The Light

by Jeff F. Jacques

  “That’s right,” Gomez said, turning back. “Anything to report?”

  “Not a thing,” he said, turning toward the cube. The wrecked vessel cast a dark shadow across the hillside to the north. “Except for the the faint power signature, the thing is as dead as a grave.”

  “What about the interior?” Gomez asked. “Anything we need to know before we go in?”

  Gibson shook his head. “We’ve completed routine scans every few hours since we arrived yesterday, and we haven’t detected any lifesigns.”

  Corsi had only been half-listening to Gibson’s voice as he and Gomez spoke, but this last remark was enough to pull her attention away from Stevens and the redhead. “You haven’t gone inside yourself?”

  Gibson turned and fixed her with a look. “Those weren’t our orders, Commander. We were told to secure the site and determine that it was safe. That’s what we did.”

  “And how can you determine that with one hundred percent accuracy if you don’t even go inside to visually inspect the interior?” Corsi asked.

  Gibson pulled the tricorder from the holder on his hip and waggled it in his hand. “We find that these are very helpful for that sort of work. If they don’t beep a certain way, then there’s nobody inside.”

  “Watch your tone, Lieutenant,” Gomez said crisply.

  Gibson started at the rebuke and looked down at his boots. He shook his head, then regarded Gomez and Corsi again. “I’m sorry. I guess this place has put me a little on edge. It’s not exactly the cheeriest place I’ve ever been, and between you and me, it’s creepy as hell.”

  “I hear you, Lieutenant,” Gomez said as she glanced at the silver-gray monstrosity.

  Corsi followed her gaze, her annoyance abating. She certainly couldn’t blame him for being a little nervy. She was feeling the same thing, and she’d only been here five minutes.

  “Trust me, Commander, our scans were thorough,” Gibson said. “If there were any Borg in there, they would have come out by now. Besides, the place has been dead for years. I’m surprised the thing has power at all.”

  “So are we,” Gomez said. “And that’s why we’re here.”

  Gibson nodded. “Well, good luck with that.” With a nod at them both, he turned and walked back toward his crewmates. “Wrap up your reunion, Chief. We’re outta here.”

  Stevens waved good-bye to Featherstone, then Gibson called for a beam-out. A moment later, the foursome from the Hood disappeared in a wash of twinkling silver-blue light.

  Corsi started toward Stevens, trying to keep calm and trying not to be the kasnik Gold had called her in jest once. “Friend of yours, Fabe?”

  “Yeah, I met her when she was temporarily posted to Deep Space 9 for a few weeks,” Stevens said.

  Corsi could almost see the little daggers shooting out of her eyes. “A few weeks, huh?”

  Stevens nodded. “Yeah, she made quite the impression. On Captain Sisko, I mean. And Chief O’Brien. In a completely professional, engineering capacity, of course.” He paused a moment, no doubt noticing that she was disemboweling him with her eyes. “Wait, you’re…Dom, you’re not—”

  “No.”

  And that was the end of that.

  Gomez tipped her head back and looked way up along the side of the cube that faced them, a balmy breeze blowing through her wavy black hair. It was odd to see a symbol of so much fear and destruction in such a dormant unkempt state. It looked for all the world like an abandoned building that had been lost to the elements and the surrounding flora, not a ship belonging to one of the most feared species the galaxy had ever known.

  Though scans confirmed the vessel was indeed one of the infamous cube vessels, much of its external cube-like shape was actually no longer in evidence, having been pulverized during the crash. The fact that it had remained in this condition for so long was also another indication the ship was no longer active; if it had been, it would have repaired itself long before now.

  Where the cube brushed up against the edge of the forest, thick vines wound their way up along the vessel’s superstructure, snaking in and around the eroded latticework. On the side facing the trees, Sonya saw a tree branch jutting out of the vessel, but she couldn’t tell if the source of the branch was outside or actually growing within. A crisp chirping sound drew her attention, and she turned to see a blue bird flying out of the upper reaches of the cube near the top. With all the nooks and crannies present in the structural design of these ships, she imagined the cube was a haven for a variety of creatures.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Stevens said, his eyes tracking the chirping bird as it disappeared into the forest. “No Borg, anyway.”

  “All the same, let’s do a scan,” Gomez said from the rise where she stood. “We can’t be too careful, right?” Since they’d arrived on the surface, she’d found it pretty easy to keep her mind on the mission rather than the issue between herself and Stevens, though she had to admit that Corsi’s remark about her delicate relationship with jealousy had given her pause. Shaking the thought aside, Sonya glanced at Pattie and nodded at the apparent Klingon dagger strapped to the Nasat’s torso. “Are you going to use that thing, or is it just for show?”

  Pattie’s laughter sounded like delicate wind chimes in a soft breeze. The impressive-looking knife was actually a unique scanning device designed to her specifications and inspired by a similar device owned by the Klingon engineer Kairn, whom they’d all met on a joint mission eight months back. While Kairn’s Master’s dagger had really been a measuring tool, Pattie had modified her design to include more conventional scans. Gomez knew the Nasat was lucky to still have it at all after almost losing it when she crashlanded on Zhatyra II. Maybe she was feeling a little protective of it.

  But Pattie drew the knife and held it vertically toward the cube, blade pointing upward. After a moment, she brought it down to eye level and examined the results that glowed blue along the flat side of the blade facing her. “Results are negative for lifesigns, Commander,” she said.

  Good, now let’s keep it that way. Gomez marched down the slope to join her crewmates, “Okay, let’s look for an opening we can use to get inside.”

  “I wouldn’t think the Borg would have any use for doors,” Hawkins said as he moved off along the edge of the cube, his phaser rifle held lightly in his hands. “They pretty much beam everywhere they go.”

  “A valid point, Vance,” Pattie said, still wielding her dagger. “However, there would have to be some manner of hatches available for their sphere vessels to enter and exit.”

  “I don’t think we need anything quite that big, Pattie,” Gomez said with a smile. Those round hatches were probably big enough for a Galaxy-class starship to fly through with ease.

  “Anything that big would be partially buried anyway,” Corsi noted, then pounded the ship with the side of a closed fist. “Why don’t we just blast a hole in the hull and walk through it?”

  Stevens chuckled. “Leave it to you to come up with that idea.”

  Corsi turned, her brows knitted into a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, come on, Dom,” Stevens said, grinning. “You know you like to shoot stuff.”

  Gomez paused and called after Hawkins, who was several meters ahead of them. “You see any openings up there, Chief?”

  Hawkins looked back and shook his bald head. “No, not really.”

  “What does that mean?” Gomez asked.

  “Well, I did see a few openings, but unless we’re squirrels, they won’t be much use to us.”

  Gomez smiled. Between the two of them, Stevens and Hawkins could probably make a moderately amusing comedy duo if their careers in Starfleet ever went down the drain.

  “Funny,” Corsi said, though she was in full sarcasm mode.

  “Aw, come on, Boss,” Hawkins said, his grin matching Stevens’s a short time ago. “Say it like you mean it.”

  Corsi just grunted.

  “Okay, Domenica, I guess you
get to blow a hole in the thing,” Gomez said, then waved a hand at the side of the ship. “Pick a spot and fire away.”

  Corsi adjusted the setting on her rifle as she moved back a few steps, then aimed at the side of the ship. “Fire in the hole,” she said as phased energy spewed forth from her weapon and struck the side of the cube. At the point of impact, the metallic surface of the ship glowed yellow, then red, then disappeared altogether as the hull was vaporized. She maintained the burst for ten seconds, then ceased fire. A small niche had been created, but they weren’t inside the ship yet.

  “Hold back,” Corsi told them, then fired again. She maintained the energy output for almost thirty seconds this time, walking inward as the metallic structure was eaten away around her.

  Gomez watched her move deeper into the ship, the inside of the newly formed passage shimmering with the orange light of the phaser fire. Then the whine of the weapon ceased, and Corsi emerged a moment later, her face glistening with sweat.

  “We’re in,” she said. “Hawkins, with me. Kim, you bring up the rear.”

  Hawkins and Kim both nodded, and they proceeded into the cube.

  Chapter

  4

  T he first thing Gomez noticed when they entered the ship was the smell. It was not at all what she expected. Instead of the metallic scent she associated with the cube’s general appearance and the mechanical nature of the Borg themselves, the interior of the vessel had an earthy organic smell that was a testament to the extent the surrounding environment had absorbed the ship.

  The light from the three rifle lamps flashed about in the darkness, illuminating the gray equipment racks and slotted Borg alcoves that lined the walls in seeming perpetuity. Gomez saw flashes of vegetation everywhere, growing up from beneath the floor grates, or hanging in thick moist clumps where trees and other fauna had pushed their way in from the adjacent forest.

  “I’m still detecting no internal lifesigns beyond ourselves and the critters that call this place home,” Pattie said. Her scanning blade glinted in the light from the rifles as they moved slowly along one of the thousands of labyrinthian walkways that filled the ship. The familiar sounds emanating from Stevens’s tricorder had a comforting lilt that Gomez welcomed in the eerie light.

  A sudden flapping noise from just above broke the relative silence, and Sonya spun around with a startled gasp. Corsi and Hawkins tracked the dark avian with their lamps before it disappeared behind a wall of an upper level.

  “Borg birds, maybe?” Stevens ventured. He threw up a hand a moment later as Corsi swung the beam of her rifle’s lamp into the tactical specialist’s face. “Hey!”

  “Fabian,” Gomez said, and when he turned, the look they exchanged with each other told her he hadn’t forgotten what had happened last night either. To his credit though, he was doing a fine job of keeping it buried, maintaining his usual joviality with apparent ease. “Why don’t you start scanning for the power source? That’s what we’re here for.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Stevens said with a nod, then turned away to begin that task.

  After a few moments, an excited sound came from Pattie’s direction. “Is anybody else finding this as fascinating as I am?”

  Fascinating? That wasn’t the word Gomez would have chosen. “How so, Pattie?” she asked, her eye catching one of the dormant power waveguide conduits that peppered the ceiling at regular intervals.

  The Nasat glanced at her as though surprised by the question. “We’re exploring a Borg cube,” she said, as though that fact hadn’t yet sunk in for the rest of them. “How many people get a chance to do that, to learn something about one of their greatest enemies?”

  “I can see the appeal that holds, Pattie,” Gomez said. “And if we happen to come across some useful intel on the Borg, we’ll certainly make note of it. But that’s not our primary mission here.” Still, the rarity of the opportunity was not lost on Gomez. There had been relatively few occasions where Starfleet personnel had been aboard a Borg vessel and had the freedom to explore at their leisure. “But keep your eyes open anyway. You never know what we may come across.”

  “Will do,” Pattie said and chittered happily.

  “How about this for a start?” Hawkins called from a few meters ahead.

  His rifle lamp illuminated the body of a Borg drone. Little organic was left of the corpse, only the components of its mechanical implants and a collection of cobweb-covered bones that offered no indication as to what species it had been prior to being assimilated. Gomez guessed that the drone’s flesh had either rotted away over time or served as a meal for wild animals. She shuddered at the thought.

  “Bingo,” Stevens said a moment later. “Commander, I’ve located our power source. It’s three levels down and about half a kilometer thataway.” He gestured with the tricorder, and Corsi pointed her rifle in that direction, an automatic gesture that held no purpose but indicated that the security chief was keeping alert.

  “All right,” Gomez said, “let’s go.”

  As the away team moved deeper into the ship, Corsi saw more and more Borg corpses, and it suited her just fine that they were all long-dead. The bodies, like the one they’d seen earlier, were no more than implant-festooned skeletons. Some were slumped in the alcoves where they’d died, probably oblivious to their own deaths, while others lay on the deck, their bones scattered like fallen branches in a forest. It was disheartening to think that death was what finally freed these people of Borg influence, though she couldn’t imagine that the alternative was at all preferable.

  Cobwebs were everywhere, and at one point Hawkins had to use the tip of his rifle to break through a particularly dense one that spanned the width of the passageway. As the web broke apart with a soft tearing sound, Corsi couldn’t help but think of Araneus, the Koas who’d come aboard the da Vinci recently with his entire homeworld compressed into a handy pyramid-shaped device. Araneus resembled a gargantuan arachnid, and having met him, Corsi had no qualms about the prospect of meeting whatever had spun this particular web.

  Gomez, on the other hand, seemed to be a little out of sorts since the mission began, and a little jumpy, though she was doing her best to hide it. As far as Corsi knew, Gomez didn’t have any bug phobias—no one did who worked with Pattie for more than five minutes—so it had to be the result of just being inside the Borg cube. As she herself had noted earlier, it was a bit creepy.

  A tremendous clatter exploded behind the group, and Kim, bringing up the rear, spun and dropped to his knee, aiming his rifle at the disturbance; Corsi whirled around and did the same, albeit still on her feet, as did Hawkins. As Corsi’s heartbeat thundered within her chest, her rifle lamp illuminated the skeletal remains of another Borg drone, wisps of dust and silky cobwebs drifting around it. She whispered an appropriate curse, then moved her light upward to an empty alcove. The body must have fallen from its berth, no longer able to support itself or its Borg paraphernalia.

  “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sure wide awake now,” Stevens said. He glanced at Pattie, who’d gone quiet and still at the disturbance. “You okay, Pattie? You look a little Blue.”

  After a few moments, the pillbug-shaped Nasat blinked rapidly then looked at Fabian. “That is quite possibly the worst pun I have ever heard.”

  Stevens bowed at the waist. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Let’s move on, people,” Gomez said, evidently in no mood for jovial banter.

  Corsi didn’t blame her.

  When Gomez and the others finally reached the power source, Pattie’s scan revealed that they were actually situated about fifteen feet below ground level due to the tilt of the ship where it lay embedded in the earth. Pattie scanned the housing unit where the power flow regulators were located and chittered softly as her readings matched what Captain Gold’s report had indicated. The power that would normally have been distributed throughout the vessel by this and other power nodes was being fed underground, leaving only the trace readings that had been d
etected from orbit. Though the ship had thousands of these nodes, this appeared to be the only one that was still active.

  “Any idea who might have done this?” Gomez asked. “Maybe Borg survivors?”

  Pattie offered her rendition of a shrug, then sheathed her dagger and drew her own tricorder for a more detailed scan. “Impossible to tell, Commander. But it wasn’t exactly a professional job. The intended result was achieved, however.”

  “I still don’t understand how anyone could have done this,” Corsi said. “This planet is supposed to be uninhabited.”

  Pattie’s antennae wiggled. “Another fascinating mystery.”

  On the opposite side of the power regulator, Stevens finished a scan, and his head reappeared from behind the piece of dusty machinery. “There’s barely a power reading at all at this end. You’d practically have to be in orbit of the planet to detect it at all.”

  “Makes you wonder what a Boslic freighter was doing here in the first place,” Hawkins said, his eyes scanning the gloomy surroundings.

  “Maybe they were smugglers looking for a remote location to store their contraband,” Stevens said, then smiled. “Not that that has anything to do with our mission, mind you.”

  “I have to admit, this situation has made me curious,” Gomez said. As much as she’d rather be elsewhere, Pattie was right, this was a fascinating mystery. “Pattie, can you use the tricorder to follow the conduits so we can see where they lead?”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult,” the Nasat replied, and turned her tricorder to its new task. Once she locked on to the conduits leaving the power regulator, it was easy enough to follow them as they zigged and zagged their way along the new course that had been directed for them.

  Eventually, the conduits led them to a spot where the earth had hemorrhaged through the ship and a near-vertical shaft led down into darkness. A small section of grating lay near the opening, and Gomez could almost believe it had served as a barrier to hide the shaft’s existence. Silence descended around them as they peered into the hole, then Stevens broke the silence with one of his timely remarks.