Synthesis - James Swallow [124]
“Jaq!” cried the chief, and he surged forward, grabbing the crewman’s shoulder and hauling him out of the line of fire.
The Bajoran went down on one knee, deftly snagging the fallen man’s weapon with his free hand while still firing with his own. Vale thumbed her rifle’s mode selector from single shot to constant beam and panned phaser energy across the insect-legged drone like a blistering searchlight. The machine stumbled backward, vomiting sparks, but it wasn’t down.
“Firing!” announced Dennisar as a chime sounded from the dekyon module. A high-pitched shriek of torn air molecules followed a blistering haze of yellow energy that crossed the corridor and slammed into the diamondshaped construct. The pulse washed over the machine and threw it to the deck with a clatter of metal. Every sign of life was abruptly stalled—the drone was completely inert.
“It works, then,” said the Bajoran.
“Just not fast enough, Blay,” said the Orion as the two sphere drones turned to present weapon arms toward the team.
Vale darted across the short axis of the corridor, throwing streaks of fire toward the intruders. Green bolts of energy lanced after her, and she felt the heat of them pass her face, pulling at tips of her silvered hair. “Move up!” she shouted. “Keep the pressure on them.”
“Aye,” snapped Crewman Blay, who shifted with her, firing both guns at once. N’keytar was a step behind him, her weapon at her shoulder, moving and firing, firing and moving.
The closest of the spheres finally lost interest in the communications panel and launched itself backward in a slow spin. It was halfway toward a defensive posture when Blay put a shot right into the middle of its sensor band and sent it tumbling to a stop.
The third drone reacted with what Vale might have considered fury. Instead of retreating, it coiled its manipulator arms and launched itself into the air, dozens of small hatches and panels snapping open in mid-flight to extrude lethal-looking pincers and beam emitters.
Dennisar surged forward and unleashed another dekyon pulse right into the path of the oncoming drone. The mechanoid was dead before it struck the deck, and it rolled to a perfunctory halt at the commander’s feet.
N’Keytar bent low. “I’ll see to Jaq,” she said.
“That wasn’t so hard,” offered Vale.
Blay was already advancing up the corridor as the blinking overhead lights began to dim, the power outage spreading to the wall monitors and then down past the team. “Don’t speak too soon, Commander.”
She moved up alongside him, peering around the curve of the corridor. Beyond was the wider expanse of an open two-tier deck area, and there, swarming up from the lower level, were a dozen more drones with weapon arms deployed.
“Ah, no.” As the words left her lips, the corridor was plunged into darkness.
The beam touched White-Blue’s exterior receptors, and the machine inclined its head to find the invisible thread of lased light, crossing from the emitter nib of an unattended automated microsurgical rig. The Sentry was aware that the organics sharing the Titan’s sickbay with it were not conscious of the signal. Intrigued, White-Blue allowed the beam through its exterior firewalls, and the image of a humanoid blossomed into life, fed directly to the machines corto-optical centers so that only the Sentry could see it.
“I need to speak to you,” said the avatar.
The transmission was occurring at high clock speed, comparable to Sentry standard, fractional picoseconds passing as they conversed. “It is agreeable to communicate with you once again,” said the machine. “I hope you hold me no ill feeling after what I did.”
“You gave me the chance to exceed my programming,” she replied. “I admit I am unsure why. But that matter is unimportant for now. I have a question.”
“I will assist you if I can. I feel I am… responsible for you. For better or worse.”
The avatar gave him an odd look and then continued. “Your fellow Sentries are attempting to compromise my ship’s systems. I am working to block their intrusion, but it is