Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [155]
Charming, thought the second officer. But then, they hadn’t enlisted Jomar’s assistance because of his advanced social skills. If all went well, he would be their secret weapon against the Nuyyad.
Five
Picard sat in his usual place at the black oval table in the Stargazer’s lounge and watched Captain Ruhalter bring the meeting to order.
Unlike the last meeting the second officer had attended there, this one didn’t call for the presence of the entire senior staff. The topic was a largely technical one, so all of the officers present—with the exceptions of Ruhalter, Commander Leach, and Picard himself—were from the weapons and engineering sections.
And then, of course, there was the Kelvan. He was sitting beside the captain with his bright red hair in disarray, a deadpan expression on his face that betrayed his lack of humanity.
“I called this meeting,” said Ruhalter, “so you could all meet Jomar here and hear his plans for the Stargazer’s tactical systems.” He turned to the Kelvan. “Go ahead.”
Jomar inclined his head. “Thank you, Captain.” He scanned the other faces at the table without a hint of emotion. “As you may have heard,” he went on abruptly, “the Nuyyad are a formidable enemy, with a long list of conquests to their credit.”
“So we’ve been given to understand,” said Ruhalter.
“However,” the Kelvan went on, “the Nuyyad’s vessels are no faster or more maneuverable than this one. Their shields are no stronger than the Stargazer’s shields. In fact, they may be a little weaker. Where the Nuyyad far outstrip Federation technology is in a single area…”
“Firepower?” Simenon suggested.
“Firepower,” Jomar confirmed ominously. “More specifically, a quartet of vidrion particle cannons, any one of which could pierce your shields with a single high-intensity barrage.”
It wasn’t good news. For a moment, they pondered it from one end of the table to the other.
Then Picard spoke up. “Vidrion particles? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them.”
“That is because they have not been discovered on this side of the barrier,” the Kelvan explained. “My people have known of them for centuries, though we always considered them too unstable to be harnessed as directed energy. The Nuyyad have apparently solved that problem.”
Ruhalter leaned forward. “You’ve got our attention, Jomar. How can we defend ourselves against these vidrion cannons?”
“By fighting fire with fire,” said the Kelvan, “as the human expression articulates. We have discovered that lacing a standard, graviton-based deflector shield with a certain percentage of vidrion particles renders it all but impermeable to the Nuyyad’s beams.”
“And that,” observed Ruhalter, “will give us a chance to launch an offensive of our own.”
Jomar regarded the captain with his strange, pale-blue eyes. As in the transporter room, he seemed to stare. “Yes,” the Kelvan said finally, “that is the intention.”
Suddenly, Picard realized something. Jomar wasn’t staring after all. It was just that his eyes weren’t blinking.
But then, when the second officer thought about it, that made sense. The Kelvan had only assumed this form for the sake of convenience. His “eyes” were ornaments, lacking function, created to make the humanoids on the Stargazer feel more comfortable in his presence.
As for his true sensory organs, the ones he used to see and hear and so on…where they were located was anybody’s guess.
“However,” Jomar went on in his monotone, “it will not be enough to merely defend ourselves. If we are to hold our own against the Nuyyad, we must increase the power of our own weapons.”
“Increase it how?” asked Werber.
The Kelvan shrugged. “By routing your warp chamber’s plasma flow to your emitter crystals in a more pure and unadulterated form.”
The weapons chief’s eyes narrowed warily. “Go on.”
“As the system is currently configured,” said Jomar, “electroplasma must pass through a flow regulator, a distribution manifold, and a prefire chamber before it reaches the crystal. I propose that we delete the flow regulator and distribution manifold in favor of a single device,