Hina had managed to get some of the ships systems partially powered up, including the lights, though many of them were blown out. But even the dim lighting the working ones provided revealed a grim picture. What crew they could find in engineering were dead, and it didn’t look like a pleasant death. Not that death was pleasant in the first place. She tapped a few more controls bringing up a couple other consoles around the room.

“I think I’ve got some basic computer access up… we might be able to determine what happened here…” she said, pointing to the other consoles.

Kazansky nodded, moving to the tactical conn. Yet when she looked down on it she saw that it was her little sister’s pram. She began to push it because she was in a park or so it seemed. The hallucination seemed to have enveloped her and the illogic of it and of being suddenly in a park and not on a ship, mattered little. Then just as suddenly she was back, looking around Kazansky saw that she was on the ship they’d boarded. She was standing at a conn station.

Kazansky decided not to mention that. They might think she was going crazy if she talked about pushing her baby sister’s pram around.

Having activated sensors and sending their readout to Engineering, Shahr moved on to other consoles on the bridge. He wanted to see what else he could learn about the crew’s fate here. He shrugged into his pilot harness, the familiar, uncomfortable tightness wrapping around him like a cocoon. Wait. That wasn’t right. Shahr shook his head. He was on the bridge of an alien ship, wearing a Starfleet uniform, not back in the Imperial Guard. What was that?

“Let’s check the warp core, just in case we need to move this ship.” Hilea said.

Hina shrugged as the others moved around the room, moving closer to the engine core, which still remained dark. Getting it powered up would be a far more intensive task, and she didn’t think it was necessary, the ships back up generators providing plenty of power for what they needed. She glanced down at her tricorder.

“If you think we need more power… it might take me a couple minutes to restart the ships warp core.” she informed, “Looks like a couple plasma relays were fused.” she said.

“Weapons have been discharged, not sure what they were shot at,” Lieutenant Kazansky said, refocusing on her duties.

Hilea thought reload, before furrowing her brow. Shaking off the errant thought, she continued to access medical logs. She commented, “Access to the bridge logs is still locked out. Perhaps a bypass at the ODN conduit.”

Having shaken off the weird reminiscence of before, Shahr moved to the actual conn of the actual ship he was on. He noted the most recent commands. “I don’t see any evasive maneuvers here from the pilot. Did we note any weapons damage to the hull when we approached?”

Krazansky shook her head, “There were no signs of weapon damage, the hull of the ship appeared from our scans perfectly fine.”

“I’d have to climb into the maintenance spaces…” she said, pointing toward one of the access junctions. She didn’t like the idea but would do it if needed.

“I can go with you, I wouldn’t recommend splitting up until we know what happened here,” Kazansky said.

Hilea commented. “I would rather not split up unless we have no choice. However, the alternative would be to all go to the bridge. Time may not be on our side.”

Hina nodded, leaning on a console.

“No Id say not. I’ll bypass the ODN junction and see if I can get access to the bridge logs from here…” she said, crossing tot he access junction.

“Shouldn’t take me but a few minutes.” she added, opening the access hatch. She shined her light down the long tunnel take a breath. Sure, going down the creepy access tunnel on the deserted ship with corpses everywhere, alone, was a great idea. She sighed to herself and crawled in, bringing ouit her tricorder to see how far down the ODN junction was. She hoped the others would be able to figure out what had happened while she was gone.

Shahr tapped his comm badge to address the entire away team. “So we have weapons fire, but no evasive action. Corpses, but no sign of a boarding party or the type of damage that would wipe out the crew. Unless, uh, a bunch of holograms took them out, I don’t have a clue.” Shahr blinked. “Actually let me look for evidence of that.”

“Can we tell if it’s holograms? It wouldn’t be the first time a ship’s computer system turned on its users,” Kazansky said, they all remembered Frontier Day.

After poring through the ship’s internal sensors, Shahr felt confident a crew of rogue holograms was not the culprit here. “No residual traces of holograms or other photonic beings. Even with remote projectors, I’d be able to get something.”

Hina tossed her tool kit out of the crawlspace she had entered, causing it to clatter to the ground before hauling herself out after it. She stood quickly and replaced the access hatch on it leaning against it.

“Please tell me you figured out what was going on here… so we can get off this ship.” she practically begged, looking between the 3 other people in the room. She was very clearly distraught.

“Calm yourself, Lieutenant, or I will sedate you,” Hilea stated. “Investigations take time, we are collecting clues. Take a moment to gather yourself if you need to.”

She shook her head, looking at the access hatch she was leaning against.

“No… no reason…” she lied. “I fixed the ODN junction… well bypassed it completely. We should have access to all the logs we need so long as the bypass holds,” she added, pushing off the access hatch and picking up her tool kit.

Kazansky looked concerned, “Are you alright?”

“It’s nothing… just… heard some things in the crawlspace,” she said. That was true, but not the complete story either.

The security lieutenant nodded, “I also saw something, just like a flash or a vision. Could there be some kind of radiation we’re not picking up that’s playing tricks on us?”

“Shahr to… everyone. I might have found something. I was checking out this console’s activity log while Lieutenant Morishita was getting access to, uh, actual logs. Anyway, I noticed the internal sensor readouts were accessed from the captain’s office. A lot. As in, he or she seems to have rerouted this console to their personal computer repeatedly, and in increasing frequency, over the last few days.”

Hilea thought about the pattern, then said. “In fear of their life. Whether justified or not remains to be seen.”

Shahr dug a little deeper into the activity log. “Well I’d need a bit longer to confirm, but from a quick glance, it looks like they were compulsively checking the armory and also the hallway outside their office. Yeah… almost exclusively.”

“Excellent,” Hilea said.” Sickbay next. All of us. Now. I have scans to run, and logs to read. Wrap it up here so we can move out.”

Hina nodded, downloading what she could of the relevant ship’s logs onto her tricorder to read on the way.

“Sure… sickbay.” she said, frowning. She glanced back at the maintence hatch and then began to follow Hilea out of engineering. Everything about this ship was turning out to be a nightmare, so she could hardly imagine what sickbay would be like.

“Please concentrate on the sensor logs, while I go over the medical ones, Lieutenant. Keep your mind on the task.” Hilea said to Hina. Now her mind was wandering as well, hearing extra footfalls. Were they being followed?”

She glanced around as the group traveled, though mostly kept her eyes on her tricorder skimming the logs as best she could. The ship had arrived to study the distortion field.

“Oh… that’s probably not good… it looks like whatever happened here, started not long after they arrived here…” she commented to the group. “Maybe that’s why the captain kept checking the armory…” she added.

“Then the Armory is also a logical destination, the more clues we can gather, the more possibilities we can eliminate as not the solution. Thank you, Hina.”

“More mysteries…” she muttered, as they approached sick bay.