Enigma Ship - J. Steven York [10]
Gomez considered this for a moment. “We need a can opener,” she finally said.
“I think I heard somebody suggest that idea.”
She gave him a look that had stopped strong men in their tracks, but he just shrugged and grinned at her.
“But we need one that also works from the inside,” she continued. “That means we can’t just duplicate one of the methods for entering Enigma, we have to understand how it works before we find ourselves trapped.” She stood up abruptly. “Come on, time to look at those sensor logs again.”
Duffy groaned, loudly. “We’ve been through them a dozen times,” he protested, but he was already climbing out of his chair to follow her.
“Then that obviously wasn’t enough,” she shot back over her shoulder, as she led the way out of the mess hall.
* * *
Soloman stared intently out the viewplate, watching floating debris drift by only inches from his face. “This is entirely illogical, P8.”
“Concentrate on flying the pod,” P8 Blue’s voice came from a hidden speaker. “Besides, you’re a Bynar, not a Vulcan. Stop sounding like one.”
“Computers are inherently logical, and Bynars are a computer-based society.”
“Yes, but you’re a passionate people too, even though you don’t often express it so other humanoids can understand. You delight, you fear, you love. I’ve seen it. Look out!”
A proximity klaxon sounded, and Soloman was alarmed to see an ejected warp core tumbling towards him like a giant baton. He fumbled with the unfamiliar joystick, feeling the pod twist end over end, but the warp core grew ever larger in his view. In a panic, he hit the main impulse thruster, feeling the rumble as it fired just a meter or so under his feet.
The warp core slid out of view beneath the window, but smaller pieces of debris bounced noisily off the hull around him. He flinched as a jagged piece of metal bounced off the window just over his head, but the transparent aluminum held. In a moment, he was clear of the debris field, looking down on the shattered saucer section of the Galaxy-class ship. “Very well then, I fear this assignment.”
P8 made a dry, crackling sound. Soloman suspected the sound corresponded to a human sigh, though he wasn’t certain. Bynars had no exact equivalent to either noise.
“Only a grub is mastered by their own fear. Well, grubs and green males, but that’s another matter. In any case, while you failed to handle that situation the way I would have, it all worked out with only minimal damage registering on the pod.”
Soloman muttered a string of binary code that did not have a direct translation, but could best be rendered in the human tongue as, “Dammit.” “I failed to recover the data core. We will be unable to determine why this ship broke up.”
“The wreckage isn’t going anywhere, Soloman. Safety is always the first concern.”
“Now, but what if the lives of my teammates depend on me?”
“Then I have every confidence you will do what is necessary. Besides, in a real emergency it isn’t likely you’ll need the joystick.”
There was a clunk and a whir, and the EVA pod’s hatch swung open. Soloman blinked against the glare of the da Vinci‘s shuttlebay, and looked down at P8 Blue, standing on her hind legs just outside.
“Enough simulations for now. We need to work on the mission planning for Enigma.”
Soloman nodded gratefully, and climbed down the steps to the shuttlebay’s deck. The da Vinci’s two shuttles were parked just a few meters away, leaving little room for anything else in the small bay. He took one last look up into the pod’s cupola, and watched the simulated starfields projected onto the windows flicker and vanish.
Soloman took a step, and nearly stumbled. Bynars were not a strong people, and the session had been taxing. His hands ached from manually operating the controls.
P8 watched him flexing his fingers, and made a comforting sound. “Sorry to push you so hard, but time is short. The simulation programs we have on hand are very advanced, worst-case scenarios that would challenge even an experienced pilot. And I know that operating the controls manually, rather than through direct computer