Have Tech, Will Travel

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Something else you probably didn’t think of, Hagi. The Starfleet people have working scanners. And all the people on their team had gold trim on their uniforms.”

  Now it was Hagi’s turn to roll his eyes. “I wasn’t aware you were such an observer of fashion, Yanasa.”

  “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

  Turning angrily on Yanasa, Hagi said, “I warned you to watch your—”

  “Gold trim on a Starfleet uniform,” Yanasa continued calmly, as if Hagi hadn’t spoken, “means either operations or security. Which means the people here are either technicians, or experts in doing things like roaming around unfamiliar caverns. These people are professionals .”

  “Yes, we are,” said a voice from behind Hagi. He turned around to see a tall human woman with blond fuzz atop her head. She stood on the other side of the forcefield from Hagi and was aiming her weapon at him.

  Hagi laughed. “If that’s supposed to scare me, human, it’s not working. That thing in your hands is useless.” To demonstrate his point, he took out his own blaster and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. “And even if it did work, it can’t fire through this forcefield.”

  The human just smiled.

  “Ganitriul,” she said, “lower the forcefield.”

  With a sharp glow, the forcefield dissipated. Before Hagi could move to charge at the human, an amber beam fired from the weapon and struck Hagi square in the chest.

  All at once his nerve endings flared up, as if he’d been jolted with a massive electrical discharge, and then went dead. He fell to the cavern floor, but felt no impact. He saw another beam go over his head, which, he assumed, hit Yanasa.

  How did she do that? he wondered, but could not say aloud. His mouth wouldn’t work right.

  “All clear, Commander,” he heard the human’s voice say. “Two down, ten to go.”

  Another voice said, “Good work, Corsi.”

  Encouraged, Hagi thought, They’ve only gotten the two of us. The others will stop them, I’m sure of it.

  The human woman stood over him now. She was still smiling. She aimed her weapon at his chest and fired.

  Sonya watched as Corsi checked over the two Eerlikka. “They’re both out for the time being,” Corsi said, “but I have no idea how long they’ll stay that way. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything to tie them up with.”

  Smiling, Sonya said, “We’ll have to just hope that we can get to the core before they wake up.”

  Corsi got up from her kneeling position, and had started to walk toward Sonya when her tricorder beeped.

  Sonya’s did likewise, and she checked it. “Ganitriul, why did you put the forcefields back up?”

  “I did not.”

  Corsi had stopped walking, and was looking with annoyance at the ceiling. “Well, something did. I’m trapped in here.”

  “I am afraid that there is nothing I can do, Lieutenant Commander Corsi. I am sorry.”

  Behind Sonya, Drew said, “We can’t just leave her here.”

  Sonya looked at Corsi, who simply stared back with her steely blue eyes. She knew that look.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Sonya said to Drew. “We can’t afford to waste time trying to get the forcefield down. We have a mission to accomplish.”

  “But—”

  “You heard the commander,” Corsi said, interrupting Drew before he could argue further. “I’ll be fine here. Just get down to the core—that’s the main thing.”

  Drew sighed. “Yes, sir .”

  Giving Corsi a significant glance, Sonya said, “We will be back for you, Domenica.”

  Smiling a lopsided smile, Corsi said, “I’ll hold you to that, Commander.”

  Amused at Corsi’s inability to be casual, even when prompted not to be by a superior officer, Sonya gave the security chief one last encouraging smile, then led Drew back to where they’d left 110 to care for Hawkins.

  “Let’s get moving,” she said.

  “Where is Lieutenant Commander Corsi?” 110 asked.

  “She got stuck behind a forcefield. We don’t have time to get her out, so we’re proceeding.”

  As Drew helped him to his feet, Hawkins said, “We can’t just leave her.”

  “That’s what I said, but Core-Breach herself overrode us,” Drew said with a smile.

  Sonya set her mouth tightly. “Mr. Drew, I gave the order to leave Commander Corsi behind. That’s because, in case you’ve lost track of the chain of command, I’m in charge of the mission. Are we clear on this?”

  Swallowing, Drew said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now let’s get moving.”

  110 was studying his tricorder. “We need to go twenty meters down this corridor and then climb down a service ladder. That will lead to another corridor. None of the Eerlikka patrols are in that area.”

  Nodding, Sonya said, “Good. It’s about time something went smoothly today.”

  They walked in silence—Sonya leading the way, 110 right behind her, Hawkins moving semisteadily next to the Bynar, and Drew bringing up the rear. They reached the ladder without incident and started to climb down.

  Sonya reached the bottom of the ladder, followed quickly by 110 and Hawkins.

  Then a bulkhead closed between Hawkins and Drew, cutting the latter off from the other three. Quickly tapping her combadge, Sonya said, “Gomez to Drew.”

  “I’m okay, Commander. It kinda caught me by surprise.”

  “Did another bulkhead open at the top of the ladder?”

  “Uh, yeah, one did. I’ll try to cut through.”

  Looking at her tricorder, Sonya said, “That’ll never work; you can only get light stun on the rifles. This bulkhead’s made of rodinium.”

  “Damn.”

  “Ganitriul, is there any air being pumped into there?”

  “There are no air vents in the section that Crewperson Drew is presently in. However, there is enough air to last him approximately three hours and seventeen minutes.”

  “Drew—” Sonya started.

  “It’s okay, Commander,” Drew said. “I’ll be fine. Maybe the bulkheads’ll open up again, maybe the scattering field’ll go down—or maybe I’ll get through some other way. You just get to the core. And, hey, Vance?”

  Hawkins said, “Yeah, Steve?”

  “Keep an eye on them, huh?”

  Snorting, Hawkins said, “Don’t talk, pal, you’ll just waste air. I know that’s hard for you, but do your best.”

  “Hardy-har-har.”

  “Commander,” 110 said, “there is an Eerlikka patrol moving in this direction. It behooves us to continue forward.”

  Nodding, Sonya said, “Stiff upper lip, Drew. We’ll be back for you soon.”

  Ganitriul spoke: “Commander Gomez, I do apologize for this turn of events.”

  “It’s not your fault, Ganitriul,” Sonya said soothingly. Listen to me , she thought, trying to calm down an inanimate object.

  “However,” the computer continued, “I do have good news. The patrol that is heading your way is presently coming down another ladder. They are now trapped in the same manner as Crewperson Drew. Assuming the bulkheads do not raise without my consent—which is a possibility—they will remain trapped.”

  “That just leaves eight of them,” Sonya said.

  “And three of us,” Hawkins muttered.

  Hoping her smile was as encouraging as she intended it to be, Sonya said, “It beats twelve against five, Hawkins. C’mon, let’s move.”

  They continued on in silence for several minutes, 110 providing directions toward the core. Many of the walls, like the cul-de-sac where they’d taken refuge earlier, were occupied by dusty, marblelike interfaces. According to the schematics, this section used to house the weather control systems, and was heavily used up until about a century earlier. Then it was consolidated into a smaller system located one level up.

  “Commander Gomez,” Ganitriul said, “I have more good news.”

  “That’s a nic
e change,” Sonya muttered. “What is it, Ganitriul?”

  “I have regained control of Security Measure 7. I can deactivate the scattering field now.”

  Before Sonya could tell Ganitriul to go ahead and do so, Hawkins said, “Commander, I don’t think we should do that.”

  Frowning, Sonya asked, “Why not?”

  “Right now, we’ve got the advantage. Even with light stun, we’re better armed than the Eerlikka, even with inferior numbers. If we turn the scattering field off, we lose that, ’ cause they’ll be just as well-armed.”

  “Good point,” Sonya said with a nod. She thought a moment. “Ganitriul, is there any way to change the frequency of the scattering field so it will only affect the Eerlikka blasters, but not our phasers?”

  “I might be able to. I will attempt to adjust the field.”

  “Okay. In the meantime, leave it on.” She turned to Hawkins. “Good work, Hawkins.”

  “No problem, sir,” the security guard said with a tired smile. “Just doing what Core-Breach’d want me to do—keeping us all alive.” Hawkins’ dark skin had gone almost gray for a while, but he seemed to be getting his energy back up. Whatever was in the medikit seemed to have done the trick. Still, his left arm hung uselessly at his side, while he carried the rifle with his right. Sonya hoped he’d be able to fulfill Corsi’s mandate if and when things got down to the nitty-gritty.

  110 had never been more miserable in his life, and he cursed Bart Faulwell for talking him into agreeing to sit in on the meeting. He should not have come on the mission. He should have just stayed in his quarters and tried to figure out what to do when he got back to Bynaus.

  Instead, he was walking through a strange corridor—stumbling, really, as he kept expecting 111 to be by his side; he wondered if he would ever be able to adjust to walking alone—being pursued by people trying to kill him, in order to reach a destination. At which point, he would be required to, as humans put it, save the day.

  And he didn’t know if he could.

  The feeling did not sit well with him at all. 110’s entire life had been defined by computers. He understood them, lived them, breathed them, knew them in a way no non-Bynar could truly comprehend.

  Or, more to the point, he and 111 did.

  Without her, he suddenly doubted his own instincts. Always, in the past, they had checked each other, each constantly confirming the other’s work, providing a comforting redundancy that made them so much more efficient. With her, he would have instantly known what was wrong with Ganitriul, and quite possibly have been able to fix it without requiring access to the central core— though that, in all likelihood, would have been safer in any event. Now, though, he could not even be completely sure if his diagnostic was correct.

  That had never happened before.

  He wondered if this was how the Eerlikka felt when Ganitriul malfunctioned. To suddenly have all the order and sense of your life be taken away from you . . .

  His tricorder beeped. Gazing at the readout, he said, “Commander, I am reading a forcefield around this corner.”

  As they turned the corner, they saw what the tricorder read.

  “Great,” Gomez said. “Any way around this?”

  110 studied the map of the caverns. “There is an alternate route, but it will add an hour to our travel time. In addition, two of the Eerlikka patrols are on that route. This is the most direct way to the core, and is presently free of any of our pursuers.”

  “Ganitriul, can you release this forcefield?”

  “I can, but at the moment the forcefield is holding back a gas that will render all of you unconscious. I have been unable to vent the gas, which is why I put up the forcefields.”

  “Damn.”

  110 asked, “Ganitriul, is there a manual override to the ventilation system?”

  “Yes, there is. Would you like me to show it to you?”

  “Please,” 110 said.

  110 heard Hawkins mutter, “Why the hell couldn’t it mention that sooner?” as a small panel opened up in the floor.

  Gomez smiled at the security guard and said, “GIGO.”

  “Excuse me?” Hawkins asked.

  “Garbage in, garbage out. Old saying about computers. They’re only as good as what you put into them. Kind of a nice reminder that Ganitriul, for all its sophistication, is still a machine. It didn’t volunteer the information about the manual override because we didn’t ask.”

  Meanwhile, 110 got down on his hands and knees and peered into the manual override. Its operation was fairly complex, but his interaction with Ganitriul earlier served him well—he knew his way around the supercomputer’s systems now. He started entering the codes that would allow access to the override controls.

  As he worked, the forcefields went down. The air quickly turned an odd shade of green as the gas that the forcefields had held in check started to spread throughout the cavern.

  His vision swimming, 110 worked frantically at the console, fighting against unconsciousness . . .

  CHAPTER

  8

  “Talk to me, boys and girls.” Unlike the casual atmosphere of the meeting that morning, David Gold thought the tension in the briefing room of the da Vinci now was thick enough to cut with one of Rachel’s boning knives.

  Gold sat once again at the head of the table, with La Forge and Duffy on either side of him, Abramowitz and Faulwell next to Duffy, Lense and Stevens next to La Forge, and Blue in her usual seat at the other end.

  “We got the shields back on-line,” Duffy said, “but I don’t know how long they’ll last.”

  Stevens put in, “I’ve never seen anything quite like that weapon they used. I’ve gone over the sensor data three times—so has Commander La Forge,” he added, with a nod to the officer, “and we can’t figure out why it knocked out our shields.”

  “I have some guesses as to how to defend against it,” La Forge added, “but until we actually get shot at again by them, I don’t have any idea if it’ll work.”

  Gold leaned back and sighed. “So, basically, we’re defenseless. What about weapons?”

  “They’re all fine,” Duffy said. “We had to reroute half the—”

  “Bridge to captain.”

  Gold looked up. “Go ahead, McAllan.”

  “Sir, the Sugihara is in the midst of a rescue operation of their own. Apparently, there’s a Talarian freighter whose warp core went critical. They’re going to try to finish up as fast as possible, but the soonest they can get here is in twelve hours.”

  “Damn. All right, McAllan, tell them to do the best they can. Gold out.” He looked around the table. “All right, people, you’re supposed to be the cream of Starfleet’s engineering crop. Let’s have some ideas.”

  “Actually, Carol, Fabian, and I have come up with something, sir,” Faulwell said.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense, man, out with it,” Gold said when the linguist hesitated.

  “Well, sir, the Senbolma has a very simple computer system. Since it’s not linked to Ganitriul, it was constructed from scratch. And their cryptography is basically nonexistent.”

  Abramowitz added, “It’s a cultural bias, actually. Since every computer system is linked to every other computer system, they never really had to develop any kind of external computer security, since it’s all one machine.”

  “Right,” Faulwell said, “so I think I can write up a program that will break into their ship’s computer pretty easily. I was able to get some pretty detailed sensor readings when we were talking to them, and—well, not to gloat or anything, sir, but I’d have a harder time hacking into an old twenty-first century mainframe. A lot of their subsystems aren’t even encoded.”

  Stevens said, “The program works pretty fast. We’d need to get within communications range, but with Bart’s program, I can probably get access to their control systems in about a minute, and then we can run the ship from here.”

  “One minute’ll be pushing it,” La Forge said. “Especially since th
ey’ll see us coming as soon as we leave orbit around this planet, and we won’t be in comm range for a good thirty seconds.”

  “Then it’s up to you and Duffy to hold us together, Commander,” Gold said. He stood up. “Let’s do it, people.” As everyone filed out of the room, Gold stopped Lense briefly. “With any luck, we won’t need your services, Doctor.”

  Lense waited until the room had cleared of everyone but herself and Gold before saying, in a somewhat bitter tone, “Let’s hope for luck, then. I did join this ship to get away from combat medicine.”

  “I know. We’ll do our best,” he said in as reassuring a voice as possible.

  It seemed to work, as Lense nodded and said, “I know you will, sir. I’ll go get sickbay ready.”

  Domenica Corsi watched as the Eerlikka woman started to stir. Aiming her phaser rifle at the woman’s head, Corsi said, “I’d suggest not making any sudden movements, or you go back to sleep.”

  Sitting up slowly, the woman said, “Don’t worry. I’m not eager to get shot at again. How’d you do that, anyhow?”

  “What?”

  “Shoot me. I thought weapons were deactivated.”

  Smiling, Corsi said, “Oh, they are. Well, yours are. Obviously, our equipment is better than yours.”

  The woman shook her head and laughed. “You Starfleet types. Everything has to be bigger with you, doesn’t it?”

  Corsi couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Maybe.”

  “So why are you still here?”

  “Wasn’t given a choice.” She reached behind where she was standing—never taking her eyes off the woman—and tapped the forcefield. “These kicked in after I took you two down. Ganitriul can’t lower them.”

  “So you don’t have control of Ganitriul?”

  The woman sounded surprised, and Corsi cursed herself for giving that away. Then again, there was no other reason for Corsi to have trapped herself behind two forcefields, so she would have figured it out before long.

  Aloud, she said, “Ganitriul doesn’t have control of Ganitriul. You folks saw to that.”