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

The device was as they had glimpsed in the alien marketplace. About the size of a human torso, perhaps a little larger, it floated a meter above the deck, apparently supported by antigravs or force beams. The curved surface was intricately inlaid with tiny, jeweled hexagons, which Gomez guessed corresponded to the holodiodes on their holodecks, though vastly more sophisticated.

But their eyes were drawn irresistibly to the transparent dome on top, and the tiny being housed inside.

It was covered with brown fur, and looked at them with large, yellow, eyes. The top of it was domed, and Gomez supposed that was the brain case. Under this was a tiny, flattened, body, and four useless, atrophied, limbs.

Various tubes and wires connected the body to the machine, providing life support. Gomez doubted the entity could live more than a few minutes without it.

Gomez would have loved to study the technology the “holobody” represented, but there was a shimmer, and as though shy, the creature was again shrouded in a glowing ball of light.

Chapter12

Duffy sat in the dining hall, studying his padd and the flat diagrams of a nonexistent ship that covered it. He thought about the holographic U.S.S. Roebling and sighed.

He wished he’d gotten the chance to beam on board, see what it was like. Then he remembered Captain Newport, and decided he was just as happy to have missed it. Maybe next time they were docked at starbase, he’d reserve a holodeck for a little while. That would be good enough.

Gomez walked over, carrying her lunch on a tray, and sat down across the table. Corsi and Stevens were right behind her. “Mind if we join you?” asked Gomez.

Duffy nodded at the other empty seats at the table. They all sat down. Corsi leaned toward Gomez conspiratorially.

“So,” she said, nodding towards the corner table, where “Pappy” Omthon sat talking with Ensign Conlon and Robins from security, neither of whom seemed to be able to stop giggling, “how long is he staying?”

“For a week or so, till we can rendezvous with his freighter.”

Corsi grinned. “As far as I’m concerned, he can stay as long as he wants.” She almost giggled herself.

Corsi?

Corsi turned to Gomez. “Have you—smelled him?”

Duffy frowned at her. “He gets that a lot, you know.”

“It’s happening,” Stevens said suddenly. Everyone—the four of them at the table, Omthon and his two new friends, and Drew and Hawkins from security, who were sharing lunch across the mess hall—all rose from their seats and made for the windows. Enigma was breaking up, its vast cluster of grapes turning into clumps of two or three or four.

Duffy pressed his nose against the cool transparent aluminum. They were going home, the lost people of Enigma. The Quanta had warp drive now. Holographic warp engines that work. That’s something I’d like to study.

Ironically, they’d had the knowledge of warp capability for hundreds of years, since the first warp-capable ship became trapped in Enigma’s web and its crew was read by their telepathic computers. But by then it had seemed to the Quanta as only one more fantasy among many.

Only now were they lucid enough to put the knowledge to practical use. Now they would take their lost people home, those that wished to go. Others had built lives on Enigma. They would stay, and join the Quanta on their explorations of the universe.

“There.” Conlon pointed. There was a streak, a flash, then a cluster went to warp.

Then another, and another.

Then hundreds, thousands. And then they were gone.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Drew said.

Hawkins smiled. “On this ship, that’s saying something.”

“A beautiful end,” said Omthon, “to a long nightmare.”

Duffy gazed out at the stars, the sky, suddenly empty. “Mazel tov,” he said.

*     *     *

P8 Blue watched gratefully as Abramowitz left their shared quarters to begin her watch. She scrambled down from her bed and pulled open her locker. She hesitated, then reached inside.

It had to be done.

She removed the magnetic probe with her front legs, checked it carefully, then turned it on. She shoved the probe against the front of the locker. Metal struck metal with a clunk.

P8 made a rattling sound that, for a human, would have been equivalent to a satisfied sigh.

It never hurts to check.

About the Authors

J. STEVEN YORK has published multiple novels, two nonfiction books, and dozens of short stories in such magazines as Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and anthologies such as Nanodreams and The Ultimate X-Men. He’s recently coauthored two novellas, set in Keith Laumer’s Bolo universe, with Dean Wesley Smith, and his novels include Generation X: Crossroads, and Generation X: Genogoths. He lives on the rugged Oregon coast with his wife, Christina.

CHRISTINA F. YORK is a novelist with a bent toward romance and a background in science fiction. Her Star Trek: Deep Space Nine stories “Life’s Lessons” and “Calculated Risk” appeared in the first two Strange New Worlds volumes. Her latest anthology sale is “The Technomancer’s Apprentice,” to Mage Knight Collector’s Guide Volume I, written in collaboration with husband J. Steven. She has sold two novels, the adventure-romance Hot Waters, and a war story-romance, Flight Time.

Coming Next Month:

Star Trek™: S.C.E. #21

War Stories

Book 1

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Beginning a gripping untold tale of the Dominion War!

Twice, Overseer Biron of the Androssi has been thwarted by the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci. In order to be prepared for their next encounter, he has obtained the records of the crew’s past adventures during the brutal war against the Dominion….

Trapped behind enemy lines after a difficult victory, the damaged U.S.S. Sentinel must find its way home without engaging any superior hostile forces. When they encounter a Breen ship, it’s up to Chief Engineer Sonya Gomez to trick them into thinking they aren’t what they appear to