Unworthy - Kirsten Beyer [82]
Then all hell broke loose. She’d seen power disruptions, computer viruses, computer failures, and just about every conceivable system running amok, but she’d never experienced so many happening at the same time. Conlon was pleased that her staff were keeping their heads, working out one problem at a time, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t simply a random cascade failure.
Teams of engineers were already in the bowels of every major system, running diagnostics and visually inspecting every centimeter. Nothing. Apart from life support and inertial dampers, the only other unaffected systems, at least for now, appeared to be deflector controls and their drives. Her first suspect was the deflector control interfaces, but like the engines, they were running five-five-five.
“Neol, what’s the status of the comm system?” she shouted through the controlled chaos all around her.
“I’m working on it,” the harried ensign replied.
“Work faster,” she instructed.
Turning to cross to the main display panel near the core, she ran into someone else.
“Watch where you’re going,” she said as calmly as she could.
“I’m sorry,” B’Elanna replied. “Can you use a pair of extra hands?”
Part of her wanted to say no. The rest of her grudgingly told her self-esteem to button it and nodded. “Everything points to a problem with the main computer. Nothing else could disrupt so many systems at the same time.”
“Did you try to shut it down and reinitialize?”
“We can’t with these power spikes. I’m afraid to even try and access the central processor. If we suddenly lose what systems we still have …”
“Okay, what’s working?” B’Elanna asked.
“Propulsion,” Nancy replied.
“What about navigation?”
“Offline.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“I think so, too,” Nancy agreed.
Together they turned to the main console and brought up the current status of the main engine systems.
“Oh, hell,” Nancy said softly.
“Am I reading this right?” B’Elanna asked, her voice growing tense.
“Neol!” Nancy shouted. “I need to speak to the bridge right now!”
Ensign Gwyn stifled a yawn. With the ship hanging in orbit and helm controls inaccessible, there was little for a pilot to do at the moment. She almost regretted pulling an extra shift tonight. Despite the zeal with which her crewmates were working to diagnose the current array of problems, she was finding it hard to get too excited. She knew that everything had been normal the last time she’d been able to look, and partial sensors now indicated that there was no sign of an attack coming from the Indign. Every time she glanced at the pitch black viewscreen, she was overwhelmed with a desire to grab a nap.
I’m sure somebody will wake me when it’s over, she decided, allowing her eyelids to lower.
She was startled back to alertness by a sudden illumination of the conn. “I didn’t touch anything,” she said softly as a series of bleeps and control sequences began to coalesce into a serious problem.
“Captain,” she called immediately.
“What is it, Ensign?”
“The slipstream drive is powering up,” Gwyn reported.
“Shut it down,” Eden ordered immediately.
Gwyn was already making the attempt and finding it impossible to do so.
“I don’t have control, Captain,” she replied.
“B’Kar, take the helm offline,” Eden said.
After a moment of silence, B’Kar reported, “The helm is not responding, Captain. I’m locked out too.”
“Captain, we can’t go to slipstream velocity from orbit,” Gwyn advised. “In fact, we shouldn’t go to slipstream velocity from within this system, or any system come to think of it.”
Eden crossed to her station.
“Do we have terminal coordinates?”
Gwyn was relieved to be able to answer that question.
“Yes, approximately four light-years from our current position.”
“Is there anything interesting about that location?” Eden asked.
“It was charted by the Hawking