“Are those decks still outside of transporter range?” Carol asked.
Gomez glanced at the Bynars.
“We have—”
“—made adjustments—”
“—but cannot—”
“—penetrate past—”
“—deck sixty.”
“So we go the rest of the way without a safety net,” Gomez said, glancing at Geordi.
Geordi nodded to her, agreeing. He didn’t much like the idea of not being able to be pulled out in an emergency, but he’d been in lots of situations over the years where there was no quick escape. This would just be another.
“We do it by the book,” Corsi said.
“Agreed,” Gomez said. “I don’t want any stupid heroics in there, people. We go in, we get what we are looking for, and we come out. Once we determine the place is safe, we can explore more. Understood?”
Everyone except Captain Gold nodded. He just watched, his sharp gaze missing nothing as far as Geordi could tell.
“I’ll lead insertion team one,” Gomez said, “ consisting of Commander La Forge, Lieutenant Vale, 110 and 111. We’ll go for the engineering section. Duffy, you, Pattie, Stevens, Faulwell, and Corsi are team two. Find that secondary control room. And both teams are looking for the main computer, or any access to the main computer. Understood?”
Again everyone nodded.
“Good,” Gomez said. “We jump in on deck fifty-five and go down from there. I want the two teams to remain separated, but staying close enough to help the other if needed. We jump in ten minutes. Get ready.”
The room broke back into talking, and Lieutenant Vale turned to Geordi. “Anything special I need for this kind of mission? I’m afraid I’m not up to date on the S.C.E. insertion team regs.”
Geordi shrugged. “I’ve honestly no idea on the security side. Better check with Lieutenant Commander Corsi.”
Vale had a pained expression on her face, and Geordi suddenly remembered Vale had said the two went way back.
“Problem, Lieutenant?” Geordi asked, managing to not smile.
Vale took a deep breath and shook her head. “Meet you in the transporter room.”
Then, as Geordi watched, the young security chief moved toward the older woman, who frowned when she saw Vale coming. Geordi waited just long enough to make sure the two didn’t come to blows, then turned to head for the transporter room.
He didn’t need to ask Gomez what he needed to bring along. Give him a tricorder and a phaser and he was as ready as he was ever going to be. Missions like this were the reasons he had joined Starfleet in the first place. He loved going to new places, seeking out new information, new technology, boldly going where no Federation engineer had gone before.
And in a few minutes, he was going to be getting the chance to do just that again. He loved the chance, so why was he so worried about it?
Behind him, floating above the conference table, beside the two security officers, the image of the Beast rotated slowly.
CHAPTER
8
Gomez glanced around, her phaser drawn, as the transporter beam released them deep inside the Beast. Both Geordi and Lieutenant Vale had their phasers drawn as well. The room they had beamed into was large and well-lit, but not as plushly furnished as the upper decks. It looked to Gomez to be some sort of dining area. There were chairs and long tables, and some paintings attached to the walls. “Clear,” Vale said.
Gomez and Geordi both put their phasers away.
“Looks like this ship had some economy-class passenger fares as well,” Geordi said.
“You didn’t expect all the rooms to look like those suites up in the rings, did you?” Gomez asked.
“Actually, I was hoping they would,” Geordi said.
“Always knew you were an unbridled optimist,” Gomez said, smiling at her old friend.
She glanced around and saw the entrance to what looked to be a sort of passenger lift. She had had some discussion with Corsi and Duffy about using the lifts, then decided to go ahead. She wasn’t sure if she liked the idea, but from what they could tell of the ship’s layout, the only other way up and down was to crawl through maintenance tubes. And she just didn’t want to do that for over forty decks.
“Da Vinci, can you hear me?” she asked, tapping her combadge.
“Loud and clear,” Captain Gold’s voice came back strong. “And we’re going to try to hold a computer lock on you for as long as we can.”
“Understood,” Gomez said. “We’ll stop and check in every ten decks.”
She turned and headed for the corridor leading to the lift they had planned to use. Geordi dropped in behind her, with the two Bynars following together, and Lieutenant Vale covering their flank.
At the lift, she touched a glowing red panel underneath a glowing green panel. Duffy’s team had figured out during the first insertion that on the lifts, the red meant down and the green up.
A moment later, the door slid open.
She didn’t want to step into that large, round lift, but she forced herself to.
Geordi followed easily, clearly not bothered, and the Bynars moved in and stood to one side without comment, but Vale looked as nervous about coming onboard as she felt.
“Stand in the opening for a moment,” Gomez said to Vale. “I want to make sure we know how to work this thing.”
Geordi moved over beside her, his tricorder out. She touched the upper part of the small computer panel on one side of the lift wall.
“Deck?” the computer voice asked.
“Sixty-five,” Gomez said.
Geordi nodded that it was working fine.
“Deck sixty-five,” the computer repeated. “Please stand clear of the door.”
Gomez motioned for Vale to move inside. As Vale did, the door slid closed.
Gomez glanced around. It didn’t seem as if the lift was working. Less than five seconds after the door had closed, it slid silently open again.
“Deck sixty-five,” the alien computer said.
Vale, looking confused, instantly drew her phaser and stepped back into the open doorway to make sure it stayed open, scanning the hallway in both directions.
“Fastest lifts I’ve ever seen,” Geordi said, scanning his tricorder.
“We actually dropped ten decks?” Vale asked. “The hallway looks the same.”
“Yes—”
“—we did,” the Bynars said.
“Efficient—”
“—system.”
“Very efficient.” Gomez tapped her combadge. “Captain, you still with us?”
“That was a quick drop, Commander,” Gold’s voice came back, strong and clear. “You all right?”
“Smoothest lift ride I’ve ever taken,” she said. “We’ll go for another ten decks.”
“Affirmative,” Gold said.
Gomez motioned for Geordi to tap the panel again, and for Vale to step back inside.
“Deck seventy-five, please,” Geordi asked.
The door slid closed, and Gomez tried to get any sense of moving. There just wasn’t any. No slightly increased gravity, nothing. Just as fast as the first time, the door slid open.
“Deck seventy-five.”
Vale stepped back into the doorway, checking the hall, phaser still drawn. “We are clearly in the economy class now,” she said. “The doors are spaced every ten paces, and there are more side corridors.”
“Captain?” Gomez said, tapping her combadge.
“We’re barely holding on to your signal,” Gold said, his voice much more distant. “We could not beam you out at that depth.”
“Understood,” she said. “We’ll just jump on down to deck ninety-one and see what we can find. Track us as best you can.”
“Will do,” Gold said. “Happy hunting.”
“Thanks,” she said.
She glanced around. “Okay, people, we’re on our own. Let’s go see if we can find the engineering room.”
“Deck ninety-one,
” Geordi said as he tapped the panel.
“Access denied below deck eighty-nine,” the computer said. The door remained open, even though Vale had stepped back out of the way.
“I was afraid of that,” Geordi said. “We’re not crew, so we can’t take public transportation into the crew areas.”
“Can you override that?” she asked, pulling out her tricorder and moving over beside him.
“I don’t know,” Geordi said as he popped open the access panel over the control area and scanned it. Vale stepped back into the doorway to keep it open and guard them.
“The process—”
“—is simple,” the Bynars said.
Gomez tapped Geordi on the shoulder to have him step back and let the Bynars into the panel. Instantly they went into a fast-speaking, clicking exchange with the computer. When they did that, no translator could keep up with them. They were interfacing directly with the lift’s computer.
Geordi glanced at her with a puzzled look, and Vale just seemed stunned as the two Bynars worked and talked to the lift’s computer system.
After a moment, they stepped back in unison, as they always walked.
“We have—”
“—allowed access—”
“—to all team—”
“—members—”
“—to all crew—”
“—areas.”
“Even the second team members?”
“Yes,” 110 said.
“All,” 111 said.
“Great work,” she said. She signaled for Vale to let the door close.
“Deck ninety-one,” Gomez said again.
“Deck ninety-one,” the computer said.
This time the door took seven seconds to reopen.
Vale poked her head out cautiously, scanning both directions with her tricorder, keeping her phaser out. Finally she said, “Clear.”
Gomez followed her out into the hallway. Here there was no soft surface, no art, just door after door on both sides of the hallway, leading off in both directions. At this depth, the hallways curved much quicker. And the gravity felt just a touch lighter than up higher.
“Crew’s quarters,” Geordi said, studying his tricorder. “But there are energy signatures coming from ten decks down. I think that might be a warp core I’m reading.”
She nodded and tapped her combadge. “ Da Vinci, are you with us?”
Nothing but silence.
“They will—”
“—be able—”
“—to track us,” the Bynars said. “But—”
“—they will not—”
“—be able to communicate—”
“—with us.”
Gomez nodded and turned back to Geordi. “Any idea what’s in the core of this thing?”
“Getting weird readings,” Geordi said, frowning. “It seems to be hollow, more than likely a nullgravity core of some sort, starting at deck one hundred and four. And it’s packed loosely with some sort of substance I’m not getting a fix on. We need to get closer.”
“So we head to the warp core area,” Gomez said, motioning for Vale to come back inside the lift.
“Deck one hundred and one,” Geordi said.
Five seconds later, the doors reopened.
“Still clear,” Vale said as Gomez and Geordi moved out, tricorders in hand, studying the large room in front of them. This one room seemed to extend and curve all the way around the ship, with only massive pillars holding the decks above it.
Gomez glanced at her readings, then at Geordi, wondering if he was as surprised as she was. The question of how this ship moved through space was answered. This entire deck level was one massive array of black-hole propulsion systems, all clearly designed to work in tandem.
She went to her left, glancing from her tricorder to the marvel around her. This ship was pushed through space by a drive that many races had tried and mostly failed with. From what she could tell, dozens of tiny black holes were dropped into subspace and then returned to normal space a slight distance away, shoving the containment, and thus the ship. From the looks of this, she would bet this ship could have reached speeds faster than the da Vinci could, and maintain the speed indefinitely.
“This is an engineering gold mine,” Geordi said. “We need to find an interface with the computer.”
“Agreed,” Gomez said. “But where do we—”
“Excuse me, Commander,” Vale said.
Gomez glanced over at the lieutenant. Her face was pale as she stared at her tricorder.
“I think you need to take a look at the core of this ship before we do anything else,” Vale said.
Gomez quickly set her scanner to check out what was below them. Beside her, Geordi did the same.
For an instant, she didn’t want to think about what she was reading. The core was clearly null gravity, and she guessed it was normally empty. With this kind of structure and drive, an empty core would be the most stable.
But, at the moment, the massive core of this ship was far from empty.
She looked up at Geordi and the shocked expression that covered his face.
“Humanoid bodies?” she asked.
Geordi nodded. Then, weakly, he said, “ Hundreds of thousands of them. All dead.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Oh, no,” Vale said, her hand over her mouth at the horror of it all.
“It seems—”
“—we now know where—”
“—the passengers went.”
Gomez glanced at the Bynars, then back at her tricorder and the impossible readings she was getting. What had happened here? They had seen no signs of a struggle.
Who had killed these people? How?
And why?
The overwhelming dread of what she knew she had to order next filled her. She took a deep breath, then, as calmly and as in control as she could manage, she said, “Let’s go take a look.”
CHAPTER
9
The absolute last thing Geordi wanted to do was get anywhere near this ship’s core. Not with hundreds of thousands of humanoid bodies floating in it. Yet, he was working with the S.C.E. on an insertion team, and doing the hard jobs was what the S.C.E. did. Clearly, investigating this was going to be one of those hard jobs. Gomez led them into the lift, and Geordi took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself. Clearly, Vale was as shaken as he was with the idea. The two Bynars even seemed agitated, talking in soft computer clicks between themselves.
“Deck fifty-five,” Gomez said.
The lift door closed as Geordi glanced at her. “Thought you said we needed to take a look?”
“We do,” she said. “But I’m not sure what I’d be looking at, to tell you the truth. I want Dr. Lense with us.”
“She’s going to thank you later,” Vale said.
“If she doesn’t kill you first,” Geordi said.
Gomez only nodded as the door slid open. She motioned for Vale to hold the door in position and tapped her combadge. “ Da Vinci , come in.”
“Go ahead, Commander,” Gold’s voice came back.
“Are you still in communications contact with team two?”
“No,” Gold said. “They’re on deck ninety, as best our scans can tell.”
“Understood,” Gomez said.
Geordi watched her. Obviously she had wanted a bigger team to tackle what they were heading into, but it seemed that wasn’t really possible. At least not with her top people. And Geordi doubted that she wanted to spend the time to stop on deck ninety and find them.
“Have Dr. Lense beam down to join us,” she said.
“She is right here on the bridge,” Gold said. “She’s ready and heading for the transporter room. Give her one minute.”
“Understood,” Gomez said. “Out.”
They all stood there in silence, clearly thinking of what they were about to see. By the time Dr. Lense appeared, ten paces from the lift, Geordi had all kinds of things imagined in that co
re. His biggest worry was that nothing he imagined would be as bad as it was really going to be.
“Problem?” Lense asked, moving to join them in the lift.
“A big one,” Gomez said, motioning for Vale to clear the door and let it close. “Deck one hundred and four.”
“Deck one hundred and three is the last deck above the ship’s core area,” the computer said. “The lift does not extend down into the core.”
“Lucky it,” Vale said.
Dr. Lense gave her a sharp look, then turned back to Gomez, but the commander said nothing.
“Deck one hundred and three, then,” Geordi said.
Twelve of the longest seconds Geordi had ever lived passed as they waited in silence for the lift to take them down into the belly of the Beast. Dr. Lense clearly wanted to know why she had been brought along, but Gomez seemed unwilling to tell her at the moment. More than likely Gomez wanted Dr. Lense to get the readings for herself, to double-check what they had discovered.
The doors opened.
Vale, phaser drawn, checked both ways, then said, “Clear.”
“Someone want to explain to me what I’m walking into here?” Lense said.
“Bodies,” Gomez said. “If we can find a way into the core area of this ship.”
“The passengers—”
“—and crew—”
“—are there.”
“Dead.”
“But this ship could hold thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of humanoids,” Lense said, staring at the Bynars after glancing at Geordi.
“Yes—”
“—we know.”
All Geordi could do was nod at Dr. Lense as the reality started to dawn on her. She quickly pulled out her tricorder and scanned around them, something Geordi had been unwilling to do yet.
“Oh, my . . .” she said, her voice breaking as the tricorder gave her the readings.
“There’s an observation port ahead,” Gomez said, her voice firm. “Everyone, brace yourselves for this.”
She moved ahead, getting to the clear viewport a few steps ahead of Geordi. She staggered slightly as she got in front, as if punched in the stomach, then stopped, took a deep breath, and turned and stared.
Geordi knew his fears had been right the instant he was at the viewport. It was worse than he had imagined. The race that had inhabited this cruise ship was clearly humanoid in almost every fashion. Most of them wore bright clothing, and the crew wore white outfits. They all had thick, black hair and large, unblinking green eyes. They looked like an attractive people.
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