Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins Page 35

  “Open shutters, Mister Thayer,” he said. “Light her up.”

  Two concentrated beams of light split the darkness between the two ships, falling upon the Nebula class’s ventral hull. Celtic then began a slow pass, her searchlights carving out the way ahead of her, casting revelation in flickering, tantalizing glimpses. It could have been an optical illusion, but Reed immediately noticed how odd the keel plates looked. Their meshy texture extended all the way forward to the main deflector dish, as if the entire surface was covered in a second skin.

  “What the hell is that?” Locarno asked.

  “You got me,” Reed answered, shaking her head slowly. “It’s almost like an ablative shield coating.”

  As the beams diverged they moved down the length of the nacelles, illuminating more of the same. The Starfleet insignias near the forward end were almost completely obscured, the registry markings little more than a smear. On top of that lay a complex matrix of exterior piping—conduits grafted onto the exterior of the ship that spoiled her graceful lines, hinting at some unknown purpose beneath.

  “What have they done to you?” the captain asked quietly.

  Thayer poured on more thrusters, increasing speed. He then maneuvered Celtic up and over the Nebula’s saucer section, at the same time bringing her searchlights to bear. They traced a path from the main shuttlebay over the bridge, tiny bright spots crossing over each other until they finally found the large registry number emblazoned across the front. It was visible only in patches, nearly erased beneath a patchwork of shielding and welded plates, but as Celtic swung around, the identity of Evan Walsh’s prize finally settled into focus, emerging from the broken bits and jigsaw pieces:

  NCC-66874

  And above that, her name in a former life:

  U.S.S. Reston

  “Oh my God,” Locarno whispered, circling around Walsh and then launching himself at the tactical station. He shoved Massey aside and took over the console himself, holding her off with one hand as she yelled at him to stop. “Skipper, you need to divert all available power to the weapons systems,” he said, cutting through Massey’s protests. “I mean every last thing you’ve got. I’m calculating optimal strike points right now.”

  “Wait just a bloody second,” Walsh retorted as he snapped up from his chair. “All of a sudden you want to destroy a Federation starship? What the hell is going on here, Nicky?”

  “We have to,” Locarno insisted, with such intensity that the entire bridge crew shot glances back and forth between the two men, wondering what they should do. “The last anyone heard of that ship, her status was listed as missing and presumed destroyed.”

  “Presumed,” the captain said. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

  “She went missing at the Battle of Sector 001, Evan.”

  An abrupt silence dropped over the bridge. Nobody here needed a lesson on the significance of that battle, or the implications of Reston’s presence here. Locarno, however, needed to make it real for all of them. He needed to say it out loud.

  “That ship was captured by the Borg.”

  Some of the crew had been there. They had shown up after the fighting, hoping to scrape together some easy salvage before Starfleet could calculate their losses—but the sight of so much carnage had been enough to make even the most jaded privateer tremble. Most couldn’t bring themselves to pick off the bones of the thousands who had died there, and hadn’t spoken about it since, except in the hushed tones that Reed overheard from time to time, with words that conveyed the very essence of fear.

  The same fear that now permeated the bridge.

  “The Borg are finished,” Walsh scoffed, trying to break the spell cast by the mere mention of their name. “No more conduits, no more jumping out of the Delta Quadrant.”

  “According to Starfleet,” Locarno cautioned. “Do you really believe they told everyone the full story, Evan?”

  The captain bristled at the sudden challenge to his authority, looking at his first officer to back him up. Reed didn’t like the way Locarno handled it, but she grudgingly agreed with him. “There are standing laws regarding the discovery of any Borg artifact,” Reed said, treading cautiously. “They are to be destroyed immediately—no exceptions.”

  “That would be well and good if we followed the law,” Walsh pointed out, “but we don’t now, do we?” He then walked up to the engineering station, where Tristan Harlow stood by with an expression that was a mask of doubts. Walsh burned through them with a single fiery glimpse, poring over the console for himself. “Have you detected any sort of life signs coming from that ship, Mister Harlow?”

  The engineer cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

  “Has she reacted at all to our presence?”

  “Not that I can tell, Skipper.”

  “Then is it your best judgment that the ship is dead?”

  Harlow paused before answering, not wanting that responsibility on his shoulders. Reed, in fact, was shocked that Walsh would put that kind of burden on him. Never before had she seen the captain abdicate his position like that. She just hoped that no one else saw the move for what it was—cheap desperation.

  “That seems to be the case,” Harlow finally replied.

  “Very good,” Walsh said, patting him on the shoulder. He then turned to face the rest of the crew, as if finishing a performance. “All of us understand the sacrifices we’ve made to get here—all of the toil and treasure we’ve spent to make this operation possible. So before any of us start thinking about throwing it all away, I ask you to take a look out there.” He pointed at the viewscreen, as everyone followed his direction. “That, my friends, is a starship—fully loaded with phasers, warp drive, computers, and every other thing you could imagine. And she’s intact. You could spend ten lifetimes and never come upon such a fine piece of salvage—and she’s ours for the taking.”

  Rayna Massey spoke up with her characteristic bravado. “What about the Borg?”

  “What about them indeed,” Walsh answered, pacing the bridge slowly, personally engaging each one of them. “The Borg mean weapons. The Borg mean advanced technology. The Borg mean untold secrets. Just think about it.” He paused for dramatic effect, allowing it all to sink in. “Nobody has ever salvaged a Borg vessel, because nobody has ever gotten this close. God only knows what kind of wonders we might find on board, or what kind of price they’ll fetch, once we tear them from her.”

  Walsh smiled as he spoke those last words, getting the others to nod in agreement—and that was when Reed saw it: a steady progression of collective greed, displacing the trepidation that had held sway only moments before. They were hungry—and once aroused, that hunger demanded satisfaction. Even Reed, who knew better, felt it stirring deep within.

  “We still have forty hours,” the captain said. “I say we make the most of that time. If there’s anyone here who doesn’t agree, it won’t be held against him. I’m sure the rest of the crew would be more than happy to partake of his share.”

  Everyone laughed. It was all the affirmation Walsh needed.

  “Then let’s get moving,” he concluded, returning to his chair as the crew resumed their duties with a newfound confidence—all except for Locarno, who turned and left the bridge without saying a word. Walsh seemed rather smug about it, at least in Reed’s view, like an old man playing cutthroat with his son.

  “He’ll get over it, Jenna,” the captain said.

  Reed decided not to press him on it.

  “I’m sure he will, Skipper.”

  “Nicky doesn’t understand our business,” Walsh explained. “He’s a loner by trade. The risks he takes are his and his alone—and so are the rewards.”

  She kept staring at the hatch where Locarno had gone, feeling suddenly alone, as if she were the only remaining voice of reason on the bridge. Walsh, however, quashed that voice before she could allow herself to raise it.

  “Organize a boarding party,” he said. “Take Harlow along and see if he can get Reston maneuv
ering under her own power. If not, we’ll have to rig her for towing.”

  “That’ll slow us down quite a bit, Skipper,” Reed cautioned. “We’ll be lucky to make three-quarters impulse power hooked up to something that big.”

  “It’s good enough to get us out of the Castis system before Starfleet arrives.”

  “What then?”

  “We stow her someplace while I figure that out,” he snapped, losing patience with her. “Any more questions?”

  Reed lowered her eyes. “No, sir.”

  “Good. Then carry out your orders.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Her team had already assembled in the transporter room. Three of them—Thayer, Massey, and Harlow—had left the bridge with Reed, taking just enough time to suit up and load weapons before heading down to join the others she had selected for the boarding party. James Casari, a mate from engineering, was there to assist Harlow with Reston’s critical systems, while Nicole Carson came over from sickbay to handle the medical emergencies that Reed prayed would never happen.

  “Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Reed said to everyone as she entered, trying to lighten the mood. A few of them attempted a smile before immersing themselves back in their preparations, checking their gear packs and zipping up their envirosuits. “Sorry there isn’t time for a full briefing, but I think you all have a pretty good idea what we’re dealing with. Everything else we know is on your padds, along with your assignments. From what we can tell, there is some atmosphere on board, probably left over from when the ship went dark—but until we can get life support fully functional, everybody breathes through their packs. I don’t want someone opening a door and walking into a vacuum.”

  While Reed was talking, Carson started making the rounds with a hypospray. She used some unlabeled vials from her medkit, attaching a single dose for each person and injecting it through their necks before they put their helmets on. “It’s a combo stimulant and immunization booster,” the medic explained as she injected Reed. “I wasn’t sure what might be floating around in there, so I added protection against every bug I could think of.”

  “Thayer could have used some of that on shore leave,” Massey joked, jabbing the young ops officer in the shoulder as the others laughed. “I told him not to mess around with those Orion girls.”

  “Yeah,” Casari agreed. “I just hope the Borg didn’t catch any of that action.”

  “That’s more action than any of you seen lately,” Harlow tossed in as he got his dose, winking at Thayer before locking his helmet in place. Breath fogged his faceplate for a moment while his airflow started, his voice muffled when he turned and spoke to Reed. “So what’s our entry point?”

  “Topside, main bridge,” she said. “We’ll work our way down from there, staying together until we’ve verified the ship is secure. After that, we’ll split up and complete our respective tasks: life support, integrity fields, propulsion—in that order.”

  “What about the computer core?”

  It was Nick Locarno who asked the question. Reed looked over and saw him standing at the entry hatch, wearing an envirosuit, with his helmet tucked under his right arm. He walked in as the others started hauling themselves up to the transporter pads, ignoring the hostility they directed toward him.

  “There’s no telling how the Borg might have it rigged,” he finished. “And you’ll have a tougher time with the other systems without it.”

  Reed folded her arms. “I don’t recall sending you an invitation to the party.”

  “I figured you might be short on volunteers.”

  “No argument there,” she said quietly, making sure the others didn’t hear. “So what’s the deal, Locarno? I thought you said this was a bad idea.”

  “It is. You know it as well as I do.”

  “What I think has nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re leading this mission,” he reminded her. “It has everything to do with it.”

  She sighed, mostly because Locarno was right. Seeing the others, who looked to her for confidence, didn’t make it any easier.

  “Walsh won’t back down,” Reed told him. “He’s leveraged himself too much with this operation. If it doesn’t pay off in a major way, it’ll ruin him. I won’t let that happen.”

  “Even if it gets you killed?”

  “We’d be dead a dozen times over if it weren’t for him,” Reed said. She knew how it sounded, but all she could do was try to make herself believe it. “Besides, if this is a suicide mission, why do you want to come along?”

  “Because you need me,” Locarno said, masking the sentiment with a show of feigned arrogance. “And because I like the odds better with you around. If anybody can get me through a crazy stunt like this, it’s you.”

  Reed studied him for a moment, still not quite sure what to make of him. In the end she decided to take him at his word, and motioned for Carson to come over with her medkit.

  “This is my mission,” Reed warned him. “You do what I tell you, when I tell you. If you have a problem with that, it ends right here.”

  Locarno saluted. “I’m all yours, Skipper.”

  Reed nodded at Carson, who jammed him with her hypospray.

  “Then get your ass in gear, Locarno.”

  They gave each other half a smile. Locarno then slipped his helmet over his head, snapping it onto his collar as Reed did the same with hers. The two of them walked up to the transporter pads together, Reed making sure that all of her people and equipment were in place and ready to go. They gave her a thumbs-up all around, the compartment charged by their adrenaline—so potent that it seeped through the fabric of Reed’s envirosuit, making her skin tingle with a static charge. She turned toward the crewman manning the transport console, only to find him staring back at her with a blank, haunted expression.

  It was the look of someone who didn’t expect to see them again.

  “Energize,” Reed said.

  Fear asserted itself like some ravenous force, an all-consuming thing that started to devour her from the inside out. At first Reed thought it was a manifestation of the transport process, spiking her consciousness during those few milliseconds when matter and energy converged; but then it became real—as tangible as the deck that materialized beneath her feet and the ceiling plates that sublimated above her head. It sparked a panic that gripped her central nervous system and spread outward to her extremities: evil as a physical presence, rising up from the depths. Reed felt it turn to liquid as it poured out of her, filling her helmet and forcing itself back in, her blood laden with heavy elements as it re-formed within her veins. She thrashed and convulsed, trying not to drown, but there was no self for her to save—only a residual image within the matter stream, utterly isolated, utterly alone.

  Until reality emerged from the other side of a shimmering curtain, which tore the fear from her and cast it to the corners of Reston’s bridge. Reed culled its presence at the edge of her vision, a disembodied legion that churned and howled in mad protest. Even more hellish was the emptiness it left behind, as if it had taken a piece of her—the very essence of her soul, which stared back at her like a reflection through smoke. Reed lurched toward it, frantic to take that piece back, but the thing recoiled from her as if scalded. Vaulting itself to the turbolift, it slid down the shaft and into the deepest recesses of the ship—into the hiding places where it could lie in wait for her, eager to dine on what was left.

  “Jenna?”

  Her surroundings quickly snapped into focus, off a wave of dizziness that receded at the mention of her name. Reed found herself leaning against the bridge rail, hanging on with one hand and holding a phaser in the other. She didn’t even remember drawing the weapon, just the terror that now seemed more like a faint echo—aftershocks from the trauma of being jammed back into her own body.

  “Jenna, are you okay?”

  Reed looked up and discovered Nick Locarno hovering over her, his features pallid under the glow of his helmet lamp. He s
tood by, wary of the phaser—and with good reason. Before she slipped the weapon back into its holster, she saw that it was set to maximum. A single shot might have blown a hole clear through the overhead.

  “Yeah,” she replied, steadying herself. Locarno also seemed to be shaking it off, like the rest of the boarding party—at least in the brief flashes Reed could see, which sliced across the confined space in a kinetic interplay of incandescent beams. She planted her boots firmly on the deck, magnetic soles holding her down in the disorienting environment of zero g. “That was a rough beam-out. Did everyone make it through okay?”

  “I think so,” Rayna Massey answered, her voice sounding hollow between labored breaths. “What the hell was that? It was like going through a goddamned shredder.”

  Reed gave Locarno an inquiring glance as he helped her up.

  “Why do you keep thinking I would know?”

  “You’re the gridstalker,” she offered. “Use your imagination.”

  “Right now I can imagine quite a bit,” Locarno said, taking a look around. “Between you and me, this place gives me the creeps.”

  Reed felt it as well, the afterimage of her terror playing itself out again. The abject darkness that enveloped her only magnified its presence, which she sensed in every groan of the deck and every shudder of the bulkheads. A permanent midnight had descended on Reston’s bridge—a bleak, unnatural thing captured like a still life in pitch black, pressing against her with claustrophobic intensity.

  The helmet lamps did little to disperse that unsettling notion. Harsh, sterile lights fell upon relics that served up snapshots of what had been, but was no longer: a discarded padd lying on the floor, an empty command chair awaiting a captain who would never return. Ghosts of a life all but forgotten—until the boarding party’s arrival stirred them from slumber.

  “Nothing has changed,” Chris Thayer observed. “It’s like they just got up and left.”

  “Damn strange,” Massey added. “No sign of the Borg.”

  “They probably didn’t have much use for a bridge,” Tristan Harlow said. “Once they took the ship, control would be decentralized. They wouldn’t need to come up here.”