by Jeffrey Lang
“We’re on our way.”
Chapter 9
Hangar Deck
Robert Hooke
Nita Bharad thought, Panic sounds the same in every language.
She spoke six languages fluently and could muddle through another five or six, enough, at least, to order tea or get directions. Bharad had lived in a dozen cities or towns on ten different worlds and had heard this sound, this cacophony, how many times? Four? Five? It seemed like it should be more, but she couldn’t think clearly at the moment.
Instead, she pulled Ginger closer to her chest and felt the arachnoform wrap her limbs tightly around her torso. Neither Ginger nor Honey particularly liked being touched, but they tolerated their creator in the rare moments when she violated their personal space. At least, for now. No telling how they’d behave when they had passed through their adolescence.
The rest of the mob—the yammering, pulsating, querulous mob—pushed and pulled at each other, trying to make room, trying to make sense, trying to talk, either to each other or on their various communication devices. She heard the same words spoken over and over again so that they almost sounded like a chant at a sporting event, “Ops? Finch? Ops? Finch? What’s happening? What’s happening? Whatshappening?” It sounded like a children’s song, or a nonsense rhyme, or a riddle.
If anyone came too close to Bharad, they backed away when they saw what she carried. She stroked Ginger’s head and worried about Honey, despite the fact that she was much more sensible than her sister. Honey would find her way to safety, one way or another.
Beside her, someone screeched and stumbled, fell to the ground, knocking the legs out from beneath two others. Bharad reached down to help lift up the fallen, a young man whom she didn’t recognize, but the youth cowered back, pointing up past her head. Bharad turned and looked up. “Honey!” she called as the arachnoform descended on a slim thread, her chelicerae parting and closing, parting and closing, the thinnest thin stream of mucus dripping down.
Honey stopped a few centimeters above Bharad’s head. Her calm demeanor was a sham, Bharad knew, since Honey only ever drooled when she was anxious.
The young man who had fallen scrambled to his feet and pushed his way back into the mob, gibbering incoherently about invaders. The more-seasoned members of the community glanced up at Honey and then turned away, once again intent on their communication devices.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Bharad murmured, reaching up to stroke the ridges over the arachnoform’s eyes. She didn’t have to speak loudly; Ginger and Honey both had excellent hearing. “Thank you for finding us.” Her wrist abruptly began to buzz, spooking Honey, who climbed a few centimeters out of reach. She glanced at the name on the display of her wrist comm: Ben. She tapped the ball of her thumb with her middle finger, answering the call.
“Are you safe?” Maxwell asked without preamble. He wasn’t using visual, only audio, and he sounded like he was exerting himself—running, most likely.
“I think so,” Bharad said. “Safe as anyone. Ginger and Honey are with me.”
“Good,” Maxwell said. “Someone from ops should be contacting everyone in a minute, explaining what’s happening, but I wanted to make sure.” He panted hard, obviously climbing or pushing past something heavy. He didn’t continue the thought when he came back. “We’re evacuating the station. Something may have gotten loose.”
“One of Finch’s?”
“Of course.”
Of course, she thought. No one else on the Hooke was working on anything dangerous enough to merit a complete evacuation. Well, almost no one. She worried about some of the things Mireault on deck four had been talking about: alternate dimensions and vibrational frequencies. Poppycock. Pseudoscience. She clutched Ginger closer to her breast. “Are you going to make it down here in time?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Maxwell said. “I get to ride in style with Miles and his friend. They have a runabout parked nearby. We’ll probably be to the starbase before you are.”
“Starbase?”
“Deep Space 9,” he said.
“Federation,” Bharad replied, wincing. “They’ll quarantine us. They’ll try to take Ginger and Honey.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Maxwell panted. “We’ll make sure—” Again, he broke off. This time Bharad heard another voice asking, “This way?” and Maxwell replied, “Yes, yes.” When he came back, he said, “Sorry. I have to go. Listen, make sure you get on the Aubrey.”
“Faster?”
“Better seats.”
Most of the mob had quieted down and were listening to their devices. Bharad looked over their heads and saw the twin hulls of the two transports, side by side in their bays. Hatches were opening on both and lights were coming on inside.
“Which one is the Aubrey?” Bharad asked. “Left or right?” But there was no reply. Maxwell had signed off. Better seats, she thought. Like anyone will want to sit! She looked up at Honey, made sure she had her attention, and then pointed at the right, the farther of the two transports. Most of the mob would pile into the closer.
Honey bobbed on her thread in acknowledgment and began to climb. She would make her way back to the ceiling, cross to the transport, and meet her creator at the hatch. Ginger struggled, asking to be released, but Bharad resisted. Ginger just wasn’t as trustworthy. If she were released, she would just go find Ben.
The crowd began to move in a slow, steady fashion toward the transports, no longer a mob. Bharad found herself thinking of New Delhi and the train platform near her apartment where she had lived after university. If her time on the Hooke was over, she thought, maybe she would move back there. Ginger and Honey would like the city.
Maybe Ben would visit them. She was mildly surprised how much the idea pleased her. She hugged Ginger to her breast, which made the arachnoform struggle.
The doctor pushed her way past the clump of humanity that was predictably forming around the nearer transport and slipped into the much less frantic queue that was threading into the hatch of the second. Glancing up, she noted the name painted on the hull: the Wren. I should call Maxwell and let him know. But she decided, he was probably busy, and, after all, they’d see one another soon enough.
Ops Center
“What’s our status, Nog?” O’Brien asked, stepping through the hatch. O’Brien’s calves and thighs ached after climbing six decks’ worth of stairs, but pride wouldn’t let him reveal his discomfort in front of Maxwell.
His former captain glanced briefly at Finch, but then marched from console to console checking the readings. “Nice job, Commander,” he said, nodding to Nog. “You didn’t take any time at all to stabilize the reactor. Those gas exchangers are fussy, but you didn’t seem to have a problem.”
“Not too different from the system we had back on Deep Space 9,” Nog said, waving away the compliment. “The old one, not the current one. Actually, I recognize a lot of these sub—”
“Great, great,” Maxwell said, walking to a console on the other side of the room. “You do that.” Nog fell silent, and his face sagged in disappointment. Maxwell continued: “They’ve loaded up the shuttles. Engines are primed. Autopilot programmed.” He glanced at O’Brien. “You sure this isn’t going to be a problem? Two dozen somewhat cracked pots all showing up at the same time?”
“If this is the most interesting thing that happens this week,” O’Brien began, but then felt surprisingly awkward about being flippant while Nog looked so downcast. “It won’t be,” he finished awkwardly. Maxwell wasn’t listening in any case.
Tapping a control stud, Maxwell spoke calmly: “Everyone settled in?”
The first transport pilot said, “Uh, I guess so. Yeah, Wren is ready.”
“Aubrey is ready, too.”
“Good. Cycling the atmo. Bay doors should be opening.”
“I think . . . yeah, they are. Thanks, B
en.”
“No worries. Should have you on your way in—”
Klaxons whooped. Lights on a dozen separate panels flashed. O’Brien lurched toward a console, temporarily hobbled by the unexpected cramps in his legs. “What’s happening?” he asked as he collapsed into the nearest chair. Even Finch, who had seemed all but insensate, was leaning forward and checking monitors.
“Hull breach,” Nog said. “Deck four. Lost all the atmosphere in a lab . . . I can’t read this schematic.”
“Six,” Maxwell said. “Look for the icon at bottom left.”
“Right. Six. Oh, and seven.”
“Mother . . .” Maxwell began, but snapped his jaw shut as more and more lights began to blink. “What is happening?”
“Could it be the sensor grids?” O’Brien asked. “Some kind of flaw in the system giving false readings?”
As if annoyed by his question, the entire station lifted and bucked beneath them.
Nog, who had been leaning too far forward, fell out of his chair and landed face-first on the console. Maxwell tumbled backward and landed hard on his tailbone. Struggling to stand, clutching his lower back and grimacing, he grunted, “Decompression.” O’Brien knew he was right. Nog nodded even as he peeled his face off the console, a trail of mustard-brown blood dripping from one nostril. Both of them had felt that unmistakable heave enough times in their careers.
“The breaches,” Finch said, speaking in a monotone, “are not coming from inside the station.”
“Someone’s shooting at us?” O’Brien pulled up the exterior sensors and scanned the space around the station. No sign of a ship, though there were plenty of potential assailants who could have cloaking devices. But, no, there was no trace of any energy weapon. Ballistic projectiles? He scanned for chemical trails, but found none.
“No one is shooting at us,” Finch continued. “Those labs—all of them had small reactors. Not terribly well shielded. Didn’t need them to be. They weren’t dangerous to humans.”
“So?” Maxwell asked. “Did they blow?”
“I said,” Finch hissed, lurching to his feet, “that the breaches are starting outside, so, no, the reactors did not blow. They were merely . . . appetizing.” He giggled as if he had just said something singularly witty.
The overhead lights flickered off and then back on again. O’Brien heard Nog’s breath catch in his throat, or maybe he was simply trying to clear blood out of his sinuses.
“What are you talking about, Finch?” Maxwell snapped, not looking at his employer as he worked the consoles, trying to make sense of the readings.
Finch carefully picked his way over to the tray of leftover food, snagged a morsel of dried-out cheese from the cutting board, and popped it into his mouth. He brushed together the tips of his fingers, removing invisible crumbs. “It’s simple,” he said. “She’s hungry.”
“What?” Nog said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Not what,” Finch said, chortling. “But who.”
“Stop playing games, Finch,” Maxwell snarled. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s Mother,” the scientist said proudly. “She’s outside the station, but she wants to come back inside for a snack. She’s hungry.”
Maxwell and Nog both stared at Finch slack jawed.
O’Brien wanted to ask a question, an obvious question like, “What the hell are you talking about?” But some part of his brain, maybe a flywheel, was spinning around and around, not catching.
Maxwell spun and slapped a control on the console he had been using to speak to the transports. “Do not launch! Aubrey! Wren! This is Maxwell! I repeat: Do not launch!”
But it was already too late. O’Brien saw the blip on the sensor readout from the corner of his eye go from green to blue to bright orange and suddenly bloom a bloody red rose. A warp engine had been initialized—a bubble of sculpted space-time elegantly building—and then folded catastrophically in on itself.
One of the transports had been flattened out into a bright trail of radioactive matter smeared across a crumpled tear in space.
“Which one?” Maxwell wanted to say, but he didn’t because a part of him knew it was the wrong question. He felt the words in his brain, felt them traveling down his spine and into his gut. Which one? Maxwell thought, but, instead, he asked, “Status?”
Nog and O’Brien exchanged a meaningful look. They’ve been through this before, Maxwell thought. One way or another, they’ve been through this many, many times. He remembered the experience from his years on the bridge of a starship, the way a crew coalesces, becomes a shared mind. These men had learned to work a problem together effortlessly, wordlessly. To a civilian, the engineers’ brief glance might have looked like hesitation, or even confusion, but an old hand like Maxwell knew differently: they were exchanging ideas.
Both blinked and almost imperceptibly nodded. Nog returned to the sensor console and ran his hands over the controls, collecting and collating data. O’Brien checked the communications console and attempted to raise the remaining transport, but, predictably, no luck. Local space-time had just ruptured. It would take time for the warp and weft of subspace to settle down before any communication was possible.
“One of the transports is still out there,” Nog said, frowning at the readouts. “Not moving, but not adrift, either.”
“Is it intact?” Maxwell asked.
“Impossible to say with local interference, but I think so.”
“Why do you say that?”
The commander shrugged but didn’t look at Maxwell. “Not reading any biological matter in space.”
Maxwell nodded, grasping Nog’s point. If the hull had ruptured, there would be bodies or parts of bodies. “Has it got power?”
“Some,” Nog replied, but shook his head as he said it. “But not much. Whoever is flying the transport knew to take the core offline. They’re on batteries.”
“Which means they’ve got about two hours of life support, if they split up the personnel fifty-fifty,” Maxwell said. “What can we do from here? What are our options?” Somewhere deep inside him, Maxwell knew it wasn’t his place to ask these questions—at least not in the tone he was asking them—but he couldn’t help himself. And he also couldn’t deny that he was experiencing a sensation like walking out of the ocean after an unexpectedly long and difficult swim. He felt leaden, but light, every muscle stretched, but relaxed.
Neither of the Starfleet officers objected. Maxwell wasn’t sure whether this pleased or alarmed him.
“Do we have transporters?” Nog asked.
O’Brien had already run a diagnostic. He shook his head. “Whatever’s happening, it’s already all through the station. Hull integrity is down. Can’t really say exactly how much. These stations were built to endure a lot, but they weren’t equipped with the kinds of external sensors that you’ll find on a Starfleet vessel.”
“Or station,” Nog added.
“Plus, there are at least three big holes in the outer hull. Probably microfractures all through the structure at this point. Power is down or unreliable. Targeting sensors . . .” O’Brien trailed off, aware that he hadn’t answered the question. “Transporters are down.”
“What about your runabout?” Maxwell asked. “Can you patch into it and order it to transport over any life signs it can detect?”
“When the interference dies down,” O’Brien said. “Which shouldn’t be too much longer. Twenty-three minutes by my estimate.”
Maxwell wanted to say, They might not have twenty-three minutes! But he had known Miles O’Brien long enough to not say anything so stupid out loud. The chief knew exactly how much time they had left.
“And,” Commander Nog began, but then stopped to clear his throat. “Maybe,” he resumed hesitantly, but then sat up straight and spoke clearly. “No, not maybe. We should think very carefully about tra
nsporting anything onto the Amazon. Or at least, anything that may be contaminated.”
“Do we believe him?” O’Brien asked, pointing at Finch. The station’s owner had stopped giggling. The only motion Maxwell detected was a slow rising and falling of his chest. Finch appeared to be asleep.
“Meaning?”
“That his blob . . . Mother . . . is somehow responsible for all of this?”
“Any other theories that fit the facts?”
“I can think of a few,” O’Brien replied. “An attack. Finch may have irritated some people at some point in his life. People who may have lost patience with him.”
Maxwell pulled a chair in front of the sensor console and began to run scans. “Possibly,” he said, urging O’Brien to continue with a small wave of the hand.
“Space debris. An experiment gone wrong. Not his experiment, but some kind of explosive. Who knows what else was being done here?”
“Good point,” Maxwell said. “I tried to keep track of as much as I could, but someone may have been hiding something dangerous.”
“There were giant spiders,” O’Brien continued, leaning into his thesis.
“Arachnoforms,” Nog corrected.
“Right, arachnoforms,” Maxwell agreed. “Spiders could never get that big. No lungs.”
“And they shouldn’t,” O’Brien said. “Who knows what other things that shouldn’t have been were happening here?”
Maxwell concluded his scans. “Probably a lot.” He pointed at the readout. “But that wasn’t the problem. Look.” Biochemical data scrawled across each of their stations, all of it notated for the nonbiologists. The engineers tipped their heads down and scanned the text. Nog restarted the feed. Finally convinced, he sat back in his chair.
“Son of a bitch,” O’Brien murmured.
“Agreed,” Maxwell said. “The sensors’ range is limited, thanks to the explosion, but they don’t need it.” He tapped the monitor. “It’s out there. The Mother. In space. On the hull. Probably working its way into the station too. Disparate parts working independently, but all following the same impulse: find energy.”
