Gomez arrived on the bridge as they were ready to drop out of warp. Stevens was at one of the aft stations. Lieutenant Commander Tev stood next to Captain Gold’s chair. “Good morning, Captain. Tev.”

Tev’s deep-set eyes gave her a sideways glance. His snout wrinkled slightly and the corner of his mouth twitched down a bit, all of which seemed to say, “I’ve been up for hours. Where have you been?”

She grinned slightly. She was learning to let the Tellarite’s natural arrogance roll off her. He seemed oblivious. She had to admit that, as his superior officer, it helped to know she could simply order him to behave himself. It wasn’t her style to actually do it, but knowing she could provided an escape valve.

Now, if she could just improve his relationships with the rest of the crew, she’d be getting somewhere. The only person with whom the Tellarite was in any way friendly was Bart Faulwell. Gomez wondered what the linguist’s secret was.

“Wong,” said Gold, “take us to impulse.”

The ship dropped out of warp, and the stars on the screen changed from moving streaks to diamondlike points.

“One quarter impulse, sir.”

“Haznedl, where’s our derelict?”

The alpha-shift ops officer’s strawberry blond hair was drawn into a tight bun, an imitation of Corsi’s severe style, in an attempt to counter her youth and small stature. She tapped at her console. “I show it three hundred twenty kilometers ahead, sir.”

“Visual and magnify, on screen.”

“Aye.”

Gomez stared. The ship wasn’t a disk at all, it was a dark-colored torus. Its surface was a complex pattern of gray and black, with glinting highlights of silver, and occasional splashes of caramel brown. Small projections spaced evenly around the rim might have been thrusters or emitters of some sort, and other small projections were even less identifiable. It was hard to make sense of it all because the whole thing was spinning, and quite rapidly.

She tried to fix her eye on one of the projections and count seconds as it spun. “That’s what, about eight revolutions per minute?”

Tev leaned over the ops console, studying the sensor displays. “A fraction over seven RPM, actually.”

Gold grinned slightly. “It looks like a bagel.”

Gomez grinned back. “A five-hundred-meter bagel.”

“That,” he said, “would need a lot of lox.”

Tev snorted, a sound of disgust, at the casual banter between the captain and first officer.

“Captain,” said Haznedl, “scanners are having a hard time reading the interior. The ionizing radiation and some exotic alloys in the hull are interfering. I’m detecting no life-forms, but there is a pressurized space occupying about thirty percent of the interior volume. Helium, argon, various trace gases, including a heavy concentration of radon.” She tapped more controls. “Neither the atmosphere nor the technology matches anything in the Federation database. This is a total unknown.”

“Well,” said Gomez. “Looks like we have ourselves another puzzle. Tev, what’s your analysis?”

“It’s a ship or probe, probably unoccupied. There’s no indication of warp capability. I suspect those projections on the rim are primitive impulse thrusters.”

She nodded. “I’d say you were right about everything except about its being unoccupied. There, you’re dead wrong.”

Tev glared at her. “It doesn’t have the characteristics of a ship designed to support life.”

“On the contrary, it has a characteristic that leads to no other conclusion. It’s spinning.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe Tellarites don’t suffer ill effects from prolonged exposure to microgravity, but many other species, including humans, do. Some of our early space station and spacecraft designs used centrifugal force to simulate gravity for long space voyages.”

Tev snorted. “How stunningly primitive.” He considered for a moment. “Clever though.”

“I suggest,” said the captain, “there will be plenty of time to study this thing. What say we save a planet first? This is your show, Gomez.”

She nodded. “Aye, sir.”

She pulled out a padd and checked her calculations. She’d plotted an orbit that would take the spinship safely past the Lokra homeworld, having adjusted for the mass, configuration, and now the rotation of the derelict ship, based on their more refined sensor readings. After double-checking her final check, she transferred the final results to the ops console.

“Susan, lock on tractor emitters two and three. Songmin, stand by thrusters. Full astern as soon as we have lock.”

Emitters two and three were among the many da Vinci upgrades that originated with Duffy’s “U.S.S. Roebling” S.C.E. dream ship, made when the ship was being repaired following Galvan VI. Located at the far edges of the saucer section, the long baseline separating them allowed for precision manipulation of objects at a distance. Their locations allowed them to connect directly into the same structural spar that tied the warp nacelles to the ship, and to hook directly into the ship’s main EPS power conduits.

“Aye,” said Haznedl, “we’ve got lock.”

On the main viewscreen, Gomez watched a pair of converging blue beams lock on to either side of the ring-shaped ship.

“Thrusters full astern,” said Wong. Even before he finished speaking, a note of hesitation crept into his voice. He frowned at his console. “Captain, I’m getting some anomalous firing of the attitude thrusters. The automatic systems are throwing in a roll component, but our attitude is stable.”

Gomez glanced at the viewscreen for the oldest kind of confirmation. The stars remained in fixed positions. But if the roll thrusters are firing—

Gomez reviewed her calculations. She’d compensated so there would be little or no coupling of the derelict’s spin back to the da Vinci. Maybe there was an unrelated malfunction in the automatic stability systems.

“Captain,” said Wong, tension creeping into his voice, “thruster quads one through four and eleven through fourteen are reaching maximum output. We can’t maintain thrust astern.”

Gomez stared at the screen. This couldn’t be happening, but this wasn’t the time to be guessing at what was going on. “Shut down the tractor beams! Back us away!”

Haznedl tapped the ops console, her voice thin with strain. “I’ve cut power, but the beams are still active.”

On screen the tractor beams were clearly visible. More disturbing, the stars were rotating, like the second hand of an antique clock, and they were getting faster.

Gomez ran to the engineering station and pulled up an EPS status panel. “The plasma relays may have fused. I’m going to cut the main EPS conduits feeding the system. We’ll lose phaser power too, but—”

Tev came and looked over her shoulder, staring at the master display as she located the master plasma cutouts and activated them. She glanced back at the screen. The damned tractor beams were still active!

“Where are they getting power?”

Wong tapped frantically at the helm. “I’ve lost attitude control. Thruster quads one, four, eleven, and fourteen are reaching critical overheat. I have to shut them down before they blow.”

“Wait as long as you can,” shouted Gomez, looking for any other way power could be reaching the tractor beams. The thrusters would slow their accelerating rotation and might buy them critical seconds to shut down the tractor beams. Plus, it was only a matter of time before the acceleration itself started to cause problems.

“Inertial dampers and structural integrity field systems are showing the strain,” said Haznedl.

“Our roll rate is fourteen RPM and accelerating,” Wong said. Their mass, relative to the derelict, was quickly accelerating their spin rate.

“The news just keeps getting better,” muttered Gomez. She could hear the ship groaning from the strain, feel a slight lean to the deck that the inertial dampers couldn’t compensate for.

She couldn’t understand it. The tractor beams were isolated from any power source, yet they kept operating. She triple checked the EPS schematic. The tractors and main phasers were isolated at the end of a major EPS feeder. There was no way they could be getting power, unless—

“It’s got to be some kind of feedback loop. The beam interaction with the derelict is generating power, not dissipating it. It’s feeding power back through the beams. That’s what threw my calculations off!”

She was suddenly aware Captain Gold was standing next to her. “How do we turn it off?”

“We can’t, unless we can get someone down to directly disable the emitters. And if we break the circuit, I don’t know where the energy will go. It could kill anyone near the emitter, even make them explode.”

“Roll is at twenty RPM,” said Wong. The stars whirled on the viewscreen like a child’s pinwheel.

“Warning,” said the computer, “inertial dampers in overload. Failure imminent. Warning, structural integrity field reaching critical load.”

“Damn, there just isn’t time!”

The ship moaned and shuddered as it tried to tear itself apart.

It was a race. If the SIF failed, the ship would break up. If the inertial dampers failed, they’d all be splattered against the nearest bulkhead.

Tev blinked. “Put the main phasers in overload.”

“That’ll blow up the ship,” said Gold.

“It’ll do nothing,” said Gomez. “The phasers don’t have power.”

“Just do it,” said Tev. “It’s the only way.”

Stevens, holding on to the tactical station for support, had a sudden look of revelation. “Captain, he’s right! It’s our only hope!”

Gomez scowled at the EPS diagram. She didn’t see what good it would do, but Captain Gold had once told her, “Trust your people.”

“Setting main phasers to overload.” She was leaning sideways in her chair now, struggling not to slide out of it.

“Warning,” said the computer, “phaser overload requires command authorization.”

“Authorization, Gold, alpha tango one!”

There was a noise, as though the phaser banks were about to fire, which turned abruptly into a dull thud that shuddered through the ship. A flash illuminated the derelict on the screen. By the time Gomez’s eyes adjusted, the tractor beams were gone.

The ship shook violently. The lights on the bridge flickered. Then things smoothed out. The rotating stars on the screen began to slow.

“Damage report,” said Captain Gold.

“Minor buckling in the hull and secondary structural members,” reported Anthony Shabalala from tactical. “Tractor beams and main phasers are offline. Damage to EPS conduits ten and thirty. Minor damage to structural integrity field systems and reaction control systems. No casualties.”

Gold stared at the object on the screen. “Well, that was exciting.” He turned and made eye contact with Gomez. His look made it clear he was trying not to be judgmental, but she knew she’d better have a damned good report ready for him ASAP.

First, though, she wanted to know how Tev pulled that rabbit out of his hat, and she gave him an expectant look.

To his credit, the Tellarite spoke up immediately. “The phasers were isolated on the same branch of the EPS system as the tractor beams.”

Stevens nodded. “Energy was flowing in through the emitters when it should have been going out, feeding that branch. Putting them in overload was like putting a dead short across the circuit. It shut the feedback down, and the excess energy was dissipated harmlessly through the phaser strips.”

Tev nodded, obviously a little annoyed at being cut off in his moment of glory. “In far too simple terms, that’s more or less what happened.”

“That was a close one,” said Gomez.

“Just for the record,” said Gold, annoyance slipping into his voice, “I do not like close calls. There will be a full S.C.E. briefing at 1100 hours. I’ll expect a complete report on this incident, and what we’re going to do about this—” He gestured at the screen. “—thing, now that we have no tractor beams or phasers.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call the ambassador and explain why there’s still a killer ship heading toward his planet.”

Gold stepped into his ready room and stood ramrod-straight until the doors closed behind him. Once they did, he relaxed his posture and breathed deep. That had been a close one.

When he’d taken this assignment, he’d imagined it would be beneficial and interesting. What he had not anticipated was that S.C.E. was perhaps the most hazardous duty he’d ever served. Not only did they face constant unknowns and first-contact situations, by definition they rolled up their sleeves and dived straight into the thick of them. Often they were deeply entangled in the guts of an alien technology or a derelict spacecraft before unknown hazards presented themselves.

As this mission showed, even the seemingly most routine missions could turn deadly. There had even been a few moments, especially following Galvan VI, when he resented that.

Yet now, even as he let his pounding heart settle down in his chest, he knew that it was necessary, it was good, it was how things were done in the S.C.E., and how they had to be done. Maybe that had been their mistake this time. They’d taken the situation for granted, handled it the same way as any other Federation ship would have.

In the shuttledock at S.C.E. headquarters, there was a colorful mural painted on a hangar wall. It portrayed a standard Federation Work-bee, a small yellow utility spacecraft frequently used by the S.C.E. for space construction and repair.

The little yellow spacecraft had been anthropomorphized, cartoon eyes glaring from its forward view-port, and a sneering mouth, teeth gritted in determination, on its nose. A pair of cartoon arms projected from its sides. One hand held a hammer, the other an old-fashioned open-end wrench. Below it was a simple motto: HANDS ON!

Maybe that was the problem. They had stood off at arm’s length, tried to work the problem by remote control. Have we gotten timid? He made a mental note to have a talk with Gomez on the subject. But for now, he had other business.

He sat at his desk and punched up a subspace link to the embassy on the Lokra homeworld. It took him a few moments to be routed to Ambassador Goveia’s office.

The ambassador smiled when he saw Gold, the corners of his beard lifting toward his pale eyes. “Captain Gold. You have good news for us, I hope.”

“I thought the Lokra sensors might have already told you what happened.”

The smile faded. “Is there a problem?”

“There have been—complications. We tried to put a tractor beam on the derelict ship, but there was a technical difficulty of some sort before we could appreciably alter its course. Our ship received minor damage. We’re currently reevaluating the situation, and we hope to have a new plan shortly.”

“A tractor beam?” The gravelly voice came from off-screen. “Why didn’t he destroy it? I thought your Federation ships had powerful weapons. I thought you would destroy it.”

The ambassador addressed the unseen speaker. “These are our finest engineers, Siletz. I’m sure they’ll have the situation under control shortly.”

“Let me speak to him. I want to speak to him.”

The ambassador looked apologetically at Gold. “Captain, this is Siletz, First Prime of the Lokra. First Prime, this is Captain Gold of the S.C.E. starship U.S.S. da Vinci.”

The view widened to include the speaker.

Siletz was a large, simian-looking humanoid. He was completely covered with bushy white hair, except for his face and hands. Gold couldn’t be sure if the color was normal for the Lokra, a special badge of office, or a sign of advanced age. Siletz wore no clothing, but on his left wrist was a bulky electronic device that could be a communicator or computer access device.

“Why, Captain, did you not destroy the ship when you had the chance? I was told you would destroy it.”

“Is that so, Ambassador?”

Goveia looked uncomfortable. “Not to contradict the First Prime, but I don’t believe those were my exact words. I said we could destroy the derelict, if necessary.”

“This is disturbing.” Siletz bared his rather sizable teeth at the screen, a gesture that could have been the equivalent of anything from a smile to a threat, as far as Gold knew. “We are told the Federation has powerful weapons, and they will defend us from this threat. We have no weapons of our own. After the Breen left we hoped to develop them. We were assured it would not be necessary—the Federation would see to our security—and once we joined your Federation, technology would be shared with us. Is this a lie, Captain? When the Breen first came, they told us lies as well, so we would not resist until it was too late. Are all out-worlders like this?”

“I assure you,” said Gold, “that we will see that your planet remains safe.”

“Then I insist you destroy the derelict at once!”

It was Gold’s turn to look embarrassed. “That may be difficult. Not only were our tractor beams damaged, but our phasers as well. If necessary, we can destroy the object using photon torpedoes, or even demolition charges, but it will require time for study—”

Siletz seemed outraged. “And until then, our planet must live under a death sentence? Unacceptable!” Siletz leaped to his feet and left the room.

The ambassador watched him go. “They’re a temperamental people, Captain, and very physical. They have all manner of social mechanisms for defusing tension before it turns into a fight. Leaving the room is one of them, and it happens a lot here.” He shrugged, the exaggerated shoulders of his uniform shifting up a fraction of an inch. “Captain, I can’t stress the importance of this. These people will not feel safe until that ship is destroyed, by whatever means. They are all quite insistent about it.”

Gold took a deep breath and forced himself to remain calm. There was a reason he was a starship captain, not a diplomat. And at the moment, it felt like he and Goveia were on opposing sides. “As I said, Ambassador, that may be beyond our resources at the moment. At any rate, this spacecraft represents the work of a totally unknown species, and the technology is quite unusual. We hope to study the ship, and perhaps learn something about its point of origin.”

“Captain, I appreciate that, but there is a danger of panic here.” Goveia’s voice was as frosty as his ice-blue eyes. “A Galaxy -class starship, the U.S.S. Norman Scott, is on a mission just a dozen light-years from here. Perhaps a larger and more formidable vessel could make quick work of the problem.”