Troubleshooting Read online

  Star Trek™:

  Corps of Engineers

  Turn the Page by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  Troubleshooting by Robert Greenberger

  COMING SOON:

  The Light by Jeff D. Jacques

  The Art of the Comeback by Glenn Greenberg

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.

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  ISBN: 1-4165-3306-0

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  CHAPTER

  1

  Now

  “Priority signal coming from Deep Space 10,” Anthony Shabalala told Captain David Gold from the tactical station.

  “On screen,” he said, trying to avoid the sinking feeling in his solar plexus. Had they waited too long to peer through the months of smoke and actually find a fire, and if so, was it controllable?

  Commander Kesh-Mara appeared on the bridge’s main screen, his eyes narrowed to slits, his flattened nose flaring. “Captain, the environmental control system has shut itself down and we can’t get it to restart. With emergency filtration and oxygen supplies, the station has at best twenty hours of usable air.”

  Gold looked at Sonya Gomez, his first officer, who had a stricken look on her face. She, in turn, exchanged glances with the second officer, Mor glasch Tev. He was already calling up station specs to a screen by his station. The captain could see from his peripheral vision that Wong had been setting a course in advance, proving once more he had a good crew.

  “Cause?”

  “We don’t know. This could be what the other problems were softening us up for. Maybe it’s unrelated. All I know for certain is I need help.”

  “We’re on our way, Commander,” Gold said, mustering more emphasis than he had in his previous conversations with the station’s commandant. As the screen winked off, he saw Wong turn, an expectant expression on his face.

  “Execute, maximum warp. Gomez, assemble your people; let’s get ourselves ready for this.”

  “Maximum warp, aye,” Wong replied. “ETA six hours, fourteen minutes.”

  That gave the crew about fourteen hours to fix the problem before things got dicey. Fortunately, his crew seemed to work best under time constraints.

  Less than ten minutes later, Gold took his seat at the head of the conference table in the observation lounge. Most of his team had one or two padds before them and someone had seen to it a schematic of the station was on the wall screen.

  “Where are we?” he asked, looking at Nancy Conlon, the da Vinci’s chief engineer, and the one officer who had taken a keen interest in the station from the beginning.

  “I’ve got the telemetry coming in from Tegor in real time,” Conlon said, glancing at the padd in her left hand. “It’s just as Commander Kesh-Mara said: They have a system-wide failure, never seen anything like it.”

  “Nor have I,” Tev added. “This is a new level of trouble.”

  “Gomez, does this add a significant piece to your puzzle?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Gomez said, staring at her padd and not the captain. This certainly had gotten his crew’s attention and Gold wondered if they had waited too long to take the station’s problems seriously enough. “It could be related, it could be unrelated. We need to see for ourselves. Every other problem was minor and easily corrected. This one threatens every life on the station.”

  “What is the complement?”

  “Six hundred forty-seven,” Tev said.

  “Sir, the other problems could have been tests of the station and its crew,” Corsi suggested.

  “I concur,” Gomez added.

  “What’s going on in the spacelanes near the station?”

  Gomez paused a moment to check something on a padd, exchanged confirming looks with Corsi, and said, “Normal traffic. Long-range station sensors show nothing of a threatening nature.”

  “Whoever did this may be waiting until the station is abandoned before arriving,” Corsi said.

  “Can the station be evacuated in the time remaining?” Dr. Elizabeth Lense asked. Gold looked over at her, noting she was clearly showing these days. He was still amazed over the notion of Lense being pregnant, thrilled for her and her choice to keep the child despite the fact that it was conceived in another universe. Once more, he congratulated himself on also bringing aboard qualified help for the doctor, early enough for Sarjenka to get acclimated to the ship and crew before Lense was physically unfit for duty.

  “Computer specs say yes, reality says maybe,” Corsi said. “They need eight or so hours to fully evacuate personnel after shutting down all systems. In a real emergency, they could be gone in minutes. Specs say there’s enough life craft for a thousand people, so capacity is not an issue.”

  “Assemble your tools, prep your teams, and then get some rest,” Gold ordered. “Our first order of business will be to restore the air. In case of deprivation issues, sickbay has to be ready. Gomez, fixing the system is for you and Tev.”

  Conlon gestured, catching the captain’s attention. “I’ve crawled through some of those systems already, sir. I’d like to stay involved.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Gomez quickly concurred.

  “I have no objection,” Tev said, which Gold viewed as progress. Six months ago, he would have had several objections.

  “Done,” Gold ordered. “Corsi, once order is restored, you get to figure out if sabotage is a real or imagined threat.”

  “I’m starting to think real,” she said.

  Gold’s features hardened and his voice dropped. “Me, too.”

  In sickbay, Lense hurried in and began opening cabinet doors, looking for specific medicines. She worried about having to replicate any of the oxygen compounds she’d need for the station staff. So preoccupied was she in her efforts, she started when she heard the high tones of Sarjenka’s voice.

  “Can I be of assistance?”

  Over her right shoulder, Lense glared at the young Dreman. She still resented Gold for bringing aboard another doctor without so much as a discussion. Hell, she resented many things these days and frequently reordered the priority of annoyance in her head. Right now, she needed to push those distractions aside and be ready. After all, why prove the captain right?

  “Actually, Sarjenka, you could be of some use. Check the DS10 manifest and let’s make sure we’re aware of all atmospheric concerns.”

  “Very good, Doctor,” the tall, thin, reddish-skinned woman said and turned away. As she started to call up information, the Dreman looked over her shoulder and asked, “I get the impression you’ve been to the station.”

  “A few times,” Lense said, her tone indicating the memory didn’t please her. “A wild-goose chase.”

&nbsp
; “I’m sorry?”

  “An old Earth phrase, Sarjenka. It means we were there looking for something that didn’t exist. Now we may be proven wrong.”

  “What’s happened there before?”

  Nine Months Ago

  “Captain, we’re receiving new orders from Starfleet Command,” Gomez said as Gold entered the bridge. He gave her a questioning glance as she completed reviewing the orders on the padd in her right hand. Gomez looked up, ready to report, when she saw the questioning gaze linger. For a moment she was perplexed until she realized it must be the bright yellow towel draped over her shoulders.

  “I was working out when we got word,” she said by way of explanation.

  “That’s new, isn’t it?” he asked gently.

  She gave him a sheepish smile and shrugged. “Let’s just say that after visiting Ferenginar, I figured I needed to lose a kilo or two.”

  He didn’t reply but she spotted a twinkle in his eyes before they narrowed, now questioning the padd in her hand.

  “We’re being asked to go take a look at Deep Space10.”

  “That place just got christened,” Anthony Shabalala, the tactical officer, noted.

  Gold grunted noncommittally.

  Gomez added, “They have some sort of technical glitch and because the teams that built it have scattered, we’re being asked to pay them a visit.”

  “Must be some glitch,” Shabalala said.

  “I’ll presume that because it just went online glitches are to be expected,” Gold said. Gomez handed him the padd and dabbed at dripping strands of black hair with the towel. The captain frowned at the information.

  “It’s all minor from what I can tell. Better get it over with. Plot course and engage at warp three,” Gold said. Wong nodded in the affirmative, fingers already at work on the control station.

  Moments later, the bridge received a comm signal from Chief Engineer Nancy Conlon. “Commander Gomez, request permission to beam down with the team.”

  Gold and Gomez exchanged glances. “Well, it’s nice to see the grapevine is working at peak efficiency,” he began. “I’d like to know why.”

  “Have you read anything about the station?”

  “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve heard of the place until today,” the captain admitted.

  “It’s supposed to be the future, a blend of Federation and Cardassian systems that makes it unique.”

  “I thought that was Deep Space 9, which I’ve seen and have to admit, wasn’t impressed by,” Gold said.

  “That was a supreme kludge,” Conlon said, and her enthusiasm over the speaker brought smiles to the captain and first officer. “This place supposedly can process information faster than any place this side of the Daystrom Institute. More than that, it has the latest in networking, sensor grids, and even holo technology.”

  “So everything is bright and shiny; I get that.”

  “This may be my one chance to really see it,” Conlon said.

  Gomez shrugged. “I have no objection. Nancy could use some more field experience, anyhow.” As the chief engineer of a ship full of them, Conlon didn’t always get the chance to get involved in the problem solving that the main S.C.E. team did.

  “All right, then, Gomez, you can break the news to Stevens that he’s been drydocked,” Gold said.

  Conlon and Tev beamed down to the space station along with Gomez. As soon as the transporter beam released them, Gomez saw Nancy begin looking around, craning her neck. The station had that look of being brand-new; nothing marred its polished floors or walls, the lighting strong. Bright and shiny indeed, Gomez thought. She noted the gleaming ebony wall paneling complete with computer access was now narrower than previous designs and the designers had added an attractive green border on both edges. The entire station felt built for comfort first, work second, and that was the reverse of her experience in the service.

  Kesh-Mara, a Grazerite, approached the party and welcomed them to the station. To Gomez, it was hard to read his expression given his lack of eyebrows and relatively smooth features. From his body language, he was definitely proud of the station.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he repeated after Gomez introduced her team.

  “What seems to be the problem?” she asked.

  Kesh-Mara looked at his feet a moment and then answered. “It’s the damndest thing. We blew out an entire bank of EPS circuits without any record of a power surge.”

  Conlon frowned at that, drawing a look from Gomez.

  “Ever hear of that?”

  Gomez admitted she had not, which got her curious. “I suppose we should go have a look for ourselves. Nancy and I can take care of that. Tev, stick around and see what more you can learn from Mr. Kesh-Mara.”

  The second officer’s eyes grew wide in surprise but he kept silent. Gomez still wasn’t sure what to make of the Tellarite, who had been aboard only a few weeks and seemed a know-it-all, which he probably was but didn’t have to demonstrate it with regularity. She pondered that as Conlon accompanied her and a guide to the station’s core.

  “I read that they used state-of-the-art circuitry plus some experimental stuff,” Conlon said.

  “Is ‘stuff’ a technical term I missed at the Academy?”

  “Nope. The ‘stuff’ is similar to bioneural gel packs they started rolling out on the larger starships. Supposed to boost long-range sensor efficiency, which something like this would need.”

  “You really are a geek at heart, you know that,” Gomez kidded her counterpart.

  “You bet, Commander Kettle,” Conlon quipped.

  “Well, they stuck this near the Tallarian border to keep an eye on the Cardassian rebuilding, trying to cut down on piracy and black market goods.” In fact, Gomez noted she was behind in her security briefings on the region, something she didn’t think she’d need to know before the assignment came through. Goes to show you need to read everything Command sends out.

  A moment later, they stood before a lengthy stretch of corridor that was missing several wall panels, exposing the inner workings of the station. Conlon immediately pulled out her tricorder and started taking readings. Gomez preferred to look with her own eyes first, make her own observations before getting the just-the-facts readouts. Scorch marks still could be seen on the piping above and below where the EPS circuits originally sat. The charred, twisted remains of the EPS circuits themselves were a mess of fused wiring and isolinear chips. With a sniff, she could still catch a whiff of the initial explosion, trapped and preserved behind the panels. To her, it seemed a familiar and unremarkable odor.

  She grinned.

  Conlon looked up from her tricorder and saw the smile.

  “This I can handle.”

  “Blown circuits?”

  “After running naked through the rain on Ferenginar, showing Tev more of me than a subordinate should ever see, this is a dream.”

  “What do you make of him?”

  “Brilliant. His expertise will certainly be an asset,” Gomez replied, reaching inside to get a feel for the wreckage.

  “You don’t find him…well, annoying?”

  Gomez paused a moment. Then she grinned again. “I didn’t say that, Nancy. Now, what do you find?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. No trace elements that are out of place, no sign of tampering…”

  “Which their security guy told Corsi,” Gomez said, indicating the conversation held en route to the station.

  “Good. Could have been a bad set of circuits. Happens.”

  “Still damn odd,” Conlon said. She reached to feel the same areas where Gomez already conducted her own inspection. There were ragged edges and a few smudges rubbed off on her fingers. There was absolutely nothing suspicious, just a bad glitch.

  “Where’s the station’s chief engineer?” Gomez asked the guide, an Andorian whose name she had forgotten.

  “Overseeing the arrival of the replacement EPS circuits,” he said.

  “Well, he can replace this. Ther
e’s really nothing for us to do here,” Gomez said.

  Minutes later, the pair found Tev and Kesh-Mara in the latter’s plush office. They declined refreshments and reported their lack of information.

  “Well, they did rush things a bit,” Kesh-Mara admitted, his voice surprisingly soft.

  Gomez said, “Before Starfleet puts anything into operation, be it a starship or a starbase, they test everything within a micron of specs. Wouldn’t something like this have been discovered?”

  “It’s only our largest problem, Commander,” Kesh-Mara said. “We’ve had numerous minor glitches, too. It’s getting tiresome, to be honest. More for the repair teams than me, but this goes beyond a shakedown period.”

  “Starfleet borrowed certain design and manufacturing techniques pioneered by the Cardassians in the building of their Nor space stations,” Tev said, interrupting the commandant’s next comment. Gomez shot him a look of disapproval while Conlon showed interest in his comment. “Deep Space 10 is the largest example of that and this all may be the result of a steeper than expected learning curve.”

  “Could it be that simple?” Conlon asked Gomez.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” she replied.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Now

  “That was just the first visit?”

  Lense gave Sarjenka an unhappy look and nodded. “We were there a few more times and each seemed like such a waste.”

  “And now…”

  “And now…” Lense echoed. She watched as Sarjenka finished pulling the data from the computer and began reviewing it. Good, let the kid do the scut work, she thought. Turning, Lense was ready to go back to her more comfortable office chair.

  “Wait a second, where is the blood infuser?”

  “In the cabinet to your left,” the Dreman replied.

  “I keep it by the door, in that cabinet,” Lense said harshly, gesturing in a vague direction. Sarjenka saw that it could mean one of two cabinets and shook her head, not comprehending the doctor’s hostility.