500 Pieces, Ages 12 and Up

[WxMurray 0]

Murray was sitting on the floor in the Romulan engine room. Among him were various components that the away teams had found. They weren’t quite sure what they all were, but Murray knew.

 

Well, sort of.

 

He had separated the components into two piles, one containing parts that he could identify, and the other containing parts that he couldn’t.

 

“EPS conduit. EPS housing. ODN relay equivalent. This looks like an auxiliary power cell.”

 

He had been going on for several minutes with O’Neil looking on. Occasionally he would come across a piece that he recognized but couldn’t quite identitfy.

 

“Nikki, what’s this one? It looks like something we saw on the aux generator back at PP.”

 

Dickinson glanced at the piece and thought a minute. “Oh, yeah, I remember seeing those. I think it’s a power distribution manifold. It’s slightly different from the one on the aux generator. This one’s probably for something a bit more powerful.”

 

Murray nodded. “Well, that’s the last one.” He turned to the other pile. “These, though, I don’t think I’ve seen before.”

 

Dickinson joined him on the floor. “Well, I…well…yeah, I’ve got nothing. It doesn’t even appear to be Romulan.”

 

“It doesn’t, does it? There are several more here. I think it’s some sort of phased energy inducer, but for all I can tell, maybe it’s the Romulan commander’s pet hunk of metal. Uplink your tricorder to the Agincourt’s computer, and see if you can identify these pieces.”

 

“Aye, sir.”

 

Murray looked at the pieces on the floor around them. He was staring at a problem like someone had mixed twenty different jigsaw puzzles together: nothing fit and the picture was total confusion. What were all these pieces doing out and about like this? And why did the Vacitu have some non-Romulan pieces. Was he missing something.

 

“Hey, Saf, I’m picking up an energy signature of some sort. It appears to be coming from one of the lower decks.”

 

Murray looked up at Dickinson and thought. Strange pieces and a strange signal on the Romulan ship that they believed had carried out the bombing on the VDC. Perhaps all of those pieces were about to fit together.