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  Gold stepped into his ready room and stood ramrod-straight until the doors closed behind him. Once they did, he relaxed his posture and breathed deep. That had been a close one.

  When he’d taken this assignment, he’d imagined it would be beneficial and interesting. What he had not anticipated was that S.C.E. was perhaps the most hazardous duty he’d ever served. Not only did they face constant unknowns and first-contact situations, by definition they rolled up their sleeves and dived straight into the thick of them. Often they were deeply entangled in the guts of an alien technology or a derelict spacecraft before unknown hazards presented themselves.

  As this mission showed, even the seemingly most routine missions could turn deadly. There had even been a few moments, especially following Galvan VI, when he resented that.

  Yet now, even as he let his pounding heart settle down in his chest, he knew that it was necessary, it was good, it was how things were done in the S.C.E., and how they had to be done. Maybe that had been their mistake this time. They’d taken the situation for granted, handled it the same way as any other Federation ship would have.

  In the shuttledock at S.C.E. headquarters, there was a colorful mural painted on a hangar wall. It portrayed a standard Federation Work-bee, a small yellow utility spacecraft frequently used by the S.C.E. for space construction and repair.

  The little yellow spacecraft had been anthropomorphized, cartoon eyes glaring from its forward view-port, and a sneering mouth, teeth gritted in determination, on its nose. A pair of cartoon arms projected from its sides. One hand held a hammer, the other an old-fashioned open-end wrench. Below it was a simple motto: HANDS ON!

  Maybe that was the problem. They had stood off at arm’s length, tried to work the problem by remote control. Have we gotten timid? He made a mental note to have a talk with Gomez on the subject. But for now, he had other business.

  He sat at his desk and punched up a subspace link to the embassy on the Lokra homeworld. It took him a few moments to be routed to Ambassador Goveia’s office.

  The ambassador smiled when he saw Gold, the corners of his beard lifting toward his pale eyes. “Captain Gold. You have good news for us, I hope.”

  “I thought the Lokra sensors might have already told you what happened.”

  The smile faded. “Is there a problem?”

  “There have been—complications. We tried to put a tractor beam on the derelict ship, but there was a technical difficulty of some sort before we could appreciably alter its course. Our ship received minor damage. We’re currently reevaluating the situation, and we hope to have a new plan shortly.”

  “A tractor beam?” The gravelly voice came from off-screen. “Why didn’t he destroy it? I thought your Federation ships had powerful weapons. I thought you would destroy it.”

  The ambassador addressed the unseen speaker. “These are our finest engineers, Siletz. I’m sure they’ll have the situation under control shortly.”

  “Let me speak to him. I want to speak to him.”

  The ambassador looked apologetically at Gold. “Captain, this is Siletz, First Prime of the Lokra. First Prime, this is Captain Gold of the S.C.E. starship U.S.S. da Vinci.”

  The view widened to include the speaker.

  Siletz was a large, simian-looking humanoid. He was completely covered with bushy white hair, except for his face and hands. Gold couldn’t be sure if the color was normal for the Lokra, a special badge of office, or a sign of advanced age. Siletz wore no clothing, but on his left wrist was a bulky electronic device that could be a communicator or computer access device.

  “Why, Captain, did you not destroy the ship when you had the chance? I was told you would destroy it.”

  “Is that so, Ambassador?”

  Goveia looked uncomfortable. “Not to contradict the First Prime, but I don’t believe those were my exact words. I said we could destroy the derelict, if necessary.”

  “This is disturbing.” Siletz bared his rather sizable teeth at the screen, a gesture that could have been the equivalent of anything from a smile to a threat, as far as Gold knew. “We are told the Federation has powerful weapons, and they will defend us from this threat. We have no weapons of our own. After the Breen left we hoped to develop them. We were assured it would not be necessary—the Federation would see to our security—and once we joined your Federation, technology would be shared with us. Is this a lie, Captain? When the Breen first came, they told us lies as well, so we would not resist until it was too late. Are all out-worlders like this?”

  “I assure you,” said Gold, “that we will see that your planet remains safe.”

  “Then I insist you destroy the derelict at once!”

  It was Gold’s turn to look embarrassed. “That may be difficult. Not only were our tractor beams damaged, but our phasers as well. If necessary, we can destroy the object using photon torpedoes, or even demolition charges, but it will require time for study—”

  Siletz seemed outraged. “And until then, our planet must live under a death sentence? Unacceptable!” Siletz leaped to his feet and left the room.

  The ambassador watched him go. “They’re a temperamental people, Captain, and very physical. They have all manner of social mechanisms for defusing tension before it turns into a fight. Leaving the room is one of them, and it happens a lot here.” He shrugged, the exaggerated shoulders of his uniform shifting up a fraction of an inch. “Captain, I can’t stress the importance of this. These people will not feel safe until that ship is destroyed, by whatever means. They are all quite insistent about it.”

  Gold took a deep breath and forced himself to remain calm. There was a reason he was a starship captain, not a diplomat. And at the moment, it felt like he and Goveia were on opposing sides. “As I said, Ambassador, that may be beyond our resources at the moment. At any rate, this spacecraft represents the work of a totally unknown species, and the technology is quite unusual. We hope to study the ship, and perhaps learn something about its point of origin.”

  “Captain, I appreciate that, but there is a danger of panic here.” Goveia’s voice was as frosty as his ice-blue eyes. “A Galaxy -class starship, the U.S.S. Norman Scott, is on a mission just a dozen light-years from here. Perhaps a larger and more formidable vessel could make quick work of the problem.”

  Chapter

  4

  Gomez entered the observation lounge ready to get her ass chewed. She’d screwed up and put the ship in danger, and would be lucky not to be court-martialed. She’d had only a few hours to pull her team together and set them analyzing both what happened, and the spinning derelict that still floated off their bow.

  Everyone was seated around the table when she arrived. Stevens and Tev, as well as language specialist Bart Faulwell, cultural specialist Carol Abramowitz, insectoid structural specialist P8 “Pattie” Blue, and Bynar computer specialist Soloman. Dr. Lense was also present.

  Several of them greeted Gomez, but the air hummed with suppressed tension.

  They’re all waiting for the hammer to fall.

  Gomez nodded at Tev. “I didn’t have a chance to thank you for what happened on the bridge. Your quick thinking saved the ship.”

  “It was nothing,” said Tev.

  “It’s not like you to be modest,” she said.

  He looked at her blankly. “No, it was really nothing. I can read an EPS schematic. I assumed the rest of you were simply too agitated.”

  Gomez nodded and turned slowly away. Okay, I knew that was coming. She stiffened as she heard the doors open behind her. And this too.

  She turned to face the music. “Captain Gold.”

  “Gomez, I’d like the floor for a minute.”

  Gold took his seat at the head of the table, Gomez sitting to his right. The derelict loomed behind her in the lounge’s window, as though mocking her.

  The captain cleared his throat. “This matter has gotten somewhat complicated, and not just because our initial attempt to divert the derelict failed. There are dip
lomatic and political issues that make it necessary for me to stand over your shoulders from here on in. I’m under pressure to solve this situation, and solve it fast.”

  Gomez quickly said, “That’s hardly a problem, sir.” Generally Gomez’s autonomy over the S.C.E. team was a given, but the “separation of powers” between her and Gold was sometimes a problem, most recently on Rhaax III, where a diplomat named Gabriel Marshall had co-opted Gomez and forced her to act without informing Gold. It was not a situation that either captain or first officer was eager to repeat, and Gomez was wondering if that redheaded ambassador was going to pull something similar to what Marshall did.

  Gold continued. “I can try to buy time, and I’m sure I’ll need to do just that. But I need something to work with.” He glanced at Gomez, one eyebrow raised. “There’s also the matter of my ship very nearly being turned into cream cheese a few hours ago. I want to know what happened and what we’re going to do about it.”

  Gomez let out a breath. “Captain, we’ve all been working on an analysis of the situation. The makeup of the alien ship’s hull and the ionizing radiation it’s emitting are interfering with our sensors. What we didn’t know, when we tried to tractor the ship, was that the hull is wrapped with bands of high temperature superconducting cables. They could be some kind of EM field, a weapon, or even part of a communication device. All that matters is that they were there, and they were spinning. The fields of our tractor beams interacted with them like a generator, coils of wire moving through a field. In this case the energy fed back through the tractor beams, creating a self-powering reaction. Until Tev figured a creative way to use the phaser couplings to break the circuit, we were in real trouble.”

  Gold studied her. “So at the time there was no way you could have known about these cables?”

  “They didn’t register on our sensors until the energy from the tractor beams charged them up.”

  “And this wasn’t caused by our new tractor array?”

  “No. In fact, if the system hadn’t been so robust, and if the emitters hadn’t been tied in to the main spar, we likely would have had a major structural failure almost immediately.”

  “What do we know about this ship?”

  “Well,” said Gomez, “it has fusion impulse engines augmented with a time-space driver coil. They don’t have warp drive, but were clearly close to developing it. Pattie has been studying their systems based on the limited data so far.”

  The Nasat waved her antennae. The attention-getting gesture was like a human making a polite cough. “This ship is most interesting in many ways. As Commander Gomez states, the people who built this appear to have advanced nearly to the point of developing warp drive. Their materials science is quite advanced, in terms of alloys and superconductors. They might possibly have a thing or two to teach us, but in other ways the ship is almost startlingly crude. To all indications, the ship was built entirely without standardized or prefabricated parts. Most of what we can see seems to have been handcrafted, with parts fabricated in position. It’s more appropriate to compare it to nests made by insectoids using wax, paper, or webbing.”

  “Could this be a nest created by nonsentient life native to deep space?” Gold asked.

  Bart Faulwell waved a hand. “I can answer that, Captain.”

  Pattie nodded to Faulwell, and settled back into her custom-fitted chair.

  Faulwell said, “We’ve imaged over six hundred examples of glyphs on the hull. They appear to be warning or instruction placards. I can even make good guesses on what some of it means, based on the adjacent ports and mechanisms. Not enough to translate the language, but it’s a start.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Every last bit of writing is oriented in one direction relative to the ring. It’s as though the ring was assembled in a gravity well, lying on its side, and the writing was intended only for use in that orientation.”

  Gold turned to Lense. “Any signs of life?”

  Lense shrugged. “Our sensors don’t pick up any life-forms, or any residue consistent with bodies, though that isn’t conclusive. We’re not even sure we know what we’re looking for. At floor level, the ship’s spin is creating an artificial equivalent of approximately fourteen standard gravities. There’s all kinds of radioactivity and free radon in the air, which would quickly be toxic to most carbon-based life-forms. The atmosphere is mostly inert gases at about three hundred kilopascals. It won’t support any respiratory process we understand. Or maybe they didn’t use it for respiration at all. It could be a fire-suppression mixture, or a coolant.”

  “Exotic life-forms then?”

  “Very. I worked on silicon-based life-forms at the Academy, and I’ve studied Horta anatomy. They all seem tame compared to whatever built that ship.”

  Gold sighed. “I’m under a great deal of pressure to destroy this ship.”

  Stevens sat up in his chair, as though this was the moment he’d been waiting for all day. “I’ve been working on that, sir. Phasers are down for at least two days, and I doubt we can destroy it with photon torpedoes. In an explosion, the ring will fragment before it can vaporize, and the energy stored in the spinning makes it highly unpredictable. We’ll send large chunks sailing off in random directions.

  “Our best bet is multiple fusion detonation charges individually placed around the ring. To be most effective, they’ll need to be placed on the outside rim—”

  Gold held up a hand. He looked at his first officer. “What do you have to say about this, Gomez?”

  Gomez considered for a moment before answering, licking her lips, which suddenly felt as dry as her throat. “Pattie believes the ship is undamaged and operational, or nearly so. The crew may have died, or abandoned ship for some reason, but the ship itself seems sound.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. This was her opportunity to state her case. She had considered the options, and she knew what she had to say. “There’s an easy way to do this, and a right way. Blowing it up is the easy way. If we can get inside it, figure out the controls, power up the impulse engines, we can steer it away from the planet. That’s the right way.” She swallowed hard, her throat dry, and continued. “Then we can study it at our leisure, and it’s an artifact worth studying. We can retrace its course, or maybe even access its onboard computers. It might lead us to a first-contact situation. At the very least, this thing is a treasure trove of metals that are rare in this system. The Lokra might well want an opportunity to salvage it for themselves. That’s how I’d do it, sir. That’s the S.C.E. way.”

  Gomez realized Gold was smiling at her, with that fatherly “that’s my girl” smile he sometimes got when he was especially pleased.

  She blinked in surprise. What have I done now?

  She was still wondering after Gold had excused himself and left. The dressing down she’d been expecting had never come, and she felt guilty about it. It left her even more determined to get things right this time. She focused her attention on her crew and the problem at hand.

  “People, we’ve got a lot to do, and very little time to do it. I’m going to need two hundred percent effort. We need to board that ship, survive there, work there. We need to figure it out, fire it up, and move it. We don’t have time for a fully formed plan, so I’m counting on you to work it out as we go.”

  “We could use the experimental gravity suits,” said Stevens.

  Gomez shook her head. “No. This isn’t actual gravitons, it’s the illusion of gravity created by centrifugal force.”

  “Vectored inertia,” said Pattie, her shell making a dry rattling sound as she shifted in her specially designed chair. “We need suits with their own inertial dampers, like—” Pattie hesitated. After a moment, Gomez knew why. Duffy had gone to his death in a suit modified with—among other things—an inertial damper. It wasn’t something the survivors of Galvan VI liked to talk about.

  Tev, who replaced Duffy, grunted in blissful obliviousness. “There are miniature IDF generators used to stabilize antimatter containment
in our photon torpedoes. They can be adapted. But the shape and interior volume of a pressure suit is in constant flux. It will be challenging.”

  Gomez nodded, for once grateful for Tev’s obtuseness. “You’re on it, Tev. We need suits for Stevens and me immediately, and a backup suit in case we get into trouble and need help.”

  She turned to Pattie. “I’d like you there first, but you don’t have a pressure suit we can adapt. So I’m tapping Fabian,” she glanced at the tactical specialist, “as your eyes, ears, and hands on the mission. Tev, you will adapt suits for team members until we have everyone over there, if necessary. The order they come over depends on who we need most.”

  Tev frowned. “With respect, Commander, I would be more valuable on the away team.”

  “I need you to modify the suits, Tev. It’ll be complex and challenging, and if it isn’t done right, we’re going to die over there.” She paused for effect. “However, if you don’t think you’re up to—”

  Tev made a little noise of disgust. “You’re right, of course.”

  She smiled, remembering the miniature golf course yesterday. “Tap Bennett to help you. Cade’s done some creative stuff with inertial dampers. Let me know the moment those first three suits are ready. Pattie, work with Fabian. Figure out how we can safely beam on board and what we should look for when we get there. Elizabeth, Bart, Carol, we’re working with limited information and secondhand data, but I’ll need ongoing analysis from you all. I need to understand the ship’s crew, to figure out how to tell the ship’s helm controls from the captain’s toilet, and decode the interface once I find it.”

  She smiled. The challenge, the pressure, the thrill of discovery. This was why she joined the S.C.E.

  Captain Gold sat in his ready room studying the local planetary survey. Something about the First Prime didn’t feel right. Despite the danger, he was far too insistent the derelict ship be destroyed. Gold sensed the First Prime was hiding something, and he was determined to find out what.