Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins

by Dayton Ward

  Locarno didn’t seem interested in absolution, but Reed felt compelled to offer it anyway. “You don’t own that kind of mistake,” she said. “Sounds to me like everyone was in.”

  “Evan Walsh ordered you here. Does that change anything for you?”

  Reed didn’t have to answer. Locarno already knew.

  “How did you two cross paths?” she asked, changing the subject. “Seems like a strange alliance.”

  “My father served with him on the same merchant ship for a while. After he died, Walsh looked in on me from time to time—but I never found out his real profession until I got expelled from the Academy. When I needed a job, he set me up.”

  “And it’s been a life of crime ever since.”

  “When everyone you’ve ever known hates you, there aren’t a lot of options.”

  “I think it’s more than that,” Reed observed. “The chance to get back at Starfleet must’ve been hard to resist.”

  “They did me a favor. I would have made a lousy officer.” Locarno slid out from the main interface and went over to one of the direct access panels, which he pried open to get a look into the core itself. “Is that your story? Some big grudge against the Federation?”

  “Nothing that personal,” Reed admitted.

  Locarno nodded in understanding. “So it’s the money.”

  “That, and a real problem with authority.”

  “Explains why Walsh took a shine to you.”

  “He saved my life,” Reed said, drifting off on her own tangent. “I used to broker deals between organized crime factions on Delta IV. One of the overlords found out I was skimming a percentage for myself—including a pretty big slice of some latinum that Walsh boosted from a Ferengi freighter.”

  “Stealing from the Deltan mob?” Locarno asked, impressed. “That took some brass.”

  “That’s what Walsh said,” Reed told him, the trace of a smile on her lips. “They were just about to show me the nearest airlock when he stepped in and covered my debt. Bought out my contract right there on the spot—said he needed someone crazy enough to keep his crew in line. I’ve been flying with him ever since.” She paused for an awkward moment as the hard reality intruded. “You know what I mean.”

  “This your way of cheering me up?”

  Reed shrugged. “Privateers aren’t known for their social skills.”

  “Neither are gridstalkers.”

  “Something else we have in common.”

  “Yeah,” Locarno agreed. “Another time, another place—who knows?”

  “Keep your head in the game,” Reed fired back, though she was grateful for the effort—and the distraction. She walked over and joined him, looking over his shoulder into the raw data stream that pulsated within the core. “Does any of that even make sense?”

  “There is a certain a logic to it. I was able to isolate some of the log files. From what I could put together, it looks as if the matrix terminated itself a short time after the Borg died.”

  “A self-destruct program?”

  “More than that,” Locarno mused. “The relationship between a Borg ship and its crew is symbiotic. Without that element, there is no greater purpose—and with no greater purpose, there’s no reason to continue.”

  “Are you saying it committed suicide?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  Reed took a step back while Locarno buttoned up the panel. The very idea astonished her, so much that her mind raced to find arguments against it. That the Borg could feel any connection outside of a mechanical sense made them seem less like monsters—and right now, she needed them to be monsters.

  Because she needed the hate. It was the last measure of her strength.

  “I don’t believe it,” Reed said. “Obviously, the matrix isn’t dead. The damn thing took control of the ship and blew Celtic out of the sky. It tried to kill you, for God’s sake.”

  “I’m just telling you what I know,” Locarno insisted. “Maybe it’s just some by-product of the Borg design that allows it to survive beyond death, but this system was completely purged when I turned it on. Now it’s not.”

  Reed swallowed hard, frightened by the implications.

  “You’re talking like this thing has a soul, Nick.”

  “Not a soul. More like a ghost in the machine.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “You believe in God, Jenna?”

  Reed hesitated before answering. “Yeah, so what?”

  “Then it’s not so crazy.” Locarno returned to the interface and watched her through the empty display, his features distorted by random pixels in suspension. “You look to God for your own sense of identity. This matrix isn’t so different. The Borg simply created it in their own image—the same basic drives, the same overriding impulse.”

  Reed thought of the presence she sensed after beaming aboard, which even now asserted itself like a dry static charge.

  “Hunger,” she spoke, her voice giving it substance. “Pure, insatiable hunger.”

  “Form and function. Nothing wasted.”

  She searched Locarno’s eyes, terrified at the prospect of her next question.

  “What brought it back?”

  Locarno averted himself from that question. He knew as well as she did, but couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  “We resurrected this thing,” Reed pronounced, “didn’t we?”

  “That’s one possibility.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “I don’t know.” Locarno sighed. “I can’t even pretend to understand the idiosyncrasies of this system. The best I can do is hazard a guess—and so far, guesswork hasn’t done us a hell of a lot of good.”

  “You make do when it’s all you’ve got,” Reed told him. “That’s another thing Walsh taught me, the same as he taught you. So answer me this, Vector—if the matrix targeted Celtic as a threat, then why are we still here?”

  Locarno frowned, perplexed by this new equation.

  “It could have killed us all,” Reed continued, “but it didn’t.”

  He gave it some thought, visibly disturbed.

  “Maybe it has something else in mind,” he finally said. “Some other purpose.”

  “And it needs us to fulfill that purpose. Whatever that may be.”

  A palpable dread hung between them, like a frost sublimating out of thin air.

  And for the first time, Reed felt as if her soul was not her own.

  “I don’t like it,” Casari smoldered. “Not one damn bit.”

  Tristan Harlow busied himself removing a panel from the warp core’s reaction chamber, while the engineer’s mate hovered close by and wrung his hands. Harlow had heard the tone before, that volatile mix of anger stoked by paranoia, and it immediately set him on edge. A man who talked that kind of game invariably caused trouble—and right now, they already had more than they could handle.

  “It’s not your job to like it,” Harlow warned, setting the panel aside. A magnetic pulse thrummed within the containment circuitry, a manifestation of the invisible field that kept antimatter from escaping the core. So much power, all but useless without the right controls. “Your job is to do what you’re told and not ask questions. Trust me—the less you know, the better.”

  Casari shook his head, unwilling to let it go.

  “I’m telling you, Chief,” he persisted, working himself into a righteous fugue. “Something’s going on between Reed and that gridstalker. The way she let him off the hook, like nothing happened—it just ain’t right.”

  “It was an accident, Jimmy.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because that’s the best information we have,” Harlow said, though it came out sounding defensive, even to him. “Besides, it’s not our decision. The skipper is calling the shots.”

  “The skipper is dead.”

  Harlow glared at him.

  “You know what I mean,” he muttered. Harlow didn’t much trust Reed either, but the last thing he needed was so
me junior tool pusher hatching a half-assed mutiny on his watch. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and give me a hand with this. I’d like to get it done before Starfleet gets here.”

  Chastened, Casari gave it a rest for the time being. He reached for a portable scanner in Harlow’s gear box, affixing it to the reactor housing. Both men studied the display on the tiny device, which beeped as it detected a slight anomaly in the containment field.

  “What is it?” Casari asked.

  Harlow tapped the side of the scanner.

  “Not sure,” the engineer said as the display flickered. “Could be a flow asymmetry. The system’s been on residual so long, it probably altered the physical characteristics of the emitter array.” Harlow grabbed a few more tools and tossed them into a bag. “There’s an auxiliary substation two decks below. I can use the manual calibration node down there to make a fix.”

  The blood visibly drained from Casari’s face.

  “You shouldn’t go into the hellhole by yourself, Chief.”

  “I need you to stay here and monitor the flow,” Harlow countered. He hauled himself over the rail and onto a ladder that ran the length of the warp core chamber. “Just sound off when the readings even out, okay? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Casari’s silence was pleading, ominous.

  “And relax,” Harlow ordered. “Try not to break anything while I’m gone.”

  Casari nodded, a perfunctory gesture that belied the trepidation beneath. As Harlow descended, he looked back up and saw Casari leaning over and watching him—the shape of his head and shoulders receding into the dim halo that swathed the dormant core, until its very presence seemed only a trick of the available light. For some reason the sight made Harlow uneasy, as if Casari had imparted his fear over distance.

  “I’m almost at the hatch!” he called out, his voice a disjointed chorus as it bounced off the walls of the chamber. “You still with me?”

  “Roger, Chief.”

  The reply was faint, so drained by echoes that it could have been anyone. Harlow craned his neck to get a look, but couldn’t find Casari on his perch. There was only him, and the terrible isolation that lived here in the depths. It slithered between the spaces like dark matter, form without mass, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  And all he could think was: It knows I’m here.

  But what could that possibly be? The answer, of course, was as plain as it was irrational: a deep, instinctive thing that could not be denied, and yet here he was denying it. Harlow tried blocking it out, focusing instead on his immediate task, but that did nothing to change the truth of what he knew.

  The ship. The ship knows I’m here.

  Harlow took a few more rungs. Footfalls clattered into the nothingness below, like rocks falling into a deep well. Twisting himself around, he spotted the substation hatch off to his right. He had expected to find it locked, but the small circular door was already ajar, creaking on its hinge as it went back and forth in a lazy sway. Harlow froze, peering into the black hole beyond the opening, which seemed poised and eager to swallow him.

  Good God. One of those slags must’ve been down here when they all got cooked. The body’s probably still in there.

  “I see it!” Harlow yelled. He fumbled for the flashlight in his bag, its beam slicing up the musty gloom while he jostled for position. A dizzying strobe fell upon the hatch, revealing the interior in fits and glimpses, shadows taunting him with pernicious suggestion. Amid the confusion, Harlow thought he saw it: the sketchy outline of a head and shoulders, hands in full rigor clutching the dark. “Definitely got something here. Stand by—I might need some help with this.”

  The apparition cut in and out of view, as if trying to hide. Harlow leaned over and reached for the hatch, at the same time leveling his flashlight toward the tight space within. He jerked it away suddenly when his left foot slipped, making him lose his balance. Hugging the ladder, he pulled himself back up, the steam of his own breath blowing back against him.

  “I’m okay,” Harlow said, as the racket from his near fall died down. He had no idea whether Casari had seen it or not—but he needed to reassure himself, to fight the overwhelming urge to climb the hell out of there. Harlow closed his eyes and waited for the vertigo to pass, but found that it only grew worse, accompanied by a dry tingle of terror.

  It’s in there.

  A gallery of images crossed the inside of his lids: a waxen face, pallid flesh, dead but not dead—tasting his life, his blood, and finding it sweet.

  Staring at you. Craving you . . .

  And him, responding. Drawn in. Wanting to belong.

  Can’t you feel it?

  Holding the flashlight steady, Harlow reached for the hatch. Every impulse warned him to draw back, to leave this place, to get as far away as possible—but those were human imperatives, far removed from the force that drove him on. He could no more resist it than he could resist the cells in his body—or the elementals that coursed between.

  With a tug, the hatch fell open.

  Harlow brandished his flashlight like a weapon. The diffuse beam spilled across the cramped interior of the substation, darting from side to side while his heart hammered in anticipation. He pictured a grisly visage, imagining the hollow shell of a Borg corpse manning this forgotten post for all eternity.

  But all he found was a blinking console.

  And an empty chair.

  What the hell?

  Harlow wiped the sweat from his eyes, blinking several times. His vision blurred, then cleared, but nothing changed. There was no body—only his conviction that he had seen one. It still tingled at the far range of his senses, like a subliminal brush of cold electricity—or the feeling of being watched. That he couldn’t find the watcher—even a dead one—only heightened the immune response of mortal fear.

  “Chief ?”

  Casari’s voice cascaded from above. Harlow seized upon it, looking upward—a distraction that left him vulnerable, though only the basest of his instincts understood the danger.

  Because something had found him.

  Harlow heard it first—the predatory sound of scratches against metal, as if some gigantic insect had dropped down from the ceiling behind the hatch. From there it advanced with inhuman speed, an onslaught of gnashing limbs that opened and closed like teeth in some immense maw. Harlow steeled himself for the attack, adrenaline pumping before he even knew what he faced—but by then it was too late, because the creature was already upon him. It struck mercilessly, its arms shooting out like tentacles and clamping down on his shoulders, nearly folding him in half as they dragged him into the substation. The flashlight tumbled out of Harlow’s hands—and in those last seconds before fingers gouged his eyes, he witnessed his own doom as a shadow play across the wall.

  Then all was dark. And a predator went to work.

  Jenna Reed was back on the bridge when the klaxon sounded.

  It jolted everyone up to their feet, a high-pitched, wraithlike scream. Reed didn’t know Federation starships, but she instantly recognized the danger this one signified. In space, there was no mistaking a fire alarm.

  “Locate!” she snapped.

  Rayna Massey patched the threat board through her tactical display. “Main engineering,” she replied, then looked up at Reed with dread insinuation. “Somebody pulled the lever.”

  Reed tapped her communicator.

  “Engineering, bridge. What’s your situation?”

  Dead air. No response.

  “Fire suppression negative,” Chris Thayer reported. “So are internal sensors. Whatever it is, Skipper, there’s no fire.”

  “Chief !” Reed tried again. “Respond immediately!”

  The overhead speaker crackled to life. Ambient noise distorted the signal, but amid the clutter rose a guttural stream: sobs, whimpers, laced with obscenities and denials. Not Harlow. Someone else.

  “Casari?” Reed asked.

  “No, no, no, please God no—”

&
nbsp; “Slow down, Casari. You’re not making sense.”

  “This ain’t happening. This can’t be happening.”

  Panic surged through the bridge like an electrical current, riding on the crest of Casari’s voice. It built to a blunt crescendo, relentless and unstoppable.

  “Say again, Casari!” Reed shouted. “Where’s Harlow?”

  “THEY’RE STILL HERE!”

  The transmission ended.

  “Stay at your posts,” Reed ordered, heading out.

  “Stuff that,” Massey said, and followed her. Thayer did the same, the three of them jamming into the turbolift at the same time.

  Nobody said a word during descent, instead drawing their weapons in preparation for whatever fight awaited below. As the car began to slow, Reed directed her people to assume flanking positions on each side of the door, while she crouched in front and leveled her phaser directly ahead. Breathing evenly, she waited as the deck indicator slowly ticked off their destination, her finger with a good half pull already on the trigger.

  The doors slid open, the way clear.

  “Go,” she said.

  Massey went first, a few meters down the corridor, while Thayer and Reed gave her cover. Planting herself against the bulkhead, the tactical officer scanned the way ahead and then looked back at them and nodded. Thayer went next, extending the chain—though it still left a long run to their target, which Reed saved for herself. She tore past the others at a reckless clip, until the doors to engineering appeared around the turn. There, in the peripheral shadows, a nuance of movement jerked Reed to a halt.

  She whipped her phaser around in a tight arc, taking aim between a pair of regeneration chambers. Tentatively, Nicole Carson stepped out from the narrow space.

  Reed lowered her weapon. “You okay?”

  Carson nodded.

  Reed motioned for the others to come forward. Thayer and Massey approached quickly, silently, gathering in a tight circle. Everyone spoke in tense whispers, their adrenaline barely contained.