by Glenn Hauman
“No, Saber-class. Definitely too small to take on that warship.” He glanced around. “Still, it can probably get us out of here.”
As if on cue, a voice spoke over their communicators. “Hyperion, this is Commander Gomez of the U.S.S. da Vinci. I’m beaming all of you across in ten seconds.”
Several of the students cheered again, but T’nok tapped her own communicator. “Negative, Commander,” she replied. “I will need one-point-two-three more minutes here.”
Ben and Zoe stared at her, but Tomas and then Latha and Tanya all nodded. And then Tomas tapped his communicator as well. “Commander, this is Tomas del Fuego in engineering,” he said. “We need at least one more minute to properly shut down the Hyperion’s systems. Otherwise, this ship could pose a threat to other starships.”
“Fabian?”
He reflexively tapped his combadge, still staring at Tomas and the others. “Commander? How’d you—”
“I’m still locked out,” Gomez told him quickly. “The da Vinci is another hologram, and I’ve got a holographic version of myself captaining it, though I’m inputting my responses as we go. What do you want me to do about this request?”
“This is just a hologram,” Fabian said. “Once we shut it down, this version of the Hyperion will be gone for good, so it’s not like it could really hurt anyone.”
But Alex, standing next to him, shook his head. “That’s not the point though, is it? They’re willing to risk their own lives to do their job properly, and to prevent others from being put at risk. Isn’t that exactly the sort of person Starfleet wants on its ships?”
Fabian nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. They’re good kids, and they’re doing the right thing. So let’s reward them for that. Give them the extra minute.”
“You got it,” Gomez said. “But I’m beaming you and Alex across right now—I’ve reset the codes so that, when you hit the da Vinci, you’ll no longer be ghosted. And you, Mr. Stevens, are going to land in sickbay, where my hologram Lense can take a look at that leg.”
“Great,” Fabian muttered as he and Alex dematerialized, “because Lense in the flesh isn’t stiff enough.”
“Engineering, you have eighty seconds,” Commander Gomez informed them. “I am beaming your captain and bridge crew away now, however.”
The students didn’t bother to acknowledge her message. Instead, they all got to work. Zoe, Malcolm, and Ian launched the lifepod—now that it had been turned into a makeshift bomb it could not be safely left on the Hyperion—while T’nok and Ben jettisoned the warp core. Then Tomas, Latha, and Tanya made sure the ship was safely shut down, and that the computer had been purged of any important Starfleet files. They had just typed in the last command when Gomez announced, “Beaming up, on my mark,” and they all vanished from the Hyperion—
—to find themselves standing on the bridge of the da Vinci. Tev was there, and Santar, and so was Professor Sparks, who greeted them all with a smile. “Well done, class,” he informed them. “You’ve handled yourselves very well indeed.”
“And that should do it,” Sonya muttered, typing one last command into her own console on board the real da Vinci. “Fabian, why don’t you do the honors?”
“Happy to,” he replied, fresh from his bed in the holographic sickbay. “Computer,” he called out, “end Hyperion program.”
Instantly the da Vinci disappeared, leaving the students, Fabian, Tev, and Sparks standing in the empty holosuite.
“Everybody out,” Fabian announced, gesturing toward the open door, and the students quickly filed through it. Even as they did, Sonya tapped her combadge. “Gomez to Poynter. Laura, can you lock on Fabian now?”
“Yes, sir, him and Tev both. Want me to beam them up?”
“No—but beam me down to their location.”
A moment later, she materialized outside the holosuite, where Fabian, Alex, Tev, and the students were milling about—as was Kendra. She, too, had beamed over.
“Are you okay?” Sonya asked Fabian, and he nodded over Kendra’s shoulder—she wrapped him in a hug the instant he’d cleared the door.
“That hologram of Lense knows her stuff,” he said, gesturing at the bandages on his left leg. “She got me patched up right away, and I should be fine.”
“We’ll have the real Elizabeth take a look once she gets back,” Sonya said with a smile. Then she nodded at Tev, who nodded back, and turned to Sparks. “Professor Sparks, I’m Sonya Gomez. Nice to meet you in person.”
They shook hands, and Sparks smiled. “Likewise, Commander. Thank you for the timely rescue. But if you don’t mind my asking, how did you manage it?”
She smiled. “Actually, you have Professor Pressman to thank for it, at least in part.” She nodded to Fabian. “Yes, we talked to him, and he did have something to do with this. But by no means all of it.” She explained what he’d told them. “So he’d allowed someone else to gain access, but he hadn’t set any of that up himself.”
“And since the door was still open, you could slip in yourself.”
“Soloman had just built a holographic model of the da Vinci for diagnostic purposes, so I tapped into the hololab and then downloaded the da Vinci. Pressman’s lock on you was specific to the Hyperion—he hadn’t counted on another ship being in here.”
“There was no reason he should,” Tev said. “It would take most engineers at least a week to build a passable ship model.”
“Good thing we have a Bynar on staff,” Sonya said. “Soloman managed it in two days flat. I was hoping that all the other traps and flaws were also centered on the Hyperion, and that once everyone was off it the computer would respond properly again.”
“Which it did.” Fabian shook his head. “And not a moment too soon.”
They all nodded. Even if the Hyperion had been fully functional, it might not have survived against a Jem’Hadar warship. And with the Hyperion barely afloat, the da Vinci wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Tev glanced over at the students, who were standing nearby but just far enough for the adults to converse in private. “It has been a pleasure to serve as your captain,” he said. “You have all demonstrated the skills Starfleet looks for in its officers, and I would be proud to have any of you under my command again.” He glanced from face to face, then frowned. “But I count eight of you. One of you is missing.”
Fabian and Alex looked up, then quickly scanned the faces themselves. “Where’s Malcolm?” Alex demanded.
The other students glanced around, but no one seemed to know. “Leave it to him to screw this up,” Ben muttered, but not quietly enough.
“Yeah,” Ian agreed softly. “I don’t know why he was here in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Sonya asked them. “Why shouldn’t he have been?” None of the students replied, so she glanced at Alex.
“Malcolm is a solid student,” he explained, “but he spends far too much time playing jokes to earn top grades.” Alex frowned. “To be honest, I was a little surprised when I saw his name on the list. But I wasn’t privy to the final selections, so I assumed some other factor merited his participation.”
“So the class clown took part in an honors exam, and now he’s missing?” Kendra asked. “Why does this sound fishy to me?”
Fabian stepped back over to the computer panel beside the holosuite door. “Computer,” he said, “how many students were on the Hyperion?”
“Eight students were present,” it replied. Fabian glanced around, and assumed that his face had the same surprised look as Tev’s, Kendra’s, Sonya’s, and Alex’s did.
“Computer, display student files from that exercise,” he requested, and it promptly displayed a list of files. He tapped in a few commands, and scrolled through several screens before stopping. “Aha.” He gestured, and the others crowded closer. “Right here.”
“Clever,” Kendra said, nodding. “He reprogrammed it to include his name.”
“But the computer said we had only eight students,” Alex pointed out. “Yet Mal
colm was there the whole time.”
“There, yes,” Tev agreed. “But I did not notice him once we’d beamed onto the da Vinci. And he did not exit with us.”
“So he was confined to the Hyperion,” Kendra said. “Just like the traps.” She reached over Fabian and tapped a few commands of her own, shunting the display to a different screen. “Right there.” She tapped a line. “He pulled one from your book,” she told Sonya. “But he did it first.”
“He was a hologram?”
“Not just any hologram,” Fabian commented, reading the rest of the associated code. “He programmed himself in with an AI, so that his hologram could react with autonomy. Most of the pranks were his.” And, as he glanced around, Fabian had the feeling the final piece of the puzzle had just slid into place.
“It all makes sense,” Fabian told the others. They were sitting in Kendra’s office—her group’s presentations had finished just before she’d met Sonya at the Academy, so they’d been free to move here after sending the students home for some well-earned rest. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault—well, no one person alone.”
“Malcolm inserted an AI to play pranks on the other students,” Alex said. “It should have been on the surface of the program, and only able to cause harmless problems. He didn’t intend to hurt anyone.”
“But Crawfish left the door open,” Sonya added, “so the AI moved itself up to the command level, where it could rewrite aspects of the program itself.”
“Cadet Sturtze increased the risk factors,” Tev noted. “That would have allowed the AI to create more dangerous pranks with impunity.”
“And we had just switched off the safety protocols when Crawfish’s little prank kicked in,” Fabian mentioned. “We were about to turn them back on at the default levels, but we were stuck in ghost-mode and the computer wouldn’t allow us to change anything.”
“So suddenly,” Kendra picked up, “we had an AI designed to play pranks, inserted at command level, with encouragement to increase risks and no safety protocols restricting its actions. No wonder things went haywire.”
“It’s a good thing you beamed everyone over to the da Vinci,” Fabian told Sonya. “Malcolm’s AI was stuck on the Hyperion, so it couldn’t cause any more trouble after that.”
“What happens now?” Sonya asked, and everyone else turned to Alex. He squirmed a little—Fabe had noticed that the instructor didn’t like being the center of attention, except with his students.
“Malcolm will be disciplined,” Alex said, “but not severely. His was meant to be a harmless prank, and it wasn’t his fault that it got out of hand. Actually, the programming he did was far above his usual work, so he’ll have a reprimand, but I’ve also given him credit for the actual design. Tanya won’t have anything appear on her record—Tev already spoke to her during the test, and I’ll speak to her again in a day or so. I think she’s already learned, however, not to bring her personal issues into the workplace.”
“And what about Crawfish?” Kendra demanded. “This was all his fault.”
Fabian surprised even himself by shaking his head. “It really wasn’t, Ken. Sure, he set up a prank for me and Alex—but I can’t really blame him for that, not considering all the pranks we pulled on him over the years. And it wouldn’t have hurt anything. Oh, sure, I’d have been a little annoyed, but that would’ve been it. He made a stupid mistake and left his code open, that’s all. And Tanya and Malcolm both took advantage of it, without realizing it. It happens.”
“So you’re saying he’s going to get off scot-free?” she asked.
He grinned at her. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Chapter
10
Captain’s Log: First Officer Sonya Gomez reporting. Eight bells and all is well.
Captain’s Log: First Officer Sonya Gomez reporting. Nine bells and all is well.
Captain’s Log: First Officer Sonya Gomez reporting. Ten bells. See previous entry.
Captain’s Log: First Officer Sonya Gomez reporting. Eleven hundred hours. Ditto.
Sonya Gomez looked around at the bridge and drummed her fingers on the command chair.
Well, that was exciting, she thought. Now that the Hyperion situation had been straightened out, it was back to the humdrum, monotonous, workaday grind that she had established for herself and the crew of the da Vinci while Captain Gold was busy with wedding preparations.
The ship was running fine. Just about every conceivable diagnostic test had been run, with the exception of running diagnostics on the diagnostic equipment itself. They were on the verge of polishing the chrome.
She was bored bored bored out of her skull.
But, you know, boring occasionally is nice. Peaceful. Quiet. Nobody shooting at you. She sighed. Maybe I can catch up on my reading of technical manuals. No, wait, I can’t do that, I’m on duty. Well, I probably could, but I don’t want to now. Maybe I can—
“Excuse me, Commander.” Gomez looked up, startled. Soloman was next to her chair. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
“I’m a tad busy, Soloman.”
“Clearly. I will be brief. May I speak with you?”
“Certainly. What is it?”
“Privately, please?” His eyes looked over at the turbolift—the doors had just opened and Tev had come out.
She was curious. What could Soloman have to say that he couldn’t say in front of Tev? “Okay. Tev, you have the chair.”
“Aye, sir.” She noted a bit of a spring in Tev’s step when she handed him command. She went to join Soloman, who had already walked to the turbolift. She entered and the doors closed behind her.
“Yes, Soloman, what is it?”
“Deck four, please.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
She was expecting more. Soloman stayed quiet. “Where are we going?”
“To the shuttlebay.”
“Oh, no—what’s wrong? Is it going to mess up the wedding?”
“Nothing is wrong. We are going to the wedding.”
“Turbolift, halt.” The turbolift obliged. She counted to ten. “We are not going to the wedding. First off, there is no ‘we’ to go to the wedding.”
“We are not going as a ‘we.’ I am escorting you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I thought that you would not want to escort me, so I am escorting you.”
“Soloman—”
“Commander Gomez. From my observations, you are in a closed programming loop. It is a loop I have found myself in from time to time.”
“Soloman, I thank you for your observation, and I don’t mean to invalidate it, but—”
“I was the same way when 111 died.”
Sonya was taken aback by the starkness of what Soloman said, but she tried to respond. Soloman held up a hand and said, “Tev is perfectly capable of taking the center chair himself. In fact, I’m sure he is even more enthusiastic about it after his recent experience at the Academy.”
“That’s what worries me. His little taste of power—”
“—is a concern for another day. You are making an excuse to avoid a social occasion that you would have attended with Lieutenant Commander Duffy. As such, I offer my own services as escort.”
She stood there, stunned for a moment. Then she tapped her combadge. “Gomez to Tev.”
“Tev here.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be taking a few hours here. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll rearrange your duty schedule later.”
“Understood. Oh, and Commander? Thank you for taking my place. I find Klingon weddings to be tedious, overblown, and irritating.”
It took most of Gomez’s willpower to avoid making the obvious retort to that remark. Instead, she simply said, “You’re quite welcome, Tev.” She sighed. “Turbolift, resume.” The gentle movement started up again. “Thank you,” she said to Soloman.
“I just hate going to bonding ceremonies alone. Hopefully, Pattie has save
d us seats.”
Chapter
11
Sonya was convinced it was the first time the shuttlebay had been cleaned since the da Vinci had been relaunched.
The ceremony had required the shuttlebay—the number of guests couldn’t be fit into any other single space on the ship. However, it did mean that a lot of the equipment had to be moved, along with the shuttlecraft themselves. The crew, quite logically, solved both problems at the same time by shoving all the clutter into the shuttlecrafts and then shoving them out into space.
An innovative solution, though she had to wonder once she got the ships back how long it would take for them to actually empty out the shuttle and put everything back—if not to where the items might actually belong, then at least to their previous piles.
Sonya did have to wonder if they got everything, though—there seemed to be a sort of sickly sweet smell, some sort of chemical she couldn’t quite identify. She sniffed.
Pattie, who was sitting next to her, said, “Is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know. There’s a scent of—I don’t know what it is, precisely.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. That would be me.”
“You?”
“I always secrete at weddings.”
“Oh.” Sonya didn’t really know how to respond to that—she certainly wasn’t going to offer Pattie a handkerchief—so she just looked around the room.
The captain and the rabbi were standing in front of the airlock, which was open to space with standard force fields keeping the air and guests in. The captain had given specific instructions to the helm, in order to give the best backdrop possible—the sun was just becoming visible over the earth, with the orbit maintaining that view. The crew was especially proud of the polarizing they were doing with the shields to keep everybody from being blinded.
Many of the crew were there. The invitation had been optional for most of them, as space was limited and there were ship duties to take care of, and Captain Gold clearly didn’t want to make it mandatory for his crew to show up at a wedding where they didn’t know the couple getting hitched. But let’s face it, if your ship’s captain is performing a wedding, you tend to show up anyway. Sonya was sitting on the groom’s side, as the bride’s side was already full.