Synthesis - James Swallow [73]
“There isn’t one,” she said, without turning to look at him. Pava oriented the Holiday to come nose-first toward the refinery, closing on the activity around the end of the busy gantry arm. Small drones no larger than a soccer ball darted away and watched them pass as the shuttle approached.
“The AIs do not require an atmospheric envelope,” noted Tuvok, “nor an airtight docking facility.”
“They better have something,” Pava noted tersely, “otherwise, I’m going to land us on the top of a—” As she was speaking, an oval plate extended from the side of the gantry and lit up under the stark glow of a ring of illuminators. The lights began to blink in a slow chaser pattern.
“I suppose that’s some kind of invitation,” Ythiss piped.
“Some kind,” Pava agreed. Coasting in unpowered, she used the thrusters to nudge the Holiday into the dead center of the oval and put it down with a soft bump.
The moment the shuttle was settled, part of the landing platform irised open and extruded a flexible tube with an exposed maw, which snaked out and clamped on around the Holiday’s main hatch. Pava had a brief, unpleasant mental image of a rock python distending its jaw to eat a rodent. There was the hiss of pressure equalization, and an indicator flashed on her console. “Hard seal. Reading standard atmosphere on the other side.”
Ythiss glanced at Tuvok. “Ah. Perhaps they’ve made us some air after all?”
The Vulcan climbed out of the copilot’s seat and made his way back into the main cabin. Pava took a moment to put the Holiday in safe mode and then followed him.
The rest of the team were all standing, edgy and ready for what might come next. Ensign Meldok already had his helmet on, his pale blue face partly concealed behind wisps of smoky Benzite breathing gas. She checked her own suit, lingering a few instants longer on the phaser holstered at her belt.
Two precise knocks sounded on the hatch. Tuvok gestured to Lieutenant Sethe, and the Cygnian opened the doorway.
A bulky machine form shaped like a headless humanoid filled the passageway beyond. Cool air flowed in past it. Pava tasted the alien atmosphere on her tongue; it had a refined, metallic smell to it.
“Cyan-Gray,” said Tuvok. Pava recognized the machine from Lieutenant Commander Keru’s postmission report. This was the one that had opened fire on them.
“Active remote, confirmed,” it replied in a voice that reminded the Andorian of a crèche-mistress she had known as a child. “This way.” It turned on stubby pneumatic legs and strode away, back into the depths of the platform.
Tuvok threw the away team a glance and followed it, gathering up his helmet in the crook of his arm.
Cyan-Gray’s remote led them down a lengthy set of corridors to a cylindrical capsule suspended above a work area, a gallery with windows along one side and no other features except a series of overhead lamps. The chamber had a sense of newness about it, a sparse and unfurnished look.
Tuvok crossed to the curved windows and glanced down. Below him, resting on a platform open to space, was a craft that resembled a long scaffold. At one end, a cluster of engine nozzles and drive pods could be discerned, while at the prow was a collection of scanning modules and a sensor dish that resembled those used in older Federation vessels. A conning tower rose from the midline of the scaffold frame, and as he watched, some of the spherical drones that had shadowed the arrival of the Holiday entered the tower through an open hatchway. The rest of the refinery’s docking gantry extended past the end of the platform and into space. A shadow passed across the windows as the small moon moved in front of the larger of the two suns.
Tuvok tapped the communicator on his suit. “Ensign?”
“I’m here, Commander.” Dakal had remained behind aboard the shuttle and was currently using the craft’s passive scanning gear to run a full sweep of the refinery’s operations. “All