Assemble
Posted on Sun Aug 2nd, 2026 @ 10:10pm by Admiral Charles Vance & Commodore Kovich & Captain Wilkan Targaryen & Lieutenant Audrey Willa & Laira Rillak
4,403 words; about a 22 minute read
Mission:
Homecoming
Location: Federation Headquarters / U.S.S. Sulaco
Timeline: 3190-11-01, 17:00
The Flag Bridge of the Pax Class U.S.S. Federation did not feel like a starship’s command deck, it felt like a cathedral suspended in glass and programmable matter.
Standing at the edge of the central upper tier, Captain Wilkan Targaryen looked out through the sweeping, panoramic viewports. Below him, the Bridge dropped away into the vast, multi-deck central opening, where tactical holos, sector maps, and administrative feeds gently floated in soft, luminescent colors above the deck below. Around the perimeter, Starfleet officers and diplomatic aides moved silently across the pristine white deckplates, their footsteps swallowed by the quiet, hum-less energy of the Federation’s floating headquarters.
Through the outer transparent aluminum glass, bathed in the distorted, shimmering field of HQ’s protective shield bubble, sat two ships. On the left was the U.S.S. Discovery, havingfreshly returned from its high-stakes escort mission. Captain Burnham and her crew had just delivered President Laira Rillak back from deep space after grueling, delicate negotiations to secure the Andorian Empire's return to the fold. It was that very deployment - Discovery pulled away on vital presidential duty - that had forced Starfleet’s hand, sending Wilkan and the Sulaco alone into the political cauldron of United Earth.
On the right, tethered to the drydock grid by translucent umbilical energy lines, was the U.S.S. Sulaco. Centuries ago, a younger Wilkan Targaryen (the sharp tactical mind who had commanded starship, outmaneuvered enemy fleets, and served as President of the Federation) would have stood at this exact railing and seen an operational board. He would have evaluated the Sulaco’s hull stress, calculated shield coverage angles against the Federation’s defensive grid, and mapped out a three-phase contingency plan for sector defense. He would have dissected the grand strategic picture: Discovery bringing back Andoria, the Sulaco delivering Earth, the map of the old Federation slowly lighting up again.
This Wilkan Targaryen didn't care about any of it. Wilkan’s hands remained clasped firmly behind his back, his fingers locked together beneath the heavy drape of his uniform. His dark eyes remained fixed on the void between the two ships. He was nine hundred and four years old, and he was tired of war games. When he looked at the Sulaco, he didn't see a Neo-Crossfield prototype built on ancient Glenn Class bones, he didn't see the ship that had just secured United Earth's vote to rejoin the Federation, nor the vessel that had broken Ridan Tua’s Purist cell over Titan. He saw a doorway.
Deep in the ship’s primary computer core, isolated behind triple-redundant encryption, lay the faint, repeating 28th Century handshake signal from the Great Void. The pulse he had refused to let die in his heart. The whisper that Loatha - his anchor, his wife - and their family aboard the Andromeda Initiative might still be out there.
He had quoted Picard to remind a broken world of its courage, telling the United Earth Parliament that “Fear is an incompetent teacher," but in the quiet stillness of his own mind, Wilkan knew that hope was a far more demanding master. Hope didn't allow for rest. It demanded that a man put on a uniform after a hundred years of silence, step back onto a starship Bridge, and play the part of a living legend just for the chance to jump into the unknown.
A soft, chime-like hum echoed a few paces behind him as a column of blue-gold matter-energy materialized on the upper deck. The optical refraction cleared in a fraction of a second, leaving Lieutenant Audrey Willa standing firmly on the deckplates, her hand tapping the face of her TriCom badge as the transport sequence dissolved. The Starfleet Chief of Security stood erect, her posture military-crisp and her expression coolly professional.
"Captain Targaryen," Lieutenant Willa called out, stepping forward with precise, efficient strides.
Wilkan slowly turned his head, his hands remaining linked behind his back as his centuries-old gaze met Willa's sharp, dutiful eyes. "Lieutenant Willa."
"Admiral Vance sent me to fetch you personally, sir," Willa said cleanly, coming to a stop a respectful distance away. "President Rillak has just disembarked from Discovery, and the Admiral requires you immediately."
"A debriefing?" Wilkan asked, a subtle, dry edge entering his quiet voice. "Or a victory lap?"
"A bit of both, Captain," Willa admitted, allowing the briefest crack in her rigid posture. "With President Rillak back safe from Andorian space and news of what you did at United Earth spreading through HQ, leadership wants everyone aligned before the formal press release. You gave the Federation something it hasn't had in a very long time, Sir..."
"Momentum," Wilkan said flatly.
"Hope, Captain," Willa corrected gently. She reached up, resting a finger lightly against her TriCom badge to initialize a point-to-point transport route, "and the Admiral isn't keen on keeping the President waiting. We can beam directly to them, I know you prefer turbolifts, but they are a bit old-fashioned these days, Captain."
Wilkan allowed the faint ghost of a smile to touch his lips. He took one last look out the viewport - locking his eyes on the sleek, waiting silhouette of the Sulaco. His mind traced the ghostly 28th-century frequency waiting deep in her core like a child waiting to open his presents on Christmas morning.
"Lead the way, Lieutenant," Wilkan said softly.
He tapped his own TriCom. A dual column of blue-gold light enveloped them both, dissolving them from the Bridge in a quiet shimmer of matter-energy.
"...the economic concessions with the Andorian High Command are manageable," President Laira Rillak was saying, her voice calm, measured, and layered with the distinct, polished cadence of high diplomacy. She sat at the sleek, lit display table, her hands resting neatly over one another. "What matters is that the Grand Council voted to ratify the exploratory council. With Andoria officially back, the core foundational block of the old Federation is restored."
Fleet Admiral Charles Vance stood near the wall, hands clasped behind his back, leaning slightly as he studied a floating tactical schematic projected from the wall console. "It secures our northern quadrant supply routes, Madam President, but it stretches Starfleet’s logistical lines thin. We’re still pulling dilithium reserves from the Burn-era stockpiles to keep border patrols active."
"And yet," Doctor Kovich’s dry, unhurried voice cut through the room. He was standing near the edge of the table, leaning forward slightly, his posture indifferent to the grand historic weight of the moment. "The psychological impact outweighs the dilithium cost, Admiral. For three centuries, the galaxy believed the Federation was a ghost story. In a single week, President Rillak brings back Andoria, and President Targaryen delivers United Earth."
"United Earth was nearly lost to a Purist coup before Captain Targaryen stepped in," Vance countered, his grey eyes narrowing slightly at the readout. "If Tua’s cell had successfully bio-engineered that respiratory strain across the megacities, Sahimi’s government would have collapsed before the Sulaco even docked."
"Which makes his intervention all the more... surgical," Kovich noted softly.
A soft, chime-like hum announced a dual transport sequence at the entrance of the ready room. Two columns of shimmering blue-gold matter-energy materialized, resolving in a fraction of a second into Lieutenant Audrey Willa and Wilkan Targaryen.
"Admiral. Madam President," Lieutenant Willa announced, coming to an immediate, crisp stance of attention. "Captain Targaryen as requested."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Vance said, turning away from the wall console. He gave a brief, subtle nod. "As you were."
Willa stepped back, maintaining her watchful, professional post near the entryway as Wilkan stepped into the room.
President Rillak turned toward him, offering a gesture of quiet, profound deference - one Head of State acknowledging another. "Mr. President. I was just telling the Admiral that your speech to the United Earth General Assembly has already been translated into eighty-four dialects. President Sahimi called it the turning point of the entire summit."
Wilkan kept his expression neutral, his posture regal and composed despite his nine hundred years. "President Sahimi and her Parliament made the choice themselves, Madam President. I merely reminded them of who they were before fear took over."
"A reminder that came at considerable risk to your vessel and crew," Vance chimed in, walking toward the head of the conference table, his tone purely that of a Fleet Admiral assessing his senior starship commander. "The report on the Titan engagement was... unconventional, Captain. A ten-point micro-spore jump in a planetary atmosphere? You almost ripped the Sulaco's hull plates out of alignment."
"The Sulaco handled it, Admiral," Wilkan replied softly, keeping his tone professional yet utterly unphased. "And Tua’s heavy cruiser was neutralized without collateral damage to Titan’s orbital habitats. The evidence recovered from their black box cleared Earth's political ledger."
"And now," Kovich interjected, leaning back with a sharp, calculating glint behind his glasses, "we face the true dilemma. With Earth and Andoria back in the fold, the Federation Council expects both Discovery and the Sulaco to serve as flagship escorts for the upcoming diplomatic tour across Sector 001. A formidable display, wouldn't you say, Mr. President?"
Wilkan’s eyes locked onto Kovich. The room grew subtly quieter, the shift in tension palpable to everyone present.
"I accepted this uniform again for one reason, Doctor," Wilkan said flatly, his voice dropping into a register of quiet, absolute steel. "I agreed to return from my self-imposed exile only for a single assignment: to serve as the Special Envoy of the United Federation of Planets to United Earth. That mandate is fulfilled. The treaty is signed, the Purists are broken, and Earth is home."
He looked directly from Kovich to Admiral Vance, then settled his gaze on President Rillak.
"I have paid my toll to your geopolitical board," Wilkan continued, his dark eyes unwavering. "Now I expect the Federation to honor its side of our bargain. The Sulaco takes me to the origin site of the Great Void handshake signal to trace what remains of my family, and then you return me to New Aur so I may resume my peace."
Silence held the Ready Room for a long beat. Rillak looked at Wilkan not just as an officer, but as a predecessor who had carried the entire burden of the collapse on his shoulders. "A promise made by this Office is a promise kept, President Targaryen," Rillak said quietly, her voice echoing with absolute authority. "You have given the Federation its future back. We will not deny you yours."
Vance let out a slow breath, stepping closer to the display table and looking Wilkan dead in the eye - commander to commander. "The orders stand, Captain Targaryen," Vance declared firm and crisp. "The Sulaco is cleared for deep-range deployment. The ship and crew are yours to take to the signal coordinates... but don't expect the void to give up its secrets easily."
"Which is precisely why we cannot afford to lose you afterward," Rillak added smoothly, her diplomatic composure shifting into a persuasive, deeply personal plea. "Wilkan... look at what we accomplished here in a matter of weeks. The galaxy is fractured, reeling from three hundred years of isolation and paranoia. Earth is back because you spoke to them. Andoria is back because they saw a unified front. Rebuilding the Federation isn't just a matter of logistics or spore drives—it requires faith. It requires leaders whom the people trust."
She took a slow step forward from behind the glass table. "The Council doesn't just need a captain in the fleet; they need a living bridge between the Golden Age and this era. Stay. Take the Sulaco, find whatever answers wait in the Great Void, but return to Starfleet. Help us finish what you started."
Admiral Vance crossed his arms, his gray eyes fixed on Wilkan with practical intensity. "From an operational standpoint, Captain, I'm stretched to the breaking point. The Emerald Chain remnants are splintering into warlord factions, border skirmishes are rising, and half my senior command staff haven't seen a full night's sleep in six months. I need veteran flag-level commanders who know how to manage deep-space crises without waiting three days for sub-space directives. You belong on a bridge, Wilkan, not sitting in a silent house on New Aur."
Wilkan remained motionless, his hands folded loosely behind his back, his expression a mask of weathered, ancient granite. He didn't interrupt, but as the appeals hung in the room, his dark eyes drifted toward the edge of the tactical display.
Doctor Kovich stood motionless in the shadow of the console, hands resting quietly at his sides. He didn't step forward. He didn't offer a cold tactical breakdown or challenge Wilkan’s resolve. He simply watched through those sharp, unblinking glasses in absolute silence.
The lack of speech carried a quiet, suffocating weight. Decades ago, long before the title of 'Doctor' or his position as keeper of Starfleet's classified archives, Kovich had been Agent Daniels. They had worked together in shadowed rooms during the darkest hours of Wilkan's administration—making impossible, unsung choices during the height of the Burn. Daniels had seen Wilkan at his absolute limit, when the sheer burden of keeping the embers of a dying Federation alive nearly destroyed him.
In Kovich’s silence, Wilkan read what the others couldn't see. Daniels wasn't trying to manipulate him, nor was he attempting to drag him back to the board. He was letting the silence speak for itself: an old ally silently acknowledging that the debt had been paid in full, and that no man could be asked to carry the weight of the galaxy twice.
That unspoken understanding from the one man who truly knew what it had cost him solidified Wilkan’s resolve like reinforced tritanium.
Wilkan let the silence linger in the Ready Room just a moment longer before he finally spoke. When he did, his voice was low, measured, and absolute.
"You speak of faith, Madam President," Wilkan began, his gaze settling first on Rillak. "Faith is not built on icons or relics of the past. It is built on institutions keeping their word. If the United Federation of Planets reneges on an agreement struck with the man who held it together through the Burn, then the ideals we just returned to Earth are nothing more than hollow propaganda."
He turned his head slowly toward Vance. "Starfleet will always be stretched thin, Charles. It was stretched thin under Archer, under Kirk, under Picard, and under my administration. Rebuilding requires new leaders to step into the breach, not old men dragged back out of retirement to carry burdens that belong to the next generation."
Finally, Wilkan’s eyes shifted back to Kovich. A subtle, almost imperceptible nod passed between them—a silent, final transfer of understanding between two old survivors.
Wilkan straightened his uniform, bringing his posture into perfect Starfleet alignment.
"I fulfilled my oath. Earth is secured, the treaty is signed, and my duty to this era is done," Wilkan said firmly, his tone closing the debate once and for all. "The Sulaco departs on my mark. We will search the handshake coordinates in the Great Void. And when that mission concludes, you will set me down on New Aur, as agreed."
President Rillak looked at him for a long moment, seeing the absolute finality in his posture. She inclined her head in a gesture of profound respect. "Fair winds in the void, Mr. President."
Vance let out a quiet sigh, nodding sharp and military. "Good hunting out there, Captain Targaryen. Bring your crew back in one piece."
Before Wilkan could turn to leave, Doctor Kovich finally stepped out from the shadows of the console. He adjusted his glasses with deliberate precision, his voice cutting through the heavy air with dry, undeniable authority.
"He won't need to bring them back, Admiral," Kovich said smoothly, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room. "Under Section 3, Special Oversight, I am assigning myself to the Sulaco. I will serve as Captain for the duration of the voyage to the Great Void coordinates. Once we have analyzed the signal and concluded the operation, I will personally see to it that Wilkan is returned home to New Aur."
Kovich looked directly at Wilkan, a rare, faint glint of unspoken solidarity passing behind his lenses. "Consider it my personal oversight to ensure the Federation keeps its promise."
A quiet, profound sense of relief settled over the room. Wilkan gave a crisp, formal nod to Rillak and Vance, then met Kovich's gaze with deep, quiet appreciation.
"Always, Admiral," Wilkan replied.
He turned on his heel and walked out into the corridor toward the docking umbilical, with Kovich falling into step behind him, ready to board the Sulaco for the final journey.
The jump was over in the space of a single, breath-taking heartbeat. Where conventional Warp bled into streaks of light, the displacement of the Spore Drive was clean, an instantaneous, violent tear through the mycelial network that deposited the U.S.S. Sulaco billions of light-years away into the blackest, quietest corners of the Great Void.
On the Main Bridge, the hum of the displaced displacement drive slowly settled into the low, rhythmic purr of passive sub-light systems. Below decks, locked away in guest quarters, Elara Jyn waited out the jump in silence, keeping out of the way of Starfleet protocols until the survey was complete and the ship turned around for New Aur.
"Jump complete, Captain," Karys reported crisp and even, her voice cutting through the tension on the Bridge. At the Spore Drive console, Commander Karys ran her fingers across the control interface, her eyes scanning the primary flow readouts before looking up toward the primary viewscreen. "Mycelial grid stability is holding at ninety-nine percent. Power restored to secondary systems. We arrived precisely at the assigned coordinates."
Doctor Kovich stood in the center of the Bridge, wearing the quiet authority of command as naturally as he wore his tailored dark coats. Beside him, Wilkan Targaryen stood with hands folded behind his back, his sharp eyes fixed on the forward display.
The viewscreen flickered, resolving the visual telemetry.
There was nothing...
No star systems. No planetary bodies. No shattered hulls, debris fields, or forgotten message buoys. Not even the faint background hum of cosmic radiation that usually permeated civilized sectors. Just an unbroken, suffocating expanse of utter void.
Kovich didn't flinch. He adjusted his glasses calmly, "Report."
The Bridge erupted into a disciplined, rapid sequence of station-by-station telemetry reports from the temporary crew assembled for the deep-range expedition.
"Long-range sensors are clean, Sir," reported the Chief Science Officer, Lieutenant Commander Vaelen, a stoic Vulcan whose hands moved with surgical speed across the science panel. "No gravimetric anomalies. No dark matter concentrations. Passive scan sweeps out to five light-years show zero stellar mass."
"Checking tactical and sub-space grids," added the Chief Security and Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Kyhlab ch'Zesreq — a sharp, broad-shouldered Andorian with a scar tracing his jawline. "No cloaked vessels, no active targeting matrices, no perimeter buoys. Tactical sensors are registering pure, unadulterated vacuum. Whatever sent that signal isn't here now."
"Operations, confirm our positioning," Kovich ordered softly.
"Positional telemetry is dead-on, Captain," responded the Chief Operations Officer, Lieutenant Commander Gollall bim Hegh, checking her dual-layered console readings. "We are sitting on the exact spatial coordinates recorded in the historical log. Down to the millimeter."
From the communications station, Lieutenant Commander Sarah Chen, the Chief Communications Officer, pressed a hand to her ear, fine-tuning the broad-spectrum audio receivers. "I'm running a deep sweep across all subspace frequencies, Sir. Static. No handshake ping, no automated beacon, no repeating loop. The frequency that drew us out here is entirely silent."
At the flight control console, Lieutenant Yazru Laan, a young Trill serving as Chief Flight Control Officer, glanced back over her shoulder. "Helm is holding station, Sir. No local gravitational forces to compensate for. We're drifting in dead space."
Down in the ship's engine room, accessible via open comm-link, the gruff, amplified voice of the Chief Engineering Officer, Commander Bati Akman, broke through the Bridge speakers. "Bridge, Engineering. Spore Drive coils are cooling down nicely, but the Impulse Engines are practically idling. There's nothing out here for the collectors to sweep up: no interstellar hydrogen, nothing. It's like running on empty space."
Off to the side of the bridge, keeping a watchful eye on the crew's vital metrics, the Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Pomm Uvi, quietly checked his medical tricorder before looking up at Wilkan and Kovich. "Environmental controls are stable, but biometric scans on the crew are showing a spike in cortisol levels. The sheer sensory deprivation of this space is throwing off natural balance."
Kovich stood silent for a long moment, staring into the dark abyss projected on the viewscreen. The ghost signal that had pulled Wilkan back onto the galactic stage, the breadcrumb trail that promised answers about his family and the past... led to an empty room.
Wilkan didn't look angry or disappointed. His granite expression slowly settled into a quiet, profound acceptance. He looked at the viewscreen, then turned his gaze toward Kovich.
"There's nothing here," Wilkan said softly, his voice carrying the calm weight of a man who finally had his answer. "There never was."
Kovich didn't press the point. He simply gave a slow, deliberate nod of his head. He turned to the helm.
"Commander Karys, log these coordinates as verified empty," Kovich instructed smoothly. "Plot a return Spore jump trajectory."
Kovich turned to face Wilkan directly, his tone measured and steady. "Mission complete, Mister President. Let's take you home to New Aur."
Wilkan stood quietly near the center of the command well, his eyes locked onto the screen. An empty void. The ghost signal had been a beacon; a faint, desperate hope that somewhere beyond the edge of known space, his family was waiting, but staring into the absolute blackness, a sudden, piercing clarity washed over him.
He closed his eyes, the memory of his final moments with them flooding his mind. They hadn't disappeared into a vacuum. They weren't hiding in some forgotten corner of deep space waiting to be picked up like castaways. They were explorers, survivors, officers born of the same mold as he was. They were out there doing the work, moving through the stars, shaping the galaxy just as he had done on United Earth.
A realization hit him with the force of a physical blow: he would never find them sitting in a quiet, isolated house on New Aur.
He couldn't hunt ghosts from a rocking chair. The only place he would ever catch up to their trail, the only place where he could actively search the stars, track rumors across sectors, and command the resources necessary to bring them home... was from the Bridge of a starship.
From the Bridge of the Sulaco.
Wilkan opened his eyes. The tired, resigned look of a man seeking retirement vanished, replaced instantly by the formidable, sharp intensity of the veteran commander who had led the Federation through its darkest hours.
He turned away from the blank viewscreen and faced Doctor Kovich.
"Belay that order, Commander Karys," Wilkan said, his voice ringing through the bridge with sudden, unmistakable authority.
Karys’s hands paused instantly over the spore drive console. The temporary Bridge crew went still, all eyes shifting between Wilkan and Kovich.
Kovich didn't look surprised. He simply turned, his sharp eyes watching Wilkan behind his dark-rimmed glasses, waiting.
"You were right," Wilkan said softly, taking a slow step toward him. "New Aur was never a home. It was just a place I went to hide because I thought my watch had ended." He looked around the sleek, advanced Bridge of the Sulaco, feeling the steady vibration of the deckplates beneath his boots - a feeling he had tried to convince himself he no longer needed.
"I’m not going back to New Aur," Wilkan stated flatly. "If I am ever going to find my family, it won't be by waiting for a signal in the dark. It will be out there, among the stars, bBut I won't do it as a passenger. And I won't do it with a temporary skeleton crew." Wilkan held Kovich’s gaze, his expression unyielding. "I want my crew back. The full complement from the United Earth mission. I want this ship restored to active duty status under my command. We return to Federation HQ, we outfit this vessel for a long-range deep-space expedition, and we take her out."
There was a pregnant pause on the Bridge. Wilkan didn't voice his final request, but it hung between the two men in the heavy silence; a silent demand written in nine hundred years of history, legacy, and hope. A ship charting the frontier in a new era of the Federation couldn't carry the name of a shadow. When she cleared Spacedock to seek out the lost and explore the unknown, she needed the name that meant everything to the galaxy.
Kovich stared at Wilkan for a long, quiet beat. A subtle, almost imperceptible shadow of a smile touched the corner of the doctor's mouth. He understood the unsaid request completely. He knew the galaxy was a safer place with Wilkan Targaryen in a command chair, and he knew that if the Federation was truly going to step out of the darkness of the Burn, it needed its legend back on the hull.
Kovich reached up, adjusted his glasses with crisp, deliberate precision, and turned toward the helm.
"Commander Karys," Kovich spoke calmly, his tone completely nonchalant. "Plot a course back to Federation Headquarters. Contact Starfleet Command on a secure, encrypted channel. Inform Admiral Vance and President Rillak that Captain Targaryen has re-assumed full command, effective immediately... and submit a formal request for the immediate reassignment of his primary crew"
Kovich turned back to Wilkan, offering a quiet, respectful nod as one survivor passed the torch back to another. "And I will personally file the registry and commission paperwork with the Council before we dock. The ship is yours, Captain."
Wilkan stepped up to the center chair, resting his hand on the polished armrest. For the first time in years, the crushing weight on his shoulders felt lighter.
"Take us home, Commander," Wilkan ordered firmly, his eyes fixed on the forward viewscreen, "We have a galaxy to rebuild."
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