Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [101]
Redoubling his concentration on the task at hand, Data extended a significant portion of his positronic matrix through the scoutship’s communications system, across a frigid gulf of space, and back into the spaceborne cloaking buoy with which he was linked. He entered the labyrinth of hyperfast subspace channels and positronic pathways that connected the buoy to thousands of identical others. Dozens of blocks of angular Romulan text, each of them scrolling past at lightning speed, flickered almost tangibly before him, though he knew that their ideographic code was visible to no one else. He read them, digested them, analyzed them, and memorized them as though each byte were taking weeks to move through his quickened sensorium. Slowly, he channeled still more of his positronic resources through his subspace connection with the Romulan security network, bringing his artificial metabolism to a near standstill.
“Initiate Phase One, Mr. Data.” Picard’s voice was glacially slow, his words like millennia-old potsherds that required long and painstaking reassembly.
“Acknowledged,” Data said, opening his aperture into the Romulan network ever wider. Now, forced to use a great deal more of his cognitive resources than before, Data put aside still more of his background activities, concentrating on the swiftly churning labyrinth of visual icons that crowded his subjective “sight.” Still, it wasn’t a severe challenge; all he had to do was repeat particular Romulan algorithms and follow specific electronic pathways he and Geordi had discovered during their lengthy analysis of the scout vessel’s computer core. Still, the work took more and more of his attention, and Data felt an increasing sensation of something akin to kinesthesia. It was as though the torrent of information in which he now swam had palpable form, becoming an extension of his artificial body.
Disguising several of his own subroutines as maintenance programs, Data slipped into an information channel normally reserved for Romulan engineers and repair technicians. An agonizingly slow search-which lasted just short of half a second of objective time-deposited him inside yet another subsystem, this one designed to allow Romulan technical personnel to adjust the entire facility’s cloaking-field harmonics. He immediately began making subtle alterations to the programming code contained on several of the array’s most critical isolinear chips. At the same time, he altered the scoutship’s cloaking frequency so that it would continue to blend in with that of the array.
Data’s emotion chip surged with elation. If the ploy worked, then the defense systems would soon perceive the array’s own structures as external invaders. Those circuits would almost instantly become overloaded with faulty information, freeing Data to use the principal maintenance channel to send the containment system an “abort” order-thus launching the Romulans’ entire suite of failsafe programs, and thereby irretrievably banishing the singularity into subspace.
With Phase One of the mission completed, Data swam out of the information stream, forcing his cybernetic awareness to resume assimilating time scales meaningful to Captain Picard and Lieutenant Hawk.
“Have you noticed any Romulan security programs yet, Mr. Data?” Picard asked.
Data smiled triumphantly. “No, sir. And my alterations to the defense system are spreading throughout the network. It should be completely paralyzed in another four-point-three seconds.”
“Excellent, Mr. Data. Begin Phase Two.”
At once, Data resubmerged himself in the information stream, marshaling his consciousness into the maintenance channels. From this viewpoint, the flow of bytes through the adjacent security network had become a raging torrent, a storm-swollen river of multiplying, self-contradictory information that would surely overwhelm any conscious