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#1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith
#2: Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#3: Hard Crash by Christie Golden
#4: Interphase Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#5: Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#6: Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#7: Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
#8: Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
#9: The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg
#10: Gateways Epilogue: Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#11: Ambush by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur
#12: Some Assembly Required by Scott Ciencin & Dan Jolley
#13: No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte
#14: Caveat Emptor by Ian Edginton & Mike Collins
#15: Past Life by Robert Greenberger
#16: Oaths by Glenn Hauman
#17: Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#18: Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#19: Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#20: Enigma Ship by J. Steven York & Christina F. York
#21: War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#22: War Stories Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#23: Wildfire Book 1 by David Mack
#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack
#25: Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#26: Age of Unreason by Scott Ciencin
#27: Balance of Nature by Heather Jarman
#28: Breakdowns by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#29: Aftermath by Christopher L. Bennett
#30: Ishtar Rising Book 1 by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
#31: Ishtar Rising Book 2 by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
#32: Buying Time by Robert Greenberger
#33: Collective Hindsight Book 1 by Aaron Rosenberg
Coming Soon:
#34: Collective Hindsight Book 2 by Aaron Rosenberg
#35: The Demon Book 1 by Loren L. Coleman & Randall N. Bills
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter
1
Stardate 53851.3
“Great, a runaway train.”
Sonya Gomez found herself going through several emotional states at once. The part of her that was the first officer of the da Vinci thought, Fabian’s finally getting his sense of humor back. He’s starting to recover. But the part of her that was Sonya Gomez, the lover of the now-deceased Kieran Duffy, wanted to snarl, How could you? Your best friend is dead! How can you joke about anything?
She managed to put both halves aside and focus on what Fabian Stevens was talking about.
Captain Gold nodded his agreement. “That’s a pretty apt description, Stevens. It’s large, heavy, and moving at an alarming rate—in a perfectly straight line.” He gestured at the viewscreen, which showed an image of the runaway ship. The image had been captured by a long-range sensor array as the vessel has hurtled past a Federation colony, and was too small to make out many details beyond the basic shape.
Sonya studied the image as best she could. The ship resembled an old Earth bullet-train, flat on the bottom and the back half of the top but curving down in front. Along the side stretched a long mirrored expanse, most likely a fuel nacelle. The entire shape emitted a soft glow, more orange and red than white and gold—almost like a wreath of fire.
“Well, I don’t know that this means much, but I don’t recognize it,” Bart Faulwell said. He glanced at the dark-haired woman next to him. “How about you, Carol?” But Carol Abramowitz just shook her head.
“I don’t either,” Sonya admitted. “Not that I’m surprised—we’ve certainly seen our share of new ships, and new species for that matter, on this ship.”
“One of the advantages to this job,” Gold pointed out gently. “Always something new to see.”
“We need to know what’s in its path,” Domenica Corsi pointed out.
P8 Blue waved an antenna. “Already on it. We’ve plotted its trajectory—easy enough, since it seems perfectly straight.” She touched her padd, and a map of the quadrant appeared on the conference room’s secondary screen. “Unless the ship changes direction, at least a dozen worlds lie directly in its path, three of them Federation members. And that’s just the most immediate area—we have no idea how far this ship might go if it isn’t intercepted.”
“Then there’s your job, people,” Gold announced. “Intercept it. As quickly as possible. I’ll get us near this thing, match its speed so you can study it. Just don’t take too long.”
At that cue, Sonya forced the S.C.E. leader portion of herself to take control. “All right, people. Tev, check our files—see if we have any data on this thing. Pattie, dissect that trajectory—we need to know how much time we have before it hits an inhabited world, or something near one. Fabian, start thinking of ways we might slow down this train. That’s it, people—let’s get to it.”
“Okay, the train’s a wreck.”
Sonya walked over to the science station on the bridge where Fabian had taken up residence. She saw the long-range sensor display, which was now showing their runaway train. “A wreck?” she prompted.
“Yeah, it’s taken a lot of damage. Worse, it’s putting out a ton of energy. Way more than anything that size should—except for maybe a bomb.”
“We’re looking at a bomb?” Sonya shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why fire a bomb this far from any possible target? And why make a bomb that big? More likely it’s something on severe overload.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.” Fabian levered himself back to his feet. “Oh, and the energy—it’s nuclear. Hydrogen and helium, most likely, though that’s just a guess for now.”
“Great, so now we have a runaway star instead of a train.” Sonya sighed. “Okay, keep at it.”
Tev was puzzled—and he hated the feeling. He liked to know what was going on, and usually did, but something was happening with this mysterious ship and he did not yet know what it was. During the briefing, he had been sitting across from Stevens and Blue, and had seen their reaction when Gold had put the image onscreen. The tactical specialist had paled and clenched his jaw, and the structural systems specialist’s antennae had begun to quiver. Something about that ship had prompted a reaction. And they were not alone. Abramowitz had avoided Faulwell’s question, noddi
ng instead of speaking, which was uncharacteristic. Perhaps she was hiding something. Even the captain had seemed a bit more terse than usual. It was as if all four of them were in on some conspiracy.
The problem was, Tev couldn’t find anything in the library computer for them to conspire about. The search for matches on that ship had come up empty. He had checked the files for that particular ship configuration, and found nothing. Then he had looked for anything resembling it. Also nothing. Next he had searched for ships known to have shields of that distinctive color and design. Nothing. He had even looked for vessels that traveled by way of straight lines alone, and drawn a blank.
No one knew anything about that ship. Or at least, no one was admitting to it.
Tev turned his formidable intellect to the problem of the conspiracy. If he could solve that riddle, it would lead him to the actual information he sought.
Oddly, though the captain, Stevens, Blue, and Abramowitz seemed to be involved, Commander Gomez and Faulwell had looked as puzzled as Tev was. As for Corsi and Soloman, they were more difficult to read; if they also shared the hidden knowledge, their faces had not revealed it. But if he assumed that they did, it provided an easy connection, for all of those involved had been on the da Vinci since before even Gomez had joined. In fact, they had all been here during…
Turning back to his console, Tev opened and launched a particular subroutine he had created some time ago, more for academic purposes than for real use. He had crafted the program with his usual efficiency, however, and it performed exactly as requested. A moment later a small smile crossed his face, and he transferred the information into his padd before rising to his feet. So much for being puzzled. But now came one of his favorite parts—the presentation. This promised to be…interesting.
“I’ve identified the ship.”
Sonya glanced up at Tev’s comment. She and Fabian had been going over the sensor data, along with Pattie. Tev waited until he’d received a nod before he continued.
“I scanned our files and got a match.” Tev gestured toward the wall monitor with his padd, and the information he’d sent appeared on the larger screen. “The ship is called Dancing Star. I found its specifications in S.C.E. mission entry DV30193.”
“Wait a second.” Sonya looked back at Fabian, who was looking oddly sheepish. “DV30193? That’s a da Vinci file! We’ve seen this thing before?”
“Well, not you,” Fabian replied slowly. “It was back before you’d joined—just before, actually. It was—” He hesitated.
“—the last mission of Commander Salek,” Pattie finished for him.
“Oh, great.” Sonya leaned back in her chair and rubbed her forehead. Salek had been Gomez’s predecessor as first officer of the da Vinci and head of the ship’s S.C.E. complement. “So now we’ve got a runaway sun that’s already killed one member of this crew. This gets better all the time.” She looked back at Fabian. “During the briefing, neither of you mentioned this. Neither did Soloman or Corsi or the captain—and Carol out-and-out lied to Bart.”
Fabian at least had the good grace to flush and glance at his feet. “We were under orders, Commander.”
“Orders? What are you talking about?”
“What they mean is that the mission was classified.” All four of them turned toward the ready-room door as Gold entered the bridge. “It was during the Dominion War, and all of those events are classified for security reasons.” He glared at Tev. “I’d be very interested to know how you accessed those files.”
Tev simply shrugged. “I performed a standard search. I did design the search engine myself—it must have simply bypassed the security measures. Starfleet might want to work on that.”
Sonya reminded herself yet again to speak to Tev. The man was an excellent engineer, and an asset to the team, but his utter disregard for certain strictures and his contempt for anyone he did not consider an intellectual equal had already earned him several enemies. If not for his undeniable skill he never would have achieved his current rank—and if he didn’t learn to behave with a little more respect, or at least circumspection, he’d never rise any higher.
The captain continued to glare at him for a moment, and Sonya knew he wasn’t fooled. Not much slipped past Gold. But finally he shrugged and walked over to the console.
“Actually, the reason I came in was to give you access to those files. I’ve cleared it with Starfleet Command—nothing in that mission is a security risk anymore, and you definitely have a need to know about Dancing Star.” He tapped a command into the console, followed by a security code, and the files appeared onscreen. Initially they bore the black band across the front that indicated they were sealed, but after Gold entered the code, the band disappeared. Sonya couldn’t help but notice that Tev looked a little annoyed at this—it stole some of the importance from his accomplishment for Gold to simply hand her the materials a moment later.
But she’d deal with wounded pride later. For now she turned to Pattie. “Tell me about this thing.”
Her Nasat crewmate nodded, antennae wobbling. “As the captain mentioned, it was during the Dominion War. There’s a Federation outpost near Randall V, strictly surveillance, and they put out a distress call. A ship had appeared in their system, and it wasn’t one of ours. Not one of the Dominion’s either, but it was putting out an alarming amount of energy. We were sent in to investigate and get the new ship out of there before it could endanger the outpost. We also had a time issue—if the Dominion noticed the ship’s energy output, they’d come investigate themselves, and that could expose the outpost.”
Fabian took over. “We did disable it, ultimately, and the outpost was kept secure. But Salek was killed in the process.”
Sonya nodded. She could see why the files had been classified—the outpost’s existence and location would have been critical information during the war. The best way to keep that data from falling into the wrong hands was to simply seal the materials from everyone, and swear those involved to silence.
“Are we sure it’s the same ship?”
“Would I mention it otherwise?” Tev tapped out a command on his padd. The wall monitor switched to an image of the runaway vessel, and a second image alongside it. “On the left is our current objective. On the right is an image from that earlier mission. The two are identical, including several distinct points of damage.” Circles appeared on both images, highlighting several of those areas, which were then magnified and overlapped. They were a perfect match.
“Good work, Tev—you and your search engine. Okay, so it’s the Dancing Star. But you guys disabled it once before. And Randall V is”—she called up a star chart and located the system—“well over a hundred light-years from here. What happened?”
Fabian shrugged. “I don’t know. It was too big and too tough to dismantle the hull, and we were in a rush, so we disconnected the power supply. Then we tossed it into the sun. No way it should be here now.”
“Well, it is, so find out why. Go back over your old mission files. Then reconstruct the mission for me. I need to know exactly what happened with this thing the last time we met it, so that I can deal with it this time.”
“Time may be an issue, too.” Gold had stayed quiet during the discussion about the ship, and Sonya had almost forgotten that he was still there. Now she turned toward him.
“What do you mean, sir?”
Gold frowned. “I’ve had a look at the charts for the area, and the mission logs of captains who’ve passed through here. One of them mentioned a strange ship at the extreme edge of sensor range. Unfamiliar design, somewhat boxy but not Borg, energy emissions of an unfamiliar kind. But not to us.” He tapped a command into the console, and a new picture appeared over the twinned runaway. This one was an ugly squared ship, and one they all recognized instantly, for all that it was blurred from digital extrapolation.
“The Androssi are here?”
“Not necessarily right now,” Gold corrected Fabian, “but they have been, yes. And that m
eans they know this area. Which means they could be back.”
“And this ship has an unusual energy system,” Pattie supplied, “which I’m sure the Androssi would want to study and exploit.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Gold agreed. “And I’d rather not fight one of them if I can avoid it. So I’m afraid we need to solve this thing sooner rather than later. But that’s par for the course, isn’t it?” He moved to sit in his command chair.
Sonya turned back to her team. “Okay, this changes nothing. We need to figure this out sooner than soon, but we weren’t going to dawdle anyway. Tev, I want you looking at options. Pattie, Fabian, start work on that reconstruction. Get Soloman to help you—he was here too, so he’s another perspective. Plus, I want to know as much about this ship’s operating system and data files as he can remember. Get going.”
It wasn’t until they’d walked out that she realized why Fabian had looked so sad about her order. Salek had been in command then, yes—Sonya had never met him, but she’d heard good things about the Vulcan commander. But Kieran had been his second-in-command. He would have been heavily involved in the mission, and she was setting herself up to relive that portion of his life. A portion she hadn’t shared, just like all the portions she’d hoped to share and now never would.
She grimaced at herself. This was no time to break down. She had work to do. She could break down later, when the mission was over. Until then, she would just have to get through it.
“Okay, that should do it,” Fabian said two hours later in the observation lounge. “We’ve collated all of our old materials on the mission—the official reports, side-notes, personal entries in diaries and letters, everything we could find, plus our own recollections of anything we didn’t include back then. If we’d had a little more time I probably could have set things up in the hololab, but….”
Sonya nodded. That might have been ideal, since it would have provided her with an actual visual replay of events, except for two things. First, they had a definite time factor. As it was, they’d reach the ship within a few hours, and by that point she needed to be up to speed. Even though the holo wouldn’t have taken any longer to run, they’d have needed more time to program all the parameters into the systems.
Collective Hindsight Book 1 Page 1
