Part 12 (2/2)
Undaunted, Dax replied, ”It's also our only chance.”
From the first moment Hernandez stepped inside t.i.tan's stellar cartography lab, she was overwhelmed by a sense of deja vu. Standing beside Melora Pazlar at the end of the widow's-walk platform, she watched the galaxy appear from the darkness and take shape in reduced form all around them.
Pazlar freed herself from her metal motor-a.s.sist armature and said with a smile, ”When you're ready, just give a push to come up and join me.” Then she vaulted straight up, off the platform, with the same ease that Hernandez herself had once taken for granted in Axion.
Hernandez hesitated to follow the science officer, unsure of how much freedom of movement she would have in her new clothing. At Captain Riker's request, Hernandez had exchanged her Caeliar-made attire for the current Starfleet duty uniform. The black jumpsuit with gray shoulder padding and a burgundy-colored unders.h.i.+rt had appeared in her quarters' replicator, complete with the rank insignia for a captain.
She took a breath, bent her knees a bit, and sprang with grace into the open s.p.a.ce above. It felt strange, she thought, to be back in a uniform after eight centuries of wearing gossamer. She added it to the other aspects of her past-sleep and hunger-that had caught up with her since she'd fled her captivity in Axion. A lifetime of sensations had come back to her in a matter of hours.
Within moments, she was beside Pazlar, who reached out and manipulated elements of the simulation in much the same way that Inyx had plucked stars from the darkness in the Star Chamber, during the century that Hernandez had helped him seek a new homeworld for the Caeliar. I hope he's all right, she thought. The Quorum must've been furious at him for letting me get away.
”It's easy to configure,” Pazlar said. She raised an open palm and extended it. As she drew her hand back, a low-opacity holographic interface appeared. ”You can alter any of the simulation parameters with this. Just be careful if you start messing with the gravity.” She c.o.c.ked her head and gestured at the lower part of her body. ”I'm a bit fragile, you see.”
”Understood,” Hernandez said. She reached forward and expected to find herself miming physical interaction with the projected controls. Instead, when she pushed her fingers on the various padds and slider panels, they met with the same resistance she would have expected of a physical console. Muted feedback tones followed each of her inputs. ”It's very intuitive,” she said.
”I know,” Pazlar said. ”Xin-I mean, Commander Ra-Havreii-designed the interface himself.” The slender blond Elaysian averted her eyes when Hernandez glanced over at her.
”All right,” Hernandez said. ”I've set up a signal feed on the same frequency as my catoms. How do I activate the sensors?”
Pazlar pointed at a radiant blue panel on the interface. ”Press that, and the sensor module switches into high gear. You'll be able to pull up high-resolution scans on anything within a hundred light-years.”
”Then the only thing I still need is a simulated quantum field to power my catoms.”
Nodding, Pazlar said, ”We can't generate even a fraction of the energy that the Caeliar were making at New Erigol, but we'll give you everything we can.”
”It'll be enough,” Hernandez said. ”Axion had to sustain itself, millions of Caeliar, and who knows what else. I just need enough to boost my catoms back to full strength. A fraction ought to do the trick, I'd think.”
The science officer tapped her combadge. ”Pazlar to Ra-Havreii,” she said, and Hernandez noted a subtle s.h.i.+ft in the woman's vocal inflection-it became gentler and a bit higher. ”We're ready for the simulated quantum field.”
”Perfect timing, Melora,” Ra-Havreii replied. ”Stand by while I bring it online.... Charging the deflector.” The channel closed with a soft double beep a few seconds later.
Hernandez waited to feel the infusion of new strength. Several seconds pa.s.sed with no change. Pazlar filled the silence by explaining, ”It might take a few minutes to bring the main deflector up to full power as a quantum-field generator.”
”I know,” Hernandez said. ”I was the one who wrote the plan for the reconfiguration.”
”Right,” Pazlar said, flas.h.i.+ng an embarra.s.sed grin. After another awkward moment, she added, ”I'm sure Commander Ra-Havreii was able to make the changes. You can count on him.”
Overcoming her aversion to meddling in others' business, Hernandez said, ”Commander, may I make an observation?”
”Of course,” Pazlar said.
”I've noticed that you and Commander Ra-Havreii seem to have a very cordial working relations.h.i.+p.”
Immediately, Pazlar became tense and defensive. ”So?”
”Don't misunderstand,” Hernandez said. ”I'm not making any a.s.sumptions about your relations.h.i.+p with-”
”Xin and I don't have a relations.h.i.+p,” Pazlar said. ”We're just friends.”
Unable to suppress a knowing smile, Hernandez replied, ”If you say so, Commander.”
Pazlar crossed her arms and spent a moment looking fl.u.s.tered. ”All right, there was one time when he tried to kiss me, but it didn't happen, and it was all a big misunderstanding-just crossed wires, you know? It didn't mean anything.”
”Forget I mentioned it,” Hernandez said. ”It's none of my business, anyway. Sorry I pried.”
Apparently unwilling to drop the subject, Pazlar added, ”I made it very clear that I don't feel that way about him.”
”No doubt,” Hernandez said.
A fresh silence yawned between them. Then came Ra-Havreii's voice, filtered through the overhead comm. ”Engineering to Pazlar. Quantum field stabilizing at full strength...now.”
Again, Hernandez opened her senses to the state of the local ambient energy potential. She was rewarded by a flood of strength and focus as her catoms pulsed with renewed vigor. Nodding to Pazlar, she said, ”I'm ready.”
”Sensors online and ready,” Pazlar said. ”The system's all yours now, Captain.”
Hernandez closed her eyes and felt a rush of raw data from t.i.tan's sensors being transmitted directly to her catoms, which processed all of it and accelerated her synapses to keep pace. Then she extended the range of her senses and let herself hear the intimidating chorus of the Borg Collective.
Millions of voices-some near, some distant. Cl.u.s.tered in groups as small as three or as large as thousands, a roar of minds yoked to the will of something that included them all and yet remained apart from them, aloof and domineering. She fought to pa.r.s.e their cacophony and subdivide it into manageable blocs. With effort, she began to separate them by sectors, and then by subsectors, and then by individual s.h.i.+ps.
”I hear them,” she said to Pazlar. ”I see them.”
Holding the snapshot of the Borg armada in her mind, she began to search it; she combed it for lone vessels, stragglers, outriders, or scouts. Her mind raced from one target to the next, flitted from sector to sector at the speed of thought.
Each time she found a promising lead, she targeted t.i.tan's sensor module on the coordinates that she heard echoing from that link in the Collective. Her first effort found a trio of small Borg vessels-ostensibly a light attack group but still too formidable for the Aventine to challenge alone. Several subsequent leads proved to be ma.s.sive a.s.sault cubes en route to major star systems; such targets would be too heavily manned by drones for the Aventine's limited strike forces to overcome.
Then she found it. The ideal target.
Zeroing in with t.i.tan's sensors, she said to Pazlar, ”Have a look at this.” The simulated galaxy expanded and flew away as the holographic projection enlarged a detailed sensor scan of a small Borg probe, traveling alone. ”I'm not reading any major targets along their trajectory,” Hernandez said. ”They might be a long-range recon vessel.”
Pazlar summoned a new command interface and made a quick evaluation of the s.h.i.+p. ”Definitely a scout of some kind,” she said. ”Probably no more than fifty to a hundred drones...o...b..ard. What are their coordinates?”
”Bearing zero-one-three, approximately ten-point-five light-years from Devoras.” She felt a profound trepidation as she added, ”Inside Romulan s.p.a.ce.”
Grinning, Pazlar replied, ”Good thing they're on our side in this fight.”
That's right, Hernandez reminded herself, ashamed that she had succ.u.mbed so easily to old fears. Things changed while I was gone. The Romulans aren't the biggest problem anymore.
Pazlar tapped in more commands. ”Target locked in,” she said. ”Sending its coordinates to the Aventine.” A moment later, she added, ”Aventine confirms: target acquired.”
”Now all we have to do is go get them,” Hernandez said, with a bit more brio than she had intended.
Throwing a cautionary look in her direction, Pazlar said, ”I wouldn't be in such a hurry to meet the Borg if I were you. Finding them was easy.” She eyed the image of the black s.h.i.+p in front of them and frowned. ”What comes next won't be.”
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