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Reyes gripped his friend’s hand an extra moment. He considered attempting to convey a message to the doctor or T’Pry
“Okay, sport,” Fisher said to his escort as he moved toward the door, “let’s get a move on. Still plenty of ship to inspect before my day’s over.”
The sentry scowled as he stepped aside to allow the doctor to exit the room. Looking back at Reyes, he said, “You can go now, human.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Reyes said, offering a mock salute. “I was worried I might miss my spa appointment.”
He waited until Fisher and the guard disappeared from sight before releasing a slow sigh, shaking his head in wonderment at what had just transpired. Had Fisher and T’Pry
Well, let’s hope we can buck that trend, shall we? The thought continued to rattle around in his head even as he left the room and made his way toward one of the turbolifts that would return him to the gaming deck. It was not until he emerged from the lift and was greeted by the raucous sounds and sights of the casino that T’Pry
“I will be in contact with you soon, Mister Reyes, but I will be monitoring this frequency in a passive scan mode, should you have need to call for assistance. On behalf of Admiral Nogura and Commander ch’Nayla, I wish to thank you for agreeing to help us in this endeavor.”
Glancing around to make sure no one was paying him any extra attention as he headed for the bar at the center of the gaming floor, Reyes could not help releasing a small chuckle as he considered his current situation.
“I just hope I don’t talk in my sleep.”
10
As he had every day for the past three weeks, Lieutenant Ming Xiong made a circuit of the containment chamber. Just as he had done on those prior occasions during the unit’s construction and installation, he studied every detail and allowed nothing to escape his notice. He inspected each setting on every control panel, eyed every joint and seam where duranium metal plates had come together to form the compartment’s outer shell. Even the conduits co
“Well, would you look at that,” a male voice said from somewhere to his right. “I think he’s finally snapped.”
Another voice, also male though possessing a slightly higher pitch, replied, “What do you mean snapped? He seems perfectly normal to me.”
“Can’t you see?” the first man asked, his tone now clearly one of jest. “He’s walking the wrong way.” Then, his voice rising in volume, he said, “Lieutenant, if you keep that up, you’re going to wear through the deck plating.”
Unable to keep from smiling as he halted his inspection, Xiong turned to look at the two men standing at the entrance to the U.S.S. Lovell’s secondary cargo bay. “Mister Anderson. Mister O’Halloran. Glad you could make it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” replied Anderson as he and O’Halloran made their way into the cargo bay.
“Says you,” O’Halloran countered. “This was supposed to be my day off.”
Anderson shook his head. “You big baby.”
The verbal banter helped to ease Xiong’s mood as the engineers approached. Both wore Starfleet uniforms with red tunics bearing a lieutenant’s stripes, though neither officer appeared old enough to be more than a week out of the Academy. Xiong figured that their apparent youth in large part could be attributed to the jocular, almost irreverent ma
The same could be said for the Lovell itself, being an all but ancient Daedalus-class vessel. A relic of the previous century, it and two sister ships had been pulled from deep storage at the Qualor II shipyards and refurbished for use by the Corps of Engineers, offering its crew of specialists and miracle workers ample opportunity to tinker with every onboard system to the point where the Lovell now performed almost as well as any ship built within the past three decades. Given the irregular nature of what Xiong and this vessel’s crew were about to attempt, “unorthodox” was just the sort of character trait that was needed here and now.
“Well,” Xiong said, offering a wry grin, “I appreciate you being here, even if you’re not supposed to be here today.”
“No problem, Lieutenant,” Anderson said. “Commander al-Khaled prefers to have us on hand when there’s a possibility of something blowing up, or ripping open the fabric of space-time.”
O’Halloran’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to happen today, though. Right?”
“I can’t predict what might result from this test,” Xiong replied, “but I’m fairly confident the space-time continuum is secure, at least for the moment.” Even as he spoke the words, Xiong considered his answer. If Operation Vanguard had taught him anything, it was to anticipate the unexpected, the unlikely, or even the impossible.
“Good,” Anderson said, making his way toward the row of workstations that had been installed in the cargo bay and configured to act as the center of operations for the forthcoming series of tests. “I hate to mess with that kind of stuff, at least before lunch.” Settling into one of the seats positioned before the consoles, he ran his hand along one set of controls and nodded. “Everything shows green.” Gesturing toward the container, he asked, “I take it our guest is behaving itself?”
Xiong replied, “So far.” Moving to stand next to where O’Halloran had seated himself at another of the consoles, he tapped a control, and one of the workstation’s monitors flickered to life before settling on the image of a now quite familiar crystalline polyhedron. Somewhat larger than a human head, the Mirdonyae Artifact—one of two currently held by Xiong and his team of researchers on Starbase 47—emitted a pulsing, violet glow, just as it had since he had used the mysterious crystal to capture the Shedai entity that had attacked the station months earlier. Whether the energy emitted by the crystal originated from the object itself or the mysterious being it now held within its confines, Xiong did not know. Weeks of intensive sensor scans of the artifact as well as its companion, which remained in its own secure containment facility within the Vault aboard the station, had yielded nothing in the way of tangible information.