No excuse for long delays. Hopefully I remember where I was going with this.

The shuttlecraft Battuta was on its 12th hour of its explorations ship. Ever since Captain Berg had ordered the exploratory missions of the area with the four shuttlecrafts, morale had perked up a bit. Everyone understood the odds of finding any sort of help were slim; Lieutenant Scogaska, the Andorian Science Officer, has called them "of insignificant probability". Captain had pulled him aside for a quick talk following that comment after which he seemed to feel that the expeditions were worthwhile.

Kiko Rodriguez sat at the help of the shuttle. With the Kongo being afloat in space, her services were not needed on the bridge. The missions were purely voluntary but a bored crew led to a long list to choose from. Onboard with Kiko were Lieutenant Samantha Gravelson. Samantha was just out of the academy and was a linguistic expert who was on the Kongo for her shake down mission. She really had not intended on making starship duty her primary career but needed some service hours to be considered for promotion. Next to her in the back was William, Bill, Newman. He was on the security detail and had been assigned by Commander as a Hasan as a reward for his stellar performance both before and after the Incident.

Then there was Crewman Andrew Smith. He sat next to Kiko in what amounted to the co-pilot sit. Kiko once again tried not to look and feel uncomfortable about his presence. They had almost reached the 12 hour mark at which they would turn around and have another 12 hours back. Kiko tried to remind herself of the reasons that she should not get involved with Smith: he was an enlisted man, he was always getting into trouble with Chief Engineer DeSoto, he was arrogant and obnoxious but once again she found herself cursing Starfleet for the short uniforms and trying to turn her attention to something else.

"12 hours," said Crewman Smith suddenly.

"What?" Kiko responded trying to shake herself out of her internal turmoil.

"12 hours," he repeated. "Orders are to turn around after 12 hours. You're in charge. What do you think?"

The young lieutenant sighed. She had hoped that they would find something despite the odds. Even a meteor siting would have been something but so far there was nothing to report. She stared out the front viewport and looked at the young engineer.

"How about one last round of scans. Any chance we roll snake eyes and find something?"

Smith laughed a bit. From the rear, Samantha Gravelson cleared her throat. "Are you sure we should disobey the Captain's orders?"

Kiko looked at Newman who had remained silent. "What do you think Redshirt. Will get written up for a couple of minutes?"

He smiled and replied, "According to my watch, we have five minutes." He said, pointing to his unadorned wrist. He looked at Samantha, "It's not going to matter. Don't worry."

Kiko smiled. "Okay Smith, did you find the Holy Grail?" She sat down getting ready set a course back to the Kongo.

He did not answer immediately and made several adjustments to the scanners. The unexpected silence caught everybody's attention. Smith continued to stare into the scanner and said, "I think so."

"What? What do you have?" Kiko sat down at her scanner and tried to lock into the signal Smith was viewing.

"Something metallic. The material readings aren't making much sense but I have to believe that it is refined. There are energy readings as well. Could be fusion, I am not sure but rhythmic. I believe it is artificial"

Lieutenant Rodriguez brought his signal into focus and looked. Now that they found it, not only was it metallic but it may be large. Smith was right, the material displays coming back were not making sense. She instinctively plotted a course. The signal was actually inside the search perimeter that the Kongo had established but none of the current courses would come close to it.

"Okay, it would take us about 3 hours to get there. Another 10 hours back to the Kongo," Kiko was almost talking to herself but she knew what she was about to do. "I am setting course. Bill, if that is a ship be ready for anything. Andrew start recording all scanner readings. I want to get more detailed readings as we get closer. Either something is off with our scanners or there is something in that metal that we can't identify. As Captain Berg would say, we are always explorers."

The crew hesitated. "My command," she said. "Let's go".

Samantha opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and finally said, "Should we call in?"

Kiko shook her head, "Normally yes, but the Kongo is so power strapped that I don't want to until we know what we are reporting. I am setting course and engaging."

The Battuta went quickly through space but to the crew, it seemed to crawl. As the got closer, the scanners were able to give a better but even more confusing readings on the mysterious target. It was definitely a ship. And it was big, about twice the length of a Constitution class starship. The power signature were similar to Fusion but there was no sign of a warp signature which was odd since they know they were light years away from the nearest start. There was large enclosure at the rear that the assumed was the engine compartment.

Rodriguez and Smith stared and the ship as it got closer.

"Maybe a sleeper ship?" Posited Smith.

"I don't know," she responded, "It's not moving at all right now. Somehow strikes me as warship of some sort. Wait, is that tachyon displacement?"

Smith looked and responded, "Yeah so it can go faster than light. How? There still is no sign of a warp core. How close are we?"

"200 Kilometers. No reaction so far."

"Okay," she said, "let's try to be friendly. Open standard hailing frequency. Samantha, we might need your help on this."

The commanding Lieutenant took a breath and opened the channel, "this is Lieutenant Kiko Rodriguez from the USS Starship Kongo of the United Federation of Planets. Please respond."

The all waited anxiously. There was no response.

"Range?" she asked.

"150 Kilometers. No response so far," Answered the Engineer.

Kiko slowed their speed to minimum impulse. She would need to drop to thrusters in a bit.

"This is Lieutenant Kiko Rodriguez from the USS Starship Kongo of the United Federation of Planets. Our ship is in distress and we seeking assistance. We are not armed and have no hostile intentions. Please respond."

There was still no response. They were now within visual range of the large vessel. It had a large ecliptic central section with two somewhat smaller attachments on either side. The Federation crew immediately thought of warp nacelles but they quickly realized that was not the case.

"Landing bays?" asked Smith. Kiko shrugged her shoulders and said, "Can we get some scans of the interior? I am not sure any one is home."

Smith went back to his scanner. "I am not picking up any life but I think there is an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere in there. There seems to be some type of artificial gravity but the source is different than ours. It is set to about earth standard."

He looked up and saw that they were within 100 meters of the alien hull. "Hell they could see is if they looked out a porthole at this point. Look there are some markings."

The team looked up and saw.

Άλυμπος

Samantha Gravelson stood up all of a sudden and stared. She said nothing for a few minutes until Kiko coaxed her, "Samantha what is it?"

She still starred for a moment more and finally said, "That's Greek. Those marking are writing in Greek. It says 'Olympus.'"

The shuttlecraft crew starred at each other for a moment more until Kiko said, "Now we should call the Captain."