Data’s emotion chip surged with elation. If the ploy worked, then the defense systems would soon perceive the array’s own structures as external invaders. Those circuits would almost instantly become overloaded with faulty information, freeing Data to use the principal maintenance channel to send the containment system an “abort” order—thus launching the Romulans’ entire suite of failsafe programs, and thereby irretrievably banishing the singularity into subspace.
With Phase One of the mission completed, Data swam out of the information stream, forcing his cybernetic awareness to resume assimilating time scales meaningful to Captain Picard and Lieutenant Hawk.
“Have you noticed any Romulan security programs yet, Mr. Data?” Picard asked.
Data smiled triumphantly. “No, sir. And my alterations to the defense system are spreading throughout the network. It should be completely paralyzed in another four-point-three seconds.”
“Excellent, Mr. Data. Begin Phase Two.”
At once, Data resubmerged himself in the information stream, marshaling his consciousness into the maintenance channels. From this viewpoint, the flow of bytes through the adjacent security network had become a raging torrent, a storm-swollen river of multiplying, selfcontradictory information that would surely overwhelm any conscious entity caught on its virtual shoals. Fortunately, the maintenance channels were relatively tranquil by comparison.
With a cybernetic whisper, Data loosed the “abort” command into the maintenance channel’s information queue. He watched in contemplative silence as his handiwork propagated itself, copied and relayed through the entire network by dozens of buoys, then by hundreds. The “abort” protocol began working its way toward the singularity’s containment facility, moving at first in a leisurely inward spiral, then taking on increasing urgency.
So far, Data thought, so good.
Then one of the buoys said: No. Immediately, two others rejected the “abort” order as well. An almost defiant refusal swiftly began escalating throughout the network. The inward spiral slowed, then stopped.
Then reversed.
‹xYou do not belong here›declared an unseen presence from behind/above/below/between/within/without him.
“Uh-oh,” Data said.
The warbird Thrai Kaleh lowered her cloak and approached a battered, lifeless asteroid orbiting at the fringes of the system. This far out, all the violence of the Chiarosan sun fit neatly into a deceptively placid pinprick of light.
Koval stood in the vessel’s control center, observing the Federation shuttlecraft that was keeping station nearby. According to the sensors within the lumpen planetoid, the shuttle had come out of warp at the system’s edge nearly three hours earlier. Koval had no doubt that Commander Cortin Zweller was aboard the little craft—and that the Section 31 agent hoped to hold him to his part of their original bargain.
Koval had no objection to doing just that. After all, a list of soon-to-be-purged Tal Shiar operatives wasn’t worth the smallest fraction of the Geminus Gulf’s true value. And with the formal announcement of the Empire’s acquisition of the entire region now only minutes away, Koval was more than happy to conclude his deal with his Federation counterpart; magnanimity after such a decisive victory cost very little.
Over his centurion’s objections, Koval had himself and a pair of low-ranking Romulan soldiers beamed into the small habitat module built deep into the asteroid’s nickel-iron interior. Moments later, Koval was standing in the cool confines of one of the Tal Shiar’s small but richly-appointed safe-houses, his guards standing quietly alert behind him. At the opposite end of the chamber, Commander Zweller and a silver-haired woman in a Starfleet uniform shimmered into existence. Koval and Zweller briefly exchanged pleasantries, and Zweller introduced the woman as Marta, his assistant.
Silently noting the lieutenant’s pips on the woman’s collar, Koval nodded courteously to her. It took Koval a moment to place her face, but he quickly recognized her as an important admiral attached to Starfleet’s principal intelligence-gathering bureau. Batanide, he thought. Or is it Batanides? Regardless, she was one of several Starfleet Intelligence operatives whose dossier was familiar to him. Koval surmised that she might not appreciate the extent of her notoriety, and that she had removed her true rank insignia in the hope of obscuring her identity and avoiding capture.
He turned his attention back to Zweller, and noticed a slight discoloration along the side of the human’s face. “Your escape from the rebels appears to have been rather more perilous than I thought, Commander,” Koval said. “One would think your Federation doctors would have repaired your injuries days ago.”
Zweller put a hand to the remnants of the bruise on his cheek, then smiled. “Oh, you mean this. It happened on the way out to the asteroid. It’s an amusing story, really.” He paused for a moment to look significantly at his ‘ assistant.’ “I fell down. Marta, make a note to have that shuttle’s artificial gravity generator checked as soon as we get back to the Enterprise.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman said, her tone almost surly.
Humans, Koval thought. They say we are difficult to understand.
The Romulan walked to a table in the center of the room and lifted a clear decanter in which a pale, aquamarinecolored liquid sloshed. He poured a small amount into three glasses, then raised one to his lips.
“To the future of the Geminus Gulf and the Chiaros system,” Koval said before emptying his glass. He relished the burning sensation the pungent liqueur created as it went down.
Zweller picked up the other two glasses and handed one to the woman. “I can drink to that,” he said, and downed the beverage without a moment’s hesitation. Though the woman seemed a bit put off by the drink’s piquant bouquet, she drank her portion as well, though not as quickly.
“It’s been a good while since I’ve had nonreplicated kali-fal,” Zweller said. Though he was smiling, his eyes were hard.
Regarding Zweller coolly, Koval segued straight into business. “You must be aware by now that the Federation’s presence on Chiaros IV is at an end, Commander. Most of the precincts have already reported their election results. Within perhaps ten of your minutes, First Protector Ruardh will formally announce her people’s willing entry into the Empire.”
“I suppose so,” Zweller said, nodding slowly.
“Then perhaps we should finish our transaction as quickly as possible,” the woman said evenly.
Koval held up his left hand, palm up, and one of the guards stepped forward and placed a slender data chip into it. Koval was about to present it to Zweller when the secure comm chip implanted into his jaw vibrated gently. Because the tiny speaker conducted sound through the bones of his skull, only he could hear Subcenturion V’Hari’s urgent hail.
Go ahead, Thrai Kaleh, Koval subvocalized. Only the slight clenching and unclenching of his jaw muscles betrayed the fact that he was having a covert conversation.
“There’s been an attempt to sabotage the Core, Chairman Koval,” V’Hari said emotionlessly. “However, the security failsafe programs are already isolating and purging the intrusion.”
Acknowledged, V’Hari. Keep me informed.
Koval studied Zweller and Batanides through narrowed eyes. He was well-aware of Ambassador T’Alik’s failure to persuade Picard to make an early departure from the Geminus Gulf. He could only assume that this incursion on the Core was Captain Picard’s doing. The scoutship that T’Alik had said Picard claimed to know nothing about—despite the fact that he’d used it to escape from the Army of Light compound—could have given the Starfleet captain some of the tools necessary to mount an effective assault on the Core.
But he knew it couldn’t give him the capacity to defeat the rokhelh, the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence that patrolled the Core’s every system. Nothing Koval had ever encountered could do that.
“Chairman Koval?” Zweller said, ending the protracted silence. “Are you all right?”
Koval still held the data chip tigh
tly in his hand, and continued searching the humans’ faces with his eyes. Their expressions betrayed nothing. Was Zweller involved in the sabotage as well? Or had Picard undertaken the attack entirely on his own initiative?
Deciding that the rokhelh would render those questions moot soon enough, Koval surrendered the data chip to Zweller, who responded by flashing a toothy smile.
“When you return to the Enterprise,” Koval said quietly, “tell Captain Picard that he plays a very dangerous game. That is, if he survives his current endeavor.”
Koval was pleased to see that Zweller’s smile had faltered ever so slightly. So he does know something. Koval suppressed a triumphant grin.
Koval set his kali-fal glass down on the table, none too gently. “The Federation’s welcome in the Geminus Gulf is now worn out,” he said, freighting his words with menace. “And when Protector Ruardh makes the official declaration, you and every other human in this system would do well to be heading back toward Federation space very, very quickly.”
Chapter Fifteen
‹You do not belong here›the rokhelh repeated. Most of a millisecond passed in silence as it awaited greeting protocols from the Other.‹Identify self, or face decompilation.›
The errant code-sequence did not respond in any intelligible fashion, nor did the rokhelh immediately recognize it. Perhaps this unknown Other was, like the rokhelh itself, another security subroutine, but one that had somehow become corrupted. Whatever the Other’s identity, the rokhelh recognized it as the source of the failsafe shutdown command, the fatal disease that had nearly been loosed into the heart of the Apparatus.
The rokhelh probed tentatively at the intruding lines of code, gently insinuating its binary feelers below the Other’s surface. More code lay beneath, and more still below that, a seemingly infinite regress of expanding fractal complexity. The rokhelh saw at once that the interloper was a sentient artificial intelligence—a complex, constructed entity like itself.
But unlike the rokhelh, this Other was crafted by alien, non-Romulan minds.
With a thought, the rokhelh raised the alarm, even as it sought to do to the Other what the Other had just tried to do to the Apparatus—to neutralize it by probing its manifold cybernetic pathways with a billion fractallyexpanding tendrils.
A millisecond later, the rokhelh’s consciousness was deeply embedded within the Other’s innumerable circuitry pathways.
Data sat silently in his seat, his body rigid.
“Data?” Picard said, swiveling in the cockpit to face the android. The last word he had heard the android utter had sounded like an uncharacteristic “Uh-oh.”
Hawk took over the conn as Picard disengaged from the cockpit and made his way over to Data. Kneeling, the captain was met with a glassy stare. “Data? Mr. Data, report.”
He snapped his fingers before his friend’s dead, artificial eyes. Nothing.
Picard stood and turned back toward the cockpit. Hawk regarded him uneasily.
“Captain, shouldn’t the singularity have started slipping back into subspace by now?”
Picard nodded. “Yes. If Commander Data succeeded in transmitting the abort command into the singularity’s containment protocols.”
But on the forward viewer, Picard could see that the inferno at the singularity’s heart continued to blaze just as brightly as ever.
Merde, Picard thought, his heart sinking.
* * *
Data felt disembodied, a ghost floating in cybernetic freefall. And he noticed the disconcertingly near presence of something. It was asking him questions, but he was having difficulty parsing them. Then this Presence was suddenly all around him, engulfing him, holding him immobile. A moment later, it began probing at his thoughts—from the inside.
Fear emanated reflexively from Data’s emotion chip, coursing through his consciousness as he realized that another entity—an artificial intellect not altogether unlike his own—was attempting to seize control of him. He was being overridden, hijacked as he once had been by the multiple personalities stored in the D’Arsay archive. With a tremendous effort of will, he shut his emotion chip down. This maneuver did nothing to halt the advance of the Presence as it invaded his positronic systems, nor did it allow him to assess the damage the alien entity might be causing to his hardwired subroutines. But with the emotion chip inactive, he had at least exchanged fear for clarity.
Data clung tenaciously to that clarity, aware that without it he and his shipmates might never make it back to theEnterprise.
While the rokhelh devoted much of its digital substance to probing and testing the Other’s vulnerabilities, it traced the interloper’s origination point to a subspace carrierband being directed toward one of the Apparatus’s most peripheral exterior nodes. Backtracing the signal turned out to be a very simple matter, requiring only patience.
This was where most of the Other’s resources actually lay; not within the diaphanous binary circulatory system of the Apparatus itself, but aboard a nearby cloaked vessel. Lashed to a positronic physical substrate of cortenide and duranium.
The rokhelh traced the Other’s linear datastream back through the cloaked ship’s computer and into the Other’s own small but highly organized internal positronic computational network. After pushing the Other back to its origin point—the location from which it had invaded the sanctity of the Apparatus—the rokhelh found that there was ample unused storage space within the Other’s physical shell.
For the first time in its existence, the rokhelh had taken on a humanoid form.
The rokhelh opened its newly acquired optical receptors and raised a pale forelimb before them. It examined the appendage, turning it clumsily this way and that, noting the jointed digits, the skeletal structure, the soft epidermal covering. How like my creators, it thought, intrigued. Yet how unlike.
The rokhelh looked past the hand. A humanoid creature stood nearby, an intent expression upon its face. This being was also like, but unlike, the rokhelh’s creators. It appeared weak in some indefinable way. Perhaps this was because of its distinctive lack of hair, or maybe owing to its underdeveloped external auditory organs. Or perhaps because its lips were drawn upward in an expression that the rokhelh’s own creators very rarely displayed—a smile.
“Mr. Data, are you all right?” said the weak-looking, small-eared, smiling creature.
The rokhelh reached toward the creature with its newly appropriated hand.
And seized the creature’s throat.
And squeezed.
And smiled back at the frail, hairless entity, whose own smile had already fled.
Picard sensed what was about to happen a splitsecond too late. The android’s fingers had locked around his throat before he could back out of the way. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t budge the viselike grip by so much as a millimeter, though he was tugging at Data’s hand with both of his own.
The universe swiftly shrank to the size of the white hand clutching at his throat. He heard Hawk calling to him as though from light-years away, an edge of fear in the younger man’s voice. Less than a meter directly behind the crushing hand, Data smiled like a death’s head, though his eyes resembled those of a child studying a bug in a jar.
Picard knew he couldn’t last more than another few seconds—and that he had only one chance to seize control of the situation. Instead of struggling away from Data’s grip, he lunged toward the android, throwing both arms around his shoulders.
Spots danced before Picard’s eyes as his fingers groped for purchase behind Data’s back. But it was no use. The “off” switch was beyond his reach. Data’s grip was unbearable, relentless.
Abruptly, the android’s rigid fingers stopped closing. Data ceased all movement, though he remained stiffly locked in a seated position. The cable that connected his exposed skull to the Romulan ship’s systems still appeared intact.
A moment later, Picard became conscious that Hawk was beside him, helping him pry Data’s stiff fingers from his th
roat.
“What’s gotten into him?” Hawk said.
Picard drew in a great rush of air, coughed, and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was raspy from his near-strangulation. “I think that’s a very appropriately worded question, Lieutenant. I wish I knew the answer.”
And I wish I knew what stopped him, Picard thought, uncomfortably aware that his own fingers had never made it all the way down to Data’s hidden “off” switch. Whatever had immobilized Data, Picard knew that he’d had nothing to do with it.
Hawk asked him if he was all right, but Picard assured him that he hadn’t been seriously injured and sent the lieutenant back to the helm. Then the captain kneeled behind the deactivated android. Drawing his hand phaser, he tentatively waved a hand before Data’s vacant eyes. The android remained immobile and unresponsive.
“Data, are you all right?” he said. There was no response.
Picard turned toward the front of the cockpit, though he kept Data in the corner of his eye. He did not put the phaser away. “Mr. Hawk, has there been any change in the singularity’s behavior?”
“No, sir. There’s no longer any doubt about it—Data’s abort command could not have gotten through.”
“Something stopped it,” Picard said. “Perhaps the same something that caused Data to attack me.”
“The abort sequence should have taken only a couple of seconds to engage,” Hawk said. “If it was going to happen, it would have by now.”
“Agreed. And the longer we stay here, the greater the chance we’ll be detected. We’ll have to find another way to force the array into abort mode.”
At that moment, the viewscreen suddenly displayed the image of a huge Romulan warbird. As it decloaked before them, it blotted out the fires of the subspace singularity like a planet eclipsing its sun.
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