The piercing scream of alarms punched an agonizing hole in the haze clouding Captain Jacks' consciousness. The bridge swam into view, sparks creating a shining curtain that highlighted the bodies of crew members slumped over their consoles or hanging half way out of their safety harnesses.

"Parsons," he tried to call to the First Officer, but it came out as little more than a tortured croak. With some effort he straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. "Parsons," he managed, injecting some of his 'command voice' to get her attention.

"Captain?" her voice was weak and shaky.

"Status," he demanded, shaking his head to clear away the fog that still clouded his mind. 

After a moment of silence punctuated by the crackling of circuits shorting out, he began to wonder if she had heard him, or if she was unconscious again.

"I got it, Cap," the XO said with significantly more energy and clarity than he had any right to have. "Power is out; the reactor is offline. We're running on partial solar power only." He flipped a few switches, "Attempting to bring the emergency power cells online now."

The lights came back up and most of the consoles came to life with lights and displays. Red lights flashed from most of them indicating system problems or dangerous situations, as well as a number of yellow cautionary indicators. 

As his vision began to clear, the Jacks saw that the XO was out of his chair and floating weightlessly beside the Engineering console, while the First Officer was just beginning to move, still held in her seat by her harness, blood running down her face from a gash above her right eye. He began unbuckling himself to check on her as the intercom came to life with a couple of voices reporting damage and injuries, then more joined in until the bridge was filled with a cacophony of panicked voices underlaid by the warning claxons.

"Quiet!" he roared, "And turn off those damn alarms!" A moment later the alarms went suddenly quiet, leaving an eerie silence that permeated the bridge like the panic that was physically palpable. He was on he verge of panic himself, but it was important to keep himself calm so that he could maintain control - of himself as well as the situation.

"One at a time," he ordered as he pushed off from his command console towards the First Officer, gliding smoothly through the lack of gravity. "Engineering," he called, "Status."

"Schmitt here, Captain," the German-tinged voice came through the speakers, "Main reactor is down. It looks like we had an overload. I'm working on getting the secondary reactor fired up."

The main view screen flashed to life showing a brown ball slowly growing larger. "What about engines?" he asked calmly as he attempted to mentally calculate their speed towards the planet.

"It's the power systems," Schmitt reported, "Some of the distribution nodes are burned out."

"Well get me something," he demanded, "And get it fast!"

"Yes sir," the Engineer's sigh made it through the intercom intact.

"What can I do to help?" the priest had been strapped into a seat at the back of the bridge, but was now struggling to untangle himself from his harness.

"Grab that first aid kit," Jacks directed him firmly. 

Father Aleman dutifully unlatched the bright red medical kit from the wall and clumsily pushed himself towards the nearest crewman.

"Doctor Simental," the captain called as he checked Quinn's gashed head.

"Yes Captain."

"Prepare to receive wounded."

"They're already coming in," the doctor acknowledged, several voices calling out in the background.

The brownish planet grew larger on the viewscreen as the captain wiped blood from the First Officer's face.

"I'm okay, Captain," she said with only a touch of a slur, "Go see to the others."

"Maneuvering thrusters are online, sir," The Chief Engineer failed to convey any confidence in his words. "The main drives may take a bit longer."

"I'll take what I can get." Moving to the piloting console, Jacks checked on the pilot, Bethamin.

Throwing her long black hair over her shoulder, it just hung there as if in a strong wind, waving slightly with her movements. She was intently working to maneuver the ship away from its imminent rendezvous with the approaching planet. "We're good, Captain. I'm putting her into a high orbit."

"Captain!" the priest called urgently from the rear of the bridge.

Turning reflexively he pushed off of the pilot console with his feet, and straightened his body as he flew like a superhero across the bridge to see what the current emergency was. Tucking in his legs and leaning back, he rolled so that he was floating feet first to absorb his impact with the bulkhead. 

"Who is he?" Father Aleman stared sadly at the uniformed man with his head tilted back too far for it to be natural.

"Trey Coffee," the captain sighed, "He was our liaison officer. I'll take him to the morgue," he whispered to the priest. He turned his head and called out, "Quinn, you have the Bridge!"

"Yes, sir!" but he barely heard her as he lifted Trey's body and slung it over his shoulder, heading for the lift at the back of the bridge.

The passageway outside of the medical bay was lined with crew members, most of them with blood-soaked cloths pressed to one part of their body or another, or a limb held tightly against their body. The lack of gravity meant that they were floating in place, some hanging on to handrails or equipment to stay in place. One and all, they straightened up with sober faces as they watched the Captain go by with a dead crewman over his shoulder.

"Jorge," Jacks greeted the doctor as he entered.

"Samuel," the doctor returned the greeting with a weary nod as he took in the bundle he was carrying. "Put him over there," pointing towards a row of metal drawers built into the far wall.

Jacks opened one of the metal drawers only to discover that it was already occupied. The second and third were as well. The fourth drawer was empty, so he gently laid the officer in the drawer and closed it with a silent prayer for the dead men's' souls.

The doctor and both nurses were busily bandaging abbrasions and administering painkillers, dismissing each person back to their stations as they finished. Jorge pulled off a pair of latex gloves and wiped his brow, "Mostly cuts and bruises with the occasional broken bone or concussion," he reported as he jammed the used pair of gloves into a waste receptacle in the wall, "Three dead - four now I suppose," he corrected himself.

"Right," Jacks acknowledged as he steeled himself to go on, "keep me updated," and he headed for the door. That's four people that I have failed. Let's pray that that's all.

"It was sabotage," Hermann Schmitt reported before Jacks could ask, "Whoever it was jammed the acceleration to maximum, locked it there, and then maxed out the power systems causing a cascade of overloads."

"Life support?" although he firmly believed in showing a brave face to his crew, Jacks felt the gnawing chill of fear tighten his stomach. Without power they would all freeze to death before they ran out of oxygen, but it would be unpleasant either way.

"Operational," Schmitt confirmed, "despite the saboteur's efforts."

"What does that mean?"

Pointing to a blackened control panel the Engineer said, "From what I can tell, the short circuit was supposed to overload life support. Only it didn't. The feedback interrupters kept it safe."

"Thank the Gods for that," the captain sighed as part of the knot in his belly relaxed.

"They still did plenty of damage," he glanced at the swarm of technicians trying to fix the power lines and get critical systems back online.

"Keep my informed."

Entering the Security office, Jacks barked, "Markus!" to get the Security Chief's attention.

"Captain," Chief Marks snapped to attention and saluted the captain.

Returning the salute, Jacks said, "At ease, Chief. We have a problem, and you have your first assignment."

"Sir?" Marks stood at ease; back straight, feet apart, and hands folded behind his back.

"We have a saboteur on board. It's your job to find them."

"How did that happen?" he quipped before belatedly adding, "Captain."

"That," the captain pointed out, "is a very good question."

After a moment of thought, Markus nodded as if he had made a decision. "Yes, sir. I'll find them."

"Be careful who you trust," he cautioned, "We have no clues as to who it is."

The Chief nodded curtly and said, "I'll only use one security officers to help me, Captain. I'll trust no one else except you."

"Good man," Jacks slapped his shoulder, "Keep me informed."

"Yes, sir!" the Chief said to the captain's back as he left the Security office.

"Is that Pluto?" Captain Jacks squinted at the display showing the dull brown planet that they were orbiting. Carters of various sizes pocked the surface randomly, some overlapping, giving it a worn and pitted look.

"No sir," Takashi Mikasa, the Navigator, sounded puzzled, "It's too big to be Pluto."

"Well then what planet is that? It can't be Mars."

"No sir," Takashi agreed hesitantly.

The captain's calculating stare shifted to the Navigator, "What aren't you telling me?"

"Um..." he hesitated and swallowed. Turning to face the captain he said, "I don't think we're even in our own solar system anymore."

"What?" Jacks gave him a perplexed and disbelieving look, "I think you'd better check your instruments. There is no possible way that we could have left the solar system. Hell, we can't even travel fast enough to get that far in just a few minutes!"

"I am aware of that, sir. But that," he pointed to the view screen, "Is not any planet in our system."

Punching the intercom buttons with too much force he barked, "Park! Get up here and relieve Mikasa immediately."

A few minutes later Second Navigator Sun Park was seated at the Nav console checking her coworker's readings. "He's right, sir. That's not one of our planets."

"Then where in the sphincter of hell are we?" The tightness in his stomach was back with a vengeance.

"We'll have to take some readings," Mikasa said, "and see if we can find any common stellar constellations to compare to Earth's. It will probably take a few hours." Park nodded her agreement.

"Do it. And get Gates to help you. We have a damn Astronomer on board, so he might as well do something useful."

"Yes sir!" the two navigators snapped in unison before turning to head for the astronomy lab.

"Attention crew, this is the captain," Jacks announced as he turned on the ship-wide intercom, "I know we had a bumpy ride, and we're currently orbiting an unknown planet. We're going to park it here for awhile so that we can get a handle on things. Take this time to tend to your wounds, check out your equipment, and get this ship back into shape so that we can go home. If you don't have anything to do, check in with Maintenance Chief King. I have no doubt that he can find something for you to do. Captain out."