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

“Isn’t every engineer on some level?”

“So you’re designing a ship?”

“An S.C.E. ship.”

“We’ve got one of those already.”

The doors opened, and Gomez drew back a fraction. Fabian Stevens and P8 Blue came in. Stevens headed for the replicators, while Pattie scuttled across the floor on all legs, popping to an upright stance only when reaching Duffy’s table. “Greetings. I see you are designing a ship, Commander.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Gomez. “An S.C.E. ship, I’m told.”

“We’ve already got one of those,” said Stevens, who approached the table with two cups in hand. He gave one to Pattie. “Here’s your ‘swamp tea,’ whatever that is. I don’t really want to know.”

“Thank you,” said Pattie.

“That’s what I told him,” Gomez said.

Duffy sighed. “The da Vinci is a great ship, but she isn’t designed for the kind of missions we go on. No ship is, really. Tugs are slow, short range, and don’t have the shops or crew capacity we need. A general purpose design like this Saber-class is small and maneuverable sure, but it’s too fragile for heavy work, and it also doesn’t have the cargo, shop, or laboratory space we could really use.”

Gomez’s interest was piqued. “So you’re designing a ship with our needs in mind?”

Duffy shrugged. “It’s just an exercise, a dream ship really. Gives me an excuse to broaden my knowledge of ship’s systems.”

“It resembles a Norway-class,” observed Pattie, shoving a second small table next to Duffy’s.

“I used that as a starting point, but see, the engines are uprated, and the whole front of the saucer section opens up like—no offense, Pattie—like insect mandibles, to form a miniature drydock. We can pull things partially inside the ship for inspection or repair.”

Pattie tapped a foreleg at a part of the diagram. “What are those?”

“Heavy tractor beam emitters, for towing.”

“You should add six smaller ones,” said Pattie, “for precision manipulation of objects in space.”

Duffy nodded. “Good idea.”

“And more Jefferies tubes,” said Pattie. “I like Jefferies tubes.”

By now, several other crewmembers had entered the mess hall, including the chief of security, Lt. Commander Domenica Corsi, and the chief medical officer, Dr. Elizabeth Lense, and all of them seemed to be gravitating to the table. Stevens shoved another table over, and sat next to Corsi.

“Idea,” said Stevens. “An industrial replicator, so we don’t have to replicate small parts and put ‘em together into something big. And maybe a second hololab.”

Gomez sighed, and Duffy imagined he could feel the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck. “A second holodeck would be nice. Then it can double for recreational purposes.”

“Holodecks are nothing but trouble,” said Corsi. “We’d be better off without any. More quantum torpedoes would be good though. I’m very in favor of more torpedoes.”

Lense reached across the table and tapped Duffy on the wrist. “Put in a Risa deck.”

Duffy looked up at her. “What’s a Risa deck?”

She shrugged. “Risa in deck form. Sounds good to me.” She saw the look in Duffy’s eyes. “What do you expect? I’m a doctor, not an engineer.”

He looked back at his padd. “You’re not taking this seriously.” He scowled at her, but couldn’t hold it for long. “Besides, I like my Risa in chewable, cherry-flavored lozenge form anyway.”

A faint vibration in the hull stilled the conversation, and all eyes went to the windows, where beyond the nacelle the stars shifted into streaks of light. “We’ve gone to warp,” said Duffy.

Gomez seemed to be assessing the vibration in the deck. “About nine-point-six-five. We’re in a hurry.”

“The inertial dampers need tuning,” said Pattie.

Stevens nodded, touching a bulkhead with his fingertips. “Somebody should check those plasma injectors too.”

Corsi rolled her eyes. “How did I get stuck on a ship full of engineers?”

“Dumb luck?” Stevens said with a smile.

Captain Gold’s voice came from the intercom. “S.C.E. staff to the observation lounge.”

“Right on schedule,” said Lense, taking one last sip of raktajino before heading toward the doors.

“Showtime, people,” said Gomez, leading the rest of them out.

Duffy sighed and cleared the padd’s display. “One plasma conduit,” he muttered, before following the others into the corridor. “I got to move one lousy plasma conduit.”

Chapter2

Captain David Gold sat alone at the table in the U.S.S. da Vinci‘s observation lounge. Carefully spaced around the long black table stood a full complement of vacant chairs, all Starfleet standard issue, save for Blue’s at the other end of the table. At his elbow was a rapidly cooling bowl of matzoh ball soup, and the grim visage of Captain Montgomery Scott filled the main viewscreen in the wall to his right.

He glanced briefly into the soup, decided the color of the broth was too pale, the sheen of fat on top somehow wrong. He set it on the table to finish its thermodynamic journey to room temperature. No matter how many times he had the crew tweak the replicators, they could never produce even a faint shadow of his wife’s wonderful homemade soup.

Captain Scott seemed to notice the bowl for the first time. “Sorry about your lunch, David. This is one of those instances where seconds could mean the difference between life and death.”

Under better circumstances, Gold might have grinned. Captain Scott was a man out of time, an officer from the golden days of two-fisted space exploration. He didn’t shy from the dramatic, or even the melodramatic. It was something Gold liked in Scott, even as he found it sorely lacking in himself. “My people are on their way, and we’re already en route at maximum warp. It sounds like we should hit the ground running, so to speak.”

“Aye, that’s the way I see it. Everything we’ve got on the situation has been transferred to your computers under the heading ‘Enigma,’ but I wanted to brief you all personally.”

The door opened and the S.C.E. crew began to file in, led by Gomez and Corsi.

Gold nodded to acknowledge their arrival. “Warm up your padds, there’s work to be