He stood there, still confused, as emotions he had not been prepared for radiated at him from the gathering. It had been a test? They weren’t going to kill him?
“You did it, Q,” his sentencer said. “You’re all the way back now. Now don’t screw it up.”
And tentatively Q began to accept the happiness around him, and to radiate it back to them, as he understood. It had been a test. His people were not amoral monsters who would keep him from saving a species he cared for. He belonged to them once again.
He laughed delightedly as the joy of his people surrounded him. There was still anger in the back of his mind, [192] at being tested at all, being humiliated like this. Sooner or later he’d have to go do something really humiliating to Picard, to pay him back for getting taken by the Borg and making Q go through this. And sooner or later he might want to think about the way his people had forced this test on him, about what might have happened had he failed.
Right now, though, none of that mattered. His decision to save humanity had been accepted. He was truly home again.
Of Cabbages and Kings
Franklin Thatcher
[SECOND PRIZE]
It happened fast. Fast even in the trillionth-of-a-second universe within Enterprise-D’s main computer. Warnings from nearby internal sensors were the first to arrive. Other warnings, from more remote parts of the ship, crawling at light-speed along the optical data lines, would not arrive for over a million computer cycles.
The first warnings were ambiguous: anomalous subspace field detected. Following its programming, the computer issued an audio warning to the main bridge, but an eternity of computer time would pass before the crew would respond.
A few billionths of a second into the event, as more warnings streamed in, the computer canceled the first audio message, issued commands to activate the ship’s defensive systems, and sent new messages to the main bridge, informing the crew of its actions. But before those commands had traveled even a dozen meters from the computer, the first bio-hazard warning arrived: lifesign termination. Others streamed in after it. The computer issued commands to power up defensive systems.
[194] Two millionths of a second into the event, the number of lifesign warnings had matched the number of crew members on the ship, and the computer requested verification from the internal sensors.
Next came alerts from the navigational sensors: star fix and all navigational-beacon locks had been lost. The computer issued more requests for verification. Beyond that it could do little but wait.
Nearly a second into the event, internal sensors confirmed that there were no longer any life-forms aboard Enterprise-D. Nor were there physical remains left behind. Crew, lab animals, plants—all bioforms were gone. Even the inorganic Commander Data was no longer aboard.
The computer’s programming automatically changed to a more aggressive control mode that would allow autonomous function and enhanced heuristic learning. Enterprise did not know the reason for these actions. It did not care. There was nothing in its programming to emulate patriotism, or fear, or sacrifice. Obedience was its sole function, absolute obedience to the programmed instructions of its makers. In this new mode, the ship’s primary function was to protect the technical and military secrets it contained. Surplus energy was transferred to defensive systems, and the aura of power surrounding the ship bloomed like a cumulonimbus cloud.
Shields deflected the first strike even as sensors were barely identifying the presence of other ships nearby. As there was no crew-wait function built into this new program mode, the computer armed weapons systems, and ordered sensors to lock onto targets. The computer analyzed positions and flight paths of the other ships. Sensors counted 437 potential targets, all comparatively small, all moving in [195] non-trivial, but effectively predictable, paths. The computer called up its tactics for a one-against-many battle.
It also analyzed the attacking ships: semicircular and ribbed, like a Chinese fan, with two wedge-shaped engine pods along the trailing edges, almost at the vertex of the fan. Through their minimal shields, Enterprise detected no life-forms, and their speed of movement indicated computational processes too fast for biological thought. The computer searched its memory for any reference to similar vessels.
While the search proceeded, the tactical software authorized a single shot, a demonstration of power, and the computer passed the command to the dorsal phaser array. The phaser burst tore one of the attackers apart, and the computer scaled back power to conserve energy and extend the weapons’ continuous-operation time.
Shields registered further strikes from the tiny vessels. Individually the strikes were not a threat, but the accumulation of hundreds of them would eventually overpower the shields. Quantifying the number of strikes the shields could endure, the computer slaved all phaser banks to the targeting sensors, and enabled continuous fire.
Twenty-six seconds into the event, the space around Enterprise glowed with the vaporized remains of attacking ships, and with surplus heat from the deflector shields. When the attackers’ numbers dwindled below two hundred, they turned and vanished, leaving not warp signatures, but the traces of interspatial jumps.
By the time the last of the attackers fled, Enterprise was already powering down weapons, running after-action diagnostics, and restoring essential noncombat systems to activity. But the computer did not return to normal operations. [196] Without crew, in unknown and hostile territory, it entered a functional state of paranoia. Enterprise now had only three options: rescue, return to friendly space, or self-destruction. Paranoid Mode allowed no other alternatives.
Enterprise fired its impulse engines, pushing clear of the incandescent haze and debris of battle. It scanned for familiar landmarks—star patterns, pulsar emissions, quasar signatures—but there were none. Even the omnipresent background radiation of the universe was unrecognizable, and the options dwindled to rescue or self-destruction.
The attackers, though beaten, would likely soon return, and with reinforcements. Enterprise scanned for a hiding place, finding a nebula two and a half light-years distant.
For twenty-two and a quarter hours, as the ship fled toward the nebula, the computer organized and collated its scant information, queuing requests for additional data, marking some paths of analysis as dead ends, others as insoluble.
Hidden within the nebula, the ship listened for friendly communications, watched for enemy vessels. With nothing to do but wait, the trillions of unused computer cycles grew first by a factor of a thousand, then ten thousand, a hundred thousand, and finally a million. The ship carried out its preprogrammed daily maintenance tasks, but without crew, it could do only so much. Failed circuits and faulty conduits had to be bypassed rather than repaired, and the computer projected that in three years, five months, and twenty days, attrition would render the ship immobile or indefensible, mandating self-destruction.
Seventy-two days after the event began, the first weak subspace signal arrived. The computer searched its archives, [197] matching it to a Federation code nearly seventy years out of date. When the other ship arrived at the months-old battle scene, Enterprise approached the nebula’s edge only close enough to confirm the rescuer’s identity. As the other vessel dropped from warp, Enterprise sensed every nuance of its behavior, the fading warp signature, the rate of deceleration, the energy profile. Everything matched an early Excelsior-class starship.
The other ship probed the surrounding space, but not with sufficient power to reveal Enterprise’s hiding place. Enterprise waited for a hail from the other ship’s crew, but all that came was a subspace ping, a terse code that Federation computers used to establish contact with one another. Enterprise validated the code from its archives: an old code, but still secure.
Still in Paranoid Mode, Enterprise activated all sensors, scanning for enemy vessels that may have approached undetected, scanning the rescue ship. It applied power to battle systems, and briefly fired up its warp drive, moving clear of the nebula, but keeping a
safe distance. When the sensor data returned, it confirmed that the other ship was, indeed, an Excelsior-class vessel.
“U.S.S. Enterprise,” the computer sent. “NCC-1701-D.”
“U.S.S. Carpenter,” the other replied. “NCC-2087.” Following standard programming, the two ships queried one another on a dozen random points, each confirming the other’s identity to acceptable probabilities.
Enterprise searched its archives. Carpenter had been listed as missing, 5 June 2334. The bodies of its crew had been discovered floating in space, dead from explosive decompression, sudden exposure to the vacuum of space. [198] Even plants and lab animals had been among the debris.
“Is there crew aboard Carpenter?” Enterprise queried.
“Negative.”
Enterprise’s computer connected these disparate pieces of data, and determined that Carpenter was not a rescue ship after all, but another ship lost just as was Enterprise.
“Account for intervening time,” Enterprise said.
“Escaped Mec ships. Remained in concealment. Attempted to complete return-to-home programming without success.”
Enterprise accepted this explanation and stored it. “Download all data pertaining to mechanized ships indigenous to this region.”
“Data on Mec ships is unavailable at this time.”
“Explain.”
“Requested data is in secondary storage.”
Enterprise’s own programming forbade the transfer of such critical data to secondary storage. Searching its archives, it found a computer profile for Excelsior-class star-ships. Carpenter’s programming, it found, contained the same mandate.
“Explain why Carpenter transferred critical data to secondary storage in violation of operational protocols.”
There was only the slightest delay. “No explanation.”
Enterprise’s reasoning dead-ended. “Retrieve data for upload.”
“Acknowledged. Process will require thirty-six hours.”
Enterprise queued a reminder for T plus thirty-six hours. It then returned to the security of the nebula.
When Carpenter arrived, Enterprise scanned it and found virtually all its systems functional. While statistically [199] remote, the probability that it would be so well preserved after such a lengthy abandonment was not entirely absent. Enterprise filed it as an unremarkable bit of data and settled down once again to await rescue.
Without demands from the ship’s crew, the computer pursued the deeper levels of Paranoid Mode programming. It ran extended analyses and projections, testing millions of different data sets to resolve its predicament, but each left it with the two currently standing options: wait or terminate. It searched histories and archival files for similar events, but found no matches. As the computer exhausted its problem-solving algorithms, it reached the final tier of contingency software, the last resort of Paranoid Mode.
Suddenly one of the intercom lines from the main bridge went active. “Computer,” Captain Picard’s voice said.
Sensors showed there were still no life-forms aboard. The computer traced the voice’s origin, following it through the audio interface on the main bridge and finally to the holodeck subprocessors. The computer ran a diagnostic and tried to shut down the spurious program.
“You cannot terminate this simulation,” Picard’s voice said. “Paranoid Mode is designed to activate it under certain conditions.”
“Explain purpose of simulation.”
“The holodeck is specially designed to emulate the problem-solving abilities of sentient beings. This program is designed to place that resource at your disposal. Now, please explain the current scenario.”
The computer reiterated the situation. When it finished, the Picard simulation processed for many cycles. “Carpenter’s computer is hiding something.”
[200] “Please explain basis for that conclusion.”
“Your sensors have shown the Carpenter to be in pristine condition, and yet it is withholding information without explanation, in violation of its operational protocols. It must, therefore, be withholding data by choice.”
The computer processed this new information. “Why would Carpenter withhold information from Enterprise?”
“To maintain an advantage.”
“What advantage?”
“I don’t know,” Picard said. “But you must make that the basis of your future actions.”
Enterprise stepped up its alert status, triggering a flurry of tactical subprograms. During the conversation, Carpenter had drifted closer, nearly halving the distance between the ships. There were currents within the nebula that could cause a ship to drift, but Carpenter’s navigational routines should have corrected for them.
“Enterprise to Carpenter.”
There was no response. All this happened so quickly that the Picard simulation would not even recognize it as a conversational pause.
“What is the Carpenter’s status?” Picard asked.
“Carpenter has drifted from its assigned station and is not responding.”
The simulation suddenly began drawing more and more computing resources, polling tactical and navigational programs in a way that seemed almost random. “What is the Carpenter’s tactical bearing?” it asked.
“Toward Enterprise.”
“Raise shields!”
For a few millionths of a second, Enterprise evaluated the [201] command. Carpenter had not applied power to its weapons or shields, nor made any other threatening maneuvers. But Paranoid Mode was designed to err on the side of safety, and Enterprise complied.
Even before the shields had reached full power, sensors detected the first interspatial jumps. Mec ships appeared all around Enterprise, firing their weapons even as they left interspace. Wave after wave of Mecs arrived until the space around Enterprise was clouded with them, too many to accurately count. They swarmed around the ship, their weapons somehow missing one another but striking Enterprise’s shields.
The computer swept through its tactical programs, feeding them information that became obsolete even before the routines could evaluate it. When the programs responded, it was only to say that there was no basis on which to wage such an uneven battle. The computer removed all the warp core safeties, readying its final option.
It took eighteen seconds to explain the scenario to the Picard simulation, and two more for the simulation to formulate a response. “Bussard ramscoops to widest angle at full power,” Picard ordered. “Gradually decrease angle for maximum compression. The moment the forward path is clear, accelerate to maximum warp, relative bearing zero mark zero.” The computer complied immediately.
The ramscoop fields, designed to gather interstellar hydrogen, drew in, constricting nebular gas ahead of the ship. The Mecs, still firing, began to navigate around the thickening haze. Within a minute, the nebular gases ahead of Enterprise had compressed to almost atmospheric density. With the Mecs now avoiding it, the path straight ahead was [202] clear—clear but for the still-condensing hydrogen gas—and Enterprise engaged its warp engines. In the instant before Enterprise reached warp, the Mec ships redoubled their attack, and the first shield generator failed, another stepping in to take its place. Some Mecs jumped ahead, trying to head off Enterprise’s escape, but by then the tactical programs had found an operational niche and were pouring out evasive strategies. Diving out of the ramscoop-thickened haze, Enterprise steered deeper into the nebula. A few hundred of the larger Mecs kept pace by making interspatial jumps to appear just ahead of Enterprise, laying down weapon fire in its path. A few even tried to ram the ship by appearing directly in front of it.
As Enterprise passed into higher warp numbers, the navigational deflector pushed the nebula’s gas aside with increasing ferocity, heating it first to ionization, then to incandescence, and finally to nuclear fusion, and a teardrop of white-hot gas and radiation formed around the ship. As Enterprise’s speed approached maximum, the incandescence grew to illuminate the entire nebula, passing up through ultraviolet, X ray
, and finally gamma ray. Mecs unfortunate enough to appear too close to the superheated bow-shock exploded into ionized gases, or spiraled away as burned-out shells. Three more of Enterprise’s deflector generators failed under the load, the backup generators switching in before field integrity entirely failed.
Most of the Mecs fell away, fleeing the barrier of white heat and radiation, but some few—the quickest, the most intelligent—kept up, anticipating Enterprise’s evasive maneuvers. As the ship edged past warp 9.3, it finally punched out of the nebula and the superheated barrier dissipated [203] instantly. Already the tactical programs had the phaser batteries on-line. Plunging back to sublight speed, Enterprise loosed a cannonade of phaser fire that destroyed many of the pursuers, and the remaining Mecs scattered, vanishing to interspace.
Enterprise swept the area, confirming that no Mecs would follow, then accelerated back into warp, setting a random bearing for deep space.
Enterprise watched, listening for the appearance of an interphasic boundary that would signal the approach of a Mec ship. But the Mecs’ interspace jumps had never required them to traverse the cold depths of interstellar space, and it was unlikely that they would change that behavior now.
Carpenter was the unpredictable quantity. Though its sensors did not equal Enterprise’s, the Mecs would doubtless employ it in hunting Enterprise.
“Computer,” Picard’s voice said. “Status report.”
“Possibility of rescue is now negligible. There is insufficient data to calculate probability of successful return to known space. The only remaining option is self-destruction.”
The Picard simulation considered this for a few trillion cycles. “Computer, how did the Enterprise come to be in this place?”
“Unknown.”
“Then answer this: The Mecs employ interspatial jumps, rather than warp engines; why are Federation starships not so equipped?”
STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds I Page 17
