Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

“She’s doing exactly what you predicted,” Commander Llewellyn Schmidt declared with an almost gleeful grin.  Beside him, Icheb sat unsmiling, watching his girlfriend on the viewscreen.  He hoped the security encryption algorithms he’d written were difficult enough to buy her some time in the heated capsule.  The moment she broke through, the whole pod would shut down – not a normal occurrence, but one he’d been instructed to program.

“Computer, display weather information for 83 north, 58 west over the next 72 hours,” said Icheb, ignoring the commander’s praise.  On a nearby viewscreen, a map of Maren’s current location appeared, overlaid with climate data.

“The current weather is -24.2 degrees Celsius with heavy snowfall,” the computer narrated. “The snow will taper off over the next six hours.  An incoming cold front will reduce temperatures to -49.3 degrees by 0800.  The cold will persist throughout the time period specified, with high temperatures in the -33 range and lows in the -45 range. Safety alert: Temperatures are outside normal human survival range.  Prolonged exposure is inadvisable.”

Icheb shot Commander Schmidt a dark look.  “I saw the instructions you sent to Weather Control.  You’re setting her up to fail.”

Schmidt tossed him a smugly patient smile in return.  “We set everyone up to fail.  It’s to her credit that we needed you to do it.”

Now a full lieutenant, Icheb had taken his own Academy survival test just a year prior.  He had passed it, but barely – his had been a test of endurance, not wits.  Instead of a 72-hour test, his had been five days long.  Five days in the Martian desert with no access to regeneration and no nutrition beyond the basic 48-hour supply in the escape pod and later, in his EV suit. 

When Maren found out what they were having him do, she had stormed into Chancellor T’lott’s office, enraged. 

“You’re going to kill him!” she’d shouted at the Bolian admiral.

“That’s exactly the point,” he’d replied.  “It’s a test of survival.  Don’t worry, he has the same option as everyone else to activate his beacon and try again next month.”

She’d wisely shut her mouth then, knowing that Icheb hadn’t told Command about the problems he was having with his implants and didn’t want her to tell anyone, either.  By the time the test was over, three of his minor systems had shut down, including the one that controlled his spatial orientation.  He was hopelessly lost, but he was alive.  He had spent three days regenerating at Starfleet Medical.  When he woke up, Maren had cried and called him “stubborn.”

Now, he was worried, because he knew she was just as stubborn as he was.  She’d freeze to death long before before she would willingly admit her defeat.

He was sorry that he’d been the one tasked with defeating her.

“Don’t you think this is a conflict of interest?” he’d asked Commander Schmidt, upon being summoned from Utopia Planitia to Earth Spacedock to program Maren’s testing equipment. 

It turned out Schmidt considered the conflict of interest a “bonus.” 

“Someday, you might have to send her to her death,” he’d explained.  “The way you handle this assignment will to some extent determine whether I believe you can be assigned together, and I’ll make my report accordingly.”  He’d paused then, and warned Icheb, “If you make it easy for her, we’ll know.”

Icheb hadn’t made it easy.  He’d made it very, very hard.  His best hope to keep her alive was to stall her and keep her inside the capsule as long as possible.  He knew her so well, he had anticipated her every move. 

Maren’s first solution to any problem was to program her way out of it.  He’d known she’d go straight for the maintenance computer, so he’d locked her out.  Fourteen levels of encryption.  The first thirteen were among the most difficult code he’d ever written.  The last used a complicated Borg-based algorithm they’d developed together, although he hadn’t told his superiors that.  He hoped its familiarity would serve as a warning. 

Schmidt had praised him for his excellent work, as none of his programmers could break the codes within the 72-hour window.  Icheb suspected Maren would be able to do it just fine.  He just hoped she would recognize the final layer for what it was – a gift from him – and play along by pretending she couldn’t solve it.  Otherwise, the last failsafe against her reprogramming the pod was for the whole system to shut down – life support included.  She’d be on her own, out on the ice as the storm raged around her.

On screen, she was starting to shiver, a slight vibration that would have been imperceptible to Icheb without the help of his enhanced vision.  13 C wasn’t extremely cold, but Maren had always been susceptible to the slightest chill, which was undoubtedly exactly why her superiors had chosen this as her survival scenario.  There was a word in Standard, “sadistic,” which Icheb thought described the architects behind the survival test perfectly.  Schmidt was the worst of them, often displaying open pleasure at the suffering of the graduating cadets.

“She’s broken through the first layer of encryption, sir,” a nearby ensign announced with surprise.  Icheb frowned.  It had only taken her 74 minutes to break the first code.  His pride at her efficiency and brilliance warred with his concern for her safety.  Slow down, he willed her, wishing, not for the first time, that they could share a neural link.

Schmidt turned to him, eyebrows raised, looking somewhere between skeptical and impressed.  “If I hadn’t had four of my best cryptologists personally test your code, I’d suspect you of making it easy for her,” he said.  “She really is that good, isn’t she?”

Icheb nodded.  “Yes, sir,” was his simple reply.  He didn’t know why they were surprised.  She’d won the Daystrom Prize at 20 for her brilliance in problem solving.  She was the entire reason Starfleet’s slipstream project was going forward ahead of schedule, and she hadn’t even graduated yet. 

Grimly, he eyed the weather screen again.  Six hours until the storm passed by her.  He hoped fourteen layers of encryption was enough.