Captain's Log, Supplemental
DDSN-X100 USS Discovery
Captain James Nolan recording
Christening Date plus 31 days (estimated)
Oort Cloud – repairs ongoing
The ship holds.
The crew holds.
We endure.
Marduk waits.
We will be ready.
Amir al-Rashid ran.
The corridor ahead blurred into red-streaked motion—emergency strips pulsing like arterial blood, bulkheads flashing past in crimson heartbeat. His boots slammed deck plates hard enough to send shocks up his shins, lungs burning, every inhale tasting of recycled air and raw panic. He had not meant to run. He had meant to finish the last encrypted burst—jump harmonics, coil profiles, the final piece they demanded—and then walk to the bridge with his hands raised. Confess. Explain the thermal offset, the micro-tool cut, the cascade he never intended. Beg Captain Nolan to believe him when he said no one was supposed to die.
But when Voss's eyes met his in the hub, and the lights stuttered, something inside him fractured. Not bravery. Not calculation.Blind, animal terror. He veered left at the first junction, ducking under a low conduit run. The starboard transit corridor yawned too wide, too exposed—he slammed his palm against the maintenance access instead. The panel hissed open on emergency override; he threw himself through, sealing it with a desperate slap. The narrow engineering passage beyond smelled of lubricant and ozone, pipes and cable bundles crowding close like ribs in a cage.
Voices echoed behind the hatch—Marines, sharp, professional. "Starboard transit, suspect fleeing! Maintenance access 12-B!"
Amir kept moving. These passages were mapped in his muscle memory—three years on Discovery prototypes had etched every shortcut, every blind turn, every crawlspace the designers never meant for crew to use. He dropped to his knees at the next junction, pried open a floor grate with trembling fingers, and slid into the sub-deck utility run. Darkness swallowed him. The grate clanged shut above.
He crawled.
Elbows scraped alloy. Knees burned. His breath came in ragged gasps he tried to muffle it against his sleeve. Somewhere ahead, a ventilation fan whirred—loud enough to mask footsteps, he hoped. He pictured Amina's face: the fresh bruise along her jaw, the blindfold, the way her shoulders had hunched in that last image. They had promised her death if he stopped transmitting. They had promised worse if he betrayed them. He had believed them.
He still did.
Guilt clawed at the back of his throat, thick and sour. He had thinned the interlock. He had introduced the offset. He had watched the harmonics spike on his pad and done nothing while Patel's people welded for twelve hours straight. Good people. People who trusted him. He had betrayed them all. And still he ran. Because Amina was nineteen. Because she still believed he was the big brother who could fix anything. Because the thought of her alone in some black-site hab, waiting for a sunrise she would never see, was worse than anything the captain could do to him.
The utility run ended at a vertical access shaft. Amir wedged himself against the ladder rungs, climbed fast—hand over hand, boots slipping on grease-slick metal. Two decks up, he kicked open another panel and tumbled into a deserted cross-passage near the forward auxiliary power bays. Red strobes painted the walls in blood. Alarms wailed distant and thin.
He sprinted again.
A hatch ahead—unlocked, thank God. He burst through into a wider corridor, the main spine that ran parallel to the hab rings. Too late, he heard boots behind him. "Contact! Port spine, deck 12!" Amir cut right, ducked behind a stack of portable diagnostic crates, heart slamming so hard he tasted it in his throat. Marines rounded the corner—four of them, rifles up, moving with the smooth aggression of men who had trained for exactly this. He bolted again.
The corridor curved. He took the next service hatch, sealed it, ran down a ladder, and emerged into another passage. His legs burned. Sweat stung his eyes. Every shadow looked like Voss—calm, unhurried, inevitable. He did not know how long he had run only that he could not stop. Because stopping meant facing what he had done. Because stopping meant Amina died. He rounded one final corner and nearly collided with a bulkhead—dead end. A sealed blast door stared back at him—engineering override locked, red status light blinking. No time to hack it.
Footsteps closed from behind. Amir spun. Too late.
A shape in dark tactical gear barreled out of the side passage—Marine, full armour, momentum unstoppable. The man lowered his shoulder and drove forward like a linebacker. Amir had half a second to raise his arms. Impact.
The breath punched out of him. He slammed backwards into the deck plates, skull cracking against metal, vision flashing white. Pain exploded across his ribs, his shoulder, the back of his head. The Marine was on him instantly—knee in his spine, gloved hand clamping his wrist, twisting it up between his shoulder blades. "Suspect secured!" the Marine barked into his helmet mic. "Deck 12, section 14-C. No resistance." Amir tasted blood. His face pressed hard against the cold deck grating. The Marine's weight pinned him motionless. Another set of boots approached—slower, deliberate.
Voss.
She stopped just inside his field of vision. Black uniform boots, polished despite the hour. She crouched, elbows on knees, studying him with the same calm she had worn in the hub. Lieutenant Commander Mara Voss had never wanted this moment. She had spent her career in fleet intelligence hunting external threats—pirate net signatures, black-market arms flows, encrypted chatter from the Belt. She had never wanted to hunt her own crew. Never wanted to look at a man she had shared coffee with in the wardroom, a man who laughed at Torres's dry jokes and helped Kim reroute coolant lines without being asked, and see only the fracture lines of betrayal.
But the ship came first. Always. Disabling the interlocks had nearly killed them all. One man's fear had nearly finished the job. Voss reached down. Her hand closed on the back of Amir's neck—not cruel, just firm. She lifted his head enough to meet his eyes. "Lieutenant al-Rashid," she said quietly. Amir tried to speak. Only a wet rasp came out. "You ran," she said. No anger. No triumph. Only fact. The Marine tightened his grip. Amir's cheek ground against the grating.
Voss's voice stayed even. "You're done running now." She studied his face—the sweat, the blood, the wide-eyed desperation—and felt the familiar weight settle across her shoulders. She did not enjoy this. She hated it. But the ship was a priority. The crew was a priority. The mission—defend the lanes, explore the black, bring everyone home—was a priority. She nodded once to the Marine. The man slammed Amir's head back down—hard, controlled, no wasted force. Stars burst behind Amir's eyes. Darkness rushed in at the edges.
Voss stood, slow and deliberate. She keyed her comm without looking away. "Voss to bridge. Suspect in custody. Deck 12, section 14-C. Request medical and security detail to my location." She looked down at the unconscious man one last time. Then she turned and walked away, boots echoing softly in the red-lit corridor. The ship breathed around her—steady, wounded, still fighting. And she would keep fighting for it. Until the black took them all, or they reached the next horizon.