Part 25 (1/2)

Refocusing his mind on work, he asked, ”Have we heard from t.i.tan or the Aventine?”

”t.i.tan has locked in the coordinates of the Caeliar's home system,” Worf said. ”The Aventine has given us the software to generate and maintain a subs.p.a.ce microtunnel stable enough for a high-complexity signal.”

Turning away from the hollowed memory of his ready room to face Worf, Picard asked, ”Is Captain Hernandez ready?”

”Almost,” Worf said. ”Lieutenant Chen will help Lieutenant Commander Pazlar monitor the link to the Caeliar from t.i.tan. When they signal ready, we can initiate the soliton pulse.”

Picard nodded and walked to his chair. Worf followed, always close at his shoulder. They settled into their chairs, and Picard regarded the battle-scarred hull of the Aventine; every scorch and breach was rendered with perfect clarity on the main viewscreen. ”Any news from Starfleet Command?”

”No change,” Worf said. ”The Borg attack fleet is thirty minutes from Earth and Mars.” He took a cautious look around the bridge, where everyone was working with quiet determination. Lowering his voice, he continued, ”I have a question, sir.”

In the same confidential tone, Picard replied, ”About?”

”Admiral Jellico's orders.”

”How did you...?” It took Picard a moment to reason it out. ”Captain Dax told you.”

”Yes, sir,” Worf said. ”A few minutes ago.”

Picard frowned and nodded. ”I take it you don't approve.”

The semirhetorical statement provoked a scowl from Worf. ”Running away would not be my first choice.”

”We're long past first choices, Worf,” Picard said. ”The idea of surrender doesn't sit well with me, either, but the admiral may be right this time. When Earth falls, the war's over.” Sensing Worf's protest, he held up a hand and continued, ”Naturally, there's a plan for the continuity of government, but once the core worlds are gone, there'll be little holding the Federation together. Betazed and Trill will try, as will Bajor, but only until the Borg reach them, a few days from now.”

Worf looked away from Picard and directed his intense stare at the forward viewscreen. ”And what will become of us?”

”You mean the Enterprise?”

”And the Aventine and t.i.tan,” Worf replied.

”That's a very good question,” Picard said. ”To be truthful, I haven't really thought that far ahead.”

Grim antic.i.p.ation mingled with dark amus.e.m.e.nt in Worf's expression. ”Then it might interest you to know that we are surrounded.” He pointed at the tactical display on the armrest of Picard's command chair. ”The Borg armada dispersed in a radial deployment from the Azure Nebula. At present, all sectors adjacent to this one are under Borg control.”

Seeing the situation rendered as a simple graphic made Worf's point clear to Picard. ”We have nowhere to run.”

”Precisely,” Worf replied. ”Neither can we remain here. The Borg will seek us out. So...if we cannot flee, and we cannot hide, logic dictates that we should attack.”

Picard smirked at his XO. ”Channeling Spock again, are we?”

”I am merely stating the facts,” Worf said.

Tugging his tunic smooth, Picard replied, ”Be that as it may, we won't be doing any of those things just yet-not until we see the results of our current undertaking.”

A muted tone beeped from the ops console. Commander Kadohata silenced it and swiveled her chair around to report to Worf and Picard, ”Commander La Forge confirms the subs.p.a.ce transmitter and the deflector are online and ready to go, sir.”

”Very good,” Picard said. He looked left, toward Choudhury at tactical. ”Lieutenant, hail Captain Hernandez on the t.i.tan. See if she's ready to proceed.”

”Aye, sir,” Choudhury replied. She keyed the message into her station's companel, and a few moments later she was answered by a bright synthetic tone. ”Captain Hernandez and Lieutenant Commander Pazlar both confirm they're ready to go.”

Standing up, Picard said, ”Then it's time. Commander Kadohata, power up the transmitter and the main deflector. Lieutenant Elfiki, prepare to generate the soliton pulse. Lieutenant Choudhury, signal the Aventine and t.i.tan, and give them the countdown.”

As his officers snapped into hushed, efficient action around the bridge, Picard noticed that Worf, as usual, had followed his lead and risen from his chair to stand at Picard's right shoulder. ”Captain,” said Worf, ”I have another question.”

”Speak freely, Commander.”

”It is my understanding that we are not, in fact, sending a message through the subs.p.a.ce microtunnel.”

Picard nodded. ”Correct.”

Worf went on, ”However, the mission profile requires us to provide Captain Hernandez with a high-bandwidth channel, on a frequency very much like the one used by the Borg.”

”Also correct,” Picard said, his manner dry and matter-of-fact. ”What's your question?”

”What, exactly, are we doing?”

A wry, crooked grin pulled at Picard's mouth. I've asked myself the same question a hundred times in the last hour. He threw a sidelong look at Worf. ”We're making a leap of faith.”

Melora Pazlar moved in slow, graceful turns through the zero-gravity sanctuary of t.i.tan's stellar cartography hololab. She reconfigured the lab's holographic interfaces on the fly, to take direct control of the subs.p.a.ce transmitter hardware on the Enterprise while regulating an influx of beamed power from the Aventine. At the same time, she had to coordinate with several officers on all three vessels to maintain a real-time FTL datalink, in order to multiply their shared computing power.

A few meters away, between her and the micro-gravity catwalk that led to the corridor portal, Captain Erika Hernandez and Lieutenant T'Ryssa Chen floated in the weightless s.p.a.ce. Chen, a cultural-contact specialist from the Enterprise, was supposed to be helping Hernandez set up her own interface with the hololab, but the half-human, half-Vulcan young woman seemed more focused on floating upside-down while talking Hernandez into a stupor.

”Eight hundred sixty years,” Chen gushed, staring wide-eyed at Hernandez. ”Wow! You must've learned so much about the Caeliar living among them for so long.”

”Sometimes I think I've barely scratched the surface,” Hernandez said. The youthful-looking octocentarian shot a pleading glance at Pazlar. ”Commander, are we ready to send the soliton pulse yet?”

Pazlar gave an apologetic shrug. ”A few more minutes, Captain. Sorry-we're working as fast as we can.” In an effort to keep Chen distracted, Pazlar added, ”Lieutenant, have you calibrated the alpha-wave receiver to the captain's brainwave frequency yet?”

”Yup, did it,” Chen replied, before turning her intense focus back toward Hernandez. ”I read a sanitized report of your time with the Caeliar, and I really need to ask, if their bodies are composed of programmable matter-”

”Catoms,” Hernandez interrupted.

”Right, catoms-but they told you they made replicas of their old organic bodies and that they perceive the physical world the same way after their transition to synthetic bodies as they did before-but is that really possible? I mean, okay, they can defy gravity and become noncorporeal, and that's cool-but could they do that before?”

An exasperated reaction fleeted across Hernandez's face. ”I don't know,” she said.

”But what does it feel like, to be able to do that?”

Hernandez sighed. ”Slipping free of gravity is like being one with the wind,” she said. ”I don't know a better way to explain it. As for their little trick of actually becoming one with the wind, I have no idea what that's like. I can't do that.”

Before Chen could ask a follow-up question, Pazlar cut in, ”Lieutenant, synchronize the delta-wave receiver frequency with the operating frequency of the captain's catoms.”

”Already done,” Chen said, doing an inverted zero-g pirouette, and then she continued to Hernandez, ”If the Caeliar have a steady stream of-no, wait, that's not what I mean. If they have a...an unbroken-a continuity of memory dating back to their organic selves, but their bodies are completely synthetic now, how did they keep their memories? Was each memory engram individually copied and replaced? Did the old Caeliar brain even use engrams to record memories, like most humanoid brains, or did it use a...um...a cranial-fluid medium, like the Sogstal.a.b.i.ans? Or something else, like a crystalline matrix?”

”Honestly, Lieutenant, it never came up.”