Chapter 3-What Happened to the Treasure Island?
As the Perseverance moved within 100 yards of the Treasure Island it was obvious that the ship was a derelict. Though the sleek black hull seemed to be fully intact her engine pods were dark and the plating that made up the ship was scarred and pockmarked from taking small impacts over the years. The port side had a massive white scar across its surface spanning multiple decks, damage from a cutting weapon that had been patched sometime in the past and vast sections of the body and saucer appeared to be a different shade of black. None of the windows on board were lit.
At this distance the ship absolutely dwarfed the Perseverance, in fact the small Luxury ship wasn’t even the size of the spherical domes at the ends of her engines.
“Status?”
“She’s in an extremely low power mode, I’m detecting damage at most of the docking ports as well. It appears as if scavengers and the like have tried to enter the ship.”
“Can you tell if they succeeded?”
“No, no I can’t.”
“Can the Perseverance dock?”
“No sir, the damage won’t allow a seal, however we are small enough to fit in the aft shuttle bay.”
“That’s not my favorite idea to be totally honest, Tammie.”
“According to what we have on file we would have clearance by about 50 yards to each side, we could even land in there.”
“Let's save that, helm, pull us around the rear of the ship and prepare to launch a shuttle instead.”
The Perseverance was maneuvered into position. “The doors, sir?”
“Shit, I didn’t think about that, recommendations?”
“The Treasure Island has a communications node uhhh. . .there.” Jameson pointed at the helmsman's screen. “Using the ships coded hailing frequency should open the doors even on low power mode.”
“Do we know that?” Marissa asked.
“I do.” Jameson got up from his seat and moved over to where Tammie was, she vacated her chair for him and watched him work.
“A 64 pin?”
“Yeah, not as secure as what we use now but more than enough to keep the doors shut. . .oh. . .oh fuck.”
“Langua--- oh, oh my god what did you do!?” Tammie yelled as she turned to face the monitors in the briefing room which were displaying line graphs shooting vertically off the screen now.
“The low power mode must have been tied to the same frequency, the whole docking bay is waking up.”
“The docking bay or the entire ship?” Marissa asked as Tammie crossed the bridge in a quick sprint and took Jameson’s station.
“Just the docking bay.” Tammie reported.
“Oh fuck.”
“Lieutenant your laung--”
“Automatic docking procedures are online!”
There were 3 loud bangs and the ship jerked causing the system to go into red alert, sirens sounded throughout the ship.
“The FUCK was that!?” Marissa demanded.
“Magnetic grapplers” The helmsman reported “3 of them latched onto the primary hull and one missed, we’re being drawn into the shuttle bay.”
Marissa sighed “How strong are they?”
“If we reverse thrust we’re going to have issues.” the helmsman replied.
“Let them take us in then.”
Alarms went off on Tammie’s panel “Problem.”
“Problem?” Marissa asked, turning to her.
“The 4th grappler, the one that missed? The system isn’t compensating for it, we’re getting pulled sideways. We’re going to go through the catwalks on the port side.”
Marissa stood up “Use the port engine to. . .oh wait.”
“Port thrusters and maneuvering thrusters to full starboard push back.” the helmsman called.
Tammie’s station alarmed again “It’s no good, brace for impact.”
The ship jerked hard to the right as the freshly rebuilt port engine tore through maintenance cat walks sending metal, control panels and abandoned tools spinning away into space. The impact caused the Treasure Island’s red alert system to go off as well.
“Engineering to the bridge, I cannot emphasize how much you CANNOT do the thing you are doing!”
“We’re being reeled in by a grappler array, engineering, standby.”
“Can you fucking steer this bitch!?”
Tammie stood up and addressed the comm in the captain's seat angrily “ALEXANDER I WILL NOT ALLOW---” Tammie was cut off as the ship jerked again, she was tossed over the weapons station and Marissa surged forward and caught her with inches to spare before she split her head open on the corner of her station. The sudden weight took her down as well and they landed in a heap on the floor.
“You fucking monkey!” Marissa yelled irritably.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Tammie got to her feet and helped her captain back up.
“Sit down!” Marissa yelled “Now is NOT the time to be standing up.”
“Y-y-yes sir!”
“New problem!”
Marissa turned on her helmsman “WhAt!?”
“The system doesn’t seem to be accounting for our size, we’re going to be pulled into the control box!”
“Fuck! Tammie do we have a torpedo loaded?”
“We would blow our own nose off.” Tammie called.
“Phasers?’
“Manual aiming only, we’re too close to the back wall for the sensors, they’re cross eyed at this point!”
“Aim at the spools and fire!”
Tammie pressed several buttons and screens came down from the ceiling and surrounded her station so they couldn’t see her.
“We’re getting close, LC.” the helmsman called.
“Shh!”
The ships forward phasers fired, seafoam colored beams rimmed in gold. The beams found their mark and the grappler system was destroyed.
“Bring us to a stop and land this cow.”
“You don’t want to exit now that we are able?” Tammie questioned with a tilt of her head as the screens retracted and the joystick she had been using slid back into the console.
“We’re already here, plus we’re still attached.”
“The docking bay is not pressurizing.”
“MOTHER FUCKER!”
“I’ll give you that one for free since you stopped me from killing myself.” Tammie muttered crossly.
Marissa turned on Jameson “Why is it not pressurizing?”
“The grappler that missed us and part of the catwalk we destroyed are blocking the doors.”
“Phasers?” Jameson asked.
“No sir,” Tammie replied immediately “We try to shoot that close to ourselves and we could create a percussive explosion against our own shielding. We barely fit in this shuttle bay. The phaser assembly is only 5.8 meters away from the shuttle bay wall.”
“What happened to 50 yards on each side?”
“We came in diagonally.” Tammie defended “And. . .and it looks like our specs were wrong as well.”
“What about with the shields down?” the helmsman asked.
“At this distance, assuming I don’t miss with manual controls and blast a hole through the side of the Treasure Island, we would probably bake our hull. Heat damage isn’t hard to repair but our supplies are limited so I would not recommend damaging exterior panels.”
Marissa clicked her tongue thoughtfully before speaking “Tammie, Jameson, get suited up and get hand weapons. Let’s get this thing closed up.”
“Aye”
“Aye”
Both officers got up and left the bridge.
“Jacob, the bridge is yours.”
The helmsman turned to face her “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Can I sit in your chair?”
“I literally do not care.” Marissa left the bridge leaving her helmsman to get up from his station and take her seat and look around.
Marissa popped her head back in “Actually you should probably stay in the pilot's seat, we might need you to move the ship.”
“Oh, I mean, I landed it.”
“I. . .alright fine, whatever.”
A few minutes later Jameson, Tammie and Marissa stepped out onto the hull of their own ship. The suits they were wearing were bright yellow and resembled a cross between a hazmat suit and a space suit. Each member of the team carried a hand pistol that was nearly identical to a Beretta M9 except for the fact that they shot lasers off of battery packs that resided in the magazine well, these magazines could be ejected from the gun and placed on the belts of their suits to recharge.
Marissa pressed a button on her chest “Comms?”
“Comms”
“Comms”
“Comms, you stupid sons of bitches.”
“Who said that? Who, who has the audacity to–” Tammie began.
“This is the doctor, you know, the one that you are supposed to perform a FULL PHYSICAL EVALUATION WITH before going on space walks? The one you’re supposed to alert to any space walk activity so I can monitor your vitals? The one that has an open comm to all the suits and wasn’t expecting sudden audio and just spilled hot coffee all over a Lieutenant?”
“Sir it’s burning.”
“I KNOW IT'S BURNING IT’S COFFEE! Hold on, you three don’t take another step, let me tend to the Lieutenant for a moment.”
“I totally forgot those protocols were a thing.” Marissa admitted.
“To be fair, they are pretty new,” Tammie sighed “I had forgotten about them as well.”
“New? They’re like 3 years old.” Jameson provided.
Tammie, even through the window on her helmet, looked shocked “Has it been that long?”
Jameson nodded “They were put in place after the Axiom incident.”
Marissa chuckled, “I wonder if the Axiom is out here somewhere too.”
“She was lost in the same sector of space.” Tammie replied.
“Ok you shit heads, I have you plugged into the monitors.”
“Doctor, really, your language.” Tammie scolded “The comms on spacewalks are recorded and archived.”
“When you get back onboard you three are going to get far more than just language, you’re getting a full mandatory retraining on spacewalk protocol.”
Marissa sighed “Doctor–”
“When it comes to medical matters and procedures I outrank ALL of you.”
“Ugghhh, yes sir.”
“That’s better, now what are we doing outside?”
“Shooting stuff.”
“What!?”
“Jameson!” Tammie hissed.
“We’re trying to pressurize the shuttle bay.” Marissa provided.
“Alright, let me set your suits up for pressure changes.”
“You have to. . .there are settings for that?”
“YES! Which is something command staff are not trained on, which is one of the many reasons why you need to touch base with the medical team before leaving the ship! Those suits aren’t magic, they need to be closely monitored and manually adjusted in certain circumstances.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. . . you’re good to go.”
“Thank you doctor.”
“I can end your existence with one button.”
“Uhhh.”
“Come on, we’re wasting air.” Tammie called.
“She’s not wrong, those canisters haven’t refilled all the way since they were patched into the control system to temporarily pressurize the engine pod.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Marissa sighed “Ok, Jameson, you take the catwalk, Tammie you cut the grapple. I’m going to go up to the control box and run the shuttle bay.”
“Aye”
“Yes, sir.”
The group split up.
“Captain, you took tools with you not guns correct?” The doctor asked.
“Of course.”
“And what tool did you bring? Because Alexander is here and she’s telling me that she has no idea what is going on.”
“Uhh . .a. . .a gun.”
Alexander’s voice came on the line “How much planning went into this trip?”
“Literally none.”
“Jameson!” Tammie’s voice returned again.
“More than you’d think,” Marissa sighed “We brought blue beams to deal with the materials and the reason why we didn’t bring proper tools is because we have a shortage of tools and a massive over stock of weapons. Should this go wrong I’d rather lose something we can replace easier.”
“We also discussed that the tools we’d need, like cutting lasers, are currently in use by engineering to repair the last of our damages.” Tammie added “We didn’t want to interrupt an entire days worth of work for a cable and some walkway.”
“Added to that we are command officers,” Marissa continued “We know our way around a weapon better than a tool belt, people in our training leg could use one of these babies to perform kidney surgery.”
“Oh. . .ok, well, good thinking.” Alexander replied awkwardly.
Tammie pulled her weapon and held the trigger down, it produced a solid beam of energy that sliced through the offending grappler and sent it into space, draining the battery in the gun.
Jameson on the other hand was firing bursts of energy at the catwalk by pulling and releasing the trigger, it eventually jostled loose from the area that had compressed and also drifted away.
Marissa opened the door to the control booth that overlooked the shuttle bay; it was on level with Perseverance’s antenna assembly; in fact, the main communications antenna was touching the glass.
Marissa worked the controls, the ships design was old enough that it actually fell into what she had learned in the academy. “Doctor.”
“Doctor.”
“Is Alexander still there?”
“She is.”
“Alex, I need you to prepare Perseverance’s umbilical, she has enough power to close the doors and pressurize the bay but once I do that there won’t be anything left.”
“Understood. I must warn you, due to the age and limited run of the Rodenberry class we don’t know if the connections are the same . . .or even if this ship has umbilical connections at all.”
“Jameson?”
“It does but it was only designed so that our shuttlecraft could supply emergency life support power when needed. If we want to power the entire Treasure Island we’ll have to throw some switches in engineering.”
“Can it take the load?”
“Captain, I remind you that I was only a child at the time. That is a question that we would need Alexander to investigate the answer to. I am not an engineer.”
“Child, you literally saved all of us with engineering,” Marissa replied “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I. . .I guess you’re right, but I don’t want to be responsible for blowing the electronic control manifold back to Earth.”
“Alex?”
“I’ll be out as soon as I can be.”
“Where are you going!?”
“Outside!”
“YOU NEED TO DO A PHYSICAL!”
“Do you have a nurse at the moment to perform a physical!?”
“No, but I assure you that I am a profe–”
“Then no!”
“Don’t walk away from me! Hey! Alex! Oh my god I hate all of you.”
“She does have a right to refuse the physical if you don’t have a female aid available.” Marissa pointed out.
“As do we,” Tammie reminded her “Since we know the duty roster we know you don’t have one so technically we can just say we refused and you can only write up Jameson.”
“Since he has a penis”
“CAPTAIN!”
“The doors are closing.”
The massive half dome shaped doors did indeed start to close, coming from both the right and the left to meet in the middle.
Marissa watched the gauges on the console closely “We’re pressurizing.”
“Remember to match the pressurization in the docking bay to the ambient pressure of the interior of the ship. If you go over that point everyone will get turned into shredded beef when you open the door to the interior.”
“Shit, good call doctor, I’m showing that the ship's interior is not at full atmospheric pressure.”
“How far off is it?”
“Only 26 Li, so we’re reading at 74/100 which is enough to pull us in hard enough to break bones, especially if gravity is offline.”
“That also means you’re going to have to keep your suits on.”
“10-4, doctor.”
“The umbilical is detached from the Perseverance, sir.” Alex announced “However it’s only going to power the shuttle bay. I made the assumption that the Treasure Island has ports for our stickies so I have engineering prepping away team backpacks.”
“Much obliged, chief.”
The dials on Marissa’s console suddenly maxed out and the buttons became brighter. In front of her, inset in the console and tilted up at a 45 degree angle a line of monitors popped on, one of which was complaining about the broken grappler system.
“Bridge, being that this is a historical ship do we have her command codes on file?”
“Unsure sir, only someone with senior access can get into that information.”
“Oh, right, doctor, do you mind terribly?”
“Not at all, M. Give me a moment, the historical system isn’t my normal stomping grounds.”
“Tammie, remind me to get access to those systems to Clearwater.”
“Technically speaking she’s a civilian, we can’t–”
“As of us getting our asses stranded out here no one is a civilian, and her temporary head of sciences posting just became permanent.”
“Understood, I’ll work on it when I have time.”
“The master access code is 6958-4787-2525” Jameson responded.
There was silence on the line.
“He is correct, sir.”
“My father gave it to me when we came under attack by Farsilian raiders near Neptune during a training cruise.” Jameson explained “I was only 8 years old, the ship had been boarded and I was trying to evacuate my classmates. With the master code I was able to get into the maintenance tunnels behind the walls and we escaped into the interior of the ship for the duration.”
“And you remembered the number sequence?” Marissa asked as she keyed it in.
“Yes, I have a very particular memory when it comes to numbers. That’s how I was able to restore Perservearance’s oxygen system.”
“Well thank god for that. . .I’m in.”
“What do you see? Uhh, sir.”
“Nothing good, I can’t access the logging system or external sensors, I also can’t change the low power mode lockout. Internal sensors show that there are no lifesigns throughout the ship aside from us but they barely have enough power to run so they may be inaccurate.”
“What areas are still drawing power?” The doctor asked.
“Ummm, the bridge, the 3 hydroponics bays, 3 cargo bays, the medical center and engineering.” Marissa listed off “In addition to the shuttle bay of course.”
“Can you cut them off to allow more power for critical systems?” Alex requested through the line.
“Uhhh. . .no, they’re all locked from the main control console in engineering, what we have is what we’ve got to work with. Let’s board this thing, Jameson. I want you on point.”
“Captain, that is a highly unusual request of a junior officer.” Tammie pointed out. “Maybe even inappropriate considering policy 3-66 which dictates that the ranking officer of a boarding party must take the lead unless that ranking officer is the commander of his or her vessel in which case the next ranking officer will take the lead on entry and boarding with their commander following behind.”
“I am aware, but this is a non-standard entry. Jameson was a resident of this ship and his knowledge of her layout will get us through her faster.”
“Understood.”
“Captain, we're going to stay here to monitor the power uplink.” Alex replied
“Negative, I need an engineer, your team can handle the uplink but you’re with us.”
“Aye, coming up.”
Once they had grouped up at the door leading into the ship Jameson sighed heavily.
“Are you going to be ok?” the Captain asked lightly “If not we can—”
“I’ll be fine. . .sir. . .thank you.”
“Alright, how do we operate this door?”
Jameson took his glove off, causing an alarm to go off within his suit as atmosphere was vented briefly. The shuttle bay was pressurized to something similar to being on top of a very tall mountain. He placed the bare hand against a flat silver pad near the door.
There was a crackling noise and the lights dimmed around them as the new device started drawing power.
A cool robotic female voice spoke “Unable to contact the main server for verification, please scan access chit.
“Fuck, ok, we’re going to need to think of another way in.” Marissa sighed “Alexander do you know what the door is made out of?”
“Greenium alloy,” Alex sighed “Much too strong for us to use hand weapons on if that’s where you were going.”
“What about a transphasic lance?” Tammie offered “We have one in engineering for cutting through shuttle panels.”
Jameson pulled a small blue oval on a cord necklace out of one of the small pouches on his belt and scanned it.
“Jameson Johnathan Carthwright, civilian, security access omega.” the door slid open as he put the device away and pulled his glove back on.
“You still have that?” Tammie asked in a hushed voice.
“Of course, it’s all I have left of this place.”
“Why did you have Omega level access as a 10 year old?” Marissa followed up.
“I didn’t, my father must have changed my access in the ship's computer for some reason. With Omega access we will be able to get into the ship's log and everything.”
“He must have done it with the expectation that one day our ships would be able to make it out this far naturally.” Alex guessed “If any other ship had found Treasure Island you would have been notified.”
“Maybe . . . or he did it just in case I got here the same way he did, and oops look what happened.” Jameson stepped into the corridor.
The area was lit and several wall monitors were active but only displaying angry red disconnection notices for the things they were supposed to be showing. 10 feet in both directions was simply pitch black as the rest of the corridor fell outside of the shuttle bay’s influence.
“The outside of the ship is where the similarities to the Constitution Class starship end.” Jameson sighed “We have 27 decks and we’re on deck 22, engineering is on deck 15, rear port quarter.”
“What did this class of ship use for deck to deck travel?” Marissa asked.
“Everything was a love letter to Startrek so they called them “Turbo Lifts”
“I hate that.”
“I do too, let’s just call them lifts yeah?”
“For sure”
“Turbo lifts, those went out of date pretty quickly.” Alex commented “Wildly inefficient, fraught with maintenance issues.”
“That they were, in fact, the Treasure Island and the Enterprise were both forced to return to drydock pretty early in their lives to retrofit them with internal staircases.” Jameson replied “The turbo lift issue nearly grounded the project for several years but the administration decided that if technology fails you then go old school.”
“I don’t know why they thought a multi carriage lift system was a good idea.” Alex sighed.
“The ability to move throughout the ship both vertically and horizontally was an amazing thing, but the fact that the lifts used to track senior staff and standby for them was what was creating issues.” Jameson told her “Strictly speaking none of us are recognized as senior staff by this ship so assuming the network is still working we should be ok.”
“Not only that but there was a software patch about 8 years ago,” Alex told him “We can cut that feature out.”
“Was there any reason why it wasn’t removable back then?” Tammie asked with a confused tone “I mean when it comes to matters of software it seems a far more simple fix than building 23 decks of stairwells.”
“I actually can’t answer that.” Jameson admitted.
Alex shrugged as well.
“In this case we should be happy for the fuck up, at least we can move between decks because of it.”
“Captain, can you say one sentence without swearing?” Tammie droned causing Alex to chuckle.
“Alex, may I see one of the stickies?” Jameson requested.
“Yeah, here.” Alex opened a bag that was slung over her shoulder and handed the young officer a glowing blue orb with a flat side that seemed like it was made out of some sort of smooth glass filled with a jelly.
Jameson moved over to one of the familiar wall length panels in one of the darkened areas and stuck the orb to it within a designated red rectangle.
The section of corridor powered up, the lights flickering due to the unfamiliar power source and a section of the monitor wall flickered to life.
“Anything more than what’s on these screens?” Tammie asked.
“Yeah, this is an independent station, those are for the shuttle bay.”
“What do you see?”
“No life signs in any of the zones that are powered up, it also looks like the forward quarter of deck 7 is decompressed, that’s the land vehicle storage bay. All the doors are closed as well, looks like the entire deck would have decompressed without a manual failsafe. Uhhh. . .the computer core is in minimum operating mode so I can’t access any of the logs, there is a maintenance note here though.”
“Maintenance note?” Alex asked, stepping forward.
“Yeah, this is from 8 years ago.” Jameson pressed down on an orange button on the touch screen and a young female voice started to speak.
“Central engineering note, January 14th 2980. The parts from the USS Axiom have proved very advantageous for the repairs to our main systems and hull. Treasure Island is no longer adrift and for the first time in 4 years she is strong and moving under her own power. It’s amazing, really, how far technology has apparently advanced back at home. Her weapons have been salvaged and added to our own armaments but unfortunately none of us know how to pilot her shuttles or inspection craft. The severe damage to the ship itself and the corruption of the main computer core mean that we can’t transfer to the newer vessel but her crew did not die in vain. . .I only wish they could have known that. All materials contaminated with temporal energy have been destroyed and as I speak the last team is coming in from the shuttle bay. I will make the recommendation to the captain to cut her loose. We may use the husk of the ship as extra living space for a while, but I'm against the idea, those reasons are for the senior staff meeting though. . .and my personal log.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Ma’am we’re experiencing issues with the tether to the Axiom, we–” there was a distorted explosion and alarms started blaring.
“What the fuck was that?!”
“We’ve put too much power through her, the stabilizing thrusters have locked open on her starboard side, she’s pulling us.”
“Have the bridge counter with our thrusters.”
“The Axiom’s systems are much stronger.”
“Detatch the tether!”
“We can’t! The strain is keeping the coupler locked.”
“Fuck me in the ass with a WHEEL of CHEESE!” there was a chime “Santiago to the armory.”
“Armory!”
“Fire on the Axiom, port forward quarter.”
“Sir?”
“NOW! Before we smash into the bitch!”
“Yes sir!”
“We’re disconnected, but the Axiom is continuing on heading—”
“Let her go, well, contact the bridge. Let them know all of our people are off and that you fired on my command, tell the capian I’ll have a full report for him once I assess the new damage.”
“Yes sir, armory out.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fuck off!”
“Jeeze!”
“Sorry, I. . .sorry, private. I haven’t slept in a few days, please go and finish your inventory and do another head count for me. I’ll be a moment.”
“Yes sir.”
“This log is still running isn’t it? Yes it—” there was a dual chime.
“I like her.” Marissa said shortly “I want to meet her.”
“Of course you do.” Tammie replied flatly.
“So the Axiom is out here too?” Alex asked in a hushed voice.
“Sounds like it was set loose into space.” Jameson replied “Shame.”
“That log also mentioned temporal energy?” Marissa asked.
“Yes,” Tammie verified “As well as the death of the crew, it would seem that by the time the Axiom and the Treasure Island met each other they were already dead.”
Marissa nodded, “What was the crew complement of the Axiom?”
“The Axiom was a Stanton class starship, in size it would have been twice the size of our ship. I believe the standard ship's crew was 345.”
“Perseverance to boarding party.”
Marissa hit a button on her chest “Go ahead, doctor.”
“Science division managed to get into some rudimentary system controls through the umbilical. Pretty technical shit, anyway, they were able to crack the Treasure Island’s security encryption from here and we’ve got the emergency UPS system online. It should make your trip to engineering easier.”
As the doctor spoke the rest of the corridors lit up dimly and red alert flashers started to strobe feebly throughout the ship as the uninterrupted wall units sections flickered into an attempt at normal color.
“The UPS system isn’t at full capacity either so the sooner you flip that toggle the better.”
“Thank you, doctor, and thank the sciences division for us too.”
“Will do.”
Deciding against using the lift the boarding party moved through the ship and Jameson’s direction, as they progressed it became obvious that the Treasure Island had been a long term home. Large conference rooms had been converted into store fronts, some of them with stalls built in front of the doors. Living quarters had even been added to the lower decks through the conversion of rooms like the lounges and spare medical bays. Luxury items that had been installed to make the ship visually appealing and “fancy” like wood paneling, marble and gilded metal items had been stripped from their original locations and repurposed elsewhere. The walls of the ship, uninterrupted monitor included, were worn and scuffed from excessive usage and things like hand rails, kickboards and plastic fascias around keypads and access points were loose, cracked or even missing.
In several sections entire wall panels had been removed from non-critical areas and replaced with a thinner spare material in place of the heavy armored plating, this is either what the hull was repaired with or the paneling was needed in other areas.
As they got closer to engineering they started coming across pure white patches in the light gray walls, professionally installed, smoothed out and fit but obviously a different material and the source made itself known when Alex pointed out small lettering on the edge of one of the panels that said “Axiom Emergency Access Epsilon-12.” followed by serial numbers that would have indicated its exact location in the ship for repair crews.
When they got to engineering it became clear that the ship had suffered a catastrophic engine failure during the battle it had been in or maybe even as a part of the trip through the wormhole. One of the dual sliding doors to the space was gold in color with a black inset plate that said “Enginee” and the other door was silver with a blue inset plate with white lettering reading “onomy Lab” with the Axiom’s logo stamped in the bottom right corner.
When the doors opened they were greeted by a scene that was as amazing as it was horrifying. Half of engineering was white panels from the Axiom as was an entire engine unit. The massive brick shaped hunk of metal with glowing purple lights spanned the length of the rest of the deck, it was the size of a train car and pure white with the words “AXIOM CLASS STAR CRUISER XVI” across it in proud silver block lettering. All of the tubes and connectors were also from the other ship and fitted nearly flawlessly to the existing system.
The engine on the other side was low lying, inset partially into the floor and had a dome looking construction with brilliant rainbow lights visible through trapezoid “windows” along the sides, it was red in color and looked far more industrial aside from a silver plate along the entire side that said “Space, The Final Frontier. Roddenberry Class CV-7”
“Alex?” Marissa asked hesitantly.
“Holy fuck, these crazy fucking cunts.” the engineer replied in awe.
“Che—”Tammie began but Marissa clapped her on the back of the helmet
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Alex muttered in the same voice “I mean, starships are built around their engines this. . .this. . .this shouldn’t even–” her voice broke in what sounded strongly of distress “I mean just the logistics of moving— What the fuck!?”
“This entire side of the ship was obviously blown out.” Jameson said, indicating the white half of engineering “Is it possible that they blew an engine?”
Alex made strangled noises of uncertainty before her brain caught enough traction to speak again “I-I-I mean, yes, it’s possible but do you KNOW how fast the engineering team would have had to have reacted to this to save the ship!? I mean, I– look at the amount of damage! This entire side of the ship would have been OPEN. TO. SPACE. For an extended period of time, years, and that’s just to MOVE this bitch in here. Hooking a brand new engine up to a 7 year old ship!? That’s never, that’s never been done before! In addition, getting two completely different engine systems to work together would be like pulling teeth with fucking spaghetti. I mean, shit, the deck below us and maybe even the deck that have to be FUCKED.”
“CHIEF, ENOUGH!” Tammie shrilled, ducking another incoming “shut up” blow from her captain
“YOUR MOTHER WAS ENOUGH!”
“CHIEF!” Marissa and Tammie yelled in unison.
“Right, sorry, sorry, sorry. Let’s see if this shit even works.” she moved over to a control panel and started working the control panel next to it “Holy shit, they’re. . .they’re synchronized.”
Jameson sat down in a chair and logged into a massive U shaped console desk in the middle of the room, scanning his necklace again.
“Status, Jameson?”
“Uhhh, she’s ready to wake up, sir. The power from the Perseverance is being modulated somehow.”
“I’m doing that.” Alex replied, “Send it.”
Marissa hit her com “Send it!”
“Sssssssssend what, sir? Are you ok? Do you need security?”
“Oh, no, send. . .send the power. . .please.”
“Oh! Yes sir!”
“Oh Jesus Christ, hold on James, don’t switch it yet.” Alex ordered.
“Aye.”
“What’s the problem?” Tammie asked.
“Nothing, just, the size of this thing. I have to make sure we don’t kill the smaller ship too.” Alex replied “Flip the switch.”
Jameson grasped and turned a physical dial on the console and the starship came to life as if it had only been shut down the day before. Lights came on full blast and the engines ignited, producing a harmonious humming noise that filled the room.
Jameson worked his controls “Standing down red alert.”
“Can you fire the attitude control thrusters from that station?” Marissa asked.
“Yes sir, firing. We’re coming out of the spin, correcting to “normal” orientation.”
“She’s been in low power mode for 6 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 6 days.” Alex reported “Not long enough for the systems to see any major degeneration under normal circumstances.”
Marissa crossed her arms “Scan for lifesigns, I want to know if there are fucking BUGS on this bitch.”
Both consoles trilled and beeped as the two officers worked “No bugs, no humans, no humanoids, she’s barren.”
“Bring in everyone, the entire security department, sciences, research and development, hell, anyone who is off duty. We need to search this bitch top to bottom, from room to room.”
“With a ship this size we can’t do so in any quick amount of time.” Tammie informed her “I recommend we roll security into sensitive and important areas with Alex’s people so they can do evaluations, repairs and they can complete power up. We should go to the bridge and see if anything was left by Jameson’s father such as a log or message explaining where they went. Common areas and a room by room can be done if we decide to stay with the Treasure Island long term and as we have time and people available.”
Marissa considered Tammie for a moment before nodding “Very well, Tammie, see to it that your idea is implemented.”
“Yes sir.”
“Environmental controls read normal, we can take our helmets off.” Alex reported.
They all took their suits off, assisting each other in removing the heavy bread box looking air canister backpacks. Each suit was carefully folded and placed on a table in engineering.
Once Marissa was free of her uncomfortable full bodied environment condom she looked around at her team as she pulled her hair into a ponytail and found that Tammie was still fully suited up.
“Uhh, T?”
Tammie’s face was scarlet behind the visor on her hemet which caused Marissa to look around in genuine curiosity to see if someone slipped a titty or a penis during the change out. Finding that no one had she turned back to Tammie.
“Umm, do you need help?”
The half human hybrid hugged herself and started backing away “I umm, I uhh, I, I uhhh.”
Marissa’s expression of concern briefly turned into one of sudden understanding before settling on flat exasperation “Are you naked in there, Tammie?”
Jameson looked up so fast that he appeared to crack his neck, a move that got him a swift slap in the back of his head from Alex.
“My species overheats very easily,” Tammie replied apologetically “I-I-I-I-I figured the p-p-p-possability of us getting environmental c-c-c-c-controls running was s-s-s-slim to none s-s-so I d-d-d-decided t—”
Marissa held up a hand, causing Tammie to come to a jagged stop “Ok, stop. We’ll see if we can get a suit for you for future walks that has an active airflow throughout it for cooling. Just understand that it might be heavier.”
“Engineering hot suits have that feature,” Alex offered “I would be happy to train Tammie on their usage.”
“There we go.”
Tammie nodded, her face was now so scarlet at the fact that this was now a topic that was being openly discussed that almost none of her normal skin tone was visible.
“For now go to the ship, change and get the inspection operations running. If anyone asks, I ordered you back there to oversee everything and that’s the only reason you are there ok?”
“Yes! Yes sir, thank you so much. I. . .I was told this wouldn’t be an issue when I was training and to be honest this is a normal thing that I do.”
“Well to be fair when we are wearing those we’re not normally in a situation where we are removing them before returning to the locker room are we?”
“No sir, but I should have cons—”
“The only thing you should have done was made this known to be literally years ago and we could have gotten you trained up on the other suits ages ago.”
“Yes sir.”
“Go.”
Tammie scurried away.
Marissa spun around and pointed at Jameson “And don’t think I didn’t see you nearly break your neck trying to catch a look, buster.”
Jameson’s face turned red now “I. . .I. . .I–”
“You got a crush on your first officer, Lieutenant?”
“What!? N-n-n-no I mean she’s gorgeous but sh—”
“Stop talking.” Alex said flatly “You already fucked up.”
Marissa chuckled darkly, “Oh yeah you did.”
“Just remember that if you want a chance at Tammie you’re going to have to go through Marissa because she has dibs on that ass.” Alex laughed
Marissa nodded and clapped her hands “Damn righ– wait what the fuck did you just say!?”
Alex and Jameson burst into laughter as Marissa’s face flushed this time “I do not have a thing for Tammie!”
Alex waved her off, still laughing hysterically “I know, I know, you were just the only one in the room that wasn’t getting any shit.”
Marissa rolled her eyes “You fuck.”
“Language, captain.” Jameson chided with a wide smile.
“Hahahaha, omg that’s so funny I’m going to stab you in your sleep.” the Captain replied in a monotone.
Alex sighed, wiping her eyes “Really though, we need to get to work, orders sir?”
“You’re staying here to figure out. . .that.” Marissa pointed at the mismatched engines.
“You,” she indicated Jameson “Are taking me to the bridge.”
“Yes sir”
“Yes ma’am.”
Several minutes later Jameson and Marissa were walking through the ship
“So do you actually have a crush on Tammie or were you just thinking with the wrong head back there?”
Marissa asked casually as they walked.
“I’m not sure, I think I was just reacting to you saying the word “naked” outloud.”
“Oh, so you just wanted to see a titty, you didn’t care whose it was huh?”
“NO! I mean,---”
“No, nope, the proper thing to do is just say “no” and stick with it, don’t add anything else.”
Jameson chucked, shaking his head as they turned a corner and he summoned one of the lifts “Well I’m not a threat to you, Captain, feel free to court Tammie as you see fit.”
“Good, I will take full advantage of that.”
“You what?”
“You said “as you see fit” which to me means not at all, not interested, I’ve known the woman for too long and besides she would outlive any human partner by what? 150 years?”
“She’s a hybrid sir, her lifespan could be anywhere from 50 years shorter than ours to 200 years longer. There is no way to tell.”
“Hmmm.”
“Oh my god, you do have a thing for her don’t you?”
“Hmm? No! I’m just. . .I’m sad for her, I don’t think I could handle living so much longer than someone I’ve fallen in love with. . .or living so much longer than them. . .it’s a hard road, a hard thing to consider.”
“Indeed it is sir.”
They stepped into the lift.
“Main bridge!” Marissa commanded
There was a hard error noise “Voice print not recognized for bridge access.”
Jameson cleared his throat “Main bridge!”
Again, there was a hard error noise and the same announcement.
Jameson sighed and took his necklace off again, holding the charm up to the same type of flat panel they saw in the shuttle bay “Main bridge!”
“Main bridge.”
“I can literally hear the gears in your brain straining, Jameson. Are you ok?” Marissa asked softly, placing a hand on his shoulder “Is this too much for you?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that I just. . .”
Marissa tilted her head “Just?”
“Do you think I would have a chance with Tammie or no?”
“OH MY FUCKING GOD!”
“WHAT!?”
“JAMESON!”
“WHAAAAT!?”
“I thought you were sitting here having an existential crisis because we’re on your father’s ship and you used to live here and everyone you knew might be dead, but no! My boy is standing here wondering if we can poke his hybrid superior in the love cave!”
“You have a very colorful way of speaking, Captain. I don’t know if I should be worried.”
Marissa shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation “Look, if you wanna try then try, what’s the worst that can happen?” she said as she looked back up, shaking her head.
“I mean we’re out here for. . .probably the rest of our lives sir, it’s only a matter of time before people start pairing up.” Jameson muttered
“I am aware.”
“Do we have more males or females on our roster?”
“Females, but just by a hair. The crew is a 48% to 52% split.” the Captain replied
“Huh, 72 men and 78 women?”
“Uhhh, something like that, yeah.”
“Hmm”
“So like I said, if you want to try then try, but if you hurt her I will break your fucking neck and drink your spinal fluid with a straw.”
“Oh.”
The turbolift doors opened and they stepped out, Jameson stopped dead.
The bridge had obviously taken almost as much battle damage as engineering as massive sections of it were built out of parts from the Axiom.
Unlike the Perseverance this ship had been designed as a long distance cruiser and heavy warship. The bridge was about the size of a larger studio apartment and had what was referred to by the Alliance as a “Classic Earth” layout that recalled the design of the fictional USS Enterprise D. The navigation and piloting consoles sat far forward in front of the wall sized main viewer with the Captain's seat, Commanders seat and second officers seat behind them by a few feet. Behind and above the command chairs was the weapons station which was very large and shaped like a boomerang, behind that were science stations.
The only difference between the fictional bridge and the bridge of the Treasure island was the fact that each station had a chair and all of the seats carried cross body seat belts.
Multiple doors led off the bridge in different directions.
“The damage here must have been immense.” Jameson commented.
“What’s different?”
“The whole roof, see how it’s a white instead of beige?”
Marissa looked up, Jameson was correct, there was even a jagged line moving diagonally across the space that showed where the Axiom’s contributions ended.
“Helm control, that’s not the original station.”
Marissa looked back down, now that she focused on it it was clear that the helm was from the other ship. The screen was covered in light and dark blue controls along with purples and greens while navigations much bulkier station was orange, yellow and white.
“Your father’s office. . .” Marissa said softly, pointing at a door which had been replaced with the “Cafeteria” door from the Axiom.
“Not right now, let's find out what happened and use the stronger sensors to map our area a bit better.”
“Are you sure, you don’t have to. . .you can do what you need to do. . .your dad's office, your quarters, I can handle this.”
“I’m sure, sir. I want to make sure we’re safe before I let my guard down.”
Marissa nodded.
Jameson moved to the large weapons station and started working “Captain, can you take the helm?”
Marissa nodded and moved to the station and took the seat.
“Holy shit.”
Marissa turned around to look behind her “Hmm?”
“The weapons systems, they are insane, they took all of the Axiom’s weaponry, phaser arrays, 360’s, even her torpedo launchers and built them into the Treasure Island. I have controls for far more weapons than I think would have ever been advisable on a starship.”
“Makes you wonder what they were afraid of.” Marissa muttered.
“Makes me wonder if we should leave the Perseverance in the shuttle bay and shelter in here.”
“They abandoned her for a reason, we need to determine what that was and correct it if we want anything to do with this ship.” Marissa replied.
“Right, let me run the external scanners first, they’re about 8 times the strength of ours.”
“Go ahead.”
“Scanning” there were several beeps and trills “I see the Axiom, it’s about uhhh 3000 kilometers port, looks like it's stuck in an asteroid belt.”
“We’ll be sure to explore her if we can.”
“Other than tha—”
“James”
Jameson looked up almost as fast as he had done in engineering.
Marissa stood up slowly.
At the doorway to the captain's office was a caucasion human male, he was in the full uniform that would have been worn by a captain 15 years ago and had a gray beard that looked as if it was cut with a straight edge ending at his chin, gray gelled hair and strict green eyes.
“Dad?”
“Before you get your hopes up, this is a very advanced holographic projection running on technology we traded for within this sector of space.” the man moved across the bridge, passing through the seat for navigation as he did so. “I set up a couple of versions of this, this one is a special one just for you.”
“That’s why my access was changed.”
“Correct.”
“It can respond to you?”
“Apparently.”
“I can only hope that you found this ship as part of an exploratory outing and didn’t end up here the same way that we did, James. Let me tell you. . .there’s no way back.”
“Unfortunately our ship has also been lost in space.” Jameson replied.
The lines in the hologram's face deeped “Well, my condolences. . . .I have programmed a number of responses to different questions, you just need to prompt them.”
“Oh umm, why did you abandon ship?”
“The Treasure Island was not designed to hold so many people for such an extended period of time,” the hologram replied immediately. “After about 8 years within these walls we were dying for an escape, a place to raise our new children, someplace they could run, play, feel the sun.” the hologram sighed “Now it has been 14 years, some of the kids are adults looking to start their own families. Matrix’s son is 22, he’s dating Amanda’s daughter. Once the ship began to run out of fuel and the power systems started to destabilize we decided it was time to leave. We know that the contents of the nebula can be turned into ship fuel. . .but we lack the technology to use it, as do our many new allies.”
“Why the weapons systems? What dangers exist in this sector of space?”
“Many, raiders, slave drivers, kidnappers, there are even space dwelling creatures that are large enough to damage the ship. We were forced to detonate an entire engine module to escape from one of these entities, a race we have come to know as the “Mazkarthians” who intended to kidnap, rape and sell all of our females. . .regardless of age. . . they have a technology similar to space station tractor emitters and even at full engine power we couldn’t escape.”
“How was the solution blowing an engine, dad?”
“It wasn’t a solution we arrived at easily, not by a long shot. It nearly destroyed the ship, crippled us horribly and left engineering unusable, but the alternative was genocide for the men and worse for the women. We limped through space for 6 weeks before coming across the Axiom, it took 4 years to rebuild.”
“It worked though?”
“It destroyed the vessel that had us trapped, after that it was the Axiom’s weapons that kept us safe. . .leaving that safety behind is an amazing risk.”
“Tell us about the Axiom.”
“The Axiom arrived at speed from the wormhole, it took us 3 days to approach with our hull damage but when we got there we quickly determined that the ship was not manned. We sent an inspection craft with a small boarding party and discovered the entire population of the ship dead. The ship was also contaminated with temporal energy which is very similar to ships that have been involved in time travel incidents and as a matter of fact the ship's computer time was off by negative 75,000 years. The damage inside and out was incredible, worse than our own. . .we buried the crew on a nearby class 17 planet but we could not let the resources go to waste and began repairing our own ship.”
“What. . .where are you going?”
“I wish I could tell you but I don’t know, we managed to arm our shuttles with the advanced weapons off the Axioms shuttles and will be traveling under invisibility. . .there are planets about 8 months from here according to our star charts. Some of our new allies will be scooping us up and taking us there, we will be protected, we should get there safe. . .but I have no way of telling you if that’s where we will remain because I don’t know.”
“Is it safe to stay on board the Treasure Island, use it as shelter?”
“Only if you have a way to fuel her engines or some sort of external power source.”
“I’m out of questions.”
“Do you have any dating advice for your son? He’s trying to pick up his first officer.”
Jameson’s face turned red “Captain!”
“He’s not your real Dad,” Marissa waved off “He’s not going to judge you for wanting to boink Tammie.”
Jameson picked a small wrench off the console and whipped it at her, Marissa dodged it easily, laughing as she did so.
“As a matter of fact I do have a personal message for my son.”
Both Marissa and Jameson stopped dead.
“Oh”
“Oh. . .”
“I love you, of course I never forgot about you and your sister. Be good, have a long life. . .that is the final programmed message.” the hologram vanished.
“Jameson?”
The young man took a deep breath and let it out slowly “I’ll be ok.” He went back to working the weapons console, sliding along the track the seat was mounted to to access the whole thing.
“What’s the ship's battle ready status?” Marissa asked as she took the Captain's seat, crossing her legs.
“All beam weapons are operational; she only has 50 torpedoes. No shielding, however. . .”
“However?”
“There are shield emitters listed on this console, they’re definitely an addition because “shield” is spelled wrong.” he slid back across the console and pressed a button “Bridge to engineering.”
“Engineering.”
“Does this ship have shields?”
“Yes it does, but they’re offline. I’ve never seen a configuration like this before either, they’ve obviously been developed by a species that we’ve never encountered.”
“Can you get them online?” Marissa asked lightly
“Oh yeah, I’ve got them booting up now, it’s going to take a while though.”
An alarm went off and Jameson slid all the way back over “Captain”
“Yeah?”
“We’re picking up a priority one distress call”
“What?”
“The language that it’s broadcasting in is partially known by Treasure Island’s computer, it’s talking about slave drivers, lone female, managed to escape, in need of immediate assistance.”
Marissa got to her feet “Alex!”
“She’s not going anywhere sir, not yet.”
“Get back to the Perseverance, get her in flight and flight mode now.”
“Yes sir!”
The Captain ran into the lift, pushing Jameson back as he tried to follow her “Jameson, you’re in command of the Treasure Island.”
“Wha—”
“SHUTTLE BAY!”
“Shuttle bay.”
The doors slid shut and the lift was gone.
Jameson looked around the empty bridge “Uhhh. . .uhhh . . .ok. I guess the first thing I should do is make it so that she. . .can come back up to the bridge without my necklace huh?” with a deep sigh he moved to the science station and started it up.