STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINCE

A Dark Discovery

Chapter One: A Dark Discovery

Like any other day on this old Cardassian space station it began slowly for the exception of the last few days of war reports and posting casualty lists for the crew of the station to read and hopefully not find a loved one or close friend. Since the Romulans joined the war against the Dominion-Cardassian Alliance the war had been going in Starfleet's favour. However the crew had learned never to take things at face value as the course of war could turn at a moment's notice.

Captain Benjamin Sisko, seasoned command officer and Emissary to the Prophets of Bajor browsed over the last of the sector combat reports before he finally decided to get some rest and hopefully see his son as he had been too busy over the last few days to even have a simple meal with. After leaving his office on the upper level of the Operations centre, he was just about to place his feet on the elevator before an alarm rang at the science station.

"Elevated Neutrino readings, something is coming threw the wormhole Benjamin"

With a deep sigh he looked back at the young woman whom in an earlier incarnation, had been his long time friend and mentor.

"On screen Dax"

The main viewer blinked slightly to the somewhat majestic appearance of the only stable wormhole known to exist opening before them, seconds later a vessel appeared threw the haze of the event horizon of the wormhole.

"What the hell is that? Looks Starfleet, but I've never seen that design before"

"Check the history banks Doctor, that looks like Pre-Federation design…"

"Confirmed Benjamin… Specifically circa 2150s if memory serves"

Major Kira looked up at the screen with the rest of the crew in awe before she turned back to Dax.

"Dax, if that was built over 200 years ago, how did it get here?"

"Unknown, accessing ships IDC codes now…. Starfleet Vessel Discovery NX-04"

Chief of Operations officer Miles O'Brian looked up in shock as the name resonated with him, he knew that ship name.

"Sir, the Discovery vanished 6 days after it's launch, it was officially declared lost six months later"

"Six days, four hours and fifteen minutes to be exact Chief"

In shock the rest of the crew looked around at the young doctor in front of them, since he had little idea about history, it was something of large shock to know that he knew of this case"

"What? I collect mysteries, you know me with the hollo-novels"

With a slight smile Sisko looked at Dax, already running over the sensor data on this ancient ship.

"She's in perfect order, no life signs, it appears that all main systems have been deactivated from inside that ship, she's simply adrift"

"Chief lock on a tractor beam the instant she's in range"

"That won't do any good Ben, her current trajectory puts her heading out of the system on a parallel course"

"Okaaayyy. Then have the crew of the Defiant at posts immediately. Dax, Chief, Doctor And Mister Worf, lets get that ship"

Quickly the small team moved towards the transporter pad and beamed aboard the USS Defiant, a compact prototype destroyer that had more then proven herself in combat many times.

After a quick pre-flight check the tiny destroyer left space dock to intercept the ancient starship as it slowly moved out of the star system. As the Defiant matched the course and speed of Discovery she pulled along side as her sensors ran wild over the ship recording as much as possible as Sisko looked up at the screen.

"What've you got old man?"

"Life support and grav-plating is off-line… actually the whole ship is dark and frozen Ben"

"Alright, Environmental suits everyone, Chief Dax, Doctor and have an engineering team meet us in the transporter bay, Mr. Worf you have the bridge"

After suiting up the away team materialised on the Discovery's bridge, in awe they all looked around at the perfectly preserved example of pre-Federation design. The first too speak was Dax as she looked around in awe.

"My god, it's like a time capsule"

"All right everyone fan out, Chief take Connor and try to get the environmental systems on line, then get down to Engineering, if we can get power we can take her home under her own power it'll be a major moral boost for the fleet, while the rest try and get some power to these systems. Maybe we can find out what happened and where the crew is"

"Aye sir"

With a nod to Connor they both forced open the access panel behind the science station and climbed down the decks until they reached the engineering level, while the rest of the crew began to work on the bridge systems. As they entered engineering with only the light on their helmets to illuminate the large room shadows where cast giving an eerie appearance to the abandoned engine room, with no signs of a struggle or anything out of place O'Brien looked around with his jaw half open, with a look back at his companion Petty Officer Julie Connor he smiled.

"You know I've seen an Engine Room aboard the NX-01 in the Smithsonian, but it was nothing like this. Pretty much fresh of the production line"

"This is perfect Chief, where do we start?"

"Umm… Alright, moment over, let's get to work"

Quickly he gave her his orders as they began to inspect the vast horizontal engine core, it didn't take long before they knew what was wrong.

"Chief, the Anti-matter is completely drained…"

"Exactly, other then that she's fully operational, a quick refuel and she's up and running. All right, head on down to ships stores and they should be fully loaded"

"Aye sir"

"I'll see if I can get environmental systems back on line from here"

After ten minutes of checking and rechecking the systems, O'Brien finally got the environmental systems back on line as Julie, silently walked back into engineering carrying a large cylinder of Anti-matter. Silently she refuelled the Engine core and placed the cylinder near a far wall. With a few commands given to the computer the engine core began to pulse with energy once more.

"Nice work Julie"

Uncharacteristically the young Petty Officer nodded in silence as she began to check over several systems.

After ten minutes the atmosphere had began to return to the ancient vessel as Captain Sisko and his team began to check over the computers.

"Benjamin, the computer core has been erased"

"What?"

"It's empty"

"Are you sure Dax?"

"Check for your self?"

Since they had boarded this ship it had given everyone an eerie feeling, a feeling that had grown stronger by the minute, in the seven life times of the Dax symbiote but this situation had begun to get to her especially since the ship's database had been erased. Shaking off the feeling she looked up her old friend and one time student and smiled.

"I'll go down to the ships memory banks and check from their"

"All right, but no one goes alone. Take Julian with you, he's not doing much anyway"

With a smile they both left the bridge via the now operational elevator and quickly made way towards to the lower deck containing the computer memory access points. They had almost reached the room they needed before Dax stopped and let out a little scream as shock rippled threw her.

Bashir stopped and spun around as he saw a body lying on the floor in a standard Starfleet Environmental suit, quickly they ran over too the body and rolled it over.

"My god! Bashir to Sisko, you'd better get down here. We've got a problem"

Fifteen minutes later the body had been moved to the medical quarters as Bashir, Dax and Sisko stood together talking. The medical equipment on board was over 200 years out of date yet all they had was a field medic kit so some of the equipment that was operational had to be used.

"It appears as if something had drained all of the live out of her sir"

"How is that possible?"

"I wish I knew, what ever happened, she's dead and we have a problem"

With a deep sigh he tapped his comms badge and spoke with urgency.

"Sisko to O'Brien, I think you should come up to Sickbay immediately. We've found Petty Officer Connor, She's dead"

"What? Impossible sir, I've just been talking to her she's over by the engine core right now… What the hell? Sir she was right their"

"You'd better get up here Chief"

As quickly as his legs could carry him he ran threw the abandoned corridors of the Discovery until he eventually reached the Medical Quarters. As he pushed threw the doors he froze at the sight of the of the body on the bio-bed before him.

"What the hell? Sir she was just in engineering a few minutes ago"

"Chief, you've been under a lot of stress lately… she's been dead for almost an hour. She was still in the environmental suit when Dax and Bashir found her near the ship's stores"

"Again that's not possible, I sent her for something from ships stores, she brought it back and then we got everything up and running, granted she was quiet all the time but…"

"Chief, Miles…"

Before Bashir could finish his sentence every computer screen activated with the same blood stained panicked image of the ship's Captain.

"Captain's Log: Additional… It's been almost three weeks since we lost contact with Starfleet and Earth… The crew, my god the crew, what has happened? Where are we? Where have all the stars gone? And what is this void we've entered? If anyone from Starfleet is seeing this recording… I'll tap into external sensors before…. OHH MY GOD! NO… NOOOOOO!"

The image cleared to the external sensors, he was right, a void of the darkest blue, green and red possible as swirls of energy began to envelop the ship until only darkness remained. As quickly as the log entry was played every screen turned back to the medical displays as the Defiant crew looked at each other and finally to where the body of the Petty Officer had been laid out for autopsy, yet the body was gone and only her clothes remained.

"What the fu..."

As they looked down at the bio-bed in shock the sound of a blood curdling screams echoed threw the corridors that once again sent a chill down the battle hardened seasoned officers of the USS Defiant.