“Doctor! It’s wonderful to see you working properly again.”
“Reg! Good to see you too, old friend.”
“How do you feel?”
“Hmm, if I had to describe it, I’d equate the feeling of having cobwebs in my ears.” The Doctor replied, still debating the answer.
The Doctor turned to see Annika standing quietly, smirking. “Annika, is everything all right?”
“It is now, Doctor. Are you up to the task of extracting the ECH subroutines?”
“I think I’m as ready as I’m going to be. Reg, fire up that script again. Let’s see if we can finish this project, shall we?”
“Right away Doctor. I just need to recompile the extraction sequence.” Mr. Barclay chirped before activating the sequence, now recompiled and ready to execute.
Ensign Aron-Mu Ishii entered the holomatrix lab during the process, watching silently from behind Annika Hansen. Gradually a new holomatrix formed next to the Doctor’s. It had the same Starfleet uniform, the same height, same face, and—
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
—the same voice and startup sequence.
“Hmm that wasn’t supposed to compile over.”
“Did you remove the emergency response references from the initial startup process?” Aron asked.
“Emergency response references?”
“Yes, it’s something I found while studying the original design matrix. Not yours, of course, Doctor, Dr. Zimmerman's. I would need a year to understand the complexities of a program expanding its own parameters and decoding that language and style.”
Reginald Barclay looked confused as ever. “Please show me where these references are.”
“Yes, Sir. Theres about seven right here, another five one hundred lines down, and one line references scattered through this file that gets called here. Quite easy to spot once I learned Zimmerman’s style.”
“G-good work, Ensign.” After the references removed, Reg recompiled the code. The uniform was finally Red, and there was no request for parameters upon activation. “Well, Doctor, it seems your programming has become its own version now. Would you like to create his appearance and give it a name?”
“Yes Reg, among other things, I would.”
——
Solek stepped into the mess hall to see Lt. Calvin sitting alone among his officers. Aside from a tray of half-eaten food, three PADDs filled the table with Edgar looking intently between them. “Do you mind if I join you, Sir?”
“We’re alone, Sol.”
“Actually, Sir, we are not. You’re sitting in the mess hall with a number of crewmen around you. It is intriguing that you would be sitting alone at this time.” Solek commented.
Solek locked eyes with Edgar when he finally looked up, but his superior sighed and looked away quickly. “You contradicted yourself. Take a seat.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“I’m beginning to think you just like saying that.” Solek barely heard Edgar mumble. “Not like it’ll matter after today.”
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Solek asked, glancing over the last traces of the abuse Edgar had endured.
Again, locked eyes. Solek could see fear and defeat behind them. “Because after Hansen’s report it’s doubtful I’ll see the inside of a starship after I’m taken back to Earth in the brig of the Columbine or the Exobyte. Quinn gave me specific orders not to touch any code and not even out of the first assignment I cocked it up and nearly corrupted a highly valued Starfleet veteran in the process.”
“Will this be the approach every time you face problems while in command?”
“What?”
“This defeatist attitude. You did this same pouting routine on the Pandora. I’m trying to determine if it’s habitual.”
“You’re out of line, Ensign.” Solek expected the resistance, but this implied Edgar had completely cloistered himself.
“As a friend, as a…mate, I’m telling you this, not as your subordinate. Captains and commanders make mistakes. If you want to earn that chair you have to start acting like it.”
“We’re done here.”
“Yes, Sir.” Solek jabbed as he stood and walked out, showing his frustration willfully.
Edgar was furious. He couldn’t believe that his closest and most valued friend would attack him like this. He gathered his PADDs and threw the tray in the replicator. A few meters down the hall, Edgar turned and stopped into an unoccupied room with a console. “Computer activate subspace network connection, authorization Calvin seven-two-Theta-Foxtrot.”
“Command authorization accepted.”
“Contact Admiral Quinn, Earth spacedock.” The computer chirped again a compliance. Within moments, the admiral’s face was on the viewscreen.
“You must be in some pretty deep shit if you’re calling me first.” Quinn’s tone suggested he already read Hansen’s report, and that the conversation had few options to go outside of downhill.
“No, Sir, I simply decided it’d be faster if I just confessed and you threw me in the brig early.”
“I don’t know if it’s a Romulan tradition or some other reason your mother decided to give you a pair of brass ones but that stunt in the holomatrix lab is your official strike two.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“How are you recovering?”
“Ribs are still sore, can’t focus on one object for very long without getting a headache, but Dr. Turek told me I had to rest from treatments before he could continue.”
“I’d wager part of that is his own brand of torture you’ve earned.”
“Yes, sir.” Edgar said, slowly letting the attacks get under his skin.
“How’s the rest of your crew?”
“Reports from the senior officers indicate on a whole they’re fine. We did lose a few that were on the station during the attack, however. Most of them are a bit confused about what exactly happened, but I have a team piecing together the events to get a proper timeline.”
“I expect to see that report in my inbox no later than week’s end.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Edgar, I tell you this from mentor to protege: get your act together. I remember a young cadet full of vigor and ideas and a cool brow under pressure but, all I have seen out of you is a liability. Find out what happened to him and get him back here.”
Quinn disconnected the feed abruptly leaving Edgar in the small room alone. With only his thoughts and comments from both Solek and Quinn, the once irritating testimony of Lt. Matoya now held weight behind the words.
“Computer, compile PADDs two and three into a compression file and encrypt for Starfleet Intelligence, use level seven passkey algorithms.” The classic chirp of compliance barely reverberated in the walls. “Send PADD one to Lieutenant Matoya with the encrypted file attached. Encrypt message: priority one: Eyes Only.”
