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Chapter Two:
"Mr Mitchell, Mr Kelso, to your stations." Jim orders, as he steps out on to the bridge.
Gary and Kelso quickly hurry out of the lift and over to the helm where they would be relieving Chekov and Sulu of duty. Gary glances as Jim as he makes his way over to Sulu, he still couldn't help but feel slightly bitter at Jim. But he knew Jim was right, Sulu was one of the best pilots in Starfleet without a doubt.
Sulu and Chekov had earned their places on the bridge.
"Thanks for the relief, Mitchell." Sulu sighs, as he gets up from his seat and stretches with yawn. "I think I'm going to sleep into the next century!"
"And miss all the fun?" Gary laughs.
Sulu smiles. "Well, when you put it like that… Maybe I should stay."
"Well, sweet dreams, Mr Sulu." Gary answers, as he sits down. "I promise the helm will be in the same condition you left it in."
"It better be," Sulu threatens jokingly. "As much as you've got to love Scotty, I don't think I could put up with the ranting!"?
Gary smiles to himself as Sulu leaves the bridge with Chekov.
A malfunction had taken place in one of the helms control panels a month or two ago, causing one of the circuits to spark and short out the entire system. Scotty and Jim had spent hours repairing it together, Scotty having deemed Jim the only engineer he knew capable of doing at adequate job.
But then it was no secret Jim was a brilliant engineer.
At the academy Jim had been doing the command and engineering track and Gary believed if Jim hadn't chosen command as his main focus and career path, he'd be the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise right now. So it was little wonder Scotty and Jim got on like a house on fire.
And it had annoyed Sulu to no end, having Scotty on the bridge. Sulu had nothing against Scotty, in fact they were friends. He, Chekov, Scotty, Jim as well as McCoy often took part in poker game nights down in engineering, but Jim and Scotty's endless chatter had really gotten to him.
It was more to do with the fact Sulu had no idea what the two of them were talking about, rather than the talking, which had annoyed him. He had felt left out, especially when Chekov had joined in on the conversation. Chekov like Jim had been studying two tracks, navigation and engineering. Gary had simply found the entire situation amusing.
"Mr Spock, what we got?" Jim asks, as approaches the science station.
Spock arches an eyebrow at the readings on his screen, before turning in his seat to face Jim.
"Captain, the distress beacon we have intercepted is from the USS Valiant, an old Starfleet vessel." Spock explains.
"The Valiant?" Jim questions, as he rests a hand on the back of Spock's chair and leans forward looking over Spock's shoulder, as Spock turns back to the screen with a node. "But she disappeared two hundred years ago! Not to mention she disappeared light years away from here!"
"Indeed," Spock agrees. "And there is still no sign of the ship, just the distress beacon."
"What's its message?" Jim asks, studying Spock's screen.
"I do not know," Spock answers. "I am still attempting to access the beacon's data files remotely."
"Would you like me to try, Mr Spock?" Jim offers. "Hacking is my speciality."
)o(
Jim hands danced over the science station's many screens and keypads, as he worked to hack into the distress beacon from the USS Valiant. He was sitting at the science station with Spock was standing behind him. The Vulcan was watching his ever move like a hawk.
He could feel Spock's disapproving stare on the back of his head, but Jim simply ignored it. Spock may have been able to reprogram any device and write codes of the most complex nature, but when it came to recovering data such as this, Jim was unbeatable.
Jim grins as he catches sight of Spock's reflection on one of the screens.
He knew that look.
It was a look Spock gave him often and Jim had even given it a name in his head. It was the look Spock gave him whenever he was doing something that didn't comply with regulations. But Jim wasn't really doing anything wrong in his own opinion, they needed to recover the data and normal means weren't working, so Jim was just using an alternative method.
"I'm receiving something." Spock suddenly spoke up, raising a hand to his ear piece. "The ships logs are fragmented. It appears their mission was similar to ours, exploring the galaxy edge in this same quadrant."
Jim glances briefly at Spock, but doesn't stop what he's doing. He was going to recover as much of the data as he could and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he had achieved something Spock hadn't been able to.
Nothing at all.
He'd worry about the fact the USS Valiant had been given orders to explore this quadrant, even though Starfleet had told him they would be the first to explore this part of the galaxy, later. Starfleet must have had a reason to keep the information hidden. Or the orders hadn't come from Starfleet, but something pretending to be Starfleet. After all, back then interstellar communications hadn't been brilliant.
"The ship took severe damage," Spock continues. "From… Something… An unknown force… Seven crewmen dead… No make that six, one crew member seems to have recovered."
"From death?" Jim exclaims incredulously.
"This cannot be correct," Spock continues, as if he had not heard Jim. "The data must be damaged. It doesn't make sense… Something about extra-sensory perception… The Captain is frantic, giving the order to…"
"To what, Mr Spock?" Jim questions.
"… For the ship to self-destruct." Spock replies after a moment.
Jim gets up from the chair at the science station, he couldn't recover any more data. The only way they'd be able to get more information was to beam the beacon aboard, but that came with a degree of risk. And it was a risk Jim was willing to take.
"Mr Spock, beam the beacon aboard," Jim orders, as Spock reclaims his seat at the science station. "Lieutenant Uhura, I want the log recovered and pieced together the best it can be and give me a full report on the contents. If the computer is unable to recover the data, let me know right away."
"Aye, sir." Uhura answers.
"The beacon has successful been beamed aboard, Captain." Spock informs Jim, turning slightly in his chair.
Jim nodes, as he sits down in the Captain's chair. "Thank you, Mr Spock."
)o(
Captain's log: Supplemental.
Something truly unexpected has happened. From directly ahead, we're picked up a recorded distress signal. The beacon comes from a ship which has been missing for over two centuries. It seems we're not the first ship to venture into this part of the universe, after all. The recordings we've recovered so far don't look promising. What happened to it out there? Could this possibly be some warning they've left behind? However unintentionally it may have been?
)o(
"Captain we are approaching the edge of the galaxy," Kelso speaks up from his place at the helm. "Crossing terminus in five minutes."
"Very good, Mr Kelso." Jim acknowledges with a node.
"What ever happened to the Valiant, our mission stays the same," Jim mutters. "Cross the edge and see what's out there."
"We may very well face the same threat faced by our predecessors, the USS Valiant." Spock replies.
"Only one way to find out," Jim grins slightly. "We're leaving the galaxy Mr Mitchell! Ahead warp factor one."
"Aye, sir." Gary answers with a grin of his own.
"Crossing the terminus now." Kelso announces.
"Cap'n." Scotty greets, as he steps out of the turbo lift.
"Mr Scott!" Jim smiles. "You're just in time to say good bye to the Milky Way."
"That's a' weel 'n' gruid, sur," Scotty answers. "Bit a'm needin' a moment o' yer time. Ye see th'-"
"Captain, sensors are detecting… Something… Up ahead!" Kelso cuts Scotty off.
"On screen." Jim orders.
Suddenly the bridge is flooded with a neon green light, which was being cast by a strange formation in the space in front of them. It was like a giant stripe of pulsating energy which stretched for a far as the eye could see.
"Mr Spock?" Jim questions, not taking his eyes off the formation in front of them.
"Readings are inconclusive, Captain." Spock answers, studying the screens in front of him. "But it appears to be a force field of some kind."
"Shields up!" Jim orders.
"Th' lights." Scotty points out, as the bridges lights begin to flicker and go out one by one.
"Yellow alert!" Jim announces, as the lights flicker out completely. "Status report!"
Uhura taps a screen at her station and is thrown back with a scream, as the station short-circuits and explodes in a flash of electricity and smoke.
"Nyota!" Spock quickly moves to her side and helps her to her feet.
"I'm fine." Uhura answers, dusting herself down once she's back on her feet.
"All decks on fire alert." Jim speaks into the intercom, which was so far unaffected.
Suddenly the helm exploded much like the communications station had moments before, Kelso is knocked clean from his seat, while Gary just had time to throw up his hands to shield his face from flying debris.
As puffs of smoke began rising around the station, Gary reached up and gripped the sides of his head and hunched forward. Jim quickly rushed to Kelso's side and checks him over, he wasn't too badly hurt but he'd definitely have a couple of nasty bruises. All of a sudden Gary throws his head back and screams.
"Gary!" Jim exclaims, as Gary passes out and slumps in his seat.
"Mr Scot," Jim orders. "Get us out of here!"
"Aye, sur." Scotty answers.
"Gary, are you hurt?" Jim asks, as Gary groans in his seat.
"Jim…" Gary mutters groggily. "I'm… A little weak, but other than that I feel… Fine."
Gary looks up at Jim and Jim almost stumbles back in alarm.
Gary's eyes were glowing silver.
)o(
Hey, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Until next time,
Blessed be,
TreeOfLife1997.