Miracle Workers

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

“Move the whole station. Get a bunch of ships to tractor it at warp to the Bajoran system.” Already, Nog was imagining the possibilities in his head. In retrospect, he should have thought of this in the first place. Empok Nor was, after all, the perfect place for spare parts for Deep Space 9. They could stick it in orbit somewhere—maybe around Bajor or one of its moons—and have a permanent storage locker. Not to mention a testing place for new upgrades . . .

  “Uh, Nog, if I’m remembering right,” Stevens said, “DS9 is about fifteen hundred meters by three hundred seventy meters—and this place has the same dimensions, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to tow it at warp?” Duffy asked, incredulous.

  “Low warp, but it can be done.” He thought for a moment. “We’d need twelve ships. One on each pylon and six around the docking ring.”

  “They’d all need to be the same general size and class,” Blue said. “If not, the tractor beams will be incompatible.”

  “No, they won’t,” Nog said. “With that many ships, we can calibrate the tractor beams with each other. The Rio Grande can serve as the coordination point. It can take point and make sure the warp fields and the tractor beams stay aligned.”

  “Yeah, but you could only do that at warp 2,” Duffy said, “and then you’d never make it.”

  “We can do it at warp 4,” Stevens said before Nog could speak. Nog grinned. Finally, one of them’s on my side.

  “Fabe—”

  “I’m serious, Duff, we could do it at warp 4. I mean, c’mon, warp 6 is the normal cruising speed for most ships anyhow. The da Vinci just took a major pounding from the Androssi and it can still do warp 4. It’s baby steps. Think out of the box, for a change.”

  Duffy rolled his eyes. “Don’t get cute on me, Fabe. Besides, there’s another problem: think about what kind of subspace disruption you’re going to cause. Communications will be spotty at best—how the hell’re you going to coordinate everything when you won’t even be able to stay in consistent contact?”

  Nog deflated. “I’m not sure,” he admitted reluctantly. “But there has to be—”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Blue said, this time making a much higher-pitched tinkling noise. “There’s a new method of close-range ship-to-ship using tight-beam tachyon pulses. The Romulans developed it about twenty years ago, and finally decided to share it about a week before the Dominion War ended.”

  Blinking, Nog said, “I didn’t know about that.”

  “Neither did I,” Duffy said.

  Another noise, this one of a medium pitch. “You people really need to keep up on the trades. It’s all they’ve been talking about in the Journal of the Federation Consortium of Engineers and Technicians for the last two months.”

  “Can you build one of those?” Nog asked.

  “Of course,” Blue said. “I have the replicator pattern stored on the da Vinci computer.”

  Duffy had a few more objections, but either Nog or Stevens or Blue had an answer for it. Before long, even Duffy was sharing Nog’s enthusiasm—he certainly seemed excited when they finally contacted Captain Gold on Empok Nor’s viewscreen.

  “There’s only one problem,” Duffy said after doing so. “We need twelve ships.”

  Gold’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, let me just make a call.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  David Gold had been listening to the latest letter from his granddaughter for the sixteenth time when the call from the bridge came.

  “Message from Earth, sir,” said Lieutenant McAllan.

  “On screen,” Gold said, once again removing the image of Ruth’s face and replacing it with the Starfleet logo—which was, in turn, replaced by the familiar visage of Captain Montgomery Scott, the liaison between the S.C.E. and the admiralty.

  “I got your request, David, and I’ve got to ask you—have ye gone completely daft?”

  Scotty had a huge grin on his face, which was the only reason why Gold wasn’t stunned. After all, Nog’s plan was the type of thing that Scotty himself would have come up with during his days as a full-time engineer.

  “No more than usual. The real question is, can you do it?”

  “Yes and no, lad. There are nine ships en route to the Trivas system now. They should be there within a few hours. I’m afraid that’s the best I could do. And even then, I can’t promise that they’ll do what you’re askin’. That’ll be up to you an’ your lot to convince ’em of.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “By the way—which one o’ that motley bunch came up with this scheme? Duffy? P8 Blue?”

  “Actually, it was the Ferengi kid from DS9—Nog. His idea, his specs for implementing it, and his request for twelve ships.”

  With a twinkle in his eye, Scotty said, “Well, then, I think it’s only appropriate for me to be the one to break it to him that he only gets nine. Besides, I’d like to meet the man who came up with this. ’ Tis only a pity I won’t be able to shake his hand.”

  Gold smiled and tapped his combadge. “Gold to Nog. Report to the captain’s quarters immediately.”

  Within a few minutes—which Gold spent giving Scotty a quick verbal report on the entire Empok Nor mission—the doorchime rang. “Come in,” Gold said, and the doors parted to reveal the young Ferengi lieutenant.

  “Nog, there’s a man here that you need to meet. Captain Montgomery Scott, this is Lieutenant Nog.”

  The Ferengi’s eyes went wide. “It is an honor to meet you, sir.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine, lad. This is quite a little plan ye’ve cooked up.”

  “Thank you, sir. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news, though. I could only rustle up nine ships—and as I told the captain, I canna guarantee that they’ll go along.”

  Grinning, Nog said, “Leave that to me, sir. And don’t worry about it—with the da Vinci, we’ll have ten ships, and that’s actually one more than we’ll need.”

  Gold whirled toward the Ferengi. “Then why’d you say you needed twelve?”

  Nervously, Nog said, “Fifth—Fifth Rule of Acquisition, sir: ‘Always exaggerate your estimates.’”

  Scotty laughed, which seemed to relieve Nog. “That was an engineer’s axiom long before you heathens took it on,” he said. “Well done, lad, well done.”

  “Thank you, sir. I know that this plan doesn’t exactly follow the established norms, but—”

  Waving his left arm dismissively, Scotty said, “Good God, lad, don’t concern yourself. The established norms are just guidelines, and your job as an engineer is to find a better way around them. Always remember that.”

  Smiling, Nog said, “I will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Now be off with you—I’ve business to discuss with the captain.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Still smiling from ear to oversize ear, Nog left Gold’s quarters.

  “Back home, we call that a mitzvah,” Gold said with a chuckle.

  “Well, the lad deserved it. But I wanted to talk to you a bit more about the Androssi.”

  “What’s the word, Doctor?” Domenica Corsi asked as she entered sickbay.

  Seated behind her desk, Elizabeth Lense looked up from reading a padd and smiled. “The word is good, Commander. Frnats, Hawkins, and Lipinski all received serious shocks to their systems, but with some bed rest and CNS therapy, they should be able to report back to duty within a week. For Frnats, more like a week and a half.”

  Corsi frowned. “Why so long?”

  “Commander, CNS is central nervous system. The weapons the Androssi used on them were like the effect of a phaser on stun magnified by a factor of about a thousand. In fact, I’m amazed it didn’t kill them, though it came pretty close with Frnats. I want to do some bio-scans on our two prisoners, to see if this weapon is fatal to Androssi. If it is, we have to be aware of the fact that they might eventually upgrade the weapon to have a maximum impact on aliens.”

  “That’s a
good idea,” Corsi said with a nod. Lense took a practical viewpoint that Corsi found refreshing on a ship full of engineers who tended to have their minds buried in isolinear chips. She was also a good roommate—quiet, considerate, and not given to irritating habits. Her people had been chatting endlessly about the feud between P8 Blue and Abramowitz, and Corsi was grateful to have been spared that.

  Leaning back in her chair, Lense fixed Corsi with another smile. “So what’s happening between you and Stevens?”

  “What’re you talking about?” Corsi felt her face flush.

  “He spent the night in our quarters the other day. I saw him coming out when that meeting was called yesterday morning.”

  Corsi clenched her fists.

  Lense wasn’t finished, though. “And when Drew was visiting Hawkins earlier, he was talking about how you were—how’d he put it?––‘making goo-goo eyes’ at him.”

  “What!?”

  Corsi spoke loudly enough that Lense actually flinched. “I’m just telling you what he said.”

  “Right,” Corsi said, forcing herself to calm down. It wasn’t fair to the doctor, biting her head off like that. Though right now, Corsi wasn’t all that interested in what was fair. What she was interested in was putting Fabian Stevens through a bulkhead.

  What for, exactly? she thought, as she excused herself from Lense and exited sickbay. For saying yes when I asked him back to my quarters?

  No, it was hardly Fabian’s fault that he was there for her when she needed companionship. It was her own stupid fault for indulging herself on a ship the size of a toolbox.

  Damn you, Dar, why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to—

  She cut the thought off, refusing to dwell on it. The anniversary had come and gone. What was done was done.

  Nog was hunched over the Rio Grande’s controls, listening to his recording of Sinnravian drad, when the hail from the Sugihara came in. Finally, he thought. Captain Demitrijian was the only one of the nine ship captains who hadn’t gotten back to him. The other eight had all agreed to go along with it—some enthusiastically, some with the greatest reluctance, but they all did agree in the end. Except for Captain Janna Demitrijian.

  He put the captain’s round face on the screen, then remembered to turn the music off.

  “Lieutenant,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about your proposal. I’ve also gone over it with my chief engineer. For what it’s worth, she thinks you’re categorically insane and has said that if we go through with this, she refuses to accept any responsibility for it.”

  Nog sighed. Well, I’ve been lucky up until now. Besides, with the da Vinci, we’ll be fine.

  “Well, thank you for taking the time to come here, Captain.”

  Demitrijian frowned. “I haven’t said we won’t do it, Lieutenant. Last time I checked, I was in command of the Sugihara, not Lieutenant Barbanti, nor you.”

  Feeling his lobes shrivel, Nog said, “I’m sorry, sir, I—”

  “What I want to know is, what’s in this for me if I do go along?”

  His lobes perked back up. Now the captain was speaking his language. “As I said in my original communication, you’ll have shore leave for your crew on Bajor, which is one of the loveliest planets in the quadrant—plus whatever maintenance your ship needs from my engineering staff.”

  “Both of which I can get from Starbase 96 which, if nothing else, has a working power source. I’ll need more than that.”

  Nog spoke slowly. “I’m not sure what else I can offer—” He let the sentence hang—usually if you paused there, the customer would finish the sentence for you.

  “When you established the commlink,” Demitrijian said, “you had some kind of music on. It sounded like Blee Luu’s Endless Dream.”

  “Yes! Yes, it was! I can make a recording for you.”

  “No, thank you, I can’t stand that stuff. But my son is dating a Sinnravian, and she loves Luu. However, they’ve been living on the Canopus Planet, and she hasn’t been able to get her hands on Luu’s newest recording—I forget what it’s called.”

  “It’s yours,” Nog said.

  “An original, not a copy,” Demitrijian added. “Sinnravians are fussy about that sort of thing. Something about their inner ears.”

  Shaking his head at the relative ignorance of such stunted-eared folk as humans, Nog said, “You’ll have an original recording by the time we reach DS9.”

  “In that case, Lieutenant, the Sugihara is at your disposal.”

  “Excellent! Thank you, Captain! Rio Grande out.”

  Nog cut the connection.

  Now where am I supposed to get an original of Blee Luu’s latest recording?

  The runabout was currently docked at Empok Nor. P8 Blue was due back at any moment with a full structural report, after which point the Nasat would come on board, download the information to the runabout computer, and then beam back to the da Vinci while Nog took up position at the head of the convoy that would tow Empok Nor back.

  Nog started Endless Dream up again as he went over the data. The computer models were all encouraging, and the S.C.E. were all sure that it would work. Of course, the report he’d gotten from DS9 was that everyone except Commander Vaughn thought he was insane, but nobody actually objected, either—probably because they’d seen the computer models also, and besides, nobody had a better idea.

  The doors to the runabout opened, and P8 Blue came in—

  —and immediately let out a screech that nearly punctured Nog’s delicate eardrums.

  “Lieutenant,” Blue said as Nog gripped his oversize ears with his undersize hands, “if you do not shut that music off, Deep Space 9 will need to find a new chief operations officer, as the present one will be larvae food!”

  “Computer, terminate music,” Nog said quickly.

  “First Abramowitz, now you,” Blue said.

  “Abramowitz?”

  “She’s our cultural specialist—also my roommate. She just got the latest recording of that fecal matter you call music by that Blee Luu person, and it’s been driving me insane.”

  “Really?” Nog said. “Maybe we can help each other out.”

  Kieran Duffy was rather pleased as he sat in the center seat of the bridge for the da Vinci’s gamma shift. Everything was going smoothly. The ten ships were taking up positions, with one ship on each of the six pylons and the remaining four evenly spaced around the docking ring. The Rio Grande was taking up position nearby, ready to lead the convoy to Deep Space 9. Some last-minute figures needed to be gone over, of course, but they were on schedule to start at the beginning of alpha shift.

  Closer to home, the Abramowitz-Pattie difficulty had been settled thanks to their Ferengi visitor. Nog had apparently convinced Carol to let him have her new drad recording for the Sugihara’s captain in exchange for—something. When Fabe Stevens shared this bit of intelligence, the engineer had been unclear as to what the something was that Nog had promised to Carol, but Duffy was sure he’d find out soon enough.

  The gamma shift tactical officer—a young ensign named Piotrowski—said, “Commander, we’re getting a priority-one distress call.” She looked up, and gave Duffy a stricken look. “Sir, it’s from Commander Gomez on Sarindar!”

  Duffy felt a fist of ice clench his heart. Oh no, Sonnie . . .

  It took him a moment to make his mouth work. “Confirm.”

  “The distress call is definitely coming from Nalori space, and was sent two days ago, sir.”

  “Engineering, this is Duffy. Are we back up to capacity yet?”

  Nancy Conlon, the current duty officer, said, “Yes, sir, Commander. Can give you warp 9.7 for twelve hours, just like the specs say—longer if we have to. Why? I thought this trip was going to be at warp 4.”

  “We may be taking a different trip. Duffy out.” He took another deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. “Captain Gold to the bridge.”

  It hadn’t taken long for Nog to rearrange the convoy to acco
mmodate the loss of the da Vinci. It simply meant that the three remaining ships on the docking ring would take up position halfway between each pylon.

  Captain Gold was on the viewscreen as the da Vinci was preparing to warp away, apparently to respond to a distress call from the ship’s first officer.

  “I’m sorry I won’t get to see the look on Colonel Kira’s face when we tow the station in,” Gold said. “And tell her I’m sorry I won’t get to see the station.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “You did good work here today, Lieutenant. Any chance I can convince you to transfer here? I get the feeling you’d fit right in.”

  Standing next to Gold, Duffy added, “He’s right, Nog. I know we may not have seemed very hospitable at first, but—well, I was wrong to slap you down. I’m sorry for that. And I’d be honored if you’d join us.”

  “I’m flattered by your offer, Captain—and I accept your apology, Commander—but I have to say no. I’m very happy where I am.”

  “It’s our loss,” Gold said with a smile. “Good luck, son.”

  “To you also, Captain.”

  The image of the da Vinci bridge winked out. Nog stared out the runabout porthole and watched the Saber-class ship go into warp toward the far-off Nalori Republic. Nog didn’t know Commander Gomez, though he knew of her reputation after the trick she pulled on the Sentinel during the war. He hoped that Captain Gold and the others would get to her in time.

  Nog activated P8 Blue’s tachyon communications network. “Nog to convoy. Engage tractor beams.”

  Nine Starfleet ships emitted blue cones of light that tethered them to Empok Nor. Nog smiled.

  “Prepare to go to warp on my mark.”

  He was truly flattered by Gold’s offer. But in the S.C.E., he’d just be a cog in the wheel. On DS9, he was the chief.

  “Engage.”

  INVINCIBLE

  David Mack

  &

  Keith R.A. DeCandido

  First officer’s log, Commander Sonya Gomez, U.S.S. da Vinci, Stardate 53270.2