War Stories: Book Two Read online

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  #1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith

  #2: Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #3: Hard Crash by Christie Golden

  #4: Interphase Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  #5: Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  #6: Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #7: Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #8: Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #9: The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg

  #10: Gateways Epilogue: Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #11: Ambush by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

  #12: Some Assembly Required by Scott Ciencin & Dan Jolley

  #13: No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte

  #14: Caveat Emptor by Ian Edginton & Mike Collins

  #15: Past Life by Robert Greenberger

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  #17: Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  #18: Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  #19: Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  #20: Enigma Ship by J. Steven York & Christina F. York

  #21: War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  #22: War Stories Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Coming Soon:

  #23: Wildfire Book 1 by David Mack

  #24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack

  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.

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  Androssi Vessel Overseen by Biron

  STARDATE 53678.9

  Overseer Biron had spent several days perusing the log entries of the current crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci that he had obtained from a now-deceased Yridian trader. These logs included ones from that vessel as well as members of its Starfleet Corps of Engineers staff who served at other posts during the recent war between the Dominion and its allies and the United Federation of Planets and its allies.

  Biron was starting to form a clearer picture of what it was that had enabled the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci to outwit and defeat him on two prior occasions. It was something he never would have deduced based on the empirical evidence he had acquired in those face-to-face encounters.

  The crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci improvised.

  Biron always approached every mission with a carefully laid-out plan. True, there were always variables, but rarely did they impinge on the plan to a degree that was mathematically significant.

  On the other hand, the U.S.S. da Vinci crew seemed to be able to adapt to variables with great ease. Where the variables—mostly introduced by the very presence of the U.S.S. da Vinci—on the planet Maeglin and at the space station Empok Nor had proven to be too much for Biron to overcome, his opponents seemed to thrive on it.

  Perhaps it was because they were so actively involved in military engagements. While Biron did occasionally have to defend his ship and engage in battle situations, they were comparatively rare. Androssi military engagements were handled by the Elite’s standing army, supplemented as necessary by members of the worker class conscripted into service.

  He would need to factor this ability into his plans.

  That and the Starfleet people’s inexplicable predilection for forming personal attachments. That was a definite weakness that Biron needed to exploit.

  He made a note of these items, and then continued his research. One particular mission of the U.S.S. da Vinci conducted during the war against the Dominion piqued his interest….

  U.S.S. Da Vinci

  STARDATE 51993.8

  Fabian Stevens materialized in a remarkably tiny transporter room.

  At least this one can be called a “room,” he thought. During his last Starfleet tour, the young engineer had served on the U.S.S. Defiant, a warship that had a transporter room so small, they referred to it as the “transporter bay.” This ship—the Saber-class U.S.S. da Vinci—was only slightly larger than the Defiant, which gave it at least the capacity to have a proper transporter room.

  He looked over to see that the Nasat engineer—she called herself P8 Blue, but told Fabian that “Pattie” was an acceptable form of address—and the golf ball had both materialized next to him.

  It wasn’t really a golf ball, of course—unless the golf game was being played by creatures fifteen times the size of humans—but the spheroid’s resemblance to an outsized version of the ball from the Earth game was uncanny. Its surface was a glossy white substance of some kind, and covered with slight circular indentations. It had no visible seams; the small indentations enabled it to sit still on a flat surface without rolling.

  “Welcome to the da Vinci,” said a steady voice from the mahogany-skinned Vulcan who stood on one side of the transporter console. “I am Salek, first officer of the da Vinci and commanding officer of the S.C.E. team aboard ship. You must be Stevens and Blue.”

  The Nasat—who looked like a giant blue pillbug, albeit with eight legs—made an odd tinkling noise, then said, “Correct.”

  “Reporting for duty, as ordered, sir,” Fabian added.

  The tall, sandy-haired human who stood on the other side of the console from Salek grinned. “And that must be our new toy.”

  “Yes, sir, it is,” Fabian said.

  “I’m Kieran Duffy—second officer of the ship, second-in-command of the S.C.E. team. You’re looking for second-best, you come to me.”

  Fabian smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.” He’d been worried when he found out that the S.C.E.’s CO on this ship was a Vulcan that things would be stiffer and more formal than he was used to. If this Duffy character was any indication, though…

  Turning to the transporter operator, Salek said, “Chief Feliciano, transfer the device to the lab.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the black-haired human.

  Salek turned back to Fabian and Pattie. “Your personal effects—including your larvae,” he added with a look directly at Pattie, “have been sent to your cabins. The majority of the complement of the da Vinci share quarters. You will be sharing accommodations with our cultural specialist, Dr. Abramowitz, and Stevens will do likewise with our linguist, Dr. Okha.”

  “Sounds chummy,” Fabian said.

  One of Salek’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “In a word, yes. Duffy will escort you to your quarters. It is now 1432 hours. The entire S.C.E. team will meet in the lab at 1500 hours to discuss our mission.”

  Pattie made another tinkly sound. “We’ll be there, sir.”

  “Good. Co
me with me,” he said to the Nasat, and led her out of the room.

  Fabian regarded the second officer. “A linguist and a cultural specialist? I thought you S.C.E. types built bridges and orbital platforms and stuff.”

  Duffy smiled. “Only if we have to. Didn’t you read up on us before taking this glorious assignment?” he asked as they departed the transporter room and turned left.

  “Honestly, no. Until two days ago, I thought I was being assigned to Utopia Planitia. Then I find out that there’s an opening on the S.C.E. team on the da Vinci—I didn’t even know there were S.C.E. teams on ships.”

  “Yup. Have been for as long as there’s been a Starfleet. Right now, we’ve got four Saber-class ships that all have the same kinda setup. The Musgrave, the T’Pora, and the Khwarizmi are the other three. We gad about the galaxy, righting wrongs, saving damsels in distress, and reaping glory worthy of our exalted status.”

  Fabian blinked. “Really?”

  “No, not really. Actually, we gad about the galaxy fixing things, saving machines in distress, and getting no glory whatsoever, but what the hey—it’s a living. And sometimes what we have to fix is written in another language or it belongs to someone else, so people like Chan and Carol come in handy.” They walked up to a door. “Here you go.”

  Shaking his head, Fabian said, “Bunking up with someone else—it’ll be like old home week.”

  “How so?” Duffy asked with a slight frown.

  “I used to serve on the Defiant under Chief O’Brien. We—”

  A huge grin bisected Duffy’s face. “You know the chief?”

  Laughing, Fabian said, “Know him? He ran me ragged for two years. Actually, he was great to work for.”

  “I bet he was. He and I were both on the Enterprise together. Hey, look, the quarters are pretty boring, as quarters go, and we’ve both got half an hour—let me buy you a drink, and we can compare Miles O’Brien stories.”

  “Sounds good to me, Commander.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Fabian was halfway through a cup of coffee—he hadn’t really gotten a good night’s sleep since leaving Mars for Starbase 375, thence to meet up with the golf ball and Pattie and then report to the da Vinci—and Duffy was on his second quinine water with a twist of lime. Fabian was hearing all about the chief’s wedding.

  “We had a pool going as to how badly Data would screw up the dancing, but he was sure-footed as all get-out. You would believe an android can cha-cha?”

  “Where’d he learn?” Fabian asked.

  “Rumor had it that Dr. Crusher taught him, but I never bought that. Crusher never seemed to me to be the dancing type.” He gulped down the remainder of his water, then asked, “So what’s your story, Stevens? What brought you back into Starfleet after two years under the chief’s thumb?”

  “Well, my tour ended right after we lost a good friend of mine—Enrique Muniz. Good guy, great engineer, awful poker player.”

  Duffy smiled. “Everything you want in a shipmate.”

  “Something like that. He died on a mission to salvage a Jem’Hadar ship.” Fabian shook his head. “It’s funny, I always knew the risks, but it never seemed real until Muniz died. So I decided I’d had enough. I didn’t re-up, went home to the Rigel colonies, and helped my parents out with their shuttle service while I tried to figure out what to do with my life.”

  “And you figured you’d come back to Starfleet?”

  Fabian nodded. “The war kind of figured it out for me. I was bored to death on Rigel, and I realized I missed Starfleet. And then, when the war kicked into high gear, I—well, corny as it sounds, I figured it was my duty to sign back up. Besides, I figured there’d be a need for engineers.”

  Duffy grinned. “You got that right.” He looked up. “Computer, time?”

  “The time is 1457 hours.”

  “We’d better get going,” Duffy said, getting up. “Don’t want to be late for your first meeting.”

  “That would be bad, yes,” Fabian said, also rising.

  “We’ll pick this up later. If nothing else, I want to know exactly how it is that the chief had a second kid by way of a Bajoran major.”

  “Okay, but only if you tell me how Commander Worf, of all people, midwifed Molly.”

  Another grin. “Deal.”

  * * *

  “The device was found in the wreck of a Jem’Hadar ship that was taken from Chin’toka three weeks, four days ago,” Salek said as he stood next to the golf ball.

  The da Vinci’s main lab was a good-sized room—for a ship this small, anyhow—currently occupied by Salek, Duffy, Pattie, and Fabian, as well as two short, dark-haired humans, one male and one female, and a Bynar pairing. The latter wore civilian garb; Fabian had had no idea that there were any Bynars working with Starfleet, though he was grateful. No better computer experts existed in the galaxy.

  First Duffy had performed the introductions. The humans were Chan Okha, ship’s linguist, and Carol Abramowitz, the cultural specialist. The Bynars had the designations of 110 and 111, though Fabian knew it was going to take him weeks to remember which was which. They didn’t look alike, of course, but they were sufficiently similar—and seemed to cluster together and move as a unit—making it difficult to know where one short, bald-headed, slim-limbed alien began and the other ended.

  “The ship itself provided no useful intelligence that Starfleet did not already possess, but this device was found on the vessel’s main bridge. P8 Blue was part of the team that salvaged the device.” Salek then nodded at the Nasat.

  Standing on her hind legs, Pattie stepped forward. “Thus far, there isn’t much to tell. The device doesn’t have any obvious function, and scans have detected material unknown to Starfleet databases. However, the scan we did was cursory at best.”

  Duffy smiled. “So our job is to curse a bit less?”

  Making another one of those tinkly sounds, Pattie said, “Something like that, yes.”

  Fabian noticed that Salek made no reaction to Duffy whatsoever. He would have expected some kind of noise of disapproval from the stolid Vulcan, but Salek remained all business. That’ll teach me to stereotype people, he thought ruefully.

  One of the Bynars started to speak: “We might be able—”

  Then the other Bynar continued. “—to integrate with—”

  “—the computer systems of the device—”

  “—and learn its function.”

  Okay, Fabian thought, that’s going to take a lot of getting used to. He knew that Bynar pairs were heavily integrated, but he’d never actually met any before, and so was unaware that they finished each other’s sentences like that.

  “That would be a logical step to take,” Salek said. “However, precautions should be taken.”

  Abramowitz said, “So Okha and I are here, why exactly? Cheerleading?”

  Salek regarded the woman. “I assume, Dr. Abramowitz, that you are sufficiently versed in the cultures of the Dominion member races that the Federation and its allies have come into contact with that you might be able to provide some insight into the device.”

  Okha grinned. “And I can cheerlead in fifteen different languages. Thirty, if you count the dead ones.”

  “Really?” Duffy said. “How do you say ‘sis-boombah’ in Old High Andorii?”

  While the banter went on, Fabian noticed something: the surface of the golf ball looked familiar somehow. He hadn’t realized it before, but Salek’s comment about Dominion member races started the gears turning in his mind.

  Before he could pursue this, he noticed a subtle change in the vibration of the bulkheads.

  Duffy looked up. “We just went to warp.”

  “Warp eight, from the feel of it,” Pattie said.

  Fabian frowned. “Feels more like warp seven to me.”

  Salek raised an eyebrow again. “We are, in fact, traveling at warp seven-point-three.”

  Pattie made another tinkly noise—Fabian noted that each one had sounded diffe
rent, and he wondered if he’d ever figure out how they related to her emotional state.

  “Saber s are like the Defiant,” Fabian said to the Nasat. “Overpowered and undersized, so it’s easy to overestimate how fast they’re going.”

  “Two quatloos to the new guy,” Duffy said with a grin.

  A voice sounded over the speakers. “S.C.E. team, report to the observation lounge.”

  “That’s us, folks,” Duffy said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Within a few minutes, they all reassembled in the observation lounge, another small room, but this one with a big window that looked out on the distorted starfield that indicated that the da Vinci was at warp. Three others were present in addition to the group that had been gathered in the lab. One was a medium-height human with snow-white hair, bushy eyebrows, and grandfatherly blue eyes. The four pips and red trim on his uniform indicated that he was Captain David Gold. From what Fabian understood, the captain had no background in engineering, so he was unclear as to what the older man was doing supervising a group of engineers.

  Then he thought about the engineers he’d known in his time, and realized that it was probably better this way….

  The other two were a human woman with blond hair tied back severely in a bun and a Bolian man with no hair whatsoever. The former wore gold, the latter blue, which made it tough to tell where his collar ended and his neck began. The thickness of the ridge that bisected his face and the looseness of his skin indicated that he was quite old.

  Everyone sat except for Pattie, who explained quickly that chairs on starships “weren’t built with me in mind,” and Gold began the meeting.

  “First of all,” he said in a pleasant but authoritative voice, “I’d like to welcome our two new crewmembers aboard. Fabian Stevens, P8 Blue, welcome to the da Vinci. I’m Captain David Gold, and they tell me I run the place. I assume you know most of the team. This,” he indicated the human, “is Lt. Commander Corsi, our chief of security, and our chief medical officer,” he now indicated the Bolian, “Dr. Tydoan.”

  The Bolian nodded his head and said, “A pleasure. You’ll both need to report for physicals within the next three days.”