Tey'un stood in the doorway of what was once his laboratory and sanctuary. It was now a completely blank, bare box—pristine, sterile, and as devoid of life as the day he had first moved in.
He was far from alone in his misery. Every single crewmember's quarters had been "fixed" back to its Day Zero state. Every person's belongings, every keepsake, every touch of home, every gift from a loved one, and every trinket from a distant world had been identified as a "deviation" from the ship's original schematics. Trillions of nanites had systematically dematerialized everything not in the blueprints, feeding the raw matter back into the ship's reserves.
As Tey'un stood paralyzed by the sight of his lost work, he felt a cold, heavy tap on his shoulder.
"What… did you do?"
The voice was ice. Tey'un turned to see a very perturbed Thegris, formerly Two of Three, standing behind him. The El-Aurian-Borg glared at him with an intensity that was far too emotional for a drone, but perfectly reasonable for a man who had just lost literal centuries of keepsakes.
"You modified the repair parameters, didn't you?" Thegris asked, his voice dropping an octave.
Tey'un's throat felt tight. He could only manage a tiny, jerky nod.
"Undo it. Now." Thegris scowled. "Do it fast enough that the bridge doesn't notice the mass-purging, and I won't tell the Captain it was your subroutine."
Tey'un didn't wait for a second warning. He turned and dashed off, his three-meter frame moving as fast as his long limbs could carry him.
—
Running on all fours through the hallways like a panther, Tey'un blurred through the pristine corridors of the Nexus. He ignored the screams of hysterical crewmates who were currently watching their favorite chairs and family heirlooms vanish into sapphire glitter.
He burst into the Nanite Replicator Chamber to find the room bathed in a strobe of red emergency lights. The sirens were a physical weight against his ears.
"MATTER OVER CAPACITY. MATTER RESERVES REACHING CRITICAL LEVELS," the computer chirped incessantly.
"Uh… Uh… Uh…" Tey'un's hands hovered over the console, but his fingers wouldn't move. The sensory input—the lights, the sirens, the weight of the failure—was triggering a massive executive dysfunction. His breathing became shallow. "Uh… Ah… AHH… AHHHH!"
The panic attack hit like a physical wall, grounding his brilliant mind to a halt.
Suddenly, Thegris appeared in the doorway. He was calm, cool, and perfectly collected, his Borg ability to suppress emotion in a crisis overriding his El-Aurian irritation.
"Computer," Thegris commanded, his voice cutting through the noise. "Create a hard-link buffer. Transport excess matter reserves into secondary storage containers in Cargo Bays 1 through 5. Repeat the cycle until matter reserves reach 90% capacity."
—
In the ship's cargo bays, the glistening white light of the transporters began to fire in rapid succession. The empty bays were suddenly filled to the brim with thousands of blue-barreled industrial containers, each packed with Omni-matter—the fine, grey "sand" of raw atomic materials used for matter synthesis.
—
"The Law of Conservation of Matter is still in effect, Chief," Thegris said, turning to the panicked Na'vi. He stepped forward and pressed a hypospray to Tey'un's neck. "This will stabilize your cortisol levels. Breathe."
Tey'un's racing heart began to slow. The "noise" in his brain receded.
Thegris didn't miss a beat. "I don't know exactly what you did to the programming, but the ship is currently three minutes away from 'cleaning' the crew's uniforms while they're wearing them. Revert it. Now."
Tey'un, his mind finally clear, sat at the console. "Manual reversion will take too long," he whispered, his fingers finally finding their rhythm. "I have to roll back the collective consciousness to a previous backup. Here! Stardate 88280 maintenance patch."
He slammed his hand onto the green ENGAGE button.
Immediately, the sapphire shimmer throughout the ship faded. The nanites retreated into the vents, their "Optimal Directive" cancelled. The chaos ended, but the damage was total. Every personal item on the ship had been reduced to the raw Omni-matter currently sitting in the cargo bays.
—
Tey'un and Thegris left the chamber and strolled down the hallway. Thegris was whistling a jaunty, un-Borg-like tune, looking for all the world like a man who hadn't just witnessed the biggest accidental theft in Starfleet history.
—
Moments later, the senior staff sat in the Bridge Conference Room. The tension was thick enough to require a phaser to cut through. Veirik was particularly visibly annoyed, sitting at the table with nothing but a standard-issue bath towel wrapped around his waist.
"What the HELL was that?!" Anzyl shouted, his hands on his hips as he looked at his staff.
He was met with a wall of blank stares and confused shrugs.
"Anyone?!" Anzyl demanded.
Thegris looked over at Tey'un with a cold, meaningful death glare. Tey'un looked at his PADD.
"Well, at least the 'robberies' have stopped," Anzyl said, rubbing his temples. "But now we have a bigger problem. We have to find a way to get everyone's things back. Mine, yours, the entire crew's. Somehow."
Tey'un sheepishly raised a long blue hand.
"Yes, Tey'un?" Anzyl sighed, plopping into his chair.
"We could… utilize the transporter logs," he said hesitantly. "Every item brought aboard was scanned during move-in or replication. We have the patterns stored in the buffer history. We also have the raw matter stored in the cargo bays."
"So, we rematerialize the entire ship's contents?" Anzyl asked.
"It would require everyone to unpack and redecorate their quarters again," Tey'un added. "But the patterns are intact."
Anzyl leaned back, liking the logic. "We have several days before we hit the Umbral Sector. It'll give the crew something to do other than file complaints. Heluna, send a ship-wide message. All belongings will be restored via transporter within the hour. Eroga, help Engineering coordinate the pattern recovery from the pre-launch logs."
The Captain shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know how the ship's nanites managed to decide my coffee mug was a threat to ship's security, but let's just ensure it never happens again."
He turned a stern gaze toward his Chief Engineer. "Tey'un. Let's keep an eye on Nanite programming from now on."
Tey'un nodded dutifully, his fingers twitching in a silent rhythm of relief. "Yes, sir!" as this life lesson was now thoroughly logged.