SCE 37 - Ring Around the Sky (c) by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek [Star Trek]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Tags: \Star Trek
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2011-01-02T07:59:58.438000+00:00

Chapter

6

Gold stood at the ready room window as he listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and looked out over the da Vinci’s saucer at the Ring and Kharzh’ulla beneath it. From the ship’s position in orbit the damaged Ring segment could not be seen, but behind the ship Gold could see an elevator thousands of kilometers distant move out of the terminator and into the dawn. Few sights he had seen in his Starfleet career could inspire such awe at the power of technology to add to the beauty of nature. The Dyson Sphere Montgomery Scott and the Enterprise-D had discovered represented the ultimate in stellar engineering. The Kharzh’ullan Ring was so much smaller than that, but no less impressive. Planets always held a fascination, each unique in its coloring, its features, and space stations reflected the sensibilities of their designers. Here, however, was a synthesis of both the natural and the artificial—functional, yet inspiring.

He heard distantly over the strains of violins the sound of the door chime. He sighed, asked the computer to mute Vivaldi, and took a seat behind his desk.

Gomez and Tev entered the ready room, and they took their seats opposite the desk.

Gold leaned back in his chair. “Anything to drink?”

Both Gomez and Tev shook their heads.

“How did the surveys go?” Gold asked.

“Exhausting,” said Gomez.

“Long,” said Tev.

Gold nodded. “Care to elaborate?”

Gomez looked to Tev. He nodded, and an unspoken communication passed between them.

“The Kharzh’ullan plan won’t work,” she said.

Gold folded his hands together and lazily tapped the tip of his nose. “Why?”

Gomez bobbed her head from side to side in thought, then scrunched the side of her mouth. “The Kharzh’ullans’ makeshift solution—using the structural integrity fields—actually damaged the elevator shaft more than the Jem’Hadar attack did. Pattie found stress fractures all along the shaft. The SIFs held the structure too rigid, and it wasn’t designed to take that kind of stress.”

“They had the right idea,” said Tev. “The system’s design was rather ingenious—the Ring holds the elevators up, but that centrifugal force would have pulled the elevator apart eventually. The structural integrity fields were meant to hold the elevator together. Ironically, they hastened the Ring’s collapse.”

“How long until the system fails?” asked Gold.

Gomez shrugged. “We can have an answer for you in a few days. If I had to take a guess, we have some time, perhaps even a few years.” She took out her padd and passed it across the desk to Gold. “Pattie’s preliminary report hasn’t been able to pinpoint an exact time.”

“There may not be an exact time,” added Tev. “There are too many factors in play.”

“What about the Kharzh’ullans? I thought they were building a new elevator casing.”

Tev nodded. “They are. Unfortunately, fixing the hole the Jem’Hadar made in the elevator shaft would be the beginning of the cure, not the end, as the stress fractures themselves also need to be repaired.”

“What about welding the fractures back together? I thought the Kharzh’ullans were building a new skin for the elevator shaft.”

Gomez shook her head.

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