Meanwhile, back at stately Deep Space Nine
"Incoming communication, sir!" A too-enthusiastic ensign looked sprightly up at Deep Space Nine's night shift commander. This was not the commander's favorite shift; during this period of time, most of the drunkards found their way home from the Promenade, and Security usually had its hands full. It was too early into the shift for him to have finished his first raktajino, and that meant his reactions were sluggish. He hadn't quite gotten enough sleep to be fully functional, but things had been relatively quiet lately, and artificial stimulants (other than caffeine) made him jumpy. He turned to the ensign, who was now looking at his comm board with a confused look.
"Well? Who is it?" The ensign's attention returned to his commander, and he replied, "Sir, I think it's the
USS Murgatroid… but the signal content is not normal for them."
The commander coughed a laugh into his hand, then asked, "Unusual… how? It's not in crayon, like their mission reports?" The ensign shook his head and responded, "Well, no… but it does seem to be from their Emergency Medical Hologram. That's certainly not SOP." The commander grunted. Nothing about the Murgatroid was standard operating procedure.
"Hrm… get Commander
Mib Khan up here… maybe he can shed some light on the issue. We'll put him on with his EMH and see what they have to say to each other. In the meantime, give me their ETA. They were supposed to be on their way here, and should have arrived by now, if they haven't totally neglected maintenance on a Defiant-class warship." The ensign complied, and a graphic of the Murgatroid's route was displayed by the time Mib Khan arrived at the command center.
Khan looked at the graphic on the screen, and at DS9's night shift crew. He blinked a couple of times, then asked, "Okay, you got me. What am I supposed to be seeing?"
The night shift commander tapped at the controls, first highlighting one diagram, then another. "Doctor, what you have here is a diagram showing warp-field die-off. It's what happens to a ship when its Engineering crew is not paying attention and its computer is somehow disabled. The injection routines in the warp core require fine-tuning to maintain the efficiencies necessary to generate high warp, and I'd guess that hasn't been high on anyone's priority list on your ship… including the ship's computer. The Murgatroid began heading here at Warp 9.4, but over the last 12 hours, they've deteriorated to Warp 1.73. They're losing speed at such a rate that they'll drift off course before long. I suspect the autopilot subroutine is also corrupted… the little blips ships take from micrometeorites while under warp are affecting its course, and there's no visible correction showing on the course display."
Khan shrugged, then nodded. He then asked, "What do you need from me?"
The commander turned to the ensign, who said, "There was an incoming message, and we waited for your input." The ensign hit a button, and the Murgatroid's EMH appeard on screen. He was banging at a comm panel and muttering under his breath.
The EMH looked up upon hearing the computer chime, indicating signal had gone through. He looked at the three men, then said, "Doctor, we have a problem. Captain
KY Jellico's wake … got out of hand in an unusual way. Some of the crew forced alcohol on others of the crew… which wouldn't have been too much of a problem, except that they rounded up everyone who was on duty, everywhere on the ship. I wouldn't have noticed this except that they came and grabbed me as well." The EMH hit a control, and the viewscreen camera panned back to show a floor littered with bodies. The screen panned back, and the EMH continued, "Sir, I remembered one of your little sayings… 'Fake it 'till you make it.' I faked drunkenness and passing out, and overheard the crew say, 'That's all of 'em.' They then took phasers to all the non-holographic control panels, and then discorporated. They appear to have been some kind of holographic subroutine, faking as if they were crew. They must have been simple routines, if they didn't figure out that I was a hologram as well."
"What do you think they were trying to do?" asked Khan.
"I'm not certain," replied the EMH. "Holodeck safeguards must be in place… no one is permanently injured, just dead drunk. There's some kind of lockdown on summoning ship's controls, and the ship's computer isn't responding to holodeck commands except emergency requests. I was able to get comm access that way, but nothing else."
Khan sighed, then turned to the night shift commander. "Sir, I formally request assistance to bring the Murgatroid into the Bajor system and dock here at DS9. I don't know what's going on, but I'm not going to figure it out here… not with all of my clones dead drunk on the deck.
The commander nodded, then tapped his combadge and began issuing orders. The night had begun to look more interesting.