The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [179]
“How long would the process take, once started?” Picard asked.
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes from siphoning the power to the engines exploding.”
Worf looked at the main display of the Enterprise’s systems on the wall. “Then perhaps they have not yet struck.”
“They won’t waste much more time.”
Worf pointed to Deck 6. “I found the trunk here.” Deck 8. “The door malfunctions were here.” He pointed out the locations of a couple of other malfunctions, and then EPS junction 4014. “The events started in scattered areas throughout the ship, but their locations converged and have been following a line.”
“Yes!” Geordi exclaimed. “And if you wanted to siphon tractor power from farther along that line, you’d do it from”—he stabbed a finger at the layout—”there!”
Picard nodded and looked at Worf. “Assemble your security team, Commander.”
Worf grinned.
The room was almost pitch-black but for the soft pastel lights of power indicators. Worf closed his eyes, listening for movement and trying to feel any shift in the air. Three more security officers were in the room with him, and he could barely hear them. He hoped the intruder wouldn’t notice them either, until it was too late.
He watched the door, which was invisible in the dark. The instant it was opened, he and his team would pounce. He was vaguely surprised that nothing had happened yet. Another few minutes and the tractor beams would be disengaged; the saboteur would have missed his chance.
He listened. Nothing.
He sniffed the air. Nothing.
He felt—
There was a skittering sound, and another, and another. They didn’t sound like footsteps, and they seemed to be coming from all around. Then came the strangest sound Worf had ever heard. It was like the sound of large hermit crabs being prized apart from the angry kittens they had been superglued to. Then something passed between him and the lights on the control panels, and Worf shouted, “Lights!”
The computer responded immediately, filling the room with light. Worf and his team raised their phasers, pointing them at an intruder. Worf wondered how it had gotten in, as the door had not opened and there had been no transporter beam.
The intruder turned, and Worf had a quick impression of a large and bulky figure, taller than himself, with six bloated and segmented limbs. It gave a rasping hiss and raised itself up, spreading its two arms wide. The creature leaped at Worf, who instinctively adopted a blocking stance and prepared to counter its move. No blow came. Instead, the creature exploded around him.
For an instant Worf thought someone had hit it with a phaser on a high setting, but then there was skittering all around him. Creatures like the one Spot had killed were leaping through the air and diving for small vents around the floor. A phaser beam caught one, and it flopped to the ground. Worf batted another out of the air with the back of his hand, and another security guard stood on one. Those two were delayed for only a moment, then disappeared into the vents.
“Computer,” Worf shouted, running out the door. His team were already following. “Erect a level-three force field around Bussard control.” He paused at a turbolift and turned to one of his men. “Go to sickbay and have Doctor Tropp use the dead gestalt creature to tune some tricorders. We should be able to detect the others now that we have their cellular pattern.” He stepped into the turbolift. “Deck 6.” He knew just the help the team needed.
Spot prowled the crawl spaces in Deck 16. The scent of the creature it had killed earlier was everywhere. This surprised Spot. Individual