Boogeymen - Mel Gilden [18]
Wesley shook his head. Had everybody heard of the Borders scale but him?
Picard looked around, realized they weren’t moving, and said, “Deck eleven.”
Wesley brought up the bridge of the Enterprise on the holodeck, asked for the Kobayashi Maru training scenario with the Boogeyman modifications. Wesley was a little nervous about taking the center seat with the captain there, but Picard insisted. “No point in doing this at all if I act as captain,” he said. He took the conn while Data sat at Ops. On the main screen a normal-looking star field came toward them at warp speed.
Wesley tried to get comfortable in the command chair. He didn’t know what the Kobayashi Maru was, but it didn’t seem so bad so far.
Picard leaned toward Data and said, “You know, in the old days, Starfleet actually had to build mock starship bridges in order to run their training scenarios.”
“Interesting,” said Data. With sudden seriousness, he said, “Transmission coming in.”
“On audio,” Wesley said.
Picard smiled at him and turned to his control board.
A broken signal came in. Most of it was garbled or obscured by static. “Mayday, Mayday,” it said. “This is the freighter, Kobayashi Maru. All systems failing. Help desperately needed. Any ship within hailing distance, please help.”
“Location of Kobayashi Maru?” Wesley said.
Data scanned his board and said, “One two three seven mark four. The Romulan Neutral Zone.”
“Oops,” said Wesley, a little too loudly. Picard glanced at him appraisingly. “Uh,” said Wesley, “tactical.”
The freighter’s distress message continued to come in while Wesley studied the display now on the main screen. Enterprise was the blue flashing light on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone. Just the other side of the open fence that represented the Neutral Zone, the Kobayashi Maru was represented by an amber pulse. No Romulan vessels were on the screen, but they wouldn’t show up if they were cloaked.
“Data?” Wesley said.
“It could be a trick to lure us into the Neutral Zone. If no distressed freighter exists, the Federation would look very bad.”
Wesley bit a knuckle and said, “And what if the
Mayday is genuine? Mr. Picard, lay in a course for the freighter.”
“Captain,” Picard said, “the Romulans will interpret our incursion into the Neutral Zone as a hostile act.”
“I am aware of that, Mr. Picard. Lay in the course.”
“Aye, sir.”
On the tactical display, the proposed course of the Enterprise was an elegant black curve from its present position to that of the Kobayashi Maru.
Wesley was feeling a little more comfortable with command. Everybody was cooperating. The power he felt seemed to be rising from the center seat itself. “Execute course,” he said.
“Aye.”
On the tactical display, the blue pulse of Enterprise crossed through the open mesh of the Neutral Zone limit. A few seconds later the amber light went out and the distress signal stopped in mid-word. Wesley knew he’d been had.
“Captain,” said Data. “Boogeyman war spiders uncloaking now.”
“On visual.”
The tactical display was replaced by two large black ships. Each had a central button—obviously living and control quarters—from which descended three legs. At the end of each leg was a small warp engine. The war spiders were bearing down on the Enterprise at a high rate of speed.
Wesley cried, “Mr. Data, red alert. Get us out of here, Mr. Picard.”
The red alert Klaxon began.
“Impossible, Captain. View aft.” Behind the Enterprise were two more war spiders. The ship shuddered.
“View forward,” Data said, and the picture changed just in time for them to see a photon torpedo, or something like it, fired from one of the war spiders.
“Damage report.”
“Primary shield breached,” Data said. “Hull damage in sections seventeen through twenty-four and thirty-six through forty. Casualties heavy.”
Sweating now, Wesley looked at the back of Picard’s neck. What would he do in these circumstances? Would Picard have allowed himself to get into a situation like this? “Recommendations,” he said. This was supposed to be a training mission, of course. It wasn’t real.