The Continuing Story of Deep Space 2: Page 2
"What is the status of the station, Jan ?"
As commander Arthur looked at the first sensor results, he hoped that his first officer had more information. The only thing major Jan could come up with was a broad grin on his face. Refering to DS2 as a haunted city, the grin only seemed to grow.
The commander new that grin al to well. Jan and Arthur were the best of friends and together with nurse Nadine they served in the same platoon in the war against Cardassia. After the war they split and only a few months ago when commander Arthur got this assignment he didn't hesitate to get his old friends to assist him. Almost forgotten memories about a most disturbing era. Arthur shook his head. Jan new the gesture. Memories ... the grin was gone.
"Nothing much to tell. Almost no power, only a few backup systems, forcefield of the shuttlebay is active. Life support is OK, no shields, no targetting scanners locking on us, absolutely no lifesigns. Just an old deserted space station."
"All right Jan, dock in the shuttlebay. I'll override the command codes of the station from here, so the forcefield will be down. I have difficulty to activate the station's tractor beam so you have to take us in."
"Commander, I could beam in first to have a look and activate the tractor beam from inside. But I guess after a voyage with almost ten people in a small runabout, nobody wants to wait any longer then necessary."
The XO was right. To get on the station as fast as possible, was the best idea. It could be a rough entry though. Three minutes. At the time of the final approach, chief engineer Louis came into the runabout's control room. He sat down at a science station and began scanning the complete station. Two minutes. The runabout with it's twenty three meters long looked like a fly on a house when it came closer to the station. At least there would be a lot of space for the new crew. One Minute. Chief engineer Louis reported that there was nothing out of the ordinary. Fourty-five seconds. Switching helm to manual. XO Jan was one of the best pilots in the fleet. Concentration. Thirty seconds. Commander Arthur punched in the command codes of the old station and linked his virtual way in the DS2 main computer to the command functions. File accessing. Fifteen seconds. Release shuttlebay force field, forcefield down. Five seconds. The runabout disapeared into the shuttlebay, nice touch down. Zero seconds.
"OK everybody. This is the commander. We will gather first in operations."
No turbolifts were working. Stairs were in perfect order, but the major kept his tricorder in his left hand, when he took the lead all the way up to operations. Finally a hatch opened and the dark in operations was driven away by the lightbeam of Jan's lamp. One by one the crew came out of the hatch and by the time engineer Jan Roel entered operations all the lights were on. The commander and chief engineer were already looking at the layout of the station to set the priorities. First the main power reactor, then communications.
Chief engineer Louis knew what to do. Together with engineer Jan Roel, ensign Marianne and the two cadets, Louis made his way to main engineering almost fourty decks below. It took the group almost half an hour.
Commander Arthur decided to make an inspection of the "commander's office".
It was still dark in the office. Power should be on line soon, but chief engineer Louis hadn't a full staff yet. There was still a lot of work to be done. When Starfleet took over this old station, it should be a challenge to build it up again. Some of the officers would have to work around the clock. The lights went on.
"Louis to CO. We got power on all decks. Life support, communications and even two of the four shield generators are on line. Maximum shields is at 57 percent."
"Well done ensign ! Well done indeed. Arthur out."
Being operational seemed to be a miracle. But then again, chief engineer Louis was already a legend. Maybe Louis was under the influence of another legend: Montgomery Scott.
XO Jan entered the commander's office with a grin on his face. Jan was always the one who took things serious. This time there was some unexpected news.
"Sir, did you know we had a complete and operational phaser bank ?"
"You must be joking !"
The commander jumped to his feet. The two officers walked to the only working display in the office. Jan pushed a few buttons and an entire layout of the station appeared.
"Computer, magnify grid 231-54."
There was nothing there. Just an empty cargo bay. Jan waved his CO to follow him. After taking a wild ride on the stairway to the cargo bay just above the shuttle bay, both officers were let in by Ensign Nadine.
"Most doors are not working yet, sir."
"That's alright ensign."
Nadine showed the Type-X phaser bank. It was placed in the middle of the cargo bay in a way that the phaser could fire in almost all directions. Even the cooling system was in great condition.
"Someone must have placed it here and didn't report about it."
The commander was shaking his head. They had to report this. Better soon. All terminals in the cargo bay were working. It seemed that the ODN conduits were as good as new and the entire system even had a seperate computer subprocessor and seperate auxilliary power.
"Are we going to report this, sir ?"
"Are you kidding me ensign ?"
Commander Arthur walked up to one of the terminals. When he checked all communication activity he noticed there was a message waiting. It was a message from:
VADM John Winchester, Commanding Officer, Command College
"All documentation is on it's way. You should receive it shortly."
That was all. The commander of Deep Space 2 knew what it meant and sent a message:
"Thanks you very much, sir. Many Greetings."
"Commander, this is Louis. You better come down here sir. We found something even more interesting then a phaser array."
"On my way."