Adelphous Station, Part II: Investigation
Posted on Sat Jul 12th, 2025 @ 7:50am by Ensign Noa Oku & Commander Karl Rogers & Lieutenant Jaina Zalla & Lieutenant JG Alicia Santos & Ensign Matt Connor & Ensign Eric Banner
1,436 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: Adelphous Station
Karl shifted nervously as he waited for the shuttle to dock with the science station. The away team had suited up in EVA suits on the ride from the Eclipse to the station. He watched the readouts as Zalla piloted the shuttlecraft Adhara into position for docking. A slight thud informed them that docking was complete. "Keep the systems on standby but initiate a lockout sequence," he ordered.
Jaina nodded as she keyed in a security lockout command before she turned and stood. Placing the helmet of her EVA suit in place, she reached the airlock controls and entered in a command, drawing her hand phaser as she did so. The airlock cycled with a hiss of decompression, the hatch opening onto the docking ring of the station. Dim emergency lights flickered to life as the away team stepped onto the docking ring of Adelphous Station. Jaina led the team out of the shuttle and onto the station, her breathing forced but controlled as she scanned the immediate area.
It was cold. Not from lack of atmosphere since basic life support was functioning just enough to keep the station from entering a deep freeze but from something deeper. Something that settled into the bones. “No response from internal systems,” Karl said into his suit comm. “No welcoming committee. Let's stay sharp.”
Noa followed close behind the first officer, her tricorder in one hand. Her phaser was holstered but easily reachable. Her boots clicked softly on the deck plating as she swept her tricorder from left to right. "I'm not reading any life signs other than our own," she reported. "No signs of atmospheric contamination either."
“No security lock downs. No signs of forced entry,” Alicia murmured as she swept her own tricorder around and scanned the area while taking a few steps down the corridor. “This place was shut down... clean. Almost clinical.” She stopped at a junction and looked to Rogers. “We clear the ops center first, or split up?”
Karl hesitated only a moment before answering. “We stick together for now. Something about this doesn’t feel right. Santos and Banner, get us into the main computer core from here if you can. If we’re lucky, it’s just dormant, not wiped. Oku, stay sharp with that scanner. I want to know the moment the air starts tasting funny.”
“Understood,” Alicia replied, already crouched near a maintenance access wall panel just inside the docking corridor beside an interface console. She pried it open, exposing the console internals. Taking her tricorder out, she scanned it for a moment before she spoke again. “The auxiliary control relay’s still intact. In fact, it looks like the main interface hub is still drawing a trickle of power.” She pulled a core tap from her pack and began connecting it with practiced efficiency. “If we can jump start the primary node, we might be able to bring up a partial systems log. Give me a minute.”
Eric knelt beside her, handing her a bypass cable before she even asked. The past few weeks he had been training in engineering had taught him a few things, at least well enough for him to help. He looked around nervously, then down at the open circuitry. “Feels like we’re powering up a ghost,” he muttered. “This is way too quiet.”
“Routing power now," Alicia said after several minutes of work.
“Still no life signs,” Noa reported quietly, her voice calm but unnerved. “Atmospheric readings are stable. Trace amounts of ionized particles in the air but nothing hazardous. It's just unusual.” She tapped a few commands on her tricorder. “I'm also picking up faint residual EM spikes, but they're non-patterned. They could be from the shutdown, but they could be from something else.” She finally looked up. “I don’t like the feel of it.”
Matt’s phaser rifle was already drawn, held tight against his chest as he watched the dark corridor beyond the docking ring junction. His voice came low through the comm. “If I remember correctly, the standard design of these remote science stations puts the command center three decks up. If main power is out, the all the turbolifts are offline. We’ll have to take the maintenance ladders.” He looked at Zalla. “We moving out once Santos gets the logs?”
“Only if those logs don’t say ‘run,’” Jaina replied dryly. She didn't like this situation any more than the others, but she was trying to hide it. She turned to Santos. “As soon as you know something about what happened, please feel free to share it.”
A soft chime sounded from the panel. Alicia leaned in and started reading over the console screen. “I’ve got limited system access. The core logs are encrypted, most likely locked from inside before shutdown. But I can tell you this much. There was a command override from the science bay. Manual systems were used to engage a lock down. Full power was rerouted to Lab Module 3. Then everything went dark. It wasn’t an accident. They bypassed every system except the one module. Someone did this on purpose.” She stood back from the console, brushing off her hands. “Someone on this station meant to shut it down and lock something in the science module.”
Karl took a deep breath, then looked toward the corridor leading deeper into the station. “Then let’s try to find out why," He said as he turned to the team, his voice steady but grim. “Zalla, take point. Everyone stay tight. We head to Lab Module 3 access hatch. Weapons on heavy stun. No assumptions. And no one goes anywhere alone.”
Jaina took her position on point, motioning for Connor to take position beside her. Leading the team down the corridor, their phasers drawn, she moved slowly as her eyes scanned for anything as they made their way to the science module access hatch. With the team moving slowly, it took a few minutes longer than normal for them to arrive at the access to the science module. The faint scrape of their EVA boots echoed as they passed a trail of blood smudged along the bulkhead of the connection corridor that led to their destination. Jaina knelt to examine it, her expression hardening. “No bodies,” she said. “But there was a fight.”
Matt scanned ahead, his grip tightening around his weapon at what he saw. “Scorch marks by the hatch bulkhead. Looks like they tried to seal the science module from this side.”
“Or delay something from getting out,” Jaina muttered.
In the rear, Ensign Oku had stopped beside a flickering console next to the science module hatch, her tricorder raised. Her eyes narrowed at the console display as she tried to access the console. “According to this, there’s supposed to be full power inside the module but there's power outages all throughout this section,” she said quietly. “It looks like something is still in there. The computer core also seems as if it were partially damaged.”
Eric set his phaser away and typed in a series of commands on the console. If there was one thing he could do it was access a damaged computer core. The interface seemed to barely work, and he frowned as he read through the readouts. Most of the computer core systems seemed damaged, forcing him to have to work through corrupted systems, piecing together fragments of the station’s final moments. “Ok, I've got some log fragments, but I can't pull up anything other than fragments. It looks like there's a lot of data corruption, possibly from a computer core wipe when the lock down was engaged. According to what I'm able to pull up, they found something on the fourth planet,” he said at last, pulling up a damaged log. “An alien life form, buried under the ice. The science team brought it back thinking it was dead or hibernating, maybe. But it woke up. I've got a video recording here, it looks like the final entry before they tried to shut the station down.”
"Show us," Karl said, not liking where any of this was going.
The console screen lit up with the face of one of the station's scientists. His image flickered, blood visible on his collar and desperation in his voice. “We thought it was dead. We thought it was an ancient life form that we could study. But it woke up. It’s smart and it’s learning. We lured it into the containment lab and diverted all power. If you find this... don’t open the door.”
tbc
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