Excluded

Posted on Mon Jan 19th, 2026 @ 8:49am by Commander Rylen Lyo
Edited on Mon Jan 19th, 2026 @ 8:55am

564 words; about a 3 minute read

Encryption protocol Lyo Five. Restrict access to level nine personnel and above.

Begin Personal Log.

Why was I kept out of the loop?

That question has been circling my thoughts since Capt. Lorut departed the Intrepid, and no amount of professional composure has managed to silence it. This was not oversight. This was intention.

Starfleet does not move captains without preparation—especially not competent ones, and certainly not without informing the executive officer. I have stood on the other side of that process. I know the choreography. This was something else. So I am left to inventory the possibilities. None of them are comforting.

The most obvious explanation is Krios Prime.

The situation there has deteriorated faster than official channels admit. Jarna’s rule grows more authoritarian by the month, and my name—my family name—is not neutral in that context. I have been careful. Meticulous, even. I have not spoken publicly. I have not acted. But Starfleet does not require action to grow wary; mere potential is often enough. A Kriosian noble in a senior command position, emotionally compromised by a collapsing regime at home, may look like a liability on a risk assessment matrix.

If Command believes my loyalty might fracture under pressure, this would be exactly how they would respond: limit my visibility, narrow my access, place someone above me who answers directly to them. Captain Ambrose fits that profile uncomfortably well.

Then there is Max.

The rumors are insubstantial—unverified intelligence, sensor ghosts, a pattern of seemingly unrelated anomalies that almost form a shape if one squints hard enough. Officially, he was declared missing. Unofficially… Starfleet has learned that I do not accept official answers easily when they contradict the evidence in front of me.

Do they think I would abandon my post? Go rogue on some half-baked mission driven by grief and unresolved loyalty? Perhaps they are not wrong to consider the possibility. I have imagined it often enough in quieter moments. But imagining is not acting, and Starfleet Command should know me well enough to understand the difference—or they used to. Unless that trust has already eroded.

What unsettles me most is not that they acted without informing me. It is that they acted as if I were a variable to be managed rather than an officer to be trusted. Lorut never treated me that way. She challenged me, yes—but she never doubted my judgment or my restraint. I wonder how much notice she had; if was ordered not to warn me. If her sudden reassignment was as much about removing her as it was about containing me.

Captain Ambrose watches carefully. I can feel it. She has not said or done anything overt—but then, neither has Starfleet. Not yet, at least. If this is a test, I intend to pass it. I will not give them the satisfaction of confirming their suspicions—whatever those suspicions may be. I will perform my duties flawlessly. I will remain where I am needed.

But I will also observe. Quietly. Relentlessly. If Starfleet has begun to see me as a risk, then I need to understand why. And if they believe I am capable of reckless action…they should remember that recklessness has never been my flaw.

It is patience that has always been my danger.

End Log Entry.

 

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