"This is not my idea of shore leave."

[Shane 0]

A gray blur sped away from the center of the Solar System, speeding towards the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was a class-9 shuttlecraft, the Montgomery, with Shane Tayjer and Wade Knight at its controls. Shane was visiting his family, who owned ship salvage yard and had invited Wade to come along.

 

 

 

Keeping his fingers steady on the console, he slowed the shuttle down from full as the craft closed in on the field. "So here's the basic idea. Most of the energy from photon torpedo is ineffective in damaging the enemy vessel when it detonates, since the explosion expands in all directions. What if we can somehow contain the energy from the explosion and redirect it all towards the vessel?"

 

 

 

"What if we were to reinforce the hull of torpedo somehow and set it for a delayed explosion? Like the 'bunker busters' old?" Wade asked, following the debris outside his window.

 

 

 

"So, have one explosion to penetrate the hull, then a secondary to cause maximum damage?"

 

 

 

Wade nodded feverishly, "Well, we shouldn't even need an initial explosion if we can make it penetrate the hull with its own mass and velocity, right?"

 

 

 

"That's true. Most ship's hulls aren't nearly strong enough to deflect high speed projectiles, since they rely on their shields to protect them." Shane checked the shuttle's position, noting that they were nearing their destination. "The yard's main station orbits an asteroid near the edge of the field." Shane said, bringing his eyes back to the viewscreen in front of him, "We should be entering visual range soon."

 

 

 

Wade nodded, preparing to send out a call for approach pattern to the station. "So, not that I don't mind hanging out salvage yards and meeting my colleague's folks, but why am I on this trip again?"

 

 

 

Shane grinned, "Well, when I heard you were planning on spending your leave in the holodeck, I figured you might find a jerry-rigger's paradise a little bit more interesting. But if you still want to go with your original plan, you can use the old holodeck on the station."

 

 

 

"Well, we'll just have to see." Wade grinned, turning his attention back to his console. "Looks like we're getting our approach orders."

 

 

 

"Good, the automated system is actually working this time." Shane said, flying towards an asteroid the size of a small moon. "The station is a variant of the old Regula class that was towed here from one of the colonies. It was set to be scrapped, but my dad used some of his old Starfleet contacts to buy it. We should be able to see it..." Shane peered through the viewscreen in puzzlement, "That's strange."

 

 

 

"Strange?" Wade asked, peering over Shane's shoulder. "I don't like strange. What's the matter?"

 

 

 

"Well, the station is dark, like its lost power." Shane put the shuttle on an approach vector, "Can you try hailing it? Maybe they're just having technical difficulties."

 

 

 

"Aye." Wade input the standard handshake hail, waiting for a reply. "It doesn't seem like there are any channels open."

 

 

 

Shane shook his head, his face reflecting his growing worry, "Something's wrong. My father always keeps a channel open for the salvage crews who are working in the wrecks on the asteroids surface." He tapped at the shuttle controls, starting a scan of the station. "Maybe this will give us a clue what's going on." The shuttle glided close to the station and began to circle it, scanners running. The station consisted of a gray, fat saucer, sitting atop of three docking rings, with three copper cylinders extending from the bottom.

 

 

 

Wade peered out the window, looking between the station and the results of the scans on the console in front of him. "Looks like a station wide power failure. I don't even know what kind of reactor these old bases run on."

 

 

 

Nodding, Shane glanced the results of the scan. "I don't see any life signs. Gravity and environmental systems have failed as well." Shane shook his head again and brought the Montgomery to a stop beside the first docking ring. Using the maneuvering thruster's, he positioned the shuttle by a hatch and activated the magnetic clamps. "Alright," Shane said, getting up from the pilot's seat heading to one of the lockers in the back, "I'm going in to see what's wrong."

 

 

 

"Well, I suppose I'll come along too." Wade said, following Shane to the back. "I'm sure it's probably just a power failure of some sort. Might want to bring along some firepower though."

 

 

 

Shane pulled out a couple of EV suits and handed one to Wade. Slipping into his and sealing it, he grabbed two phaser's and tricorders, handing one of each to Wade as well. "I'm heading to the control room on Level 1. We should find records of what went on there. Do we have any portable power sources to power a console?"

 

 

 

"I think we've got a couple power packs in here somewhere." Wade said, climbing into his environmental suit. "Check the starboard storage compartment."

 

 

 

"Right." Shane moved to and dug into the compartment, finding a power pack. "There's only one, but it should be more than sufficient. Ready?"

 

 

 

Wade locked his helmet in place and nodded, "Let's go see what's going on."

 

 

 

Attaching to his equipment belt, Shane stepped to the docking hatch and typed the controls to open the airlock. He and Wade moved in with the hatch sealing behind them with a beep. Shane pushed the controls to equalize the chamber.

 

 

 

Listening to the hiss of the airlock equalizing, Wade looked over to Shane curiously. "Your old man ever say anything about piracy out this way? We're a long way from any major shipping lines."

 

 

 

Shane thought for a moment. "He did every once in a while, but was never worried about it. With the Sol system being the location of Starfleet headquarters, piracy has never been a problem." A light over the hatch leading to the station turned green, indicating that the pressure had equalized. "But there is a first time everthing..." Shane tapped at the panel beside him, taking power from the shuttle to open the stations hatch. The doors slid apart revealing a long gray corridor that curved out of sight in either direction. Random items littered the space all throughout, floating aimlessly. Shane stepped onto the metal flooring and activated his magnetic boots with a clang. "The lift and Jerry Tubes are off to the right." Shane said through his comm link, moving in that direction.

 

 

 

"Lead the way, I'm right behind you." Wade said, shining his handlight around the other side of the airlock, looking for any sign of what had happened there. "Looks like quite a mess."

 

 

 

"Yeah," Shane said, moving down the hallway, shining his light back and forth, "another indicator of trouble. My dad kept this station pretty close to Starfleet standards." He stopped at the lift doors and pulled open a compartment in the wall beside him, revealing a lever. Grabbing it with both hands, he began to crank it up and down, opening the lift doors bit by bit.

 

 

 

Once there was a big enough space to squeeze through, Shane deactivated the clamps on his boots and pulled himself into the lift shaft. "It should be a straight shot from he...AAA!" Shane yelled as his flashlight shined on a discolored face inches from his own. Spinning slightly from his recoil, he grabbed one of the rungs in the shaft to steady himself, breathing heavily.

 

 

 

Wade nearly jumped out of his suit at Shane's yell, pointing his handlight up the tube towards his companion. "What, what is it?"

 

 

 

Holding himself still, Shane collected himself, "A body. It caught me off guard." Shining his beam back towards the gruesome scene, he grimly examined the floating corpse. "It looks to be one of the workers, but no one I knew. His skull is caved in near the back. "Shane peered down into the black."I think he fell down the shaft."

 

 

 

Wade muttered a few curses under his breath, making sure his helmet was fastened correctly to his suit. He had a feeling this wasn't going to be the last body he'd be seeing today, but he just couldn't bring himself to mention that fact. "We should get to the control room; get a message out to Star Fleet."

 

 

 

Without another word, Shane turned and began to pull himself upwards. His stomach was twisted in knots from the terrifying thought that the next corpse they find might be one of his family. The face of the dead worker filled his mind, threatening to turn into his father or one of his brothers. With an effort, he pushed them from his head, knowing that making things up in his head wouldn't help his family one bit. He just prayed that they were still alive.

 

 

 

Wade climbed up after Shane, only glancing at the body at the end of the shaft momentarily in passing. He never considered himself squeamish, but the idea of reaching your end in a cold lift tube on a dark station in the middle of an asteroid field few people would venture into was not his idea of a good way to go. He found himself idly thinking of a green hillside somewhere in the country, and put just about everything else out of his mind.

 

 

 

After climbing in silence for a few minutes, they reached the top of the tube. Shane found the crank lever for the door leading to the control room and slowly opened the doors. Cautiously, he entered Level One, moving his beam around the large room. Almost immediately he noticed several more bodies floating around the room. The walls were scorched black all around the side opposite the lift, several of the console were black and in pieces from explosions. Nervously, he moved through the room towards the corpses, knowing that his greatest fears might have come true.

 

 

 

Wade took a look around the control room, shining his light on the various consoles situated around the room. "I can tell you one thing this is not your average power failure." Stepping over to one of the console, he inspected it more closely. "Unless there was a surge, but I can't imagine a surge large enough to knock this many pieces of equipment out."

 

 

 

Reaching the other end, Shane put light to the faces of the three men. Relief flooded over him as recognized none of them. He let out the breath he had been holding looked at them more closely, "No, you're right. It was something else. These are more workers, I can tell from they're uniforms." He noted a phaser in the grip of one of them, the energy level indicating that it was partially depleted. Burns wounds littered the torsos of the victims. "I'm pretty sure there was a firefight here." He turned and moved back towards the consoles, "But if there was, shooting a console is not enough to cut off power to the whole station. The reactor would have to be shutdown or damaged"

 

 

 

Wade pointed his light down at one of the consoles, which appeared to be undamaged. "Well, maybe we can find out. This looks like a communication panel." Wade turned towards Shane, holding out his hand. "Let me see that power pack."

 

 

 

Shane detached the pack from his belt sent it floating towards Wade. "Nothing here is making sense. If pirates attacked the station, there would have signs of attack on the outside. There aren't many defenses aboard, but there enough to put up a good fight. Whoever came aboard was thought as friendly at first."

 

 

 

"An unsatisfied customer perhaps? I saw a Nausican ship or two floating around out there, not to say they did," Wade theorized, catching the power pack from the air and began hooking it in the comm console. "Either way, this will tell us who's been in and out. Maybe there's a log or letter in here too."

 

 

 

"Right." Shane said as he stepped up to the console Wade was working on. While he waited for Wade to finish, he looked out one of the viewports near the lift, looking at stars that he was so familiar with. This was place had always been one of comfort for him, a refuge. Now it was alien, it felt cold. It was one strangest feelings he had ever felt, more so than when the Reaent had been destroyed in Romulan space. He hated it. The screen of the console suddenly lit up, surprising him. "Dang that was fast."

 

 

 

"It's a pretty rudimentary design..." Wade said, trailing off as he got up to his feet to examine the console, which had just finished coming online. "Alright, let's see what we have here." Wade punched a few buttons, scrolling through a list of communications down to the bottom of the list, the most recent transmission.

 

 

 

Shane looked at the transmission, "It's from a Federation vessel. Looks to be a standard request for an approach pattern, almost exactly like what ours was." Reaching over, he tapped the standard scans that were performed, pulling up readouts. Examining them closely, he shook his head. "Huh, that's no design I've ever seen. It looks military."

 

 

 

"Military? Federation? There aren't many military federation boats out there, but why would one show any interest in a salvage yard?"

 

 

 

"Maybe they weren't interested in the station, but what it contained. Perhaps they were interested a person" Shane said as he reached over and tapped at the console, bringing up the video feeds on the security network. Quickly, scrolled through them, looking for any signs hi dad or brothers. Several more deceased workers could be seen in the second docking ring, but no sign of his family could be found. Dead or alive, they weren't on the station. Shane pulled out his tricorder and flipped it open. "I'm going to download this data to analyze later." Quickly the handheld device gathered the information and he clipped it back on his belt. "Now, let's get a message out to..." A shudder ran throughout the station, shaking the two men. The console began to flash red in warnings. "What the heck?!" Shane yelled as he grabbed the console to steady himself. He tapped the warning message making the details scroll across the screen. Shane's eyes moved back and forth, reading the data and growing wide in disbelief. "The reactor has powered on! Its temperature is increasing at an extremely high rate."

 

 

 

"Coming online? I don't see how that's possible, the only console online is this comm, without a control console there'd be no way to monitor the start up sequence, the containment field..." Wade looked up at Shane, somewhat wide eyed. "We've got to shut it down."

 

 

 

Shane looked up from the data, shaking his head and pointing at the console, "No, there's no time, look at the rate the temperature's increasing. By the time we get down there and get through all the closed hatches, the station will be gone. We need to get out of here now!" Deactivating his boots, he launched towards the lift, beckoning Wade to follow.

 

 

 

Disengaging his magnetic boots, Wade pushed off the floor after Shane, pushing himself along bulkhead toward the turbolift shaft. "This is not my idea of shore leave," he said, positioning himself over the bulkhead and pushing himself down to the ladder.

 

 

 

As waited for Wade to enter the lift, something caught his eye out the viewport, "You've got to be kidding me..." A familiar class-9 shuttle sped away from the station, heading into the asteroid field. Pulling himself into the shaft, he pushed himself after Wade, "Our shuttle just left without us!"

 

 

 

A few more curses escaped his lips as he checked his oxygen levels. "You did say there were no life signs aboard when we scanned the base right? There's no way this could be automated." Looking around in the darkness, Wade sighed. "The way I see it we have to options; we get down there and shut that damned reactor down, or we get ourselves back into that airlock and out into space and hope someone comes by to pick us up before our air runs out. Unless you know the way to another shuttle?"

 

 

 

Shane pondered for a moment, "There should a couple in the hangar on Deck Eight, which we passed on the way up here. That's our best bet." The shaft shuddered and shook around them as the reactor reached closer to overload. "I suggest we get moving quickly!" he yelled over the groaning of the bulkheads, as he continued pulling himself down the hatch.

 

 

 

"I agree entirely. Lead the way." Wade said, pushing himself after Shane.

 

 

 

With their rapid descent, they reached the Level Eight hatch within half a minute. Quickly, Shane found the lever and cranked the doors open enough to slip his metal fingers into the crack. Bracing himself, he pulled using the powerful mechanics in his arm to jerk the door open. "Forward" Shane yelled as he squeezed through the doors behind Wade. They pulled on the walls, flying down the hallway as groans and shrieks echoed from the levels below. Arriving at the final door, they opened it, revealing the hangar bay. The bay was open directly into space, its atmospheric shields down with the power.

 

 

 

Several workbees lined the the wall to their left where their crews had parked them. At the end of the row was an old twin passenger shuttle, the name Firehawk painted on the side. Shane pushed himself towards it. Landing next to it, he activated the airlock and pulled himself into it.

 

 

 

Wade followed Shane into the shuttle, closing the air lock behind him and compressing it. "Got any theories so far, Shane?"

 

 

 

"Theories should be the farthest thing from our minds at the moment, as we're trying not to die!" Shane retorted as the pressure in the tiny airlock equalized and the door to the cockpit slid open. Jumping into the pilot's seat, not even bothering to take off his helmet, Shane began a cold start of the impulse engines. The whine of the engine could be heard amidst the shaking of the station. "But I'm pretty sure it wasn't pirates."

 

 

 

Wade took a seat in the copilot's chair, unhooking his helmet and throwing it off behind him. "No, pirates wouldn't destroy a station they can loot. Impulse engine start up initiated. We'll be at full power in ten seconds." Wade punched a few buttons on his console, bringing up navigation. "Good thing you had this thing sitting around."

 

 

 

"Yeah, it's an old Starfleet training craft that my dad picked up somewhere and let me fix up. Mostly so I'd stop taking his workbees flying around the asteroids." The Hornet's control panel chirped. "Power up complete. Hang on!" With that Shane put the impulse power to full and blasted the craft off from stand still, shooting it out of the hangar bay, its inertial dampeners barely compensating. Several seconds later the station reactor overloaded, sending fire that ripped outer hull of that level. The antimatter containment failed, causing a massive explosion that engulfed the station, sending chunks of wreckage and metal flying in all directions. The shockwave rocked the shuttle as it sped away, nearly shaking it apart.

 

 

 

Gripping the armrest of his chair, Wade braced himself for the buffeting from the explosion. Looking out of his window he watched as pieces of the station fled past them, cursing loudly. "We're going to get hit!" Small pieces of metal pinged off of the crafts deflector shields, as Shane twisted and turned wildly, trying to dodge the larger pieces coming at them on the sensors. One chunk glanced off the port wing, sending the Firehawk spinning towards an asteroid. Gritting his teeth against the centrifugal forces, Shane pulled on the old crafts hand controls as hard as he could. The craft straightened out just in time, missing the asteroid by meters.

 

 

 

Breathing heavily from the adrenaline, Shane pointed the shuttle towards Earth and took his helmet, tossing it to the floor and wiping the sweat from his brow. Looking over at Wade, he raised an eyebrow, "Still wish you had stayed on the holodeck?"

 

 

 

"Absolutely," Wade said, without missing a beat. Wade loosened his grip on his armrest and relaxed his muscles. "We need to get a message out to Star Fleet."

 

 

 

"No. We can't."

 

 

 

"Can't? You think someone in Star Fleet is the cause of this?"

 

 

 

"It is a distinct possibility. Who else could have gotten past the Star Fleet security codes on the Montgomery? And the Federation ship that docked last at the station? I mean, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but on the other hand we can't rule anyone out at this point."

 

 

 

"Then we'll need to get a message to Reaent, if anyone is still there."

 

 

 

Shane paused thinking about it, "Yeah, maybe Captain McQueen will know what to do." He pointed out the comm unit near Wade. "That should work. I suggest putting it on a secure channel, if you can."

 

 

 

"Aye, sir." Wade said, typing out the encryption and a text message to Reaent. "Message is away."

 

 

 

"Good." Shane said, looking out the viewscreen. He grew silent for a moment. The one good thing about this whole event was the fact that they hadn't found his family dead, which meant they might still be alive somewhere. Just where was the question. And he had no idea where to start.

 

 

 

Glancing down at the shuttle's sensors, Shane noted the shockwave dissipating, crumbling asteroids in its wake. The whole area was going to be a mess now, making it impossible to find any more evidence from the station's wreckage. The data on the tricorder was all they had to go on.

 

 

 

Suddenly, a thought entered his head. Grinning, Shane looked at Wade and then out the viewscreen, "This is ridiculous." "What?" Wade said in puzzlement. Shane said, "We can't even go on leave without blowing something up."

Edited April 1, 2010 by Shane