Collective Hindsight Book 2

by Aaron Rosenberg

  Pushing these notions away for later examination, Soloman rose from his chair. Time enough to consider such things later. For now, he had to bring this data to the commander.

  * * *

  “Okay,” Sonya began. They were all gathered around the conference table again, several hours after their last meeting. Carol Abramowitz had spent the time studying the data, trying to figure out what kind of people they were dealing with, but it was difficult, given the lack of any indication of personal items. Of course, it was possible that any personal items were vaporized along with the crew back at Randall V, but that still left her with precious little to work with. She did know that these people had been honorable, and they’d valued all life. They’d also been more tolerant of heat, and had found new and impressive ways to harness solar energy. And they’d made a ship strong enough to dive right into a sun.

  “So, what have we learned?” Sonya asked.

  “Well, we know the ship’s based on solar energy,” Fabian said. “Not just propulsion but lighting, heating, circulation, everything. Its sensors actually operate mostly in the infrared spectrum, picking up heat signatures and translating those into three-dimensional image maps.”

  “Its shielding is mostly absorption,” Pattie added. “The Dancing Star didn’t have any weapons when we first encountered it, or any shielding against energy weapons. Instead it had a strong hull and a collection array to protect it from solar energy and then absorb that energy for its own purposes. That’s why it could dive into a sun without harm, because the energy around it was siphoned off for the ship’s use.”

  “The computer systems are efficient,” Soloman said. “Not overly complicated, but very solid. Particularly resistant to heat and to vibration, even more than in most starships. The coding is not the most sophisticated, but it’s very clean.”

  “The ship routinely used stars for both energy and acceleration,” Tev said. “And the capacitors are built to handle exactly that type of massive input.”

  “It also went into a sun—all the way into one—and came out unscathed,” Carol commented. She didn’t get all of the technical details the others were sharing, but that fact had impressed itself on her.

  Sonya nodded at her. “Good point. We also know that Pattie and Kieran disconnected the collector arrays after Salek’s death and before launching the ship into the sun. Yet it has power now, and is approaching overload levels again.” She tapped the table. “What does that tell us?”

  “Was the array reconnected?”

  Tev shook his head. “No, it is still isolated.”

  “So the ship was drawing power in some other way.”

  “Right. But what?”

  Carol watched them all thinking. She wished that she could contribute more, sometimes. Then something occurred to her. “Um, Pattie said most of the ship’s protection when it entered a sun was in its collection array, right?”

  The others looked up at her, and Pattie wiggled her antennae in agreement. “Yes. There’s some shielding material between the hull and the interior walls, to keep the energy from leaking through fully, but mostly it was the array that siphoned off energy before it could prove dangerous.”

  “But, with the array disconnected, how did the ship survive being inside Randall V’s sun?” She leaned forward. “I mean, never mind its powering back up—why wasn’t it incinerated?”

  The engineers all looked at each other. Then Bart, her fellow nonengineer, spoke up.

  “I’ve got a question, too. Pattie, did you just say that the ship has shielding between the hull and the inner walls?”

  The Nasat nodded. “Yes. The hull is unusually conductive, and the shielding keeps energy from penetrating into the ship proper.”

  “But why make a hull conductive at all?” Fabian wondered out loud. “I mean, why not just put the shielding on the outside and be done with it?”

  Sonya gasped, and everyone turned toward her. “That’s it! Carol, you’re a genius! The hull’s an energy conductor! The entire ship is one giant absorption array!”

  Everyone stared, then started nodding. It always amazed Carol that, even at times like this, they didn’t just all start talking over each other. Instead, someone spoke and the others listened, with occasional interjections. This time it was Pattie who commented first.

  “It all makes sense,” she said. “The collection array was a supplemental power source, not the primary. So when we disconnected it, we thought we’d prevented the ship from powering up but all we’d done was slow the process down.”

  “And, with the entire hull absorbing energy,” Fabian cut in, “the ship can easily withstand diving into a sun. It’s absorbing power from all sides, and all that energy gets sent through the capacitors and into the collection plates. The shielding makes sure none of it goes into the rest of the ship instead, and funnels it all toward the engine room.”

  “So when it was sent into the sun,” Sonya finished, “it just used that to power up again.”

  “That still leaves one problem,” Gold pointed out. “Duffy and Stevens programmed the Dancing Star to fly itself into Randall V’s sun. They didn’t give it any instructions past that. So what’s it doing all the way out here? Even with its power restored, something made it leave that sun and launch itself in a straight line.”

  “I may have an answer to that,” Soloman said. “Many of its computer files had been wiped before we found it that first time, but not everything was lost. I have been going back over it, and I think I’ve found the relevant command.” He glanced down at his padd as if for confirmation. “Each internal vent knocked the computer systems offline, but they rebooted after a suitable period. An emergency protocol demands that if the ship’s systems shut down twice within roughly one Federation week, the ship will immediately start a preprogrammed course. Most likely back to their homeworld, for repairs.” He looked embarrassed, the first time Carol could remember seeing that expression on his face. “The commands were hardwired into the system, which may be why we missed it before.”

  Gold nodded. “Makes sense—if it’s broken down twice in one week something’s wrong, so it’s recalled for servicing. And, between its crew’s sacrifice and then Salek’s, that was twice in a single day. So once it was online again, and had enough power, it headed home.”

  “Why is it close to overloading again, then?” Corsi asked. “Isn’t it burning off the energy as it goes?”

  “Not enough, apparently.” Fabian thought about it for a minute. “Actually, I think I know why. And it’s our own fault.” He shook his head. “Salek disconnected the safety protocols so that he could vent internally that second time. I’ll bet some of those protocols included commands for automatically venting energy to prevent an overload. Plus, I did retask some of its vents for use as guns—so it can’t use those vents unless someone engages them from the weapons console I added.”

  “You had no way of knowing that it would reemerge,” Sonya reminded him. “Why bother to reactivate those protocols if it’s just going to sit in a sun forever?”

  Gold glanced at everyone. “Well, I’m impressed, as usual. So now you know how it works, and why it’s moving, and why it’s overheating. What’s next?”

  “Now we deactivate it properly,” Sonya replied. “We—” Whatever she was about to say was cut off by a call from Shabalala on the bridge.

  “Captain, a ship just dropped out of warp and is heading right for us.”

  “On my way,” Gold replied, standing up. The others followed suit. “Good work, people. Gomez, Tev, you’d better come with me.”

  As they all headed out, Bart leaned in toward Carol and whispered, “Genius?”

  Carol just grinned back at him and, very maturely, stuck out her tongue.

  Chapter

  4

  “All right, Shabalala, what’ve we got?” Gold settled immediately into his command chair, Gomez and Tev stepping to either side of him. To Wong, watching from his conn station, the move looked perfectly synchr
onized, as if they’d practiced it. He suppressed a grin at the image of the three of them blocking the move out late at night and turned back to his station instead.

  “Single ship, sir,” Shabalala said. “Configuration matches the Androssi.”

  “Oh, great,” Wong heard Commander Gomez mutter. “Tell me it’s not Overseer Biron again, at least.”

  “No, Commander, this ship isn’t one we’ve seen before.”

  “Well, that’s something,” she said, but Shabalala wasn’t finished.

  “For one thing,” he continued, “it’s at least twice the size of Biron’s.”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Gomez moaned. “What else?”

  “I’m picking up multiple energy readings, Commander. Each one matches the signature of an Androssi engine, but I’ve got three separate locations for it.”

  “Clearly they have installed multiple engines for increased thrust,” Tev declared. Wong didn’t much care for his tone, the “any idiot could see that” way he talked to everyone. Come to think of it, nobody on the bridge liked him much. But at least he was usually right.

  “I’ve got something, too, Captain,” Haznedl added from the ops console next to Wong. “Multiple communications readings as well. Also three of them, and they seem to be aimed—at each other.”

  “What?” Gold leaned forward in his chair—the crew liked to joke that they could remove the rest of the seat and he’d never notice. “Three engines, three comm signals? You’re telling me—”

  “Faugh!” Tev snarled, having stepped over to one of the aft science consoles. He tapped in a few commands, and an enlarged image of the Androssi ship appeared on one of the side screens. The multiple engines and comm signals were highlighted, as were the multiple weapons systems Shabalala had noticed but had not yet had the chance to point out. Then, at another command from the Tellarite, the image split into three separate components. Three equal components—each one with all the makings of a full ship.

  “Captain, it’s splitting!” Shabalala called out, and they watched as the image on the forward screen changed to match the one Tev had just created off to the side. “Now we’ve got three Androssi ships, each one roughly three-fourths the size of Overseer Biron’s. And all three of them still making a beeline for us.”

  “How much time do we have, Shabalala?” It always amazed Wong that the captain could stay so calm at a time like this. He was perched on the edge of his seat, of course, but his voice didn’t waver at all, and his hands were resting on the armrests instead of clenching them. I doubt I could be that calm, with three Androssi gunning for me, Wong admitted to himself with a shudder.

  “At current speed they’ll be within weapons range in three hours, sir.”

  “Fine. Gomez, you’ve got two hours to figure something out. I suggest you get to it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gomez and Tev left the bridge, again moving together as if they’d practiced it. Wong just hoped that wasn’t the only thing their team had been practicing.

  * * *

  “Okay, we’ve got a problem,” Sonya told the team as she and Tev entered the observation lounge. “The ship is Androssi, and it turns out it’s some new modular design. It’s split into three separate ships now, and all three of them are headed for us.”

  “If their sensors picked up the Dancing Star before this,” Pattie said, “they would have known it was enormous. Maybe they figured they’d need three ships to deal with it.”

  “Could be,” Sonya said. “But why they sent them isn’t important right now. In two hours we’re going to have all three in our face. What are we going to do about it?”

  She turned toward Fabian, and he managed not to grin or sigh. It was nice being the team’s tactical expert, and knowing they looked to him at a time like this. At the same time, he sometimes wished those expectant stares were focused on someone else.

  “How big are these three, compared to Biron’s ship?” That was the one they were most familiar with, having encountered it twice already.

  “Seventy-five percent,” Tev replied. Fabian wasn’t surprised that the Tellarite would know the size of Biron’s ship—he’d already demonstrated that he loved research, and that he’d read up on the S.C.E.’s previous missions, including the encounters with Biron at Maeglin and Empok Nor.

  “Okay, so we’ve got three ships, each three-fourths of that size.” Fabian got up and paced while he thought out loud. “No way we can take them ourselves—the da Vinci might be able to handle one, though we’d come away in bad shape ourselves.”

  “The Dancing Star dealt with that Cardassian ship, the Grach’noyl,” Soloman commented.

  “True, and it could probably handle at least one of these. But I doubt it could take two, and that’d still leave one for us.” Fabian shook his head. “Sorry, Commander, but this is a fight we can’t win.”

  “We can run,” Tev said, and glared back at them when they all turned toward him. “Valor in the face of overwhelming odds is simple foolishness.”

  “No argument there,” Sonya admitted. “But I don’t think running would work. They’ve got three ships—they could send one or even two after us, while the remaining one or two lay claim to the Dancing Star. And we cannot let this technology fall into the Androssi’s hands.”

  “Hell, they could focus all three on us,” Fabian replied, “blow us away, then come back and pick over it at their leisure. A quick scan will show them that the Dancing Star is unmanned, so they’ll know it’s not a threat.”

  “What if we just scuttle it and go?” Pattie asked. “Toss it into the nearest sun and take off? They’ll stop to see if they can retrieve it, which should give us the time we need to get away safely.”

  But Fabian shook his head again. “No good. They’re too practical for that, and there are three of them. They’ll leave one ship behind to watch the sun, and the other two will pursue us. Keep in mind that the Androssi would love to get their hands on Starfleet tech, too, and they’ve no compunctions about killing us to get it.” He stopped pacing and glanced up. “I do have one idea, though. It’s a bit crazy, but I think it’ll work—and it’ll keep both us and the Dancing Star out of their hands.”

  * * *

  “You want me to do what?” Gold wasn’t sure he’d heard her right, but Gomez repeated herself, with Stevens behind her nodding in agreement.

  “We want you to move the da Vinci into the hold of the Dancing Star.”

  “So that you can then—”

  “Dive into the nearest sun, yes.”

  “Are you insane, Gomez?” He leveled a finger at Stevens. “You, I already know the answer. But you want me to take my ship into a sun? We’ll be incinerated in an instant!”

  “No, we won’t, sir.” Stevens had that mad gleam in his eyes, the same one he got every time he played a practical joke—or came up with an amazing engineering trick. “The Dancing Star is built for this—it can dive into a star without being damaged.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, son, this isn’t the Dancing Star.”

  “No, but that is.” Stevens stabbed his finger toward the viewscreen, which showed the Dancing Star sailing along beside them. “And its hold is big enough to fit this entire ship. Its shielding is designed to keep the heat and energy from bleeding into the inner compartments. Its crew survived sailing through a supernova, sir! We’ll be fine in there.”

  Gold glanced at Gomez. “And you agree with this?”

  She didn’t hesitate, which convinced him that either she was right or that she’d also gone mad. “Yes sir, I do. We can’t fight three Androssi at once, even with that ship, and we can’t outrun them without leaving the Dancing Star behind—and possibly being cut down anyway. This is our only option.”

  He sighed. “You know, in the old days, I never had to worry about this kind of thing. I’d be sent to fight this ship or that one, or to carry this device from here to there, or to explore that area. No one ever asked me to fly into suns or through unstable rifts.”

>   “That’s true, sir,” Stevens replied, and the gleam intensified, “but you probably didn’t have nearly as much fun.”

  Chapter

  5

  “How are we doing with the Dancing Star, Tev?”

  The Tellarite glanced over at his superior as she and Stevens entered engineering. “Computer systems online, Commander. We’ve reactivated the safety protocols, and have vented enough energy to prevent overload for another fifteen hours. We have also set its thrusters to begin braking—the ship is currently at warp one-point-two and decelerating.”

  “Nice work. Now, where are we going to put it?”

  “I don’t know,” Stevens replied. “It won’t fit in the living room.” Tev stopped himself from rolling his eyes. What was it with humans that they always thought they were funny?

  But Gomez, Stevens, and Blue had stepped over to study a map of the immediate area. Tev joined them.

  “We’ve already passed through Sandion,” Blue was saying, one antenna tapping a spot on the chart. “And we’d have to turn around to get back to its sun. The next system in our current path is Franjean,” she tapped the chart again, a little higher up, “but we won’t hit that for another four hours at current speed.”

  “We don’t have four hours,” Tev reminded them. “The Androssi will reach us in two-point-five.”