Personal log, stardate 85050.
I hope I will not get in trouble for this. Some of the things I am about to record involve some ready shady operators, the kind that would go after me to clean up loose ends if they wanted to. They probably wouldn't want me writing down all this information. Nevertheless, here I am. I've redacted all the names from this story. There was a day in the command training when an agent of Starfleet Intelligence told us what we needed to know to handle them should we cross paths on a voyage. That included knowing when to keep names out of reports. Hopefully, I can do so here as well and everyone will be OK with it.
We were just about to pull out of Drozana Station. It was the last day of the shore leave, the day everyone came back onto the ship. That would happen at 6:00 PM tonight; it was 12:30. I had no doubt that some would be late. Some would come with large packages that need to be stowed. Some might need medical treatment. Hopefully I wouldn't have to throw anyone in the brig. Personally, I want to hear all the stories they had to tell, preferably in the mess hall over lunch. They just had to come back.
I stepped out of the holodeck. I was currently running The Andorian Incident, involving spies and double-crosses and betrayals and all that. I had made excellent progress while we were on leave here. I never was a social person. The bridge pinged me. There was a message waiting at my quarters, that arrived an hour ago. I will have to have words with the man who told me that. He spent an hour scanning the station trying to find me, thinking I was there too, but neglected to first try his internal communicator.
It was a message from Admiral Drake. I have never interacted with Drake. I understand that he oversees some rather… shady business. A rather delicate situation has appeared on Drozana Station, and since we were right here, we were to be the investigators. There was a spook on Drozana Station, and she has not made her last six hourly pings to HQ. This means that she is in trouble. I was to investigate the station, personally. It was a small station, so it would not be that hard to search (or so he says). I was to give her any assistance required, including extraction from the area if necessary. He instructed me to tell no one about this. He also sent me the agent's photo.
I immediately contacted all crew on Drozana Station and told them that they get to stay on the station indefinitely from here; the day I wanted everyone back, everyone would assemble at the starship's docking port at 6:00 PM. This was a special treat. My crew was baffled, but delighted.
I then changed out of my Starfleet uniform into a set of civilian's clothes. I spent quite some time at the replicator terminal trying to make an outfit that would make me least likely to be noticed and remembered. Wearing it, I stepped out onto Drozana Station myself. The crew I passed were completely nonchalant about my out-of-character display.
The first business I encountered once I exited the docking area was a grocery store. Across the corridor there was a bank. Clearly there are Ferengi here. I was looking to find a "watering hole" of sorts. The kind of place who has somebody where someone knows everything that's been going on in the station. I had never done this before, but hey, I practiced in the holodeck, right? I eventually found a Ferengi-run bar/casino.
When I reached the bar I ordered a Kavalian sun juice. It was the only thing on their menu that was not alcoholic. Tasted pretty good, though. I approached the Ferengi bartender and inquired if he had head anything about this person. When I told him to keep his voice down, he said that people come to him for information all the time. This is nothing unusual for him.
But he wanted money. I had no money, and had to get some fast. My only immediate option was to sit in at the Dabo table and hope I win. Dabo is actually a game that's pretty easy to win, once you learn to ignore the constant banter of the croupier. I had practiced gambling in shady bars on the holodeck; winning a large sum of money was required for the plot there. I was set.
Dabo entails placing a bet on one of a number of spaces. This includes choosing placing a chip on one or two colors (you get less money when you bet two) on the wheel. The wheel was then spun; the location where it landed determines who wins and who loses, based on where which spaces the wheel lands on. You were allowed to bet arbitrary amounts of cash per point, up to three bets per spin. You'd think that this is a game of pure chance. However, there are certain combinations that, if exploited, will result in you winning, at least in part, 90% of the time.
All I had to bet with to start was the communicator on my chest. (I didn't care, as once we were done here I could just replicate a new one.) But my betting scheme worked, in the short term and in the long run. You just had to ignore all the banter and conversation, including the almost nude croupier.
I won big. I had a huge amount of gold-pressed latinum when I cashed out. I walked back to the proprietor and told him, now that I have spent a large amount of money at his facility, he needs to give me the information I need. Much to my fury, the bartender still did not want to tell me! He said I should be giving money to him, not the other way around. He continued to refuse, and he wouldn't take his latinum back when offered.
He had definitely seen our contact, though. A moment later, there was a loud crash from behind the bartender. Their replicator had failed. I told the irate bartender than I could fix his replicators for him, but he would need to give me the information first. He said he'd give her the information afterwards.
The replicator seemed hardly damaged. After stowing the money on my ship (you can never be too careful), I started poking around at it. The problem was in the replicator software. Apparently this replicator pipeline had been programmed by a not-exactly-competent developer. The source data was almost incomprehensibly complicated. No wonder the replicators were failing. Replicators are not that hard a thing to program, and so I went to work rewriting it in more clear terms. I added a little surprise, though…
When I was done, the Ferengi inspected his replicator. I told him it was good as new. He tried to replicate something, but the computer outright refused. I told him that there was an alphanumeric code I programmed into the replicator subsystem. Without that code, the replicator will not work. It is very hard to remember, you understand. I might forget it. Now spill.
The Ferengi pointed at a person near the far Dabo table, a human female of serious beauty. That was my contact. Of all the luck! I had been here for two hours now, and the person I wanted to see was only a few feet away from me! I wrote down the code (a deal was a deal), and walked over towards her.
I expected her to try to escape. But she only turned inwards, nursing her drink. She told me to shoo, that someone would see us talking. When I insisted, she realized that I was Starfleet. She complimented me on the Dabo performance. That was a trick right out of the Starfleet Intelligence playbook. She said that something is deeply wrong at Drozana Station. She told me to investigate the station's lower levels, and she gave me a security code so I could have access. She then said that had booked passage on a ship out of here. She mentioned something about "ghosts" that caught my attention. I asked her if there were any recent deaths due to triolic radiation. She said that there was a serial killer on the station; they use a triolic generator as their weapon. I asked about blue light, and she then confirmed what I didn't want to hear: the Devidians were here, too.
By this point, since I was no longer interacting with the agent, I could call for a full search and tactical party to report to one of the doors to the service area. There were Devidians aboard, and they came running quickly when I told them that. Asher managed to rig a pair of phasers to be effective against Devidians. We went through together.
Behind the door was a large open hallway. Crates were strewn in various points along this area, one of which, Security Officer Varis noticed, contains emergency supplies. He was able to take a Starfleet hoverlight remote, which might be handy if we were going down into darkness. I will have to commend him for this later.
As we swept forward, we encountered a backup turbolift. There was no sign of the Devidians yet. We entered the turbolift and ordered the lowest level. We had to check the computer core first. However, the turbolift jammed almost immediately. After forcing the doors open (why do they not make these easier to open by hand?), we entered what turned out to be a maintenance deck. The power was out, so Varis' hoverlight came in very handy.
Science Officer Jarl scanned for triolic energy, and found an indeterminate signature in a room down the hall. As we proceeded, we ran into the corpse of a Ferengi. He had decayed substantially; when returned to Ferenginar his body parts would have an extremely mediocre price. He definitely died of triolic radiation poisoning. Jarl checked his tricorder and found that the residual triolic energy in the vicinity was blocking transporter signal, so we couldn't beam him to the infirmary. Transporter problems. Great. Just what we needed.
Since we couldn't do anything more, we proceeded past the Ferengi and encountered a larger room. There was a large closed door there. Opening it would require restoring power to this entire section. We didn't have time to do this, although I would have liked to after the fact. Scans revealed that there were a short personnel staircase after this point. There should have been a transit ramp nearby that we could use instead. We found one, although Security Officer McMeritt got a nasty bump when he fell down part of the ramp that had collapsed. Ouch.
Past there, we found what we were looking for: another turbolift! This one, near the center of the engineering deck, was a cargo turbolift which could only go down. We opened the door and were very surprised when two Devidians pushed their way through it. We were not expecting that. Fortunately, I was the only person touched, and I felt fine. The Devidian would probably have been surprised that we had weapons that could hit him, but he died too quickly to notice. But the turbolift doors were disabled by administrative command! We had to find a working computer terminal and release the command before we could use the turbolift.
None of them were online, but I noticed that the time-and-date panel on the wall was still functional. I had the wall ripped out and the EPS conduits connected to the line for the closest engineering console. There was no code required, at least I can say that. I released the lock and we all piled into the turbolift. Why would someone lock the cargo turbolift down like this?
Down we went. Much to my fury and later amusement, this turbolift failed as well! It claimed to have stopped on the computer core deck, but has instead deposited us in the engineering center for environment controls and waste recycling.
Directly in front of the turbolift was a locked door. Scans revealed it would only open when presented with the correct decryption key, and the data was over a kiloquad long! Fortunately, since the designers of the station included an emergency release in the paneling. I pulled it; the doors opened. But as soon had we all entered the room, the door snapped shut again. Now we were trapped! Jarl reported that we were in a zone of low-level triolic radiation that would kill us if we spent too much time in this room. Even better.
There was a personal padd sitting on the table next to the computer. Obviously a good place to start. I read the message left on it:
Log entry, supplemental: The strange power fluctuations aren't related to the problems in the power subsystems on the upper decks, so I'm looking into the possibility of feedback damage or system spikes in the environmental systems.
It could take some time to find the problem and make repairs, though, particularly if I need to use the replicators to create replacement components. Belan is … loathe to allow use of the replicators for anything more than bloodwine and Gramilian sand peas.
This is dirty, uncomfortable and thoroughly disagreeable work. Naturally, as soon as the job involves mucking around in recycled atmosphere and waste processing, I get the short straw…
Whoever this Belan was was clearly the boss of the engineering staff, and Belan was clearly Ferengi. Someone is unhappy they were left here to work. Now that I recognize this place as the recycling level, I winced as I noticed the stench. There is always some leakage from the tanks, so waste-reclamation centers always smell of the urine and feces of various sentient humanoid species. Disgusting.
All the computers were running — except the one with the master override controls for the engineering systems, of course. Opening the hardware case revealed that the four local coprocessors have been removed. There were two corridors deeper into the area. I posited that the coprocessors were hidden nearby, since whoever programmed that door is clearly intending to trap people. There were no phasers in the area, so at least I knew that they haven't been disintegrated. I wanted to fan out, but this place was still dangerous, so we all went together. There were three corridors.
The first hallway was narrow and a dead end. However, one of the access panels at the end of the hallway was opened, and perched on it was a small white device. It was clearly coprocessor number one.
We doubled back and went down corridor number two. This corridor is clearly meant to be travelled more regularly, but the door at the far end was sealed. Two hallways branched off to the right. We decided to take the second hallway. No sooner did we start down that hallway I heard someone calling for help. A Bajoran maintenance worker was locked in a supply closet, and she claims to have been stabbed by persons unknown. I was able to find the manual release for the door, but before I could pull it the Bajoran started screaming "he's back." Her voice cut out, and I opened the door. Inside was the corpse of a Bajoran technician — dead for only seconds. Someone had gotten in here and murdered her, but there was no way into or out of the room except for the door we were using, and transporters are offline due to the triolic interference. How could have someone killed her?
However, also within the supply closet I spotted the second coprocessor sitting on the floor. Things are getting weirder and weirder by the minute.
As we continued down the hallway, I heard someone singing distantly. Bonnie-kin, bonnie-kin, I see you! Bonnie-kin, bonnie-kin, what will you do? Someone else is clearly in here. But who? We scanned for lifeforms and the entire area was deserted. Apparently this person was able to hide from our tricorder scans. We continued even more cautiously.
The corridor wound around a bit, and after shutting down some plasma jets that were blocking the way, we found the third coprocessor on the ground next to another message padd. This is what it said:
Log entry, supplemental: I've upgraded a few of the components on this level, including remote overrides for bleed valves on environment controls, holoemitters to expediate further repairs, and security overrides in case of emergency.
I'm starting to suspect that the low-level radiation I've detected on these decks has affected the station inhabitants, and that some are showing signs of transient acute schizophrenia and paranoia. I'll have to maintain contact silence for now, so that they don't interfere while I'm trying to repair the systems. Once I've corrected the problems causing the radiation leaks, we can deal with the symptoms.
My work will take far longer than I originally anticipated. Fortunately I've engaged a safety interlock on the maintenance lift, so no one will come down here without me knowing about it.
I found several program errors and have purged the affected subroutines. The work is much easier now. Soon everything will be under control.
Transient acute schizophrenia and paranoia. Whoever wrote this certainly had the correct diagnosis, but had incorrectly diagnosed everyone else as being mentally impaired instead of himself. There was a serial killer here — a real serial killer, not the one that they thought was there on the upper levels to explain the deaths caused by the Devidians. We had three of the four coprocessors needed. Where could we find the last one?
Before I could think any further, a clearly unhinged man appeared out of nowhere and attacked hand-to-hand. Thankfully I had two strongly built security officers around to defend me, but before we could fully restrain him or determine who he was, he disappeared! What was going on?
We needed to find the last coprocessor, and we were running out of time to find it. I remembered from my engineering classes that there must be one full spare of every critical item available at all times. There may be another coprocessor here that we didn't know about. We ran down the hall towards the other supply closet. We heard the madman again.
Bonnie-kin, bonnie-kin, dress all in red! Bonnie-kin, bonnie-kin, soon you'll be dead!
When we opened the supply closet, we only found half of a coprocessor, but the half that was here contained the part we needed. We could now fix the computer, turn on the lights, and open the door to get out. We broke into a run back into the main area.
But when we got there, we saw a man dressed in a Starfleet engineering uniform. It was just-out-of-synthesis fresh, which was very odd. This was a civilian facility; there were no Starfleet personnel here. He stared at us, and was holding a knife.
THEY sent you, didn't they, my little bonnie-kin? To halt my WORK! To change my PROGRAM!
You'll not survive to perform such tricksies, oh no, my pretty bonnie-kin ...
A hologram, then. Clearly someone had purchased a Starfleet Emergency Maintenance Hologram on the black market and installed it here, and then it malfunctioned. The Devidians would have ignored it, because it isn't alive. But this posed a big problem, as you cannot kill or stun a hologram. He then attacked.
The security officers fired phasers at him; they went right through. He then came after Jarl and tried to stab him in the heart with a knife. We were able to restrain him from doing that, but it was not possible to make him drop the knife, either. The hologram freed himself and went after me next. I had to do something very difficult. I allowed the hologram to bear down on me, and then leaped to his left at the very last second. It worked, but it spooked the security officers no end. But now I could see the holographic emitter that was generating this creep. I grabbed it, and the hologram stopped moving. I hit the off switch, and the hologram went away. We were safe. One of my security officers mentioned something regarding find the provenance of this holo-emitter and hold whoever was guilty of this smuggling-of-sentient-species (because emergency holograms are now defined as a sentient species all their own) accountable.
But we had been in here for, what… twenty minutes now. The Devidians were still wreaking havoc in the levels below us. I snapped the four coprocessors back into the computer terminal, and it came to life. I found that the maintenance turbolift had been reprogrammed to send anyone who used it here so the malfunctioning hologram could kill them. I removed this instruction, then looked in the hologram knowledge storage area to see if I could find any decryption keys. There was one right there in plain sight. Tapping in one last command, the lights came on and the door to the exit opened. I finally stopped to catch my breath. I was running on adrenaline, and while I still had a lot left, I could not stay this way forever. I would collapse.
But the Devidians were still here, so we pressed on. We all piled back into the turbolift and I ordered the computer core level. This time the maintenance elevator took us to the right location.
When we arrived we were in a spiraling open hallway, with the lights on this time. The computer core was at the bottom. Down we went, until we found another locked door. Really? I pulled the emergency release and we went through. Inside I found something I did not expect to see, especially this early in my career.
Bodies. Not just body bodies, but bodies wearing 2260s Starfleet uniform bodies. This was my first encounter with time travel. A notoriously tricky subject to handle. I knew about the Temporal Prime Directive and all that, but I also knew that time-travel situations are when the captain is given the most leniency in what they do. I ran my tricorder over the closest one, a female in yeoman's uniform.
Died at least three days ago. Uniform definitely was not a reproduction. (Neither was the hairdo, either.) Killed by the Devidians' neural draining. There was another door that led deeper into the core. (This room was just the maintenance center. The actual machinery was below us.) The door opened for us and we continued down the spiral ramp.
At the very bottom (there was no door) we found what looked very much like a time portal… and no less than thirty Devidians standing there waiting for us to arrive. I grabbed my phaser, which was one of the two that have been modified. Varis had the other one. We were able to take down the closest ones in one shot. Their bodies fell on the floor and stopped glowing, but there were too many to stop with only two hand phasers. I shouted for the reaction field to be established, so that the Devidians would become vulnerable to our other weapons. The device itself was quite small (Starfleet research at work; the original design was the size of a box) and was connected to Science Officer Davis's tricorder. She tapped a few buttons, and then the Devidians all stopped glowing at once. Now Security Officer McMerritt could attack too. Jarl also pulled out his phaser, although he was not practiced at actually using one. Davis stayed back to keep the field generator safe.
Security Officer McMerritt had insisted on bringing a phaser rifle with him. Extremely bulky, which is why he couldn't help with anything earlier, but now was just what we needed. He mowed down Devidian bodies like grass. I took out the ones he didn't hit, and soon enough the room was clear. Wow, was that tense.
Stepping over the bodies, we walked into the room and found a large purple rift hovering at the side of the room. The portal led to the 23rd century, no doubt about that. But we had no idea where in the 23rd century it led, so it was not safe to step through. The nature of the Devidians' hunger means they only kill people slowly, but that was of little comfort to the people back then who could not detect Devidians at all.
We took every reading of the portal we could find. As Davis turned off the disruption field, she also noticed that her tricorder had been taking passive scans of the triolic radiation infesting this part of the station. We now had enough knowledge to be able to safely transport out. I hit my badge and we were all beamed back.
Elise was waiting for us at the transporter room. We had been out of contact for far too long; the triolic radiation blocked communications in addition to transporter signals. Morek took everyone else to sickbay, while I went to the bridge. We needed to report all this, and fast. When I arrived, I was given another interesting fact. A large asteroid known as Driffen's Comet was passing by the station. Scans revealed this comet to be a natural source of triolic energy. This was probably what enabled the Devidian incursion in the first place. Interesting, but we have bigger problems. I signaled ahead to Admiral Drake that I had a lot of news to share with him, most of it not good.
Once we were back on the ShiNarva I called for all personnel to return to the ship for immediate departure. I watched my crew as they came in. Some had bags full of latinum. Some had bags filled with nothing at all. Some looked like they had gotten into fights. Some looked like they had started fights. And some came in with this huge grin on their face that took me a little time to figure out. Sexual interaction by Starfleet officers with non-Starfleet officers while on shore leave is strictly forbidden. This was not acceptable. I will have to deal with this. At least nobody was late. Once everyone was on the ship, I ordered course set for the nearest Federation base, which was Deep Space Station K-7 a full sector down, at maximum warp.
Once I had gotten a few hours' rest, it was time to do something about the crewmen who had had inappropriate sex. It really, really pissed me off that they would do this, after all we've been through together. I paged through the security camera footage to find those responsible, then ran facial recognition to get their identities.
I ordered the crew to assemble in the cargo bay; it was the only place where everyone would fit. I had a small footstool replicated, to use as my lectern. There were three people I had to chew out. I started by asking various random people to tell me about what they did on Drozana Station. A communications deputy had gambled and won big. A security officer had gambled and lost everything. One of the science techs told me how they went to the station directory to look for people who had knowledge of biology; she would then make appointments to meet with these people so they could discuss their field together. That is the kind of story I want to hear when we have shore leave, I told them. I then called out my three culprits, had them come to the front of the group, and tell me their stories.
All were evasive. Two lied; one kept deflecting the question. Their lies were very obvious. I then asked them if they were willing to go to sickbay for a reproductive anatomy exam. That shook them bad, and confused the crowd. I them called these three people out for what they did, in front of my entire crew, rather mercilessly. They were instantly reviled by everyone else. One of the three tried to apologize, and I felt it was genuine. I said that he would be confined to quarters until we reach Deep Space Station K-7 in about five hours. The other two would spend the time in the brig. Once we reached K-7 I would then file papers to have the three reassigned to stay on K-7, working in the waste reclamators. I was not joking about that; I really did put that down when I filled out the paperwork. The incident was to be recorded in their permanent files. I told them that being on this crew, here with me in this ship, is an incredible privilege we all gained after our experience with the Borg sphere. The three culprits had lost that privilege. Not only had they lost that privilege, they made their captain angry. Any Starfleet captain had authority to do this to anyone, for any reason, at any time. "Do not piss off the captain. Ever." is what I said.
One of the other crew asked to make a statement; he was their friend in the mess hall. He denounced the three, rather strongly. Several other people wanted to say similar things. Once everyone who wanted to vent had done so, I ordered the culprits escorted out. One of them started to struggle, claiming that the charges were a lie and I had a vendetta against him. I calmly said, "Ask the crowd. Do I ever keep vendettas?" The crew eagerly backed me in saying no.
Once they were gone, I reassured the crew that I never kept vendettas, and anyone who seriously believed I did that could ask for a private discussion with Elise and I to explain the charges at any time. I then explained how I really was incensed by the three men's behavior. I said that if anyone else does wrong, I will not do anything as severe as this to them without first a full investigation and a chance to make a rebuttal. I was sincere when I said this; I did not want any of the others, who had done nothing wrong, to leave the cargo bay in fear of losing their careers.
When we reached K-7, I contacted Admiral Drake and asked him for orders on the Devidian problem. He had apparently gotten wind of what I had done regarding the three crew, but he would not make a problem of it. That was indeed her prerogative. The orders I received were rather unusual, but that is a story for another time.
Computer, end recording.