Time has passed since the Gemini had warped away from Deep Space 17, travelling back to the Klingon borders to the specific location of where the USS Horsehead was last spotted. The bridge was rather calm, no real distraction and actual enjoyable talking between its members of the alpha-shift. The blackout had people worried about their friends, family, and co-workers that were now unreachable. But they had fate in Starfleet ability to fix the communication problem and find a solution to the regional warp issues that cut certain areas simply off.

Gemini had endured some of these pockets of slow-space where they had to travel between warp 4 to 6, and it took a great gap in their planned schedule to arrive at their designated area. But they were moving forward and hopefully arrive soon.

Tapping on the console, Keeyiro was focusing on the latest data, made her shrug slightly. She couldn’t figure it out, there was not much for her to do anyway, so she amused herself to see what data she could get about the blackout. But this was potential, a puzzle that was above her knowledge, and she groans a bit in the build-up of frustration.

“Ensign?”

A voice came from behind her as Keeyiro looked over her shoulder, seeing Drata look at her with curiosity flicker in his eyes. Keeyiro knew that Drata was as bored “It’s just this blackout, I am looking over the data, and I am struggling to connect the dots”

Drata looked at the data and crossed his arms while he thought for a moment, “What do we know?”

“We know it hit both Alpha and Beta quadrants. We know that certain areas are hit with an anomaly where the travel possibilities are limited to nonexisting. We also know that the same areas are experiencing difficulty in short and long-range communication with either being static, unable to connect or very difficult to decrypt.” She hums a bit looking at the data “The thing that I find odd, is why these areas” She points at key locations.

Before Drata could response, another voice replied “From a security point of view, it is a tactical advanced to take out key locations from the infrastructure that would lay waste to operations on a galactic scale” Miki looked up from his console at their direction as he shrugs “But that would be impossible to perform something like that in such a large scale. So we can only accept that it is a natural event”

Both Keeyiro and Drata looked at each other a bit puzzled before looking at Miki “But the anomaly is forming at key locations?” Keeyiro pointed out.

“The logical thinking is that these events are connected to each other. But Lieutenant Miki approach is build on a foundation of experience” Suto steps away from the wall panel, yet not looking at them “However, there is another hypothesis to this parameter that changes the variables significantly” Suto looks finally looked at Miki “Underspace”

Miki looked back at Suto a bit confused, “Underspace? The network that appeared and collapse a few months ago?” He remembers the events of it very well, as he was trapped on the Mariner when they got dragged into one of the Underspace opening.

Taking another look at her console as she resumes her duty, Suto continues “The Underspace appearance was never truly explained, what if its events are connected to the events of this blackout. We are talking about a natural event, yet we know nothing of how or why the Underspace appeared and collapsed” Suto taps the latest data of her sensor in “We only know what is given to us, the subspace corridors were created naturally, but its collapse was questionable. Most likely, an unknown party had a certain influence in its collapse”

“Okay, what has that to do with the blackout” Keeyiro leaned back in her chair to look at Suto direction.

A soft hum came from Suto who tapped on her console “The connection might be unclear for now, but the chance that it appears as a natural event seems too strange”

Hearing this conversation for a while now, Ko looked up from her PADD “She means that the chance that the Underspace event and this Blackout happening in such a short period of time is not natural in the first place, and correct if I am wrong, but you suspect there is another party involved in said events. Not only this blackout?” Ko looked over her shoulder at Suto.

“Exactly Commander” Suto responded brief.

The discussion was getting more interested, but Padgok suddenly spoke when the ship started to slow down, “We are experiencing a slow-space”

Ko shrugs as she grabs the armrest, “How fast are we able to get to the last known location?”

He looked up at the screen as the Gemini jumped out of warp “No warp this time Commander, changing engines to full impulse to reach the designation”

“What is the ETA?” Ko asked narrowing her eyes looking at Drata “Contact Deep Space 17 on our status”.

“ETA has changed from 1 day to 3 days and 10 hours at full impulse” Padgok reported moving the ship ahead onto the navigational path that was planned.

Taking a deep breath, “Alright…” Ko shrugs that their time had been stretch again.

“Commander, I am unable to contact Deep Space 17” Drata announced as he looked at the data getting backup from Keeyiro “Correction, I am unable to connect to any kind of station, ship or colony in the known area”

Ko turned her attention to Drata and nods as she taps her badge “Bridge to Captain Ruslanovna, we experiecing the blackout on full throttle now”

It took a second as Silina enters the bridge from her ready room “Report”

“Lieutenant Padgok is putting full impulse on our engines to get to the last known location of the USS Horsehead. It will take us 3 days and 10 hours to get there”

“3 days, 9 hours and 55 minutes” Padgok correctly, still focus on his console.

Both Ko and Silina looked at Padgok a bit confused “Right, I ordered Lieutenant Taritt to update Deep Space 17, he is unable to get any connection up” Ko looked at Drata to continue it.

Drata looked up from his console, “I placed an area sweep of communication grids that are known to us. It seems we are unable to connect to any of the known communication grids in the area. We are fully in the darkness, Captain”

Looking at the screen, Silina leans the palm on her hip and shrugs, “We continue our journey to the last known location. Lieutenant Taritt work with Lieutenant Scott to find out what can be done about our communication problem” Silina stare at the screen was pretty much locked, this was getting overcomplicated “Keep me updated, Lieutenant Miki place the ship in yellow alert, no battle stations are needed, but I don’t want any surprises”.

The bridge crew acknowledge the orders as Silina finally walked back to her ready room to resume her administrational duties. There was not much other she could do right now for them. It was truly a waiting game.