Carol's uneasiness gave way to the natural rhythm of hard work. Aside from the occasional, distant thump or boom that warned them the Inhabitants and the AI were still warring via robot drones (and who knew what else) over other parts of the station, the only sounds were the distant hum of the stellar core and the closer rush of the computing cluster's cooling system.
They ate while they worked, and only rested for brief intervals, as short as they could while still getting something out of it. During one such break, Gaila asked her, "Is this your first away mission?"
"My first one like this."
"You're good. You should come on more of them."
Carol laughed. "Good, as in I haven't blown us up yet?"
"Yes," Gail said with perfect honesty. "Well, and you're keeping your head on straight. A lot of people really aren't cut out for these kinds of things. They're much better staying on the ship."
"I used to figure that was me."
"Well I think you were wrong about that."
Carol's smile was small but sincere. "Thank you," she said in a low voice.
Hours later, when she had almost finished working out the shield's mechanics, Mr. Scott came in from the anteroom, grabbed a towel to wipe grime off his hands, and said, "Recalibrated the transmitters on the pad. So. Where are we at?"
Carol went first. "I've just about worked out the equations for the shield's frequencies, so if you have the transmitting harness in place I can begin my first round of tests in under an hour."
"Good. Robots?"
Oureka said, "We have converted all of the currently available units."
"Excellent. How about getting the Pilots hooked in?"
Gaila made a face. "We're having trouble with that."
Scott's brow furrowed. "What kind?"
Gaila and Oureka gave him a rundown, showing the various modules and subunits they had in place and where the failures were happening.
Scott ran his hands through his hair. "Alright, well, you've already tried everything I would, so let's report in. Maybe the captain and Arkoryx'll have some ideas."
Gaila hailed the Enterprise, looking frustrated. Carol gave her a sympathetic look, and Gaila responded with a tired smile.
Mr. Scott didn't mince words once he had Spock, the captain, and Arkoryx on the line. "We've got ten more of those drones out there now, and Marcus is close to testing a return transporter. But there's a problem with connecting the Pilots into the computer system."
"What kind of problem?" Jim asked, and Gaila synced her display to the Enterprise so she could show them.
"Every time we loop them in, the connection destabilizes. We're on our thirteenth prototype now, and we have a few more to go, but this isn't looking good." She was working to keep the frustration out of her voice, but Spock could hear it none-the-less.
Jim rubbed his chin while he looked at Oureka and Gaila's code, and Spock asked, "Is the facility AI interfering with the process?"
"No, we've checked and double-checked. The system signal's clear and strong, no outside interference. We just can't seem to synchronize them like they are on the Pilots' channel. We're missing something, but Oureka and I can't see what it is."
Jim muttered a curse under his breath and turned in a circle, arms folded.
Arkoryx, who had been listening with his head tilted, said, "There is one possibility, Lieutenant." Jim stopped his pacing and faced Arkoryx. "It may be the missing link, is Captain Kirk."
On the screen, Spock saw Oureka flinch and Gaila blink in surprise, while there in his lab the tension between Jim and Arkoryx increased by several orders of magnitude.
After a handful of brittle seconds, Jim said, "You've known the whole time."
Arkoryx made a graceful gesture with one hand. Based on Spock's observations of Praxidi body language over the past two days, he was now reasonably certain this particular motion was similar to a Human shrug.
"I suspected."
Several things fell into place for Spock. The Inhabitants had, in fact, used the captain to reach the Pilots' channel the first time, and Arkoryx had been accommodating because he knew Jim was not overly tolerant of the Praxidi and might decide to leave at any moment. That was also why they'd been willing to allow the Enterprise to transport to the station-in case they needed Jim to go to it.
The very last thing Spock was willing to do was place the captain in a position where the Praxidi might be able to exert control over him, and though the number of Enterprise crew on the station outnumbered the Praxidi landing party, he had no doubt Arkoryx was comfortable with those numbers as they stood.
There were the Inhabitants to consider, however. They controlled the robot drones, and (if the captain had his way) ultimately would control the station. They were not necessarily allied with the Praxidians. Of course, they weren't necessarily allied with the captain either.
Spock noticed Jim was watching him. With Arkoryx present, Spock would have to choose his words carefully. He clasped his hands behind his back and said, "Perhaps it will be necessary to send you to the facility, Captain, that you might complete the connection and enable the Inhabitants to gain control of it."
He saw a reaction flit through Jim's eyes, and hoped he'd been understood. Arkoryx was still and focused on Jim, and Spock had a brief hope his message had not been too obvious.
Jim sighed. Spock thought he sounded tired, and imagined he was weary of diplomatic chess with the Praxidi. "Do we need to send any additional equipment over?" he asked Arkoryx.
"There will be one or two items Master Engineer Oureka will require. I can have them transported from the Waterbourne to the facility."
So Arkoryx had either not considered sending the captain to the station a foregone conclusion, or he wished to maintain that illusion. Spock would have to consider the implications of both cases.
Jim blew out a breath. "Right. Okay, let's get me over there."
"I knew it," Dr. McCoy said, sounding disgusted. "We can't get within five light-years of these guys without them trying to mess with you somehow."
Jim was remaining calm in the face of the doctor's objections, which Spock thought was a good sign. "I'm just going to be there to let them get control of the station back. I'm not doing anything else."
McCoy rolled his eyes. "Sure you're not."
"This isn't like last time."
"You're right, it's not, because last time, I didn't have my entire medical staff, a med bay full of sedatives, Spock, and Kevin handy to keep you from acting on your stupid ideas."
Jim looked at the floor for a moment, accepting the censure without comment.
"Doctor," Spock said, and McCoy stopped glaring at Jim long enough to look at Spock. "Would it assuage your concerns if one of Dr. Riley's biotechnology staff accompanied him?"
McCoy's eyes narrowed. "Only if it's Tracy."
Dr. Karen Tracy was the head of Riley's staff. Spock agreed with Dr. McCoy that she would be the best choice short of Drs. Riley or McCoy themselves. "Captain?"
Jim and Dr. McCoy studied one another, the doctor looking as unyielding as Spock had ever seen him, and Jim, for once, not pushing. Finally, Jim said, "Kirk to Dr. Riley."
"Riley here."
"Professor, I need you and Dr. Tracy to come to Mr. Spock's laboratory."
"We'll be there shortly, Captain."
When Dr. Tracy and the captain arrived on the receiving pad, Scotty was pleased to be able to report, "We have return transporter capabilities, Captain."
"Thank you, Mr. Scott, the good news is appreciated."
"Well, it was mostly Marcus, if you want to know the truth." In his peripheral vision, Scotty saw Tracy give him an amused look.
"I suspected," Jim said. His tone was dry.
"Of course you did. Right this way."
Scotty lead them into the main room, where the captain stopped to look at the computer cluster towers. They continued to the small space Oureka had cleared for him next to a console; a black, foam-like pad was spread out along the floor and partly against the wall.
"Pilot. I hope this will be a comfortable place for you."
"Considering the circumstances, it'll be fine. Thanks." He settled himself down, legs stretched in front of him, and accepted a tablet from Tracy, who pulled out a medical tricorder and began scanning him.
Given Tracy's no-nonsense nature, Scotty was fairly sure he knew why she was there, and couldn't have been more grateful. He'd been worried about how they were going to keep the captain from doing anything harebrained without Spock or McCoy handy.
After a few seconds, Tracy nodded at Oureka, who tapped at her tablet, offered it to Tracy, and moved to the management console. The captain's eyes narrowed for a second, and he said, "It's connected."
Tracy sent her tricorder's readings to the tablet and snapped it shut. After a once-over, she said, "Everything looks good."
"Okay." Jim shook himself out. "Let's get this over with."
Oureka said, "Beginning synchronization," and swept her hand across the console.
Jim sucked in a breath and his eyes went wide, the pupils shrunk to pinpoints, and his fingers clawed into the foam padding.
"Captain?" Dr. Tracy asked, eyes on her tablet. Scotty saw something flicker yellow, then orange, then red.
"Still here," he choked out. "Just-this isn't like on the ships." His jaw clenched and he tensed all over, and Scotty traded a nervous look with Marcus.
Tracy's mouth formed a thin line. "Captain, if this doesn't stop I'm-"
"Don't." His voice caught on the word. Oureka was all but vibrating in place, and Gaila watched from her seat with a grim expression.
Jim's body went rigid for a harrowing handful of seconds, then the tension broke and he sagged back against the wall. "Son of a bitch." He dragged in his breaths and ran one hand over his face. "You really need to, work on that interface some."
"It'll be in the next patch," Tracy promised, and passed her tablet to Oureka, who began adjusting various settings. She in turn nodded at Marcus and Gaila, who set to work on their consoles, pulling up a variety of modules and layouts.
"How's it looking," Jim asked, craning his neck to see Marcus and Gaila. Scotty watched their displays, resisting the urge to pace.
"They're in sync," Marcus said. She and Gaila murmured to one another, adjusted some of the settings, and Gaila grinned. "The connection's holding."
The captain rested his head against the wall, looking exhausted. "Good work everyone."
From that point on, Tracy worked with Marcus and Gaila, and they spread out along the various displays, moving between them as they helped the Pilots and the Inhabitants with the finer points of obtaining control of the computer system. The captain worked on his tablet and occasionally stared out over the room, but said very little. Oureka and Scotty tuned the transporter in between deliveries of new drones to repurpose.
Some time later, while he and Oureka were refitting two more salvaged drones, Scotty asked her, "Why d'ya call him that? 'Pilot', I mean. He's got a name, and a rank, and everything."
Oureka set her instrument down and gripped her hands together. "It would be rude to call him anything else."
"Rude?"
"The Pilots are the charges of the Guild of Engineering. As a systems engineer and the Master Engineer of the Waterbourne, this would be entirely deplorable behavior for me to exhibit. Any Pilot is my first and most important responsibility." Her fingers flicked, and she asked, "Would it be more correct for us to call him by his rank and name?"
Scotty's immediate thought was to say yes, because being made captain of a ship was a considerable thing, and the whole business of being a Pilot had been forced onto Kirk (and left him in pretty sorry shape for some time afterward on top of that). On the other hand, the captain didn't seem to mind that the Praxidians called him 'Pilot', though Scotty wasn't sure if that was Kirk playing at diplomacy or if he actually found it tolerable.
"Ah, I guess it's mostly what he's comfortable with. I mean, considering how it all came about."
Oureka's neat braid of nerve-bundles shivered. "It is true those circumstances were unacceptable." She took up her tablet and tapped at it, and Scotty wondered if it was the play for distraction that it appeared to be. "But as a Pilot, he has saved the lives of many of my people, aided an assistant to become captain, and given one of our engineers a way to integrate converted Pilots. To our people, it was not Captain Kirk who did these things. It was the Fifth Pilot of the Dancer in the Void."
Scotty sighed. "Well. When you put it that way I guess it would be rude." He cast a furtive glance around, leaned closer to her, and said in a low voice, "Between you and me? Don't tell him any of that. It'll go straight to his head."
Oureka looked up at Scotty's crown, as if she might find some example of what he meant there, then met his eyes again. "I will endeavor not to."
She probably had no idea what he meant. Well, it had been worth a shot. "Right. I'll just get back to this drone."
She bobbed her head at him in what might have been some approximation of a nod and returned to her work on her own robot.
Scotty sincerely hoped none of the other races they ran into would be even remotely this much trouble.
