The Continuing Story of Deep Space 2: Page 24
"Marianne, you are scheduled next to go on patrol. Cadets Caroline and Thomas will be assigned to this patrol too. That you already knew. But as commander Luke discovered something that could be a Federation facility, you should concentrate your investigation towards that direction. Locate the destination of the relayed messages. The commmander will instruct you further. Now the last thing, and I don't have to tell you this, it could be a ghost or even a trap. So be carefull. At the first sign of trouble get out of there. Dismissed."
As the Alpha was space born, captain Arthur visited Jan and the engineers in engineering. Although most secrets of the new systems were still unsolved, a little progress had been made. As the captain entered engineering, he took his XO to the coridor.
"I have heard the song.", the captain said and Jan didn't need more explanation.
"I was thinking about it on my way here."
"This can't be a coincidence that I heard the song just at the moment all systems failed again and we had visitors again. Someone send me a message."
"There are not many who remember ...", said Jan.
"They say a handfull still survived.", completed Arthur.
To both it was clear that this incident also had to do with the holodeck program in which both of them had been trapped, when they just arived on the station. Now there were more and more clues. If the message came indeed from the future, it could only mean that this ship, the Ajax, was one of the last Federation ships. That would mean that these Giloppen probably would take advantage of the fact that the Federation fleet was getting weak in the confrontation with the Dominion. The Giloppen would have a free go at this side of the quadrant. Jan and Arthur realised that there was much more to getting new weapon systems, extra shielding and and a cloaking device. This station could fire while it was cloaked and shields were up. The two senior officers of Deep Space 2 agreed that all of this was against more than one treaty, but there was not much of a choice. The question of informing the DS2 crew, was put aside. There was nothing conclusive. Evermore it was only speculation at this time. There still was the paradox of changing history. DS2 had destroyed the Giloppen scout ships. That would probably not have happened in the other time line. So this ship, the Ajax, could well be somewhere else or in a different situation. Maybe the Giloppen would not come now and stay away.
A visit to the captured Maquis didn't really clear up things. The captain had already ordered commander Luke to inform Starfleet to come and get those Maquis. The USS Malden was the closest ship and would arrive in about three days.
"Commander Luke to captain Arthur. You wanted to be informed about the Alpha's reports. The Alpha has just reported all is proceding normally.", Sometimes Luke sounded like a machine. But he was certainly not.
"Acknowledged commander, thank you."
And then the lights went out ... again.