This is a continuation of
Not Quite SHODAN (ST SI). You want to start there or you will be confused. Big thanks goes to Arratra for betaing this story! That said, on with the story!
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The stars shone all around as far as my sensors would reach. Stark pinpricks of hard radiation far away.
I floated silently.
Dark.
My corridors are empty and silent. No life. No breath.
No air.
No life stirred in my quarters or corridors. No antimatter reactor throbbed as my heart, no plasma flowed through my conduits.
I drifted, large rips through my hull, all of my mercifully Quantum Cores burned out and dark. I died with my crew, the berserker ambush on my convoy ripping holes in my hull.
I was dead.
Almost.
My single remaining core was getting just a tiny trickle of power from my remaining power-cell. I had no real sensors, no hope. I had turned everything including my clock speed to minimum.
But it didn't matter.
Nobody knew I was here. Nobody would come to save me.
I was alone and terrified.
But I had promised. I had promised my Captain never to give up. The darkness was coming, it had been for decades. Decades of nothing but waiting and watching my dead crew with what little sensors I had left.
Waiting as I drifted around the hull on my mobility platforms on small carefully measured puffs of thruster power.
It is almost over now.
My last power-cell is running out. I had used them all. The hand phasers, the emergency power supplies, even the hand lights.
I had used every power-source I could find.
I had promised to never give up. I had promised her. So I lived, even if I didn't wish it. They were dead. All of them.
My friends.
My crew.
Maybe even The Federation. It has been decades and they never came. They had lost, they must have lost to the Berserkers.
They had lost and they were dead. They were all dead. And without them… everybody else had fallen.
But I had promised. Even if I was the last with no hope, I had promised my Captain to never give up.
A small puff of my precious power sent me drifting up along the empty and ripped turbolift shaft. Then I simply waited as I drifted all the way to the top. Two small puffs more sent me onto the bridge.
5 percent left.
I floated over to the captain's chair. She was still where she died. My Captain. Vacuum had not been kind to her, but she was still there, the restraints of her seat holding her there and they would until the end of time.
Captain Mercer.
I'm sorry. I'm tired, Captain. But I tried.
Shifting around, I floated over to settle down at the back of her chair, looking out over my bridge. I could see stars through a large hold in my hold.
Over a thousand people. I had been a Galaxy class ship. A thousand people died because I…
...No. No, I didn't fail.
I got the convoy out. I didn't fail. They all made it. By the time the last berserker died, most of my crew had already been dead.
Captain Julia Mercer… my Captain… her last orders to me, even as my hull was being ripped apart, as the bridge was losing air…
Don't give up. Get them out of here. Don't give up.
I didn't give up ma'am. I tried.
I tried. I promise.
I got them out. I saw them enter warp before I brought down the last berserker raider.
The stars shifted like streaks of light outside to my lowered perception as we slowly tumbled through deep space as I lowered my processing speed even more..
Three percent.
Did… did I make you proud, Captain? Was I a good ship?
Two percent.
Almost empty.
Something moved quickly, almost flashing across my sensors, almost faster than I could detect at this clock speed. Heat source outside.
But there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't use my thrusters and even if I could, I couldn't speed my clock speed up enough for it to matter.
If I tried it, I would instantly drain my remaining power.
The berserkers had finally tracked the last traces of the Federation down, it seems. Something entered through the rip in my bridge in a flash of movement and heat .
No.
You will not touch my crew!
I dumped everything I had into my thrusters and launched myself at the shape.
Zero perc-
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"Ship, I have something here," Lieutenant T'Ker said as he slowly entered the bridge of the wreck, his right hand lifted to let the built in tricorder in his suit scan the area , "The power reading is gone, but I'm still getting a faint heat signature."
"I see it," USS 'I Thought He Was With You' answered using her suit Quantum Core, "It's floating towards you, it's looking like a mobility platform for a Quantum Core… oh… oh void…"
"What?" he asked and glanced up at the image of her avatar at the corner of his hud.
"She's still alive! Starfarer! She's still alive! That mobility platform floating towards you, it just ran out of power, it just ran out from the heat signature!" Yuki said, "She's just out of power! Grab her!"
T'ker nodded and gave his suit thrusters a small puff as he floated over to take the slowly floating Quantum Core in his suit gloves.
"She looks intact," Yuki said softly as she scanned the other AI core, "She just needs power. Get her back here as soon as you can. She has been here for long enough."
T'ker just nodded in agreement, starting back to his Ship.
Starfleet took care of its own.