Taking Ross’s proffered hand in his own frail grasp, McCoy nodded in greeting. “Wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Not a whole lot excites me anymore, you know, but this is somethin’ special. I’ll bet Scotty is champin’ at the bit to get into the Defiant’s engine room. He’ll be like a newborn Horta in a rock quarry once he starts diggin’ around in there.”
Ross smiled at the thought of Captain Scott contentedly pulling himself through the depths of the antiquated starship. “Well, I’d imagine you’re anxious to take a tour yourself, aren’t you?”
His face taking on a somber expression, McCoy replied, “Maybe after all the work is done.” He nodded in the direction of open space beyond the plexi-steel viewing port. “I’ve volunteered to lead the forensic detail going aboard the Defiant. It’ll take several weeks to identify all of the crewmembers, based on what I’ve read of Captain Gold’s report. It’s a sad duty, but one I couldn’t in all good conscience leave to someone else.” Ross saw McCoy’s eyes begin to water as the admiral cast a glance downward before continuing. “I’ve always felt a bit guilty that I was able to figure out how to counteract the effects of that interspatial nonsense where the Defiant’s doctor couldn’t. Maybe if she’d had more time, she would’ve come up with something like the theragen cure eventually. We were lucky we only had to deal with the effects of that space from outside the rift, but they were stuck right in the middle of it. They never really had a chance.”
He paused for a moment before returning his attention to Ross. “The least we can do now is make sure the crew gets to their final rest as best we can.”
Ross nodded quietly in agreement before the SpaceDock intercom system attracted their attention, along with that of everyone in the observers’ gallery and, in all likelihood, the rest of the station.
“Attention, all personnel: Incoming starship on approach vector. Stand by for docking.”
“Ye’ve done a fine job, Captain. My compliments to your crew.”
In his ready room aboard the da Vinci, David Gold absorbed the praise from Captain Montgomery Scott, noting a glint of satisfaction in the legendary engineer’s eyes that he hadn’t seen in quite a while. Like himself, Scott had only barely been able to contain his enthusiasm at the idea of stepping aboard the Defiant to revel in the history it represented. Of course, Gold knew that his friend’s desire to examine the fabled starship was more personal, more deeply ingrained from life experience than he himself would ever know.
“All the credit goes to Commander Gomez and her team,” Gold said. “In addition to her figuring out a way to get the Defiant out of the rift, Commander Duffy played a large part in straightening out the rest of the mess we managed to get ourselves into.”
“Ah, Commander Gomez,” Scott replied. “Yes, I’ve read her report, and I mean to have a conversation with the lass once she’s finished aboard the Defiant. Of all the areas of that ship to blow to hell, did it have to be engineering? I was so lookin’ forward to gettin’ in there and pokin’ around.” Gold could see that Scott was joking, naturally, though he couldn’t help but wonder how much truth lay behind the playful words.
“As for Mr. Duffy,” the S.C.E. commander continued, “I must tell ye, Captain, I know somethin’ about bein’ thrust into a command situation when ye don’t feel qualified to do the job. Your Mr. Duffy comported himself remarkably well for a lad who’s not lookin’ for a command of his own. His quick thinkin’ to save that Tholian ship went a long way toward avoidin’ severe damage to our relations with the Assembly. The bloody politicians are still foamin’ at the mouth over the whole thing, but I suspect they’ll eventually get over it.”
Gold couldn’t resist a small chuckle at that. “Well, they need something to keep them busy. On that note, though, what’s the word on bringing the Tholians and the Klingons to the negotiating table?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Scott replied, “There’s no tellin’ what those popinjay diplomats are plannin’. Ye’d think that with the information your team discovered aboard the Defiant that the Diplomatic Corps would want to get everyone into negotiations now, while the situation can be contained. From what I hear, that’s exactly what Ambassador Worf is pushin’ for.”
Gold nodded in agreement. Revealing the secret of the web generator and its use on the Traelus II colony to the Klingons would have to be handled with utmost delicacy if any good were to come from it. While the Federation could not continue to allow negative feelings to dominate their relations with the Tholians, they could ill afford to lose the valuable alliance they had cultivated with the Klingon Empire after decades of tension and mistrust. He hoped that Worf, the Federation ambassador to Qo’noS could pull it off.
“Perhaps something positive can come from all of this,” Gold mused. “If the Federation can get the Tholians and Klingons past a very dark chapter in their history, and if we gain new allies in the bargain, then the sacrifice made by the Defiant’s crew won’t have been for nothing.” Not many people could claim that their actions would have such far-reaching ramifications more than a century after their deaths, after all. Gold mentally saluted Captain Thomas Blair and the men and women who had served under him.
The whistle of the da Vinci’s intraship communications system and the voice of Domenica Corsi interrupted their conversation.
“Bridge to Captain Gold. Sir, the Defiant is approaching SpaceDock.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Gold replied as he rose from behind his desk. He indicated the door to Scott. “Well, Captain, shall we play witness to one more bit of history?”
With her main power plants restored to partial operation, the Defiant no longer resembled a ship of the dead. Instead, the majority of her portholes were brilliantly illuminated, and her running lights shone brightly against the scarred and pitted surface of her tritanium hull. Her warp nacelles remained inactive, though, the Bussard ramscoops still dark rather than the vibrant crimson they had once pulsed. Except for that detail, the Defiant looked as though she might be an active ship of the line.
Space traffic controllers throughout the solar system had found themselves burdened with the demands of tracking thousands of Starfleet and civilian spacecraft converging on Earth, their crews all clamoring to see the return of the legendary starship. A swarm of smaller vessels shadowed the course being followed by the Defiant, many carrying journalists from worlds spanning the Federation and all working diligently for impressive visual images of the ship to transmit to their home planets.
Sitting in the command chair on the bridge of the Defiant, Sonya Gomez could not shake completely the temptation to be overwhelmed by what she was seeing. At first the crowd of vessels bearing curious spectators and well-wishers had unnerved her, but that had quickly faded. Now she allowed herself to give in to the enormity of the moment. After all, how often did something like this happen?
With partial power restored throughout the ship, the da Vinci’s crew had spent the past several days carefully transferring the bodies of Defiant personnel into portable stasis containers, where they would remain until Starfleet forensic teams completed the arduous task of identifying each crewmember. Automatic atmosphere scrubbers had removed the worst of the dust and pulverized remains of the Defiant’s crew, though Gomez doubted she would ever forget the dank smell that had greeted her the first time she had removed her suit helmet.
She had suggested that Captain Gold guide the Defiant into SpaceDock, but he had declined the honor, deferring it to her instead.
It was your team that got her out of that hellhole, he had said. It’s only fitting that you finish the job you started.
Gomez was grateful he had made the offer. With its brightly lit consoles and assortment of background noises, she could easily lose herself in the ambiance of the bridge and believe that she was serving on a ship of the line in the 23rd century.
“It really is something else, isn’t it?” Duffy said from where he sat at the communications console. More da Vinci crewmembers staffed other br
idge stations as well, providing Gomez with navigational, sensor, and engineering information. Below decks, other engineers were nurse-maiding the Defiant’s engines on their final cruise.
Though the ship had been towed by the da Vinci back from Tholian space to the edge of the Terran system, Gomez had requested that the Defiant travel the last leg of its journey under its own power. She and Duffy, along with Pattie and several other S.C.E. specialists, had toiled for two days to ensure the ship’s ability to make the trip. Seeing the response from onlookers as they traversed the solar system, Gomez was glad she had pushed the idea.
“It’s something, all right,” she replied. “And it should be. The men and women who served on this ship deserve nothing less.” Turning the command chair to face Duffy, she said, “I haven’t had the chance to say this before now, Kieran, but I wanted to thank you for all you did. We couldn’t have completed the mission by ourselves.”
Duffy attempted to wave the praise away. “Thank Fabian, or even Corsi for that matter. They had as much to do with it as anyone.” His features took on an odd quality, one that Gomez couldn’t remember seeing before as he added, “They helped get me through the tough spots.”
At the helm where he was trying, without success, not to enjoy this occasion too much, Fabian Stevens turned in his seat. “Don’t listen to him, Commander. Ol’ Duff there is on the verge of becoming a real ‘lead-from-the-front’ kind of guy. Captain Gold might have to watch out for his job.” With a mischievous smile he added, “Or maybe you should.”
Gomez laughed, happy that her friend had performed so well under such trying circumstances. More than instilling added confidence in his shipmates, as well as Captain Gold and even herself, she knew that the experience would do much toward allowing Kieran to eventually realize his ultimate potential.
Still, she couldn’t let Stevens’s crack go uncontested. Her response was cut off, however, by a hail whistle from the communications console, followed by a female voice full of enthusiasm.
“ U.S.S. Defiant, this is SpaceDock Approach Control. Stand by for docking maneuver.”
It was a straightforward message, Gomez knew, conveying nothing behind the magnitude of the occasion. But she also knew that the time for reflection would come later. For now, there were the simple yet necessary obligations to tend to.
Nodding to Stevens, Gomez waited until he entered the necessary commands to transfer the ship’s maneuvering control to SpaceDock, then reported, “Approach Control, this is Defiant. We have transferred guidance to you. She’s all yours.”
“Affirmative, Defiant. SpaceDock confirms control. Welcome home.”
Her duties aboard the legendary ship finally at an end, Gomez replied, “ Defiant confirms. Thank you, SpaceDock.”
Under the guidance of automated maneuvering systems, the resurrected starship aligned itself with SpaceDock’s main entryway. With thousands of spectators looking on in the station’s observation areas and billions more watching over subspace video feeds, the ship quietly entered the orbital facility, sinking into the welcoming embrace that it hadn’t known for far too long.
After more than a century, the U.S.S. Defiant had finally come home.
COLD FUSION
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Historian’s Note
Cold Fusion takes place between the Star Trek: Deep Space 9® novels Avatar Book 2 and Section 31: Abyss. It also takes place simultaneously with Invincible.
CHAPTER
1
Commander, I humbly request permission to feed Abramowitz to the larvae.”
Kieran Duffy sighed, rolled his eyes, took a sip of his coffee, then looked up at the Nasat standing before him in the mess hall. “What is it this time, Pattie?”
P8 Blue, presently standing upright on her two rear legs, was tossing a padd back and forth among four of her arms. “Oh, it’s nothing different. She simply will not stop playing that music.”
“Have you asked her to stop?”
“Repeatedly. Endlessly. Constantly.”
“Well, at least your grasp of adverbs is improving.”
“Commander—”
Holding up a hand, Duffy said, “Look, I’ll talk to her, okay? I have to be on the bridge in five, and—”
“That’s the other thing, we’re always on and off duty at the same time. I cannot avoid her. I would like to renew my request for a new roommate.”
“I’ve asked around, but nobody—”
“Of course nobody wants to room with her!” Pattie said. Her voice raised several octaves—a range Duffy hadn’t known her to be capable of—and she was now tossing the padd around so fast, it was blurry. “Nobody can stand that music of hers!”
Sonnie, come home, was all Duffy could think. Especially since this was mostly her fault. Kind of.
In addition to her duties as commanding officer of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers team on the U.S.S. da Vinci, Commander Sonya Gomez was also the da Vinci’s first officer, and was therefore responsible for making up the duty assignments. Of course, the last time she’d done so was before Carol Abramowitz, the S.C.E. team’s cultural specialist, got her hands on a new recording of Sinnravian drad music, specifically the newest from Blee Luu, the founder of drad’s “atonal minimalist” subgenre.
Unfortunately, Gomez was presently on a special assignment to the planet Sarindar, helping the Nalori Republic to get a subspace accelerator working. This left Duffy, normally the ship’s second officer, pulling double duty as the ship’s XO. Which meant that personnel issues like this, that he had been more than happy to dump on Sonnie’s lap, were now his problem.
In all his years in Starfleet, Kieran Duffy had heard many different types of music, and many more reactions to same. He’d heard Klingon opera that could put a spring in one person’s step and stop others dead in their tracks from the headache. He’d once seen a Vulcan ambassador moved to tears by the same Mozart piece that, years later, moved a Tellarite engineer to throw up.
But pretty much everyone who wasn’t from Sinnrav (and many who were) found Luu’s music to be completely unlistenable—except for Carol Abramowitz.
Gulping down the last of his coffee, Duffy got up. After swallowing, he said, “Pattie, I’m not really sure what I can do, except—”
Except maybe change the duty roster, he thought suddenly. You’re first officer until Sonnie comes back. You can do that.
“Except maybe change the duty roster,” he said after his moment of clarity. “I’ll fix it so that you’re on gamma shift when Carol’s off. Okay?”
Now holding the padd in only one hand, Pattie made a tinkling noise. Most non-Nasats couldn’t distinguish one such noise from another, but Duffy had been serving with Pattie long enough to be able to do so. This one—high-pitched, with the higher notes about a second and a half apart—was the equivalent of a sigh of relief. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. And no feeding her to the larvae.” Duffy hesitated. “Do your larvae really eat people?”
Another tinkly noise, this one lower-pitched—a shrug. “Only when they can get them. They’ll eat anything. Well, I must take this report to Lieutenant Barnak. Thank you again, sir.”
With that, Pattie got down on all eights and skittered out of the mess hall. Duffy wondered how much of Carol’s insistence on playing Luu’s music was personal preference, and how much was a defense mechanism triggered by living with an insect.
Two security guards, Drew and Hawkins, were sitting at one of the far tables. Hawkins said, “I think she was kidding, sir. About the larvae.”
“Definitely,” Drew said. “They’re actually very picky eaters.”
Sighing and shaking his head, Duffy left the mess hall, wondering if Sonnie had ever had to put up with this.
CHAPTER
2
David Gold had been listening to the latest letter from his granddaughter Ruth for the fifteenth time when the call from the bridge came.
“Message from Deep Space 9, sir,”
said Lieutenant McAllan’s voice.
Gold frowned. They were en route to DS9 already. “On screen.”
Ruth’s pretty, glowing face was replaced on the viewscreen in Gold’s quarters by the Starfleet logo, and then by the image of a woman wearing the uniform of a Bajoran Militia colonel. Though he had never met her, Gold instantly recognized her as DS9’s commanding officer, Kira Nerys.
“Colonel Kira,” he said. “This is Captain Gold. Is everything all right?”
“Hello, Captain. Yes, everything’s fine. Don’t worry, this is a simple diversion call.”
“So the last dispatch we got was accurate? Those Jem’Hadar who attacked the station were renegades?” For some time, the whole quadrant was on yellow alert and many were convinced that the Dominion War, over for less than four months, was going to start right back up again. Gold was worried that this call was going to be bad news—unexpected calls from high-ranking officers almost always were.
“Yes, the dispatch was accurate. Unfortunately, part of the process of stopping them involved ejecting our fusion core.”
“Oy.”
Kira looked almost amused. “‘Oy’ pretty much sums it up, Captain. We still need your help putting the station back together, just not here at the station. You’re to rendezvous with one of our runabouts, the Rio Grande, in the Trivas system. We’re forwarding the exact coordinates to you now. You’ll meet up with Lieutenant Nog, our chief operations officer.”
Gold recalled that the Trivas system was in unclaimed space near the Cardassian border. “And this is going to help the station?”
“Let’s hope so. We need to get this place operational before we run out of emergency power. The lieutenant will have all the details.”
“Whatever you say, Colonel. We’re happy to be of service however you need us.”
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