String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [14]
Nonetheless, Tuvok was absolutely certain that whomever or whatever he had been in contact with was aboard the station. When he allowed the music to break the surface of his conscious mind, he could hear a distinctive change in texture and complexity. It was as if a string quartet had suddenly been overrun by a full symphony orchestra. The delicate harmony lilting above the urgent bass, which continued to pound with the force of its constant voracious need, had become scattered, dissonant… as if the various musicians could no longer agree upon a piece to play and instead opted to throw out their sheet music altogether in favor of individual variations. For the first time since this journey had begun, Tuvok found himself wondering whether he might be facing one telepathic entity, or hundreds.
Forcing aside the intensity that commanded him to abandon all restraint, he slowed the shuttle’s impulse engines to stationkeeping and began to calculate the safest approach to the station.
“Computer,” he ordered, “begin transmitting friendship messages on all subspace bands.”
The computer complied with a chirp as Tuvok turned his attention to the navigational controls and began to plot his course.
He was briefly startled-beat, beat, beat
- when the computer announced, “Incoming transmission, audio only.”
He took a moment to focus again on his breathing in order to slow his suddenly unruly heart rate, waiting until he was once again in absolute control of his faculties before he ordered, “Computer, play transmission.”
A sharp burst of static echoed through the shuttle, though Tuvok noted with satisfaction that his heart rate remained steady as he lowered the volume a few decibels. Tuvok could faintly make out some semblance of a voice through the shrieking of electromagnetic interference, and he set about methodically weeding out the unnecessary signals that were garbling the message.
A few minutes later, he had three words, only one of which had any meaning to him. “Assylia… Monorhan… Betasis .” As he put the message on continuous low playback, hoping that the computer might find another word or two, he considered the possibility that he was picking up the transmission from another vessel in the area. Although he was well outside the range that Monorhan ships were thought to have traveled, it was not inconceivable that one of their illfated transport vessels had wandered into the region and found itself trapped, or unable to return home. But after he compensated for the gravimetric interference of the singularity, a quick sensor sweep told him that his was the only ship in the immediate vicinity.
Returning his attention to the conn, he entered a new heading, one that would take the shuttle slowly toward the station on a line that followed the curve of the singularity’s gravimetric displacement. He believed that this course would allow him to come close enough to the station to find a point of ingress while using the station’s own magnetic stabilization field to keep him from falling into the event horizon of the singularity.
The shuttle began to buck and rattle as he neared the station. Inertial dampers held him relatively steady, though the power drain required to maintain course was unacceptably high. As he methodically began powering down unnecessary systems to compensate, he saw that what had appeared from a distance to be one large ring was actually two rings that turned at the same rate in opposite directions, one on top of the other. An invisible magnetic field held the rings in their orbit, their motion obviously part of the stabilization design. Extending from the rings at regular intervals toward the singularity were dozens of long metal struts. Though he couldn’t be certain, it seemed