Your hands fumbled for the small manual tucked into your uniform pocket, the emergency lights making the text difficult to read. The thin plastisheet pages stuck together with nervous sweat as you flipped to the 'Priority Emergencies' section. A highlighted passage caught your eye: 'Apprentice Protocol 7-Alpha: During unidentified vessel encounters, all personnel must either report to assigned stations or nearest secure pod.'

The manual trembled in your grip as another proximity alert sounded. The words blurred before your eyes as you tried to recall Captain Veyra's orders versus the emergency protocol. A loud metallic groan echoed through the corridor as the ship's structural integrity field engaged with visible blue energy rippling along the walls.

Through the chaos, you spotted Chief Oren's broad silhouette pushing through panicked crew near the engineering hatch. His bronze mechanical arm caught the flashing red light as he bellowed orders. The scent of overheated plasma conduits grew stronger, mixing with the acrid tang of fear-sweat from the rushing crew. Your chrono now read 07:49 - officially late, but under circumstances no one could predict.

Suddenly, the abandoned data pad beside you flared to life with an incoming transmission. The screen displayed a distorted image of something massive just beyond the Astral Dawn's starboard bow - not quite a ship, not quite a natural phenomenon. The manual's warning about 'anomalous energy signatures' took on new meaning as the image flickered with impossible geometries.