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“We got the shields back on-line,” Duffy said, “but I don’t know how long they’ll last.”

Stevens put in, “I’ve never seen anything quite like that weapon they used. I’ve gone over the sensor data three times—so has Commander La Forge,” he added, with a nod to the officer, “and we can’t figure out why it knocked out our shields.”

“I have some guesses as to how to defend against it,” La Forge added, “but until we actually get shot at again by them, I don’t have any idea if it’ll work.”

Gold leaned back and sighed. “So, basically, we’re defenseless. What about weapons?”

“They’re all fine,” Duffy said. “We had to reroute half the—”

“Bridge to captain.”

Gold looked up. “Go ahead, McAllan.”

“Sir, the Sugihara is in the midst of a rescue operation of their own. Apparently, there’s a Talarian freighter whose warp core went critical. They’re going to try to finish up as fast as possible, but the soonest they can get here is in twelve hours.”

“Damn. All right, McAllan, tell them to do the best they can. Gold out.” He looked around the table. “All right, people, you’re supposed to be the cream of Starfleet’s engineering crop. Let’s have some ideas.”

“Actually, Carol, Fabian, and I have come up with something, sir,” Faulwell said.

“Don’t keep us in suspense, man, out with it,” Gold said when the linguist hesitated.

“Well, sir, the Senbolma has a very simple computer system. Since it’s not linked to Ganitriul, it was constructed from scratch. And their cryptography is basically nonexistent.”

Abramowitz added, “It’s a cultural bias, actually. Since every computer system is linked to every other computer system, they never really had to develop any kind of external computer security, since it’s all one machine.”

“Right,” Faulwell said, “so I think I can write up a program that will break into their ship’s computer pretty easily. I was able to get some pretty detailed sensor readings when we were talking to them, and—well, not to gloat or anything, sir, but I’d have a harder time hacking into an old twenty-first century mainframe. A lot of their subsystems aren’t even encoded.”

Stevens said, “The program works pretty fast. We’d need to get within communications range, but with Bart’s program, I can probably get access to their control systems in about a minute, and then we can run the ship from here.”

“One minute’ll be pushing it,” La Forge said. “Especially since they’ll see us coming as soon as we leave orbit around this planet, and we won’t be in comm range for a good thirty seconds.”

“Then it’s up to you and Duffy to hold us together, Commander,” Gold said. He stood up. “Let’s do it, people.” As everyone filed out of the room, Gold stopped Lense briefly. “With any luck, we won’t need your services, Doctor.”

Lense waited until the room had cleared of everyone but herself and Gold before saying, in a somewhat bitter tone, “Let’s hope for luck, then. I did join this ship to get away from combat medicine.”

“I know. We’ll do our best,” he said in as reassuring a voice as possible.

It seemed to work, as Lense nodded and said, “I know you will, sir. I’ll go get sickbay ready.”

Domenica Corsi watched as the Eerlikka woman started to stir. Aiming her phaser rifle at the woman’s head, Corsi said, “I’d suggest not making any sudden movements, or you go back to sleep.”

Sitting up slowly, the woman said, “Don’t worry. I’m not eager to get shot at again. How’d you do that, anyhow?”

“What?”

“Shoot me. I thought weapons were deactivated.”

Smiling, Corsi said, “Oh, they are. Well, yours are. Obviously, our equipment is better than yours.”

The woman shook her head and laughed. “You Starfleet types. Everything has to be bigger with you, doesn’t it?”

Corsi couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Maybe.”

“So why are you still here?”

“Wasn’t given a choice.” She reached behind where she was standing—never taking her eyes off the woman—and tapped the forcefield. “These kicked in after I took you two down. Ganitriul can’t lower them.”

“So you don’t have control of Ganitriul?”

The woman sounded surprised, and Corsi cursed herself