Ensign Fransix Leski spun in his chair, feeling utterly useless. He had already felt slightly useless once navigation had failed, but then had the chance to busy himself with helping the  Engineers while they fixed the broken consoles. Now the Engineers were gone, and in comparison to the usual set-up, the bridge was almost deserted. Not even the Captain was present, as she had been called to some random encounter on the holodeck. Fransix tried not to judge the wisdom of that before he had all the information, but his preliminary assessment was that this wasn’t exactly the time for a Captain to leave the bridge. 

He sighed and spun once more. He loved being a pilot. He had been fascinated by it since he was a child, and over his teens, he had become quite good at it too. Good enough to make it into Starfleet despite not having the best grades and most impressive extracurricular activities on his resumé. And now he felt useless because the navigation was still largely offline, and aside a few small course corrections that were still possible, the Cupertino was essentially drifting through the void. 

He knew that the warp core was back online, and prioritising that was probably a good call. But for him, the only difference that really made was that they could either drift through space slowly, or really fast. 

He’d very much prefer no drifting at all. And if he couldn’t get that, he would at least appreciate long-range sensors back in working order, so that they had an idea where they were drifting to, and what they would encounter there. 

Fransix sighed and glared at his console, which remained utterly unimpressed by that haphazard attempt of intimidation. 

“Frenzy, wanna look at that?”, said a voice behind him. Fransix grimaced. He hated the nickname, but he liked the young man – Ensign Karrax – who tended to use it to tease him, so he let it slide. 

“Sure?” 

Whatever it was, it was probably more interesting than a staring contest with a console. He got up and approached the science station “What am I looking at?” 

“I am not sure yet, the sensor readings aren’t what I’d like them to be.”, said the other man, who was probably facing similar frustrations in regards to what was working and what was not. “It looks like a neutrino emission., but its faint.” 

“A warp signature?”, asked Fransix. That could very well mean another ship – perhaps someone else stranded here. Not that he wished that fate on anyone, but not being alone in this was a comforting thought. 

“I’m trying to modulate sensors to get a better look at it. It seems too faint for another ship. Or at least…uh…”

“At least?”

“Just let me check first, okay?”

Fransix bit his lip. He didn’t like this one bit, because he could imagine what other options there were, and none of them were particularly great. Considering the very discouraging possibilities of what this was, he decided he’d rather remain alone than encountering anything. He watched as his colleague worked the controls to adjusted the sensor parameters. 

“Okay, I’ve adjusted the sensor array to filter out the background interference. We should get a clearer reading now.”

Both Ensigns stared at the console as new data began to stream in. Fransix expression shifted from curiosity to concern. “Is this…?”

“Yeah.”,  said “Karrax quietly. “It’s a debris field.”

Fransix’ heart sank. “Debris from what?”

The answer came as Karrax pulled up a visual representation of the sensor data. The screen filled with several scattered objects, some large and some small, floating as aimlessly through space as the Cupertino currently did.  

 “Looks like a ship’s wreckage, and there is… a lot of it. Either several ships, or one large one. With the current data, I’d say the latter. Maybe a … passenger liner or something.”

Fransix felt a knot tighten in his stomach. Passenger liners were massive vessels, designed to carry thousands of people across the galaxy. But that was the least of their worries right now. 

“And we’re heading straight towards it,” he said soberly. He returned to his station, and brought their current trajectory on the screen, showing their ship’s path intersecting with the debris field.

“We need to alert the captain.” 

At that moment, the doors to and from the bridge parted, revealing Captain Nassar. 

“How are we doing?”, she asked lightly. Too lightly considering their situation. 
 

“We were actually just about to contact you….”, replied Fransix.