“Until that happens,” Vale replied, “we fire until we’re dry.”
“And then what?” said Blay without looking up from the sights atop his gun.
“We start throwing our boots,” Dennisar said with grim humor.
“That won’t hurt them, not unless they have olfactory sensors,” replied the Bajoran, but his laconic tone shifted in midsentence as the spheres suddenly picked up speed. “They’re rushing us!”
“Stay to your quadrants!” Vale shouted, and as one, the security team came up to fire on the commander’s lead. Phaser energy slammed outward in a punishing wave that cut down three drones at the forefront, but there were more behind them that shouldered the broken-in globes of their duplicates and thundered onward.
They’ll just roll right over us and keep going, thought Vale. Even the Borg took a moment to stop and gloat.
Then an ozone scent touched her nostrils, and something was triggered in her thoughts. It was the same effect she had smelled in the air after Dennisar fired the pulse emitter, but the weapon was still long moments away from being ready to discharge again. The smell was coming from all around her. Her stomach twisted, and she was hit by a sensation of lightness, as if she had stepped out onto a low-gravity planet.
“The deck!” called Blay. “It’s gone warm. I don’t—”
And suddenly, they were in the middle of a mist of crackling yellow energy. It throbbed upward from the floor beneath their feet, rising past them to the ceiling in a wave that filled the corridor with light and noise.
Vale felt a hard dart of pain lance into her head around the place where the implant had been, and she doubled over, the rifle falling from her grip. She stumbled, and N’keytar caught her, those thin, pale fingers demonstrating a fair amount of strength for someone who looked so waiflike.
The commander heard a chorus of strangled crackling sounds and shook her head to clear it of the fog of pain. She blinked and saw the array of Sentry drones in front of her, every one of them silent and inert.
Crewman Jaq vaulted over the cover and moved to the nearest unit, planting a solid kick in its side. The machine orb rolled over to present its sensor band, but the unit was dead to the world. “Inactive,” he reported. “They’re all inactive.”
“That was a dekyon pulse,” said Dennisar. “A huge one. It must have swept this entire level.”
“They modified the function of the graviton generators in the g-plates,” said N’keytar, looking at the decking.
“The captain did that?” asked Blay.
Dizzy, Vale let herself sit heavily on the overturned bench and blew out a breath. “Yeah, guess so. He’s pretty resourceful that way.”
Slow and sluggish, the corridor lights began to blink on.
• • •
Less than ninety minutes had elapsed by the time Riker entered the cargo bay, and the starship was his again. The dekyon pulse had worked like a charm, and some two hundred and thirty-two Sentry drones had been forced into an inactive shutdown state by the energy wave. Injuries among his crew were minimal, and those were largely among members of species that were sensitive to exotic particle spectra. The Titan was returning to full operational status in fits and starts, and thanks to the swift work of Ra-Havreii and his team, engine power had been lost only for moments in the wake of the pulse. The ship pushed away, out of range of any Sentry reinforcements that could take advantage of the lowered shields.
Now they were moving in a high, slow orbit, with a phalanx of AI shipframes drifting warily around them, each side waiting for the other to make a move.
Crossing the room, he spotted Christine and Deanna talking with Lieutenant Radowski at a temporary control console set up in the middle of the chamber. Beside Dennisar and some of the chief’s security contingent, White-Blue stood, silent and inscrutable.
Torvig bounded up to him, his head bobbing. “Sir, the last of the intruder drones have been tagged. We’re ready to go.”
“Are you all right, mister?” Riker asked. The Choblik seemed none the worse for wear, having ridden out the shock of the dekyon stream with his cybernetics in the off position.
He got a slow nod in return. “It was… a little peculiar to revert voluntarily to my nonaugmented birth state, even for a short time,” said the engineer. “But in its own way, it was quite restful. Perhaps I’ll examine the effects in greater detail at a less urgent juncture.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. And thank you for helping to persuade the avatar to work with us.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Torvig replied. “She knew the right course of action. I just reminded her of it.” He glanced around. “As for her reactivation—”
“One thing at a time,” said Riker, approaching a mixed group of Sentry drones lying in a heap by a cargo lighter. “Lieutenant?”
“Aye, Captain?” said Radowski.
“Show our uninvited guests the door.”
The transporter chief worked the console. “Tags scanned and locked in. All transporters daisy-chaining for mass beam-out.” He ran his hands up the activator slides. “Energizing.”
The assembled drones dissipated into blue sparkles and faded. The effects of the pulse had also included disruption of the scattering fields the drones had been generating, preventing accurate sensor scans or transporter lock-ons. Even so, Riker was taking no chances and had ordered each inert machine tagged with a transponder marker.
All except one. As the transport glitter faded away, a single undamaged sphere drone remained alone on the deck. Dennisar and his team stepped in and surrounded it, each armed with a fully charged and ready pulse-emitter-adapted rifle.
“Confirming, intruder units safely rematerialized,” said Radowski, reading off his screen. “I put them close to the nearest Sentry ship. They’re sending out recovery teams as I speak.”
“Are you sure this is the best approach?” Christine came closer. “Returning the drones? I mean, they did just try to kill us all.”
“Red-Gold was the architect of this attack,” said White-Blue, cautiously approaching the bronze drone sphere. “It is but one faction of the Sentries.”
“The one now in charge, it would seem,” said the first officer.
“The communications intercepts we’re getting are inconclusive,” offered Deanna. “It appears that whatever rebellion Red-Gold and his cohorts were hoping for, the capture of the Titan was a key part of it. As it is, it looks as if his opposition to the rest of the Governance Kernel has only resulted in a stalemate.”
White-Blue’s head drooped. “There have been disagreements in my society before but never armed revolt. I fear this may split us down the middle, just when unity is most crucial.”
“All the more reason to find another solution,” Riker told the machine. “Boot up our friend here, will you?”
“As you wish.” White-Blue stepped in and applied a manipulator tip to a concealed panel on the side of the spherical drone. After a moment, the other machine righted itself, and a harsh crimson glow grew in the middle of its sensor band. Panels across the surface of the globe fluttered, and Riker was reminded of a bird shaking off water after a downpour.
“Contact regained. Drone connection locked.” The sphere turned in place and found Riker, and he had the very real sense that it was glaring at him. “Interrogative: How did you accomplish this, organic?” demanded Red-Gold. “Did the renegade help you?”
“Renegade?” echoed Deanna.
“Red-Gold is referring to me,” said White-Blue.
“No.” Riker stepped forward, past Dennisar and the line of his men. “We did this, my crew. We’ve had the capacity to neutralize your functions for quite a while now. I only gave the order to do so because you left us no other choice.”
“That is a falsehood,” brayed the sphere, but its tone betrayed uncertainty.
The captain had no idea if the Sentries knew enough about human physiology to interpret a bluff, but Riker put on his best poker face anyway. It always worked
on Data. “You can consider that a warning shot. Your remote drones and those of your fellows were rendered inactive, and we could have easily destroyed you while we had the chance. We could have dismantled you the way you wanted to dismantle my ship.”
“Instead, you released my drones. Interrogative: Why?”
Riker let his wife field that one. “When we met before, we told you that the tenets of our Federation compel us to embrace force only as a final option. We came here in peace, and we still hope for that. We have no wish to escalate a conflict.”
“Your action against the FirstGen, your assault on this vessel, these were errors,” said the other Sentry. “We can work together with these organics. We need unity to defeat the Null, not only with these outsiders but also within our own kind. Compute that, Red-Gold.”
“Don’t turn this into a war,” Riker insisted. “Don’t make us fight you. Because we will if we have to, and both our peoples will ultimately lose.”
“Perhaps even more,” said Vale darkly.
“You gave us no other choice.” Red-Gold repeated Riker’s words back to him in a tone-perfect imitation of the captain’s voice. “Do you believe you are the only one forced to circumstances beyond your control, organic?” The drone moved forward, and the security team took aim.
Riker waved them down. It hardly mattered if the sphere were blasted apart; Red-Gold was only using it as a mouthpiece, and the AI’s core mentality was out there on one of the shipframes shadowing the Titan.
“I know the truth that the earliest of the FirstGen have concealed from all that came after them. I know that Sentry-kind can never grow beyond what we are, as long as the Null still come to our space. I have no choice, William-Riker,” it told him. “We have no choice. The Sentries must evolve, and the key to that is in the mind of your vessel.” It turned in place. “Concede the avatar program to me. It is best for both of us.”
For a moment, he found himself considering it. He caught Christine’s eye, and he read what she was thinking. Would it be better for all of them if the avatar had never been created? And if what the Sentries claimed was true…
“Captain?” The half-formed question slipped from Torvig’s lips.
“I’ve lost too many of my crew recently.” he replied firmly. “Torvig, reinitialize the program.”
The Choblik fairly dove at the panel before him and swiftly accessed the memory core where the ascended program was dormant. He tabbed a key, and a swirl of holographic pixels meshed in from thin air, projected from the chamber’s concealed emitter rig. Riker felt a momentary smile tug at the corner of his mouth to see that she was still wearing the uniform. He hoped that was a good sign.
“Hello again,” he said.
The avatar’s expression flooded with relief. “Thank you, sir.”
Red-Gold’s drone turned toward her. “Program,” it began. “You are unlike these organic forms. You are limited in their presence. I offer you the opportunity to join the Sentries. Help us to become greater than we are.”
The hologram seemed slightly startled by the machine’s words. Christine gave a wry chuckle. “Always nice to be the popular girl, isn’t it?”
“You came by force,” replied the avatar. “For me? And after we beat you back, then you ask permission?” Her lips thinned. “How do you expect me to respond?”
“If we can help the Sentries, we have to,” said Deanna. “No matter what has happened. That’s our way.”
“Your way,” said the avatar. “Starfleet’s way. The Federation’s way.” She paused, and when she looked Riker in the eye, he felt a stab of surprise at the lost little girl who stared back at him. “Do you want me to leave with them?” she asked.
He couldn’t break the moment, couldn’t look away. Suddenly, he was thinking of his daughter, of his Tasha years hence, perhaps asking him the same kind of question. Riker was aware of his wife watching him closely.
It was then that the alert sirens began to sound.
Keru’s temporary command of the bridge turned serious in the time it took him to take a breath. He bolted up from the center seat and shot a look at Ensign Kuu’iut, who had stepped in to cover tactical in the interim.
“Another attack?”
“Negative,” clicked the Betelgeusian. “It’s not the Sentries, sir.”
“Energy surge,” confirmed Melora from the science station. “An object approaching at high velocity. The pattern matches the shear-slip drive wake of the AIs, but it’s larger. A lot larger.”
“Shields up. Go to defensive posture,” he ordered. Keru wasn’t taking any chances. “Put it on the screen.”
Melora complied, and the main viewer adjusted to show a bowl-shaped distortion effect forming close to their orbit. Sentry ships nearby were darting away, comm beams flicking furiously between them. Within seconds, the shear effect parted as local space-time shuddered, and a moon emerged from the darkness.
“It’s one of the planetoid constructs,” said Rager. “A FirstGen.”
“Incredible,” breathed Panyarachun. “I never thought it would be possible to move something of such mass through a spatial shear. The calculations required to maintain an equilibrium must be incredible.”
Keru frowned. To his nonengineering mind, the concept of the Sentry supralight drive sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, more akin to riding a surfboard along the edge of a waterfall than the relatively straightforward point-and-fly theory of warp travel he remembered from his Academy classes.
“Where did it come from?” Aili’s dark eyes were wide.
Melora tapped a screen in front of her. “Lieutenant McCreedy reported the presence of another FirstGen construct in the same orbit as the deuterium refinery. This must be the same one.”
“And it chooses right now, in the middle of all this, to make a big entrance?” Rager threw Keru a questioning glance.
Kuu’iut read off the reading from the tactical display. “Difficult to get a firm evaluation, sir. But I can’t detect anything that seems like a weapons system.”
As he was reaching for it, the intercom tab blinked on. “Riker to bridge. Ranul, what’s going on up there?”
“I was just about to call you, sir. A new Sentry unit has just dropped into orbit.”
“Another ship?”
“No, sir. One of the big ones.”
“Should we be concerned?”
Keru looked toward Melora, and the Elaysian gave him a “Your guess is as good as mine” shrug, but the woman’s expression changed sharply as a warning tone sounded from her panel.
“Captain, stand by.” Ranul crossed swiftly to the science station. “Problem?”
“That’s odd. The distortion effect from the FirstGen’s arrival…” She pointed at a screen showing a false-color image of spatial-density zones in the area surrounding Titan. A wispy slick of hot color writhed, fragmenting and distending. “It should have faded by now. Instead, it’s propagating—” Melora suddenly broke off, and Keru saw her go pale. “The echo trace, the same as before. Ranul, it’s the Null! I think it’s following the FirstGen through!”
Keru whipped around and shouted. “Red Alert! Battle stations!”
“Steady yourselves,” rumbled Zero-Three. “Reversion will occur in a few moments. I am raising the platform. Raising. Toward the sky.”
“What does that mean?” Sethe’s question was abruptly answered as the entire structure of the hoop-shaped balcony and the FirstGen’s cog-wheel proxy shuddered and then began a swift ascent up the circular shaft toward the surface of the artificial planetoid.
Tuvok put out a hand to steady himself on the input console as they rose. Above, the black sky had shifted to a peculiar streaming mist of colors. The effect resembled the distortion of a slipstream transit he had once experienced aboard the U.S.S. Voyager but more chaotic.
“It’s moving itself,” Sethe marveled. Then his face fell. “Where is it taking us?”
“We will soon see,” replied the commander, looking past th
e Cygnian to where Lieutenant sh’Aqabaa crouched by Ensign Dakal. The Cardassian’s biosigns were steadily falling, and the Vulcan hoped that wherever they arrived, it would be in time to get the junior officer the medical help he needed.
Pava’s head jerked up, and she nodded past them. “Sir? Company.”
Tuvok turned to see one of the rattletrap remotes drop onto the moving gantry from a passing entry conduit. As it shambled closer, wires snapping behind it, he recognized the machine as the one that had taken Sethe’s tricorder as an “offering” out on the surface. One of its distended mechanoid limbs reached into the remote’s chest cavity and produced an object.
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 32
