YE/D04 - Security Complex

[Paul]

==

[Riley Wright]

<< Briefing Room <<

The thought passed quickly, replaced by colder focus as she turned and headed the opposite direction. Her pace was brisk but controlled, boots striking the deck with measured rhythm while the briefing replayed itself in clean fragments. Cardassian blockade. ROE Yellow. Boarding drills, offensive and defensive. Casualty preparation. Reconnaissance. Starbase 214. She did not need to force herself to remember any of it. Once a situation crossed the line from uncomfortable to dangerous, her mind had a way of locking onto the important pieces and refusing to let go.
⠀
That did not mean she was not nervous. It sat lower than panic and sharper than uncertainty, a tight awareness tucked just behind her ribs. Not fear of the work itself. Fear of getting the shape of it wrong in front of people who had been doing this longer than she had. Fear of sounding like she was pretending the pip had somehow transformed her into a seasoned officer between the briefing room door and Security Operations.
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Don’t overplay it, she told herself as the doors parted. You do not need to suddenly become Captain Perfect. You just need to get them moving.
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The Security Complex was active without being chaotic. Duty officers moved between stations, reports scrolled across side consoles, and the main tactical display still carried the ordinary pulse of shipboard routine that existed right up until routine got replaced by contingency. Riley stepped to the central operations console and set her PADD down beside it, fingers already moving. A young Bajoran crewman at the nearest station glanced up, eyes flicking to her collar before widening just slightly. The reaction was quick enough that he probably thought nobody noticed.
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Riley noticed.
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So did the petty officer at the opposite console, who did a much better job of hiding it.
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Right. Great. That’s not intimidating at all.
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She kept her expression composed and keyed the command line open. “Computer, route current estimated time to Starbase 214 to the main Security display. Maximum size, command visibility. Keep it persistent until manually removed.”
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A beat later the central screen shifted. A clean mission header appeared, followed by a large countdown clock tied to the Yeager’s projected arrival profile. It was blunt, impossible to ignore, and exactly what Art had asked for. Riley gave it one measured look, then nodded once to herself.
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Nothing motivates preparation like a giant clock telling you exactly how little time you have left.
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She opened the duty roster next. Security assignments populated in columns: watch rotations, response teams, available specialists, weapons certification updates, readiness status. Riley scanned the names quickly, sorting them not just by rank or availability, but by what she remembered of them. Who moved well under pressure. Who defaulted to aggression. Who got sloppy once they thought they understood the scenario. Who had been on the Yeager long before she had and might take badly to being reorganized by someone who had made Ensign less than ten minutes ago.
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That thought tightened in her chest again, but Security alone was not the whole answer. On a ship the Yeager’s size, it never was. Riley split the display and pulled up auxiliary personnel records—not to drag anyone from another department into drills they had not been ordered into, but to see what the ship actually had if things went bad enough that everyone’s department title stopped mattering. Weapons qualifications. Tactical certification. Cross-training history. Emergency response competencies. Small ship reality. If the Cardassians ever got as far as the corridors, Security would be the first line. It would not be the only one.
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Her eyes moved down the list, sorting instinctively. People who could hold a phaser without becoming a danger to everyone around them. People who could follow a defensive position order and keep their heads. People who would need protection rather than assignment if the ship ever shifted from readiness to damage control. T’Varen’s name appeared halfway down one of the personnel overlays, current department listed as Science.
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Riley paused.
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That got an actual flicker of relief out of her before she could stop it. Science Officer now, yes. But still T’Varen. Still steady. Still impossible to rattle in the ways that counted. Riley trusted her friend’s judgment more easily than she trusted most people’s promises, and in a crisis that mattered a hell of a lot more than department labels.
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Yeah, Riley thought, the tension easing just a fraction. If this goes bad, you’ll still know exactly what to do.
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She did not add T’Varen to any active drill roster. That was not Riley’s call, and she knew better than to start reallocating departments because she had been wearing an Ensign’s pip for five minutes. But she did flag the cross-trained names into a quiet auxiliary column for herself—possible emergency support, internal defense reinforcement, evacuation corridor coverage, last-line phaser-capable personnel if the ship ever got driven that far inward. It was not dramatic. It was practical. And practicality, Riley was learning, was what kept people alive when the elegant plans stopped working.
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Before she could get too far into it, a voice sounded from two stations down.
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“Ma’am?”
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Riley looked up.
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Chief Petty Officer Halden stood from a side console with a data slate in hand. The stocky Tellarite was older than she was by at least a decade, broad through the shoulders, steady-eyed, and carried himself with the kind of practiced competence that suggested he had been quietly keeping rooms like this functional long before junior officers started issuing instructions in them. His gaze dropped to the new pip on her collar, then back to her face.
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“Congratulations, Ensign,” he said. “Though I’ll save the real enthusiasm until I see whether that promotion improved your timing or just your paperwork.”
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It was not warm. It was not unfriendly either. It was a challenge.
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For half a second Riley could almost feel the shape of the answer she would have given anyone else—something polite, restrained, easy to step around. That was clearly not the right response here.
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“Then keep your enthusiasm in reserve, Chief,” she replied, calm and even. “The paperwork can survive. I’m more interested in whether the timing works.”
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The words sounded slightly foreign in her own mouth—too blunt for her usual rhythm—but not wrong. Halden gave a short grunt that might have been the Tellarite version of interest, then sat again.
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She opened a second display and began building the drill sequence. First: defensive boarding response. Corridor lockdown procedures, deck-seal coordination, internal crossfire avoidance, emergency triage lanes, detainee handling. Second: offensive boarding package. Entry stack discipline, room-clearing in mixed environmental conditions, controlled fire under low-visibility settings, rapid recovery of injured personnel. Third: concealed armor integration.
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Riley paused there for half a second, remembering Lieutenant Beinn’s suggestion in the briefing. She had initially filed it under medical practicality, but the more she turned it over, the more useful it became. Cardassians were not careless in close-quarters combat. They were methodical, cruel, and perfectly willing to leave someone alive if living hurt more. If concealed armor bought Security officers even two extra seconds in a confined fight, then those seconds mattered.
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She added it to the mandatory cycle, then tapped her commbadge.
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“Wright to Security team leads,” she said. Her voice came out calm and level, which was useful because inside she was still acutely aware that everyone hearing it knew exactly how fresh that new rank was. “Report to Security Operations in fifteen minutes for boarding-response prep. Bring current team configurations, armor availability, and any unresolved readiness issues. We’re running offensive and defensive packages before arrival.”
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She released the channel, then returned her attention to the main console. “Computer, pull current corridor control schematics for decks one through six to this console. Highlight any recent maintenance closures, blind spots, or routing changes.”
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A moment later the display shifted again. Corridor maps layered themselves across the console in clean lines and color-coded overlays, flagged junctions flashing where recent maintenance, narrowed access, or sensor shadows might complicate a defensive response. This time, as the work began to populate in front of her, she did let herself feel it. Not pride, exactly. Something steadier than that. Alignment. The orders did not feel borrowed. They felt like work she had already been walking toward for years.
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Her eyes caught her own service entry in the corner of the roster display—Wright, Riley. Rank designation updated. The single word there should have felt ceremonial. Instead it landed with surprising quiet.
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Ensign.
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Riley stared at it for only a second before returning to work, but the second was enough.
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No parade. No speech. No dramatic moment. Just a border crisis and a to-do list.
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A faint, private warmth moved through her despite everything.
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Honestly? That tracks.
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She called up the ship schematic and overlaid likely boarding vectors. Docking collars. Cargo access points. Emergency hull breach response routes. Transport inhibitor coverage. If the Cardassians came aboard, they would not come aboard to posture. They would come aboard to seize control, isolate command, take prisoners, and turn confusion into leverage. Riley marked choke points that could be held, fallback positions that would not trap her people, and lines of movement that allowed Medical access without exposing them to the first wave of any engagement.
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That mattered too. Riley was not building a response around winning the corridor and leaving bodies behind it. She was building one around stopping the threat, protecting the ship, and keeping as many people alive as possible once the shooting started—Yeager crew, civilians if there were any, even Cardassian boarders if they made the very smart decision to stop being boarders and start being prisoners.
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Lt. Commander Torres’ voice surfaced from memory with irritating clarity, as if he had chosen this exact moment to stand at her shoulder again.
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Security protects lives.
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Not just convenient lives. Not just your own.
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Lives.
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Riley’s jaw tightened faintly. She had let that slip once already. Not deliberately. Not maliciously. But she had let suspicion narrow the frame until Tomer had stopped being a person she was responsible for protecting and started becoming a problem other people were evaluating. She understood that now in a way she had not wanted to.
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So this time, her planning left room for surrender. Room for containment. Room for people to stop dying the moment they stopped fighting. That, too, was Security.
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Her fingers slowed only once more, and that was when Tomer’s name surfaced uninvited again. Alive, maybe. Lost, but not gone. The knowledge sat differently now than it had in the briefing room. It did not absolve anything. It did not clean the wound. But it did change the shape of failure, and Riley was beginning to understand that there was a difference between carrying guilt and carrying responsibility.
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One made you smaller.
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The other made you move.
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So she kept moving.
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By the time the first of the team leads began arriving, the main screen was already counting down in bold numerals, the drill progression had been structured into escalating phases, and the first pass of team assignments was ready for review. Three enlisted personnel entered first. Halden was one of them, unsurprisingly. With him came Petty Officer Second Class Marek, the wiry Bolian who folded his arms the moment he started assessing a problem, and Petty Officer Third Class Tovan, a dark-haired Human who looked alert, curious, and slightly too eager to see what this was going to become.
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They stopped in front of the central display.
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Marek’s gaze flicked over the boarding vectors, then toward Riley. “That’s an ambitious prep cycle, ma’am.”
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There was no open challenge in it. There did not need to be.
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Riley met his eyes. “It’s a short timeline.”
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“That it is,” Marek replied.
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Halden looked over the schematics in silence for another second, then lifted his eyes to Riley. “You’re building the full drill cycle before the chief gets back. Bold choice. Did d’Tor’an approve that, or are you gambling she’ll like initiative more than improvisation?”
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The question landed exactly where Riley had known one like it would. Not disrespectful. Not deferential either. A real department question from someone who knew how departments actually worked.
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Riley resisted the urge to answer too quickly. Then she let that go.
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“If it were improvisation, Chief, I’d still be standing here waiting for permission to use the time she already gave me,” she said. “Chief d’Tor’an ordered the drills staged before she got back. I’m staging them. If she wants changes once she returns, we’ll change them. Until then, standing still seemed like the less intelligent option.”
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That sat in the room for a moment. It was a sharper answer than Riley would normally have given, and she knew it. But Halden was not asking for softness. He was asking whether the structure in front of him would hold under pressure.
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Halden studied her, then gave one slow nod. “Good,” he said. “That’s an answer.”
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The tension in Riley’s shoulders eased by less than an inch, but Halden’s eyes narrowed at the overlay for half a second longer than the others.
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“Wait,” he said, one thick finger tapping the display. “You left casualty lanes open on both sides.”
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The room shifted slightly around that.
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Riley looked over. “Yes.”
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Halden turned fully toward her, not hiding his objection in the slightest. “That is a mistake, Ensign. If Cardassians make it into our corridors, we do not solve that by budgeting medical access for them.”
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Marek folded his arms tighter, blue features sharpening as he studied the route layout. “He’s not wrong. If those lanes stay open, that’s more space to secure, more movement to track, and more chances for somebody to use Medical traffic as cover.”
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Tovan looked from one of them to the other, then back to the display. “Unless they stop fighting,” he said carefully. “Then they’re not really boarders anymore.”
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Halden gave him a sharp sidelong look. “That is a very optimistic way to survive a Cardassian boarding action, Petty Officer.”
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Tovan straightened a fraction, but did not back off. “I said unless, Chief. Not when.”
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Riley felt the challenge settle across the whole group now, not just from Halden. Good. Better, actually. This was a department conversation, not a duel.
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“If they’re still fighting, they’re a threat,” she said evenly. “If they stop fighting, they’re casualties or prisoners. Either way, a corridor full of dead or dying people helps nobody.”
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Marek’s brow furrowed. “It can still help the side that’s left standing.”
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“Right up until Medical can’t get through,” Riley replied. She stepped closer to the display and indicated the marked routes. “These lanes are not there because I’m worried about being fair to hostile boarders. They’re there because once a fight starts, chaos spreads fast. We need room for casualty movement, security containment, and surrender handling without all three colliding in the same ten meters of corridor.”
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Tovan nodded once, slow and thoughtful. “So if somebody drops a weapon, there’s already a place to move them instead of making that decision in the middle of a firefight.”
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“Exactly,” Riley said.
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Halden grunted through his nose. “Expensive principle.”
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Riley’s jaw tightened faintly. For a second, Tomer flashed through her mind again—not as a suspect, not as a briefing problem, but as someone she had once stopped fully seeing because suspicion had narrowed everything else out.
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She kept her voice level.
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“Less expensive than teaching the whole ship that Starfleet only protects people we already approve of.”
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That landed harder than she intended. Marek’s arms loosened by a degree. Tovan went still. Even Halden paused.
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After a beat, Marek exhaled through his nose and tipped his head toward the display. “Fine. Then if we’re keeping both-side casualty lanes, we need cleaner overlap control here and here. Otherwise Medical and containment teams trip over each other the second this gets messy.”
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Riley nodded immediately. “Good. Show me.”
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Tovan pointed to the adjacent junction. “And put a reserve there. If someone surrenders or goes down in the wrong place, you’ll need somebody to pull them clear without stripping your containment line.”
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Halden looked between all of them, then gave a low, rough grunt. “Alright,” he said. “I still think it’s a risk. But if we’re taking it, we build around it properly.”
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That, from him, was not agreement.
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But it was buy-in.
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More personnel filtered in after that. A Bajoran crewman with containment duty experience arrived carrying a PADD tucked under one arm. An Andorian Petty Officer Third Class followed with the crisp, controlled posture of someone already halfway through three contingency plans. A quiet Betazoid crewman stepped in last, taking in the room’s mood almost before she looked at the display. Another crewman had clearly expected to see d’Tor’an and had to recalibrate on the spot when she found Wright standing at the center console instead.
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Riley could feel every recalibration in the room. It would have been easy to respond by hardening, by trying to sound older, harsher, more certain than she actually felt.
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Instead she took a breath and decided not to pretend.
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“Alright,” she said, gesturing to the display. “We don’t have time to make this pretty, so we’re going to make it effective. Chief d’Tor’an wants us ready before we arrive, and that means no wasted motion.”
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She let her gaze move across the gathered personnel before continuing. “I know some of you have been in this department longer than I have. That’s useful, not a problem. If you see a weakness in this setup, say it. If you know a choke point I marked wrong, say it. If concealed armor is going to fail under a specific loadout, definitely say it. I’m not interested in looking polished for twenty minutes. I’m interested in us not getting people hurt because nobody spoke up.”
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That changed the room more than rank ever could have. Not dramatically. Not all at once. But enough. Arms loosened. Shoulders adjusted. Attention shifted from watching her to watching the work.
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Halden stepped toward the display and pointed to a junction on Deck Four. “This fallback route bottlenecks at the secondary hatch if Medical’s moving casualties the opposite direction.”
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Riley looked, processed, and nodded. “Good catch.”
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Marek pointed next. “If you’re planning offensive boarding rehearsal through maintenance access, run it with reduced lighting. Those accessways never look the same once the power grid takes a hit.”
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“Add it,” Riley said, already making the notation.
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Tovan, a little more tentative, said, “You might want a two-person reserve near Transport Control if they try internal site-to-site movement before the inhibitors fully lock.”
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Riley looked at him. “That’s not tentative, Petty Officer. That’s correct.”
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He straightened slightly at that.
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The work started to move then—properly move. Not because Riley had bullied it into place, and not because the pip on her collar had magically settled the question of authority. It moved because the department had recognized what she was actually doing: not trying to play veteran, but trying to get them ready before the chief came back.
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That, they could work with.
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Riley felt the nervousness still there, but it had changed shape. Less fear of being tested. More awareness that the test was already happening and she was still on her feet.
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Okay, she thought, making another adjustment to the boarding package. That I can do something with.
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By the time the discussion turned into concrete assignments, the main screen was counting down overhead, corridor schematics had begun updating in real time, and Security Operations no longer felt like a room waiting for d’Tor’an to return and take over.
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It felt like a room already in motion.
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Riley squared her shoulders and started dividing the drills into execution order.
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“Chief Halden, you’re on defensive containment review. Marek, offensive package and low-visibility adjustments. Tovan, coordinate with Tactical support on Transport Control coverage and get me confirmation the inhibitor response times are current, not last month’s. Everyone else, if your teams aren’t ready to move when Chief d’Tor’an gets back, I want the reason before I want the excuse.”
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A few answering nods met that. No one smiled. No one needed to.
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The clock continued its silent descent overhead, and for the first time since hearing the new rank out loud, Riley stopped feeling like she had stepped into something unfamiliar. Not because the nerves were gone. Because they were not. But she was moving anyway.
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And that, more than the pip itself, felt like stepping into her place.