As Captain Gold had said to her, sometimes the line between success and failure was very narrow.
She had walked that line this time. It didn’t feel good. But it wasn’t all bad either.
CHAPTER
16
Geordi stood in the shuttlebay of the da Vinci and smiled as Lieutenant Vale got the shuttlecraft Cook ready to launch. She was doing everything by the book, right down to the last detail, and it amused him. He hadn’t seen anyone go through this sort of preparation to take a shuttle flight since his days in the Academy. When the Beast had blown up, the Enterprise had turned around and gone back to its mission. He and Vale had decided yesterday that she would take the Cook back to the Enterprise and he would stay and help the S.C.E. team a little more. There were things to do yet, files on the Beast ’s technology to study, and the colonists needed a lot of help getting back on their feet.
Plus they had to finish reports on those insectoids and brief Starfleet as quickly as possible. Who knew how many more hives of them were out there, waiting to take over some unsuspecting craft.
“Well, I think I’m ready,” she said, her blue eyes full of life and the excitement of taking a long shuttlecraft trip alone.
Geordi could remember feeling the same way on his first long trip alone. Now he would just dread it. It was amazing how a person sometimes grew out of certain things. Long, solo shuttlecraft trips were one of those things.
“Lieutenant Vale,” he said, stepping forward and shaking her firm hand. “You did great. Thank you.”
She smiled. “Thank you for allowing me to come along. I’m not sure if I’ll ever have another nightmare-free night’s sleep, but I must say, this was exciting.”
“The reason you joined Starfleet?” he asked.
She smiled. “No, Corsi was the reason I joined Starfleet. But that’s a long story for another time.”
“Now, wait,” Geordi said, laughing. “You can’t leave me hanging like that.”
“You’re staying here,” Vale said, a very sly grin on her face. “Try to get the story out of her. That should be interesting.”
Geordi laughed. “I expect a story when I get back to the Enterprise .”
“Deal,” she said.
She stepped back inside and, with a wave, closed the door to the shuttlecraft.
He waited and watched until she jumped to warp, then turned and headed toward the staging room. He was sure Gomez would have a hundred things for him to do. And right now, that was exactly what he needed. It was going to be fun, spending a little more time with the S.C.E.
Fun and work and maybe a little excitement as well.
FATAL ERROR
Keith R.A. DeCandido
CHAPTER
1
The holo in the center of Ansed’s living room showed a comedy program that had stopped production a decade earlier, and for which Ansed owned no recordings. A minute ago, it had been showing archival footage of the landing of the Pevvni ship that had colonized the ninth planet fifty years ago. A minute before that, it had been showing a real-time image of the weather on Hendorf Island. But, for the life of her, Ansed, First Speaker of Eerlik, could not get the holo to open a simple communications channel.
That was only part of the problem.
Ansed looked around the living room— currently illuminated by candles, since the lights no longer worked—and out the window at the hailstorm that should’ve been stopped by the weather control system. She pulled the blanket around her teal shoulders with her short arms—necessary, as the house’s heating system was no longer functioning properly.
The unthinkable had happened. The great Ganitriul was breaking down. And if someone didn’t stop it from doing so, the entire fabric of Eerlikka society would collapse.
Suddenly, the staccato slamming of hail against the outside of Ansed’s house ceased. She looked out the window to see that the storm had finally abated.
There was no chance she’d be able to convince the holo to go to communications mode. She’d tried for hours to contact anyone she could, from her fellow speakers and the priests who kept the knowledge of Ganitriul on-planet, to the Pevvni colony, or even the nearest Federation outpost off-planet. Nothing worked. The priority at this point was to consult the clergy. Ansed feared that even they could do nothing—after all, the transporters and spacefaring vessels were also operated via Ganitriul, so they probably weren’t functioning any better than the weather control system, the heat, the holo, or the lights. Still, they were the experts . . .
Left with no traditional method of speaking to the priests, Ansed was forced to go outside and walk to the temple. Ansed couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked outside, nor the last time she’d gone from place to place in that manner. The necessity annoyed her, and the thought that the situation might continue was frightening.
She almost bruised her forehead on the door, which did not open at her approach as it was supposed to. Sighing, Ansed opened a window. She had closed her living room window for the first time in years today; usually, there was a nice breeze coming in. Now, though, she had to use the window as a door.
Clambering out, she was assaulted by the bitter cold. Since the construction of Ganitriul—long before Ansed’s great-great-grandparents were born—the capital city had had an even climate. She was forced to continue to huddle inside the blanket in order to stay warm, since she did not have proper clothing for this weather, and the clothes-provider wasn’t functioning any better than any other device.
For three millennia, the computer on the moon had provided every creature comfort the Eerlikka could want or need. Since Ganitriul’s autorepair components had been installed a century ago, there had never even been a hint of a problem. Though tourists did make regular pilgrimages to the public parts of the caverns that housed Ganitriul’s terminals, there had been no need for anyone to travel to the moon to effect repairs in a hundred years.
Until now.
After an exhausting walk of almost fifteen minutes, Ansed arrived at the temple. It was the only structure in the capital city that still retained the hideous Yarnallian architectural style, and Ansed had to admit to finding it painful to look at. But the priests insisted that the temple look as it had when it was first constructed, and Ansed could not blame them for that.
Of course, the temple’s greeter wasn’t working properly. She wondered how she would be able to gain the attention of those inside.
Then, noticing the ornate handle in the center of the door, she remembered that the temple still had one of those old-fashioned doors that opened manually. She could only hope that it wasn’t locked.
First, she tried to slide the door to the side, the way normal doors worked, but it didn’t budge. Then she pushed the door at the handle, but still it did not move.
Pulling, however, seemed to work.
Winded after all the walking and the effort of pulling the door open, Ansed took a moment to compose herself before entering the temple.
“Is anyone here?”
Her words echoed throughout the temple, which was almost pitch-dark.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea , Ansed thought. She considered turning back and going home to try the holo again—but she didn’t fancy the idea of walking any more, and dammit, she needed to talk to the priests. At least one of them had to be here. . . .
Suddenly, the lights in the temple came on—at about twice their usual intensity. Ansed’s wide eyes were momentarily rendered useless by the sudden onslaught, and she blinked both her upper and lower eyelids furiously to clear the spots that now danced in front of her face.
When her vision cleared, she screamed. Ansed was the foremost political personage on all of Eerlik, and she’d been a respected scholar and politician for years prior to that. She hadn’t screamed since she was in her crèche.
But she screamed now.
Seventeen priests and twenty acolytes served in the temple. In addition to their other spiritual duties, the priests were taske
d with guarding all the knowledge that related to Ganitriul. If anyone would be able to solve the current crisis, it would be them.
Right now, Ansed stared at a pile of corpses that seemed to number approximately thirty-seven, all wearing the robes of either priests or acolytes. They looked like they had been placed there in a semiorderly pile. Blue blood was splattered all over the bodies, and pooled on the floor around them.
A shiver passed through Ansed that had nothing to do with the unnatural chill in the air. The numerous malfunctions were bad; this was worse. Ganitriul could, in theory, be fixed. But to have all the clergy dead . . .
“Help me! Somebody, please, help me!”
The voice seemed to come from amid the corpses. Ansed felt as if her short legs had grown roots. She couldn’t move. Someone was obviously still alive in the midst of the carnage, but Ansed couldn’t bring herself to investigate further. This was a task for Enforcement, not the First Speaker.
“Help me, please,” the voice said, this time much smaller. Ansed saw someone crawling out from under the pile of bodies.
Somehow managing to overcome her fear and revulsion, Ansed made her feet move toward the voice and reached out one short arm to him.
With a grateful expression on his face—at least, Ansed assumed the expression was grateful; it was hard to tell under all the blood—the young man reached out to grab the offered arm. Now that she got a look at him, Ansed recognized the young man as Undlar, who had only just been ordained a month earlier.
And now it seemed he was the only priest left.
The recognition went both ways, as Undlar stumbled to his feet, gazed upon Ansed and said, “F-First Speaker? Is—is that you?” Ansed noticed that the young man had a very large gash all the way down his right arm, and dozens of cuts and abrasions all over his person.
“Yes, Reger Undlar,” she said. “I came to speak to the clergy.”
With a sardonic tone that impressed Ansed, given Undlar’s physical state, he said, “I—I’m afraid that w-won’t really be possible, First Speaker.”
“What happened?”
Undlar seemed to deflate. “I—I wish I knew. The—the power—it went out—obviously s-something has gone wrong with the Great One—and then—then we were all assaulted— brutally . We— we tried to fight back, but our guns wouldn’t— wouldn’t work. They had some—some kind of edged weapons.”
That edged weapons had been used was obvious, given the types of wounds, but Ansed said nothing.
“We need to get you to a hospital.” And hope their equipment is functioning , she did not say aloud. Undlar did not need to be reminded of that. “And then we need to call Enforcement. They probably have their hands full, but this is something that will need to be dealt with right away.”
“I—I’m sorry, First Speaker. I—I failed.”
“You did no such thing, Reger. On the contrary, you showed tremendous courage.” And you may be the only hope we have , she thought. Saying that aloud was equally inadvisable.
Supporting the young man—who started shaking as they began to walk—Ansed moved back outside into the cold, hoping that the trip to the hospital wouldn’t exhaust her.
For thousands of years, Eerlik had prospered. There had been no reason to doubt that the golden age brought on by the construction of Ganitriul would ever end.
Now, the First Speaker of Eerlik had to wonder if that golden age was over—and if it was, whether the Eerlikka could survive its ending.
CHAPTER
2
Captain David Gold was dreaming of his wife’s matzoh ball soup when he was awakened by the duty officer on the bridge of the U.S.S. da Vinci . There was an urgent message from S.C.E. Command. Gold blinked the sleep out of his eyes and said, “Screen on.” The viewscreen in his quarters flickered to life, first with the Starfleet logo, then with a familiar visage.
“Did I wake you? Sorry about that, lad,” said Captain Montgomery Scott. “Bloody time differences.”
Gold waved a hand dismissively. “Fact of life.”
“I can give you a few minutes if y’need it.”
Shaking his head, Gold said, “No need. Rachel’s the one who needs four cups of tea to get going. When I’m up, I’m up.”
“Good. There’s a wee bit of a crisis on a planet called Eerlik. You’ll need to set a new course there right away.”
Without hesitating, Gold contacted the bridge and requested the course change, with speed at warp 9. “How long’ll it take to get there?” he asked the duty officer.
“Fourteen-and-a-half hours at this speed, sir.”
“Good. Gold out.” He turned back to the image of the head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. “So, you gonna tell me what this is all about?” he asked with a small smile.
Although Scotty wasn’t biologically that much older than Gold himself—about seven years, which at their age wasn’t a significant difference— Scotty had, in fact, been born eighty-one years before Gold, which was the only reason Gold let him get away with referring to him as “lad.” Scotty had spent some seven-and-a-half decades in a bizarre sort of suspended animation, as a regenerating transporter pattern, until he’d been freed a few years previous. Scotty had done a fine job of whipping the S.C.E. into shape. After all, who better to supervise Starfleet’s “fix-it” squadron than the original miracle worker himself?
In answer to Gold’s question, Scotty said, “I’m sendin’ you the full mission profile, but the short version is that Eerlik’s in a right fix, an’ the S.C.E. needs to get ’em out of it.”
“They’re not part of the Federation, are they?”
“No, but we do trade with ’em. Turns out their entire bloody planet is run by one big sentient computer on their moon. Problem is, the computer— they call it ‘Ganitriul,’ whatever that means—is breakin’ down. The planet’s in a state o’ chaos. The problem is, they’re completely cut off from the moon—whatever’s bollixed up Ganitriul is keepin’ their transporters, comm systems, an’ ships from workin’ right. In fact, we didn’t get the distress call from Eerlik—we got it from Ganitriul itself.”
“Really?”
Scotty nodded. “It knows it’s broken, but it can’t fix itself.” Shaking his head, the older man said, “In my day, when we saw a planet that had been taken over by one’a those— Ah, but that’s neither here nor there. Your priority is to get the thing up an’ runnin’, pronto. No time to report to Starbase 505.”
Gold said, “But I’ve got crew to replace—and one to drop off.”
“Aye, I heard about the Bynars. Extend my sympathies to 110, will you?”
“Of course. And we need a new computer specialist.” He had been about to finish that sentence with the words, to replace 110 and 111 , but that wouldn’t be possible. They’d find someone to fill the position, but Gold doubted that he’d find anyone who could fill their shoes. A damn shame, too , he thought. The Bynar pairing wasn’t even Starfleet; they were civilians, part of an exchange program—although they had agreed to abide by all Starfleet rules and regulations.
Not wanting to dwell on the recent unpleasantness, Gold added with a sardonic grin, “Plus, La Forge is itching to get back to the Enterprise .”
“Nothin’ worse for a chief engineer than to be separated from his ship,” Scotty said with a chuckle. “I understand the difficulties, lad, but Eerlik’s whole bloody socioeconomic structure’s collapsin’. They canna wait.”
“I know the drill, Scotty. When they put that funny-looking ‘A’ on your chest, you dance where they tell you.”
“Aye, that you do. Oh, by the way, I took your advice. Had dinner with your wife last night. Lovely woman. Makes a fine matzoh ball soup.”
Shaking his head, Gold chuckled. The universe is full of damn strange connections. For months, Gold’s wife—Rabbi Rachel Gilman, the finest cook on the east coast of the Americas—had been bugging her husband to get “the legend” to come over for dinner.
Returning the chuckle, Scotty said,
“ ’Twas a lovely evening. I now know everything there is to know about your entire family. Oh, and your granddaughter’s pregnant again.”
“You’re kidding,” Gold said. I’m a great-grandfather again , he thought, with a certain pride.
“She only found out yesterday, and Rachel asked me to pass it on. She really is a fine woman, lad. Pity she’s all alone. . . .” Scotty had a slight twinkle in his eye, visible even on the viewscreen across the gulf of light-years.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gold said with an amused glare. “Otherwise, I’ll set her mother on you, and then you’ll be sorry.”
Grinning, Scotty said, “In any event, she really is a fine chef. You should convince her to make haggis.”
“Sorry, but she’s a Jewish mother—she’s only allowed to make edible food.”
Putting his hand over his heart, Scotty said, with mock indignation, “My dear lad! Haggis is a delicacy!”
“I refuse to accept culinary judgments from a man whose idea of a good drink is liquid peat bog.”
“Lad, people who live in slivovitz houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Shaking his head, Scotty said, “In any event, I’ll be off. The Sugihara will be in the area if you need any kind of backup.”
“Good.”
“Scott out.”
The screen went blank again. “Computer,” Gold said, “leave messages for all personnel about our course change, and let the S.C.E. crew know that there’s a staff meeting at—” he thought a moment, then finished, “—0800.” That left him with three more hours to sleep, and would still give everyone over ten hours to prepare for the mission. “Leave copies of the mission profile with Commander Gomez and Lieutenant Commander Duffy. Oh, and instruct Duffy to compile a complete report on Eerlik, based on the profile.”
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