A Bad Ticker....

Zedd was in the ready room when the chime sounded. He had been reviewing Lindsy's latest route projections on the desk console, more out of habit than anything else. The holographic paths glowed faint blue, looping and branching across nearby systems, each one ending in the same quiet dead space.

"Enter," he said.

The door slid open and Mei-Lin stepped inside with a PADD tucked under her arm. She looked composed in the way that only came after hours of uninterrupted work, clean coveralls, hair still tied back, posture relaxed but alert. She paused just long enough to read the room before meeting his eyes.

"You wanted to see me?"

Zedd nodded toward the chair across from him. "Yeah, sit down."

She did and set the PADD between them without any ceremony about it.

"I've been going back over the core and the computer together," she said. "Not the surface numbers, the way they interact with each other."

Zedd leaned back slightly. "And?"

"The warp core can still give us power," she said. "Short runs, controlled loads. But the injectors are compensating unevenly and the matrix doesn't like being pushed. If we try to hold higher warp for too long the system starts correcting itself in ways that add stress instead of relieving it."

She tapped the PADD once and kept going.

"Normally the computer would smooth that out. It would predict the drift, adjust early, keep the load balanced. Ours can't do that. It hesitates, and by the time it reacts the core is already compensating on its own."

Zedd frowned at that. "So they're fighting each other."

"Not fighting," Mei-Lin said. "Missing each other. Just enough to matter."

Silence settled in for a moment.

"How tight does that box get?" he asked.

"Tighter the farther we go," she said. "The longer we stay at warp the more the mismatch builds up. You won't see alarms right away, you'll see little things first. Navigation corrections lagging, power draws spiking where they shouldn't. Then one day the core decides it's had enough of it."

Zedd turned slightly and looked out the viewport. New Ferenginar rolled beneath them, all bright lights and busy lanes.

"And locally?" he asked.

"We can manage," she said. "Short hops, careful routing. But the computer's limits mean we don't get much warning if conditions change. Bad plasma weather, unexpected mass shadows, anything that forces a recalculation. We react late and late reactions cost margin."

He exhaled slowly. "So we're boxed in by two systems that are barely tolerating each other."

"Yes," she said. "And both problems point to the same fix. Better control of the core or a computer that can actually keep up with it. Ideally both."

"And neither is easy to come by."

Mei-Lin nodded at that. "That's where it gets uncomfortable. I've been watching the traffic and supply channels since I came aboard and nobody's advertising those parts. Nobody's even complaining about not having them, which is the part that bothers me. It's like they vanished without leaving a ripple."

Zedd looked back at her. "That doesn't sit right."

"No it doesn't," she agreed. "When shortages happen naturally people talk about it. They argue, they lie badly about what they have. This feels cleaner than that."

The silence stretched out again, heavier this time.

"If we stay close," Zedd said, "we're safe."

"Safer," she corrected him. "But stalled."

"And if we don't?"

Mei-Lin took a second before answering. "Then we start trusting a core that can't be properly managed by a computer that reacts too slowly. That's how ships drift into trouble without realizing they've already crossed a line."

Zedd nodded once at that.

"I brought the maintenance units online," he said. "They'll take some pressure off engineering."

"That helps," she said. "It buys us time. It just doesn't tell us where to spend it."

She stood and gathered her PADD off the desk.

"I'll keep watching," she added. "The core, the computer, the supply channels. Sometimes patterns only show up if you stare at them long enough."

"I trust your judgment," Zedd said.

She paused at the door for a second. "Then let's hope it's enough."

The door slid shut behind her and Zedd stayed where he was, looking at the holographic routes still drifting across his console.