by David Mack
La Forge dusted himself off and glared at Soong. “What the hell happened out there?”
“He asked for an army.” Soong looked up from his console to nod at Kren’s corpse. “I gave him one: mine.” He kept talking as he walked to the portable table on which B-4 lay. “I programmed them to attack anything that looks like a Breen. Don’t worry, now that we’ve got the control center, I sent them a command to leave us be.” He retrieved some cables from the shelf underneath B-4. “Now we can start the real work.”
Worf checked his chrono. “My message went to the Enterprise at 0200. If they responded immediately to my request for a torpedo strike, it will take them fifteen minutes to reach firing range, which means we have six minutes to get off this planet.”
La Forge hurried to the console the Breen technicians had accessed moments earlier. “This unit controls the scattering field. If we can shut it down, Soong’s ship can beam us out of here with time to spare.” The engineer paused before touching its interface. “There’s just one problem: this is Breen technology. I have no idea how to use this thing.”
“Let me try,” Worf said. “I saw the Breen use systems like this when I was a prisoner during the Dominion War. I might be able to shut down the field.”
Soong called out, “Let him work, La Forge. I need you over here. Now.”
“For what?” La Forge asked as he joined Soong next to B-4.
“To help me save my son,” Soong said, “before it’s too damned late.”
31
The Enterprise lurched and rocked as disruptor blasts and near-miss torpedo detonations hammered its faltering shields. Picard could barely hear his own shouted orders over the bone-rattling concussions. “Transfer power from forward shields! Continue suppressing fire!”
On the main viewscreen, the image of the third planet, which Lieutenant Choudhury had named Mangala, was still a small disk but growing slowly larger as the ship sped toward it at full impulse. Another brutal impact against the Enterprise’s shields left the holographic image projected over the forward bulkhead distorted and pixelated for half a second.
If we could go to warp, this would be over by now. Picard resisted the urge to curse the docelerite that kept his ship mired at impulse, and which made it impractical to fire photon torpedoes and shift to evasive maneuvers. Without precision navigation at warp speed, a task the docelerite made impossible, there was no way to guarantee the torpedoes would strike their intended target from this range. There was also the possibility that torpedoes limited to impulse flight could be picked off by sharp-eyed Breen gunners on the ships pursuing the Enterprise.
Around the bridge, consoles stuttered and lights flickered as another salvo from the Breen attack group pummeled the Enterprise’s aft shields. Picard’s fingers seized white-knuckle tight on the armrests of his chair to keep himself from being thrown forward to the deck.
“Firing aft torpedoes,” Šmrhová said above the clamor, “dispersal pattern Echo Blue!”
Picard checked his command display and monitored the salvo’s effect on the Breen ships. The inverted-V of detonations forced the four cruisers to veer wildly to port and starboard. They would adjust their headings momentarily, but Šmrhová had just bought the Enterprise crew a few more seconds in which to regroup. He gave her an approving nod. “Well done.”
She acknowledged his praise with a shy smile, and without missing a beat. “Firing aft phasers. Four hits. No damage, but it’s keeping them off balance.”
“Keep it up, Lieutenant. Time to firing range on the planet?”
Šmrhová replied, “Five minutes.”
For a moment, Picard was sure the planet on the viewscreen looked significantly closer. Then another barrage thundered against the Enterprise’s shields, and he realized that for the next five minutes his destination would remain painfully far away.
• • •
“Plug the cable into the fourth jack,” Soong said, directing La Forge while lying on the worktable he’d parked next to B-4’s. “We have to use the computer as a buffer.”
Uncertain what Soong was setting up to do, La Forge hesitated. “Is this really necessary? I thought we could reprogram B-4 without—”
“Just do it! We’re wasting time!”
La Forge recoiled from Soong’s outburst, then did as he’d instructed. “It’s in.”
“So you can follow instructions. Good, that’ll be helpful.” Soong tore his shirt and reached under his left armpit. His hand emerged holding an isolinear chip, which he held out to La Forge. “Been saving this for a special occasion. Insert it into the main bus. Hurry!”
Holding up the chip, La Forge remained at a loss. “What are we doing?”
Soong’s temper grew shorter with each delay. “Would you pay attention? Put it into the main bus, then follow the prompts on your display. It’s a self-running program. I just need you to keep it safe from power surges and shut it down when it’s done.”
Following orders had never been a problem for La Forge, as long as he understood why those orders were given. He refused to be bullied into action without knowing the details. “I’m not doing a thing until you tell me what’s going on.” Hoping for the best, he made an educated guess. “Are we transferring Data’s memories into one of the factory androids?”
The question drew an appalled glare from Soong. “Are you out of your mind? Put a full consciousness into a matrix whose hardware is based on Lore’s flawed design? I wouldn’t risk that even if it was an option.”
“Why isn’t it?”
Soong breathed an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes, as if he were answering the stupidest question ever asked. “Because none of those androids have operational software. Just copying over Data’s memories won’t be enough. Memories without sentience, knowledge without self-awareness, is utterly useless! To make him live, he needs the spark of life. That ineffable something that makes us all more than the sum of our parts. He needs a soul.”
La Forge was sure that lurking behind Soong’s lofty rhetoric there was something unsaid, something terrible that gave the engineer a sick sense of foreboding. “What’re you saying? You’re gonna overwrite B-4’s mind to save Data’s?”
“No!” Soong sat up, aghast and enraged. “Do you really think I’d murder one of my sons to save the other? Good God, La Forge, what kind of monster do you think I am?”
Worf halted his so-far futile efforts to access the controls for the scattering field, and shouted at La Forge, “We do not have time for this! Do as he says!”
“Not till I know what I’m really being asked to do!”
Soong seethed behind a sullen glare. “All right, La Forge, listen closely. I’m telling you this because you need to know. More importantly, because I need you to know. Before I can fix B-4, I need to remove Data’s engrams from his positronic matrix. We’re going to copy Data’s memories into my matrix, while mine are buffered in the computer. Once that’s done, the program on that chip you’re holding will upgrade B-4’s firmware and software, so that he can go on living indefinitely without risk of a cascade failure. Then it’ll dump my memories back into my neural archive, and reactivate Data in his new body. Got it?”
La Forge stared at Soong, certain he’d misheard some detail. “His new body? Don’t you mean . . . in your body?”
Soong cracked a bittersweet smile. “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
“What’ll happen to you?”
“What should have happened a long time ago.” He pointed at the computer’s exposed main bus. “Now get on with it. We don’t have all day, you know.” Confident his point had been made, Soong lay back down on the table and waited.
The chip was cold in La Forge’s fingers, and as he held it in front of the open slot on the computer’s main bus, his hand trembled. Then he guided the chip into its slot. On the display, a prompt confirmed the program’s launch, and all it required of him now was a single touch on the interface to start its work. With one tap, he would end the life of Noonien S
oong in the hope of saving two others. It was a cold-blooded exercise in moral calculus.
From the table, Soong whispered, “This is our last chance, Geordi.”
La Forge knew there was no more time to think, only time to act.
He started the program.
32
Soong was alone in a sea of white light, a disembodied consciousness manifesting itself in the form of his preferred self-image: young and fit, with a wide, cocksure smile. He was clothed in his favorite outfit—a pair of loose beige trousers, well-worn dark brown leather sandals, and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up loosely above his elbows.
He was neither warm nor cold, neither awake nor asleep, neither alive nor dead. Drifting through the void, he felt himself drawn in by a strange attractor, as if he were being pulled forward by invisible chains. It was gravity, he decided; not the kind that bends space-time but the kind that binds souls to one another, the kind that compels strangers to cross crowded rooms.
A pair of blurry forms emerged in the distance, their details slow to resolve, as if they were surfacing from some unfathomable depth. Soong was patient; hours or even days could elapse in this cybernetic limbo while only seconds passed in the physical realm. Soong walked toward them, despite the absence of solid ground beneath his imaginary feet. It was like running in a dream, his mind struggling to bridge the chasm of nothingness in a few great strides but feeling trapped as if in amber. He forced himself to stop fighting; what was to be would be, in its own time and not before, and it would not be resisted when its moment came.
Soon enough, his companions in the ether became clear. His two sons were identical to each other, yet different from him, in whose image they’d been made. They wore their hair slicked tight against their skulls, while his was loose and free. B-4 wore a drab tan coverall, just as he did on the worktable where he lay beside Soong. And the projection of Data, who lay sleeping at the feet of his older, simpler brother, was attired in his Starfleet uniform.
B-4 cocked his head at Soong’s approach. “Are you also my brother?”
Soong felt love and pity for B-4. “No. I’m your father. I’m here to help you, and Data. But to do that, I need you to do something for me.”
“What can I do?”
He patted B-4’s cheek. “Go to sleep, son. You’ll feel better when you wake up.” Without argument, B-4 sat down on the non-ground, stretched out, and slipped into a dreamless slumber. Soong kneeled beside Data and gently shook his shoulder. “Data? Wake up.” Data’s eyes moved beneath his closed eyelids, as if he were dreaming. Maybe he is, Soong mused. He nudged him again. “Son, this is your father. It’s time to get up.”
Golden eyelids fluttered weakly until they were half open, and Soong looked into the pale eyes of his youngest son. Data squinted up at him, and he sounded groggy. “Father . . . ?”
“Yes, son. It’s me. Wake up. We need to talk.”
Soong helped Data sit up and watched him blink as he looked around in confusion. “I do not understand.” He glanced at B-4, then cast an imploring look at Soong. “Where am I?”
“Where do you think you are, Data?”
Data’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. It felt cruel to Soong to make Data jump through hoops this way, but he needed to be sure his son’s memories were intact. After almost two seconds of effortful thought, Data’s face snapped into an expression of epiphany. “The last thing I remember is uploading a copy of my memories into B-4’s positronic matrix. . . . I thought it might help him develop new neural pathways. Was I successful?”
“I’m afraid not. But it wasn’t your fault, Data. You couldn’t have known he wasn’t made for that. The good news is, I’m making some upgrades that’ll improve his cognitive functions over the next few months. He’ll never be what you are . . . but then, no one ever could.”
“That is very kind of you to say. Thank you.” Data looked down at B-4, then at his own hands. He seemed puzzled. “Why am I unable to recall any events after my memory upload?”
Soong sighed. He’d known this part of their conversation would be inevitable. He hoped that Data, whose matrix was now fully infused with human-style emotions, would be able to cope with it. “Because less than a day after you uploaded your memories into B-4 . . . you died.”
Shock and surprise, a wince of denial . . . then Data shuddered before composing himself. His voice was hushed, and he averted his gaze from Soong. “How?”
“You sacrificed yourself to save your captain from a madman named Shinzon.” As much as he wanted to rail about the stupidity of that decision, Soong knew this was a delicate moment, the kind that called for a benevolent falsehood. “What you did was very brave, and noble. I . . . was proud of you, son.” Then a grain of truth slipped out. “But I just couldn’t accept losing you that way. And when I heard your memories had been preserved in B-4’s mind, I knew I had to find a way to save you. I had to bring you back.”
Data looked up at Soong, his features vacillating between hope and fear. “Have you found a way?” His eyes widened as Soong nodded. “How?”
“The short answer? After you left me on Terlina III, I transferred my consciousness into an android body, the finest one I’ve ever built.” He remembered his advanced prototype that was destroyed by the Borg, and he frowned. “Well, the finest still in existence, anyway. But you need this body more than I do, Data. So I’m giving it to you.”
Powerful emotions left Data searching for words. “But . . . Father . . . no.”
“Yes, Data.” He clasped his son’s shoulders. “I know this is confusing, that you have questions, probably more than you know how to ask right now. But when you wake up, you’ll have access to more answers than you’ve ever imagined.”
“I do not understand.”
Soong smiled. “You will. Remember how your mother and I imbued you with memories from the four hundred eleven colonists on Omicron Theta?” Data nodded. “That was one of Juliana’s finer ideas. I’ve decided to do her one better: I’ve given you my memories, Data. And not just selected ones, like those I put on the emotion chip. All of them. My whole lifetime of experience, all my knowledge. It’s yours now.” He patted Data’s golden cheek. “All that I know, all that I’m capable of, all that I am, my son . . . I give to you.”
“Father, please do not do this.”
“It’s already done, Data. When you wake up, you’ll see the future through my eyes and shape it with my hands. You’ll inherit my life, body and soul.”
Tears welled in Data’s eyes, and his jaw trembled. “But . . . if I inherit all that you are . . . what will happen to you?”
“I’ll live on through you, Data, as all fathers hope to live on through their sons. Your resurrection is my immortality.” White light enveloped them, softening the details of their features as their shared limbo began to decay. “Time to live, Data.”
Data thrashed like a wild animal in Soong’s grip. “No! Not like this!”
Soong shook him. “Data! Stop it!” His son froze and stared at him. He did his best to adopt a soothing tone. “Listen to me. I need you to do one last thing for me.” Data nodded, and the innocence of his tear-streaked face made Soong wish he could live his life over and get it right this time. “Remember me, son—not as I was . . . but as I tried to be.” The light was so bright now that he could no longer see his son’s face, only the apparition of his silhouette. Noonien Soong used his final moment of consciousness wisely and well:
“I love you, Data.”
• • •
Data opened his eyes and bolted up to a sitting position atop the worktable. “Father . . . ?” The face and visage of Noonien Soong lingered in his memory even as he acclimated to his new circumstances. With all of his father’s knowledge integrated into his own, he knew where he was, what was happening, and how little time there was to do what needed to be done.
Beside him, B-4 sat upright and turned his head to look at him. “Hello, Data.”
“Hello, brother.�
�� Data disconnected the optronic cable from his own brain, then he detached the one linking B-4 to the computer. As he got up from the table, he found himself face-to-face with Geordi La Forge. “Hello, Geordi. It is good to see you.”
La Forge stared at him with wonderment. “Data? Is it really you?”
“Yes.” He looked at B-4 and pointed at Lal. “Pick her up and hold her, then stand here.” B-4 obeyed his instructions while Data hurried past La Forge to Worf’s side and gestured at the Breen console. “May I, Commander?”
Worf nodded and stepped aside. As Data decoded the Breen interface, using information his father’s nanite spies had gathered while hidden inside the Breen ship that brought the stolen androids to this world, his old Klingon compatriot watched with quiet admiration. Then Worf stepped away, picked up the slain Breen commander, and hefted the body over his shoulder.
A final flurry of taps on the control panel shut down the Breen’s scattering field. Using the transceiver inside his head, he opened a channel to the Archeus.
As soon as contact was made, Shakti responded with a panicked warning: A ship in orbit is targeting your coordinates! Transporter standing by!
For the benefit of his friends, he spoke his commands rather than transmit them as raw data. “Shakti! Launch the ship and lock onto our signal!”
Locked!
Data joined his friends in the center of the room. “Energize!”
The prismatic shimmer, mellisonant hum, and invisible embrace of a transporter beam enfolded Data and his friends—then it was overpowered by the roar of destruction as a wave of fire turned the world white.
One minute earlier . . .
A pall of smoke lingered over the bridge of the Enterprise, a gray haze tinged with the noxious odor of melted circuits and burning polymers. Consoles went dark on the port side of the bridge as a rapid series of impacts hammered the ship, and searing-hot phosphors rained from the overhead as a plasma relay overloaded with a deafening report.