Miracle Workers

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Sonya?” Lense repeated. “Answer me. Are you all right?”

  Taking a moment to gather herself, Gomez forced away the lingering images of the crewman’s body and the way the skeleton’s fragile remains had given way under her panicked assault as she fought to extricate herself from the crawlway.

  “I’m . . . I’m fine, Elizabeth. Now, at least. But we’re going to have Soloman find us another way back to the bridge, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Right now,” the doctor replied, “I’d just be happy to be inside the ship.”

  A small chuckle broke through Gomez’s remaining anxiety, bringing a much-needed smile to her face as she started down the corridor, examining directional signs on the bulkheads as she went. It didn’t take long to find the room containing the maintenance airlock, as well as a collection of lockers holding environment suits and assorted engineering tools. If time hadn’t been an issue, Gomez might have taken a few minutes to examine the century-old equipment and marvel at how well it had been preserved by the lack of atmosphere on the ship.

  Instead, she turned her attention to the airlock itself. A moment’s work with her manual door opener succeeded in coaxing the airlock hatch open and revealing the welcome sight of Elizabeth Lense. The doctor was still cradling the unconscious Pattie in her arms.

  “How is she?” Gomez asked as she helped lower the Nasat to the deck. She held Pattie’s still form down as Lense reached for her tricorder, but to Gomez’s surprise, she was the first object of the doctor’s scrutiny rather than Pattie.

  “Just as I suspected,” Lense said as she snapped the tricorder closed and reached for the medical kit on her belt. “The theragen I gave you has begun to wear off. You’ve started to feel the effects of interspace.”

  Gomez’s sigh was a mixture of relief and apprehension as she allowed herself to relax somewhat and sag against the nearby bulkhead. At least now she knew that the feelings of panic and uncertainty she’d been experiencing had an external cause, and weren’t due to her own failings. On the other hand, she hadn’t expected the inoculations Lense had given them all to lose their effectiveness so quickly.

  As if anticipating Gomez’s question, Lense said, “Being in the rift might be having a more intense effect on us than merely being in proximity to it. I should give the entire away team another dose as soon as possible.”

  With hypospray in hand, the doctor reached for Gomez’s right shoulder and placed the injector into the pressurized receptacle located there. The connection was designed expressly for the purpose of allowing injections into a suit’s occupant when circumstances didn’t allow for the removal of the helmet, making it easy to provide medical treatment in almost any environment. Once she had administered the theragen to Gomez, she repeated the process on herself.

  “I didn’t expect to have to give booster shots so soon, if at all,” Lense said. “If we can’t get out of the rift before my supply of theragen is exhausted, we could be in serious trouble.”

  Gomez thought about the near hysteria she had endured in the Jefferies tube. Knowing that those feelings were nothing compared to what she might experience should the away team be exposed to the full effects of the rift now filled her with a pronounced sense of dread.

  CHAPTER

  4

  His thoughts concentrated somewhere beyond the image displayed on the da Vinci’s main viewer, Duffy sat in the captain’s chair, staring into the reaches of starry space. His eyes followed a glowing ribbon of energy projecting from the starship’s deflector dish as it lanced outward, then narrowed to a point near the center of the viewscreen. Somewhere out there, he hoped, the beam would find a crack or seam, anything that could be seized upon and forced open and give the da Vinci access to the interdimensional rift that had reclaimed the Defiant, along with their own away team.

  As a young boy on Earth, Duffy had sometimes entertained himself with thoughts of contacting a passing ship of alien spacefarers. Armed with the biggest portable beacon his father owned, he would slip from his home in the dark of night and settle himself on a grassy rise in the backyard. There he would activate the beacon and point it into the night sky. Sometimes his fingers fiddled with the beacon’s switch, making the beam of light pulse at random. Other times he would allow it to burn steadily for what seemed to him like hours. He would sprawl in the grass, paying little mind to the closely shorn blades prickling the back of his neck as he looked skyward and hoped that maybe this would be the night that the captain of a Vulcan science ship or a curious Pygorian trader would stop by for a visit.

  Duffy’s posture slumped a bit in the center seat as he recalled the night he had told his father that he wouldn’t need the beacon anymore. His father had patted him on the shoulder and encouraged him to keep it at his bedside, should he ever change his mind. The response of his young voice rang in Duffy’s memory.

  That’s okay, Dad. You can keep it. I’m tired of just watching the light. No one ever comes.

  He tried to fend off the ironic ring of his memories as the deflector beam pierced the blackness. He continued to watch it for a few seconds longer, then turned reluctantly from the viewscreen toward the science station.

  “Anything?”

  “No detectable changes,” Fabian Stevens replied. When he volunteered for a duty shift on the bridge, he typically had his eye on the tactician’s seat. Now he had taken the post of the ship’s science officer, monitoring the area of the rift for any effect from the deflector beam’s attempt to influence it. “I’ve got nothing, Duff, but the rift is hard enough to read when it’s open.”

  “I’m not asking for much here,” said Duffy to no one in particular, letting his frustration saturate his words.

  It was their third attempt at massaging the area of interphase into a premature opening, and Duffy’s hopes for success were fading. With the Tholians bound to return to the area at any time, he knew that merely idling here for three more hours and awaiting the rift’s next predicted opening was not the most prudent course of action.

  “I don’t want the fabric of space torn wide open,” he said. “I’m just looking for a little rip. Even a snag.”

  Stevens smirked at Duffy. “Maybe we could send in a torpedo loaded with a batch of P-38s?”

  An unexpected yet quite welcome laugh burst from Duffy’s mouth. Despite the seriousness of their current situation, he couldn’t help but recall their recent and memorable mission involving the “fabled” P-38s.

  It had happened a few months before, when the da Vinci had come across a drifting Pakled craft. At first the vessel appeared to have been disabled after an attack of unknown origin. Duffy, Stevens, and a few da Vinci technicians had beamed over to lend a hand, only to learn that the Pakled crew was trying to repair practically every onboard system. Their ship, Duffy quickly learned, had suffered a cascading circuitry overload following the crew’s attempt at adapting an “official Romulan cloaking device” to their ship’s computer defense systems.

  Both Duffy and Stevens had then been forced to exercise every scrap of self-control they possessed so as not to fall over laughing when the captain of the Pakled vessel told them that a Ferengi businessman was the source of the supposed cloaking device.

  The electromagnetic pulse that resulted from engaging their new contraption had fried practically everything connected to a power source, including life-support systems, distress beacons, and even handheld devices hooked to charging ports. It was fortunate happenstance that the da Vinci had stumbled upon the dying craft at all, and the S.C.E. team had been viewed by the Pakleds as a mixture of magicians and divine agents.

  What dazzled the stranded crew the most, Duffy and Stevens noted, seemed to be the team’s use of what Starfleet personnel called a P-38. When gripped between thumb and forefinger, the small device could, at the press of a button, emit focused frequencies of light and sound that were perfect for freeing the covers of circuit panels fused shut from the electric backlash of the contraband “cloaking devic
e.”

  Neither of the officers had the heart to tell the Pakleds that their wondrous P-38s were basically glorified Starfleet-issue can openers.

  Duffy brought his smile under control long enough to mimic the Pakled captain’s words to Stevens. “‘You make things open. That is good.’”

  The two laughed again. “That’s us,” Duffy said, curbing his laughter. “The Starfleet Corps of Engineers: Miracle Workers for the Alpha Quadrant and beyond.”

  Duffy’s face sobered a bit as he looked to the viewscreen again.

  Nothing.

  If anything qualifies as “beyond” right about now, it’s the Defiant.

  “It’s not working,” he said, his words tinged with disgust. “Shut it down, Fabian.” Duffy paused as he watched the golden-hued ray snap out of existence with not a shimmer of the rift he had hoped against hope to see. “Analyze the latest set of sensor readings and let me know when you’re ready to try it again.”

  “Sure, Duff,” Stevens replied as he turned back to his console. “Fourth one makes the charm, right?”

  “That’s what the Andorians always say.”

  Duffy’s attention was drawn by the opening of the turbolift doors, from which emerged another reminder of the masked dangers awaiting those who merely occupied this area of space. Armed with a hypospray, Nurse Sandy Wetzel stepped onto the bridge and cut a path directly to Duffy.

  “Commander,” she said, “I need to administer theragen boosters to everyone. Dr. Lense’s orders were for the shots to be given out if she wasn’t back by 1600 hours.”

  Duffy nodded, remembering Lense’s report from her earlier briefing. The effectiveness of the theragen treatment received by the entire crew would weaken over time and require bolstering through additional inoculations.

  “Fire away,” he said, craning his neck to allow the nurse access. As the spray hissed below his ear, he had a momentary pang of concern as he thought once more about the substance being pumped into his bloodstream.

  Actually a Klingon nerve gas that was instantly lethal in its purest form, the theragen derivative was also the da Vinci crew’s best defense against slipping into the same space madness that had gripped those aboard the Defiant a century ago. Duffy, for one, was thankful for the medicine. The last thing he needed right now, on top of everything else, was to have to cope with a mentally unstable crew.

  As Wetzel finished inoculating him, Duffy said, “Thanks, Sandy. How’s Songmin doing?”

  Wetzel had been the first of the medical team to report to the bridge during the Tholian attack that had interrupted the da Vinci’s recovery operation and sent the Defiant plunging back into the interspatial rift. She had arrived to find the usual assortment of bumps, cuts, and bruises except for the more seriously injured helmsman, Ensign Songmin Wong.

  “We’re treating him for a concussion,” she replied. “He’ll be released for duty after a night’s rest.”

  Duffy nodded thankfully as Wetzel moved to the helmsman now seated at Wong’s usual position. Then his attention was drawn to the communications station, where an animated discussion looked to be taking place between Carol Abramowitz and Bart Faulwell. The two had been hard at work since Duffy had returned from his private conversation with Captain Scott. He’d been too busy to wonder what they’d been up to before now, but as he watched their exchange for several more seconds, he decided that this was the time to find out.

  He walked toward them, trying to be obvious about his approach, but the two didn’t flinch. Abramowitz leaned forward in her seat, occasionally keying commands as the tall, lean Faulwell stood beside her, both remaining intently focused on their work. Then Duffy noticed that they were both straining to listen to small Feinberg audio receivers plugged into their ears. Who were they talking to? What in the hell was going on?

  Speaking softly, he said, “Hello? Heh-lo-oh.”

  The best comparison Duffy could make to the sound that came out of Abramowitz’s mouth was that of a tribble freshly tossed into a Klingon’s lap. The cultural specialist’s eyes widened in momentary shock as she registered Duffy’s presence, her surprise nearly jerking her against the back of her chair. Duffy chuckled at her response, but neither she nor Faulwell seemed amused at the interruption.

  “I’m sorry, Commander,” she said, regaining some of her composure. “I guess we were somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  Faulwell couldn’t seem to help the hint of a proud smile starting to creep onto his face. “Truth be told, Mr. Duffy, I was giving Carol here a lesson in Tholian cryptography. We’ve been reviewing some of the coded messages between the commander of the Tholian ship and his contact on their homeworld. You may find this interesting.”

  Duffy didn’t try to hide his surprise as he looked to Abramowitz. “Coded messages? You mean you tapped into their communications?” He couldn’t help but be amused when Abramowitz didn’t reply immediately, but instead actually shuffled her feet, as if uncertain how to answer his question.

  “Um, I kind of intercepted and recorded all of the transmissions to and from the Tholian ship while we were maintaining contact.” She shrugged her shoulders and widened her eyes, the very picture of innocence. “Maybe I hit the wrong button?”

  For nearly every moment since the attack, Duffy had been gripped with apprehension that he had somehow unwittingly prompted the Tholians’ actions, and that something he had done or ordered had resulted in the Defiant and his teammates being lost in the rift. He saw now that his friends had probably harbored similar concerns, and had channeled that anxiety toward finding an answer. Maybe the true motivation behind the attack was somewhere in these transmissions, just waiting to be discovered.

  “That’s very, um . . . damn, Carol. You’re good.”

  Abramowitz smiled. “I listened in once or twice, but I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Tholian speech sounds like someone grinding glass, let alone whatever scrambling protocols they add. I thought it would be useless to us, until I talked to Bart.”

  Aside from being a master linguist, Bartholomew Faulwell had been steadily carving a reputation for himself in Starfleet circles as a crack cryptographer. One of the oldest members of the da Vinci crew, Faulwell had been one of a legion of minds tapped by Starfleet brass during the Dominion War to aid in sifting through enemy communications. His quick and accurate translations of garbled or encrypted transmissions had proved vital to admirals planning strategic moves for the allied forces. Had the war still been waging, Duffy knew that the S.C.E. would most certainly not be reaping the benefits of Faulwell’s skills.

  Faulwell let his smile grow a bit as he patted Abramowitz on the shoulder. “We don’t know much, but it’s a start. Tholian communiqués are typically brief, probably out of fear that somebody will try to do just what we’re doing. We can tell you one thing for certain, though. Our escort ship was ordered to fire on the Defiant, and on us, by the Assembly.”

  Duffy’s brow knit in confusion. “So they didn’t just go space-happy, then. Any clues as to why they attacked us?”

  “Absolutely,” Faulwell replied. “The last thing sent to the Assembly before returning the order to fire was the same tricorder information that Captain Gold sent to us from the Defiant about whatever it was the away team found.”

  Of course, Duffy thought. The away team had found a mechanism of Tholian design stored in one of the Defiant’s cargo bays. After recording detailed scans of the device, Captain Gold had notified the commander of the Tholian ship, Nostrene, about their discovery.

  And naturally, things had gone to hell shortly afterward.

  “So what is it about that gadget that has the Tholians all worked up?” he asked. Based on the information P8 Blue had gathered and on the theory she had put forth, Duffy and Stevens had figured out that the strange device found by the away team was some sort of power emitter. Using that as a starting point, they had scoured the da Vinci’s databanks for all references to Tholian encounters by Starfleet ships. Sensor scan
s recorded by various vessels during those engagements supported Pattie’s hypothesis that the mechanism she had found was similar in design to those employed by Tholian ships to generate their infamous energy webs. But what was so secret about that? The Federation had known about the Tholian’s web technology for more than a century. What was so special about this particular piece of equipment?

  Duffy shook his head in growing frustration. He wasn’t used to not having all the pieces to a puzzle within easy reach. As an engineer, he prided himself on being able to see to the heart of any problem based solely on the evidence available to him at the time. The answers were here, he knew, somewhere in the midst of the data gathered by the da Vinci’s sensors or by the away team. It would simply require more time to sift through it. Time, however, was something he was quickly running out of.

  Still, he did have enough time to show his gratitude to a pair of specialists willing to take the mugato by the horn. It was just such initiative that made Duffy appreciate the rewards of command.

  “This is great, you two,” he said, returning his attention to Faulwell. “I’ll make sure to report this to Captain Gold after I buy you both dinner at the best restaurant aboard this ship.” He smiled again. “Once this is all over, Bart, you’ll have plenty of new material to write Anthony about.”

  “Commander Duffy!”

  It was Lieutenant David McAllan. More so than the words themselves, the sound of alarm coming from the da Vinci’s typically reserved tactical officer caught the entire bridge crew off guard and made Duffy jerk his head in the direction of the tactical station.

  “You need to see this,” McAllan said, his face not turning from his console viewer. As Duffy started in that direction, he was followed not only by Stevens but also by Domenica Corsi, whom Duffy knew was just waiting for any sign of trouble. Duffy hoped this would end up disappointing her.