by David Smith
“Unless what??” said Dave, hopefully.
“Nothing. Forget I said anything, it’s a stupid idea” said Romanov.
“There’s no such thing as a stupid idea Commander” said Dave hoping she couldn’t see his fingers crossed behind his back.
Taking a big breath, she said “The PILOCC’s personality matrix was created from fifty of the finest minds in the Federation. We could ask her to use that collective mind to find a way.”
Dave resisted the temptation to agree that it was indeed a stupid idea. The PILOCC had proved far more trouble than it was worth to date, but in principle, this was exactly the sort of thing at which it should excel.
Romanov pulled up a list of names of the scientists used to create the PILOCC’s personality matrix and Dave recognised the stellar cast was the cream of Federation Academia.
He immediately spotted the name of Dr Chandrakar, possibly the greatest expert ever in n-dimensional geometry. Just below him on the list were Dr Torrens and Dr Dahlgren, probably the Federations finest mathematicians and further down, even Dr Vincenzi, the director of warp-field dynamics studies at the Starfleet Propulsion Facility. He was probably the best warp-field specialist ever and exactly the sort of scientist Dave would expect to find a solution that others wouldn’t even dream of.
Absolute geniuses all, it was a roll call of the brightest of the bright and Dave would have said “yes” without hesitation if it weren’t for the fact that (like Romanov) serving aboard USS Tiger gave him an uncanny understanding of when things appeared too good to be true.
His old granny always said “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
But then, his dear old granny had her quirks. He remembered when he was five years old, he’d heard her swear at something, but she’d convinced him “arse-hole” was the French phrase for “Bless you”.
Shortly after that he’d become the youngest child ever excluded from his school when several of his class-mates had come down with a cold.
He sat staring at the list and pondered how long Izzy could hold things together on her own. It would take three months to get back to Sector 244, and that didn’t include the three or four weeks Commander Romanov wanted to test and tune the Tiger’s refurbished warp-drive systems.
With the situation deteriorating every second might count. They’d have to put their faith in the artificial minds of the Federation’s finest. They’d have to trust Susan.
--------------------
“Of course I can do it!” she said indignantly “The whole concept of the organic logic process is that the whole is greater than sum of its parts. By combining the thought processes of the scientists you’ve mentioned, together with other mathematicians, physicists and engineers, I should be able to come up with a stable warp-field formula in a single calculation.”
“Really?!?” said Dave, somewhat taken aback.
“Yes, “Really”” said the computer in a distinctly condescending tone. There was a slight pause before she added “There, done!” with undisguised smugness.
“WHAT??” said Dave incredulously.
“I’ve completed the calculations” and she popped up a bewilderingly complex formula on the small screen on Romanov’s desk. “Well, what are you waiting for? I thought we were in a hurry?”
--------------------
Romanov, Lieutenant Jonsen and Chief Deng were joined by Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara and they crowded around the main drive control console discussing the formula as they input it into the ship’s drive system.
Ducking back and forth trying to see what they were doing, Dave quietly said “What do you think? Will it work?”
All four of them stopped and looked nervously at each other. Eventually, Jonsen spoke up.
“I’ve never seen a field formula like it. I recognise most of the elements, but frankly it could be a formula for a very fast strawberry cheesecake for all I can tell.”
“You’re not filling me with confidence, team” said Dave.
Romanov physically gasped “You’ve asked the PILOCC to do the calculations and you want us to give you confidence?!?!”
“Uh ….. Ok …… yeah, stupid statement. So I guess we just suck it and see?”
“That’s about the size of it, sir” sighed O’Mara.
Dave took a deep breath “Ok team, let’s do this! Death or Glory!!” he yelled and instantly regretted it.
All of the others stared at him aghast: they knew what could happen if the formula was wrong.
Dave stepped back “Sorry. Bad choice of phrase. Is there anything else we need to do before we crank the warp-drive up?”
Deng quietly said “Personally, I’m going to make sure my next of kin information is up to date and check my life insurance policy covers death by wildly optimistic faith in mentally unstable computers.”
Chapter 12
Tiger cleared her berth and Crash accelerated her smoothly up and out of orbit.
The creaks and groans that Dave was used to hearing were now conspicuous by their absence, and Crash happily accelerated the ship hard, bizarrely encountering no problems whatsoever.
“Engineers have done their job well, sir, she’s running smoother than my ol’ ’67 Ford Mustang!”
A few hours later they cleared the Oort cloud of Arcturus Delta and headed out into deep interstellar space.
Dave called the Engineering Deck: “Are we ready to go to warp, Commander Romanov?”
“I’ve managed to update my will, nominated an Executor, and I have a very, very large vodka in my hand, so I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, sir!” she replied without the slightest hint of irony.
Dave cut the comm link and said “Lieutenant Dolplop, please lay in a course for Hole, Sector 244.”
When the Vosgeean replied “All set, sir” Dave addressed Crash: “Lieutenant Stallworth, engage drive, warp-factor nine.”
“Warp-factor nine, aye sir!” the Helmsman replied, squeaking ever so slightly as he did.
Crash engaged the drive and Tiger leapt forward in a relativistic flash.
Dave was instantly aware that something had gone wrong. The tiny points of light on the view-screen that were distant stars usually turned into long white streaks of light, but as Tiger exceeded light-speed, they stretched and broke and stretched again like tiny lightning flashes, or as if the view-screen suddenly had a hundred of cracks through which the straight lines were distorted.
Almost immediately the ship began to shake and vibrate and the Red Alert klaxon came on, bathing the Bridge in daunting shades of blood-red. Warning lights began to flash angrily on every console on the Bridge. Normally the computer’s voice would be heard in parallel with the klaxon, advising what the nature of the emergency was, but Susan was oddly silent.
Dave was just about to call Engineering to see if they could pinpoint exactly what the problem was when Susan finally spoke “We seem to be encountering some turbulence: would all passengers please return to their seats, return their seats to the upright position and fasten their seat-belts …. “
Dave sat open-mouthed for a few seconds before hammering on the button to the Engineering Deck, already knowing the answer he was about to hear. “What’s happening, Commander?”
Through the noise of the klaxons and the howl of a straining warp-core Dave just about heard her reply “The PILOCC stuffed it up. We have generated an unstable warp-field and that has created the sub-space worm-hole through which we are currently falling in a completely uncontrolled manner.”
The buffeting was getting worse and Dave was aware the ships structural integrity fields were dangerously close to being over-loaded.
“How dangerous is our situation?” he asked
“Well, I’ve spilled my vodka ….. “ she grumbled.
“Can we break out of the worm-hole?” Dave asked.
“We could probably de-stabilise the worm-hole by releasing a small amount of plasma into it, but it’s probably safer to cut the drive and let the w
orm-hole collapse naturally. Unstable wormholes never last long” she replied calmly.
Crash didn’t need a second invitation and powered down the warp-drive immediately.
With that, there was a thud, and the whole ship bucked wildly, slamming them into their seats before hurling them forward, throwing several of the Bridge crew out of their seats. Everything went dead. The lights went out and everything fell silent. Dave was sure he could hear his own heart-beat in the darkness and he whispered “Is everyone ok?”
There were a couple of groans in the darkness before the local emergency power systems kicked in, lighting the Bridge dimly. Emergency power was also fed to the key consoles and Dave saw dozens of warning lights on the status panel on the arm of the Captain’s chair. Ensign Onohua had been manning the ExO’s console both he and Shearer were flat on the floor. Whilst Shearer had landed in a most unflattering position that afforded her no modesty at all, at least she was moving.
Onohua was out cold, with blood pouring from a gash in his forehead and from a very badly broken left arm. Dave called the medical team whilst trying to staunch the flow of blood from Onohua’s arm with his jacket. Looking around, it seemed everyone had taken a knock of some sort apart from the indefatigable Dolplop. Waiting for the medics to arrive, it occurred to him that even if Vosgeeans did bruise, he wouldn’t know what a Vosgeean bruise looked like.
Although the Sick-bay was only on Deck 7, the medics took a while to reach them. ASBeau went to the Engineers station and ran through the status of the ship’s systems. “All the turbo-lifts are off-line, most of the main lighting circuits have tripped out and we’ve got a lot of door circuit problems, too” he reported.
At that moment, Commander Mengele clambered onto the Bridge via the ladder at the rear of the compartment, with a strapping male orderly in tow. She surveyed the scene and immediately kneeled by Onohua and examined him with a tricorder. “Minor skull fracture, soft tissue damage to neck muscles, compound transverse fracture of the left lower arm, torn radial artery, significant muscle damage. Pass me the laser cauterizer, quickly please.”
The orderly delved into the bag and pulled out a pair of fur-lined hand-cuffs. Discarding these, he tried again and pulled out and discarded a very large latex phallus. After his third attempt he looked up at the Doctor, a thin leather whip in one hand and pair of rubber knickers in the other “I think you picked up the wrong bag, Doctor” he said apologetically. “Shall I see if I can find a first aid kit?”
“No time! We have to stop the arterial bleeding immediately” scowled the doctor “Place the whip on his upper arm as a tourniquet. There should be some nipple-clamps in there I can use to seal the ends of the artery ….. “
Confident (although slightly uncomfortable) that Onohua was being taken care of, Dave began to take stock. The panel on the arm of the Captains chair was a mass of red warning lights, but as he investigated it seemed that the ship was still intact albeit battered. Damage reports began to flood in but it these were mostly fairly trivial, as were the various reports of injuries to the crew.
Dave looked up at the main view-screen to see if he could tell where they were, but it was completely black. Dave switched it to a forward camera angle, but it remained black, as did all the other camera angles.
Deciding there must be a fault on the circuit he called Engineering. “What happened, Commander?”
“The field formula was incorrect sir” growled the engineer with admirable understatement.
“How is that possible? Susan?”
“Yes First Officer?” replied the computer.
“What went wrong with the calculations?”
“I’m unsure, Commander, the thought processes from some of the Federations best scientists were used to steer the calculation process …… “
A computer with the awesome capabilities of the PILOCC should have been able to formulate a definitive response far quicker than it could express the response in an audible format, but Dave noticed a distinct pause, almost as if the computer had an embarrassing admission to make.
“ …… although it seems that I may have made a mistake in utilising one particular engram”
Dave tensed, knowing that what followed could only be bad news. “So who would that be?”
“I attempted to load the personality profile of Dr Alfredo Vincenzi, the director of warp-field dynamics studies at the Starfleet Propulsion Facility. Unfortunately, it appears this engram is missing from my core personality matrix and may have been ….. misplaced …… when I was temporarily connected to the computer of the Tana battleship in Sha T’Al space.”
“So who did you load instead?” asked Dave, his head already in his hands.
“I seem to have used Dr Nando Vincenzi.”
“THE POP PSYCHOLOGIST??? HE’S A BLOODY CHARLATAN!!!!” roared Dave.
“And it would appear he knows very little about warp-drive theory” added Susan calmly.
“AND YOU DIDN’T NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE?????”
“Well ……. I did think it was a little odd that I had an over-riding concern about the drive processors and kept feeling an urge to ask them about their relationship with their mother-boards ……”
“Please shut up. I have an over-riding urge to come down to engineering and re-programme you with Commander Romanov’s lump hammer” said Dave quietly.
After the briefest of pauses while she weighed up how serious the threat to her well-being was, Susan stated quietly “Commander Romanov has attempted that before without any success.”
“True. But she didn’t think to ask the Engineering Team to extract your processors, memory modules and drives from the main casing and put them in a nice, neat line on a sturdy work-bench before engaging in hammer-time”
“Shutting up now, sir.”
Taking a very, very deep breath and trying to ignore the throbbing in his temple, Dave went back to the Ship’s Engineer: “Aside from a deranged computer, what shape are we in Commander?”
“Poor, sir. Most things have held up pretty well, but we’ve got a serious, serious problem with the engines. When the worm-hole collapsed it must have transferred energy back into the engines, and the shock appears to have destroyed several of the field coils. Deng and Jonsen are in the engines investigating. If the coils are shot, we won’t be going anywhere soon.”
Oh crap, thought Dave. “Ok, let me know what Jonsen and Deng find out.”
Changing tack, he closed the comm-link and asked Dolplop “Navigator, where the hell are we?”
Dolplop’s tendrils danced across his console, but he said nothing. With no visible features, Dave couldn’t even be sure if the alien had heard him or acknowledged him. The tendrils began to tap more buttons and fluttered in a distinctly disconcerting manner. Just as Dave felt he needed to repeat the question, his Navigating Officer finally answered: “No idea, sir.”
Groaning inwardly, he queried the Bridge crew generally “Does anybody know where the hell we are??”
O’Mara had been on the Bridge at one of the science consoles and at least had a response of sorts even if it wasn’t good news “We’ve got problems sir. Most of our sensors aren’t reading anything. I’m running diagnostics, which tell me everything is ok, but we just aren’t getting any data. Ah, hang on, we’ve got readings on spectrograph and chromatographs“
O’Mara was a little ditsy at times, but she was razor sharp when needed “Hmmmm, that’s interesting …… reading lots of hydrogen and helium, large amounts of particulates and even some organic matter. Exceptional amounts of iron and magnesium, which must be what’s buggering up the radio-frequency observations”
She screwed her face up in concentration then suddenly smiled and said “Oh that’s it. We’re in the middle of a dust cloud. A big, thick interstellar dust cloud that’s blocking almost every form of radiation we rely on.”
“Can we navigate through it?” asked Dave.
“Ooooh, Risky!!!” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t even see f
ar. Trying to move at speed through this could be really dangerous. We’d be moving completely blind and wouldn’t spot decent size asteroids. The cloud is thick enough that the main navigational deflector might struggle to cope with the forces exerted on it by the amount of material we’d be plowing through if we build up any significant speed.”
Sitting back, she ran her hands through her tangled hair and said “I think we need to collect some serious data about the cloud before we try moving through it at any speed.”
She tapped a couple of buttons on her console and said “I’ll get Ensign David down in Stellar Cartography to try some other instruments and see if he can spot a way through this muck.”
“Do we have any indication how big the cloud is?” asked Dave with growing concern.
O’Mara sighed. She didn’t like not knowing things. “None at all, sir. There’s so much dust we can’t see more than a couple of kilometers. It could be ten kilometers or ten light-years or ten-thousand light-years. There’s no way we can tell from inside it.”
Dave scratched his head. “Well, no point in sitting here doing nothing. Crash, edge us forward, as quickly as the navigational deflector can take. O’Mara, get all your team working the ships sensors. Look for a gap in the cloud that will allow us to get a bearing on anything we can recognise. We need to see if we can fix our position: We can’t go anywhere ‘til we know where we are.”
Chapter 13
After three days of edging forward, Dave gave up, stopped the ship and called the senior officers to the Officer’s Mess.
“Ok. We’re lost. We’re blind. And we can’t find anyone we can ask for directions. We’ve been edging forward looking for a gap, or …… anything, but it seems we’re in the thickest, gloopiest dust cloud ever discovered. I’ve stopped the ship as we have no idea if we’re getting closer to an edge or just blundering deeper and deeper in. Actually, we have so little visibility I don’t even know if we have stopped the ship. We can’t see anything at all to judge whether we’re still moving or not. Any ideas? Anyone?”