Captain Devore hadn't had much time to discover anything about ASHER, but Lt. Commander Barker had encountered the hologram before and he'd explained ASHER's uniqueness. Somehow Devore thought that ASHER and Chu had once been friends, but had fallen out. He couldn't quite say what lead him to this conclusion, but there was something in the way Chu talked about ASHER sometime as if he were a piece of equipment and others as if they were brothers.

This was the first time in over a week that the senior staff had all been in one place. They had narrowly averting the destruction of the Leviathan by a black hole and most of the senior officers had survived being held captive at the hands of the hologram Darwin.

The ship was now orbiting Yerius III, the home world of S'qeurei. The body of K'los, S'qeurei's mate was still in stasis and Captain Devore had promised that he'd return both of them back to their home as soon as possible. S'qeurei had at first been annoyed at missing the festival of the Moonole, but the death of his mate had left a deep emotional wound.

From what Devore could make out, the Dalerians were hermaphrodites. The festival of Moonole or festival of all moons as S'qeurei had re-described it, occurred only once every year. It occurred when the two moons of Yerius III aligned with the sun, causing a lunar eclipse. The area within the full eclipse was deemed to be blessed by the gods and anyone living in that area was granted the right to mate. From what S'qeurei had said, this was only the second time in forty years that his home had been blessed, the first time resulting in the birth of twins, a very rare occurrence. His children would soon be mature enough to take their own mates and would leave S'qeurei. Once that occurred, S'qeurei would be alone; there would be no second chance for him, Dalerians mated for life. Given that the average lifespan of a Dalerian was over two hundred years, S'qeurei at just over a hundred was going to be alone for a long time to come. K'los had been nearly thirty years S'qeurei's senior, but he was also the one who had given birth to the twins.

There was still a lot of damage to be repaired before the Leviathan could safely leave orbit. Repairs to the auxiliary warp core were progressing, but it would take nearly two centuries to return to the Milky Way and the Alpha quadrant using just the warp core. They needed the slipstream drive.

The repairs to the slipstream drive were progressing very slowly; the ship was currently without their Slipstream specialist. Tyra, the Valarian had been killed whilst trying to keep the Leviathan from falling into the black hole. A full enquiry into the accident had been postponed until the ship was repaired. But her expertise was being missed, as was her presence. Major Phanan seemed to have taken it hard, as had Lieutenant Taline.

There were only two people on the ship now with enough knowledge to repair the slipstream drive, Lt. Commander Barker and Lieutenant Taline. Taline was still in remorse over the death of Tyra and was keeping busy repairing other areas of the ship. Chu was also busy, working on repairing the damage to the ship's ODN network. The nanites that had infested the ship had caused major damage to both the isolinear and bio-neural circuits. Although both had taken a quick look at the Slipstream drive, neither had much time to start repairs just yet.

The most pressing problem was the Benamite crystal at the drive's core, this had been damaged and a major fracture was present. It was going to take a month to repair the damage and even then there was no guarantee that the crystal would still function effectively.

"If everyone is here, then I suggest that we begin." Captain Devore said. "How are the repairs going ?"

For the next ten minutes, Devore got an update from his senior officers. The repairs to the warp drive were almost completed, the ODN and bio-neural circuitry was almost clear of the nanites and the outer hull had finally been sealed. Repairs to the slipstream drive however had only just started. The Benamite crystal had been removed and was currently in a recrystalising chamber where the crew was attempting to 'heal' the crack.

Finally the briefing came around to the status of the Hellcat. Devore heard all the information about the damage and how the repairs to the Hellcat were probably beyond the limits of the ship's facilities. The original Leviathan had been designed to be totally self-sufficient, that was how the crew was able to design and construct the Hellcat. That ship had been assigned to explore the far side of the Beta quadrant, far from support.

The Leviathan-A was designed to be just as reliant, but having been pressed into service a full six months ahead of schedule to fight the Barian war, many things had not been installed. The plan was to retrofit the systems after the war, but the intervention of Q had put pay to that plan.

Originally, the ship was to be named the USS Explorer and was to be assigned to explore the Federation borders out towards the Gamma quadrant. But with the destruction of the original Leviathan, it was quickly renamed.

The crew could probably get the Hellcat space-worthy in a couple of months, but to restore the ship fully was going to take the facilities of a star base now. Her sub-structure was heavily damaged, meaning the ship would need to be stripped down and rebuilt.

"OK. Thank you." Devore said. "We just have one more thing to discuss, Mister Barker."

Chu immediately stood up and moved across to the large viewscreen on the wall, Shale also stood and walked to the opposite side of the screen.

"We were performing a diagnostic on the Hellcat's computer systems during our repairs to the ship, when we found an encrypted data file." Chu began to explain as an unreadable message appeared on the screen. "An encrypted file that may give us a way home." Shale added in a hopeful voice.