Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [99]
Vaslovik and Rhea frantically manipulated controls, Rhea moving at almost superhuman speed. Data studied her movements and began to see how the battle might be won. If they could keep the automatic defenses primed and guide the computer to take out the attacks that were most likely to cause critical damage, they might survive.
Seconds before the red streaks were intercepted by Rhea’s spread of anti-torpedo devices, the torpedoes seemed to divide.
“Multiple warheads!” Vaslovik shouted and scrambled to reprogram the computer, but it was already too late. The torpedoes impacted in a half-dozen spots and this time Data felt the floor rock beneath his feet.
“Damn!” Vaslovik shouted and leapt away from the main tactical computer as it sparked, overloaded and died. Rhea took a half-step back, but was too slow to abandon her station and was caught by the shock wave. Her small form was launched across the room and it was only dumb luck that Data was close enough to catch her.
The dim rumble of explosions echoed through the room and a new klaxon blared. Exocomps appeared and put out small fires. Data helped Rhea to her feet and though she reassured him she was uninjured, she did not release his hand. When they looked at Vaslovik, he was on his knees before the console, pulling open access panels. After examining the circuits for no more than a few seconds, Vaslovik said a curse word in Ancient Greek so obscure that Data didn’t recognize it or any of its antecedents. “Well,” Vaslovik said, standing, “that’s that.”
“The whole system?” Rhea asked.
Vaslovik nodded and wiped his hands on his pants. The holotank flickered and the field collapsed. The tactical of the station contracted, locked and stayed frozen. Data realized that the galactic schematic had been gone for several seconds.
“How long before they arrive?” Rhea asked.
“Hard to say,” Vaslovik said. “Minutes. Maybe only seconds if they avoid some of my tripwires.” The station rocked again and this time they all had to steady themselves against the console. “Our shields will hold for a while, but not forever, and the place is just too damned big for us to defend it manually.”
“Then hook me up to the main computer,” Rhea said. “I’ll try to guide it. You two can get to the ship and then beam me—”
Vaslovik and Data shook their heads as one. “It won’t work, Rhea,” Vaslovik said. “Even you can’t produce enough processing cycles to keep the station running. Your system has depth, but what we need here is power. This system …” and he pointed at the tactical computer “… was a dedicated AI. It was built to do, to be, one thing. You aren’t.”
“He is correct, Rhea,” Data said. “Neither of us would be effective in this capacity.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Rhea asked just as the station rocked once more. The floor listed to the side, then slowly righted itself.
“That’s not good,” Vaslovik muttered ominously. “The generator that powers the gyroscopic system and the AG might be damaged.”
“Your question is answered,” Data said to Rhea. “We must leave.”
“We wouldn’t make it a hundred meters from the docking bay,” she retorted.
“I have an idea,” Data said. “Vaslovik, give me access to your inventory system.”
Vaslovik hesitated for a moment—he was too accustomed to being his own master to respond instantly— but then nodded and turned to a console on his left. He keyed in a password and waved Data to the control surface.
It took Data seven point seven milliseconds to comprehend the layout and functioning of the control surface, precious time that they did not have to waste, but his years of serving as a Starfleet operations officer served him in good stead. All databases share certain characteristics and he developed a search algorithm almost more quickly than the CPU could process it. He found the information he sought, shut down certain subsystems, pieced together