Lieutenant Murf set another charge, linked it with her tricorder and moved on to the next area.

“So what we’re just blowing the ship up?” asked Intelligence Officer Syvia Voosha watching as the engineer worked. She had never quite focused on the technical details of the job, but she knew that it was preferable to have a starship tractor beam the wreckage out and take it to a museum or something.

“Only thing we have the resources to do. The runabout can’t tow a starship into orbit and away, and now that we’ve removed the dangerous materials the job is minimizing cultural contamination,” Murf said, “It’s one thing if the natural population finds a mountain with a bunch of strange metals that only exist here in this one space, but quite another if they find a full starship.”

“And the town full of cowboys and whatever?” Voosha pointed out.

“I’m an engineer,” Murf said shrugging, “the town of cowboys is someone else’s problem. Broken starships are mine.”

Lieutenant Lambert entered the engineering bay, “I put charges on the bridge.”

“We should be done then, let’s get clear,” Murf said, “Hey you okay?”

Lambert nodded, “It’s just bringing some stuff up. This is the same class of ship as the USS Bostonwas, Miranda-class, and to find another ship like this, lost in time.”

“We all travel through time, we just go the long way,” Murf pointed out, “As did this ship.”

“Then my fiancé was taken at gunpoint,” Lambert said.

“Well that’s what happens to commanders. We lose more commanders that any other ship in the fleet I swear,” Voosha said.

The Vulcan Spuak who was part of the USS Paris’ crew from long ago entered. He had been tasked with a final sweep of the ship, and with collecting his personal effects to return to Federation space. He carried only a duty log on an old style PADD.

“Is that all the personal belongings you have?” Voosha asked glancing at the PADD in his hand. The crew of the USS Luna had been through all of this trying to make ancient Starfleet technology work with their ship already, so she assumed that the gear heads back on board would have something to connect that with the ship.

“I do not have much more, a few robes but they can be synthesized once we return,” the Vulcan said flatly. Voosha wondered how excited the Vulcan was to return not only to Federation space but to civilization. He was roughly the age Ambassador Spock would have been, and had spent decades as the ship’s sole caretaker.

Murf brushed her hands on her fleet issue pants satisfied, “Alright let’s get back to a safe distance, is going to be loud.”

About halfway back to the runabout they met up with Lieutenants Lambert and Siegel who had been scouting to try to find the outlaw camp. Lambert was clearly worried about his fiancé Commander Carrillo, and so they had all kind of decided, without vocalizing it, to second guess his suggestions and keep an eye on him. They had not had a discussion of who was actually in charge with the Commander being taken, but likely most of them would have deferred to Voosha given that she was the one with on the ground tactical experience and the rest of them were the ship nerds.

“Setting off charge,” Murf said, fiddling with her tricorder. There was a pause and then a loud explosion off in the distance that looked like the result of a meteor strike. Perhaps that was what future scientists would think happened in centuries when they discovered the unique metals of the USS Paris buried under the mountain.

Murf look satisfied, as one would after a loud explosion.

“We must depart that will be heard in town, it is likely they come and investigate,” Spuak said.

“One out of three jobs done,” Siegel said, with only the book and retrieving their crew remaining.