by Glenn Hauman
“Which in no way belittles the honor she gains by joining the house of Lantar,” Rachel added. Nicely timed, Gold thought.
“Yes, there is merit to your words.”
“I have asked Rachel to plan out a ceremony that honors both worlds, and would like to present the first draft for your consideration.” He produced a padd and handed it to Lantar.
Rachel piped up. “I think you’ll really appreciate the Haray Aht—that’s the exchange of the rings, which symbolizes the exchange of each other’s hearts. I believe this ties in very closely with the beating of two Klingon hearts from the traditional Klingon ceremony.”
Lantar looked it over. “I am pleased that you understand the values of the Klingon ceremony, for one so new in the field.”
Rachel smiled sweetly and nodded her head respectfully. If she opened her mouth, she would have told Lantar that she had studied the Klingon culture longer than his son had been alive, in very colorful language. But she was quite happy to take the quick shot for now. Gold knew it, so he tried to get things moving along quickly. “So, does all this work for you?”
“I believe that this is acceptable. It is respectful of our tenets. It seems to be heading in the right direction. Of course, I will want to see the final draft.”
“Oh, certainly.” Gold put Khor’s and Esther’s lists on the desk. “Is there anything on these lists that you object to, anything that you believe is contrary to the ceremony you have in mind?”
Lantar studied the pieces of paper in front of him-for longer than he needed to, Gold suspected, but he probably wanted to make the humans in front of him squirm. Lantar’s forehead wrinkled at various points (rather, it wrinkled more) and at other points he shook his head. At last, after what seemed like a short stay in purgatory, Lantar said, “There is nothing on his list that is objectionable—and although her list is somewhat frivolous, I am willing to be somewhat indulgent to my future daughter-in-law.”
“Good!” Gold gathered up the lists. “Then we can—”
“However,” and here Lantar stood up and began to pace around the room, as if he were striding to a podium, “the frivolity unsettles me.” He stood facing a window, his back to the two of them. “The ceremony…it still seems…too bland. And yet, too unconventional. A certain decorum must be observed for a man in my position, certainly you understand.”
Gold smiled. “I certainly do understand, and I agree. The Klingon Empire should have a showcase, to proclaim its might to the galaxy. In fact…” his voiced trailed off.
“Yes?”
“Lantar, why don’t we hold the reception for the wedding here, at the embassy?”
The Ambassador looked genuinely surprised at the suggestion. “Here?”
Rachel jumped in. “Of course! It’s brilliant! How else would you show the true meaning of the Klingon heart? What better way could there be?”
“No, honey, that’s unreasonable. There’s no way we could possibly expect Lantar to put together the equivalent of a full state dinner in just a few days—”
“Think nothing of it!” Lantar boomed. “The embassy staff thrives on such challenges!”
There was a quiet snort from one of the workmen, but nothing more.
“We will have a chance to show you true honor, passion, and romance.” Lantar paused. “Do you think Esther will be amenable to this plan?”
“Why don’t you let us discuss it with them?” Gold said. “You obviously have much to do—”
“Yes! My son is getting married! And we shall make it an event that shall not soon be forgotten!”
Gold and Rachel both got up. “We’ll let you get to it then,” said Rachel.
“Yes, yes—” Lantar waved his hand. “I’ll have to contact musicians. Songs are going to have to be written about this day!”
“Shall we, dear?” Gold offered his arm.
“Surely.”
“Let’s.” And they strolled out of Lantar’s office together. After the door had shut and they were halfway down the hall, Gold turned to his wife. “So, what do you think?”
“I think that you were very lucky that we were in an embassy where you could get away with belittling me to make a point. It was a cheap way to score points.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Again.”
“Oh, I understand why you did it, as long as you now know that I know. Now—”
“Did that make sense to you as you were saying it?”
“Knowing what I now know, did I know now? I knew. Nu?”
Gold shook his head. “You’re too old for these word games. What do you think of the deal we got out of Lantar?”
“Seemed pretty well-handled. Now what was that problem that you said you had to deal with?”
He smiled. “Already dealt with it.”
Rachel was silent for the next ten paces, thinking. “You forgot about the reception, didn’t you?”
He mock winced. “I didn’t really forget—I just didn’t really have any place to put it on the ship. We’re not equipped to handle dinner for three hundred.”
“So you fobbed the job off on him, and made it look like a privilege. You played off his vanity and patriotism.”
“Yep. Let him do some of the hard work. I see no reason the Klingon government can’t absorb some of the costs of this megillah.”
“What will the kids think of all of this?”
“Khor and Esther? They’re young, they’re in love. They’ll be fine. They’re probably a bit jumpy right now, but that’ll—” and then Gold stopped, because he heard a crash come from Esther’s guest room. Then another. “Come on!”
They stopped at the door to the room, and they heard the door chime, followed by another crash. “What is going on in there?”
Rachel pressed her ear to the door. “I don’t know, hush for a bit.”
“Forget it, I’m—”
“Quiet!” Rachel could hear a loud male voice through the door, she was pretty sure it was Khor, saying something in Klingon—very, very impassioned. And then a very loud crash.
And then she heard Esther screaming, “You come to me, begging like a human?” Another crash. And then something like a snarl…
Gold started, “I’m getting a guard to open this up n—”
“No,” Rachel said, standing up. “I don’t think we are.” She quickly grabbed Gold’s arm and started leading him back from where they had come.
“What are you doing? Esther is in real trouble back—”
“No, dear, she isn’t. And we have a wedding ceremony to write.”
“But—”
“It’s best that you don’t think about it, because if you do your brain will probably melt and dribble out your ears. Come along, dear.”
Chapter
9
Sonya let Kendra do the honors, but she stayed online and even split her viewscreen so she could see both of them. She’d never met Pressman, but when his face appeared she had to smother a laugh. It was a long, narrow face, with a small sharp nose, a tiny pointed chin, and large, slightly bulging eyes. His hair was dark brown, receding, and thin, and pointed off his forehead in several so much so that, if she squinted a little, it looked like he had antennae waving over his temples. Crawfish indeed.
Right now he wasn’t red, though. And his expression was anything but angry or embarrassed. In fact, when he saw Kendra on his screen, he didn’t even give her a chance to speak.
“Ah, Kendra,” he said, deliberately dragging out her name. He was at his desk in the Academy, and leaned back a little. “I’ve been expecting your call.” He smiled at her—it wasn’t a friendly smile, or a pleasant one. “I’ve finally gotten even with you and Stevens for that thing you did with the fire hose. I expect you’re regretting that now, hm? And Fabian is as well—of course, not that he can tell anyone that.”
Sonya had spent several minutes before the call calming Kendra down, but Pressman’s smug manner and callous remarks undid that in an instant. “You insufferable little basta
rd!” Kendra snarled. “You pathetic, no-talent git! You endangered the entire graduating class—your own students—just so you could get even over a little—”
She didn’t get the chance to finish—Pressman, who had turned a vivid red (very crawfishlike, Sonya couldn’t help but notice) during her rant, interrupted her. “Wait, what are you talking about? What danger? What’s happened?”
Kendra was fuming too much to speak without cursing, so Sonya stepped in. “Professor Pressman, I’m Sonya Gomez, commander of the da Vinci’s S.C.E. crew. I’m Mr. Stevens’s CO. The reason we’re calling is that someone has sabotaged the Hyperion test.”
She now had Pressman’s full attention. “Sabotaged? In what way?”
“Well, Fabian had programmed in several tests, simulated crises for the students to deal with.”
“Yes, yes.” Pressman waved a hand. “I looked over the list. He was always a good engineer—much as I’d like to believe otherwise.”
“Yes, well, someone decided to add additional tests. And they deactivated the safety protocols, so the students—and Fabian, Lieutenant Commander Tev, who’s helping out with the test, and Professor Sparks—are all at real risk. Fabian’s already been injured saving one student’s life, and he needs immediate medical attention.”
“What?” Pressman had gone from red to white. “We need to get them out of there!”
“I agree,” Sonya told him. “Unfortunately, the suite seems to have locked itself—no one in or out. And we can’t shut it off.”
“Oh, no.” Pressman turned toward Kendra now. “Kendra, you have to believe me—I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t endanger my students, not ever. Or Alex, or that lieutenant commander. Or even Fabian himself—scare him, yes, but not actually hurt him. I didn’t do that.”
“We found evidence that you inserted new code into the program,” Kendra said curtly. “What did you do?”
Now he regained a little of that smug expression, though only a little. “I set it up so that, at a certain point in the program, once Fabian went into intangible mode he would be stuck there. I set Alex up the same way, mainly so that he couldn’t act as a go-between for Fabian and Commander Tev. I just wanted Fabian unable to talk to anyone else or to make himself seen or felt. I figured, with how much he loves to get into everything, it would seriously get on his nerves.”
Sonya nodded. That was a fair assessment of Fabian—he preferred things he could touch, and he was always the first to want to get his hands dirty. Being unable to do that would be driving him nuts.
“What were the actual lines of code you added?” Kendra asked.
Pressman nodded and typed in a few keys, then sat back again while Kendra and Sonya both read the lines he’d sent them.
“The ghost-mode trick itself is clean,” Sonya pointed out, but Kendra had already read past that, and then doubled back.
“Sure,” she said, “but that’s not the problem. Crawfish, you’re an idiot—don’t you bother to check your code before you implement it?”
He turned red again. “What are you saying? It’s fine!” He gestured toward Sonya with his chin. “She just said so!”
“Yes, the trick itself. But you used your instructor privileges to access the system so you could make those changes.” Kendra highlighted the relevant portion of his code so that all three of them could see it. “And then you never closed back out afterward.”
Pressman shrugged. “So? I left it open, in case I wanted to monitor it—and so that I could switch Fabian back out if I needed to.”
Now Sonya saw what Kendra had meant. “But you left the door open, Professor Pressman. Anyone who found your code in the program could tap into it and add extra lines branching from there, and the computer would treat them as if they had instructor privileges as well. In other words, you gave anyone who wanted it free access to every level of the test program.”
He had turned pale again as he’d realized what she was going to say before she had finished. Now he slumped back against his chair. “Oh. I didn’t think that—no one else would have reason to—”
“You thought that you’d be the only one who wanted access, so it was fine to leave it open,” Sonya stated, and he nodded. “And if you’d been right, this would have been fine. Fabian and Alex would be stuck in ghost-mode and seriously annoyed, but no one would have gotten hurt. Unfortunately, someone else did want access, and you gave them that opportunity.” She paused then, because an idea had just popped into her head.
“Okay, so now we know this idiot is responsible for letting someone in,” Kendra said, gesturing toward Pressman. “But we still don’t know who, or exactly what, they did. And we still don’t have any way to stop it.”
“That last part may not be true,” Sonya replied, still thinking. “In fact, I think Professor Pressman’s mistake might actually help us fix things.” She held up a hand to forestall the questions she could already see Kendra forming. “Hang on, I need to check on something first. But if I’m right, Crawfish may have just given us a way out—or, in this case, a way in.” She turned away from the viewscreen, and tapped her combadge. “Gomez to Soloman.”
Meanwhile, in the engine room of the Hyperion, the students had their hands full.
“Everything’s shutting down!” Ian shouted. “I don’t know what to do!” He was frantically punching buttons on his console, to little or no effect.
“We’ve lost main engines.” Santar was reporting to Tev on the bridge. “Impulse drives at twenty percent and failing. Life support also at twenty percent. Backup generators offline. Emergency beacons—”
“Dammit!” Tanya stepped back, shaking her hand, as sparks flew from the open panel where she’d been working. “We just lost the—”
“—offline,” Santar continued, updating his information. “Predicting complete shutdown in fifteen minutes.”
“Engineering, shunt all available power to life support,” Tev said. “Jettison warp core immediately, and prepare to abandon ship.”
“Abandon ship?” Malcolm asked, glancing up from his console. “Where does he expect us to go?”
“Hull doors and airlocks not responding,” Ben reported from another console. “We’ll have to open them manually.”
Latha started to say something, but was interrupted by a klaxon. “Proximity alert,” she said after a glance at her console. “Another ship just appeared, and it’s approaching fast. Thank the stars we still have sensors working.”
“All hands, this is your captain speaking,” Tev said a moment later. “A ship has been spotted nearby, and is rapidly approaching. Long-range scans indicate—” A groan from Latha told the others that this was not going to be good news. “—that it is a Jem’Hadar warship. Prepare for possible combat.”
“With what?” Tanya asked. “We’ve got no shields, no phasers, no torpedoes! We’re sitting ducks!”
“We might be able to modify one of the lifepods,” Zoe suggested, “transform it into a guided missile and fire that at the warship.”
“That is a worthwhile notion,” T’nok said. “If we can create the illusion of life-forms on board, the Jem’Hadar will seek to capture it rather than destroy it. And that will put it inside their hull when it explodes.”
“It’s the only shot we’ve got,” Tomas said. “Zoe, start prepping one of the pods. Trick its systems into thinking there are three people aboard. Ian, set the engines to overload in ten minutes. Malcolm, find some way to boost that explosion when it happens. Everybody else, keep salvaging what you can here. See if we can draw power from anywhere to get our shields back up, otherwise we’re goners with the first hit. Let’s move, people!”
“Not bad,” Fabian said. He and Alex stood off to one side, watching as the students scrambled from console to console. Right now Zoe, Ian, and Malcolm were leaving the engine room at a run—a few of the others glared at Tomas, but they all did what he’d suggested. “I’d probably want to use the warp core itself as a weapon—prime it to overload, then jettison i
t directly at that warship—but the lifepod’s a nice idea. And Tomas did a good job of assigning tasks.”
“Yes, he’s a born leader,” Alex agreed. “Much to Tanya, T’nok, and Latha’s chagrin. The four of them often compete for control, which is why I don’t normally assign them to the same groups.” He glanced around him. “Things seem to be building to a head here.”
“That they do,” Fabian said. “One way or another, the next few minutes are going to get pretty interesting. I just wish there was something we could do.” But the computer had caught on to most of their communications tricks by now, and they were left with no way to contact Tev or the students. Not that they had much to share about the current situation. All they could do was stand there and watch, and hope that these youngsters were as smart as they appeared to be.
“Warp core shutdown in progress,” T’nok reported a few minutes later. “It will be completed in one-point-three-five minutes. But it will need to be jettisoned manually—the regular systems are not acknowledging me.”
“Life support is good for another minute, two at most,” Ben said. “I shunted some of its power over to the shields, so we might survive the first hit, but I doubt we can take a second.”
“We’ve lost impulse drive,” Latha said. “I managed to get us maximum inertia, so we won’t be at a full stop for several more minutes, and we can even execute minor course changes—nothing preprogrammed, but navigation might be able to dodge an attack if they’re careful. And I shunted what was left of the power into the lifepod, to fully charge its engines.”
“I’ve—” Tomas started, but then paused as his console beeped. “Hang on, we’ve got a second ship incoming! Just off our starboard bow, and coming right for us!” His fingers moved rapidly across the controls, and then a grin split his face. “It’s a Starfleet ship!”
The others cheered and hollered. “Sovereign-class? Defiant-class? Galaxy-class?” Ben asked eagerly. But Tomas shook his head.