Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins (51 page)

“You make do when it’s all you’ve got,” Reed told him. “That’s another thing Walsh taught me, the same as he taught you. So answer
me this, Vector—if the matrix targeted
Celtic
as a threat, then why are
we
still here?”

Locarno frowned, perplexed by this new equation.

“It could have killed us all,” Reed continued, “but it didn’t.”

He gave it some thought, visibly disturbed.

“Maybe it has something else in mind,” he finally said. “Some other purpose.”

“And it needs
us
to fulfill that purpose. Whatever that may be.”

A palpable dread hung between them, like a frost sublimating out of thin air.

And for the first time, Reed felt as if her soul was not her own.

“I don’t like it,” Casari smoldered. “Not one damn bit.”

Tristan Harlow busied himself removing a panel from the warp core’s reaction chamber, while the engineer’s mate hovered close by and wrung his hands. Harlow had heard the tone before, that volatile mix of anger stoked by paranoia, and it immediately set him on edge. A man who talked that kind of game invariably caused trouble—and right now, they already had more than they could handle.

“It’s not your job to like it,” Harlow warned, setting the panel aside. A magnetic pulse thrummed within the containment circuitry, a manifestation of the invisible field that kept antimatter from escaping the core. So much power, all but useless without the right controls. “Your job is to do what you’re told and not ask questions. Trust me—the less you know, the better.”

Casari shook his head, unwilling to let it go.

“I’m
telling
you, Chief,” he persisted, working himself into a righteous fugue. “Something’s going on between Reed and that gridstalker. The way she let him off the hook, like
nothing
happened—it just ain’t right.”

“It was an accident, Jimmy.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because that’s the best information we have,” Harlow said, though it came out sounding defensive, even to him. “Besides, it’s not our decision. The skipper is calling the shots.”

“The skipper is dead.”

Harlow glared at him.

“You know what I mean,” he muttered. Harlow didn’t much trust Reed either, but the last thing he needed was some junior tool pusher hatching a half-assed mutiny on his watch. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and give me a hand with this. I’d like to get it done before Starfleet gets here.”

Chastened, Casari gave it a rest for the time being. He reached for a portable scanner in Harlow’s gear box, affixing it to the reactor housing. Both men studied the display on the tiny device, which beeped as it detected a slight anomaly in the containment field.

“What is it?” Casari asked.

Harlow tapped the side of the scanner.

“Not sure,” the engineer said as the display flickered. “Could be a flow asymmetry. The system’s been on residual so long, it probably altered the physical characteristics of the emitter array.” Harlow grabbed a few more tools and tossed them into a bag. “There’s an auxiliary substation two decks below. I can use the manual calibration node down there to make a fix.”

The blood visibly drained from Casari’s face.

“You shouldn’t go into the hellhole by yourself, Chief.”

“I need you to stay here and monitor the flow,” Harlow countered. He hauled himself over the rail and onto a ladder that ran the length of the warp core chamber. “Just sound off when the readings even out, okay? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Casari’s silence was pleading, ominous.

“And relax,” Harlow ordered. “Try not to break anything while I’m gone.”

Casari nodded, a perfunctory gesture that belied the trepidation beneath. As Harlow descended, he looked back up and saw Casari leaning over and watching him—the shape of his head and shoulders receding into the dim halo that swathed the dormant core, until its very presence seemed only a trick of the available light. For some reason the sight made Harlow uneasy, as if Casari had imparted his fear over distance.

“I’m almost at the hatch!” he called out, his voice a disjointed chorus as it bounced off the walls of the chamber. “You still with me?”

“Roger, Chief.”

The reply was faint, so drained by echoes that it could have been
anyone. Harlow craned his neck to get a look, but couldn’t find Casari on his perch. There was only him, and the terrible
isolation
that lived here in the depths. It slithered between the spaces like dark matter, form without mass, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

And all he could think was:
It knows I’m here.

But what could that possibly be? The answer, of course, was as plain as it was irrational: a deep, instinctive thing that could not be denied, and yet here he was denying it. Harlow tried blocking it out, focusing instead on his immediate task, but that did nothing to change the truth of what he knew.

The ship. The ship knows I’m here.

Harlow took a few more rungs. Footfalls clattered into the nothingness below, like rocks falling into a deep well. Twisting himself around, he spotted the substation hatch off to his right. He had expected to find it locked, but the small circular door was already ajar, creaking on its hinge as it went back and forth in a lazy sway. Harlow froze, peering into the black hole beyond the opening, which seemed poised and eager to swallow him.

Good God. One of those slags must’ve been down here when they all got cooked. The body’s probably still in there.

“I see it!” Harlow yelled. He fumbled for the flashlight in his bag, its beam slicing up the musty gloom while he jostled for position. A dizzying strobe fell upon the hatch, revealing the interior in fits and glimpses, shadows taunting him with pernicious suggestion. Amid the confusion, Harlow
thought
he saw it: the sketchy outline of a head and shoulders, hands in full rigor clutching the dark. “Definitely got something here. Stand by—I might need some help with this.”

The apparition cut in and out of view, as if trying to hide. Harlow leaned over and reached for the hatch, at the same time leveling his flashlight toward the tight space within. He jerked it away suddenly when his left foot slipped, making him lose his balance. Hugging the ladder, he pulled himself back up, the steam of his own breath blowing back against him.

“I’m okay,” Harlow said, as the racket from his near fall died down. He had no idea whether Casari had seen it or not—but he needed to reassure himself, to fight the overwhelming urge to climb the hell out of there. Harlow closed his eyes and waited for the
vertigo to pass, but found that it only grew worse, accompanied by a dry tingle of terror.

It’s in there.

A gallery of images crossed the inside of his lids: a waxen face, pallid flesh, dead but not dead—tasting his life, his blood, and finding it sweet.

Staring at you. Craving you . . . 

And him, responding. Drawn in. Wanting to belong.

Can’t you feel it?

Holding the flashlight steady, Harlow reached for the hatch. Every impulse warned him to draw back, to leave this place, to get as far away as possible—but those were
human
imperatives, far removed from the force that drove him on. He could no more resist it than he could resist the cells in his body—or the elementals that coursed between.

With a tug, the hatch fell open.

Harlow brandished his flashlight like a weapon. The diffuse beam spilled across the cramped interior of the substation, darting from side to side while his heart hammered in anticipation. He pictured a grisly visage, imagining the hollow shell of a Borg corpse manning this forgotten post for all eternity.

But all he found was a blinking console.

And an empty chair.

What the hell?

Harlow wiped the sweat from his eyes, blinking several times. His vision blurred, then cleared, but nothing changed. There was no body—only his conviction that he had
seen
one. It still tingled at the far range of his senses, like a subliminal brush of cold electricity—or the feeling of being watched. That he couldn’t find the watcher—even a dead one—only heightened the immune response of mortal fear.

“Chief ?”

Casari’s voice cascaded from above. Harlow seized upon it, looking upward—a distraction that left him vulnerable, though only the basest of his instincts understood the danger.

Because something had
found
him.

Harlow heard it first—the predatory sound of scratches against metal, as if some gigantic insect had dropped down from the ceiling
behind the hatch. From there it advanced with inhuman speed, an onslaught of gnashing limbs that opened and closed like teeth in some immense maw. Harlow steeled himself for the attack, adrenaline pumping before he even knew what he faced—but by then it was too late, because the creature was already upon him. It struck mercilessly, its arms shooting out like tentacles and clamping down on his shoulders, nearly folding him in half as they dragged him into the substation. The flashlight tumbled out of Harlow’s hands—and in those last seconds before fingers gouged his eyes, he witnessed his own doom as a shadow play across the wall.

Then all was dark. And a predator went to work.

Jenna Reed was back on the bridge when the klaxon sounded.

It jolted everyone up to their feet, a high-pitched, wraithlike scream. Reed didn’t know Federation starships, but she instantly recognized the danger this one signified. In space, there was no mistaking a fire alarm.

“Locate!” she snapped.

Rayna Massey patched the threat board through her tactical display. “Main engineering,” she replied, then looked up at Reed with dread insinuation. “Somebody pulled the lever.”

Reed tapped her communicator.

“Engineering, bridge. What’s your situation?”

Dead air. No response.

“Fire suppression negative,” Chris Thayer reported. “So are internal sensors. Whatever it is, Skipper, there’s no fire.”

“Chief !” Reed tried again. “Respond immediately!”

The overhead speaker crackled to life. Ambient noise distorted the signal, but amid the clutter rose a guttural stream: sobs, whimpers, laced with obscenities and denials. Not Harlow. Someone else.

“Casari?” Reed asked.

“No, no, no, please God
no—”

“Slow down, Casari. You’re not making sense.”

“This ain’t happening. This can’t be happening.”

Panic surged through the bridge like an electrical current, riding on the crest of Casari’s voice. It built to a blunt crescendo, relentless and unstoppable.

“Say again, Casari!” Reed shouted. “Where’s Harlow?”

“THEY’RE STILL HERE!”

The transmission ended.

“Stay at your posts,” Reed ordered, heading out.

“Stuff that,” Massey said, and followed her. Thayer did the same, the three of them jamming into the turbolift at the same time.

Nobody said a word during descent, instead drawing their weapons in preparation for whatever fight awaited below. As the car began to slow, Reed directed her people to assume flanking positions on each side of the door, while she crouched in front and leveled her phaser directly ahead. Breathing evenly, she waited as the deck indicator slowly ticked off their destination, her finger with a good half pull already on the trigger.

The doors slid open, the way clear.

“Go,” she said.

Massey went first, a few meters down the corridor, while Thayer and Reed gave her cover. Planting herself against the bulkhead, the tactical officer scanned the way ahead and then looked back at them and nodded. Thayer went next, extending the chain—though it still left a long run to their target, which Reed saved for herself. She tore past the others at a reckless clip, until the doors to engineering appeared around the turn. There, in the peripheral shadows, a nuance of movement jerked Reed to a halt.

She whipped her phaser around in a tight arc, taking aim between a pair of regeneration chambers. Tentatively, Nicole Carson stepped out from the narrow space.

Reed lowered her weapon. “You okay?”

Carson nodded.

Reed motioned for the others to come forward. Thayer and Massey approached quickly, silently, gathering in a tight circle. Everyone spoke in tense whispers, their adrenaline barely contained.

“I heard the alarm from sickbay,” Carson said. “What’s going on?”

“Damned if we know,” Massey replied, nodding toward the heavy door that led into engineering. “Casari’s still in there. I can hear him.”

Reed listened. She heard it too: a low moan, repeating incessantly.

“—he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone—”

All of them exchanged the same frightened look. God only knew
what was happening in there, but Reed knew that waiting was not an option. Holding her hand up, she counted down from three. Everyone understood what it meant when she reached one.

And by then, they were primed to storm the very gates of hell.

Reed fired a shot into the deck, the blast going off like a flash grenade. All of them then charged into the smoke, using it for cover while they scattered in different directions. Reed stayed on target, heading straight for Casari, while the others staked out tactical positions to maximize their field of fire. Reed lost track of them in all the confusion, making her way through the insane patchwork hive that the Borg had spun, Casari’s ominous warning echoing through her head:
They’re still here.
Reed felt the truth of it stirring her blood, her eyes searching the acrid mist for confirmation, while her phaser stood ready to vaporize anything that crossed her path.

That was when she found Casari, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth as he sat on the floor. He kept shaking his head, oblivious to everything around him—including Reed, who stopped abruptly when she saw him. The smoke had just started to lift, raising a curtain on engineering that revealed no intruders, though everyone remained with their weapons at the ready.

“Clear!” Massey called out.

“We’re secure,” Thayer affirmed.