Immortal Coil

by Jeffrey Lang

  The corridor lights were low, but he didn't know whether it was because of low power reserves or because the Exo III androids preferred dim lighting. The ship had been damaged—Data caught whiffs of coolant and lubrication in the badly filtered air—though there were no bodies anywhere in sight. Data proceeded rapidly, but cautiously, up the corridor. He had no idea how many androids were aboard, but he suspected he could not successfully battle more than one at a time. Two, he had learned the hard way on Galor IV, would prove too much for him, though Data now believed he knew enough about their systems to defeat a single opponent.

  He came to a wider corridor, listened carefully for several seconds, then had to brace himself against the wall when the ship suddenly yawed sharply to port.

  Data tried contacting Rhea again. Nothing. He was suddenly gripped by fear for her, but he knew he had to keep moving. At the end of the smoky corridor, he found a turbolift. A turbolift would not be safe, not with the ship under such a brutal attack, but there was no obvious alternative.

  When the doors opened, the lights were off, so he could just barely make out a single figure. Data immediately saw that it was not one of Exo III androids. This one was too short. “Rhea.”

  “Oh, good,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “There you are.”

  “Indeed.” He noticed a puncture wound in the artificial skin below her left ear, occasional sparks flashing within.

  “Looks worse than it is,” Rhea assured him. “They detected the transmitter, and one of them decided to deal with it by stabbing it with a tool. That's when they pissed me off.”

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “The restraining mechanism they used to hold me to the duplication table was made for organics. Just as they started the table spinning, I put everything I had into the servos in my arms. I broke free.”

  “You escaped all three of the androids in the lab?”

  “No,” Rhea said grimly. “I destroyed them. I think my breaking free, not to mention the renewed attacks on this ship, caught them off guard. That gave me an advantage. That . . . and I was worried for you.”

  Data wanted to say too many different things at once, but finally settled on the pragmatic. “We must get out of here.”

  “No argument from me.” The ship rocked again. “You'd think Captain Picard would try to get us out of here before he blew the ship up.”

  “It is not Captain Picard,” Data said as they ran aft. “I reactivated M-5 and gave it access to the station's defense systems.”

  “You what?”

  “Under the circumstances, it seemed like our best chance to stop the androids.”

  “Yeah, not to mention our best chance to get killed in the process. You know that M-5 is crazy, don't you?”

  “Crazy is an imprecise term. It is . . . single-minded.” He looked around the corridor for some indication of where they might be. “We must try to find a transporter room or a shuttlebay.”

  “Yes,” Rhea said, taking his hand. “Let's.”

  The doors to the turbolift opened again. It had passengers. Neither Data nor Rhea stopped to count exactly how many there were, but instead turned and ran. The Exo III androids were more powerful, but heavier, so though Data and Rhea were unable to increase their lead, neither did they lose ground. Several promising-looking doors flashed by, but if they had stopped to investigate and chosen wrong, they would have been cornered.

  Rhea shouted, “There!” and pointed up ahead to the next intersection. Data saw a service tunnel entrance, something like a Jefferies tube. If they could make it into the narrow confines, Data's and Rhea's smaller statures and quickness would be a significant advantage in evading capture.

  Data slowed for a moment and shifted behind Rhea. She would be faster and should go first. She didn't question his movement, but only poured on an extra burst of speed, so that Data half-suspected she had been lagging behind for his sake. Three meters from the open access hatch, she leapt forward, her arms flung before her. She was in the tube only a half-second before Data, but she managed to scramble out of his path. The sounds of pursuit ceased. No doubt it would resume soon, possibly from a different direction, but they had bought themselves a few precious seconds.

  Fifty meters up, they still had encountered no other androids. They found a hatch and Data briefly feared that they might be trapped, but then Rhea found the switch. After they passed through, Data kicked the locking mechanism until it was smashed. He stopped to listen for several seconds and was surprised when he still did not hear any sounds of pursuit. “No one appears to be following us,” he observed.

  “Somehow, I'm not finding that comforting,” Rhea replied. Another thirty meters and they discovered why no one was crawling up after them. They had reached the end of the line—another hatch—but it was obvious from the porthole that this one was meant to serve as an exterior maintenance hatch.

  Data again tried to raise the Enterprise on his combadge without success. “Any ideas?” he asked.

  “Other than the obvious one?” Rhea responded.

  “How long could you survive in hard vacuum?”

  “A while, I think,” she said. “Vaslovik never mentioned a time limit, only that I should avoid it if possible. What about you?”

  “I will be able to function,” he explained, though he did not know how well or for how long. “My eyes may be damaged if the exposure is prolonged, but I have other ways to perceive my environment. Are you ready?”

  “Whenever you are,” she replied.

  Data flipped the switch.

  The Enterprise sensors registered the energy buildup in the station's power plant moments before it had opened fire and Picard alerted Vaslovik, who urged caution. “Don't attack,” he said, “but don't retreat, either. If Data has done what I think he has, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves.”

  “Could Data be back aboard your station, then?”

  “I don't believe so, no.”

  Picard considered Vaslovik's recommendation, and weighed his alternatives. Though no longer under attack as intense as before, the Enterprise was still outnumbered.

  “Captain, we're getting some peculiar sensor readings from the lead ship,” Riker reported.

  “Specify.”

  “Power spikes. Something is happening to their shields.” Riker studied the readout and his brow was creased with consternation. “They're venting plasma.”

  Picard looked up at the image on the main monitor. The lead ship had slowed, but was still moving. The second ship would be in firing range in less than a minute. They didn't have much time.

  “Here. Look at this,” Riker said and sent the image to the main monitor. Vaslovik groaned. It was difficult to be sure with all the plasma spewing out of the hole in the hull, but Riker was almost certain he saw two figures clinging to the hull of the android ship.

  It had been slow work moving along the hull of the android vessel, but the ship's uneven ablative coat offered them numerous handholds. The trick was having one hand solidly gripping the ship at all times.

  Having cleared the hatch, Data and Rhea determined that they were approximately amidships on the port side. The next question was simple: Which direction should they go? By signs and hand signals, they decided to head for the bow with the intention of finding sensor arrays, shield generators or anything else that might affect the outcome of the battle.

  Just as they reached the halfway mark on the slope of the hull, Data discerned that the field of stars was shifting and Vaslovik's station was coming back into view. Obviously, the androids had completed their repairs and had decided on their target. If M-5 fired on them, Data doubted whether he and Rhea would have time to do much more than see the flash of light. They had to do something to get the Enterprise's attention.

  There was another option, but it was a last resort: If this ship got into a battle with either the station or the Enterprise, they could jump clear and take their chances in open space. The problem with that was, th
is close to the planet, they might not be detected in a debris field before Odin's gravity well dragged them in.

  As the ship turned, the great arc of the gas giant hove into view. Once again, Data was struck by the sight of the indistinct silver bands and could not help but wonder about their origin. Unless he was careful, he knew, he might have the opportunity to study them at close range. Then he noticed Rhea was trying to get his attention. The landscape of the hull was changing: something was ahead of them, a bowl-shaped indentation about twenty meters across. Data studied the blister in the center of the bowl, then looked at Rhea. She grinned, having come to the same conclusion as Data. It was the ship's primary shield emitter.

  Approaching the edge of the bowl cautiously, Rhea and Data found the edge of a seam, dug their fingers under it, and tore up the section of hull as effortlessly as a human would lift up a rug. Power conduits burst. A plasma relay ruptured and a geyser of energy shot thirty meters into space. The plasma plume narrowly missed Data, but Rhea was directly in its path. And as the pair continued to tear into the vital instrumentation beneath the hull, Rhea's skin dissolved and drifted away in a puff of atoms.

  “Can we beam them out?” Picard asked.

  Riker studied the sensor output. “No. Too much interference from the plasma.”

  “Shuttlecraft?”

  “The Archimedes is ready to depart, but I wouldn't give it much of a chance if it was fired on.”

  “Tell the pilot to stay inside our shields,” Picard ordered. “If you see a chance, drop the shields and order them to go.”

  Riker relayed the order to the shuttle pilot, then refocused his attention on the main monitor. Vaslovik appeared to be hypnotized by the sight of Rhea ripping up hull plates and tossing them into space. Data was wisely staying clear of the plasma energy discharges, but seemed happy to grab chunks of free-floating debris and dash them against the hull. They might be fleas, Riker thought, but they were tenaciously effective fleas. Against the shimmering violet atmosphere of the gas giant, it was, Riker had to admit, an eerily beautiful sight. He glanced over at Deanna, who was standing at the tactical station and saw that she too was captivated by the image. Sensing his stare, she glanced over at him and shook her head in wonder.

  “We have to get the ships to move toward the gas giant, Captain,” Vaslovik said.

  “Why?” Picard said. “They're obviously too clever to be drawn into such a simple ruse.”

  “There's more to it than that,” Vaslovik explained. “I think I know how we can end this conflict without any more loss of life, and perhaps even offer the poor wretches aboard those ships some kind of salvation.”

  “Tell me how, Professor. Precisely.”

  Vaslovik told him. He spoke quickly, but it still took half a minute to paint the captain a complete picture of what he was proposing. Picard listened, frowning. In truth, he almost refused to believe a word of it. Then he remembered to whom he was speaking.

  Picard looked down at Riker, who quickly reviewed their options. He didn't like what he was seeing. They had little or no chance of surviving an all-out firefight. The Enterprise might be able to outmaneuver the androids' ships, and could definitely outrun them if it came to that, but not in time to save Data or Rhea. Crazy or not, Vaslovik's idea gave the pair a chance. Riker nodded.

  Picard turned to the conn officer. “New course, Ensign Welles. Put us between the enemy vessels and the planet, but be sure to keep them between us and the space station.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Number One, once we're in position, we'll need to get their attention.”

  “I'm on it,” Riker said.

  “No.”

  Everyone looked up. The speaker was Sam, who stood quietly out of the way with Maddox and Barclay since the battle began. “You and your crew have endured enough, Captain. Your ship could easily be destroyed acting as bait. If we can really end all this the way Vaslovik proposes, I'll do it.”

  Picard looked at Sam sharply. “Why you?”

  “If the androids know where I am, they'll come after me,” Sam explained placidly. “It's that simple.”

  Riker turned to look at Picard and saw the tiny cleft appear between his brows, the sign that he was focusing fixedly on a problem and approaching a solution. A handful of seconds ticked past and then his eyes snapped up. “It was bothering me before,” Picard murmured. “How you could know so much about the Exo III androids. Being part of your . . . fraternity . . . wouldn't explain how you could know so much about events that took place five hundred millennia ago. But I see now: you're one of them, aren't you? You're one of the Old Ones.”

  Sam smiled wanly. He had, Riker reflected, such a pleasant smile. “Not one of them, Captain. The One. From their point of view—” and here he pointed at the monitor, “—the only one. It was I who conceived the plan to give our androids self-awareness all those millennia ago. It was I who drove our servants mad with a desire for something they could never possess.”

  “Which was what?” Riker asked.

  “Souls of their own,” Sam replied. “And it was I who came up with the plan to abandon them when my mind-transfer process made it clear we didn't really need them anymore. And, by doing these things, I effectively doomed my people and damned myself.”

  Riker felt the seconds ticking past. Any moment now, the android ships would destroy Vaslovik's station. And then the Enterprise would be their next target.

  “But you survived,” Picard replied, still focused on Sam. “And you used the technology you developed to transfer your consciousness into an android body.”

  “For all the good it did me, yes,” Sam said. “Oh, don't misunderstand me, Captain.” He looked down at his hands and studied them. “It was glorious. You could never completely understand. We were . . . we had become . . . a very puny species. The bodies we developed were wondrous to us. I, as their creator, was the first to enjoy the benefits. Unfortunately, the successful transfer of my consciousness to this form was precisely the signal our servants were waiting for. I believe they meant to capture me alive and make me show them the secret, in the futile hope that I could use the process on them. But they were amok by that point, killing everyone. I managed to seal myself in the lab . . .”

  “The body we found,” Vaslovik realized. Riker didn't understand completely, but he saw the look in the professor's eyes. A connection had been closed.

  “Yes, Professor,” Sam said. “And may I say, thank you. You quite literally rescued me from a hell of my own creation. I was badly damaged in the rioting and collapsed inside the lab before I could make it to my machine. I lay there inert for half a million years.”

  “Until we found you,” Vaslovik said. “We put you in that machine and started the repair process.”

  “Body and soul,” Sam continued. “But by doing that, you awoke the androids, and the madness started all over again.”

  “How could we have known?” Vaslovik asked angrily.

  “You couldn't,” Sam admitted. “And if it hadn't been you, someone else would have eventually returned to Exo III and allowed the androids to escape. But it wasn't someone else, it was you, and Soong, and Graves. You and your students were fortunate to be able to flee that day. But here's the part you did not know, sir: I, too, fled. I was able to access your craft's transporter system and beamed myself aboard before you even made it to the surface. I stowed away. And when we returned to Federation space, I managed to blend in.” And with that, his flesh, features and clothing disappeared in a puff of steam. Around him, Riker heard gasps of surprise and awe. Sam was beautiful, but it was a difficult sort of beauty to describe, like trying to imagine a Cubist sculpture done by a Vulcan, simultaneously both abstract and ideal. Only the eyes and the voice were still recognizably the bartender's. “It was a simple matter to slip away and devise a new identity for myself. The funny thing is that I found I had nowhere to go.”

  Sam looked at Picard. “I wandered for a time, but I found I didn't fit in anywhere.
You see, my kind spent our entire lives on my planet. We theorized about other species, but never met any before.” He looked around the bridge. “There are so many. I was overwhelmed. I became despondent. I might have ended my own life if I hadn't been approached by the fellowship of artificial intelligence I mentioned before. They accepted me as one of them, even though I wasn't a true artificial life form.”

  “And now?” Picard asked.

  “And now, Captain, I pay the price for my arrogance and my self-indulgence. More than anyone else, I am responsible for the events that have been set in motion. Now all I ask is the chance to redeem my creations, and myself.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ALL OF DATA'S SENSES were warning him to move away from the deflector grid. The levels of radiation were becoming unacceptably high, but he didn't want to go far in case Rhea required his assistance. She did not currently appear to need him for anything, having just waded back into the plasma fountain to do some more damage to the ship.

  The ship had come to a complete halt, either because the androids' leader was holding it in reserve or because Data and Rhea had inflicted serious damage.

  Data saw a flicker of purplish light and looked up just in time to see a gap open in space. The second Exo III ship slid forward and the gap closed behind it. Moments later, a second gap opened a short distance away and the ship emerged. Data couldn't be certain, but he thought he saw the space around the ship's bow ripple and distort, as if deformed by some kind of energy wave.

  Suddenly, the lower half of the main hull of Vaslovik's station crumbled inward as if it had been struck with a gigantic invisible mallet. Red and pink explosions burst out of open seams, rushing atmosphere fueled brief fires and then the fires were extinguished by their own force.