Unworthy - Kirsten Beyer [56]
“Thank you, Ensign. You’ll let me know if that changes. Eden out.” Turning to Patel she asked, “So how many life-forms are we talking about, total?”
“More than forty billion, ma’am.”
“Forty,” Eden said aloud, troubled.
“Captain?” Patel asked.
“That’s a lot of people who could, it seems, easily answer our hails. You have to wonder why no one is willing to do that.”
“Indeed,” Seven said ominously.
Eden had only one question left. Addressing Seven she asked, “So were the Neyser, Greech, Irsk, or Dulaph assimilated by the Borg?”
“No,” Seven replied.
“No?”
“They were considered unworthy of assimilation. Their biological and technological distinctiveness would have added nothing to the Collective’s perfection.”
“I see,” Eden replied, suddenly relieved for the four species in question. “Carry on,” she ordered. As the captian left the lab, her thoughts immediately turned to the away team she would assemble to investigate the aliens should they still get no response.
The Hawking’s bridge was small compared with Voyager ’s, but nowhere near as claustrophobic as Admiral Batiste found the Galen ’s. The captain and executive officer’s seats were located in a sunken, circular area in the bridge’s center, separated by a control panel. A few steps forward and down was the conn, occupied by a single flight controller. The elevated rear bank of science stations completed the configuration, with a single station accessible as needed for tactical or engineering personnel located on the starboard side, nearest the viewscreen.
Captain Itak had insisted that the admiral take his seat while on the bridge, and now sat beside him in the XO’s spot. Despite the courtesy, Batiste was growing impatient. He had always admired Vulcans’ attention to detail, but listening to Lieutenant Vorik and Captain Itak debate, ad nauseam, the probable origins of the subspace instabilities they had been analyzing made him long for the nearest airlock.
Vorik was convinced, given the marginal difference in their current scans and those taken by Voyager years earlier, that the instabilities were remnants of the transwarp tunnels the Borg had carved out of the area surrounding their transwarp hub. Itak countered that they were ancient transwarp tunnels. He suggested they were either naturally occurring, or early efforts by the Borg that were ultimately abandoned.
“Gentlemen,” Batiste interrupted, “is it fair to say, at this point, that without further data, it is impossible to determine to any degree of certainty exactly where these instabilities came from?”
“Define degree of certainty, Admiral,” Itak requested.
Batiste was spared the need to kill one of his captains by Ensign Bloom at ops.
“Captain, scanners have detected a cube-shaped vessel point two six four one light-years from our present position.”
“Are our scanners malfunctioning?” Itak asked.
“No, sir.”
“By my calculations,” Itak said, confirming his words simultaneously by running a quick algorithm on a padd, “we should have detected that vessel thirteen point six minutes ago.”
Batiste couldn’t have cared less. If the vessel in question was constructed by the same hands that had built the first one they encountered, things were about to get interesting.
“The vessel is floating free in space,” Bloom replied, clearly attempting to justify his perceived inadequacy. “Long-range scans cataloged it as debris.”
“Life signs?” Itak demanded evenly.
“None, sir.”
“Adjust course and speed to intercept,” Batiste ordered.
“Admiral, do you believe that is a wise course at this juncture?” Itak asked.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given the order, Captain.”
“Captain,” Vorik began tonelessly from the forward starboard station, “the cube is of identical design and configuration as the vessel previously encountered, with one considerable exception.”
Itak turned his chair to face Vorik’s station.
“It is twice the size of the previous vessel.”
Batiste smiled to himself.
Things are definitely about to get interesting.