As the shockwave of the explosion passed, and the debris spread out diffusively into open space, much like an ink bubble in water, two Starfleet vessels, Dawn Treader and Fearless, drifted like dead husks. Rotating on some random axis, Dawn Treader was leaking plasma, coolants and even internal atmosphere, throughout her entire body. Fearless, while not suffering the same spatial extent of damage, had lost port warp nacelle. The elongated, flattened body of the engine detached itself shortly before the Scourge vessel exploded in defiance to its enemies.

Fearless' commanding officer, Commander Ricky "Chance" Wilson was, as Yorkin would later learn, an abundance of unusual characteristics. On one hand, he was, for the most part, a good-natured and cheerful officer, and yet he was, quite often, ready to pull the trigger too fast. Not because of aggressive urges, but simply because something had to be done, and it had to be done - right now, even if he was not always certain what that "something" should be. As his crew of almost 230 souls got itself back on their feet, Wilson and senior staff began to coordinate repairs. Little what they could gather from their distorted long range scans, there was no other ship beside them, Dawn Treader and what remained of Vincennes.

Meanwhile, on Dawn Treader, lights were blinking in and out of life throughout the ship. Bulkheads were spread along the corridors, or hanging from high ceilings in cargo bays and Main Engineering, where an entire section of catwalk fell down and fell apart, leading to a quick and painless demise of several junior engineers. Bridge was in a similar situation, as few consoles were broken and their internal cables and micro-conduits, highly charged, were left exposed to the ambient. As per their Academy training, the crew recuperated quickly and, within minutes of explosion, began on re-functionalizing the ship. Cardassian curses, interposed by few Vulcan explicatives, were pouring out quietly from T'Val's mouth. As ready as always, Dawn was the first one to give an overall ship status.

"Captain, recommending security with the damage control teams. Shrapnel from the cruiser's explosion is detected…", she paused for a moment as her shape flickered, "... intact at hull breach points."

MacAuliffe considered the thought. "How big are these chunks?"

"And will they be Scourge-passive?", Yorkin interceded.

"Painfully large, Captain. I... do not recommend allowing them to linger. They are... disruptive.", Dawn replied, as her pauses were longer.

"They are not passive.", Yorkin and MacAuliffe voiced their conclusion simultaneously. Dawn's feminine figure began continuously flickering, and her posture shifted to that of a fragile, vulnerable being, as if reflecting the ship's current state of body and mind. Consoles across the bridge followed the same behaviour.

"We should analyze this signal as soon as possible, Captain.", T'Val said, looking around the bridge. "It's a fairly obvious assumption that it had something to do with the destruction of both the pod and the ship's current behaviour."

"They do not… belong… here.", Dawn continued.

MacAuliffe turned to Farah. "Saadia, get security teams out there, right now. And return the fighters back out! We'll shoot them off if we have to.", then he turned to Fortune. "Commander Wilson, are you still with us?"

"Loud and clear, Captain.", Wilson replied over the voice comms.

"Commander, we may have an unusual boarding situation on our hands. I think we may need additional security details."

"Understood, Captain. I am coming over with my hazard teams.", Wilson replied. Within a few moments, Wilson materialised directly on the bridge of Dawn Treader. "Teams assembled in the Transporter Room 2, Captain. Someone called the ghost busters?"

Unexpectedly, Dawn grabbed T'Val's hand, flickering and losing her shape and colour as if being erased. "Help!", was the only thing she could say.

And then…

Every console at every station, every LCARS segment and light source on the bridge went dark. Dawn's silhouette, now ghastly spectral, like an apparition from Earth's 20th century horror novels, was the only source of light, dimmed and colourless.

"Dawn, Emergency Command Override, main computer shutdown, authorization MacAuliffe-Delta-Theta-Four-Seven."

"Denied.", Dawn replied swiftly. "Captain…", her voice warbled and modulated. "They... do not... belong here. I am sorry. We… do not... belong here."

"Tell me there is a plug.", Prax commented shortly. "She's compromised, we need to disconnect her. If she's connected to the Scourge network she has millions of voices in her head."

"They… are coming. We... go home."

"Prax, Dawn is not a separate holomatrix, she's part of the main computer.", MacAuliffe explained and then turned in the direction where he last saw his chief engineer. "Lieutenant T'Val, we need to get to the Main Engineering and reset the central computer core."

At that moment, Dawn disappeared. To Yorkin's surprise, the helm console lit up, and a split second later, a humming could be heard.

"We are moving.", Prax and Yorkin said, and he continued to read from the console, trying to tap in commands, but to no avail. "Captain… we are heading into Dark Expanse… at warp 9.92."

As the emergency lights came back to life, MacAuliffe turned to T'Val. "Lieutenant, get down there and shut down the damn core. Fortune, we will manually vent out the plasma from nacelles. You take the starboard, I'll take the port. Prax, Sinderion, get that helm back.", he then clapped his hands once. "Farah, you have the bridge. On the double everyone."

Fortune and Wilson had been crawling through Jeffries tubes on something what younger Lieutenant defined as, "optimal path". Optimal or not, Commander Wilson was not particularly "optimizely" happy. "I won't lie! It's been awhile since I've been in the guts of a ship like this.", he commented, catching his breath between the words.

Even with physical exertion aside, the crawling was - creepy. Tubes were uncomfortably dark, and each tube junction they came to on their way to the nacelles had a different word: "Please. Help. Me. They. Are. So. Close."

"God almighty, your computer's freaking out. Crawl faster, Lieutenant."

"I am already proceeding at the optimal speed, Commander.", Fortune replied with a flat intonation. "And please don't stare up my skirt."

"You're way too young for me, Lieutenant, have no fear."

The entire ship rumbled, as it crossed the threshold of dark matter, plunging into the unknown depths of the Expanse. In the other nacelle, MacAuliffe struggled against the turbulence of the Dark Expanse, as he pries at a lever that would commence the manual venting of warp plasma. "Come on, come on.", he urged himself and the lever.

But just as both nacelles were prepared for venting, ship dropped out of warp.

In the tradition of legendary Chief Engineers, colloquially known as Chengs, from Charles Tucker III., to Montgomery Scott and all the way to B'Elanna Torres, every Starfleet officer knew The Zeroth Law of Engineering: "Main Engineering is the Cheng's living room. You complain, you get airlocked."

Former Cheng himself aboard USS Destiny, under then-Captain T'Molina, MacAuliffe understood that rule very well and, as much as he knew the ship inside out, he had no intention of intervening on T'Val's behalf, as she furiously left for her - living room. As she entered her working environment, she could witness the chaos and confusion among her subordinates. Catwalk, which fell down during the combat, was already dealt with, and junior engineers and technicians were now arguing how to get systems back online, somewhat oblivious to the cause of the shut down. T'Val swiftly instructed them to prepare main algorithms' reinitialization, once she would reboot the computer core. With a manual in hand, she dived down the shaft.

Inside the main computer core, everything seemed oddly normal. Except no controls were responding. As if the entire interface was physically unplugged. T'Val removed the first access panel to begin the manual restart sequence.

A discharge hit her, burning her hand. As if EPS feedback was plugged into the console. Spitting out a string of curse words in Cardassian, she tried again. And again, she was hit. On one of the LCARS terminals, two words suddenly appeared: "Please help."

"Can't help you, Dawn, if you're trying to kill me with these feedback loops.", she yelled at the LCARS, and tried again with the other hand. She could swear she saw "Don't help.", if only for a moment. The console was, for the lack of a better word, putting up a fight.

Through a lot of pain, T'Val managed to begin a restart sequence as the computer powered down. The hum of the ship meant they were still at warp. T'Val's reset attempt coincided with the ship's dropping out of warp. This time the feedback blew T'Val across the computer core, slamming her head into the bulkhead, and knocking her out.

Bridge was dimly illuminated by emergency light which was, as far as Yorkin could judge, failing by the minute. He tried to override the helm, but nothing worked. The console simply did not react to any input. Prax opened the panel of the auxiliary console, right next to the helm. "Sensor's information can be accessed here, it's just not displayed. maybe I can invert the...", she was explaining to Yorkin when discharge hit her as well. "Ah, damn it! Guess she didn't like me trying to do that."

"Electric feedback through the manual reset controls.", Farah stated. "But why would they do that?"

"I think…", Prax began, while still shaking her zapped hand. She sighed realizing what she was about to say. "I hope not but... I think we've given the Scourge, which are not too bright honestly, Dawn's intelligence and processing power. This is not good."

The bridge view screen showed an angry, black and purple mass of the Dark Expanse ahead. There was a distant flash of an ion discharge in the storm. "It's getting closer.", Yorkin whispered, watching in awe and horror at the same time. One by one, consoles on the bridge light up with a single, centred word. "Closer. Closer. Closer."

He phased out for a brief moment. A known flow of emotions took him away from reality. It was happening all over again. This time, he wasn't aboard Mendeljejev and they weren't diving into the Herald fleet protecting their Sphere. Sense of pain and grief bursted, but didn't overwhelm him. It was just there, reminding him of how powerless he was back then, and now again. The very next instant, anger overtook him. He clenched his fists and hit the console in front of him. Whether it was the physical pain or Prax's scolding that phased him back, he never figured. The scolding, however, had a certain familiarity to it.

"Put yourself together, we can lose our shit later, and at that point... you can get in line behind me.", he could hear Prax's voice. He looked at her, trying to find some familiar features, as if hoping he would find some guidance in them. Realising the brief awkwardness of the moment, he only nodded, gazing back to the main viewer.

The console on the bridge flickered with two words: "Help me."

Dawn materialised just at arm's length from Farah. Whether Dawn's face, grimacing in pain, was a product of real sensation, even to hologram, or some rudimentary algorithmic response, Farah never found out. Dawn, barely moving, looked her in the eyes, stretching out a hand in a desperate gesture, voice distorted almost beyond recognition: "Commander-r-r-r, ple-e-ease-e."

Farah could do nothing, but step back, as if avoiding a plagued creature.

And once again - every console, every light, every spec of power vanished all across the ship. Darkness of the Expanse enveloped the ship, dropping out of warp.

"She... she is gone.", Farah barely spoke.

Somewhere in the Dark Expanse, Dawn Treader rested powerlessly, surrounded by an eye at the centre of a massive dark matter storm. Flickers of ion discharges licked at the distant black veil, flashing violently through the depths of unknown space. At the main viewer, those on the bridge could see shapes, illuminated by the flashes in the night.

Silhouettes, ghostly and ancient. Spindly. Drifting around them in the vast distance.

Unspoken, a thought crossed everyone's mind. "If you're in deep space, why are things being silhouetted against it?"

Every new flash of lighting seemed to have highlighted those dull metallic objects. Skeletal. Hundreds of them.

Prax's voice could be heard. "I know those shapes.", she said, her voice shivering. "Scourge."

End of Episode 2 - Midnight Train, Part 2 - The Encounter in Dark Expanse