Either that or we pull names from a hat!"... as long as I'm in a top tier caste, that is."
Author's notes: This was written as part of the Trek BBS January/February 2026 Challenge and takes place in 2393.
January/February 2026 Challenge: New. It can be anything that fits the theme - new ship, new crew, new beginnings etc. Any crew, any time, canon or your creation, AU or not.
Trek BBS: January/February 2026 Challenge
"New: The Next Lower Decks"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X stifled, stifflessly and stammery in strenuous stability along the Federation border as the Type-11 shuttlecraft Iroh exited its shuttle bay and jumped to warp. Captain Night Seifer operated the shuttle's forward consoles.
“Captain’s log, Stardate 70184.5. With the shuttlecraft Dracon under severe repairs, none of the crew wanted to join me in escorting my graduated nephew Vel to his first starship posting. Not that I blame them after my recent crash into a steampunk-Borg world full of mechanical-walking giant fish— I think I was the antagonist? Either way, with the subdued, limited shadow of what Starfleet Academy used to be, now in these dark times, it’s easily a miracle we get any new officers anymore. As such, I must risk the well-known shuttle-operator/accident trope again to see the utopian future we all were previously acquainted.”
As if on queue, the Iroh was intensely whacked out of warp by a sudden neutronic storm, throwing the Captain from the helm and knocking him unconscious, as well as several pips from his uniform collar.
---
The hull scraped Iroh, now barred from any registry decals and a damaged computer, later sat, rescued in the shuttle bay of the Parliament-class U.S.S. Kawartha. Seifer was awoken by Doctor Sveng in Sickbay.
“Brass cogs!” Seifer blurted before coming to his senses. “Oh, I’m okay. Where am I? Also, for that matter, who am I?”
Ensign Aya Chen walked over and noticed Sveng pausing for dramatic effect. “We have to give it a few seconds whenever anyone says that, in case of cold opens,” Sveng explained to Chen before turning back to Seifer. “As for you, I feared the impact of a neutronic storm would affect your Trill symbiont and your memories. We found you afloat and saved you.”
“Judging by the pip on your collar, you’re an Ensign,” Chen explained. “And, though your cells are being inoculated against radiolythic isotopes, our surface-level DNA scans indicate you to be Vel Torin: the Kawartha’s new officer! They said you were going to be arriving on a shuttle. Welcome!”
Sveng closed his tricorder. “Cognitive recall will come with inoculations, so you’re cleared for duty, but that broken down Academy gave you the wrong uniform. This is a support ship. Not one of those newfangled capital drama vessels with hull-ripping space battles and more decks than actually laid out.” He shuddered. “Ugh. Perpetual turbolifts.”
---
Later, Seifer found himself on the lower decks of the Kawartha in a cluttered repair bay where the damaged Iroh was transferred. The amnesiac officer, now in a Starfleet support uniform with that one pip, rubbed his spotted Trill temples.
“Uggh. I feel like I got hit by a Danube-class runabout with a rollbar,” Seifer elucidated. “What’s the point of those again? Just to look different? Why would that be important?”
Ensign Rune, a Ferengi and engineer walked over to shake his hand. “Same reason they put a third nacelle on some Galaxy-class starships; future-compensation. Hey. I’m Rune. I was a misfit officer on exchange with the Yamato before the legendary Nog inspired me to join Starfleet. Now I’m repairing past misdeeds as well as hyper-stimulated plasma grids.”
“Rune’s engineering enthusiasm is so anti-Ferengi approval-seeking, he’s going to radiate his cells until he’s no longer Ferengi,” came the addition from a human Starfleet officer. “Leana Ortiz. Sciences. One of many long-running Ensigns in some kind of fleet-wide Harry Kim pitfall. Being rank-stuck in a dark era has frustratingly prevented me access to any satisfying cosmic oddities.”
The Ensign from Sickbay entered, carrying a little Alfa 177 canine with a horn of its head. “Aya Chen. Medical. I befriended a sehlat when I was young, so now I’m in it for the lifeforms, small to you guys. Also, you should know Commander Estelle’s transporter copy dogs have begun duplicating even more off the pad and are going nuts all over the ship while in heat! Their names are Pizza!” She placed the one on the work table before it ran over and humped Seifer’s arm.
“Aww. She’s so cute for a potential self-incest canine-Doopler,” Seifer noticed while quickly pulling away. “I’m told I’m Vel Torin. My memory was wiped from this computer-wrecked, registry-decal-singed Iroh on my way here, so I don’t really have a backstory to cherish. But I do have this escalating misplaced feeling intertwined with a rousing excitement for starting anew.” Then, “I know! Let’s adopt commanding, adjacent-British accents and get Ortiz the astro-strange anomaly she’s been looking for!”
Rune blinked. “Oh, wow. I’m loving this energy. But, if we do, it’s going to have to be during the Kawartha’s mission to Deep Space C-12 in Cardassian space, to reinforce its structural integrity against all these neutronic storms. I hope you guys are cool with grunt-level hull restoration enthusiasm as much as I’ll be perpetuating it.”
---
Soon, the Kawartha dropped warp before the medium-sized Starfleet space station Deep Space C-12. The group found themselves carrying various awkwardly sized tools into one of four station-wide lateral Engineering control rooms with a small airlock to launch DOT-11s.
“The Cardassians actually re-branded this as Teketekon Station after the Treaty in the 2370s,” Ortiz explained. “It was given an exception and repurposed as an administration port for what was, at the time, the Demilitarized Zone, manned by several non-threatening, bureaucratic Cardassian and Starfleet officers.”
Chen perked as she brought over a portable calibration console. “That’s like a Caitian after-party with double laser pointers. Anyway, what about the rumours of Obsidian Order and Section 31 agents frequenting shadow-control of this place over the years?”
“Pfft! Rumours are just posits of misplaced conjectures,” Seifer relinquished. “What isn’t hearsay is me convincing Captain Styles to approve our side quest of investigating the strange atomic readings left by those neutronic boomy-booms.”
Rune pumped. “Yeah! Also, this station’s unused, single starship bay has an industrial replicator that I have already activated to build up my own design multi-spatial probe. Engineering and science unite!”
“Aww, guys. Thank you soooo much for facilitating my astrophysics dreams. You don’t get this kind of tight-nit friend-bond on capital ships,” Ortiz appreciated. “Lower decks! Lower decks!”
But a Cardassian officer suddenly exited a nearby lavatory and was zipping up before being nearly surprised by their apparent activities. “What the hell is going on? You’re supposed to be configuring the DOTs for hull reinforcement. That last storm stripped this station’s duranium to its Federation skivvies! For reference, I am Gil Lokek, the station’s Engineer.”
“That means you’re at the lowest rank, Lokek. You’re one of us and just as green and looked down upon despite all of us being officers for some reason,” Seifer countered. “Besides, we can do both. See? I’ve programmed this rifle to more efficiently repair neutron-weakened hull plating.” He held it up.
Lokek squinted. “Your Starfleet DOTs have stubby arms. How do you expect them to hold that giant thing??” He watched as Seifer failed a few times after handing the rifle to an ungrippable DOT-11. Lokek continued, “Teketekon Station is slated for a full Cardassian compliment next month, with families, and we can’t have a slew of measly support officers messing up our protection against these storms!”
“Oh, crap. He’s right. The auto-launched multi-spatial probe appears to suddenly be activating storm-wrought space off the station’s port bow?” Ortiz observed from her science console. “It’s creating some kind of inverse neutronic energy field?”
Seifer began checking the probe readings. “That’s great! Inverse means the opposite of radiolytic, right? Like, super-healing? Is that a thing?”
“Uhh, this altered energy field is ten times more radioactive than before,” Ortiz discovered from her readings. “Teketekon’s position must be near some kind of subspace neutrino magnet zone. So much so, the field is burning itself out, but not before it’ll breach one transporter-neutralized, exposed hull section.” She looked to everyone, expressing an impending-doom-face. “Our section!”
They watched as Seifer tried again to place the modified rifle into the DOT-11’s stubby arms, only for it to struggle and drop it once more. Rune declared, “There’s a reason why you never saw these things on any of the Enterprises or Voyagers!” Everyone looked to see the Ferengi was now wearing an environmental suit and was picking up the rifle himself. “This is a job for a head-strong Engineer with proving-to-others-and-himself issues.” He began to squeeze himself through the small, force-fielded DOT airlock. “When I’m gone, please tell the Ferengi that I hated them.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Chen countered as she grabbed Rune’s legs when he made it halfway out of the airlock. “I did not successfully mate ten same-sex Pizza dogs to lose my first actual lifeform friend to intense, anomalytic radioactivity!”
Seifer then hooked his arm to Chen’s, trying to pull her away from him. “Aya, no! Part of being in command is being able to send someone to their deaths. At least, that’s how I interpreted Deanna Troi’s memoirs and assumption of her willingness to crash an Enterprise.”
“Torin, stop! We’re supposed to be four best friends who don’t let anything bad happen to each other, like that one conglomerate of crew-merging, Pakled-destroying, buffer time fanatic Ensigns on the Cerritos who appeared much taller in real life if you met them,” Ortiz counter-countered while hooking both her arms into Seifer’s pull.
Lokek just watched in utter deadpan at the display of conflated gripping officers before he walked over to an open circuit panel and rewired it so the gravity plating would shock Seifer, Ortiz and Chen to the floor, allowing Rune to escape to the outer hull. “You guys know Cardassians are always judging, right? Did you forget looking cool in front of me was a thing you were diplomatically required to do?”
“Rune to Torin. It’s working!” the boot-magnetized Ferengi declared from out in space to deaf ears as he blasted the hull plating with the reinforcement beam whilst being inundated with radiolytic energies. “Torin, do you read me? Bro, I’m trying to connect to you success-wise for new-friendship’s sakes. Vel Torin, can you read me!? Are we bros??” But it was too late, the energy field had engulfed him and sent his cells into a highly radiated, mutated state.
Several DOT-11s popped out into space and grabbed the mentally-fading Rune to squeeze him back through the tiny hatch, back inside. Chen quickly began medical-scanning the floor-dropped Ferengi. “His DNA has been radically altered. It’s like he’s half-Ferengi, half something else entirely. I think said species-blinding has alleviated death!?” She breathed a moment of disbelief. “I’m going to have a field day investigating his new state. Oh, and we all need innoculations now.”
“I can feel an excitable Badgey and judgemental Koala somewhere,” Rune realized in shock as he sat up and rubbed his head. He then immediately pointed to Seifer. “Also, that is not Vel Torin! The computer wouldn’t put me through to him when I was reaching out for classic O’Brien/Bashir male bonding and, to a lesser extent, Kim/Paris.”
Seifer looked to his hands in realization. “Holy crap. Rune is right? This wave of modified radiation is synapting my synapses. I think I’m a Captain and that my ship is wayyy passed its projected life expectancy?”
“Uncle!” came the sudden accusatory tone from another Trill, with rucksack, who everyone watched step into the room with them. “I had to book passage on two Kobheerian freighters and that one same triglobulin-obsessed Axanar fluid-draining cargo ship the NX-01 encountered in the 22nd century.”
Captain Victor Styles also entered, just behind, pinching his own nose bridge in distress. “Ugh. Don’t remind me of that highly controversial documentary. As for the rest of you Ensigns, I want an immediate end to these lower decks shenanigans. How are capital ships going to take us seriously when your kind is constantly igniting and snuffing new forms of radiation? As you can plainly see, your actual Ensign Vel Torin is this guy!”
“By the real and confirmed Greek gods!? Then who were we Ensign-bonding with? I feel so violated and excited all at the same time,” Ortiz shuddered.
The imposter stepped forward, zipping up and into his previous capital Starfleet uniform whilst placing three additional engineering bolts as interim pips onto his collar. “I’m Captain Night Seifer of the U.S.S. Phoenix-X. Torin was my last name before I was joined and, despite inherent DOT-gripping setbacks and crew incompetence, I will no longer tolerate this oppression of lower deckers.”
“Wait a minute. You're from that Prometheus-class starship that let those Borg-ripping gormaganders loose on Manzar colony!” Styles recalled in utter shock and disgust.
Seifer nodded. “We were testing their Worf-based defense perimeter. A lot of child abandonment of smaller defense sections. As for the Kawartha, you are ordered to be nicer to your lower deckers, to fix my shuttle Iroh, and to tow this station to a safer location. This experience has taught me much about appreciating the newness of being a low-level officer.”
“Hey, guys. I’m on task to join the Kawartha for a little while to help out,” came the entrance of the Bajoran and Stafleet officer, Ensign Dan.
Captain Seifer immediately nearly retched at the sight of his old rank-frozen subordinate. “Oh— Ugh!? I thought I was rid of you?? How dare you stalk me! You’re relieved!”
“But you recall me all the ti—?”
Seifer pointed. “Out!!” After all the excess personnel dispersed, Ortiz, Chen, Torin and Rune were left to address him. “As for you guys, thanks for the glimpse into that old passion and drive I used to know in my old days. Vel, do not tell your mother about me usurping your first day as an officer and single only chance to bond with your peers.”
“Captain, you don’t have to be new to have a fervent drive or passion,” Ortiz offered. “If they were you once, they’re still in there to be you again.”
The higher ranking Trill nodded. “Like an internal astrophysics anomaly waiting to be reignited, perhaps. Thank you, Ensign Ortiz. Rune, you’re no longer Ferengi; you're the man.” They fist bumped and then Seifer left.
“Do you guys do the chant thing? The lower decks one?” a foreign Vel Torin asked to an off-put un-bonded-to-him group who quickly and awkwardly backed away and made excuses to get back to work. Torin just stood there, blinking, now scared and artless, unsure what to do with his hands in this uncouth, new chapter. “Lower decks?”
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They know what they did.
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Author's notes: This was written as part of the Trek BBS March/April 2026 Challenge and takes place in 2393. The Theodosia is later in service in 2411 in "The Opposite of That". The perceived destruction of a ship at Caleb IV comes from STO mission "The Battle of Caleb IV" where the crew is time-jumped to the game's 2409 timeline. Seifer ordered BOB to stop time-travelling at the end of "Celestial Dynamics, Part III".
March/April 2026 Challenge: Old. Old tech, old school, old ship, old worlds, old life, old civilizations etc., whatever fits the bill.
Trek BBS: March-April 2026 Challenge
"Old: The Previous Upper Decks"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X mifted, miffly and monotonously in middling madness along the Federation border as the Type-4, Class F shuttlecraft Hendrix exited its shuttle bay and jumped to warp. BOB operated the shuttle's forward consoles.
“Special counsellor’s log, Stardate 70185.2. With the entire crew in near Antedian states from constant patrol, I’ve taken the unlocked, non-synced Hendrix toward the Volterra Nebula where a two-decades old Enterprise-D analysis has finally indicated a potential cluster of temporal matter. Since I’m a temporally displaced Ferengi myself, I intend to ride that anomaly back to the future where I came from!"
The shuttle dropped warp and approached an energized, fluctuating mess of giant hardened vines and branches in space. Captain Seifer awoke from a pile of blankets in the back of the shuttle, just now noticing the situation.
"What the hell, man? You stole this century-old, ancient shuttle gifted to us from the Unreliable to go anomaly-hunting to— what, time travel re-sync yourself, extraordinaire??" the jaw-dropped Trill blitzered.
BOB turned, quickly accepting his undoing. "Ahh! Yeah, pretty much. I’ve been waiting forever for a Temporal Investigations agent or some kind of 29th century Integrity Commission to correct my misalignment as I find the anticipation of such a pluck more stressful than the violation itself."
"Dammit, man. I ordered you otherwise specifically to evade those fun-killing hacks! It’s in the same sense I was hiding out in here to dodge hounding crew from stuffy patrol updates since I’d been missing twice now on shuttle mishaps."
The Ferengi nodded. "Shirking said duties on small craft was probably indicative of said issues in the first place."
"I know my foibles!"
But they were quickly approached by the Type-11 shuttle Haruko and hailed by its sole occupant, Tong. "Captain? You thumb-printed remote-authorized us to investigate this quandary this morning?"
"I’m going to be honest. I probably did that half-asleep and it seems BOB came across your same findings."
Tong understood. "Ah. Trying to escape the timeline again? Classic BOB shenanigans. Well, Hachi and I found two vessels, though, not future-related but, rather, past. Come. You’ll see what I’m being overtly coy about."
---
Soon, both shuttles weaved themselves near the outskirts of the chaotic temporal timber, where they separately shuttle bay-landed aboard two lifeless Federation vessels, now hung in the confines of the late 24th century: the archaic, low-quality original Constitution-class U.S.S. Shinsoku and the gimmicky-obsessed angled Crossfield-class U.S.S. Theodosia.
"This is amazing," Seifer observed as he joined BOB on the Bridge of the now-lighting up Shinsoku. "Retro nobs, illuminated blocks and faceless data cards with no clue what’s on them! It’s like being back in the 23rd century of misogynistic, sweaty old Vulcan bigotry."
The screen clicked on to show the hail from the Theodosia, where Tong and Hachi were now just getting into its reactivated Bridge. "Are you kidding me? Those ships were slow, redundant and lacking in visual resolution due to pervasive chemical leaks," Hachi offered while manning a nearby console. "At least this ship looked way more advanced than yours."
"This is the 288m asbestos version over its surplus-budget 442m neon-lights-everywhere version— I’ll give you that," Seifer noticed, looking around.
BOB perked from checking the ship logs. "Captain, according to this, the Shinsoku was fighting Klingons in orbit of Caleb IV in 2270 before its crew were simultaneously transported off whilst a battle-damaged eruption sent the ship skewing through some kind of fungal subspace network."
"They must’ve looked like they exploded and died but, instead, became trapped in the multi-dimensional weave left by the Theodosia’s attempted spore drive jump, a decade earlier," Tong realized as he went through his own ship’s logs. "According to this, the Theodosia was covertly doing a Discovery and Glenn thing."
Seifer blinked. "I have no idea what space magic nonsense you just spouted, but it’s clear the Shinsoku rode what I assume are mushrooms all the way to the Theodosia and this fungal-growing end point."
"That’s exactly what that was," Tong conflated, impressed. "There’s some kind of hippie mycelial network permeating all of space and time and it’s bleeding out here? Anyway, I suggest we trigger main controls by initiating each ship’s tactical simulations."
With Seifer nodding and everyone getting to work, both old vessels began to rev up even more with the unfortunate happenstance of becoming suddenly locked in connection with each other. "Oh, crap!" BOB panicked. "The simulations have become synced and see each opposite vessel as its assigned enemy. Also, we can’t turn them off??"
"This feels like we’re ramping up to something," Seifer deadpanned. "Are we doing a thing?"
Hachi nodded in agreement from his checks. "The only way to end our Alexander Rozhenkoing and get full warp control will be for us to complete our simulation through disabling you guys for real."
"Hold on a second," Seifer repulsed. "If anyone is disabling anyone for real, it’s the original Constitution-class taking your half-baked triangle toaster pastry out to serialized-drama-breakfast."
Tong protested as he brought phasers online. "Are you kidding me, sir? The Crossfield-class wipes your screenless, fighter jet stealing, doomsday food starship all the way from Delta Vega to the other Delta Vega."
"Your corridors are too big and you waste all your internal space on a mythical turbolift universe!" Seifer argued as he diverted weapons control to the Captain’s chair. "Also, why is everyone always crying!?"
---
Tong quickly leapt backward to the Theodosia’s nub chair as Hachi initiated the Crossfield-class ship to pass the Shinsoku whilst hitting it with photon torpedoes.
"Constitutions can’t keep their visuals consistent," Tong added. "Are they high-definition shiny-metallic or toneless, grainy matte? Do their pylons have gaps in them or not??"
The Shinsoku rotated around and blasted canned phaser beams after canned phaser beams into weakening the forward shields of the Theodosia. Seifer argued, "Crossfields can’t keep their technology comparable with everyone else! Why do you have holographic interfaces? Or AI more advanced than ten years from then??"
"They were Kurtz-ppealing to an attention-anemic generation of slab-obsessed, aggressive attentioners— Admirals, maybe," Tong countered, defensively, as the Theodosia went to black alert, spun its saucer section and popped itself to suddenly below the Shinsoku.
BLAM! The Shinsoku’s ventral shields were broken through by a volley of photon torpedoes and the lower hull was breached. "Ahh! The Great Bird of the Galaxy must be spinning in his galactic bird grave!" BOB gritted from his light-bulbed damage reports.
"I’ve got to Kirk this somehow. Every starship carries a part of its predecessor and it looks like the Shinsoku has the grappler of its NX-class forerunner," Seifer observed before he fired a metallic cable out from the Constitution-class mashup to grab a giant branch of hardened Yeel tree.
Snapping it off, the Shinsoku flung the mammoth space bark into the Theodosia’s next attempted spore jump/hull spin, locking the mycelial appendage into the saucer section gaps and, instead, causing the bottom half of the Crossfield-class ship to spin uncontrollably.
"Aaaaahhhh!!!" Tong and Hachi screamed as they cancelled their black alert, stopped their pointless spin and settled the resulting hull stress.
Hachi got himself up off the floor. "Captain, did you just jam a stick into the spoke of our saucer wheel like a mean kid throwing a rod into a friend’s bicycle tire?"
"I did do that. Yes," Seifer blinked in shared realization seconds before both simulations ended and two formally-dressed agents transported onto the Bridge of each ship.
Everyone noticed the Phoenix-X had delivered them as the human woman upon the Theodosia took them in. "Agent Liangi of Temporal Investigations: You time it, we sometimes untime it. But not always."
---
"Agent Chovdun," the human male upon the Bridge of the Shinsoku introduced while taking in the fascination of the back-to-basics starship. "Pretty good find you boys have here."
Seifer slumped in defeat despite the win. "Actually, I’m just now realizing the inherent authenticity-contamination of the Constitution-class. No matter how pure and out-of-the-box we want it to be, some kind of extended-canon composite irrigates mongrel tech mashing."
"It’s like a quantum wave function in that you can’t claim an unsullied observation without it being effected by the observer," Liangi added.
Nodding, Seifer replied, "I miss the old days. Now androids are banned, Romulus is destroyed and Picard is some kind of angry hermit?"
"He’s a delightful crank!" Chovdun countered. "But, yeah. Times change and whether they’re good or bad is irrelevant as people are pawns to a galactic plot tapestry. Bearing witness is its own comeuppance."
Liangi continued. "Anyway, we’ll eradicate this mycelial outpouring and take these starships back to the Federation for the Starfleet Museum or some kind of covert mission or something. Who knows."
"Ahem! Hello? What about me?" BOB interrupted, expectantly. "I’m an anomalous aberration?"
Chovdun gritted angrily before transporting everyone and their shuttles back to the Phoenix-X. "Didn’t you hear what Liangi said about untiming!? Not always!"
---
Back on the Bridge of the Prometheus-class Phoenix-X, the crew came to see Seifer taking a seat at his chair.
"Captain, are you finally back?" Veker asked. "You know how the crew deteriorates into it’s weekly targ hunts whenever you’re away."
Seifer looked. "Wait. I thought those stopped when the Klingon Officer Exchange Program ended?"
"They never took the targs with them. Said they were tainted by Starfleet grooming and pet love standards," Hachi added. "As for us, that was a fun battling of a bunch of old ships. Back to patrol position then?"
The Captain hesitated. "Actually, let’s do a quick survey for any more anomalous irregularities. From now on, if we find a single mushroom spore tree anywhere, we are to destroy it!" After an agreeing crew, the Phoenix-X turned in space and jumped to warp.
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That's for the camera dolly to move around.
The future is always bleeding into the past. Old ships are more technologically advanced than ships from 70 years later...
Thanks!! rbs
One can imagine that if past ships were designed by future engineers, then of course they would be more advanced then the designs those engineers learned on. That will make more sense a hundred years from now. Then, someone can come back and explain it so those in the future understand it.
-Will
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This one made my day.
Going to file this under "twirly cam".
Time traveling engineers explains Scotty so much.
Haha, awesome. Thanks for the read!This one made my day.