JUST A BIT MORE:

I entered the chamber and crossed it to open the doors on the other side, this time using my left hand to activate the doors while I stood to the side of the doors as they opened. When laser bolts and/or beams and/or bullets didn’t immediately start flying in at me, I cautiously peered around the doorway to see what was beyond. Intrigued by what I saw, I threw all caution to the wind and casually wandered into the room. I found myself standing in a large circular room in the center of the ship. The flight deck cabin, cargo bay, and adjoining corridors were obviously built around this room. It was also obvious to me that this room was the heart, soul, and powerhouse of the ship. Although the room was large, there wasn’t a lot of room in it. At least 75 percent of the room was filled by a large, clear cylinder in the center, while the rest was filled by banks of wall mounted monitors and keyboards with a narrow corridor between to allow crew to move around from one area to another in the room.

The monitors were blank, which I assumed meant that there was nothing happening at the moment that needed monitoring, so I turned my attention to examining the cylinder in the middle of the room. It had a dome fitted to the top and conduits rising from it that entered the ceiling. I could only assume that there were conduits from the base into the floor, because the pedestal that the cylinder rested upon prevented any observation of the space below. There was a crystalline donut-shaped sphere floating in the exact middle of the cylinder, but I couldn’t figure out how or why it was floating. If this was in fact the engine that powered the whole craft, it did not seem to be working.

So where the hell was the power coming from that was powering the lights, hatches, airlocks, and air supply systems for the ship if not from this engine?” I said aloud.