A few meters away, Chaka, Dakal, and Sethe worked at a set of standalone consoles, completing their final checks. The panel the alien computer had interfaced with was off to one side, isolated, its service plates open. Inside, she saw the same pulse and glow the cylinder exhibited.
“Lieutenant, are we ready for this?” Will asked, moving up behind her.
Sethe stepped away and gave the captain a nod. “Aye, sir. At your discretion.”
“Proceed.”
Dakal activated a device that resembled an optical telescope on a tripod. It emitted a thin thread of red light that passed through the forcefield and licked at the side of the nexus core. Immediately, the rhythm of color and hue changed.
“We’re using a low-power laser as a means of data transfer,” explained Sethe.
“I’ve sent through a basic speech-interface matrix in packeted pulses,” Dakal broke in. “I started with standard linear objective linguacode authoring text, and it learned that very rapidly…” He paused. “I think we’re good to go.”
“It is listening to everything we say and do,” Chaka noted.
“Let’s get started.” Riker said the words quietly. He advanced toward the forcefield, and all of Keru’s crew tensed. “My name is Captain William Riker, of the United Federation of Planets. You’re aboard my ship, the U.S.S. Titan. This is my diplomatic officer, Commander Deanna Troi. We mean you no harm. We only wish to speak with you.”
The device emitted a buzzing pulse of feedback that made everyone wince. The sound was grating and disordered, as if the device had no concept of communicating in this fashion and was finding its way by trial and error. After a long moment, something like human speech began to surface from the garble of static.
“Why. Why why. Diiiiid. Why. Why. Am. Speak.”
Deanna gave her husband a sideways glance. The voice resembled his but with a peculiarly off-kilter syntax. “I think it’s sampling you,” she said from the side of her mouth.
Immediately, it mimicked her as well. “I. I. Think think think. I.”
“I’ve uploaded a linguistic framework,” said Dakal. “It should normalize in a moment.”
“Captain. William-Riker.” The pulses of light flickered wildly with each word uttered, becoming calmer in the pauses. “Interrogative. Question. Enquiry. Why? Why why? Am I a captive?”
“No,” Riker held up a hand. “That was not our intention.”
“You removed me by force. Took. Stole. Interrogative: Why was this done?”
“We were not aware of your nature,” he continued. “We wanted to learn more about you.”
“If you want to leave this ship, we can arrange that,” offered Deanna. “You’re a guest, not a prisoner.”
“You have isolated me. This is an act of aggression.”
“We did that for our safety as much as yours. The… discharge you sent out before was potentially lethal. We couldn’t be sure of your intentions.”
“I… comprehend. Failure of communication leads to error state, misreading of objective. This will not occur again.” The device crackled. “I am. Identifier: SecondGen White-Blue, iteration of the Sentry Coalition. Active mobile, status… undetermined. Damaged. Lost.”
Deanna’s brow furrowed. Was she imagining it, or was there a faint emotional content beneath the broken speech pattern? The tonality of the words seemed to express fear and doubt.
“My crew will do what we can to help you,” said Riker. “When we entered this area, we discovered the remains of your vessel. You suffered heavy damage.”
“Shipframe status: inoperable,” it agreed. “Multiple function train interrupts. System failure. Contact lost. Contact lost.”
“Our people boarded your… shipframe,” Deanna ventured. “Why did you attack them?”
“Negative,” insisted the machine. “System was in error condition. Autonomic drones, countermeasures did not respond to command protocols. Reverted to reflexive order pattern. Isolate intruders and neutralize.” There was another buzzing pulse. “This was not intentional.”
“Then why did it shut off when you were disconnected?” Keru couldn’t stop himself from throwing in the question.
The device—what did it call itself, White-Blue?—buzzed for a moment. “Disconnection leads to assumed neural crash state. Hot shutdown. All systems off-line. Hibernative mode engages.” It paused and then spoke again. “Process: confirmation of hypothesis is required. You are organic intelligent forms.”
“Yes. These are my crew,” Riker told it. “You said you were part of a ‘coalition’? So are we, an association of worlds from another part of the galaxy. We’re explorers, mapping this region. That’s how we came to find the wreckage of your vessel.”
“Multiple biological vectors, different species-race-gender archetypes,” said White-Blue. The light inside it glimmered and danced.
The captain nodded. “That’s right. I’m a human, from a world called Earth.” He pointed out some of the other people in the chamber. “Betazoid. Trill. Pak’shree. Cardassian. Cygnian. Andorian. We have many species working together onboard Titan. It’s a tenet of our culture.”
“The Sentries have encountered other organic societies. All were monospecies, of lesser technical development. Not space-capable. Your… grouping is interesting.”
“We believe there’s strength in our diversity,” said Deanna.
“That assumption is valid,” said the machine. Little by little, the synthetic voice was beginning to even out, the tonality of it shifting. It seemed to be drawing not just from her husband’s voice but also from hers and Keru’s, even Dakal’s, Chaka’s, and Sethe’s. It was weaving its own vocal identity from a mixture of theirs.
“White-Blue,” Riker addressed the machine formally. “Can you tell us what happened here, what happened to you and your vessel?”
For a long moment, the device remained silent. “Incursion event,” it finally replied.
“We are concerned that whatever attacked you could still be nearby,” said Deanna. “The safety of our ship and crew is of great importance to us.”
“Negative,” came the emphatic reply. “The Null retreated. System failure. Contact lost. My termination… certain. If the Titan had not intervened.”
She sensed a chill pass through her husband as the machine-mind spoke. “The Null,” Riker repeated, the name cold and disquieting on his lips. “Is that the name of the force that attacked you? Do you know why?”
“Because we exist,” said the machine, its colors ebbing, becoming muted.
Riker turned to his wife, but Deanna’s mind was suddenly elsewhere. She gasped as a wash of alarm reached down through the decks to touch her thoughts. On the bridge. Christine! Something’s wrong—
The sensation formed in her at the speed of thought. She grabbed Riker’s hand and said his name, but the word was drowned out by the keening cry of warning sirens.
“Vale to all hands!” The commander’s voice called out over the intercom. “Red Alert, battle stations!”
FOUR
“Proximity alert,” announced Tuvok as a warning tone chimed from the tactical-station console.
Vale turned in her seat to look up at him. “Company?”
“It would appear so,” he replied. “A single vessel approaching off the starboard quarter, on the far side of the debris field. It appears to have emerged directly from a region of spatial shear…”
The commander got to her feet and strode to the middle of the bridge. She glanced toward the science station, where Ensign Y’lira was standing a duty shift. “Modan? Give me a visual.”
On-screen,” reported the Selenean. “Sensor sweep is running.”
The main display shifted to show Vale the view of an asymmetrical craft that moved swiftly, turning about its length to push though the outer rim of the wreckage zone. She couldn’t determine a bow or a stern; it resembled a group of pipes and cylinders of different lengths and diameters clustered in a bundle. As Vale watched, the craft altere
d its shape, the component modules of it extending outward on armatures and pylons.
“A variable-geometry hull,” noted the tactical officer.
“Confirming that,” said Y’lira. “Also, I’m reading the same alloy compounds in the structure that the away team detected in the wreckage… although the configuration of the fuselage is markedly different.”
“So it’s another one.” Vale nodded to Lieutenant Lavena. “Aili, hold us here. We’ll maintain a nonthreatening posture for the moment. Let’s hail them.”
“Aye, Commander.” At the ops console, Sariel Rager brought up the subspace radio grid and composed a message.
“Shall I summon the captain?” said Tuvok.
Vale shook her head. “I don’t think he’d appreciate me interrupting a first contact. We’ll see how this plays out.”
On the screen, the new arrival was moving swiftly through the debris field. The wide-open area between the hull segments grew a glittering tractor field that drew in drifting fragments, trawling them into itself.
“It’s like a baleen whale,” said Lavena. “Sifting krill from the ocean.”
“Or a carrion bird, picking over a corpse,” offered Lieutenant Tylith from the engineering station, her big eyes blinking. Vale grimaced at the mental image the lizardlike Kasheetan’s suggestion created.
“Nothing on subspace,” reported Rager.
“No response?”
“I don’t think they’re listening, Commander,” said the lieutenant.
“Aspect change,” called Tuvok. “The hull configuration is shifting again.”
The craft turned downward and dropped away through the bottom of the cloud of wreckage. For a moment, it seemed as if the vessel was simply going to rotate away and head off; but instead, it turned on its axis, rolling to present its narrowest aspect toward the Titan. Then, with a sudden surge of thrust, it moved toward them.
Y’lira’s golden face tightened in concern. “Energy-transfer events registering all along the length of the vessel.”
Vale shot a look at her. “Weapons?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“Rager, hail them again, all channels. Lavena, back us off.”
The Pacifican worked the helm, and Titan fell away, but the alien ship ate up the distance between them. Then the structure of it changed again, and this time there was no mistaking the intent behind it. The tubular forms curved up and around, bending along their lengths, the silhouette of the alien craft shifting into something that resembled a spread claw, with lightning-glow talons at every tip.
“The ship is scanning us,” Tuvok reported. “It is attempting to gain a weapons lock.”
“Power surge along the outer hull!” called Y’lira. “They’re going to open fire!”
“Evasive action!” The commander slapped at her com-badge. “Vale to all hands! Red Alert, battle stations!”
Five emerald lances left the alien ship at once, stabbing out through the darkness toward Titan’s primary hull. The Starfleet ship pivoted sharply to avoid the attack and extended away, two of the beams streaming across the shields. The bubble of protective force shimmered briefly into visibility as the hits reflected off, actinic glows sparking sun-bright and searing.
The attacker turned with its target, sweeping around with the beam weapons, sending them probing after the starship like searchlights reaching into the dark. Thruster grids flared as it committed power to the pursuit, closing the distance even as the Titan tried to disengage and retreat beyond engagement range.
With careful and precise tactics, the alien ship anticipated each move the Titan made, bracketing it with green streamers of lethal radiation. The shields flashed again and again as they were hit, the protective barrier burning off crucial potentiality with every strike that landed.
Riker caught his wife as the tremor through the decking made her stumble. “Deanna?”
“I’m all right,” she replied. “There’s another…” Troi looked toward the alien artificial intelligence. “Another ship out there.”
The captain pushed past Keru to the control panel, noting in passing that every one of the Trill’s security team had drawn their weapons and made ready. “Riker to bridge, report!”
“We’re under attack from an unidentified craft, sir,” Vale snapped. “It’s a similar design to the wreck. Hails are being ignored—”
Another heavy shudder raced down the length of the Titan, and Riker felt it in the pit of his stomach.
“Captain, we can’t take much more of this!”
“Move fast,” he ordered. “Get us out of range.”
“We’ll try,” Vale replied, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“What is out there?” Keru was asking.
Dakal ran a command through his panel. “Patching into external monitors.”
A tertiary display screen resolved into a view of space, and there, rolling across it, was the claw shape of their attacker.
“Is that the Null?” the captain demanded, facing the AI. “Did it come back to finish you off?”
“Negative,” came the response. “Shipframe identifier: Sentry, mobile. Mode state: combatant.”
“It is one of your vessels? Why is it firing on us?” said Troi. “Did we provoke this?”
“Reasoning unknown.”
“Maybe the other ship knows we have this one onboard,” said Keru. “It might think we’re holding it prisoner—” Another blast rocked the deck, and the Trill fell against one of the consoles.
“Or it could be here to destroy it,” Chaka clacked. “We may have put ourselves in the middle of a dispute between locals.”
“Can you stop this?” Riker said firmly, stepping close to the forcefield around the nexus-core unit. “If you can’t, we’ll be forced to defend ourselves.”
“I can stop the attack.” The answer came immediately. “In order to do so, you will be required to provide me with a direct interface to the Titan’s primary systems matrix.”
Keru’s face creased in a humorless sneer. “That’s all? And what’s to stop you from taking control of the entire ship?”
“Nothing,” replied White-Blue.
“I think,” said Troi, “it’s asking us to trust it.”
Lavena’s webbed fingers fanned across the helm controls in a flurry of movement, spinning the Titan in a hard kick-turn better suited to an atmospheric flyer than a Luna-class starship. She felt the ebb and flow of the vessel’s artificial gravity as the internal compensators struggled to keep up with the wild evasive motions she was plotting.
It still wasn’t enough; the ship rang with another punishing impact wave as the alien vessel found their range and hit hard.
Tuvok’s voice was calm and direct. “Shields are at forty-three percent and falling.”
“I can’t keep him off our backs forever, Commander,” said Lavena. “That other ship’s so fast I can barely stay ahead of it.”
“To hell with this,” growled Commander Vale. “I’m sick of playing punchbag. Hard about, aggressive posture. Orient the shields forward.” Lavena felt the officer at her shoulder. “Aili? I want a jousting pass.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Vale called to the tactical officer. “Tuvok, give me a maximum phaser strike on one of those weapon arms. If we give him a bloody nose, maybe he’ll back off.”
The Vulcan nodded. “Targeting. The alien ship is firing again.”
Green lightning lit the bridge from the viewscreen, throwing hard shadows across the walls.
“Take the shot,” snapped Vale.
Amber fire erupted from the Titan’s upper phaser ring, spinning itself into a tight rod of lethal power that reached out at the attacker. The blast fell like an axe blade on the joint where the lower port structure curved up from the main body of the fuselage. A ring of electromagnetic energy flared around the impact site, and with a gout of immense sparks, the entire assembly was abruptly severed.
The structure writhed as it tumbled away, trailing
gas and fragments of hull metal, and the alien ship listed as it struggled to compensate for the sudden and unexpected loss in mass. The two craft passed each other, emerald beams reaching out after the Starfleet ship, raking Titan’s underbelly.
“A solid hit!” called Y’lira from the science console. “Severe power-flux readings at point of impact, but the aggressor is compensating quickly…” Her moment of enthusiasm dimmed. “Very quickly.”
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 8
