String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [59]
Something sparked in the darkness behind her. Turning, she saw a low desk, where a display station, similar to those in the command center, must have been housed. The display had been torn from its housing, and fragments of the panel were strewn about the desk and on the floor nearby. The entire level was shrouded in darkness, but the circuitry of the display still pulsed with power. Extending from deep with the guts of the display, delicate skeletal fingers protruded upward. Seven stepped slowly toward the desk, scanning the area with her light. Though the arms of the hands that were embedded in the display had broken off at the first joint, the rest of the body to which they had once been attached was crumpled on the floor behind the desk, still swathed in a finely embroidered robe.
As Seven bent low to get a closer look at the body, the lights of the cabin pulsed into a bright harsh glow.
B’Elanna studied the alien control panel. She had been attempting to enter simple commands, using her tricorder to decrypt what she could of the strange system. Frustrated, she set it aside and tried to think like a Monorhan. Playing her fingers intuitively across the panel, she entered a series of strokes that would have made sense to her, had she designed the system.
Suddenly, a square section of what had been a solid wall opposite the command chair began to glow. It was immediately obvious that this was some sort of viewscreen. A bright flash of static illuminated the room and the face of a Monorhan female appeared before them.
“I am Assylia,” she began. But as she continued to speak, the message blinked in and out, garbling the rest of her words beyond understanding.
“This is the source of the transmission we picked up before we boarded the array,” B’Elanna said to herself, studying the controls. Following her instincts, she began to work to clear up the distorted image.
It took only a few more tries for B’Elanna to restore the transmission. She set it to replay, then stood back, wiping from her fingers the dust that she had collected while working the controls that had obviously been untouched for some time.
Her momentary satisfaction turned quickly to alarm as Assylia spoke.
“I am Assylia, rih-hara-tan of the fourteenth Monorhan tribe and commander of this vessel, the Betasis. There is a hostile, parasitic life-form present on this array. It took the lives of almost ten thousand of us in a matter of days. We came in search of Gremadia. We found nothing but death. If you attempt to board the array, you will meet our fate. I beg of you, turn back. Do not make the same mistake that I did.”
After a brief moment of silence the message began again.
“I am Assylia…”
“Seven?” B’Elanna shouted into the darkness, slapping the panel to abruptly end the transmission.
When she received no reply, she followed the path Seven had taken down the winding stairs.
She found Seven pulling dozens of scrolls from a musty shelf in a brightly lit cabin at the end of the corridor.
“These scrolls contain data of historic and religious significance to the Fourteenth Tribe. Several of them mention the Key. We should take them back to Voyager,” Seven said as B’Elanna entered.
“We have to get out of here,” B’Elanna said.
“Were you able to retrieve any data from the computers?” Seven asked.
“We don’t have time. It will take hours to crack their security codes and I’m not staying here that long. The message… the transmission we received… it was a warning from the captain of this vessel. The reason we aren’t picking up any Monorhan life signs is because they all died within days of boarding the array.”
Seven’s eyes widened.
“It is our duty to collect as much information as we can while we are here. We may not have another opportunity to examine the files contained in their computer system,” Seven said.
“I agree, but if we don’t live long