Synthesis - James Swallow [118]
Riker tapped his combadge. “Bridge, this is the captain. Disengage from the spacedock, and go to battle stations—”
Without warning, Vale bolted up from where she lay on the biobed, every muscle in her body tensing, a thin screech tearing from her lips. She grabbed Riker’s arm, hard enough that it made him tense with the pain. In the same moment, the medical scanner began to shrill, and Ree curled his talon around the glowing cable. With a jerk of his claw, the doctor ripped the lead from its socket, severing the connection.
Christine rocked and went pale. “He shot me!” She gasped. “Red-Gold!”
“An insurrection is now in progress,” White-Blue stated flatly. “Probability: Red-Gold wishes to consolidate control of Governance Kernel.”
Any answer Riker would have given was forestalled as Deanna’s voice issued over the intercom. “This is the bridge. The holding clamps will not release, and we’re reading energy discharges inside the spacedock.”
“It’s already happening,” Vale managed, her fingers pushing at the implant. “They want… they want the Titan.”
“I’m on my way up,” Riker called out. “All decks, Red Alert!”
“Not just the ship!” Vale shouted after him. “They want her!”
The sickbay doors parted before the captain as he broke into a run, crimson strobes lighting the corridor ahead.
Deanna stepped up and away from the center seat and walked a couple of paces toward the middle of the bridge. On the viewscreen, the curved walls of the Sentry spacedock were visible at the edges of the image. The busy robotic arms and construction tenders that had previously worked over the Titan’s battle damage were all inactive, drifting aimlessly as the strings of commands they obeyed had suddenly ceased. These simpler, less evolved machines seemed to have no measure of the self-awareness of the Sentries themselves, and so they were content to lie inactive while the AIs followed their own agendas.
Troi glanced over her shoulder toward the tactical station. “Ranul, what do you have?”
The Trill didn’t look up from the console as he answered. “Confirming. The energy discharges inside the spacedock are a match with the antiproton weapons used by the Sentries. They’re shooting at each other.”
A sour tone sounded from the operations console, and Lieutenant Rager made a negative noise. “The docking clamps refuse to answer commands. Something has initiated an override directly from the station’s command nexus.”
“And if we can’t disengage, we can’t get clear of the dock,” Deanna continued.
“And if we can’t get clear, we can’t raise the shields,” Keru concluded. “We’re wide open, Commander.”
“There’s another option,” offered Melora, looking up from the scanner. “A narrow-beam, low-power phaser strike could sever the clamps.”
“The only problem with that is that the emitters can’t get the angle on all of them.” Keru pulled up a tactical display, showing glowing dots at the location of each clamp. “I can reach all but four.”
Deanna moved to Lavena’s side at the helm. “Aili, can we break free?”
The Pacifican threw a questioning look at Ensign Panyarachun at the engineering station and got a shaky nod in return. “I think so.”
On the screen, a section of the spacedock wall abruptly blew out in a flash of discharge; among the debris vented into space were several Sentry mechanoids, pinwheeling away into the void.
Deanna turned away. “Do it. Ranul, target and fire. Aili, ready on the impulse thrusters. Tasanee, give her the stress numbers.” As she spoke, the turbolift doors were opening and Will was striding out.
He gave Keru a terse nod. “Carry on.” He turned to Deanna. “Status?”
“All decks reporting secure, all airlocks under guard. Weapons have been drawn for all security crew.” Behind her, red light flashed as the clamps were targeted and blasted apart with pinpoint accuracy.
There was a shimmer of photons, and the avatar emerged from the air beside her. “If Titan is boarded, hand phasers will only slow them down.