Dreamdust to Ashes Part I of II

Posted on Fri Dec 5th, 2025 @ 9:43pm by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren

1,419 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Second Light

// Indi’s Temporary Quarters //

The door slid shut behind her with a soft, final hiss, far too soft for the weight of what she had just done.

Sidra stood still in the corridor, staring at the sealed door as if it might open again and give her back an outcome she could live with. On the other side, Indi sat under medical supervision: cortical monitors active, vitals tracked in real time. A detox protocol would initiate the moment her neurotransmitter levels dipped into withdrawal. Security was stationed outside in staggered shifts. The replicator was disabled. Environmental controls were locked.

Containment.
Care.
Control.

All of it necessary.

None of it enough.

I don’t know who I am. Please help me.

The words clung to her like smoke.

The two security officers standing post exchanged a quick glance. One of them took a small step forward, boots clearing his stance, posture shifting into a more formal at-attention. The simple movement broke her trance.

She straightened her uniform jacket. Her hands still trembled faintly, adrenaline and grief not yet finished with her, but no one needed to see that.

“Admiral,” the officer said quietly, waiting for instruction.

“You hold this post,” Sidra replied. Her voice was composed. It felt like it belonged to someone else.

She turned toward the corridor that would take her back to Indi’s original quarters. As she walked, the station began to shift around her. The morning cycle lights brightened across the deck, and with them came the subtle increase in movement that marked the start of day on a space station.

Starbase 369 was waking.

And it already sensed that something was wrong.

She could feel it in the way the corridor buzzed. Quarters doors opened and closed with more caution than usual. Officers stepped into the hall, slowing when they recognized her. A pair of civilians moved quietly past with handheld luggage, whispering to one another once they thought they were out of earshot. Even the environmental hum felt louder, as if the station itself was listening.

People were not panicking.
Not yet.

But a vice admiral calling Medical to a secured location before sunrise, locking down another admiral’s quarters, and assigning an armed guard was enough to send rumors mutating through the residential decks at speed.

Sidra exhaled through her nose as she continued down the long stretch of hallway.

They deserved the truth.
But until the inquiry began, the only truth she could give them was silence.

By the time she reached the junction leading toward Indi’s original quarters, she had forced her emotions back into the familiar compartment she had learned as a young security officer. Task now. Feelings later.

Her reflection in the polished wall panels looked composed, uniform crisp, hair still regulation neat. Only her eyes betrayed anything, too bright and too sharp for the image she presented.

Dreamdust. In a Fleet admiral’s quarters. Manufactured on a subverted replicator.

That was not a private failing hidden in a bottle. That was a weaponized vulnerability sitting in the heart of their command structure. And she had no idea whether it started or ended with Indi.


// Indi’s Original Quarters //

Sidra turned the final corner. Two gold-collared security officers stood at either end of the hall, posture rigid, eyes alert. Between them, the door to Indi’s former quarters glowed under a bright red security seal.

Lieutenant Joras, the taller of the two, straightened as she approached. “Admiral.”

“Report.”

“No one has entered since your initial lockdown, ma’am. Internal sensors confirm the room has been unoccupied. Engineering is standing by with forensic subroutines for the replicator logs.”

“Good. Let us begin.”

She keyed in her override, adding another layer of authorization to the seal, then nodded to Joras. “You are with me. The rest of you hold the corridor. No one gets within three meters of this door without my authorization.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The seal disengaged with a soft chime that felt too gentle for the moment. The doors parted.

The staleness of the room hit her at once, air that had not been stirred by anyone living here, anyone moving with purpose, anyone enjoying this space. It smelled faintly of recycled fabric and replicated meals. Nothing of Indi herself. No warmth. No presence.

She stepped inside, Joras close behind.

The room looked worse now that she viewed it through investigative eyes. This was not the clutter of a busy officer. It was the quiet collapse of someone who had stopped caring whether anything had a place. PADDs lay scattered across the table. At least two uniforms hung half-on, half-off furniture. A half-eaten meal sat congealed on the low table where it had clearly been abandoned hours ago.

And near the couch, the small side table where Indi had replicated her own destruction.

Sidra’s jaw tightened.

“Computer,” she said, her voice turning cold. “Confirm lockdown status of this room’s replicator.”

“Replicator unit nine-C-seven is offline,” the computer answered. “Administrative lockout in place.”

“Good. Now connect me to Lieutenant Commander Vehl. Priority channel.”

The chirp was immediate. “Vehl here.”

“Commander, I am in Rear Admiral Hawk’s previous quarters. The replicator has been modified to produce controlled substances. I require a full forensic sweep of the pattern buffers, hardware, and any external interface devices. Your most meticulous personnel, Commander. Every modification must be traced, who made it, when, and from where.”

There was a brief silence on the line, the kind that spoke of shock. “Understood, Admiral. I will be there in five minutes with a team and an isolated analysis rig.”

“Bring your encryption specialists as well. If any logs have been altered, I want them reconstructed. We treat this as a security breach until Engineering proves otherwise. MacLaren out.”

She closed the channel and moved toward the replicator alcove. The small equipment drawer beneath it, the one where Indi had stored the interface device, remained half-open and empty. The absence of the illegal hardware felt louder than its presence had.

She could still picture Indi’s hands, steady and practiced, attaching the device, entering commands as if she had done it many times before.

How long has she been doing this?

“Ma’am,” Joras said quietly. “Do you believe this connects to anything outside the station? Smuggling, organized crime?”
Sidra studied the replicator’s interface for a long moment.

“No,” she said eventually. “Not at this time. What we have is a single compromised device and a single confirmed user. Until Engineering tells us otherwise, we treat this as an internal exploit.”

She turned to meet his eyes fully.

“But understand this, Lieutenant. If I find even a hint that anyone else assisted with this or attempted to copy it, we will follow that thread all the way to the core.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The door chimed as Engineering arrived, carrying equipment crates and diagnostic tools. Vehl, compact and sharp-eyed with the restless focus of a career engineer, gave Sidra a brief nod before moving directly to the replicator.

“We will pull a full dump of the pattern buffer and compare it against Starfleet’s regulated catalog,” Vehl said as she set up the analysis rig. “Any unauthorized patterns or shadow overlays will be immediately visible. If there is a hardware bypass, we will find it.”

“You will coordinate with Fleet Security on chain of custody for everything you recover,” Sidra said. “This room is both a crime scene and a medical emergency. I want the evidence intact and admissible.”

Vehl’s antennae angled forward. “Understood.”

Sidra watched long enough to see the first data streams populate across the portable display, lines of code and pattern hashes cascading in cool blue and white.

Only once she saw the investigation firmly in motion did she step back.

“Lieutenant Joras, you are point for this scene until Internal Affairs arrives. No one enters or exits except Engineering and the I.A. investigator. Full logs, full scans. Treat every loose item in this room as potential evidence.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“And Joras.”

He straightened. “Ma’am?”

Her voice lowered. “You did not see an admiral lose control tonight. You saw a Starfleet officer in need of help and a chain of command that responded. You will treat her with that respect. Is that clear?”

His gaze steadied. “Crystal, ma’am.”

“Good.”

She left before the room could press itself any deeper into her memory.

Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
Fleet Commander

 

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