Synthesis - James Swallow [18]
“I’m all right,” said Fell. “Just a little dizzy.”
Vale hesitated on the edge of throwing the Orion a firm counter, but he was right. She was in danger of allowing the annoyance that had been bubbling away inside her ever since the Titan had been sandbanked to push out her better judgment. “Yeah. Maybe so. We’ll fall back to the shuttle and regroup—”
The tricorder buzzed as she was speaking, and a bright white bolt of color suddenly flashed inside the alien module. All around them, in among the debris, scores of blue eye lenses blinked into life.
Vale swore and grabbed her phaser.
• • •
It was a tight fit, but they made it through. Zurin winced as Keru pulled him hard through the closing gap, but then they were through, drifting in the gloom once more.
Meldok spoke after a moment, his face lit by the glow of his tricorder. He seemed ghostly in the dimness. “These subsystems appear to be operated from a unified command authority. I’m detecting a faint path of activation through the main trunks.” He pointed at the thick cables.
“Go on,” said the security chief.
“I believe we’re seeing reflexive behavior. Like the firing of a nerve cluster in a limb or other organic form.”
“The wreck is reacting to irritants…” Zurin wondered aloud.
“Some deceased beings do exhibit behavior that suggests life, often for some time after actual brain death,” said Meldok. “I believe this craft parallels that state.”
Keru shook his head slowly. “It’s not that. At least, it’s not all that.”
“I don’t follow you, sir,” said Zurin.
“Something’s been bothering me ever since we ran a scan on this thing, and now I think I know why.” The Trill turned to him, the faint light catching the dark-pigmented spots along the sides of his face and neck. “No extant lifesupport systems. No internal gravity. No crew spaces.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “Ensign Meldok, have you detected any organic matter since we boarded this hulk?”
The Benzite hesitated. “I… have not.”
“Nothing,” said Keru. “Not even flakes of skin or stray hairs.” He gestured with his own tricorder. “Even after a catastrophic blowout, even if this ship was crewed by vacuum-dwelling blobs of protoplasm, there would be something, right?”
“There would be something,” echoed Zurin. “Some form of organic trace, no matter how small…” He drifted forward, farther down the conduit.
“I’m willing to bet the reason we haven’t found any crew, the reason the Titan couldn’t read any life out here, wasn’t the radiation. It’s because this ship never had living beings aboard in the first place.”
Meldok frowned at the idea. “Robots?”
“I’m wondering if this whole ship isn’t just some huge mechanism, “ said Keru.
“If so,” said Zurin, “I hope we can find a way to access it.” Using the beacon lamp on his wrist, the Cardassian shone the light down toward the end of the tubular tunnel. “Otherwise, without a way to override the central control system, we are trapped.”
Zurin’s torchlight picked out a blank, featureless wall, blocking any further movement through the wrecked starship. With the iris hatch locked shut behind them, there was no path out of their confinement. They had exchanged one trap for another.
The drones converged, darting on little jets of ion thrust, spinning and turning, coming in to englobe them.
Instinctively, the three of them retreated until the core cylinder was at their backs. Dennisar didn’t wait for Vale to give him the order; he pulled the compression phaser rifle to his shoulder and punched out bolt after bolt of yellow energy, blasting apart drones as the units came on, deploying their claw legs.
Vale quickly worked the controls on her hand phaser, widening the beam to a broad setting, strengthening the power output. She aimed into the center of the machine swarm and fired. A fan of light bathed the chamber for