Not Another Tragedy

Posted on Sun Jun 4, 2017 @ 3:59pm by Commodore Michael Aravan & Petty Officer 1st Class Ben Efits & Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Colonel S'er'in'e & Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant Martha Cusack & Lieutenant T'Lara & Lieutenant Commander Kelani Tetanal & Lieutenant Commander Alex Rho & Lieutenant JG Jacob Hartley & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: Avatar
Location: Everywhere
Timeline: MD 10 || 1700 Hours

The lights flickered all across the ship before going out completely. It was only seconds later that red alert sounded, filling each corridor, department and every other section of the ship with the familiar red lights that indicated danger. It wasn't long before a voice broke through. "ATTENTION. ATTENTION. This is the Emergency Broadcast System. Take shelter immediately. Take shelter immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat: This is not a drill. An enemy attack is being launched against the USS Triumphant."

Captain Michael Aravan came to his feet in his ready room aus he heard the warning. He tapped his security combadge to open a frequency to everyone who had one. =^=This is the Captain speaking. Belay that warning. All department heads report in.=^=

===Sickbay===

Her eyelids fluttered as the obnoxious sounds of the red alert began to infiltrate the sweet sweet serenity that was unconsciousness. There wasn't a part of her that wasn't sore. What the hell happened? Why did she feel like she'd run the entire ship in record time? A finger twitched, then another, earning a groan from her still pale lips. Slowly, she cracked her eyes open, half expecting to be assaulted by the bright with lighmts of sickbay, but everything was tinted red. This wasn't good.

How long was she out? She took in a slow, deep breath and took a moment to look around before she heard the warning, then realization hit. Maddy remembered everything. The computer was on a rampage, and she'd only been one of many (she assumed) to fall victim to its cruelty.

The redhead woman sat up slowly, bringing a hand to rest on her forehead. She wasn't dizzy, which was good, but she felt stiff. Nothing a little mobility wouldn't take care of, and that was exactly what she was about to get. Maddy pushed the covers back on her bed and swung her legs over the side, then got to her feet. It only took a second for her to gather her bearings before the XO moved from her room and took off for the exit.

===Lab 3===

Kelani had returned from Ops and was continuing her work when the alarm sounded followed by the Captain's message. Her face set in grim lines as she reported what had happened on the lab and the plan she and McNamara had considered earlier.

~We must stop this madness!~ she thought.

===Flight Deck===

Marisa roused from an uncomfortable sleep. having been off her feet for the past 36 hours due to the crisis she had collapsed into a heap on her desk. Still decked out in her EVA suit with only the helmet removed. The thick insulation on her arm made for a nice pillow, but it took a few moments for the feeling in her hand to return. Arching her back like a cat getting up from a comfortable sunbeam she yawned before looking at her data pad for the time.

"30 minutes." She said to the empty room, sarcastically. "Thanks"

=A=Sir, this is Lieutenant Cheshire. I was just having a kip, and no ones come to tell me that the guard formation has encountered an enemy presence, so I would agree with your assessment. We're continuing patrols and waiting for further instructions.=A=


===Computer Core Deck 19===

It had been a long twenty four hours. With the Primary Systems on manual control, and the primary computer now rebooted into a safe mode, Tom had been sitting at a console ever since HoloMaddy vaporized herself from the room. Somehow, he'd been able to disable all of the holoprojectors, save one, and had been reviewing line after line of code, program after program. So far, he didn't see anything unusual. None of it made any sense, but it only proved to serve that there was indeed some sort of digital lifeform who had manifested in the ship's core.

When the emergency broadcast sounded, and then followed by the Captain's call, all Tom could do was lower his head and sigh. Now what? Tom wondered.

He tapped his badge and replied, "Barnes here, Captain. Still going down here. I'll head for the secondary core and see what's happening."

=^=Acknowledged=^= The Captain's voice came over the secure combadge. =^=We need this shut down now.=^=

"Easier said than done," Tom mumbled, manipulating the controls. He shut down the primary core, and got up to leave.

==== Security Office ====

Douglas had been receiving reports from his people all day of malfunctions and troubles of that nature; but so far, there had been no sign of any intruders. Something had been niggling at the back of his mind all day though, a well-trained instinct bred of many years of missions and a few betrayals. Something was coming, something big likely... or small and numerous. Either way, it was going to be bad.

The Red Alert warning sounding had not surprised him, therefore. The captain's statement afterward did, however, and he tapped his own secured comm. =/\= Security here, sir. =/\= Douglas sent. =/\= I have no report of any intruder. Double-checking with my teams though to be sure that was just a malfunction. =/\= Even as he said it, he was sending a request for each team to check in and give him their current status using a sub-frequency.

=^=Keep a sharp eye out and if you find someone on board, make sure it's not holographic=^= Aravan's voice said over the combadge.

Holographic? A frown slid over Douglas' face, but it did not enter his tones as he answered, =/\= Acknowledged. I'll pass it on to my people. =/\= He really, really wanted to ask what had happened to make that a thing, but now was not the time. So he instead passed the instructions on to his people, who also simply acknowledged though he suspected they were as curious as he was. After all, one did not join Starfleet if one did not have at least a small bit of curiosity inherent in their nature.

==== Intel, Cryptanalysis-Signals Analysis Facility ====

With things being sort of off and on lately, Alex had found himself at the square 'pool table' in the center of the room. He was busy seeing if their cryptoanalysis systems could make sense of any of this. That's when the Red Alert lights caught him off guard. "Emergency Broadcast...what the?" He tapped his secured combadge. =^=Rho to Captain Aravan, we're doing well down here...so far.=^=

"Yeah, if you can call it that." Jacob muttered to himself. He looked up. "Alex, I've had an idea. We should modify the phasers to a setting of 3.2. Not enough to hurt anyone, but it'll disrupt any holographic settings. I know the holo emitters are offline, but we don't know how long that'll last for." Jacob said.

"You and the rest of Intel can do that if you like," replied Alex. "I'll allow it. But as for me, I can tell if its a hologram in seconds."

"So can I. But the point is that it'll disrupt the hologram, and hopefully shut it down so it doesn't threaten us. I don't know about you, but I didn't like being threatened with a proctological exam." Jacob said.

Choosing not to vocalize his response, Alex impressed his thoughts to Jacob. That, Mr. Hartley, is a good idea, trying to disrupt them enough to shut them down. But you're going to want to be absolutely sure that you're firing on a hologram rather than a Starfleet officer. That could land you in the brig. Me? It's easy, a hologram's thoughts are computer algorithms and memory anagrams. I see nothing when I enter their minds. Flesh and blood on the other hand, memories everywhere. Just make sure of your target before opening fire.

Jacob nodded in response to the thoughts. He thought of his response carefully, so not to vocalise his response either. I'll put a warning on it, low setting to check, and the second shot to shut down. The first shot will reveal if it is a hologram, but not actually harm a real person. Just like they used to do for the Founders. He thought, hoping the man would receive his thought.

Excellent. Get it put in place and make sure all Intel officers have one, Alex sent back.

==== Sickbay ====

S'er'in'e was being treated for his many wounds, cuts, slashes, bruises and bones. The fight was a difficult one but Kasia had managed to disable the Hologram. Even though it took Kasia and two others to get him to Sickbay the prognosis was looking good. He should make a full recovery in time but there was little possible to sooth a wounded pride.

S'er'in'e heard the Captain's voice and formulated his own reply. "This is Colonel S'er'in'e. I am currently in Sickbay following a physical engagement with a hologram of myself. I am told my injuries are not serious but until cleared I will have to coordinate from here unless you wish Major Petrova to do such."

Across the room in her office Doctor T'Lara quickly collected some standard information from the array of screens about her and tapped her combadge in response.
=/\= "This is T'Lara. Both sickbays are secure" she started, looking over the data that after so many years she could now read as if it were its own language. "We are currently treating twenty one personal for minor injuries..." =/\= her voice trailed off. She stood and walked quickly out of the office past Colonel S'er'in'e and various members of the medical staff to the bed where Commander Weisz... wasn't. If the force field hadn't completed bringing the commander slowly to a normal temperature she would not have been able to get off the biobed, much less check herself out of sick bay. The Doctor made a mental note and started to check in with all of her medical staff who were busily preparing sickbay for more injured.

===Bridge===

Michael listened to all the reports come in and looked around. The bridge was nearly deserted of department heads, but each console was manned by other officers. "How much longer until this comes to an end?" he asked no one as he stared at the viewer which still showed them at transwarp.

===Shipwide===

"You have been warned," came the slightly German accented voice that the crew had come to know as belonging to the ship's executive officer. From the ceiling of the massive ship, on all decks, phasers lowered themselves from recessed ports, then began to fire in various directions.

===Corridor, Deck 19===

Maddy stopped when she heard the voice and blinked. What the hell?! I'm not doing this! For the last twenty-four hours, she was unconscious and had missed out on all of the festivities until now, and now... she was angry. Her anger was short lived when she heard the oh so familiar whir of a phaser getting ready to be fired.

As pain surged through her body, the redhead began to move again, dodging phaser fire as she went. Up ahead, she saw the fallen forms of a few crewmen and bit back a curse of pure disgust, but kept pushing on. When she neared them, Maddy recognized one of them as a fresh out of the academy Security officer, which meant the young man was armed. She removed the phaser from his holster and dove mere seconds from being hit in the back. It came so close, a charred hole was left behind at the hem of the once sterile gown she was still wearing.

Sweat beaded on her brow and her chest heaved as she remained hunkered down inside the alcove she'd just dove into. As much as she wished to stay there, the German woman needed to press forward... pain or not. Maddy peeked around the corner and spotted the nearest phaser, taking a moment to thumb her own to setting ten. It was time to get their ship back. Enough was enough. She leveled the phaser and fired, successfully taking out the weapon that already killed some, and was intent on killing her. Not today... not today.

Not too far down the corridor was Tom, who'd been pinned down by the firing. He hadn't made it too far from the computer core when the system began acting under a foreign influence and took down the Ops crewmember traveling with him.

Tom peeked out from the crossbar, only to be greeted with a phaser beam that narrowly missed him. "What the?" he shouted, disappearing back behind the crossbar. Tom looked down to see that his companion appeared to be dead, her chest still smoking from the phaser burn. She was too far away to pull to safety, nor had she been armed.

He was trapped in this dead end. Figuring there was a junction nearby for the Jefferies Tubes, he looked and saw the hatch not too far behind him. Tom wondered if he could cut power to the section, thereby disabling the security system. If he could, then at least there would be enough of a safe harbor for the crew. Tom ripped the hatch off and climbed inside, hoping to find the EPS relays.

===Deck Eighteen===

On deck eighteen, Petty Officer Ben Efits had been having a pretty decent day. He was out of Medical and despite the computer going haywire, he still had a smile on his face and had just started to sing. "It might seem crazy what I'm about to say, sunshine she's here, you can take a break. I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space, with the air, like I don't care, baby, by the way!"

At that point, a phaser dropped out of the ceiling and fired a blast which barely missed him and the Yeoman blinked. "If you didn't like it, you could have said so nicely!" He chastised it, thinking that it was some joker in Tactical until it rotated in his direction. "Or not..." He gulped and dodged as it fired again and leapt into the nearest room. "I am never singing that song again!" he panted and looked around to see if the ship would try to kill him again.

===Deck Forty-Four===

Down on Deck Forty-Four, Alex looked up and around the room when he heard the Commander's voice over the comm system. "Uh, I don't think that's a good thing," he said. At that moment, some music began to play throughout the entire deck. Seconds later the slots in the ceiling opened and the internal security phasers opened fire. Five officers immediately went down, wisps of smoke rising from their bodies. "Scatter!" yelled Alex. "Find a safe place if that's even possible!" He got under the table and turned towards his assistant. "Jacob! Are you alright?!"

As the phasers began to fire, Jacob's instincts kicked in, and he immediately leapt backwards, spinning as he did, a phaser bolt barely missing him. He saw a second blast and leapt to the side, again spinning as he did, the blast also missing him. He then leapt for the desk, and rolled forward, stopping next to Alex. "Oh, peachy. Never had more fun." He replied dryly. He thought for a moment. "I should be able to keep these things distracted if you want to get everyone to cover. Thank god I'm good at Parkour." Jacob said.

"Sounds good. Just...don't get yourself shot, Jacob. Those things are designed to stop intruders," said Alex. He looked out when he heard the sound of a transporter activating. Several crew members disappeared. "Uh oh, I think things just got a little worse. It looks like random beam outs again." He turned to Jacob. "That's one of the things that happened on the Bridge. Though, the result wasn't good." The transporter sound came back and so did the crew members...without their uniforms. "Um, Jacob?"

"Well, this should make things interesting." Jacob commented. "If I end up minus my clothes...thank god I went to the gym this week." He added, preparing to make a break for the supply cupboard.

He saw the supply cabinet, and made that his destination. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes, and cleared his mind. He then emerged from his hiding spot, and ran.

The phasers, designed to target intruders, had clearly targeted Jacob, and as he ran, he leapt in the air, pushing himself forward as he did so, narrowly avoiding being struck. As he landed on the ground, he kicked off from the nearest desk, spinning as he did, several more shots barely missing him.

This was what Jacob had trained for. Here, where speed and agility were his only weapon, he was in his element. He had trained in Parkour for years. Now his skills were paying off. As he leapt over another desk, he landed, moving too swiftly for the computer to get an accurate lock, and as he landed, he took cover by the cupboard. He pulled it open, before jumping back behind cover to avoid being shot, before grabbing what he needed, and getting back behind his cover.

He activated the transporter inhibitors, just as several people were beamed back, again without their uniform. As one of them was about to be hit with a phaser, he reached out, grabbed their leg and pulled them down hard, making sure they weren't struck with the phaser. "You okay?" Jacob asked, making sure to remain a gentleman with the female officer. He took off his jacket, and handed it to her, helping to cover her up. "Stay down." He warned.

====Lab 3====

Kelani's head snapped up at the voice over the shipwide comm. "What?" was all she managed to say before phasers lowered and began to fire.

She dove under the nearest work table shouting to the others in the lab to do the same. She watched for a moment, then made a dash for her computer console, her fingers flying as she tried to deactivate the phasers.

"What is **happening** to us?!"

===Jeffries Tube, Deck 19===

The phaser fire continued to whine outside the Jefferies Tube. By the increase in discharges, he surmised that security had arrived to take on the automated defenses. Aside from the familiar whines, he couldn't make out much else.

Still, that didn't stop him from working with his bare hands. He'd already pull off a couple safety covers. Tom wished he had a spanner or decoupler, but without time to get anything, nor the means to do so, he'd have to make do with what was on his person.

He'd taken off his jacket and tried to use it as leverage to slip the EPS relay out of alignment, but it was secured. Tom didn't care that, if he were successful, that he'd be severely burned and maimed by the plasma fire. If it saved lives, then he'd gladly forfeit his own. A small part of him, therefore, was happy that he didn't succeed.

But he still had to take down the system. With manual control enabled at Engineering, there'd be nothing he could do here. Except...

There was a sliver of space between the relay and part of its mount. A small metallic object could cause an overload if it was placed correctly. He only had access to one thing that was small enough: his combadge. Frowning, he removed his only means of communication and jammed it into the port. The relay began to whine, and Tom slid as fast as he could out of the Jefferies Tube. Just as he cleared the hatch, the relay sparked and blew, killing power to the entire deck. The automated defenses powered down, leaving the crew there to heave a sigh of relief.

===Security/Maintenance===

When the ship had started shooting at them, Douglas had ordered his people to take cover. He'd done so behind his desk while taking out the weapons emplacements in his office one at a time with his ever-present Marai weapon -- it was simply quicker to fire it than to reset his phaser to higher setting and then fire it. Having finished that, he'd moved into his doorway and prepared to take out the ones in the outer office. He fired once, and then everything went dark.

The moment the defenses went down, everything else on deck nineteen also went down. Life support, gravity, lighting, terminals and everything else went with it. In Security, an Ensign looked startled as he started to float up from his chair and called out for the Chief. "Lieutenant Mallory! What's going on, Sir?"

Douglas growled as he began to float again, and grabbed hold of the doorframe he was near. "Remember your zero-G training." he instructed calmly. "Either this is another of the computer's malfunctions or someone has tried to take it offline. Either way, it seems that everything is down. Get to the nearest EVA storage and grab a suit. Everything means air recycling as well."

Thus saying, he released the doorframe and pushed off toward the door across the room, counting the distance off in his head as he floated and grabbing the outer office doorframe as he reached it. Not for the first time, he was grateful that his Marai weapon held onto him, leaving his hands free.

====Lab 3====

Kelani had finally succeeded in deactivating the phasers in lab 3. She sighed with relief, then squared her shoulders. Not wanting to give any indication of her intentions, she called mentally to McNamara, ~Mr. McNamara, help me to disengage the black box from our system. We will then erect a level ten forcefield around both it and the probe.~ She took a deep breath and moved toward the black box, ~It is a long shot, but perhaps it will distract or weaken this thing.~

"Main computer core is offline, but I'll see what we can do with a secondary," Dalton said. "Odds are the damage has already been done and there's no way to get the genie back in the bottle." He went to terminal and disconnected the probe, then headed over to where the black box was. "I'm beginning to think this was a very bad idea."

"Indeed,"Kelani replied. "At the time, it seemed sensible, however." She began the task at hand, saying,"This may be a futile effort, but it may prevent further problems"

As she continued to work, Kelani reached out with all of her gifts, hoping to find some clue as to the purpose of commandeering the Triumphant.


===Flight Deck===

There was a moment of confusion from Marisa following the warning, but that quickly vanished the sound of servos coming from the corner of a ceiling in her office whirred to life. Turning around, towards its origin she was met with the aperture of a phaser turret hovering directly in her face.

"Oh come on." She said with an exasperated slump of her shoulders.

It was the sound of the capacitors charging that shook her out of it. As though instinct took hold of her she jumped over the desk, pushing her notebook and a bottle of whiskey to the ground with her. She quickly pulled in her body and pressed her back to the desk mere moments before phaser fire shot at her desk.

"You know, you keep making enemies like this and it's not going to go well for you." Marisa said to the room, thinking that the will that had possessed the security systems could hear her.

There was more of a ruckus outside as she saw more beams of energy firing from the ceiling in the corridor outside her office. There were more than a few turrets in the hangar too, and the idea of one of her own crew being shot by one of these things caused her blood to boil. She took her phaser out of its holster and cranked up the setting as she shimmied her way over to the corner of the desk. She pressed herself hard against it, taking a few deep breaths before sticking her head out to get an appraisal of its location. No sooner had she poked her head out had the turret turned to face her. Marisa pulled her head back in moments before orange beams appeared where her head had been.

She was left at a bit of an impasse, well and truly pinned down behind her desk. Over the next few minutes she made a few more attempts, but the speed at which the turret could move was faster than she could take aim. She even tried to use the blank screen of the notebook to reflect an image of the turret at her, letting her know it's position in the scan cycle so she could pick the best time to stick her head out and shoot. The device was now molten slag. As she was eyeing the bottle of whisky and looking for a bit of cloth she could fashion into a makeshift Molotova she heard an alternate set of phaser fire coming from outside, followed by a short pop.

"Yo Alice, still alive in there?" Her wingman called out a moment later, from beyond the door.

"Still here, pinned down by this thing." She called back

"What, no quip? How do I know you're not that AI trying to lure me in?"

"Right now I'm only filled with 'I told you so's directed at the design team for this 'technological wonder'" she said the last part sarcastically. "I mean seriously. You're putting the entire security in the hands of a few computer programmers in the best case situation. If one of them goes bad or your ship gets hacked you're in-" There was another gout of fire, as though to punctuate Marisa's point.

There was a chuckle from beyond the door. "That sounds more like it." Mobius' tone became more formal "Okay, so these things are pretty quick to lock on, but on their own they don't handle multiple targets very well. So what I recommend we do is that one of us sticks our head out and while it's suppressing them the other shoots the turret. Sound good?"

"Worth a shot. My plan B was to lob my whiskey at it and set it on fire." She said before manoeuvring into position. "You've got a compression rifle I take it? You better take the shot."

"Alright, on your mark."

She crouched down like a panther stalking its prey, with her phaser in her right hand. "Three, two, one, mark!" she peaked around the corner, only to be met with the barrel of the phaser turret. She ducked back just in time to narrowly avoid the barrage of phaser fire, though this time it arced up towards the new target that appeared. It was too late however, and the device detonated with a soft pop. Marisa let off an exhausted sigh, slumping on her back to bask in a moment of safety.

She didn't get long however, in a moment Lieutenant Colbert was offering his hand to her, beckoning her to the next crisis.

She took it and got to her feet, dusting herself off. "I want to check on the hangar. There are quite a few turrets hanging over that area and no doubt there are some staff pinned down." She said as she walked around to the back of her desk, opening her draw for some additional power cells for her phaser.

===Marine Country===

Gage led three squads of Marines through the corridors, their weapons set on the highest settings and every time they heard the familiar whine of a phaser, they scattered in all directions and began to fire at the source. So far, they had taken out a dozen of the internal defense phasers, but it had cost them three Marines before they had gotten organized.

***

Kasia, and a few other Marine personnel were busy dodging and fighting against the internal phasers in another part of the ship. What the hell was going on, and why were the damned things still firing? Surely this wasn't an isolated incident, but then, the ship had been possessed for more than twenty-four hours. "Move!" she ordered, laying down some cover fire so her people could get to safety.

===Tactical Office===

Martha had taken shelter in her office after confirming the safety of her wife and daughter. The attack was as surprising as it was vicious and the Lieutenant ensured her door was locked - just in case - before taking shelter behind her desk. There she picked up a PADD and started to work out how to get herself up to the bridge without getting herself killed in the process.

"I thought our last assignment was mad. This takes the biscuit" Martha muttered to herself.

===Corridor, Deck Seven===

Maddy caught her breath and pushed herself out of the alcove, landing in the center of the corridor. There was no way the redhead woman was staying put, and with the turbolift offline, there was only one way to get around safely.

From in front of her, a phaser turned in her direction and began to power up. There was a hatch leading to the Jeffries Tube about ten feet ahead. She could make it... she knew she could.

Gritting her teeth, the German woman began to run forward with the phaser in her hand trained on the one that was set in killing her. She fired, missing the weapon that was turning to meet her movements. When it fired, she dodged the deadly beam, rolling until she hit the bulkhead. Her already sore body screamed in pain as she hit, but that wasn't going to stop her. Not now.

The hatch was only a couple feet away. Maddy crawled over to it and threw it open once she was able, then slipped inside, her head just barely clearing the opening as the phaser fired once again. If she made it out of this alive, she was going to tell Tom she loved him, because it was true, and that scared the hell out of her.

===Bridge===

Xylia ran onto the bridge and practically collapsed to her knees. She'd only been a few decks away when internal war had been waged. "Captain..." she breathed... fighting to catch her breath. "The internal phasers are trying to kill everyone... Me and some other Security personnel were able to get the civilians to the bunker safely." She took another breath, thankful that that part was done. "What are your orders?"

Michael looked over at Lieutenant Lischka and his first instinct was to contact Spencer, but she didn't have a secure combadge. At least the civilians, which meant his wife and kids were safe as well as the other civilians. "Get into the Jeffries Tubes and start disabling every Security EPS that you can find," he said. "Get everyone who can be spared and knows what to do in there."

"You got it, Captain," the Lieutenant said, tapping her secured badge and ordering anyone capable of such a task to get to it. Xylia made her way off the bridge to handle things herself.

===Deck Eighteen===

Tom just finished helping usher the dead out of the corridor and into a side room where the corpses couldn't float out and scare anyone. As far as he could tell, many had been affected when the power was cut to the deck, and there wasn't an officer to be seen. Most likely, they'd been cut down by the security system. In the dimly lit corridor, he couldn't make out officer from enlisted, but as a senior officer, it was his duty to keep things going.

"All right, Triumphant," Tom muttered, having sent the various Engineering and Operations personnel he could see into damage control mode. "I don't suppose you could give us a little bit of light or gravity down here?"

Of course, with the power out, there'd be no way he could expect that.

"It didn't have to be this way. If only you and the rest of your crew would have left things alone..." Holo-Maddy said from behind him.

The voice was unmistakable, as was the tone. Alone, Tom knew that anything could happen, and if HoloMaddy were present, then there was only the illusion of safety on this deck. Of course it had all been too easy.

Tom used a nearby bulkhead to help turn him around. "Left what alone?" Tom asked. "We didn't do anything that would cause anyone harm."

Maddy shook her head. She sounded as disgusted as she looked. "You're wrong. You all dissected my home... destroyed it... and for what!?" she demanded. "To sate your perverse curiosity? To explore?"

So it was true. Kelani was right, this was indeed linked to the probe. "We didn't know it was your home. Had we known, we would not have done it. It is our greatest rule, the Prime Directive."

"Yet... you aren't the one who made the call. Your Commander was, and that's why I attacked her and took on her form. Since I no longer have a home, I am taking yours."

Tom gulped. "She didn't know either. We can help you, and no one else has to get hurt."

"Help me? How?" she asked.

Another question that he didn't have an answer to. Nor did he have the ability to answer. That would be up to the Captain. "Let's explain all of this to the Captain. We can rebuild your home, or build you a better one."

"Take me to your Captain," Maddy demanded. "If what you say is possible, then I will cease all attacks against you and your crew."

Tom nodded. "We'll have to take the Jefferies Tubes," he said, motioning for her to follow.

The redhead followed behind Barnes. "We could take a turbolift, you know," she said.

"They're offline, since they nearly took out some members of our crew," Tom explained.

"Don't you mean me?" she asked, looking a bit remorseful for the first time since everything happened. "I... I didn't mean for it to get this far... It never should have gotten this far."

He considered his response carefully as he pushed himself towards the Jefferies Tube. The lack of gravity was making this quite difficult. Rather than answer her question, he said, "You'll find Starfleet is quire forgiving."

Maddy continued to follow behind him. "Be that as it may, I am not so sure I will be able to forgive myself. If your Captain wished me to pay for the crimes I have committed, I would not hold it against him. In fact, I will welcome the consequences he deems fitting."

Now Tom colored himself surprised. Glancing at her as he climbed into the shaft and began to climb. "Why the change of heart?" he asked, still stunned by her revelation.

"I saw what you did to save your crew. It was an incredibly selfless act. You were willing to lose your own life for theirs," the false Maddy replied. In fact, she was a bit envious. "I've wronged you all, and all because... because you were all curious."

Her statement only proved to Tom that whatever this was was sentient. Now, if only the Captain would see that. "Perhaps there is a lot we can learn from each other," he suggested. "I'm certainly curious how you were able to manipulate our computer so quickly. And I'm also curious as to what you think of us... analog... lifeforms."

"You're puzzling creatures," doppelganger Maddy replied as they made their way to wherever the Captain was located. "I think there is much we could learn from each other, but I fear I'm the one who has the most to learn."

=== Deck Nineteen ===

Douglas had started toward where the EV suits were kept, reasoning that he could use the boots to hold him to the deck. However, his well-trained protector's mind pointed out that there would be people on other decks that might not be so fortunate as to have had their deck's phasers taken down. So he changed direction and made his way to the nearest Jefferies Tube entrance.

Once inside, he began to make his way up, knowing that the decks beneath them would be taken care of by the marines as per his conversation with S'er'in'e before the ship decided to try and kill them. He was halfway there when a message came through on the secured comm. telling everyone who knew how to disable the Security EPS. He frowned but decided that would be far more helpful to anyone still in the firing line as it were.

Making his way to the nearest engineering toolkit storage locker on this deck, he gathered a bbaseline toolkit and got back into the Jefferies Tubes to begin disabling the Security EPS. All of this reminded him of his own ship, the end of the Earth Mission. True, that had been Arreith's doing, sabotage, but the result had been similar; the ship had tried to kill them. It hadn't been nearly as subtle, though, and it had succeeded with all but him, the desired target. And before that, he had been cut off. At least this time, he was not cut off, he reflected as he disabled one relay and moved on to the next.

As Mallory made his way through the Jeffries Tubes, a small brown and black blur with entirely too many legs darted towards him, shot up his arm and over his back and was quickly off of him again and running.

"What the...?" Douglas froze for the briefest of seconds as the thing darted out of the shadows at him, mostly in surprise. What in the Abyss was that thing? Where had it come from? And more importantly, how and when had it gotten on board? He shook himself, bringing himself back to his senses quickly; but it was not quickly enough, he realized as he twisted around to try and catch the thing only to discover it was already gone. At the speed it had been moving, he realized that he would never catch up with it, so he needed to scan it.

Reaching around, he grabbed the engineering tricorder from the kit and turned it toward where the creature had gone. Being an engineering tricorder, it would not take very accurate readings of a life form, but it should give him enough to track it, to distinguish it from parts of the ship.