Blind Man's Bluff - By Peter David Page 0,96
moment,” she said.
“Get unbusy. You, the Doctor, and… I’m sorry, you’re—?”
“Seven.”
“Commander Burgoyne 172,” s/he said to her. “Always nice to run into someone with a number in their name. I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances. Anyway,” and s/he addressed all of them, “you three are obviously some of the best minds that we have when it comes to computers. I need you to get the Morgan-less ship’s computer back online as soon as possible.”
“Let them handle it,” said Soleta.
“No.” Robin now reached around, patting Soleta on the arm while using her other arm to wipe away the last of the tears. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m… behaving like a jackass. I’ll be okay. You do what you need to to get this ship back up and running.”
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes. Just because I resigned my commission doesn’t mean I can’t put on my Starfleet uniform when it’s called for.”
Soleta and the Doctor moved toward the science station. Xy got out of their way as he brought Cwansi back over to his mother. Xy had many talents, but computer science was not his strength and he was perfectly happy to cede those responsibilities to others. Soleta took one look at it and said, “This is going to be useless. I’m going down to deck fourteen. If I’m remembering correctly, there’s a central junction point in one of the Jeffries tubes down there that will allow me to cut into the system directly and expedite getting everything back online. Otherwise it could take hours, even days, to figure out how to reboot everything, because who knows what ‘adjustments’ Morgan may have made.”
“You realize the turbolift is out. You’ll have to climb down the access ladders,” Tobias reminded her.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to get started faster so I can return sooner.” She headed to the access hatch and moments later had disappeared down it.
Meanwhile Burgoyne—trying not to think about the fact that, special circumstances or not, s/he was allowing a Romulan spy to crawl around in the bowels of a Federation starship, and wouldn’t that look good on hir record—moved toward Seven and said, with understandable concern, “Let me guess: Captain Calhoun was involved in you people showing up here.”
“That is the case, yes.”
“Are you sure…” S/he glanced apprehensively at the place where Morgan’s body had vanished into nothingness. “Are you sure that your virus eradicated her completely? Morgan got around, if you know what I mean.”
“I assume you’re referring to various locations where she had copied her essential systems or had otherwise insinuated herself.” Seven folded her arms as she watched the Doctor and Soleta working. “All such extensions were not severed from her. She was attached to them. That attachment serves as a two-way street. When she was erased, so were any and all extensions.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely?”
“Ninety-seven percent.”
S/he stiffened at that. “You’re ninety-seven percent sure?”
“Perhaps ninety-six.” She shrugged. “Science is not always exact, Commander. There have to be allowances for new discoveries.”
“So you’re saying there’s a three to four percent chance that Morgan Primus is still out there somewhere?”
She turned to hir with a raised, mocking eyebrow. “Exciting prospect, isn’t it.”
“Just what I need in my life,” said Burgoyne. “More excitement.”
That was when the U.S.S. Dauntless showed up, with the firepower and the orders to blow them out of space.
U.S.S. Dauntless
“How stupid does he think we are?” said Commodore Joshua Kemper.
The Excalibur was just hanging there in space, apparently asleep at the switch—“apparently” being the key.
“I mean, really,” said Kemper, and it was all he could do not to laugh. “Does he seriously think he’s going to draw us in?”
“Commodore, I’m scanning their vessel,” said Hopkins. “I’m reading only minimal energy output. They’ve got life support, gravity, a few lights, and that’s about it.”
“So they shut down all unnecessary systems in order to sell the notion that they’ve had some sort of cataclysmic failure. Except I’m not buying it. Furthermore, it’s not remotely relevant to our mission.”
The doors of the turbolift opened and Admiral Jellico strode in. He took one look at the screen and said, “You should have told me we found them, Commodore.”
“I was about to let you know, sir. Wouldn’t have made a move without you,” Kemper lied.
“What have we got?”
Kemper laid out for him in short strokes the specifics of the situation. “Obviously,” he concluded, “Calhoun is trying to lay out a trap to lure us in. Make us drop our guard so that he can ambush us the same way that he ambushed