Hostile takeover.

Sado worked on the droid while Helina took a rest wishing sometimes she was like Sado and did not need rest. She slept for a few hours then came back onto the bridge and saw Sado with her head buried in the head of the droid. Sado looked up as she approached and gave an artificial smile greeting her. She informed Helina that there was good news and bad news and which one did she want first. Helina chose the bad news and was informed that the droid's processor was indeed fried. The good news was the protected memory core was intact they just could access it.

Sado suggested that maybe she could rig up a bypass using her circuits to access the core so Helina told her to try. Sado took some spare cable's and connected her input port to the output port of the droid and initiated a power transfer. The droid started up and immediately Sado could see the information that the droid held. Then there was a surge and Sado started to tremble as her computer brain was invaded by a foreign program. Sado's safety programming took over and combated the foreign program just like white blood cells would attack an infection in the human body.

The attacking program sort out sanctuary and found a safe place in a hidden file named protocol 001. Sado stopped trembling and informed Helina of what had happened but the virus had been purged from her system. Helina ran a diagnostic just to make sure and was satisfied. Sado reported that the droid had limited stellar information but had been programmed to return to a laboratory in the Sigma quadrant of space. This was a good clue if they knew where the sigma quadrant was in relation to their present position. Suddenly the alarm sounded signifying the approach of another vessel.

The vessel hailed them and although there was some static Helina could make out the figure of a man who asked them if they needed assistance. Helina looked at Sado and then back to the screen and explained the circumstances and the man whose name was Geraldo told them they had been scanned by the Jerg. They were scavengers and if ships vital equipment was not shielded then they stolen from those ships. He offered new star charts and when Helina asked what they could offer in return he simply said just dinner with a fellow traveller. Helina agreed and she told Sado to study the charts when the transfer had been completed.

So it was Helina found herself on Geraldo's ship enjoy a meal and some soft music. Geraldo was a handsome man who came from the colony on Jupiter. They chatted and even danced to slow music when Geraldo's droid informed that they needed to continue their delivery to which Geraldo sighed and asked Helina's forgiveness but he had to get underway. Helina thanked him for the food the chat and the dance and headed back to her ship. When she got back on board there was no sign of Sado on the bridge so she went in search of her heading to the ships engine room.

Helina entered and still, there was no sign of Sado as Helina looked around. She went to the comms panel and called out for Sado but got no reply. Just as she was about to leave the compartment the lights went out and Sado slipped out from a locker with a syringe in hand and plunged it into Helina's neck. The last thing Helina remembered before she blacked was Sado'd voice telling her that protocol 001 was activated.