Ole reached for a tall piece of wreckage, steadying himself in the bulky suit as he prepared to cross from one side of the shattered bay to the temporary work camp they had assembled behind a humming green forcefield. Once the core of a regeneration alcove, the sad pillar of twisted and charred metal now served as a respite for the Bolian crewman as he traversed the breached compartment. Gripping tightly to the makeshift anchor of metal despite his magnetic boots, he took a moment to catch his breath before continuing on.

“I still don’t see why it had to be me.” Ole grumbled into the open comm channel. 

“You’re the strongest!” Hermira turned from the wall console she worked at behind the forefield, looking out into the shattered bay where he stood. “Need some muscles to move those Structural Integrity Field generators!” She wiggled her lithe arms, allowing her wrists to flap around, the golden bangles on her wrists jingling delicately. 

“That is true. You are very weak.” The muscular Bolian smiled, a compliment to his physical strength was always a quick win for the petty officer. 

Touching a button on the padd in her hand to mute the channel, Hermira caught the attention of Zaya, working on the opposite side of the pillar. “Still not clocked it’s zero-g.” 

The Cardassian officer grinned in amusement. “I just wish we could rely on the shuttles transporters. A spacewalk and a Borg ship?” She sucked her teeth in concern. “Not my idea of a party.”

“C’mon Z! Where else would we find such flattering lighting?” Hermira held her hands to her face, her dark green skin taking on a particular radiance under the sphere’s perpetual ambient viridian glow. “Besides, there’s almost nothing active in this section, we’re just making safe.” Zaya snorted derisively as she returned to her console and began inputting commands for the latest generator Ole had put into position. Once satisfied it was properly configured she thumbed a button on the padd, unmuting the comm channel. “One more to do big guy, and we’ll be sorted.”

“Understood, any location in particular?” 

“I’m highlighting it on the HUDs now, it’s near the breach so be careful.” Hermira crossed the few steps to the glittering forcefield, the emitters buzzing in a continual effort to contain the atmosphere. Beyond the green energy shield, the wide bay was torn in two as a large crack reached through the superstructure, opening the exterior bulkheads to the constant, unfiltered light of the nearby stars as the emptiness of space poured into the cleft. A valley a hundred meters long carved the dark metallic ground in two and opened a crevasse between the two sides of several meters, easily traversable with a gentle leap in zero gravity. The glowing digital beacon was at the far end of the wide bay. Placing a final generator right at the edge of the breach would reinforce the delicately balanced hull and tie the valley together like a metaphorical stitch. 

“I’ve got an ice pack ready and waiting for you.” Even from a distance she could see the long beads of sweat rolling down the giant’s cheeks. 

With a deep breath Ole began crossing to the edge of the scar that tore its way across the bulkhead, the final cube-like generator bobbing weighless behind him as it tugged on the line tied to his waist. 

“Hermira?” Zaya leaned round the pillar. “Have you started powering the generators yet?”

The green-skinned woman shook her head, her long ponytail snaking back and forth in response. “Nope, I was waiting for all four to be in position, nothing should be active yet.”

“Hmmm…” 

“Good hmmm? Or ‘oh look the I’ve got implants sprouting out of my face’ hmmm?” Hermira shot the officer a look, though her time with Zaya had been short they’d developed a good working relationship. Unfortunately she had yet to master reading the ex-intelligence officer’s perpetual poker face. 

“Just hmmm.” Zaya offered her the padd in her hand as she crossed the compartment to join Hermira at the fizzing green tinged window. A series of waveforms and energy readings rolled in long undulating waves across the adds screen. “An odd energy spike.”

“Could it be the transwarp coil?” External sensor readings had been consistent with the Unimatrix Zero survivors reports that they had been attacked in subspace and taken damage to their faster than light systems, which were now pouring out vast amounts of sensor obscuring energy. “This whole side of the vessel is awash with random energy because of the coil breach.” She pointed sideways out to the hull breach. “Hence big guy’s spacewalk.”

Zaya pointed to the readings on the padd “The wavelengths seem pretty regular, I’d expect a faulty coil to be more random. It’s also a pretty narrow frequency range.”

As Zaya pressed a button on the padd, calling up new sensor data as a panicked voice cut across the comm channels. 

“Hermira! I need help Hermira!” Ole’s normally reliably calm voice screeched in their ears, his audible panic putting them both on edge. As the two women looked out into the bay they could see the large figure of the Bolian beginning to thrash his arms wildly, tumbling backwards from the breach as he beat his chest in a panic, his magnetic boots too far from the deck to anchor him. 

“What’s wrong big guy?” Hermira stepped forward another pace, close enough to the force field that she could feel the energy reaching out to scratch the tip of her nose. The frantic breathing continued across the comm channel. 

“Ole!” Zaya snapped, her arm was already reaching towards the second EVA suit laid out on the nearby bulkhead as she began pulling her boots off. 

As the white fabric clad figure of Ole turned towards the pair a chill of ice water rushed into their veins. A metallic grey shape began spreading across the sleeve of the suit, its rough hewn edge creeping up the white fabric as the man tried vainly to claw it with thick padded fingers. Covering his hand and lower arm it began encroaching on his elbow when they heard his voice across the comm again.

“It’s spreading, I can feel it starting to probe through the suit!” He continued to scratch at the invader on his arm as he flailed in space, his momentum driving him further from the deck and into the hungry maw of the hull breach.

“Activate your boots!” Hermira dropped the padd with a clatter as she raced across the bay to the small briefcase that held the various tools they had brought. 

“Busy!” His panicked wheezing chilled the women even further. 

“The boots, or you’ll have bigger issues.” Hermira instructed as she began picking up components. Across the small space she could hear Zaya muttering under her breath as she raced to start putting the suit on.

“Never should have let him go alone” she whispered over and over. 

A small beep flashed across the comm channel. “Activated.” A series of ragged breaths continued across the empty hiss of the channel. “I might be too late.”

The two women snapped their heads towards the portal. A few hundred yards away Ole floated, an angelic aura of distant sunlight surrounding him as he hung motionless between the ship’s ragged wound. 

“Sorry team.” The Bolian’s right arm was now mostly metallic as his breath continued to scrape across their ears. “I can feel it under my skin too.”

“Don’t move.” Hermira instructed, her hands blindly working on a small device. “Zaya, how is your throwing arm?”

“Academy Discus Champion.” Zaya whispered, her progress in donning the suit paused as she stared at the bone chilling angel. 

“Then take this and get ready to throw.” the Orion passed a small flashing device to the officer. Zaya quickly crossed to the edge of the forcefield as Hermira reached up to her combadge.

“Hermira to Daedalus. Standby for emergency medical transport.”

“Transporters can’t see anything through the coil interference chief.” The voice of Lieutenant Bahir responded with cool calm, for all his fussiness the Saurian security chief knew when and where to ask questions; ‘emergency’ and ‘medical’ meant ‘do as your told.’ 

“Prepare for a spike of 549 megahertz in the radio frequencies. It’ll be brief but should give you something to lock on to. Full quarantine measures, Ole has a foreign body.” Hermira turned to the Cardassian woman hovering at the forcefield’s perimeter, her arm already raised in preparation. “When I say, press that and throw it straight at Ole.”

An agonizingly long second passed in tense silence.

“We are standing by Chief.”

“Now.”

As the small metal device left Zaya’s hand, her expert arm propelling it forward at high speed, it began to whir. 

As it breached the surface of the atmospheric forcefield, the green wall fizzing in protest, a series of lights began to flash in sequence. 

Passing through the empty void, it tumbled and flipped, unaffected by friction. Its momentum carried it speedily across the deck towards the spread-eagled crewman. 

Time stretched, its fine weave straining under the tension as a sharp intake of breath rasped across the comm channel from an unknown mouth. 

As the metal device hit Ole’s chest, the unopposed kinetic energy pushing the panicked Bolian further from the ship. The security officer let out a pained groan as his blue skin, now tinged with a sickly green undertone, was enveloped in ripples of white light, the sleek form of Daedalus plucking his body from the emptiness. 

“We have him.” Bahir announced over the channel. 

Hermira collapsed to the floor, her back sliding down the large supply crate she had been working atop as Zaya rushed across the small room to her side. “That was amazing Hermira, how did you get that to work?”

“It isn’t just a faulty coil that causing the interference. It’s a dispersion field.” Hermira swallowed for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, her heart still racing at the paniced voice of her longtime best friend. “There’s something over there they don’t want us to find.”