The Light (4 page)

“Oh, come on, Dom,” Stevens said, grinning. “You know you like to shoot stuff.”

Gomez paused and called after Hawkins, who was several meters ahead of them. “You see any openings up there, Chief?”

Hawkins looked back and shook his bald head. “No, not really.”

“What does that mean?” Gomez asked.

“Well, I did see a few openings, but unless we're squirrels, they won't be much use to us.”

Gomez smiled. Between the two of them, Stevens and Hawkins could probably make a moderately amusing comedy duo if their careers in Starfleet ever went down the drain.

“Funny,” Corsi said, though she was in full sarcasm mode.

“Aw, come on, Boss,” Hawkins said, his grin matching Stevens's a short time ago. “Say it like you mean it.”

Corsi just grunted.

“Okay, Domenica, I guess you get to blow a hole in the thing,” Gomez said, then waved a hand at the side of the ship. “Pick a spot and fire away.”

Corsi adjusted the setting on her rifle as she moved back a few steps, then aimed at the side of the ship. “Fire in the hole,” she said as phased energy spewed forth from her weapon and struck the side of the cube. At the point of impact, the metallic surface of the ship glowed yellow, then red, then disappeared altogether as the hull was vaporized. She maintained the burst for ten seconds, then ceased fire. A small niche had been created, but they weren't inside the ship yet.

“Hold back,” Corsi told them, then fired again. She maintained the energy output for almost thirty seconds this time, walking inward as the metallic structure was eaten away around her.

Gomez watched her move deeper into the ship, the inside of the newly formed passage shimmering with the orange light of the phaser fire. Then the whine of the weapon ceased, and Corsi emerged a moment later, her face glistening with sweat.

“We're in,” she said. “Hawkins, with me. Kim, you bring up the rear.”

Hawkins and Kim both nodded, and they proceeded into the cube.

T
he first thing Gomez noticed when they entered the ship was the smell. It was not at all what she expected. Instead of the metallic scent she associated with the cube's general appearance and the mechanical nature of the Borg themselves, the interior of the vessel had an earthy organic smell that was a testament to the extent the surrounding environment had absorbed the ship.

The light from the three rifle lamps flashed about in the darkness, illuminating the gray equipment racks and slotted Borg alcoves that lined the walls in seeming perpetuity. Gomez saw flashes of vegetation everywhere, growing up from beneath the floor grates, or hanging in thick moist clumps where trees and other fauna had pushed their way in from the adjacent forest.

“I'm still detecting no internal lifesigns beyond ourselves and the critters that call this place home,” Pattie said. Her scanning blade glinted in the light from the rifles as they moved slowly along one of the thousands of labyrinthian walkways that filled the ship. The familiar sounds emanating from Stevens's tricorder had a comforting lilt that Gomez welcomed in the eerie light.

A sudden flapping noise from just above broke the relative silence, and Sonya spun around with a startled gasp. Corsi and Hawkins tracked the dark avian with their lamps before it disappeared behind a wall of an upper level.

“Borg birds, maybe?” Stevens ventured. He threw up a hand a moment later as Corsi swung the beam of her rifle's lamp into the tactical specialist's face. “Hey!”

“Fabian,” Gomez said, and when he turned, the look they exchanged with each other told her he hadn't forgotten what had happened last night either. To his credit though, he was doing a fine job of keeping it buried, maintaining his usual joviality with apparent ease. “Why don't you start scanning for the power source? That's what we're here for.”

“Aye, Commander,” Stevens said with a nod, then turned away to begin that task.

After a few moments, an excited sound came from Pattie's direction. “Is anybody else finding this as fascinating as I am?”

Fascinating?
That wasn't the word Gomez would have chosen. “How so, Pattie?” she asked, her eye catching one of the dormant power waveguide conduits that peppered the ceiling at regular intervals.

The Nasat glanced at her as though surprised by the question. “We're exploring a Borg cube,” she said, as though that fact hadn't yet sunk in for the rest of them. “How many people get a chance to do that, to learn something about one of their greatest enemies?”

“I can see the appeal that holds, Pattie,” Gomez said. “And if we happen to come across some useful intel on the Borg, we'll certainly make note of it. But that's not our primary mission here.” Still, the rarity of the opportunity was not lost on Gomez. There had been relatively few occasions where Starfleet personnel had been aboard a Borg vessel and had the freedom to explore at their leisure. “But keep your eyes open anyway. You never know what we may come across.”

“Will do,” Pattie said and chittered happily.

“How about this for a start?” Hawkins called from a few meters ahead.

His rifle lamp illuminated the body of a Borg drone. Little organic was left of the corpse, only the components of its mechanical implants and a collection of cobweb-covered bones that offered no indication as to what species it had been prior to being assimilated. Gomez guessed that the drone's flesh had either rotted away over time or served as a meal for wild animals. She shuddered at the thought.

“Bingo,” Stevens said a moment later. “Commander, I've located our power source. It's three levels down and about half a kilometer thataway.” He gestured with the tricorder, and Corsi pointed her rifle in that direction, an automatic gesture that held no purpose but indicated that the security chief was keeping alert.

“All right,” Gomez said, “let's go.”

As the away team moved deeper into the ship, Corsi saw more and more Borg corpses, and it suited her just fine that they were all long-dead. The bodies, like the one they'd seen earlier, were no more than implant-festooned skeletons. Some were slumped in the alcoves where they'd died, probably oblivious to their own deaths, while others lay on the deck, their bones scattered like fallen branches in a forest. It was disheartening to think that death was what finally freed these people of Borg influence, though she couldn't imagine that the alternative was at all preferable.

Cobwebs were everywhere, and at one point Hawkins had to use the tip of his rifle to break through a particularly dense one that spanned the width of the passageway. As the web broke apart with a soft tearing sound, Corsi couldn't help but think of Araneus, the Koas who'd come aboard the
da Vinci
recently with his entire homeworld compressed into a handy pyramid-shaped device. Araneus resembled a gargantuan arachnid, and having met him, Corsi had no qualms about the prospect of meeting whatever had spun this particular web.

Gomez, on the other hand, seemed to be a little out of sorts since the mission began, and a little jumpy, though she was doing her best to hide it. As far as Corsi knew, Gomez didn't have any bug phobias—no one did who worked with Pattie for more than five minutes—so it had to be the result of just being inside the Borg cube. As she herself had noted earlier, it was a bit creepy.

A tremendous clatter exploded behind the group, and Kim, bringing up the rear, spun and dropped to his knee, aiming his rifle at the disturbance; Corsi whirled around and did the same, albeit still on her feet, as did Hawkins. As Corsi's heartbeat thundered within her chest, her rifle lamp illuminated the skeletal remains of another Borg drone, wisps of dust and silky cobwebs drifting around it. She whispered an appropriate curse, then moved her light upward to an empty alcove. The body must have fallen from its berth, no longer able to support itself or its Borg paraphernalia.

“I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sure wide awake now,” Stevens said. He glanced at Pattie, who'd gone quiet and still at the disturbance. “You okay, Pattie? You look a little Blue.”

After a few moments, the pillbug-shaped Nasat blinked rapidly then looked at Fabian. “That is quite possibly the worst pun I have ever heard.”

Stevens bowed at the waist. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Let's move on, people,” Gomez said, evidently in no mood for jovial banter.

Corsi didn't blame her.

When Gomez and the others finally reached the power source, Pattie's scan revealed that they were actually situated about fifteen feet below ground level due to the tilt of the ship where it lay embedded in the earth. Pattie scanned the housing unit where the power flow regulators were located and chittered softly as her readings matched what Captain Gold's report had indicated. The power that would normally have been distributed throughout the vessel by this and other power nodes was being fed underground, leaving only the trace readings that had been detected from orbit. Though the ship had thousands of these nodes, this appeared to be the only one that was still active.

“Any idea who might have done this?” Gomez asked. “Maybe Borg survivors?”

Pattie offered her rendition of a shrug, then sheathed her dagger and drew her own tricorder for a more detailed scan. “Impossible to tell, Commander. But it wasn't exactly a professional job. The intended result was achieved, however.”

“I still don't understand how
anyone
could have done this,” Corsi said. “This planet is supposed to be uninhabited.”

Pattie's antennae wiggled. “Another fascinating mystery.”

On the opposite side of the power regulator, Stevens finished a scan, and his head reappeared from behind the piece of dusty machinery. “There's barely a power reading at all at this end. You'd practically have to be in orbit of the planet to detect it at all.”

“Makes you wonder what a Boslic freighter was doing here in the first place,” Hawkins said, his eyes scanning the gloomy surroundings.

“Maybe they were smugglers looking for a remote location to store their contraband,” Stevens said, then smiled. “Not that that has anything to do with our mission, mind you.”

“I have to admit, this situation has made me curious,” Gomez said. As much as she'd rather be elsewhere, Pattie was right, this
was
a fascinating mystery. “Pattie, can you use the tricorder to follow the conduits so we can see where they lead?”

“Shouldn't be too difficult,” the Nasat replied, and turned her tricorder to its new task. Once she locked on to the conduits leaving the power regulator, it was easy enough to follow them as they zigged and zagged their way along the new course that had been directed for them.

Eventually, the conduits led them to a spot where the earth had hemorrhaged through the ship and a near-vertical shaft led down into darkness. A small section of grating lay near the opening, and Gomez could almost believe it had served as a barrier to hide the shaft's existence. Silence descended around them as they peered into the hole, then Stevens broke the silence with one of his timely remarks.

“Okay, expendable security types, this way please,” he said and pointed into the darkness. Gomez glanced his way, just in time to see Corsi's elbow leaving the general vicinity of his ribs. She couldn't understand how Stevens could continue to be so…so damned
normal
. Or maybe his attitude wasn't the problem. Maybe it was her. Was she making too much of her error in judgment last night?
Maybe you keep stressing out about this because you keep thinking about it. Let it go!

“Putting aside your questionable comedic skills for the moment,” Hawkins said to Stevens, “it
is
part of our job to go first into dark places that frighten certain others.”

“I never said I was frightened,” Stevens said.

Corsi patted his arm as she walked past him. “You didn't have to, Fabe.”

Stevens scowled. “Now who's being funny?”

“Hold on, Domenica,” Gomez said before the security chief could step into the hole. She tapped her combadge, then instinctively titled her head skyward. “Gomez to
da Vinci
.”

“Go ahead,”
came Gold's reply.

“Sir, we've tracked the diverted power conduits to a shaft that leads down into the earth,” she said. “In case we lose communications, I just wanted to let you know we were going exploring.”

“Understood. Have you detected any lifesigns yet?”

“Stand by, sir.” Sonya nodded at Pattie, who quickly aimed her scan into the pit. A moment later the Nasat looked back, her antennae straightened in surprise. That was all the answer Sonya needed. “Yes, Captain. We are now picking up faint lifesigns.”

“Very well, Gomez. Proceed with caution, and keep me apprised.”

“Aye, sir. Gomez out.” Sonya stepped next to Corsi and gave her a nod. “All right, lead the way.”

Corsi turned and stepped into the hole.