The computer of the Bendross-I struggled back to life. It was a slow process. After being abandoned for eight years, it wasn't in great shape. Hamilton didn't dare risk a neutral interface with the machine. He was banging away on an old console, keyboard and screen like his ancestral hackers before him.

Hamilton grimaced at the thought. The Bendross-I main computer was state of the art for 2068, and Hamilton certainly wouldn't have put it out for the Scavengers when the Bendross-III launched.

It finally completed its main boot and started retaking control of the Bendross-I. Hamilton looked at the read outs "This ship is fucked."

Kerensky blinked at him. "I hope not. There are five thousand people aboard."

"Less about 25." Hamilton said. That seemed to be the number of dead and missing, so far as the expedition team could tell.

Hamilton shook his head and tried to reframe his conception of the Bendross-I. "I think we can land the Bendross-I colony. I think we can scavenge a lot off Bendross-I to make Tristan happy. However, if these guys were alone, they'd have to bail out and abandon the Bendross-I."

Kerenski shook his head. "Any idea of what happened?"

"Not even, but I'll work my way into the command sequences, and I'll own this computer before long. Then I'll be able to tell you what was left." Hamilton said. "On thing I can tell you. It's been hacked before."

"How do you know?"

"The Password was Walden Pond. A common Luddite reference. As if no one else can read a goddamned book."

-*-

"Got it" Stilwell called. The lights on the Bendross-I came back on and gravity reasserted itself. It was weak but definite.

"Good work, Eric!" Martin Kerensky called.

"That's only one reactor. We have life support and auxiliary systems. I could use some help getting the other five back up."

-*-

The Comm system came back on line, slowly and painfully. Eventually the Expedition 1 crew had it working. There was an incoming Signal. Hamilton patched it in.

"[Merciful God in the Heavens, Bendross, please answer. I saw something happening last light. Please don't let it be another hallucination.]" A voice was crying.

"What language is that?" Hamilton asked. He didn't catch a word.

"[This is Bendross calling. ]" Martin answered in French "[Identify and report status, please. ] "

"[Thank God, thank God, Thank God, Thank God.]" The Voice cried happily.

"What the fuck?" Hamilton looked at Martin.

"It's French." Michelle Gibbons said, smiling slightly. "The language of education and culture. I'm not surprised you don't understand it, Ham."

Hamilton rolled his eyes "Ha, ha Michelle."

She smiled more broadly. "I'll help you with the big words, if you like."

Hamilton shook his head and turn back to the comm. system. "I'll fire up the laser for the Bendross-III."

"[I am Jacques Gradieaux, Expedition One. I am the Last Survivor. We were shot down here eight years ago! Please, Bendross, can you evacuate me?]" Gradieaux called, desperately.

Kerenski Blinked slowly. "[We have some damage up here that needs to be dealt with. We'll be there soon, Mister Gradieaux. A few hours, maybe.]"

"[God in heaven!]" Gradieaux shouted "[Certainly do what's best for the ship, but please come get me soon! I have learned all about the surface. I know far more than I ever wanted to know.]"

"[We'll be there. Relay landing coordinates to my comrade. We won't let you go, Jacques.]"

The voice simply started crying.

Hamilton keyed the Microphone. "Dude, do you, ah, like, speak English?"

"Yes!" Gradieaux cried happily. "It's so wonderful to hear Earthly language and human voices again! You don't know what it's been like." Sobs and snuffles accompanied Gradieaux's happy shouts and laughs.

"Now, we need to make sure the rest of the crew wakes up." Martin said.

"Is that wise?" Hamilton asked.

"You want to try and get this ship back into flyable condition by yourself?" Kerensky asked.

Hamilton shrugged "Good point."

-*-

Linda Vasquez hated coming out of cold sleep. The cotton mouth and the dry eyes were painful. The dizziness and overall misery were difficult, but all that was about as bad as Marine Corps training ever got. What Vasquez hated worse was that she was helpless in the immediate aftermath, a feeling that scared her to her marrow.

Linda was a Marine now. So when confronted with frightening and overwhelming helplessness and fear, she did what Marines do. She attacked back.

"Ugghh." She tried to speak forcefully, if without content. She flailed to get her feet under her. Hands grabbed her. She twisted at them and tried to punch the source.

Vasquez' opinion was that if it was someone who didn't need to be punched, she could apologize later.

"Calm down Chiquita." A smooth female voice said. "I'm the doctor. I'm getting you out of there."

"Bitch!" Vasquez managed. She finally got a hold of a human figure, she clung desperately. And learned that she was keeled way over at 45 degrees from the deck. Her knees buckled and she found herself more stable.

A tube with water found its way into her mouth. Vasquez drank greedily, at the last rinsing her mouth out and spitting on the deck. Vasquez grabbed the bottle and rinsed out her eyes, blinking away the sleep and dryness of hibernation.

She looked up into the face of an ebony black woman who was holding her up.

"Feeling better?" Jon Dou asked.

"No." Vasquez said. "Gimme a day, some beer and a man who's good at massage, and I'll let you know."

Jon Dou Smiled. "If I find those, I'm keeping them for myself."

Vasquez grinned and then managed to get the rest of the way to her feet.

-*-

With a watch of the Bendross-I crew coming back to life, and taking over the repair of the derelict ship, Hamilton focused on wresting control of the Bendross-I computer back. Hamilton dug up a diagnostic terminal. It was a small laptop style computer with it's own independent operating systems and programming.

Hamilton had to crack it open and scavenge from Expedition One's supplies to upgrade the memory and main processor to a state he was happy with.

Hamilton also retrieved a disk of programs he made sure to have at hand, hacking software.

With an improvised hacking deck and the latest word in hacking software, he attacked the main computer core of Bendross-I.

It took about half an hour of tedious methodical digging.

Hamilton came out of the interface to see Kerensky watching him. "Hey, Martin."

"What did you find?"

"Watch." Hamilton called up a picture. "This was as they first arrived."

The screen showed the bridge crew of the Bendross-I manning their stations. "They made orbit without running into any stealth nukes." Hamilton pointed out.

The bomb went off. It killed most of the bridge crew instantly. The hole in the side simply dumped everything that was loose out into space like the room was tipped over.

One woman stayed strapped in her chair. Bloodied, she struggled. Her face grew red and then purple. Her blood started to boil off her body. Her eyes, nose and mouth started to bleed.

She got clear of the seatbelt at long last, but then struggled, blind, in Zero gravity, unable to find the hatch until after three painful minutes she stopped kicking and flailing, to go limp.

The scene switched to show the sickbay of the Bendross-I. The doctor was there. She looked up sharply and then started hustling. Hamilton narrated the silent picture. "This was Doctor Wilmington. She heard the bomb go off, and started prepping for casualties."

A tall, slim man with a hawkish face and a cold look stepped into the compartment. Wordlessly he brought up a gauss gun and fired a burst into Wilmington. Her mid section exploded to bloody fragments and she dropped to the deck.

The screen stopped and Hamilton enhanced the hawkish man's face. "Ned Callwader." Hamilton said bitterly. "He slaughtered five other people on the ship."

"What was he doing?" Kerensky asked.

"He already owned the computer. He didn't delete the records, I guess because he figured he didn't leave anyone behind who could get to them." Hamilton said. "Watch, he explains it pretty directly."

A screen of the Bendross-I's weapons console came up.

The Ladar of the Bendross-I locked onto a shuttlecraft. The Shuttle's transponder was pinging "Expedition One" the main laser heated up. The Expedition One shuttle began violent evasive maneuvers. "They detected the Ladar lock, and tried to evade. The pilot's going balls out, but it's a modified cargo shuttle." Hamilton said.

A single beam from the Bendross-I crippled the shuttle, which went straight down.

Kerensky grimaced. "This guy is something else."

"Watch. It gets better."

The screen cleared again to show a cargo bay of the Bendross-I. Ned Callwader appeared in it, with a cargo rig, carrying a cold sleep tube. "That's an active tube."

In over wound fast motion Callwader grabbed and stowed nine more tubes aboard one of the Bendross-I orbit to ground tugs.

"His harem." Hamilton said "he picked ten women off the ship and kidnapped them.

The screen changed to show a tracking screen. The empty Bendross-I obediently and mindlessly tracked the tug to the other planet, called roughly, Beta. It lost track of him somewhere during the approach.

Hamilton turned to face Kerensky. "I am guessing that Ned was a Luddite plant who decided to make his own Primitive, Natural Life style, right there on Beta. This creep needs to go down."

"We'll add him to the list." Kerensky said, coldly. "First things first. We need to rescue Gradieaux and debrief him. Then we need to bring the Bendross-III in. Then we can think about going after Callwader."

Hamilton shrugged. "If we can find him after his hostages got done with him."

"There is that."

-*-

Hamilton was walking along happily noticing that the Bendross-I had a sizable female population. According to the records, the Bendross-I launched with a 3:1 female to male ratio, and over half the women were pregnant when they left.

Although Hamilton thought the idea was immensely stupid, it did make his chances for getting a date suddenly much better.

Lost in thought Hamilton bumped into Vasquez.

"Excuse me." He said, talking half a step back. "Excuuuse me." He grinned at her, with what he hoped was disarmingly boyish charm.

With a single punch Vasquez knocked Hamilton to the deck. She moved in and knelt on his neck, hard enough to control his balance, but not enough to cut off his breathing totally.

"Gkkkk!" Hamilton struggled.

"And just what the fuck is the Bendross-III?" she asked calmly.

"We're..." Hamilton gagged and gasped "The... other... ship."

"Why the fuck would Bendross spring for another ship? What happened to the Bendross-II?"

"Gkkk..." Hamilton said "You were lost. No one knew what happened to you." He gasped desperately for breath "Other one, blown up."

"Oh." Vasquez stepped back off Hamilton's neck, "sorry."

Hamilton took a couple of ragged, deep breaths. "No problem." After a few moments he rolled to the side and began to lever himself into an upright position. "You'd be surprised at how many pretty women deck me right off the bat."

Vasquez smiled faintly. "No, I wouldn't" and continued on her way.

Hamilton stared after her. "I really need to work on that."

-*-

The Bendross-III Expedition Two team was heading back for the lock where Expedition Two was docked.

"Thank you." Genny Keans said. She was the head of the 19th watch and default commander of the Bendross-I. "We're in touch with Bendross-III. Since Brennan Antony is there, and Donovan Olson, I'm happy to let them take charge when they get here."

Kerensky nodded. "Glad we could help."

"Since we lost all that time, and our own Expedition One, I'm going to ask you to proceed with your mission as normal down there. We need to get a Landing Zone pretty directly. This ship won't last long enough to dick around about it."

"What about Gradieaux?" Rudy asked.

Keans shook her head. "If he's in bad shape, or needs medical attention, then evac him up here, of course. If he can survive another few days, then please, continue the mission. We have 5000 people up here who need to get solid dirt under them quickly."

Kerensky nodded. "We'll stay in touch. No more surprises?"

"I'm waking up the security people now. No one is taking this ship a second time without a hell of a fight."

Vasquez stepped forward. She carrying her equipment for a landing mission "I wanna come with you."

Kerensky looked at her, reading her prolific tattoos. "Marines?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Kerensky, Captain, USMC, Space Recon."

Vasquez came to attention. "Sergeant Linda Vasquez, United States Marines." She saluted.

"Welcome aboard." Kerenski said seriously.

Hamilton nodded to himself. "Oh yeah," he thought. "Life's fair."

Catching the Motion on Dou leaned over. "Think you have a chance with her, Flyboy?"

"Depends on what sort of chance you mean." Hamilton said. "A chance to escape, maybe."

Jon Dou giggled. Hamilton stared at her

"I like that." She smirked. "A chance to escape."

-TBC-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.