Dark Mirror (38 page)

Engineering was in havoc when Geordi got there. People were running in all directions, shouting at each other, waving instrumentation, pieces of equipment, padds; the sense of nervousness and excitement in the air was thick enough to taste, let alone cut. Still, as Geordi walked in, there were shouts of approval and cheers, and a few noisy and approving wolf whistles from female crew. When he stopped near the main status board, half to get his breath and half to cope with the reaction, applause broke out all through the section.

He grinned, weakly still, and made his way over toward where great thick cables had been laid down from the main power supply junction, leading off to one side. There, a side bay that had been full of diagnostic boards was suddenly crammed full of three large, square instrumentation pallets. About thirty people were working on them at the moment, wiring in an astonishing assortment of equipment, everything from running tricorders in series and parallel to what seemed a small ion-discharge apparatus. Coasting around one side of it, as if swimming through the air, came Hwiii, whistling hurriedly at someone, “I don’t care how many of them you have to use, just get them hooked in, we don’t have time!”

Geordi grinned. Hwiii laid eyes on him and “swam” over to him at speed, nudging him not too hard under one mostly bare rib, and laughing delphine laughter. “Welcome home! Thrice welcome! We’re ready for you. Quick, where’s the rest of it?”

Geordi handed him the chip. “It’s this or nothing.”

Together they hurried off to one of the status tables on the side that had been installed specifically for the inclusion apparatus and dropped the chip on its reading plate. “Load in,” Geordi said.

They watched the screen together as the information scrolled up. “Perfect,” Hwiii crowed. “This is it, this is the one that didn’t get away!”

“Some of it did. They locked us out. We’re just lucky one of the antiviral protocols didn’t follow the path up and erase the chip.”

Hwiii swung his tail. “Never mind. Look, that’s just what we needed, their replicator settings and everything.”

Geordi was aware of someone looking over his shoulder. He turned and saw Eileen and had to stifle his initial reaction. She was smiling at him: the smile was identical to that other Eileen’s.

“Those the replicator stats?” she said. “Good, we can feed them into ours and have duplicates ready to plug in in a few minutes.”

Their glances rested in one another’s, then Eileen turned away. “Don’t forget to run the protect cycle on them,” Geordi called after her. “We don’t want to find out too late that this stuff is booby-trapped!”

“Was I born yesterday?” Eileen called back, then smiled one of those wicked smiles at Geordi and hurried off, shouting, “Cliff, Donna, Maireid, come on, get these checked!”

Geordi breathed out. “It’s the last two percent that’s missing. It had better not be critical.”

“No point in making yourself crazy over it just now,” Hwiii said, reading. “Let’s be busy understanding what we have.”

Geordi glanced around. “Some pretty heavy-duty cabling you’ve run out there, Commander.”

“Well, Commander, if the thing’s going to pull eight
hundred terawatts when it’s running, we had better make sure it’s got enough power feed. Be a shame to stop in the middle of our transfer back home because we blew a fuse.”

Geordi laughed, but the laugh was uneasy. “Eight hundred terawatts is an awful lot to take off this warp engine.”

“I know. That’s why your assistant chiefs and I have been adjusting the matter/antimatter ‘burn’ ratio right upwards. We’ve got engine efficiency up to a hundred and ten percent at the moment, and we’re pushing for one fifteen, maybe one twenty.”

Geordi whistled. “We’re not going to be able to hold that for long.”

“We won’t have to. Just long enough to get home. Just enough time to snap the right string.”

“True enough.”

“But once there,” Hwiii said, “we’re going to have another problem.”

Geordi looked at him.

“What makes you think we’re going to be alone?” said the dolphin. Geordi blinked, then nodded.

“Now, I’m not suggesting that we alter the equipment…”

Geordi burst out laughing. “We haven’t even finished building it! And as for testing it…”

Hwiii gave him a sly look. “We’ll do what we have to. But I was simply going to suggest that we may be able to use it in ways
they
won’t think of. We may not have an engine the size of theirs, but we have a resource they haven’t.”

“A resident specialist in hyperstring theory,” Geordi said, giving Hwiii the sly look back in kind. “The string vibrates both ways… eh, Hwiii?”

“We have the best engineer in Starfleet,” Hwiii said, dropping his jaw, “and one with a nasty, inventive mind.”

“The ‘nasty’ I’ll leave to others. But between us, I suspect we can come up with something.”

Hwiii glanced down at the console. “Look there—Mr. Data has finished the abstracting.”

“Good. Come on. I want a look at those couplings—then we’ll start getting the replicated boards in place and have a fast look at those abstracts.”

“Very fast. Somehow I doubt those people are going to coast around out there just fanning their fins.”

Hurriedly the two of them squeezed or swam into the equipment bay, past bits and pieces of open matrix-layout, like huge open-celled honeycombs, and chips and boards being slotted into other boards for fitting into the matrix. One piece of equipment, standing off to one side, Geordi didn’t recognize: a bucket. He looked down into it… then laughed at the sight of the fresh, shiny mackerel and went after Hwiii.

It was about fifteen minutes before Picard saw his own bridge again. He stopped long enough for a shower, wanting to wash the dust of that other
Enterprise
off him, literally and figuratively. And when he swung into the bridge at last, it was such a relief to have eyes turned on him with welcoming looks; no salutes, but people who stood to greet him because they wanted to, not because he would kill them if they didn’t.

“Status, Number One,” he said, and made for his chair.

“Proceeding away from the other
Enterprise
at warp five,” Riker said. “No sign of pursuit as yet.”

“Good. I want to have a look at the log entries for the period of my absence.”

“On your screen in the ready room, Captain.”

Picard went in there and sat down in his chair with profound relief, touching the screen to bring up the log extracts. Riker had come quietly in behind him; the door shut.

Picard looked up and smiled briefly. “Nervous, Number One? You’ve got the right one, never fear.”

Riker grinned briefly as well, but his eyes were somber. “You were very lucky, Captain,” he said quietly.

Picard shrugged at him. “Now what was I supposed to have done? I did what was required of me. As you did; as we’ve both done a thousand times before and will keep doing. But when we get home”—he touched the screen again to page down—“Troi and La Forge are due for a couple of more commendations. They both comported themselves with great courage and
panache.
Mr. La Forge in particular suffered a great deal to obtain the information we’re now processing.”

“There’s a problem with that, Captain.” Picard looked at Riker sharply. “It’s the ‘when’ in ‘when we get home.’ Do you know that that vessel has all our threat routines?”

“I had assumed it. You’ll have been preparing counter-measures, I know.”

“Yes, Captain. But there’s always the off chance that we will not make it home. Or that we will and will be destroyed on our side of things. In that case, we have an overriding responsibility to make sure that this information gets back to Starfleet Command, one way or another.”

“I agree, Number One. Though I very much hope these people will not be so foolish as to destroy us here. Since it would in the long run doom this whole area of space.” Picard frowned. “Though I would not lay great odds, I grant you, on them caring much about the long run.”

“Neither would I. There’s also a question of power requirements for that device. As presently installing, we may not be able to successfully support it. Eight hundred terawatts is a
big
fraction of our power output… and it may not be possible to get the thing to work without draining power from every nonessential system in the ship, and some essential ones. We might find that we simply can’t get out. In which case something else must.”

Picard nodded. “Go on.”

“Commander Hwiii tells me that he thinks the device can be used at much lower power to push something from our ship—a probe, for example—back home into our own universe. I think we should load all the information we have about what’s happened, this device, and the threat these people pose, into a probe and have it ready to send ahead of us if we can’t get home. Starfleet
has
to be warned.”

It was a problem that Picard had been turning over in his mind; he was glad to hear that there was at least this much of a solution to it “Very well, make it so. It will, of course, then be our duty—should it come to that—to fight enough of a holding action so that probe can get away. Destroying ourselves, if necessary, to guarantee its escape.”

“And the other ship?”

Picard looked up at Riker thoughtfully. “I confess to curiosity, about what would happen if one Galaxy-class starship rammed another broadside.”

“The other ship is closer to Dreadnought-class. Not a close comparison.”

“Pedant,” Picard said mildly, and went on reading his logs. “But it can’t be allowed to follow the probe over… can it, Number One?”

Riker shook his head.

“Better have Mr. Data get started on the probe,” Picard said. “And get a projection from Mr. La Forge on when he’ll have the inclusion device ready for testing.”

“Yes, sir.” But Riker still stood there. Picard looked up again.

“Something else?”

A long pause. “What was he like?”

Picard sighed and stretched. “My counterpart was, by all accounts, a murderer many times over, probably an abuser of his partner, a man who sent his best friend to die: someone sly, treacherous, brutal, cold, calculating… the
conscienceless butcher of a great number of worlds.” He looked up at Riker. “Now shall I tell you about
your
counterpart?”

Riker swallowed. “I’ll just go see Mr. Data,” he said, and hurriedly took himself out.

Picard smiled a very, very small smile and went back to his reading.

“A vessel is showing on sensors,” Data said, working over his panel for a moment, then looking up at the viewscreen. “Closing at warp seven.”

The center of the screen showed a tiny, dark silver shape. Riker looked at it and breathed out.

“Captain,” he said, “the other
Enterprise
is closing. Go to warp eight,” he said to Ensign Redpath.

“Warp eight, aye,” Redpath said. The captain came out of the ready room, looking at the screen. As he did, Troi came in from the turbolift, wearing her normal uniform with an expression of considerable relief, and sat down in her seat.

“So it begins,” Picard said. “Mr. Redpath, have you been looking at the new evasive routines Commander Riker and the tactical team have prepared?”

“Yes, Captain. They’re fairly straightforward.”

Picard sat down in the center seat, hiding a smile. “I will hope not, Ensign. If they are, the other ship will have no problem duplicating them.”

“Sorry, sir. I meant—”

“Thank you, Mr. Redpath. Just keep us well away from them for the time being. Picard to engineering!”

“
La Forge here, Captain.”

“Progress report.” From the background came a brief explosion of angry Delphine chatter. “
We’re having to do some retooling, sir. The inclusion resonator array is out of—”

“How long, Mr. La Forge?” Picard said as gently as he could with the sight of that slowly growing shape on the viewscreen staring him in the face.

“
Ten minutes, Captain.”

“I’m sorry about this, Mr. La Forge, but it’s going to have to be five. Does that estimate include testing the apparatus?”

This time the Delphine in the background was even more untranslatable.

“
Do you
eat
with that mouth?”
someone could be heard shouting in the background; and someone else’s reply, “
Don’t encourage him, he’s on his third bucket.
” There was a pause, and Picard opened his mouth to say something cutting, but suddenly a ragged cheer could be heard. “
It’s up,”
Hwiii shouted, “
it’s up!”

“
We’ve got power to the apparatus, Captain,”
Geordi shouted over the increasing thunder of the warpdrive as they accelerated. “
Pulling eight hundred terawatts. Total warpdrive output holding steady at fifteen thousand terawatts, one hundred fifteen percent.”

“How long will she hold it, Commander?” Picard said.

“
Hard to say, Captain. The power is feeding to the inclusion apparatus, but it’s not operating as yet. When we activate, there’ll be a substantial drain, and warp speed is going to drop off.”

“Accelerate to warp eight point five,” Picard said, standing up and pulling his uniform tunic down, and it pulled
down,
and he smiled for sheer joy. “All spare power to the shields, Mr. Worf. Mr. Redpath, start first-level evasive. Nothing showy.”

“Aye, sir.” The starfield flowing past them as seen on the main viewer began to pitch and roll.

“Some strain to the structural field,” Data said. “Power drains are becoming apparent shipwide.”

“
Engines running at one hundred seventeen percent,”
La
Forge’s voice said. “
I give you about five minutes of this, Captain. We’re running the inclusion device through test cycle now.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Riker said.

“
The files from the other ship are quite clear, Commander,”
Hwiii said. “
In fact, they appear to have been written almost for technical illiterates. Which is fortunate for us, since the instructions assume they can take nothing for granted. Test cycle looks for altered-hyperstring frequency baseline and variation and checks frequencies against residual strings still attached to the vessel. When they match, we can go.”