Enigma Ship by J. York (small books to read .TXT) 📕

If it were an animal, it would clearly have to be a sophisticated one. Even a space amoeba has a ‘flight or flight’ reflex. This thing doesn’t. It’s not chasing food, and it’s not running away. It’s not defending itself. It’s just hiding, just going about its business, hoping not to be seen, not to be engaged.” She grimaced. “I can relate to that.”

“Mineral then,” said Abramowitz, avoiding the personal comment. “A ship, or something like it. But a ship would be ‘animal’ too, it would have a crew.”

Lense shook her head. “Not a conscious one. ‘Fight or flight’ again. Maybe it’s just a probe, but it seems far too big and sophisticated. Too simple-minded even for a robot. Maybe the crew is dead. Maybe they abandoned ship. Maybe this is a sleeper ship, and the crew is in suspended animation.” She considered her last statement. “Yeah, that sounds about right to me. These ‘enigmans,’ whoever they are, whatever they want, they left home a very, very long time ago.”

Chapter6

Captain Gold reached the bridge just as the da Vinci came out of warp. He slid into the big chair. “Put the Enigma on screen.”

The beta shift conn officer glanced back at him. The ensign at the post was new, a Betazoid, having just transferred in from the U.S.S. Hood. “It already is on screen, Captain. There just isn’t much to see.”

Gold wondered if she’d simply anticipated the order, or if she was reading his mind. Stop that. He watched her face for a reaction. No, he didn’t think so. It took a lot of restraint for a Betazoid to function well as a Starfleet officer. The concept of private thoughts didn’t come naturally to them.

“Ensign—Deo is it?”

She nodded.

“Deo, overlay a tactical grid on the object, based on our sensor scans. I’d like to at least know where to look.”

She tapped her console. A grid of yellow lines appeared, outlining the shape of the object.

He’d been expecting—well, he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. A sphere possibly, or some other geometric shape. Instead Enigma was lumpy and irregular, like a cluster of grapes, or perhaps a bag full of soccer balls. Moreover, even that shape didn’t appear to be static. As he watched, the spherical lumps moved slowly across the surface, even sinking inside to be replaced by others rising to the surface. “Are we getting any sensor readings from inside the object at all?”

“No sir,” said Deo. “We can detect a bit of displacement at the boundaries that allows us to tell where that boundary is, but when we look deeper, all we see is—uh, whatever’s on the other side.”

Gold nodded. Stevens’s modifications to the deflector dish couldn’t be performed while they were at warp. It would be several hours before they knew if his plan to probe Enigma would work.

Deo was still looking at him. Something seemed to be bothering her. “Sir, there is something else. Enigma has a…telepathic component.”

“The Chinook didn’t report anything like that.”

“Perhaps they didn’t have any telepaths on board, sir.”

“Can you read it, communicate?”

“No sir. I get a sense that it is reading us in some way, and not much more. I can’t even tell you if it’s alive, or if we’re being read by one consciousness or many. The telepathic probe is passive, inert, and very subtle.”

“If you sense anything more, let me know immediately.”

From behind him, the beta-shift tactical officer, Ensign Anthony Shabalala, said, “Captain, there’s a ship approaching, and we’re being hailed. It’s the freighter Vulpecula.”

“Give me visual.”

The woman who appeared on screen was human, in her fifties, and looked like she hadn’t slept in a long time. Her eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue, and her close-cropped gray hair stood out at odd angles.

“Captain Gold, I’ve been expecting you. My name is Dee Rivers, captain of the Vulpecula. After my first officer disappeared, and those people from the Chinook disappeared, I didn’t know what to expect from that thing, so I pulled the ship back a few million kilometers to wait.”

“Thank you for staying on station until we arrived.”

She sighed deeply, and dug at her scalp with nervous fingertips. “Captain, that’s my first officer in there. Pappy’s a damned fool to have tried rescuing those people, but I’d like him back anyway, if you can manage.”

“We’ll do what we can, Captain Rivers.” Pappy? he wondered, but didn’t ask aloud.

“We’re a for-profit ship, Captain. I’ve loitered here longer than I can afford, and certainly longer than was safe. I’ve lost my convoy partner, my Federation escort, and there are a lot of raiders between here and Cardassia. I can’t wait here to see how this turns out, but we’ll stop back by after we drop off our cargo.”

Gold nodded in a manner he hoped was reassuring. “I understand. If necessary, we can arrange transport to return your Number One.”

“He’s my retirement plan, Captain.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s saving to buy this ship from me, and I’m counting on that to set me up for my declining years, a nice little hut on a beach somewhere. I really need him back.”

“I see.” Gold felt his tone turn chilly.

Rivers had turned away from the screen, as though she was about to disconnect, but turned back to look at him. Her shoulders sagged, and something in her seemed to melt, revealing a profound sadness. “He’s a fool, but a good fool, Captain. Bring him back to us. Please.”

Before Gold could respond to the pain in her voice, Rivers’s image blinked out.

*     *     *

Duffy pulled the gauntlet over his hand and flexed his fingers experimentally in front of his face. “I love this part.”

Gomez glanced at the panel on her left wrist, punched in the commands to start a space-suit self test, and looked up at Duffy. Like her, he now wore a complete environmental suit, minus the helmet. “Putting on gloves?”

“Putting on a space suit. Makes me feel like an ancient knight preparing for the joust.” He squirmed his shoulders and arms,