Lieutenant JG al-Kwaritzmi, Personal Log, supplemental. We have exited warp in the Xi Velorum system, where we are to give support to the USS Franscini as ordered by Commodore Ekwueme. Thanks to the modification to the ventral quadrupole moment of the warp field, introduced by Lieutant Z’Xak, the collapse of the Cochrane wave function has been 0.031 microseconds faster than the benchmark value. This is an extremely impressive result, but has apparently produced a spurious resonant vibration of the Warp coils that might give rise to unwanted problems. I expect that, while an away team deals with the situation of the Franscini, we will have lots of time to analyze this problem.

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi stopped recording, downed what was left of his glass of water, and walked back into Main Engineering. He was welcomed by the gentle humming of the warp core, suspended in the middle of the large room, and by the reassuring noise of activity of the Engineering personnel.

He walked to the Warp control panel, where Lieutenant JG Z’Xak was typing away. The large spider didn’t give any sign of having taken notice of him; yet Iskander knew perfectly well that their composite eyes could capture almost 360-degrees. Z’Xak had seen him: but even on the best of days, he didn’t really care about doing anything about it.

“Lieutenant. What is your assessment of that spurious vibration?” asked the human.

The large spider hit their stomach carapace with their two small vestigial arms. Theirs was a non-verbal species, incapable of emitting or modulating air, but they used their own body as a sort of drum — not dissimilarly to how a grasshopper on Earth could sing.

“I see the pilons unprepared for the speed of collapse” the communicator translated.

“Yes. Any idea on how to fix it?”

Z’Xak didn’t answer for a certain amount of time.

“I don’t. You fix it” they drummed.

“Lieutenant. What did we say about being nice?”

The Ukarimi made a pause. Impossible to know whether they were thinking about this question or not.

“I am nice.”

Sadly, Iskander knew that this statement was true. The spider could be enormously brash and rude: they didn’t mean it, but their species had no concept of personal relationships. Their language only contained two subjects – I and you – and had no space for pleasantries.

Iskander was about to turn back to the subject of the vibrations when he heard a slight commotion coming from the entrance of Main Engineering. Indeed, Commander Vistia Xe and Science Officer Siouinon had just entered, and Commander Mir Durbus, the Chief Engineering Officer, was rushing to meet them.

“Commander! Commander!” She welcomed them.

“It’s about the Franscini” told her Commander Xe. “We’d like your opinion.”

Iskander tore his eyes away from the scene, despite being very curious. He looked back at Z’Xak, who — for their part — exhibited absolutely no curiosity in the activity of anyone who wasn’t either themselves or was working on the Warp system.

“What were we saying, Lieutenant?” asked the human.

“I am running a diagnostic” tapped the spider.

That usually meant that the Z’Xak would be concentrating on his own thoughts and not speak for quite a while. Starfleet had been very accommodating towards the Ukarimi engineer — in part owing to the fact that they were quite a genius — but their disregard for hierarchy, norms of convivial working, and social clues, made it difficult to interact.

Iskander turned and quickly evaluated the situation in Engineering. Commander Durbus and the other commanding officers had occupied a large wall panel and were looking at some scans — impossible to tell what. With her occupied, Iskander was automatically in charge during beta shift. He looked around to make sure that everything seemed normal — and it did.

He walked to Ensign Diran Koli’s console. The Betazoid, ever the sociable being, looked up to him and smiled.

“Lieutenant! How nice!” he exclaimed. Iskander sometimes wondered whether his enthusiastic way of greeting was genuine or played-up: nothing in Diran’s personality suggested deception, but even him couldn’t be this enthusiastic about such a trivial occurrence as a superior wandering to their console.

“Ensign Koli. We experienced a spurious resonance while exiting warp. Could you tell me if that was felt by the EPS grid?”

“I can certainly run a diagnostic for that!”

If anyone’s typing style could be described as lusty, it would have been Diran Koli.

They were interrupted by Commander Durbus’ voice.

“Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi! Can you please come here?” she called.

Iskander jolted and walked to them at a controlled pace.

Commander Vistia Xe, Lieutenant Commander Therese Siouinon and Lieutenant Commander Mir Dirbus stood at precise distances from each other, as if describing an equilateral triangle with their feet; the monitor they were using shone behind them, showering them in purple light.

“Please do assist us, Lieutenant” ordered, peacefully as ever, the Vistia Xe. She was a Deltan who exuded internal harmony and whose vow of chastity was on record.

“A distortion field is making it impossible to scan the Franscini” explained Therese Siouinon. A human, she always sounded slightly aggravated, although you could never understand what had just aggravated her. “We suspect that it’s generated by a malfunction on board of the ship.”

“We are not certain that it is a malfunction” specified Mir Dirbus, the happy Bolian. “Could you tell us your opinion?”

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi suspected that they had reached an impasse and, faced with a disagreement, they had called on him to somehow tip the balance. But that was neither here nor there — his job was to deliberate on Engineering, not on ship politics.

He looked at the wall monitor. The USS Franscini was a Parliament-class starship, and was currently floating in the middle of a purple, angry-looking ion cloud. But that wasn’t the most peculiar thing: there was a signal.

Iskander neared the panel and typed to change the sensor input. Optical sensors showed the ship in the middle of the ion cloud. Coulomb sensors showed the ion cloud — no surprise there. Suboptical and superoptical sensors showed an impossible tangle of energy. Subspace, gravimetric and Cochrane sensor were a scrambled mess.

“Talk to us” ordered Therese Siouinon.

“I am not a sensor expert, but I know that subspace sensors should show us the ship’s signal clearly. There’s something in that nebula that’s interfering and masking any sort of signal.”

“Go on” pushed him the science officer.

Iskander tried a couple of settings before landing on the Cochrane redshift readings. One part of the Franscini, round and perfectly recognizable, shone like a star in the centre of the scan.

“It’s the deflector dish, Sir” he said. “It is emitting a signal that is scrambling… everything. If scans are blocked, then so are communications and teleport locking, for instance.”

“Could it be a malfunction, Lieutenant?” asked Xe.

“Not in my opinion, Commander. A deflector dish has to be pushed to operate in such a manner. And if it was a malfunction, it’d be easy to repair it.”

Mir Durbus nodded.

“The Lieutenant and I are of the same opinion, then. It is the deflector dish and it is not malfunctioning. Two to one” she said.

“Scientific truth is not a democracy” retorted Therese Siouinon.

“We are going to assume for the time being that this is a purposeful condition that the Franscini is in” said, diplomatically, Vistia Xe. “Could there be any reason why the crew did this?”

“None comes to mind” answered Mir Durbus. “It is a very effective form of communication jamming — in the same way that a monsoon is a very effective way to water your garden.”

Something came to Iskander’s mind. He changed the sensors back to optical.

“If I may” he said. “I’m sure that you have already noticed this, but… most of the ship is without power. The windows are dark. Navigation lights are dark. Yet the ship must have full power, if it can operate the deflector dish in such a way.”

“Ah” pondered Vistia Xe. “I see. Now, Commander Durbus, Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi, I must ask a question that we have been mulling in our heads restlessly. Is there any way that this behaviour could be explained by Borg activity?”

Iskander jolted and stared at the Deltan. Borg? BORG?

“The Borg use Federation deflector dishes as subspace antennas to connect to the Collective” answered dryly Commander Durbus. “But this dish is jamming and scrambling, not communicating.”

“I must concur” added Commander Siouinon. “This wouldn’t be typical behaviour for the Borg.”

“I thank you for your opinions, gentlemen” said Vistia Xe. “Commander Durbus, you are to assemble a team of engineers. Whatever the Franscini is experiencing, be it purposeful or not, I want to be sure that we are bringing the know-how required to fix the dish and restart the power.”

Commander Durbus nodded deeply.

“Aye, Commander. We are going to meet you in… shuttlebay 1, I wager.”

Abruptly, curtly, Commander Vistia Xe and Lieutenant Commander Siouinon left Main Engineering. Iskander was still so shaken by the mention of the Borg that he barely saluted.

Yet Mir Durbus didn’t seem to notice his clear fear. She smiled widely.

“Lieutenant. We are going on the Franscini!”