Selek stared with some trepidation at his surroundings. His friend seemed to notice his discomfort.
“You can speak and move freely,” she explained. “This is just a memory. Think of it as a dream, or what do they have on earth? Pretend it’s a show. You’re safe in hibernation mode for the moment while I…”
“Where? What happened to…”
“I’ll explain later. For now, I can tell you the crew is safe, in long term sleep just like you are. I’m Captain Ay’len, and I’m accessing the dream sequence in your brain with the help of some Xyrillian technology to recreate this reenactment. Sorry about the Kir’Shara, but there was nothing we could do. You can build another one.”
Selek barely had time to raise an eyebrow before she continued.
“Your mother is going to finish her briefing near the Mess Hall. Here we are. See that lady over there?”
Selek blinked and recognized one of his mother’s crewmates, Communications Officer Hoshi Sato.
“Go and find out what she’s doing. I’ll see you again soon enough.”
Hoshi was sitting with a fork in one hand and her tablet in the other, a colorful pasta salad remaining mostly untouched in favor of the monochrome screen.
Selek was shocked, to say the least, but understood he was safe for the moment, and was distracted with a view of the antique Enterprise.
He walked over to the table, paying close attention to the details he’s read so much about in school and heard about at home. He recognized other faces and understood generally where he was located on the ship.
Nobody else took any notice of him.
Travis Mayweather came to the same table, carrying a dinner tray. Selek stood next to them, listening carefully.
“You busy?” He asked, nodding at the tablet.
“Actually, no,” she squinted at the screen, which was scrolling through what looked like a large catalog of schematics and letters of non-Terran origin. “Just going through some of the information we found during the mission to P’Jem. How’s the bridge tonight?
Mayweather and Hoshi chatted idly for a while, enjoying dinner and ignoring the tablet, which seemed to be running on its own.
After a few minutes, it stopped and flashed from green to blue, prompting Hoshi to pick it up again.
“Oh, it’s done,” Hoshi smiled and leaned closer to the tablet. “Fascinating!”
“It?” Mayweather raised his eyebrows as he spoke.
“The ship’s cryptologists have been working on the pictograms. It looks like my team has deciphered most of it.”
“Was that the Vulcan data that mentions the Sanctuary? The one the Andorians say is a front for a surveillance network?”
Selek tensed up and leaned forward. The destruction of P’Jem was the first incident to put his mother on the Vulcan High Command’s radar, and the attention was not positive. However, it seems that this was early in the history of the Enterprise, and P’Jem was still intact.
“It is. These fragments seem to pre-date Surak, and we’re not sure how that’s possible. Are you going back to the bridge?”
“Heading back now. See you up there.”
Selek was tempted to follow Mayweather. He was secretly hoping to see Jonathan Archer and get a good look at the helm, but resisted the temptation and continued to follow Hoshi. He was also looking for fragments that pre-dated Surak. The humans seemed to have found something similar and it led them to the Sanctuary.
They walked towards the computing and data storage section of Engineering, a section of the ship that Selek didn’t know very well.
Hoshi opened the narrow panel and squeezed into the enclosed space. Not all of the computers on the Enterprise were designed for optimal human interaction. The ones in the computer core, located in a section one deck below the bridge, were service consoles with a limited interface.
She leaned forward a bit so he could get a better look at the connection[KA1] . The cryptology team consisted of several members, and today each one was working at a computer console to translate and sort the files from P’Jem. She took a briefing from each.
“Are these the files from the Sanctuary?” Selek asked, looking over Hoshi’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Ay’len answered, “these files are related to what you’re looking for, but whatever is hidden on Romulus must be even older.”
The two of them went through the same panel to leave the room, but Ay’len motioned Selek in a different direction.
