Crewman Danak, Yorkie to delta shift, moved though the bowels of the station like he knew every Jefferies tube, every overheated panel and every crawlspace. He gotten into the academy but 4 years of learning, stuck on earth, just wasn’t for him. He’d turned down the commission, wanting to get straight into the action he enlisted and following a short stint at the Enlisted Training Centre on Alpha Centauri was soon posted to the Starbase Bravo. A long way from the mining colony Starfleet was his way of getting away from that dammed moon. His family had been there since the first landing, but mining wasn’t for him, the stars were what he wanted to see and engineering was his way of getting there. Though since, he found himself so deep in the bowels of the Starbase that he could easily forget stars existed. But between the hum of the relays and creaking of the deck plates he heard things….

Hidden behind the sickbay wall Yorkie worked on a power conduit, barely able to move he couldn’t imagine many would be comfortable hidden in these crawlspaces, to him it was like being at home. As he adjusted the power flow the familiar hum of the conduit dropped off as he adjusted the coil, with that he heard two voices. He didn’t recognise the voices but he’d not really mixed with the Med staff at all, though he could tell one sounded unsettled. “Her readings were optimal… but…. like she was dreaming or trapped in REM sleep, but her eyes were wide open and there was no signs of any trauma” a sceptical reply came from the other “she flinched when the Doc said her name, I’m sure of it, that’s not the behaviour of someone in a coma”. Yorkie hadn’t heard of any accidents that resulted in a coma, but the Starbase Bravo was a big station. The pair had moved away from the wall, all he now heard was muffled voices, something about a beam of some sort and a Neural Echo whatever that means. Rerouting the power through a auxiliary junction the conduit hummed back to life. He pulled out his PADD and eyed his maintenance list and smiled, the next was near the crew lounge and caffeine was calling.

He’d never even heard of coffee until he enlisted, during his short stint on Earth he overheard a group of officers talking about some Admiral who insisted on her caffeine fix, not really knowing many Earth drinks he thought ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me!’ and had not looked back since. As his coffee materialised in the replicator the doors behind him opened. Two security officers walked in, one nodded toward Yorkie while carrying on talking to the other. “It was deck 26 again” while flipping though the information on his PADD, “that’s three times the logs have been overridden this week and no one is owning up to it”. The other shakes his head “if this is someone pulling a prank it’ll end up with a stint in the Brig, you can’t be messing around with biometric lockouts”, they walk to the other side of the room. He strained to hear what they we’re talking about over hubbub of others around the room. He couldn’t make out anymore of their conversation but checked his PADD again and sighed in relief, none of his maintenance was anywhere near Deck 26. He picked up his cup to drink the last drop, only to realise it was already empty. He grabbed his field kit and headed toward the door as a group in flustered science uniforms walked in, as he exited he gave one last glace over his shoulder, the science team we’re already huddled around a table. He couldn’t make out the details, apart from one word…. “feedback”, he shrugged and headed back to the maze of Jefferies tubes and power conduits.

Yorkie had always dreamt of the stars but in astrometics he definitely felt out of his depth, getting his hands dirty in a crawlspace performing maintenance and getting systems back up and running, that was where he was most comfortable. As the main display came back to life, the two science officers who had been hovering behind him immediately sprang to action almost nocking him out the way. Tapping rapidly on the console the young Bajoran ensign exclaims to her superior “It’s not background radiation. There’s structure, almost like a rhythm. The pattern repeats every 47 seconds”. The other leans in, “fascinating, signal or not it’s coming from that nebula, the longer we observe, the stronger it seems. It does not appear natural”. Placing his tools back in his field kit and closing the grey case Yorkie looked toward the pair, he didn’t even think they knew he was there anymore. As he exited the room through main doors, he heard a familiar voice the comm “this better be good news”, the doors closed behind.

Later, lay on his back inside a maintenance conduit his thoughts drifted back to the Med Bay, what is an Neural Echo? The metal grid below him felt cold on his back, the shift was almost over. He loved being able to check off all the jobs around the station, but he couldn’t wait to finish, delta shift were getting together for Racquetball practice ahead of the tournament. Yorkie wasn’t great, but he couldn’t bare to lose face in front of all his shift. He put his microtorch between his teeth and using the bulkhead for leverage he pulled at the manifold above. Fused again, third time this cycle, typical. As he worked it lose, he heard bootsteps on the deck plating “tertiary grid is bleeding again” one of them grumbled to the other. “That’s the third cycle this week, if we keep patching it like this we’re going to fry half the backup EPS lines”. “Not our problem” the other replied, “that extra drain is coming from docking pad 4, they’ve got something high priority up there, it needs a lot of power to stay cool”. Yorkie shuffled, Cold? Nothing standard needed cryo level energy unless it was volatile. The first let out a chuckle, “let me guess, no one will say what it is?”. “Nope, and I’m not asking, the last person to poke around got transferred to an orbital relay station in the middle of nowhere, just patch it, again”. Their voices faded as they moved down the corridor. He relit the microtorch and the manifold hissed overhead but the repair went smoothly. He couldn’t get docking pad 4 out of his mind, he did notice extra security over there yesterday. Wiping his hands on his trousers he slid himself out of the conduit, ‘probably nothing’ he told himself, ‘Racquetball was waiting’.