Synthesis - James Swallow [80]
He frowned at the avatar. “That’s a new look for you.”
“She just blipped in,” Vale explained. “And I have an alert from Melora. Sensors are going wild, sir. There’s an energy distortion event in progress right now out at the refinery.”
“Something is coming,” said the hologram. “Pushing through from subspace.”
“Have you been able to contact Commander Tuvok?” asked Troi.
“No reply from the Holiday as yet,” reported Lieutenant Rager. “But they may not be reading us. A heavy subspace radiation bloom is fouling the comms.”
“It is the same energy pattern detected at the site of the shipframe wreck,” said the avatar. “Whatever affected it has returned.”
Riker glanced to Ensign Panyarachun, who was standing a shift at the bridge’s engineering station. “Tasanee, what’s our status?”
She answered immediately. “Warp drive is still off-line, sir. Impulse is operational, and we have partial deflector and phaser power.”
As Panyarachun spoke, the turbolift doors to the right of the main systems display parted, and White-Blue’s droneframe staggered out, dropping from a difficult bipedal stance back to a hexapod one. “Captain,” it said, “Titan has informed me of Lieutenant Pazlar’s discovery.”
“You told him?” Troi asked the avatar.
“It seemed the thing to do,” she replied.
“I have communicated with the other Sentries,” White-Blue went on. “The matter is being addressed.”
Vale glared up at the machine. “Let me guess. The Null?”
When the AI didn’t reply to her, she turned back to find Riker looking directly at her. “Any hatches open, close them; any systems off-line, spin them up. Get us clear of the spacedock, and then go to full impulse.”
“Yes, sir!” said Vale crisply. “Rager, Lavena, you heard the man.”
The women at the conn and ops consoles gave a chorus of ayes and set to work.
White-Blue picked its way down the ramp from the aft of the bridge. “Captain, this is ill advised. If you proceed with this course of action, you will be entering a danger zone.”
“Seven of my people are already out there,” he replied. “Don’t think for one moment that I’m going to sit here and leave them in harm’s way.”
On the viewscreen, the sides of the Sentry maintenance platform receded, service gantries folding quickly away to avoid colliding with the Starfleet vessel’s hull. A shallow shudder went through the ship as it turned into open space.
“She’s a little sluggish answering the helm,” Lavena announced. “The driver coils are out of sync.”
The avatar’s gaze turned inward for a moment. “Corrected,” she said. Immediately, Titan’s ride became noticeably smoother.
The mechanoid came forward on piston legs. “We will not be able to guarantee the safety of this ship if you leave the spacedock.” The AI’s voice rose an octave as its head swiveled to address the hologram. “You realize that.”
“White-Blue.” There was steel in Riker’s voice. “I am in command of this ship, is that clear?”
The machine looked at the captain, to the avatar, and back again. “Understood.”
“We’re clear of the platform and free to navigate,” said Rager. “The station is asking us to, uh, reconsider.”
“I’m sure they are,” noted Vale.
Lavena’s webbed hands worked her panel. “Course laid in.”
“Floor it,” said the commander.
The starship leapt away from the Sentry cluster, threading swiftly out and past the drifting shapes of the massive moon-sized constructs. Vale saw other AI ships moving in the void. She recognized what had to be alert postures and defensive formations, small fleet elements coming together at focal points in a LaGrange orbit around the Demon-class planet. But more visible were the other vessels that raced past Titan, distending as they vanished into spatial shears. She didn’t have to guess where they were going.
Riker took a step toward the AI