There was another pause. “Is that reply to her complete enough, do you think?”
“It should be plenty,” said Maliani, and laughed a little. “All the recent news is there … and if I sent much more than that, she’d start complaining that I was up past my bedtime.”
A couple of soft incidental sounds. “There,” said Maliani. “Now we can finish up here. Want to stop by the dock commissary for a snack after we go off?”
“Indeed my pouch has been growling somewhat,” said Devanian. “Let us do so….”
“Message received,” said the computer. “Decrypted. Translated.”
It displayed it on the console, and Will read swiftly down it.
Oh … my … God, he thought. Here it all was, the history of the two Romulan agents’ work—set out in ten broad subsections, with apologies for not being able to give more detail, but the committee had in the past expressed impatience with too much emphasis being put on the technical explanations. Every one of Enterprise’s major computer-operated systems had been compromised to greater or lesser degree, with the intent of disabling Enterprise “on command” at a time when Romulan vessels planted in a given area would be available to take her captive and force her across the Neutral Zone into Romulan space. Locations of the implementations to each system were then briefly described. The only ship’s system spared this treatment so far, the report said, was the warp drive system, which could not yet be compromised because the warp intermix formulae had not yet been finalized. However, as soon as they were, the operatives had left in place a “logic bomb” which could be triggered to activate while the ship was underway. This would critically overload the warp drive by accelerating the antimatter feed at some crucial moment, ideally when the phasers were (according to the controversial new design) drawing power from the warp engines while charging or during combat. The resulting warp crisis would be assumed to have been caused by a phaser malfunction … if there was even time to assess what had happened, before the ship blew. Final adjustments to the programming were now being made; the two operatives expected to be in place here for some time before Starfleet moved them on to work on other ships. Orders for these new ships were awaited, now that this team had fulfilled its primary mission of revenge for the harms done the empire by Enterprise in the past.
Glory to the empire…
The report was signed only with the two operatives’ numbers.
Will straightened up. “Save this message,” he said. “Send a copy immediately to Admiral Nogura’s office: flag it triply most urgent.”
“Warning: this instruction will cause the admiral to he awakened if he is on sleep cycle,” said the computer.
Will grinned. “Ask me if I care. Execute.”
“Done,” said the computer. “Initial instruction serves no purpose.”
“All too true,” Will said. He ran his hands through his hair, stretched once, and turned toward the door. Time for the captain to pay them a visit and tell them what a good job they’ve been doing, he thought.
If he had a problem, it was that there was no armory on this deck. “Computer,” Will said as he stood in the doorway. “Scan computer core for weapons.”
There was a pause. “No conventional weapons detected,” it said. “One tricorder. One nonstandard sensing device.”
Meaning one of them is carrying something that reads like a tricorder, Will thought. But then they also read as a human and an Elthan, too, until Christine interfered….
Never mind. “Decker to sickbay,” he said softly.
“Captain?”
“I’m locking down the accesses to the computer core, except for one,” Will said. “Security detail, computer core access C. Ten minutes.”
“They’ll be there in five,” she said. “Out.”
He straightened up. His back was killing him, and his heart was starting to pound … and he was going to enjoy this.
Will made his way out of me node room and slowly, casually, down the hallway to the C access to the core. Just before coming to the access, he paused, stretched once or twice more; he had been standing in the same position, nearly, for along time….
Right.
He went through the door. As it slipped aside for him, he glanced around him casually, as if he had no idea where the two crew members were, then “spotted” them over by one of the main read-in consoles. “Aha,” he said. “There you are.”
“Captain?” They had been seated at the console. Now both of them stood as he ambled toward them. Very good, Will thought. That may make this next part easier….
He strolled idly along toward Maliani and Dorwinian, doing his best to look like a captain who had been working hard all day and was up well past his bedtime: a little soft around the edges, and completely off his guard. The two of them watched him come with expressions that were, to put it mildly, neutral. The one place their trainings fallen down a little, he thought. They don’t know how to fake being comfortable with a senior officer … because they would never be comfortable with one of their own, not really. And because I am the enemy…
“At ease!” Will said, as he came along toward them, smiling. “I thought before I went off, I’d come down and see how you folks were doing. You the last two left down here?”
“Yes, Sir,” said Dorwinian. “We have been completing some of the memory inset programming….”
“Don’t get all technical on me now,” said Will easily, leaning past them and peering at the console they were working at. Naturally there was no sign of the message he knew had just been sent. “My brains are all full of gunnery at the moment: you’ve heard about the problems we’ve been having….”
“Yes, Sir, the Ineffables mentioned it to our team a few days ago, at lunch,” Maliani said. “Not our problem, fortunately….”
“No,” Will said, “but you have enough here to keep you busy, it looks like.” He turned around and actually leaned backwards on the console, which caused them to look at him a little oddly. “I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your hard work. Everybody keeps telling me about the crazy computer people, how you work all hours of the night … and now I see it’s true.”
Maliani and Dorwinian exchanged a look. “You know how it is, Captain,” he said. “You get busy … other things, less important things, can wait. There were a few loose ends we wanted to tidy up.”
“It is our pleasure to serve,” said Dorwinian.
“Yes,” said Will softly. “Mine too.” He stood up and put a hand on each of their shoulders, and turned them around to walk away with him from the console. A little bemused, they came with him, as good crew members would. “And you know,” he said, “when everything’s said and done, there’s only one thing to say on that subject.” He looked from one to the other of the young, dark, handsome, slightly confused faces as they walked away from the consoles and up the steps to the “walkway” level which led to the door; he heard the little sound outside.
“Tr’Hrienteh,” Will said.
Both their eyes went wide.
In the next second, Maliani lashed out with one elbow, with deadly force, at Will’s head. But Will’s head was not there anymore: it was about two feet lower, as he bent down and threw himself sideways into Maliani’s side. All three of them went down together, for as he hit the floor, Will had also scissored his legs around Dorwinian’s, tripping and toppling her. The next second he had bounced to his feet again, between them and that console: whatever happened in the next few minutes, they would not touch it again.
Maliani scrambled up into a crouch. Dorwinian scrambled up too, and burst away toward the door.
It shot open to reveal Christine Chapel standing there. Without the slightest hesitation Doctor Chapel straight-armed the charging “Elthan” right in the sternum. The woman staggered back, her arms flying up, and Christine stepped in and stuck a hypospray straight into the space directly under her right ribs. Down Dorwinian went, like a sack of potatoes.
Christine look
ed past her, chucked that hypospray over her shoulder, and came up with another one, looking most meaningfully at “Maliani.”
He looked at Will, then at Chapel. He took a step or two toward her—and then stopped, hearing behind her the thunder of footsteps running, the security detail coming at speed down the corridor.
“Maliani” looked up at the ceiling … and then crumpled to his knees.
“Doctor Chapel!” Decker said as the security people came in and filled the room, picking up the woman who lay prone in the doorway.
Chapel hurried forward … but as she did, Maliani fell forward on his face. Christine had her medical tricorder out, was running it over him. Then she shook her head.
“Neurotoxin,” she said. “His EEG’s flat already.” She looked up regretfully. “Could be anything from the old-fashioned hollow tooth to an implant with a pressure pump. I’m sorry, Captain….”
“Never mind,” Will said. “The other one didn’t have a chance … nice job, Doctor.” He glanced at the security people and said, “You’d better get her down to sickbay and restrain her so that the doctor can remove whatever her friend used. I have a feeling Starfleet security is going to have a lot of questions to ask her….”
The security people carried Dorwinian out. Will stood there, breathing hard, and looked up at Chapel with amusement.
“You were watching my pulse, weren’t you?” he said.
“Far be it from me to miss a cue,” Christine said. “So now what?”
The comms board in the computer core whistled. Will had to smile. “Nothing happens for hours and hours,” he said, “and then everything happens at once….” He went over to the board, touched it to life, half afraid it would be Admiral Nogura.
“What’re you still doin’ up, lad?” Scotty’s voice said, outraged.
“Oh, nothing,” Decker said. “Really, nothing, Scotty…”
“Good,” said Scotty, “because now you’ll have some somethin’ to do.” He sounded both alarmed and pleased.
“What?”
“I’m just tellin’ you, lad. My comm goes off five minutes ago, and who is it but Admiral Nogura—” Oh lord, Will thought, here it comes.
“—blatherin’ on about the daftest thing you ever heard at three in the morning. And what should it be but some great big cloud of no one knows what, comin’ toward Earth—”
Will blinked. “A cloud?”
“The damn thing’s half an AU across if it’s an inch, he said, and it’s coming straight toward us. At extreme sensor range yet, a week or ten days away at the speed it’s making. But no one knows what the great beastie is or what it’s made of, and guess what ship is the one best positioned to go make rendezvous with the thing?”
“Oh, Scotty—!” Will was torn between terror, fury, and sheer delight.
“Aye, and if you haven’t been to bed yet, you won’t be for a while, for Nogura’s putting the tail end of the refit on shift rotations as of right this minute; that ship’ll be full of people right out to the skin in less than half an hour.” He laughed. “You were right, Sir: not that he’ll admit it, and you’d be wise not to rub it in. We’ve got enough work ahead of us to get your great big lassie ready to go.”
Will gulped. Until this moment, everything about the refit had been slightly unreal, almost like a dream, like something happening to someone else. But that time was over now. This was the awakening. Finally he and Enterprise would be free together, out in the world that they had both been born for—in Enterprise’s case, reborn for. They would venture out into the universe, into the great unknown, to begin together a long career of service and adventure, at last … safe at last from anyone who might try to separate Will Decker from his new command.
“Get yourself over here, Scotty,” Will said. “I need you. She needs you. And the computers are all screwed up; we’ve got some nasty stuff to dig out of them in a hurry.”
“Ach, what have you been doin’ to them, Captain?”
Will laughed. “Better get over here and see,” he said. He killed the connection and went off to start preparing his new ship for her first journey.
The door closed behind him, and if the captain of the Enterprise once more heard behind him the voices whispering, the echoes, he paid them no mind….
Captain Spock
U.S.S. Enterprise
“You’ve never voiced it, but you’ve always thought that logic was the best basis on which to build command.”
Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, Star Trek
A. C. CRISPIN
In 1999, Star Trek fans were treated to the event they have waited decades for: the marriage of Spock. The debate has usually been over to whom he was best paired, but most fans seemed content to have him wind up with Saavik. The story of their betrothal and marriage was recounted in Vulcan’s Heart by Susan Schwartz and Josepha Sherman … but the early days of the couple’s relationship remain a mystery. When exactly did they began to notice one another as potential partners?
In addition to laying the groundwork for Vulcan’s Heart, Crispin also continued some of the themes established in Carolyn Clowes’s The Pandora Principle.
A.C., no stranger to Vulcans, also explores Spock’s comment in Star Trek II that he is content to command a training mission. Of all the captains in this book, he may be the best suited to teach command strategy. Having served with Pike, Kirk, and Decker, Spock also worked alongside Picard and can distill their varying styles into easy-to-digest portions.
Crispin burst onto the scene with Yesterday’s Son, making her the Trek author in this volume of the longest standing. She has followed that with Time for Yesterday, The Eyes of the Beholders, and the Star Trek hardcover bestseller, Sarek. In addition, Crispin created the Star-Bridge Academy series of novels. She also paid a visit to the Galaxy Far Far Away, when she wrote the Han Solo prequel, a trilogy about the life of our favorite rogue and smuggler in his pre-A New Hope days. She even visited the world of V in three volumes.
These days, Crispin is working away on new projects and divides her time between writing and acting as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America vice president.
Just Another Little Training Cruise
Twin beams of concentrated energy lashed out at the Enterprise like the taloned paws of a great predator, engulfing the starship in a white blaze of light that, for a moment, rivaled the glory of the stars on the viewscreen. The bridge crew cried out and ducked as the energy demolished what remained of their shields, cutting deeply into the ship’s hull. A rapid series of explosions shook the science station, the helm, and navigation. The stench of burned insulation and slagged computers filled the air, accompanied by thick, choking smoke. Bodies crashed to the deck, then lay still, covered with blood, several horribly burned.
In the aftermath, silence prevailed, broken only by soft gasps that sounded suspiciously like sobs.
“Lights,” Captain Spock ordered. “Activate blowers.”
The lights came up, and the smoke that filled the bridge was quickly sucked away. The crew of trainees picked themselves off the deck, their faces strained and pale. Spock saw tears on one young ensign’s face. When he realized that Spock was regarding him, the young man hastily scrubbed his sooty face with his sleeve. The Starfleet officers who had been mixed in among the trainee Crew climbed to their feet and began brushing themselves off, mopping off artificial blood and burned “flesh.”
Spock stood at the door of the simulation chamber, watching these cadets he’d trained struggle with the grim realization that someday they might face just such a situation in real life. One trainee, an Andorian, marched up to the Vulcan, his blue features flushed indigo beneath his mop of fluffy white hair. “Captain Spock!” he said, his tone barely civil. “Request permission to speak, Sir!”
Spock nodded, and led the way out of the chamber to the corridor.
“Permission granted, Cadet Theron. What is it?”
Theron pulled himself up stiffly. “Captain, with all due respect, I pro
test the way this test was conducted! As Trainee Captain, I followed every Starfleet regulation to the letter. And yet they fired on my ship and destroyed her … with no provocation! This was not a fair test of my command ability!”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Cadet Theron, the Kobayashi Maru exercise does not test a candidates retention of Starfleet regulations. Instead it allows the instructors and the candidates themselves to examine trainee reaction to stress, to what the humans term a ‘no-win’ scenario. Starfleet officers must learn to face the possibility of defeat—even of total destruction. It has been our observation that this test allows candidates to realize, sometimes for the first time, that life as a Starfleet officer can be dangerous and requires individuals of strong character. In my opinion, you acquitted yourself well in your command role, Cadet. We will discuss your performance in more depth during your official debriefing. I have scheduled you for 0900 hours tomorrow.”
Theron paused, obviously taken aback by Spock’s words. The Vulcan was not known for handing out accolades lightly. He searched for a reply, but found none, and fell back on trainee protocol. “Very well, Sir, I shall be there.”
Spock nodded. “Dismissed, Cadet.”
Theron turned and walked away, slightly favoring his left leg. The final explosion had flung him from his command seat, because he’d forgotten to activate his restraint system. Spock made a mental note to mention that tomorrow during the evaluation.
Cadets filed past him, mostly silent, a few muttering to each other. Spock made appointments with all of them for their evaluations, then stood alone in the corridor, watching the last of them leave. He had an appointment, and she was most unlikely to be late. She…
A step sounded behind him, even as a voice spoke in Vulcan. “Their faces are always the same, my teacher.”
Spock turned to find Cadet Saavik approaching him. She wore a Starfleet cadet’s red and buff jumpsuit, her long dark hair swept up and secured neatly, as regulation decreed. “The test is not an easy one, Saavikam,” he replied, in the same language. “All those who would command a starship must learn to face difficult, even impossible, situations.”
Star Trek: Enterprise Logs Page 17