After Connor and Linda had left sickbay, Denise turned to Yalp. She said,

"Yalp, how are we?" He was silent as he looked everything over. After a couple of minutes he turned to face her and said,

"We have one major problem. The system drive is down and that means we can not move. If we do not get it up and running soon we will never get docked with that ship was found on our sensors. That would mean our death over the long period, because we know the Empress will not handle any sort of storm, or heavy weather. Denise thought about what she had just been told and said,

"How long to fix it?"

"I don't know. It could be an hour or it could be a week, I have to go and see what is wrong."

"All right just keep me informed, but do what ever you think is necessary to get us moving again." Yalp almost ran out of Auxiliary Control and made his way to Engineering.

Yalp hurried into the engineering area and said,

"Ok, what is going on? Can anyone tell me what is happening yet or would you like me to come back when you have had time to figure it out?"

"No idea, but we do know that the power connections to the system drive is out and that is why we can't move."

"I will go look into that while you try to find out why it has happened." Yalp then moved to a ladder that would take him down to the power connections to the system drive. Finding the right access panel, he opened it and started to look around. Everything looked normal, so he put on his engineering gauntlet and started to take readings. Looking at the readings Yalp could not believe what he saw, but somehow the power just seemed to disappear after a specific connection that lead to the System Drive. Yalp thought, 'How could this be it is against the laws of physics for power to just disappear.' Moving off he went into the power station and checked on the Mass Reactor, he followed the power lines to the power connections to the system drive and all of a sudden the line was dead.

Sitting there scratching his head he came up with two possibilities. The first was that the power was being bled off to another system, but after looking he could not find it. He shock his head because that had been all most impossible, but it had to be some where. His other idea was that the energy had been changed somehow. If that were the case maybe it was right in front of him and he did not even know it. Changing the settings on his gauntlet he started to look for any kind of energy. After about fifteen minutes the data on his computer gauntlet told him there did not seem to be any energy pattern that should not be there. He knew deep down in his soul that this was the only answer, so he started to fiddle with his gauntlet. After about twenty minutes he came up with an idea. Energy flows and has patterns of all kinds, if he could not find the energy maybe he could find the flow pattern or turbulence from the energy flow. He made some more adjustments to his gauntlet and then started looking again. This time he found something.

At first it was such a small reading that he almost missed it, so he changed the settings on his gauntlet and started again. When he had finished this time he had a perfect reading, there was a steady flow of something out of the power connections. The flow headed out of the power connection and right out through the wall, that in itself was almost impossible. Now that he knew the flow of energy he needed to identify what kind it was. More adjustments to his gauntlet and he was back to searching again, now that he knew what he was looking it did not take very long. After a couple of seconds he found the energy and it was a very unusual form of Beta Radiation. Yalp thought, 'How is it changed? Where could it be going?' He decided to follow the stream and see where it went, maybe that would give him some sort of idea as to how he could shut it down. Getting out of the access tunnel he moved around so he could follow the trail from the beta energy flow. He followed the flow to a storage compartment and entered, but it did not end there it went right out through the hull.

Yalp was even more confused, it looked as if someone or something could convert the energy from the Mass reactor and then suck it out in a new form. He had never heard of such technology and knew it was above anything from the Solar Ring. Could there be someone or something living here that was that much more advanced than humans or any other intelligent species that was known. He was shaken by such a thought, then shaking his head to get back to the problem at hand. 'How was he going to stop or block this ray or what ever it is?' He needed more information so he called a couple of technicians he knew had worked on some really hush hush projects on Mars at a government facility. He explained to the two men what he had found out and said,

"Gentlemen we need information and ideas and we need it fast. We have to get the engines back on line or as soon as some ruff weather comes along we will sink." The men went right to work while Yalp went to the main Engineering computer consul. He wanted to see the readings from before they lost power. Finding what he needed, it seemed they had been hit by a stream of Beta Radiation right before the lose of power. This did not make sense Beta Radiation is completely harmless, so what had happened?