Yesterday, 12:31 PM
The chime had sounded, soft and polite, and then faded back into the low hum of the ship.
Riley waited.
Nothing changed. No shuffle of footsteps, no muted curse at being interrupted, no weary voice asking for a minute. The corridor just… hummed, Yeager’s life running through the deck under her boots and the bulkheads at her back, while the VIP hatch in front of her sat there like it had all the time in the galaxy.
She let a slow breath ease in and out of her lungs, counting a few heartbeats before she thumbed the control again.
The second chime echoed the first—same tone, same polite little trill. The silence that settled in afterwards felt heavier, more deliberate, as if the doorway itself were pointedly ignoring her.
Once could just be him taking his time. Twice starts to feel like a pattern.
Her jaw tightened by a fraction. It wasn’t that she’d expected this assignment to be easy—Tomer’s reputation had reached her long before she’d set foot on Yeager—but she had hoped it would be straightforward. Walk down, knock on the door, “Good morning, Mister Tomer, the Captain requests your presence on the Bridge,” then escort him back without anyone getting yelled at or falling over.
Apparently that had been optimistic.
Riley shifted half a step to one side, out of the direct line with the hatch. The movement was small but practiced: just enough to give her room to move if the door snapped open suddenly, just enough that she wasn’t presenting a perfectly centered target if this somehow went sideways. Her hands stayed loose at her sides, posture neutral and regulation-straight, but she could feel the quiet readiness settle into her muscles.
She angled her head toward the corridor pickup. “Computer,” she said, keeping her tone even, “confirm the current location of Mister Tomer.”
[Mister Tomer is present in his assigned VIP quarters.]
So he was in there.
Right where he was supposed to be. Just not answering.
Two clean possibilities slotted themselves into place: unwilling or unable. One meant she was about to get dragged into some kind of diplomatic tantrum. The other meant someone on this ship might already be sprawled out on the deck behind that door while she stood here counting chimes.
Neither sat comfortably.
Either way, Captain Braggins had given her an order—escort Tomer to the Bridge—and standing in the corridor hoping he eventually decided to cooperate didn’t feel like following it. Riley felt the faintest heat creep up the back of her neck as she thought of the captain’s smirk earlier, the wry gleam in Braggins’ eyes when she’d assigned the task. Not glamorous, Midshipman, that look had said. But let’s see what you do with it.
Well, Riley thought, you don’t walk away, for a start.
She drew in a steadying breath and tapped her commbadge.
“Midshipman Wright to Sickbay,” she said.
The channel opened with a soft chirp, familiar and grounding. There was something oddly reassuring about that tiny sound—proof that even in this quiet little bubble outside Tomer’s door, she wasn’t alone in figuring it out.
“This is Wright, outside Mister Tomer’s VIP quarters,” she reported. “He’s not responding to door chimes or verbal calls. The computer confirms he’s inside, but I don’t yet have eyes on him. I’d like Medical on standby in case this develops into a medical issue—possible loss of consciousness or other impairment.”
She let that hang for a beat, imagining Sickbay’s staff glancing up from their workstations, maybe sharing a look that said "of course it’s Tomer".
“I’ll update you as soon as I have more information or if we initiate a forced entry,” she added, voice still level.
Her fingers brushed the edge of her jacket, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle, and she forced them to be still. Not glamorous, she reminded herself, but if something’s wrong and you shave seconds off the response time, that’s the job done right. No one on the Bridge is going to complain that you inconvenienced Sickbay to keep a VIP alive.
She touched the badge again before doubt could convince her to wait.
“Wright to Security.”
Another soft chirp, another open channel layered over the first. She could almost picture the internal routing—her voice bouncing from this quiet corridor to the nerve centers of the ship, tying this stubborn door to people who actually had the authority to break it open.
“I have a potentially non-responsive VIP situation,” she said, letting a little more crispness edge into her tone. “Mister Tomer is confirmed in his quarters and is not answering repeated chimes or voice contact. Sickbay has been placed on standby. Request a second officer to my location and guidance on preparing a limited door override if he continues to be non-responsive.”
Her gaze swept the corridor out of habit: junction clear, no curious ensigns lingering at the corner, turbolift doors closed and still. Just her, the hum of Yeager, and a door that pretended she wasn’t there.
She let her eyes come back to the hatch.
The commbadge was a small, reassuring weight against her chest, both channels still live, a thin pair of threads tying this quiet stretch of deck to the beating heart of the ship. Riley adjusted her stance just enough to avoid locking her knees, still half a step off-center from the door, shoulders square, every line of her posture the picture of textbook professionalism.
Tomer’s less-than-stellar reputation lingered at the back of her mind—snatches of overheard conversation from the mess, the way some of the senior officers’ expressions had tightened when his name came up, the undercurrent of difficult man that followed him. It would have been easy to let that color everything: to decide he was simply refusing to answer, to treat this like a stubborn VIP playing games instead of a possible patient.
But that wasn’t her call to make.
Whether he’s difficult or not doesn’t matter, she told herself firmly. What matters is that if something’s wrong, you’re already in place and the right people are listening. If he’s fine and just being an ass, they can yell at you later. You can live with that. You can’t live with knowing you stood outside this door while he was on the deck inside it.
She focused on the details she could control: her breathing, even and measured; the feel of the deck under her boots; the faint vibration of the ship’s systems through the bulkhead at her back. She let her ears do the rest—one part of her listening to the faint hiss of open comm channels at her collar, another straining for any sound from beyond the VIP hatch. A thud, a groan, even a snapped, irritated “Go away” would have been something.
Instead, for the moment, there was only the hum of the ship, the weight of expectation, and the stubborn silence behind Tomer’s door as she waited for Medical or Security to answer and give her the next step.
Riley waited.
Nothing changed. No shuffle of footsteps, no muted curse at being interrupted, no weary voice asking for a minute. The corridor just… hummed, Yeager’s life running through the deck under her boots and the bulkheads at her back, while the VIP hatch in front of her sat there like it had all the time in the galaxy.
She let a slow breath ease in and out of her lungs, counting a few heartbeats before she thumbed the control again.
The second chime echoed the first—same tone, same polite little trill. The silence that settled in afterwards felt heavier, more deliberate, as if the doorway itself were pointedly ignoring her.
Once could just be him taking his time. Twice starts to feel like a pattern.
Her jaw tightened by a fraction. It wasn’t that she’d expected this assignment to be easy—Tomer’s reputation had reached her long before she’d set foot on Yeager—but she had hoped it would be straightforward. Walk down, knock on the door, “Good morning, Mister Tomer, the Captain requests your presence on the Bridge,” then escort him back without anyone getting yelled at or falling over.
Apparently that had been optimistic.
Riley shifted half a step to one side, out of the direct line with the hatch. The movement was small but practiced: just enough to give her room to move if the door snapped open suddenly, just enough that she wasn’t presenting a perfectly centered target if this somehow went sideways. Her hands stayed loose at her sides, posture neutral and regulation-straight, but she could feel the quiet readiness settle into her muscles.
She angled her head toward the corridor pickup. “Computer,” she said, keeping her tone even, “confirm the current location of Mister Tomer.”
[Mister Tomer is present in his assigned VIP quarters.]
So he was in there.
Right where he was supposed to be. Just not answering.
Two clean possibilities slotted themselves into place: unwilling or unable. One meant she was about to get dragged into some kind of diplomatic tantrum. The other meant someone on this ship might already be sprawled out on the deck behind that door while she stood here counting chimes.
Neither sat comfortably.
Either way, Captain Braggins had given her an order—escort Tomer to the Bridge—and standing in the corridor hoping he eventually decided to cooperate didn’t feel like following it. Riley felt the faintest heat creep up the back of her neck as she thought of the captain’s smirk earlier, the wry gleam in Braggins’ eyes when she’d assigned the task. Not glamorous, Midshipman, that look had said. But let’s see what you do with it.
Well, Riley thought, you don’t walk away, for a start.
She drew in a steadying breath and tapped her commbadge.
“Midshipman Wright to Sickbay,” she said.
The channel opened with a soft chirp, familiar and grounding. There was something oddly reassuring about that tiny sound—proof that even in this quiet little bubble outside Tomer’s door, she wasn’t alone in figuring it out.
“This is Wright, outside Mister Tomer’s VIP quarters,” she reported. “He’s not responding to door chimes or verbal calls. The computer confirms he’s inside, but I don’t yet have eyes on him. I’d like Medical on standby in case this develops into a medical issue—possible loss of consciousness or other impairment.”
She let that hang for a beat, imagining Sickbay’s staff glancing up from their workstations, maybe sharing a look that said "of course it’s Tomer".
“I’ll update you as soon as I have more information or if we initiate a forced entry,” she added, voice still level.
Her fingers brushed the edge of her jacket, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle, and she forced them to be still. Not glamorous, she reminded herself, but if something’s wrong and you shave seconds off the response time, that’s the job done right. No one on the Bridge is going to complain that you inconvenienced Sickbay to keep a VIP alive.
She touched the badge again before doubt could convince her to wait.
“Wright to Security.”
Another soft chirp, another open channel layered over the first. She could almost picture the internal routing—her voice bouncing from this quiet corridor to the nerve centers of the ship, tying this stubborn door to people who actually had the authority to break it open.
“I have a potentially non-responsive VIP situation,” she said, letting a little more crispness edge into her tone. “Mister Tomer is confirmed in his quarters and is not answering repeated chimes or voice contact. Sickbay has been placed on standby. Request a second officer to my location and guidance on preparing a limited door override if he continues to be non-responsive.”
Her gaze swept the corridor out of habit: junction clear, no curious ensigns lingering at the corner, turbolift doors closed and still. Just her, the hum of Yeager, and a door that pretended she wasn’t there.
She let her eyes come back to the hatch.
The commbadge was a small, reassuring weight against her chest, both channels still live, a thin pair of threads tying this quiet stretch of deck to the beating heart of the ship. Riley adjusted her stance just enough to avoid locking her knees, still half a step off-center from the door, shoulders square, every line of her posture the picture of textbook professionalism.
Tomer’s less-than-stellar reputation lingered at the back of her mind—snatches of overheard conversation from the mess, the way some of the senior officers’ expressions had tightened when his name came up, the undercurrent of difficult man that followed him. It would have been easy to let that color everything: to decide he was simply refusing to answer, to treat this like a stubborn VIP playing games instead of a possible patient.
But that wasn’t her call to make.
Whether he’s difficult or not doesn’t matter, she told herself firmly. What matters is that if something’s wrong, you’re already in place and the right people are listening. If he’s fine and just being an ass, they can yell at you later. You can live with that. You can’t live with knowing you stood outside this door while he was on the deck inside it.
She focused on the details she could control: her breathing, even and measured; the feel of the deck under her boots; the faint vibration of the ship’s systems through the bulkhead at her back. She let her ears do the rest—one part of her listening to the faint hiss of open comm channels at her collar, another straining for any sound from beyond the VIP hatch. A thud, a groan, even a snapped, irritated “Go away” would have been something.
Instead, for the moment, there was only the hum of the ship, the weight of expectation, and the stubborn silence behind Tomer’s door as she waited for Medical or Security to answer and give her the next step.