String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [94]
The basic image had been taken from Voyager’s transporter logs, but they had both gone to great lengths to adjust the physical parameters so that their creation was not an exact duplicate of any of the Monorhans who had briefly boarded the ship. Though the distinctions in eye color, size, and shape, mingled with the length of elongated jaw and neck, were in some senses “typical” Monorhan features, their intention had been to create a physical frame for the consciousness that would be as neutral as possible. The only gender-specific characteristic was the absence of the interior arms that were present only in female Monorhans.
A small frame holding five of Voyager’s spare gel packs linked through bioneural interfaces had been completed.
Both the “bait” and the “trap” were set.
“I think we’re ready,” Harry observed.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” B’Elanna added, tapping her combadge.
“B’Elanna to Seven of Nine.”
Seven stood on what she had termed the “bridge” of the Betasis. It was the large room she and B’Elanna had discovered earlier that seemed, in structure and design, central to the ship’s functioning. The viewscreen where B’Elanna had first seen Assylia’s disturbing transmission was still active, but the image of the Monorhan commander was frozen. Seven had considered deactivating it, but preferred to disturb as little as possible, given what she was about to attempt.
The assimilation tubules located in the implant integrated into her left hand had been stocked with the modified nanoprobes, and she awaited B’Elanna’s notification that the holographic matrix was ready for transmission. In the meantime she had relocated the pattern enhancers she and B’Elanna had used to evacuate the ship on their first away mission from the chamber below to the bridge. It had been agreed that the moment the nanoprobes had been dispersed into the neural network of the Betasis, Seven would use the pattern enhancers to return to the relative safety of Voyager.
Once she received B’Elanna’s call, Seven wasted no time. Positioning her left hand above the ship’s main computer interface, she extended her assimilation tubules and easily compromised the synthetic alloys of the surface of the interface. Once she had breached the casing, she searched gingerly for the appropriate links to the neural network. Steeling herself to withstand the flood of anger she had experienced in her first connection with the ship, she connected herself to the neural network and released the nanoprobes.
For a moment, nothing happened. Seven could not sense the presence she had felt before, nor could she determine whether or not the nanoprobes were having any effect.
Only when the soft pulsing lights throughout the ship began to quicken, then race, did Seven sense the approach of the entity. She immediately withdrew the tubules and stepped back, just as the console exploded. Retreating to the perimeter of the pattern enhancers she had set up near the only chair on the bridge, she watched as every power console in the room erupted in a fiery sparks.
A moment later, she materialized in Voyager’s transporter bay and hurried to join Harry and B’Elanna in the lab.
It took almost two minutes for Harry to detect the imminent approach of the consciousness. In order to transfer the synaptic patterns from the Betasis to the smaller neural network they had rigged, they had decided to utilize the data-transfer cable that still tethered Voyager to the array via the dataport located in the docking bay after discovering that the Betasis was linked to a similar port in its wrecked bay. The connection to the Betasis was barely functional, degraded by time and several fused circuits, but Seven had been able to confirm that it would suit their purposes. There would be a brief lag while the patterns were forced to move through the array’s systems, but given that they could