Captain Berg paced the bridge of the Kongo. He felt a little guilty about it as life support was becoming critical and he was almost afraid to exert himself for fear of using more air, but the report he was getting seemed both too good to be true and disturbing.
"Lieutenant, are sure there are no signs of the crew?" He knew that he had asked the question three times already but it made no sense. He was trying to imagine a situation where his crew would just leave the Kongo.
"No sir," answered Rodriguez. "We attempted contact, approached slowly and were able to land in their shuttle bay with no sign of interest or interference. We have since traversed the entire length and the ship, and identified what we believe to be their engineering section and bridge." She took a breath and kept reporting what had been said already. "We have found food stores and other items that would be consistent with a working ship. The only real items missing are any signs of support ship. This Battlestar is obviously designed to hold a great many auxiliary ships but we only saw one that was a bit bigger than are shuttlecrafts."
Berg looked to his first officer. Assad Hasan and he had experience quite a bit together. "What do you think?"
Hasan looked into the arm panel that the captain was using. In order to save power, they were not using the viewscreen. Even the use of the local communications was more of a strain than he liked but they definitely had cause for now. "Smith, what is the ship's status?"
The Engineer stepped up to the control console on the Mattubu. They had reconvened back in the shuttle to make the call. "Sir, the technology on the ship is very different than that of the Federation or any other race I have seen. The engines are running on some sort of power similar to Fusion but I have not been able to identify the actual source of power. There are a number of large tanks in that section which almost makes think they have some time of fuel store but we haven't had time to work it all out. With little I have seen of the computers, the programming seems very rudimentary but the processing power itself is significant. I can't find anything that looks like a forcefield or warp drive but she got out here somehow and appears built for battle. Life Support seems fully operational and within Earth norms. Actually, eerily so, it is very comfortable in here. It's almost everything is on station keeping."
Lieutenant Commander Scokasga chimed in from his post, "What about the odd metallurgical readings you mentioned?" He was getting a bit bored at the technical talk but what he saw on that intrigued him.
"Later Science Officer," interrupted the captain. "Gentlemen, ladies, recommendations."
"Captain, we could relocate the crew," suggested Hasan, "just life support and food stores would get us out of the immediate crisis. We can then work on figuring out more about the Olympia and next steps," he lowered his voice a bit to make his next point, "we are down to just a few days of life support."
"Commander, are you suggesting we take over that ship? Under what grounds? There has been no hostile act and no signs of distress. Despite everything, we are still Starfleet officers who must answer to Federation law. I know we are in trouble, but we can't give up who we are."
Hasan looked at the captain both in frustration and reluctant agreement. He stayed silence for a moment imagining the fresh air the away team on the Olympus must be enjoying. He looked around the bridge and saw in everybody's eyes a dawning understanding that this may be the moment of honoring their oath which could cost them everything.
The Captain saw the same look and prepared to make a difficult decision. "Away team, prepare to.."
"Captain hold on, "He was surprised to hear the young linguistic jump in. "Salvage law." Was all Samantha Gravelson said.
"Interesting idea," muttered Hasan.
"Ensign, I appreciate the ingenuity but as a Starfleet vessel, we cannot claim salvage rights. That would apply to privately help ships."
"No, we can't," said Gravelson at almost whisper, "But I think I know who can."
Ben Clarkson lay in his cot waiting to die. He was a graduate student at the Federation Academy on Vega Prime who was studying alternate theories of human development. It was well established fact that man evolved on Earth, but there had been some odd myths about colonies of human that far pre-dates man's ability to traverse the stars. There were even some very strange reports of signals coming from far beyond Federation boundaries that seemed to be of alien technical sources but in some ways had human characteristics. When this mission had come up, a professor who was interested in his work suggested he request to go along. The trip was to be uneventful and he may gather some information that could support his thesis.
Then the Event happened. He was not a member of this crew and in fairness the captain had done what he could to make him comfortable but after a few days and even weeks, it was obvious that they were doomed. Worse, he did not have friends or others he could really talk to this about. He simply sat and waited.
Suddenly he heard what sounded like know on his door. He walked up to it and said, "Yes?"
"Mr. Clarkson," answered a young female voice, "may I open the door?"
"Sure," he answered hesitantly.
"Than you," she used a manual crank to open the door, "the captain would like to see you on the bridge." She smiled at him. It appeared she was a yeoman and pretty fresh out of the academy. Ben had to admit that he did not understand Starfleet's selection for woman officers' uniforms but could only secretly admire the selection in this moment.
"Not sure I want to go all the way to the bridge, "Ben complained.
"You got something better to do?" asked the yeoman with a questioning smile?
He actually laughed slightly, "I guess not." And followed her.
He found the bridge as dark, dank and quiet as the rest of the ship. He noticed Commander Assad looking at a tricorder screen with interest. The Captain had authorized a download of an image of the Battlestar.
Upon hearing the graduate student enter, the Captain turned and almost seemed excited to see him, "Ah Mr. Clarkson, just wanted to check and see how you were doing?"
"Okay I guess, I mean, not great all things considered." He was truly perplexed by what was going on.
"Well, maybe an academic exercise will take you mind off things. Do you happen know how big an AU is?"
Now Ben was confused. The question certainly seemed random and out of place; however, he did have basic astrometric training so instinctively said," about 150 million kilometers?"
The Captain nodded his head and said, "did you mean '149,597,870,700 meters'?"
"I supposed," the increasingly confused civilian confirmed.
Captain Berg turned to Commander Hasan and said, "Commander, I believe Mr. Clarkson has qualified to be a private astrometric pilot. Can update out logs please? Congratulations Mr. Clarkson, perhaps that will come in handy some day."
"I suppose sir. Is there anything else?" He had no idea what was happening and now was highly concerned that the environment was degrading to a point where the Captain's judgement was being impaired.
"Well maybe one more thing. Do you want to see what we have found? It may be relevant to your thesis. That is the point of your trip, right?"
Ben thought that was the last thing he was worried about but went ahead and looked at the display. He saw an image of an unknown ship. It actually did not appear like anything he had seen before. It seemed to be large and he noticed some lights on the outside.
"Where is this," he said excitedly. A ship could mean rescue.
"About 8 hours away by shuttle. We have a small crew on her now. The name appears to be the Battlestar Olympus. Strange name and we know nothing about her people. Unfortunately, I was just about to bring the crew home. There is no crew onboard and we can't just take her. A private astrometric pilot might be able to claim salvage rights, but as Starfleet officers we can do no such thing."
It started to dawn on Ben what the Captain wanted. It seemed like an incredible run-around in a moment of crisis but had heard that Starfleet officers took their oaths very seriously.
"Sir," he began, "I would like to claim salvage rights on the Battlestar Olympus." He wasn't sure he had said that right. He wasn't sure it really mattered.
The Captain nodded his head and said, "Commander, please make a note in the log. Mr. Clarkson, you now have claim on the alien spaceship known as the Battlestar Olympus. Now, it has come to my attention that you, as a Federation Citizen, have recently come into position of a spaceship. We are a Starfleet vessel in distress and I exercise my rights as a Starfleet officer to commandeer this ship under the Federation Charter until the crisis is over. You will be properly compensated when possible. Any questions or concerns?" He asked.
"No sir," was the short, dumbfounded answer.
"In that case, Commander please begin an evacuation schedule to the Battlestar Olympus. I hope to God we are doing the right thing."