Apollo smiled and shook her hand. "I'm Admiral Racer. This is my first officer, Captain Racer, and my Tactical Officer, Commander Pa'arvalis."
Amanda glanced from Sam to Apollo in response to her name being the same as the admiral's, but didn't say anything. Sam smiled at her in return. "If you'll follow me," Amanda said, motioning them out of the transporter room.
As they walked down a long corridor, Circe asked, "Madam Administrator, do you get this type of behavior very often?"
She chuckled. "Please, call me Amanda. No, we don't get this too often. We've had a few accidental deaths since the station was first established, but actually, this is the first time we've had a murder."
"At least, one you've known about."
Apollo looked sternly at Circe. "Commander, I think these people have enough on their hands without having a Murder of the Week." He then looked to Amanda. "The surface here is stable?"
"Oh, quite stable," she replied. "It's just that at first, we didn't know the exact boundaries of the crust, and there would be the occasional misstep." She paused... Apollo could sense a brief wave of painful grief before it passed just as quickly. "We never really discovered if this planet has a solid core. Even our sensors don't go that far down, and a starship's sensors can't penetrate very far into this gaseous soup. There have been some rumors that the men we've lost haven't even stopped falling yet."
Sam shivered... she could think of a lot better ways to die than to take a plunge into eternity, never to hit bottom. "How horrible."
"They would eventually have to stop falling," Circe said. "They would reach the center of the planet's gravitational mass. If it's mostly gas, the core would most likely be in a liquid form." Sam looked at Circe, aghast at the nonchalance.
Apollo put their rivalry on hold with a glare. "Could it be possible that this person could have somehow snapped? Maybe he saw one of his friends fall. Knowing the fate of that helpless individual, I'd probably be a little unnerved myself."
Amanda stopped and looked hard at Apollo. "You know, that's exactly what happened. About four months ago, Jim's old partner fell off the edge of the crust. He hasn't been the same since then. Still, I would hardly allow him to use that as an excuse for murder."
"Perhaps the gas has some properties that haven't been realized yet." She turned to Apollo. "Like when Starfleet discovered that the zenite gas they once got from Ardana was found to cause aggrassion in individuals who breathed it for an extended period of time."
Circe smirked. "This from the Vulcan wannabe." She moved on, and as such missed the tongue Sam stuck out at her. Apollo shook his head, but said nothing about the action.
They walked through a door into a room. The men standing guard in the security wing gave Apollo the impression that there was no Starfleet influence here at all. In fact, they probably only use this area for complaints of petty theft... and probably not much of that, either. And yet the cells still seemed to be in fairly good condition. A look at Circe appraising the room confirmed his suspicions. Probably need a place for their people to sleep off a drinking binge.
They reached a cell near the end of the wing. A man sat in there alone. He was quiet, and he looked as though he regretted what he did, but he also looked disgruntled. "Jim, get up," Amanda said, "your ride is here." Jim stood and looked at the Starfleet people; from the start, he realized he'd better not give these people too much trouble. Amanda turned to face them. "Admiral, this is Jim Nash. Jim, this is Admiral Racer and his officers from the Highlander. They'll be taking you with them." Jim remained silent as one of the guards deactivated the forcefield, then he stepped carefully through. As he passed the administrator, she snidely said, "Why so glum? You were always complaining about wanting to get off of this rock. Now's your chance." He glared at her, but remained silent.
Circe took Jim firmly by the arm. "Let's go."
"Commander, the captain and I will be staying a short while. Think you can handle taking him up to the ship by yourself?" At a glare from her, he smirked, then she huffed and took Jim out the door.
Amanda gestured with her head. "C'mon. We may not have the finest facilities, but we managed to get our replicators to make a mean cup of coffee."
Apollo perked up. "Raktajino?"
Amanda smiled. "You're a man after my own heart."
Sam smirked. "As though he'd drink anything else."
~ * ~
When they were ready to beam back up, Apollo left orders that as soon as they were aboard, Xanax was to take the ship to warp 4 again, on a course for the Aldridge penal colony on Mylanta IV (this elicited another laughing fit from Apollo, though this time, the crew had no clue as to why). Thus, they were well on their way by the time Apollo reached the bridge. He was about to sit down when Circe said, "Admiral, I'm picking up an automated distress signal from the log buoy of a Federation shuttlecraft, bearing 127 mark 38."
Apollo remained standing and walked around to the Tactical station. He looked over Circe's shoulder at the readings. "Odd. A shuttlecraft out this far?"
"Actually, this is just the log buoy of a shuttle. It's unknown how long it's been drifting."
"Ah, aha. Nevertheless... Mr. Xanax, intercept course, maximum warp. It looks as though Mr. Nash will have to wait a little bit for his vacation." He turned back to the readings. "Commander, how long before we reach the buoy's position?"
Circe punched in some calculations. "At maximum warp, we will reach the log buoy in 4.7 hours."
He nodded. "Can you trace the buoy's trajectory while we're at it?"
She gave him a look that said Are you joking? "It's not impossible, but it should keep me busy until we reach it."
He nodded again. "Very good. I'll be in my Ready Room." He strode off to the side of the bridge and disappeared behind the doors.
After about an hour, Sam decided to visit Apollo in the Ready Room. Upon entering, she stopped shortly after the doors closed and smiled. Apollo was sitting in his chair, legs propped up on the desk. His head was knocked back, his mouth was open, and he was snoring. With an impish look, she sidled slowly and silently up to the other side of the desk. Getting as close as she dared, she cleared her throat. Loudly.
The effect was exactly what she desired. Apollo snorted, flailed a bit, and promptly fell backward out of his chair. "What? Huh?"
Sam giggled. "Honey, if you were so tired, why didn't you just go to our quarters?"
He grimaced. "Oh, ya, like that would look good. 'You have the conn. I'm going to go take a nap.'" She laughed lightly. He picked himself up off the floor and sat back down in the chair. "Well, what do you expect? How would it look for someone like me to be needing sleep?!"
Sam shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Oh, heaven forbid we should ever think that the mighty Admiral Racer would be hampered by the trivial needs of us lowly humans such as sleep. I suppose you don't want us to see you eat, either?" She propped her head on his desk with an arm and raised an eyebrow at him.
"I don't recall saying 'hampered.'"
"Whatever," she said, smiling. "Anyway, I just came in to let you know that Circe tracked the buoy back to its origin. It didn't travel very far... in an hour after we reach the buoy, we can reach the shuttle's last known location."
"If the shuttle was at warp, I hardly think it'll be in that area."
"If the shuttle was capable of warp, I would hardly think her pilot would have dropped the log buoy."
Apollo thought for a moment. "Good point. Is there anything else."
She thought for a moment. "Nnnnno, nothing I can think of."
"Good. In that case, I'm going back to sleep. Wake me just before we reach the buoy."
"Okay." She stood, then stopped, smiling coyly. "You know, now that I think of it, you looked awfully comfortable sleeping." She yawned. "Maybe some shuteye is what I could use, too."
Apollo got up and moved to the couch. "You know, you're more than welcome to join me." He sat down on one end of the couch.
She sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "Thanks, don't mind if I do." He gently stroked her hair until her deep breathing told him she was asleep. In a couple of minutes, he joined her in slumber.
~ * ~
They were awakened by the intercom chime. "Bridge to Admiral Racer."
Sam, eyes only half opened, placed a hand on Apollo's shoulder for leverage and moved off him. She watched in a daze as he got up and went to the com on his desk. "Racer here. Go ahead."
"We've reached the coordinates of the buoy."
He nodded, though Circe couldn't see him. "Very well. Beam the buoy into Cargo Bay 1 and head for the shuttle's last known coordinates. If it's not there when we get there, we'll have to do a little more tracking."
"Understood. Bridge out."
He closed the connection and sighed. Gesturing to the door, he said, "Shall we?"
She held her hands out, a silent request to be helped up. He went over and took her hands, but she pulled him down into a kiss. Suddenly Apollo wasn't all that anxious to leave. After a couple of moments, though, he forced himself to stand. "As much as I'd like to continue that, we have work to do." She nodded and groaned, but held her hands out again. This time, she allowed him to pull her up. Straightening their respective tunics, they walked out of the Ready Room. Moving through the bridge, he told Circe, "We'll be in the cargo bay inspecting the log buoy. Keep us informed of any changes." They walked into the turbolift.
After the doors closed, she pulled him into another embrace. Between kisses, he said, "Now Captain, we're still on duty. Suppose someone decides to get onto this turbolift."
She looked up into his eyes. "Can't you use your fancy schmancy senses to tell if that would happen."
"Uh uh. You know they don't work that way. They only go off if I'm in danger." He gazed longingly at her. "We have tonight, you know."
She made a show of thinking about it. "Mmmm... I don't think I can restrict myself to nights." She smiled, giving him shivers.
He felt the car slow down, and straightened. She took his cue; sure enough, the doors opened, and a crewman stepped in. "Sir. Ma'am," he said, tilting his head at them in respect. They nodded back. The rest of the ride down, she silently flirted with Apollo. The crewman started feeling uncomfortable, but he didn't know why. He decided to risk turning to look at his superior officers, but they only gave him friendly smiles.
When they finally reached the cargo bay, Scotty was already going over the buoy with a tricorder. "Ah! Admiral. Captain. Come take a look at this."
They joined Scotty over by the buoy. Immediately Apollo could tell something about the buoy. "This was in an explosion. There's an awful lot of carbon scoring."
"Do you think the shuttle was destroyed?" Sam asked.
"I dinna know, lass," Scotty replied. "There's certainly not enough evidence to tell here. We'll have t' pull the logs t' see what kinda mess the shuttle was into."
Apollo nodded. "We're heading for the shuttle's last known position now. If there was an explosion, and the shuttle was involved, there's a good chance she'll be nearby."
"Either that, or we'll find a nice little cloud of debris," Sam added.
"Aye, that could be true. Hmmm..." Scotty looked intently at the readings. "Accordin' t' this, the shuttle came from the USS Gilgamesh."
Apollo raised an eyebrow. "Gilgamesh? That's a..." he racked his memory for a second, "...a Steamrunner-class vessel, isn't it?"
"Aye. That, it is. I wonder what it's doing out here."
Sam shrugged. "With the war over, it could be any number of things."
Apollo nodded. "Even when the war was on, it could have been any number of things. We're out near one of the areas where the Dominion had a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. If memory serves, they had an outpost nearby."
Scotty's face brightened. "Ah! I've got it! The tricorder's found the logs. It should be a matter of time now. All I have t' do is download the logs and decrypt them, and we'll have our answers."
"Hmmm..." Apollo was looking at some discoloration on the buoy's hull. He produced a tricorder... from where, Sam had no idea. She knew he didn't enter the cargo bay with one, and she didn't see any lying around. He seemed to start doing things like that after he visited the Delta Quadrant, but he never explained how he managed to do it. While Scotty pulled the logs, Apollo started analyzing the hull. "This is odd."
Sam walked around to where he was standing. He was looking at an oddly shaped hole in the hull plating. "This looks as though it's been eaten away." She reached out to point at it. She never intended to touch it, but Apollo grabbed her wrist in any case.
"Careful! The tricorder says it's still pretty corrosive." As if in response, some of the metal hissed. Apollo stepped back and pulled out his lightsaber. Sam didn't recall him having that with him, either. With a snap-hiss, he ignited the blade. The saber hummed as he moved it, ionizing the air particles around it. With a slow, almost surgical precision, he barely touched the tip of the blade to the metal around the hole, and cut around it. When he finished the cut the plate didn't fall... clearly, she thought, he was holding up the piece of hull with his mind.
Turning off his saber and clipping it to his belt, he snapped and gestured to the side, without taking his eyes off the plating. Sam walked to a nearby compartment and opened it, pulling out a container made especially to handle corrosive substances. He carefully lowered the plating into the container, and she closed the lid. "Take that to the science lab for analysis," he said.
"Aye, sir," she replied, and immediately headed out the door. Apollo continued to make scans of the buoy. After about half an hour, Scotty closed his own instrument. "Well, that's it. I'm going t' bring this up to the bridge so Commander Pa'arvalis can take a look at the logs."
"All right. I'm about finished here. I'll be up there shortly." Scotty nodded, grinned and left the cargo bay.
Not long after he did, Apollo found another small spot on the hull that had been partially eaten away. But instead of a hole, there was a pit, filled with a tiny amount of what registered as organic matter, but upon attempting to identify it further, the tricorder was baffled. He reached out, and almost touched it, just as Sam had done earlier. Like the hole Sam took with her, though, this too would be highly corrosive. As an experiment, he lightly touched it anyway, and was shocked when his skin started burning instantly. He quickly pulled his hand away and looked at his finger. The very tip was already eaten through, with blue blood welling up. He produced a cloth and wiped the finger clean. The burning stopped, and within a few minutes, the finger would look as though it had never been touched.
But that didn't disturb Apollo as much as the fact that when he touched the spot, the senses Sam wanted to go off in the turbolift suddenly flared to life. He didn't know why, but he was getting a very bad feeling about this. He slowly stood and backed out of the cargo bay, never taking his eyes off the log buoy.