Chapter Nine
Come on In
"It's not big enough," Doctor Culber deduced grimly.
"Oh, I think we'll fit," Nhan replied with a half-amused cunning smile.
"Okay, just tell me what to do," he offered from the co-pilot's seat, his fingers hovering over the console, ready for action.
Nhan suddenly chuckled at his eagerness.
Hugh frowned as his lips curled slightly upwards at her expression. "What?" he asked curiously.
The Head of Security, who'd been following her captain from the flagship, just shook her head in amusement. "I am sorry, doc, it wasn't my intention to laugh. It's just that I compared you with good old Doctor Boyce and he'd be offended if anyone even suggested he had to learn how to fly a shuttle in one minute. He would have pointed out that he was a doctor, nothing else."
"Maybe he should think outside the box a little?" Culber suggested lightly.
Nhan didn't respond right away as she was focused on getting the Phoenix into the gap in Beta Astra's hull but a soon as she'd driven through and the shuttle touched the floor, she turned to him with a twinkle in her eye. "Trust me, he's got to do that every time the captain is trying to leave sickbay prematurely."
"Why do I get a feeling that happens often?" Hugh asked jovially as the shuttle's engines was powered down and the ramp lowered in the back.
The Barzan shrugged and adjusted her phaser to stun. "Come on, doc. Stay close behind me," she said.
OOOOOO
Reno burst through the door to the control room just in time to see the tail end of a shuttle sneak in through the activated view screen She smiled brightly and gently tapped at the edge of the console with her fist a few times. "Looks like the cavalry is here," she said happily and then glanced around the room. "You hear that?"
"Mockery will get you nowhere," AI Pike said causally as he shimmered into existence next to her. "But then again flattery won't do it-," the image of Captain Pike was replaced by the spitting image of Jett Reno and Pike's voice morphed into her own. "-either," the hologram finished wryly.
"You know, I agree with Pike, that is slightly disturbing," she drawled. "What the hell did you fire at?"
"Wasn't that obvious?" the hologram replied as she crossed her arms nonchalantly over her chest. "It's refreshing with feelings. When I was 'younger' I had no such things."
"You learn and adapt a little too fast for your own good, honey," the engineer said cryptically.
AI Reno broke into a malicious smirk as she neared the woman of flesh and blood. "That airtight suit of yours look ridiculously clumsy; must be warm inside too."
"Can't you just go away?" Reno replied sarcastically. "Why don't you find someone else to bug?"
"I am trying to learn the behavior of irrational and illogic beings and you're a treat to study," the AI Reno replied in the same dry and snarky voice as she'd just used.
The engineer fumed as she stabbed her finger on a button to execute a command she'd been working on. The AI shimmered and disappeared. "Thank you," she whispered and then let her fingers fly over the buttons. "Reno to Discovery, do you read me?"
She waited patiently for a moment and then adjusted a few things and tried again. "Discovery, do you read?"
"Discovery here, this is Saru," the Kelpien said with relief. "Commander Reno, can you tell me what is happening? Who's firing at the Phoenix?"
"The Phoenix?" she echoed. "I thought it was a long shot to open up the battery and try to damage the ship. I just saw the shuttle sneak through a rather large opening in the hull."
"Commander Reno," Admiral Cornwell spoke up. "Can you give us a status report?"
"Certainly ma'am," she replied. "I am afraid that Jeannie Pratts is dead. We tried saving her life but-," she let the sentence hang in the air for a moment and shook her head sadly.
"Commander Reno, this is Doctor Pollard. May I ask what happened?" she said.
Reno snorted. "I'll tell you one thing; You where right about the place being abandoned by Section 31," she admitted cryptically. "But they left a little something behind, something that is starting to enjoy human life a little too much."
"Leland?" Tyler deduced suddenly through clenched teeth.
"No," Reno replied quickly. "Admiral Cornwell. You said that biological warfare was created at Beta Astra. What if I told you this is where 'control' originates from?"
Silence settled over the open communication's channel for a moment.
"Forgive me," Saru began. "I afraid I don't understand."
Reno shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure I do either but apparently 'control' is gaining knowledge and evolves every day. The part of the program that merged with Captain Leland is the brain so to speak but like the human body there are several hubs and joints to connect the body; to make it function as one."
"So, you're saying that there is an active link between 'control' and Beta Astra?" Tyler guessed. "It's the hand getting a signal from the brain?"
"In a matter of speaking, yes," Reno answered seriously.
"What if we were to cut off the hand?" Spock suggested.
"I hate to be the one to say it but its already too late," Reno reasoned. "The Section 31 ship we encountered before we got here would have already reported our position. Captain Leland is coming here sooner or later."
Silence settled over the link again for a moment, every one knew what had to be done but no one wanted to voice it.
"You have to leave, now," Reno finally urged. "Before he zeroes in on the Discovery."
"I refuse to make you collateral damage in this," Cornwell replied stubbornly.
"Damnit, admiral. Take Discovery and run. I'm grateful for the second chance I was given. Its been fun but I am ready for the self-sacrificing act."
"We have something for you, so let's not give up hope yet," Saru said kindly. "How's the rest of the away team?"
"I don't know. You blew a hole in the station close to their position. Commander Burnham took off with a pair of spare oxygen tanks that we found in the hangar bay but internal communication has been cut off."
"Wait just a minute," Cornwell said seriously. "Captain Pike and Ensign Tilly should have the same amount of oxygen in their original tanks as you have."
"Yes," Reno sighed wearily. "To make a long story short, both of them have stripped out of their airtight suits."
"Then they will be infected with whatever it is that has been laying dormant on the station," Doctor Pollard pointed out.
"They had no choice doctor. It was either that or getting suffocated. The AI – the hand – as Tyler so eloquently put it, is toying with us."
"Commander," Spock said suddenly. "Can you access the shield status from your end?"
"Stand by lieutenant," she said and tapped a few commands. She frowned at her findings. "I have them but this can't be right?"
"Is there a problem?" Cornwell asked.
"I see several unprotected areas and I am unable to restore power to those sections-," she trailed off as she called up the schematics on the screen before her and huffed. "Something interesting must have happened here. Power and shields have failed thorough the lower levels of the starboard side. It looks like some kind of shortcut. The problem seems to have originated from within but I can't access any logs."
"Can you see what it is down there?" Cornwell asked curiously.
"It's a large laboratory section," Reno replied and was about to say something more when the connection suddenly disconnected and the AI Reno appeared next to her again.
"Not you again, we have to stop meeting like this," Reno whined.
OOOOOO
"I am sorry," Bryce said as shook his head. "I can't get her back."
"We got the gist of it," Cornwell reasoned darkly. "Our people are in danger, in so many ways."
The doors swooshed open to reveal Nilsson and Stamets. Paul was carrying what looked like a small bag with a jelly-like consistence that seemed to glitter in green and violet. He held it like it was the most precious thing in the world and glanced around the bridge while Nilsson went over to her ordinary station.
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the first bioneural gel pack interface," he said proudly. "This little thing is capable of storing and operating faster than any isolinear circuitry and will give the resident genius over there a bit of trouble."
"Forgive me Commander Stamets for sounding ungrateful but I was under the impression that it would take days, perhaps even weeks, to work out the basics of such a thing?" Saru said.
"It was a matter of extracting all the right data from the sphere archive, make some sense of it and apply it to the only thing that would work for us as an organic enhancer," the mycologist explained patiently.
"The spores," Nilsson added.
"They are infected and ready to put into use," Stamets said proudly.
"It is indeed fascinating," Spock remarked. "Without the sphere archive this technology is not likely to have been invented for at least a hundred years."
"Considering that 'control' has gotten a head start from its counterpart from the future I am not sure its enough," Cornwell reminded him.
"I think it'll keep the freaky thing busy for a while," Tyler said. "How do we distribute our Trojan Horse to its unknowing host?"
OOOOOO
Tilly whimpered slightly and leaned heavy on her captain for a moment, the embarrassment she'd felt earlier forgotten and replaced by a stubbornness she didn't know she possessed.
Pike grimaced as her weight pulled on his side and strained his muscles. Normally the captain would have had no trouble keeping the young woman upright but this situation was far from normal and he knew that it would only be a matter of time before his symptoms got worse as well. He hitched on a breath and forced down a cough as he felt his chest constrict, he didn't know if it was from the bruised and probably cracked ribs he'd received while trying to save both of them from being spaced earlier or if it was symptoms of some kind of biological warfare agent. Come to think about it he didn't really want to know, his head was hurting enough already after the blow he'd taken.
He'd always prided himself with good memory and of having the ability to be levelheaded in a crisis but he hadn't studied the schematics of the station long enough to memorize the layout properly. He was afraid that he'd headed in the wrong direction at the last two junctions but forced himself to press on anyway.
"Do you feel that?" Tilly suddenly asked in a subdued voice.
He glanced down at her in confusion.
"This place gives me the creeps, literally," she marveled as she saw the thin hairs on her forearm rise for no reason.
Pike stumbled slightly and as he came close to the wall, he felt a tingling sensation. Confused, he glanced at the closed sliding door within reach of his fingertips and reached out for it. An instant later he hastily retracted it, as if he'd been burned.
"Sir?" Tilly gasped, surprised at his reaction.
"Electricity," he answered cryptically.
"Why? How?" she wondered aloud.
He gently steadied her and pushed her in the direction of the door, surprisingly it slid open as they neared. The duo shared a mixed look of concern and confusion for a moment and then nodded at each other, both intent on finding out what was in the room.
As they stepped over the threshold the room was cascaded in a bluish hue that created an eerie feeling, foreboding and sinister at the same time. Tilly jumped as there was a spark from the middle of the room. Pike glanced in the direction of the sound and froze as he stared at the largest magnetic coil he'd ever seen. Beneath the shining metal lay a man who seemed to have been dead for quite some time.
"They never left," Tilly whispered gloomily. "The scientists; they never left, they died here."
OOOOOO
To be continued
