Collective Hindsight (Book 2) - Aaron Rosenberg [10]
“I may have an answer to that,” Soloman said. “Many of its computer files had been wiped before we found it that first time, but not everything was lost. I have been going back over it, and I think I’ve found the relevant command.” He glanced down at his padd as if for confirmation. “Each internal vent knocked the computer systems offline, but they rebooted after a suitable period. An emergency protocol demands that if the ship’s systems shut down twice within roughly one Federation week, the ship will immediately start a preprogrammed course. Most likely back to their homeworld, for repairs.” He looked embarrassed, the first time Carol could remember seeing that expression on his face. “The commands were hardwired into the system, which may be why we missed it before.”
Gold nodded. “Makes sense—if it’s broken down twice in one week something’s wrong, so it’s recalled for servicing. And, between its crew’s sacrifice and then Salek’s, that was twice in a single day. So once it was online again, and had enough power, it headed home.”
“Why is it close to overloading again, then?” Corsi asked. “Isn’t it burning off the energy as it goes?”
“Not enough, apparently.” Fabian thought about it for a minute. “Actually, I think I know why. And it’s our own fault.” He shook his head. “Salek disconnected the safety protocols so that he could vent internally that second time. I’ll bet some of those protocols included commands for automatically venting energy to prevent an overload. Plus, I did retask some of its vents for use as guns—so it can’t use those vents unless someone engages them from the weapons console I added.”
“You had no way of knowing that it would reemerge,” Sonya reminded him. “Why bother to reactivate those protocols if it’s just going to sit in a sun forever?”
Gold glanced at everyone. “Well, I’m impressed, as usual. So now you know how it works, and why it’s moving, and why it’s overheating. What’s next?”
“Now we deactivate it properly,” Sonya replied. “We—” Whatever she was about to say was cut off by a call from Shabalala on the bridge.
“Captain, a ship just dropped out of warp and is heading right for us.”
“On my way,” Gold replied, standing up. The others followed suit. “Good work, people. Gomez, Tev, you’d better come with me.”
As they all headed out, Bart leaned in toward Carol and whispered, “Genius?”
Carol just grinned back at him and, very maturely, stuck out her tongue.
Chapter
4
“All right, Shabalala, what’ve we got?” Gold settled immediately into his command chair, Gomez and Tev stepping to either side of him. To Wong, watching from his conn station, the move looked perfectly synchronized, as if they’d practiced it. He suppressed a grin at the image of the three of them blocking the move out late at night and turned back to his station instead.
“Single ship, sir,” Shabalala said. “Configuration matches the Androssi.”
“Oh, great,” Wong heard Commander Gomez mutter. “Tell me it’s not Overseer Biron again, at least.”
“No, Commander, this ship isn’t one we’ve seen before.”
“Well, that’s something,” she said, but Shabalala wasn’t finished.
“For one thing,” he continued, “it’s at least twice the size of Biron’s.”
“Me and my big mouth,” Gomez moaned. “What else?”
“I’m picking up multiple energy readings, Commander. Each one matches the signature of an Androssi engine, but I’ve got three separate locations for it.”
“Clearly they have installed multiple engines for increased thrust,” Tev declared. Wong didn’t much care for his tone, the “any idiot could see that” way he talked to everyone. Come to think of it, nobody on the bridge liked him much. But at least he was usually right.
“I’ve got something, too, Captain,” Haznedl added from the ops console next to Wong. “Multiple communications readings