“Starting scans now.”  Lieutenant Sadie Fowler spoke from her station.  The Douglas had just arrived at the second aperture.  They’d found the first aperture was a false positive, and the disappointment had been resting just under the surface of the crew for the last week.  Now, they were hoping for a lucky break.  Fowler was tired. They’d been working on searching their end of the Gamma Quadrant for something more.  All they’d found were desolate planets raided and ransacked by The Unknowns.  The devastation was immense and overwhelming.  Fowler had fought nightmares the first few nights as they’d fled to their next aperture.  Four years from New Bajor, it was a desolate expanse.  The sensors started reporting back, and she went to work.

Captain Leopold Halsey stood in the command circle, his hands tightly behind his back.  “Tactical,” he asked, “what do we see?”

Ensign Athena had been watching the threat screens as they traveled.  There was an unusual emptiness that she wasn’t used to seeing, and it hadn’t stopped bothering her.  Was this what awaited them at the edges of the other Quadrants?  Unrestrained mania?  Another tap of her console, “Nothing on short range. Long-range showing the same…,” a soft beep and alarm popped on her screen.  “Correction, long-range sensors are picking up several ships on an intercept course for our position.  They’re not ours and are not similar to The Unknowns.”  Her heart began to pound as she queried for more data to compare.  “I’m reading mild power readings – even from this far away.  There are three ships – unknown size.  Currently traveling towards us at warp 1…intercept time is two hours.  These are new players on the board, captain.”

Halsey remained standing.  He had wondered how long it would take for any of the others out in the ether to take notice of the Douglas.  Someone was answering.  “Atega – let’s see if they’ll answer.  Start the standard methods and escalate from there.”  He turned back to Fowler, his curiosity piqued at the new development.  “The aperture?”

Sadie was frowning as she worked the sensors and systems, “It’s a confirmed aperture, but it’s…closed.”  She reoriented the scanning settings as the screen display updated, “It’s…locked.  By some kind of…device?”  She put the results on the view screen, “It’s mechanical, but it’s also biological – the computer is reading DNA strands and…life signs from it.  I can’t verify that it has a heartbeat…but it’s showing signs of life.”

Leopold walked to her station, examining the deeper details, “There – that’s a biological response to us.  You see?  When our sensors scan…it..flinches?”  He tapped his badge, “Doctor Reid to the bridge.”

Fowler was mystified, “We see something similar in, well, Borg.  But it’s not Borg…it’s Borg-like.”  She zoomed in closer with the camera, “The design is more…for lack of a better word, elegant. It’s clean – this..whatever this is has a specific design and purpose.”  The sensors looked for a transmitter or connection point.  “That’s…different.  There’s no external way to engage with the device.  We can work on getting a better picture of the device and how we could…interface with it.”  She stopped as a terrible feeling swept through her stomach, “Sir…I should mention that this might not be a door closed to keep us out.  It might be a door locked to keep whatever is on the other side out.”  The bridge fell from the hushed tones of side conversations as the weight of her words scattered over each of them.

The doors to the bridge flew open, and Lieutenant Jordan Reid stepped onto the bridge, “You rang?”  Fowler walked her through the report, status, and updated theories.  “See what the computer can tell you with a DNA scan.”  She slid into the chair next to Fowler, her eyes watching the science screen while pulling up her access on the console in front of her.  “The basics of life are contained within DNA, genomes – all the fun stuff.  We share a few markers with some of our friends in the Alpha, and it gets pretty muddy in the Delta, never mind here in the Gamma.”  She glanced at the scans and then went to work on her station, “While it would take a week or so to understand what The Unknown is or even what else is out here…we can still make some identifications.”  She focused on several of the biological readings that were contained within the locking device.  The console beeped softly.  Reid gasped, shaking her head.

Fowler leaned over and had to reread it to make sure.  “The computer is saying the genetic makeup of the device is primarily Human and Vulcan?” She ran the checks through her systems, “There’s 25% of it that’s unknown and would need to be investigated, but the other 75% of that device is…from the Alpha Quadrant?”  Sadie leaned back in her chair, “Doctor Reid – how is that…possible?”

Reid was running the scans again and coming up with the same answers, just more refined the longer the computer had time to investigate.  “We sometimes forget that outside of the Alpha Quadrant, regulations have a habit of being ignored, bent, or reverse-engineered.”  She tapped at the screen, “The lock is genius – you could blow it up, but the effect of the destruction of the device increases the chance of the destruction of the aperture.  Look, see this,” she pointed over to Fowler’s station.

Sadie opened up the scans, “Tachyon equipment similar to what’s reportedly being used by the Cardassians to close apertures.  But this device is rudimentary at best – it’s a rough kitbash of things that shouldn’t work together.”

Halsey spoke up, the data streaming on his PADD, “And yet…it works pretty well together.”  He thought about the implications, “Someone must have come through this thing before…and found a way to keep it closed – long before things got interesting for us.” He turned to Reid and Fowler to give them an order.

Lieutenant Presley Atega interrupted, her voice alarmed, “Captain, I am getting a response from the ships on an intercept course.  “They wish to speak to us, sir.”  

Halsey turned to face the screen, wondering if this was the right play.  Should they be running back to the Delta Quadrant as fast as possible?  They’d only discovered threat after threat since arriving here.  Who was to say the menu wouldn’t be half-baked leftovers with a side of spicy salsa for extra menace?  He pushed his fear and anxiety to the side, “Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”

The screen flickered and then resolved into an image that startled the bridge crew.  The elderly human man searched the crew, his eyes growing wistful, “Captain Matthew Parsons, SS Lionheart.

Halsey took in the rest of the man’s crew.  A Romulan who was visibly aghast at what he was seeing, and a Bajoran who couldn’t make up her mind to be angry or upset.  He introduced himself, “Captain Leopold Halsey, Federation Starship Douglas.”  He wondered where to start.  “Is the device on the aperture yours?”

Parsons nodded, “We…it brought us here thirty years ago.  We tried to get back, but the other end was closed…for whatever reason, it just…shut.  We didn’t think we’d ever see anybody again.”  He turned to his crew, “Only ten of us left – the other two ships are carrying our greenhouses and food processors.”  His face shifted from serene to severe, “You’ve not run into The Wrath, have you?” Leopold explained what they had found and seen.  The man shook his head, “Then you know. We started with forty crew.  They’ve whittled us down…body by body…ship by ship.  We found a spot where they don’t come search…it’s been our home all these years.”  He rubbed his face with his hands, “We put the device to keep The Wrath from getting any ideas on trying to get into The Innerspace.  They don’t see it as a threat or anything – just a blob of goo.  They’ve left it alone.”  He fell silent, his face a cascading display of emotions.

The CO asked, “Captain Parsons, we’re working on a way home…but it’s not guaranteed yet.  Can we…”

The man’s voice had been soft before, but his next words were riddled with emotion, rending each of the bridge officer’s hearts.  “Captain – I don’t care if you never find a way home.  We…we can’t keep going like this much longer.  I’m asking for sanctuary, sir…a place where home means something more than just survival in the darkness.”

Halsey didn’t have to think twice: “Once you arrive, we’ll have a medical team meet you in our transporter room. Bring over what you want, captain.”

Parsons didn’t move, “All we have is what’s on us…this place stopped being a warm home long ago.  Once we’re onboard…burn it all.  I never want to see the insides of these ships again.”

“I won’t question the wishes of the captain.  We’ll see to it, Captain Parsons.”  The channel closed, and Halsey wondered about the scars and wounds the remaining ten women and women would have after thirty years.

His Chief Medical Officer broke him from his thoughts, “Captain – I’ll need a few hands when they get here to help transition them into temporary quarantine,” Reid warned as she entered the turbolift.  The door closed, and she tapped at her PADD, getting her team ready for the mess about to fall in their laps.  Thirty years was a long time.

The hours passed with little fanfare.  The ships arrived, and the transport process began.

Halsey stared at the screen on the bridge, which showed the three aging transports.  Tir asked from his station, “We’re going to destroy them?”

Halsey stared at the ships, “Have security clear them and pull anything useful off them first.  I don’t doubt our new friends…but thirty years is a long time.  Have the team report back to me directly.”  He turned to Tir, “You have the CONN.  Have Commander Hargraves meet me in my ready room.”  He stepped through the door and stopped, listening to the silence as the door whispered to a close behind him.  

He moved to the couch and sat in reflection. Thirty years was a long time.  He meditated on that thought until the doors flew open, and his interim XO stepped through.  Halsey waved him over, “Commander.  You’re caught up?”

Hargreaves snorted, “Thirty years in this nightmare.  Why didn’t they try for home?”

Leopold handed him a PADD with updated reports, “Engineering is working the ships now with security.  It looks like the warp cores were burned out pretty quickly after they got here.  Warp 1 and impulse.  Would have taken them hundreds of years to get home.”  He snagged a mug of coffee, “Any record of them in the systems?”

“Surprisingly, there is. SS Lionheart and her convoy were marked as missing and presumed dead.  There were suspicions that Captain Parsons and his crew were working some less than legal opportunities before they went missing, and the investigation decided they’d gotten themselves killed by mixing it up a few crime syndicates.”

Halsey sat up, concern filling his face.  “You think we need to be worried about them?”

Charlie handed the PADD over. “They were small time from the start. Nothing on Parsons was flagged in the system. Most of the crew was the same story—except for one.”

Halsey read the name three times, “You can’t…he was confirmed as dead.”

The Diplomatic Chief shrugged, “All I know is that the face matches.  He may not be named Peter Crawford, but that’s the man.”

Halsey wished for a stronger drink.  “Well, damn.”