TALES
OF A
STARFLEET
ENGINEER
by
A. J. Trook
Chapter 10
Dear Mom and Dad,
Remember how I used to be fascinated by spiders as a kid? Well, forget it! We just left a planet that has two-meter long spiders. That was bad enough. But one of them was accidentally beamed up with a crate of flora samples. First I knew about it was when I ended up nose-to-mandible with it. Wow. I've still got the creepy crawlies from that. Glad those things aren't poisonous. They are fast, though. Took security almost a week to track it down and capture it so we could return it to the surface of the planet. Ugh!
Well, anyway, that's over with and things are back to normal. I've got an hour reserved on the holodeck tonight. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'll think of something.
Your son,
Max
PS: Hannah wrote to me again. Judging from the amorous nature of the letter, I'd say she's finally forgiven me for 'ruining' her vacation at Starbase 61. To be honest, I liked it better when she was still mad at me.
-----
"Ho, sir knight. From whence do you hail?"
Max raised the visor on his helmet. "I ride from the Iron Keep. I seek the Sage of Elthandor."
The man standing at the foot of the bridge nodded. "I have heard of this Sage. Are you one of the knights of Lord Kantagon's table."
Max nodded. "That I am. Might I cross your bridge and continue about my business?"
"Certainly, sir knight. You may cross with my blessing."
Max tipped his helmet to the man guarding the bridge, then continued across. Looking around the countryside, he smiled at the tranquility.
Max had, despite the circumstances, thoroughly enjoyed Amy's medieval holodeck program during Hannah's visit. Now he was exploring it from a more relaxed perspective. He'd disabled all the monsters, dark knights, and evil wizards. He felt that a quiet ride through the countryside would help him to get used to riding a horse and wearing the restrictive plate mail so common in this era. And it gave him a chance to see the layout of the holodeck universe, so when he actually did attempt an adventure, he wouldn't waste time riding heroically in the wrong direction.
The computer's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Lieutenant Davis, your holodeck time will end in five minutes."
Max sighed. It had taken him longer to strap on the armor than he'd thought. He made a mental note to start the next holodeck session already suited up. Max dismounted and looked around one last time. "Computer, save and end program." The grassy glade faded, and Max stood alone in the holodeck. Turning to the exit, he was surprised to see Commanders T'skaut and L'pon standing there watching him. "Er, did I run overtime?"
"No, lieutenant. We arrived early, not realizing that someone was already in the holodeck. We took the opportunity to observe a simulation of one stage of Earth's development." T'skaut nodded slightly. "Your armor was Saxon in design, correct?"
Max shrugged. "Beats me. It's whatever Amy – I mean, Lieutenant Peterson programmed it to be."
"You are unaware of the origin of the armor you chose to wear during this holodeck exercise?" T'skaut's eyebrow arched in that annoying Vulcan fashion.
Max nodded, chagrined. "I'm afraid so. I was spending this hour as more of a relaxation session than a history lesson."
The Vulcan studied Max for a moment. "Very well, Lieutenant. We shall not delay you further."
"Thank you, sir." Max hustled past the two Vulcans, eager to be away from the piercing stare of the first officer. Max wasn't a xenophobe by any stretch of the definition – several of his fellow engineers on Utopia Planetia had been Vulcans. But the Vulcan habit of applying strict logic to everything anyone ever did made Max question his own actions more than he felt was necessary, and Commander T'skaut was exceptionally good at bringing this introspection to the surface of Max's mind.
He returned to his quarters and replicated a paperback copy of Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness, a novel Max had read several times before and considered a classic. Sitting down in his chair, he kicked off his boots and moved the reading lamp by his ear until the light shone perfectly on the pages of the book. Adjusting his headrest, he smiled and turned to the first chapter.
"Jones to Davis"
Max sighed as he closed the book. "Go ahead, Commander."
"I've gotten a maintenance request from Commander T'skaut. Apparently there's a problem with the holodeck. Since you were just in there, perhaps you can help sort things out."
Max nodded as he rose from his chair, pausing to shut off the reading lamp. "I'm on my way, Commander. Davis out."
Max set the novel on his headboard and pulled his boots back on, then headed off to the holodeck. When he arrived, he found the holodeck in operation. Tapping his commbadge, he said, "Davis to Commander T'skaut. Are you in need of assistance?"
T'skaut's reply was calm, but more strained than Max had ever remembered hearing the Vulcan. "Lieutenant Davis, please disengage the holodeck manually. The verbal commands have failed to deactivate the holodeck matrix."
Max looked at the holodeck controls. The Vulcans had run a basic program simulating a section of their homeworld. No animals or other sentient characters had been factored in, so the intent was apparently to provide a specific terrain.
Max tried to deactivate the program, but the basic keypad command was no more effective than T'skaut's oral commands. Max checked for error codes, but found nothing amiss. Even a quick level one diagnostic failed to enlighten the puzzled engineer.
"I guess I might as well take a peek inside." Max stepped in front of the massive doors. "Computer, open arch." The doors slid open obediently. Max peered in, then frowned. "Commander T'skaut, I thought Vulcan was an arid world with temperatures averaging well over forty degrees Centigrade."
Roughly twenty meters away from the arch huddled the Vulcan pair. The snow falling heavily around them very nearly obscured the fact that they were perched on a small ledge on the side of a steep mountain. Max stuck his head inside the arch and confirmed that the chasm that dropped away at the feet of the shivering Vulcans extended all the way to the arch. Why they hadn't simply physically departed the holodeck was now crystal clear.
T'skaut's voice floated across the chasm, weakened by the snowfall. "There is obviously some form of malfunction occurring. It does not normally snow in the Ronalen mountain range."
Max barely heard the commander's statement. He was back at the controls by the door. "Computer, emergency override. Deactivate program immediately."
"Unable to comply. Holodeck program will not terminate until objective is reached."
Max frowned. Objective? "Computer, identify objective."
"To seek out the Sage of Elthandor."
Max hung his head. "I was afraid you would say that." Max shook his head. Somehow his medieval program had merged with Commander T'skaut's Vulcan homeworld program, and now the two merged programs were twisted into this snowy mountain peak with no access to the arch and no response to termination orders. He knew Vulcans didn't fare well in arctic climates, so he didn't have much time.
Tapping his commbadge, he requested an emergency beam-out of the stranded pair, and was rewarded with a transporter beam that whisked them off to sickbay for exposure and hypothermia treatment. When he saw an empty ledge where they had sat seconds ago, he breathed a sigh of relief. The time-critical element of this repair had been dealt with, and now it was simply a matter of cracking the elusive maintenance code once again.
Max ran a level two diagnostic, but the results came back negative as well. According to the diagnostic computer, the fact that the holodeck had merged two programs, refused to deactivate, and made the arch inaccessible to the occupants was no problem at all. Opening the maintenance access panel adjacent to the controls, he started inspecting isolinear chips, hoping to find a corrupted circuit that could be easily replaced. But he wasn't surprised to find them all in excellent working order.
Stepping back, he frowned. So what would cause this sort of malfunction? Perhaps the relay junction powering the main holofield generator had fused. It was conceivable that a burned-out microcircuit in such a central location could cause all this grief, though Max could have sworn that the designers of the holodeck installed numerous back-ups to ensure this very thing didn't happen.
Calling up a system schematic on his tricorder, he groaned. The main holofield generator was in the direct center of the ceiling in the holodeck room. Normally an engineer would bring a ladder into the deactivated holodeck to reach it. This was currently not an option. So that meant getting at it from the deck above. Double-checking the schematics, he groaned. The holofield generator lay two meters beneath the bar in Ten-Forward.
Max switched over to check if perhaps there was some sort of ventilation shaft running through the deck in that area. To his surprise, he discovered that a minor offshoot of a Jeffries tube ran right along that section of the deck. Looked like it was going to be easier than he'd thought.
-----
This is harder than I thought!
Max squeezed through the maintenance shaft, inching along as he dragged his tool box with an extension cord lashed to his waist. His tricorder told him that another meter was all he needed to cover before he could begin removing access panels and working on the holofield generator.
He looked back between his feet. It had taken him twenty minutes to crawl fifteen meters, and the experience hadn't been pleasant. When he was finished, he would have to ask his parents if they'd envisioned maintenance midgets when they had designed this particular maintenance shaft. Max was by no means obese, but he believed that had he had a second helping of the lasagna he'd replicated for lunch earlier that day, he'd be stuck right now.
Finally reaching the spot, he pulled the toolbox up where he could reach it and began removing panels to gain access to the generator below. Shoving them further down the shaft out of the way, he studied the holofield generator with increasing concern.
Where's the access cover?
With a grimace, Max realized that the access panel on the generator would naturally be on the bottom where an engineer on a ladder could get at it from below. Grumbling to himself, he started removing more shaft panels to make way for him to worm himself around the generator so he could reach the access panel. Sliding down along the warm casing of the generator, Max strained to reach the access panel. He just about had his fingers on it when the ceiling tile he was lying on gave way, and he fell with a shout into the holodeck.
Max's scream was cut off violently when the extension cord around his waist went taut and Max's plummet was halted abruptly. Max wheezed, the sudden stop knocking the wind out of him. Squinting in pain, he felt the chill as the wind whistled past him. Snow whipped around him, stinging him as it passed. Forcing his eyes open, he stared down at a five-meter drop to a rocky outcropping on the side of the same mountain where T'skaut and L'pon had been trapped. He could see the closed holodeck arch hanging in the air twenty meters away from the ledge, still completely out of reach. Looking up, he could see an irregular hole in the night sky, through which he spotted the tool box wedged between two struts supporting the generator. Reaching up, he grabbed the extension cord and started to pull himself back to safety.
Then he saw where the cord was rubbing against a jagged edge of the tile he'd fallen through. No. Even my luck can't be that bad.
As if responding to a dare, the cord snapped, and Max fell to the ledge below, landing hard on his ankle. Tumbling to the edge, he barely managed to keep himself from falling off the cliff. Looking up at the distant hole in the holodeck ceiling, he shouted, "Computer, end program!"
As T'skaut had experienced before him, the holodeck failed to deactivate, and Max began to shiver. Tapping his commbadge, Max called the transporter room. "Davis to transporter room . . ." His voice trickled off to nothing when he noticed that instead of tapping his commbadge, he'd simply tapped the spot on his jersey where the commbadge normally resided. Apparently it had been knocked off during his fall. Max looked around, but couldn't find it anywhere.
The things Max said during the next five minutes were things that he was later immensely relieved to find out were too muffled bythe sounds of the storm to be properly recorded.
When Max's ranting had finally given way to a determination to figure a way out of this mess, he sat down in a spot somewhat out of the wind and started assessing the situation. He was stuck in a simulation of a mountain height experiencing a blizzard. He was inadequately dressed for the occasion, and estimated another half hour before hypothermia and frostbite began to set in. He had lost his commbadge, so he couldn't call for help, and the holodeck computer was completely unresponsive, so he couldn't get it to relay a message to the main computer.
Unless someone checked on him in the very near future, they were going to have a freeze-dried engineer on their hands.
Max looked at the length of extension cord still wrapped around his waist. The entire piece was no more than three meters long, not enough to reach anything useful by a long shot. Untying it, he coiled it and hooked it to his belt anyway. In this situation, he felt that he should keep a firm grip on what few assets he had.
Dragging himself to his feet, he winced as his ankle protested. He looked down at it, willing it to be intact. He wasn't quite sure if it was a desperate need to have two functional ankles in order to increase his chances of survival, or the desire to avoid further exposure to Commander Slith's aggressive therapy. Either way, he was relieved to find that if he was gentle, he could put weight on the injured ankle.
Something echoed in the back of Max's mind, and he looked up suddenly. "Computer, identify objective."
"To seek out the Sage of Elthandor."
"Where is the sage of Elthandor?"
The computer was silent. Max looked around, but all he could see was windswept mountainside and dark cloudy sky. There wasn't so much as a single sign of life in view.
Max started to pick his way down the side of the mountain, soon reaching the ledge where the Vulcans had been trapped. The slope increased dramatically downward, and Max saw little in the way of ledges or even handholds further down. It appeared he was as trapped as the first officer and science officer had been.
Looking back up the mountain, he sighed. If he couldn't go down, then he had to go up. Grunting at the protest of his ankle, he started climbing back up the way he'd come. Soon he pulled himself back onto the outcropping he'd initially landed on. Five meters above him, the ragged hole in the clouds still mocked him with its proximity. A decent ladder would have gotten him where he needed to be. He looked around for a good-sized rock to throw at the generator, but remembered that the instant the holodeck matter left the boundaries of the holodeck, it dissipated. A holographic rock hurled at the generator would have less impact than a spitwad.
Grumbling and shivering, Max started working his way further up the mountain. Fortunately, the slope gradually decreased until it was more hiking than climbing. Max worked his way higher, following the contours of the rough terrain. Rounding a corner, he was thrilled to discover a small cave opening. Hustling into the cave, he breathed a sigh of relief at finally being out of the wind. He stared out at the swirling flakes as the storm continued without him, grinning at his good fortune.
A motion in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned to look deeper in the cave. The walls further in were illuminated by a flickering light source, and Max realized that it was a fire. "Hello?"
"Come in, come in. About time you had sense enough to get in out of the cold." The voice reminded Max of his grandfather, a grumpy old man who had rejected technology and bought a piece of land in upper Minnesota. Max and his parents had visited him there once, but the old fellow was so adamant against any form of technology that they'd soon made excuses for having to depart so soon.
Max hobbled down the tunnel, finally coming to a place where the cave opened into a small room. In the middle of the room was a large fire, and roasting on the fire was what appeared to be a rabbit. Next to the fire was a bundle of furs that suddenly poked an emaciated arm out at him. "Sit down. No need to be shy."
Max felt the heat of the fire warming his face, and didn't have to be told twice. Dropping down next to the bundle of furs, he tried to smile, but his face hurt too much. "Th-thank you."
The top of the bundle turned to face him, and Max realized that it was the head of an old man. "What brings you all the way up here, young feller? Mighty lousy night for sightseeing."
Max grinned, his face thawing enough for the expression to emerge. "You're telling me. I thought I was a Popsicle looking for a place to prop myself up."
The old man reached a gaunt arm over to a kettle Max hadn't noticed until then. Gripping the handle of the ladle, he poured a dark liquid into a tin cup. "Care for some coffee?"
Max nodded. "Sure." Normally he wasn't a coffee drinker, preferring Dr. Pepper for his caffeine fixes, but today was an obvious exception.
The old man handed Max the cup, and he took a careful sip. He grimaced immediately. The old man made his coffee strong enough not only to wake the dead, but to have them doing calisthenics.
The old man noticed his expression. "Sorry, but I don't have any cream or sugar. It's been a while since I made a supply run."
Max looked around the cave, noticing a number of odds and ends scattered along the edges of the rough floor. "You live here?"
The old man held up three fingers, then made a show of folding one down. "Yes. Yes I do. This is my humble abode."
Max thought the gesture odd, but figured that so many things surrounding him already fell firmly in that category that he didn't feel the need to question one more. "Nice place you have here. Cozy."
The old man gave him a hard look. "You think so, do you? Would you want to live in a crummy little cave on top of a mountain in the middle of blizzard season?"
Max was taken aback. "No, I guess not." He frowned. "So why do you live here if you hate it so much?"
The old man held up two fingers, then folded one down dramatically. "Because I am the Sage of Elthindor, and apparently that is what the Sage of Elthindor does. Seems a stupid thing for someone as clever as me to do, but those are the rules."
Max gaped. "You're the Sage of-"
He cut himself off as the old man thrust the final finger an inch from his nose. "Think before you ask, boy!"
Max opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. After repeating this a couple times, he looked at the scowling old man. "You're the Sage of Elthindor."
The old man's scowl deepened. He waved his index finger in front of Max's eyes. "Is that a question?"
"No," Max answered slowly, "it's an assumption. And I further assume that the finger you are holding up represents the number of questions remaining that you will answer for me."
The old man nodded. "Very nice. I don't normally give out freebies, but that will do nicely. I am the Sage of Elthindor, and this," he examined the extended finger as though seeing it for the first time, "is how many questions you have left."
Max sighed. "You know, a sign at the entrance to the cave explaining all this would probably be a nice addition to your little home business."
The sage shrugged. "I had one. It blew away a month ago. Never got around to putting up another one. Not a lot of demand for my services, you see. In fact, I think you're the first."
Max rubbed his temples. He had one question left, and it had better be a good one. If he asked the wrong question, then he might find himself stuck in this cave with this old man for a long time.
He wondered if he could simply assume his way to the answer. "I assume you don't know what a holodeck is."
The sage bristled. "Of course I know. I'm a sage, after all. Arrogant whelp." The old man's voice took on a mocking falsetto. "'The poor old fool lives in a cave. He obviously knows nothing of twenty-fourth century technology. I'll assume he's a techno-moron!' Feh!" The sage spat into the fire angrily.
Max swallowed. "My apologies. Most holodeck characters are unaware that they are on a holodeck."
The sage nodded. "I imagine they would be. They're simply computer subroutines, after all. Not sentient beings like us."
Max nodded slowly, dropping his next three assumptions. To sit arguing with the sage about his existence was at the very least an unproductive strategy. And if the sage went screaming into the snowy night driven mad by the realization that he was simply a fictitious character in a holodeck adventure, then it would make asking him the third question significantly more difficult. "So I can assume that you know how to deactivate a holodeck when it has somehow merged two programs and locked out its termination commands."
"You could assume that," said the old man, "But you'd be a stark raving loony to do so. I live in a cave, man! What do I know about fixing holodecks??"
"But you said you knew about holodecks."
The old man glared at Max like he'd asked for money. "I did, but that doesn't make me a lousy Starfleet engineer! Ye gads, lad! Do you know how to fix a malfunctioning holodeck?"
Max frowned, offended at the sage's tone. "Of course I do. I just happen to be a Starfleet engineer, thank you."
The old man leaned forward, his nose almost touching Max's. His voice dropped to a gravelly rasp. "Then what're you doing climbing around the mountains in the middle of a blizzard asking me if I can fix one? Go fix the thing yourself and leave me alone, you empty-headed brat!"
Max drew back from the angry sage. "But you-" He stopped abruptly, spotting something against the far wall that he hadn't noticed before. Suddenly, Max knew his third question.
"Could I borrow your ladder?"
-----
"Come on, Bill! We've only got this thing for an hour. Let's get going." Rhonda grinned as her boyfriend struggled with the holodeck controls. She suddenly pouted. "Or are you having second thoughts about a romantic getaway to Risa?"
Bill was certainly having second thoughts about that, but only thoughts of rising panic that he might not be able to take Rhonda to the holodeck Risa as planned. "Just another minute, honey. I think I've about got it."
The holodeck doors slid open, and Bill smiled. "See? I told you it'd just be a minute."
Rhonda snuggled up next to him. "Lead the way, loverboy." The amorous couple started into the holodeck, then stopped in their tracks. Hanging from the ceiling by one hand was a shivering engineer.
He glared down at them. "This holodeck is out of service. Now go get me a ladder!"