The Light

by Jeff F. Jacques

  She really doesn’t want to talk about it. Time to try a new tactic then. “You know, I couldn’t believe you passed on the group drink to do mission prep. That’s not like you.” Gomez paused again but didn’t turn around. Then Corsi remembered something from the mess hall, that uncomfortable look between Gomez and Fabian just before Sonya left. “Or maybe it wasn’t so much the drink itself but who proposed it. Did Fabian say something asinine to you? One of his stupid remarks that went too far?”

  “No, Domenica,” Gomez said, turning to face her again. “Fabian didn’t do or say anything asinine to me. He…”

  Corsi’s eyes narrowed. “He what?”

  “He’s always been a very good friend to me. This is my problem, all right? Fabian doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  He has everything to do with it, Corsi decided, and she was going to find out what “it” was. “Whatever you say, Commander.”

  As they resumed their progress to the pathway, Corsi noticed that the natives no longer stopped and gawked at them as they had the first time they’d come here. Now, they received only cursory glances as the people moved about their business without pause, no longer curiosities to be scrutinized.

  As she drifted within reach of the pathway, Corsi felt the gravity around her alter, and she sank gently to her feet. She followed Sonya toward the opening of the cavern passageway, and they were met by their guide, Tey’sa, who appeared happy to see them.

  “Sahn’ya,” she said in greeting. “Do’meenik’a.”

  “Hello, Tey’sa,” Gomez said, and Corsi gave the woman a wave. “We’ve come to speak with Sage.”

  Tey’sa’s smile faltered a little, but waved them forward. “Come.”

  They followed the guide through the passageway and into Sage’s chamber. Tey’sa motioned them toward Sage, but did not advance herself. It was almost like she was afraid, as if she, a mere citizen, was pushing her luck just by being in Sage’s presence. That was a little paranoid, though Corsi had to admit there was something unnerving about Sage, this seemingly half-assimilated old woman with the blank stare. It was like she was watching even when she wasn’t.

  Now who’s being paranoid?

  Gomez moved before Sage and bowed at the waist in a gesture of respect. “Wise Sage, I have come to advise you of our plans to alter the power signature of the ship above so you may continue to safely use its energy to bring life to your people.” She went on to explain the theory behind Fabian and Pattie’s plan, which was hopefully under way now that Soloman had beamed down to help out in the core. “Please rest assured that the power to your society will not be disturbed.”

  In her alcove, the old Sage stirred, and her bright eyes fixed on Gomez. “Your respect is pleasing to us, and your words have sense. Go forth and cond…conduct—” Sage broke off as her breathing spasmed into wheezing gasps, and her frail body shuddered in the grip of the device that held her. And then, abruptly, she slumped forward, motionless.

  A chirp of alarm issued from Tey’sa’s mouth, and she took two tentative steps toward the machine. “Sage!”

  As if in response, the machine clicked, levers shifted and the group of bars that served as a sort of cage moved aside. Now unencumbered, the body of Sage tumbled forward and collapsed to the stone floor. Tey’sa shrieked and fled the room in horror, her cries echoing along the passageway outside.

  Corsi and Gomez hurried forward and knelt alongside the crumpled form of Sage. Sonya did a quick tricorder scan that confirmed the woman was dead. The Borg-like tendrils that had been visible beneath her skin were gone, and her eyes, once bright blue, had now darkened.

  “What happened to her?” Corsi asked, though two possibilities occurred to her at once: she had died of natural causes or the machine had somehow killed her. While the latter seemed somewhat far-fetched, Corsi knew from experience that the idea of a killer machine was certainly not.

  “I don’t know,” Gomez said, then rose and moved toward the machine to inspect it for any evidence.

  Corsi turned Sage onto her back, then gently placed the woman’s arms alongside her body. She appeared so peaceful and ordinary now that she was free of the machine’s influence—if she was ever truly influenced by it.

  A startled cry from Gomez brought Corsi to her feet in an instant, and she was horrified to see her struggling against the machine. The group of metal bars closed over Gomez’s chest, blocking her from escape. Against Gomez’s protests, two needle-like prongs on either side of her neck moved inward and punctured her flesh. A moment later, her struggles began to slow as her skin lost its color and the dark subcutaneous tendrils—such a familiar trait of Borg physiology—appeared and slowly snaked through her body. If that wasn’t enough, Corsi was alarmed to see Sonya’s rich brown eyes suddenly become an unsettling bright blue, just like Sage’s had been.

  “Sonya!” Corsi cried, hoping to get through to her.

  Gomez’s eyes turned and focused on the security chief, a sensation that gave Corsi a chill. “Power is life,” Gomez said. “The Light is all.”

  Stunned, Corsi felt her mouth open at the shock of seeing her friend succumb to the machine so quickly. She slapped her combadge, and it chirped obediently.

  “Corsi to Stevens—we’ve got a big problem.”

  Chapter

  9

  S tevens always found it fascinating to watch Soloman as he interfaced with an alien computer terminal. Once the little guy was hooked up and he zoned out, there was no telling what was going through his head. To actually have the ability to gain access to, and learn about, alien technology by joining with it in this manner was extraordinary. Though there was always a level of risk involved, Soloman was usually able to avoid it without complication.

  Of course, this is a bit different, he thought. Different, because this wasn’t just your ordinary run-of-the-mill alien computer with unknown security protocols and defense mechanisms that could potentially cause Soloman harm. This was a Borg computer, and although it was clear that the cube they were in was pretty much derelict and there were no living drones wandering about with their mechanical appendages waving about, the computer system was an entirely separate environment with its own dangers to consider. There was no telling what Soloman could face while he was rooting around in there. For all Stevens knew, there could be some program in the system that could assimilate Soloman through the connection he’d made via the access port on his hairless head.

  Stevens told himself that he was being paranoid, that it was just his built-in aversion to the Borg that was fueling his imagination. Unfortunately, at this point the task Soloman was performing was their only available option. They’d already decided what they had to do to alter the Borg signature, but they could only do it through the cube’s own system, and in order to accomplish this, they had to know how to do it. Soloman was the only one who had a chance of figuring it out.

  Soloman’s head twitched, and a soft grunt escaped his lips. A frown creased his pale lavender brow, and he shifted his feet. Stevens exchanged a look with P8 Blue.

  “He’ll be all right,” Pattie assured him.

  Kim was standing nearby with his phaser rifle raised. “If his skin goes pale, or he starts sprouting mechanical arms and tubes, we’re taking him out.”

  “Hello?” Soloman said.

  “Yes!” Stevens blurted, surprised by the sudden sound of the Bynar’s soft voice. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Soloman said. His position didn’t change, and he continued staring intently at the control panel before him. “Mr. Kim, it won’t be necessary to ‘take me out’.”

  Kim grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Soloman. Just had to be ready for anything.”

  “I understand,” Soloman said. “I’ve gained access to the cube’s central computer matrix and have located the subroutines that will allow me to alter the identifying power signature.”

  “Wow, already?” asked Stevens. “I’m impressed.”

  “It’s very organiz
ed in here, very structured. I suspect this allowed the Borg to access various commands and tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

  “That’s not surprising, considering who we’re dealing with here,” Pattie said.

  “Yes,” Soloman agreed. “Shall I proceed?”

  “How long will it take?” Stevens asked. They weren’t on any particular deadline, but the faster they wiped the cube’s identity as a Borg vessel, the more comfortable he’d be.

  “Approximately eight minutes to apply the counter-program and initiate a test to confirm its success.”

  Stevens nodded. “Let’s do it.” The Bynar didn’t respond again, so Stevens assumed he’d proceeded with his task.

  “Corsi to Stevens—we’ve got a big problem.”

  Stevens immediately heard the panic in Corsi’s voice and knew something had gone terribly wrong. “What is it, Dom? What’s wrong?”

  “You remember the old woman hooked up to the machine?”

  Of course he did. She’d creeped him out with those icy eyes. “Yeah, the Sage. What about her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “And you’ll never guess who took her place.”

  Stevens heard Pattie gasp and realized Corsi wouldn’t be making such a big deal about this if some random native had taken Sage’s place in the machine. That could only mean one thing, and it chilled his blood.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Get Lense down here and bring her to Sage’s chamber. Sonya’s alive and doesn’t appear to be in any immediate danger, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if Elizabeth was here.”

  “I’m on it. I’ll see you shortly.” Stevens took a breath and swallowed as he tapped his combadge. “Stevens to da Vinci.”

  “Go ahead, Stevens,” came David Gold’s voice.

  “Captain, we have a…situation here that requires Dr. Lense’s immediate presence.” Stevens could almost see Gold’s eyes narrow.

  “Stevens, your voice is telling me this is more than a ‘situation’. I hope you’re not sugar-coating it to make it more palatable to the old man’s ears.”

  Stevens winced. “I hope not, sir. Did Commander Gomez brief you on the Sage?”

  “Yes. The old woman hooked up to the alcove gizmo. Serves as kind of a spiritual conduit for her people.”

  “That’s the one,” Stevens said with a nod. “Well, she’s dead, and apparently the new Sage is Commander Gomez.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think there’s any need to panic right now, sir. Commander Corsi told me Sonya is alive and in no present danger. She’d just like to have Dr. Lense on-site, presumably for when we…free her.”

  After a brief pause during which Stevens imagined Gold was either pulling his hair out, shaking his head in frustration, or getting his blood pressure under control, the captain’s voice rang out again. “All right, Stevens, I’m sending Lense down immediately. And for God’s sake, keep me apprised.”

  “Understood, sir. Stevens out.” Fabian blew out a breath and realized he needed to get his own blood pressure under control.

  “The captain handled that rather well, I thought,” Pattie said with an upward lift to her voice. She was trying to keep things positive too, though Stevens found it impossible not to worry.

  A moment later, a twinkling curtain of silver light dropped out of thin air to their left, then dissipated, leaving the pregnant form of Elizabeth Lense in its wake.

  “Where is she?” Lense asked as she marched toward them, two different medkits slung over her shoulders and a grim expression on her face that said she wasn’t keen on dilly-dallying.

  “This way, Doc,” Stevens said, motioning Lense to follow him. At a nod from Hawkins, Kim also moved to join them.

  Poised at the hole in the ground, Stevens turned back to the others. “As soon as Soloman is finished, inform the captain.”

  “Understood,” Pattie said. “Good luck!”

  Stevens waved in reply, then eased himself into the hole.

  The first thing Elizabeth Lense thought as she slipped carefully out of the tunnel and onto a balcony that overlooked a great impassible chasm, was that Stevens had taken a wrong turn somewhere and now they would have to crawl like animals back through the grime of that murky passage and find the correct tunnel, the delay putting Gomez’s life at further risk. Though she couldn’t recall seeing any branching tunnels along the way, the last thing Lense wanted to do right now was more crawling on her hands and knees. As much as she loathed to admit it, she wasn’t exactly in the most ideal condition for that particular activity. Maybe I should have let Sarjenka take my place after all. But then she thought of Gomez’s situation, and that was something she wanted to deal with herself. Seniority and all that.

  Lense felt a sharp jab on the inside of her abdomen as her child gave her a swift kick. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” she said, her hands moving instinctively to her bulging belly. She couldn’t hold back the smile though, as the baby inside her moved about.

  Stevens paused at the edge of the balcony and turned back. “Sorry, Doctor, they just come naturally.”

  Lense gave him a withering look. “I was talking to my kid.”

  “Oh,” said Stevens. “Anyway, we’re here.”

  Lense joined Kim and Stevens at the edge of the precipice and scowled. This wasn’t the time for Stevens to start cracking jokes. “Where here? All I see is a dead end.”

  “Not exactly.” Before Lense could do anything about it, Stevens simply stepped off the ledge.

  “Fabian!” she cried out in alarm, but to her surprise and great relief, the dark-haired tactical specialist wasn’t plunging to his death. He just floated there as though on a cushion of air. He wriggled about so Lense could see his sheepish grin turn slowly toward her.

  Next to her, Kim was grinning. “I think we should’ve told her about the gravity well, sir.”

  “Yeah,” Stevens said. “Sorry, Doc.”

  “That’s all right, I like having my heart in my throat,” Lense muttered as she moved to the edge.

  Stevens maneuvered himself a little closer. “I could give you a hand if you’d like.”

  Lense looked at him and scowled. When would it end? “Want me to hold the lift door?” “I’ll get that hypo for you, Doctor.” “You stay put, I’ll get your lunch.”

  “I wouldn’t, thanks,” Lense said, trying not to sound too snippy. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

  Stevens winced. “Sorry, I just—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you and everybody else,” Lense said. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

  “All right, well, it’s more fun to take a flying leap, but considering your, ah, condition, all you need to do is just step off,” Stevens said. “Then just sort of swim like you’re in water. It might take a minute or two to figure it out, but it’s not too hard once you get the hang of it. Just follow me. We’re heading to that walkway down there.”

  Lense followed his gesture to one of many crisscrossing pathways where the native inhabitants walked over, sideways, and under without difficulty. It was a remarkable image, but she reminded herself she wasn’t here to sightsee. She slid the medkits off her shoulders and handed them to Kim. “Hold these.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kim said, taking them.

  She then took a deep breath and stepped into the void. Her balance teetered precariously, but she steadied herself with her arms and legs and smiled as she righted herself.

  Piece of cake, she thought, then followed Stevens down to the walkway. Kim followed behind her, phaser strapped to his back, medkits in his hand. A few of the natives gave her curious glances, their attention directed mainly at her distended belly.

  Stevens led her along a lighted passageway carved into the rock, then turned into a room on the right. A crowd of natives had gathered around the machine Stevens had described to her during their crawl through the tunnel. She could see Gomez locked into the machine, her brown eyes
now an eerie bright blue.

  “Domenica,” she called as she, Kim, and Stevens joined the security chief. The natives maintained a certain distance from the machine, as though as a sign of respect. This suited Lense just fine.

  “Any change?” Stevens asked.

  Corsi held Stevens’s look before shaking her head. “No. She just stands there, staring. It’s like she’s aware, but…not. It’s creepy.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Lense said. Corsi explained how the original Sage—and she gestured to the covered body off to the right—died and the machine released her. Gomez then went over to the machine to inspect the mechanism, and it just grabbed her, locking her in and making its connections.

  “There was nothing I could do,” Corsi said. “It happened so fast.”

  Lense nodded, noting the trace of guilt in her room-mate’s voice. She moved closer to Gomez, making note of the connections at her neck and the discoloration of her face. She wondered if this was how the Borg themselves began—an innocent dependency on technology that suddenly went wrong. She recalled her time on the Jabari planet with Dr. Julian Bashir and their musings about whether that planet, which existed in another universe, might have been the Borg homeworld. These thoughts led her to think of Saad, of course, the father of her baby. But now wasn’t the time for reminiscing, and she blinked her eyes to return her attention to the here and now.

  “She almost looks assimilated,” Lense said.

  Corsi glanced at her. “Yeah, we try to avoid thinking about that, Doctor.”

  “Sorry.” It was an accurate observation, however, though clearly Gomez hadn’t been transformed into a Borg drone, despite the similarities in surface appearance. At least nothing mechanical had sprouted from her body. Lense moved over to the body of the previous Sage and pulled back the burlap-like covering that had been draped over her. Other than appearing quite old, there were no obvious discrepancies beyond this race’s normal physiological appearance.

  “Did she look like Sonya originally?” she asked. Lense directed the question at Corsi, but the security chief had apparently not heard it, staring as she was at Gomez. “Domenica?”