The doors of Main Engineering hissed open, reminding Jaso of what was recently left. “It’s good to see the doors still work.” Jaso said, entering into Main Engineering. “First things, first. Anderson, see if you can get main power on. The auxiliary power cyclers are working for now, but they’re still fragile. Cooper, try to dig up schematics for the warp core and check the status of the impulse engines. Let’s see what we’re working with.” He looked up at the imposing core. “And I’ll figure out how to stop that,” Jaso said, pointing to the tool still stuck to the core.

Cooper smirked at the tool before she found herself an empty station and began to pull up the work that was requested. She filled one screen with the schematics of the warp core, and then she filled up the screen adjacent with diagnostics on the impulse engines. Cooper then turned in her seat to look at Jaso. “Looks like the warp core was programmed to shut down. Rather curious.”

“So it looks like the magnetic shielding was concentrated into one spot. And that created the gravity well.” Jaso said to himself, staring at his tricorder. He pushed a few buttons and scanned. “It looks like the well is… fascinating. I think this might be easier than I thought, theoretically speaking.” Pulled away from his thoughts, he turned to Cooper, “Programmed to shut down? Because the maglocks around the core were failing?”

Cooper looked through the logs and shook her head. “Possibly, or stop the spiders from activating the Skip Drive?” She went through other logs real quick. “Seems that they even set the auxiliary generators to shut down too.”

“That explains why the auxiliary power was down as well.” The more Jaso learned about them, the more he wanted to tear apart the mechanical spider they’d saved. “It still doesn’t explain how they got here. And if their target was the Skip Drive, whoever programmed them knew about it too.”

“It looks like the power was rerouted to the propulsion systems,” Anderson reported from his console. “Way more than they’d need for conventional operations. I think if I work with the power couplings, I can stop the power drain. I’ll be back!” He excitedly jumped up and disappeared into a Jefferies tube.

Cooper smirked at how excited Anderson was. “I remembered when I was like that. Just something about getting your hands dirty.” She shrugged. “Anyways. What do you need to get the core back online?”

“He’s probably excited to not just stand around holding a plasma rifle.” Jaso looked at his tricorder, “First order of business is to reestablish the maglocks around the core. If we fire it up without them it’ll, at best, cause an emergency shutdown. At worse, we’ll see a beautiful matter/antimatter cascade explosion… right before everyone on the ship is vaporized.

Cooper smirked. “Would be the last thing I’d like to see before going.” She snorted at her joke.

He made a wide circle around the core with his tricorder, “The readings are fuzzy, but it seems to be operating on a low EMF. It’s not enough to cause damage to the tool, just… hold it in place. So it’s not enough to cause a thermic effect, like the old days of micro waves.” Jaso refocused, “The gravity well is turning, just very slowly. What we need to do is find a magnetically similar resonance frequency, that rotates in the opposite direction at the same velocity. That should, in theory, cancel it out, scatter the well, and reset the maglocks. If we’re lucky, it will scatter in a pattern that will create its own magnetic shielding we can use to establish the maglocks. I’m not optimistic about that.”

Jaso closed his tricorder, “I’ll need something conductive… copper maybe.” He snapped his fingers, “Actually, the battery packs might have most of everything we need.” He walked over to the console next to Cooper. “I’m going to set the computer to scan the gravity well to locate the frequency and velocity ranges.”

He walked over to the battery pack and carefully began dissembling it. “Anderson! How’re the conduits coming?”

“It’s a tangled mess in here, sir. But I think I… got it!” As he exclaimed this, the consoles around Main Engineering began lighting up with diagnostic screens. Jaso laughed, “Cooper, begin running a ship-wide diagnostic and check for power fluctuations.”

Jaso tapped his combadge, “Erdian to Hayes: Captain, main power has been established. We’re running a diagnostic to see how well it sustains. Still working on the core.”

“Fantastic news, Chief! I’ll leave you to it, so as to not distract you from the rest of your work,” said Hayes before there was a chirp that the com was disconnected.

Cooper went over the data from the diagnostics and shook her head. “There appear to be no fluctuations in the power grid. Which indicates no damage. In fact, not detecting any damage on any systems or hull plates. Whatever happened, happened real quick before there was any chance of combat.” Cooper crossed her arms and frowned. “In fact, since we got on board, we haven’t seen any scorch marks of any kind. Did the crew even try to put up a fight? Or is there a side effect we don’t know about from this Skip Drive?” She wasn’t really asking anyone, just toying over theories and assumptions but very few clues to find the answer that they needed.

“It’s a possibility,” Jaso said, taking a piece of shielding from the battery pack. “If there was no signs of struggle, then there was no struggle to be had.” He set down his tool and picked up a pair of clamps. “But the question is… why,” he said with a slight grunt. Jaso withdrew the clamps with a small circular device attached. “Ah yes, an electro-magnetic stabilizer. That will do nicely,” he held it up with the pride of discovering a lost treasure. Jaso set it down next to him. 

“If the crew didn’t put up a fight, maybe they wouldn’t… or couldn’t.” Jaso gestured absentmindedly with his tool as he spoke. “If they were attacked by a friendly, they might have hesitated. Or,” he continued dismantling the pack, “it happened so fast, they didn’t have a chance to react. Which would make your Skip Drive theory that much more credible.”

Anderson crawled out of the Jefferies tube. “Can you guys find something conductive, maybe copper wire? As much continuously as you can find.”

Cooper pushed herself to her feet from her seat and went in search of what Anderson needed. She even left main engineering to go into a storage compartment, where some rattling and other sounds of things being tossed around could be heard before she returned to give Anderson as much as he needed. Then she made her way to Jaso to see what else she could do to assist. “It’s strange that we returned to deep space. If the spider mech took control and engaged the Skip Drive, you’d think it would return to the last position this ship went to in this…wherever it is we’re at. The mystery of this ship just continues.”

“That’s a good point,” Jaso said, cranking down a part to his makeshift device. “But if it didn’t have a navigation device it wouldn’t be able to. Hand me that piece there,” He took the part from Cooper and attached it. “I suppose it reflexively could, but that implies some sort of neuro-reflexive-transmitter system.” Jaso paused, “Now I really want to tear one of those apart. All I have is speculation until I can get my hands on one. And that Skip Drive…” He had stars in his eyes, “I could spend half my life examining that.”

Jaso took a step back and look at the device, “Anderson, do you have any of that copper left?” he shouted.

“Aye, sir!” Came the snappy reply and Anderson again reemerged from the Jefferies tube. He threw the roll to Jaso, who promptly caught it.

“Coil a little bit of copper here for conductivity,” Jaso said, wrapping it around some wires and attaching one end to the output and one to the power input. “And… done!” he collected his tools and put them back in the kit. “I was wrong before, this has to be the crudest thing I’ve made.” He eyed his Frankenstein machine: A box about a half meter squared with handles on either side, the electro-magnetic stabilizer on one face, and a protuberance extending 8-10 cm beyond that, ending in a claw-like mechanism arranged triangularly.

“Okay, let’s get set up,” He put the device under one arm, and opened his tricorder. “I’ll get as close as I can without getting this sucked up by the well. Anderson, Cooper, find something to brace it against, both fore and aft. I’m not sure which motion we’ll get. I’ll plug it in,” Jaso said, picking up the power cable.

Nodded her head and followed Anderson’s lead in making sure they have something to brace it with.

Jaso finished attaching the power to the main computer. “Yeah, that looks good,” he walked over and tested the bracing. “Anderson, get to a terminal and get full sensor scans on everything. I might want to recreate this later. Cooper, watch the power readings. We’re entering no man’s land here.” He turned on the machine and it began to hum. Jaso hummed, harmonizing with it. The claw on the machine started to slowly turn. 

“Firing the anti-mag beam now!” He pressed the trigger buttons on the handles. The device let out a warbling noise. “Give it a little more juice Cooper.”

She watched as the device came to life but immediately returned her gaze back to her displays to see where the power level was and when she heard his request, she pressed the power slider and pushed it up just a little bit. “Little more juice, coming right up!”

The warbling got louder and the claws began to illuminate as they turned faster. The machine slightly slid back, pushing against the braces. Jaso smiled as they held firm. A small beam emerged where the claw points met and touched the tool, still stuck to the warp core. “Contact with the gravity well, reversing polarity now!” Jaso said, pressing a button on his tricorder. The device bucked against the bracing. “More power!” Jaso shouted like a mad scientist over the cacophony of noises from the device. It started to shake violently, and Jaso feared it wouldn’t hold.

Cooper couldn’t believe the strange contraption was working but she has seen pretty crazy things before, all she could do now was let the madman do his work and give him more juice as requested by pushing that slider up some more. “Amping it up!”

And then he saw it. Out of the competing magnetic forces, the gravity well presented itself. Fully visible to the naked eye. It was almost beautiful in its simple, destructive nature. “By the Prophets, it’s so beauti-” Suddenly a loud pop reverberated through Main Engineering. “Everyone, down!” Jaso yelled just in time to hit the deck, and for the device to go sailing over his head. He covered his head as the stuck tool shoot across the room like a bullet. And all was quiet.

“Is everyone okay? Jaso shouted, his voice carrying throughout Main Engineering. 

Cooper raised her head from behind the console and looked where the device went. “Yeah. Sure. Don’t know about the bulkhead over there though.” She smirked.

“I’m good, I was already mostly protected up here,” Anderson called out.

Jaso rose to his feet and watched Cooper and Anderson do likewise. ”Tell me you got all of that!” Jaso excitedly said to Anderson.

“I did sir, every second.”

“Good, download the scans so we can take them with us. And see if you can,” he paused, turned, and found the machine thrown across the entirety of Main Engineering. “Sadly, there’s nothing to salvage of that.” A click from the warp core and a beep from the console turned his attention. “Well, would you look at that… ‘Maglocks: Engaged’. We got lucky after all.” Jaso tapped his combadge, “Erdian to Hayes: Good news Captain, we should have warp core access in about an hour.”

“Great news, Chief! We’ll be meeting up back on the Bridge after you’re finished down there,” said Hayes over the intercom.

Cooper let out a sigh of relief and folded her arms across her chest. “That was intense. Oh, and by the way, I believe our Hazard Team Leader, Vogler has a legless spider mech in her pack. Just thought I’d mention it since you sounded eager to look inside one. When Beck was around, he and I did open one up and the insides were…so strange. So many glowing tendrils, writhing and wiggling as if the thing was still alive despite being struck by such a massive electrical shock to shut it down. But when they were fully exposed to air, they tried to hide inside what was left of the exoskeleton, and the violet color they emitted changed to something like orange or ochre.” She shook her head. “If they weren’t hostile, they would be quite beautiful to have around.”

“Fascinating…” Jaso said, entranced by the visual of Cooper’s words. “The more I learn about these things, the more excited I get.” He pushed buttons on the console, “Anyway, let’s get this warp core started.”

“Diagnostic complete,” Jaso reported. “Everything’s looking green, nice job team. I’ll make engineers out of you two yet.”

“No thank you sir,” Anderson replied, “I’m happy with my spot on the Hazard Team.”

“Just something to think about Petty Officer,” Jaso smirked. “All right, let’s go meet up with Captain Hayes on the Bridge. Anderson, I’m leaving you in charge. Don’t break anything until I get back.”

Cooper smirked. She could go into detail about how she used to be part of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers before joining the Altai but she will just save that for another day and followed Jaso to the nearest turbolift.