Oh where, oh where has my little ship gone?
Spiegel looked over his shoulder at Noelle. "Lady, this part's a cake walk, rest up for the real fun when we get back to the Obama. I assure you, you'll have plenty of opportunity to show me how okay you are by overworking yourself with what we've got waiting for us back there," Spiegel admonished her as he continued to fuss at the panel. "That should work beautifully," he said as he closed it, "This time they're going to lose communications and replicators before the transporter logs go down."
"You'd think that such simple tricks shouldn't work," Diziara said shaking her head.
"There's a reason they're considered key systems," Spiegel answered with a shrug. The transporter took hold of the group just as Diziara opened her mouth to speak.
"Since when is a replicator a key system?" Diziara demanded as the beam released its hold. She started down the corridor towards the port they'd docked at.
"Have you ever had an engineering emergency a couple hours into your sleep after a long day of running around like a chicken with your head cut off?" Spiegel retorted. "Every engineer has a beverage or food of choice that will get them through that emergency repair job."
"Uh, guys?" Noelle interrupted, having come to a stop at an observation port less than a few yards from where they'd docked the Obama. Diziara and Spiegel both stopped and looked back at her. " Where's the ship?" She tapped the window, and her two companions were right next to her looking out into the empty space that should have held the prototype.
Spiegel quickly whipped out his PADD, a tricorder and some sort of interface device that neither Diziara or Noelle showed any indication of recognizing. Spiegel quickly used the interface to connect the PADD and tricorder together as Noelle tore into an access panel. Diziara's hackles were up, the borrowed disruptor at the ready as she carefully scouted the surrounding corridors.
"Found it," Noelle and Spiegel both said at the same time. There was mumblings along the lines of "you first", "no, after you," and "really, I insist, after you" until Diziara cleared her throat. Both turned their attention to the irritated red-head.
"Noelle, where's the ship?" Diziara said through gritted teeth.
"About ten minutes ago, the Obama disengaged from the port we left it at. Even though the station logs didn't recognize that there was a ship docked there, it did recognize the disengaging protocols," Noelle explained. Spiegel nodded in agreement as she spoke, and Diziara crossed her arms.
"Where is it?" Diziara asked again.
"A couple minutes ago, the docking port three levels down logged the docking protocols being engaged, but the logs still say no one's docked there," Noelle answered.
"Whoever helped themselves seems to know what they're doing," Spiegel commented. Diziara rolled her eyes.
"I don't care if it's Montgomery Scott himself down there, we need to regain control of our ship if we want to return home," Diziara growled, and headed down the corridor at a jog towards the nearest turbolift. Spiegel shrugged and headed off behind her. Noelle grimaced, but kept pace.
A short turbolift ride later, the trio was making their way down the corridor towards the port that'd shown the recent docking activity, but recognized no vessel attached. Diziara stopped them just around the corner from the port, and leaned around to look.
"Can either of you tap into the Obama's internal sensors without giving the ship away to anyone on the station, nor whoever's in there?" Diziara asked quietly. Spiegel shrugged and started playing with his PADD-tricorder hybrid, and Noelle started looking for an access panel. Neither one had much time to do anything before Diziara snorted in amusement and moved around the corner without another word to either of them. Spiegel followed, curious, even as he continued to play with his PADDcorder.
"Who's your accomplice?" Diziara demanded, disruptor leveled at the pink mohawk sporting girl who looked like she'd just been distracted from her PADD. Grace squared her jaw.
"Why should I tell you?" came the reply that was accented by a hand upon her hip.
"You're not my Grace, and therefore you're expendable," came Diziara's cold reply. This caused Grace to blink a moment. Spiegel stepped forward, putting a hand on Diziara's shoulder.
"Uh, Diz, can we talk about this...?" he interrupted.
"People from your universe don't do that sort of thing," Grace insisted with a frown.
"Honey, I've killed men twice my size with my bare hands for less than you're doing right now. We want our ship back, and we want to know who's still in there," Diziara calmly explained. Grace was silent, so Diziara moved forward, catching the girl by the upper arm, the tip of the disruptor shoved up under Grace's chin. She led the way into the Obama, and Spiegel followed behind.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Spiegel called ahead, butting in front of Diziara. Diziara cursed him in Klingon, and muttered that he needed to stay behind her. He acted as if he didn't hear what she said, even though the universal translator translated every syllable for him. Spiegel was first into the cockpit, followed close behind by Diziara who was firmly holding Grace at disruptor point.
It was there they found Vicky.