ASHER and Lt. Commander Barker left the briefing room together. After what Chu and Lieutenant Shale had just described in the briefing, the senior staff appeared to have been given a new lease of life.

Before they were looking at either remaining in the Andromeda Cirrus Galaxy or a five year flight home, most of it in the unknown area of open space between the A-C galaxy and the Milky way. And that was assuming that they could get the Slipstream drive operational, if they had to travel using just the auxiliary warp core, the journey would extend to nearly two centuries.

Now everyone had seen another way home and this had fired a new enthusiasm into the crew.

"Commander." ASHER said. "I've been thinking about your problem with the slipstream drive. I was wondering if I could help, there's not a great deal for me to do aboard at the moment."

"To be honest, I can't think of any way that you could help, unless you want to look over some of the slipstream drive reports." Chu replied as they entered the turbo-lift. "Engineering."

"I could probably do better than that." ASHER replied. "What if we were to download all the slipstream information into my matrix. I could become an expert overnight."

"I hadn't thought of that, let's go and look into it." Chu replied. "Halt turbolift. Holographic research lab. Resume."

Five minutes later, they were in the research lab. ASHER felt uneasy about this place, as it had been the first place he'd been reactivated when he'd arrived. He'd been without his mobile emitter then and was scared that he'd jumped over into the mirror universe during his passage through the wormhole.

"Computer, how much information do we have stored on the slipstream drive." Chu asked.

[There are one thousand seven hundred and twenty five terrabytes of information.] The computer replied.

"Show me the categories." Chu ordered.

Immediately the categories appeared on the console in front of the Lt. Commander.

"Computer, remove all statistical data from search and state amount of data left." Chu ordered.

[Four hundred and seventy terrabytes of information remain.] The computer replied.

"That's still far to much data." ASHER stated.

"I know." Chu replied. "How much data can you actually hold ?"

"About three hundred terrabytes. But half of that is taken up by my sub-routines, at best I'd say I could hold maybe one hundred and sixty terrabytes." ASHER replied. "I could always interface with the master computer system."

"I thought of that as well, but I think you may have problems processing external data. When the slipstream bubble's operating, you're going to have to be monitoring it very closely. That's going to be a lot of data hitting you and if we interfaced you with the main computer, you'll probably be overwhelmed." Chu explained. "If only there was some way to get more space."

ASHER was quite for a moment, then he spoke. "What if we stored some of my subroutines off-line." He remarked.

"Like what ?" Chu replied.

"Well I could store the majority of my personal memory database. That could free up about forty terrabytes." ASHER stated.

"Still a hundred short." Chu remarked. "Let's take a look at your subroutines."

Chu selected a few options on the console in front of him and ASHER's entire subroutine menu appeared on the screen. Quickly Chu categorized the sub-routines into areas.

"Your basic subroutines take up nearly fifty terrabytes and we can add another thirty for your cognitive sub-routines. That only leaves your personality subroutines." Chu remarked.

"No way are you taking away who I am." ASHER replied sternly.

"OK, then we're going to have to think about this some more." Chu replied. "If only there was a way to increase your memory capacity."

The two officers remained silent; Chu occasionally had an idea and examined the console read-outs, but then gave a sigh as the idea came to nothing.

Eventually they both admitted defeat, the problem was just too complex.

"Eureka." Chu suddenly shouted out, more to himself than ASHER. "I think I may be able to come up with a solution."

"What ?" ASHER enquired.

"There's a Proletarian shuttle in the main hanger, some of the crew from the Ronin used it to escape. Its systems are highly advanced and I think I saw some kind of tricorder device aboard some time ago. Let's go have a look."

The two friends left the research lab and headed for the shuttle bay. Once there, Chu looked around for the shuttle, eventually seeing the half-dismantled shell in a maintenance area. Some of the shuttles hull plating had been removed to help with repairs to the Leviathan, but in general the vessel was intact.

Chu and ASHER went inside. Although the shuttle had been partially dismantled, the power systems were still online and the lights came on automatically when they entered.

"This must have been some ship to fly." ASHER remarked at he looked around the small vessel. "Not many control though."

"Actually, the Proletarians controlled the vessel telepathically, as they did with most of their technology. I'm hoping that the device can be adapted to interface directly with your mobile emitter Ah, here it is." Chu explained.

Chu had opened a wall-mounted cabinet and took out what appeared to be a gauntlet. Chu placed the device over his left wrist and immediately it sprang to life.

"It works, but how ?." ASHER remarked. "Of course you're half Betazoid, you're controlling it telepathically."

"I was hoping that would be the case, but I wasn't sure. The device could have been adapted so that only the Proletarians could use it. But I took a guess that because the Proletarians had some Vulcans as slaves, the devices may have been designed to be used by any telepathic race." Chu replied. "I think we may have what we need."

Suddenly a 3D image popped up from the gauntlet and started to show sensor readings. As Chu moved his hand across the cockpit, the readings changed.

"WOW." ASHER remarked.

"This is amazing." Chu replied. "I just have to think of what I want to scan and the gauntlet does the rest. Let's see if I can run a diagnostic on the gauntlet itself, maybe we can get a schematic of the device, figure out how it operates."

A view of the gauntlet device appeared on the 3D image and both officers viewed the information scrolling in front of their eyes.

"Is that a shield generator?" ASHER remarked.

The image stopped and then zoomed in on the area ASHER had pointed out.

"I think you're right." Chu replied, "There's more to this device than just a tricorder, it's just amazing. Not only am I seeing the data on the 'screen ' I can also see it in my mind. Let's get this back to a science lab and see if we can't convert it so that it will interface with your mobile emitter."

Half an hour the Captain and Lieutenant Taline had joined Chu and ASHER in science lab twenty-three. Between them, they had already managed to figure out how the device was operated.

"With a little luck, I think I can get this to interface directly with your mobile emitter." Taline stated to ASHER.

"Any ideas as to the capacity of the device." Captain Devore enquired.

"I don't really know, the device uses a highly efficient compression algorithm to store information and the data-store whilst small is highly dense. I'd estimate about eight to nine hundred terraquads, maybe more." Taline replied.

"More than enough for our needs." Chu remarked. "How soon do you think you can get it converted?"

"Hard to say." Taline replied. "Could take a few hours, could take days. It's a highly complex device. As well as a tricorder, it's also got a phaser system and a shield emitter. Plus we don't know what power sources we can use to recharge the power cell. I'd hate to lose the charge that we've got without knowing how put some power back."

"Let me know when it's ready." Chu remarked. "Concentrate on getting the command interface to work it ASHER, we can look at the other systems later."

"I'll stay and assist the Lieutenant." ASHER offered "After all I'm the one who knows most about my holo-matrix and the mobile emitter."

"OK." Chu said "I'll see you later then."

Chu and the Captain left the Chief Engineer and the hologram and headed towards the turbo-lift.

"Do you think this will work?" The Captain asked.

"Let's hope so." Chu replied, stepping into the lift.