station, when the Communications Officer sat bolt
upright. "Signal, sir!" he cried, "E channel, Al!"
55 "Where's it coming from?" Morn asked.
56 "Unidentified object, sir, moving at sub factor speed some distance
out of system but coming this way."
57 "Helm," inquired Morn, "are those pods away?"
58 "Yes, sir," Helm answered.
59 "Communications, signal the others to stand by," ordered Morn, "that
we are receiving a priority emergency signal and are leaving to
investigate. Also, notify Fleet. Navigation, do we have a course to
that signal?"
60 "Plotted and locked in, sir," Navigation answered.
61 "Helm," ordered Morn, "bring her around. Give her all we can take."
62 It took them a day and a half to reach the signal's source. It
proved to be an old style disaster recorder. It was considerably
damaged and they couldn't understand from their readings how it was
managing to make the speed it was. It's fuel was nearly exhausted. "It
won't respond to signals, sir. We can't shut it down to pick it up."
63 "Any ideas?" Morn asked.
64 "There's only one way, sir," his Chief Engineer replied. "I'm
suiting up now. The boys are going to hang me out on a hauling beam
while they grab that thing with another one, and I'm going to shut it
down with its manual controls. If THAT fails, I'll have to disconnect
it's drive mechanism."
65 "Isn't that a little dangerous?" asked Morn.
66 "It's DAMNED dangerous," agreed the Engineer, "but if we want the
message that's in that thing's charred innards, it's the only way we're
going to get it."
67 "Be careful, Engineer," Morn warned. A few minutes later they
watched on the main screen as the Engineer cautiously approached the
object about five times