Time Waits for No One

Posted on Mon Sep 7th, 2026 @ 4:40pm by Lieutenant Taras Mikovich
Edited on on Mon Sep 21st, 2026 @ 10:44am

1,740 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Initial Conditions
Location: USS Acacallis & Denobula
Timeline: 2180

Lieutenant Taras Mikovich preferred listening to people who didn't know they were being heard. It was one of the reasons he had fallen in love with communications.

The bridge of the USS Acacallis was quieter than usual. Most of the senior staff, including Captain Elias Mercer, had beamed down to Denobula to oversee what many were calling one of the defining diplomatic moments of the young Federation. Representatives from dozens of worlds had gathered as Denobula prepared to formally sign the Articles of Admission, bringing one of humanity's oldest allies into the United Federation of Planets.

From orbit, Taras monitored the web of subspace traffic surrounding the ceremony. This included, but was not limited to the civilian broadcasts, planetary control chatter, Starfleet security channels, and some frequencies that caught medical calls, and the diplomatic communications.

Thousands of voices crossed one another every other second at times, becoming living symphony of organized chaos. This, however, was what separated the average person from communications officers because communications officers could tune out the noise, and hear beneath it all.

To Taras, all the noise was almost rhymical as though it were music. His fingers danced across the console as though it were a soundboard. He could isolate transmissions almost unconsciously.

What was out there among all the noise? A Bolian journalist requesting another interview. An Andorian security detail confirming patrol routes, and a Denobulan physician asking for additional medical supplies.

It was routine. Most of it was rather predictable. It was a lullaby of safety. All of it was smooth sounding until something scratched across his earpiece like an old scratched up record skipping. He shot forward in his seat.

"...'hve...eih...trhae..."

Taras frowned. The signal disappeared beneath a burst of civilian communications before reappearing several seconds later. He leaned forward and cuffed his hand around his earpiece.

"...mnhei...s'en...khre..."

He replayed it again. It was distorted and compressed. It was almost as though someone had intentionally buried it beneath other frequencies to mask it.

"Commander?" Taras said calling attention to his station.

The officer overseeing the communications section glanced over.

"What is it?" asked his superior officer.

"Sir, I've got an odd transmission" reported Taras.

"Relax. It is probably just some interference" the commander said.

"Maybe" replied Taras with a short sigh of frustration. He was used to not being taken seriously. Taras was not as convinced about it just being interference, and it was evident in his tone.

The commander approached and then leaned over his shoulder, listened for several moments, then shrugged. "That sounds Vulcan to me."

Taras looked up at the commander unconvinced. The Commander had no background in Communications. They were not a trained linguist. To an untrained ear, it probably sounded Vulcan. "Sure, but our universal translator software isn't parsing it as it should with typical Vulcan." That was factual. That was logical.

"The software is newer, and there's a lot of chatter going on right now....It happens. Heavy interference" dismissed the commander. Taras was unimpressed.

The commander then clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't chase ghosts, Lieutenant Mikovich." He moved away.

Taras continued staring at the waveform. Something bothered him. It was not the distortion, but the cadence of it. Vulcan was measured. It was precise, and it sounded logical. It was as boring as Vulcans were.

This language felt... Sharper and arguably almost musical if he were to try to describe it to someone. It was not any Vulcan he had ever heard on his lifetime, and he had heard Vulcan spoken from clerics to farmers.

He isolated another fragment.

"...ehn trhai...senh..."

Again.

Again.

Again.

He began writing the sounds phonetically on a nearby padd. Eventually, hours had passed. He was not making much progress with it other than determining it was not any dialect of modern Vulcan he could find.

The ceremony preparations continued below while Taras compared the fragments against Starfleet's linguistic databases. Of the several dozen modern regional dialects of the Vulcan language he criss referenced, none of them matched.


He then consulted Ancient Vulcan dialects. Again, no match.

Taras then dug into Pre-Reformation texts that dated as far back as he could go. Close. He was finally close to something, but not quite close enough.


His pulse quickened. Taras then requested archived linguistic material dating back before the Time of Awakening. These were obsolete records, just fragments recovered from archaeological expeditions. Languages that were considered to be extinct.

One entry stopped him cold. Rihannsu. The ancestral language of those Vulcans who had rejected Surak's teachings and vanished centuries earlier. The people history now called Romulans.

Taras enlarged the comparison. The grammar fit. The sentence structure fit. Several recurring words matched almost perfectly.

His mouth went dry. He translated the clearest sequence yet now that he had something to draw from.

"...device..."

Another word.

"...council..."

And another fragmented series of words.

"...when they gather..."

His breathing became shallow.

"No..."

He replayed everything to be sure, or as sure as he could be. One final phrase emerged from the distortion that changed everything for him.

"...detonate upon confirmation."

Taras was already on his feet, and he would have knocked his chair over had it not been bolted and welded to the decking.

The First Officer looked up as he approached.

"Lieutenant Mikovich?"

"The transmission. It is not Vulcan."


The commander sighed. "We've discussed this, Lieutenant..."

"It's Romulan."

The whole area around them grew quiet.

The First Officer folded his arms. "That's quite a claim to make, Lieutenant."

Taras glared. "Well, I've checked every linguistic database we have. It was not Vulcan, at least not as we know it."

"The Romulans haven't been active in..."

"I know. Decades. Since the War."

"And yet somehow they're transmitting beneath planetary communications?"

Taras handed him the padd.

"I think they're planning an attack, Sir. No, not think... know. I know that they are planning some sort of attack."

The commander skimmed the notes before handing them back.

"This is speculative."

"I translated enough to identify references to an explosive device."

"You translated fragments."

"I know what I heard."

"No."

The First Officer's voice hardened.

"You know what you think you heard."

Taras felt frustration rising.

"The captain is on the surface."

"So are hundreds of security personnel."

"We need to warn him."

"We need evidence."

"There isn't time."

"There also isn't enough proof to interrupt one of the most significant diplomatic ceremonies in Federation history."

Taras stared.

"You aren't going to inform him."

"I am not."

The conversation was over. Or it should have been. Instead Taras turned and walked directly to Main Engineering. Chief Engineer Malcolm Keene listened silently as Taras explained everything.

When he finished, Keene scratched his beard.

"You really believe this?"

"I do."

"And if you're wrong?"

"I'll probably lose my commission, but that is worth the risk. If I am right about this..."

Keene smiled faintly. "You'll have saved a lot of lives."

The engineer looked toward the transporter room.

"Well..."

He stood.

"I've always hated paperwork."

Minutes later they materialized inside an unused service corridor beneath the Denobulan Assembly Hall.

Unauthorized.

Undetected.

Very much violating Starfleet regulations.

Keene scanned the structural supports.

"Nothing."

Taras activated a portable communications analyzer.

The mysterious transmission grew stronger.

He followed it through maintenance passages until they reached a concealed access panel behind the main assembly chamber.

"There."

Behind the panel sat a compact device unlike anything Taras had ever seen.

Smooth.

Dark.

Elegant.

Not built by any Federation world.

Keene's face paled.

"That's real."

"Can you stop it?"

The engineer knelt immediately, opening his toolkit.

"I don't know," replied Keene. Taras knew it was serious when Keene was not willing to pluck a speculative number from the air.

"How long?"

He examined the unfamiliar circuitry.

"Not long enough."

Taras looked toward the ceiling.

Above them sat hundreds of delegates. The captain. Denobula's leadership. History itself.

Keene looked up.

"I need five minutes."

A shrill tone emerged from the device.

He swallowed.

"I've got maybe two."

Taras made his decision.

He flipped open his communicator.

"Mikovich to Assembly Security."

Static.

He switched frequencies.

"This is Lieutenant Taras Mikovich of the USS Acacallis."

His voice echoed through emergency channels.

"Immediate evacuation! This is not a drill! There is an explosive device beneath the central assembly chamber! Evacuate everyone immediately!"

Chaos erupted overhead.

Footsteps thundered.

Shouting.

Security officers demanding explanations.

Delegates fleeing toward exits.

Keene never looked away from the device.

"I almost have it..."

The timer accelerated.

Taras grabbed his shoulder.

"We're leaving."

"Go."

"I'm not leaving you," replied Taras. "I can't"

"You don't have a choice, Lieutenant. Go. That is a direct order!" Keene smiled sadly.

"Somebody has to buy them another thirty seconds, and that somebody is me today."

Taras hesitated. Every instinct screamed at him to stay. Instead he did the hardest thing he had ever done. He ran.

The last delegates were pouring from the assembly hall as Taras burst through a side entrance.

He spotted Captain Mercer helping a Denobulan elder toward safety.

Their eyes met.

Confusion then relief.

Then the world disappeared in white light. The explosion threw Taras across the plaza.

Glass mixed with stone and steel. Everything became sound and fire.

When he regained consciousness, smoke billowed from what remained of the assembly hall.

Emergency responders raced toward the wreckage.

Dozens lay injured.

Others...

Did not move.

Captain Mercer knelt beside him. "What happened?"

Taras stared at the burning ruins. "Romulans."

It was barely a whisper.

The captain followed his gaze.

"The Chief Engineer?"

Taras closed his eyes. "He stayed behin, Sir."

Captain Mercer placed a hand on Taras' shoulder. Mercer was saying something comforting and reassuring, about heroics, but Taras wasn't listening.

He could still hear the transmission. It was buried beneath thousands of innocent voices. It had been ignored. He had been dismissed. It had almost been too late.

Years later, when fellow officers asked why Lieutenant Taras Mikovich trusted his instincts over consensus, he would simply answer:

"Because once, I heard something that everyone else thought was nothing."

He never forgot the engineer who believed him when no one else would. Nor the terrible truth that sometimes being right carried a cost measured not in commendations, but in names engraved on a memorial wall.

---

Lieutenant Taras Mikovich
Second Officer & Chief Communications Officer
USS Eventide

 

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