Hina peered down the maintenance space, watching her light play off the sides of the crawlspace. This was definitely not what she wanted to do… but they really needed to figure out what happened about the ship they were on. She set her tool kit into the crawl space crawling in after it. She crawled into the dark, listening to the voices of her other away team members fade as she crawled deeper. The ODN junction she needed to bypass was pretty deep in the crawlspace. Why was she here again? Oh right because she was a good engineer and she was friends with the Captain. She had been invited.

She eventually reached the ODN junction, shining her light at it. It sparked once, releasing a small puff of smoke. That explained why access to the bridge logs wasn’t possible. She turned, setting herself up in front of the junction, laying across the crawlspace on her back in front of it so she could get a better angle to work on it. She grabbed for a spanner, using it to pry off the charred access cover. She took a moment to inspect it, frowning. The damage didnt appear to be a result of a malfunction.

“Looks like someone bashed it in…” she commented.

“I agree.” a familiar voice replied. Hina jumped, causing the access panel to clatter to the decking under her. She looked around, shining her light up and down the crawlspace, looking for the source of what she heard. There was nothing there.

“Maybe it was just a weird echo…” she muttered, shoving the access cover away from herself. She set her light up so it shined into the ODN junction and frowned. It was a mess, and would take her more time than she had originally thought. She grabbed an isomagnetic decoupler, and got to work, humming quietly to herself, filling the quietness of the crawlspace and to keep her mind off just where she was. She pulled out a section of opticable that was charred and cast it aside, pulling another length of slack loose to reroute some pathways.

“You’re gonna need a type 2 phase discriminator…”

Hin jumped, looking around. She saw an inky black figure coming down the crawl space toward her. She ripped her light from where she had set it, shining it in the direction of the figure, which vanished in the light. She kept the light pointed there for a moment, rubbing her eyes with her other hand, trying to make sense of what she had just seen. Why did she recognize the voice, and why had it been correct about the tool she would need?

“Nope… nope… that clearly didn’t happen…. Just bypass the ODN junction, Hina… get back to engineering…” she said, placing the light back where it had been so she could see the ODN junction again. She felt around for the tool the voice had advised her on and worked quickly, rerouting opticable paths as quickly as she could. She wasn’t terrified. Not at all. Her hands always shook when she was working. Not.

She tossed the phase discriminator to the deck and grabbed her tricorder, scanning the junction again, checking for basic functionality. It was working for the moment, and would get them the access the needed. That was good enough for her, if her bypass failed she wasn’t coming back in here so if they couldn’t get the data they’d have to find some other way. Her hands felt around for her tool kit and she shoved the spanner and her tricorder into it, shutting it before beginning back toward engineering. She didn’t even notice that she had left the discriminator behind as she started to crawl off.

“Hina!” the phantom voice called. That wasn’t what caused her to stop however, it was the feeling of a hand on her ankle.

“Your discriminator.” the voice added. Hina wanted to look back, but she found herself unable to turn around. She knew who the voice belonged to. It was an impossibility. A breath in. Then out. She turned looking behind her, only to be greeted with an empty crawl space with nothing but her phase discriminator laying on the decking. She shined the light back and forth for several moments before grabbing the discarded tool and hurrying back the way she had come as quickly as the crawlspace would allow.

That voice was impossible. There was no way the owner of it could be aboard the vessel she was on. Because they were on the only other vessel nearby. One she would rather be on right now. The current one had something very very wrong going on.

The voices of her away teammates soon grew louder again as she closed in on engineering. She hucked her tool kit out of the crawlspace, causing it to clatter to the ground and pulled herself out after it. She quickly replaced the access hatch and leaned against it.

“Please tell me you figured out what was going on here… so we can get off this ship.” she practically begged.