Night Shift Part III of III

Posted on Fri Dec 5th, 2025 @ 7:43pm by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren & Rear Admiral Indi Hawk

1,873 words; about a 9 minute read

Sidra let the repeated “Nothing” hang in the air for a moment, watching the way Indi’s shoulders curled in, the way her eyes stayed pinned to the floor like she was afraid of being seen.

Then Sidra exhaled slowly, once, enough for the tone in the room to shift.

“This isn’t nothing,” she said quietly, but there was steel underneath it. “You haven’t been yourself since the moment you arrived on this station.”

She didn’t step closer.
Didn’t raise her voice.
She didn’t need to.

“I’ve tried to be there for you. I’ve tried to give you space. I’ve tried to let you come to me on your terms. But you’re pushing me away so hard I’m running out of places to stand.”

Her eyes stayed locked on Indi, unwavering.

“These hours you’re keeping?” Sidra continued. “That’s not you leaning into being a night owl. That’s you isolating. And isolation from you isn’t a quirk. It’s a warning sign.”

She shook her head once, slow.

“I can’t ignore it and hope you come around anymore. You’re putting me in a situation that’s impossible to overlook.”

A beat, heavy, deliberate.

“Tell me ‘nothing’ one more time,” Sidra said, voice level, unflinching, “and I pull the rank card. We go by the book. Full wellness investigation. Mandatory. Immediate.”

Her grip tightened around the padd at her side.

“I don’t want to do that to you,” she added, softer. “But I will. Don’t make me choose between being your friend… and doing my damn job.”

Nowhere to walk. Nowhere to run to. There were no options left. Two impossible choices. Two choices and she didn't want to make either of them. Or did she? Did she really not want to make the choice? What was standing in her way? Pride? What pride? She had no pride left. Duty? What duty? After this conversation, she wouldn't have any duty left.

Nowhere else to hide. Nowhere but the truth. The truth she'd been hiding for so long, the truth had kept her going for so long, even though it wouldn't be accepted by anyone else. She thought of the cartridge in her quarters, and she sighed.
Nowhere to run. Indi needed a friend. Or did she? No choice.

Eventually, she sagged down in the first chair she could find. "I need help," she whispered.

For a heartbeat, Sidra couldn’t move.

The words, I need help, hit her like a pressure valve releasing, like something she’d been bracing for without admitting it to herself. Relief rose fast and sharp behind her ribs, so strong it almost stole her breath.

Because finally, finally, Indi wasn’t running.

Sidra closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself, and memory washed up unbidden:
The corridors of Starbase Raven, Indi’s voice, calm, certain, guiding her through the fog of a shattered mind when she hadn’t even known her own name.

When she had been broken, brutalized, barely a person left… Indi had been the one to anchor her.

Sidra opened her eyes again.

Now, it was Indi in the chair. Indi sagging under a weight she’d tried to carry alone. Indi looking nothing like the fierce, unshakeable woman Sidra had met twenty years ago, but everything like someone who desperately needed someone to stay.

Sidra stepped forward slowly, lowering herself to one knee beside the chair, close, but not crowding. A choice. A presence. A promise.

“You did the right thing,” she said softly, not letting her voice waver. “You hear me? Saying that… that’s the bravest thing you’ve done since you got here.”

She rested one hand lightly on the arm of the chair, not touching Indi unless Indi shifted toward her, but there, solid and steady.

“But now,” Sidra continued, meeting the defeated eyes in front of her, “you have to tell me what’s going on.”

Her voice didn’t harden, it condensed. Focused. Became the voice of someone who knew exactly what it meant to pull a friend back from the edge.

“Because I can help you,” she said, “but not if I’m guessing in the dark. Talk to me, Indi. Tell me what you’re fighting.”

A quiet beat.
“I’m right here.”

Indi's eyes remained focussed on the floor, but her ears followed every one of Sidra's movements. She was ready to run. Ready to spring into action and run. Or was she? As the other woman came nearer, knelt, spoke those words, Indi had every chance to run, but she didn't. She stayed.

It was a simple question, what she was fighting. It would bring Sidra into the light. But they were both in the darkness. What exactly was she fighting indeed?

She couldn't make herself speak words. Instead, she got to her feet. "Come," she spoke quietly.

Not waiting for the other woman, but sure she would follow, she made her way back into the corridor. The two women walked side by side in silence. Indi could hear Sidra's heartbeat over her own. The quiet of the corridors of the night not quite replaced by the daytime hums.

The nearer they got to her quarters, the more busy it got. More people around them. Some greeting them. Most just making way for two high ranking officers. Indi ignored all of them.

At last, they arrived in her quarters. She barged straight past the mess and the steel impersonal feel they still had after all this time, and headed straight for the little table besides the couch. Still wordless, she picked up the cartridge that had been waiting for her, and held it out for Sidra to see. And to take. Or whatever she wanted to do with it. Indi no longer wanted it.

Sidra’s breath stopped the second she recognized the cartridge.

Dreamdust.

Her pulse hit hard, a single, heavy thud that echoed in her ears. She stepped into the room fully now, closing the distance until she stood in front of Indi, tension locked across her shoulders like a brace.

“Indi…” Her voice thinned around the edges.

Duty surged first, sharp, automatic, ingrained.

This wasn’t contraband from a passing trader. This wasn’t a casual street drug snuck through customs. Dreamdust was regulated to hell and back, chemically tagged, nearly impossible to acquire without triggering half a dozen security alerts.

So how the hell was it here?
In Indi’s hand?
In her quarters?

Sidra’s brain went straight to work, mapping angles, routes, possibilities:
– No record of Dreamdust confiscations on the station.
– No red flags on civilian cargo incoming this week.
– No flagged merchant licenses on the promenade.
– No anomalies in transporter buffer logs during the night cycle… that she knew of.
– Access points limited. Controlled. Monitored.

Or at least they should be.

She reached out and took the cartridge slowly, almost afraid it might disappear if she blinked.
It stayed solid in her palm.

“Indi… how long have you had this?” Sidra asked, voice low but shaking with controlled restraint. “How long have you been doing this?”

She didn’t look away.

“This stuff doesn’t just show up in someone’s quarters. Not here. Not on a Federation starbase with layered contraband sweeps and cross-checks.” Her grip tightened around the cartridge. “Someone is supplying Dreamdust on this station. That means a logistical breach. It means a criminal network, a smuggling route, or—”

She hesitated, fear threading past the duty for the first time.

“—or that you’ve somehow found a way to get it without going through any of the systems I can see.”

Sidra swallowed hard.

“Indi… I need you to hear me.” Her voice dropped even softer. “This isn’t just about your career. This isn’t just about addiction or choices or judgment.”

She lifted the cartridge a fraction.

“This is evidence of a security failure, somewhere. And I’m the one responsible for keeping this station clean. If I don’t know how this got here, I can’t protect you. I can’t protect anyone.”

A breath. Steadying.

“But most of all…” Her expression broke for just a moment, grief and fear flickering through. “I can't help you if I don’t know what you’re caught in.”

She set the cartridge down on the table between them, fingers lingering for a second before pulling away.

“Tell me how deep this goes, Indi. Please.”

At least that was an easy question. One that didn't require words. Indi seemed to have become mute, but for now, they both got what they want or needed from it. So Sidra would have to deal with it.

She headed over to the replicator, started tapping in commands. Attached the device she had brought with her. Tapped in another command.

Another cartridge shimmered into existence as easily as a can of Coke.

One more command. The device replaced in the drawer beneath it. All in all, it was remarkably easy. The whole thing took less than a minute.

"There's nobody else," she spoke, very softly, her voice barely recognisable under the weight of what was going on.
She handed the new cartridge to Sidra as well. "It's just me."

Sidra stared at the second cartridge in her hand, relief and dread tangling in her chest.

So there wasn't a supplier.
No network.
No breach in her station’s defenses.
Just Indi.
And somehow, that hurt more.

She set both cartridges down on the table with a soft click, then looked around the room, the bare walls, the unopened storage crates, the complete absence of anything resembling a life lived.

“You haven’t settled in at all,” Sidra said quietly. “You’ve just… existed here.”

Her throat tightened. She pulled out her padd, fingers already moving.

“I can’t leave you in these quarters, Indi. Not with a compromised replicator, not like this.”

She brought up an alternate set of officer quarters, empty, secure, out of the way, and sent the authorization. No hesitation.

“You’re coming with me,” she said, voice low but absolute. “Grab what matters.”

She met Indi’s eyes, letting the weight of it sit between them.

“You’re going to need medical help to get off this stuff,” Sidra said. “It won’t be easy. But you’re not doing it alone.”

Another tap on the padd. Security reposting. Access changes. Replicator lockdown.

“I’ll assign a guard to the new quarters,” she added. “Not as punishment… but so nothing else gets to you. Not even this.”

She closed the padd gently.

“And I’m staying with you until Medical steps in,” Sidra finished, softer now. “You’re not facing this alone.”

Indi listened once more wordlessly, and hardly at all. The words didn't reach her. Her eyes followed Sidra's movement on the padd, she even met the other woman's eyes, but they didn't hit anything inside of her. Anything at all.

"I don't know who I am. Please help me. I don't know who I am.." she finally whispered before trailing off into silence again.

Rear Admiral Indi Hawk

Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren

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