Pasari Moon  – 2130

They worked with the transporter chief to target a location that seemed like an entrance.  They’d suited up and Chief Katsumi had checked and rechecked to make sure they were secure and airtight.  The transporter beam had taken them from the Edinburgh to the surface of Pasari, where they all stood in quiet amazement.  It was like any other moon – dust kicked up when they moved and the sun showed across it as it moved.  But there was something beneath their feet that each of them noted felt…off.  The surface wasn’t quite as deep as it should have felt.  Ensign Sadie Fowler, all of 19 years old, was now in charge of everything science and was making the most of her walk towards what looked to be a door of some kind.  She spoke to the CO and Kondo as she trudged on, “The power readings are really low – barely detectable unless you adjust the scanner.  There’s an odd murmur in the power readings as well.”

Harris stopped and turned, “A murmur, Ensign?”  She shuffled forward and showed him the reading and he watched it for several minutes before turning to his security chief.

“Take a look at this…this look like a heartbeat to you?”  A glance from Kondo and a frown as the reading continued and he looked back to the door and then to the reading and back again.

He grumbled, “I know I keep using the word odd to describe this thing…but I think we’re far beyond odd and getting into weird, sir.”  He pulled his phaser rifle off his back and snapped it into his gloves while tapping the activation switch.  The soft whine kicked on.  “Let us proceed carefully.”  They did so with Kondo and his rifle at the lead, Fowler and her chirping tricorder in the middle, and Harris at the end – his phaser had come out of its holster as he searched the horizons around them.  They reached the door and Kondo went to work.  

The CO sidled up beside the science ensign, “What do you think?”  She gaped at him, words failing her at the directness of his question.  He tried again, “Theories, ensign…what are your theories?”

Sadie took a few breaths and closed her eyes to consider what the readings from the planet were telling her and what the sensors from the ship had told her.  She thought about the comments regarding the heartbeat signal and her eyes snapped open, “They said this happened a month ago…and it had been working just fine since they had come here…what if whatever is powering…or powered this…thing…is dead or dying?  Batteries or power cores will often give off a signal to alert the operators or the engineers that they need to replace or service it.”  She took a breath as the information from her academy classes came flooding back, “We learned that our modern power systems in 2400 have evolved far beyond that – but they’ve been on this planet for hundreds of years, maybe more.  What if…the power system is so old it’s sending a signal that it needs a recharge? Or a new battery?”  She sighed and tapped her helmet, “That’s why you thought it looked like a heartbeat, sir – it’s a constant signal in a recognizable pattern transmitting to whoever was in charge of maintaining this station to come and fix it.”

Harris patted her on the shoulder, “Ensign Fowler – that’s some damn fine work.  The question is…where is the creator?  And why haven’t they responded?”

She thought for a moment – “Well if it’s been hundreds of years since this thing was made…maybe the creator is dead?”  There was an audible click and metal groan and they turned to find Kondo waving them in a large open door.  Carefully they stepped through the door into a small holding area.  Each of them clicked on their flashlight units on the suit as there were no lights present. Harris pulled it closed behind them as his security chief went to work on the door into the moon.  It took a moment but it swung open.  Slowly and hesitantly they stepped into the corridor.

De La Fontaine swept his light over the walls and down the hallways, “Commander, I recognize this design from our history studies – the aesthetics and architecture are Romulan – but old…like 400 years old.”  Dust and cobwebs scattered in the corners of the metal corridors.  He swept his tricorder, “Minimal power is present…but not enough to provide life support.  We’ll have to remain suited…for now.”  They continued down the hallway until they entered a large room.  As their lights searched the room, Fowler gasped.  Kondo and Harris found what she was looking at.

Bodies still at their stations.  Nearly mummified as if the muscles and skin had been pulled or pulled into the body.  Sadie shook herself from the shock and began to move from body to body with her tricorder, “They’ve been dead a long time…,” she stopped at one whose head rested on the console, “Surface scans aren’t showing any blunt force trauma or disrupter readings…”, Fowler clicked at the tricorder once more, “Commander…these people died working at their stations.”

Kondo was standing at the center chair where a body sat, slumped to the side, “Similar readings here, sir.  This Romulan male died of what the computer suggests was old age.  Estimating…200 years old.”

Harris tapped at a console.  Nothing responded.  A light or two blinked, “If these were 200 years old…this would be the second or third generation that lived on this station.”  Turning to face his away team he reasoned, “These systems are archaic – they’d still be functional if powered….we need to find engineering.”  The three of them continued through the next corridor.  Each room – from the mess hall to the quarters they discovered the same.  Bodies in work repose, dead and aged.  They found a room with markers attached to the wall denoting those that had died before.  Using the dates, they were able to discover the station had been around for about 500 years and had gone through at least three commanding officers in that time.  They stood in silent thought, the walls covered in dusty metal plates.  The CO wondered, “They were all old – but they all died in at their stations…what happened to this place?”

Fowler had finished recording the plates on her tricorder, “Perhaps in order for the station to continue the work of supporting the planet…the computer cut life support and conserved what power it had to continue its mission?”

Ambrose shrugged, “Your theory is sound, Ensign…we’ll need to get to engineering to find that out.”  

They left the room and continued on down the corridors turning left, down some stairs, then right…and down a few more hallways until a large room lay ahead.  Kondo stepped out in front and lead them slowly to the entrance.  He swept the room with eyes and tricorder and waved them in.  He gestured to where the core would be, “Weird just became horrifying.”

What had once been a Romulan was strapped into a power distribution system with wires, tubes, and more nightmarish connections coming out of the body and connecting to various conduits and consoles in the room.  Fowler gagged and stayed at the entrance to the room for a moment longer.  Harris snapped out his tricorder and approached the body, scanning quickly before announcing, “He’s still alive.”  Kondo snapped his head up and jumped up with his CO as they began to disconnect the tubes, wires, and connections.  It took then fifteen minutes to do and a little bit longer to find a way to disconnect him from the core stand.  They gently shifted the man to the ground as Fowler slowly approached, her face the color of snow.  Harris checked the pulse of the man and accepted a hypospray from a shaking science officer.  It took a moment but the eyes of the man slid open.

“You’ve come…at last.”  He grimaced at the pain it took to move his head to look at Kondo, and then to Harris, “You’re…not Romulan.”  His face filled with fear.

The CO spoke gently, “We’re not here to hurt you.  We’re here to try to help.  The planet below is having…problems.  They think Pasari…is mad at them…or something has happened to Pasari.”  He motioned to Fowler to scan and examine the room, “What happened here?”  Kondo took over as medical with the away team kit Fowler had handed him.  A few more hyposprays and scans seemed to help bring the man back to them.

“We were to keep them alive.  Protected.  This station was built to watch them…observe them.  Contain them.”  He coughed, wincing at the sharpness of the pain, but he kept going, “They were exiles…they called them traitors.”  He sighed, “We got to know them over time…we came to understand them as real…as true…as…Romulan.”  He growled, “We sent only what the Empire asked for – between our parents and grandparents we discovered the intentions of the Empire were to use them for experiments…to find out how to make a better warrior…a better fighter…a better force to defend against the enemies of the galaxy.”

Harris shook his head, “Why were you hooked up…”, he gestured to the nightmarish contraption.

A grim smile passed across the man’s face, “We were hooked into the sensors…so that we could provide what they needed as the conditions changed.  We became familiar with them watching them…feeling them…supporting them…we came to care for them.”  A cough, “The Empire did not expect us to care.”

Kondo sighed, “How many of you were hooked up to this…thing?”

“I was the fourth…and the last.  We agreed to cut life support to keep the people below alive for as long as possible.  It was hard to know my friends and family were going to die.”  His voice faltered, “We had long accepted our fates…but it is not easy to push the button condemning them, even if they had consented to such a thing.”  His eyes went misty as he worked to control his emotions once more, “The Empire stopped responding to us years ago…we were forgotten…the experiment no longer held the value needed.”  His breath became shallow as he coughed harder this time, “You will need to find a way to power this moon without us…those people below us must be allowed to live.  They must live.”  He waved off another hypospray from Kondo, “I know I am dying, sir.  Do not prolong my life here…I have lived long enough to learn enough about life…to know I have spent more than enough time alive.”

Fowler returned, her tricorder in hand, “I think I may have some solutions, Commander.”  She stared at the dying Romulan, “You did a good thing, sir.”  

The man smiled quietly, “We did what was necessary.  Will you stay with me as I pass?  I do not wish to die alone.”

The three of them remained with the man as his breathing became heavy and then labored, the pallor of his face falling until his eyes stopped moving and his breathing faded into a final sigh.  Silence held in the room as each of them processed the death of the man.  Harris stood, “We’ll mark his death as they marked the others…we’ll need to do the same with the rest of the bodies.”  He turned to Fowler, “Let’s see what we can do to get this place working again…he didn’t die in vain for us to not fulfill his final wish.”