“Commander, a patrol’s coming toward us,” Hawkins said, looking at his tricorder. Then he dropped the tricorder and picked up his rifle, bracing it against his shoulder, since he only had the one good arm.
“How many?” Sonya asked.
“Only two.”
The bulkhead started to slowly slide open.
Blaster fire whizzed by Sonya, only missing her by a few centimeters.
She turned and ran for the opening bulkhead. Behind her, Hawkins lay down covering fire.
A sharp pain seared into her left leg, and she went sprawling to the ground, her jaw colliding with the cavern floor.
Her leg felt like it was on fire, but she managed to clamber the rest of the way into the core with her right leg and arms.
She looked back and saw that 110 had made it in, but Hawkins was still on the ground outside the core, firing at their assailants.
Then the door started to slide shut.
“110, keep the door open!”
“I can’t,” he said. “Not until it closes again—it’s on a strict cycle.”
The door slammed shut.
CHAPTER
10
Vance Hawkins did not like the position he was in. Getting shot at by two people while lying on a cold, stone cave floor with a useless left arm, wielding a phaser rifle designed as a two-handed weapon, and separated from the rest of his team was not his conception of the ideal tactical situation.
So far, his two assailants hadn’t struck. Part of that was because he was flat on the floor, which made it harder to hit him than if he were standing up—but not as difficult as if he were behind a wall.
By an annoying coincidence, behind a wall was precisely where his assailants were. There was one on either side of the corridor, hiding mostly around a corner. Thus far, Hawkins had been able to lay down more or less continuous cover fire that kept them around their respective corners, except when they poked their heads out long enough to shoot—another reason why they hadn’t hit, as they hadn’t been able to aim properly. But sooner or later, they were going to get lucky.
A shot came frighteningly close to his left arm. The magic of modern medicine meant that he could no longer feel the pain, but the limb was also useless until he got back to Dr. Lense’s care on the da Vinci . Hawkins didn’t really like the idea of it being injured further.
The door had slammed shut and showed no signs of reopening. Since Commander Gomez and 110 weren’t armed, Hawkins couldn’t afford to move from his position, even if it had been open, unfortunately.
No , he thought, I definitely don’t like this position.
Then he heard something that sounded like “ Urk!” and a shot went flying a meter over his head. Neither of the Eerlikka had missed by that much before. . . .
The reason became apparent soon enough, when he saw the assailant on the right fall to the ground. Hawkins then saw the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life: Lieutenant Commander Corsi, pointing her rifle at the head of the other Eerlikka.
And she was smiling. The smile that meant whoever she was pointing her rifle at was not going to go home a happy person.
Good ol’ Core-Breach, Hawkins thought. Can always count on her to save our asses. He started to clamber upright with his good hand.
“Drop it,” she said.
The Eerlikka dropped his weapon.
“And the blade.”
Reaching into his tunic, the Eerlikka pulled out his sword and dropped it, too.
“Now put your hands out where I can see them and walk very, very slowly forward. Don’t stop until I tell you.”
As the Eerlikka walked forward, Corsi asked, “What’s your name?”
“I—I’m Utaka.”
“Well, congratulations, Utaka, you’re now a prisoner of Starfleet. Stop walking,” she added when they arrived in front of the bulkhead—
—which started to slide open.
The door opened to 110 and Gomez, the latter sitting on the floor, clutching her left leg. She was also bleeding from a gash in her jaw.
“Glad you could make it, Commander Corsi,” Gomez said with a small smile. “And I see you brought a present.”
“This is Utaka,” Corsi said. “Walk inside the core, Utaka.”
Corsi led the prisoner into the core. Hawkins followed behind, first shouldering the rifle, then taking out the medikit. He knelt down to check on Gomez.
As Hawkins one-handedly checked over Gomez’s leg wound and gingerly applied the appropriate hypospray, the prisoner said, “It’s no use, you know. We still outnumber you. We’ve alerted the others— they’ll all be here soon. And that door won’t protect you.”
Gomez nodded. “I guess they know the code for the door, then. 110, can you change it?”
“Yes,” the Bynar said.
“Do it, then shut it. We may as well have some privacy.”
Corsi was staring at her tricorder. “Utaka’s right. I’ve got eight Eerlikka moving toward this position.”
The door started to slide shut. “I have changed the code,” 110 said, “and it’s unlikely that they’ll determine what it is.”
Hawkins finished awkwardly applying a salve to Gomez’s jaw. “You should be able to at least limp on that leg now, Commander.” He stood, put away the medikit as best he could, then offered his good hand to help her up.
“Thanks, Hawkins,” she said, getting to her feet.
“Commander Gomez, all security protocols have gone off-line. I cannot access any of them.”
“Does that mean Drew is freed?” Hawkins asked.
“Yes, but it also means that the other two who were similarly trapped are freed—and I will be unable to use any security devices against those who are heading this way.”
Hawkins breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been worried about his friend.
“Okay,” Gomez said, “we’ll have to hope that the door will keep them out.”
Corsi tapped her combadge. “Corsi to Drew.”
“Drew here. The bulkheads just raised.”
“We heard,” Corsi said. “Proceed to the core, but with caution. There’s a band of eight hostiles coming here, and two more wandering around as well, and I don’t want you to get taken down by them.”
“Understood, Commander.”
Sonya turned to the Bynar. “All right, 110, get to work on the core. We need to end this.”
Sonya Gomez looked at the Bynar—and her heart fell. She’d never seen 110 like this: his eyes were dilating, he was fidgety, and he spoke with a motormouth that reminded Sonya uncomfortably of herself as an ensign.
“I—I don’t know if I can perform this task, Commander. I’m—diminished without 111, and—”
Sonya put her hands on 110’s shoulders. “I understand, but you have to try.”
“But it might go wrong. I’ve been fearing this moment since you first put me on the away team. In fact, to be honest, I’ve been fearing it since 111 died. Up until now, everything’s been simple. The interface with Ganitriul, activating the manual override, changing the code—those were basic tasks that even the most inept Bynar pair can do without thinking, much less one as mature as I, even without a mate. I know that I’m supposed to be able to fix any computer problem, but this may be beyond my capabilities.”
Great , Sonya thought. My throat feels like raw uridium, I’ve got a bum leg and a sore jaw, and now I have to hand-hold a Bynar.
“Listen to me. It’s true that you’re not as efficient without 111 as you were with her. But you were never infallible. It may have seemed that way, but you’re not. There’s always a chance of failure. That doesn’t mean you don’t try. You still know your way around computers better than anyone I’ve ever met. And, even if it doesn’t work, at least you’ll have made the effort. If you don’t even do that, you’ll never succeed.”
That has to be the hoariest load of clichéd crap I’ve ever uttered in my entire life , she thought. Hope it worked.
110 gazed up at Sonya, wh
o saw only fear in his eyes. The question was, could he get past that fear?
Finally, the Bynar nodded and said, “Very well, Commander. I will try.”
Slowly, 110 walked toward one wall. Like all the other interfaces, it looked like a giant marble slab, but this one was lit with a variety of symbols in the Makaro language. 110 activated his belt unit and started letting loose with a rapid-fire stream of binary code.
The symbols started to flash by more quickly. 110 only occasionally actually touched the interface—mostly, Ganitriul was responding directly to the binary code.
Every time Sonya saw the Bynars in action, it amazed her that people could be so in tune with a computer that they could communicate directly with it.
However, having seen 110 and 111 working in tandem, she could tell that 110 was working at about a quarter of the speed. She also noticed that he was getting frustrated with certain elements, and going back and trying something again.
“What’s he doing?” Utaka asked.
“Undoing your sabotage,” Sonya said.
“How?”
Sonya just smiled. “It’s what he does.”
Minutes passed, and still the rapid-fire stream of binary code came from 110’s mouth. The rhythm of the code started to fall into something like a pattern that Sonya could detect. 110 didn’t seemed as frustrated, and did less backpedaling and hesitating.
“What’s taking him so long?” Hawkins asked. “I thought these guys could walk through computers like nothing.”
“Two of them can,” Sonya said angrily. “One of them takes a little longer. Anytime you want to step in and help out . . .”
Holding up his good hand and backing off, Hawkins said, “No, Commander, ’ course not. It’s just—”
He was interrupted by a loud thud against the door.
“My guess?” Corsi said, looking at the door. “The remaining Eerlikka just realized that the code doesn’t work, and they’re trying to break the door down.”
“That’s a pretty reasonable guess,” Sonya said sardonically. “If they get through, protect 110 at all costs, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Corsi said, taking up position at a forty-five degree angle to the door on one knee. Hawkins did likewise at an equivalent point on the other side of the door.
Smoke started to show through the door. Sonya could now hear the whine of the Eerlikka blasters through the weakening rodinium door.
The pure simplicity of the binary code washed over 110. At first, it was like coming home again. He was comfortable for the first time since 111 died.
At least, until the first glitch.
It was a simple mistake. He went down the wrong subroutine. A simple error—a misreading of a command.
If he’d been working with 111, it would never have happened.
He continued to navigate his way through Ganitriul. It was a complex system, and one that had many different facets. The Eerlikka had spent the millennia improving Ganitriul, building new processes over the old ones. But some of the older ones were still in place, never having needed to be improved. The newer routines were almost completely compatible with the older ones, adjusted for maximum efficiency.
Although Lieutenant Commander Duffy’s statement that Ganitriul might put the master computer on Bynaus to shame had struck 110 as unlikely at the time, he now had to admit that Ganitriul was, in its own way, almost as impressive. For that alone, the Eerlikka deserved commendation.
Once again, he lost his way, this time exploring some of the older programs that regulated the economy, and which hadn’t needed any alteration for almost a thousand years. He let his curiosity get the better of him—something 111 would not have tolerated.
Eventually, he found the source code for the invasive program. It had taken far longer than he’d expected, especially since the fruits of the program were all over every system he’d visited, going back to when he had interfaced with Ganitriul at the other terminal.
110 had to admire the simplicity of it: the invasive program simply changed the numeric values, or the operators of random mathematical equations. Addition would become subtraction, values were doubled or halved, a use of two variables would instead be a use of seventeen. The changes were random, and were restored just as randomly. This served to explain why the specific problems were a loss of control and a rearrangement of functions.
Most impressive of all, none of the errors the program introduced would actually cause the system to shut down. After all, if the system shut down, it was easy enough to diagnose the problem at the spot where the system crashed. But as long as the system was still operating—if not functioning properly—it made it that much harder to seek out the problem.
But 110 had found it.
Now he had to get rid of it.
The problem was, he could not simply eliminate the program. That is to say, he could, but that would not solve Ganitriul’s problem. Whatever changes the program had initiated would remain once the program was wiped, and it would still not be able to function properly. What 110 had to do was backtrack: find all the changes the program had made, fix them, keep it from making any further changes, and then , finally, wipe the program.
With 111, it could have been done easily.
By himself, it would be extremely difficult.
But, as Commander Gomez said, he had to try.
So he did.
The process was slow. He almost missed a few of the equations that had been altered.
In the end, however, he found all the changes that had been made.
Then he eliminated the program.
I did it! he thought, triumphantly.
He turned around to tell Commander Gomez that he had succeeded, only to find himself knocked to the ground by Hawkins. Some kind of blaster fire went over his head.
110 looked up to see a large hole in the door, and an Eerlikka standing on the other side, firing a blaster.
Then a forcefield came up in front of the door. The Eerlikka still fired into it, but the forcefield simply absorbed the impact.
The Eerlikka tried to fire again, but her weapon no longer worked.
“Security protocols activated. Hostile forces have been neutralized,” Ganitriul said. “I once again have full control of all my operations. The hostiles outside the door are now trapped behind forcefields, their weapons deactivated.”
The three humans all broke into grins. “Good work, 110,” Gomez said.
110 returned the smile. “Thank you, Commander.”
Gomez asked, “Ganitriul, can you show us what’s happening with the da Vinci ?”
“Of course. The da Vinci is presently in standard orbit around the moon,” Ganitriul said, as an image of the da Vinci and another ship flickered to life on the interface. “The Pevvni ship is the same one that engaged the da Vinci earlier.”
“Can you put us in touch with the da Vinci ?”
“Yes. I have boosted the signal in your combadge so that it can penetrate the crust of the moon.”
Tapping her combadge, Gomez said, “Gomez to da Vinci .”
“Gold here. Good to hear your voice, Commander.”
“Likewise, Captain.”
“Assuming that is your voice. You sound like a Horta.”
Gomez laughed, then coughed once. “I got on the bad side of some gas. It’s nothing that can’t be dealt with, sir. In any case, mission accomplished: 110 has fixed Ganitriul. All its operations are back to normal.”
“Good. We’ve got a bit of a standoff here—we have control of the Senbolma , but our transporters and weapons are out. We’d like to send a boarding party over there.”
Corsi said, “Ganitriul, can you send Hawkins, Drew, and me to the Senbolma ?”
“Yes.”
Turning to Gomez, Corsi said, “With your permission, we can be that boarding party.”
Gomez nodded. “Permission granted.”
CHAPTER
11
It would have been inaccurate to say that it w
as all over, but still, Sonya Gomez was impressed with how quickly things had calmed down. Corsi, Hawkins, and Drew took control of the Senbolma , subduing Undlar and his two accomplices in fairly short order. The three Eerlikka were taken into custody by the first Enforcement ship that had been able to get itself into Eerlik orbit. The weather on the planet had stabilized, as had transportation methods and food distribution. Closer to home, Dr. Lense had treated Sonya and Hawkins—removing the lingering effects of the gas from their throats and patching up their wounds.
There were still plenty of relief efforts that needed to be coordinated, and the Sugihara had at last arrived in order to aid in those matters, freeing the da Vinci up to resume its course for Starbase 505.
Sonya sat in the mess hall with Carol Abramowitz and Bart Faulwell, who were filling her in on what happened on the da Vinci while she was dealing with Ganitriul.
“I’m just glad things will get back to normal,” Sonya said.
Carol snorted. “Not much chance of that. The First Speaker’s dead, the only surviving member of the clergy is a mass murderer, and now everyone’s questioning the efficacy of having one big, vulnerable computer. Even if they do keep things as they are, their entire spiritual base and the people who are capable of fixing Ganitriul are all dead. You don’t just recover from that by taking out an invasive program.”
Bart shrugged. “Maybe they’ll decide to join the Federation. Or at least work something out so that some computer experts can be nearby until they can train people. Or something.”
“Maybe 110 and his new mate could do that after he rebonds,” Carol said.
“Maybe,” Bart said, looking down, and suddenly very interested in his root beer.
Sonya frowned, and wondered what that look was about—especially after that odd look 110 had given Bart before accepting the assignment.
Oh well , she thought. It’s not my business. She polished off her mug of Earl Grey and said, “Still, that’s not our lookout. We’re the fix-it squad, not the diplomats. We’ve done what we’re supposed to do—now we go on to the next assignment. Or, in this case, to Starbase 505. I’m sure both 110 and Geordi will be happy to finally be heading home.”
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