Cobaryn saw the engineers trade glances. Clearly, they hadn’t expected this kind of exchange between two captains.
Abute frowned. “Perhaps we can table this topic for the moment.” He turned to the engineers. “Or better yet, let’s see if there is a way to increase both long- and short-range scanning capabilities.”
Grumbling a little, the men and women in the lab coats made their notes. Then they looked up again.
The director turned to the Rigelian. “Captain Cobaryn? Can you provide us with something a bit less controversial?”
That got a few chuckles out of the engineers, but not many. They seemed to the Rigelian to be a rather humorless lot.
As Matsura stepped away from the hologram, looking less than pleased, Cobaryn approached it. Glancing at the crowd of engineers to make sure they were listening, he indicated the hologram’s warp nacelles.
“While I am impressed,” he said, “with the enhancements made in the Daedalus’ s propulsion system, I believe we may have placed undue emphasis on flight speed.”
Abute looked at the Rigelian, his brow creased. “You mean you have no interest in proceeding at warp three?”
His comment was met with a ripple of laughter from the gallery. Cobaryn did his best to ignore it.
“In fact,” he replied diplomatically, “I have every interest in it. However, it might be more useful to design our engines with range in mind, rather than velocity. By prolonging our vessel’s ability to remain in subspace, we will actually arrive at many destinations more quickly—even though we have progressed at a somewhat slower rate of speed.
“What’s more,” he continued, “by shifting our emphasis as I suggest, we will be able to extend the scope of our operations... survey solar systems it would not otherwise have been practical to visit.”
Stiles chuckled. “Spoken like a true explorer,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear him.
Cobaryn looked back at the man. “But I am an explorer,” he replied.
“Not anymore,” Stiles insisted. “You’re a starship captain. You’ve got more to worry about than charts and mineral analyses.”
Abute turned to him. “I take it you have an objection to Captain Cobaryn’s position?” he asked a little tiredly.
“Damned right I do,” said Stiles. He eyed the Rigelian. “Captain Cobaryn is ignoring the fact that most missions don’t involve long trips. They depend on short, quick jumps—at ranges already within our grasp.”
“Perhaps that is true now,” Cobaryn conceded. “However, the scope of our operations is bound to grow. We need to range further afield for tactical purposes as well as scientific ones.”
Stiles looked unimpressed with the argument. So did Hagedorn and Matsura. However, Stiles was the one who answered him.
“We can worry about the future when it comes. Right now, more speed is just what the doctor ordered.”
There was silence for a moment. Without meaning to do so, the Rigelian had done exactly what Abute had asked him not to do. Like Matsura, he had become embroiled in a controversy.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” the director said pointedly. “I appreciate the opportunity to hear both your points of view.”
Cobaryn saw Stiles glance at his Earth Command colleagues. They seemed to approve of the concepts he had put forth. But then, that came as no surprise. It was clear that they were united on this point.
“Since Captain Stiles seems eager to speak,” Abute added, “I would like to hear his suggestion next.”
“All right,” Stiles told him. He came forward and indicated the hologram with a generous sweep of his hand. “Two hundred and thirty people. Entire decks full of personnel quarters. An elaborate sickbay to take care of them when they get ill.” He shook his head. “Is all this really necessary? Our Christophers run on crews of thirty-five—and most of the time, we don’t need half that many.”
“Your Christophers don’t have science sections,” Shumar pointed out abruptly, his arms folded across his chest. “They don’t have laboratories or dedicated computers or botanical gardens or sterile containment chambers.”
It was a challenge and everyone in the room knew it. Stiles, Shumar, the other captains, Abute . . .and the gathering of engineers, of course. Their expressions told Cobaryn that this was much more entertaining than any of them might have expected.
Stiles lifted his chin, accepting the gauntlet Shumar had thrown down. “I read the data just as you did,” he responded crisply. “I heard the argument for all those research facilities. My question is... how much of it do we need? Couldn’t we cut out some of that space and come up with a better, more maneuverable ship?”
Shumar shook his head. “Maybe more maneuverable, Captain, but not better—not if you consider all the capabilities that would be lost if the Daedalus was sized down.”
“And if it’s not sized down,” Stiles insisted, “the whole ship could be lost . . .the first time it engages the enemy.”
Again, Director Abute intervened before the exchange could grow too heated. He held up his hand for peace and said, “I would say it’s your turn, Captain Shumar. To make a suggestion, I mean.”
Shumar cast a last baleful glance at Stiles. “Fine with me,” he replied. Taking a deep breath, he pointed to the hologram. “As we learned yesterday, we’ve improved our tactical systems considerably. Thanks to all the extra graviton emitters on the Daedalus, we’ve now got six layers of deflector protection—and as someone who’s been shot at with atomic missiles, I say that’s terrific.”
Cobaryn hoped there was a “but” coming in his colleague’s declaration. He wasn’t disappointed.
“But what if we were to convert one or two of the extra emitters to another use?” Shumar suggested. “Say . . . as tractor beam projectors?”
Matsura made a face. “Tractor beams?”
“Tightbeam graviton projections,” Hagedorn explained, his voice echoing easily throughout the amphitheater. “When their interference patterns are focused on a remote target, they create a certain amount of spatial stress—which either pulls the target closer to the source of the beam or pushes it farther away.”
Shumar nodded approvingly. “That’s exactly right.”
“However,” said Hagedorn in the same even tone, “tractor beams are very much in the development stage right now. Some people say it’ll be a long time before they can be made practical . . . if ever.”
The Rigelian saw some nods among the engineers. It wasn’t a good sign, he told himself.
Shumar frowned. “Others say tractor beams will be made practical in the next few months. Those are the people I prefer to put my faith in.”
Hagedorn shrugged with obvious confidence. “I was simply putting the matter in perspective, Captain.”
“As we all should,” Abute said hopefully.
“Is it my turn now?” Hagedorn asked.
The director shrugged. “If you like.”
Hagedorn began by circling the hologram in an almost theatrical fashion. For a few seconds, he refrained from speaking... so when he began, his words had a certain weight to them.
“You’ve made some interesting improvements in the ship’s transporter function,” he told the assembled engineers. “Some very interesting improvements. For instance, it’ll be a lot easier to shoot survey teams and diplomatic envoys to their destinations than to send them in shuttles.
“But frankly,” he continued, running his hand over the Daedalus’ s immaterial hull, “I don’t think these enhancements will be of any use to us in combat. As we proved during the war, it’s impossible to force-beam our personnel through an enemy’s deflector shields.”
“Not everything is intended to have a military application,” Director Abute reminded him, anticipating an objection from Shumar or Cobaryn.
“I recognize that,” Hagedorn told him, as expressionless as ever. “However, transporters can have military applications. Are you familiar with the work of Winston and Kampouris?”
Abute’s eyes narrowed. “It seems to me I’ve heard their names . . .”
So had Cobaryn. “They are military strategists,” he stated. “They have postulated that we can use transporter systems to penetrate deflector shields by sending streams of antimatter along their annular confinement beams.”
Shumar made a sound of derision. “Talk about being in the development stage. Transmitting antimatter through a pattern buffer is and always will be suicide.”
Hagedorn shrugged. “Not if the buffer has been built the way we might build a warp core.”
“In which case it would have to be a warp core,” Shumar insisted. “The same elements that would protect the pattern buffer would make it impermeable to matter transmission.”
“Not according to Winston and Kampouris,” Hagedorn remarked.
But this time, Cobaryn observed, the engineers seemed to rule in Shumar’s favor. They shook their heads at Hagedorn’s comment.
Taking notice of the same thing, Abute scowled. “Which leaves us at another impasse, I take it.”
Shumar eyed Hagedorn, then Stiles and Matsura. “I guess it does.”
The director turned to Dane. “We have one more captain to hear from. Perhaps he can put forth a design recommendation on which we can all agree before we call it a day.”
He didn’t sound very optimistic, the Rigelian noted. But in his place, Cobaryn wouldn’t have been very optimistic either.
Like everyone else in the amphitheater, he looked to Dane. The man considered Abute for a moment, then glanced at the engineers. “Communications,” he said simply. “You say you can’t do anything to improve what we’ve got. I say you’re not trying hard enough.”
The director seemed taken aback—but not nearly as much as the crowd of engineers. “I’ve been assured by our design team,” he replied, “that nothing can be done at this time.”
Dane regarded the men and women sitting all around him in their white lab coats. “I’ve got an assurance for your engineers,” he said. “If they don’t come up with a quicker way for me to contact headquarters, they can find themselves another starship captain.”
Cobaryn had to smile. The Cochrane jockey had not shown himself to be a particularly charming individual. However, he did seem to have more than his share of vertebrae.
Abute looked at Dane for a second or two. Then he turned to his engineers. “You heard the man,” he told them. “Let’s see what we can do.”
There was a rush of objections, but they died out quickly. After all, any engineer worth his degree relished a challenge. Even Cobaryn knew that.
“Thank you again,” the director told the people in the gallery. “You may return to your work.”
Clearly, that was the engineers’ signal to depart. The Rigelian watched them toss comments back and forth as they descended to the level of the stage and filed out of the room. Then he turned to Abute, expecting to be dismissed as well.
But Abute wasn’t ready to do that yet, it seemed. He regarded all six of his captains for a moment, his nostrils flaring. Finally, he shook his head.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we obviously have some differences. Honest ones, I assume. However, we must make an effort to seek common ground.”
Cobaryn nodded. So did Shumar, Hagedorn, Stiles, and Matsura—everyone except Dane, in fact. But the Rigelian knew that Dane was the only one who was being honest with the director.
After all, there was a war raging. The first battle had been fought to a standoff there in the amphitheater, but Cobaryn didn’t expect that it would be the last.
CHAPTER
11
DANIEL HAGEDORN YAWNED AND STRETCHED. THEN HE pushed his wheeled chair back from his monitor and the blue-and-gold ship schematics displayed on it.
True, the captain and his colleagues had submitted their recommendations regarding the Daedalus earlier in the day. But that didn’t mean their responsibility to Director Abute was fully discharged—at least not from Hagedorn’s point of view.
He meant to come up with further recommendations. A whole slew of them, in fact. By the time he set foot on the bridge of the Daedalus or one of her sister ships, he would know he had done everything he could to make that vessel a dead-sure success.
Abruptly, a red message box appeared against the blue-and-gold background. It was from Abute, advising each of his six captains that they would begin interviewing prospective officers the following day.
Hagedorn nodded. He had been wondering when the process would get underway.
There were to be a few rules, however. For instance, Abute wanted each vessel to reflect the variety of species represented in the Federation, so no captain could bring aboard more than a hundred human crewmen.
Also, Hagedorn couldn’t draw on established military officers for more than half his command team. Clearly, the director wanted both the defense and research camps represented on each vessel’s bridge.
The captain grunted. They could keep their Christopher crews intact after all, but only if some of their officers were willing to accept a demotion. Clearly, practicality would be taking a backseat to politics in this new Starfleet—not that he was surprised, given the other developments he had seen up to that point.
On the other hand, no one would be foisted on him—neither alien nor Earthman. That was one point on which Hagedorn wouldn’t have given in, even if Abute had handed the Daedalus to him on a silver platter.
After all, the lives of the captain and his crew might one day depend on a particular ensign or junior-grade lieutenant. He wanted that individual to be someone who had earned his way aboard, not a down payment in some interplanetary quid pro quo.
With a tap of his keyboard, Hagedorn acknowledged receipt of the director’s message. Then he stored the Daedalus’s schematics and accessed the list of officer candidates Abute had compiled.
Frowning, the captain began to set up an efficient interview schedule. He promised himself that by noon the following day he would know every bridge officer under his command.
Cobaryn was relaxing in his quarters, reading Rigelian triple-metered verse from an electronic book, when he heard the sound of chimes.
It took him a moment to remember what it meant—that there was someone in the corridor outside who wished to see him. Getting up from his chair, the captain crossed the room and pressed a pad on the bulkhead. A moment later, the doors slid apart.
Cobaryn was surprised to see Connor Dane standing there. “Can I help you?” the Rigelian asked.
The Cochrane jockey frowned. “You drink?” he asked.
Cobaryn looked at him. “You mean... do I partake of alcoholic beverages? In a public house?”
Dane’s frown deepened. “Do you?”
“In fact,” the Rigelian replied, “I do. That is to say, I have. But why are you inquiring about—?”
The human held up a hand for silence. “Don’t ask, all right? Not where we’re going, or why—or anything. Just put the damned book down and let’s get a move on.”
Cobaryn’s curiosity had been piqued. How could he decline? “All right,” he said. Then he put the book down on the nearest table, straightened his clothing, and accompanied Dane to their mysterious destination.
Dane tossed back a shot of tequila, felt the ensuing rush of warmth, and plunked his glass down on the bar.
The Afterburner’s bartender, a man with a bulbous nose and a thick brush of gray hair, noticed the gesture. “Another?” he growled.
“Another,” Dane confirmed.
He turned to Cobaryn, who was sitting on a stool alongside him. The Rigelian was nursing a nut-flavored liqueur and studying the human with his bright red eyes. They were asking a question.
“I know,” said Dane, scowling. “You still don’t understand why I asked you to come along.”
Cobaryn smiled sympathetically. “I confess I don’t.”
“Especially since I never said a word to you the whole way from Rigel to Earth Base Fourteen.”
&nbs
p; “That does compound my curiosity, yes,” the Rigelian admitted. “And even after our battle with the Romulans—”
“I sat in the bar by myself,” Dane said, finishing Cobaryn’s thought.
He watched the bartender replace his empty shot glass with a full one. Picking it up, he gazed into its pale-green depths.
“Why do I need company all of a sudden?” the human asked himself. “Because I’m out of my element here, that’s why.” He looked around the Afterburner. “Because I have no business trying to be a Starfleet captain.”
The Rigelian shrugged. “From where I stand, it seems you would make an excellent captain. You have demonstrated intelligence, determination, the courage to speak your mind. . . .”
“You mean at that meeting this morning?” Dane dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “That wasn’t courage, pal. That was me losing my patience. I got hacked off at the idea of a bunch of lab coats telling me what I could and couldn’t have.”
“Nonetheless,” Cobaryn insisted, “you said what no one else would have thought to say. You saw a danger to your crew and you did not hold back. Is that not one of the qualities one should look for in a captain?”
The human chuckled humorlessly. “Anyone can open a big mouth. You don’t have to be captain material to do that.”
“Perhaps not,” the Rigelian conceded. His mouth pulled up the corners. “But it does not hurt.”
Dane hadn’t expected Cobaryn to make a joke. He found himself smiling back at his companion. “No,” he had to allow, “I guess it doesn’t.”
Cobaryn’s grin faded a little. “And what about me?”
The human looked at him askance. “What about you?”
“I am hardly the obvious choice for a captaincy in Starfleet. The only vaguely heroic action I ever undertook was to ram my ship into that Romulan back at Earth Base Fourteen—and that was only after I had determined with a high degree of certainty that I could beam away in time to save myself.”
Dane was starting to feel the effects of the tequila. “Listen,” he said, leaning closer to the Rigelian, “they didn’t pick you for your courage, Cobaryn. They may have picked you for a whole lot of reasons, but believe me . . .courage wasn’t one of them.”
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