by Andy Mangels
Regardless, Data knew that he could never get the abort command past them, even if he were to perish in the attempt. He quietly backed away, all but disengaging entirely from the Romulan array. Despair stung him then--comand struck a spark that glimmered into joy. Only a functioning emotion chip could have made either experience possible. As his maintenance subroutines reawakened and began purging his matrix of whatever remained of the Presence within him. Data rejoiced at having succeeded in hanging onto his hard-won humanity.
And, even as he struggled to regain control over his body's many subsystems, Data clung just as steadfastly to the hope of finding some other way to neutralize the Romulans' subspace singularity.
His hands a blur on the instrument panel, Hawk entered the final command sequence, then tried to get a fix on the subspace singularity with the sensors. This has to work, he thought.
No change.
Ten long seconds ticked by as Picard continued dodging the Gal Gath "thong's relentless disrupter fusillades, while staying less than quarter of a kilometer from the warbird's bifurcated hull. At this range, it was relatively easy to foil the Romulans" target locks. But it was still a minor miracle that they had thus far avoided a mutually destructive collision.
Sooner or later. Hawk knew, their luck was going to run out.
Hawk examined the singularity once again on the passive sensor display. It seemed indestructible. He closed his eyes, feeling utterly defeated.
"Report, Lieutenant!" Picard barked.
"It... didn't work. I don't understand it. I must have mis-keyed one of the command pathways."
Hawk heard a voice behind him.
"I do not believe that is so. Lieutenant."
"Data!" Hawk said, startled. He turned in his seat and saw that Data was now standing in the crew compartment.
Except for the cable that connected his metallic skull to the bulkhead, he appeared none the worse for wear.
"Forgive me. Lieutenant. I did not mean to startle you."
"Data, what happened to the AI you were fighting?"
Picard said as he rolled the scoutship past a disrupter tube an instant before it fired. Hawk noticed that the Captain's hand was on his phaser.
"It has been ... neutralized. My internal housekeeping subroutines are purging its remaining code-structures from my physical matrix even now" "Excellent. But can you get back inside the array?"
"Not in the same manner as before. I just checked the information channel through which I originally entered the array, and I have determined that it is now filled with electronic "antibodies" designed to cancel out any recurrence of my original externally introduced abort command sequence. It is the positronic equivalent of an inoculation against a viral infection. I am afraid that we must find another avenue of attack."
Picard finally seemed to be running out of patience.
"Data, don't you understand? We don't have time to look for another avenue of attack!"
Attack. The notion struck Hawk like a clap of thunder. Attack! That's the key.
"Maybe we already have one," he said.
"Let's hear it. Lieutenant," the captain prompted, still obviously intent on staying one step ahead of the Romu Ian guns. A disrupter salvo rocked them at that precise instant, and the scoutship's responses to Picard's piloting seemed to be growing sluggish. Heaven only knew how badly they'd been damaged.
Hawk took a deep breath, then plunged forward.
"Data, if the array's own defenses were to malfunction and attack the singularity's containment facility, wouldn't that bring on an abort automatically? And send the singularity back into subspace immediately?"
"That was the scenario that I originally attempted to make the singularity's containment machinery believe," Data said calmly.
"However, I would still have to transmit the abort order through command pathways from which we are now blocked."
"That's not what I mean," Hawk said, his words piling onto one another in his excitement.
"What if the array's defenses really did start shooting at the singularity's containment field?"
The android nodded, evidently grasping the idea.
"In that event, the Romulans' own failsafe programs should initiate an abort command on their own from within the singularity's subspace containment system. I would not need to send any such command myself."
"All right, gentlemen," Picard said, now clearly preoccupied with keeping the ship in one piece.
"How might we accomplish that?"
"What about trying to alter the containment facility's sensor profile?" Hawk said hopefully.
"We could make the singularity itself appear to be surrounded by a fleet of invading ships."
"And thus in danger of suffering a fatal containment breach," Picard added, nodding.
"Unfortunately," Data said, "The systems that govern sensor data are now closed to me as well."
Hawk's spirits flagged again when he heard this. Then he glanced at Picard, and saw a slow smile spreading across the captain's face.
"Maybe there's another way to go about Mr. Hawk's idea, Data." Picard then handed the conn back over to Hawk. Though the evasive flying kept him busy, the lieutenant listened carefully to the captain's words.
"Tell me about the cloaking-generator buoys. Data.
How do they maintain such a perfect spherical formation?
You'd think that the singularity's periodic releases of gravitational energy would disturb that pattern was Data did not reply, leaving Hawk to assume that he was accessing information, either from the ship's computer or from elsewhere in the Romulan array. A moment later. Data broke the anxious silence.
"The cloaking buoys maintain their relative positions by means of a system of onboard station-keeping thrusters. Each thruster pack carries a large fuel supply, so that the buoys can hold their positions for years without requiring maintenance."
"And what would happen," Picard said, "if each and every one of those buoys were suddenly to point their main thrusters away from the singularity, and fire them all at full throttle?"
"In that scenario, Captain, there would be an equal and opposite reaction. The entire cloaking-buoy network would quickly collapse inward, simulating an attack on the singularity."
"Bringing about an automatic abort," Picard said.
Data sounded intrigued.
"Temaps I can gain access to the buoys' thruster command pathways through one of the multiple backup channels in the array's maintenance grid-- was Picard interrupted him.
"Do whatever it takes. Data.
And hurry."
Data once again lapsed into silence as Hawk fought with the sluggish controls, bringing the scoutship tumbling past an active Romulan gun port just in time to avoid a direct hit. Hawk ardently hoped that Data's silence meant that the android had already begun moving those buoys.
A moment later, the scoutship shook as though something extremely heavy had struck it. An overhead conduit ruptured, fogging the crew cabin with gray, foul-smelling vapors. The collision alarm hadn't sounded, so Hawk assumed that the scout had taken a glancing blow from one of the warbird's secondary disruptor banks. A glance at the tactical display showed that the scout's engine core had taken a high-angle disruptor hit as well.
Before Hawk could relay this information to Picard, the captain cried out in pain and went sprawling from his seat onto the deck. He lay there, groaning and clutching at his chest.
Hawk understood the problem immediately. The damaged engine core must have emitted an acute radiation burst--the tetryons Dr. Crusher had been concerned about--causing some sort of malfunction in the captain's artificial heart. But Hawk couldn't afford to be distracted from his duties at the helm, not if any of them were to survive this mission. He had to hope that Data could tend to the captain's urgent medical needs.
A split-second later, a flash of light issued from behind the cockpit, filling the scoutship's interior with the acrid smell of ozone, burnt circuitry, and scorched artificial flesh. G
lancing behind him. Hawk saw patterns of blue incandescence shooting through the cable that connected Data to the scout vessel's computer core. Saint Elmo's fire briefly crackled around the android's head. He convulsed briefly, then became as motionless as a statue, frozen in the act of rising to render aid to the captain.
Not good. Hawk thought as he returned his attention to the viewer. There, the coruscating inferno of the subspace singularity still burned, as brightly and defiantly as ever.
And the warbird Gal Gath'thong was coming about, like a hungry shark closing in for the kill.
Chapter Sixteen
In the central control room of the warbird Gal Goth'thong, Commander T'Veren kept a dispassionate eye on the scoutship that rolled and tumbled across his screen. Though his directive to destroy the small vessel had been authorized by no less a personage than Tal Shiar Chairman Koval himself, T'Veren remained curious about the motives of whoever was inside. By flying evasive patterns at close quarters with the Gal Gath'thong, the scout had so far managed to avoid being severely hit by the warbird's weapons.
The heavy brows of the young decurion behind the weapons console were knit together in frustration. It was apparent that she knew that the other vessel should have been dispatched minutes ago.
That pilot deserves credit for his courage and audacity, T'Veren thought, smiling at his gunner's obvious pique. But even the most skilled flyer will eventually make a mistake.
Suddenly, the weapons officer grinned triumphantly.
On the screen, one of the scoutship's warp nacelles had
taken a savage blow, and was spewing superheated plasma in every direction. A moment later, one of the secondary guns hit the scoutship yet again, pummeling it squarely amidships. The smaller vessel began to spin in an uncontrolled manner, the glow of its shields dimming steadily, then finally guttering out completely. Without having to be told, the helm officer minimized the danger of a collision by increasing the distance between the two ships.
T'Veren smiled. It wouldn't be long now.
"Bring us about, helmsman," he said quietly.
"Then finish them."
This can't be happening. Hawk thought as he watched the warbird make its slow, stately approach.
Peering across the darkened cockpit, he saw the captain's insensate form sprawled on the scoutship's deck.
Behind the cockpit. Data appeared to be in much the same condition, though the android had remained eerily frozen in a half-standing position, his golden eyes wide but vacant, his positronic network still cabled to the ship's computer core. Deciding that there was nothing he could do for Data at the moment. Hawk returned his attentions to the flight console. Prom the dozens of flashing readouts and alarms vying for his attention. Hawk gathered that a warp-powered retreat was out of the question. At least, he thought, the main controls seem to be working.
Hawk spared a moment to kneel beside the captain, and felt for a pulse in his neck. He found one, though it was weak and thready. He wondered what would happen to the captain's artificial heart if he were to remain exposed to the damaged engine's tetryon emissions for much longer.
But that'll be moot in a couple of seconds, he thought, if I don't do something about that warbird now.
Seating himself in the pilot's chair, Hawk shut down the visual and audio alarms to help himself concentrate.
One indicator, attached to the computer's memory buffer, continued flashing in an irregular pattern, and Hawk didn't want to waste any more time trying to shut it down; it was easy enough to ignore.
Almost at once, he thought of a way to address two of his most immediate problems. Recalling a command sequence that Admiral Batanides had shown him once offhandedly just before the raid on the rebel compound, Hawk armed the warp-core jettison system. Firing a thruster to reorient the ship, he engaged the core launcher.
The scoutship lurched as it loosed the core into space.
Hawk watched the screen, which showed the scoutship's cylindrical, green warp core arcing quickly toward the approaching warbird. But moments before impact, the warbird's forward disrupter banks vaporized it. The small singularity that powered the core abruptly spent its energies in subspace. The warbird's paint didn't even appear to have been scratched.
Too bad. But at least the tetryon problem is solved.
Hawk watched as the warbird's forward guns began glowing a dull red as they began powering up for another salvo. Absurdly, Hawk found his attention wandering to the computer memory-buffer light, which persisted in its mindless, rhythmic flashing.
So this is it. I'll never see Ranul again.
Captain Picard groaned and began trying to sit up.
Hawk went to his side.
"Try not to move, sir."
"I'll take your medical opinion under advisement, Lieutenant," Picard said, pulling himself into the copilot's seat. Hawk offered him a steadying hand.
"Ship's status?" Picard said, looking Hawk in the eye.
"The warp drive is ... gone. Completely," Hawk said,
with a touch of embarrassment. But now wasn't the time for overly detailed explanations; what's done is done.
"We have only minimal impulse power and life-support.
Shields are down as well."
"Then I gather that Data's attempt to move the cloaking buoys hasn't worked." The screen showed that in the depths of space beyond the rapidly closing warbird, the subspace singularity's hellish aspect remained unchanged.
Hawk swallowed hard as he watched the warbird grow larger on the screen. Seeing death make such a close approach lent an air of unreality to the entire situation.
"I'm not even sure Data was able to transmit the signal before that last direct hit crippled him," he said.
Picard looked across Hawk's console at the one light that was flashing there. Reacting to the captain's quizzical expression, the lieutenant explained what it was, and that he couldn't shut it down.
Picard sat quietly staring at the light for several seconds as it pulsated. Long flashes alternated with shorter ones, though Hawk could discern no obvious pattern.
"You're right, Mr. Hawk," Picard said finally.
"Data hasn't sent his transmission. But he has managed to load it into the transmitter's memory buffer."
Hawk was puzzled.
"How can you tell?"
"Because he just told me. Those flashes--it's an old style radio code. Morse, I believe it was called. Data is saying "transmit buffer data now."
was Hawk's eyes grew wide as he grasped the idea. Data had assembled the command sequences necessary to move the cloaking-buoy network and thereby trigger the singularity abort--but his injuries had forced him to dump the command into the memory buffer before he'd been able to take it all the way through his subspace link to the Romulan array.
Hawk's hands moved quickly across the console. He sighed with relief when he determined that the subspace channel he needed was still open.
"Transmitting," Hawk said, slapping the final touch pad with his palm.
"Forward disrupter tube is fully charged, Commander," said the Gal Gath'thong's weapons officer. T'Veren watched with quiet anticipation as the young woman's hand approached the firing toggle.
From across the central control room, the grizzled operations centurion spoke up, the customary steadiness missing from his voice.
"Commander, something is happening on the security network's outer periphery."
The weapons officer paused in mid-keystroke, and T'Veren's diagonal eyebrows went horizontal with puzzlement.
"Has the cloaking field malfunctioned?" T'Veren said.
"It appears to have gone into a maintenance shutdown mode, sir."
"What?" T'Veren roared in outrage. He knew this could only mean that the Apparatus that held the subspace singularity in check was now de cloaked and visible.
Such a thing should not have been allowed to happen--at least not prior to the Federation's legally binding withdrawal from the Geminus Gulf.
"The fiel
d-generation pods also seem to be ... moving," the decurion reported, sounding perplexed.
T'Veren struggled to keep his voice level.
"Moving in what manner?"
"Inward, toward the Core's containment facility itself.
They have remained in formation, and are on a fast approach vector, heading toward the defense-pod network."
"The defense pods are becoming active!" the helms294
man said excitedly, the crippled scoutship now all but forgotten.
Tactical!" T'Veren shouted. He wanted a clear picture of what happened as the middle-level defenses protected the Core from this apparent systems glitch.
On the screen, a tactical diagram appeared, showing the outer spherical array of cloaking generators as it swiftly contracted. Inside that sphere lay a second, stationary globe, composed of hundreds of small but heavily armed defense pods. T'Veren noted that the synchronized collapse of the outer sphere of cloaking generators was accelerating.
T'Veren watched in mute astonishment as the two spheres merged briefly; a moment later, the shrinking cloaking array had contracted so much that it slipped inside the stationary defense-pod network. The cloaking devices continued moving in formation, heading even faster toward the Core Containment Apparatus itself.
"Defense pods are turning inward and acquiring target locks," the centurion said breathlessly.
"They are taking aim on the cloaking-field generators!"
T'Veren felt a rush of cold terror rush up his spine as he realized the full implications of what was happening.
"They're about to fire directly into the Core," he said, feeling utterly numb and helpless.
Hawk pointed the scoutship away from both the warbird and the singularity, pushing the single impulse engine to the limit. He was mildly surprised to note that the warbird was not in pursuit; in the condition the scout's propulsion system was in, they wouldn't have been at all difficult to overtake.
On the forward viewer. Hawk saw several of the cloaking buoys streak by the scoutship, looking like stars as seen from a vessel passing them at high warp.