Skon steepled his fingers contemplatively. “Develop a countermeasure to a weapon that the Romulans have already deployed against Coalition vessels on a number of occasions.”
“A weapon that has the apparent capability of seizing control of Coalition ships remotely,” the human physicist added in a tone far graver than any Dax had ever heard him use before.
Dax rarely paid much attention to the news other than its broad outlines, such was his obsession with the technical minutiae of his job. He recognized immediately that the weapon his colleagues were describing must have been the cause of the attack on a local commercial convoy about half a year ago—an attack that only the timely intervention of the Starship Columbia and several Vulcan military vessels had averted.
Dax was finally beginning to understand the urgency of the matter— just as he recognized the likelihood that he would be of little use to Starfleet’s countermeasure efforts. “My specialties are propulsion related,” he said, dejected. “I’m good with phase coil inverters and any other engine component from warp cores on down to subimpulse thrusters. I’m not sure what Jefferies and Stillwell expect me to contribute.”
“Captain Jefferies has just completed a detailed analysis of data submitted from the field,” Underhill continued, sidestepping Dax’s objection. “It came from a number of sources, including the tactical officer aboard Enterprise, a Lieutenant Reed.”
“Enterprise,” Dax said, nodding. He recalled that some of the unsung transporter-beam collimation enhancements upon which he and Skon had collaborated several years ago had been integrated into Doctor Erickson’s basic design, eventually ending up in general use aboard Enterprise and her sister starships.
Skon stepped gracefully into the human physicist’s pause. “Shortly after the attacks that destroyed the freighter Kobayashi Maru, Lieutenant Reed noticed something that has since been corroborated by field data supplied by both the Tellarites and the Andorians following Romulan attacks that destroyed some of their most advanced vessels. The use of the Romulan remote-control weapon causes certain subtle but detectable changes in a ship’s computer hardware, as well as in various related systems.”
“Including propulsion,” Underhill said. “That fact ought to give us a leg up on shoring up our vulnerabilities.”
“Sounds like we need to develop a whole new starship control technology,” Dax said.
Underhill picked his padd up again, thumbed a control, and handed the device to Dax. “Captain Jefferies already seems to have some solid ideas in that area for us to build on. He’s even included some of the work that’s already being done to patch the warp-field detection fence at Altair. Maybe one of these ideas will pay off and let us get back to the warp-seven project.”
Dax stared at the padd’s small screen, which displayed a detailed technical drawing of a roughly circular starship bridge. The geometry differed none too subtly from any other Earth technology that either he or his predecessor Lela had ever seen before, and that included the specs to Starfleet’s NX-class starships.
What he saw did not encourage him. His overall impression was that Starfleet was contemplating taking a huge step backward, both in terms of technological sophistication and the ineffable mathematicalaesthetic qualities that Dax could only describe as “elegance.” There were too many ugly planes and angles in evidence.
“This new technology promises to prevent any outside system from engaging in unauthorized communication with a starship’s command-and-control architecture,” Skon said, in lecturing mode. “Only personnel with access to particular predetermined authorization code sequences could gain and maintain that measure of control. The simulations Jefferies and Stillwell have run have convinced them that the concept is sound. It will be our task to work out the operational details in order to allow Starfleet to deploy this countermeasure as quickly and successfully as possible.”
Dax listened to the Vulcan as he continued studying the display. He tried not to make a face, but knew he hadn’t succeeded.
“Do you have a critique already, Doctor Dax?” Skon said.
With a shrug, Dax finally said, “Ugh.” He wondered if he’d ever learn to appreciate these designs.
“I think ‘retro’ may be the word you’re groping for, Tobin, at least in terms of its superficial design aesthetics,” Underhill said, grinning. “But please, don’t let me put words in your mouth. I’m sure I’m as eager as Doctor Skon is to hear your appraisal.”
Dax wasn’t quite sure where to start. Digital displays and smooth vernier interfaces gave way to clunky analog readouts and huge, square buttons and switches that wouldn’t have looked out of place aboard one of the ancient military submarines that once patrolled Trill’s purple oceans. Even the control interfaces on the century-old survey ship that Skon’s father had commanded when Vulcan had made First Contact with Earth must have looked generations more advanced than this design.
And it was all being done, if Skon’s comments and Jefferies’ cryptic marginal notes could be taken at face value, in the name of hardening a starship’s entire command-and-control hardware-firmware-software architecture against external intrusion and takeover.
The only way this could be any uglier is if they decide to paint it bright orange, he thought with a barely suppressed shudder. And the only way to find out if this thing can really work is to subject it to an actual trial by fire.
“I think,” Dax said as he handed the padd back to Underhill, “that we’ve all got a lot of hard work ahead of us.”
TODAY
2156
THIRTY-SIX
Dateline: Achernar II Achernar Prime Alpha Eridani II
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE JANUARY 21, 2156, NEWSTIME JOURNAL SPECIAL COMMENTARY FOLLOWS:
This is Gannet Brooks, with all the news that’s under the sun and beyond, reporting from Heliopolis, Achernar II’s largest human settlement, a place named for the ancient Egyptian city of the sun because of the dominating presence in its skies of massive, lopsided Achernar.
If you spend most of your time in Earth’s northern hemisphere, then you may never have laid eyes on Achernar before. Achernar, also known as Alpha Eridani, is visible from Earth only from south of the equator. It’s the brightest (hence the “Alpha” designation) and southernmost star in the constellation Eridanus (the River) as seen from Earth.
Achernar (whose name is derived from the Arabic phrase Al Ahir al Nahr, which means “The End of the River”) doesn’t become a completely real place until after one has experienced it. It isn’t until you get in-system that you can begin to get a handle on what it means to stand on a planet orbiting a young B-type star about seven times as massive and three thousand times as luminous as Sol.
A hat and plenty of solarderm is a must. And keep on hand a source of outsystem transportation. Because today Heliopolis is firmly in the grip of what I can only describe as a panic. Too many people are seeking too few available berths aboard Heliopolis’s rapidly dwindling stock of departing vessels, even as the arrival of transport vessels continues to decline precipitously.
Starfleet and the Earth Cargo Service have each pitched in, despite the war having already stretched the resources of both. The apparent inadequacy of humanity’s best hopes on the interstellar frontier has only exacerbated the breakdown of law and order that has confounded local peace officers for the past several weeks. This is a city gripped by a mounting tide of chaos, neglect, violence, and street crime that only seems to intensify as the Romulan threat looms ever larger.
Will these Romulans chase humanity home with its collective tail between its legs? That’s still not clear. After all, things change quickly here. As recently as two Earth months ago, Heliopolis was relatively tranquil despite the Achernar system’s location, which only during recent years was revealed as occupying a remote part of the Romulan Star Empire’s sphere of influence. Achernar II’s human inhabitants had prospered here for decades, working alongside a number of nonhuman species from many far-flung worlds.
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br /> Like the numerous other sentient races that have carved out toeholds on this world, the humans have embraced self-sustaining agriculture, while making their fortunes in the extraction and offworld sale of the planet’s abundant mineral resources. The efforts of Achernar’s human colonists have benefited Earth and her allies as much as themselves. However, some of the nonhuman farming and mining operations here have almost certainly redounded to the benefit of the Romulans, via the provincial traders and middlemen—Orions, perhaps, or Adigeons—who are rumored to have direct dealings with the Romulan Star Empire’s mystery-shrouded homeworld.
The relative importance of Achernar II to the Romulans’ war effort remains open to debate. Achernar may be too remote a Romulan province to make a significant wartime contribution. Most of the people I have interviewed here seemed to believe this, though I suspect for many that belief is merely a comforting myth, a means of whistling past the graveyard.
Sergeant Dwayne Keller is fairly typical of Heliopolis’s law-enforcement community. He is philosophical about the rumor that the Romulans are secretly building warships near Achernar. Sergeant Keller’s attitude is understandable; he and his colleagues have more immediate problems, such as the possible collapse of a grossly overworked transportation system, in addition to their normal responsibilities of upholding the law.
Even ordinary crimes can take on an extraordinary aspect during extreme times. When I asked about the type of crimes that were on the rise, Sergeant Keller paused.
“A series of brutal slayings,” he explained. Murders that had begun a couple of weeks earlier. The killer, after slashing the victims, left behind notes taunting the police, challenging them to find him. The only thing his victims have in common is that they all were women. A dangerous psychotic remains at large, adding to the rising tide of fear gripping the city.
“For all I know,” Keller told me, “the bastard might already have escaped the planet in all the confusion that’s been going on.”
He seemed embarrassed that he had given voice to the thought. Perhaps he felt it petty and self-serving to wish a killer as horrendous as this one on another law officer’s jurisdiction, or on those fleeing for their lives.
Like everyone here who has decided to stay, Keller remains phlegmatically hopeful about the future. “Things will calm down around here eventually,” he told me. “Unless the Romulans really do blow Heliopolis to Kingdom Come.”
I actually found it encouraging to hear this sentiment coming from someone who’s seen humanity at its worst.
“If the killer is still here, we’ll get him,” Keller promised me, or perhaps himself. “After all, he can’t keep this up forever, can he?”
And neither can the Romulans.
This reporter believes that, like Sergeant Keller, we need only believe in ourselves, stand firm, and embrace the darkness, because daylight will come.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Tuesday, February 10, 2156
Enterprise, en route to Earth via Vulcan
ARCHER FELT THE DECELERATION through the soles of his boots even as Ensign Leydon’s voice came across the ready-room intercom, brisk and businesslike.
“We’ve just entered the 40 Eridani A system, Captain. I’m keeping station within the bounds of the system’s Kuiper belt. Ensign Camacho reports Shuttlepod One prepped and ready to go.”
“Thank you, Ensign. Continue on an in-system course and enter a high, transporter-range orbit around Vulcan.” Both Archer and T’Pol had agreed that it was best not to tie up any of Enterprise’s auxiliary craft, which Enterprise might need at a moment’s notice in the event of a surprise Romulan attack.
Leydon took her new orders in stride. “Aye, sir. Altering course.”
“Be ready to resume course for Earth after we reach Vulcan,” Archer added. “And go to maximum warp once we’ve cleared the system. Archer out.”
Sixteen and a half light-years from home, he thought, rising from the chair behind his cluttered desk. After a long homeward journey, he was anxious to get busy with the ongoing defense of Earth and its settlements all across the Sol system.
But first, he had to see his executive officer off on her voyage home.
The door chime sounded before he’d gotten halfway to the ready room’s sealed entrance.
“Come.”
The hatch slid open, admitting T’Pol. Once the aperture had closed behind her, assuring their privacy, she said, “You’re putting me off the ship.”
T’Pol’s bald assertion took Archer aback, the lack of affect behind it rendering it somehow more intense than if she had shouted the words in anger.
After pausing for a handful of heartbeats to recover his equanimity, he said, “T’Pol, I didn’t redline Enterprise’s engines for nearly seven months—and let the Cygneti treat me like a twentieth-century cocktail waitress so I could keep redlining the engines—just to make you walk the plank.”
“Nevertheless. You have ordered me home.”
He offered a smile that he hoped she’d find reassuring. “Try to think of it as a working vacation, T’Pol.”
“With the dangers the ship will be facing, it is clear that you need me at your side.”
“You agreed right after Tarod IX that you were the one member of this crew with the best chance of persuading T’Pau to get off the sidelines of this war.”
T’Pol stepped closer. “You could have simply made it an order.”
“I think we both know this has to be voluntary,” he said at length.
“But T’Pau may refuse to see me. You’ll note I have yet to secure a firm appointment on her official meeting calendar.”
Archer shrugged. “Your meetings with T’Pau may have to be entirely unofficial, then.”
T’Pol looked doubtful. “Administrator T’Pau, like most Vulcans, is not known for conducting business in an ‘unofficial’ manner.”
Archer couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at that. “Administrator T’Pau ran the very revolution that put her government in power. You may be surprised at how flexible somebody with a skill set like that can be when push comes to shove.”
“The chance of that appears slim to me.”
“ ‘Slim’ is a hell of a lot better chance than ‘none,’” Archer said.
“True,” she said, nodding. “But should I fail to secure a meeting with T’Pau—or if I succeed in meeting with her but fail to persuade her—I will be on Vulcan, and therefore in no position to assist you directly with Vulcan’s obligation to defend the Coalition.
“However, if I remain at your side, I can aid in the defense of both Enterprise and Earth. I needn’t remind you that the Romulans have shed significantly larger quantities of human blood than they had at the time I made my initial promise to seek out and persuade T’Pau.”
He put up a hand. “You don’t need to remind me. Neither Enterprise nor Earth is likely to survive for very long should the Romulans get the upper hand in this fight. Right now, getting Vulcan into the war looks to be our best hope. And you are hands-down the best candidate for the job.”
The first officer stood in contemplative silence for a long time after he finished. She clasped her hands behind her back and began to pace very slowly across the small office, apparently lost in thought. Finally she came to a stop directly in front of Archer and looked him straight in the eye.
“Logical,” she said. “I will direct Lieutenant O’Neill to transport me to Vulcan once we reach orbit.”
Had she not been a Vulcan, the captain would have succumbed to the temptation to give her a bear hug. Somehow, he restrained himself, contenting himself with a moment of wistful regret: Too bad she wouldn’t change her mind about letting me throw a little going-away party in her honor.
But considering the dismal state of morale aboard this ship ever since the Gamma Hydra mission, maybe that was for the best.
Going-away parties sometimes bore far too close a resemblance to wakes.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Late in the month
of Tasmeen, YS 8764
Tuesday, February 10, 2156
Vulcan’s Forge, Vulcan
T’POL WAS STILL SILENTLY upbraiding herself even as Enterprise’s primitive transporter finished the uncomfortably slow task of restoring her body’s solidity, retrieving it particle by particle from the device’s tightly collimated matter stream.
Now she stood in an open, rust-colored plain, with only the hood of her robe to protect her from the searing rays of red Nevasa. She inhaled deeply of the warm, dry, appropriately attenuated air, which wasn’t bestirred at the moment by even the slightest breeze. Under the vault of a ruddy, early-afternoon sky the towers of SkiKahr rose like sentinels guarding the western horizon. She knew that she might have eliminated an hour or more of hiking time had she selected a beam-down location closer to the city’s government district. That choice, however, might have attracted undue attention to her mode of transportation—as well as to the fact that by making this stopover at Vulcan, Captain Archer was “bending” Admiral Gardner’s order that Enterprise return to the Sol system without delay.
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 31
