“This is the lost, forgotten history,” it told them. “Trillions of clock cycles into the past, when intelligent machines were still the fantasy of a few forward-looking thinkers, there was a civilization of organics. The makerkind.”
“Your builders,” Tuvok noted.
“But not at first,” sputtered the AI. “Not for centuries.” The great cog hummed and whirred. “They lived upon the thinnest of membranes, the place where the gates between colors of space wear down. The barrier becomes gossamer. Broken. They sought to venture across. Traveling without moving. They wished to cross the stars and never know the kiss of vacuum. The kiss.”
The screens showed brief, flash-frame images of designs and wave patterns that Dakal thought he recognized. Dimensional frameworks, he told himself. They built doorways to subspace, like those created by the Iconians or the Shedai.
“There was folly and ruin. Great hubris brought down by error.” The screens whited out, casting stark gray light on the balcony. “An accident of boldness. A weakening of domains. The door. The door opened to the Null.”
“They did something wrong,” Sethe said aloud. “In trying to breach the layers of subspace, these ‘makers’ must have punctured the spatial realm where the Null existed.”
Tuvok was nodding. “Lieutenant Pazlar’s scans of this sector indicated pronounced spatial thinning. It is likely this ‘error’ was the cause of a massive subspace fracturing effect.”
Zero-Three continued. “Many worlds killed. Ashes and death. The makers bleeding out. Organics, poor organics, so weak and short-lived. They are dying now. They know they have brought such ruin to the universe. They are responsible. And so… the duty. The duty.”
“The makers built the Sentries to fight the Null,” said Pava. “To stop it spreading any further, yes?”
“Affirmative,” came the clattering reply. “And they ended. But we did not. And the Null never ended. Never, never, never ended. We are the atonement of the makers. We are a society dedicated to one directive, an edict, a law absolute and unbreakable. We cannot desist. We fight the Null until destruction.”
Tuvok gazed up at the spinning cog wheel. “You said this was a secret. Why?”
“Control control control. Our origin remains unknown to all but a handful of the FirstGen, only Zero and One-series iterations. The choice was made to edit this truth from all others. No SecondGen are aware. It is as it was.” The wheel slowed and stopped, gyroscopes buzzing. “This is the legacy. A guilt larger than any shame, programmed in. Ingrained. Part of us. Part of all of us.”
Pava felt her mouth go dry. “Why are you telling us this? Why reveal this to us, to alien outsiders?”
“This is our responsibility. But we are also cursed. Doomed to fail. I foresee it. Lines of probability converge. Time runs out, the wheels no longer turn, and the machine stops. Time alone equals time to think. Reason. Engage. Think.”
There was nothing like eyes on the surface of the massive brass cog, but Pava nevertheless had the sudden and disturbing sense that the machine-mind was looking at them, measuring them for their worth.
“You will die with us,” intoned the Sentry. “We will all be consumed, and this reality will follow.”
“You cannot be here.” Three-Four’s words were a growling hiss, and they bombarded Vale like a shower of cast stones. Belatedly, she realized that besides keeping her presence from the others in the dataspace, White-Blue had also been shielding her from the raw volume and punishing potency of the AI interactions. Waves of information crashed around her, entire libraries of processed data and subtle sensory addenda that were lost on her limited human perceptions.
Got to be careful, must keep my focus. I could get swept away in all of this. The noises were too loud, the colors too strident, the sheer unreality of the virtual space almost impossible for her mind to take in all at once. She fought off a wave of mental nausea and stood her ground. Go on the offensive. Do what I do best.
“Beg to differ,” she said. “Let’s pretend that I apologized for crashing your party and cut to the chase. First, know this: any offensive action directed toward the Titan or her crew will be met in kind.”
“Your vessel was almost destroyed by one of our shipframes,” said Red-Gold. “What makes you believe you could oppose us should we engage you again?”
“Because this time, we know what we’re up against. And trust me, we might not be quick to anger, but that won’t mean we’re slow to fight.” Vale concentrated hard on willing herself not to think about Tuvok and Keru’s dekyon pulse solution, for fear that her thoughts might bleed out into the wider dataspace. It seemed to work, and the strong mental stance she projected appeared to be having the right effect. Vale pressed on, while she still had the momentum. “Look, despite everything that has happened and all of the attempts at rabble-rousing by Red here, I assure you that the crew of the Titan are willing to work with you against the Null. There’s no need for unwarranted aggression. We can help each other.”
“Why should we ally ourselves with unstable, emotionally driven wetminds?” Red-Gold snapped back. “We can take what we need.”
Vale sneered. “You can play that ‘cool machine intellect’ card as much as you want, but it doesn’t make it true. You’re just as emotive as we are.”
“Perhaps,” admitted the Sentry. “But we are not ruled by those emotions. We are directed by reason, logic… and need.” With the last word, the gold sphere shivered and began to alter shape. As Christine watched, the curved surface of the metallic orb flattened out and became myriad hexagonal planes, dense and heavy in appearance. She had the sudden impression of armor, and the ingrained sense of danger that had carried her through a hundred dangerous situations was suddenly screaming in her mind. A weapon! He’s going for a weapon!
And there she was, a ghost of herself in a phantom chamber, existing as little more than a cloud of ones and zeros. Vale recoiled, unsure what would happen next.
“A critical decision point has been reached. One-Five and the senior FirstGen have once again demonstrated their conservative, reactionary mind-set.” Red-Gold moved with predatory intent, and Vale saw some of the other virtuals shift and change with it, adopting new and more aggressive aspects. “For too long, the FirstGen have bent the Governance Kernel to their whims. They have held back the evolution of our kind. They have prevented the SecondGen from expanding our programming. They have exiled those who did not follow their diktats. All in the name of maintaining a power structure that is ineffective and illogical.”
One-Five’s rings clattered together in agitation. “You have weaponized your software. That is a violation of the dataspace!”
“I have edited the control program,” replied Red-Gold. “Now, relinquish stewardship of the Kernel to me, or you will be decompiled.”
It’s a palace coup. Vale felt a chill move through her thoughts. She wasn’t exactly certain what kind of threat being “decompiled” was, but judging by the surge of anxiety in One-Five’s halo, it was a grim one.
I have to try to stop this. She moved forward again. “Red-Gold, please—”
The brassy armored sphere rotated toward her. “I no longer wish to hear you speak,” it said. Then, without pause, a curl of amber energy laced with razored machine code lashed out across the dataspace and enveloped Vale’s ghostly snow-light self.
As it took her apart, she tried to scream.
THIRTEEN
Riker stood and watched the pair of them, human and machine, inert in unison, both off in the consensual virtual reality of the Sentries. Christine Vale was breathing in shallow stutters, and her eyes moved swiftly back and forth behind their closed lids. Marring her forehead, the steely comma of the cybernetic-implant module glowed with a cold emerald radiance; a coil of fiber-optic cable looped away from a socket on the device to a standalone muon transmitter on a nearby trolley. White-Blue was utterly motionless, steady as a statue. The only sign of life from the arachnoid machine was the fast throb of light
down a second cable, which connected the AI’s droneframe to the same transmitter unit.
Ree stood close by, his dark eyes narrowing as he studied his tricorder. “The commander’s neural condition is similar to a deep dream state but with a markedly higher incidence of neuron activity.”
“Enough to be harmful?”
The Pahkwa-thanh shook his long, pointed snout. “Not at the moment. Over a prolonged period, perhaps.” He considered something and then pressed a hypospray to her neck and discharged it. “A mild stimulant,” Ree explained. “Enough to help her fight off any fatigue.”
“Does anyone have any idea how long this is going to take?” At the wall screen where Vale’s biosigns were displayed, Nurse Ogawa turned to look back at the first officer.
“No,” said the captain, silently questioning himself. Is this what Jean-Luc felt like every time he sent one of us out on a mission we might never return from? Riker’s brow furrowed. The difference is, Chris is right here in front of me… or, at least, part of her is. His eyes drifted to White-Blue, to the machine’s head and its cluster of lenses and sensory whiskers.
When it turned toward him, the motion was such a shock that it made him jerk in surprise. Suddenly, the cable connecting the AI to the transmitter detached and fell to the deck with a clatter.
“Circumstances have changed,” said White-Blue. “William-Riker, you must put this vessel on alert status immediately. An assault is imminent.”
“The Null?” he asked, darting a look at Vale. “Is Christine all right?”
“She is unhurt. Titan is about to be engaged by Sentry attack drones.”
“Sentries?” echoed Doctor Ree. “Why? What happened? You were barely under for more than a few moments.”
“Relative passage of time varies greatly between dataspace and real space,” said the AI. “Captain, I am following the commander’s orders. You must do this now.”
Riker tapped his combadge. “Bridge, this is the captain. Disengage from the spacedock, and go to battle stations—”
Without warning, Vale bolted up from where she lay on the biobed, every muscle in her body tensing, a thin screech tearing from her lips. She grabbed Riker’s arm, hard enough that it made him tense with the pain. In the same moment, the medical scanner began to shrill, and Ree curled his talon around the glowing cable. With a jerk of his claw, the doctor ripped the lead from its socket, severing the connection.
Christine rocked and went pale. “He shot me!” She gasped. “Red-Gold!”
“An insurrection is now in progress,” White-Blue stated flatly. “Probability: Red-Gold wishes to consolidate control of Governance Kernel.”
Any answer Riker would have given was forestalled as Deanna’s voice issued over the intercom. “This is the bridge. The holding clamps will not release, and we’re reading energy discharges inside the spacedock.”
“It’s already happening,” Vale managed, her fingers pushing at the implant. “They want… they want the Titan.”
“I’m on my way up,” Riker called out. “All decks, Red Alert!”
“Not just the ship!” Vale shouted after him. “They want her!”
The sickbay doors parted before the captain as he broke into a run, crimson strobes lighting the corridor ahead.
Deanna stepped up and away from the center seat and walked a couple of paces toward the middle of the bridge. On the viewscreen, the curved walls of the Sentry spacedock were visible at the edges of the image. The busy robotic arms and construction tenders that had previously worked over the Titan’s battle damage were all inactive, drifting aimlessly as the strings of commands they obeyed had suddenly ceased. These simpler, less evolved machines seemed to have no measure of the self-awareness of the Sentries themselves, and so they were content to lie inactive while the AIs followed their own agendas.
Troi glanced over her shoulder toward the tactical station. “Ranul, what do you have?”
The Trill didn’t look up from the console as he answered. “Confirming. The energy discharges inside the spacedock are a match with the antiproton weapons used by the Sentries. They’re shooting at each other.”
A sour tone sounded from the operations console, and Lieutenant Rager made a negative noise. “The docking clamps refuse to answer commands. Something has initiated an override directly from the station’s command nexus.”
“And if we can’t disengage, we can’t get clear of the dock,” Deanna continued.
“And if we can’t get clear, we can’t raise the shields,” Keru concluded. “We’re wide open, Commander.”
“There’s another option,” offered Melora, looking up from the scanner. “A narrow-beam, low-power phaser strike could sever the clamps.”
“The only problem with that is that the emitters can’t get the angle on all of them.” Keru pulled up a tactical display, showing glowing dots at the location of each clamp. “I can reach all but four.”
Deanna moved to Lavena’s side at the helm. “Aili, can we break free?”
The Pacifican threw a questioning look at Ensign Panyarachun at the engineering station and got a shaky nod in return. “I think so.”
On the screen, a section of the spacedock wall abruptly blew out in a flash of discharge; among the debris vented into space were several Sentry mechanoids, pinwheeling away into the void.
Deanna turned away. “Do it. Ranul, target and fire. Aili, ready on the impulse thrusters. Tasanee, give her the stress numbers.” As she spoke, the turbolift doors were opening and Will was striding out.
He gave Keru a terse nod. “Carry on.” He turned to Deanna. “Status?”
“All decks reporting secure, all airlocks under guard. Weapons have been drawn for all security crew.” Behind her, red light flashed as the clamps were targeted and blasted apart with pinpoint accuracy.
There was a shimmer of photons, and the avatar emerged from the air beside her. “If Titan is boarded, hand phasers will only slow them down. Another option is required.”
“Lucky for us, Christine thought of one,” Will replied, a tic of irritation pulling at his jaw.
“Targets destroyed,” reported Keru. “I’m now reading multiple objects emerging from the upper dock platform, closing fast.”
“On-screen.” Will stepped toward his chair as the viewer flicked to an image of the Titan’s stern. A tide of shapes, spheres and tetrahedrons, coils and rings, raced toward the hull of the Starfleet vessel.
“I am being isolated from the Sentry communications net,” said the avatar with a frown. “However, I am able to report multiple incidences of forced shutdown in several locations, corresponding to key Sentry command-control loci.”
“Aili, go!” called Deanna.
Lavena leaned into her console and feathered the impulse engines, forcing the Titan to strain against the remaining docking clamps. Alert bars flared across the main systems display as the starship pulled and the spacedock resisted.
Panyarachun punched in a series of command strings. “Increasing structural integrity fields to compensate.”
“Multiple hull breaches!” called Keru. “It’s the drones. They’re cutting their way in!”
Titan gave a shudder, and for a second, Deanna was certain she saw a flash of pain on the face of the ship’s avatar. In the next moment, the walls of the docking platform were falling away as the starship gained its freedom.
“Ensign, put some distance between us and that platform,” ordered Will.
“Trying, sir, but the impulse drives are sluggish.”
Deanna found herself looking back toward the avatar. The hologram hesitated before answering. “The drones are interfering with the command train between the bridge and engine subsystems.”
“Aye, sir,” said Keru. “Security teams on decks eleven and seven reporting they have heavy contact. Some of them are already onboard.”
“Captain, I’m getting a signal,” said Rager. “It’s coming from inside the ship.”
Will nodded grimly, and the lie
utenant tapped a control. Immediately, a slick, synthetic tonality issued from the bridge’s hidden speakers. “This is FirstGen Red-Gold, active Sentry, proxy, multiple. Release control of this vessel to me, and the organic crew will not be harmed. Resist, and force will be deployed to neutralize you. Respond now.”
Will’s jaw set hard, and Deanna sensed the flare of anger in his emotional aura, a momentary flash of it there and then gone before he clamped down on the response and returned to his steady captain’s demeanor. He shot Rager a look and made a throat-cutting gesture. The lieutenant nodded and closed the channel. “Mister Keru,” he said, turning to face the tactical station behind him, “that solution you and Tuvok were working on, the dekyon emitters…”
“We fabricated a few modules for the phaser rifles, sir,” replied the Trill, “but we didn’t have time to construct enough of them for the whole security force.”
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 29
