Collective Hindsight Book 2

by Aaron Rosenberg

  “What about this one?” Stevens tapped the map. “Cardienne? We can reach that in…” he started to type into his padd, then glanced at Tev instead. At least he now recognized his inferior abilities!

  “Two-point-three hours at present speed,” Tev informed him. Stevens nodded at that—perhaps it was meant as an acknowledgment of his skill? Even after weeks of working together, he still found these people difficult to read.

  “That’s not in our path, though,” Blue said. “We’d have to turn toward it.”

  “It’s our best bet.” Gomez spoke authoritatively—Tev was pleased to notice that she was finally making decisions the way a team leader should, instead of letting others make them for her as she had when they had first met. “Let’s take a look at the Dancing Star’s thrusters and see if we can make this work.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, all of them were frustrated.

  “Faugh!” Tev announced, and Pattie nodded her antennae in agreement. The equations were clear.

  “Steers like a cow,” Fabian muttered. Pattie did not get the reference, but she agreed with the sentiment. The Dancing Star was too large to turn that sharply, particularly at its current speed.

  “Well, what other option do we have?” Sonya demanded. “We can’t leave it here, we can’t fight, we can’t run. We need to get to the nearest star, and that’s the only one we can reach in time. So how do we turn something that doesn’t want to turn?”

  “The original crew used gravity wells,” Pattie pointed out. “If we had a planet or even a large moon nearby, we might be able to use that to alter our course.”

  “Nothing within range is large enough to provide sufficient gravity,” Tev informed her. Despite his brusqueness, Pattie was glad he was there—she might have been able to figure that out as quickly, but this way she didn’t have to.

  “So it can’t turn on its own,” Fabian mused, “and we don’t have anything heavy enough to make it turn. But maybe we can bootleg it.”

  The others turned to look at him.

  “Bootleg it?” Tev asked.

  Fabian shrugged. “It’s an old Earth term. Used to be bootleggers—people who illegally brewed their own alcohol, or moonshine, and then sold it to others. The cops would chase them all the time, and they got pretty good at making fast getaways. One of their techniques was called a bootlegger turn.” He grinned. “Basically they’d throw a rope around a tree and use that to spin the car into a tighter turn.”

  “Like wheeling around a gravity well, but using a physical tether.” Tev nodded with understanding. Pattie was momentarily overcome by an image of Tev, wearing overalls and carrying a shotgun, riding in an old Earth car as it spun around a tree with police cars in hot pursuit. Her tinkle of laughter was fortunately overlooked by the others.

  “What could we use for the tree?” Sonya demanded, and they all scanned the charts.

  “There,” Pattie pointed out finally, enlarging a section and highlighting one spot. “It’s an asteroid, twice the size of the Dancing Star and filled with heavy metals. Not enough to produce a gravity well, but with its mass the ship shouldn’t be able to budge it. And it’s between our present course and Cardienne.”

  “Right. So what do we use for the rope?”

  “It’s got to be a tractor beam,” Fabian said. “Nothing else could withstand that kind of stress.”

  “But the Dancing Star doesn’t have a tractor beam.”

  Pattie tinkled in laughter again. “No, but we do.”

  * * *

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Gold muttered as he and Sonya watched Shabalala steer the da Vinci into the hold of the Dancing Star.

  “I didn’t talk you into anything, sir,” she replied with a grin. “You agreed that this is the best course of action.”

  “Being swallowed by a whale, which then hides within in a bonfire? What was I thinking?”

  Sonya didn’t bother to reply. Instead, she tapped her combadge. “Tev, how’s the tractor beam coming?”

  “Final attachments almost completed, Commander,” came the reply. “We will be ready in ten minutes.”

  “Good. Report to the Dancing Star’s bridge as soon as you’re done.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Gold told her. “We just got that new tractor beam, and now you’re ripping it off and sticking it on some other ship. And it’ll get turned to ash when we dive!”

  Sonya shrugged. “Sorry, Captain. But it’s either the tractor beam or us, and I’d rather give up the tractor beam.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that, so he simply turned back to the viewscreen. It really did look like his mental picture of Jonah and the whale—the da Vinci sailed through the Dancing Star’s cargo doors without a problem, ample room on both sides thanks to Wong’s deft handling, and settled into the middle of its hold. The ceiling soared above them, lost in the darkness, and the walls were so far away that they were also swallowed up. If not for the floor, it would have been easy to imagine that the da Vinci was still out in space, albeit in an area without any stars.

  “All right, Gomez,” Gold sighed as the thud of the closing cargo door echoed across the ship. “We’re in. Now I expect you to handle the rest. I’ll be here in my little minnow if you need me.”

  “Not to worry, sir,” she called back as she headed for the door. “This whale’s friendly. It’s those three sharks I’m worried about.”

  * * *

  “Everybody ready?” Sonya settled herself in the command chair, and Fabian had to suppress a wince. The last time a Starfleet officer sat in that chair, it was Salek. Fabian still remembered the sight of the Vulcan’s ashes piled on the cushion before he and Duffy piloted the Dancing Star into Randall V’s sun.

  “All set here,” he replied from the tactical station.

  “Ready, Commander,” Soloman called from the computer console.

  “Good to go,” Pattie chimed in from navigation.

  “Of course,” was Tev’s only reply from ops.

  “Then let’s move some moonshine,” Sonya said with a smile. “Distance to firing point, Tev?”

  “Point-zero-seven light-years,” came the immediate response.

  “Current speed?”

  “Warp one-point-one-five,” Pattie said.

  “Time to Androssi arrival?”

  Fabian checked his monitors. “Point-eight-nine hours.”

  “Time to Cardienne, at estimated speed?”

  “Point-eight-seven hours.”

  Sonya sighed. “It’s going to be close. Tev, prepare to engage tractor beam, on my mark.”

  “Ready, Commander.” It amazed Fabian that the Tellarite hadn’t insulted anyone all day. Maybe it’s his time of month, he thought wryly—and was glad he hadn’t said it out loud.

  “And, three, two, one—mark.”

  “Tractor beam engaged.”

  “Changing course,” Pattie called out. “Speed dropping to warp one-point-zero-nine.”

  “Release tractor beam—now!”

  “Tractor beam released.”

  “Now on course for Cardienne,” Pattie announced, antennae waving. “Speed at warp one-point-three-nine!”

  “Congratulations, people,” Sonya said, leaning back in her chair. “It worked!”

  “Yeah,” Fabian couldn’t resist adding, “those cops’ll never catch us now.”

  Chapter

  6

  Overseer Caldon still could not accept what he had just seen. Upon dropping out of FTL, they had immediately detected not only the unfamiliar ship but also a Federation Starfleet vessel near it. Additional scans had identified it as the U.S.S. da Vinci, NCC-81623, a vessel that Caldon’s fellow overseer Biron had encountered twice—and failed to dispose of each time. Caldon had been looking forward to correcting his rival’s error when the U.S.S. da Vinci had moved inside the target vessel. Then this—

  He stared at the screen, replaying the image in his mind. The vessel had been heading toward them
, and had suddenly turned sharply to one side and accelerated. Given its size, such a turn should have been impossible, and the ship gave no indication that its engines had provided additional thrust to account for the change in velocity. Yet now it was moving more quickly, and on a completely different flight path.

  Caldon frowned. Perhaps Biron was not a fool after all, and these Federation individuals were more clever than expected. No matter. His crew had already calculated their new path, and it led directly toward an uninhabited system—in fact, directly toward that system’s sun. It was a simple matter for him to spread out his ship sections, one on either side and his main section approaching from behind. With the sun before them, the mystery ship was boxed in, and would be easy to capture. And the da Vinci had trapped itself within, which would prove to be their undoing.

  Yet, even as he gave orders for the new vessel’s acquisition and retrieval, Caldon could not help but think about that strange turn again—and wonder what else the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci might do.

  * * *

  “He’s right behind us, Commander.”

  Sonya glanced at the screen—half of it showed Cardienne’s sun, whose outer edge they had almost reached, while the other half showed the view behind them. Two of the Androssi ships had moved to flank them, while the third traced their own path behind them. He thinks he’s got us trapped, she thought. Well, he’s in for a surprise.

  “Distance to the sun,” she called out, and Tev answered quickly.

  “Ten minutes, Commander.”

  “All right—everybody get ready.” She tapped her combadge. “Captain, we’re entering the sun in ten minutes.”

  “Roger that, Gomez,” came Gold’s reply. “We’ve got the marshmallows and hot dogs ready.”

  “Don’t forget the sunscreen,” she said, then switched off and returned her attention to the screen. The sun filled the forward view completely, and a few minutes later it swallowed them up. The screen went white for a moment, then shifted into grays.

  “What just happened?”

  “The monitors operate on infrared,” Soloman explained from his computer console. “Within the sun, that’s useless—it’s all hot. The systems have shunted to a different viewing method as a result. It’s standard protocol for the ship.”

  “Ah. Okay.” She forced her hands to release the armrests, and tried to convince herself that she was only sweating from anxiety and not from actual heat. She prided herself on being able to face any situation, but was willing to admit that deliberately diving into a sun wasn’t the safest thing they’d ever done.

  “What’s our status, Tev?” she asked, and was pleased to see her second standing as calmly as ever. If something had been wrong, she had no doubt he’d be the first to tell her.

  “All systems operating normally, Commander,” he said instead. “Internal temperature has risen one-point-two degrees, and is holding steady. Hull intact, with no signs of damage.” He frowned. “The tractor beam, however, has been demolished.”

  Sonya laughed. “Well, I did warn Captain Gold about that. Guess we’ll have to put in at a starbase for a new one, once we get out of this. Which reminds me”—she glanced at the other half of the viewscreen again—“I wonder what our new friends think of our immolation?”

  * * *

  “Well, this is unexpected,” Caldon muttered, standing beside his sub-overseer and watching the activity on the main screen. All of the reports he had seen of encounters with the Federation had indicated the same major weakness—a foolish overvaluation of all life, to the extent that Starfleet officers would not even dispatch a fallen opponent who would happily kill them if the situation were reversed. This behavior had proven useful in outmaneuvering them in the past—Biron had reported that they even valued workers, and would surrender rather than see one hurt! But clearly either Biron had been mistaken, or that behavior had been anomalous, or they had adopted a new strategy.

  In a way, Caldon could not fault their decision. Clearly his own ships had outmatched them, and would defeat them in battle. Thus, the unfamiliar vessel would fall into his hands unless it was destroyed. He had not expected them to fly into a sun, especially with themselves still onboard, but it did prevent him from accessing the ship and its information.

  “Scan for life signs,” he ordered, and one of the workers did so quickly.

  “Negative, Overseer,” the worker reported a moment later. “We are not reading anything beyond the sun’s energies itself. No evidence of the ship’s engines or shields, or of any life-forms within.”

  Caldon considered. It was possible, of course, that this strange ship could survive such an experience, and that the Starfleet crew had known this. But they had not been present when the ship had first been sighted, less than a day ago, and to have discovered so much about it in so short a time was unlikely. They could have hoped it would survive, and gambled upon that, but all the evidence suggested that the Federation did not gamble with lives. Thus they must have resigned themselves to death in order to keep the ship from his hands. A valid decision, and one he himself might have chosen in their place. As it was, only quick handling by his sub-overseers had prevented them from following the ship into the sun, and even so their shields had sustained damage from its heat. A direct encounter would easily incinerate them.

  “Sub-Overseer Rando, report,” he ordered over the communications system, and received an immediate response from the officer in charge of the second vessel module.

  “No sign of the ship, Overseer. It has not emerged from the other side, and we have no readings of it. It must have been destroyed.”

  “Most likely, yes. But you will remain here in case it somehow reemerges. I will expect daily reports. If the ship has not appeared again by the end of one week, you will return to base.”

  “Yes, Overseer.”

  “Sub-Overseer Mudat, report.” Again, the reply was immediate—as expected. Caldon would tolerate nothing less.

  “No sign of the ship here either, Overseer.”

  “Initiate linkage at once.” There was no reason to leave the remaining two ships separate at this point.

  “Yes, Overseer.”

  Caldon then turned his attention to his own sub-overseer. “As soon as the linkage is restored, we will depart. Set return course 36381. Set FTL at 15.” At least he could tell Biron that he had disposed of the da Vinci for him. He might even be able to profit from that—surely Biron’s sponsor would pay for the removal of such a persistent foe. And the fact that Biron had not accomplished the task himself would make it all the more satisfying.

  * * *

  “Okay, tell me the good news.” Gold had finally given in to temptation and wandered up to the Dancing Star’s bridge, though he’d refused the command chair from Gomez—his was down in the hold, and sitting on this one wouldn’t have felt right. Besides, she’d earned it.

  “Two of the Androssi ships have left,” Gomez replied.

  “And the Dancing Star is holding up just fine,” Stevens added from his station. Gold acknowledged that with a brief nod. It was true—the da Vinci was not experiencing any problems from the heat or radiation, and walking the corridors of this ship it had been a little warm but no worse than a spring day in San Francisco.

  “And the bad news?”

  Gomez glanced away, and Tev took the opportunity to respond. “The third Androssi ship has remained behind, and has taken up a guard position just beyond the sun’s outer corona.” At least he didn’t seem to be crowing about it—several times before the Tellarite had taken great pleasure in pointing out other people’s mistakes. This time it seemed like he was just reporting the facts.

  “Okay, so we’ve got one out of three left. That’s not too bad. This ship can take him out, can’t it?”

  “Definitely,” Stevens said. “But we can’t risk it.”

  “Why not?” But he already knew the answer to that one, and held up a hand. “Let me guess—they’ve got an open comm line with the other two. So i
f we emerge and go after them, they’ll have enough time to call it in before we can wipe them out.”

  “Right,” Gomez said. “And those first two will come running back here. Plus, once they know this ship can survive in a sun, they won’t be fooled twice. They’ll just wait us out.”

  “How long can we stay in here?”

  “Three-point-seven days,” Tev said. “After that, the engines will suffer another overload and we will be forced to vent—a process that will incinerate all life within the Dancing Star.”

  Gold nodded. “Okay, so we’ve got one guy guarding us, he can call in reinforcements, and we can only sit here for a few days before we get deep-fat fried. Any more good news?”

  “Well,” Blue said, “at least power isn’t a problem.”

  He considered glaring at her, but knew it wouldn’t be worth it. Instead he turned back to Gomez and folded his arms. “All right, Gomez. You got us into the mess—get us out of it.” He did smile a little to let her know that he wasn’t really angry at her, but at the same time he wasn’t going to let her off the hook here. Besides, if past experience was any indication, he knew she and her crew would think of something.

  * * *

  “What are we going to do, exactly?” Fabian tried to keep that from sounding like a complaint. He actually wasn’t all that worried—they’d gotten out of situations worse than this before. Then he thought about the situation again, and decided that maybe they hadn’t. But he was sure they’d find a way out again, as usual.

  “We could take off when they aren’t looking,” Pattie said, but Tev shook his head.

  “Their scanners have sufficient range to cover this sun completely,” he said. “Any movement would be spotted.”

  “And even if we could get clear without their seeing us,” Sonya added, “without a slingshot this ship can only do warp two, max. They’d catch us.”