Noah's Ark

Posted on Sat Jun 21st, 2025 @ 12:38am by Rear Admiral Rebecca Talon & Captain Riandri Nalam & Lieutenant Commander Angel Blake

3,806 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Mission 9: When the Stars Went Silent
Location: Earth Spacedock
Timeline: One month post Battle of Vulcan

There was a tension on Earth Spacedock that Rebbecca had never experienced before. There were no excited shouts or laughter from people living their lives on the enormous station. Half the shops and restaurants were closed, the screens pulled down, and dark within.

Even Los Pollos was closed.

Los Pollos was a little Mexican place she’d been visiting since her days at the Academy. It was a rare comfort, the closest thing to home this far from Santa Fe. Everything—the smells, the food—took her back to her childhood kitchen. She could see Claudia Sandoval’s deft hands rolling out tortillas on the stone counter, the morning light dancing in gold across her wrinkled features, her white hair a glow like a halo. Flour dusted the surface as she flipped the tortillas onto the comal.

The scent of Claudia's signature menudo, simmering in that oversized pot—blackened and dented by time—would always bring a smile to her face. She’d tried to replicate it once. It wasn’t the same, and she never tried again. But Los Pollos was a decent substitute. Now, this war had even robbed her of that little comfort.

After Rachel Sandoval’s death, her abuela had become the mother she lost. A former Starfleet surgeon, Claudia had moved in to help her grief-stricken son and granddaughter. And it was the food that healed the family. Quiet talks over sweet horchata, boisterous meals around the kitchen table. In that warmth, she and her father found the strength to carry on.

She collided with an ensign, the jolt pulling her abruptly back to the present. The officer muttered an apology and continued on his way. She stared after him as he disappeared into the crowd. Everyone moved with purpose, but they either hung their heads or stared straight ahead blankly, simply going through the motions.

This was a defeated fleet in all but practice. She could practically smell the fear that permeated the station's halls and taste the tension in the air.

She was one of them. No rank or title changed that.

Space Dock's former vibrancy had been an unapologetic proudness, a forceful statement of being. If it were a stance it would have had its head held high, walking straight and tall, staring down anyone who gave it cause to do so. Were it a seating position it would have been a manspread (or womanspread), legs apart, arms along the backs of the seat, commanding the space about it with confidence and vim. Angel knew primarily that something had changed purely because she no longer found this atmosphere inspiring and intimidating in equal measure. Now it just served to present to her the thing she was trying not to think of the most.

The cyborg stood by her Captain taking in the shift in ambience, now that Los Pollos was no longer open.

"I could have murdered a Burrito," she commented, trying to diffuse some of the tension.

Riandri let out a soft laugh, "They always did good stuff, that is for sure. This whole place just seems wrong now, too quiet and too empty."

Rebecca sighed and cast one last glance at the darkened restaurant. She didn’t speak. What was there to say?

Everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and no amount of regret or wishful thinking would change that. The Romulans had surrendered. The Klingons had pulled back to Qo’noS. Now the Federation stood alone against the merciless tide of the Dominion.

According to Riandri, this isn’t how it was supposed to play out. Was it El-Aurian intuition? Or was the reality so devastating that even her XO couldn’t bring herself to admit they were witnessing the fall of the Federation? And where did the Q fit into this equation? Had they altered history? Or was this fate inevitable—another test to endure, with the faint hope that, if humanity passed to the Continuum's satisfaction, the Q might grant them a second chance?

Fuck, she swore silently.

Too many damn questions. No answers. All she knew for sure was that the Federation was a walking corpse and Damar, Weyoun, and the Dominion were waiting to finish it off. Rebecca would rather die than live under Dominion rule, but what of her daughters? Would the Dominion even allow humans to survive?

Of all the species in the quadrant, humans had an innate drive toward freedom. Some might call it stubbornness, while others might call it an overinflated sense of individualism. The Klingons wouldn’t need extermination; they would fight to the last warrior. Those who didn’t fall in battle would die by their own hand, in the name of honor.

But humans?

There would be resistance. The Dominion couldn’t risk that kind of disorder, not in their perfectly curated vision of how the galaxy should function. Earth wouldn’t be enslaved. It would be erased.

Rebecca shivered, and her breath caught ragged in her throat. They would need to break humanity’s spirit so thoroughly, so systematically, that no resistance would be possible. And those who remained would be little more than ghosts, she told herself.

She sighed and led her two officers into the turbolift. “Deck 10,” she said softly, as if afraid to disturb a grave. The lift whirred to life, shooting upward towards the administrative levels. She stared blankly ahead at the closed doors, her eyes catching a slight black smudge on the grey painted surface.

What caused that? The grimy hand of an engineer? The toe or heel of a boot from an officer kicking it out of anger or frustration?

Angel's thoughts turned once again to the final battle as the lights of the floors zipped past the lift in motion. She wondered where it would be, Space or Ground. Would it be cold, calculated, detached, ended in the vacuum of space, or would she get to see the Jem'hadar that killed her? She was hard to beat in hand-to-hand, but she could tire quickly at combat levels of output, and she wasn't a superhero. It only took there to be more than a couple of warriors on her, and she'd go down like anyone else. She certainly didn't hold out too much hope that it wouldn't come to that. Sure, Angel was bitter as hell towards anyone who wasn't another cyborg, and she loved seeing 'normals' being taken down a peg or two. Not like this, though.

Not like this.

Riandri stood silently with the other two; she could sense the unease within them but struggled to find anything to say. The words of Q keep playing through her mind as if they had just happened, but they steeled her resolve. This was a test, and they would pass.

The turbolift slowed to a stop, and Rebecca stepped off, leading the others down the corridor. Three pairs of boots echoed hollowly off the deck plating, disturbing the tomb-like silence, punctuated only by the quiet hum of the environmental systems. The usually crowded administrative corridors reminded her of a ghost town. Rebecca frowned. Again. She’d been doing that a lot lately.

At a door on the left, she entered an office. Behind the receptionist’s desk sat a wide-eyed crewman who looked like she'd been rushed out of basic training and dropped behind that console before learning what “left face” even meant. Her blue eyes were dulled with boredom and ringed by dark bags. A messy bun of thick, curly black hair crowned her head, and her uniform looked like it had been slept in more than once. A pair of security officers standing off to the side stiffened their rifles ever so slightly, pointing at the visitors, ready for a split-second reaction.

Rebecca's jaw tightened with disapproval. In her opinion, there was little excuse for letting discipline go, now more important than ever. Officers needed something to cling to, like a life raft, when everything else was crumbling around them.

“Can I help you, Captain?”

“Tell Admiral Arnold that the Denver’s command crew is here to see him,” Rebecca replied. Despite the chaos churning in her mind, she stood in sharp contrast to the crewman; her uniform was perfectly pressed, her boots polished, and every strand of hair in place.

The crewman nodded. “The admiral has been expecting you, ma’am.”

One of the security officers, a Petty Officer with a high-and-tight haircut and eyes like polished obsidian, stepped forward and presented a biometric scanner. Rebecca pressed her thumb to the pad.

The scanner buzzed, then spoke in a hollow mechanical voice: “Talon, Rebecca Rose. Rank: Captain. Current posting: USS Denver.”

The second officer moved in. Without a word, he pressed a hypospray to her arm and drew a vial of blood. He repeated the process with Riandri and Angel, then handed the three vials to his partner, who shook them gently and squinted at the contents, inspecting them for the telltale shimmer of a Changeling impostor.

The blood remained unchanged.

He gave a curt nod. “Their identities are confirmed.” His voice was deep, soft, and laced with a Southern drawl, yet devoid of emotion.

“Captain, the Admiral is ready for you,” the assistant said, gesturing lazily toward the inner office door.

"Thank you, Crewman," Rebecca said with a curt nod. Turning on a heel, she headed for the inner office.

Riandri eyes lingered on the crewman behind the desk for a moment, she could sense her unease and fear of what they all knew was coming, "Thank you." Part of her wanted to say more, but she knew at this point it wouldn't help.

Angel resisted the urge to scare the crewman shitless... it looked like she had been through enough. Angel followed on, secretly hoping things would look up for her.

As the doors parted, a wave of alcohol hit her full in the face, sharp and thick enough to stagger. She hesitated, blinking against the stench. The room was dim. A man sat in a chair by the viewport, silhouetted against the stars. The desk before him was cluttered with the dark outlines of empty bourbon bottles.

The chair slowly rotated, revealing a haggard face beneath a week’s worth of stubble. He set a glass on the desk with a dull clink—and something else in his left hand. Rebecca’s breath caught as the object slid into view.

A phaser.

Everyone wore a phaser these days, clipped to their belts as standard gear. But seeing it in his hand, inside this dim, silent room, felt... She couldn't place a finger on it.

It's nothing, she told herself.

Riandri stepped forward upon seeing the phaser in hand and placed herself slightly in front of the captain as her hand shifted slightly towards her belt. "Sir?" she asked, without voicing her real question to the admiral.

A phaser on a belt was one thing but a phaser in the hand was quite another and Angel was instantly on high alert. Her hand dropped to her own phaser in its holster automatically. Her eye adjusted to the gloom, giving her a view of everything around in slightly sharper focus than her compatriots. The bottles were all confirmed to be empty. Padds lay strewn about, some on, some off. Under the alcohol was the smell of general untidiness. The office wasn't being kept as clean as it should be. Angel's eyes glanced sideways to her Captain, she'd be ready to move at a moment's notice, but she gave the Admiral a chance to explain himself, or the Captain to interject first.

Arnold blinked at their reaction, slow to process the silent shift in tension. At last, he followed their eyes to the phaser in his grip. He studied it, as if trying to recall how it had gotten there, turning it in his hand as though it were foreign. After a moment, he slid it into the holster on his hip. Polymer scraped against polymer with a soft click.

Rebecca exhaled, tension ebbing. Bureaucrats were more accustomed to sitting behind their desks than beneath them. Of course, they’d be on edge. The Dominion hung over them like a storm cloud, heavy and relentless.

"Captain Talon, Commander uh-Rami, and Lieutenant Fake... Blake," Arnold's voice was a low rumble and slurred st the edges. His breath carried with it the sickly sour stench of stale alcohol. "Thank you for coming."

Rebecca swallowed, forcing down the objection rising in her throat. This man was in charge of an entire theater of operations and not just any theater, but the one that included Earth. And here he was: drunk on duty. He wasn’t fit to command a shuttle, let alone multiple fleets and the planet’s last line of defense. But, bureaucracies moved slowly, and alcoholics could sometimes slide under the radar of superiors, appearing functional.

"Last night," Arnold slurred, "the Federation Council working with Starfleet approved 'Operation Noah's Ark'. Uh—"

Something Ming had said in their last briefing aboard Denver surfaced in Angel's mind, something about poor leadership, reactionary tactics and pulling back. Now all was becoming clear.

"Captain?" She asked sotto voice, looking to Rebecca for guidance. The guy may have been wasted but he was an Admiral, and she was a Lieutenant. Were they really just going to listen to this clown and leave?

Rebecca gave Angel an acknowledging nod. She understood. But this was a four-star admiral. She didn't have any more standing than Angel in that regard. Orders would come down, and they would follow them. If those orders were insane or dangerous, they could discuss it later. There was always the Starfleet Chief of Staff. And Arnold had mentioned the Federation Council. Odds were, he was little more than a messenger.

“Sir, what is this operation?” Rebecca asked.

Arnold blinked, looking confused. “Operation? Oh—Operation Noah’s Ark.”

He fumbled through the mess of PADDs until he located three, handing one to Rebecca, Riandri, and Angel in turn.

"Full mission details are on those PADDs. In summary, however, Captain, you and your crew have been selected by Starfleet Command as the Federation's last hope. I’m placing you in command of a small task force made up of the USS Denver, Texarkana, Saratoga, and the civilian transport SS Mariposa. You’ll need to assign captains to both the Texarkana and the Saratoga.

“With some of the Federation’s best minds and 20,000 colonists aboard, you are to head deep into uncharted space, at least ten thousand light-years beyond the Federation border. Establish a colony. Make allies. Spread the ideals of the United Federation of Planets to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”

He drew a shaky breath. “As such, I am promoting you to the rank of Rear Admiral. Commander Ree-wu, you are to assume command of the Denver with the rank of Captain. Lieutenant Flake, your responsibility will be vetting and conducting background checks on all civilian and Starfleet personnel selected for the mission.”

Angel nodded slowly, trying to take everything in. The plan made some sense. Why expend all of your resources in fighting a forlorn hope? If this really was the end for the Federation, a secret mission to preserve the species and ideals and strike on out for a new home meant survival. But it sure didn't feel good. Neither did the impending avalanche of paperwork Angel would now be doing. Did she want to play God, deciding who and who was not suitable to come? What criteria were used? This was going to suck.

"Admiral, Captain, congratulations. I guess... she murmured to the two women next to her.

Part of Riandri wasn't surprised by the mission, but it was one of desperation, and they were now in a desperate situation, though the Command surprised her. She turned to look at Angel and Rebecca, a slight loss for words, before turning back to Arnold. "Thank you, Admiral."

“You’re welcome, Captain,” Arnold replied. “This goes without saying, but the mission is classified at the highest level. We can’t keep it completely quiet, but we need to delay the Dominion finding out—at least until it’s too late.”

Rebecca stared down at the PADD in her hands. It weighed only a few grams, like every other PADD she had ever held, but this one… It felt like solid lead. She swallowed hard and locked eyes with Arnold.

“Sir.” The word came out rough, her throat dry as the back yard of her childhood home. She hesitated, swallowed again, then forced herself to continue. “Sir, I will only accept this mission if the crews are allowed to take their families with them. I won’t ask people to abandon their loved ones for something that may mean we never return to Earth. This isn’t a five-year deep space mission… It’s a multi-generational journey. If nothing else, we’ll need a replacement crew within the next five to ten years.”

Arnold’s expression shifted. Was it irritation? Fatigue?

“Admiral Talon,” he said at last, his tone unreadable, “this is your mission. Do as you see fit.” He glanced at each of them in turn. "Councilman Luther Sloan devised this operation. I would expect him to contact you with mission-specific details, including a list of the civilians and colonists selected for this mission. Noah's Ark has been in the works as a contingency plan since the Shellacking we took at Betazoid. Any questions?"

Rebecca stared at the PADD. She knew she would have questions, but she didn't know enough about this mission to even formulate a plan, let alone questions. With a sigh, she shook her head at last. "No, sir, but I expect I will have them once I dive into this and start implementing it."

"Contact Sloan. Don't bother contacting me. You’re dismissed," Arnold said with finality.

Silence settled like dust across the room. Rebecca let it linger for a few heartbeats before snapping to attention. The soft click of her boots echoed off the office walls. At Arnold’s faint nod, she pivoted sharply and marched out, passing the admiral’s assistant without so much as a glance.

As she led Riandri and Angel into the corridor, her mind caught a detail: the security officers were no longer present. In their place, a man lounged on the waiting room couch, his hands steepled before him. He was dressed entirely in black, with a forgettable face and sandy hair that seemed deliberately unremarkable.

Outside in the corridor, she exhaled sharply, as if the bulkheads themselves were pressing against her ribs. Her mind was already racing through crew rosters and ship readiness reports. She turned to Riandri, her tone steady despite the tempest in her mind. “Milo’s already commanding the Texarkana. I see no reason to change that. What’s your take on placing Ms. Blake here in command of the Saratoga?”

Riandri let out a long exhale as the weight of the mission fully settled on her shoulders. For her, this mission wouldn't have an end for a very, very long time until the choice Q had mentioned. She looked over at Rebecca and nodded, "Make sense to keep Milo where he is, as for the Saratoga, I think Ms. Blake will be a good fit for the post. The Saratoga is a good ship, and this mission will need a good hand at the command."

"Will you transfer your command to the Texarkana or stay on the Denver?" Riandri asked after a moment while she thought through the challenges before them in the next couple of days.

"I'll stay on the Denver. I'll convert one of the diplomatic suites into an office, so you can have the ready room. What do you say, Lieutenant Blake? You want the Saratoga?"

It wasn't easy to surprise Angel, but she was surprised by this question. The prominent undercurrent of chaos and defeat created a base apprehension from which anyone could be surprised to their core. But if anyone knew how to fight the Dominion, it was she. It made sense. And unlike Admiral Bourbon back there, she'd take no bull, cut no slack, and lead a ship to success or die trying.

"Yes, Captain. Admiral! Sorry. We won't let you down."

"You’ve been an extraordinary second officer for both me and Captain Nalim. If I thought otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. In peacetime, there’s the book. But in war? You throw that damned thing out the nearest airlock. You put people in place you know you can trust. And I trust you. 'Lieutenant' doesn’t fit anymore. As of this moment, I’m promoting you to Lieutenant Commander, with all the privileges and responsibilities that come with it."

Angel ran her tongue over her teeth under her closed lips thoughtfully. She glanced towards the office they had just come from before looking back at the newly gazetted Rear Admiral.

"Any other way than this," she murmured, darkly. But thank you, ma'am."

Rebecca gave a nod, accepting the sentiment for what it was. There wasn’t the time for ceremony.

"I think we should gut the Texarkana and convert it to carry extra fuel and supplies. They don't need a shuttle bay, and we can convert it into a dedicated maintenance and construction bay for the fleet. One of the ships in the fleet will need to house a deuterium refinery, and we'll need to procure several industrial replicators—"

A pair of security officers burst through the turbolift, their boots pounding the deck. They pushed past her without so much as a nod, hands resting on the butts of their holstered phasers as they disappeared into Admiral Arnold’s office.

Rebecca froze, feet rooted to the deck. Her jaw clenched as she stared at the closed doors.

The assistant emerged moments later. Her eyes were wide, cheeks streaked with tears. She held her hands out, stained in red-brown smears. She rubbed at it helplessly, as if friction alone could erase what she’d seen, but the stain stayed.

In defeat, the young woman leaned against the bulkhead, then slid to the deck, head in her hands, and elbows braced on her knees.

At last, Rebecca exhaled, slow and steady, and turned for the turbolift. Part of her wanted to go to the woman to offer comfort. But what was there to say?

"We got work to do. Let's go," Rebecca said in a low, somber tone, the same one she'd used at her abuela's wake.

Riandri smiled softly, "And not much time at all...."

 

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