The Centaur floated there in the emptiness of space, where the research station used to be before the Captain pulled the trigger to its destruction. The ship looked worse for wear, but aside from needing a new paint job and some more cosmetic work, the ship was buzzing with activity. The crew on board were working around the clock, repairing the remaining critical systems that were damaged in the battle with the IKS Shadriq, reconnecting major EPS power grids to restore power to other essential systems, as well as trying to get the regular interior lighting grid back online, while stuck with the backup lighting. It was dark inside, easy on the eyes maybe, but not when you’re trying to connect conduits and other electrical cords into the correct sockets, so everyone was working with palm lamps and other lighting equipment.

Outside the ship, were a few shuttles slowly scanning various sections of the saucer, triple checking for any exterior damage that the on board sensors and damage control systems didn’t report. One of the shuttles, had Captain Carter and Vakai on board as they had just finished inspecting the patch up job on the warp nacelle made by the Don S. Davis before they had left the system. The Don were taking the specialised teams they had on board to another system to deal with more occurrences of the Omega Molecules. The Centaur would go with them to assist with the scouting of the area, but for some reason, engineering has been unable to establish a stable warp field. So while main engineering went about checking and rechecking every component and system, the Captain and First Officer wanted to take a peek at the torpedo pod.

Vakai brought the shuttle close enough before enabling station keeping, so that the shuttle remained still while they stared out of the viewport, directly at the massive hole in the torpedo pod. “I don’t know what the Starfleet Engineers back in 2295 used to build this ship with, but if that hole was any bigger, we’d be missing some nacelle pylons, if not both of them.”

Carter sighed as he leaned back into his seat. “I haven’t seen the Centaur looking this bad in years. But you’re right. It could have been a lot worse.”

Vakai nodded, “It is too bad that the Don had to leave in a hurry after they fixed up our nacelle. But these…molecules?” Was really all Vakai knew, was that they were molecules, from what the Captain tried to explain to that race on that space station before blowing it up.

“They’re still appearing. And we still do not know why. At least…” Carter paused as he pulled out a padd from his side that he had stuffed there between him and the seat before they had left the shuttle bay to inspect. “Starfleet has not said much, but they sure like surprises.” He then handed the padd to Vakai.

Vakai frowned as he took the padd and began to skim over it before stopping and went back to the top to read it more slowly. “A battlefield promotion?”

Carter smiled, “I may be the Captain of the Centaur but ever since you came on board-”

“You left me in Command of the Centaur.” Vakai finished his sentence as he leaned back into his seat. “You did say you were mentoring me.”

Carter chuckled. “I did, didn’t I? I made sure Starfleet Command knew about it, as well as filed your reports and logs to them as well. So they knew you were in Command.”

“Until this…Omega Directive.” Vakai set the padd down on an empty space of the console controls before him.

Carter sighed and nodded his head. “Yeah. Until this started. But there is one other thing that Starfleet Command respects, and that’s you trusting in me and obeying my orders in this kind of situation.” Carter told him. “They know that this Directive is not easy for any crew, that you all have been taught in the Academy to not follow orders blindly, that if orders were to be unjust, you do what you feel is right.”

Vakai turned in his seat to look at Carter. “Except I wasn’t given the chance to do what was right when you fired on that station, Captain.”

Carter sighed again, turned in his seat to face Vakai and looked dead in the eyes. “I was not going to give the order to Gomo or to anyone else left on the Bridge, Commander. Like I told you. Once you make Captain, you will understand that what I did, had to be done and that is why I chose to fire the torpedoes, not order someone else to do it. Only I should have the death of those researchers on my conscience, not you or anyone else.”

Vakai sighed, “But as your First Officer, you shouldn’t have to bear with those lives on your conscience all by yourself.”

Carter smiled, “I do appreciate that, Number One.” He smirked, “But what is done is done. Now there is something else we need to discuss.”

Vakai raised a brow. “About?”

“What’s going on with you and Sivol?” Carter’s smile turned into a grin.

Vakai rolled his eyes as turned to face the controls. “We have not yet decided.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?! You tell me that you two had some…romantic relationship in that…what did you call it?”

“It was like a virtual reality, to me anyways. But it was also as if we were living the lives of completely different people on a completely different planet with incredible unique abilities. And yes, we did.” Vakai explained as he started to bring the shuttle about and slow their way across the ventral side of the saucer.

“Then why are you two even discussing it?” Carter asked.

“Because it…” Vakai paused, wanting to make sure he chose his words carefully before sighing again. “It was incredibly real. Living, eating, breathing, pain, touch, feeling and…”

“And?”

Vakai hit the station keeping button again, bringing the shuttle to a sudden halt right in front of the Centaur’s saucer section when he had been working on getting the shuttle to the shuttle bay. He turned his seat a full one eighty and got up. “We haven’t told anyone about this. Aside from me and Sivol, Ryker and Gomez are the only ones.”

Carter turned in his seat. “I kind of figured that out.”

Vakai stood there with his back facing Carter as he started to rub the bridge of his nose. “We had children. Me and Sivol did. Even Ryker and Gomez had children.”

Carter’s eyes grew and he leaned further back into his seat, as much as he could already anyways. “Wow. Thirty sum years in fifteen seconds, and you guys had children.”

Vakai lowered his hand from his face down to his side and looked up at the ceiling. “Kendra. Makail. Trexi. And Lexa.”

“Sounds like beautiful children to me.”

Vakai chuckled, “They were. I had never been so happy in my life until I saw the face of my first newborn. And her eyes…the way she looked up at me…” Vakai lowered his head and looked down at the open palm of his left hand, imagining Kendra’s newborn face as if he were still holding her little head in his hand. “Then every year, we had another and another and every single one was beautiful in their own way. I never felt so happy to be a father.”

“Then what is keeping you two from getting together?” Carter asked.

Vakai wiped his cheeks before turning around to face Carter. “Remember when I said that the being told us the world we experienced, the one that we had been…playing different lives in? That the being said, that world was a fantasy of Ryker’s?”

Carter slowly nodded his head. “Right. Something about Ryker having been so intrigued about the past history of humankind on Earth, that there used to be these…what were they?”

“Video games. Humans used to play a lot of video games, it was like a plague but it was one of the best forms of entertainment, something that the humans back then enjoyed whenever they came home from a long day at work or whatever it was they called it.” Vakai sighed, “The one that the being was referencing to, was what Ryker told us at the very beginning of when we started to play these new lives. Something called Final Fantasy. He said he made the world much like what Ryker had been thinking of, and so we all believed that the world we lived in for over thirty years…was nothing but Ryker’s fantasy.”

Carter got the look on his face that he was beginning to understand. “So…you and Sivol think that, if you two were to get together…that those children you two had together…wouldn’t be the same, is that it?”

Vakai walked over back to the pilot seat and sat back down. “We were both made to look human. We didn’t have our racial features, our pointy ears. Hell, Sivol was able to experience full control of her emotions for the first time in her life and she was able to do it for over thirty years and now that she has had that kind of experience…she has been diving into her emotions more and more than she’s ever had as a Vulcan. The children we had, they all appeared human. But now…we’re back to who we are, to what we are. I know that Vulcans and Romulans are nearly identical with obvious differences, aside from our facial features. But we know for a fact, that if we had children, they will never be the same from the ones we had in that…fantasy.”

Carter nodded his head slowly. “And you two miss them…don’t you?”

Vakai groaned as he leaned back into his seat. “I miss them every single day, every single minute…every single second of my life, I miss them. Even if it was a fantasy, it was so god damn real.”

Carter raised his brows. “Haven’t heard you use the lords name in vain before.”

Vakai rolled his eyes.

Carter leaned forward and patted Vakai’s knee. “I get it, son. I do. I mean…well I’m not a father myself, but I do hope to be some day, whenever me and the Doc decide to retire and settle down.”

Vakai sat up in his seat and looked at Carter with wide eyes. “You and Doctor Pearce?”

Carter chuckled heavily as he leaned back into his seat with a nod of his head. “Yup. Me and the Doc got a thing.”

Vakai’s eyes went back and forth, trying to think of moments of them being together, to see if there was any sort of hint. “I had no idea.”

Carter laughed, “It’s not like we broadcast it all over the ship, you know. But yes, me and Doctor Summer Pearce had been on board the Centaur since we were young Ensigns. When she became the Chief Medical Officer, I became the First Officer. Now I Command, and she still gives me orders.” He chuckled then sighed in content. “But me and her have had such long…great great years together. I don’t know how much longer I plan on staying in Command, Vakai. I’ll probably still be, even when you make it to Captain and take command of your very own starship. But mentoring another? After you, I am not sure if I will have it in me anymore.” He turned in his seat and looked at the Centaur. “And she’s an old girl too. I know it in my bones, that when they retire her, me and Summer will retire together. Because I do not want to Command any other vessel after the Centaur.”

Vakai sat back in his seat and stared at the ship as well. “They say at the Academy, a ship is just a ship. Attachments are pointless.”

Carter laughed, “Who the hell said that?”

“Some professor. I already forgot their name.” Vakai smirked.

Carter shook his head with more chuckles, “Good. If ya had told me their name, I’d take this girl straight back to Earth and give them a thing or two about it. The Centaur is not just a ship! She’s history! She has been around for little over a hundred years. She is the prime example of Starfleet Engineering, that we can build something to last. Of course, she has new bells and whistles to keep her up with the times, but that’s besides the point. She has seen so many things, been in so many battles, been in a war or two.” Carter then remembered and sat forward in his seat, turning it to look at Vakai. “There is a section on board the Centaur, a wall panel that rarely ever gets removed because there is hardly anything important back there aside from it being some very old storage space for useless items. The first and original crew of the Centaur, began to use the inside of the wall panel, as a way to remind the next crew that they were there and that they had done their very best to keep the Centaur in tip top shape. She’s not like most vessels, a lot of her equipment poking out of her hull. Having to run diagnostics manually. Kind of like the old days where Starfleet had those five year missions. And every crew that had served on board this ship, had scribbled their names into the inside of that panel.” Carter then sat back into his seat and looked back towards the Centaur. “Even my first Captain did.”

Vakai stared at him when he explained it all, before looking back at the ship as he thought it over. “Then I guess we better make sure that no one finds that panel, even when they put her in a museum.”

Carter chuckled, “Hell. I wouldn’t care if they did. It will just prove that professor of yours that they are dead wrong. She isn’t just a ship. She’s our home. She has kept herself going, out of sheer luck or just being a damn miracle. She has kept her crew alive more times than I could count when we should have been dead. Starfleet Engineers rate ships to only be able to handle so much, and yet these ships…somehow prove to them that they can handle much more than that.” Carter shook his head. “It’s like my first Captain told me. You treat her right, and she will treat you the very same.”

Vakai chuckled. “Should we get back in there and see what is taking them so long to get a stable warp field?”

Carter smiled and nodded his head. “Oh I suppose. The Chief will probably give us some engineering babble that we would barely even understand and I’ll just have to say ‘yes’ to, only to find out that he’s about to blow us half across space just to get something working.”

Vakai chuckled again and shook his head, taking one look at the torpedo pod from their angel now. “I just hope we don’t get pulled into another combat situation. Even if we can get one tube to work, we would still be severely outmatched and outgunned.”

Carter started knocking on the side of the console. “Knocking on wood, Commander.”

Vakai laughed only to be interrupted when the comm display started notifying them that a transmission was incoming. Vakai raised a brow when he saw it was coming from the Centaur itself. “Captain Carter and Commander Vakai here.”

“Captain. Commander. We just received a transmission from the Don. They said that, before they left the sector, their sensors detected an unknown installation in orbit of one of the planets in the Oros System. The very last system in this sector that we had yet to investigate. They got unusual readings from their sensors, and wished to pass it along to you, Captain.”

Carter frowned a bit before looking at Vakai. “We will be right there to review the data, Lieutenant. Any word from the Chief on the warp drive?”

“He says he needs another hour to figure out what is going on. But he believes that it might have something to do with one of the plasma injectors, that he may have to replace one of them, if not all of them. But he also thinks that the repairs on the warp nacelle and the warp coil had messed up some sort of balance and he thinks he may need to completely shut down the warp engines, get inside and figure out what is wrong with the coil.”

Carter sighed heavily. “The Don was being rushed, all they could do was fix the damage to the coil and nacelle before high tailing it out of here. That’s why we got stuck with repairing the rest of the ship, and a fat hole in the torpedo pod. Looks like we will be stuck here for a while longer.” Carter told Vakai, knowing full well they were still on comms with the ship. “We’re heading back in now, Lieutenant. Have the senior staff report to the Bridge for a briefing. Carter out.”

Vakai pressed the button to terminate the link before activating the thrusters and navigating the shuttle into the shuttle bay. “An unknown installation, huh?”

Carter nodded his head. “Not sure what it is but since we’re out here and it could be hours before we can go to warp and assist…well…anyone for that matter…in regards to the Omega Directive, might as well get some idea on what the installation is.” Carter paused for a second then looked at Vakai. “You might as well start picking out your team, Commander. If the sensor data is intriguing enough, I’m going to send you and your away team in our only runabout. Should get you there in no time.”

Vakai nodded his head, “Understood, sir.”

Carter then remembered something. “What about Gomez and Ryker?”

Vakai raised a brow as he landed the shuttle. “Sir?”

“You and Sivol are undecided about continuing your relationship. What about them?”

Vakai sighed heavily, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I believe that when Gomez heard from the being that it was Ryker’s ‘fantasy’, she…” Vakai shook his head some more. “As far as I know, they haven’t been talking.”

Carter took in a deep breath and exhaled heavily before standing up and heading for the rear hatch. “If it starts to affect their duties, Commander, you’re going to have to make them talk it out.”

Vakai got up and followed behind him. “So far it hasn’t been, sir. They just refuse to talk to each other, at least…outside of work.”

“Well, just be prepared in case it does start affecting their jobs.” Carter warned him.

Vakai nodded his head. “I will, sir.”

“And Commander. Just call me John, okay? I thought by now we’d be pals.” Carter grinned.

Vakai smirked, “Aye, si-…John.”

Carter chuckled. “All right. Let’s get to the Bridge and see what the Don found.”

—-

Bridge

Both Carter and Vakai stepped out of the turbolift to find the senior staff, and Vakai’s own team that he had been planning. All of them for that matter. Sivol, Ryker, Gomo, Gomez, Maya and Koyda.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. I have an announcement to make.” Carter raised his voice as he stepped towards the center of the Bridge. “Our First Officer here, has received a Battlefield Promotion to a full Commander. I like to think that he is well on his way to becoming a Captain in his future.” With that, there was a round of applause on the Bridge before Carter raised his hands to silence them. “I will be reviewing the rest of the crew for possible promotions later. Right now, we got a gift from the Don before they left the sector.” Carter turned to Sivol and nodded his head, gesturing to her to put the data on the main viewer.

Everyone looked at it, the data consisting of some unusual readings, some of them being energy readings that looked rather odd. And the alloy of the installation was made out of unusual materials. Furthermore, there was data about the species living on the planet in which the installation orbited.

“Well, that is certainly interesting.” Carter said out loud.

Gomez took a step forward. “What is its power source?”

Sivol shook her head, “Unclear. Don wasn’t able to get a great detail of scans on it, since they were in a hurry to leave.”

Ryker folded his arms over his chest as he sat there at the helm station, looking up at the viewer. “It looks like it’s bigger than the old International Space Station that Earth used to have. What does that make it…size of an outpost? Like the Regula stations?”

Gomo shook his head. “A little bigger than that. I can’t even tell if it has weapons or shields. Sensors either don’t say much or the alloy wouldn’t let the sensors detect any sort of defenses.”

Carter began to stroke his beard as he stared at him. Something familiar about it but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “The design…I can’t figure it out but it is like I have seen it somewhere before in some archaeological research.”

“What do you think it is, Captain?” Vakai asked.

Carter turned to Vakai and was about to lecture him about calling him John but then realized they were in the presence of the Senior Staff and Vakai was just being formal and professional. Carter shrugged at the thought before looking back at the view screen. “It’s probably nothing, really. But since we can’t go to warp right now,” Carter looked to his Chief Engineer who looked away, acting as if he didn’t see the Captain giving him a look. Carter looked back at the viewer, “We have time to investigate the installation. What about the planet? How much did Don’s sensors get details about it?”

Sivol went over the data real quick before giving Carter her answer. “Enough. There are several hundred thousand lifeforms on the planet. They seem to be in the steam age. Whether they know about the orbiting station or not, is unclear.”

Ryker turned in his seat. “They would have primitive telescopes back in the steam age, maybe. So they probably do know about the station. But they wouldn’t even know what to do about it since they wouldn’t have the technology to go into orbit to check it out.”

“Sir, would we not be in violation of the Prime Directive if we went to investigate this station, when there is a risk that the civilization down on the planet may see us?” Asked Koyda, who had not been on the Bridge during the time Carter fired on a primitive research station.

Carter looked towards Koyda. “Not sure how much you’ve heard, son. But the Omega Directive supersedes the Prime Directive. It’s not a coincidence that this installation happens to be here, orbiting a planet of primitive people with no technology of going into space, when this sector alone had a cluster or two that we had to destroy. That station belongs to someone, someone who used to have a claim here, for some reason no longer exists. Or they had abandoned the station for some reason.” Carter threw up his hands. “I don’t know. None of us do. That’s the mystery of it all. We need to know whom the station belonged to, and if it is a primitive station or perhaps an ancient station with technology that we haven’t even thought of yet.”

“So how will we get there?” Maya asked.

Vakai took the lead on this one, “My team and I will take the runabout from the shuttlebay. It is getting prepped right now as we speak, EV suits are being loaded in as well. Ryker. Sivol. Gomez. Gomo. Maya. And Koyda. You are all with me.”

Gomez frowned, “I would rather stay here, on the Centaur, and get the warp field stabilized.”

The Chief shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter, lass. Whether it is the injectors or the coil itself, one less hand won’t make much a difference. Your First Officer gave you your orders. Go.”

Gomez sighed, “Fine. I suppose it won’t be such a bad thing anyways. I’ll get to look at the engineering of it before the Chief here gets his grubby hands on it.”

The Chief smirked, “Hey now!”

Everyone chuckled, though Gomez gave Ryker a dirty look before looking away, one that Vakai noticed. Maybe Carter was right, maybe he needs to get those two to sit down and talk it out. But now wasn’t the time. “All right. Those who have been called. Go get your gear and report to the shuttlebay.” His team acknowledged and left the Bridge together. Vakai looked at Carter. “I’m hoping the Centaur won’t be long.”

Carter shrugged one of his shoulders. “You’ll have to talk to the Chief on that one.”

The Chief raised his hand. “Ey! I’m doing the best that I can, all right? I got my team working around the clock to get this old girl back on her feet. Just give me a few. I can’t pull some miracle out of my arse every bloody time it’s asked for, ya know.”

Carter and Vakai laughed before they both turned to look at the main viewer, at the blurred image of the installation. “What do you think it is, Captain?”

Carter shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to make assumptions either. Just be careful. We have no idea how old that station is, and whether it is stable or not. Or why it was abandoned. Could be some voles or mutant creatures on board with…dozens of tentacles.”

Vakai looked at Carter and raised a brow. “I’m sorry. Tentacles?”

Carter looked at Vakai. “Son, every mysterious abandoned ship, station, colony…you name it…has bloody tentacles written all over it.”

Vakai sighed and shivered a bit. “I’ll keep that in mind…”

Carter smiled, “Good luck out there, Commander.”

Vakai nodded his head and looked at the view screen again. “Yeah, we’ll need it.” And with that, Vakai left the Bridge.

“So what do you think we are going to find?” Maya asked her lover, as they brought in their duffel bags of extra equipment and standard gear, trying to be as prepared as possible.

Koyda shrugged his shoulders as he was inspecting his rifle before storing it in the locker. “No idea, except whatever an abandoned space station is supposed to look like.”

As the two chatted, Gomo was helping Gomez put a couple portable energy packs into the small storage space. “You think we will need these?”

Gomez looked at him before opening one of the packs up, checking connector ports, making sure they were clean before closing it up and shutting the storage compartment door. “We don’t know if it’s running on its own power. Don didn’t get us much detail on their scans but of course they were in a hurry so, no big deal really. But the point is, best be prepared for any contingency.”

Gomo nodded his head, “Fair enough.”

Vakai, Sivol and Ryker were in the front main compartment, going through systems and flight checks. “Injectors are in the green. Matter and antimatter flow is looking good.” Said Ryker. 

“I am serious, the Captain was curious about us. He cares.” Vakai spoke to Sivol as she was running her own checks on the sensor systems.

“He’s like a father to you, isn’t he? Always concerned about what you’re doing and about our love life.” Sivol said as she ran a quick diagnostic on the Comms. 

“Wait. You two actually have a love life?” Ryker asked. 

Vakai looked at him then back at his controls. “All systems are a go. And we haven’t finished discussing that part yet, Ryker. Sivol knows how much I care about her, but we’re still cautious.”

Sivol sighed, “We are only cautious because we don’t know what our real kids will look like. And the kids we had…I miss them.”

Ryker sighed, “At least you two are talking about having kids. Ashley won’t say a damn word to me unless it’s work related. I miss our kids too, but I just don’t understand what the problem is.”

Sivol turned in her seat and placed her hand on his shoulder. “She will come through eventually, just give her some time.”

Ryker looked at his hands, “I just want to know what I did wrong so that I know how to make it to her.”

Gomez then walked in from the rear compartment. “Are we going or not?”

Vakai turned to look at her then went back to his controls, “Everything checks out.” Vakai entered some commands, forcefield to the outer doors came online and the doors finally began to open up.

“Oh good. I will be in the back checking up on the suits.” Said Gomez before she left. All three of them looked at each other.

“Okay, she is definitely mad about something.” Said Sivol.

“Told you she was. But I just don’t know what!!” Ryker sighed.

“If I have to sit you two down, I swear, so help me.” Vakai stared at Ryker before focusing on his controls.

Sivol shook her head with a smirk before contacting the Bridge. “Bridge, we are now departing for the Oro System.”

“Good luck team. We will try to get over there to assist as soon as possible. Carter out.”

Vakai gave the controls to Ryker, who piloted the runabout out of the shuttlebay and plotted the course to the Oro System before taking them to warp.

—

Oro System
Third Planet

The runabout warp speed had been reduced once they reached the edge of the system until they were close enough at a safe distance to the third planet to drop out of warp. Upon doing so, they could see a rather large moon orbiting the planet and navigated around it as they looked at it in awe while running scans.

Vakai looked at his displays, “This is as close as you can get?”

“Yup. Sensors were detecting a debris field between this moon and the planet. I don’t know how old the debris field is, or how it’s even still there but sensors couldn’t make heads or tails of it.” Said Ryker.

Vakai frowned, “What do you mean?”

Ryker then pointed at the viewport. “We’re coming up on it now.”

Vakai looked through his side and saw the scattered bits and pieces of what looked like metal, pipes, grates and all sorts of things that would have belonged to a ship. Vakai then looked back down at his display and frowned even more, as his scans were inconclusive. “Odd. What does the sensor say on your end, Sivol?”

Sivol shook her head, “Just the same as yours. Can’t get anything through. Cycled through all the bands, something is definitely odd in there.”

Vakai sighed, “Can we go around it?”

Ryker was about to say something but Sivol spoke first, “I suggest we go through it, carefully. It’s definitely a debris field of a vessel, maybe two, and a lot of the pieces are intact. Sensors may not be able to get through but once we are in there, we may be able to gather some really interesting data for Centaur or even Starfleet Command to analyze.”

Ryker sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “The heck. Least we ain’t violating the Prime Directive, right? And we finally get to do something scientific, rather than escorting freighters or living in some fantasy world for thirty years.”

Vakai smirked, “Give or take.”

Ryker grinned, “Yeah…”

Vakai looked at the debris field before them. “All right. Take us in, but please be careful and don’t get us killed. We still have a station to investigate.”

“Copy that.” Ryker pressed the intercom button. “Hang on everyone.” He then began to navigate the runabout through the field.

—

USS Centaur

Carter entered Main Engineering to find more than just one shift of engineers running around, trying to get their warp field stabilized. Carter had never really thought that such damage to a warp nacelle would cause this much chaos, but maybe it was also the damage they sustained to the torpedo pod, causing EPS grids to overload and other systems to stop functioning properly. All he did know was that they can’t go to warp, which leaves them stranded in the Ioleuth System.

Carter caught the Chief entering commands on a console, so he approached the man, where he could finally get some answers. “Chief.”

The Chief jumped a little, having been buried into his work. “Captain. What brings you down here?”

Carter shrugged, “Just curious as to what you figured out the problem is.”

The Chief sighed, rubbing his face before he answered. “Both.”

Carter raised a brow. “Both?”

“The plasma injectors are all misaligned, for some damn reason. Assuming the last hit just threw them out, I don’t know. I called in the next shift to get their hands dirty, try and get those injectors realigned.” The Chief explained.

“And the other?”

Chief pressed some commands and brought up the port nacelle. “They did a really decent patch up job on the coil but for some reason, the coil isn’t doing its job. Either some connections got knocked out or something wrong with the plasma conduit, or maybe they’re just misaligned as well. But I figured that the boys from Starfleet Corps of Engineers would have done that before high tailing it out of here.” The Chief shrugged his shoulders.

Carter nodded his head some, “All right. What happens if you get the injectors aligned?”

The Chief thought about it for a moment. “I can get you at best Warp Two. Any starship can operate with one working warp nacelle, but that’s only if they were designed to operate with only one warp nacelle, like the Freedom class for example. If starships were designed with two nacelles, and one is not functioning, you’re looking at severe speed reduction. I might be able to squeeze maybe Warp Three, but that’s it. Back then, before the Federation, when they had those…warp five engines…when they lost one nacelle, the best they could do was warp one point seven. So a ship with two nacelles loses one, which is not always the best thing.”

Carter nodded his head some more, “It never is, Chief. Just let me know when we can go to warp, I’d like to get over there and help the away team.”

The Chief sighed heavily, “The injectors could take a couple hours, they were knocked around pretty good. But we were damn lucky. Normally serious damage to a nacelle can cause a nasty power surge, probably would have blown out every EPS grid on the ship, if not blown us to bits.”

Carter smiled, “It’s because we’ve been taking good care of her, Chief. She wouldn’t give up on us that easily. Over a hundred years old, and she’s still kicking ass.”

The Chief laughed, “I’ll make sure she gets a wax and a shine when we get back to the Devron system. Least we can do for keeping us alive.”

Carter chuckled, “Amen. I’ll leave you be to your work, Chief. Thank you.” And so Carter left Main Engineering, deciding to go take a little lunch break in his quarters.

—

Oro System

The Runabout was shaking all around them as they flew through the debris field, getting hit with all sorts of distortions and gravity wakes, along with some interesting electrical fields that’ll latch onto the nacelles for only a brief while the runabout flew by them. Suddenly a much larger bolt did more than latching onto them, causing the interior to jolt violently.

“Okay, that was a big one!” Said Ryker, as he had all sorts of alarms going off, even when he tried to acknowledge and mute them, the ones he muted would just return so he tried to ignore them.

Gomez came waltzing in from the rear compartment. “What the hell are you guys doing up here?!”

“Flying through a debris field that apparently is quite active with distortions and all sorts of chaos.” Vakai explained to her as he tried his best to assist Ryker in navigation.

Gomez groaned in frustration before she sat down at an empty station and started checking systems. “We got damage to the starboard hull. Looks like long range communications are offline. Sensors are now operating at only thirty percent efficiency and…. Life support is down to fifty percent?! You got to get us out of here, now!”

Ryker looked to Sivol, “What about your data on the debris?”

Sivol looked at him. “I have everything we need, let’s not waste any more time in here.”

“Copy that!” Ryker looked at his controls and entered some commands before pumping all the power he had into the engines, rushing through the debris field in a matter of seconds until finally, they were in the clear. Quite a few ‘sighing’ of relief was heard, as Ryker eased down on the speed and restored power to normal. He then looked up from his controls and saw something floating in orbit of the planet. “There it is.”

Sivol and Gomez got up to stand behind Ryker and Vakai’s seats to get a closer look, all now staring at the orbital station. Vakai then looked to Ryker, “Bring us in, Lieutenant.”

Ryker smiled and wasted no time to enter the commands that would adjust the runabout onto an intercept course.

—

Orbital Station

The interior of the station was a unique design, nothing like anyone has seen before. But that wasn’t at all that would peak someone’s interest when stepping aboard this station. Station was only running on minimum power, the main reactor was cold, lights were flickering in the corridor, and a very old looking stain ran along the deck and walls. One in particular led to someone’s quarters, where the door had been forced open, brutally, and the interior lights were completely destroyed.

For a moment, you couldn’t see anything inside the room, none of the corridor lights on the other side of the doorway were on to illuminate, even just a little bit. At first it seemed like there was nothing wrong, it was just a dark room that had no real meaning. But then, a pair of small lights came on, separated not too far apart from each other, and high off the floor, which would make one think…that it is some sort of being. There were noises, somewhat whining noises, as if parts were moving, as if the thing had been asleep for a long…long time.

“Sensor detecting a warp capable vessel approaching.” A robotic, mellow pitch voice illuminated from where the pair of glowing yellow dots came from. But suddenly, those yellow dots narrowed, became much smaller, and began to glow red. “They are coming.” The voice had changed into a deeper, more sinister voice. Something in this very room, knew a ship was approaching and apparently…may not like it at all. Let’s just hope the away team is prepared for whatever it is, and if it will be friendly or not.

The runabout came to a slowing stop just a ways away, taking in the sight of it before them. It had a similar structural style of the Unity Class Starbase with various differences to it, especially for the material that was used in constructing it. Which is the one thing that they were trying to get information on, but the sensors weren’t giving them much detail.

“It probably has to do with the sensors operating at only thirty five percent efficiency. That distortion that was in the debris field has really screwed up some of our systems.” Gomez said as she was performing yet another diagnostic on the Runabout systems. “I can’t even get the long range communications back online. Which means I’m going to have to open her up when we get back to the Centaur. Thanks a lot, Ryker.” She glared at him for a moment before she started to walk towards the aft compartment.

Ryker’s mouth hung open. “Why the heck are you blaming me?! Sivol asked me to go through it because the debris could be important.”

“I wouldn’t blame Sivol because she’s too sweet and innocent to be blamed. But you, you’re the pilot!” And with that, she left for the rear compartment.

Ryker looked at Vakai. “Seriously?”

Vakai shrugged his shoulders. “I did tell you to be careful.”

Ryker groaned in defeat. “I hate you guys.”

Vakai grinned then looked at Sivol. “Find a way in?”

Sivol looked up from her sensor display. “At least the sensors are efficient enough to locate a hangar bay. Should be right…there.” She pointed with her arm just over the side of Ryker’s head, where he could follow her finger.

“I see it, thank you.” Ryker said as he started entering commands into his station, navigating the runabout towards the open hangar bay. “Are the sensors efficient enough to detect whether there is an atmosphere or not?”

Sivol took one more look at her display. “Odd.”

Vakai raised a brow. “Odd?”

Sivol looked at Vakai. “Various sections of the station appear to have breathable atmosphere but other sections appear to not have any.”

Vakai raised both brows. “Why is that odd?”

Sivol sent her sensor data to Vakai’s console. “Take a look. The section connected to the Hangar bay is pressurized and has a breathable atmosphere. But the section to the left of it, has none, while the section to the right of it does. Then the section further to the left, also has a breathable atmosphere.”

Vakai could see more odd sections with no breathable atmosphere. Kind of like squares on a checkerboard. The whites were the ones with a breathable atmosphere and the blacks weren’t. “That is peculiar. Hull breaches?”

Sivol shook her head. “Either the sensors are too damaged to detect them or there are none.”

Vakai sighed, “Nevertheless, in order to get to this section that is pressurized and breathable, we have to cross the hangar bay that’s exposed to space due to the hanging open hangar door…so.”

“So we need our EV suits.” Ryker finished the sentence.

Vakai nodded his head. “Indeed. Especially as a safety precaution, even if we were in the sections with breathable atmosphere, I wouldn’t take the helmets off for any reason.”

“At least we can keep the oxygen in our suits supplied while we venture between ones with atmosphere and ones without.” Ryker smiled.

Vakai shrugged one of his shoulders. “That is the plus side of it all.” Vakai then went and pressed the runabout’s intercom. “Okay everyone, suit up. We’re about to land.” He then looked to Ryke and Sivol. “You two as well.”

“Let me land this bird first.” Ryker laughed.

Vakai smirked, “You knew what I meant.” He then got up and headed towards the rear compartment, Sivol right behind him. “There anything we should be concerned about on board this station?”

Sivol shook her head. “I do not have much to go on with the sensors that are damaged. I will have more information once I scan with my tricorder. But the tricorder has a much smaller scanning radius.”

Vakai shrugged, “We will make do with what we got. Either way, we best follow standard procedure and have our weapons set to stun, in case there are life forms on board that the sensors couldn’t detect.”

Sivol raised her eyebrows. “I had not thought of checking for life forms.”

Vakai blinked as he stared at her. “You never scanned for life forms?”

Sivol cleared her throat, trying to hide her embarrassment. “As abandoned as the station appeared, no…no I didn’t.”

Vakai raised his brows. “I am absolutely surprised. Thought Vulcans were very precise.”

Sivol licked her lips that suddenly felt dry to her, “I don’t know why I forgot, but I assure you, it wasn’t intentional.”

Vakai chuckled, “Relax. Just pulling your leg. Come on, let’s get suited up.”

—

The runabout had landed on the hangar deck, and seven silhouettes came from the starboard hatch, slowly making their way to the doorway that would lead them into a corridor. First, Gomez and Sivol had to figure out the language and how to depressurize the corridor so they could go in easily and repressurize the other side. But as they were doing that, suddenly the hangar doors started to close.

Vakai raised a brow. “Did you two do that?”

Sivol and Gomez looked at each other before looking at Vakai and shook their heads. “No.”

Gomo groaned. “I do not do haunted Space Stations.”

Maya and Koyda chuckled together. “Come on Gomo, it’ll be fine.”

The hangar doors finally came together and sealed, just before air started filling the hangar bay. Sivol took her tricorder out, “It’s pressurizing.” Just after she said that, the door to the corridor opened.

“I don’t do creepy…” Gomo whispered harshly. The team then began to explore the habitable parts of the station, the interior being quite different from anything they have seen before. Course they really haven’t seen many interiors in their careers, but this was something else.

“What do you make out of these alloys?” Vakai asked.

Sivol shook her head. “I can’t tell. Tricorder is having a hard time figuring it out. That or our equipment was affected by the distortion in the debris field.” After she said that, Gomez glared at Ryker, who just rolled his eyes and ignored her.

“Collect all the data we get here. We will send it back to Fleet Command and they will be able to figure it out.” Vakai ordered. Others may be able to figure out what all of this is, especially since he really didn’t get to learn much about ancient or extinct races, and it seemed no one else on his team did. Course, most of them he encouraged to take extensive training to be elevated to Officers. Though he could have just waited until he was Captain and promoted them all to like Chief Petty Officers or something and still assign them to the positions that he already has planned for them. But he wanted to have more authority in the matter, in case things were to happen that would have or could have forced an officer to overrule them if they were stills non-coms. And Vakai could not afford that to happen.

“Station surely appears to still be running on power.” Said Maya.

Gomez nodded her head, “It is. What kind of power, I am uncertain. Even with the runabout sensors damaged, we should have picked up an energy signature from the station, indicating that the main reactor is online. But either it isn’t, or the reactor is heavily shielded.”

“Wonder what they used this station for.” Koyda asked.

“Probably observation of the primitive species down below on the planet. But the station also appears to be old, very old. Can’t really tell from the tricorder, but maybe the planet used to be a home to an ancient civilization.” Sivol explained.

Gomo groaned again. “Ancient Civilization would imply that they got their butts handed to them or they went extinct for some other reason or…I don’t know…they’re gone and to me, I feel like they all left in a not so good of a way.”

Ryker sighed, “When did you become so superstitious, Gomo?”

Gomo looked at Ryker. “I’ve read all the mission reports that were opened up to us when we became commissioned officers, and I know about all the horror stories and how things turned out for others. This station reeks of it. I guarantee you.” As Gomo finished saying that, they had come to a stop at a doorway, which led to what they hoped was the Operations Center, when the door opened up and a large metallic figure happened to be on the other side.

“Hello!” The robotic, ‘gentle’ voice, came from the couple centimeter tall, few centimeters wide opening that would be considered a mouth. And the next thing everyone heard was Gomo screaming, whether it be in surprise or he had been scared shitless, as no one was expecting anything or anyone to be on board. Or was it the fact that this metallic looking figure apparently had what looked like skin grafts on various places of his body? Least…they hoped those were artificial skin….

“Oh. I apologize if I have startled you.” Said the robotic being.

Gomo stepped away a few steps, Maya and Koyda with him, chatting with him, kinda laughing a little while Gomo glared at them.

The rest of them, Vakai, Ryker, Sivol and Gomez looked at each other before looking back at the strange looking robot figure, curious about the skin grafts. “Who are you?” Gomez asked. 

“I am One One KR.”

“KR?” Ryker asked. 

“Konstruction Robot.” 11KR replied. 

“And the numbers mean that you’re the eleventh model?” Sivol asked. 

“Correct. Now that I have answered your questions, will you answer mine? Why are you on this station? I don’t recognize any of your species.”

“We are on this station because our scans indicated that it was old and orbiting a planet that currently has hundreds of thousands of people who are around the steam age of their civilization.” Vakai explained. 

“Ah. Interesting. How old do you think this station is? No wait… that’s not the right question. What year is it?” KR asked. 

“2399.” Sivol answered.

KR looked like it was processing. “I’m sorry. Do you have a stardate?”

Sivol nodded, “No, I’m sorry. I should have given that to you instead. The stardate is 76648.84.”

“Ah. Yes. That makes more sense now. Has it really been that long?” KR asked itself. 

Gomez frowned, “How would you not know? Are you not connected to the station’s database or the computer core?”

KR tilted their head. “No. I do not have access to any critical systems and the station’s database is marked critical. My task was to only assist in construction and maintenance of this station, not management.”

Gomez sighed, “Well that is too bad, we need access to the database, learn more about the construction of this station and the people who built it.”

KR tilted his head again. “Why?”

“Because we are explorers, One-One-KR.” Sivol told him.

“Just KR will do fine, miss…?”

“Oh, how rude of us. You told us who you are and we neglected to tell you who we are. I am Sivol, this is Vakai, our leader. This is Ryker, that lady there is Gomez, the two back there with the one who screamed are Koyda and Maya and the one who screamed is Gomo.” Sivol explained.

“And you are all of different species?” KR asked.

Sivol nodded her head. “Of course. Ryker and Gomez are human. Koyda and Maya are Bajoran. Gomo is Cardassian. I am Vulcan and Vakai is Romulan.”

KR looked between Sivol and Vakai before coming back to Sivol. “You two look very similar.”

Sivol smiled lightly, “We do have similar features, yes. Romulans and Vulcans used to live together, but that was centuries ago.”

KR lifted his head then lowered, like a slow, jerky nod. “I see. I understand. Gomez. I can assist you in locating the computer terminal to access the database but only if you can do me a favor.”

Gomez raised her brows. “A favor?”

KR once again made a jerky nod. “Yes. I would like to have access to the database as well. See, I am the last of my kind and the only one left of this station. I would like to be able to find my people, if there are any left.”

Gomez looked to Vakai who nodded his head before she looked back at him. “That sounds reasonable. Please, lead the way.”

“Splendid! Come come, the terminal we need to use is in the main reactor room. It is the only terminal left that is operational and has the capability of accessing the station’s database. All the other terminals were unfortunately damaged.” KR explained as he began to lead the way back down the corridor. “Come. Come.”

Gomez looked at Vakai and Vakai nodded his head again. “Go. If you don’t mind KR, we would like to keep exploring.”

KR stopped in its tracks and turned to look at them. “Do be careful, Vakai. A lot of the station has structural damage, many sections sealed. I would not want anything bad to happen to either of you.”

Vakai gave a small smile. “We will be careful. Thank you.” Then he watched as Gomez disappeared behind KR as the robot led the way. Vakai then looked to Gomo, Koyda and Maya. “I need you three to continue exploring the rest of the station, see if you can find anything of importance. Hopefully a medical bay or something. I want to know what happened to these people.”

Gomo turned and tilted his head in his helmet. “You think these people were murdered?”

Vakai raised a brow. “Now that is a very interesting hypothesis, Gomo. Why would you ask that?”

Gomo turned around, looking at everyone else before looking back at Vakai. “It just seems odd that this station was abandoned rather than deconstructed if it no longer had any use.”

Valai nodded his head, “And that my friends, is exactly what I am thinking too. Get looking. Me, Sivol and Ryker are going to try to see what we can find from the terminals in Operations.”

The three of them nodded their heads, acknowledging before leaving to continue exploring the rest of the station. Vakai then led the rest into the Operations center and started to look around. Neither of them had removed their helmets, as neither of them knew whether or not the station would remain safe enough to take them off. No, they were cautious, very cautious, and while the suits were refilling the oxygen tanks, the suits continued to provide them the air they needed.

The three of them, Vakai, Sivol and Ryker, began to access the terminals and tried their best to access the station’s logs, but much of everything was either encrypted or damaged and corrupted. In that mean time, Gomo, Maya and Koyda were exploring the station the best they could, but kept reaching sealed off areas and having to take detours.

Gomez and KR reached the Main Reactor Control Room, where she was now at the center terminal, trying her best to understand the language as KR explains it to her. She slowly worked her way through the system best she could, trying to get access to the database, but it was locked out with several encryptions.

When Gomo, Maya and Koyda reached yet another sealed off section, Gomo became hesitant on taking another detour. “Gomo, what’s wrong?” Maya asked as her and Koyda came back to him when they realized he wasn’t walking with them.

Gomo shook his head. “I don’t know but it just seems rather odd. I know the runabout sensors were badly damaged when we went through that debris field, but I swear….” He then pulled out his tricorder and started scanning past the door. “The runabout sensors should have detected hull breaches, even if the sensors were operating above thirty percent. And look,” He held out the tricorder to them to see the readings on the display. “So far there is nothing wrong past this door.”

Maya and Koyda frowned, “Besides it being decompressed and no air over there.” Said Koyda.

Gomo nodded his head. “That is the only reason why we can’t go over there is because we risk decompressing the rest of the station by opening this door. But…” Gomo then reached towards the door panel with the tricorder, scanning it. “The panel here is active and I believe this…” He pressed the button and suddenly a couple lights started blinking on the panel, while the tricorder started to read that the area was filling up with oxygen. “I believe we are being deceived.”

Maya and Koyda looked at each other before reaching over their shoulders and grabbed their rifles, unslinging them and charging them up. Gomo pulled his pistol out of its holster and charged it up as well before nodding to them, who nodded right back before the door slid open the second the section was ready for them. Gomo then activated his comm system. “Gomo to Vakai.”

“Go ahead.” Vakai’s voice rang into their helmets.

“We are entering one of the sections that were sealed off. We were able to restore air to it, apparently not as structurally damaged as we were to believe.” Gomo explained.

“Acknowledged. Keep me apprised.”

Meanwhile, Vakai stepped back and sighed. “A lot of these terminals are just not operating properly. Half the commands bring me right back to the main menu.”

“Commander.”

Vakai turned and looked at Sivol, both him and Ryker walking over to her. “You got something?”

“Yes. This terminal does not appear to be as damaged as the rest. But the logs are heavily corrupted.” Sivol explained as she tried to navigate through the system.

“Why would crew logs be outside the database where they can be easily damaged like this?” Ryker asked.

Vakai shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe they were stored in these terminals before they could upload them to their database. Or maybe these were more personal.”

Sivol then frowned, “I got something.”

“Can you read it?” Vakai asked.

Sivol sighed and pulled out her tricorder. “I’m going to try but I have never seen this language before. If this is really some station of some ancient civilization, then what we need are experts on ancient civilizations.”

Vakai shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t take any kind of class back at the Academy for this. Did you?”

Sivol shook her head in her helmet and realized she did that. “No. I have not.”

“Neither have I.” Ryker told them.

Vakai sighed, “What I am going to do, when I get my own command, is request a specialist. In case something like this happens.”

“That would be nice.” Ryker smirked.

Sivol frowned some more, “This can’t be right…”

“Commander…. We…found something…” Koyda’s voice rang in their helmets.

“What did you find?” Vakai asked.

Meanwhile, Gomez sighed heavily. “Damnit. I’m trying to follow your lead on this language here but this encryption is a real pain.”

KR then reached over and pressed a couple commands and the station suddenly jolted and the power started to flicker. “Maybe that will help.”

Gomez turned to him. “What the hell did you do?!”

KR looked at her, “I detonated explosives that I had planted on the station’s auxiliary generators. In a few seconds, the station will lose power. That should reset the main computer and delete the encryptions. Batteries will then come online, bringing power back to the terminal but you will only have a few minutes as the batteries were not designed to power the orbital stabilizers.”

Gomez’s eyes went wide. “Why did you do that?!”

KR tilted its head. “It was the only way. Those encryptions were put there to keep me out.” The lights, terminals, everything, went out for a brief then emergency lights came on while the terminals blinked back on as well. “Now you have five minutes to get me into the database or I will kill you.” KR’s eyes went from being wide and yellow, to now narrow and red as well as his voice having become deeper and more sadistic.

“You found what?” Vakai asked, as they noticed the sudden power flicker. Sivol was able to get back to where she was and did her best to read the log.

“Bodies. Lots of them. And they look like something tore them open. Not to mention, some of them are missing skin in various places.” Koyda explained.

Sivol’s eyes went wide and she turned to look at Vakai. “We need to stop KR and Gomez, now! We can’t let her give him access to the database.”

Ryker frowned, “Why?”

Sivol looked at him. “One One KR has a prototype AI in his operating system. It completely backfired on them. If he gains access to the database, he will have access to everything. He is only able to build and maintain this station and this station specifically. He doesn’t have full free will. But if he gets that, he can go wherever he wants, build whatever he wants, including dangerous and powerful weapons.”

Vakai activated his comm system. “Gomez, do you read? Gomez!” Suddenly the station rocked some more.

Sivol returned to the terminal and backed out from the logs to find a display that she could access. “Auxiliary power is offline. Batteries have been activated but they are being used to power the orbital stabilizers. They won’t last for much longer.”

Vakai looked at Sivol and Ryker. “Come, we need to get to the main reactor room. Gomo, Koyda, Maya. I need you guys to find these auxiliary generators, see if you can get them online.”

Gomez felt extremely uncomfortable as she was trying her best to get into the database as he requested but before she was about two or three steps away from doing so, she heard phaser fire. She turned to see KR being pelted by three phasers only to stumble a bit. Gomez quickly backed out and started adding a layer of encryption while KR was distracted.

“Get away from her!” Ryker yelled at the robot.

KR glared at them with the narrow red eyes before looking at Gomez and saw what she had just done. KR roared with anger, grabbed her by her neck with his grip squeezing through her suit and then tossed her over the railing that encompassed the center of the main circular room.

“NOOO!!!” Ryker yelled before pulling the trigger over and over again, pelting KR with more phaser blasts. “How is he not going down?!”

“It’s got to be the alloy that he is made up of.” Sivol told him.

“Run.” Vakai looked at the two, “Run!!” He shouted and pushed them through the doorway, forcing them to start running before running right behind them.

KR let out a guttural growl. “You can run…oh wait, no…you can’t!” He laughed hysterically, before he started running after them at crazy speeds.

They saw that KR was catching up but Sivol stopped at a panel, quickly entered some commands, and a large bulkhead came crashing down, sealing shut between them and KR. “Good thinking!” Ryker told her and she just nodded her head. But then they heard loud banging on the other side, eventually the banging started to present dents on their side. “Oh great.” But then the station began to shake violently and they could hear KR laughing loudly from the other side.

“Yes! If I can’t get the database, then this station will fall into the planet and kill everyone. Too bad the reactor is not online, I would love to cause an extinction level event!”

Sivol looked to them, “That bulkhead won’t hold for long, we need to do something.”

Vakai looked at Ryker. “Get back to the runabout and try to keep the station’s orbit from deteriorating even more!” Ryker nodded his head and took off running. Vakai then looked at Sivol, “Is there an airlock near here?” She nodded her head and led him the way, both of them running. Vakai tapped on his comm system. “Ryker, stand by to fire on KR.”

“Standing by!” Ryker’s voice rang into their helmets.

“I’m coming for you!! And I’m going to kill you all!!” KR’s voice rang throughout the corridor as they could hear him running, getting closer and closer.

Vakai pointed to the junction, “Hide there and when he’s in the airlock with me, open the outer hatch.”

“What about you?!” Sivol asked.

“Just have your magnetics on and ready! Don’t worry, I don’t plan on going anywhere.” He squeezed her arm then nudged her to hide. She quickly did so before KR showed up, and Vakai started to walk into the airlock. “So what made you turn against your crew, your creators, KR?”

KR slowly walked up to the doorway of the open inner hatch of the airlock, the eyes haven’t changed back at all, still narrowed and red. “When I became self aware. When I realized that my creators were nothing but flesh bags who deserved nothing more than to be sliced open and have their guts spilled all over the floor.”

Vakai shook his head. “Something more had to trigger this…this psychotic breakdown.”

KR began to laugh hysterically. “Psychotic breakdown. I suppose that would be how you would see it. I see it as a breakthrough, realizing that only I am the true being. Only I deserve to exist. But I was trapped, trapped inside this prison, unable to do more than build and conduct maintenance. I tried to break free from here but they refused to give me what I wanted, refused to cut the leash and set me free.”

Vakai stared at him as he activated his magnetic boots. “So then, they deemed you as defective.”

KR lurched his head forward a bit. “I AM NOT DEFECTIVE!!”

That was it, the trigger. “Sivol, now!” Vakai ordered and in a moment, KR had no idea what was going on, and the second KR turned his body around to see, it was too late. Sivol pressed the button, the outer hatch opened and the whole section began to decompress. Vakai grabbed onto the rails protruding from both sides of the airlock while trying to keep his magnetic boots from losing their lock to the deck. KR on the other hand had no way to stop himself from being ejected out of the airlock, except grabbing onto Vakai’s suit, which immediately tore right off where KR’s hands were and out he went, into the cold vastness of space. Sivol closed the outer hatch as soon as KR was gone, and hit several commands to bring oxygen back into the section but the system was having a hard time doing so while only on batteries.

Vakai fell to his knees as he tried to cover up the large gashes of his suit that had been torn open with his hands, but he was having trouble with it. “Vakai, hold on! We’re going to get you back to the Main Reactor Room. We need to do something to get main power back or we’re all doomed!”

Vakai placed a hand on Sivol’s shoulder. “Ryker.” He gasped, finding it difficult to talk. “He’s outside. In space. Shoot him!”

Ryker didn’t want to know what was going on with Vakai but the moment he picked up KR on his sensors, he targeted him with the runabout’s phasers and blasted him, one shot vaporizing the robot. Ryker sighed in relief, “KR is destroyed. Establishing a tractor beam on the station now.”

Back at the Main Reactor Room, a gloved hand came up from the below where the railing was and grabbed one of the rails. Pulling herself up and over the top railing, she collapsed to the floor, panting heavily as her left arm was bent to her chest, having either broken it or dislocated it from catching one of the rails when she was falling. Climbing back up was a bitch for her, but she was not going to allow herself to die. She forced herself up onto her feet, “Gomez to Vakai.” She spoke after activating her comm system. She then heard Ryker laughing in the background.

“Oh my god, Ashley!! You’re alive!” Ryker’s voice rang into her helmet.

Gomez limped back to the main terminal. “For now. But I am going to need some help.”

“We’re on our way, Gomez.” Came Sivol’s voice and then suddenly the power went out completely, lights, terminals, everything and the station began to rock more violently.

“Tractor beam locked! But I don’t know how long it’ll hold!” Ryker’s voice came in.

“Ryker, I need one of those power packs, pronto!” Gomez told him.

“Coming right up.” As Ryker said that, Sivol and Vakai came into the main reactor room. Gomez looked at Vakai, “Ryker! We need some fabric and sealant for the EV suits too, quickly!”

The deck rocked violently under their magnetic boots as the station’s orbit was starting to deteriorate. Commander Vakai’s team, consisting of Gomez, Sivol, Gomo, Maya and Koyda, with Ryker piloting the Runabout, had been on this unknown, yet long abandoned space station that was orbiting this planet in the very sector that they just had eradicated a lot of strange molecules with the Don S. Davis’ help. Now they were alone, just the six of them on the station, while the Centaur was only a warp away from helping but even with the Don fixing the Centaur’s nacelle that was damaged, the Centaur was still struggling to establish a stable warp field. Now, Ryker was doing everything he could to keep the station’s orbit from deteriorating any faster with the runabout’s tractor beam latched onto it.

“Guys, I don’t know if the runabout can keep this up! What’s the word on restoring main power?” Ryker asked over the EV suit comms.

Gomez growled, “I’m trying damnit! These bulky gloves are in the way and I can barely understand a fraction of this language!!” She was trying to connect their external power pack into a console that seemed like one of the most important consoles in the reactor room.

“Take a deep breath, Gomez. More stressed out you are, the more mistakes you make.” Vakai told her. “Sivol, how are we doing on the translation?” His suit had been patched up by Sivol earlier, thanks to Ryker delivering the supplies that were needed.

Sivol shook her head in her helmet. “The tricorder can’t make much sense of it. I’m trying everything that we have.”

“Then just find something close to it and use that.” Vakai told her.

She looked up in her helmet at him. “I don’t want to make a mistake, Commander.”

“Just do your best, that’s all I am asking for, all we can hope for.” Vakai then looked around. “Maya, Koyda, Gomo. How is the rest of the exploration of the station going?”

“We haven’t been able to find anything that resembles back up generators or auxiliary power or even batteries.” Gomo’s voice came over the comms.

“They should be somewhere in the lower center of the station.” Said Gomez with a strained voice as she struggled to move wires and conduits around. “Because I don’t know if anything I am doing is going to work or not.” Suddenly, after she inserted the connectors of the pack into the tenth different slot that she had freed up, she heard the console coming to life. “Oh sweet jesus.” She hurried herself to her feet as quickly as she could in the bulky suit and started looking over at the buttons, the language. “Sivol!” Her voice wavered as sweat trickled down her face. Sivol came over to Gomez and started speaking to her while pointing at several displays and categories that several buttons were in.

“Commander. Koyda here. I believe me and Maya have found what appears to be batteries of some sort.”

Vakai sighed lightly and smiled lightly. “Very good, very good indeed. See if you can find a way to get them working. Because if we can’t stabilize this station, thousands upon thousands of people on the planet below us are going to die.” Suddenly they heard Gomez screaming, Vakai looking to see that she was screaming in frustration followed by a ‘damn it!’. “Gomez?”

She turned in her suit to look at Vakai. “The reactor is too bloody cold. It would take hours to jump start it.”

“I don’t have hours, guys!” Ryker’s voice came over the comms.

“Well we got batteries.” Vakai said.

“We had batteries.” Maya’s voice came over the comms. “They’re dry. All of them.”

“Well, we had batteries.” Vakai sighed. “There has to be a trick, Gomez. Something. Anything.”

“If these reactors had injector ports of some kind, then yeah, I could probably get it going in five minutes. But it’s a station reactor!! Attempting something like that could cause it to blow up in our faces.” Explained Gomez.

“Then what can we do, Gomez?!” Vakai pushed her, trying to see if she could come up with something, a miracle, or an insane idea.

Then a light bulb went off in her head. “We can do what the Enterprise did.”

“Which Enterprise?” Vakai asked.

“No time. Ryker, how much matter and anti-matter storage do you have on the runabout? No forget that, I already know. I am going to tell you just how much that needs to be transported directly into the reactor. Too much and we’ll probably blow up the entire system, or rip a hole in subspace…I don’t know, but definitely nothing good.” Everyone started to think she was making these things up now while she explained to Ryker exactly how much. “Then I need a photon grenade transported in with the mix and to detonate precisely as it enters the chamber. Station has no warp engines to activate, like the first Enterprise did to do a cold start on their warp reactor, but this…this might just do it.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Vakai asked.

“Then we won’t feel a thing and the Centaur will have the biggest light show ever seen in the history of light shows. I think. Look, I am really winging it here, so could you please stop asking before I start doubting myself and back out on this!!”

“Ready!” Said Ryker. “I’m starting to lose the tractor beam!!”

Vakai growled, “Aww hell, you only live once, right? Do it!”

But then something went through Gomez’s mind and she shouted, “STOP!!”

“What the hell is it then?!” Ryker’s voice rang into their helmets.

Gomez shook her head, “Forget the grenade, that was a dumb idea. I’m going to send you a few locations to transport a single molecule of matter and antimatter to those exact locations. We’re going to try a controlled explosion in sequence, hopefully causing a chain reaction that will not just warm the reactor back up but jump start it as well.” Gomez pulled out her padd and quickly wrote up the transporter coordinates before sending them straight to Ryker. “Okay, do it!”

It was all like a split second, not enough time to even see the transporter beams or the reaction, but somehow…it worked. The reactor was coming online, systems were powering up, and the station’s computer detected that its orbit was deteriorating, and began to correct itself, bringing itself right back into stable orbit. They could all hear Ryker laughing and applauding that it worked.

Vakai let out a huge sigh of relief. “Gomez. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“Yeah well, don’t be thanking me too much now. I realized the whole grenade thing was just a McGyver crazy shit that I was pulling out of my ass so I had to rethink it and realized that the second idea was waaaay better and much safer. I am super surprised it worked though.” And that’s where the laughing from Ryker stopped, and the good ‘vibe’ went away. Gomez looked at them all, especially as Gomo, Maya and Koyda finally returned to the Main Reactor room with the rest of them. “What? You told me to do something!! So I came up with the most insane idea ever, I didn’t say it was going to work…” Then she noticed that Sivol was glued to a different console. “Sivol, lady…yo…what are you staring at?”

Everyone got closer to her and they could see lines upon lines of text, paragraphs, reflecting off of her helmet shield, scrolling. Vakai frowned as he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Sivol?”

She stood up, turned and looked at Vakai dead in the eyes. “We need to get this information back to Starfleet Command. Now!”

“What is it, Sivol?” Gomo asked.

But her stare into Vakai’s eyes never left, as her seriousness grew. “This data…this…information…it all speaks about a race, a race that had a vast empire long, long ago. A race that the Enterprise, Captain Picard’s ship, encountered many years ago. Commander. This is a Tkon space station, and this data could explain everything! I’m not talking about what was happening in this system, but what happened to them! The Tkon Empire, the biggest mystery ever, and we may have stepped into a potential gold mine!” She then turned back to the console and entered some commands. “The computer core appears to be intact, some data has been corrupted and lost, but most of it is still intact!” She stood back up and returned her gaze to Vakai. “Commander…Vakai…please. We need to inform Centaur. We need to inform the Captain. He needs to inform Starfleet!!”

Vakai checked his oxygen gauge display on his left arm before looking at everyone else. “How are your oxygen levels, everyone?”

But Sivol spoke for them. “We already replenished our oxygen supply an hour ago, on the runabout, before Ryker went to use its tractor beam to try to slow the station’s orbit decay. We have enough, Commander.”

Vakai looked into her eyes, he had never once seen her be so serious before, not as serious as she was now. He then looked at everyone else, who all nodded their heads, telling him that they were going to be fine. Vakai then looked up inside his helmet, “Ryker. You better get back to the Centaur and inform the Captain of what we found here. He will understand, and without a doubt, he will inform Starfleet Command. We may have found a Tkon Station.”

Sivol grabbed his arms. “No. Not may. We did!”

—

The Centaur had finally arrived in orbit of the planet and had assisted in making sure that the station was in a safe orbit around the planet. Centaur had dispatched a few teams over to the station to establish a few safe areas and now officers are roaming around in the Main Reactor Control Room, and other sections of the station without EV suits.

“I literally cannot believe that this is a Tkon Space Station. It really does look ancient.” Carter said as he looked around.

Vakai nodded his head, his arms folded across his chest as he watched the Chief going around, mostly in awe at everything he got to get his hands on. “Any word from Starfleet?”

Carter chuckled and shook his head, “It’s only been an hour since we transmitted all that data Sivol obtained from the station’s database, Number One. I doubt Starfleet will get back to us in a day or in a week from now.”

Vakai frowned, “But this is ancient technology, from a race that had a vast empire so long ago. You would think Starfleet would get in touch with us right away.”

Carter sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “You would think so, but the first thing that they will probably want to do is have their specialists go through the data and see if any of it has anything to do with what’s going on out there in the Galaxy. These…molecules…they’re not supposed to pop up naturally, especially this quantity. Point is…if any of them were to destabilize, we risk a chain reaction that would…” He paused and sighed. “It’s a galactic crisis, Number One. That’s all I can say.”

Vakai nodded his head and placed his hand on Carter’s shoulder. “I know. How is Gomez?”

Carter smiled, “One tough little cookie. I don’t know how she did it but she nearly tore her arm off, the Doc said. But she will be fine, she is recovering as we speak. But I think that her near death experience has finally got her to talk to someone.”

Vakai smirked and shook his head, “It’s about damn time.”

Meanwhile, on board the Centaur in Sickbay, Ryker sat there on a stool beside Gomez’s bed. “I swear to god, it was only dislocated, why am I stuck in here for like a whole day?” She complained.

Ryker shook his head, “Doc said you did a lot more than dislocate it. Just do what they say, they know these things, okay?”

She sighed and relaxed before looking directly into his eyes. “James…I’m really sorry about the other day.”

Ryker shook his head again, “Don’t worry about it.”

She then sat up. “No! I have to tell you why. I was mad at you.”

Ryker made a face of ‘No, really?’, “And here I thought I had bad breath or something.”

She smiled weakly and shook her head. “When he…it…said that it was your fantasy, the world that he created for our…trial… I thought…well…I thought our love and our children were also your fantasy too.”

Ryker frowned and leaned back, feeling a bit insulted. “You thought…that I would go that far…into manipulating you into something that you didn’t want?”

“No, that’s not what I mean! James, please lis-”

Ryker held his hands up and stood up from the stool and walked away a few steps before turning back around and looked directly into her eyes. “Yes. I have had fantasies…dreams…hopes…of us being together, having a family together. But I would never, ever, EVER, go to such … ridiculous lengths to force you into my life. I loved those kids, Ashley!”

“So did I, James! That’s why I was so upset with you! But I am not now, not anymore. Because you’re right. I should have never thought that you would think of something so cruel. I just…I don’t know, okay? I was just upset. Upset that it wasn’t real. Upset that our beautiful children didn’t exist. Family means so much to me, to my entire family, family is the most important thing of all. I just want those years back, James.” She wiped away the tears that started to trickle down her face.

Ryker sighed heavily and came back to sitting on the stool before pulling her into a hug, holding her in his arms. “Those years didn’t exist, Ashley. But our love was real, and to us, our children were real.” He held her away so he could look into her eyes. “Vakai and Sivol are thinking of making their relationship real because that was real to them too, not a fantasy. We can do it too, if you’d still have me.”

Gomez smiled and hugged him tightly. “Yes.”

Doctor Summer Pearce came up to them. “As much as I love you two making my other patients weep in joy over your embrace and confession…I really need you, Mr. Ryker, to leave so that Ms. Gomez here can get some rest.”

Ryker looked at her, “But I-”

“Now, Mr. Ryker. Before I give you a reason to stay in sickbay.” She stared at him, hard.

Ryker gulped and then kissed Gomez on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.” He said before he hurried out of Sickbay.

Gomez sighed with a smile. “Did you really have to kick him out?”

“Yes, I did. Now get some rest, missy, before I put you to sleep.” Pearce glared at her too and then walked away.

Back on the Ancient Tkon Space Station, the Chief came over to Vakai and Carter with a huge smile on his face. “It’s like being a five year old in a candy store and you were told to pick anything you want. A lot of the tech is amazing, old but amazing. I would love to take some of it apart, and get to know how it ticks.”

Carter shook his head, “Not until we hear more from Starfleet, Chief. What about the Centaur’s engines? We got here using only one engine, since it was all we really needed to get from the adjacent system to this one.”

Chief nodded his head and chuckled, “Ah yes yes, the Centaur’s engines. Not a problem, sir. My team are almost finished. She’ll be ready to fly your pants off in a couple of hours.”

“Just the way I like it, Chief. Now you go on back into your candy store. But no touching!” Carter squinted at him.

The Chief frowned and pouted, “Aww but sir!”

Carter held up a finger. “No. Touching.”

The Chief sighed, “Dangit. You always ruin my fun.” He walked away with his pout still on his face.

Vakai chuckled, “Is he always like that?”

Carter shrugged his shoulders. “Sometimes. It is not often that you get to visit something as amazing as this.”

Vakai smiled and nodded his head. “Yeah…I just wish the crew had been treated better.”

Carter frowned, “Are you certain that robot is dead?”

Vakai nodded his head again, “Yes sir. Runabout’s sensors may have been damaged, but they confirmed that the robot was indeed vaporized by the runabout’s phasers. I don’t think we will ever see him again.”

Carter sighed, “Better not. We have enough problems as it is in this galaxy, we really don’t need to add some psycho killer robot with a prototype artificial intelligence that went coo-coo and went all coa-coa puff on the crew.”

Vakai frowned, “Sir?”

Carter shook his head. “Just some old saying. Come on. Let’s get back to the Centaur. I still got some of the real stuff in my quarters. We’ll toast until Starfleet gets back to us about this station or about that data.”