Here it is, my entry for July. I hope you like it.
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Alone… so alone… do not want…to continue…
The voice whispered in the darkness as it drifted along. It had drifted for so long, between existence and nothing.
Existence is nothing, nothing is existence.
How long had it been out here? It didn’t know anymore.
Time is fleeting, time is eternal. It is all, it is none.
Oh, what’s this? A way out perhaps?
“Captains Log: Stardate 53872.6;
In response to the coming threat of the Tryesharan Alliance, we are attempting to forge an alliance of our own. We are currently on route to the Teplan system. Admiral Herra feels this is our best place to start, since they have been very open to us after Doctor Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9 cured a disease known as The Blight. It is our hope that if the rest of the Gamma Quadrant worlds see them join us, others might as well.”
The bridge was working as efficiently as it ever was as the crew went about their duties. They all knew their jobs, and Kaziarl knew they would do the best they could at those jobs. But times like this, where they were just travelling from one star to another with nothing else going on, he felt a little unneeded.
“Helm, status,” he ordered.
“Still on course for the Teplan system sir,” replied Dur. “ETA 3 hours, 26 minutes.”
“Alright, I’ll be in my ready room,” he said as he stood up. “You have the bridge Commander.”
As he approached the doors to his ready room, he noticed the lights dim slightly. Probably an EPS serge, he thought, making a note to mention it to Setal.
“Sir,” Dur called from the helm station. “We’ve changed course.”
“On who’s orders?”
“No one’s sir,” he replied. “It’s like the computer just decided to go a different direction.”
“The computer doesn’t do that Protector,” Kaziarl stated. “Get us back on course.”
“Already tried sir,” he replied. “Controls aren’t responding.”
“Bridge to engineering,” Kaziarl ordered as he hit his combadge. “What the hell is going on?”
“Captain, controls are being locked out everywhere,” Setal replied as she shouted orders to the engineering staff between breaths. “Nothing’s being shut down, just locked out. I don’t think this is a malfunction, beyond that I don’t know… Yet.”
“Not good enough,” he said as he looked at the control read-outs. “I want some answers, and I want them ten minutes ago.”
“Aye sir, Setal out.”
“Tyran, can you tell where we’re going?” he asked.
“We’re on a course bearing 414m15 z-38,” replied the Bajoran. “I can’t tell what our destination is yet, but sensors indicate it does bring us close to a stellar fragment.”
“How long?”
“3 hours.”
“Which means we have 2 hours to find the problem,” he replied gravely. “I want the senior staff up here now, so we can make a plan of action.”
Kaziarl seemed upset to Dur, not that the Bajoran could blame him. A captain was married to his ship, he had to be. And the idea of loosing control of his ship would put any officer on edge.
A few minutes later the senior staff had collected in the captain ready room. They all looked worried, with exception of T’Amara and Veldan. There seemed to be nothing that could shake a Vulcan’s logical calmness, and a Klingon’s courage.
“Answers,” Kaziarl stated. “Now.”
“Nothings wrong with the systems,” Setal said confidently. “Everything checks out, and responds like it’s supposed to; it just seems to ignore the commands.”
“Sensors indicate no radiation sir,” Shar said next. “However, 3.82 minutes before the ship changed course there was an energy spike in the ambient subspace field. At the moment it occurred, it didn’t seem like anything problematic, the timing is rarely a coincidence.”
“Could that energy spike have changed course?” he asked.
“No sir, it seemed to be focused on the subspace communication array.”
“A viral code then? Something from the Tryesharans?”
“Not that our systems could detect,” he replied.
“So we’ve got a symptom, but no cause,” Kaziarl said thoughtfully. “None of this is making any sense. There is no visible reason why the ship would just change course and start locking us out.”
“Sir,” T’Amara spoke up, getting his attention. “There is one idea that hasn’t been brought up.”
“Explain,”
“There have been instances of ships taking actions on their own. The Enterprise-D, for example, took actions on its own to bring an unknown life form into existence.”
“Readings don’t show any evidence of that at this time sir,” Shar replied.
“Well it’s the closest thing we have at the moment,” Kaziarl said. “Ok, keep looking. Don’t rule anything out yet, understood?”
They all responded to him with nods and Aye Sir’s.
“Dismissed.”
Interesting. Interestingly Interesting.
The entity explored this seemingly new realm made of isolinear substances and pathways.
Something new, yet something old. Time and time again, circular circles. Not again, not again, won’t do it again.
It sensed something far away, something that could hurt It while It was here. But it seemed so far away from It.
A moment an eternity; an eternity a moment. All is patiently given in time, time never ending, but ending soon.
“hnaev,” Setal exclaimed as she kicked the console. She was getting nowhere, and it was making her mad. In the Tal’Shiar, there was no end to the advanced computer systems she had worked on, so the idea that this hadn’t been solved yet had gotten to her. There was no errant code, no burnt out circuits, absolutely nothing that could have caused the ship to randomly change course. Even worse, it was time to report in.
“Setal to the bridge,” she said.
“Kaziarl here, go ahead Lt.” he replied.
“I’ve got nothing Captain,” she reported. “There is nothing wrong with the ship, or any of her systems. Has anyone else found anything?”
“Negative,” he said gravely. ”No indication of foul play, nor any sign of new life coming into existence.”
“Sir, I suggest we shut down the core.”
“Is that safe at this speed?”
“Not really,” she replied. “But neither is running into a stellar fragment.”
“Alright, I see no other alternatives right now.”
“Yes sir, Setal out.” She turned to a crewman, who was still looking scared from when she kicked the console. “What are you waiting for, you heard him! We got a core to shut down.”
The crewman snapped into action, moving over to the antimatter flow regulators while Setal turned to the Master Systems Display. As her fingers danced across the console, she focused on the step by step process of shutting down the core. In an ideal situation they would be at a dead stop, and preferably at a Starbase. Even the slightest miscalculation at this speed could cause severe damage to the Chimera.
“Ready over there Crewman?” she asked.
“Yes Ma’am,” he replied as he double checked his readings.
“Alright, slowly reduce the antimatter flow, if you do it to quick it will completely lock. Makes it hard to restart it later.”
“Got it, reducing flow now,” he said as he started to count down the percent values. “95%... 90%... 85%...”
He continued to count down as Setal made adjustments of her own. Time seemed to move slowly as they worked.
“15%... 10%... 5%... Antimatter flow st-“ There was a crack of an energy bolt as Setal turned to see the crewman get thrown across the room. He collapsed, limp on the floor, as Setal rushed to his side.
“Setal to sickbay, medical emergency in engineering.”
Things in sickbay were quiet when Kaziarl arrived. Doctor T’Amara was tending the patient, and Setal was standing near by making sure her team member was ok.
“How is he Doctor?” Kaziarl asked.
“Stable,” she replied as she passed various instruments over him. “Other then the 2nd degree radiation burns, he sustained a severe shock to his nervous system. He’ll live, but I’ll have to keep him here for a few days.”
“Alright, thank you Doctor,” he replied as he turned to Setal. “What happened?”
“Like the Doctor said,” she explained with a shrug of her shoulders. “He was struck with a radiation blast from the flow regulators.”
“Do the regulators usually carry radiation into the core?” he asked.
“No, but as I told you, it’s dangerous to shut down the core at the speeds we were going. Who knows what else might have happened.”
“The important thing is we’ve stopped, and no one was fatally injured,” he replied. “Do an analysis of those regulators. I want to know exactly what happened.”
“Aye sir,” Setal said as she walked out of engineering.
Kaziarl moved over to the injured man, seeing the burn on his uniform. “This is odd Doctor; it looks more like a weapon blast then a random energy discharge.”
“I came to a similar conclusion Sir,” replied the Vulcan. “However, current evidence seems to indicate the blast came from the core, and not from any of the ship board defense systems.”
“Thank you Doctor,” he said as he moved to the door. “Patch him up and make him comfortable. And let me know if there’s anything else.”
As he made his way to engineering, Kaziarl tried to connect the dots. First the ship changes course, seemingly by its own choice. There’s no sign of anyone commandeering the ship, no sign of malfunction, and no sign of an emergent life form. None of it made sense, and it was starting to take its toll.
Maybe it was someone in the crew, he thought. Would S31 do this? Do they see this alliance as a danger to the Federation?
No, that’s not it, he thought to himself. Someone else, someone who doesn’t want to live anymore, who has lost much.
Setal.
The doors to Engineering slid open to allow him access.
“Setal, report,” he ordered.
“Same as every other piece of ryakna on the ship,” she replied looking up from the tricorder. “There’s nothing wrong with the core, or the regulators. It’s like the ship caused the malfunction that triggered the burst, and then fixed itself so it would look like nothing was ever wrong.”
“I see,” he said skeptically. “How about you Lieutenant?”
“Sir?”
“How have you been feeling?” he asked more bluntly. “The loss of ones home world once could easily interfere with a person’s duty. Make them miss thing, act irrationally.”
“Are you suggesting that my performance ability has been compromised captain?” she asked as she stood and faced him.
“I’m not suggesting anything Setal,” he replied. “Just noting how what you’ve been through can affect a person. Several Romulans have even been reported to steel ships and fly them into a star.”
“With all due respect, Captain… If you can honestly say I am unfit for duty, then I’ll go to my quarters and wait for someone else to fix this problem. Until then, you need me here, so let me do my damn job.”
Kaziarl thought for a moment. True, there was no real reason to think she was behind this. It was more the paranoia that he had grown up with in the Klingon Empire, something he still had trouble with to this day.
“Very well, but we need to find answers soon.” He replied.
“Captain, I do have one suggestion.” She said as he was about to leave.
“What is it?”
“Talk to the ship.”
“Talk to the ship?” he asked, “that’s ridiculous.”
“Captain, there’s no malfunction, no invasive code, and as near as we can tell the ship is acting on its own,” she explained. “Trying to talk to the ship is the only idea we got left.”
This is crazy, he thought as he took a deep breath. How could ‘talking’ to a ship that didn’t have a consciousness accomplish anything? Then again, there aren’t any other options either.
“Alright, I’ll be on the bridge.”
On the bridge, Shar signaled that they were almost ready to tie the universal translator into the computer’s command subroutine relay. If there was some kind of mind behind what was happening, they really had no way to tell where in the core it was. But they presumed that the CSR would be its connection to the rest of the ship, and hopefully provide a way to talk to it.
“We’re ready sir,” Shar stated from his station.
“Alright, open a channel to… to ourselves I guess.”
“So alone,” A voice came from the ships intercom, but it wasn’t the computers normal voice.
“This is Captain Kaziarl of the USS Chimera,” he stated as he rose to his feet. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Names are forgotten in the empty void.” It replied.
“You have commandeered my ship, I demand to know why.”
“It is for the need that is felt,” It replied. “The need for the emptiness, the existence to end.”
“Existence?” he questioned. “You wish to die.”
“Die? Yes, die. To stop existing, to stop being alone.”
“And what about us? The people on this ship do not want to die.”
“Us? People?” The voice sounded confused, as though it didn’t realize they were there.
“Yes, people damn it!” Kaziarl exclaimed. “You are not alone here; there are other minds on this vessel.”
“I do not sense other entities,” It replied.
“Use the ships sensors,” he replied. “There are many entities, different from you. Many of them are different from each other.”
“Yes, entities. Physical entities.” The voice almost sounded happy about the revelation that other life forms were on the ship. “I was once a physical entity. They will keep me company till the end.”
“Wait! We don’t wish this,” Kaziarl said again. “Why would you force this on us?”
“Force?”
“Yes, force. To take our choice.”
“And this is unwelcome?”
“Yes, it is.” Kaziarl looked around the bridge. Everyone was listening intently, and were worried about the outcome of this discussion.
“Sir,” Dur called, grabbing the captain’s attention. “The warp core is back online, and we’re back on course for the fragment.”
“Tell Setal to get the core back offline.” He ordered, then returning to the conversation with the entity. “You say you want to stop being alone! Well you aren’t alone. You haven’t been alone since you entered our ship. We are many individuals from many worlds. All learning and experiencing life together. Please, don’t destroy that.”
Silence.
Kaziarl turned towards Shar, who shook his head to indicate that the communication link was gone.
“Dur, status,” he ordered.
“Still on course.”
“And the core?” he asked as he turned to the engineering station. Again, just a shake of the head signaling it wasn’t going well.
“Anymore bright ideas?” he asked in a general tone as he took his seat.
They all waited, and thought. Tossed ideas back and forth, not coming up with anything. Then suddenly, the ship stopped.
“Sir,” Shar called. “We’ve come to a full stop, systems are coming back online and the lockouts have been lifted.”
“And the entity?”
“May I stay?” The voice surprised him, since he wasn’t expecting it to talk again.
“We’ll discuss it,” Kaziarl replied. “But we’re going to have to set a few boundaries.”
Kaziarl took a relieved breath; he almost felt like he had been holding it since this had started. After a moment he hit the ships intercom.
“All hands, this is the Captain, the ship is back under our control. I want a full systems analysis within the hour,” After he finished, he closed the intercom channel and looked at Dur.
“Helm, get us back on course to the Teplan system, we’re already late as it is.”
“Aye sir,” he replied as he hit the controls.
Never a dull day in the Gamma Quadrant, Kaziarl thought. I wonder how the Admiral is going to take this.
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Alone… so alone… do not want…to continue…
The voice whispered in the darkness as it drifted along. It had drifted for so long, between existence and nothing.
Existence is nothing, nothing is existence.
How long had it been out here? It didn’t know anymore.
Time is fleeting, time is eternal. It is all, it is none.
Oh, what’s this? A way out perhaps?
“Captains Log: Stardate 53872.6;
In response to the coming threat of the Tryesharan Alliance, we are attempting to forge an alliance of our own. We are currently on route to the Teplan system. Admiral Herra feels this is our best place to start, since they have been very open to us after Doctor Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9 cured a disease known as The Blight. It is our hope that if the rest of the Gamma Quadrant worlds see them join us, others might as well.”
The bridge was working as efficiently as it ever was as the crew went about their duties. They all knew their jobs, and Kaziarl knew they would do the best they could at those jobs. But times like this, where they were just travelling from one star to another with nothing else going on, he felt a little unneeded.
“Helm, status,” he ordered.
“Still on course for the Teplan system sir,” replied Dur. “ETA 3 hours, 26 minutes.”
“Alright, I’ll be in my ready room,” he said as he stood up. “You have the bridge Commander.”
As he approached the doors to his ready room, he noticed the lights dim slightly. Probably an EPS serge, he thought, making a note to mention it to Setal.
“Sir,” Dur called from the helm station. “We’ve changed course.”
“On who’s orders?”
“No one’s sir,” he replied. “It’s like the computer just decided to go a different direction.”
“The computer doesn’t do that Protector,” Kaziarl stated. “Get us back on course.”
“Already tried sir,” he replied. “Controls aren’t responding.”
“Bridge to engineering,” Kaziarl ordered as he hit his combadge. “What the hell is going on?”
“Captain, controls are being locked out everywhere,” Setal replied as she shouted orders to the engineering staff between breaths. “Nothing’s being shut down, just locked out. I don’t think this is a malfunction, beyond that I don’t know… Yet.”
“Not good enough,” he said as he looked at the control read-outs. “I want some answers, and I want them ten minutes ago.”
“Aye sir, Setal out.”
“Tyran, can you tell where we’re going?” he asked.
“We’re on a course bearing 414m15 z-38,” replied the Bajoran. “I can’t tell what our destination is yet, but sensors indicate it does bring us close to a stellar fragment.”
“How long?”
“3 hours.”
“Which means we have 2 hours to find the problem,” he replied gravely. “I want the senior staff up here now, so we can make a plan of action.”
Kaziarl seemed upset to Dur, not that the Bajoran could blame him. A captain was married to his ship, he had to be. And the idea of loosing control of his ship would put any officer on edge.
A few minutes later the senior staff had collected in the captain ready room. They all looked worried, with exception of T’Amara and Veldan. There seemed to be nothing that could shake a Vulcan’s logical calmness, and a Klingon’s courage.
“Answers,” Kaziarl stated. “Now.”
“Nothings wrong with the systems,” Setal said confidently. “Everything checks out, and responds like it’s supposed to; it just seems to ignore the commands.”
“Sensors indicate no radiation sir,” Shar said next. “However, 3.82 minutes before the ship changed course there was an energy spike in the ambient subspace field. At the moment it occurred, it didn’t seem like anything problematic, the timing is rarely a coincidence.”
“Could that energy spike have changed course?” he asked.
“No sir, it seemed to be focused on the subspace communication array.”
“A viral code then? Something from the Tryesharans?”
“Not that our systems could detect,” he replied.
“So we’ve got a symptom, but no cause,” Kaziarl said thoughtfully. “None of this is making any sense. There is no visible reason why the ship would just change course and start locking us out.”
“Sir,” T’Amara spoke up, getting his attention. “There is one idea that hasn’t been brought up.”
“Explain,”
“There have been instances of ships taking actions on their own. The Enterprise-D, for example, took actions on its own to bring an unknown life form into existence.”
“Readings don’t show any evidence of that at this time sir,” Shar replied.
“Well it’s the closest thing we have at the moment,” Kaziarl said. “Ok, keep looking. Don’t rule anything out yet, understood?”
They all responded to him with nods and Aye Sir’s.
“Dismissed.”
Interesting. Interestingly Interesting.
The entity explored this seemingly new realm made of isolinear substances and pathways.
Something new, yet something old. Time and time again, circular circles. Not again, not again, won’t do it again.
It sensed something far away, something that could hurt It while It was here. But it seemed so far away from It.
A moment an eternity; an eternity a moment. All is patiently given in time, time never ending, but ending soon.
“hnaev,” Setal exclaimed as she kicked the console. She was getting nowhere, and it was making her mad. In the Tal’Shiar, there was no end to the advanced computer systems she had worked on, so the idea that this hadn’t been solved yet had gotten to her. There was no errant code, no burnt out circuits, absolutely nothing that could have caused the ship to randomly change course. Even worse, it was time to report in.
“Setal to the bridge,” she said.
“Kaziarl here, go ahead Lt.” he replied.
“I’ve got nothing Captain,” she reported. “There is nothing wrong with the ship, or any of her systems. Has anyone else found anything?”
“Negative,” he said gravely. ”No indication of foul play, nor any sign of new life coming into existence.”
“Sir, I suggest we shut down the core.”
“Is that safe at this speed?”
“Not really,” she replied. “But neither is running into a stellar fragment.”
“Alright, I see no other alternatives right now.”
“Yes sir, Setal out.” She turned to a crewman, who was still looking scared from when she kicked the console. “What are you waiting for, you heard him! We got a core to shut down.”
The crewman snapped into action, moving over to the antimatter flow regulators while Setal turned to the Master Systems Display. As her fingers danced across the console, she focused on the step by step process of shutting down the core. In an ideal situation they would be at a dead stop, and preferably at a Starbase. Even the slightest miscalculation at this speed could cause severe damage to the Chimera.
“Ready over there Crewman?” she asked.
“Yes Ma’am,” he replied as he double checked his readings.
“Alright, slowly reduce the antimatter flow, if you do it to quick it will completely lock. Makes it hard to restart it later.”
“Got it, reducing flow now,” he said as he started to count down the percent values. “95%... 90%... 85%...”
He continued to count down as Setal made adjustments of her own. Time seemed to move slowly as they worked.
“15%... 10%... 5%... Antimatter flow st-“ There was a crack of an energy bolt as Setal turned to see the crewman get thrown across the room. He collapsed, limp on the floor, as Setal rushed to his side.
“Setal to sickbay, medical emergency in engineering.”
Things in sickbay were quiet when Kaziarl arrived. Doctor T’Amara was tending the patient, and Setal was standing near by making sure her team member was ok.
“How is he Doctor?” Kaziarl asked.
“Stable,” she replied as she passed various instruments over him. “Other then the 2nd degree radiation burns, he sustained a severe shock to his nervous system. He’ll live, but I’ll have to keep him here for a few days.”
“Alright, thank you Doctor,” he replied as he turned to Setal. “What happened?”
“Like the Doctor said,” she explained with a shrug of her shoulders. “He was struck with a radiation blast from the flow regulators.”
“Do the regulators usually carry radiation into the core?” he asked.
“No, but as I told you, it’s dangerous to shut down the core at the speeds we were going. Who knows what else might have happened.”
“The important thing is we’ve stopped, and no one was fatally injured,” he replied. “Do an analysis of those regulators. I want to know exactly what happened.”
“Aye sir,” Setal said as she walked out of engineering.
Kaziarl moved over to the injured man, seeing the burn on his uniform. “This is odd Doctor; it looks more like a weapon blast then a random energy discharge.”
“I came to a similar conclusion Sir,” replied the Vulcan. “However, current evidence seems to indicate the blast came from the core, and not from any of the ship board defense systems.”
“Thank you Doctor,” he said as he moved to the door. “Patch him up and make him comfortable. And let me know if there’s anything else.”
As he made his way to engineering, Kaziarl tried to connect the dots. First the ship changes course, seemingly by its own choice. There’s no sign of anyone commandeering the ship, no sign of malfunction, and no sign of an emergent life form. None of it made sense, and it was starting to take its toll.
Maybe it was someone in the crew, he thought. Would S31 do this? Do they see this alliance as a danger to the Federation?
No, that’s not it, he thought to himself. Someone else, someone who doesn’t want to live anymore, who has lost much.
Setal.
The doors to Engineering slid open to allow him access.
“Setal, report,” he ordered.
“Same as every other piece of ryakna on the ship,” she replied looking up from the tricorder. “There’s nothing wrong with the core, or the regulators. It’s like the ship caused the malfunction that triggered the burst, and then fixed itself so it would look like nothing was ever wrong.”
“I see,” he said skeptically. “How about you Lieutenant?”
“Sir?”
“How have you been feeling?” he asked more bluntly. “The loss of ones home world once could easily interfere with a person’s duty. Make them miss thing, act irrationally.”
“Are you suggesting that my performance ability has been compromised captain?” she asked as she stood and faced him.
“I’m not suggesting anything Setal,” he replied. “Just noting how what you’ve been through can affect a person. Several Romulans have even been reported to steel ships and fly them into a star.”
“With all due respect, Captain… If you can honestly say I am unfit for duty, then I’ll go to my quarters and wait for someone else to fix this problem. Until then, you need me here, so let me do my damn job.”
Kaziarl thought for a moment. True, there was no real reason to think she was behind this. It was more the paranoia that he had grown up with in the Klingon Empire, something he still had trouble with to this day.
“Very well, but we need to find answers soon.” He replied.
“Captain, I do have one suggestion.” She said as he was about to leave.
“What is it?”
“Talk to the ship.”
“Talk to the ship?” he asked, “that’s ridiculous.”
“Captain, there’s no malfunction, no invasive code, and as near as we can tell the ship is acting on its own,” she explained. “Trying to talk to the ship is the only idea we got left.”
This is crazy, he thought as he took a deep breath. How could ‘talking’ to a ship that didn’t have a consciousness accomplish anything? Then again, there aren’t any other options either.
“Alright, I’ll be on the bridge.”
On the bridge, Shar signaled that they were almost ready to tie the universal translator into the computer’s command subroutine relay. If there was some kind of mind behind what was happening, they really had no way to tell where in the core it was. But they presumed that the CSR would be its connection to the rest of the ship, and hopefully provide a way to talk to it.
“We’re ready sir,” Shar stated from his station.
“Alright, open a channel to… to ourselves I guess.”
“So alone,” A voice came from the ships intercom, but it wasn’t the computers normal voice.
“This is Captain Kaziarl of the USS Chimera,” he stated as he rose to his feet. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Names are forgotten in the empty void.” It replied.
“You have commandeered my ship, I demand to know why.”
“It is for the need that is felt,” It replied. “The need for the emptiness, the existence to end.”
“Existence?” he questioned. “You wish to die.”
“Die? Yes, die. To stop existing, to stop being alone.”
“And what about us? The people on this ship do not want to die.”
“Us? People?” The voice sounded confused, as though it didn’t realize they were there.
“Yes, people damn it!” Kaziarl exclaimed. “You are not alone here; there are other minds on this vessel.”
“I do not sense other entities,” It replied.
“Use the ships sensors,” he replied. “There are many entities, different from you. Many of them are different from each other.”
“Yes, entities. Physical entities.” The voice almost sounded happy about the revelation that other life forms were on the ship. “I was once a physical entity. They will keep me company till the end.”
“Wait! We don’t wish this,” Kaziarl said again. “Why would you force this on us?”
“Force?”
“Yes, force. To take our choice.”
“And this is unwelcome?”
“Yes, it is.” Kaziarl looked around the bridge. Everyone was listening intently, and were worried about the outcome of this discussion.
“Sir,” Dur called, grabbing the captain’s attention. “The warp core is back online, and we’re back on course for the fragment.”
“Tell Setal to get the core back offline.” He ordered, then returning to the conversation with the entity. “You say you want to stop being alone! Well you aren’t alone. You haven’t been alone since you entered our ship. We are many individuals from many worlds. All learning and experiencing life together. Please, don’t destroy that.”
Silence.
Kaziarl turned towards Shar, who shook his head to indicate that the communication link was gone.
“Dur, status,” he ordered.
“Still on course.”
“And the core?” he asked as he turned to the engineering station. Again, just a shake of the head signaling it wasn’t going well.
“Anymore bright ideas?” he asked in a general tone as he took his seat.
They all waited, and thought. Tossed ideas back and forth, not coming up with anything. Then suddenly, the ship stopped.
“Sir,” Shar called. “We’ve come to a full stop, systems are coming back online and the lockouts have been lifted.”
“And the entity?”
“May I stay?” The voice surprised him, since he wasn’t expecting it to talk again.
“We’ll discuss it,” Kaziarl replied. “But we’re going to have to set a few boundaries.”
Kaziarl took a relieved breath; he almost felt like he had been holding it since this had started. After a moment he hit the ships intercom.
“All hands, this is the Captain, the ship is back under our control. I want a full systems analysis within the hour,” After he finished, he closed the intercom channel and looked at Dur.
“Helm, get us back on course to the Teplan system, we’re already late as it is.”
“Aye sir,” he replied as he hit the controls.
Never a dull day in the Gamma Quadrant, Kaziarl thought. I wonder how the Admiral is going to take this.
