War Stories (Book 2) - Keith R. A. DeCandido [14]
So why do we always wind up in the position of destructor?
He put aside such philosophical musings, as they were pointless in times of war, and focused on the tactical display. Again, he clenched his left fist—the Appalachia had suffered considerable damage, though they’d also done likewise to the other Cardassian ship.
Most depressing was the display that indicated a total lack of significant damage to the Jem’Hadar, who were the more worrisome of their foes.
“Hold position, Wong. And let’s hope Don and Ahmed can keep this up….”
* * *
Fabian sat on his bunk in the incredibly dull quarters that he shared with Chan Okha. The linguist himself sat on his own bunk, reading a padd. Fabian had made three attempts to start a conversation, which were met with one-word answers.
I need to do something.
He went over to the computer terminal on the small desk near his bunk. The quarters were slightly larger than the cabins on the Defiant, but only slightly, and at least he hadn’t had to live permanently there—his quarters were on Deep Space 9. Living full-time in these cramped confines was going to be more of a challenge.
Calling up the tactical display from the bridge, he saw that the battle was going decently, but not great. The da Vinci was still in one piece, as were the Jem’Hadar, but the other four were taking a beating.
Looking over the field, as it were, it was obvious that the two Steamrunner s were an even match for the two Galor s. No, make that one Galor, he thought as a combination of da Vinci torpedoes and Sloane phasers took out a Cardassian vessel. But still, the Appalachia had taken a massive pounding, and wasn’t going to be a player in the fight for much longer.
And in an even fight, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against a Jem’Hadar ship. Which means we have to even the odds a bit. Do something to modify the weapons or improve the shield frequency, or use something—
Fabian smiled. Or use a weapon they don’t know we have.
Standard procedure notwithstanding, Fabian headed to the doors to his quarters.
“Where you going?” Okha asked.
“Lab. Want to try something.”
Okha shrugged. “Your funeral.”
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Fabian said as he walked through the doors.
He got to the lab door and saw Drew and one other security guard standing outside the door. Fabian started mentally rehearsing how he was going to justify his presence at the lab.
However, upon seeing him, Drew simply said, “Figured I’d see you here before too long. The Bynars and Commander Duffy are already in there.”
“Ah.”
Drew smiled a knowing smile. “You were expecting me to give you a hard time and say that the lab was off-limits while we were at red alert, right?”
Fabian smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, kinda.”
“Only way to enforce that on this ship is to stick all of you in the brig until the red alert’s over. Mind you, Core-Breach probably considered that….”
Laughing, Fabian said, “I believe it.”
He entered to see, as Drew had indicated, 110, 111, and Duffy standing around the golf ball.
Duffy looked up. “Ah, the new guy joins us. Couldn’t keep away from the gizmo, huh, Fabe?”
“’Fraid not, Commander. Besides, I just checked in with the bridge.”
Growing more sober, Duffy said, “Yeah, I know. Salek’s up there now, giving the captain a hand. I thought I’d be more use down here.”
“If we can get this thing to work for us, we might be able to use it on the Jem’Hadar.”
Grinning, Duffy said, “That’s what I was hoping, too. Great minds think alike.”
“And so do ours,” Fabian said, without missing a beat.
As one, 110 and 111 looked up at the two humans. “We believe that—”
“—we have come up with a way—”
“—to defend our computers—”
“—against the virus.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Duffy said.
“We will program the virus protection—”
“—into the da Vinci computer now.”
“This protection will need—”
“—to be programmed into all—”
“—Federation and allied computers.