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Star Trek: Pioneer Rating: R (For language, sexual references, and Sci-Fi violence) Chapter 10 Aligning the
Chakras The tradition of shipbuilding is one of the few things that
systematically and consistently searches for the perfect balance of science and
art. Science and mathematics produce
structure, propulsion, and aesthetics. The art of shipbuilding is more a
reflection upon the crews that endow a ship with function, efficiency, and that
most elusive and enduring soul. -Master Shipwright
Vice Admiral Koichi Otoma SCE Handbook 1st
edition 2210 USS Pioneer: Cove
system The
refit was going well, but the progress was far slower than Eddie liked. Tylan was doing her best to speed things
along, but there was only so much she could do before he had to break out his
tools and start working instead of supervising. “I’d
rather have you with me while I go over these things,” she told him as he slung
his tool belt over his shoulder on his way out of his office. “Why? Everyone’s grown accustomed to you by now,”
he said absently. “It’s your timetable,” she reminded him. He
turned to face her with a wide smile on his face. “Last I checked it was shot to hell,” he
chuckled. Tylan
stamped her foot in frustration.
“They’re blaming me for that!” She
was about to say more when he placed a finger to her lips and made a shushing
sound. “I’m not,” he said quietly. He watched her expression soften from hard
lines of strain to one of the newer emotions she’d gradually allowed herself to
show in the last few weeks. It was one
of relief mingled with a dab of self-satisfaction. He withdrew his hand from her lips and
shrugged. “It’s a big job, Ty,” he
reasoned, “if anything must go wrong, I’d rather it be the schedule over the
end product. Agreed?” She
made a disgusted smirk he found both shocking and adorable on her pretty
face. “Agreed,” she sighed. “What do I do when everyone blames me for a
delay?” “Let
them,” Eddie said matter-of-factly.
“Just don’t let them get so overwhelmed they stop thinking through the
problem.” “I’m
not sure I understand.” “Delays
don’t equate to failures,” Eddie explained.
“So long as they finish the work, they’ll be satisfied with their
efforts. If they lose that, this girl’s
never getting out of here.” Tylan’s
mood turned sullen. “That still leaves
me with a bunch of shit dumped on my head every day,” she grumbled. She was growing profane now that she could
express her emotions. He found it cute. Eddie
wanted to say he’d make it up to her, but he had no idea how he could do
that. She was vulnerable at the moment,
and she was likely to get the wrong impression if he made such an offer. Eddie felt he owed her more than that. In the last few weeks she’d told him her
story, and he had to admit she’d been grossly taken advantage of. Her parents, M’rath, and the Tal’Shiar had
expected nothing short of complete obedience from her, and she’d dutifully
complied for all of her sixty-five years.
It was about time someone offered her the unconditional friendship she
deserved, he reckoned. There
was another part of him that felt a deep longing for her. Tylan had always struck him as somehow…
fractured. There were parts of her that
managed to peek through her dispassionate veneer for years though he lacked the
understanding to recognize the full extent of it. He had been, and still was, drawn to
her. He sensed she needed a friend. Since she was an attractive woman to boot, it
was easy to confuse his feelings with amorous desire. Lust wasn’t something he trusted in himself,
so he did his best to squelch it. Eddie’s
romantic life wasn’t something he was proud of.
He’d had the occasional girlfriend, but they always left him for someone
else just about the time he felt a deep connection forming. Over time he’d developed the notion the
problem was with him. He was a forgiving
man after all, and he didn’t like to think less of the women he felt so deeply
for. Tylan was the only woman so far
he’d managed to forge a relationship with that he trusted wouldn’t come back to
hurt him. “What
could I do to make you forget about it?” he asked cheerfully. Tylan
stared at him for a long time before answering.
Was there something she wasn’t telling him? Finally she made a defeated sigh and said,
“Rub my feet when you come back.” He
nodded. “Sure thing,” he said. On impulse he kissed her forehead before
marching out the door. He missed the
stunned expression on her face as she watched him go. He
made his way to deck 2 and surveyed the progress there. “Erratic” was the best way to describe the
tangle of structural supports, power conduits, network nodes, and hull plates
that was supposed to be a finished deck plan three weeks ago. The problem was they had to string the new
twelve-phase conduits through the ship, but all their equipment ran on the old
two-phase power. As a result, they were
building temporary lines throughout the ship to fabricate the new sections, and
then stripping them out once they were close to being finished. Also the replicators were being pushed to the
limit fabricating hull plates, structural braces, and all the heavy materials
they needed. Compounding the problem was
all the new hardware they were making to adapt to the new power grid. It was enough to make him regret ever having
made the suggestion of a refit to the Captain in the first place, but there was
no stopping the project now. At least
they would have a first rate ship once they worked all the kinks out. “Koon
to Gordon,” his com badge chirped. He
tapped it, “Go ahead.” “The
antimatter just arrived,” Koon informed him. Eddie
breathed a sigh of relief. The
antimatter could simplify things immeasurably.
With the new core working, they could stop all this nonsense of the
temporary power grid and work apace with the new grid. “Not a moment too soon. I’ll be up shortly.” When
he arrived in the hangar, he wasn’t surprised to find Hurst and Forte
discussing the mission next to the shuttles.
He was a little surprised to find Kree talking to Cabrillo. Rumor had it the two were romping. Scenes like this only added fuel to the fire. He
was about to move past them into the first shuttle when Kree stopped him. “Did you look at the headdress, Commander?”
she asked. “Headdress?”
he asked irritably. “The
feather headdress we found on Cove-3,” Cabrillo explained. “I
don’t have time for archaeology,” Eddie muttered, and moved to step inside the
shuttle again. Kree
stopped him and produced a silver feather.
“It was made of these,” she explained. “While
it’s well-crafted, Lieutenant, I don’t see why…” He
trailed off as Kree crushed the feather in her hand, twisted it viciously, and
then allowed it to return to its normal shape.
The feather looked just as delicate and unblemished as before. “We thought this might be useful if we could
understand why it’s so tough,” she explained.
“Armor this light and this resilient would be invaluable I should think.” Eddie
took the feather from her with renewed interest. He examined it carefully, and flexed it
gently in his fingers. He tried twisting
it apart, pulling off parts of it, and crushing it like she had, and still the
feather returned to its original shape.
“I see,” he said thoughtfully.
“This is a thorny development.
What’s this made of?” “Silver,”
Cabrillo said, “I scanned it to make sure.” “Silver
isn’t this resilient,” Eddie protested. “I
know,” Cabrillo said. Eddie
considered the feather in his hand for another moment before pocketing it. “Thank you both,” he said. “I’ll see if we can’t learn something from it
before long.” He
could see it wasn’t the answer they wanted from him, but he had more immediate
problems to solve. He moved past them
and quickly pulled the antimatter hopper out of the shuttle. He scanned the contents of the device briefly
before handing it off to a chief to take down to the new core. He did the same with the other shuttle and
emerged to face a beaming Dr. Cole Spaulding. “I
trust you found the antimatter to your specifications,” Spaulding gloated. “Not
a bit of it is cracked,” Eddie replied referring to the habit of antimatter to
revert to matter by “cracking” into plasma.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Spaulding
continued to stare at Eddie as if expecting him to say more. Finally the man broke down into a disgusted
smirk. “Ingrates!” he snarled before
storming off. On
impulse, Eddie stopped him. He produced
the silver feather. “Could you examine
this more carefully, Doctor?” he asked. Spaulding
was incredulous. “Why?” Eddie
repeated the demonstration Kree had shown him and watched Spaulding’s interest
climb. Arrogant or not, Cole Spaulding
had an acute sense of curiosity and the intellect to produce answers to the
questions he posed. “There’s no reason
why this should be so resilient. It’s
only made of silver,” he pointed out. Spaulding
took the feather and repeated the punishment.
“Fibrous structure, interlocking mesh, and yet the texture is preserved
along with malleability,” he reasoned aloud.
“This could be a heretofore unheard of forging technique.” He stroked the feather thoughtfully before
adding, “We could build the ship out of this stuff.” “Silver?”
Eddie said unconvinced. Spaulding
shook his head. “You’re an engineer,
Commander. You should know if silver was
forged to this strength, other metals can be as well. I’ll look into this at once.” The
scientist made his way out of the hangar. Eddie
pushed the thought of the silver feather out of his mind. He had a warp core to start up. The two hoppers of antimatter amounted to
about one and a half times what he needed in the strictest sense, but he’d have
preferred more. The new core was not all
that well understood yet. It
took about an hour to fill the antimatter tanks around the new core since the
feed lines were all linked to the large buzzard scoops on the noses of the main
nacelles outside. There was also the
added complication that the new core didn’t have a single tank like the old
linear core. The
old core was the simple vertical column standardized in Starfleet for almost
two hundred years. Antimatter was fed
into a dilithium crystal about halfway up the core and combined with a trace
amount of matter to produce a release of energy that was channeled up and down
the column producing the two phases of power that ran the ship from top to
bottom. It was a design refined over the
years to a peak of efficiency and output, but it had its flaws. The two phases of power were interdependent
in the warp drive. The disruption of the
field in one phase caused the failure of the other in short order. Eddie had redesigned Pioneer’s core to produce a more fluid field. Primarily what he’d done was to allow the
output of one phase to make up for a draw on the other so that the disruption
on a single phase simply caused a draw on the other phase instead of collapsing
the field. It worked fairly well, but
only up to a point. The
new twelve phase core was a new beast entirely.
Before his demise, Lieutenant Commander Garrett had come to the
conclusion the most efficient engine in nature (and thereby the most stable)
was the hurricane. There was much
credence to his thoughts. Hurricanes
drew and dispersed massive amounts of energy once they stabilized into a
recognizable structure. If they could
continue to draw energy from the space around them, they could continue to
function in perpetuity. The hexagonal
storm at the north pole of Saturn was firm evidence to support this notion
along with the corellas storm over the south pole of Vulcan’s primary gas giant
of Khush. Designing a warp core that
operated on this structure had never been attempted. Garrett had worked through the details, found
a few points of inspiration from Gordon’s modifications to the existing warp
core, and produced a masterpiece. For
the first time, they would have a three-dimensional output from the core
instead of simple straight lines. Energy
would be vertical, horizontal, and in depth as well as rotate in all axis. Eddie
had taken the added precaution of linking the outputs from the old core into
the new one just in case there was a need to bolster the reaction. As
impressive as the new core sounded, it was surprisingly small. The old linear core had taken up fifteen
decks and was three meters across at the reaction chamber. The hurricane core was a meter and a half
across and a hand span thick. In fact
this was three times the size of the original design Garrett had produced. Eddie and his engineers couldn’t quite fathom
such a small dynamo powering a ship the size of Pioneer, and had studiously gone back to the drawing board to pad
their figures to an acceptable comfort zone. Eddie
took his place near the controls.
“Everyone ready?” he asked. A
series of “Aye-aye’s” circulated around the room. He
keyed the first sequence. Inside
the core three rings of dilithium crystals began to rotate opposite to one
another. Another crystal, barely two
points of a carat in mass, began to spin wildly in the middle of where the
“eye” of the hurricane would form. He
checked the gauges carefully before keying the next sequence. Antimatter was injected into the central
crystal along with a trace amount of matter.
The familiar blue glow of an antimatter reaction filled the room as the
new core began to power up. He watched the gauges again and was shocked at the
output he was seeing. “Increase power to
the rings,” he ordered. The three rings’
alignment was crucial to this core and the output from the central crystal was
starting to disturb them. Satisfied
with the reaction, he started the next sequence and fired up the outermost
ring. The deck thrummed with a pleasant
vibration as the second ring began to produce energy. Eddie glanced through the top of the reactor
and saw the familiar shape of a storm forming inside. He checked the gauges again and was satisfied
all was alright. He keyed the next ring. The
output from the core quadrupled instantly.
The thrum through the deck was replaced with a roar not unlike standing
behind a rocket engine. This was a
shock. The alignment of the crystals
began to waver. The meters indicated
they were beginning to descend into the central crystal which would mean a
breach. “Full
output from the core to the alignment grid!” he shouted above the din. He
watched his battered, often repaired, barely functional linear core flash to
life in a massive pulse of hot white energy.
He knew it didn’t have the fuel for a burn like this, but the new core
had to stabilize. He watched the
alignment grid waver, and solidify for just an instant before he keyed the
final ring into life. The
gauges instantly pegged themselves to redline as the output jumped by an
unheard of six orders of magnitude. The
roar was replaced with a loud BANG. The
deck jumped under his feet sending him two meters into the air along with
everyone else in the room. He landed in
a heap on the controls just as the old core coughed, popped, and went dead. He
stood up cradling his arm which had taken a nasty crack on the console and
surveyed the gauges. His ears were
ringing from the din so it took a moment to realize the room was quiet. To his astonishment, the output from the core
remained exponentially high. He checked
all the twelve phases and saw each was producing more energy than the old core
had ever hoped to give. The crystal
alignment had sorted itself out once the proper balance had been struck and the
input feeds to maintain the hurricane had automatically powered down to a
negligible level. Eddie
felt awed. He sent a silent breath of
thanks to his old, regrettably gone subordinate. Garrett had been irritating, lazy, and a
constant trial to command, but his genius had produced this amazing thing. He looked with wonder down into the core as
the eye of the hurricane opened. The
churning energy inside the core began to settle down into the lazy swirl of a
cyclone. Blue-white tendrils of energy
resembling cigarette smoke emerged in the core as the reaction began to
normalize. Everyone around the room
drifted towards the core to gaze at the spectacle of it. The sight stirred a primal curiosity in all
of them, and they stared, amazed and afraid, at the unfolding spectacle of
light and turbulence before them. Emily
Blackburn was the first to speak.
“Beautiful terror,” she sighed. “Amen,”
the others said softly. The
next day Okuma demanded a status report on the refit. She’d been out near Cove-9 and missed the
activation of the new core so a fresh perspective was in order. She examined the new core and it was a
striking sight, but the tumble-down condition of the ship was alarming. Everything was behind schedule. She demanded Gordon and Tylan present
themselves in her quarters (her office was demolished never to be rebuilt) and
was pleasantly surprised when Spaulding and Koon decided to attend. The
news was not what she’d hoped for. “We’ve
drained the old core starting up the new one,” Eddie explained. “Does
that pose a problem?” she asked. She was
under the impression the old core would be set aside once the new one was up
and running. “Initially
no,” Eddie admitted. “We can strip all
the two phase conduits in short order and start powering up all the new systems
we’ve installed so far.” “It’s
a safety issue that worries us,” Tylan pointed out. “The
new core’s not safe?” Okuma asked.
Surely that wasn’t the case. “If
it continues to work we’ll be fine,” Tylan said. “But
we’ll never get it started again if we need to shut it down without the old
core,” Eddie explained. “I can rebuild
it so we don’t have to burn it out next time.
Bear in mind it was low on fuel to begin with. With a proper primer of antimatter, it would
operate flawlessly.” “But
we don’t need it!” Okuma protested. “We
can’t cram that thing back inside the new design!” Tylan
and Gordon exchanged a satisfied glance.
“We may have a solution to that,” Tylan said. “Garrett
didn’t expect we’d need a separate source of power to operate the new core, but
he did design another core just the same,” Eddie said. “Go
on,” Samantha snapped. She was growing
impatient with this. “Garrett
designed a new linear core for the shuttles that if we scaled it up would work
perfectly,” Gordon said. Samantha
stared at Eddie before turning her astonished gaze to Peyter. “I can’t believe he’s telling us this,
Captain,” she growled. Eddie
didn’t let Koon reply. “I can build it
in less than a day,” he offered. “How
much power do you need?” Okuma almost shouted at Gordon. “You’ve spent the last three months telling
me this new core will solve all our problems and now you’re telling me we need
another one?” “Garrett
didn’t expect the new core required so much energy to get started,” Tylan
repeated. Okuma
stuffed down her temper before allowing herself to speak. “No,” she snapped. “Build the rest of the ship and get us
underway before you start frittering your time away on another gadget.” “We’re
going to need it,” Eddie protested. “If
the new core needs to be shut down…” Samantha
cut him off. “Don’t shut the damn thing
off then!” she barked angrily. She
turned her attention to Koon. “You can’t
expect us to swallow this one, Captain.” Koon
turned thoughtful. “It’s a risk,” he
said at length. “But I see your point,
Commander. We can’t stay here tinkering
with the ship forever.” “But,
Captain!” Eddie pleaded. Koon
raised a hand to silence his chief engineer.
“Voyager can’t wait forever,
Mr. Gordon,” he said flatly. “They’re
taking just as many risks to get home as we are to find them. We must advance the schedule some if we
expect to be of any use to them.” “Aye,
sir,” Eddie said sullenly. Satisfied
she’d made some progress, Okuma moved on to the next point. “How is the deck plan moving along?” Eddie
and Tylan exchanged another glance. This
one was anything but amused. Tylan was
about to speak when Eddie beat her to it.
“We’re a month behind schedule.” “Six
weeks,” Tylan corrected. Samantha
was too stunned to be angry. She cast a
shocked stare at Koon and saw he was just as surprised as she was. “It’s
the old design,” Eddie explained. “The
structure isn’t matching what we’re expecting to find under the bulkheads.” “We
have a full set of schematics from Utopia Planitia,” Okuma protested. “And
they are all WRONG!” Tylan snapped angrily.
“I’ve covered them exhaustively, and almost every print of the interior
is markedly different from what we’re finding.” “Such
as?” Koon asked. “Lattice
frames where structural ribbing should be, stressed skin hull plating where
there should be structural fields, and power conduits where there should be
utility lines to name a few,” Gordon muttered.
“Most of this wouldn’t matter if we were talking about a compartment or
two, but the refit is all across the ship.
My people have been griping for years about the little stuff around
here, but now that we can see under the bulkheads, I’m shocked we ever made it
out of Martian orbit. We’re several
thousand tones overweight and nothing like what our design should be.” “Well,”
Koon said slowly, “this is only the third ship of this class out of the
yards.” Thinking aloud he continued,
“Matter of fact this was launched ahead of schedule. USS
Phoenix was supposed to go into service before us, but Captain Shivek
rewrote the mission requirements for this class during the shakedown cruise of
the Nebula. We wound up getting out of the yards before
Yoyodyne finished working out the kinks in the Phoenix. All this could be a
symptom of that process.” Okuma
decided to sidestep this alarming news and move onto the next issue, “What
about building the new design?” “We’ve
been occupied with demolition work for the most part,” Tylan said. “We have main engineering and the hangar
completed, but that’s about it. It’s a
lot of heavy work we needed to get out of the way, but most of those
compartments are just open volumes of air surrounded by armored bulkheads.” Okuma
glared at Tylan. She didn’t trust the
Romulan woman even if Eddie and the Captain did. A woman in her position could sabotage their
efforts easily. She
was about to point this out to Koon when Spaulding spoke up. “Perhaps I could offer a solution,” he said
with a broad smile. His cheerful
demeanor derailed the escalating argument by sheer force of surprise. “Like
what?” Eddie asked. Spaulding
held up the silver feather Kree and Cabrillo had found on Cove-3. “The structure of this feather is perfect,
Commander,” he almost leered. “Strong,
light, and easily replicated. I promise
you this could be an invaluable asset.” “How
so?” Eddie asked. “This
material isn’t forged, it’s spun.” Spaulding produced a PADD. “The feather itself is made up of tiny
filaments of spun silver. The filaments
are formed much along the lines of ordinary proteins. Those structures are combined into
microscopic, three-tined hooks that interlink and help align one another. I’ve never seen a structure this perfect
since I examined Tholian textiles under a microscope.” “Does
that include the quill of this feather?” Koon asked. “That’s
even more interesting,” Spaulding gushed.
He brought up a magnification of the quill on his PADD. “The silver is structured into another
protein along the quill that automatically shifts to the feather protein once
it’s separated from the surrounding material.
This stuff is better than memory wire.
Whoever forged this to begin with figured out a way to make the material
itself know what it was supposed to be.” “Do
you know how they did it?” Koon asked. “That’s
something I was hoping Commander Gordon could explain,” Spaulding
admitted. “Honestly, I was hoping he
could show me this process in action.” Eddie
studied the data carefully. Tylan
stepped up next to him. Much to Okuma’s
annoyance, Eddie slipped the Romulan woman in front of him and peered at the
PADD over her head while he drummed his fingers thoughtfully on her
shoulders. It was a gesture entirely too
intimate for Okuma’s liking. She
preferred Eddie maintain a professional distance from the woman, but it
wouldn’t be the first time she’d find herself frowning at the clownish ways of
her Chief Engineer. It was safe to say
she would have made the life of Lieutenant Commander Edmund Gordon intolerable
if she’d had her way all these years. It
was the one sour part of her relationship with Koon. Peyter had entirely blocked her from imposing
her will on the Engineering staff. She
knew her Captain intentionally kept Gordon away from her. While she considered this terribly unfair and
unprofessional, Peyter never told her why he gave Eddie preferential
treatment. She considered it a slap in
the face, but she couldn’t bring herself to resent Peyter for it. He had a way of turning on his considerable
charm when he saw her growing upset.
Typically anything she brought up with him that he didn’t allow her to
deal with, he resolved more or less to her satisfaction by himself. Faintly
she noticed Tylan’s expression. The
woman’s face showed stark confusion that only drifted towards blank
incomprehension the longer she studied the data. Tylan started casting glances at Spaulding
and Gordon that betrayed her growing disbelief. Okuma
saw Gordon nodding. His eyes danced with
new ideas as more and more of the feather’s structure became apparent. Having only recently shot down one of his
wilder ideas, she was miffed she had to confront another in such a short span
of time. “This’ll never work,” she
muttered. Koon
turned thoughtful. “Your thoughts,
Eddie?” “The
tooling for this would be a cinch!” Gordon exclaimed. “One low-power replicator could spool out
this stuff by the ton while we formed it into what we want.” “That
doesn’t sound very strong, Eddie,” Tylan said with a frown. “We
can make this work,” he insisted. “Are
you sure of this, Doctor?” Koon asked sounding doubtful himself. “Dr.
Totem concurs, Captain. This method of
fabrication could save weeks of time and make the ship immeasurably stronger,”
Spaulding promised. “This
isn’t the time to start toying with the design!” Okuma protested. Gordon
shook his head. “This would integrate
the structure and the hull to an unheard of degree, Commander,” he said. “In terms of fabrication it means we only have
to make one kind of material instead of replicating separate parts of the hull
and structure. One man could have a
compartment the size of crew’s quarters done in an hour. It takes five of my people all day to finish
a room.” “Proceed,”
Koon ordered. “WHAT?”
Okuma blurted. “I’ll
get started right away,” Eddie said. He
turned to Spaulding. “Would you come
with me, Doctor?” The
two men left the room merrily chatting about the new process. “This
is a mistake, Captain,” Tylan said. Koon
shook his head. “Have a little faith,
Lieutenant. Commander Gordon wouldn’t
lead us down the wrong path. He would
stroll down a longer one with more scenic vistas perhaps, but not the wrong
one.” He smiled. Samantha
noticed his hair again. It was almost
entirely iron gray now. Was the stress
getting to him? He
nodded to Samantha and Tylan and made his way out of the room. “We
have to stop this,” Tylan said once he was gone. For
once Samantha agreed with the Romulan, but she was slowly resigning herself to
the inevitable. “I’ve tried to overrule
Gordon for several years, Tylan. The
Captain never takes my side on engineering issues.” “He
just took your side about the linear core,” Tylan pointed out somewhat
petulantly. “Only
on the timing,” Samantha said. “Eddie
will get to build the new core in due time.
If it were up to me he’d forget about it.” “The
computer core isn’t reliable enough to handle this yet,” Tylan insisted. Samantha
glared angrily at the Romulan woman.
“Tough shit, Lieutenant,” she snarled.
“If it were up to me you’d be in the brig or off the ship. With that in mind, who do you think has the
credibility to stop Eddie from wasting as much time as he likes?” Tylan
regarded her impassively for a long moment.
“I will obey your orders, Commander,” she said calmly. There was anger bubbling beneath the surface
of the words, but there was pain as well. Samantha
felt a bitter rush of self-satisfaction knowing she’d stung Tylan in any
way. “Fine,” she said coolly, “then
either talk Eddie out of this madness, advance the schedule, or fix the
computer core. Dismissed.” Tylan
got up to leave but hesitated at the door.
Without turning around she asked quietly, “Commander, what has M’rath
told you about me?” Samantha
saw no need to sugarcoat the truth. “He
said you were provided to him by the Tal’Shiar to tend to his ‘needs’ as he put
it. You were his designated concubine if
I read him right.” Tylan
stood stalk still for a long time before leaving without a word. Cove
3: The
three figures shimmered into existence atop a 300-meter tall dune crest. The eastern horizon was only just beginning
to show the first signs of dawn, and the air was cold and still. Koon and M’rath kept a careful eye on
Heartshock as the bulky alien surveyed his surroundings. Heartshock
drank in huge lungfuls of the desert air.
His keen eyes picked out the distant peaks of mountains surrounding this
place. The tops of those peaks were
dusted in golden sand instead of snow despite a chill down here in the basin
that made his breath come out in clouds.
“This is Sanctuary,” he confirmed.
“There is no other place I know of this arid.” “I
see,” Koon said with a smile. “That’s
reassuring.” Heartshock
stretched his bulky frame instantly sending the diminutive M’rath into a tense
fighting stance. He laughed. “No need to worry about me attacking you,
Lieutenant. I’m simply glad to have a
chance to use up as much space as I can.
My cell isn’t anywhere near the size of my former lodgings.” He
strolled a few steps away from Koon and M’rath along the crest of the dune
admiring the deceptively smooth texture the surface of the abrasive sand
presented. “Why did you bring me here,
Captain?” “I
thought you might like a chance to stretch your legs, Heartshock,” Koon
explained. It
was a point of some annoyance Koon never addressed Heartshock as “My Lord” or
“Lord Heartshock.” As one who felt
entitled to such courtesies, the Hirogen grew angry. “I will accord you the privilege to explain
your insolence but once, Captain. Why
don’t you acknowledge my station?” Koon’s
brows shot up in surprise, but he didn’t answer immediately. After a long moment of consideration he
admitted, “I come from a nation plagued with despots, Heartshock. I was taught to revere the Tzars and
dictators from history when I was a child, but my father never saw a use for
them. He would tell me about Peter the
Great and Alexander II in terms of what it meant to our family. Every one of those men who felt it was their
birthright to be better than my ancestors did their best to exterminate us to
further their ambitions. My family has
had less and less use for “great men.”
Stalin nearly wiped us out during the Battle of Moscow. My great-great-great-great grandfather
Anatoly watched all fourteen of his sons killed by commissars before they could
raise a hand to defend our home against the invaders. He moved to the frozen mountains of Siberia
to escape them and taught his new family to admire the man in front of you for
the worth he demonstrated not what he claimed was his due.” “I’m
not sure I follow this ‘commissar’ business.
Should I feel insulted, Captain?”
Heartshock asked. “Chances
are you will be insulted no matter how I phrase it,” Koon admitted with a
chuckle. “But the fact of the matter is
you are not measured by your social standing on my ship. You will be accorded whatever esteem you
demonstrate yourself to be worthy of.” “I’m
a prisoner,” Heartshock pointed out. “You
were planning to kill my crew,” Koon shot back.
“I would earn a place in Hell for ignoring that.” “A
place reserved for fools,” M’rath added. Heartshock
considered his place in that structure carefully. He had to admit Koon was being generous to a
fault by allowing him to live at all.
Furthermore he didn’t have the obligation to explain himself to
Heartshock. It slowly dawned on the
Hirogen the extent to which Koon was willing to set aside his first
impressions. Had their positions been
reversed, Koon’s skull would be displayed in a case. “You’re about to offer me something,”
Heartshock declared. “You wouldn’t have
brought me here if that wasn’t the case.” M’rath’s
stony expression cracked a trifle to expose a brief flash of surprise. Koon’s expression turned serious. “Very
perceptive, Heartshock,” Koon admitted.
“We’re about to travel into the Delta Quadrant. I’m willing to admit our knowledge of the
region is next to nothing. I’d like to
grant you a place on my crew if you’d agree to serve as a guide.” Heartshock
stared at Koon. “Guide?” he asked
quizzically. “You
are a hunter,” M’rath pointed out. “You
do have guides in your society?” Heartshock
stared at the two men for so long they realized he had no idea what they were
talking about. “I’m unfamiliar with the
term,” he finally admitted. “Is this
some form of diplomat?” Koon
and M’rath exchanged a dazed glance. “It
can be,” Koon said. “More to the point
we want you to tell us what to expect and how to get where we’re going in the
fastest and safest way possible.” Heartshock’s
mind still didn’t quite grasp what he was being asked to do. “Is this some sort of tracking you speak
of? Are you looking for something in the
Delta Quadrant?” “In
a manner of speaking that’s exactly what we’re saying,” Koon said. “Planets
and stars aren’t hard to find, Captain. I don’t see how you would need me,” Heartshock
admitted. “We’re
not looking for a planet or a star.
We’re looking for some of our people,” Koon said. Slowly
Heartshock understood the full magnitude of what he was being asked to do. “I can’t grant you safe passage through
Hirogen space, Captain.” “Pity,”
M’rath sneered bitterly. “Is
there a way around your space, Heartshock?” Koon asked. “Depends
on where you’re going,” Heartshock allowed. “Is
there a way we could buy our way through Hirogen space?” Koon asked. He had no way of knowing either way so he
figured it wouldn’t hurt to offer that option. “No,”
Heartshock said flatly. “The Clans
barely speak to one another let alone to outsiders. Even if I were able to settle a deal with my
own Clan, I’d never be able to make the others agree to a uniform price. They might barter for my life, but I have
rivals that would just assume I die.” “Is
the situation really that chaotic?” M’rath asked incredulously. His orderly Romulan mind was appalled at what
Heartshock was telling him. It was one
thing to go into the Delta Quadrant through unknown space, but it was quite
another to sail headlong into anarchy.
Even when he was plotting against the Federation, the Tal’Shiar knew
they did so in an orderly manner so as not to create a mess they would have to
clean up once their plans bore fruit.
What his Imperial masters did was statecraft set to the tune of
crisis. The Tal’Shiar could operate
against the Federation knowing full well humanity and its allies would respond
as a nation-state. If what Heartshock
implied was true, there would be no way to understand the Hirogen except in the
laborious face-to-face, individual method.
It was a strategy doomed to attrition.
M’rath knew as well as Koon attrition would destroy Pioneer before they got anywhere near Voyager. Heartshock
chose to ignore M’rath and spoke to Koon.
“These people of yours… where are they exactly?” “We
know they were passing through Ak’Ar space a few months ago,” Koon
explained. “I’m not sure you’d know of
them.” Heartshock
allowed himself to express the shock he felt.
His eyes went wide, and his hands fell limp at his sides. “How did they get out there?” he asked in
stunned disbelief. It was unimaginable
that one of Starfleet’s ships had arrived in a place so deep inside the Delta
Quadrant without the Hirogen eliminating them.
From what he knew of Earth, any vessel from that place would have spent
several decades dodging clan after clan of Hirogen. It was unheard of they would have survived
let alone remained obscure enough for him to be oblivious of humans. “Long
story,” Koon sighed. “The short version
is they arrived on the far side of the Delta Quadrant by a way we can’t
duplicate, and they’re making their way back home.” Heartshock
nodded. The elements of what Koon was
asking settled into his mind. He knew
the humans were overly sentimental, but he had no idea it was quite this
strong. Since he’d always framed his
exploits in terms of a hunt and the attendant glory, he shifted the facets of
what was needed to suit a hunt. By any
measure it would be difficult. Even with
the Hirogen net, finding a ship (large or small) wandering blind through space
would be the challenge of a lifetime. It
would require traversing territory he’d never seen and never studied in
detail. Several of the Clans would bar
the way. Those pesky Borg would have to
be dealt with at least a few times. The
grandiosity of the task appealed to him. On
the other hand he’d have to live and work with this crew for the rest of his
life. They would insist he change his
ways to suit them rather than the other way around. He wasn’t sure he could do all that. “May I have some time to consider your offer,
Captain?” he asked. “All
the time you need, Heartshock,” Koon said.
“For the time being I thought you might like to have a little time
alone.” He tossed Heartshock a com
badge. “We’ll call you when it’s time to
go. Be sure to contact us if there’s
anything you need.” Koon motioned to a
satchel on the ground. “This should be
enough food and water for a few days. If
you need more, don’t hesitate to get in touch.” Heartshock
shook his head in amazement. “You are
the most interesting prey I’ve ever encountered, Captain. I’ve never had someone I’ve shot at be so
generous to my needs.” Koon
smiled. “That’s just the thing,
Heartshock, I need far more from you than the sum of my blood.” He waved a farewell, tapped his com badge and
transported away. M’rath
remained behind. “Consider the offer,
Heartshock,” he urged. “You
of all beings should know what I’m capable of, Lieutenant,” the Hirogen
warned. “It’s not like this is a simple
shift of allegiance to another clan.” “I
know full well what you are,” M’rath said.
“You’re a wild animal. I might
add you’re the kind who isn’t one to be tamed.
The Captain and I disagree on this point.” “You
don’t think he should’ve given me this offer?” M’rath
shook his head. “Captain Koon has more
faith in you than I do, Hirogen. I think
we’d be better off leaving you here, but he won’t allow it.” Heartshock
smiled. “You could kill me right now,”
he pointed out. “The Captain is a
forgiving man. I doubt you’d suffer for
it.” M’rath
nodded. The Romulan looked suddenly
exhausted. “It’s what I should do, but
that would deny you a rare gift, Heartshock,” he sighed. “What
would that be?” “That’s
something you’ll have to decide for yourself,” M’rath said. “In my case it was a chance to live as myself
and not someone else.” He took a deep
breath and let it out in another great sigh.
“The strange thing is the Captain values who I am even now.” “Meaning
he has a use for you,” Heartshock pointed out sharply. M’rath
nodded. “True enough, but I don’t
believe he would discard me if he didn’t find a niche for my skills.” “What
do you believe?” M’rath
shook his head. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Most likely he’d find something I could do
until I figured out something I was content to apply myself to.” “I’m
a hunter,” Heartshock pointed out. M’rath
brightened. “We’re on the hunt for
something. Show us the superiority of
your skills, and I promise the Captain will make full use of them in the years
to come.” The
Romulan tapped his com badge and transported away. Alone
for the first time in weeks, Heartshock surveyed the dunes again. He took a deep breath, picked up the satchel,
and began running for the tallest mountain peak in the distance just as the sun
peeked over the horizon. He’d give the
Captain his answer once he reached the summit, he resolved. USS Pioneer Eddie
was half right as it turned out. The
tooling for the new material Spaulding had dubbed fibercore, was a cinch to
produce. The production of hull plates,
decking, structural ribbing, and all other parts of the ship’s shell could be
accomplished with one small replicator and about half a dozen form
machines. The replicator could be small
and simple because its sole products were long strands of millimeter-thick
threads of pure fibercore. These strands
could be fed into what were essentially high-tech looms. The looms could produce any shape from large
sheets to thick cables and tubes of the fibercore. From there the raw product was taken from the
fabrication shop. Since the raw product
was pliable as cloth, lugging the fiberercore forms around the ship was no more
complicated than folding and unfolding the rough forms. From there the forms were set in place, and
cut to size with a precision plasma cutter.
Next the fibercore was quenched into its final shape. It amounted to heating the soft forms to a
near molten state, and then cooling it off slowly. This could be accomplished with simple
structural fields modulated into precise shapes. It
took a team of sixteen engineers a day to complete deck 1. That belied the fact it had taken thirty
engineers working in shifts a week to demolish the old deck plan. By the time they started on deck 2, the
entire engineering staff was confident the new hull design would be completed
barely a week behind the projected timetable. That
left the outfitting of the ship as the one snag in getting Pioneer flying again. While
the new twelve-phase power harness wasn’t hard to install, the computer core
and network was not working as hoped.
Barring the laborious task of shifting personal belongings and equipment
from compartment to compartment to allow room for construction, the computer
core was the single most labor-intensive, and by far most ambitious, project on
Eddie’s plate. The physics of the new
core were understood well enough in abstract, but nobody had ever constructed a
twelve-phase power computer core on this immense scale. Designing it had taken half the scientists
and all the computer specialists every waking moment since they discovered what
the specifications would be. Some were
convinced it would never be completed, but would remain a work in progress for
the rest of their careers. Indeed
the term computer “core” was misleading.
The projected design wasn’t expected to be constructed for at least a
year while it was modeled and tested on a smaller scale. Instead the computer team had decided to
build several small nodes to be placed strategically about the ship and
networked via data leads that would serve as the new core’s network once it was
completed. It sounded entirely feasible
at first, but the nodes were crashing with increasing frequency as the demand
on them ramped up for operations. Eddie
was resigned to this sort of trouble, and was confident it would be worked out
in time. Computer science was more art
than science at this level, and no amount of ball-busting would iron out the
trouble any faster. Tylan
was not so sanguine. Day after day she
pressed the computer specialists to make headway, and day after day they
insisted there was nothing but time that could solve their problems. After her discussion with Okuma, she resolved
to sort out the impasse herself. She
returned to her lab and spent sixteen hours modeling the various components. Then her node seized up and crashed. While the data was intact, the delay only
demonstrated how far they had to go.
Exasperated, she returned to Eddie’s office for her shift coordinating
the various projects around the ship. She
found Eddie awake and annoyingly buoyed by the day’s progress. “Morning, Ty,” he greeted her
cheerfully. He cast a skeptical eye over
her. “Didn’t you sleep?” With a
disgusted grunt she brushed past him and settled in for another long day of
fielding questions. She sat there for
several minutes when she noticed the intercom was surprisingly quiet. “Did the intercom crash?” she asked with an
irritated humph. Eddie
stared at her carefully before answering.
“What have you been doing?” he asked. “I
asked you a simple question, Eddie!” she snapped. “I’m trying to do my job here and you’re
wasting time trying to chat.” Eddie
was taken aback by her temper, but he composed himself quickly into a concerned
expression. “Things are running fairly
smooth since we finished the looms,” he said patiently. “Most of what I’ve been working on all day is
the network and the power hub. The demo
crews are still creeping along, but feeding junk in to reclaimers isn’t all
that complicated. Most of those guys are
just resigned to sorting out a mess anyway.” The
intercom on the desk chirped. “Mixaz to
Commander Gordon.” Chief
Mixaz was the head of the demo crews.
“Speak of the devil,” Eddie muttered.
He leaned forward and tapped the intercom. “Go ahead.” “We’ve
found something. You must come and see
this.” Eddie
sighed. “Want to field this one?” he
asked her. Tylan
looked away. She was tired, angry, and
in no mood to be reasonable. Eddie
keyed the intercom again. “I’m on my
way,” he said and shut the panel off. He
turned to her. “Get some rest, Ty,” he
ordered. “There’s
too much to do,” she said sullenly. She
moved to turn the panel back on when his hands snaked over her shoulders and
began rubbing. Tension she was scarcely
aware of uncoiled from knots in her neck and upper back as if by magic. Eddie moved expertly from one knot to another
until she slumped into the chair and let her head loll against his forearm. “Don’t
think you’re not appreciated, Ty,” he said reasonably. Tenderly he stroked the soft skin of her neck
with his fingers. “You’ve earned a
break.” “Shi
hetch mana joxha, pick,” she muttered drowsily.
Shut up and fornicate with me, you
fool. Eddie
cocked his head quizzically to the side.
“I’ll never win an argument in your language, Ty, so I’ll just agree
with you.” Tylan
giggled. “Gla hoo?” Is that
so? She
was about to explain herself when he did something unexpected. He kissed her lightly on the lips. Her eyes which had begun to drift shut,
popped open in surprise. “Why did you do
that?” she demanded quietly. “Been
dying to do that for years,” he said flippantly. His expression grew thoughtful. “To tell you the truth I’ve been having these
dreams where you kiss me in my sleep. I
was curious how it would feel.” Tylan
felt a stab of panic. Maybe Eddie didn’t
sleep quite as soundly as she thought.
He slipped his hands off her shoulders and moved for the door. On impulse she blurted, “So how did it feel?” He
pivoted on his heel and flashed a charming smile. “Effortless,” he said. Tylan
was suddenly indignant. She slipped her
shoe off and flung it at him as he darted playfully out the door. It bounced off the bulkhead and he could hear
his good natured chuckle drifting back up the corridor as he marched away. After a time she felt secure enough to allow
herself a laugh. It felt good. Furthermore it felt even better to reflect on
the kiss he’d stolen. She wasn’t sure
how she would broach the truth with him, but she was confident it could be
managed now that he was almost in on the game.
A few more steps and he would claim her.
She allowed a brief fantasy to play out in her mind how that might play
out. Her experience with men was
extensive to say the least, and she was wondering how she might mollify his
fragile ego. All men had fragile egos
after all, and it was the duty of a woman to accept them both intellectually
and physically. She hoped he wasn’t the
type that became belligerent in bed, but she was besotted enough with Eddie not
to care. She’d have to step carefully
around him if… “Step…”
something tickled at the back of her mind.
“Intern step…” she said distantly.
Where had she heard that? In a
flash of recognition it dawned on her: “Totem!” “So what the hell are they?” Koon finally
asked. Eddie
opened his mouth to answer, shut it when nothing came to mind, and gave a
hopeless shrug. “I wish I knew, sir,” he
said with a disgusted sniff. He used his
Cockney accent to better emphasize his dilemma.
“Fookin’ widget’s draw’n nuff’ juice to pull the sun outada’ sky tho’.” “They’ve
been aboard since Mars, I take it?” Koon asked. Eddie
nodded. “Would
they have anything to do with the structural differences you described
earlier?” “’Twould
explain a lot, yes,” Eddie admitted.
“The power these things process has a different amplitude than that of
the rest of the grid.” “Have
they been exposed to the new grid?” Koon asked. “I’ve
had this section offline since the Hirogen attack, Captain,” Eddie said looking
both relieved and grim. “I think it was
Heartshock himself who beamed in a few compartments over that way.” He motioned off to his right vaguely. “The
function of these devices has to do with networking and power,” Chief Mixaz
asserted. “I’ll
take your word for it, Chief, but networking what?” Koon asked. The Ro
engineer slapped his hands on his thighs in his peculiar form of a shrug. The young alien had a doleful expression
permanently etched on his face thanks to his exoskeleton. It was accented by a bright blue line etched
into the red bone as a symbol of his exile from the Ro homeworld. The rough equivalent of a tattoo for the
alien. Mixaz had applied for this
mission right out of technical training on Jupiter station, and begged Koon to
take him along. He’d been expelled from
his home as a heretic, and rather than seek forgiveness he wanted to indulge
his curiosity about the wider galaxy.
The Ro disapproved of curiosity on some vague spiritual doctrine. While the race was respected, there was no
denying they were the most reticent species in the Federation. Intensely private and widely regarded for
their technology, the Ro had made a name for themselves building ships for
Orion, Andorian, and Tholian firms for hundreds of years. Still they were so insular that contact with
them had only happened twenty years before despite their home being located
along one of the busiest trade routes in the Alfa quadrant. Mixaz
turned out to be a thoughtful engineer.
He thrived on intricate problems that took patience and application to
sort out. Usually Gordon had the Ro
working in the clean room fixing things that everyone else was too exasperated
to deal with. In his spare time Mixaz
read histories, star charts, and listened to concerti. He’d been the first to point out to Eddie
there was something strange about Pioneer’s
structure two years into the mission, but even Mixaz didn’t see a reason to
tear the ship apart to figure out why. When
the opportunity to demolish the old frame had come along, Mixaz’s curiosity
demanded he be a part of the process if for no other reason than to figure out
why Pioneer’s design was so odd. Even Mixaz was shocked at just how extensive
the discrepancies were. Even so he’d
discerned a pattern as he worked patiently away destroying his beloved home in
exile. He’d adjusted the demo timetable
to get to the root of the matter and discovered the devices that he’d called
Gordon up to see. They were so
unexpected Gordon had called the Captain in for a look. Buried
in the bulkhead were two large, lozenge-shaped devices of a type he’d never
seen before. There was something
distinctly unsettling about them even at first glance. To begin with: they both looked filthy. The dark metal of the devices had a dull,
oily finish that reminded Koon of cockroaches, excrement, and garbage. Next they had distinctly insectilline
architecture. The structural ribbing
around the casing was jointed like the legs of a spider and the shape itself
resembled a cocoon. Ribbons of sickly
green light traced the objects in hexagonal patterns that reminded her of
terrestrial honeycombs. Thick chords of
conduits wrapped around the bottom and top of each device. Given the slimy appearance of the devices
themselves, the jumbled mass of lines resembled anacondas wrapped about each
other in a mating ball. “Its
design has the mark of Starfleet,” Eddie said idly. “I scanned the materials and came up with
where they were refined. The plastic
came from New York, and the metals came from Detroit. Much of the more exotic stuff came from Sri
Lanka and Malaysia though I can’t pin it down much further than that. My guess is it was built on Earth, possibly
Trieste Station or McMurdo in Antarctica, and transported to Mars while the
ship was being built.” “If
they were bombs, they’d have been detonated by now,” Koon reasoned. “So
what are they doing here?” Eddie asked. “It
stands to reason we were meant to take these as far away from the Federation as
possible,” Mixaz said quietly. Koon
shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Until we know what they’re for, put them in a
class 2 storage container and keep them completely separate from the controls
of the ship.” “Expecting
these to come back to haunt us, Captain?” Eddie asked. “It’ll take half the day to build one of
those this size.” A class 2 storage
container this size would be a headache anyway.
Primarily used for biological and hazardous wastes, there were few
things as resilient as a class 2 container. Koon
nodded. “Yes I do expect these to haunt
us, but until I know why I want them in my pocket instead of floating around
for someone else to figure out.” Dr.
Totem fussed about his lab absently while Tylan waited for him to recognize
her. It was the good professor’s habit
to shut out the outside world while he was working through a problem. He’d made it clear in the past few years he
expected others to understand this. So
when Tylan stepped into the lab she wasn’t surprised to see the reptilian alien
stooped over an experiment, deep in thought, and hissing thoughtfully to
himself. Tylan
stood quietly in the doorway. The
fastest way to break through to Totem when he was in such a state was to simply
wait until he reached a stopping point.
This strategy sometimes backfired.
Dr. Spaulding once spent two days camped out in Totem’s lab waiting for
the slightest recognition, but normally it took a few minutes. This time it took half an hour before Totem
raised his head from his work. “Hello,
Lieutenant,” he lisped. “You
mentioned an intermediate step to help with the computer core transition,
Doctor,” Tylan announced. It was better
to get right to the point with Totem since he was fiercely conservative with
his time. To the
professor’s credit he could shift gears with remarkable speed. He nodded half a dozen times to himself
before he gave one definitive shake of his head as the proper project came to
mind. “Is the core ready for it?” he
asked. Tylan
was too tired to beat around the bush.
“The new core’s nowhere close to completion. We’re working on the network, and even that’s
causing trouble.” Totem
broke into a wide smile. “Perfect! We’ll be permitted an added experiment at
this juncture.” He marched across the
room and produced a small box from a cabinet.
“Install this at any node of the network. I’ve adapted the power to accept twelve-phase
links. Depending on the condition of the
node it should take only a few minutes to integrate it.” Tylan
took the box and opened it. The object
inside confused her. “What is it?” she
asked. It looked like a head of cabbage
made of metal and dotted with lights. Already
distracted by another project, Totem waved her absently from the room. “It’ll help,” he said. Tylan
was at a loss. She examined the device
carefully. The output jacks were labeled
well enough so installing it was self-explanatory. Just what its function was though was
not. It had to be some sort of processor
due to the nature of the outputs, but if so it was enormous. Puzzling as it was, she had no reason to
doubt Totem. The professor was reliable
to a fault. He was the one person aboard
who never fell short of his duties. If
he said he’d done something, it was done above and beyond what was
required. With a sigh, she closed the
box and made her way to the computer compartment. She
never understood where the human tradition started, but she’d never stepped
into a den of computer science without feeling some of society fall dead at the
threshold. Pioneer’s computer staff were all eccentrics. Some were painfully shy, others were loudly
opinionated and at odds with reality; all of them were men. None of them were exceptionally popular with
the rest of the crew. They lived in
their own little world day after day, and shut all others out. The ones
Koon had recruited from the outset had been some of the most reclusive in
Starfleet. They were a team, but
everyone from Koon on down had to approach them with care. To a man they were priggish and stiff with
outsiders. Even Eddie didn’t quite know how
to deal with them. They filed reports
couched in jargon so obscure nobody could decipher them without a painful
migraine. They routinely derided the
errors of the rest of the crew when they were asked to fix a problem. Nobody enjoyed dealing with them, but there
was no denying they were masters of their art.
Of all the things that had gone wrong with Pioneer the computer core had been as solid as granite for seven
years. Problems were usually in the
operators, not in the hardware or software. Tylan
stepped inside the door and immediately noticed the dimmed lighting. This too was typical of the computer science
cult, and she found it irritating. Tired
and stressed she saw no reason to pander to these men. “Gentlemen!” she snapped. A
dozen eyes glittered out of the dimness.
Half of them stared at her with undisguised lust. Nobody responded to her beyond that even
though she outranked all of them. “I
have some hardware for you to install,” she announced. She proffered the box. The
eyes shifted in unison to the object.
They all gained a childish glint of greed. She could read their expressions as if they
were of one mind. They all wanted to
play with the new toy. One of them
snatched the box from her hands and opened it.
The others clannishly huddled around him peering inside. “This is a posatronic brain,” one of them
announced with evident shock. “Impossible,”
another sniffed. “We haven’t built one.” “Dr.
Totem built this,” Tylan explained. The
assembled technicians groaned in unison. In an instant they were babbling jargon to one
another like chattering birds. She swore
they adopted an accent when they did this.
All the consonants grew harsh and flat and all the vowels were
muted. It was something between a
Chicago accent, and a Texas drawl. And I trust these guys with a posatronic
brain! She marveled. She
was about to interject an order to get started when the computer scientists
went to work. They plugged in the brain
and placed it gingerly on a rickety table.
They continued to babble about letters and numbers until a new voice
softly interjected over the speakers. “Hello,
how may I be of service?” The
computer scientists went silent in apparent shock. “Who
is this?” Tylan asked. “I’m
not sure yet,” the voice replied politely.
“What is my function?” “You
are to assist the crew of USS Pioneer,” Tylan explained. “You are to perform the primary functions of
our computer core until we can fabricate a new one.” The
voice paused thoughtfully. “It is my
understanding I am the core processor of this network.” The
computer scientists began babbling in their jargonese making their own more
concise explanations to the brain. One
by one their attention gradually drifted to the workstations around the room,
and they fell silent. Before long they
were working frantically. “I
will be the primary control of USS Pioneer,” the voice announced. “I will perform the upper functions of the
computer net of this ship. As such, I am
the ship. Therefore you may call me
Pi. What can I do for you Lieutenant
Tylan?” Tylan
was taken aback. Was this gadget
self-aware already? “You can start by
introducing yourself to the crew.” The
voice modulated slightly. It gained a
distinctly feminine quality. “Is there
anything else?” “So
far as I’m concerned, anything you can do to advance the timetable for this
refit would suit me just fine,” Tylan muttered flippantly. “What
is my long term mission?” Pi asked. “You
need to talk to the Captain about that,” Tylan said. “Pi,”
Koon said thoughtfully in his quarters a moment later. He rolled the name around trying it on like a
new garment. “I like it,” he announced
with a smile. “I
was instructed to ask you for my mission,” Pi explained. “We
are to find and recover the crew of USS
Voyager. You will apply yourself to that problem at
every opportunity, Pi,” Koon said patiently. Pi
was quiet for a long time. “May I make a
confession, Captain?” she said at length. Peyter
nodded. “I
find this task… unsettling,” she admitted. “Then
you’ll allow the crew and I to take the lead on this matter,” Koon said. “Thank
you, Captain,” Pi said. “However, I must
admit I should be capable of the mission alone if you desire to return to
Earth.” Koon
laughed. “Tempting, Pi, but I think
you’d be terribly lonely if I did that.” “Thank
you, Captain,” Pi said. She sounded
genuinely relieved. Koon
paced around his quarters wondering what Pi could offer him the old computer
core couldn’t. He found it impossible to
believe she rendered the entire crew obsolete, but about all she couldn’t do
was offer practical experience for such a dangerous mission once the ship was
complete. “May
I ask what you are thinking, sir?” Pi asked. “Just
wondering how to best utilize your abilities, Pi,” he explained. “I’m
not sure about that either, sir.” Pi
managed to sound apologetic. “Then
we’ll have to discover your thresholds,” Koon announced. “Let’s begin.” The
next few days saw the refit kick into high gear. The fibercore solved the fabrication problems
for the hull and structure. The warp
core solved the power output, and Pi solved the computer problem. Eddie was thrilled to watch three decks
completed in one day. By the end of the
week the ship was taking shape again. Pi
was saving everyone hundreds of hours a day not only by doing the hard
computations needed to complete the design, but also acting as a sort of
apprentice to everyone involved. Unlike
a computer which could only do precisely what you told it, Pi had intuition and
imagination. Where Eddie used to have to
feed in a detailed list of parts into a replicator for a job, Pi could predict
what he would need and have it ready for him.
If she could manage it, she could even have it delivered to him wherever
he was around the ship. She didn’t so
much take over the refit as much as she harmonized it perfectly. The brain could interact with everyone aboard
simultaneously, and thus Tylan’s old role as the refit coordinator vanished
overnight. Tylan
in the meantime was outfitting her new lab in Engineering. She spent much of her time producing and
testing new hardware models for the new power grid. Ironing out the kinks instead of juggling the
simple construction was more to her inclinations anyway. While the data for a twelve-phase power grid
was available, it had never been tested on this scale before. As always, the gap between theory and
practice left much to be desired. It
occupied every bit of her time for twenty hours a day. Eddie
in the meantime found himself troubleshooting all over the ship. One of the advantages of refitting the ship
to this totality was resolving trouble spots before they were buried in the
bulkheads. Among other things, Eddie
spent a full day redesigning the water recyclers when it was discovered they
had a troublesome habit of turning a portion of the water into vapor. This could have turned Pioneer into a swamp before long, but he was able to remedy the
problem in hours instead of the weeks it would have taken to dig all the
hardware out of every compartment in the ship. While
the ship grew inside the golden cave, Pioneer’s
scientists scoured the Cove system with a new urgency. Knowing it was only a matter of time before
they all had to load up and leave, they darted about the dangerous belts of
explosive gasses collecting data. Half a
dozen of the shuttles scattered to the nearby stars to investigate the systems
there. The
pace of activity was so energized, the crew somehow managed to forget the
danger lurking outside the Cove system. USS Diocletian “No
mistaking it, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Green announced. “That’s one of Pioneer’s shuttles.” Captain
Semmes felt a large weight lift off her shoulders. Pioneer
had to be nearby. All that was required
was to follow the shuttle back to her prey and her mission would be completed. For
once, Commander King was skeptical. “Any
sign of damage? They might be wandering
around lost.” Green
peered at his instruments carefully.
Finally he shook his head.
“Possible but unlikely,” he declared.
“They’re doing a standard survey of this system. I might add they’re being mighty thorough
about it. That doesn’t exactly shout out
disorientation.” Lieutenant
Commander Dar Moth studied the scanner activity carefully. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was
their astronomer Cabrillo doing the survey,” he said with a wide smile. Semmes
was about to snap at Dar Moth to keep his opinions to himself, when King
interrupted her thoughts. “Tactical,
what’s that?” He indicated a blip on the
fringe of the system. It faded as soon as
he pointed it out. Lieutenant
Bo Lien shifted his attention to the sector.
“I’m not detecting anything there, Commander… wait!” The blip teased the sensors one more time
before vanishing again. “Contact of some
sort. They’re masking their sensor outline
in the heliopause.” “Science?”
King demanded. Green
reviewed the sensor logs carefully for a moment before turning back to
Semmes. “Possible Hirogen hunter ship,
Captain.” Semmes
was surprised. “How did we miss that?”
she snapped. King
deflected her anger by asking, “What led them out here?” Green
and Bo Lien glanced at each other before turning back to their stations. Green was the first to throw up his hands and
admit he didn’t know. Bo Lien hesitantly
admitted he didn’t know either a moment later. “Tap
the Hirogen net and check our perimeter,” Semmes ordered. She wasn’t anxious to be surprised like
Admiral Ward and the Constantine. The news of the battle had shocked everyone
aboard especially Angela Semmes. Sitting
inside the mighty Diocletian for all
this time had made her so secure, she felt inviolate. After all she had the firepower, speed,
energy, armor, and stealth to handle anything imaginable. Or
so Angela thought. The
stunning information that a swarm of undisciplined Hirogen had crippled one Caesar-class dreadnought and destroyed
another was a notion she’d met with disbelief initially. As the reports continued to filter in, Angela
began to reevaluate her odds in a pitched battle. She could inflict telling carnage on the
Hirogen, but their numbers could eventually do considerable harm. If the Hirogen managed to band together
against her, Angela Semmes would be in for the fight of her life. “I
suspect they’re looking at the shuttle, Captain,” Green announced. “The Hirogen net hasn’t said a thing about us
or Pioneer.” “A
target of opportunity?” King asked. “It
would fit their pattern,” Dar Moth speculated. “The
Net indicates there are about a dozen Hirogen heading in this general
direction, Captain,” Green reported. He
didn’t add they were following the Diocletian’s
approach vector more or less. Since
they’d followed Pioneer’s trail out
here, there was no telling what the Hirogen were looking for until they started
chattering on the Net. So far it was
quiet today. An unnerving change to be
sure, but Green was in no mood to report it for fear of being rebuked. The
tactical image flickered for a fraction of a second, and the Hirogen vanished. “Where
did they go?” Semmes demanded. Before
anyone could reply the shuttle cruising around the system exploded. Green
and Dar Moth frantically scanned their instruments. “WHAT
HAPPENED? WHO DID THAT?” Semmes screamed
angrily. Green
slowed down the explosion. There!
He transferred the data to the main viewer. “What you’re seeing, Captain is slowed down
to milliseconds.” He
went on to explain. The Hirogen ship
appeared at high warp outside the heliopause of the system. A few seconds ahead of the ship there was an
energy surge denoting a transporter beam.
The Hirogen ship whizzed by the shuttle barely an arm’s length from a
collision; crushing it in its wake. “It
would appear they beamed off the crew before they knew they were anywhere
nearby,” Green concluded. “That’s
strange,” King said thoughtfully. “Why
go to the trouble?” Semmes
smiled. “Gnan,” she concluded with
relish. “He took our bait after all.” King
was quick on the uptake. “We could
follow them to Koon,” he reasoned. “I
concur. Mr. Green, find that ship. Mr. Dar Moth, plot a trailing course,” she
ordered. “We’ll finish Peyter off if
Gnan fails us.” To Be Continued |
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