Inside Out

Posted on Tue May 19th, 2026 @ 4:21pm by Lieutenant JG Kate Kono
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2026 @ 8:16pm

2,618 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Sins of the Empire
Location: USS Washington
Timeline: Current

Red Alert wasn’t the worst way to wake up, not by a parsec, but it still ranked. Lieutenant Kate Kono jerked up, adrenaline shunting her brain straight out of a dreamless blank and into a fizzing now. Her cheek was hot against Kodie’s fur; her Siberian’s thick tail flicked over her eyes, but the dog’s body trembled with the same animal urgency that had always saved them both.

“Okay, okay,” Kate mumbled. She palmed at Kodie’s ruff, the dog’s blue eyes catching the stuttering red flash that bled in around the edges of the blackout shade. The Red Alert klaxon stuttered again, syncopated by Kodie’s nails tap-tapping on the bulkhead.

“Shhh,” Kate said, but Kodie wouldn’t, of course. A ship-trained Husky didn’t speak Federation Standard, but she knew when life on the hull tipped into emergency.

Her mind, slow as syrup, started the inventory: She was still in her thermals, tangled at her waist. The deck under her mat was trembling just a little—sublight engines throttled up, not maneuvering, but not at idle. She inhaled: ionization, sweat, Kodie’s wet dog breath.

She levered up and blinked. The time-stamp by the door, blurry until she squinted, said 04:23. Four hours into Delta shift. Which explained the empty bunk.

“Ben?” she called, out of habit.

No answer, obviously. Ben always left early, said the dog-snores set his mood off for the whole day. Kate reached for the side of the bed, missed, nearly toppled onto the deck before Kodie nipped at her sleeve and steadied her with that brutal little head. She grabbed the bulkhead, used it to haul upright.

Her pulse was higher than it should’ve been. Code Red meant hull breach, boarding, warp-core instability, but if it were the core she’d probably be soup by now. Kodie circled, nipped at the blackout, and finally whined in her face.

“Fine, fine. I’m up.” The words were rusty, but her body started its own triage, hands through her hair, find the duty uniform, check the comm badge. Her uniform was a puddle on the chair; she yanked it on, still inside-out, and finger-combed her pixie cut down flat.

The bathroom was two meters away; she gave her face a splash and spat in the sink. Kodie leapt back, then returned with a tail swish and licked up the spatter off the deck. Kate grinned, and for a blink the dog’s presence was better than caffeine.

The comm panel in her room chirped, a Blue Alert priority. She hit it with her elbow. “Kono.”

“Lieutenant, report to Intelligence. We may have an incident on our hands.”

“Gotchya, Ensign,” she said, voice steadier than her hands.

She yanked the zipper up, staggered into her boots, and seeing Kodie’s head tilt - clicked his tongue. “Stay,” she said. Kodie whined.

The corridor outside was lit with red pulses; crew ran in various states of dress and distress, but no one seemed panicked. Good sign. Kate fell in behind a trio from Engineering, all of them reeking of burnt ozone and sleep deprivation.

The closer she got to the turbolift, the sharper her mind. Ben was probably on the bridge, or at Tactical. If he was in trouble, she’d know. The ship wasn’t listing, no alarms about decompression or containment.

The doors hissed open and Kate squeezed in next to a cluster of Security Officers and Crewmen, all broad shoulders and freshly charged phasers.

One of them, a woman with a shiner blooming over her eyebrow, grinned at her. “Rough morning, Kono?”

“Never better.” Kate tried to keep her breathing even. “What’s the emergency?”

“No clue. Some external contact. Captain’s keeping it tight.”

The lift shifted, decelerated with a shudder, and dropped them on Deck Five. Kate peeled off to the left, alone now except for the drone of the alarms and the memory of Kodie’s fur on her face.

She’d survived worse: Getting dissected for her ovaries, viral lockouts, Lieutenant Loaghtans attempts at scrambled eggs using something called ‘Owan’. Still, as she paced through the sliding door of the Intelligence hub, her hands were cold.

The lights in the office were already at full. The only thing that slowed her down was a brief, searching glance at the blank terminal where Kevin used to sit. Kate didn’t have time to linger at that sight. She punched her own console, fingers finally catching up with her brain, and waited for any potential orders from on-high.


By the time Kate Kono brought up the exterior logs, the alert dropped from Red to Yellow. She felt it, less in the change of lights than in her own ribcage, the panic bled off, replaced by a low ache of unfinished adrenaline. Still, Yellow Alert wasn’t the apocalypse, but it wasn’t nap time either.

The door to the Intelligence hub, privacy shield half-engaged, slid aside. The room had that old-library quiet, the kind that seemed impossible on a starship, and Kate was the only one who violated it.

She paused for a breath, tried to look less like she’d been body-checked awake by a sixty-pound Husky, and swept her gaze to the left: Kevin’s desk, pristine and unoccupied, as always when shit hit the fan. She finally let herself register the emptiness for half a second. Then she clocked her own reflection in the screen—hair uneven, bloodshot eyes, a standard Starfleet intelligence jumpsuit that was accidentally thrown on inside-out and sighed.

A quick palm flattened her hair. The overhead buzzed a new message: “All senior officers, report to your stations. All others maintain Yellow Alert protocols.”

Kate tapped the panel at her console, thumbprint smudged by Kodie’s earlier ministrations. She yanked her sleeve down to wipe it, got a clean scan, and the display flared to life.

First, she asked for the bridge logs: visual, audio, and tactical feeds from the last thirty minutes. The AI, eager as a spaniel, spit out a digest even before she finished typing.

Roughly five minutes ago, a Klingon Bird of Prey was clocked in the Neutral Zone, then barrel-rolled into a power dive into the X axes. Nothing unusual—Klingons were drama queens—but what happened next tripped her alarms. One minute after, a Romulan D’deridex-class Warbird decloaked and fired on the Klingon vessel. The entire exchange lasted less than a minute. The Klingon ship limped away, shields at 20%, the Romulan on its tail until the Washington fired on it and actually hit a few rounds into the Warbirds shields.

She replayed the sensor logs with disbelief, then pulled up the comms history, lips tight. Standard hails—no response from the Romulans, but the Klingon vessel had broadcast a single message, audio only, just under two minutes before the Romulan Warbird decloaked. Kate ran it through the translator and turned up the volume. A voice, gravel and iron, filled the hub:

"Federation vessel, this is the IKS Ch'Tang, captain Ba'el commanding. Require assistance. We are under attack by treacherous forces of the Duras family..."

Kate squinted at the tactical readout, watched the two warships arcing through the local system. The Klingon Bird of Prey wasn’t outgunned, but it was half a size smaller, and its vector brought it straight toward the USS Washington—either for sanctuary or as a shield.

She leaned back, boots up on the crossbar. Her hands shook just a little; the memory of Kodie’s fur still lingered at her wrists. Her mind churned: What did the Romulans want?

Another message pinged from the bridge: “Situation update, please.”

Kate smirked. “Always at the fun part,” she said aloud, and began dictating her summary, fingers flying:

“Romulan Warbird in pursuit of Klingon Bird of Prey. No visual on escape pods or other activity other than the potential interstellar incident. We’re having guests for dinner, Romulans aren’t to happy about those two torpedoes. No indication of direct threat to us, yet.”

She hesitated. “Note: Kevin’s replacement isn’t here yet.”

The reply came back in less than a second: “Monitor all channels, maintain readiness. Priority One—find out who the hell is on that Romulan vessel while we gather more information on the Klingons.”

Kate swallowed, feeling the caffeine-surge of a new crisis. She licked her thumb, scrubbed a smear off her backwards uniform, and dug in deeper, prepping for the next phase: find the reasons, crack the comms, and, if she was lucky, do it before more shooting started.


Kate’s right arm still caught sometimes, as if the healed tissue couldn’t decide whether to obey the brain or rebel against it. She stretched it now, pulling at the muscles, rotating her shoulder until the familiar micro-pull crackled along the seam. A neat row of regenerated skin wrapped her elbow in a paler spiral; the memento from a plasma wrench accident, or maybe the Klingon boarding action, depending on how much whiskey she’d had telling the story.

The console spat out bridge chatter in clipped monotone: “Klingon Bird of Prey maintaining vector. Romulan Warbird moving away. Bridge requests Intelligence input on possible Federation liabilities.”

Kate flexed her hand, closed the holoscreen, and crossed to the replicator. “Grape Juice,” she said. “Extra Grape” The unit hummed, then deposited a cool sweet, tasty beverage materialized with the enthusiasm of a vending machine on a dying moon.

As she sipped, the computer piped up again: “Incoming crew member: Lieutenant Commander A.J. Reid.” - The new Security Protocols now showed her who was coming before they arrived.

“Just what I needed,” Kate said under her breath.

The door slid aside to admit a wall of a man, skin polished dark, uniform stretched tight over a bobsledder’s frame. A.J. carried the self-confidence of a guy who’d bench-pressed a shuttle and then apologized for making it look easy.

“Mawnin’, Kono,” he rumbled, accent thick as callaloo stew.

She barely turned. “Hey, A.J. Come to steal my drink stash again?”

“Gyal, yuh know mi replicator dead. Di whole deck fry up pon Delta shift.” He eyed her mug with the same longing Kodie reserved for scrambled eggs. “Yuh sleep through di Red?”

“Almost,” she said, hiding a yawn in her sleeve. “Kodie got me up. He’s worth his rations.”

A.J. smirked. “Yuh shoulda get a cat. Dem wi sleep straight through Armageddon.”

“Not with this arm,” she said, waving her right elbow. “The fur would never come off.”

He plopped into the chair across from her, legs splayed, the very image of relaxation except for the way his jaw ticked. “So, wah di fuss?”

“Romulans and Klingons, up to their usual.” Kate pinched the bridge of her nose. “Some kind of political hot potato. Romulans chasing a Bird of Prey, no reasons given by the Romulan side but the Klingons said something about the Duras Family?”

A.J. rolled his eyes. “Always wid di traitors. Yuh would tink di galaxy would run out.”

“They breed ‘em in tanks now, I think.” Kate checked her console for new updates, then tossed him a pad with the data.

He scrolled through, lips pursed. “Di Bird of Prey deh pon a tractor beam. Look like di Captain want wi play Switzerland.”

“He’ll get his wish if they don’t start shooting,” Kate muttered.

A.J. shook his head, smiling with all his teeth. “Yuh eva notice how every time something go wrong, wi always deh first inna di line?”

“I thought that was the definition of a starship,” she replied. “It’s just a tube designed to channel disaster straight to my office.”

He barked a laugh, leaned back, and for a second the tension in the room bled away. “So, any bets? Mi seh di Klingon a defect. Five credits.”

“Double or nothing it’s a Romulan mole,” Kate shot back.

“Loser buy di next round.” He reached for her grape drink, but she snapped it out of reach with her left hand.

“Nice try,” she said, sipping with exaggerated satisfaction.

They sat, watching the screens, the yellow alert reflected in A.J.’s eyes and the faint hum of readiness thrumming in the deckplates.

The moment’s peace dissolved as the console flared: “Incoming transmission from Klingon vessel. Priority: Emergency.”

A.J. groaned. “Dere goes di neighborhood.”

Kate toggled the comms and squared her shoulders. The pain in her arm was gone, but the old itch was back: curiosity, trouble, and the possibility that this time, maybe, the disaster was something she could actually fix.

The transmission from the Klingon ship flickered through, all static and bravado. Kate parsed the incoming data, her focus so total she didn’t register A.J.’s approach until he leaned in, his breath warm and companionable against her cheek.

He peered at her screen, then grunted. “Classic Klingon. Always shoutin’ even when dem whisperin’.”

“It’s canned. They must have been transported aboard already.” Kate’s tone was dry, but her fingers flew across the keys, isolating the comm signature. “Looks like the Warbird clipped their comms. It’s just a modern day car alarm. Warning us that unauthorized access will be met with boom.”

A.J. nodded, then, without preamble, asked, “Na’Riss seh she see yuh in Medical last night. Yuh alright?”

She kept her eyes on the data, but the left corner of her mouth kicked up. “She’s got eyes like a hawk.”

“She a Vulcan,” A.J. said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

“I just needed a checkup. Some phantom pain, nothing big.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yuh sure? Last time yuh said ‘nothing big’ yuh ended up tellin’ me about a volcano explosion and ‘murder chickens’.”

Kate laughed, and this time it didn’t hurt. “Starfleet life.”

The yellow alert lights painted stripes on A.J.’s hands as he drummed his fingers. “Na’Riss is good, by the way. She’s back on duty. Walks like nothing happened, though y’know Vulcans.”

Kate nodded. “I do. She’s lucky she had you there.”

A.J. tried to shrug off the praise, but failed. “Mi neva did help much. Yuh finish dat bad boy off before mi coulda get mi revenge pon him.”

“You brought her coffee every hour on the hour. That counts for something.”

A.J. grinned, then leaned back in his chair. “Maybe. But mi jus wish mi coulda help unu both at di same time.”

“This business gets dangerous,” Kate said, eyes back on her screen.

For a minute, they were quiet, side by side at their stations, the hum of the ship and the ceaseless tick of incoming data the only conversation. Neither needed to fill the space. They’d done this before: comfort measured out in calm moments and silence, in the knowledge that the other would still be there if and when the next thing exploded.

Kate’s screen lit up with a new feed. “Bridge wants a full analysis in fifteen. You want in?”

“Wouldn’ta miss it,” A.J. said, all lazy charm.

She angled her chair so they were elbow to elbow, then got to work.

Above them, the yellow alert bled into the corridor and the logs piled up, but here in the heart of the Intelligence hub, Kate Kono and A.J. Reid held the line, not just against Romulans and Klingons, but against the relentless, grinding boredom of waiting for the next disaster.

They did it together, with bad coffee, grape juice too sweet, and better company, and for a moment, that was enough.

 

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