Miracle Workers (SCE Books 5-8) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [40]
“ Rio Grande, this is the da Vinci,” said a voice that wasn’t Gold’s over the runabout speakers. “We’re ready to beam over.”
Nog settled the Rio Grande into a parking orbit—the pylons were too unstable to risk docking there, especially with nobody in ops to check on the station end—and then responded. “So’m I, sir,” he said, hoping that “sir” was the right thing to say, since whoever this person was didn’t identify himself. It was probably the Lt. Commander Duffy person Gold mentioned, assuming Duffy was also a male, as the voice was. He’d been so busy quadruple-checking his calculations, he hadn’t had the chance to familiarize himself with the names of any of the da Vinci crew.
Setting the runabout on standby, he programmed the transporter to beam him to the core access.
Within moments, he was present on the eerily familiar catwalk. An access panel was at his right, as were nine Starfleet personnel—all, Nog noticed, in gold-trimmed uniforms, with the exception of the Nasat, who simply wore a combadge. Nog assumed the four humans and one Bolian holding very large phaser rifles were security and the two humans, the Nasat, and the Bynar were the actual S.C.E. team. He was surprised to see a single Bynar—I thought they all came in pairs —and one of the human engineers looked familiar. He also noted that only two of those present were officers. Though an officer himself, his years studying under Chief O’Brien had made Nog appreciate the importance of enlisted personnel, especially in engineering.
The human female security officer started directing her people to take up positions at various parts of the catwalk. Nog caught the names of each of the guards: the dark-skinned human male was Hawkins, the pale human male was Drew, the olive-skinned human female was Lipinski, and the Bolian was called Frnats.
The other human engineer—the officer—walked up to Nog and offered his hand. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Duffy. I’m in charge here.”
Taking the hand, Nog said, “A pleasure, sir. If you don’t mind, I need to check something.”
Duffy shrugged. “Check whatever you want. We’ll get started now.”
Blinking, Nog said, “Excuse me?”
“Don’t worry,” Duffy said, putting a hand on Nog’s shoulder, “we’ll get your core for you before you can eat a tube grub.”
Sputtering, Nog said, “But—sir, with all due respect, I’ve already—”
“Don’t worry about it, kid.”
Kid? “Commander Duffy, I’m not a ‘kid,’ I’m the chief operations officer of—”
“Hey Duff, you’d better take a look at this. You too, Nog.”
Nog looked over to see that the other human engineer was at the console. Duffy moved to join them, as did Nog. Once he got a good look at his face, Nog finally recognized him. “Stevens, right?”
Fabian Stevens smiled down at Nog. “Yup. Good to see you again, Nog. And congrats.” Then he turned to Duffy. “Take a look.”
“All the reaction chambers are online,” Duffy said after a moment.
Nog said, “What!?” He looked at the console. Sure enough, all six of the fusion reaction chambers were active. “That’s incredible! We don’t—didn’t even keep all six active on DS9.”
“I thought this place was dead,” the female security officer said to Nog. “The reports from your first trip here said that it was just running on emergency battery power.”
“Well, one of the chambers was brought online by the Pah-wraith cultists who squatted here,” Nog said. “But all six—it doesn’t make sense.”
“Someone’s been here,” the security woman said, hefting her rifle. “We need to bring more people over.”
Duffy shook his head. “Corsi, that isn’t necessary.”
The Corsi woman moved almost eye to eye with Duffy. “Commander, there’s a very good chance that we’re not alone on this station.”
“Actually, there’s no chance that we aren’t. We checked—there’re no life signs here.”
“Excuse me,” Nog said.
“Right now, maybe,” Corsi said, ignoring him, “but somebody had to bring those reactors online, and I doubt it was Pah-wraith cultists.”
“Excuse me,” Nog repeated.