Chain of Custody
Posted on Wed Jan 28th, 2026 @ 12:36am by Vice Admiral Max Flammia & Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
1,819 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Second Light
Location: Multiple
Sidra MacLaren did not rush the call.
She poured a fresh cup of coffee first, the second of the night, steam curling briefly before she carried it back to her desk. Her office lights were set low, the ambient glow tuned for late-cycle work rather than ceremony. With a quiet gesture, she disabled the one-way transparasteel that normally allowed her to look down into Fleet Operations. This was not a call that needed an audience, even a silent one.
She had served as Fleet Security Advisor for three different Starfleet subfleets over the course of her career. Long enough to know which calls could be routed through aides, and which ones belonged to her alone. Vice Admiral Max Flammia fell firmly into the latter category. They had crossed paths more than once over the years, sometimes in agreement, sometimes in opposition, always with the shared understanding that Fleet Security was a role that left very little room for comfort or delay.
Sidra set her mug down, squared her shoulders, and activated the secure channel. As the encryption handshake initiated, her thoughts flicked briefly to a detail she doubted Max would appreciate being reminded of tonight. His son was serving aboard the USS Arawyn. Not a vulnerability in itself, but in her line of work, awareness mattered. Especially now.
“Open encrypted subspace channel,” she said calmly. “Destination: Starfleet Security Command. Authenticate to Vice Admiral Max Flammia.”
The channel began to resolve.
Sidra waited, expression composed, ready to report a breach that was only just beginning to show its teeth.
It was late. Max was still in his office, catching up on reports as the San Francisco evening settled in around Starfleet Command. Beyond the windows, the city glowed softly beneath a veil of fog, bridges traced in light as if floating above a bay that refused to fully reveal itself.
It was peaceful enough to forget that while the city slept, the Federation was being held together by people who didn’t. Beside him, steam rose lazily from a mug of hot raktajino. He glanced at it, tiredly noting it was his third cup of the night. At this rate, he might as well stay in the office; sleep was already a lost cause.
He set the padd down and pushed back from the desk, deciding this was as good a stopping point as any, and that he was done with the coffee. He had just started to stand when the console hidden in his desk chimed sharply, almost accusatory. Max huffed a quiet laugh at the timing and tapped the control panel. The large holographic display unfolded over his desk, and after a quick authentication sequence, Admiral MacLaren’s image resolved in the air before him
He took one look at Sidra’s face and exhaled through his nose. “Well,” he said, dry as vacuum, “that’s the expression people wear right before they tell me my evening’s about to get worse.”
Sidra did not smile, but there was a flicker of recognition in her eyes. Not amusement. Familiarity.
“I won’t pretend otherwise,” she said evenly. “This isn’t a courtesy call, and it isn’t something I’d send through channels.”
She shifted slightly, the movement restrained, deliberate. This was her office voice. Fleet Commander. Security.
“We’ve confirmed a breach at fleet level,” Sidra continued. “Not noisy. Not fast. The kind that waits. I’m calling you first because you and I both know what that usually means.”
She held his gaze through the projection, steady and unflinching.
“And because once I say the rest out loud, your evening is, in fact, over.”
If there was one thing that reliably irritated Max, it was how captains and admirals loved to circle a problem, describing its mood instead of its substance. They’d spend ten minutes building tension like it was a performance, when a single, well-chosen sentence would do. Brevity was a kindness, and too many people in command treated it like an optional luxury.
He could see the strain on McLaren’s face anyway. She wore stress the way seasoned officers did, controlled, precise, but impossible to fully hide.
Max leaned back in his chair, studying her through the projection. His expression was serious, thoughtful, already running through half a dozen ugly possibilities. A fleet-level breach was a wide net; it could mean almost anything, and none of it was good.
He let out a slow breath through his nose and inclined his head slightly toward the screen.
“Admiral McLaren,” he said evenly, “forgive my bluntness, but the sooner you tell me how fucked we are, the sooner my people and I can get started on unfucking the situation.”
Sidra narrowed her eyes at him, the instinctive flare of irritation rising before discipline pressed it back into place. For half a second, the edge of his phrasing grated. Then she recognized it for what it was.
Something she would have said herself.
A short breath left her, not quite a laugh, but close enough to acknowledge the symmetry. “Fair,” she said quietly.
“Admiral Hawk isn’t compromised,” Sidra continued, referencing her earlier report relieving Indi of duty, the levity gone as quickly as it had appeared. “She was replaced. We confirmed the substitution today.”
She let that land before adding the word that mattered.
“Changeling.”
Sidra didn’t rush the explanation. She didn’t need to. The implications were already doing their work.
Her fingers tapped once against the desk, restrained. “I’ll transmit everything we have. Forensics, behavioral drift markers, access timelines. I’d like Starfleet Security to take point on that analysis so I can redirect my people and resources toward locating the original Hawk. Alive, if possible.”
She shifted, bringing the rest with her. “I’ve already issued guidance to Epsilon Fleet commanders and initiated a controlled lockdown of Starbase 369. Access trees are frozen where they need to be, movement is constrained without causing panic, and no one outside need-to-know has been told why.”
Sidra met his gaze squarely through the projection.
“After five years of nothing,” she said evenly, “they’re back. And this time, they weren’t probing the door. They were already inside.”
“Changeling,” Max repeated, the word settling heavily as the full weight of it clicked into place. His gaze drifted to the window, to the San Francisco skyline glowing faintly across the bay. So much for a quiet night, so much for several, most likely.
He frowned. “Admiral, I’ll have my people handle the analysis. Do we have any indication of this changeling’s objective?”
Even as he asked, his mind was already moving ahead: fleet-wide security protocols, alerts to the Federation Council, advisories for planetary governments. Maybe it was isolated. But the cost of being wrong was far too high to gamble on that.
Sidra inclined her head slightly. “Most of what’s moved through that access so far has been logistics,” she said. “Fleet readiness reports. Deployment schedules. Supply chain prioritization. Nothing overtly tactical, but enough to build a clear picture of how quickly we can move and where we’re thin.”
Her mouth tightened a fraction. “Epsilon Fleet’s recent focus has been Tavrik. That material was absolutely in scope.”
She did not voice the question that followed. Tavrik had escalated too quickly, and the Vethari’s confidence had been striking. Either they had adapted at an alarming pace, or they had been operating with information they should not have had.
“I can’t draw a straight line yet,” Sidra continued evenly. “But the tempo of Vethari action doesn’t match our projections. It feels informed.”
She shifted slightly, grounding the next point. “I’m also not convinced Hawk was the only substitution. There’s no proof of that yet, but I don’t trust the idea that this stopped with one successful insertion.”
Her gaze held steady. “That’s why I pushed stepped-up security protocols fleet-wide and tightened transporter and movement logs across Epsilon. Nothing overt enough to spook anyone, but enough to create pressure. If there are others, the pattern break will surface. Soon.”
She paused, then answered his question directly.
“At this stage, we don’t have a confirmed objective,” Sidra said. “But this doesn’t read as disruption. It reads as preparation. Mapping us. Measuring response time. Identifying leverage points.”
Sidra exhaled slowly. “I’ll forward the full access breakdown, with Tavrik-related traffic flagged. If your people take the forensic analysis, mine can keep pushing outward. I’d rather assume this is connected and be wrong than miss the chance to see it while we still have room to maneuver.”
The implication lingered, unspoken but clear.
If they waited for certainty, they would already be behind.
“That’s would be a significant escalation,” Max said evenly.
The idea that the Combine would go to the trouble of planting a changeling made his blood run hot, but it didn’t show. He let the anger bleed off in a slow breath through his nose. Between the Free State stirring up trouble in Federation space and now this, the board was getting crowded.
“I think it goes without saying, Admiral, that you have Command’s full confidence to handle this as you see fit. I’ll have my team start analyzing everything you send over. We’ll brief the CinC once we have a working assessment.”
He gave a small, tight nod. “And if Epsilon needs additional assets, we’ll do what we can. You know as well as I do the fleet’s stretched thin, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Sidra inclined her head once in acknowledgment.
“Appreciated,” she said simply.
She shifted her weight slightly, one hand resting against the edge of her desk. “I’ll transmit the full packet as soon as it clears encryption. If your team spots anything that reframes this faster than my people can, I want to know immediately.”
A brief pause, then a trace of dry humor edged in, restrained but unmistakable. “And if Admiral Shran decides to go ballistic once he’s looped in, I’d appreciate a little warning.”
Her gaze remained steady. “I’d prefer to have my footing before that particular gravity well asserts itself.”
The words were light, but the request beneath them was not.
“Well,” Max said, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at his mouth, “if Shran goes ballistic, at least there’s plenty of empty space between you and the blast radius. Good luck, Admiral.”
The screen folded away, leaving only the quiet hum of his office. He stared for a moment at the empty air where the projection had been, thoughts already moving three steps ahead. After a few seconds, he tapped his commbadge.
[ End ]
Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
Fleet Commander
Epsilon Fleet
&
Vice Admiral Maximillian Flammia
Director of Starfleet Security
Starfleet Command
RSS Feed