Collective Hindsight (Book 2) - Aaron Rosenberg [19]
“I purged the computer systems,” Soloman said. “Nothing is left to start up again. I even removed the hardwired commands, like its directive to return home.”
“And then we just beamed out and left it there.” Gold glanced over at Fabian, and it occurred to Pattie that he might think Fabian was kidding. But one look at his face revealed what she already knew, that he was serious. This time.
“Wait a second, you left it there? Sitting on the outer edge of the sun, where anyone could beam on to it?” But the captain calmed down a moment later—perhaps because several of them were smiling.
“The sun’s gravity has pulled the ship into its core,” Tev said, even though Gold was already shaking his head. Of course, Pattie thought. He knows how gravity wells work—he just wasn’t thinking about that at the moment.
“Has it been destroyed, then?”
Everyone glanced around, but no one answered. Finally, since no one had volunteered, Pattie spoke up. “We don’t know, Captain. The Dancing Star was built to withstand the heat and energy of a sun. And even though we disconnected everything, its hull is intact. It could still be in there.”
“It might always be in there,” Fabian said. “Or at least as long as that sun survives.”
“But it’s definitely not going anywhere this time,” Sonya added. “And nobody can get to it, unless they can already dive into a sun and survive—in which case they won’t gain much from finding it.”
“Well, at least it’s not a threat anymore.” Gold leaned back and looked around. “Did you bring back any of the pieces for study?”
Pattie couldn’t help wriggling her antennae in excitement. “Of course. We have one of the crystals from the engine, and one of the capacitors, and one of the energy panes it used. Plus a sample of the hull, and the recording Soloman made of the computer systems.”
Gold laughed. “Well, that ought to keep you all pretty busy, then.” He stood to go. “Good work, team. I’ll let Captain Scott know that the universe is safe from at least one runaway star.”
* * *
“Penny for your thoughts, Commander?” Most of the others had filed out, but Sonya looked up to discover Fabian, Pattie, and Soloman standing before her.
“Sorry, Fabe, just lost in thought.” She smiled a little. “I was just thinking about—well, about how funny life is.”
“You don’t seem to be laughing.” Pattie’s observation did make Sonya laugh, at least a little.
“No, not funny that way. More funny-odd. I mean, here is this ship, this amazing ship, and what do we do with it? We send it into a sun where no one can touch it.” She sighed. “Plus it’s a ship we’ve already seen once before, and now we’re dealing with it again.”
Fabian and Pattie exchanged glances. “Actually, Commander, we were thinking about that too, Pattie and I.” Fabian sat down next to her. “The three of us”—he included Pattie and Soloman with a wave of his hand”—were on the original team. We thought we’d figured this ship out and shut it down, and now here it comes all over again. We couldn’t help feeling like it was a ghost from our past.”
“An old mistake, come back to haunt us,” Pattie said. “And we wondered if, since we got it wrong the first time, we had any hope of figuring it out the second time.”
“Especially since…we aren’t who we were then.” Soloman looked sad, and Sonya knew that this mission had hurt him at least as much as it had her. She’d been reminded of Kieran, but he had been reminded of 111, and they had actually been on this mission together, whereas she had not even been part of the team yet.
“But we couldn’t have fixed this one without any of you.” She looked at each of them in turn. “All of you contributed to this, and came up with things Tev and I didn’t. We needed the fresh perspective, yes, but we also needed your ability to look back at it and see it again with more experienced eyes.”
“I…was embarrassed,” Soloman admitted quietly. “Embarrassed that 111 and I had missed that emergency protocol before. And I felt that I was tainting her memory by revealing that she and I had made a mistake.” He lifted his head and met her gaze,