DESCENT Read online

  The thrill of danger, the sultry excitement of deliberately dragging the danger out . . . He imagined the frantic frustration on the bridge as crew members ran around trying to get him back.

  And he laughed again.

  Before them the vortex opened its other end and they shot through. Even if he never returned, he was glad to be here. No—more than glad. He didn’t want to return! He didn’t even want to! He looked forward to what was coming.

  He would set a trap for Picard and the others, and they would be coming to rescue him without even having the sense to extend upon facts and predict what had happened to him.

  They’d seen him get angry, hadn’t they? Did they think he only had one emotion in him?

  He felt virulent and spiteful, and he loved every jittery sting of it.

  He looked at Crosis. “This is fun,” he said.

  The Borg nodded.

  “It will be more fun, Data,” Crosis said. “Because the One is waiting for you.”

  Chapter Nine

  “MR. LA FORGE, can we follow them into the conduit?”

  Jean-Luc Picard felt his neck muscles turn to wood, because he already knew the answer. Difficulty. Danger. The eternal captain’s question: Shall I risk the whole crew for the life of one crewman?

  Even if they could summon the subspace phenomenon and plow into it, would they arrive soon enough to save their shipmate?

  And what had happened to Data fifteen, ten, five minutes ago to make all this happen?

  The foolishness of leaving him alone with the Borg when they had already witnessed an aberration in his behavioral program that involved one of those monsters—foolishness!

  Decisions not being made fast enough, facts not gathered well, instinct not being followed—and he knew better than to make these mistakes.

  “We got a good reading on the tachyon pulse they sent,” the young engineer said, but he didn’t sound very certain. “We might be able to duplicate it.”

  Picard moved to Riker’s side, and the first officer straightened but didn’t say anything.

  “The question is,” the captain said quietly, “is Data a prisoner, or did he go willingly?”

  He was speaking to Riker, asking the kind of question that needed an answer from the heart, but it was Worf who provided the answer, from the console in front of him.

  “The command overrides used to disable the tractor were Commander Data’s.”

  Well, so much for that.

  Picard glanced at Riker. Neither of them entirely believed the surface implications of what they’d just heard.

  “The Borg might’ve taken the codes from Data by force,” Riker suggested.

  The captain shook his head. “Or perhaps Data’s recent flash of emotion has something to do with this. It may have affected him more profoundly than we realized. Either way, we have to find him.”

  With a give-away sigh, Geordi turned around. “I’ve set up a temporary tachyon matrix in the main deflector. I think I can use it to simulate the pulse sent out by the shuttle.”

  The ghosts of captains past came down before Picard’s eyes, and he was forced to gaze through them and listen to the audible hum of doubt. Risk the ship and everyone aboard now, or risk their entire culture later when the Borg civilization had the advantage?

  This was one of those provocative command questions that often showed up on Academy tests, the kind that couldn’t be answered by committee, that shouldn’t have real consequences, but today did.

  If the Borg gained access to Data’s memory, they could get technical information on every ship in the Fleet. Picard couldn’t let that happen.

  He stepped away from Tactical and gazed at the forward screen.

  “Very well,” he said. “Red Alert, Mr. Worf.”

  “All hands to battle stations,” Riker added.

  Ship’s condition leaped to red. Lights, sirens, all systems on full-enable operational protocol and automatic backup. Full crew mustered to alert status, ready for the unpredictable, every crew member aware that in the worst case, command could trickle down to him or her.

  Long-range sensors brightening to life, sifting the expanse of space for clues, even though they hadn’t yet been told the crime. Shuttlecraft brought to thirty-minus launch. Warp power core brought to stand-by three-quarters power. Reactors hot.

  Phaser banks energized, on standby. Photon torpedo launch-ready. Deflector shields on automatic. Diagnostics on automatic.

  This was the only status during which the ship could practically run itself, because it might have to. The shimmering, galvanic agitation of a starship in Red Alert could waken the dead and move them to applause.

  Picard inhaled the dangerous exhilaration for a brief moment, savored it, then pushed forward.

  “Bring us to the shuttle’s last coordinates,” he said.

  “Shields up,” Worf reported. “Weapons ready.”

  Picard turned. “Mr. La Forge?”

  “Ready to send out the tachyon pulse, Captain,” Geordi said. He still didn’t sound sure.

  “Proceed.”

  Geordi didn’t nod. He just turned to his console and tapped out commands.

  “Emitting tachyon pulse at required frequency.”

  “Sensors show no subspace distortion,” Worf snapped. He sounded disapproving.

  “Okay,” Geordi breathed nervously. “Now shifting the band width.”

  “Still nothing.”

  Worf’s impatience was catching. Picard felt the tension rise as Riker moved to his side and they stood together, unable to do anything but wait and watch. They could have ordered Geordi to hurry, but what good would that have done?

  Data, a prisoner? Kidnapped against his tremendously linear will?

  Or had he gone along willingly for some unimaginable reason? Both prospects were terrifying. Picard genuinely didn’t know which he preferred to find on the other side of that pipe.

  Had Data hatched a wild plan, and was he complying with the Borg in order to shift the risk away from the Enterprise?

  So many possibilities, and not a clue yet.

  Except for that surge of anger on Ohniaka Three. Just that one spine-chilling clue, that Data could be overwhelmed.

  “Correction!” Worf burst out suddenly. “Subspace distortion forming directly ahead!”

  On the forward screen the gory hole in space opened up before them. It looked unstable, not as perfectly formed as when the Borg had summoned it, but it was there.

  And we’re going through it, Picard decided.

  He nodded to the duty officer at the helm.

  “Take us in, Ensign,” he said. “One half impulse.

  The ship didn’t like the oxer they were making her jump. She bucked.

  All they could do was grab the mane and hang on.

  “Power levels dropping to sixty-seven percent,” Worf said with a blade of accusation in his voice.

  “Compensating with auxiliary power!” Geordi responded, fighting for restraint.

  Whines of mechanical effort were caustic in the air, but the ship was into the wind and driving forward against this bizarre storm. She’d been through it once before. Her systems had recorded the previous experience, analyzed it, and she was piloting herself along the currents of least resistance—

  And with a surge, they were out of it. Normal space appeared on the forward screen, as if nothing had happened. Space spread before them with only subtle changes from twenty seconds ago.

  The ship’s sounds dropped off to their normal hum, as if to say nothing had happened at all.

  “Short one,” Riker muttered.

  Picard was the only person who heard him, and he ignored it. “Report!”

  Riker leaned forward and found the right readouts. “Navigational sensors show we’ve traveled sixty-five light-years from our previous position.”

  “Can you locate the shuttle?”

  “No, sir,” Worf said. “It’s not within sensor range.”

  Riker moved to Tactica
l. “Maybe we can find an energy signature from their engines.”

  “Captain,” Geordi interrupted, “you should look at this. I’ve scanned three star systems within sensor range. There’s evidence of at least two advanced civilizations, but I’m reading no life.” He paused and waited until the captain moved closer to see for himself. “And there are indications that plasma weapons have been fired in those systems recently.”

  A sober-minded growl came up in Picard’s throat. “The Borg have been busy.”

  Picard damned his ignorance. He couldn’t know the answers yet. Certainly the Borg had shown themselves willing to destroy an entire race as easily as the company of a single ship. Surely the part of him that was Locutus would never forget the rampage against Starfleet. Thousands dead.

  Would it be billions this time? Would the Borg be unstoppable if he didn’t stop them soon?

  “Captain,” Worf said, “I am picking up the shuttle’s residual energy signature.”

  Picard gestured at the conn officer and ordered, “Lay in a pursuit course and engage at full impulse!”

  Geordi stood up and pointed at his screen. “Captain, you should take a look at this.”

  The captain felt his own ill humor chewing at him as he left the place he wanted to be and went aft, away from his troubles.

  All they could do was follow the trail. A trickle of has-been energy, bread crumbs in the black forest of deep space, provided them with their only hint of where to go and how fast to get there.

  The next few minutes were elongated and demanding, frayed the patience and hopes of everyone on the bridge. Everyone was thinking about Data.

  Holding himself to Buddha-like sangfroid as he watched the trail feed in to the ship’s systems, Picard wondered again about Data. He had always thought of Data as a highly useful child or as an overly level-headed extension of Picard himself. When a person went a little wild, there was always a sense of normality. Somehow an occasional loss of control was part and parcel of being alive.

  To have a mechanism suddenly develop a glitch, though, was terrifying. Especially a mechanism that somehow, deep down, had a chance to be completely undefined along the lines of life. For centuries, since H. G. Wells, artificial intelligence had been depicted in fiction as a lingering threat, mostly by those who failed to understand what it was.

  Picard had always thought he understood, until he met Data. And just as he was beginning to feel secure about what to expect from Data . . . this had happened.

  “Planet, sir,” Riker said, speaking low. “Approaching at one-third light-speed. Class-M. No visible hostility. No obvious energy reading outside of the ordinary.”

  “I don’t believe it for a minute,” Picard muttered. He glanced at Riker and noted the first officer’s reluctance to disturb the calm instant.

  Picard nodded, and Riker took over the tedious approach to the unexpected. He brought them into orbit as calmly as if they were docking for refuel.

  “We’ve traced the shuttle’s energy signature to this point on the surface,” Riker said when they were smoothly orbiting. “But there’s too much interference to scan that location.”

  “Are they intentionally jamming our sensors?”

  Riker opened his mouth to answer, but it was Geordi who spoke.

  “It looks more like a natural phenomenon, sir,” he said. “There’s an unusually high percentage of EM activity in the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “Can we transport through the interference?”

  “We should be able to . . . but there could be fifty Borg standing down there waiting for us and we’d have no way of knowing it.”

  “I’d say that’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Riker said.

  “Agreed,” Picard snapped. Action, finally. “Number One, take a well-armed away team and beam down to those coordinates. Have the transporter chief maintain a continuous lock on your signal so we can beam you out of there at the first sign of trouble.”

  “Aye, sir,” Riker barked back. “Mr. Worf!”

  An abandoned ship is a melancholy thing, even in the springtime.

  The little shuttlecraft sat in the midst of verdant rolling hills, masses of green growth, shining grasses, and a faint buzz of insect life. It was the first thing Riker saw when he and his security team materialized. He saw it before he saw the hills or anything else.

  Worf and the four guards instantly formed a defensive circle around the shuttle. The Klingon had his phaser in one hand and his tricorder in the other, and the guards were already looking for footprints.

  Riker hit his comm badge. “Riker to Enterprise. We’re on the surface. No sign of any Borg . . . or of Data.” He moved toward the shuttlecraft, and even as he walked, he felt the hard ground and knew the guards would have no luck looking for prints. As he leaned inside the craft, he added, “The shuttle’s been abandoned.”

  “The EM interference is limiting the tricorder range,” Worf called from the other side of the small ship. “It is useless beyond one hundred meters.”

  He sounded provoked.

  More good news, Riker thought. We’re not going to get any favors.

  “There aren’t any structures down here,” Riker said, continuing his report. “They could’ve gone anywhere, Captain.”

  “Can you determine how long ago Data and the Borg left the shuttlecraft?” the captain asked.

  Riker leaned inside and looked at the console, glad to be able to give the captain at least one little answer. “The engine’s been shut down for a little over three hours.”

  “Stand by, Number One.”

  Over the open communication systems confined in the tiny badge on his chest, Riker listened with all the patience of a nail-biter as the captain’s voice filtered through: “Assuming they’re still together, how far could they have traveled in that amount of time?”

  Riker almost answered, just to be able to say something helpful, but then Geordi’s voice chimed in from the background. Concern for Data came through an audible restraint: “Data can move pretty fast even over rough terrain, but based on what we know about the Borg, I don’t think they can move any faster than you or I. They could be as much as twenty kilometers from the shuttle by now.”

  There was a pause. Riker could almost hear the captain thinking and not being happy about conclusions he was coming to.

  Finally Picard said, “It’ll take a lot of away teams to cover that much territory on foot, but I see little choice at this point. Picard to Riker.”

  “Riker here.”

  “I’m going to start sending down search parties to your coordinates, Will. Set up a command post and begin mapping out a search plan. We’re going to have to do this on foot.”

  Fighting the onset of exhaustion, Riker pushed out a terse, “Understood, sir.”

  “Picard out.”

  The comm badge stopped its faint vibration, and he knew the bridge had cut off.

  “Worf,” he called, “give that tricorder to somebody else and come over here. We’re going to do this the hard way.”

  “La Forge, I want to use the shuttlecraft to carry out low-level aerial reconnaissance. Have all qualified pilots report to the main shuttle bay.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Picard almost lost his voice; his throat nearly closed up as he said that. The Enterprise carried an impressive handful of shuttlepods, shuttlecraft, and cargo shuttles. He had to stop himself before he ordered out the extravehicular one-man maneuvering gear and work sleds to go dodge about that continent and get back their second officer in one piece.

  Inwardly he winced at the terminology—he had seen Data in more than one piece before, never mind the colloquialism. He didn’t want to see it again.

  “All available personnel,” he said to Geordi, “including you and me, will begin assembling four-man away teams. Arm each away team with three hand phasers and one phaser rifle. We’ll leave a skeleton crew aboard the ship.”

  Geordi angled toward the turbolift, but at the last second paus
ed. “Who’ll be in command of the Enterprise?”

  The captain hesitated. Under normal conditions, rank would trickle down through all officers and crew members with pilot status.

  But these weren’t normal conditions.

  Sickbay, Surgery

  “Oh, my goodness!”

  Deanna Troi’s gasp from the doorway yanked Beverly’s attention away from her operating table.

  “Don’t surprise me like that,” she said. “Come on in. It’s all right. He’s dead.”

  Dr. Crusher’s hands were cold. She hated to do surgery when she was nervous.

  So she was breathing deeply and humming old songs to herself and trying to be clinical.

  She’d dissected all manner of creatures, but this semi-machine laid out before her was giving her the jitters.

  The surgical support clamshell glowed over the Borg’s revealed internal organs, and cast an infernal light on Deanna Troi’s face as she slowly came up and peeked in.

  “How can you be so sure it’s dead?” she commented.

  “Because I just got finished detaching and color-coding its major nervous system,” Beverly said. “It couldn’t sit up if it wanted to.”

  “I didn’t know you were doing this,” Deanna murmured. “I heard they were here, but . . .”

  “What? You mean you didn’t rush down here to watch? Listen, you can help if you want—”

  “No, thanks! I’ll just stand here on the sidelines and let you do whatever you’re doing to . . . him. Are you alone?”

  “No. Two of my assistants are working on the other Borg, and I’ve got three teams doing analyses on body parts. What’s going on up there? The captain hasn’t even badgered me for a report yet. I’ve been expecting the call for a half hour.”

  Deanna’s beautiful forehead creased. “The captain’s busy,” she said. “Data’s gone.”

  “Data’s gone!” Beverly stopped working and let her surgical gloves drip with pinkish fluid from the Borg’s spinal cord. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  “He was kidnapped, as near as we can tell, or possibly he went with that Borg prisoner willingly for some reason. They took a shuttlecraft.”