Alfred had looked up instinctively at the noise, even though he knew it hadn’t come from that direction, and frowned at the cloudless sky. “Nothing good,” he muttered to himself, though likely far too quietly for any of the people around to hear. There were more people on deck than he would have liked, for something mysterious to be going on, but it was still just after the dinner hour and he couldn’t really begrudge anyone a chance to get out from their crowded rooms while the sky still held some light and the wind hadn’t turned quite so icy yet. Still — whatever was making that noise was unnatural, and he didn’t like that it seemed to be so close to his ship, and if he was going to have to deal with something strange he hardly wanted to do it while trying to navigate between healers and bloody debutantes.

“You might get belowdecks,” he called to the woman nearby, as he turned and made his way back towards the quarterdeck, intending to tell the officer of the watch to unroll a few more feet of sail to give them a little extra speed. Whatever was going on around them, Alfred wanted no part of it. He had just reached the ladderwell when the Voyager lurched beneath him, and Alfred’s eyes widened. They hadn’t hit something — he’d reviewed the charts himself before he’d told them to make reports to the quartermaster, and he knew exactly where they were. There was nothing here for them to have hit. No, something had hit them.

“Get your wands about you,” Alfred ordered the stragglers on deck. He didn’t know what this was, but it couldn’t have been good. “But don’t do anything stupid with them,” he added almost as an afterthought — the last thing he needed was some panicky woman blasting a hole in his damn ship.