STAR TREK - SCE - 02 - Fatal Error

VIP免费
2024-12-20 0 0 144.16KB 38 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Star Trek S.C.E.
Fatal Error
by Keith R.A. DeCandido
approx. 24,500 words
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Alb-Shiloh Inc.
21 West 100th Street, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10025-4842
212-666-3025
fax 212-666-6256
krad@ix.netcom.com
For David, Alexandra, & Steven
The holo in the center of Ansed's living room showed a comedy program that had stopped production a
decade earlier, and for which Ansed owned no recordings. A minute ago, it had been showing archival
footage of the landing of the Pevvni ship that colonized the ninth planet fifty years ago. A minute before
that, it had been showing a real-time image of the weather on Hendorf Island.
But for the life of her, Ansed, First Speaker of Eerlik, could not get the holo to open a simple
communications channel.
That was only part of the problem.
Scratching her hairless teal-colored head, Ansed looked around the living room, currently illuminated by
candles since the lights no longer worked, and out the window at the hailstorm that should've been
stopped by the weather control system. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders with her short
arms-necessary as the house's heating system was no longer functioning properly.
The unthinkable had happened. The great Ganitriul was breaking down. And if someone didn't stop it,
the entire fabric of Eerlikka society would collapse.
Suddenly, the staccato slamming of hail against the outside of Ansed's house ceased. She looked out the
window to see that the storm had finally abated.
There was no chance she'd be able to convince the holo to go to communications mode. She'd tried for
hours to contact anyone she could, from her fellow Speakers and the priests who kept the knowledge of
Ganitriul on-planet to the Pevvni colony or the nearest Federation outpost off-planet. Nothing worked.
The priority at this point was to consult the clergy. Ansed feared that even they could do nothing-after all,
the transporters and spacefaring vessels were also operated via Ganitriul, so they probably didn't function
any better than the weather control system, the heat, the holo, or the lights. Still, they were the experts
Left with no traditional method of speaking to the priests, Ansed was forced to go outside and walk to
the temple. Ansed couldn't remember the last time she'd walked outside, nor the last time she'd gone
from place to place in that manner. The inconvenience annoyed her.
She almost bruised her forehead on the door, which would not open at her approach like it was
supposed to. Sighing, Ansed opened a window. She had closed her living room window for the first time
in years today; usually, there was a nice breeze coming in. Now, though, she had to use the window as a
door.
Clambering out, she was assaulted by the bitter cold. Since the construction of Ganitriul-long before
Ansed was born-the capital city had always had an even climate. She was forced to continue to huddle
inside the blanket in order to stay warm, since she did not have proper clothing for this weather, and the
clothes provider wasn't functioning any better than any other device.
For three millennia, the computer on the moon had provided every creature comfort the Eerlikka could
want or need. Since Ganitriul's auto-repair components had been installed a century ago, there had never
even been a hint of a problem, and, though tourists did make regular pilgrimages to the public parts of the
caverns that housed Ganitriul's terminals, there had been no need for anyone to travel to the moon to
effect repairs.
Until now.
After an exhausting walk of almost fifteen minutes, Ansed arrived at the temple. It was the only structure
in the capital city that still retained the hideous Yarnallian architectural style, and Ansed had to admit to
finding it painful to look at. But the priests insisted that the temple look as it did when it was constructed,
and Ansed could not blame them for that.
Of course, the temple's greeter wasn't working properly. She wondered how she would be able to gain
the attention of those inside.
Then, noticing the ornate handle in the center of the door, she remembered that the temple still had those
old-fashioned doors that opened manually. She could only hope that it wasn't locked.
First she tried to slide the door to the side, the way normal doors worked, but it didn't budge. Then she
pushed the door at the handle, but still it did not move.
Pulling, however, seemed to work.
Winded after all the walking and the effort of pulling the door open, Ansed took a moment to compose
herself before entering the temple.
"Is anyone here?"
Her words echoed throughout the temple, which was almost pitch dark.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Ansed thought. She considered turning back and going home to try
the holo again-but she didn't fancy the idea of walking anymore, and dammit, she needed to talk to the
priests. At least one of them had to be here.
Suddenly, the lights in the temple came on-at about twice their usual intensity. Ansed's wide eyes were
momentarily rendered useless by the sudden onslaught, and she blinked both her upper and lower eyelids
furiously to clear the spots that now danced in front of her face.
When her vision cleared, she screamed. Ansed was the foremost political personage on all of Eerlik, and
she'd been a respected scholar and politician for years prior to that. She hadn't screamed since she was
in her creche.
But she screamed now.
Seventeen priests and twenty acolytes served in the temple. In addition to their other spiritual duties, the
priests were tasked with guarding all the knowledge that related to Ganitriul. If anyone would be able to
solve the current crisis, it would be them.
Right now, Ansed stared at a pile of corpses that seemed to number approximately thirty-seven, all
wearing the robes of either priests or acolytes. They looked like they had been placed there in a
semi-orderly pile. Blue blood was splattered all over the bodies and pooled on the floor around them.
A shiver passed through Ansed that had nothing to do with the unnatural chill in the air. The numerous
malfunctions were bad; this was worse. Ganitriul could, in theory, be fixed. But to have all the clergy
decimated like this
"Help me! Somebody please, help me!"
The voice seemed to come from amidst the corpses. Ansed felt as if her short legs had grown roots. She
couldn't move. Someone was obviously still alive in the midst of the carnage, but Ansed couldn't bring
herself to investigate further. This was a task for Enforcement, not the First Speaker.
"Help me, please," the voice said, this time much smaller. Ansed saw someone crawling out from under
the pile of bodies.
Somehow managing to overcome her fear and revulsion, Ansed made her feet move toward the voice
and reach out one short arm to him.
With a grateful expression on his face-at least, Ansed assumed the expression was grateful; it was hard to
tell under all the blood-the young man reached out to grab the offered arm. Now that she got a look at
him, Ansed recognized the young man as Undlar, who had only just been ordained a month earlier.
And now it seemed he was the only priest left.
The recognition went both ways, as Undlar stumbled to his feet, gazed upon Ansed and said, "F-First
Speaker? Is-is that you?" Ansed noticed that the young man had a very large gash all the way down his
right arm, and dozens of cuts and abrasions all over his person.
"Yes, Reger Undlar," she said. "I came to speak to the clergy."
With a sardonic tone that impressed Ansed, given Undlar's physical state, he said, "I-I'm afraid that
w-won't really be possible, First Speaker."
"What happened?"
Undlar seemed to deflate. "I-I wish I knew. The-the power-it went out-obviously s-something has gone
wrong with the Great One-and then-then we were all assaulted-brutally. We-we tried to fight back, but
our guns wouldn't-wouldn't work. They had some-some kind of edged weapons."
That edged weapons were used was obvious given the types of wounds, but Ansed said nothing.
"We need to get you to a hospital." And hope their equipment is functioning, she did not say aloud.
Undlar did not need to be reminded of that. "And then we need to call Enforcement. They probably have
their hands full, but this is something that will need to be dealt with right away."
"I-I'm sorry, First Speaker. I-I failed."
"You did no such thing, Reger. On the contrary, you showed tremendous courage." And you may be the
only hope we have, she thought. Saying that aloud was equally inadvisable.
Supporting the young man-who started shaking as they began to walk-Ansed moved back outside into
the cold, hoping that the trip to the hospital wouldn't exhaust her.
For thousands of years, Eerlik had prospered. There had been no reason to doubt that the golden age
brought on by the construction of Ganitriul would ever end.
Now the First Speaker of Eerlik had to wonder if that golden age was over-and if it was, whether the
Eerlikka could survive its ending.
Captain David Gold was dreaming of his wife's chicken matzoh ball soup when he was awakened by the
duty officer on the bridge of the U.S.S. da Vinci, telling him he had an urgent message from Earth.
Gold blinked the sleep out of his eyes and said, "Screen on." The viewscreen in his quarters flickered to
life, first with the Starfleet logo, then with a familiar visage.
"Did I wake you? Sorry about that, lad," said Captain Montgomery Scott. "Bloody time differences."
Gold waved a hand dismissively. "Fact of life."
"I can give you a few minutes if y'need it."
Shaking his head, Gold said, "No need. Rachel's the one who needs four cups of tea to get going. When
I'm up, I'm up."
"Good. There's a wee bit of a crisis on a planet called Eerlik. You'll need to set a new course there right
away."
Without hesitating, Gold contacted the bridge and requested the course change, with speed at Warp 9. "
How long'll it take to get there?" he asked the duty officer.
"Fourteen-and-a-half hours at this speed, sir."
"Good. Gold out." He turned back to the image of the head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. "So, you
gonna tell me what this is all about?" he asked with a small smile.
Although Scotty wasn't biologically that much older than Gold himself-about seven years, which at their
age wasn't a significant difference-Scotty had in fact been born eighty-one years before Gold, which was
the only reason Gold let him get away with referring to him as "lad." Scotty had spent some
seven-and-a-half decades in a bizarre sort of suspended animation as a regenerating transporter pattern
until he'd been freed a few years previous. Gold had come to enjoy working alongside the older man.
Scotty had also done a fine job of whipping the S.C.E. into shape. After all, who better to supervise
Starfleet's "fix-it" squadron than the original miracle worker himself?
In answer to Gold's question, Scotty said, "I'm sendin' you the full mission profile, but the short version is
that Eerlik's in a right fix an' the S.C.E. needs to get 'em out of it."
"They're not part of the Federation, are they?"
"No, but we do trade with 'em. Turns out their entire bloody planet is run by one big sentient computer
on their moon. Problem is, the computer-they call it 'Ganitriul,' whatever that means-is breakin' down.
The planet's in a state o' chaos."
"Do they need help?"
"Hard to say, but apparently their internal security is dealin' with it. The problem is, they're completely cut
off from the moon-whatever's bollixed up Ganitriul is keepin' their transporters, comm systems, an' ships
from workin' right. In fact, we didn't get the distress call from Eerlik-we got it from Ganitriul itself."
"Really?"
Scotty nodded. "It knows it's broken, but it can't fix itself." Shaking his head, the older man said, "Why in
my day, when we saw a planet that had been taken over by one'a those- Ah, but that's neither here nor
there. Your priority is to get the thing up an' runnin', pronto. I know you were supposed to report to
Starbase 505."
Gold nodded. "I've got crew to replace-and one to drop off."
"Aye, I heard about the Bynars. Extend my sympathies to 110, will you?"
"Of course. And we'll need a new computer specialist." He had been about to finish that sentence with
the words, to replace 110 and 111, but that wouldn't be possible. They'd find someone to fill the
position, but Gold doubted that he'd find anyone who could fill their shoes. A damn shame, too, he
thought. The Bynar pairing weren't even Starfleet, they were civilians, part of an exchange
program-although they had agreed to abide by all Starfleet rules and regulations.
Not wanting to dwell on the recent unpleasantness, Gold added with a sardonic grin, "Plus La Forge is
itching to get back to the Enterprise."
"Nothin' worse for a chief engineer than to be separated from his ship," Scotty said with a chuckle. "I
understand the difficulty, lad, but Eerlik's whole bloody socio-economic structure's collapsin'. They canna
wait."
"I know the drill, Scotty. When they put that funny-looking 'A' on your chest, you dance where they tell
you."
"Aye, that you do. Oh, by the way, I took your advice. Had dinner with your wife last night. Lovely
woman. Makes a fine chicken matzoh ball soup."
Shaking his head, Gold chuckled. The universe is full of damn strange connections. For months, Gold's
wife-Rabbi Rachel Gilman, the finest cook on the east coast of the Americas-had been bugging her
husband to get "the legend" to come over for dinner.
Returning the chuckle, Scotty said, "'Twas a lovely evening. I now know everything there is to know
about your entire family. Oh, and your granddaughter's pregnant again."
"You're kidding," Gold said. I'm a great-grandfather again, he thought with a certain pride.
"She only found out yesterday, and Rachel asked me to pass it on. She really is a fine woman, lad. Pity
she's all alone" Scotty had a slight twinkle in his eye visible even on the viewscreen across the gulf of light
years.
"Don't even think about it," Gold said with an amused glare. "Otherwise I'll set her congregation on you,
and then you'll be sorry."
Grinning, Scotty said, "In any event, she really is a fine chef. You should convince her to make haggis."
"Sorry, but she's a Jewish mother-she's only allowed to make edible food."
Putting his hand over his heart, Scotty said with mock indignation, "My dear lad! Haggis is a delicacy!"
"I refuse to accept culinary judgments from a man whose idea of a good drink is liquid peat bog."
"Lad, people who live in Manischewicz houses shouldn't throw stones." Shaking his head, Scotty said,
"In any event, I'll be off. The Sugihara will be in the area if you need any kind of backup."
"Good."
"Scott out."
The screen went blank again. "Computer," Gold said, "leave messages for all personnel about our course
change and let the S.C.E. crew know that there's a staff meeting at-" he thought a moment, then finished,
"-0800." That left him with three more hours to sleep and would still give everyone over ten hours to
prepare for the mission. "Leave copies of the mission profile with Commander Gomez and Lieutenant
Commander Duffy. Oh, and instruct Duffy to compile a complete report on Eerlik based on the profile."
"Acknowledged."
He thought a moment, then added, "Also let Lieutenant Commander La Forge know that he's welcome
to sit in on that meeting."
"Acknowledged," the computer repeated.
Within three seconds, David Gold set his head on his pillow and was fast asleep again. A few seconds
after that, he was dreaming of drinking a nice Manischewicz red with his wife's soup.
Or maybe it was Scotch.
110 stared at the ceiling of the quarters that, until recently, he shared with the love of his life.
For hours, he had been trying to imagine how he could possibly go on without 111. It was proving to be
impossible.
So was getting any rest. Bynars only required a couple of hours of downtime per day, but every attempt
110 had made to try to offline resulted in nightmares where he relived those awful moments when 111
died. Through their link, 110 had felt his bond-mate die.
He was not sure if he would ever be able to rest soundly again.
The da Vinci computer then conveyed a message directly to him through his belt unit-110 had never
understood how the others could communicate with a computer by so clumsy a method as voice.
According to the message, the da Vinci had changed course to a planet called Eerlik, delaying their
arrival at Starbase 505, and there was a meeting of the S.C.E. staff at 0800.
110 doubted he would be welcome at that meeting.
He could not stand to remain alone in his quarters any longer. For lack of anywhere better to go, he went
to the mess hall. The da Vinci was a small ship-there were few places to relax outside one's quarters. The
mess hall was really 110's only other option.
His steps as he moved down the corridor were awkward. After spending all his life walking in tandem
with another, walking alone was proving more difficult than he would have thought.
Only one person was present in the mess hall Bart Faulwell. He was dictating quietly into a padd. 110
had been hoping to have the room to himself, but he found that he was grateful for the presence of the
S.C.E.'s linguist and cryptography expert. Bart-the only alien 110 or 111 had ever met who came close
to truly understanding the Bynar language-was a good person, and one that both Bynars had always felt
comfortable talking to. Perhaps because he had made the study of how people talk to each other his life's
work, he had an easier time communicating than others. Most aliens at best saw the Bynars as an odd
curiosity and at worst were completely uncomfortable around them.
As 110 entered, he heard Bart's voice say, "Love you. 'Bye!" Then he looked up and said, "Oh, hi, Six,"
using the nickname several da Vinci crew had given 110, since his appellation was that number in base
ten. Setting down the padd, he asked, "Couldn't sleep?"
"I have not been able to offline-" he hesitated, then finished, "-since 111 died." He had expected 111 to
finish the sentence for him. That was perhaps the hardest thing of all to get used to.
"I guess that isn't surprising, all things considered." Bart pointed to the chair opposite him as he himself
got up and angled himself toward the replicator. "Have a seat. You want anything? I was gonna get some
coffee."
"No, thank you. I have not eaten since 111 died, either."
Bart shook his head. "I'm really sorry, Six. I wish there was something I could say." He turned to the
replicator. "Coffee, French roast, half-and-half, no sugar."
After Bart retrieved his coffee, he sat back down. 110 had taken the seat opposite the linguist's.
"Why are you up-at this hour?" 110 wanted to scream-each time he paused, he expected 111 to
continue the sentence.
"I'm usually up this early, actually. I'm a napper-I get snatches of sleep here and there. Starfleet doesn't
always allow that kind of luxury, but that's the nice thing about this ship," he said with a smile. "I'm
allowed my eccentricities."
"That must be-beneficial."
"So," Bart asked after a pause, "what're you going to do once we reach starbase?"
110 hesitated. "Bynar custom is such-that we must immediately re-bond with another-if one of us dies
and the other does not. We are-designed to function in pairs."
"Designed?"
Frowning, 110 said, "A poor choice of words. We are not genetically engineered." 110 knew that
humans had had bad experiences with such things. "Our evolution has taken us to the point where we
function better in twos." 110 was proud of himself he got through that entire sentence-ironic, given the
subject matter-without hesitating.
Bart blinked. "'Better'? That's interesting. I always thought it was necessary for you to work in pairs . I
was actually kind of worried when I heard we were taking this little diversion-can you survive without
her?"
"In the literal sense, I can. Our effectiveness and ability to contribute to society is greatly lessened without
a bond-mate, however," 110 said easily enough. But then, this had been indoctrinated into all Bynars
from the moment they emerged from their birthing chambers. "That is why we traditionally do re-bond."
"But don't you bond from birth? I mean, how can you-" Bart cut himself off. "I'm sorry, I'm being nosy."
"There does not appear to be anything amiss with your nose."
Chuckling, Bart said, "One of these days, they'll design a universal translator that handles idioms. No, I
mean I'm asking a lot of probing questions."
"I do not object. In fact, I appreciate having someone to talk to. Perhaps you could advise me."
"About what?"
"You are in a stable, loving relationship, yes?"
Bart smiled a bright smile. "Very much so, yeah. I just finished a little note to Anthony."
"What would you do if he died?"
Recoiling as if he had been slapped, Bart straightened in his char. 110 realized he had committed a
blunder-he tended to forget how little some aliens appreciated straightforward speech.
Reaching a hand forward, 110 said, "I am sorry if I have-given offense. I-"
Bart shook his head. "No, no, it's okay, really. I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting that question-though I
guess I should've." He took a sip of his coffee. "The honest truth is-I haven't the first clue what I'd do. It's
funny, if you add it up mathematically, I've spent more of my life without Anthony than with him-and we
don't even get to spend that much time together what with his being assigned to Starbase 92-but I tell
you, I can't imagine my life without him now. It's like he's a part of me, you know?"
110 leaned forward. "Really? So you do understand! We-I had assumed that others did not comprehend
or share our total devotion to each other."
"Well, I can't speak for other races, but-well, humans may not have bonded pairs on the same level as
you guys, but we can get pretty silly about each other," Bart said with a chuckle.
"Our experiences led us to think otherwise. Commander Gomez and Lieutenant Commander Duffy, for
example."
Bart rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I don't know what the story is with those two."
"But if something did happen to Anthony, would you re-bond? Find another to love?"
Blowing out a breath, Bart said, "I don't know. I wasn't looking for a relationship when I met Anthony, it
just sort of happened. So I suppose it could happen again. But I doubt I'd be in any kind of rush to get
involved with someone else-and I seriously doubt I could find anyone as wonderful as Anthony."
"The problem is-" 110 hesitated. What he was about to say would shock his fellow Bynars to their very
core. "I am not sure that I wish to re-bond."
Shrugging as he took another sip of coffee, Bart said, "So don't."
"You do not understand-we must re-bond."
"Hold off, you just said it wasn't necessary."
"Biologically, it is not. Culturally is a different matter altogether. If I do not re-bond, I will be considered
an outcast from Bynar society. I will lose my name and be deleted from the master file. But the alternative
is even more difficult for me to contemplate. Like you with Anthony, I cannot imagine my life without
111. I would rather die than bond with another."
Tensing somewhat, Bart said, "You're not thinking about-"
Remembering that this was another subject about which humans were touchy, 110 quickly said, "No, I
am not contemplating suicide." This was not entirely truthful-110 wanted very much to die with 111 at the
end rather than have to endure without her, but he hadn't been given a choice. And now, truly, the idea of
killing himself was not one he was comfortable with. But at the time
He continued, "From the perspective of my people, if I do not re-bond, I will be dead. I do not know if I
am ready for that-but I also know I cannot bond with another. I will not sully 111's memory that way.
That is why I wish your advice."
Bart started to take another sip of coffee, then noticed that the mug was empty. "Y'know, there are few
sensations more annoying than trying to take a sip of coffee when there's no coffee in the mug." He got up
and ordered another from the replicator, then sat back down.
"You are stalling," 110 said impatiently. If there was one aspect of dealing with aliens that always irritated
110 it was their inability to move at anything like a reasonable speed. Bad enough that they naturally
moved too slow, but to then compound it by hesitating and stalling so much
"Sorry, it's just-I don't know how to advise you. But I can tell you one thing. If I had been born in the
same place but four centuries earlier, I at least stood a chance of being assaulted solely on the basis of
the fact that I'm sexually attracted to men rather than women. If I had been born in the same place but
four-and-a-half centuries earlier, I wouldn't have even been allowed to admit that preference publicly. By
three centuries ago, though, it didn't matter all that much, and now nobody even bats an eyelash. My
point is, times do change. Cultures change. And maybe the Bynars can accept your choice the same way
humans accepted the choices made by my ancestors."
"Perhaps you are right. But I am frightened."
"Well, if it means anything, Six, no matter what you do, you've got my support."
110 found himself smiling for the first time since 111's death. "Thank you, Bart. That means a great deal
to me."
"Well, I'm glad that this new mission isn't going to be a problem. Heck, maybe the extra time'll help you
sort things out."
"I hope so. I wonder what the mission is."
Bart shrugged and sipped his coffee. "They'll tell us at the meeting."
"I do not believe I should attend it. I do not believe that Commander Gomez will want me on the team in
my diminished state."
"Don't be silly, Six, of course you should be at the meeting. You're still one of us, even if you are
technically a civilian. Let Gomez make the decision about the team-that's her job. Nothing COs hate
more than their subordinates anticipating them."
110 had not thought of that. "I will accept your advice. Thank you."
Grinning broadly once again, Bart said, "My pleasure."
Unfortunately, 110 did not feel any more settled with this decision made. He was quite sure that
Commander Gomez would not want him. After all, of what possible use was a single Bynar?
Sonya Gomez entered the briefing room at 0750, figuring Kieran Duffy wouldn't have arrived yet. In this
she was correct-in fact, the room was empty when she entered-and so she went to the replicator with a
clear conscience. "Computer, hot Earl Gray tea, please."
"That's not a hot chocolate, is it?" came Kieran's voice from behind her.
Sonya tried very hard not to scream. She also resisted the urge the dump the contents of the
now-materializing mug all over the second officer.
Kieran had a huge smile on his face as he approached her from the still-open entrance. "'Cause you
know what happens when you order hot chocolate."
"Ten years, Kieran. It's been ten years since I spilled hot chocolate on Captain Picard."
"And yet the joke remains funny."
"To you, maybe," she said, dolefully sipping her tea.
"All right, I'm sorry," Kieran said, hitting her with those puppy-dog eyes that she'd never been able to
resist. "Forgive me?"
Rolling her eyes, Sonya went to sit at the table. "What'm I gonna do with you?"
"Well, I have some creative suggestions" Kieran said as he sat down next to her. Sonya noticed that he
had a padd in his hand.
The doors parted to allow Geordi and P8 Blue in, which came to Sonya as something of a relief. The
conversation with Kieran was starting to get a little too comfortable for her.
Geordi was in the midst of a laugh, which didn't surprise Sonya. Pattie had a nasty sense of humor, and
Geordi was probably the only person on the da Vinci who hadn't heard all of her jokes yet.
Sonya had hoped that the S.C.E.'s next task wouldn't come until after they stopped off at starbase for a
number of reasons, one of which was that Geordi La Forge wouldn't be on board anymore. She liked
and admired Geordi, and he was certainly of great use on their last mission, but she felt so damned
awkward around him. After all, he was her first CO out of the Academy, and now she outranked him. It
didn't seem right, somehow. Geordi himself wasn't making a big deal of it, but Sonya always felt like she
was walking on eggshells around him.
Pattie had walked in on her hind legs, as Nasats generally did when they walked alongside other
humanoids, since even at full height they were shorter than most. However, once she came into the room,
she skittered on all eights to her specially designed seat at one end of the table.
"Duffy, Gomez," Geordi said as he went to sit down, nodding to each of them. "Hey, that's not hot
chocolate, is it?"
Sonya banged her head against the table. Geordi, of course, had been present for the infamous hot
chocolate incident. "No," she said through clenched teeth, "it isn't."
"Good. 'Cause you know what happens-"
"-when I order hot chocolate, yes, I know."
"See?" Kieran said. "I told you it was still funny."
Geordi peered at the mug. "That's Earl Gray, isn't it?"
Sonya nodded as she took a sip.
"That was Sonya's way of making penance," Kieran explained, even though Sonya really didn't need him
to. "She avoided hot chocolate like the plague, and started drinking the captain's favorite drink."
"Now I'm addicted to it," Sonya said ruefully.
Pattie made the tinkling sound that passed for a chuckle among Nasats. "The price we pay for the follies
of our youth."
Glaring at Kieran, Sonya said, "Some of us pay more than others."
Within minutes, the rest of the S.C.E. crew arrived, as did Captain Gold. They all took their seats arou
nd the table.
Sonya couldn't help but notice the empty chair next to 110. That was the other reason why she wanted to
stop off at Starbase 505 before they got their next assignment. 110 was supposed to go home to
Bynaus-and, if Sonya had her Bynar customs right, re-bond with another. Indeed, Sonya hadn't been
entirely sure that 110 was going to even attend the meeting, though she was glad he did. He was still part
of the team, after all.
The captain said, "All right, boys and girls-and bugs and Bynars-here's the story. We're heading to a
planet called Eerlik. The planet is entirely run by a computer called Ganitriul. Unfortunately, Ganitriul's
broken, and we get to fix it."
"They named the computer?" said Fabian Stevens, sounding surprised.
"It's got a personality, believe it or not. Might even be sentient."
摘要：

StarTrekS.C.E.FatalErrorbyKeithR.A.DeCandidoapprox.24,500wordsKeithR.A.DeCandidoAlb-ShilohInc.21West100thStreet,3rdfloorNewYork,NY10025-4842212-666-3025fax212-666-6256krad@ix.netcom.comForDavid,Alexandra,&StevenTheholointhecenterofAnsed'slivingroomshowedacomedyprogramthathadstoppedproductionadecadee...

展开>> 收起<<
STAR TREK - SCE - 02 - Fatal Error.pdf

共38页,预览8页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：38 页 大小：144.16KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-20

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 38
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注