Nebula

Renat slid the circuitry back into place, and sighed. "The fault's not here. There's a junction through behind this," he pulled back another panel, "I'll start there."

"I've got it," Jaliba told him, tersely, apparently already fed up with the man, "you check the output."

Renat turned to his superior, and looked about to raise an objection, but one look at her expression apparently convinced him that further argument might not be in his best interest. "Right, uh..." he said, instead, "I've probably got a better idea what the readings should look like anyway. About a metre through there, down on your right. It'll be a squeeze, though."

"I can handle it," Jaliba told him, placing a light-band on her head and taking one of the tools from her belt.

She ducked into the space behind the open panel, most of her vanishing into the depths of the equipment. Watching the Romulan engineer, and following his gaze, Svetlana couldn't help but wonder if he knew that Jaliba was a Betazoid, and if so, whether he realised what that meant. She couldn't see him from her vantage point, but she was probably well aware that he was currently admiring her well-rounded behind.

"Any time you'd like to tell me whether this is working..." came the muffled voice from within.

Oh yes, thought Svetlana, she knew.

"The figures are just coming through now."

Renat returned to his proper task and the next few minutes were spent with the two swapping readings with one another as Jaliba did whatever it was that engineers did to errant junctions. Eventually, she crawled back out and told the others that they could try checking the sensor data again.

"Yes!" said Svetlana, grinning despite herself. Information was scrolling across her screen, looking entirely believable again. It was far more detailed than anything the shuttle could pick up, but it showed the same general pattern. The sensor was fixed.

"Coming through clearly," agreed Satra, "at least from this array."

"Seven more to go," said Jaliba ruefully, "well at least we know the problem. Although why all of them went down at around the same time, I don't know."

"The only thing they have in common," said Renat, "is that Starfleet interfered with the equipment."

"They were all built," pointed out the Betazoid, "by the same engineers in the first place."

"This is not a Romulan problem! There is nothing wrong with our framework."

"Well, then it's funny that..."

"That's enough, both of you!" snapped Sienae, apparently forgetting that Jaliba wasn't under her command, "just fix it."

They both got reluctantly to their feet, and were about to head to the next section when Satra suddenly called out for them to stop, eyes widening as she looked at the display in front of her. Svetlana glanced down at her PADD.

"It's back," she said, "the same glitch as before."

"What, in this array?" asked Jaliba, "the one we just fixed?"

"That can't be right," agreed Renat, looking across at the Betazoid, their argument temporarily forgotten.

Satra shrugged, glancing between Sienae and Svetlana, "it's what happening."

"Call me when there's something useful to report," said Sienae, before striding out of the room and heading who knew where.

The two engineers looked at one another silently for a moment.

"If it's not the junction..." said Jaliba eventually.

"Then it could be the framework... I just I don't see how."

"We need a more thorough diagnostic."

After that, the two began speaking in the sort of technobabble that left Svetlana entirely behind. She could talk for ages about the polytropic indices of relativistic degenerate stellar cores, but this was quite out of her field. Instead, she scrolled back up the screen on her PADD, figuring that she might as well look at the data they had received for that brief time.

Then she frowned, and looked at it again. Then opened up a sub-screen to do some calculations. Then tapped on the PADD rapidly as she began to compile an ad hoc analysis subroutine.

"Have you got something?"

She realised that she'd been standing there, oblivious to her surroundings, until Satra's voice had broken in. The engineers had more panelling off the walls and were doing... something.

"Perhaps," she replied slowly, "I think..." She was interrupted as Jaliba pushed past, muttering an apology as she reached out for some data port behind the human's back. "I think we're getting in the way. Let's discuss this somewhere else."

--***--

There weren't exactly that many places to go. Three of the five level s on the station were primarily occupied by equipment - the long-range sensors, communication systems, power supply, and all the rest of it. Captain Sienae was up in what passed for the control room, and, not really wanting to work under the tall Romulan's disapproving glare, that had only left the crew quarters as a viable meeting place.

Since nobody, even during the Romulan era, had likely ever spent more than a couple of nights in here, the bunk room was entirely devoid of personality. The design appeared Romulan to Svetlana - or at least, not standard Starfleet issue, so she assumed it was Romulan - with the only concession to the station's new owners being a logo that somebody had stuck up at the far end of the room. She could just about tell that they had only done that much because it was covering up what appeared to be a Romulan eagle painted onto the wall behind it.

She and Satra sat on bunks facing each other, although, for the moment, Svetlana's attention was on her PADD, scrolling through the data, occasionally re-arranging it or adding computations as she went. She was, as so often, a figure of concentration, knees pressed tightly together, shoulders hunched over as she went over the figures.

"So..." asked Satra after a long silence, "what have you found?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes!"

She looked up, noting that the alien woman looked a lot more relaxed than she was, legs akimbo, elbows resting on her knees, leaning forward in interest, blue eyes wide and questioning. Svetlana brushed away a small bead of sweat forming on her forehead... it was hot in here, wasn't it?

"It's the data that we picked up during that brief time the sensors were working properly," she explained, "there's something there that doesn't look right."

The Romulan shrugged, "so it's part of the glitch? How does that help us, we already knew the data wasn't right."

"No, no, I don't think that's it. There's a pattern to it, not the nonsense we normally get. Especially... well, look here," she handed the PADD over.

"A surge of some sort," agreed the Romulan, "interesting, I suppose, but..."

"But it's reacting! See where I've correlated it with the work that Jaliba and Renat were doing. The nebula is responding to what we did, in some way. And just after that, the sensors failed again."

"But nebulas don't 'react' to anything," pointed out Satra, "they're just diffuse clouds of ionised gas. But a surge in radiation immediately before the systems went down sounds significant. If there's something sporadic happening in the nebula that's affecting the station - which would make sense, considering what it does to larger ships - then maybe we can harden the systems against it."

"No," said Svetlana, taking the PADD back, "I don't think that's it. I think it's really reacting to what we do here. Remember there's a particularly dense cloud of material around us, directly focused on the station? What if that's not a coincidence?"

Satra frowned, and leaned back, puzzling over the intent-looking human in front of her. "I'm not sure I understand," she said.

"Okay, have you heard of nucleogenic cloud beings?"

"No..."

"Well, there's a record of a long-range exploration ship encountering one in a nebula. It was on the other side of the galaxy, but the point is that it was essentially a living being made of diffuse gas atoms interacting with another. A completely alien form of life, one that only lives in deep space, unlike anything you could possibly find on a planet."

"Now, this isn't that; it was a surprisingly complex entity, and very large. But if I'm right, whatever is causing this is the equivalent of a bacterium to a... a... I don't know any Romulan animals, but let's say a worm of some sort. But even as a nucleogenic cloud bacterium, or whatever these are, they could be reacting to our presence, infecting the systems. Perhaps they feed off the energy here."

Satra looked doubtful, "it all sounds a bit far-fetched."

"Yes, well, maybe you're right," agreed Svetlana, her shoulders slumping, "but the patterns do seem to fit with what I remember. I'd need data from a bigger library system to be sure. But think about it," she brightened up again, "if this is right, we know exactly what will happen when the engineers 'fix' the problem next. We just have to wait, and if we get the same thing again, maybe we can start working on a defence."

"It's worth a try," agreed the Romulan woman. "it shouldn't be too much longer, but until then, I guess we just wait." She tapped her fingers on the bed, and added, after a short pause, "by the way, is it just me, or is it getting really hot in here?"

"Yes!" said the human with a slight sigh, "I didn't want to say anything... I thought it was maybe how Romulans set things. Like, you know, Andorians always turn the air conditioning up... I thought maybe this was the opposite of that."

"So far as I could tell from your ship, we have about the same temperature tolerances as you do. Maybe whatever's affecting the sensors is doing something to life support, too," she shrugged again, "we'll just have to cope for the time being."

"No, I guess it's not too bad," agreed the human, then blushed and quickly cast her eyes down to her PADD again as Satra began to remove her waistcoat. Fortunately, she stopped there, but even so, Svetlana couldn't stop herself glancing up on occasion, noting how the tight, sheer, material of her blouse complemented the Romulan's curves.

Hopefully, she thought, forcibly turning her attention back to the PADD, the other woman hadn't noticed her glances. That would be embarrassing, and, besides, there was work to be done.

"You can join me, you know," said Satra, after a while, leaning back and stretching, a movement that made the taut material stretch tighter over her bust.

"Sorry?" said Svetlana, the word coming out almost as a squeak.

"You don't need to keep your jacket on if it's getting too hot. Just a suggestion."

"I'm fine," said the human hurriedly, pretending to do some relevant calculations on her PADD, although in reality they were just maths puzzles that she had saved up there in case she ever got bored.

She had barely got to the end of the first one before the message came down from the engineers that the system was back on line again. Svetlana held out the PADD where they could both see the stream of new data, and she and Satra looked at it intently.

"Well, I'll be..." said Satra, as a surge in activity hit from outside, and the sensors suddenly garbled again, accompanied by a loud curse word from Renat. "That can't be a coincidence... if they were that common, we'd have seen dozens, maybe hundred, on the way in."

"And we didn't see one. Plus, look at the patterns, and how they correspond to the electrical activity in the station. The nebula is responding. There must be something alive in it! I was right!"

Satra tapped her communicator, "I think we've got something. We might know what's causing this."

"Can you fix it?" that was Sienae, straight and to the point as always.

"We can probably find a solution. But it will take some time."

"Then take it."

"Yeah, one other thing," that was Lugmilla, cutting into the conversation, "it's not that I don't appreciate the warmth, but since we're stuck in an enclosed station, and you're all starting to need a shower, can somebody fix the bloody thermostat?"

--***--

Svetlana had explained her theory to the others. Jaliba had initially thought that it sounded rather implausible, but, on reflection, it was no stranger than many of the other things she had encountered in Starfleet, or had heard of other ships encountering. Some ships even managed to come across such exotica on an almost weekly basis, or so it seemed. And, to be honest, it did fit all the facts.

It also meant, of course, that there was no point in trying to fix the sensor array again. So she had decided to follow Lugmilla's suggestion and take a look at the thermostat. It certainly was getting hot in here, and it was only getting worse; she had already removed her jacket, stripping to the sleeveless grey top underneath.

Which, she noted, had silently met with Renat's approval. But then, most of the away team was buzzing with restrained tension. They'd brought much of it with them, but the rising temperature was bringing some of it out into the open, at least to her Betazoid senses.

She didn't intrude into their private thoughts, which would have been rude, but she could sense it in them anyway, feel the emotions boiling off them, even when they weren't in the same room as her. It was something she was used to, of course, it having been with her for as much of her life as she could remember, just a natural part of living, no different from sight, smell, or hearing.

Right now, on the level of the station immediately above her, Satra and Svetlana were working on the problem of fixing the station. Without actively probing their minds, she couldn't tell exactly what they were planning, although it was presumably something to do with repelling the cloud organisms, and creating a safe bubble for the station. They were mindless... 'bacteria', Svetlana had said, albeit dozens, perhaps hundreds, of metres across, attenuated collections of gas and microscopic dust particles. So whatever solution they came up with, it was unlikely to hurt the things in any meaningful way.

The two scientists were engrossed in their work, although Svetlana especially so. The petite mousy human had a remarkable ability to shift her mind into analytical mode, pouring every iota of her concentration into it, and shutting out the outside world. Which was probably just as well, considering how obvious it was that she would otherwise be distracted by Satra's presence. Whenever she stopped working, Jaliba could feel the hot yearning inside the human woman, tamped down by a desire to avoid emotional entanglement as much as by her determined professionalism.

But she was good at concealing it, and keeping things inside. Jaliba doubted that Svetlana's true feelings were as obvious to the others as they were to her telepathic senses. Except Satra... she had noticed, but only because she had been looking at, and admiring, the human woman herself. That was the tragedy of being non-Betazoid, Jaliba reflected; Svetlana had no idea how her fellow science officer felt, and likely never would. If she thought about it at all, when she tore herself away from her equations, she probably just assumed that Satra was heterosexual.

Which Renat, currently further up in the station, with the sensor arrays, certainly was. In his case, the conflict was a decidedly Romulan one. Romulans had a racial superiority complex, and, unlike most races in the Federation, tended to see aliens as inferior. So he was conflicted over Jaliba, his body, raging with the emotions that Vulcans kept in check, was attracted by her rounded curves, wide hips, and smooth, dark skin (exotic to him, apparently), while his higher mind and morals told him that humans should never be attractive to his own kind.

Which, thinking about, was something that Satra clearly didn't care about.

And then, up in the control room, was yet another problem that mutual telepathy would have so easily avoided. Dorel and Akilah, both, she surmised, in sleeveless tops by this point, had a curiosity about one another's bodies that they were trying to conceal. Nothing as strong as Renat, Satra, or Svetlana, but there was a latent desire there nonetheless, waiting for something to kindle it. Which, given that Dorel, in particular, didn't seem to speak much, might be quite a time in coming.

All of which made it something of a relief to find that the other two members of the team had no such distractions. Sienae's efficiency and natural sense of entitlement really was, so far as Jaliba could tell, a part of her deep personality, not just an affectation. Renat was an underling, and the others were either odd-looking aliens or the wrong sex... she really didn't care.

And Lugmilla, who she knew from the Endeavour was not immune to such thoughts in general, genuinely did find human-like beings as unattractive as they normally found Tellarites. Frankly, her dominant emotion right now was one of irritation.

"Getting anywhere with the temperature controls?" asked the pilot over the comms, right on cue, "because I'm seriously not joking when I say that hot humans pong."

Be thankful there's no Bolians here, thought Jaliba, but didn't say it. Instead she replied, "I'm right here now. Temperature 34 and rising... I should have this fixed in a minute. There we go... no! Dammit! What's wrong with this?"

"Is there a problem?" That was Sienae, her tone imperious and a little demeaning.

"It just reset itself..."

"Like the sensors?" Renat.

"Possibly. Let me try it again... no." She let out a grunt of frustration.

Satra broke in, "can you get me diagnostic readings from the circuit?"

"Sure... there you go."

Muttering from Satra and Svetlana, not coming clearly across the comm.

"It's the same pattern as outside," said Satra eventually.

"These things are feeding off the circuitry in the station," confirmed Svetlana, "they're in the life support."

Sienae; "How dangerous is that?"

Lugmilla; "we can retreat to the shuttle if we have to."

"Not yet," replied Jaliba, "it's only the temperature that's affected so far, that I can see. If you can get your fix ready soon enough, we should be all right, if a little uncomfortable. Otherwise, it will take a complete reboot, shutting the life support off altogether, and restarting it. At which point, the problem should just come back, but at least we'd be starting from a colder point."

"Hold on to that as a reserve," suggested Sienae, "in the meantime, Satra, Nemeček, get me that fix."

Jaliba sensed a flash of annoyance from all of the Starfleet personnel on the station, but just gave a wry grin herself. Sienae couldn't help but be bossy, even over people outside of her crew; to the Betazoid it was apparent that that was just how her mind worked. And, surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any malice in it. The Romulan might find humans a bit odd, but she didn't seem inherently prejudiced against them, as Renat was.

All she could do was wait. Every now and then, she glanced at the readout on her PADD, monitoring the station temperature. It was still getting hotter, the contained, insulated, nature of the station not allowing much of the heat to escape into space. She had rarely felt to keenly aware that she was just sitting in a tin can sealed in against vast oceans of nothingness.

She pulled the hem of her vest free from her waistband, flapping it to allow a slight breeze to waft over her belly. She could feel drips of sweat running down her brow and neck, soaking into the fabric. If this took much longer, she'd have to ask about that reboot and evacuation, but she would rather prefer to take concrete steps now.

The door to the engine room slid open, and Renat stepped in, stripped to the waist, sweat glistening on his torso. Idly, she admired his slim body and lean belly, but, to be honest, it was too hot to be thinking of much more. Judging from the way that Renat's gaze rapidly glued itself to her exposed waist, he didn't have the same problem. Jaliba quickly lowered the hem again.