Cargo Bay 12 (Parallax version)

Cargo Bay 12 was not supposed to hum.

It was supposed to sit quietly in the aft section of the USS Rancho Cucamonga, a forgotten cathedral of crates and diplomatic leftovers. The crew's nickname came from how almost everything inside the bay represented a moment when Starfleet had said, in one form or another, we’re very sorry about that.

Ensign Talia Rourke waited just inside the hatch, listening.

The hum wasn’t loud. It was a polite, persistent vibration that traveled through the soles of her boots and up her spine. The cargo bay lights were dimmed to storage levels, painting the stacked containers in soft amber. Labels glowed faintly: CULTURAL EXCHANGE – FRAGILE, WEATHER ENGINE – DO NOT ACTIVATE.

Talia tapped her combadge. “Cargo Bay 12 to Ops. I’m getting an unusual resonance down here.”

A beat of static. Then the ship’s computer chimed in its cheerful cadet-voice. “Candygram for ‘Monga!”

Talia closed her eyes. “Yes, thank you. Unusual resonance. Possible power bleed from stored artifacts.”

Lieutenant Commander Bristow answered this time, his voice tight with bridge-level patience. “Copy that, Ensign. We’re not routing any power to Cargo 12. Can you localize the source?”

She moved a bit deeper into the bay. The hum grew stronger near a pedestal in the center, where the Diplomatic Weather Engine sat under a transparent containment field. Inside the field, a tiny cloud rotated lazily over a polished metal disk. A drizzle of miniature rain tapped against the barrier.

“Pretty sure it’s the Weather Engine,” Talia said. “It looks… active.”

“It is absolutely not supposed to be active,” Bristow replied. “Stand by. I’m on my way.”

As if offended by the accusation, the cloud inside the field darkened. A flicker of lightning snapped across its surface. The hum sharpened into a whine.

The containment field shimmered and failed.

The tiny cloud expanded with explosive enthusiasm. In the span of a heartbeat it filled the air above the pedestal, swelling to the size of a shuttlecraft. Rain burst outward in a cold sheet. Wind slammed into Talia and sent her tumbling into a stack of sealed crates.

The cargo bay alarms erupted.

“Bristow!” Talia shouted over the sudden storm. “The field’s down!”

“I can see that,” he said grimly. “We’re reading a localized atmospheric event. Can you reengage the field manually?”

Talia clawed her way back to the pedestal. The control panel sparked under her fingers, water running in bright rivulets across the interface. Another crack of lightning split the air, and for a surreal moment she smelled fresh-cut grass.

Then snow began to fall.

“Of course it did,” she muttered.

The storm shifted with manic speed. Rain turned to fat, silent flakes. The temperature plunged. Frost crawled across the nearest containers, etching patterns over warning labels and Starfleet inventory codes.

Bristow burst through the hatch with two engineering crew in tow. They stared at the swirling weather system, now cycling through seasons like a child flipping pages in a book.

“That’s new,” one engineer said weakly.

The cloud condensed, shrinking rapidly. For a hopeful second it seemed to be collapsing back into a manageable sphere. Then it split.

Three smaller clouds peeled away, each glowing with its own internal color. One burned with the gold of summer sunlight. Another churned with autumnal reds and browns. The third shimmered in icy blues.

They drifted apart and anchored themselves over different sections of the bay.

“Why is it multiplying?” Talia demanded.

Bristow scanned his tricorder. “The engine is trying to compensate for a containment failure by distributing its output. It’s… partitioning the weather.”

The summer cloud chose that moment to unleash a wave of humid heat. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of blooming flowers that had no business existing in a starship cargo hold. Vines sprouted from the seams of nearby crates, curling eagerly toward the light.

Across the bay, the autumn cloud whipped up a spiral of dry leaves. They skittered over the deck in a restless dance, piling against the base of a sealed black crate marked SECOND CONTACT INCIDENT — LEVEL 3 REVIEW.

The winter cloud exhaled a breath of pure cold. Ice spread in a glittering sheet, locking one engineer’s boots to the floor.

“Okay,” Bristow said, voice clipped. “New plan. We isolate each micro-season and reestablish containment one at a time.”

“And how do we do that?” Talia asked.

He offered a thin smile. “Carefully.”

They split up. Talia headed for the summer zone, wading through knee-high grass that had erupted in seconds. The air buzzed with insects. Somewhere, impossibly, a bird chirped.

She reached the pedestal’s auxiliary controls and rerouted power to a portable field generator. The device whined as it came online, projecting a shimmering dome around the summer cloud. The heat pressed against the barrier, then settled.

“One down,” she reported.

A shout echoed from the winter zone. Talia looked up in time to see the trapped engineer topple sideways, still frozen to the deck. Bristow slid across the ice toward him, slamming his own generator into place. The blue cloud resisted, flaring brighter. Frost crept up the inside of the dome before finally retreating.

“Two,” Bristow grunted.

That left autumn.

The red-brown cloud pulsed above the black crate. The leaves had formed a thick carpet, and the crate’s surface glowed faintly beneath them. Talia felt a prickle of unease.

“Commander,” she said slowly. “The autumn zone is interacting with the Level 3 crate.”

Bristow swore softly. “Do not open that crate.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” she said. “But it looks like the weather engine is.”

The crate’s seals hissed. A seam of light split its surface. The autumn cloud dipped lower, tendrils of swirling air probing the opening.

For a heartbeat, the entire cargo bay went silent.

Then the crate opened.

A column of darkness rose from within, dense and absolute. The autumn leaves froze midair, suspended around it like insects trapped in amber. The darkness twisted, resolving into the outline of a geometric sculpture that hurt to look at directly.

Talia felt a pressure behind her eyes, a whisper of offense without words.

Bristow staggered back. “That’s the Cultural Exchange Sculpture,” he breathed. “I thought it was secured on Deck Seven.”

“Apparently it wanted a change of scenery,” Talia said, her voice thin.

The sculpture rotated slowly. The suspended leaves ignited in a silent flare of color, then dissolved into sparks. The autumn cloud shrank, drawn inexorably into the artifact. Its glow seeped into the sculpture’s edges, which began to radiate a sullen crimson.

The remaining clouds trembled inside their domes.

“We need to shut down the Weather Engine completely,” Bristow said. “Now.”

Talia sprinted back to the central pedestal. The main controls flickered between icons representing sun, rain, snow, and wind. She slammed her palm onto the emergency cutoff.

Nothing happened.

“The engine’s locked out!” she shouted. “It’s in some kind of feedback loop with the sculpture.”

The geometric shape pulsed. A wave of emotion rolled through the bay: indignation, sharp and personal. Talia’s breath caught as a memory surfaced unbidden, every awkward apology she’d ever made compressed into a single, burning instant.

The sculpture was broadcasting.

Bristow forced himself upright. “All hands,” he rasped. “Focus on the generators. Reinforce the domes. We contain this, or we’re apologizing to the entire sector.”

The summer and winter clouds strained against their barriers, their colors bleeding toward the crimson glow. The air vibrated with the combined hum of alien technology and wounded pride.

Talia met Bristow’s eyes across the chaos. For a moment, the absurdity of it all broke through her fear: a starship brought to the brink by bad weather and hurt feelings.

“The Apology Locker,” she said shakily. “is living up to its name.”

Bristow managed a grim chuckle. “Let’s just hope we survive long enough to file the paperwork.”

The sculpture flared brighter. The domes flickered.

And the hum that had started it all rose to a deafening crescendo.

TO BE CONTINUED…