Chapter One
Stevenson
began by checking the logs that he could extract from the flickering consoles
in the armrests of the captain's chair. He realized, while he was checking the logs, that he had no memory of what had happened during the
last three days. The stardates proved it. The last
thing he remembered was some vague memory of heading to the mess hall for a
drink on the stardate corresponding to three days before the date of the latest
log.
There were only
fragments of logs inside the databanks. He switched on the viewscreen and
played one of the captain's logs that was still
intact.
Captain's
Log, supplemental.
Energy
systems have been entirely drained...The whole ship is now functioning on
auxiliary power. Several crewmembers have reported having trouble sleeping or
concentrating on their work, I must admit I myself have found my attention
wandering away while on duty. Lieutenant Stevenson is still working on the
energy problems, despite his continual hard work; he has still not found any
explanation for the strange energy drains that have been happening.
The
captain had mentioned Lieutenant Stevenson...That meant that he had been
conscious two days before, although he had no memory of that particular day.
"All
right..." He took the latest log entry and played it. Unfortunately, the
log had lost some of its information and the sound was quite choppy.
Captain's...og...tal
No...he...xtra life...orm...Val...Commander Sut...
He
wasn't going to get any information from these destroyed logs. Well, at least
he knew that something had happened to the Valiant; something that had
presumably also erased his memory.
He tried to find
some more of the captain's logs but they all were in the same state as the one
he had tried to listen to before.
After a few minutes
of trying to find more logs, he slammed his fists onto the armrests of the
command chair in frustration and said: "Computer! Can I have access to the
sensor logs from here?"
"No, sensors
are offline and the computer links between the sensors and the central computer
are equally offline." The computer reported.
"I see...Will I
be able to access the sensor logs from the sensor control room?" He
inquired.
"Affirmative,"
He nodded and began
walking towards the turbolift, but then he remembered that the turbolifts didn't work. With a sigh he said:
"Computer, can you turn the turbolifts back
online?"
"Enough
power is available to activate one turbolift at once." The computer said.
Stevenson smiled:
"Thank God...Okay computer, activate turbolift 1."
The turbolift came
back online and the engineer was happy to enter the lift once it came to the
bridge. He entered it and said: "Sensor room."