shifting array of cilia and hissing membranes, pulsing in gentle rhythm. Her body emitted resonant subspace harmonics—music more than speech, a song felt rather than heard, that made every molecule in the Phantom’s hull hum with unexpected peace.

No one spoke.

“She’s… beautiful,” Teejay whispered.

“Not what I’d call it,” Sokolov muttered. “But okay.”

Calliope’s melody deepened slightly. A chorus of otherworldly notes sang through the comm systems, bypassing the ship’s audio protocols entirely.

Calvain translated softly. “She’s saying she called them off. The Archons. They were going to consume us, but they recognized her song. Her… lineage.”

“Her lineage?” Ryland said, still reeling.

“She’s descended from the eco-glaciers of Kraken—sentient, chlorine-breathing bio-organisms that evolved in harmonic balance with subspace,” Calvain explained. “The N’Chwaer didn’t just live there. They are the reason Kraken doesn’t collapse into a maelstrom every ten minutes.”

Ryland's eyes narrowed. “So they’re what? Subspace priests?”

Calvain shrugged. “More like bridges. They communicate with the Archons. Guide'em even. That’s what the N’Chwaer were, sacred shepherds of the demigod Archons, children of their creator… a subspace reef entity they called Chwaer. Or in your tongue: Harmony.” He paused. "And She’s the last one."

Everyone stared at Calliope, who pulsed again with harmonic resonance—this time slower, lower, with a melancholy edge.

“What happened to the rest?” Rodi asked softly.

Calvain’s smirk vanished. “Ask your old pal Max Dedeker.”

“Shit.” Ryland sat back, palm against his forehead. He knew what his brother was capable of. “He killed them.”

“He used them,” Calvain corrected, face twisted with bitterness. “He gained their trust, helped them, learned their secrets, and then turned their technology against the very Archons they revered. Bent them to his will. Built Fiddler’s Green on the bones of their ancestors and used them to keep it protected from Archon attack. That’s why nobody touches Kraken but his people. Because the only voices the Archons obey anymore is his and hers.”

The bridge fell into stunned silence.

Calliope’s song grew faint, echoing like a lullaby over the comm systems. In it was a question. A mourning. A vow.

Ryland nodded. “We’re not leaving this unfinished.” He turned back to helm. “Plot a course for Fiddler’s Green.” He looked to Calliope. Some way, somehow, his brother would pay. And to hell with Mrazak. “Let’s make some noise.”

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