Creative Couplings Book 1 Page 2

  “Fabe!” Kendra’s dark eyes had lit up when she saw his face on her viewscreen. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, how are you? And, more important, what are you going to be doing in a few weeks’ time?”

  “Are you coming to visit? That’s great!” She grimaced. “I’m not sure I’ll be much company, though. Not at the rate things are going.”

  “Problems in R&D?” Kendra had landed a dream job with Starfleet’s Research and Development unit. But right now she looked anything but thrilled.

  “Yeah, you could say that. I finished the Hyperion.”

  “Ken, that’s great!” She’d told him about it in previous conversations, of course. The Hyperion was meant to be a new class of Starfleet vessel—larger than a scoutship, smaller than a Saber- or Defiant-class ship, but with full warp capability and an impressive weapons system. The ship was meant to be both a fighter and a courier, and made for speed and maneuverability. Starfleet had actually wanted something like it for a while now, as the next step after the Defiant, but no one had been able to create something strong enough to travel dangerous areas alone but small enough to slip through security nets undetected. Kendra had been wrestling with it for over a year, and if Starfleet approved her design it would make her career. “So why don’t you look happy about it?”

  She shook her head. “Because Felder’nar waited until yesterday to tell me that he hadn’t submitted the testing request—‘I couldn’t in good conscience file the paperwork until I knew the schematics would be completed on time’—which means it goes to the back of the line. And since he filed the request for his own design a week ago, the wait’s up to two years now.”

  “Wow. That bites.”

  She sighed. “Tell me about it. I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t such a blatant attempt to cut me out of the running—and if his Rover design wasn’t such junk.”

  “Isn’t there some other way to test the design?” Fabian thought about it for a minute. “Wait, couldn’t you input the schematics into a holodeck and test it out there?”

  Kendra smiled. “Still got it, Fabe—took you a minute to figure out what I needed two hours to stumble upon. Yes, a holodeck can do it, if it’s got enough memory to handle that much complexity and run full diagnostics at the same time. The only place around here that fits the bill is—”

  “Starfleet Academy.”

  “Right. I talked to them about it, and they love the idea. Their holodecks can handle the load without a problem, and they want to use it as a final exam—take the top students of the current engineering class and have them test everything out, including simulated crises. Remember Crawford Pressman?”

  “Old Crawfish?” They both laughed as they thought about the classmate they had teased so many times.

  “Well, he’s a senior instructor at the Academy now—I know, I know, but he loved the idea, and helped champion it to the board. So they’ve agreed to do it. And Starfleet likes the idea, because it lets us run a full test on the ship without draining any of our own resources. They’ve agreed to let a full-fledged holosuite test stand in for the normal testing procedure.”

  “Great, so what’s the problem?”

  She sighed. “Politics, what else? The Academy insists that they be the ones to run the test—their students, their suite. Starfleet says it has to be one of us, since it’s our ship design. And the only time the Academy can do it is a few weeks from now, because it needs to be during their exam period, which is right when we’ve got our annual presentation to the budget oversight committee. I can’t get out of that, which means I can’t be there for the exam, and I don’t trust anyone at the Academy or elsewhere in Starfleet to handle it without me.” Then she paused and looked at Fabian with that slow smile he’d learned to fear years ago. “Wait, when did you say you were visiting?”

  “Three weeks. Why—? Wait a second!”

  Kendra, damn her, pulled her winsome look on him, knowing full well that it was unfair. “Please, Fabe? I trust you completely, you know that. And you’ll understand the design better than anyone else could—hell, half of it came out of those late-night doughnut runs we used to make, when we’d blue-sky ship designs. Plus you’re Starfleet, so I’m sure they’d be fine with you stepping in—if R&D can’t run an engineering simulation, S.C.E. would be the other logical choice. And you’d be doing me a huge favor. What do you say?”

  He’d pretended to think it over, but actually he’d loved the idea. It was a chance for him to teach the next generation of Starfleet engineers, some of whom might even join S.C.E. someday. And it helped Kendra out. Plus it looked like fun.

  Kendra had called him back the next day.

  “Starfleet loves it,” she told him. “They’re thrilled with the idea of S.C.E. testing both the ship and the graduating class. And the Academy is happy about it, because they want to see if their kids can handle whatever the S.C.E. throws at them. The one catch is, they insist that one of their own faculty supervise and assist.”

  “Not Crawfish,” Fabian said, but she was already shaking her head.

  “Fabe, would I do that to you? Actually, he didn’t even ask for it—probably afraid to be in a room with you again. No, it’s going to be one of their other instructors, an Alex Sparks. I’ve met him once or twice, and he seems pretty decent.”

  “Well, that’s fine, then.” Then Fabian had another thought. “Hey, do you need anyone else involved? Like a second S.C.E. officer?”

  His old friend shrugged. “If you want to bring in one of the others, I’m sure it’d be okay.”

  “Good, because I think it’ll make things easier—he can stay onstage while Sparks and I work behind the scenes.” They’d made the final arrangements, and Fabian had talked to Tev later that day. He’d known exactly which buttons to push, and the Tellarite had agreed immediately to assist in the exam. Which is why, Fabian thought, I’m now babysitting a bunch of kids in a holodeck when I could be out partying. Kendra owes me for this.

  Chapter

  5

  “No self-respecting Klingon would allow such a thing! It would be a disgrace!” Lantar cried.

  “So would looking like you’ve never even heard of a bath, much less taken one,” Rachel shot back. Then she smiled at him—the smile Gold knew meant to stand well clear, and to hide any edged weapons. “You have heard of baths, haven’t you?”

  “Are you disputing the honor of my House?” Lantar thundered. His face was darkening with rage, which, unfortunately, Esther seemed to find funny. She was fighting a losing battle not to giggle.

  Captain Gold quietly placed his thumb on his phaser and changed the settings.

  “Stop laughing, human! If you were Klingon, I would teach you the meaning of respect!” Lantar raised his voice even more. It was almost pure melodrama, of course, but that didn’t make it any quieter.

  “Father, calm down,” Khor said in an almost-hiss. “You are making a fool of yourself!”

  Captain Gold, very calmly, pulled out his phaser. He aimed vaguely upward.

  “I’d like to see you try and earn respect, you swaggering—”

  “How dare—”

  “Don’t you—”

  “Get your—”

  BZZZZZZZZOUNT!

  The ceiling light exploded. Captain Gold lowered his phaser, idly thumbing the setting to stun. The room fell silent for just a moment, then the doors flew open and two Klingon guards burst into the room, disruptors drawn and pointed at the Gold family.

  “Ambassador, is everything all right?”

  “Not a problem,” Captain Gold started, before Lantar could speak. “Looks like the overhead lighting suffered some kind of overload, and chose an—interesting time to let go. Wouldn’t you say that, Lantar?”

  The guards kept their phasers on the humans, and looked to Lantar. Lantar looked at Captain Gold, then up at the damaged light, and finally back at the guards with a big smile on his face. “Yes, I suspect things got a bit overheated in here. No serious harm done
. Go back to your posts, and notify maintenance that I’ll want this repaired before the end of the day.”

  The guards looked a bit disappointed that they didn’t get to shoot anything, but quickly replied, “Yes, Ambassador,” and left the room.

  When the doors slid shut, Lantar turned to Gold. “I defer to your direct—if somewhat destructive—solution.”

  “I apologize for the damages caused. Please feel free to bill Starfleet.”

  “No need, Captain. We realize that occasionally negotiations can get heated.” He spoke with such a tone in his voice that Gold thought Lantar should have become a used-hovercraft salesman.

  Gold turned to address everybody else in the room. “Now then. We are going to handle this in a calm, orderly fashion. Esther, Khor, Lantar, and Rachel. I want each of you to go into separate rooms and write down the ten things you most want in this ceremony. Now. This minute. Without talking to one another.”

  “Wait a minute,” Esther said. “What about—?”

  Gold stared at his granddaughter, and she closed her mouth and made a little “hmph” noise. Thank God, he thought, it worked. I’m going to have to remember this for the next time she comes over for the High Holy Days.

  “When you’re done, I’ll look your lists over and see what I can do about reconciling them.”

  “And what about your list?” asked Khor.

  “I’m not making a list. Starfleet weddings have a lot of leeway, so I’m not really invested in any one method—which is why I’m playing mediator.” Everyone looked thoughtful, but no one immediately spoke up, so Gold took that as assent and went on before anyone could find a reason to object. “Lantar, could I impose upon you for a few unoccupied rooms here in the embassy, so everyone can retire to neutral corners?”

  “That could be arranged. In fact, why don’t you stay here in my office? I’d like someplace quiet to gather my own thoughts, and someone should stay here while the repairs take place.”

  “That sounds quite reasonable.”

  “Then let me show the rest of your family to separate quarters. Khor, you can find your own way out. There is still enough Klingon in you to find your way to the mess hall, I hope. Ladies?” Lantar exited the room, trying to ooze charm all the way. Rachel and Esther followed him.

  Khor walked over to the debris of the light fixture that had fallen to the floor. He bent over and picked up a piece of metal about the size of his fist, then stood up. And stayed there silently. After ten seconds, Gold was about to say something when Khor suddenly threw the remnant straight up into the hole, causing another small explosion. When Gold looked back at Khor, he was already storming out the door.

  Maybe I can just pronounce them married and be done with this mishegoss, Gold thought. No, to do that I’d have to get everybody back to the da Vinci. Property damage is one thing, kidnapping is quite another. Khor owes me for this. For that matter, so do Esther and Rachel.

  Chapter

  6

  Fabian’s reverie was broken by a high-pitched siren somewhere nearby.

  “That’s the Hyperion’s warning klaxon,” Sparks said. “Something’s wrong with the ship.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Fabian said. “After all the trouble I went through programming glitches into its systems, and crises for the holosuite, if nothing was wrong we’d have a problem.” Still not the slightest smile from Sparks—maybe he was a robot? Fabian remembered a few professors who, based upon their lecturing style, would have qualified as such. “Well, let’s go take a look.”

  They stepped out of the area they’d marked off as their office—a small space that did not appear on the Hyperion and contained only a pair of desks and a pair of chairs—and passed through a wall and into the simulated spaceship. Alarms were still blaring throughout the corridors, and the two men walked quickly down one hallway, searching for any hint of trouble. When they turned a corner, they found it.

  “Whoa!” Fabian windmilled his arms, trying to regain his balance, but it was Alex’s hand on his shoulder that pulled him back from the brink. Literally, since he found himself staring down at an irregular hole in the floor, and into the deck below. What the hell?

  Crouching down, he saw that the edges of the hole weren’t burnt, nor had they been cut. Instead, the ceramic alloy sagged around the edges, in much the way that hot wax dripped around the sides of a candle.

  “I don’t understand,” Alex said, running one hand along a wall and then inspecting the thin film that now coated his palm and fingers. “The walls are—melting?”

  “Looks that way.” Fabian rose to his feet again. “Come on, let’s see what the kids make of all this.”

  Not surprisingly, they found the students clustered in engineering again, all except the one assigned to the bridge. The rest were stationed at the consoles around the room, or using padds they had plugged into ports along the walls.

  “I’m reading a marked increase in ferric acids across the entire ship,” one of them called out. He was short and slight, with a shock of brown hair over pinched features, and Sparks supplied the name “Ben Martin” when Fabian turned toward him.

  “Shields are at one hundred percent,” the tiny blond girl Fabian recognized as Zoe Wilson added from a console.

  “Is it just me, or are these kids getting younger every year? She looks too young to be in the Academy,” he said, and Alex nodded.

  “That’s because she’s thirteen.”

  “Thirteen?”

  “Yes—she’s a prodigy.”

  “She’d have to be,” Fabian muttered, turning back to watch them again.

  “No spatial anomalies,” someone else, Tanya, was commenting. “We’re all alone out here, and the space around us reads as normal.”

  “Okay, so it’s not coming from without—it must be from within,” a slender Bajoran woman mused out loud. “Anybody picking up anything strange?”

  “You mean, besides the fact that the floors look like ice cream at a picnic?” Malcolm asked. “Nothing.”

  “Ferric acid would indicate corrosion,” Santar said. “We are dealing with corrosive acids, and they are eating through the ship.”

  “But where did they start?” a stocky, olive-skinned man demanded. “It had to start somewhere, right?”

  Sparks whispered, “Tomas delFuego,” even though the students couldn’t hear him.

  “Sensors show the corrosion is consistent all around the outside,” a tall, stocky young man said.

  “That’s Ian Gymis,” Alex said.

  “The next layer has its own level,” Gymis continued, “and it’s got less corrosion, but what it has is uniform throughout the level.”

  “So it began from the outside, and is working its way in,” the Bajoran, Latha Meru, mused. “And it hit every side at once.”

  “But the shields should have—the shields!” Tanya turned back to her panel and rapidly typed several commands. “Got it! The shields are the problem! Something’s altered their composition, so they’re producing ferric acids. They’re corroding the ship!”

  “Killing the shields,” Malcolm called out, and suited his action to the statement.

  “Corrosion no longer spreading,” Ben said a few seconds later.

  “I’ve got emergency force fields around the bulkhead,” Zoe said. “So we’ve still got hull integrity—for now.”

  “We’ve got to repair the damage,” Tomas said, and looked around. “Any ideas?”

  “Computer,” Santar called out, “reverse gravity field throughout the ship.” Several other students looked confused, but a few nodded. So did both Fabian and Alex. “The corroded material was essentially liquefied, and falling inward,” he explained in the way that so many Vulcans did, assuming that everyone else was kindergarten age. “With the gravity reversed, any remaining liquid material should flow back out.”

  Tanya took the lead next. “Computer, purge all air in the rooms along the outer bulkhead, unless a room is occupied. Drop temperature in those same rooms t
o minus ten degrees.”

  “Purging, temperature approaching requested level,” the computer reported an instant later. Tanya waited almost a full minute before telling it to pump fresh air into the rooms again.

  “Nice,” Sparks said, and Fabian nodded his agreement. Corrosion involved ferrous oxide, or rust, and its reaction to open air. Oxygen fed the reaction, just as it fed the flames of a fire. By removing the air from those rooms, Tanya had halted the process, making sure nothing else would melt. The cold also slowed chemical processes, and between that and the lack of air, the acid would have become inert. Now it was just a matter of repairing the damage that had already occurred.

  “Cute,” Tomas muttered, spinning in a circle. “Professor Sparks, Mr. Stevens, can you hear me? That was cute—making the shields corrosive.”

  “Oh yeah,” Malcolm added, nodding. “The ship was eating itself, man. Get it? The ship was eating itself!”

  “That was a nice idea,” Sparks said as he and Fabian stepped back out into the hall. “I’m surprised they figured it out so quickly.”

  “So am I,” Fabian said. “We’re so used to thinking that shields are always our best defense, and this turned that notion on its ear. Their inexperience was actually an advantage this time—they haven’t been conditioned to always trust their ship’s shields, so they actually checked on the shields first, and really looked at the data on them.” He glanced around. “There’s one problem, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  Fabian frowned. “I didn’t come up with that one, and I sure as hell didn’t program it in.” He eyed his companion. “What about you?”

  But Alex held both hands up in surrender. “Don’t look at me,” he replied. “I’m here to make sure everything runs smoothly—you’re the man with the tests. I’ve left you to come up with details on what we should do to them, and to the ship.” He gestured behind him as they reached their office and sank into the two desk chairs.