By the Book (5 page)

Mayweather glanced at her, his brown eyes missing nothing. She made sure she didn't meet his gaze. Instead, she looked at her notes. She would have to adjust slightly for Anderson running to escape the blast, but not much else from what she had worked out.

"Sure," Anderson said.

"Your luck score isn't very high," Mayweather said to Anderson.

Cutler waited. If Mayweather, as Unk, asked Anderson, as Dr. Mean, to abandon this idea, she'd have to roll to see if Anderson could follow that advice. Chances were that Dr. Mean couldn't stand up to Unk's charisma.

Anderson shrugged. "It's higher than Novakovich's."

"And look at me," Novakovich said with a grin. He rubbed his cheek with the inside of his wrist.

"I don't think anyone rolled a luck score for the transporter device," Cutler said.

"Oh, I think they did," Novakovich said. "And I think I was real lucky. What if the thing had stuck my arm where my nose should be?"

"You'd have a heck of a time seeing the table," Anderson said.

"Nothing fazes you, does it?" Novakovich said.

"Oh, yeah," Mayweather said. "He gets fazed fairly often. He likes to pretend he's cooler than he is."

Anderson gave him a pretend-mean glare. Mayweather grinned.

"What are you guys doing about that door?" Cutler asked, ready to get back to the game.

"Unk will be waiting outside," Mayweather said, "against a building under cover, just to be safe."

Novakovich nodded. "Rust is with Unk."

"Dr. Mean is blowing and running," Anderson said.

Cutler picked up the cup of bolts and tipped them out. "There's a fifty percent chance the explosion will collapse the wreckage."

Three red bolts.

"The wreckage collapsed," Cutler said.

She gathered up the bolts and handed them to Anderson. "Dr. Mean has a strength of six, and adding in two points for the running, anything eight or under will mean he got out safely."

"Come on, Dr. Mean, run your butt off," Anderson said as he dumped the bolts out on the towel.

Four red bolts.

"Yes, safe with plenty of room to spare," Anderson said.

Mayweather let out a large breath, obviously relieved. His gaze met Cutler's again, and she could tell what he was thinking. He didn't really want Anderson to lose a second character in the same night.

Cutler smiled at her players. "However, the explosion has drawn the attention of the Martians. Ten of them are coming down the street at your position now."

"Oh, just great," Mayweather said, shaking his head at Anderson. "Now you've done it. Remind me to never go on a real away mission with you."

"I'm a lot more circumspect in real life," Anderson said.

"Somehow," Novakovich said so softly only Cutler could hear, "I doubt that."

Captain's log.

Under recommendation from both T'Pol and Hoshi, I've agreed to wait another twenty-four hours before deciding to make the first contact with the Fazi. Can't say as I like the waiting, but I suppose this time it is the best course. Hoshi believes that if the Fazi language is any indication of their culture, they will be more structured than any organization ever put together on Earth. She thinks they might even be more controlled than the Vulcans, which I find hard to imagine.

Fortunately, T'Pol has shown some restraint. I think we're both aware that the Enterprise now finds itself in the same position with the Fazi that the Vulcans were in with Earth. She watches me closely, expecting me to ask for her advice. If anything, I'll make new mistakes, but I won't repeat the old.

Twenty-two hours from now, we'll see which method is better. In the meantime, I hope to get a few good meals, a good night's sleep, and do a little studying on what we have learned about the Fazi so that we can put Earth's best foot forward.

"Hoshi, would you like to see just how far the Fazi take structure?" Reed asked, staring at the image he had just come up with.

The bridge was quiet. T'Pol had gone to rest, and Captain Archer had not come back since he had given them twenty-four hours to find more information about the Fazi. That left Reed with the bridge command, Hoshi at communications, and junior staff manning the other stations, all working scanning equipment of some sort trying to gather as much information as possible.

Hoshi moved over to the screen Reed was using. She stepped delicately beside him. He could see the tension in her hands as she braced her fingers on the lip of the control panel. Earlier, the captain had ordered her to take a meal break. Soon, Reed suspected, the captain would have to order her to sleep or she'd collapse from exhaustion and overstimulation.

"What would you like me to see?" she asked.

On the screen he had put a map of the main northern continent where the Fazi capital was. It seemed to have been built in the center of the landmass and other, lesser cities radiated out from it. That pattern was what first caught Reed's eye.

He backed up the image and made a blinking dot appear on the Fazi council chambers. "This," he said, "is the center of their universe."

"Seems that way." Hoshi leaned in and stared at his screen.

"Using the council chambers as the center," Reed said, "I ran radiant lines, like spokes on a wheel, outward every ten degrees. Thirty-six lines. Do you see?"

He tapped on his control board and the blue lines appeared, moving out from the council chamber location.

"I have stopped them at the edge of the continent, but this still works if you take them all the way around."

"Okay." Hoshi glanced at her station. He could feel her impatience to return to the linguistic challenge.

"Next," he said, "I added circles around the center, moving out one degree at a time."

Reed punched another key and red circles appeared on the map, growing larger and larger as they moved outward.

"Now," he said, "let's superimpose a map of the Fazi roads and cities on my wheel diagram."

Leaving the blue and red lines, he placed the Fazi cities and major roads over the lines.

"Oh, my..." Hoshi said.

"Startling, isn't it?" Reed said. "All major roads, without exception, are on one of those lines. One would think there would be at least one deviation."

"One would think," Hoshi said, her ear catching his accent and repeating it slightly. She probably wasn't even aware she had done it.

Reed traced a line with his finger, amazed at the feat of construction and control this meant. "All cities are built at the corners, with the exact centers of the cities being the point of intersection. This is, without a doubt, the most amazing feat of construction I have ever seen, or even imagined."

"If their cities are this regimented," Hoshi said, "imagine their lives."

"Yes, well," Reed said, and didn't continue. He had been imagining it. He liked order in his life-a great deal of it, actually-but not as much as this map indicated. He also liked unpredictability and adventure, or he would never have joined the Enterprise crew.

"Why would any civilization develop this kind of phobia about control and order?" Hoshi asked.

"I have no idea," Reed said. "It is clear, however, that this entire civilization was carefully built or, perhaps we should say, rebuilt since we do not know the history of this place."

"It's the same with their language. Why that much structure? What would cause this?"

"I believe we must discover the answer to that question before Captain Archer can go meet them."

Hoshi frowned. "I doubt he's going to wait that long."

"I know he's not," Reed said. He looked back at the lines, and shuddered.

Through the mess hall windows, the planet still loomed, but even when Cutler glanced up, she no longer saw it. The mess itself, with its dark walls and bright lighting, almost seemed invisible.

Instead, in her mind's eye, she saw the ruined Martian city she had invented, the destroyed transport vehicles lining the road, and the buildings crumbling around her. She could almost smell the red dust and feel the blistering heat. Humid heat, she figured, because of the canals.

It seemed like Mayweather, Anderson, and Novakovich could see the landscape as well. They were all leaning forward, calling out their actions as if they were actually taking them. The battle between their three intrepid explorer characters and the evil remnants of the Martian civilization loomed.

"The Martians are coming! The Martians are coming!" Mayweather shouted, managing to keep his expression serious while he leaned back in his chair.

"Pull back to cover," Novakovich said, just as he would have if he were really on the planet. "What kind of cover do we have available?"

"There's a building open on your right," Cutler said, "and piles of rubble along the left side of the street."

"Building!" both Novakovich and Anderson said at the same time.

"The Martians are coming," Mayweather said again. He was almost singing the words. Then he froze as he too got caught in the game. "What are they armed with?"

"Long knives, sharp claws, sharp teeth," Cutler said.

"Poison in their bites, I bet," Mayweather said.

"I wouldn't give you much chance of survival if you're bit by one," Cutler said, sorry that he was ahead of her again.

"How many are there?" Anderson asked.

"A dozen," Cutler said.

"Hold your fire," Mayweather said, "until you see the green of their eyes."

"They're closing in," Culter said.

"Can we see the green of their eyes?" Mayweather asked.

"I don't know," Cutler said. "We haven't rolled to see how good your vision is."

Anderson gave her a withering look, then said, "Fire now!"

"Firing," Novakovich said.

"Shoot low, Sheriff," Mayweather said, "the Martians are riding ponies."

Cutler looked at the young pilot. "What?"

"Old joke," Mayweather said, waving the explanation away. "My father told it to me."

She shook her head at him. The joke had broken the illusion for her. The mess hall's chill had vanished, though, in all the excitement.

"You know I'm firing too, don't you?" Mayweather asked.

"Now I do," Cutler said as she rolled the bolts.

"Did we stop them?" Anderson asked.

Cutler stared at the bolts. Eight red. Eight times three meant the dozen Martians were more than stopped. "Mowed them down."

"But I bet all the noise is going to bring more," Anderson said.

"No doubt in my mind," Mayweather said. "I'm sure Cutler still has a few tricks up her sleeve."

Cutler smiled. That was exactly what a game master liked to hear. "You're right," she said to Anderson. "Martian reinforcements are on the way."

"How many?" Novakovich asked.

"You can't tell yet," Cutler said.

"No fair," Anderson said.

"It's a game, James," Cutler said. "No one ever said anything about fair."

"We need some kind of device that lets us read things far away. How come you didn't give us one?" Mayweather said.

"For exactly this reason," Cutler said.

"How far away are they?" Novakovich asked.

Cutler shrugged. "If you can't see them, you have no idea. I just confirmed your guess. Now I'm kind of sorry I did, since there's no way you'd know they were coming."

"We figured it out," Anderson said. "You didn't give anything away."

She did, but she wasn't going to say any more. She should have let them continue with their suppositions, hit them with a few other hidden surprises and made them forget about the Martians, and then had the Martian reinforcements attack. Next time. It would all be easier on the next game.

"How much ammunition do we have left?" Anderson asked.

Good question. She wondered if anyone would get to that.

"You used one-quarter of your rounds," Cutler said.

"I'd say this would be a good time to get my favorite alien Unk into a building," Mayweather said. "You two coming?"

"Right behind you," Anderson said.

"Rust is with you as well," Novakovich said.

"Which building are you going into?" Cutler said. She had a timer going on her padd, but she didn't tell them that. If they continued to play the game in real time, they only had fifteen minutes until the second wave of Martians attacked.

"Which building. She asks us which building." Mayweather rolled his eyes. "The closest one, of course."

"Yeah," Anderson said.

Discipline was breaking down in the ranks. Cutler suppressed a grin. If anyone talked to the captain like that on an away mission, there'd be trouble.

"All right," Cutler said. "You find a big room inside the closest building. The room's mostly dark, but you have enough light to see a wide, open ramp leading up to a second floor."

"Let's go up," Anderson said.

The other two nodded.

"Second floor looks much like the first. Windows are missing and the holes give you more light, so you can see the garbage and rubble mounding around the floor. A ramp leads up to the third floor."

"For the moment we're safe," Mayweather said.

Cutler laughed.

Mayweather looked alarmed at her laugh. Clearly he was getting the rhythm of the game. "Safe" was a relative-and short-term in this RPG.

"Are we safe enough to take a break until after our shifts?" Mayweather asked. "I got to get some sleep. Fighting these Martians is tiring."

"Good idea." Novakovich glanced at Cutler. "You and I both have duty in seven hours."

"I suppose your characters are safe enough for that," Cutler said, laughing. She put the bolts back in the cup, wrapped the towel around it, and stood as the others did. It was amazing how quickly time went by with this crazy game. Just as it had when she was a kid, playing it on her computer. Only linking minds, as they were doing now, seemed to be a lot more fun than linking computers.

And it was nice to be playing with people who co-operated with each other instead of fighting among themselves.

The tension on the bridge was thick, both from excitement and worry. Archer strolled around his captain's chair, unable to keep still. He'd left Porthos in his quarters, knowing that the next few hours would be difficult.