by Glenn Smith
“Someone killed two of us the other day, sir,” Dylan reminded him, trying to play on his emotions. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing because I have a few bumps and bruises.”
Tran nodded his head and sighed. He understood and empathized, as Dylan had gambled he would. “I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “I guess I didn’t realize it would affect you the same way it does the rest of us. You being new here and all.”
“They were security policemen, sir,” Dylan pointed out with emphasis. “They were my brothers, whether I knew them very well personally or not.”
“Exactly right, Sergeant,” Tran agreed, “and again, I apologize.” He moved aside and let Dylan step up to the console. “If you want to coordinate what’s left of the Albion search from here, then you may do so. Just don’t violate your doctor’s orders.”
“I won’t, sir,” Dylan told him as he took a seat. “Thank you.”
“No problem, Sergeant. Hell, I could use some relief for a while anyway. We’ve got an S-P staff officer here on S-T-A orders as the acting C-O for the augmentees. He’s coming down here tonight to familiarize himself with what we’re doing and I’ve got to work extra hours and be here to fill him in when he gets here.” He headed for the door, but paused on his way out and asked, “I’m going to get something to eat. Want me to bring you something back?”
“No thank you, sir,” Dylan answered.
“All right. Let me know immediately if anyone finds anything, and if that officer shows up while I’m gone, tell him I’ll be right back. His name’s Major Hansen.”
Dylan nearly choked on his own saliva, but managed to respond with a quick, “Yes, sir,” and to avoid gasping with shock long enough for the lieutenant to leave the room none the wiser. Granted, he didn’t know for sure that the Major Hansen whom he was apparently going to meet and the Admiral Hansen whom he’d left behind in the future were in fact the same person, but the chances were probably better than fifty-fifty that they were.
He thought back to their first meeting, just as he had when he’d heard Major Hansen’s name for the first time back on Mandela Station a little over three weeks ago. Admiral Hansen hadn’t ever said anything about their having met before, so he felt pretty sure that they shouldn’t meet now—again, assuming Major Hansen and Admiral Hansen were in fact the same person. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like he was going to be able to avoid it, so he’d just have to deal with it when the time came.
He briefly checked on the current status of the Albion search and then accessed the ship’s computer systems, tied into its internal scanners, and started searching for his lost handcomp. Not as good as going back aboard himself, but it was all he had.
Chapter 39
Hot, sweating, and more than a little frustrated, engineering officer Lieutenant Margarita Torrance and Security Police Corporal Wendell Robins stepped out of the starboard-side forward maneuvering thruster compartment on deck eight of the Albion and into the much cooler corridor with only the slightest sense of relief. The upside was that they could mark off as clear another room in their assigned area. The downside was that they’d come up empty again. Everything in the compartment had appeared to be exactly as it should be. As best they could tell, nothing had been tampered with and no foreign objects had been planted. That meant they were going to have to move on to the next location without knowing anything more about what they were looking for than they had known when they started.
“What’s next on the list,” Torrance asked as she dragged her already sweat-stained sleeve across her forehead.
Robins gazed at her for a moment, disappointed and even a little angry at how easily she, as a Solfleet officer, could disrespect her uniform like that. Didn’t she care how it looked? He thought about saying something to her, but then decided not to. She was his superior officer, and who knew how much longer they were going to have to work together. Better to let it go and not create any friction between them.
He checked the list on his handcomp and sighed, then answered, “Well, let’s see. We just cleared the starboard-side forward maneuvering thruster compartment, so I guess we’re off to the port-side forward maneuvering thruster compartment.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Torrance commented, half-pleading with him to be pulling her leg. “I could barely breathe in there, it was so hot.”
“That’s what’s next on the list, Lieutenant,” he assured her, holding his handcomp out to her so she could see for herself if she wanted to.
She glanced at the device for a second, but declined to take it. Instead, she just rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Shit,” under her breath, and then said, “All right, let’s go.”
Robins secured the door behind them and slapped one of the ‘CLEAR’ tags that had been handed out to everyone involved in the search on it to let the other teams know that the room beyond had already been searched. Then, as he followed the lieutenant down the cross-corridor toward the room’s port-side mirror image to begin the clearing process all over again, he held his handcomp up where he could easily glance downward and see its display—not that he was really paying that much attention to it anymore.
“You’re an engineer, Lieutenant,” he pointed out when he caught up to her. “Can’t you do something about the heat?”
“Not while the ship’s only on standby power,” she answered. “There’s barely enough for the emergency lights and air circulation in the corridors, and if we raise the output any higher it’ll interfere with our scans.”
“Oh.” Like her, he was quickly growing tired of the whole miserable routine. Enter room, search room, find nothing, clear room and secure door, tag door, and then move on to the next room. He and the lieutenant, not to mention the dozen or more other teams, had been combing the ship for hours and hadn’t found so much as a piece of crumpled up trash on the deck, let alone any evidence of sabotage or espionage or whatever else that mysterious Doctor Baxter guy whom no one could seem to find might have been suspected of. He wouldn’t have had to think very hard to come up with something that he would rather have been doing.
As they walked past the doors to one of the ship’s lifts, his handcomp emitted a very brief and barely audible beep so insignificant that he didn’t even consciously realize that he’d heard anything until several seconds after the fact. As soon as he did, however, he stopped short and switched his handcomp over from the search list to the real-time energy sensor display. He gazed at the screen for a few moments without saying anything, but except for a very minor hiccup that quickly faded into oblivion and didn’t return, the readings all remained steady. “Lieutenant?” he called as he took a step backwards.
“What is it, Corporal?” Torrance asked impatiently, looking back over her shoulder and then stopping as soon as she realized he wasn’t following her anymore.
Robins took a few more steps backwards, and when he reached a point almost directly in front of the lift doors, that hiccup returned—just a minor spike in the otherwise relatively level readings. He raised his handcomp toward the ceiling, and sure enough it started to beep, though only faintly and unsteadily. He locked in the display quickly, before the spike could disappear again, and then held the handcomp out to the engineer and said, “Take a look at this.”
Torrance reached out as she joined him by the lift doors, took his handcomp from him, and studied the display for a few seconds. Then she unlocked it and raised the handcomp toward the ceiling, just as Robins had. It beeped once and stopped. “That’s… curious,” she commented as she locked the display again and then lowered the device to take another look.
“What is it, ma’am?”
The lieutenant shook her head slightly and answered, “Hell if I know, Corporal. I mean, I can’t really be sure. It appears to be some kind of steady, low-level energy reading, but I don’t recognize this particular signature. At least… not completely.”
“Low-level, Lieutenant?” Robins asked. “With an obvious spike like that?”
“Everything’s relative, Corporal,” she pointed out, looking up at him. “It only looks like a high-energy spike by comparison to the low background levels. Don’t forget, most of this ship’s internal systems are still offline, and those that are online are all running at minimum capacity.” She dropped her gaze back to the screen. “It is still kind of odd, though.”
“Might it be coming from the handcomp itself?” Robins suggested. “Some kind of sensor malfunction or something?”
“Not likely,” Torrance answered, shaking her head. “These things have built-in redundant filters specifically designed to prevent problems like that.” She unlocked the display once more and took a few more steps backwards, away from Robins, and the unusual reading disappeared. Then, when she approached him again, it returned. “Looks like it’s coming from you, Corporal,” she quipped.
“What?” he asked, looking her in the eye, his own eyes wide with disbelief. “How the hell could it be coming from me?”
“Relax, Corporal. I was only kidding,” surprised that he’d reacted to her jibe so seriously. “Just trying to inject a little humor into the monotony.”
“It’s not working,” he assured her.
“Well, the spike does only show up right here in front of you,” she pointed out, “although it appears to read stronger up by the ceiling.” She glanced over at the lift doors and then held the handcomp out toward them. “Actually, it seems to be coming from the other side of the doors.”
“Maybe the car’s malfunctioning?” Robins suggested.
“No, I’d recognize any energy signature that put out in a second,” Torrance assured him. She moved closer to the doors and the mysterious reading increased ever-so-slightly in its overall levels, but its signature didn’t change at all. Neither did the doors open for her as they should have, and she almost bumped into them.
“You sure there’s even a car in there?” Robins asked her.
Torrance looked over at the wall panel to confirm what she already knew. “According to that there is,” she answered, gesturing toward it with her chin.
“Maybe the panel is malfunctioning,” the corporal suggested.
Torrance flashed him an impatient look. “Maybe the handcomp’s malfunctioning,” she mocked. “Maybe the car’s malfunctioning. Maybe the panel’s malfunctioning.” She drew a deep breath, exhaled sharply, and then added, “Maybe you’re malfunctioning, Corporal.”
“Hey… Lieutenant… it’s an old ship,” he pointed out a little angrily. “Stuff breaks.”
“It’s an old ship with double redundancies built into every power circuit, all of which this facility’s Engineering staff has been diligently maintaining since the day this ship docked here,” she countered, matching his tone.
“Hold on, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean any disrespect to the engineers. I’m just sayin’...”
“You’re right, Corporal,” she interrupted. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that we’ve been at this for hours and I’ve got about a dozen other things I should be doing right now, not the least of which is sleeping.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” he agreed. “I usually work the day shift.”
She spotted what looked like some kind of burn mark at the base of the doors, right in the center where they would have parted had they been operating properly. “Look at that,” she said, pointing it out to him. Then she looked up and found a similar mark near the top of the door, and added, “And up there,” pointing that one out to him as well. “Looks like the locking struts might have been damaged.”
“They look like S-A-nine burns,” Robins observed.
“S-A-nine?” Torrance asked. “That’s the sidearm you guys carry, isn’t it?”
“Standard issue, yeah,” Robins confirmed. “Either somebody was stupid enough to think they could shoot their way through the doors, or...”
“Or your guys chased our intruder right through here,” Torrance concluded.
“Exactly,” Robins confirmed. “I’m guessing it’s the latter.”
“I agree. What do you say we try to get these doors open and take a look?”
“Beats searching another hot thruster compartment,” Robins commented as he stepped up to the access panel.
Torrance kept her eyes glued to the handcomp’s screen, watching closely for any changes in the readings while Robins yanked the panel off the wall and set it aside, then reached into the bulkhead to manually open the doors. She noticed a very slight increase in the power level as the doors parted, but other than that nothing changed.
“Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s operating on full power,” she opined. “Those doors are shielded, and I only saw a...”
“What the hell happened in there?” Robins interrupted, staring up at the back of the car’s ceiling. Rather, staring up at the gaping hole where the back of the ceiling used to be.
Torrance glanced over at Robins and then followed his gaze. “Looks a lot like someone blasted their way out,” she observed.
“That must have been some pursuit,” Robins commented.
Torrance held the handcomp out to her right until it almost touched the doorframe, and then stepped inside the car and started waving it slowly back and forth, up and down, scanning each component panel. As she worked her way to her left, around the inside perimeter of the car, she noticed that the anomalous readings became slightly stronger than they had earlier near the ceiling on that side. “Looks like it’s coming from somewhere behind this wall,” she concluded.
“Inside the shaft?” Robins asked.
“I think so. I’ll climb up through the hole and...”
“No you won’t, ma’am,” Robins interrupted again as he joined her at the back of the car. “I’ll climb up through the hole.”
She looked at him and pointed out, “I’m smaller than you are, Corporal. I can squeeze up through there a lot easier than you can.”
“You’re also an Engineering officer,” Robins countered. “I’m a security policeman and this is most definitely a security matter. Climbing up there and finding whatever that handcomp is picking up is my job, not yours.”
Torrance considered the junior NCO’s words for a moment, then replied, “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that. Go for it, Corporal. I’ll call it in.”
* * *
Dylan’s handcomp had been designed and built to look like typical 2160’s Solfleet-issue equipment, but its internal workings included dozens of components that had only recently been developed—recently in his own time—based on some of the latest advances in technology. So, while its energy signature was very similar to that of its 2160’s counterparts, it was by no means identical. There were some distinct differences that anyone who knew exactly what to look for could easily identify. Dylan’s instructions, of course, had included a list of those differences and what identifiers to look for, should he ever have to do so for any reason. Admiral Hansen and Commander Royer had seemingly thought of everything, and thanks to their thorough efforts, he didn’t have to scan the Albion for very long before he identified his handcomp’s signature amidst the ship’s own low-level emanations and pinpointed its location to within a few square feet.
Unfortunately, determining where his handcomp was and actually getting it back into his own hands were two entirely separate matters. He’d already been denied permission to go aboard and join the search and he obviously couldn’t risk posing as Doctor Baxter again, but one way or another he was going to have to get back onboard that ship, and soon. The question was, how?
“Lieutenant Torrance to Security,” a woman called over the communications panel.
Dylan cleared the screen, scanned the list of Engineering officers involved in the Albion search and found her name, then opened the channel. “This is Security Control,” he responded. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“Corporal Robins and I just picked up on some low-level energy readings that I’m not entirely familiar with,” she advised. “The exact source is unkn
own at this time, but they appear to be coming from something inside one of the ship’s lift shafts. Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s independent of the ship’s internal systems. Robins is going to make his way up into the shaft to try to find it.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Dylan replied, knowing the answer to his next question before he asked it, and doing his best not to let his discouragement reveal itself through the tone of his voice. “Where are you right now?”
“At the lift on deck eight forward,” she answered. “You should see the car, Sergeant. Half the ceiling has been blown out.”
Dylan drew a deep breath, and then exhaled as quietly as possible. Her answer confirmed what he already knew. They’d found his handcomp. Now, somehow, he had to convince her not to go after it. “Any chance this energy might be dangerous?” he asked, hoping to plant a seed of fear into her mind. If he was lucky, that seed would take root and germinate quickly, and make her hesitant to investigate further. He’d be able to play on that—maybe even manipulate her into suggesting that no one approach the energy source until after a full analysis could be completed. Then he’d need only to agree with her, letting her own the responsibility. And then, maybe, he’d get an opportunity to go after it himself. How he might do that was still a problem, however.
“Not nearly as dangerous as a shipyard full of exploding starships,” she answered.
So much for being lucky. “All right, Lieutenant,” he agreed. “Find the source if you can, but tell Robins not to take any unnecessary risks. And don’t forget that all safety protocols are in effect. If you find the source of your readings to be a retrievable device, do not bring it off the ship unless you’re absolutely sure it’s safe.”
“I know the procedures, Sergeant,” she protested, “and I don’t take orders from N-C-Os.”
