Creative Couplings Book 1 Read online

  Fabian leaned back, the back of his head brushing the wall. “Well, if I didn’t program that one, and you didn’t…”

  “The students?” Alex asked, and Fabian nodded.

  “It’s got to be. Nobody else has such immediate access, besides us. And this sounds like a typical prank.” He saw that Alex was frowning, and waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. Most engineers play pranks on each other or on the rest of the crew as a way to pass the time. And this one didn’t really put anybody at risk. Sure, someone could have fallen through the floor into the rooms below, but that was the only real danger. The holosuite safeties would kick in anyhow.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Fabian shrugged. “Same thing we’d do if it had been one of ours, I guess. We log it in, and score everyone on how they handled it.” He scratched his temple absently. “Actually, we can do that later. Maybe we should stop by and see the captain first, check in with him.” His companion nodded, and together they set out for the bridge.

  Chapter

  7

  “Cadet, what is our present speed?”

  “Warp one-point-five, Captain.”

  “Very good. Continue at present speed and course.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Tev leaned back in his chair, hands resting comfortably on the armrests, and cast a proprietary eye over the bridge. His bridge. The room had been designed to maximize its small space, and felt far larger than it was, despite the consoles arranged around it and the crew members stationed at each one. The floor was clean, the walls spotless, and the instrument panels practically sparkled. And his crew was obedient, well-mannered, and quiet. All was right with the world.

  “Having fun?”

  The voice belonged to Specialist Stevens, who materialized right next to the captain’s chair. This wasn’t a transporter beam, however—Stevens simply winked into existence. Standing slightly behind him and to one side was that instructor, Sparks, who was idly stroking his beard with one hand.

  “Actually, yes,” Tev admitted. “Leadership suits me, and I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I am very good at it.”

  His colleague grinned at him, and Tev reminded himself that, after all, Stevens was the one who had gotten him involved in this project. That had come as a bit of a surprise, actually. The two of them had settled their differences, based primarily on Stevens’s inappropriate friendship with Tev’s predecessor, and they now made a fairly good team—with Tev taking the lead, of course—but they were hardly friends. So he had been unprepared when Stevens had caught up with him outside the engine room on the da Vinci, thirty-four hours after Captain Gold’s announcement of their impending leave.

  “Tev, what are you going to do when we’re on Earth?” Stevens had asked him. For a moment Tev had considered saying that it was none of the specialist’s business, but his time on the da Vinci had taught him that such a reaction was unnecessary, and counterproductive. The question was most likely an innocent one, and answering it so tersely was an overreaction.

  Instead, he told the truth. “I had planned to visit several former colleagues, and make sure I was current on the latest engineering techniques and discoveries.”

  “Well, how would you like to do something else instead?”

  Tev sighed. “I just told you what I was planning to do. Since obviously I am the one who selected that activity, it must be exactly what I wanted to do.”

  “Ah, but that’s because you haven’t had a better offer.” Stevens grinned. He leaned in more closely. “How would you like to captain a starship?”

  That had piqued his interest. After all, Tev knew himself to be extremely capable, and fully intended to become a captain someday. But these things normally took time—years or even decades of proving oneself. Stevens was suggesting that he could help circumvent that delay.

  “I’m listening,” Tev had said, crossing his arms.

  “Okay, there’s this friend of mine, and she’s designed this ship….” Tev had listened, and then considered. It was not a real ship, of course. But it would seem like a real one, and that meant that being its captain would also seem real. If nothing else, it would give him some idea of what sitting in that captain’s chair would feel like someday.

  “What about crew?” he’d asked. “I will need a bridge crew.”

  “We’ll rotate which student handles the operations console,” Stevens had assured him. “The rest will be holograms, but they’ll act like a real crew.”

  That had made Tev realize something else. “I assume, since these are merely holograms, that we can program the crew to be anyone we want?” Now, he looked past his S.C.E. teammate’s shoulder, watching as his detested third cousin Renn and his tiresome primary education provider, Strenya, handled the monotonous tasks of maintaining proper air mixtures throughout the ship and monitoring their immediate area for any signs of radio chatter or subspace communication. Oh yes, he was definitely enjoying this.

  “The students are doing a fine job,” Sparks commented from the side. “They’ve been responding quickly to each new situation, and handling it with maximum efficiency and minimal damage or personal risk.”

  “We do have a small glitch, though,” Stevens said. “Looks like one of the students has hacked the holosuite and inserted a few pranks of his own.” The specialist filled him in on the recent crisis.

  “An excellent jest,” Tev said after he had heard the details. “We were informed of the change in structural integrity, of course, but I have not yet received a proper status report from engineering. In fact—” he held up one hand, then stabbed a button on the chair’s left arm. “Engineering, this is the captain.”

  “Engineering here,” came the reply. Whoever was speaking was young, female, and, judging from the tone, irritable.

  “I have not yet received a status report on the ship’s recent difficulty. I will expect one within the hour.”

  The girl on the other end made a rude noise. “Sir, all due respect but we’re a bit busy here. We’ve got to reconstitute those hull portions that melted completely, and we still need to—”

  Tev cut her off. “Cadet, this is not a request. You will follow proper procedure, and submit a full report of the incident.”

  “Why should we?” A different voice—a male one—spoke. “Professor Sparks and Mr. Stevens probably saw what happened. Just ask them.”

  Tev repressed a growl. “Cadet, because you are new I will explain this to you this one time. I already know what happened. That is not the point. Starfleet continues to exist because it has rules and regulations, and because every Starfleet member follows those codes. One such stricture states that, when an incident occurs on a starship, those responsible for identifying and handling the matter file a full report with their commanding officer, who then enters it into the ship’s log. This is part of your duty. If you are incapable of handling the report, you will never rise above the level of third technician, no matter how brilliant your deductions or how clever your repairs. And while you are taking part in this exercise, you will behave as a full Starfleet engineer aboard a true Starfleet vessel. Which means that you will have that incident report to me within the hour. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Very clear, sir,” came a third voice, this one also female. “We’ll have that report to you within the hour, sir.”

  “Very good. Captain out.” Tev turned back to Stevens and Sparks, noting that the specialist was trying to hide a smile. “Sometimes it is necessary to remind them of their place.”

  “Actually, you made a good point.” Stevens looked as surprised as Tev felt at that admission. “They’ve got to learn that, no matter how smart they are, they still have to follow the rules. Even the dumb ones, like filing an incident report.”

  “Precisely.” Tev leaned back in his chair again. Haranguing that cadet had been a great deal of fun, and he was debating the merit of making a surprise inspection of engineering at some point, and verbally dressing down the studen
ts for anything he found amiss. But perhaps later. Work came first.

  “The ship itself is handling well,” he informed Stevens. “All systems are performing at well above adequate levels. We have noticed a few small flaws in the shipboard systems, primarily in navigation and internal security, and I have already designed and applied corrective measures in those areas. But overall, the Hyperion is handling quite well. It is more maneuverable than any other vessel this size, and has more acceleration than most larger ships, plus its shielding has proven more than sufficient for the spatial anomalies we’ve encountered thus far. Of course, we have yet to test its weapons capabilities, but I have every confidence that it can hold its own against anything short of a full warship.”

  “Thanks for the update.” Stevens looked genuinely grateful. Tev reminded himself that the ship designer was a friend of the human’s. During this experiment, Stevens’s primary responsibility was to supervise the students, to see how they handled themselves during each crisis. Tev was in charge of monitoring the ship and analyzing its design. That made far more sense than having one person handle both tasks simultaneously, of course, and it was why Stevens had asked him to participate in the first place. For his part, Tev had agreed because it gave him the chance to try his hand as captain, he got to be the first person to test a new class of ship, and he approved of the logic of having two S.C.E. members conducting the exercise.

  The fact that it was so much fun was simply an added bonus.

  T’nok watched from the operations console as the Tellarite S.C.E. officer conducted his one-sided conversation. Judging from his mannerisms, he was speaking with two others, which suggested that both Mr. Stevens and Professor Sparks were present on the bridge. Clearly, however, they had instructed the holosuite computer to maintain their cloak except in regard to their fellow supervisor, and so she could neither see nor hear them.

  Not that it mattered. T’nok maintained her casual inspection of the console, assuring herself that the ship was rapidly returning to pristine order. As the student currently assigned to the bridge, her job was merely to monitor the instrumentation, and to alert the captain of any problems. She did not need to know what the other instructors were telling him. Of course, that did not mean she could not listen to his half of the conversation—indeed, on such a small bridge it was difficult not to overhear everything—or try to guess at what the others were saying in response. T’nok saw nothing wrong with such behavior—she was determined to do the best job possible on this examination, and that meant acquiring as much information as she could, from every available source. Just now, for example, “Captain” Tev’s pause after stating that it was necessary to remind people of their place suggested that he might be considering additional opportunities to rebuke her and her fellow students for some perceived lack of discipline. Perhaps a surprise inspection. T’nok would simply make sure that her workspace was kept spotless, and that all of her notes and files were in proper order. She also saw no reason to inform the others of this possibility—let them discover it on their own.

  Her musings were cut short by a strange fluctuation on one of the monitors. It vanished almost immediately, but she was sure she had seen it, and focused on tracking down the cause. Then the captain’s combadge beeped, and T’nok listened intently, already sure that the incoming hail would somehow connect to that same reading.

  “Captain,” Ian called over the comlink, distracting Alex from the conversation with Tev and Fabian, “we’ve got a problem with the galley.”

  “What sort of problem, Cadet?” Tev said, and Alex had to admit that he looked every bit the starship captain—completely at ease in his command chair, and more than a little bit arrogant about it. The arrogance was replaced by confusion a second later, however, when Ian replied.

  “It—it’s missing, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, we lost the cafeteria,” Tomas chimed in. “Guess we should have brought our own lunches, huh?”

  Tev was already glancing at T’nok, who shook her head. As always, Alex admired her calm—she was Vulcan through and through, with all of their usual logic and composure, tempered by personal ambition and a desire for knowledge that matched anything the other students could muster. She had apparently been listening to the calls, and had already guessed Tev’s question.

  “I’m not showing anything wrong with the galley, Captain,” she said. “The ship’s structure is unaltered. I did, however, detect a brief pulse of energy in that vicinity, just seconds before the first call.”

  As Tev gave T’nok instructions on rescanning the area, Fabian turned to Alex. “Come on, let’s take a look at this wandering café.”

  Alex shook his head but followed Fabian off the bridge anyway. What was it with most engineers that they needed to handle every situation by joking about it? He’d never understood that attitude, even back in school. Which could have been the reason why he’d wound up as an instructor rather than serving on a starship himself—perhaps you were supposed to make jokes when things looked bad. He just didn’t have that knack, though, and he generally didn’t find such jokes amusing.

  Still, Fabian wasn’t a bad fellow, Alex mused as they took the lift down. He certainly knew his job, and he was doing a very good job of creating obstacles for the students. He’d have made a fine instructor, Alex thought. And, with his casual attitude and his constant quips, the students would probably like him a good deal more than they do me. At least they’d feel more comfortable with him.

  The lift doors opened, and the two of them stepped out into the hall, almost running into Ian, Tomas, and Ben. Several more of the students were milling about in the hallway, and Alex was glad that the computer made them swerve around him automatically—otherwise he and Fabian would have had a tough time squeezing past. As it was, they navigated a path down to the point where the corridor turned right toward the galley or ran straight toward storage, and headed right—only to find themselves at the storeroom instead.

  “That’s strange,” Fabian muttered, and turned back toward the galley. Alex mimicked him, and an instant later they both found themselves facing the storeroom again.

  While Fabian studied the storeroom door in case it was somehow masking the galley entrance, Alex turned to his left, to glance down the corridor again. The students were still there, and were also acting strange. Even as he watched, he saw Latha Meru turn away from him, apparently retreating to the lift—but wind up facing him again anyway, as if she had done a full circle rather than a simple quarter-turn. And Ian, who had his back against the right side wall, turned his head to continue speaking to Meru, but wound up looking at the lift instead.

  “No right turns,” Alex whispered, and repeated himself when Fabian glanced up at him. “There are no right turns! That’s why we can’t get to the galley—it’s a right turn down the corridor, and we can only turn left!”

  Even he thought it sounded insane, but Fabian straightened up and considered it. Alex also told him what he’d seen the students do, and his companion finally nodded.

  “Let’s test it,” he said. “I’ve got my back to the storage room now, right?” He grinned. “I mean, correct?” Alex nodded. “Okay, I’m going to turn to the right so that I’m facing it again.” And then Fabian turned left, looking down the corridor toward the lift. “Hm. I told my body ‘right’ and it went ‘left’ instead. Interesting.” He turned left again, and said, “Aha! And here’s the galley! From this end of the corridor we need to turn left to get to it, so we can actually reach it.”

  Even as they watched, the students came to the same conclusion. They had been going around in circles near the middle of the corridor, but Meru finally walked down to their end, and by turning left several times, wound up facing the right-hand side, and the galley door. She called out to her classmates, and they all repeated her trick. But that told them why they hadn’t been able to locate the galley—it didn’t explain why they couldn’t turn right.

  “Clever,” Fabian
admitted to Alex as they watched the students struggle with it. “The ship’s untouched, which is why T’nok’s scans didn’t show any problems. It’s messing with the people directly instead.” He tapped his combadge. “Computer, has anyone accessed the program today besides myself, Lieutenant Commander Tev, and Professor Sparks?”

  “Negative,” the computer replied, and Fabian shrugged. But Alex had a question of his own.

  “Computer, has anyone replicated hallucinogenic gas within the ship?” Again the reply was negative, but Fabian nodded.

  “Nice. You’re right—whoever did this could have done it by using the ship’s own replicators, without ever touching the main program. And gas would certainly make us see things, though to make everyone have exactly the same problem might be too sophisticated. But what do I know—I’m an engineer, not an alchemist.”

  Alex didn’t bother to respond to that. Instead he turned to see what his students were up to now.

  “—nothing wrong with the ship itself,” Santar was reporting, “so something is affecting our perceptions instead. Convincing us that we cannot turn to the right.”

  “Gas?” Ian asked, but Meru shook her head.

  “Too specific for a gas,” she pointed out, and Alex nodded. Good girl. But then, Meru had always been clever. Perhaps too clever—she never seemed to struggle with anything, or even to work too hard, and he suspected her classmates resented that.

  “Well, what could make us all lose a direction?” Malcolm demanded.

  “T’nok,” Zoe called over her combadge, “can you turn to the right?”

  “Excuse me?” T’nok replied. “Are you requesting that the Hyperion make a course change?”

  “No, I’m asking you to turn to your right and tell me what you see.”

  “Very well.” T’nok sounded confused by this request but apparently complied, because a moment later she stated, “I am facing Captain Tev.”