“How’s the WS-* field strength, Mr. Spock?”
“Steady at
783; sub-optimal, but
manageable.”
“My intuition tells me something’s wrong.”
“All right, I’ll run a deep scan, but...”
“Captain! I’m getting a weird reading from three specs in the Security sector;
it looks like...” [A weird shaft of brilliant purple light stabs
through the bridge, frying the
red-shirted
ensign where he sits.]
“Mr. Spock! What was that?”
“Checking, Captain; those WS-warbirds are
SecureConversation,
Trust,
and
SecurityPolicy.
They’ve been there for years, but somehow they’re different... aaaah.
They’re deploying an
OASIS-TC
standardization field!”
“But that’s a friendly tactic, Spock.”
“No, Captain, they’re modulating the field with a locked-down
charter device; the TC has to just approve them the way they are.”
“That’s fiendish!”
“And extremely illogical, Captain.”
[Suddenly the bridge rocks and the lights flicker.] “Engineering!
Scotty! What’s happening?”
“Cap’n, I dinna understand it, they’re growing!”
“How can that be... Spock?”
“He’s right, Captain, they’re using the superseded-spec maneuver.”
“Scotty, do we have the bandwidth?”
“I dunno Cap’n, SecureConversation’s been superseded from
17 to
31
pages, and Trust from
41
to
68.”
“My God, they’re growing like cancer. Scotty, I need more bandwidth!”
“We’re doin’ our best, Cap’n... Aaaaaaaaagh!”
“Report, Scotty!”
“Cap’n, cap’n, it’s SecurityPolicy, curse it... lurking at
13
pages since 2002
without a peep, but there’s a supersede; it’s up to
90. Cap’n... she canna take any more. She’s gonna blow!”
