Ghosts In The Computer

[McFly 0]

Starbase 392, on the edge of deep space. A mother-station to short range science vessels and a couple of mid-range escort ships. To those who saw the station for the first time, it reminded them of the flying saucers so heavily reported from Earth’s past, a round dome floating in the middle of space. But as they got closer they realized it was more like the top portion of Earth Space Dock. Sometimes it would take them a minute to see it with the spire missing. But after it caught their eye that’s all they could see and thus it became affectionately referred to as “DSD” or “Deep Space Dock”.

Most ships sat parked for the night, reloading and offloading, refueling and standard maintenance. The station remained quiet with most personnel sleeping in the late night hours and not a blip to register on the sensors.

Earlier the USS Sumadi, a Nova class ship, had docked inside the station. A small collection of science ships would come and go on week long, sometimes month long missions, studying the archeology of once inhabited planets. The Sumadi had just returned from such a mission and was in need of the maintenance team’s complete package.

Only the bare minimum was activated on the Sumadi. Much like an office complex at night with the one light on, the maintenance team just needed to see what they were doing and the computer to respond. Everything else was unnecessary.

But without any provocation, the Sumadi began to power up systems all across the ship. The few maintenance personnel looked at each other in confusion as the warp core began to hum and vibrate. The empty bridge came to life as if expecting the senior staff to begin piling out of the turbo lift. Coms, navigation, engineering, tactical all came online and the maintenance team soon realized they had zero control over any of it. The station’s night crew noticed the commotion but they too had no effect on the ship.

Senior station personnel and the Suamdi’s senior staff were all woken out of a dead sleep. People raced down empty hallways towards station ops to see a seemingly ghost ship come alive all on its own. With the ship not responding from ops the Sumadi senior staff fled to the dock and onto the ship to take control within the ship itself.

Engineering would not respond to any of the chief’s command codes. The same results happened for the Captain on the bridge. Were they locked out? Not according to the ops officer. The ship simply wasn’t responding to any commands given by anyone.

Suddenly, the crew inside the Sumadi felt the ship shudder and jerk and could hear the hull strain. Alerts went off all over the bridge and on the station. It happened again, this time with much more force along with the loud sound of metal scraping. The station Commander yelled at the Captain over his com badge. Why was he trying to tear the ship out of the docking clamps? The Captain replied he did no such thing and explained their continued lack of control of the ship. The ship jerked again with increased force. The station maintenance team explained to Ops that unless they release the docking clamps either the ship or the station, or possibly both, would be heavily damaged. The Commander mulled it over just as the ship jerked again. This time the Sumadi’s hull ripped open as the ship slipped slightly out of the grip of the clamps. The Commander ordered the ship’s release and to guide it outside of the station with tractor beams.

The oscillating blue light filled the docking bay of the station as the Sumadi cascaded along a series of internal tractor beams. As it did the ship’s weapons systems came online. With just enough time for the crew to react to their uselessness the ship fired a phaser beam inside the station. Explosions erupted and the entire station shook. Now everyone inside the station was awake and running to their posts. The Sumadi fired again and knocked out the tractor beams, then again at the station’s bay doors.

The Sumadi slowly pushed its way into space where it was met by the station’s two escort ships. They first tried to talk the crew down only to learn they were never in control to begin with and that’s when the ship fired another shot, this time at one of the escort ships. The small science ship’s weapons had little effect on an escort with shields at max. But on the inside of a space station where little is protected from such things, monstrous damage had been done.

One of the escorts fired at the Sumadi and disabled its weapons. The crew inside frantically tried to retake control with complete futility. The chief engineer then made the suggestion to disconnect the main computer from the rest of the ship. Only problem was it was locked up tight and no one’s command codes were working. The chief and a small team began using a phaser cutter to cut through the door. They worked as quickly as possible before something else could happen.

The Sumadi began to spin around and it stopped at a 180 degree turn. The ship was now facing the station. With no weapons available the Captain wondered what could possibly be happening.

The engineering team cut through two of the internal locks on the door to the computer. The last one was the largest and was taking more time. The Captain encouraged the team to work quickly as something was going to happen, though they didn’t know what.

The Sumadi’s impulse engine then engaged and the ship moved towards the station. Its speed picked up quickly and the Captain suddenly realized what the ship was planning to do. He called for one of the escort ships to disable the Sumadi’s engines. The Sumadi was at half impulse and just past the station bay doors when one of the ships fired a direct shot at its impulse drive. The drive exploded shaking the entire ship but it stopped just inside the station.

The engineering team, having just cut through the last lock, was knocked to the floor. The chief got up first and pushed the door open. He now had physical access to the main computer. The problem now was how to disconnect it from the ship. He took one of the phaser cutters and started cutting conduit lines. One by one system’s began shutting down all over the ship. Consoles all across the bridge turned dark as emergency alerts went off in their place. Soon even the lights began to flicker.

The chief started cutting through the last conduit trunk and the ship made one final push. Its starboard thrusters went off and the ship pushed sideways towards the common viewing area, a section of the station where people could relax and look out at all the ships in the docking bay. A few people had gathered in there to see the chaos in the bay. Now they saw the Sumadi barreling towards them as if a bulldozer was pushing it from the other side.

The chief cut through the last conduit and the entire ship went dark and the thrusters cut out. But momentum carried it the rest of the way. The Sumadi crashed into the large windows of the station’s viewing area. A chain of explosions rippled across the station.

The two escort ships backed away as they saw the bursts of fire pop through the station’s hull.

Suddenly and magnificently Starbase 392 exploded.