by Glenn Hauman
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COMING SOON:
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.
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ISBN: 0-7434-9689-2
First Pocket Books Ebooks Edition January 2005
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Rabbi David Honigsberg, for keeping the ceremony Kosher.
Chapter
1
“Typical.”
Tev glanced again at the door, but it remained closed. Where was he? Not that Stevens would use the door, necessarily, but it provided a good focal point. And he was long overdue on checking in. He and that Starfleet instructor, Sparks, had dealt with the malfunctioning turbolift, and had rescued Ben Martin, the student trapped within. That was over an hour ago. Martin was back in engineering now, but Stevens should have reported in himself, to let Tev know what had happened. Especially since Martin had mentioned that Stevens had been injured.
“Computer,” Tev called out, “Locate Specialist Stevens.”
“Access denied.”
Damn and blast! Of course, he’d tried locating Stevens several times already, and that had been the response each time. For most requests, the computer still recognized his authority and complied, but when it came to shutting down the program, exiting the suite, or locating Stevens and Sparks, it refused. Tev dearly wished he had access to the holosuite’s programming panels—then he would teach it to respect him properly. Unfortunately, revealing those was another thing it refused to do.
He glanced around the captain’s quarters—his quarters—again. The Hyperion was not a large ship by any stretch, but the rooms were well arranged and certainly this was larger than his cabin on the da Vinci. It was actually larger than Captain Gold’s rooms there—Tev knew this because he had memorized the measurements of every room on the ship before he had gone on board. It would be hard to give this up, once the exams were over.
Next to his bed was a small nightstand, a flask, and a book sitting atop it. Tev frowned. The flask was his, a present from his granduncle upon finishing first in his scholastic exit exams, but the book did not belong there. He walked over and picked it up. It was a handsome volume, leather-bound with gilt edges, and had a certain comforting heft to it. Then the title caught his eye:
The Plight of the Hyperion
Intrigued, Tev flipped the book open to the first page and read:
Tev, it’s Stevens. The computer’s locked us out, and we’re stuck in ghost mode. I tried sending you a direct message through the communicators, but it was blocked. Looks like someone’s programmed the computer to cut us off from everyone else, in every way possible. Then I thought of this. The computer is still letting us alter things, as long as it doesn’t lead to anyone stopping the program. So I created this book.
Alex and I think tha
The text ended abruptly there, and began again a page later with some drivel about a kidnapped spaceship and a band of blue-haired teen rescuers. Stevens clearly had not written that. Tev tossed the book onto his bed and began pacing. The computer was locking them in, as Stevens had called it, ghost mode? That would explain why he’d been unable to—
He lost his train of thought when something moved off to the side, at the edge of his peripheral vision. Turning, Tev found himself facing his bathroom mirror, and his own reflection—which was frantically gesturing to him. Approaching the mirror, Tev saw that his reflection was holding its hands oddly.
“What exactly are you doing to my image?” he demanded of the mirror. “That posture is unbecoming of a Starfleet officer, much less a starship captain. I demand that you straighten up at once!”
The reflection started bang
ing its head against the glass. Then it raised one hand and thumbed its nose at him.
“How dare you! If you were a real person, instead of my own reflection, I would have you brought up on charges of insubordination! You’re worse than Stevens!”
At that, the reflection nodded. And Tev understood.
“Stevens? What do you mean, hijacking my reflection? Ah, wait—the computer caught on to your book idea, and so you switched over to here. Fine. Who is behind this?”
The reflection shrugged.
“No idea? Is it someone within the holosuite?”
The reflection nodded but then shrugged again.
“You think so, but are not certain?” Another nod. “Is Sparks with you?” Nod. “Is he injured?” A shake of the head. “Are you injured?” Nod. “Badly?” Nod and shake. “Moderately?” Nod. “Do you require medical attention?” Nod. “Is your life at risk?” Shrug. “I see.”
Tev idly stroked his chin, but the reflection did not move. “I will monitor the students, and watch for any signs of complicity. Since the two of you are trapped in this intangible state, you’d best spend your time studying the matter. Perhaps you can deduce who is behind this. Communicate with me when you have any new information, via any method necessary.”
The reflection nodded, then mimed writing something and shrugged again.
“The exams?” Nod. “Of course they should continue. The students are trapped here as well, and they should put that time to good use. Keeping them focused on their testing should help quell any panic. I will simply remind them that this is Starfleet, and thus anything could happen.”
The reflection nodded again, and waved.
“Yes yes. Stop making me slouch and get back to work.” His reflection shifted, straightening up and moving its hands to match his own. Stevens had gone.
Tev sighed. Leave it to Stevens to get locked out of a holographic program. With anyone else he would think it was bad luck, but Stevens had a way of finding difficulties. Or vice versa. He was almost as bad as Gomez herself. Of course, the S.C.E. commander was supposedly relaxing on board the da Vinci during this trip, but Tev had a suspicion that wasn’t the case. If anyone could walk into trouble on a regular basis, it was his superior officer.
Chapter
2
Captain Gold had never felt like a bigger screwup in his life. He wondered if they’d ever find him if he moved to an island in the South Pacific, just him and a replicator.
He was sitting behind the desk of the Klingon ambassador to the Federation, in his embassy office. The décor was not conducive to calm, rational thinking. He thought that if Klingons had just used a few more windows and a few less torches and things with antlers on the walls, the galaxy might have known peace a century ago.
He sighed. Back to the task at hand. It was time for Captain Gold to sit down and make a list of his own. He’d asked everyone else to make one; it seemed only fair. And Captain Gold found it soothing to go through the list of problems in front of him. He found that by doing so, it allowed him the time to breathe and calm his mind.
He looked around the desk for a pen and paper—the pen was easy enough, but there didn’t seem to be any paper, and he didn’t want to rummage through Lantar’s desk. He was reasonably sure that looking through the desk of the Klingon ambassador to the Federation was tantamount to spying, and could get him shot on sight.
He considered it for a second. Tempting. Instead, he flipped over the list from Khor and began to write on the back.
First, a list of what had happened to date.
He had come back to Earth to perform the wedding of his granddaughter, Esther. Actually, he had been called upon to co-officiate the wedding with his wife, Rabbi Rachel Gilman, all at the request of Khor, son of Lantar and intended of Esther, to provide the military pomp dictated by Khor’s father, being the important government official. The concept was simple; the implementation was turning out to be anything but.
Gold had expected the planning of the wedding to go incredibly smoothly—Lantar had insisted on being involved both as the father of the groom and as a representative of the Klingons but he was an experienced diplomat, Rachel was an exceedingly reasonable person who had conducted hundreds of weddings in her day, and Khor and Esther were two young people very much in love.
What went wrong?
He couldn’t put his finger on the exact moment things had begun to turn sour; it was simply a bunch of people being stubborn. And strong-willed. And boneheaded to the point of ridiculousness. He took it upon himself to play referee and send the fighters back to neutral corners, and gave them each the task of coming up with their own separate lists of what were, in their own minds, the ten most crucial things to be involved in the wedding. He would then try to find a way to resolve any conflicts between the lists and make it all work out.
Each of them came to him in turn with their list, and tried to wheedle special considerations out of him, to make it all work out. Khor wouldn’t budge on the few requests that he had; Rachel didn’t even come to him with a list, saying that he should know what’s important to her, and she invoked both religion and the mother of the bride; Esther couldn’t narrow her list below two dozen; and Lantar threatened a major diplomatic incident if he didn’t get his way.
Gevalt and geshryin.
Somewhere in here, there was a solution. That was, after all, what the S.C.E. did—found solutions to the insoluble problems. What was going to be required, though, was more diplomacy than had been in evidence so far. How was he going to get everything to work together smoothly?
Clearly, he was going to have to get one of them on his side and then try to build the coalition from there.
He looked at the list again. Who was going to be the person who was going to cause him the greatest amount of trouble if he didn’t resolve things well? And who was he going to want on his side backing his play?
Only one person fit both criteria…and boy, he was not looking forward to the groveling.
Maybe he should open Lantar’s desk after all and take the easy way out.
Chapter
3
Sonya Gomez paced the da Vinci bridge.
“Anything on the comm channels?” she demanded.
“No, sir,” Shabalala replied. “Just routine dock chatter and standard requests. Nothing for us.”
“Damn. Where’s a nice catastrophe when you need one?” She ignored the tactical officer’s puzzled glance and continued pacing. If only something turned up, no matter how small. Something for her to do.
Because, face facts, she was bored. Severely bored. Unbelievably bored.
All of the repairs from the damage they’d taken at Phantas 61 and in the Lokak system had been taken care of. The da Vinci was as good as new—better, actually. Soloman had finished his diagnostics, and had already corrected the few minor glitches he’d discovered in the ship’s systems. He’d even started building a complete computer model of the ship, so that in future they would be able to examine possible alterations ahead of time, in holographic form. And she’d finished her book. There was another in that series—apparently about the same group having lunch at the same place over and over again—in the ship’s library, but she didn’t feel like downloading it. The first book had been cute, but she wasn’t sure she could handle reading more of the same.
Maybe one of her crew would have a problem for her to handle. Of course, Pattie was still out shopping—no help necessary there. Abramowitz and Hawkins were off somewhere, Bart was spending some much-overdue time with Anthony, and Lense had simply vanished. She knew better than to interrupt Gold, and Fabian and Tev were doing that holosuite thing at the Academy. So what did that leave?
She sank down into the captain’s chair. Not a thing.
Just then, the comm panel beeped. “Incoming voice signal,” Shabalala said. “From Stevens.”
“On audio,” Sonya said quickly. Fabian probably just wanted to tell her how much fun they were having, and to share a
joke at Tev’s expense, but it was better than nothing. “Fabian, that you?”
“Commander, thank God!” His tone made her sit up straight. “Are you busy?”
“Not even a little,” she said. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got a situation down here. I hate to ask, but do you think you—?”
“Absolutely!” She leapt to her feet. “What do you need?”
Fabian gave her a quick rundown of the situation, and Sonya whistled. “Nasty.”
“I’m actually surprised the computer let me contact you, but I guess it just doesn’t want us talking to anyone else inside. It did block Sparks when he tried contacting his dean, but it must not consider the da Vinci a direct threat.”
“And Tev and the students are trapped with you? Are they safe?”
“That’d be a big yes to the first question, and a resounding no to the second. The safety protocols are off, and it won’t give us access to turn them back on. So all the threats are real now. Tev’s warned the students, but that may not be enough. Especially since somebody else has added situations to my setup, and a lot of them are designed to cause maximum damage.”
“Okay, first things first. You need someone to look at that leg, which means getting you out of there. Let’s see if we can beam you up here—that’d be easiest.” She tapped her combadge. “Gomez to Poynter. Lock onto Fabian down at the Academy holosuite and beam him directly to sickbay.”
After a pause, Laura Poynter’s voice sounded over the intercom. “I can’t get a lock on anyone in the holosuite, Commander. I just tried Tev as well, but something’s blocking the beam.”
“Well, it was worth a try.” She sighed and sat back down. “Okay, I can’t get in and you can’t get out. But I’ll do what I can to help you from up here.”
“Thanks, Commander,” he replied. “I get the feeling we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
Chapter
4
Gold walked down the hall of the embassy, stopping in front of the room his wife was supposed to be in. The door beeped. “Who is it?” he heard his wife call from inside.