Out of the Silence [Deacon/Rama]

[Rama's Place Bar]

The bar was quiet. At this time of day the bar would typically be full of activity. Crowds around the dabbo tables and lines of thirsty patrons would wrap around the bar area. The silence was award and eerie, sounds emitted from motionless dabbo wheel. It beeped awaiting the next spin. There was a hum from the holosuites came from the upper level. The programs were active but no one occupied the room. The only person I the bar was Rama. He lye unconscious on the floor behind the bar. His body appeared lifeless when a sudden spark seemed to emit from his body. His head slowly began to move and his eye partially opened. The Ferengi raised a hand and placed it on his head.

"What happened?" He stammered.

He slowly sat up. "Brelk." He muttered. "Where are you." His ears heard something very odd. More aptly put, it was what he didn't hear that he found odd. Nothing but a few hums of games and machinery. No signs of anyone.

Rama slowly made his way to his feet and leaned over the bar. "Computer time." He asked. "The time is currently 21:02 hours." The computer replied.

Where is everyone? He thought.

"Hello...." He said quietly. "Hello...." Rama's voice grew louder.

"Hello... Is anyone out there."

[Admiral Deacon's Office]

The deckplates were uncomfortable beneath her as Rachel pushed herself into a sitting position, one hand going to her head before feeling the deck around her VISOR. Locating the semi-circle of sensors, she quickly clipped it into place before using her desk to help her to her feet.

Stepping out of her office into the operations centre of her station, Rachel barked out an order for her officers to report, but got no answer. Strangely enough, her VISOR wasn't picking up any life signs on the bridge either. She frowned slightly, then called out to the computer to verify what her VISOR was telling her.

"Computer, are there any life forms present on the station?"

There is one life form present.

"Who and where?"

"Civilian Rama, Promenade, Rama's Bar."

With a heavy sigh, Rachel made her way to the turbolift, although she made a stop by the weapons locker to pick up a phaser rifle.

The turbolift ride to the promenade was a short one, but stepping out onto the silent passage was disconcerting. It had never exactly been a hive of activity given that it was still quite an unknown station, but there should still have been quite a number of civilians around.

She approached the bar, her finger still on the trigger of her rifle. Something about this situation had her hair on end and that wasn't a comfortable position to be in.

"Rama? Are you there?"

Rama began to stumble through the back of the bar and located his phaser. He wasn't certain what had happened but everyone was gone. "This can't be good." The Ferengi muttered. He picked up the weapon and held it close. Not that Rama knew what he would do with the device if he encountered someone hostile.

The Ferengi was scared and jittery when he heard a voice call his name. "Who... who's there." He stammered. He slowly stepped towards the bar. "I'm armed." Se called out with a certain amount of apprehension and tension in his voice. The Ferengi stepped closer and closed his eyes. He pointed the weapon towards the door. His hand began to shake violently. "Don't come and closer, i'll shoot. I swear!"

Spotting Rama's head popping up from behind the bar, Rachel fought back a sigh. This Ferengi was definitely not a security officer, or an officer at all.

"Given your current physiological readings, Rama, I would be impressed if you manage to fire that thing in a straight line, let alone manage to hit anything," she said, stepping out into the open.

Rama lowered his weapon and let out an audible sigh of relief. "Admiral, am I glad to see you. I haven't been able to find anyone." He walked closer to the Admiral. "Do you know what's going on. I woke up on the floor behind the bar. I can't seem to locate my staff.. or my customers... or anyone for that matter? The lost revenue is going to greatly impact my profits for today."

"Yes, because your profits are the concerning factor here," Rachel replied sarcastically. "Shouldn't we be a little more worried about the fact that suddenly, everyone who generated that profit has suddenly gone missing? Or, more worrying still, my entire crew has also gone missing?"

Rachel sighed, flicking the safety catch on her rifle into the 'engaged' position and slung the strap over her shoulder. It didn't make much sense to her that she and the Ferengi were the only two left on the station, and yet it was so. The logic that her Vulcan teachers had spent so long teaching her was in complete bafflement.

"We should try to find out what happened."

"Well you should be concerned with my profits. One day, when we have more time, I will go into detail as to why my profits should be important to you." The Ferengi move beside Rachel. "You're right about one thing though. We need to figure out what happened." He paused and placed his phaser in his breast pocket for safe keeping. "Well, you're the brass here. What should we do?"

"I fail to see how your profits could be of any benefit to me," Rachel pointed out before she decided just to drop the subject entirely. There weren't enough hours in the day to get into a discussion with a Ferengi about profit.

"Maybe the station's sensors will have picked something up, some kind of anomaly that might have passed through the station."

The Ferengi sighed. He feared that she would never understand Ferengi culture. He looked to the admiral. "An anmoly that gets rid of all lifeforms but happens to leave the two of us? Sounds a little far fetched. But who am I to argue... you are, after all, the officer here."

It was just as well that Rachel's VISOR hid a good deal of her expression, since it could have been inadequately described as 'unamused'.

"It's a place to start, unless you happen to have any better ideas?"

"Maybe you're right Admiral. I guess its as good as any other theory we've got." Rama said as he began to make his way to the turbo lift. As he boarded the lift he looked to Rachel and extended a finger and pointed in her direction. "We'll have to discuss the terms of payment at a later time. If I'm heading to operations I want hazard pay."

"Terms of payment?" Rachel repeated with a decidedly unamused tone as she stepped into the turbolift and called for operations. Her head dropped slightly as she appeared to look at the finger being pointed at her. One eyebrow rose slightly above the edge of her VISOR in disapproval as she considered taking off the offending digit, but then remembering that she had to at least attempt to be civil to the only other living being on the station. "I'm afraid that you won't be receiving any kind of pay, Mr Rama, hazard or otherwise. If that means that you decide not to accompany me and remain on your own, then so be it. I will attempt to discover what has happened on my own."

The Ferengi stood back as the Admiral walked away. He pondered his choices as the distance between them grew greater. The fear of the loneliness and loneliness overcame him. He quickly ran to catch up with her. "Okay, okay. I'll help you. Seeing that I don't have any customers to tend to. Where do we begin?"

Rachel hadn't bothered to slow down as Rama scurried to catch up with her, determined to get back to the operations centre and start working on finding out just what on earth had happened on the station.

"We start by looking through the sensor logs. That should help us eliminate a few possibilities."

"Sounds good." Rama said as the turbo lift approached the stations operations center. He stepped out of the lift and looked to his right, looked to his left and again to his right. A look of confusion filled his face. "Um... Um... Admiral... Where are the sensor logs?"

Rachel sighed as she stepped out of the turbolift. She would have rolled her eyes as she followed the Ferengi, had that ever been a habit of hers. Instead, she stepped down to the master system's display in the centre of the operations hub and keyed in her access codes, booting up the large, table-like console.

"The sensor logs are recorded in four places, two on the main computer, and one each on the back up computers," she stated.

As the Admiral entered her access code Rama smiled and waved his hand over the console dismissing the Admiral. Every once in while, he believed, it wasn't a bad idea to show your hand. Let the opposition realize that they may have under estimated you. "Standard level 2 Starfleet access codes?" He asked rhetorically. He entered his code and the terminal unlocked. "Let's see... How about I check the back up systems while you go through the main logs. I'll check for inconsistencies. Maybe if someone did this they wiped the sensor logs... but maybe they didn't think of the backups?"

Looking up as she heard another console being logged on and processing the information that she had heard from the Ferengi, Rachel scowled. There was no way he should have those access codes.

Using a remote link up through the consoles, Rachel logged him out again and locked the console. "You should not have those codes," she informed him before looking back down at her own and bringing up the sensor logs, starting to peruse them, only to find that they had been completely wiped, barring an hour or two's worth of data that had just been logged by the sensors for the duty officers to interpret.

"Hm, it would seem that someone has managed to get here before us."

Rama smiled as the Admiral removed his access. He smiled because where she wrote out one code he had ten more lying around that he could still use. Security levels one through seven ready and available at any time.

"Well, if the logs were wiped approximately 1 or 2 hours ago it would stand to reason that whatever happened took place just before that. But something doesn't add up. If you go through the trouble of getting rid of everyone why bother to erase sensor logs?"

Taking a seat at the duty station, Rachel rested her elbows on the edge of the glossy glass surface, interweaving her fingers and resting her chin on them as she worked to figure out what was happening on her station.

"I'm not sure, but I intend to find out."

Rama poured over the logs for inconsistencies. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The station seemed to be operating at peek efficiency. If there was anything odd it was that everything was too perfect. "This is odd." He muttered under his breathe. "Admiral, have a look at this." He gestured to the console smirked. "I have never seen any installation operating at such peek efficiency. Although I do not doubt you strength as a Commanding Officer, look at this. Environmental systems are at peek efficiency. Waste reclamation systems are at peek efficiency. And same thing... everywhere. The stations computer core, power distribution systems, the deflector grid.... and the list goes on. Even the damned replicator in my bar are working perfectly. It just doesn't make any sense......"

A blank stare filled the Ferengi's eyes as he stood and reached his hand to his head. "It... It..." He stammered. Without warning he released a high pitched shrill that seemed to overcome the operations center. His mind grew foggy as he fell backwards to the deck plates. The weight of his eyelids seemed to overwhelm is body. He quickly drifted as the operations center around him began to blur and come out of focus. His eyes shut to the sight of blurred consoles.

The Ferengi could slowly feel his eyes opening. A bright light penetrated his field of vision. He saw a figure standing over him. The light was far too bright to distinguish any features. He could feel himself drifting in and out of consciousness. "Rama... Rama..." The Ferengi could barely make out the words. The voice seemed distant and far removed from that particular moment in time. "Rachel..." He attempted to speak but the words couldn't escape his mind. Rama. You're in si ... The Ferengi faded back out as his eyes closed again. He couldn't escape the weight his lids seemed to have gained.

Rachel had only been listening to Rama with half an ear as she did her own perusal of what log records there were, but she looked up at him as he stammered something. Frowning, she straightened up from her position scanning the Ferengi. It seemed almost as if he had... flickered? She shook her head, taking off her VISOR and feeling for the diagnostic panel. When it pulsed under her fingers that there was nothing wrong, she clipped it back into place. Rama was standing by the console again, solid as ever.

"Rama? Is something amiss?"

Rama's breathing slowed from the rapid pace to a much more manageable one as he slowly calmed down from his experience. His hand began to shake and his heart felt as if it could jump from his chest at any moment. "I...." The words didn't come easily. "I... don't... I don't know." As the words moved past his lips he was slowly beginning to regain control of his senses. "I'm not sure what just happened." His hand continued to shake until he moved it closer to his body. "I couldn't make much out but I certainly wasn't in operations anymore. There was a bright light. The shadow of someone hovering over me and the strangest part was that they kept saying my name over and over again. I don't think they wanted to hurt me. It seemed as if they were concerned for my well-being. It was quite the experience."

Rachel listened to Rama's account of what he had experienced, thinking through her expansive memory to try to find any mention of anything similar happening, but drawing a blank.

"You did seem to flicker for a moment," she replied. "I thought my VISOR was playing up, but diagnostics say that there's nothing wrong with it. It may be an idea to place medical monitors on ourselves, to ensure that our vitals remain-"

Her idea was cut short as she gasped, one hand going to her VISOR implants as she braced the other against the console. Her vision was cutting in and out, her head splitting with the pain.