FYI: This story is now also available on ao3 under the same name

"How did you-", Admiral Ar'alani glared at the Doctor as he slowly got out of the box. No man his age and size should be able to huddle himself into that small a space, she thought. Her glare moved over to Fenia as she scoldingly asked: "Is this your doing? Did you smuggle him on board?"

Fenia's eyes shot wide open at the accusation, her heart starting to race as she apologetically stated: "No ma'am. I'd never take anyone on a mission without your explicit permission. Besides, how did he get here anyway? All the boxes are scanned before they're loaded onto a shuttle."

It was time for the subject of the discussion himself to talk, his smirk grew a little more even though Wutroow still held a Charric to his forehead: "I offered Fenia to help her pack her things before she left for the launch bay. I slipped one of her handheld medical scanners into my pocket because I knew they used the same type of radiation that the scanners for food crates would use. So I modified it to neutralize some electromagnetic waves that were projected onto the crate and enhance others, and voila, one Doctor looks like 200 packages of MREs." He took the scanner out of his pocket and gave it back to Fenia with a chuckle.

Ar'alani's eyes narrowed on the stranger further: "How did you get past the guards stationed outside the sickbay doors?" "Easy," the Doctor remarked with a nod, "Venusian aikido. The Venusian nuns I learned it from were experts at pressure points of all humanoid species. A slight one-finger touch on each of their shoulders and they sleep for enough time for me to slip away."

The Admiral remained stern, but she couldn't fully hide how impressed she was: "So you stowed away in our food crate. And what exactly are we supposed to eat while on our mission?"

The Doctor simply stated with confidence that, in Ar'alani's ears, sounded more like recklessness: "Oh, I'm sure that a secret outpost this size has some food in it. And with me on board, we'll probably solve whatever there is to solve in a short enough amount of time that we'll be back on the Vigilant in time for tea."

"What makes you think that we'll take you with us onto the station?", the Admiral asked with barely disguised anger in her voice, "This is a Chiss mission on a Chiss secret base. No chance we'll take a stranger with us on it."

"I mean, he has proven himself scientifically capable now, to be fair," Wutroow admitted and even put her Charric back into the holster. "And in all honesty, if he gets on board here that easily, what makes us think he won't get off board just as easily? Better we take him with us instead of letting him be an ungimbaled laser all on his own."

"Fair point," Ar'alani admitted, Wutroow's point and the humour she put into it calming her down somewhat, "We'll let you come with us, but don't you dare do anything to jeopardize the mission."

The doctor gave a firm nod with a bright smile: "You won't be disappointed. We'll get this problem solved in no time. What even is the problem?"

"I've been asking myself the same thing," Wutroow added, nodding while tapping herself onto the chin, "How exactly are we gonna do a secret mission if it's so secret we don't even know it?"

Ar'alani took a breath and started explaining: "People disappear under mysterious circumstances at this research station. And we're supposed to stop whatever takes them away."

Wutroow's eyes widened at what could just take people from such a Well-hidden and likely also well-defended research station. Fenia just nodded along while trying to do a neutral face, in reality, she was even more worried than before. The Doctor's smirk meanwhile lit up even more brightly: "Ahh. A good old missing person mystery. Exciting, isn't it?"

Without another word, they continued to the research station.

At the station, they were greeted by a Chiss man with a neutral expression, although he couldn't quite hide his worry: "Greetings, Admiral. I'm Senior Commander Wuproma, head of station security at Trenim Advanced Energy Research Base. This is Professor Takomin, our head of research." "Wait, why in the stars have you brought along a human?" His voice grew immediately more hostile as he saw the Doctor step out of the Shuttle.

"First of all, I'm no human, I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor objected firmly and raised his head confidently, "Second of all, I'm your best chance of getting this problem fixed, so it shouldn't matter in the slightest what my species is."

Wutroow raised her brow at the term 'Time Lord', wanting to ask whether he was serious but deciding against it. It sounded more like a pompous title to the ninth factorial than a species to her, but she knew he had to make a point so that the average Chiss would accept him. If nothing else he was an interesting change of pace, so she'd not stand in his way.

Ar'alani wanted to ram her forehead into the nearest bulkhead but held back and instead explained diplomatically: "The Doctor is a very skilled scientist. I am sure he will be a valuable asset to this investigation."

Wuproma sighed but nodded: "Very well. If he has your trust he shall also have mine. Come along, I will show you the security recordings of the disappearances." Meanwhile, Ar'alani suppressed a sigh of her own, it still rubbed her the wrong way to have a perfect stranger along for the mission. For a split second, she even considered if shoving the Doctor out of the next airlock would be the best option, but he was simply too interesting a mystery to discard like that.

At a display on the wall, Wuproma showed them the recordings from the most recent disappearance. "Every hour and a half a new crew member disappears," he explained with a furrowed brow, "And this is the only thing that the cameras show while it happens." He clicked on the screen a final time to play the recording. A young woman was seen on the recording, putting one of the Kyber crystals under a scanner and starting to use a device that filed off pieces from it. Suddenly, the footage started to get static, and it just got worse and worse. After a while, no one could see anything on the screen anymore, then it went back to normal. The only thing different was that the small, cylindrical electrical file the woman used was lying on the floor while she was nowhere to be seen.

Wuproma's head sank as he explained: "Every hour and thirty minutes on the dot. Another person is missing. We are the only officers left. All others remaining are just a few junior warriors and scientists. Whoever is doing this went for the higher ranking crew members first, with few outliers."

"Few outliers, you say?", The Doctor asked, the emphasis being on few, "I always find that the outliers usually reveal the most interesting parts of someone's or something's intentions."

The Chiss officer shrugged: "We couldn't find any discernible pattern except for higher-ranking people generally disappearing sooner. I don't know why we are still here, being the very most high-ranking, nor do I know why some junior crew members met this mysterious fate sooner."

"We're forgetting something even more important here", Ar'alani cut in, "You claimed that these disappearances happened every hour and a half. When will the next one be?"

"Excellent question", Takomin admitted and hastily reached for his chrono, his face growing pale as he looked at it, "Exactly… Four minutes and two seconds on the dot." The thought terrified him. The fewer and fewer people were at the station, the more likely whatever took the rest took him next.

"No worries, Professor.", The Admiral tried to reassure him, firmly grasping his shoulder, "The Expansionary Defense Fleet is here now. We will deal with whatever there is." The professor took deep, deliberate breaths and calmed once more.

"Wutroow, Wuproma." Ar'alani called out the order, "Defensive positions. Whatever wants to get us is going to get the fight of a lifetime." The officers she called out to nodded. Ar'alani, Wutroow and Wuproma went into a triangular formation, charrics pointed outward. Takomin stood in the centre; since he had neither a sidearm nor military training, he couldn't really help there. Fenia felt massively out of place and didn't know where to stand. She had a charric on her, but Ar'alani didn't call on her to join their formation, nor did she have the level of military training the others had. Thinking about it, why didn't the Admiral tell her to join? Did she because she knew that she had little training in that, or did she already suspect her qualms about killing?

The Doctor, meanwhile, leaned against one of the crystal-clad walls lazily and swept the room with his scrutinising gaze. "That's typical, isn't it?" He stated sarcastically, "Oh, there's an unknown thing that takes people away; let's try to shoot it. No imagination." He then turned to Takomin: "If you want us to help, we'll need information. What exactly is the nature of the research done here?"

"All kinds. Most of it is partially classified even to me." the Professor admitted, "Research here is so secret that no one person is allowed anything beyond a need-to-know basis. Even me as the head researcher. However, all focus on crystals in the asteroid field. Weapons, defences, drive systems. Who knows? Rather much can be done with crystals that actually generate energy!"

"Channel", the Doctor corrected again, in a rather surprised, d tone "I didn't think I'd have to tell a scientist like you that."

Takomin shook his head: "No. That's precisely what's so perplexing about them. They violate all of thermodynamics. If you put energy into them, they evidently spit out vastly greater quantities."

The Doctor's brows furrowed. He thought about the things he read about this particular galaxy before he got there. Suddenly, he smirked from an epiphany: "Aha! The Force. I've read about it. A rather peculiar feature of this galaxy. An energy field surrounding everything here. If you pump enough power into one such crystal, it might start to channel it alongside the power put in. Thus making it appear as if there were more output than input!"

"The Force?", Ar'alani asked, her attention now fully on the Doctor. She narrowed her eyes again: "Senior Captain Thrawn said that's what some people in Lesser Space could harness. He assumed it was connected to… Another phenomenon of importance to the Chiss Ascendancy." She bit her tongue before mentioning Third Sight in front of a stranger. Still, she took a mental note of it. This elusive 'Force' had its hand in too many situations over the past few years for her to ignore.

"'Lesser Space'?", The Time Lord chuckled at the term, "Now that's just peak Chiss xenophobia, isn't it? This space is easier to navigate! What shall we call it? 'Practical Space'? 'Convenient space'? No! We aren't in it, so let's call it 'Lesser Space'!"

Wutroow couldn't hold back a snort. He was kind of right, she thought. This was exactly the kind of hubris she'd usually call out with her sarcasm. But she'd never thought about it, she was always raised with the terms 'Chaos' and 'Lesser Space'. There was no more time for her to think about this anymore as the chrono rang, the signal that another person was about to be taken.

Ar'alani saw it. "Here!", she shouted. A light coming from the walls. Swirling. A semi-translucent blob of light in all colours of the rainbow and then some came through the wall. The entity came closer. All three Chiss warriors shot at it, to no avail. Fenia also briefly reached for her sidearm, but decided against it seeing as it was useless anyway. The supercharged microwave radiation of their charrics blew through the entity without even holding it back as it crept towards them. Ever closer.

Hehe, left y'all with a cliffhanger there.