Miracle Workers

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “And I’m sure it’s a fine one, Lieutenant, but we prefer to do things our own way. Besides,” he added with a smile, “I need you and Fabe here to do something more important.”

  Stevens raised an eyebrow. “Why do I always get nervous when you smile like that?”

  Ignoring the comment, Duffy said, “Fabe, you’ve said before that the biggest problem on DS9 was always getting the Cardassian and Starfleet equipment to talk to each other.”

  “Yeah, the chief complained about it all the time. Like I said, I was mostly detailed to the Defiant, so I didn’t have to deal with it much. . . .”

  With a smile of his own, Nog said, “I certainly did. I think I know what you want us to do. Chief O’Brien showed me when I was assigned to the station as a cadet how he’d worked around the incompatibility issues. You want us to make the Cardassian systems reject the Androssi additions.”

  “If that’s possible.”

  Stevens had what Duffy had come to recognize as his inspirational look. Fabian Stevens worked best when he was handed a problem and told to fix it somehow. He could improvise a solution with the best of them, and he had the feeling that Nog was cut from the same cloth—especially given that they both worked under Miles O’Brien. The former Enterprise transporter chief was one of the more creative engineering minds Duffy had ever encountered.

  Nog and Stevens immediately started putting their heads together. Leaving them to it, Duffy turned to Pattie and Soloman. “You two get cracking on the fusion core. I’m going to try to punch through this interference so we can find out what’s happening with the da Vinci.”

  The two aliens nodded, and went to work.

  As Duffy turned to Corsi, Drew spoke up. “Sir, I think I’ve worked out a program that will recognize when the Androssi use that dimensional shift of theirs.”

  “Really?” Duffy asked, his eyes wide with surprise.

  Drew shook his head. “What, you think you guys are the only ones who know how to use a tricorder on this ship?”

  Putting up his hands, Duffy said, “I stand corrected. Good work, Drew. Between that and Nog’s ears, we should have a good early-warning system in place if they come back.”

  “Not if,” Corsi said, “when. Howwi’s the sub-overseer, remember. As soon as Biron realizes his second hasn’t reported in, he’ll send a replacement.”

  Unholstering his tricorder, Duffy said, “Assuming that Captain Gold hasn’t taken care of Biron on his own.”

  “We can’t assume that.”

  Way to keep the morale up, Duffy thought sourly. “That’s why I’m going to be working to punch through the interference. Let’s get to it, folks. We may not have a lot of time before trouble comes back.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Just once, David Gold thought, I’d like to go on a mission where my ship doesn’t have the crap kicked out of it.

  Damage reports were coming in at a constant clip. Much shorter and less impressive damage reports on the Androssi ship were also coming in, but it was a losing battle for as long as they didn’t have shields.

  They couldn’t even get out a distress signal as long as Biron kept that interference up. Unfortunately, the ship’s engineers were too busy keeping the ship from coming apart at the seams to focus properly on finding a way to cut through it to contact the away team. Sensors were still detecting five Androssi, seven humans, one Nasat, one Bynar, and one Ferengi on the station—all in the same general vicinity—but they couldn’t determine anything more specific than that. All Gold knew for sure was that his team was alive—for the moment.

  “Faulwell to bridge.”

  Gold frowned. The S.C.E. linguist/ cryptographer should have been in his quarters. He had no engineering training—aside from what he might have picked up by osmosis from being on the da Vinci —and this particular mission didn’t call for his talents.

  But Gold also knew that he wouldn’t have contacted the bridge without a damn good reason. “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, what about the runabout?”

  “What about it?”

  “We have its prefix codes, and I’m willing to bet that it has shields and weapons and other things like that.”

  Gold blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he turned to McAllan, whose look of annoyance combined with embarrassment more or less matched how Gold felt right now.

  “He’s, ah—he’s right, sir,” McAllan said. “We can remote-control the Rio Grande from here.”

  “You want an engraved invitation, man? Do it!”

  The da Vinci took another hit. “Structural integrity field down to sixty percent,” Ina said. “Another hit and we’re going to start coming to pieces.”

  “Computer, prepare escape pods. McAllan, return fire and get that runabout over here.”

  “Sir, we’re down to our last four torpedoes—and I now have control of the Rio Grande,” McAllan added with a grim smile.

  Ina whirled around to face Gold. “Sir, Androssi starboard shields are down!”

  Gold leaned forward in his command chair. “McAllan, target the starboard shields with those last four torpedoes, but don’t touch that fire control until I say so. Set the Rio Grande’s course to 189 mark 2 and have its phasers do a strafing run on the Androssi’s port side.”

  “Yes, sir,” McAllan said. Gold could hear the unasked question as to what the hell the captain was thinking implied in those two words, but the lieutenant was a good enough officer to keep that question unasked.

  As soon as the Rio Grande started firing, the Androssi ship changed its position in order to keep its vulnerable side away from the runabout and also to put it at optimum position to return fire.

  Which was exactly what Gold was hoping for. “Fire torpedoes!”

  The torpedoes blasted away from the da Vinci just as the Rio Grande finished its run. Since torpedoes traveled slower than phasers, the Androssi ship actually had time to try to take an evasive course, but it was too little, too late.

  “Multiple hull breaches on the Androssi ship,” Ina said. “Their overall power levels are reading at fifty-five percent.”

  “Follow it up with dessert, McAllan,” Gold said. “Fire phasers.”

  As the phasers fired, tearing more into the Androssi hull, Gold added, “Bring the Rio Grande about and prepare to extend its shields around us.”

  “Sir,” Ina said, “if we do that—”

  “We’ll only get twenty percent effectiveness from the runabout shields. I took basic engineering at the Academy too, Ina, even if it was before you were born—the old man’s mind isn’t that addled. It’s still twenty percent more than we have now.”

  Ina turned contritely back around to her console.

  “Overseer.”

  “Speak.”

  “There is a runabout moving toward our position with its impulse drive.”

  Biron actually looked at the worker who made this pronouncement. “Explain yourself!”

  “The Starfleet runabout U.S.S. Rio Grande, registry NCC-72452, was in a standby position proximate to Upper Pylon 1 of the Cardassian station. It is now in motion and on an elliptical course toward us.”

  “I should have been informed of this sooner,” Biron said. He pressed a button on his right cuff. An electrical charge surged through the chair on which the worker was sitting, vaporizing the worker instantly.

  Another worker said, “Starfleet runabout is arming its phaser weapons and preparing to fire.”

  “Adjust position to present minimal aspect to runabout. Prepare another ladrion burst for the da Vinci.”

  “Overseer, we can’t fire the ladrion bursts,” came the voice of Engine Master Claris over the communications system. “We have sustained damage to that system from the Starfleet ship’s phaser fire.”

  Biron thought. He had use of the remaining anril torpedo, but it was only effective against shields—it would have minimal impact on the da Vinci’s hull, even as damaged as it was. Several of his ship’s other weapons systems had be
en integrated into the Cardassian station at the request of the client, who had found Biron’s original designs for the weapons platform to be insufficiently powerful.

  His status board indicated that the runabout was firing on their still-shielded port side. Good, he thought. Now we can—

  No. The board also indicated that four quantum torpedoes were being fired by the da Vinci at their vulnerable starboard side. If we still had the ladrion burst or our other weapons . . .

  But recrimination was foolish. Instead, he barked orders. “Set an evasive course away from the quantum torpedoes and implement overdrive instantly!”

  Instantly, as Biron could have predicted, was not fast enough.

  “Overseer, our hull has been breached four times over,” Claris said. “Our power levels have been reduced to fifty-five percent of capacity and our tactical and defensive systems are off-line.”

  Biron cursed. The mission was becoming less and less viable. “Open a subspace communication channel to Sub-Overseer Howwi.”

  Several seconds passed, and Howwi did not reply.

  Overseer Biron considered his options. Scans showed Howwi and the officers he’d brought with him were still alive. Those same scans also showed that the workers and the Starfleet personnel were also alive. So Howwi’s mission to secure the station from Starfleet must have failed. Starfleet’s rather confusing predilection for preserving individual lives at the expense of the greater good was probably the only reason why Howwi and the others were still alive—even the workers.

  His weapons capacity consisted of one anril torpedo. His shields were reduced to forty percent of capacity. His opponents now had two ships with which to fight.

  Much as Biron’s sponsor wanted the holo-emitters, the mission was now becoming too risky. As it was, he had several more risks to take in order to retrieve Howwi and the other two officers.

  And the client’s own actions were the reason why it had come to this. If Biron’s ship had its full complement of weapons, he would be able to dispose of this tiresome Starfleet ship and its smaller compatriot with little difficulty. Instead, he was being forced into the position of fleeing the da Vinci —again.

  I swear by the power of the Elite and the glory of the Leader, he thought at the entire crew complement of the Starfleet vessel, you will pay for this effrontery.

  Still, the mission was not a total loss. They had obtained a certain amount of Cardassian technology on the station that would be worth something to another client.

  “Lock matter-transferral device onto Sub-Overseer Howwi, Officer Dun, and Officer Huuk.”

  After a moment, one of the workers—one who hadn’t been on the flight deck before; this was obviously the replacement for the one Biron had disposed of—said, “Lock achieved.”

  The status board showed another hit from the da Vinci. It would be several seconds before they fired again, if the usual Starfleet pattern held. “Power down the shields and engage matter-transferral device. Engage dimensional blockers on all equipment currently present on the Cardassian station.”

  Howwi, Dun, and Huuk appeared on the flight deck, unconscious. Biron remembered that Starfleet’s weapons had a setting that could do that—one of many things about Starfleet that Biron did not comprehend. They were a strange conglomeration of beings, this Federation they represented—they did not exploit. It continually amazed Biron that such an inefficient government had managed to survive all these centuries.

  Biron gave not a thought to the workers who had been left behind. They were, after all, only workers and easily replaced. But good sub-overseers and officers were hard to find—even ones who groomed themselves and allowed themselves to be rendered unconscious by Starfleet. Indeed, Biron felt that some kind of punishment was in order for Howwi.

  That was for a later time, however. His status board indicated that the dimensional blockers had been engaged—Gold, Gomez, and the da Vinci’s other workers would not be able to make use of the technology they had used to improve the Cardassian station. Biron made a note to retrieve the technology from Dimension 7 when they returned to Androssi space.

  He also noted that the Starfleet vessel’s navigation systems were damaged, and could only accomplish an FTL of 1.02. “Set navigational course 76521. Set FTL at 15.”

  Within moments, Biron’s ship left the Trivas system behind.

  “They’re leaving the system at warp 8.7, sir,” McAllan said urgently.

  “Wong?” Gold prompted the conn officer.

  The young ensign shook his head. “Best we can manage is warp 4, sir.”

  Gold sighed. “No point in the tortoise chasing the hare if the hare’s actually gonna go full bore.”

  “Duf—Vinc —in. Duffy to da Vinci, can you hear me?”

  “We hear you, Duffy. Status report.”

  Duffy hesitated before giving the report. Gold suspected that the lieutenant commander wanted a status report of his own, but that would have to wait. Right now, Gold needed to know what was happening on Empok Nor more than Duffy needed to know the current situation on the da Vinci. “Well, sir, we had an Androssi boarding party—including our old pal, Sub-Overseer Howwi—but we took care of ’em. Unfortunately, someone beamed him and his two officers out. The workers were left behind, though. I guess they’re prisoners?”

  “I suppose.” Gold rubbed his chin. “We’ll turn them over to a starbase—maybe remand them to Maeglin. How about the station?”

  “That’s the weird part. Soloman screamed right as the three Androssi were beaming out. Remember last time, when all their tech just disappeared?”

  “Let me guess.”

  “Yes, sir, they did it again. It all fell into whatever dimension they hide it in when they don’t want us to know it’s there. As far as we can tell, they left Empok Nor the way they found it.”

  “Is Soloman okay?”

  “Yeah, he was more surprised than anything—the entire computer network hiccupped while he was in the middle of talking to it.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Nog said, “but Empok Nor hasn’t been left exactly the way the Androssi found it. There are several components from the original structure that are missing.”

  “Biron’s people probably salvaged ’em,” Gold said. “Hate to say it, but they’ve got as much right to it as we do to the fusion core. Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir.” Nog hesitated. “The structural integrity of the fusion core’s been compromised. I don’t think we can safely tow it back to Deep Space 9.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  Nog stood in Empok Nor’s ops. It felt weird, sitting in a place that was so much like the ops he was used to, and yet so different. Half the consoles didn’t work properly, and most of them looked different without the Starfleet upgrades.

  Lt. Commander Duffy had ordered them all to come up here to evaluate their options. The catwalk by the fusion reactor was not ideal for that, and Duffy felt that they all needed a change of scene in any case. Nog found he couldn’t argue, which numbered it among the few things Duffy had said for which that was the case. Nog used to think highly of the S.C.E.—and they certainly handled themselves decently against these Androssi saboteurs—but the Ferengi was well and truly sick of their condescending attitude toward him. As if somehow he wasn’t worthy to be considered a real engineer because he wasn’t part of the hallowed Corps.

  Robins and Friesner had beamed back to the da Vinci, along with the two Androssi prisoners. Corsi, Drew, and Eddy remained behind, and were presently standing at the upper level of ops. Stevens, P8 Blue, Soloman, and Duffy were seated around the table with Nog.

  “All right, people,” Duffy said, “I want options and I want them now, and I don’t care how ridiculous they seem.”

  “Can we not fix the structural integrity field?” Soloman asked.

  P8 Blue gave a low-pitched tinkling sound, which, Nog noted, differed from other, like sounds the Nasat made. He wondered what the differences among them were. “Not unless you have Cardas
sian emitters in your pocket, Soloman. We don’t have replicator patterns for them, and I doubt we’d be able to get Cardassia to ship us some new ones.”

  “Even if they could,” Stevens added, “it’d probably take over a week to get here, and several more days to get the thing up to snuff.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” Nog said anxiously. “Captain Gold just heard from DS9—we have ten days at the most before we’ll have to abandon the station.”

  “We know that, Lieutenant,” Duffy said in what the human probably thought was a soothing voice, but which only served to annoy Nog more.

  “Can’t you put it in a force field?” Corsi asked.

  Duffy shook his head. “Not and tow it at warp, no. And if we stick with sublight, it’ll take a helluva lot more than ten days to get there.”

  “Maybe,” Stevens said, “if we use the runabout’s warp engines—create a static warp bubble around the core so it can handle the force field.”

  Blue repeated the low-pitched tinkle. “With the SIF in the shape it’s in, the stresses of the warp bubble would rip it to pieces.”

  Nog watched as the four engineers threw ideas back and forth, each more incredible than the last. Each suggestion seemed to top the last in being overly complicated and difficult to engineer—almost as if they were taking Duffy’s admonition about ridiculousness to heart—or would require considerably more than the ten days they had left to them.

  Then, suddenly, it came to him. An idea more ridiculous than anything the S.C.E. crew had said.

  “. . . but there’s no way we could construct a sub-quark resonator for that,” Stevens was saying.

  “Besides,” Blue added, “those things only work about half the time anyhow. They’re mostly untested.”

  “Okay, that’s out,” Duffy said.

  Finally, Nog thought, a lull. “Why don’t we just move the whole station?”

  Everyone looked at Nog.

  “I beg your pardon?” Duffy said after about five seconds of silence.