The runabout came to a slowing stop just a ways away, taking in the sight of it before them. It had a similar structural style of the Unity Class Starbase with various differences to it, especially for the material that was used in constructing it. Which is the one thing that they were trying to get information on, but the sensors weren’t giving them much detail.

“It probably has to do with the sensors operating at only thirty five percent efficiency. That distortion that was in the debris field has really screwed up some of our systems.” Gomez said as she was performing yet another diagnostic on the Runabout systems. “I can’t even get the long range communications back online. Which means I’m going to have to open her up when we get back to the Centaur. Thanks a lot, Ryker.” She glared at him for a moment before she started to walk towards the aft compartment.

Ryker’s mouth hung open. “Why the heck are you blaming me?! Sivol asked me to go through it because the debris could be important.”

“I wouldn’t blame Sivol because she’s too sweet and innocent to be blamed. But you, you’re the pilot!” And with that, she left for the rear compartment.

Ryker looked at Vakai. “Seriously?”

Vakai shrugged his shoulders. “I did tell you to be careful.”

Ryker groaned in defeat. “I hate you guys.”

Vakai grinned then looked at Sivol. “Find a way in?”

Sivol looked up from her sensor display. “At least the sensors are efficient enough to locate a hangar bay. Should be right…there.” She pointed with her arm just over the side of Ryker’s head, where he could follow her finger.

“I see it, thank you.” Ryker said as he started entering commands into his station, navigating the runabout towards the open hangar bay. “Are the sensors efficient enough to detect whether there is an atmosphere or not?”

Sivol took one more look at her display. “Odd.”

Vakai raised a brow. “Odd?”

Sivol looked at Vakai. “Various sections of the station appear to have breathable atmosphere but other sections appear to not have any.”

Vakai raised both brows. “Why is that odd?”

Sivol sent her sensor data to Vakai’s console. “Take a look. The section connected to the Hangar bay is pressurized and has a breathable atmosphere. But the section to the left of it, has none, while the section to the right of it does. Then the section further to the left, also has a breathable atmosphere.”

Vakai could see more odd sections with no breathable atmosphere. Kind of like squares on a checkerboard. The whites were the ones with a breathable atmosphere and the blacks weren’t. “That is peculiar. Hull breaches?”

Sivol shook her head. “Either the sensors are too damaged to detect them or there are none.”

Vakai sighed, “Nevertheless, in order to get to this section that is pressurized and breathable, we have to cross the hangar bay that’s exposed to space due to the hanging open hangar door…so.”

“So we need our EV suits.” Ryker finished the sentence.

Vakai nodded his head. “Indeed. Especially as a safety precaution, even if we were in the sections with breathable atmosphere, I wouldn’t take the helmets off for any reason.”

“At least we can keep the oxygen in our suits supplied while we venture between ones with atmosphere and ones without.” Ryker smiled.

Vakai shrugged one of his shoulders. “That is the plus side of it all.” Vakai then went and pressed the runabout’s intercom. “Okay everyone, suit up. We’re about to land.” He then looked to Ryke and Sivol. “You two as well.”

“Let me land this bird first.” Ryker laughed.

Vakai smirked, “You knew what I meant.” He then got up and headed towards the rear compartment, Sivol right behind him. “There anything we should be concerned about on board this station?”

Sivol shook her head. “I do not have much to go on with the sensors that are damaged. I will have more information once I scan with my tricorder. But the tricorder has a much smaller scanning radius.”

Vakai shrugged, “We will make do with what we got. Either way, we best follow standard procedure and have our weapons set to stun, in case there are life forms on board that the sensors couldn’t detect.”

Sivol raised her eyebrows. “I had not thought of checking for life forms.”

Vakai blinked as he stared at her. “You never scanned for life forms?”

Sivol cleared her throat, trying to hide her embarrassment. “As abandoned as the station appeared, no…no I didn’t.”

Vakai raised his brows. “I am absolutely surprised. Thought Vulcans were very precise.”

Sivol licked her lips that suddenly felt dry to her, “I don’t know why I forgot, but I assure you, it wasn’t intentional.”

Vakai chuckled, “Relax. Just pulling your leg. Come on, let’s get suited up.”

—

The runabout had landed on the hangar deck, and seven silhouettes came from the starboard hatch, slowly making their way to the doorway that would lead them into a corridor. First, Gomez and Sivol had to figure out the language and how to depressurize the corridor so they could go in easily and repressurize the other side. But as they were doing that, suddenly the hangar doors started to close.

Vakai raised a brow. “Did you two do that?”

Sivol and Gomez looked at each other before looking at Vakai and shook their heads. “No.”

Gomo groaned. “I do not do haunted Space Stations.”

Maya and Koyda chuckled together. “Come on Gomo, it’ll be fine.”

The hangar doors finally came together and sealed, just before air started filling the hangar bay. Sivol took her tricorder out, “It’s pressurizing.” Just after she said that, the door to the corridor opened.

“I don’t do creepy…” Gomo whispered harshly. The team then began to explore the habitable parts of the station, the interior being quite different from anything they have seen before. Course they really haven’t seen many interiors in their careers, but this was something else.

“What do you make out of these alloys?” Vakai asked.

Sivol shook her head. “I can’t tell. Tricorder is having a hard time figuring it out. That or our equipment was affected by the distortion in the debris field.” After she said that, Gomez glared at Ryker, who just rolled his eyes and ignored her.

“Collect all the data we get here. We will send it back to Fleet Command and they will be able to figure it out.” Vakai ordered. Others may be able to figure out what all of this is, especially since he really didn’t get to learn much about ancient or extinct races, and it seemed no one else on his team did. Course, most of them he encouraged to take extensive training to be elevated to Officers. Though he could have just waited until he was Captain and promoted them all to like Chief Petty Officers or something and still assign them to the positions that he already has planned for them. But he wanted to have more authority in the matter, in case things were to happen that would have or could have forced an officer to overrule them if they were stills non-coms. And Vakai could not afford that to happen.

“Station surely appears to still be running on power.” Said Maya.

Gomez nodded her head, “It is. What kind of power, I am uncertain. Even with the runabout sensors damaged, we should have picked up an energy signature from the station, indicating that the main reactor is online. But either it isn’t, or the reactor is heavily shielded.”

“Wonder what they used this station for.” Koyda asked.

“Probably observation of the primitive species down below on the planet. But the station also appears to be old, very old. Can’t really tell from the tricorder, but maybe the planet used to be a home to an ancient civilization.” Sivol explained.

Gomo groaned again. “Ancient Civilization would imply that they got their butts handed to them or they went extinct for some other reason or…I don’t know…they’re gone and to me, I feel like they all left in a not so good of a way.”

Ryker sighed, “When did you become so superstitious, Gomo?”

Gomo looked at Ryker. “I’ve read all the mission reports that were opened up to us when we became commissioned officers, and I know about all the horror stories and how things turned out for others. This station reeks of it. I guarantee you.” As Gomo finished saying that, they had come to a stop at a doorway, which led to what they hoped was the Operations Center, when the door opened up and a large metallic figure happened to be on the other side.

“Hello!” The robotic, ‘gentle’ voice, came from the couple centimeter tall, few centimeters wide opening that would be considered a mouth. And the next thing everyone heard was Gomo screaming, whether it be in surprise or he had been scared shitless, as no one was expecting anything or anyone to be on board. Or was it the fact that this metallic looking figure apparently had what looked like skin grafts on various places of his body? Least…they hoped those were artificial skin….